I wrote you the most beautiful letter last night,
it was all scribed in the back of my mind,
and I knew once I fell asleep and awoke the next day,
I would forget, and I did, but...
I wrote you the most beautiful poem in the world,
and nobody heard it,
nobody but me.

In another life
I'm a miserable pianist performing for a bunch of drunks in some forgotten nightclub in some big city, or perhaps in the middle of nowhere, I play better than Ray Charles, better than Mozart, I'm alone, but I'm happy.
In another life
I never left that job that made me so miserable, my body is still broken, but I have a job, and a life, and a meaning, and perhaps I died doing what I loved, I'm getting that promotion that cost me my marriage.
In another life
I don't live in this city, these four walls are not my prison, my body is not this cage that the song keeps reminding me it is, my kitchen is not freezing, my room doesn't reek of bad decisions, I still work out, I am alive, and I am living.
In another life
I'm a singer, a public performer making spare change thrown in a hat in the middle of the street in Mexico, or England, or in a corner beside a cathedral, I live in the streets, but I am happy.
In another life
I wrote the number one best-selling novel in the world, my books have been translated countless of times and I'm a poet laureate invited to galas and celebrations at the white house, and I mingle with celebrities and royalty.
In another life
I am a champion boxer, or the greatest dancer, a certified chef, a glorified grand hero, I am the Dalai Lama, or the Pope, or some great religious figure that crowds follow into perdition.
In another life
I lived the many lives I wanted to live, but not this one,
anything, but this one.

A bottle and a kiss, a taste of whiskey on your lips,
You and I, my Ford Explorer, a park, nighttime.

Love dew, dripping from your thighs, vibrations, emotions,
roses on the dashboard, a prom ticket on the floormat.

The air, full blast, our sweat steaming fingers on the windows.

Your dark hair curls in my mouth, my fingers at your waist,
your feet on my shins, my tongue on your lips.

We explore each other as if searching for something in the dark,
We love each other like two people who cannot love themselves,
Nothing is left to the imagination, I see my reflection,
within your caramel eyes, one last time.

The song finishes, the bottle finishes, we finish.
Everything ends.

20 minutes till 7
Daddy comes home through the front door and puts his keys on the hook
19 minutes till 7
You come running out of the bedroom struggling to put your sandals on
18 minutes till 7
Daddy hears the doorknob twist and the bedroom door open
17 minutes till 7
You said it was the wind or perhaps me playing around
16 minutes till 7
Daddy finds "secret uncle Rob" hiding behind the curtain
15 minutes till 7
You try to stop Daddy and secret uncle Rob from fighting
14 minutes till 7
Daddy pulls out his pistol from the nightstand and points it around
13 minutes till 7
You scream, Daddy screams, secret uncle Rob screams, I scream
12 minutes till 7
Daddy keeps apologizing
11 minutes till 7
You're crying
10 minutes till 7
I feel dizzy and heavy and I'm scared
9 minutes till 7
Secret uncle Rob runs out the door
8 minutes till 7
Daddy raises his gun and starts shouting
7 minutes till 7
You, mommy, fall down next to Daddy
6 minutes till 7
I feel cold and heavy and sleepy
5 minutes till 7
Daddy grabs his phone and calls for help
4 minutes till 7
You're not moving
3 minutes till 7
I'm not moving
2 minutes till 7
Daddy points at himself and falls down next to you
1 minute till 7
I fall asleep
7...

Would you miss this world if you knew what it became?
The fire died out, the dirt was digged, the hole was made, and they put you in a pretty box,
Or maybe they cremated you,
I think she did, I don't know if that's what you wanted, you never mentioned your wishes to me.
That was because you thought you had five more decades within you.
Sadly, you didn't.
Everyone moved on, but not me.
I'm sorry I can't write you the novels you wrote.
You never did tell me your pen name,
Your alias died along with you,
I've tried asking around town,
But nobody knows that it was you who wrote the great American novel,
Nobody knows it, but me.
There is an ancient book covered in dust beneath a bookshelf that hasn't been moved in eons in a public library in a small town in Texas.
That book has your name on it.
I still remember Idaho,
I hope all the pines remember you.

"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"
I scream as I hang from my cross.
The birds come eat at my side,
I feel their beaks at my ribs,
there's blood pouring down my thighs,
I hear the droplets pooling down my toes and down onto the wet dirt.
The crowd murmurs and stares and I see no pity in their eyes,
but rather, a darkness,
a sense of expectation and wonder, waiting for the next spectacle to begin.
I have been abandoned by the almighty.
"Hineni my lord!"
Still, Death does not embrace me.
Behind me the veil is pierced and
above me the skies fall down.
The man with the longspear returns with a leather canteen and gives me salt water.
Two convicts beside me share my fate,
"Your God has abandoned us,
Curse him while there is still breath in your lungs!" The accused to my left shouts through the pulp where his mouth had once been.
"Remember me! Speak to your father on my behalf when you return to his kingdom". Begs the thief on the right, his sight now taken from him.
I close my eyes and await what is to come.
The nails sting deeper into my palms,
My fractured ankle bones give out.
The wind caresses my cheekbones,
It sings a secret chord, a final melody.
I taste the salt and iron on my lips.
A scent of lilies lingers the air.
I breathe in, I breath out,
It is done.

My father used to say,
"You don't have friends,
You have associates, or acquaintances,
And you can count your true friends with your ten fingers and you will still have fingers left."
He knew best regarding friendships,
He was once a member of a mafia with a specific job that involved torturing others.
Before that, he was in the service, and rarely spoke of it, there were no portraits of him in uniform around the house, although he always raised the American flag in our front yard.
I never saw my father hang out with anyone,
Or ever tell my mom he was going out for drinks or an afternoon with the guys,
No one ever came to visit, nor did we ever go to anyone's house.
He was sober for at least 20 years,
Way before I was born back then.
He would sleep long into the night and sometimes would begin screaming when he remembered the things he's done.
I always thought my father was crazy,
I had lots of friends left and right,
And I knew I could count on them and they on me.
After all, I was always there when they needed me, that is, until I needed them.
Slowly I began to notice that
I was everybody's friend,
But I have no friends,
I have associates.

It's two in the morning,
The end of December.
I'm staring at the abyss that is my ceiling.
Pondering my own death,
Which I've been contemplating often
As of late,
Not in a suicidal or sadistic kind of way,
But rather,
The fear that comes with embarking
On that journey.
This chapter is coming to its finality
And not where I wanted it to end.
A cliffhanger of majestic proportions.
Tomorrow will be the last day for many,
The first for others.
I'm broken
Physically,
Spiritually,
Mentally.
I dream of a lady every now and then,
She always appears the same,
Resting on a wooden rocking chair,
The smell of pinewood fills the air,
A lady bug lands on her right index finger.
She stares back and smiles,
Sunlight reflects on her pupils.
Perhaps it is my grandmother,
Telling me she's in a better place.
I think I'm the lady bug searching for somewhere to rest.
I stare at nothing, and see my reflection.
At first there was nothing but darkness,
Then God said "Let there be light."
My wife turns on the bedside lamp,
Passes me a pillow and tells me good night.
Lights out once more.
My dog begins barking,
Or a noise between a bark and a whimper,
He does that often.
I caress his back and he grunts,
but at last, his nightmare is over.
I stare at the ceiling and the weight of the darkness is heavy on my eyes,
So I close them and ponder some more.

Because at the end of the chapter,
It wasn't what I did that I regret,
but the things I didn't do.

I never published my poems,
I never got promoted to sergeant,
I never finished that model car,
I never completed that assignment,
I never hung that painting,
I never approached her,
I never spoke up when I should've,
I never learned to play the piano,
I never sang in a band,
I never picked up Italian,
I never fixed that window,
I never watched the entire trilogy,
I never told him I would miss him,
I never apologized,
I never pulled that trigger,
I never did shut my mouth,
I never liked Bob Dylan,
I never understood Cohen,
I never danced tango,
I never finished that bottle,
I never put it down,
I never became a nurse,
I never won at poker,
I never did half of the things I wanted to do,
and I will never finish this poem.

No te culpo por lo que pasó entre nosotros.
Nuestro amor náufrago se había quedado varado en momentos vacíos.
Como páginas rasgadas en libros que compramos y nunca leímos,
los colocamos tan alto en libreros ahora cubiertos de polvo.
Las mismas canciones tristes suenan una y otra vez en el fondo de mis pensamientos,
pero no hay un acorde secreto que levante y encienda el fuego que una vez ardió tan brillantemente.
Llegó el invierno y con el se llevó el calor de tu cuerpo,
la luz de mis ojos,
el sabor de tus labios,
el mismo aliento de mis pulmones,
y hasta el sonido que produce tu boca cuando me dices
"Te amo."
Las estaciones cambiaron,
y la primavera llegó sin sus flores de cerezo.
Los barcos que contenían nuestras esperanzas zarparon,
mientras todavía estábamos a kilómetros de darnos cuenta de lo lejos que estábamos.
No queda nada,
mas que el silencio ensordecedor de nosotros,
cara a cara,
sin nada que decir,
Solo el recuerdo de nuestro amor caído,
lo que una vez fue, lo que pudo haber sido.
Tú y yo, no más.

I don't blame you for what happened between us.
Our castaway love had become stranded in empty moments
that like torn pages in books, we bought in garages sells,
but never read, and placed so highly upon bookshelves,
Now covered in dust.
The same sad songs play over and over in the back of my thoughts,
but there's no secret chord that will lift up and ignite the fire that once burned so brightly.
Winter came and with her she took the warmth of your body,
the light in my eyes,
the taste of your lips,
the very breath from my lungs,
and the memory of the sound your mouth makes when you'd tell me
"I love you."
The seasons changed,
and spring came without her cherry blossoms.
The vessels that contained our hopes sailed away,
while we were still miles from realizing how far apart we were.
There's nothing left,
but the deafening silence of us,
face to face,
with nothing left to say,
but just the memory of our fallen love,
what once was, what could've been.
you and I, no more.

The leaves are falling from the sycamore
Outside my window,
Collecting vastly beneath my pickup parked just across the street.
There once was a nest of robins that perched upon those mighty branches,
Then came a powerful gust of wind that knocked it down next to a pack of hounds.
They of course decimated the entire clutch,
And when the mother returned and landed on the now empty branch,
She dived beak down towards her nest.
Never once did her wings open before hitting the ground.
My neighbor came by next morning with an old cardboard shoe box,
It held a carcass and some cracked eggs.
I dug a hole about two feet deep near the birdbath I'd no longer need,
And placed a few pumpkin seeds above the shoe box and covered them up.
I water the patch every so often,
And the hounds howl when near the tree.
This morning I awoke to the sound of chirping,
Outside my window there stood a robin
Holding a pumpkin seed between its bill.
Spring is near, but first comes winter.
I hope, but that's really all I can do,
All there is to do,
Hope.

She was born in the times of Elijah
She grew up around the prophets who wrote the Bible
She dreamed of futures that never came to be
She lived for days that turned decades into me

She was a nurse and she was a muse
She was a mother to seven
and she was a dreamer of heaven
She only loved one man
who died and went there too

She lived one day ahead
seventy decades behind
And three thousand years more
The sands of time were placed by her
She was born with the sun
And she was gone within the final
whisper of a song.

When the time comes
That my heart no longer beats
my bones will rattle in a wooden cage
And my soul will still scream
I was once a Marine

If life takes me down dark roads
Or if I climb the highest hills
If I'm rich or I'm poor
I will still remember deep within
I was once a Marine

To Tun Tavern
And to Basilone
To Chesty To Smedley
To Mattis and the EGA
To the halls of Montezuma
To the shores of Tripoli

If for twenty or only four
It is still the birthday of our corps
To 247 I will toast and say
Raise hell and semper Fi
Do or die. For once a Marine.
Always a Marine.

The mirror weeps
The same old tears
That fell upon me
All of those years

My arms they've held
The lives now lost
I've lived their life
But at what cost

I'm not the poet
That I once was
I'm not the man
Of days now past

If loneliness is nothing more
Than a lonely robin hiding
From the cold inside a pine tree
In the middle of a frozen northeastern
Central park,
Then I'm the bark wood collected beneath
It's claws.

In the corner of my study,
Behind the kitchen stove,
Underneath the bed,
Inside an empty bottle of whiskey,
Just on top of the refrigerator,
And in the forgotten thoughts
That like blood passed through my brain
And lingered my heart,
Lie the rotten thoughts of poems
I never wrote...

Tomorrow when the sun rises
I will not
The birds will stand at your window
And sing their morning melodies
But I will no longer hear them

Tomorrow when the sun rises
I will not
The sun will come and wake you with a kiss
And warm my now cold bedside pillow
But you will no longer feel me

Tomorrow when the sun rises
I will not
The seven o'clock alarm will go off loudly
And the news will start blabbering about
But there will be nothing new from me

Tomorrow when the sun rises
I will not
The smell of coffee will engulf the house
And the scent will wake your eyes
But I will no longer thirst

Tomorrow when the sun rises
I will not
But do not miss me nor cry for me
For I will be gone in body but not in spirit
And in heaven's gates I'll wait for you

For the morning that the sun rises,
Without you

I think I love her
But she will never love me
Two boats lost at sea

I'm sorry we failed you
I'm sorry we as a society
Did nothing to protect you
It wasn't your fault
It never was
Children are not politicians
Children are not republicans
Children are not democrats
Children are not targets
Children are not targets
Children are not targets

You went to school
Like any other day
Mom or dad or a loved one
Dropped you off and waved good bye
For the final time
You were just a child
And now
Just another casualty
Maybe one day
We will do something to fix this
But not today
Today we will sit here
And wait for the next one
And the next
And the next
And children just like you
With hopes
With dreams
With loved ones
Will be nothing more
Than targets

The old men keep their secrets
And so do I
The young men speak too much
And time doesn't stand still
Everyone has wisdom to share
But their mouth trips them
And they spew *******
There is a reason
We have two ears
But only one mouth

I never knew freedom
Was just as much of a prison
As looking out the window
Thru four metal bars.

Another day
Still waiting
Waiting to live
Waiting to die

I see them on the streets
Cars with no destination
Aimless pedestrians
Empty bone sacks

They are me
I am them
Walking past the river
In search of water

The springs of my youth
Are flowing by like a midday parade
And I can only spectate
I thirst for more

I never knew

Spring only lasts one second
Summer an hour
Autumn an eye wink
And winter just long enough

To see myself
Behind four metal bars.

I tried to make it,
Did you all see that?
I tried to make it!
All I wanted to do,
Was write the most beautiful poem in the world.

Te fuiste hace muchos años,
En busca del sueño americano.
yo me quede esperándote,
Soñando solo con volverte a ver.

Los años han volado como mariposas en busca de un clima más cálido,
Y también así mi juventud,
Dejándome en un frío invierno.

Dios hizo la tierra, y el hombre hizo las fronteras.
Dios nos dio leyes, y el hombre hizo órdenes.

Eres un prisionero del país
Que una vez prometió la libertad,
Y yo he sido sentenciada a la libertad,
Libertad, sin ti.

Nuestras banderas sangran rojas,
Con tanta pasión como mi corazón late por ti,
Incluso hasta el día de hoy...
Y ambas brillan de blanco,
La pureza de nuestro amor.

La tuya es roja blanca y azul,
Y azul es como me siento sin ti.
La mía estampada con un águila.
con las alas abiertas,
volando un día hacia ti.

Te esperaré en el desierto donde ahora yacen los soñadores,
con ilusiones y esperanzas
De un día estar entre tus brazos otra vez.

Te fuiste hace muchos años,
En busca del sueño americano.
Y yo sigo esperando, soñando,
Soñando solo, con volverte a ver.

You got used to the flowers
You got used to the coffee for breakfast
You got used to the kisses
I gave you in the morning

You got used to my love
My love for you
You got used to the diners
And all our failed dates
You got used to me

You got used to my singing
For you on our road trips
You got used to my body
When we made love

You got used to me
I was used by you.

The man speaks
And everyone listens
The woman screams
And she is the problem
The man goes quiet
And the room listens
The woman stays silent
And she is the problem
The man does as a man is
And he is not to blame
The woman is just another statistic
Another number
Another victim dead on the street
But she is the problem.

There's no reason to say good bye yet
I'm still breathing each gasp for you
Spare me some love if you still will
Breathe into my lips just one more kiss
Let me feel your arms around my soul
Enter one last time into my center
Kiss me ever so slowly
My body is the winter of your eyes
Yours the burning summer on my skin
Touch me so I will melt this freezing snow
And drip like cascades down your thighs
If tomorrow the sun should rise
Let us be caught like two thieves
Who risked everything for nothing at all.

I tried to write you honey
But your boyfriend ripped all my letters
So I sent you a pigeon
He got caught up reading my poems to you
A letter in a bottle then
But I'm out in the desert with no water
And no liquor bottle to place the letter in
I tried to call you to come and save me
911 doesn't do deliveries
You used to love me first
But now I'm stuck inside a bottle
In the middle of the desert
I just hope a pigeon picks me up
And drops me high enough
To shatter into enough pieces
To resemble my heart

It is dark and scary
And everyone must live through it
Time rolls by like the wheels on a semi
At the interstate from Georgia
Down to Dallas without stops
I'm afraid
The end is coming
I'm too young to die
Too old to live
And yet the springs of my youth are flowing past without me even drinking from them.

Entre la locura y la razón,
Esta el escondite de mi corazón,
Y las palabras que te quise decir
Más por cobarde me conforme con escribir.
Me perdí en tu mirada una noche de martes,
Con la esperanza de que pudiéramos ser amantes.
Tal vez de ti me enamoré muy deprisa,
Pero deje de pensar cuando mire tu sonrisa.
Camine hacia tu como persiguiendo el viento,
Buscando la manera de decirte lo que siento,
Pero tuve miedo no te miento,
Y ahora sólo me arrepiento,
Ahora, que te veo con el.