All of my Heroes are Dead by Chris Butler

What is a boy to do
when all of his heroes
have died,

either by accidental
overdose, assassination,
suicide or father time?

How can any man
survive in a world
made of kryptonite?

G.I. Cocktail by Chris Butler

He swallows his pain
with a prescription bottle filling handfuls of pills
into a shaking hand,

welcoming hell with a hello
and an unconscious wave from the darkness,

but he awakes to an asphyxiating elixir
pumped through the uneasy queasiness of his

choking esophagus to bypass his gastro-intestinal
tract in the form of a chalky concoction,

forced-fed to him through a tube from a
disheveled orderly dressed in bloodied scrubs,

as he lies as a wounded soldier in a losing war.