You can collect all the loves
in your past life
and store them in your heart
and have one giant heartache

Yeah ,
you shiver in the dark
Your shadow hugs you tight
As in the meantime

You get a colored drink
In a crowded bar
Where you are nobody
Nobody is your name

The band is Dixie
line 'em up and down
Four time and rhyme
Loud !Loud ! Loud !

The pixies ply
you for their drinks
Sluring filthy things
You cain't help but crack a smile

There are
white breasted women
stepping up to the microphone
Sing ! Sing ! Sing !

The hour is getting late
Looking for a mate
So you slip off
a golden ring

Competition is ways and mean
Way down on southside
When they play under the lights
On Friday nights

I open up your letter
and I read your every word
I found them quite unsettling
for it was just yesterday
That they put you in your grave

Should I keep these empty pages ?
After all now you have gone
*** MARKED FOR A MAKEOVER
"I can change and bring you
a brand new beautiful song ."

But your chorus has been depleted
There are no more a capellas
The voice of the turtle will remain mute
As you prefered living inside your bony shell


Then I said to you , "Now do I really give a hoot ?"


So I threw your letter into the can
That's where the trash belongs
I know I will never forget you
With that thought I will be moving on

Unleash the arrow from your bow
I'm hanging by a string you know

The anger's bent you nearly in two
Your rationality has lost it's due

Cast me not across the sky
It will only leave you asking why

Put me back into your quiver
Where we can again be birds of a feather

When a man takes away
the innocence of a girl
he leaves her
as  a woman
of age and knowledge

My black days spill over
white hot
full of sparks that burn instantly
Monocast in hearts
Ductile to life's incessant blows of futility
Black days dance
fluid in regidity
My black days consume me
Take me to the place
where the past , the present , and the future become one eternity

I was just thinking about you
After all these many years ago
Thinking about how much I still love you
How I just let you go

Life is sometimes a fountain
Sometimes I was just a fool
There is a pool of sorrow
Full of precious jewels

I can't help think of what might have been
What would have happened
Had I accepted your open invitation
imagining what could have been

With my life nearly over
I sheded love like autumn sheds her leaves
And I have my mountains of regret
and eternity to grieve

Still I see you sitting prettily
I guess you will always be twenty three
And I will be an epic of love lost
A fire still burning within me .

Love is like hugging a porcupine as tight as you can while it pierces your heart through

I was to catch her
in  the rye
Maybe maybe
say goodbye

Alex stood naked
cloaked in orange
singing shivers
in the rain

We all know
how the story goes
So it goes
So on it goes

El Bib the acronym
To be read
back and forth
from end to end

Huckleberries
the river flows
down wrong paths
Big Jim he knows

I was the phoney
in the rye
A clockwork orange
in disguise

She was love
feathers on a dove
She was adorned
as yellow on corn
She was thirst
a river clear
She was sky
the air I breathe
She was peace
beyond the stars
She was silence
That rests the heart
She was beyond
even in imagination
She was wise
and knew I would cry
She was ready
subdued her fear
And when at last breath
She was no more

You on the bridge
don't have to feed me
YOU tugging on my sleeve
don't have to grieve for me

Let it go
You heard me
I am not your sympathy
So let it go !

LET IT GO !

Don't come over here
Keep it out of my way
Your cheer is leer
So go make you dark energy lay

Go away !

We all stumble , falter and fall
No more than the dust after all

We rant , pretend or rave
But there are no words coming from the grave

Our time is spent whether we pay
Our lives granted a fixed number of days

How many full moons caught your eye
Now you are asking me "Why?"

Don't you see all of it is in vain
Brings us back to the quesion of dust again

The answer my friend ?
It's blowing in the wind



Last stanza by Robert Zimmerman aka Bob Dylan .

the rays of light , first past night
A rooster of a red bull dawn
penetrating my space making place
in my mind , my heart , and soul

got a messenger on my mail
saying , you have a point to nail
the distance between is shadow thin
and in silence you're assailed

Oh , no ! for there is no assurance
between the bookends afterglow
over a sea of promisses drowned
flys the arrow's revenge far from the bow

the required 1% , not evident
blood be drawn , sacrifice made
to tease your foul reasoning
embryo was to the point purely all ******

Now as afterthought was hollow grave
as you lay love's carcass down
cover it with time's wasted words
of a distance that was only shadow thin

The sounds of sorrow :
soft whimpers under covers
late , late on a cold winter's night

Low moans of eternal pain
that one has tried to turn
into  . . ."I forgot"

Long wails that are full
of fury and devastation
as a hurricane's whip cracks

The heart that has been
kicked and stomped
and stabbed to froth

Flipping pages of poetry
fanning the heat
of discourse

Long sighs
sitting in a swing
looking down . . .coughs

Hearing what other's think
what they say
in silence

The scrape of a mental shovel
digging deeper
trying to bury the past

Oh ! Of course !
the frustration of deliberations
throwing and shattering glass

Yelling in a canyon
but there are no echoes
bouncing back

The ******* sound
made from a razorblade
that is in your mouth

and then silence

One wears the wages of sin
As war's protecting bibs
Where arrowheads of flight
Cannot pierce the pump within

Taste the salt upon the sea
The sea where sins are drowned
Upon the hearts that sit on sleeves
The head of smiles we crown

Back across the cross we bear
Hear the pounding of the condemned
Perhaps we will never be more
Than the crown of thorns we wear

So the cherry tree has fallen
It's bark black with disease
Lime should cure the problem
I will be planting trees

At seven ,
I rode a bicycle
with over inflated tires
that burst in the dark
thumping hard the side
of the house
scaring us all

At eleven ,
I went to three
different elementaries
in two states ,
one fall ,
two winter ,
three spring

When thirteen ,
I had a home
with no roof
or walls and slept
under the wiles of
mother moon

Then at fourteen ,
at fifteen ,
and sixteen ,
I went to high school
in a house made
out of cards
The jokers ran wild

At seventeen ,
I moved on
moved out
and like an orphan
I was sponsored
without love
as a rock singing
"I Am A Rock"

" 'I have my books
   And my poetry to protect me
   I am shielded in my armor
   Hiding in my room
   Safe within my womb
   I touch no one and no one touches me
   I am a rock
   I am an island

   And a rock feels no pain
   And a rock never cries ' "

You always had that fire
burning in your eyes
Life's force flowed
through your veins
So vibrant , so alive

You had a laugh
that rocked the boat
You made the difficult
into a joke

So I was unprepared
to find you there
Laying still as if asleep

I studied every wrinkle
upon your face
But I could find no trace
of the you
I used to know

I sighed
with the loss of an age
I had come to find
the very last page

Peace was so unbefitting
of the manor I knew
You would be so
unapproving of the show

I came to say goodbye
but you were not there
Instead I found you
in the sunset of my dreams
that night when I looked
up into the stars

If you didn't speak Spanish
I think I would call you up
They all say your crazy
hmm . . . just maybe crazy enough
Her life is a disaster
just waiting like
a grenade to go on off
Maybe we could play spin the bottle
inhale . . . cough cough cough
Or go for long walks downtown
She can bring her Glock
Or ride up to the reservoir
have a pinic and feed the ants
Or go see a movie , hold hands
while we get stuck to the floor
Or maybe yet
Go to the county fair
Oh yeah !
They closed it down last year
Well (my favorite word)
I just might text a word to you
Let's get together on the line
DING ! wow ,
I have a message now from you

I want to make love to a poetess
To caress her perfect metaphors

I want to taste her salty vowels
To embrace her nouns with care

I wish to kiss the lips of rhyme
Spread the legs of time

I long to lay on her haiku
Watch her image shine

I long to watch the ****** unfold
As each poem penatrates

Then we will complete an ode to love
As we watch the endings mate

You have a kind muse .
My muse is over there ,
bemused at my insolence ,
never to be trusted .
She will say anything to embrace me
and laughs like a witch .
We fought one night
and I killed her .
Buried her in a shallow grave ,
went home and threw
another poem on the stack .
There was a knock later
and I opened the door
and my muse was standing there .
She spit dirt in my face ,
and we fought again and voila . . .
another poem goes on the stack .

She embraces me in chill
Comforts me with her will

Touches my heart in kisses
Twisting in the seditious

Her sadness blankets my heart
Her beauty right on mark

For she has stars in her eyes that haunt me
Her compassion reaps all sea to sea

I am married to the night
My Angel of delight

Eight minutes and twenty seconds
From the Sun to my eye
186 thousand miles per second
Faster than a blink can go "bye"

All reflections , wherever you turn
Are dangling particles of the past
     "As you sped away you threw your last kiss goodbye as my heart approached the speed of sorrow ."
      And all time came to a standstill ,
as the past fled away so fast

I ran with the fleet footed
only to be left ever so far far behind

I sat with the quick witted
only to find out we are not of the same kind

I prayed with the most religious so devout that only for God had they any time


I am a tent maker
I fiddle as I so please
I am at ease with my maker
He says bless you
every time that I sneeze


I am never at ease with one or many many more
I guess it was that surprise punch to the gut so I am always looking out there for more

I make friends only slowly
But I'm quick to let go
I live where there is found soot on the surface of snow

I have a family but only by blood . My son lives in Boston
My sister died in Orlando

I exist in my nowhere in the middle of my state
Just waiting on circumstance
so someday I can escape


"I am what I am and that's all that I am"
That's what Popeye would be sure to often say
Of course that is considered now to be so passe


If all of the I's in "if" were unbound I think more people would be willing
to stand for their ground

But when the "f" is surrounded by words I think it has people thinking they have fallen down

So I will end now
I really must go
I will get back to you
As sure as the sun
melts the soot on the snow

No I will never forget you
Even if I were to try
You are the just one
That made my heart to fly

I dreamed that I could hold you
Sleep soundly in your dreams
Tell you that I love you
That my love went beyond all of my means

You call me your uncle
I could be your grandfather now by age
You are lost in the first chapter
I am found in the back
On the very last sentence of the page

You say I will stop loving you
That this day is written in the stones
If the stones speak the truth then
They speak standing on my grave

So  kiss me goodbye forever
Hug me , this is the final time
I have a comet now to catch
I don't wan't to lose my ride

Once so true
Once so pure
Accosted in the temple
***** and pummeled
Then blamed for sure

Cursed , shamed , then disdained
Banished , exiled away
To spend all her days
alone without a say
Medusa the castaway

I'll be the last man standing by you
All the others lying dead afield

I am the only survivor to you
I'm the only reason you remain real

I'll be the last man to love you
I'll be the last man you kiss

There will be no one between us
There's no one you will miss

Help me ! Help me !
You know me better than I know myself

Take me ! Take me !
To that all special place

I'll be your last man naked
I'll be your unmasking

I will leave your body shaking
Make you beg for more

I will be your comet rising
Come and ******* pleasure

I'll be your last man standing
Watch me more than measure

I don't know if you do
have trouble writing poetry at HP like I do
It's hard enough to stay on page
It jumps like jack rabbits caught in a hailstorm on the Texas sage
Then it will suddenly disappear only to turn stone cold sober as it has done year after year
The "Who's On" floods my screen .
Even ignores my command to go it seems
It's supposed to scroll not stroll across the page
Just wondering if others share my rage

The vacant space upon times ethereal shores
Has me asking if Odysseus has ever touched before ?

The waves lapping , swirling sands across my feet
Leaves me little gold that I might keep

The thistle and thorns woven into a crown to wear
Placed upon with such gentle care

The shores all rock and cliff so high
How can I just climb on by?

Moments are dark , the sea will free
Come follow to the ends with me

The Isle is small just temporal best
Back home from a ten year's quest

He wades the shores and falls to knees
She bends down to claim his ease

They embrace the winds of time
That binds them to the threads of mind

I came to a fork in the road
and I got spooned .

.
.
.
Tucked away

   down deep


    buried under pages of memories



under folds of aging grey/gray cells



where we put them when no one was looking



then we piled days upon days on top of them



until one by one they became forgotten




like the names etched on stone in the forest of monuments



such are the secret sorrows that go to the grave with us
.
.
.
and only God knows

The loneliest sunset
The cold with a chill

The link between night . . . day
Dark and nil

The chain that is life
Fused into links with death

Desolving into
A meaninglessness



Happiness and sadness
Go hand and paw

Frozen stiff now
Too cold to thaw

Bye , bye ,
My once sweet soul

Once so frisky
Always so bold

May you journey
Forever on

Because time won't
Break our eternal bond

2 mother's die from complications of
   childbirth
4 children are killed by abuse or
    neglect
6 children or teens commit suicide
7 children's or teens are killed by
   guns
21 children or teens die from
      accidents
41 children or teens are injured or
      killed with a gun
65 babies die before their first
      birthdays
167 children are arrested for violent
        crimes
 384 children are arrested for drug
         crimes
 690 babies are born to teen mothers
 874 babies are born at low
         birthweights
 927 public school students are
         corporally punished
1,151 babies are born into extreme
           poverty
1,345 babies are born without health
            insurance
1,903 children are confirmed as abused
            or neglected
2,315 babies are born into poverty
2,857 high school students drop out
3,617 children are arrested
4,396 babies babies are born to
            unmarried mothers
12,816 public school students are
            suspended

Dark knights
on white satin
With pumice for breath
Exact the toll that tells

I cut my heart out
Placed it on display
I get much sympathy that I
throw down my endless well

It's bitter , the wine
It's better than time
I will out to find
a curse that binds

"I" falls off the tongue's challenge
Captured and caged
I send notice to the page
Now that the cat's captured the rage

So it comes down to the season of reason
I am reluctant to part ways
Pray thee write a poem on my behalf
That I will exist beyond these days .

I forgot what BTW stands for . . .
. . . between the wines ?
Oh yeah ! . . . by the way !
Yes !

Too much of yesterdays
and hangover today
Oh yes enough to **** a teenager

Once you start questioning your poetry
you'll be listening to teenagers ,
"You are not using rhyme !"
"Your muse is a dummy ."

You don't write poetry . . . your muse does
Your just the leaky pen
Or in my case the timid typist

First mistake :
Listening to other people
tell you how to write

Second mistake :
Self doubt
Who in the world cares if your poetry
is good or bad  . . . that is not
the point anyway

You don't write to please the Queen
You write to no one out there
who might be listening

You write to the shadows
You write to the physical ghosts
that never existed

It is not your purpose to write
anything that pleases anyone else
Yes is best

Just write and write to your hearts delight
Poetry is measured by years
not by the poem . . . bye now

I ran the race so I could win
But only lost before I won
I crossed the line to be the first
But came in last in every way
You don't have a clue as to know about what I have to say
Just remember that when you have done it all
There's nothing left  
except to pass away

I said I love you in the rain
I said I love on the train
I said I love you over and over
          again and again
Till I turned blue from pain

My sunset is just a memory away
A faded thought of light to say

I find I've lost
at such a cost

With the seconds in thought
By the minute
I have to pay

The hours were dull
The days the same

The years flew bye
To my dreadful shame

I love to embrace
the final light

But my home is in
the calm of night

Time stands still for no man

Stop the train ! I want to get off !
If I can't be anything more
Then let me scold and let me scoff
Please now just open up the door

Your pretentious pretensions
Pause and place me inbetween
Take your dreams and nightmares too
I see the truth there in your gleam

Let me off at the next stop , please !
Just let me debark from this strife
I have no need of solicitations
From the perpetrators in my life

Just back away from your misgivings
Keep them all for yourself
I have no use for the falsehoods
So put your book back on the shelf

I put a message in it
Corked and cast it into the sea
Saying , go find my lover
Bring her back to me

. . .as the surf swirled around my heart
I was shoved and pulled apart . . .

Oh ! full moon tide take away my bottle
Sweep it far away from me
Take it to my lover
So she can see what she means to me

. . .bobbing in the crest . . .
between ocean and sunset . . .
there are glints and flashes . . .
of my bottle and the contents that are in it

I threw a bottle . . .
take it far from me . . .
take it across the Atlantic
to the one . . .
who is in love with me

Look not down the road hoping that I will come

I am placing down the final words and then I will be done

I will board the ship and it's sails will be unflung ,

as I follow my destiny into the last rays of the sun

With much more than reluctance I turn now to go

Chuckling to myself , I did put on a good show

As all good things will come to an end,

win , lose or draw I will miss most of all

all of my dear friends

Bury me at Midnight
Throw my ashes to the sea
Let my body tumble from the mountaintop
Let it be , Let it be

Let the stars cover me
Let the clouds enshroud me complete
Let the rain soak me one last time
Before I am lost to memory

Hurry before there is a dawn
Before the Sun's fiery storm
Take my bones away
Let it be , Let it be

You left me twisting in agony
In the hurricane's eye of my mind
Where love goes flying by
Destruction , far and wide

Don't let me remember I loved you
Let me forget what I once held
Please don't agonize me
I fell from heaven , now reside in hell

Break the twines that hold me down
Cut the ropes of memories made
Release me from my sentence
Let me RIP in my grave

Used to build great towers of nothing .

What are the lies
lying behind the shades
of your ever deceiving eyes

The now famous boil weevil
caused all manor
of Southern White upheaval

The Seven Bark road
weaves over Double Oak Mountain
collecting heat and evening toads

Smoke from the forest fire
gives the lisping sunset
colors that surely inspire

Your August embrace
and February kiss present
a hot and cold emotional case

And the motions made
over the days that come
leave life lower than grave

The summer's green pumpkins
lay squash in fields of dream
dangling in winter's winds .

She gave me cake and a kiss on my cheek
Took my hand and led me away
To a wood where no one could see
There she kneeled down and begged me to stay
So I sat down amid the clusters of white clover
Then she leaned forward and over
And kissed me on my lips
Causing me to shudder

I had never kissed a girl before
But something beyond my fear
Said I wanted more
She kissed me again
This time I kissed her back
I think she was startled , and taken aback
She put my hand to her bony chest
"It's inside where my love does rest"
I was confused and did not know what to say
"It's all alright , it's all ok"

We lay down in the clover thick
I smelled clover and perfume at the nape of her neck
She lay her head upon my skinny chest
I put an arm around her there at her waist
We lay looking at clouds
She twirled a button
I tugged at a sleeve
Then she put her hand on the side of my face
Gently stroking , trying to trace
Then the warm sun put us to sleep
And I dreamed dreams never before or since
But then we awoke to her mother's call
"Coming Mother", as she ran away with all
Then through the years in class or hall
She would throw a kiss , a smile to beguile
Then one day her family moved far away
I didn't know it then but it was the ending
of my poem for today

I lay the bodies of my dreams
In the echoes of my grave
I grace their loving memories
In the hollow of my cave

I close their opaque eyes
And kiss their cold and sullen lips
And listen one more time
For a heartbeat that I might have missed

Dreams that died in the heat and fell
Like gallant warriors often do
I grieve as I cover them
My heart a sadden shade of blue

Dreams go nowhere , no heaven , nor a hell
They just die and disappear
Leaving not a trace to tell , only
Just the stain of teardrops , dried up yesteryears .

Legends die everyday

Today was your everyday

I think I will saddle up the Toad

And let the beat . . .

carry us away


tribute to ginger baker

Cream always rises to the top
"I'm so glad"

            now . . .  I'm sure I heard you whisper ,


              " I Feel Free "

He sweats in Nephilim
and has nightmares of little men named Dave
Life is the giant slayer
of the thirteen year old boy afraid to shower at the school gym
But that was long ago over many potholed highways of chance and circumstance

Today's pockets have fishhook's sewn in the threads , borne bare from reaching for too much and beyond

Delete my words of care and condemn them to your black hole of desperation

Eternal bound frauds cut the bubble wrapped dragons of division and petrify their legacy in granite monuments on lawns that never raised a leaf to this life

Sepember 13 , 1945 , the day you were born
And you had survived . An infant baby girl
Arrived unto this world . Oh what promise Sparkled in your eyes . The world war ended
When you drew first breath . Oh what hope lay Before you to test . Through a fall and winter too . Your first Halloween , Thanksgiving , and Christmas too . Remember the stuffed doll so soft And warm ?
How on Valentine's Day you stole our hearts .
Then on St. Patrick's Day you dressed in green . And when the cherry tree blossomed
We took your pictures . Oh , what a glorious day that spring . Then a sudden illness caught us by surprise . You lost the sparkle in your eyes . And Jesus called out your name and left us in our grief . And took you with him to home in Heaven , May 23 , 1946 .

I dream of a giant green grasshopper
clinging to tall weeds in Selma
Where huge fields of red clover
grew in the hot summer heat

I dream of Texas
where I made my first memories
And lived in a vastness for someone
of three seemed like eternity

I dream of the oceans of Florida
where waves made love to the sand
As I gazed across the horizon
life is forever in this land

I climbed the mountains of Washington
to the top of the snow covered peaks
I thrilled to the sight of the sunset
And felt the hand of God touch me

I dream of the tall grass prairies
I walked through in Kansas
Like a sea of grass rolling
in the winds of the Plains

My temporal eternity
lives on in my dreams
As I get older there is less life
And the more I do dream

For my last dreams
I dream of the future
May it be be as beautiful
as the eternity I leave