The world becomes less understandable
as the years do multiply

Once I was her true love
now I'm not her kind of guy

Mania is disconcerting
makes you think that you can fly

Depression is deserting
alone in a grim grey day sky

I don't think things will end well
But something in me, despite my sins, faults,  failures,

                       still has to, has to, has to try. . .

I'm a fundamentally shy person
In a horror story world

I cannot stand sadist Michael Gerson
The Dragon Scroll empty unfurled

Taiwan trains took me places
Temples, restaurants, Yang Ming Shan

Tolkien brought me to Oxford
His Road goes ever on

Cam's gonna swim today
I am a taxi service
I lay in bed and lonely
Tick tock tick tock tick tock

Sacramento, California
Early 1980s
Backyard swimming pools
Me and Mr. Spock

He mentions T.S. Eliot
I studied 4 Quartets
Spider-Man Protector
Battle back Doc Oc

Lay in bed and lonely
My dream diner
San Francisco 49ers
I wear mismatch socks

       Seagulls Flock

Shooting Star in New Orleans
Yearning, Burning, lonely
         miles of pain


               Dylan.

Tears, idle tears
Grey day blues again

Unhappy with myself
Remorseful for my sins

Cardinal Newman is correct
You have to lose to win

Please help me keep the job
Help me to begin

             Summer rolls!

Stephen King as an atheist
Addicted to *******
And failing as husband and father


Decides to imagine that God exists
And then prays to his imaginary God
To help get him off ******* and back to his family.

And it works.

George W. Killed grandmas and grandpas
And children and babies galore

Shock and Awe
Now Trump in the White House door

Kensington
On his Crawford, Texas floor

Condemned by humanity
Condemned by history evermore

Kensington where Chesterton was born
And where T.S. Eliot died

Kensington on SNL
Where Will Ferrell shows George W. Lied

A stupid, unjust, and criminal war
George W. destroyed Iraq

Killed hundred of thousands of innocents
Can never take that back

Created ISIS as well
With his Shock and Awe attack

He stands condemned by history
May his memory never come back

My dark side is the terror kind
Shiva the Destroyer

I have a bipolar mind
And now no new employer

Basketball, cd player
Facebook, silent nights

Dragonrider, Dragonslayer
True Taipei twilights

           And lanterns.

Ishmael the Reader
Me the solo silent pleader
             Oceans!

You are not a drop in the ocean
You are the entire ocean
                            in a single drop


I wish. I fish. I swim. I stop.

Leonard Cohen and isolation
This I understand

As on a deserted island
Or in a one man band

I reach out to the others
I wanna hold your hand

The twilight beach is beauty
Barefeet on cooling sand

loneliness returns
    my soul within me burns
               for her I so often yearn....


                              Photographs!

In America pacifists get fired
The Pentagon grows rich

I did not like Christopher Hitchens
An ugly man, that Hitch

I did, however, like Oxford
And the River Eden

Sometimes when I'm silent
Is also when I'm pleadin'

               And needin'.

The isolation is enormous
I reach out but do not touch

Buddhist meditation
Each and all and such

Lonely elevation
One in mountain nights

David Markson's yellow
Beauty is insight

           Well alright!

A stupid, unjust, and criminal war
So spoke Father Greeley

Of course he was ignored
The Americans **** quite freely

I saw him in Chicago
I wrote him once or twice

I read several books
He said Jesus wasn't nice

More like an Irish brawler
Or better a Jewish one

But maybe we will never know
This mystery making Son

Father Greeley in Arizona
Alex awake in Tucson

Me ramblin' roamin'
My journey jambles on

A few more poems
Then I'm gone.

Who doesn't know despair?
Just take a look around

Highwater Everywhere
Far more lost than found

2037. 5099.
Never been to heaven. What will future find?

She was long, long, long in my mind.

Missing libraries
and movies
and shows

Hoping for
Tommorow

But tomorrow
Never knows


And so it goes.

the psychiatrists have
the advanced degrees

the prayers just have
the please and the pleas

standing in public
in private on knees

my poems for free
(but the docs - they charge fees)

Writes Richard Rodriguez.

Amen, Richard.

Long live Sacramento!

Reason is a fragile thing
In this world of passion and desire

Life indeed is suffering
Suffering caused by desire

Bangkok all a-bustling
Motorcycle taxis in twilight

Flight back to DC
Last lone American night.

The reason they fear mania
Is because it is divine

It also is quite dangerous
There has been a Sign

Revolution begins with spin
And yes, it does take time

It's blowin' in the wind
I'm early which is fine

            In my mind.

The reason the Republicans
Try to pass laws prohibiting
Critical Race Theory
Or school lessons
That make people feel guilty
About the history of American racism

Is because they feel guilty
About the history of American racism.

No hope for the American future
No pride in the American past

Time tick tocks on
Falling faster and falling fast

Statues coming down
Free at last! Free at last!

Exoplanets above
Endless skies and vast

the need for more beauty
in our troubled American life

so much confrontation
so much ignorance and strife

the insults overflow
cut like a kitchen knife

think I’ll visit Portland
the Japanese Garden with my wife

The desperation keeps me up at night.
One day. One day at a time.

Tonight they sleep. Tonight I wake.
Seattle still sublime.

Death closes everything
No more need to fear.

O life! Look upon my loves.
Hold them hope and dear.

                  The Fool.
               Not King Lear.

Prayers for protection
   Brigid in the rain
         mi familia

Andy and Sally
From El Paso to L.A.
Native Landscaping
Gardeners, they say

I like gardens
Ain't Talkin', not today
Sometimes basketball
Is my only way to pray

    September to May

solo in the Irish bar
   the 80s band rockin’
        I sing every word
                of every song
                      
                   the joy of music
                            and yet ... loneliness

every insight is terrifying
the psychiatrist to me said

I certainly agree
at home and in a hospital bed

now strange separation
from the one who I once wed

my agony with women
often makes me wish that I was dead

yet all my fantasies are female
brunette, blond, and red

death always wins,I play my losing hand

at night I sing along with the rockin’ band
   against the Trumpists and the hate
           I make my surrealist stand

alone, unknown, twilight zone -

                   and yet, the Quest is grand.

7 years
   frantic fears
        time- tossed tears...

                     and yet, childhood reappears.

Sleeping more means dreaming
Bob Dylan, Andrew Greeley

This world's a horror story
Which we enter nor leave freely

And yet there's beauty born
And that glowing mystery moon

Some say chrysalis
Others say cocoon

                     Soon?

Saw Wicked in New York City
Man of La Mancha too
Rode the free bus in Chapel Hill
Carolina blue

Als Ick Kan, Mr. Markson
The best that I can do
Snowfall shunyata
7372

                   And you.

Sang Barry McGuire

St. Anselm
Who would sometimes miss
Important Church meetings:


In order to read.

Shelley spoke of.

More's Utopia, in which women are granted full and equal rights to education with men - dated 1516.

The American Heart of Darkness
I have a need for sleep
Call my middle son
Promises to keep

Tecumseh the Shawnee
The day that Detroit fell
Chief Seattle. Chief Seattle.
Call me Ishmael

Sick and suffering
Quiet in the night
Come steal away
Gatsby's green light

Very little hope
Life itself is pain
Maybe an Asian Pope
Maybe Toledo, Spain

         Purple Rain