Yours isn't gentle lunacy,
It's hammerhead insanity.
Great white crazy.
I'm not even safe walking on
the sand.
You ******* learned to graze on
the land.
Evolution is a *****.

A lot can be
accomplished
when you pull 
the covers over your
head, and just listen.
Tune out all the
distractions and *******.
Let the silence guide you.

Do you see all the
colors whirling around in
your mind?
The greens and the reds?
The indigo and violet?
They are thoughts forming.
Grand, artistic, unbridled thoughts.

People will desperately
try to distract you, and keep
you from this place.
They are a stranger to it.
Phones will go off.
The crowd will knock
at the door,
don't answer, they will
always be there.

Your job is to create in
your beautiful, dark womb.
There is a spark,
electric alchemy going on.
Don't question it.
You are an artist,
and you are giving birth

She rubs the ache from
my back, as the
morning sun
breaks through the
blinds.

She gently kisses
my lips in the
long hot summer,
and brings me
piles of leaves in
the fall.

She doesn't smash my
fragile-glass ego,
nor leave me wanting
in the night.

She births me
hundreds of
children that live
forever.

And she stays young,
while I grow old.

Make the static go
away,
the dead-dog depression;
the fleas tip-toeing across
my brain.
Hate locks the
door to the heart,
and puts the
soul in a cage.
The rage consumes,
like a west coast fire.

Make the static go
away,
the electric anxiety;
the butterflies swimming in
my blood.
Love is a fantasy,
a fairy tale for children.
Devotion
imprisons
the mind and
subdues the heart.

Give me sweet
apathy, beautiful
sedation, let me
float in bliss;
untethered by emotion.
Let me get lost, deep
in the core of the orchid,
and sail aimless,
in the
vast chasm
of the sea.
Give me radical
lethargy.

Her lips are like
wet orchids, dressed in
the spring rain,
waiting to be
kissed and
caressed.

I've suffered bouts of
writer's block that
made me feel like
half a man.
Metaphors and imagery
evaded me.
It was frustrating
and painful.
a desert
an iceberg
a forest with
no trees.

Lately it's the
opposite.
I'm on the
most prolific writing
streak of my life.
It's like building
a ladder to heaven.
I can taste colors
and smell sunshine.
It feels like I
found the fountain of youth.
Like I'm a **** star,
a rock star, like I can
grab stars out of the sky
and light up my writing desk.
I sleep in the
crook of the moon
and dream
that this steak
never ends.

Sometimes, when I
talk to the ex,
I feel strong
as a rope.
Nothing she says
or does fazes me.
I guard my emotions
and keep the
conversation strictly
about the kids, and
how we can better
co-parent.

Other times, when
we talk,
I feel like
Humpty Dumpty
teetering on a brick
wall.
Her cruel words
are like strong
gusts of wind
sending me to the
cold hard ground
in a thousand pieces.

On days like these
I berate myself,
"What the ****
Is wrong with you?
Why did you
let
her in again?
Her heart is
small and
diseased."

I fell in
love with
hope
and a
false image.
When I saw
reality
It was
like
finding a
snake in my
bed.

I was playing
chess without
any pawns.
The dawn
came up
brutal and
strong.
My queen
had a knife,
and stuck
it in my
heart.
That was the
end
before I even
got a start.

I was feeling
down
depressed
and dark.
I put
some
rocks in my
cup
to uplift my
spirits,
to climb
out of the hole.

I want to
run on
the clouds
and
touch the sun;
go 180 around
the third turn.
Feel nothing but
the wind;
go out like
Earnhardt Sr.
in
a blaze of
glory.
Last lap
last run.

I was walking in
that old betrayer,
rain.
I was soaked to the gills,
and my wingtips were
sloshing on every
broken sidewalk.
The wind took my last
match, so smoking was out.
I'd give my liver for
a lighter and two
dimes to rub together.
I think I'll join the
carnival, get on that
tunnel of love and never
get off.

I made a
vision board
in treatment
the other day.
I had to
hunt for a
picture of
Mom and Dad.

Where the ****
did the time go?
They have been gone
for over 30 years now.

The hour glass
broke,
and the sand
blew and blended
me in with the
storms of life.
I tried to
drink
all the pain away;
to become a
lobotomized shell.
It didn't work.
The poet in me
felt everything.

I have four
kids that my
parents never got
to meet.
Sometimes I see
Mom and Dad
in my son's and
daughter's eyes.
Two have blue
like Dad.
And two have brown
like Mom and me.
They are
intelligent
sensitive
and caring.

When I was
little, I thought
my parents would
live forever.
On my vision
board,
I become a
better father.

I remember walking miles with
our blackies (big garbage bags)
They were full of cans, a nickel a piece.
We were poor aluminum cowboys.
Kind of like Don Quixote and Sancho.
Chivalry wasn't our thing, but we
didn't shy away from it either.
We certainly had our share of
adventures, and misadventures too.
We headed East into the
glorious tangerine and lavender sky of
our La Mancha/Iowa City.
We should be chasing windmills, and
*****, and cigarette butts;
except late one Summer day,
providence ended it all.
We sat behind our castle
(which closely resembled a grocery store.)
Your face went pallid and you fell on me.
I did C.P.R until the ambulance arrived.
You didn't make it.
I hope there are
adventures in Heaven,
my aluminum cowboy.