the coffee was cold.
a day old.
i heated it.
poured it.
fought through it.

put on a b-film.
something about crap
films made our lives
feel more fulfilling.

we laughed.
exposed every flaw.
we held hands.
snuck
loving glances.

i have to wake up in three
hours, but all i can think
is life is luck,
even for the dumbest of us,
when you tell your
eyes to open up.

touch my hand,
touch my hand,
all day long (or
perhaps all night)
let me smell your sweet
perfume,
and i will not request
the taste of your
lips,
lady, oh, those lips
touch my hand...

It's cold outside and the birds don't sing
when my birthday strikes me once again.
I shovel snow the sleet the sand,
the weather does the best it can.
The wind it blows and the gravel freezes,
Antarctic disaster pieces.
But there's one thing that makes my day
I'm her Capricorn in every way.
It's cold outside, I gaze from within
She steps to me, I touch her skin.
She brings a grace I cannot replace
this Capricorn has found his fate.

Crystal shining eyes gaze within the rejection of lies;
The truth is all she seeks.
The truth she will not gain
Because a lie is all she spreads with her
Knife-like vocabulary- sharp yet dull.

The if is an uncertain description of what may be not what already is. Woodshine here alone although cars are full. Taking medications to keep  sanity because they told me I was insane but then I really did go insane. Woodshine through windows and doors all the nights.  Never a word that rhymes in time describing a delerious encounter with the moon. No great line here. Woodshine at darkness of day  through crisp fall cool air. Im no longer crazy or maybe not aware of what really is. Woodshined all through the house and even in the night.

half drunkard and awkward and weight I have felt,
the last of it all I am sure not been dealt,
the ocean was singing, the sky was amazed,
the bottle I drank from sped up my decay.

To lions and birds, to sheep struck in herds,
the balling of children seems to still go unheard.
Though resting our heads while our minds run and hide,
to beautiful women my eyes still abide,
abide and forgiven by time

225 days under grass
and you know more than i.
they have long taken your blood,
you are a dry stick in a basket.
is this how it works?
in this room
the hours of love
still make shadows,

when you left
you took almost
everything.
I kneel in the nights
before tigers
that will not let me be.

what you were
will not happen again.
the tigers have found me
and I do not care.

the lady has me temporarily off the bottle
and now the pecker stands up
better.
however, things change overnight--
instead of listening to Shostakovich and
Mozart through a smeared haze of smoke
the nights change, new
complexities:
we drive to Baskin-Robbins,
31 flavors:
Rocky Road, Bubble Gum, Apricot Ice, Strawberry
Cheesecake, Chocolate Mint...

we park outside and look at icecream
people
a very healthy and satisfied people,
nary a potential suicide in sight
(they probably even vote)
and I tell her
"what if the boys saw me go in there? suppose they
find out I'm going in for a walnut peach sundae?"
"come on, chicken," she laughs and we go in
and stand with the icecream people.
none of them are cursing or threatening
the clerks.
there seem to be no hangovers or
grievances.
I am alarmed at the placid and calm wave
that flows about. I feel like a ***** in a
beauty contest. we finally get our sundaes and
sit in the car and eat them.

I must admit they are quite good. a curious new
world. (all my friends tell me I am looking
better. "you're looking good, man, we thought you
were going to die there for a while...")
--those 4,500 dark nights, the jails, the
hospitals...

and later that night
there is use for the pecker, use for
love, and it is glorious,
long and true,
and afterwards we speak of easy things;
our heads by the open window with the moonlight
looking through, we sleep in each other's
arms.

the icecream people make me feel good,
inside and out.