Our love is
bigger than paper.
It's made of flesh and
bone and blood.
Words can't tear it apart.
Distance won't taint it.
My spirit groans
without you.
My soul feels empty
and alone.
I feel like a ghost wandering,
lost, like a blowing leaf.
Grief has become me.
I hunger for you.
Feed me.
I think of you there,
lonely and afraid.
I want to take
you in my arms and
hold you, until the
rain stops.

Chess in the
afternoon sun.
Jazz floats over
the silky couch.
Backs ache, while
hearts break.
Bishop takes knight,
and France falls again.

The masks are all
broken under the
cerulean blue skies,
while she eats berries,
and smiles in her
pink polka dot dress.
The pawns are all smug,
and queenie's on the rag.
Italy surrenders, and from
the grave, Charlie Parker
still hammers home
those soft amber notes.
I can smell her heat, and
I think they play
Jazz in hell.

When I was  
younger,
I had to learn
sit and wait to  
write.  
I  would get
impatient and force it.
If you read it,
you could tell.
Now I’m quite a bit older, and
I quit trying.
Fodder seems to be  
everywhere.
I can write about
the most mundane
things.
Today I’m at the  
library waiting for my
girlfriend to
finish up at the dentist.
She’s getting her  
teeth cleaned.
All my drinking ruined  
my teeth.
When I got them  
pulled a year ago,
there wasn’t a  
good tooth in my head.
I have dentures now, so
I don’t have to  
worry about how much I drink.
I know this isn’t a
very good poem, but
hey,
there she is
all shiny and bright…  
and sober.

I nurture the creator in you;
the little god that throbs to be master of
words and colors, lines and notes.
I watch you give birth to it.
I see how it squeezes out of
your brain and crawls across
the floor- all ****** and wet.
It's alive and glorious and grotesque.
You're immortal- a giver of life.
I hold it to my face, and breathe in
the smell of rain, pine trees, and desire.
I kiss its fur, and taste the
fires of hell, cardamom, and oysters, raw and sweet.
I feed it a bowl of saffron threads, soaked in milk,
stare into its wild black eyes; I can hear
it hum a tune in B flat minor, and I wonder,
whose seed is this?

Vicious eyes,
ferocious smile, and an
*** that begged to be
rubbed all night, like
Buddha promising good luck.
But, what that
*** brought, was
jail, soup lines, and
homeless shelters.

The heart pounds the
head, then the feet pound
the street;
walking mile after mile,
aimless roaming,
doe eyed thinking

What went wrong?
Where the hell did
I go wrong?

Then it dawns on
me like the dew
soaked morning.

It was the ***.
Always that
sorceriffic ***.

This one goes out to
the rambling, gambling mad man
from Aspen- the late great
Hunter S. Thompson.
My drinking has landed me
in prison for a short stint.
To occupy my time,
I read and write,
it keeps my mind sharp
and the nursing homes at bay.
Also, a pen or a book in my
hand has the added benefit
of a signal to the other
inmates that I'm in my own
world, and I don't care to converse.

H.S.T's guerrilla approach to
writing, and his sharp gonzo wit
keep me laughing and thinking
on this carnival ride from hell.
And if I can laugh in prison,
I'm halfway home.
My mind will go where my
body can't.

Like Hunter, I'm a betting man too,
and I always bet the long shots.
So I'm putting a bundle on
me to pull out of this **** hole,
and do something with my life.
** ** **, God Bless you Doctor.
And as my old man used to say,
"They can **** us, but they
can't eat us."

In one of
my many
lifetimes, when
I was a child,
my dad had a
sprawling stretch
of land in
Missouri.
He had 200
head of cattle.
We used to run
the cows we
bought at auction
through this
shoot with wooden
beams that closed
on their necks.
My stepmom took
this gun-like object
and put an orange
tag in their ear.

My brother and I used
to play with this black and
white steer.
We called him old #56
because of the number on
his tag.
We chased him, and then he
chased us.
I felt bad for
him, the tag in
his ear.
I talked to my
dad about it.
He said if the steer
ever got lost,
we could find him.
I felt good about that.
I didn't want to lose him.

One night
the following summer,
we were sitting down for
dinner.
I hadn't seen
old #56 for a while.
I asked Dad where
he was.
He didn't say anything.
We were having
t-bone steaks.

As I write this,
my black and white
kitten, Bukowski,
bites at the pen and
tries to wrestle my
wrist as it moves across
the paper.
I'm glad that he
isn't a steer.