Some nights I lie awake
dreaming of a woman
who could make me want
to want to live another day
another year or maybe
just an hour or two
until dawn wraps her warm
arms around me once again.

A year from now a man
will be thinking aloud
asking God if he eats right
and quits drinking and smoking
will you rid me of the cancer
but God will start laughing
and that will be the answer
so the man will move to Africa
and then to India where there
are many a God and naked
dancers but the chancre
wouldn't go away so he went
to New Hampshire where a doctor
said so sad, so sad as he said
to his secretary who was pulling
up her *******, oh yeah, honey,
take all of this poor man's money
and make him feel younger again
and so swell, so she did and the old
man returned to the mountains
and his cabin staring at pine knots
on the wall that all look so strange
so he'll pick up his gun and shoot
his old woman, his dog, then himself
thinking life is a rotten godforsaken
place when a man can't afford to live
and our healthcare system is a disgrace.

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.