Tennessee Coal and Iron
Ensley Works , Birmingham , Alabama
Ensley Highlands , 30th Street

A turn of the century wood
framed house , sitting high on top a hill
Sitting on the front porch swing
in the sweltering August evening air

Playing "Your car next" , as cars ran
up and down the hill
Swapping turns , who gets what , laughing
at some of the outrageous wheels

Then as darkness descends
the dark skyline turns to Hell
Jets of forced blast air hits molten iron
and the gush of flames shoot high into the air

Eleven , twelve , maybe more
all the blast furnaces roared
as sparks flew up into the smoke
Surely these are the Devil's works
Where men are tortured so

As this for a backdrop now
it was time for ghost stories galore
Headless people and black drabbed ghouls
and little girls dripping wet that drowned in some unforgiving lake

We would draw up knees to our chest
in spite of the oppressive heat
And I would jump every time the breeze
would rustle the hidden leaves

So scared were we as bedtime neared
we'd ask mother if we could
spend "the night with you"
Ha ha ha , she replied , "NO !"
And then she went
Boo ! Boo ! Boo ! Boo ! Boo ! Boo !

. . . . . . . . . . . . . W  A  R
                         A  A  A
                         R  A  W



                      P  E  A  C  E
                  ­    E  X  T  R  A
                      A  T  W  A  R
           ­           C  R  A   F  T
                      E  A  R  T  H

Blossoms are the
Hopes and dreams
Attached to the thorny
Stems of life
We all have to climb
To smell the roses

A bottle of wine
ordinary cheese
the foreboding of
the evening breeze

Soft honest words
murmured across the station
And silence for
contemplation

Another slice
another drip
As your mind
begins to slip

Across time
across the rhyme
What's real
so intertwined

I can't remember how
to make blue

blue jeans are made of these
  1. Belt loops
  2. Rivets
  3. Perhaps patches on the
     knees
  4. Zippers
  5. Button fly instead
  6. Frayed ends from
     countless days on end
  7. Indigo dye
  8. Dried blood that never
     came out
  9. White paint speckled
     about
10. All the memories made
11. Treasures that were
      blue jean made

She rose from the waters

Of couse she was wet

Her hair mingled in moss

rigor mortis ? not yet !

I stood for cautious

My heart cried out in fear

FOOL ! don't go any closer

This is certainly most weird

She left watery footsteps

As she ascended the hill

To the abandon cemetery

Where all rested so still

There on a knoll

She spread out a cover

Sat down and awaited her lover

A screech by a cat

A hoot of the owl

And in the air

A stench so evil and foul

She rose to her feet

As he appeared in the gloom

They embraced

By the light of the moon

His eyes were live coals

His breath sulphur hot

His clothes were impeccable

His skin dried and taut

Together they sat

But there was nary a word

When he bent over and kissed her

There was a sizzling heard

He stripped her bare

of her watery rags

And they made unholy love

It sure made me gag

The clouds in the sky

How quickly they flew

The moon was so embarrassed  

That he turned blackest of blue

The glass slide runs up the neck
The whiskey slides down
There is something burning inside
it's my whiskey brown frown

The lights are low
The smoke so thick
I see blues in the sounds
you stroke
with your finger tips

Laughter out there
Someone sitting on every chair
She put a spell on you
into space you now stare

The whiskey soaks in
So does the color to ears
Looking at life through the empty glass of your fears

The bar closes soon
It's getting so late
I've been drinking so much
I drank myself straight

The colors have changed
from blue/black of the night
The rooster crows
I see the beginnings of the red/yellow light

So if I go home
I'm never coming back
She gave no reason as to what it was that I lacked

The clouds race golden
As be chariots
The sun is born
Like the deviants

As gusts of wind
****** the thoughts
Underdressed
The chest it coughs

While Major Clank
On wheels and stub
Bellows out and
Rubs the nub

Then by runes
the best made plans
Test the dikes
And angst of dams

The age of truth
The youth desired
Across the space
without the wires

The universe comes
In a box
Neatly packed
Shelved , detoxed

And all because
Annointed by rain
The blue sky morning
Clouds it's pain

She's late as usual
no I'm not ******

It would do no good . . . anyway
(inside I know I would wait an eternity)
. . . or more

Hey ! About done ?

. . . no response . . .
now you done it. . . she's mad now . . .
or just doesn't care . . .

I rustle some papers . . .
straighten up some pens

Oh ! I forgot , she's more the text type thing

fresh off her lips . . .
click , click , click . . .

So goes my mystic muse

She says something but I wasn't listening
I was feeling her ******* with my eyes
Then she points to something
Oh , my ! What a gorgeous ***
I could see both of my big hands
Cradling her most perfect buns
Then she's got legs of an Olympic gymnast
So thick , firm and succulent
Her long brown hair smells so good
I want to take a swim in it

"You haven't heard a word I said !"
She says with an air that's foul

"I'm sorry," I say ,"but I couldn't hear you .
Your body language was way too loud."

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

Drifting in the shade
of Hello Poetry's grave
In archive (a kingdom's history)
the past has once been made

Stepping on the bleached bones
parade of dreams
Crunching fragments of sentenced themes

Epitaphs of honor
comments to poets 2010
Poems laid bare of praise lost in time

Great poems whose eyes
were never shed
In a broken aspiration
now lay dead

Cruch , crunch ,
the landscape littered in 2012
Oh what sacred feelings
not forthwith

Here ! lay my poems
to rest here
In 2014 my poems
of yesteryear

Mechanically he put out his best press
Straightened his yellowing pages
In spite of little pieces flaking off
Like dandruff

Ow !
His spine was not as strong
As in younger presses

He bathed and used aftershave
But still he had that musty air about him

He lay claim to nervous fame
As he fidgeted with the book markers
About to be given as gifts
For her , his blind date

She came in fresh in expectation
Her beauty made him full of dejection
Her cheerful voice proved
to be more than exhaultation

He fumbled for the first sentence
Of subjection , but
Managed only to say
"Please ! I'm just an open book to be read"

She eased over
And ran her fingers over his cover .
down his bindings ,
then inside his yellowing pages

She sighed ,
with pleasure ,
"Yes , this is my perfection "

Your borders
are mending fences
And false fiction
is the elevated
runoff of the headwaters
of your dreams
And the people black framed
in the cages
of the eternal moment's collapse
Will gather generating
candle light wisdom
of those
who deny existence

The distance may have had no visible edge
As the dust was stirred into a plague
And the reasons seemed dim
And tattered by the storm

And we trudged on through every mile
Using only our wits to beguile
While the sun looked down
baking our desires with resolve

We looked up to face the sun
Cracked lips and blistered skin hung
From the bones and sinewy thoughts
Of the dammed destined to be lost

One by one we fell and died
While the lake mirages flat out lied
And the scorpions taunted us so
"You fools you've got no where to go"

And the coolness of the evening
Came to late except for the grieving
And all it could do
Was hover over the dead

There was no guilt nor any innocence
There was only the reality of circumstance
That death is a certainty
While life is not

So the sun rose on another day
Everything will in time have it's say
But this morning the desert
remained silent in it's refuge

Box of Bumble Bees
Bodacious !
Borboleta fluttering away . . .
Flip , Flip , Flip
Hound dog ahowling at the sly fox
ahowl . . . ahowl . . .
Bark Bark they say !
Red fox winks and runs away
ahool . . . pant , pant , pant ! ! !

Hold on you say . . . how ?
I got the cold ! Hold on . . . now you say
Save it for a sunny day . . . hold on
You got to hold on for one more day

Boxes now of Bumble Bees
and Borboletas . . .
Flip , Flip . Flip .

The searing pain inside my brain
makes me want to right out a poem.
She moved in so close I could
feel the electricity there within .
The words would fail me
like a lovers lament will do .
The kisses were as crispy
as the laptop from which they flew .
And everyone knew you were
looking through the bay window
of your time .

The paperboy delivered
much more than my morning news .
And Cathy moved to New Orleans
with Danny as it was
her will to choose .
And the nighthawks few in the lights
it was a sight to see .
Ken kept slinging beers
while he dreamed of dreams
that would never be .
Still I see it all in the window of my pane .

I sometimes dream of Judy
and the reasons we could never be .
There's a Red Mountain resting underneath
the apartment holding me .
It was up hill , downhill ,
and it was unreasonable
so it seemed .
Anytime you had complaints
they would surely scream .
I see it all now through
the windowpain
of my mind .

Time to say :

         "It's become too much
          It's time to move it on
          I've been here way too long
          Enough now is enough"

Time to set my sights :

         "On where I need to be
          On the things I've got to do
          On the inner fuel that
          Drives my soul to free"

Time to set my sails :

         "And cross that sea
          To my island Paradise
          To stand on the sands and shore
          I will , I will , I will , be free

Young life
Trying to say
one thing right
Every morning
mirrored fright
Here in your home


Am I doing this wrong
Didn't say in the song
Nor on the Go ogle
Just blanks on paper
and in the guns

N'ere to be free
just locked into
the night
Breathing firelight
from the firefight

There was no bridge that was too far
No letter mailed that was too short
No message tacked to the back door
Or shouted out in front as a last resort

The open cupboard bears no fruit
The garden grows green of ****
There are no mountains , just a hill
And mutterings of , "it's all God's will."

The windows feel like bullet holes
The rusty nails tremble , weak
Wondering is it safe inside
Knowing there's nothing there that I now seek

So by ease the river flows
I sit and think and want to know
As twigs and leaves float on by
I'm asking if this isn't all a great big lie

You can always count on those pretty blue skies
Except those days it clouds
to rain from way up high
And the stores have not remained the same
when going down streets of first or main

I made a mistake we all will do
That something's stuck to the past life's super glue
There is nothing there that now remains
Except my foolish folly and
broken panes

I crossed the bridge
of my rebellion
only to find the truth
implanted firmly
on the other side
The stars laugh
at my audacity
"We've seen your kind before .
Their bones lie in the holes
of forsaken eternity"

I cry out to proclaim
"Even the stars
will have a judgement day .
You burn brightly now but
In the end you will have to pay ."

Nothing lasts forever
Not the stars nor
even this universe
Even the blackness
of outer space
has it's time marked down
as to a final resting place

So as for me I crossed my bridge
I have nothing more to say
I stand here and I'm trembling
Frightened and excited
of what the will
will be

When the sun goes down
we need a light
so we burn our bridges down

And holding each other tight in fright
We know we cannot go back
because all our bridges are down

. . . . the sun has gone down
but a full moon of love is rising
we will see our way forward

I won't look back if you won't
there is no turning back
are you with me ?

The bridge burning away to yesterday
too hot to hang onto . . . ouch !
Let it go for today

Sometimes . . .

broken bones

and

broken hearts

don't grow

back straight

Broken glass
and dammits too !
Throw in yells
machine gun words
short-staccato
as vowels blow by
over you

It was your
Easter Sunday
Too beautiful
Two until two
and frustration

Wondering
where in Hell
do I come from
going nowhere
with pockets
full of sharp seconds
cold long and hard

Lock the door
but shut it first
Here asking
which came first . . .
the sun , the moon
or the fool

Free bird without feathers
Neon smiles
Inclement weather

Dashboard camera's
Apotheosis
Now you don't have a clue

Tuesdays come and gone
Visions planted
in a song

Planes crash upon the Earth
and ships sink
to the ocean floor

When you finally figure the outs , the ins will
do you in

Shot through the heart
for
nothing more

His thunder was angry
But the bolts did
more

Silence is broken
It's name
Underscored

I wonder
I wonder
I wonder more

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 lived my life
Like a bullet from a gun
Racing down a barrel
From an explosive past
Always smoke and fire and blast
Then I moved on

In my haste racing away
I'm concerned not who
I graze
All my days I came
Crashing into , littered souls
What carnage too

Once I left I was gone
awesome , strong
Hell bent on ways
That destruction sent
Cold steel and
Hot lead

My nerves bled
and others too
Through your flesh and heart
I pierced
With never a thought
Of mercy due

I lived my life
Like a bullet
From a gun
Cold cold steel and
Red hot lead

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

In the dark made agitation
The memories are bound
The hounds out of Hell
Come running you down
You say now your lucky
To even be alive
But deep down in your heart
You wished you had never survived

You count the wrinkles
One day at a time
All of your dreams and wishes
Are hung out on the line
Saying you've got nothing
To look forward to
While your looking . . . looking
Way far behind


Welcome to the burning
of the Hotel in California
Of the years and fears
To the lost yesteryears
Pack it up and get lost
Your leaving California
You can never go back
There's nothing there and that's a fact

You've been replaced
By fresh faces of today
They leave you behind
In their haste to make hay
No one remembers you
It was before they were born
What you once were
Now it's not the norm

So get ready to burn the
Hotel in California
It's outlived it's day
Don't stand in the way
Watching the flames roaring higher
Burning down the house
Such a lovely house
Such a lovely . . . home

Whack the h off humbled
"And he umbled in the eye of the thorn."

Bomb the n off moon
" And he lived so far out in the sticks the cows had their moo shipped in .

Split the a and t
"The da ta was ta da'ed

I was born in Selma
My younger sister ,
Wichita Falls ,Texas
The oldest sister in Orlando
My only brother in Spokane , Washington

There was always a distance between the members of the family

Lightyears reflected in our eyes . With no tears spread .

Nor no affection for the
place of the dead

Now I write about the past
For there is not much future ahead

From Texas dust , to the clover fields of Alabama ,  to the mountains of Washington , the seas of Florida , and Birmingham

As a child I slept at night in the back window of the Plymouth from Texas to Selma with the thump of my heart for company

I thought it was the monster taking one step at a time following me to Selma to **** me

Now I know when I hear no more footsteps he has found me

This poem was written by Shakespeare's Waste Bin on September 23 ,2012 . He no longer graces our world today but I thought I would share his poem about spring with you .


Shush, I hear a Bluebird ring
Around my head the echoing
Of a butterfly's wing

I hear the Crocus opening out
The daisies as they sprout
Nature's whispering are all about

I hear the Foxglove reaching high
Cotton clouds just passing by
And the heartbeats gentle sigh

I hear the courting of a thrush
The wagging of Reynard''s brush
An opening Rose reveals her blush

I hear wiskers scurrying
Bobtail ever burrowing
And magpies quarrelling

Shush , I hear a Bluebell ring
And with it summer bring
Life and love for everything

Butterflies do not cocoon
Only moths are of that sway
They instead do the Chrysalis
They were born to be that way

So next time you write that line
Put up a disclaimer I say
Only moths cocoon in time
Butterflies don't cross dress that way

I looked outside
my windows to see
a yellow butterfly
flying south
for the rest
of winter
you see

It dived through
where the roses
used to be
The day lilies
long withered
and no irises
there to be

Bounding over
the fence so fast
this creature surely
must be
tough as nails
For frost and freeze
has coated grass
and comes
nipping at it's
yellow tails

A few dips
of it's yellow wings
and it has disappeared
out of sight
Leaving me in awe
and disbelief
I hope it makes it's
journey complete

I pull your ******* to my chest
And feel your heart beating oh so fast
I cup my hand upon your ***
And mash your mound into my mass
I hold you captive in my grasp
As I spread you legs apart

I savagely kiss your trembling lips
And bite the plumpness I find there
I pull and tug upon your hair
Force in your mouth down with care
BETTER NOT CHOKE or I will glare
As you finish up with sips

I throw you over and grab your hips
And enter you from behind
You are gasping but I surely do not mind
I pound your rim and one more time
And *** once more as you reach behind
To touch my finger tips

I twist you around and grab your knees
And pull you into to me
I raise you up and sting you like a bee
And I put my thorn in so easily
I take my fill for free
And toss your shivering hulk back across the bed like you are nothing now to me

You lay upon the crumpled sheets
You lay used and oh so worn
You hair a sticky mess , that of a baby born
You lip bleeding softly , while I look on with such scorn
You slowly spread your legs like butterfly wings adorned
Saying,"Won't you come back and do it all again ."

I book a room at Porto Buzios Bay
Balcony , overlooking bay
Was just a two hour drive from Rio
I was elated while so blue
Making this trip without you

Evening breeze sway the trees
Always made me so forlorn
Reminding me of a love that's torn
Apart for reasons now unknown

Table for one please
She smiles politely
Takes me to a secluded set

Make it a frozen Margarita , no salt
And I toast the town and bay

I have no plans for tomorrow
Nor for any day

All I need is an artist to paint my bay

Upon the shores of Malachite
Next to the cobalt seas
Under molten silver slivers of moonbeams
That shatter on the crystal icing
Covering the diamonded waterfall
By the golden sand . . .
Gather the Unicorns
Of Neptune , Uranus , and Pluto and beyond
Playfully cavorting between
Steel seas and emeralded mountains
On the frozen sands of time unchanged
For a thousand Earth's comings

But it's just a dream
A lunacy , a nothingness in the night
All my Unicorns have taken to flight
And were never there
Or were they ?

All the frozen seas . . .
Are now warm Florida Keys
Under a full August moon
And all the mountains . . .
Are impossible fears
That have faded into prairies
Swelling like seas
And there are no proof prints
In the sands of time
Of a far away race
Frozen in time

Lefty , I can't imagine how he got his name
Always did things backwards . . . so . . . . .
I was not surprised when he up and went away

Never said why , when , or where he had to go
Now he is growing old where as they say
"Only God Knows"

What are clouds anyway ?
Water vapor in the sky ?
I think it is so much more

I think they are recycled tears
Of every broken heart that ever be
Falling to a desert below

My cactus flower
Blooming in the night
So none will see

She keeps her love close
Protected by her needles

I sit and watch her bloom
And before the sun has begun
I leave looking for lefty

And the reasons I quit
Are the excuses I choose

Between the desert and the sea
Where the cause will be
Clouds keep winking at me

The circle is broken into pieces
I speak in deserts of sand
Drown in seas of lingering waves of pain

And I have no clue where lefty went
Only remember a cactus flower blooming
Without the thorns between the two

My love is caged
like a wild beast
I see you walk by and I growl
deep within my throat

These bars that separates us
will not be forever
One day I shall be free
to have my way with you

I stretch my claws for someday
I will claw you
I lick my fangs for someday
I will bite your neck and thrash you

I shall stalk you
and crouch in shadows
With only yellow green eyes
will you see in the reflections of your light

I shall leap and pin your
helpless arms with my paws
I will look into your eyes and growl
You will feel my hot breath upon your neck

I will bite you , then taste your flesh
My claws will rip you
Bite after bite , rip after rip
It will be my pleasure

My love is a caged love
but I will have my treasure
These bars cannot hold forever
Some day my love will be free

You cain't go back
to yesterday's dawn
by adding another verse
to an old song

When time was by my side
we galloped through the years
Now the time shows and slows
and disappears

"Where has time flown ?"
is but an insult to youthful plea
protagonist to the old
and just echoes in me

While love was delegated ,
regulated , copulated . . .
it became sedimentated ,
heated , then pressurized

It became cold marble
entombed in ways
that now are just
memorried

I was eighteen
a twisted vine and green
I went to California
I had dreams

I rode trollys
I was full of folly
I crossed the Golden Gate
Broke off sacred holly

I wanted to find myself
In and of itself
I found out who I wasn't
An inconvience of oneself

As hard as I tried the
tears for nothing I cried
My blood wasn't home
Yes you are ! I lied and lied and lied

I'm nothing special
I'm not spatial
A fish gulping air
A lost looking ******

So go back home
Feel it in the bone
So I rode the bus
California ! I moan


(Eureka ! I have found it !)
California State Motto

Where do the bones lie
That made the dreams stand the test of time

Now the kisses fall empty
They are as cold as the stars on the frosted panes of memory

The days of many are so
infinitesimal
The embraces of love are now so few
Where does the flesh of love
from the womb lie buried

The sun is my witness
The moon my judge
The comets my accusers
The stars my jury
How do I plea ?

Yes I was guilty of love
But do not punish me
My heart was weak
My soul tempted
I would do it all again

For every little love is precious to me

Every little calls out to me

I've got friends in all the wrong places

They leave me up canoe creek without the power to propel

There was no criminal intent

Just simple criminals unintentionally

We were posted to the almost most wanted list

But no one was concerned
No one discerned

Only that we are not allowed stay
But migrate we must to do

So the pride of the pride roared like a mouse

And the meek inherited
the sins of the father

Of mice , men and lions
up canoe creek with the eye of the tiger on them

. . . with no propulsion

Can you measure
the love hidden
in the sacred hallows
of our hearts ?

Did you consider the
strength
it would consume
to take it down
and tear it all apart ?

Was it worth
the time it took
gathering the fruit
from the seeds
of shame
you've planted ?

And the harvest of dust
amidst the chaff
was it all for nothing
that you took
for granted ?

Who can measure the
spirit of love
Or direct the purpose
of its cause ?

Or likewise
cast it to the dogs
like the pearls
before the swine
or so they say it was

Who can counsel
the wisdom
found stamped
on the face of all our hearts ?

Who then can destroy
or resurrect
the images
and all of its parts ?

I just wanted to initialize you
Instead you made your acronym at home

As fleeting
as the flash of the firefly
Fast enough
to steal your breath
before you even realize
A never ending desire
to see it
over and over again
Makes up your dreams
in the middle of the night
. . . .  to flame !

As reckless
as a bound beauty

Standing
on the edge
of eternity

God !
There is freedom
in the temptation
of the fates

One must kiss
the lips of death
to live

Caves make great closets for prayer

Be anxious for nothing but for everything in prayer

When the wicked malace of men dare not openly assail , then they will resort to secretĺy ensnare

Know the value of not lapsing into silence , that is the way to despair

When you sing
                                                                ­                           I cry

When as stars you shine
                                                                                    I wonder
                                                                ­                   and sigh
                                                            ­          
You live in the hollow
                         of my moon

               eating my shrooms

You glitter bright
                                   
               to my arms delight

Your comet eyes

Milky way smile

Star cluster hair

Nebulous wiles
                                                  
and cares

Have caught me intentionally
                                                   ­   unaware