The rewritten life of Harold Robbins

"He admitted that he wrote only for money and cared nothing for style or the contempt of the critics. 'I'm the best writer around,' he told me, 'and I don't wanna be remembered after I'm dead. Once I'm dead, I'm dead. I've told Grace when it happens to put my ashes in a locket and wear it between her breasts. I'd like to hang there for the rest of time.'

Sadly, Grace divorced him and his ashes lie instead today in a book-shaped casket in Palm Springs, where he ended his days jaded and disillusioned in bloated agony, in a wheelchair, suffering from a stroke, aphasia, broken bones, heart trouble and emphysema."

next....

Aphasia

Aphasia

There is that ambivalent silence
That lingers, floating in the air.
No words are spoken- hushed she lies in the corner
Her room once lit with swirling colors.
Befallen with darkness, a nightingale sings
Its melody alluring- a rise in her senses.
But no, the tears tell it all
Of which appear ironed to her cheeks.
Closed porcelain eyes, mouth pursed into a tight line
Left with a sealed stamp of aphasia

Ulysses

And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.