He creates alternative facts
for no good reason
just to be an ***
what the hell for
don't ask me
he thinks someone is listening
to everything he has to say
all the lies he tells
taking pictures of himself
through the microwave
lying through his teeth
about his taxes
throwing mirrors at stones
shattering the truth
roaming his labyrinth
fiddling with his ******
while Rome burns
with little hands all a twitter
making up political speeches
while sitting on the *******
and spitting on the floor
writing surrealist poetry
on the walls and calling
them executive orders.

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.

Her touch is as cold
as the snow on statues

I wait in my dark suit
like a suitor in the shadows

cast in the courtyard of the dead
alone in the middle of the night

she shows her folded hands
holding the Ace of sorrows

black like the flowers
I bring her tonight

beneath a silent moon
gathered like dust on my boots

late in the afternoon
as I walked along the low road

to call on her
in the garden of stones.

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.

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.

I listen to that great darkness
watching for burning ships
their bows bearing women
and the black prows are coming
plowing the mist into water
as the wind lifts up the bowsprits
leaving a wake I want to be
left alone with night after night
like a sleeping knife that runs
deep through the belly
between the thighs of dreams.

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.