Monday morning
Playing my guitar
With my vanity

I run myself a bath
For crossing the evening
To be with my royalty

I worship my feeling
By the glorifying me
Thanks for the to be or
Not to be

So I quaff my lover
As his Piteous Law
Of Bottomless Pit

Drawing a fresco
About the way a King
Blaspheming God
By his swearing *****

The ship is sinking
and the women and children
are still on board,
but the lifeboats have been taken
and the ******* Captain,
he ain't letting any more board.

One day soon
in this unknown country
where our dreams shout
and jump ship,
a train will come
and it will arrive full-steam
ahead, and full of resisters
looking to take the Captain's head.

My problem
isn't with the philo-
sophical side,
but lies more 
in the how
and the when and
the courage
required.

Walking home
ripped I tripped
on a dead dog
half-in the ditch
hard as a log
and stinking.

I said *Scoot over bro,
come morning
there won't be a spit
of difference between
you and I in the eyes
of the buzzards
and the beholders.

When I go out at night
trying to sweep up the stars
my woman grows weary
of the cold weather in me
she thinks I am with someone
else, but it is midnight
and I am alone with the moon
that woman in a red dress
standing on the beach
but you see, it is an empty
plate with no supper, or
maybe a piece of stationery
without a lover's phone number.

Last night drinking
cherry cured 'shine
from Tennessee
I caught the moon
flinching behind
a tree like a white
flower afraid to be
cut from its dark stalk
whereas in the spring
when I'm sober
it grows outside my
window before daylight
when moths come
and die gently while
I lie here listening
to their silent soft wings
dreaming of bleeding
in my sleep and find
no trace of a wound
aching in the harsh red cut
of another day breaking.

There is an actress
who always plays the dark parts
in my dreams handcuffed
to the moon with black seams
in her stockings asking me
to paint her behind
the scenes in the fifty-est
shades of red
you've ever seen.

Death is lying
in the ditch
like a hubcap
that went
rolling down
a dark road
along with
the stench
of a black cat
that crossed
my path
still following
me until
luck will have
its final say
so I've got to
keep moving
while the night
shines it's bright
lights speeding
up behind me.

I dreamed of two men
cold as ice in dark hats
handcuffing a woman
before tossing her in the back
of a black barred truck
with stars on the sides
and a To Protect and Serve
bumper sticker stuck like
a punchline and a baby girl
and young boy were crying
standing behind the yellow lines
but two has never been
a number that adds up to
nothing because it's only legal
to pass one at a time in these
dark days of executive orders
you fear because you know
it's all the evidence they need
to make you disappear.