Turn the key and the flood begins…
All were there to greet me
Happy to see me
Some would run
Wanting my embrace
Years pass
Different doors
Different keys
Different women
Things we owned
Things we shared
Some I loved
Some I used
Some would slap me if they had the chance
If I came walking through their door
And some…I hope
Would tell me they missed me so
Like the cold leftovers
In the fridge
Of this empty home…

For 3 seconds in the morning when I wake up
You’re still alive
Then I do the math in my head
And you’re not

Love is...
Light where there was none
Endless rivers flowing
Lime dense forest alive
Sweet everlasting kisses
Memory lasting years
Decades...forever
Love is...
‘This is my pain, this is where it hurts...’
‘Give it to me...this is where your pain ends’
Holding you once again
Love is...
Dreams within dreams
First thoughts after nightmares
‘Are you okay?’
Love is...
An empty canvas
An Italian wedding
Soldiers coming home from war
A shooting star only you saw
Their song
Only you can hear
Playing every single day
Every word they ever spoke
Now a burning poem in your head
With an endless wick
Love is...
I will be here forever for you
Time means nothing
Find you first in the next life
Watch over you if I’m befallen before
Endless wick
Burning
Embers
Long
Into
The
Night
Love is...
...you

This dream was so real...
The Man
The Legend
The Legendary Drunk Poet Hisself
Asks to see my poetry
Tells me to bring wine

Dont Forget the wine *******

So I drive over in my El Camino
&
Bellbottoms
Only I’ve got a can of Fruit Punch
12%
Alcohol
Instead of a bottle of wine
As Hank requested

you have to make the reader jump off the cliff with you in your first line, otherwise there’s no point

sip

good God! What is this?!

I’m thinking he’s gonna be furious
But he takes a deep pull
Knocks out half a can
Looks at it

Fruit Punch eh?

I show him my stuff. He likes it. Some of it.

No more poetry for the day man. Say, let’s go to the beach. Huntington or Hermosa. Grab another can or two of this amazing concoction

I tell him they have it in Lemonade
Peach Black Cherry...he lets out a smile

burp

It smells like Fruit Punch

Well Come On *******!

He talk in rhyme the rest of the day...n just like his words have told me about souls

The free one is rare...but you know it when you’re around one because you feel great and beautiful yourself when you’re near one

Some acknowledge it better than most...
The halfway point of your life
For some...
Achy bones
Tiredness
Memories
The fact they can remember 1978
Some will see their aging faces
Wrinkles in their hands
Some will hold onto their youth
Like a match light...holding onto it
Desperately...in their own futility

For some it’ll happen on a beautiful dawn
Tell themselves
‘It’s ok. I’ve made it this far’
Continue their journey

And some will watch their Youthful Ship
Pass the beaten wooden pirate
Frigate
Sometime during the night

Vanity and innocence of heart
Says ‘Take a chance on me...’
Middle age says ‘Move along, save yourself’
For you already know
You’re not worth the pain you’ll
Inflict
The lives you’ll ruin
The love you cannot give back
For they’ve already come and gone
Years before...

At least you have the decency
For that...

I’d hear a song of ours playing
Think about you...
The next one would be another
And I’d wonder how you were
On the third I’d know
It was the universe telling me
You were thinking of me
Missing me perhaps
.
I remembered every beautiful thing you said to me...
Turned those musings into music
Of its own...
And chose to be haunted by you

It arrived upon a wave
On his back porch
The one that faced the sea

Upon breaking the bottle
He recognized the pen
The ink
40 years before

Were his
The Words
Placed so gently into the sea
For her

‘I read them...’
In an instant, there she was
Just the way that she stood
So beautiful
The day that he wrote the words
That he put into the sea

‘You still love me?’
‘Even more so...more so than time that was took from me...’
Quick to embrace
Closed his eyes
She was gone
As was the sea
Just a back porch
Faded words burned into his memory...

New love isn't true love...
Remember that...
Give it some time...
To ******* all up...

I would rather die
Alone.
Cold.
Penniless.
Hungry.
Broken bones.
In a gutter
On a rainy day...
Rodents nibbling on my
Shoeless feet.
.
Than to ever be married again...

I can shoot pool like I’m 19
Bowl a 159 if I hav e to
Pitcher after pitcher
One two many mixed drink
$78 bar tab
Just to go home alone
And tell my self
‘I could’ve just got drunk here for $12..’

One day I’ll walk right out of this place…
Been saying it for years now
This thing killing me daily
14 hour days
Come in when it’s dark
Leave as the sun goes down
Business
Industry
Sales growth
Horseshit
Replaceable by the end of the day
All of it

One day I’ll walk right out of this place…
Not say anything to anyone
Will it matter 50 years from now?
It would in 50 minutes
That which is my responsibility
Alimony
Support
Medical Insurance
Food on the table
Fear
Guess that’s why I clock in for death
Daily
And in 100 years I’ll have been a poet for just 30 seconds…

There’s only so much
Only so much
Before you suffer
The touch
Of so much
Of so beautiful
Then it becomes
A curse

Her non symmetrical lines
(Curves in the moonlight)
Park Benches in spring
Clouds low against the ground
630 sunrises knowing you’re out there..:somewhere...sleeping (dreaming of me I hope)
Cold Atlantic current over my feet
Licking seaspray salt off my lips
Sound of children laughing
A mossy clover covered trail ....
Coffee in the cupboard
Combining all the perceived empty bottles of wine to get one last glass
Negative balance in my account
‘I love you dad’ texts
Roads I’ve never been on
Midnight ‘Hold mes’
Smell of burning cedar
& the smile on the face of the ghost that haunts me...