I've always preferred the sinners,
the modest and damaged souls
who understand our vast imperfections.
The righteous and their values,
they've never embodied the ideal
way of life so many others pursue.
Give me the drunkard, the ****,
the pauper who blows powder
and his harmonica under the bridge.
They are my truths
in an ocean of lies.

The sun during winter
often plays the role of trickster,
a false prophet of hope.
Its rays of light bounce off
parked cars and shop windows,
luring us out of our cozy beds
under the guise of a warm embrace.
As fools, we venture outdoors
and believe the air will not assault us.
Unfortunately, we discover winter
has conned the sun to help it
carry out the vengeance
of a scorned Iover.

Independence is celebrated
as a resource of strength, power.
The problem with independence
is we often allow it to take over
our lives, to define us
and our place in the world.
That's when we push others away,
those who love and cherish us,
and they deserve the contributions
we have withheld.

The best whiskey goes down
smooth as the silky tongue
of a curvaceous young woman.
There are times when we desire
sips from brands known to bite
the back of the throat
with the gratifying sting
of fingernails dug in
between our shoulder blades.
Funny how the sensations
of pleasure and pain
have more in common
than we realize.

The fresh snowfall is celebrated,
adored for its natural beauty,
a wintertime treat.
The novelty of that beauty vanishes
with time and new fascinations.
As we step on and drive over
that which was once beloved,
a black slush forms along the curb,
used, tired, corrupted,
despised for its filth.

Indoors on a cold night
two days before the year's end,
a tall glass of whiskey,
and acoustic reinterpretations
of Pink Floyd fills the house.
No human has visited heaven
and returned to describe the afterlife,
but if it's anything like this,
I'm ready to give up the job,
the bills, and the disappointment
for a ride on that cloud.

A long time ago,
I thought about you every day.
The memories were fresh,
kind of like a new book
on my reading pile next to the bed.
Over the course of years,
new chapters of new books
pushed your memories deeper
into the bookshelf of knowledge and experience.
I haven't forgotten or lost love for you.
Your memories are part of my prized collection,
the leather-bound hardback
I occasionally read while sipping whiskey
after a hard year on this Earth.

Once a week, when I was about five or six years old,
my grandmother took me with her
to visit a few of the local bars
in her poor rust belt town outside of Pittsburgh.
Through the haze of cigarette smoke
and the scent of old memories and gin,
she’d quickly catch up with friends
and sign the book in each joint,
which entered her into 50/50 raffles.

‘Hey, Dolly’s here!’ the old souls would call out.
The drunkards and spinsters cracked smiles
across their aged faces
in familiar enthusiasm,
a sincerity only possible among people
who’ve known each 50 years.

As grandma nursed a beer or club soda,
the bartenders eagerly fed me cherries
while I spun on barstools and giggled in delight.
In every joint we visited,
there was always at least one guy,
handsome in their day, yet still charming,
they’d give Dolly special attention.
‘You look as beautiful as ever,’
was a common remark.
Grandma always smiled,
for a moment forgetting
about her wrinkles and false teeth.
‘You’re nuts,’ she’d say. ‘Go boil your head.’
The men chuckled, always,
and then they’d ask after my grandfather,
the man they respected,
the man who’d won Dolly’s heart
in that long lost era.

More than twenty years later,
during grandma’s final months in the hospice,
she made a confession.
‘I’ve always loved your pap,’ she said,
‘but a lot of men found me beautiful.’
‘I know.’
‘Women need to hear it sometimes.
Remember that.’

I always have.

Quiet men of ability,
but of limited intellect,
they go to their jobs
and they laugh with their children.
These men of dignity, of character,
they suffer a world
that has proven difficult
to manage, or even comprehend.
Ridiculed as rapists and enemies,
these men retreat to powerful trucks
and bedroom vaults
that contain the many weapons
they believe to be
their saving grace.

As the old hamburger joint
burned to the ground,
dozens of people looked on
from neighboring parking lots.
Some witnesses were attracted
to the excitement of the event
and the sirens of emergency services.
Others were hypnotized by the fire's
violent licks that danced upon the roof.
A minority of us used the moment
to imagine, to dream
of what the future would hold
for the community.

Saturday evenings at sunset
the young lie in wait
as vampires,
ready to feast on fresh flesh
the night offers in sacrifice.
No one is safe
from the pleasures and perils
of rabid desires.

I've heard feminists say
working class men have too much power.
That kind of naievety was once cute,
but now as working men are criminalized
and gunned down in the streets,
that kind of toxic hatred
has grown dangerous.
The problem isn't that working men
have too much power,
it's that they have no power at all,
and they are slowly being enslaved
in ******* jobs, in prisons,
and in endless financial debts.
Working men have been robbed
of their power, their dignity,
and their ability to care
for the communities
that now decay
in ruins.

Women of honor,
of heartfelt determination,
love with streaming tears.
They fight and they bleed
with passion
for their children,
their men, their communities.

Women of honor
laugh in drunken splendor
so hard and so often
during the good times
that for a brief moment,
the men forget there are bad times.

These beautiful creatures,
these women of majesty,
they deserve the best poetry
injected into their souls.

Life for a 22 year old man
takes on new meaning when he
bolts out of the housing projects
in the middle of the night
while pulling up his pants
and buckling his belt.
To this day, I'm still not sure
which part was more thrilling,
the hook up with a **** stranger
or the three bad *****
that screamed "Get him!"
as they chased me to the beater car
that I prayed would start.

Serious men of responsibility
understand the desperation
to stay one step ahead of the game.
While boys in skinny jeans
and pink t-shirts
flutter the hearts of young women,
men take on the grueling labor
no one else will do,
to provide, to survive.
At the end of the day,
serious men sit quiet with a drink,
they reflect on their sins
and they toast their sacrifices.

Samantha with the dark eye shadow
and the generous hips,
she whined when she was hungry,
angry, or dissatisfied in any conceivable way.
A hard **** session allowed me
to exorcise the meteor shower of madness
she regularly rained down upon my world.
Spreading that tight ***** with my ****,
feeling her flesh stretch wide
around my shaft
delivered a true sense of retribution.
Listening to her whimper through a clenched jaw
while she bit down on her bottom lip
brought almost the same satisfaction
as the ****** when I pushed in deep
to fill her with ***.

Fortunately for the both of us,
I knew we were finished
once the whining fueled my desire to flee,
rather than the need to balance
the scales of justice.

Sitting in the diner at 4:00 AM,
it's just me and the waitress,
and the trucker in the back booth
slowly sipping his coffee.
The waitress says she can't wait
until dawn so she can leave.
I don't have the heart to tell her
the trucker and I are desperately hanging on
to the last glimpses of moonlight.

Across the street, spray-painted words
are scrawled across a concrete wall
that read, ‘Live for today
because there is no tomorrow.’
Prophetic truths
that do not lead to tangible improvements
often lose their meaning, their power.
Communities lost and without direction
begin to decay.

During the spring and early summer months one year,
a crazy old man hung around a small parking lot
on Pittsburgh's Southside.
Usually, he mumbled to himself.
Sometimes he shouted incomprehensible
insults and warnings of damnation
to random people that walked by.

The old man always wore a knit skullcap
and a Navy pea coat, as if he were shipping out to sea.
Below the waist, he strutted around in ladies capri pants
with a colorful flower print,
and his hairy feet bulged out of a pair
of red hot stripper pumps.

Apparently, that old man wanted to stay warm
while he played watchman over the city,
but nothing beat the power of ****.

For many years on the Friday after Thanksgiving
my oldest friend and I,
along with about one hundred other heavy readers,
stood on the sidewalk before dawn's first light
in front of a local used bookstore.
While we patiently waited in the freezing cold
for the shop to open, the manager gave us hot coffee
and his appreciation for our mutual passion
of the written word.

Huddled in shivering groups,
we allies of imagination discussed poetry,
comics, novels, and the world’s rich history.
While serious shoppers trampled each other
over big screen televisions and trendy new toys
inside mall electronics stores,
we found comfort, friendship
in our celebration of literature.

In city traffic one fall morning,
a driver of a rusted white sedan,
probably on the way to a job,
sped through a red light
at the top of a hill,
near a school zone.

A woman in pink sweat pants
grabbed the backpack attached to her young son
and yanked him close
as the sedan swerved in the crosswalk
at the last moment
before obliterating them both
on the street.

In bars and in churches
and all over social media,
we question our violent culture.
No one seems to have the answers,
yet we ignore the truth.
We're expected to suspend our humanity,
to **** anyone who crosses our paths
for the privilege to work and earn,
all so we can eat.

The tattoo artist
with the dreadlocks and the comic book t-shirts,
he'd stand in front of his shop
chain smoking and drumming up business
from passersby most nights of the week.
The first few times I walked past
we ignored each other.
Eventually came the head nods,
and then the quick greetings.
The day I stopped
and asked him for a tattoo,
he chuckled and said, ‘It's about time.’
Even though we had never previously spoken,
for one evening inside the tattoo shop,
that artist an I rhapsodized for hours
as old friends.

Near our house when I was a child,
the roots of a massive tree had lifted
the slab of a sidewalk several inches.
The kids in the neighborhood,
would ride our bikes fast over the slab
and catch air as fearless daredevils
on our way to the local park and ball field.
The other day in the city,
I tripped on a similarly lifted slab.
I almost went down like a sack of bricks,
which would have shattered the overpriced smartphone.
I cursed the city for not repairing an obvious
safety hazard.
It wasn't until I got home
that I realized I had sold out
the small joys and the imagination
of the world's imperfections
for false splendors
of modern life.

Walking home from dinner
I learned a robot was granted citizenship
in Saudi Arabia.
That's the moment I realized
humanity had reached its pinnacle
during the ****** revolution
of the 1960s.
Thirty of forty years from now,
we will sit quietly in nursing homes,
and we will wonder
what the **** happened
that humanity allowed itself
to be replaced.

Standing on a street corner
during afternoon rush hour,
one can see the despair
of people who attempt
to temporarily escape their prisons
for one night.

At the mall on the weekend
before Thanksgiving,
an army of American consumers
window shop, they browse,
they survey the battlefield.
Young women with similar shoes,
and similar hair, and similar politics
huddle in groups to plan
the impending attack the next Friday.
Their body language indicates confidence.
Victory will be theirs.

At the bus stop,
a chubby girl of about 10 or 11
in rainbow colored leg warmers
danced and spun around like a ballerina.
Her mother, dressed in blue hospital scrubs,
sat on the bench and watched.
A smile formed beneath her weary eyes,
revealing a small joy after a hard day.
Another woman in a business suit said,
‘She does well for such a heavy girl.’
The mother politely nodded
and then pulled out her smartphone.
Her smile vanished.

A black man in his fifties
with pockmarks all over his face
shuffled in my direction on the sidewalk.
He carried a plastic shopping bag
that appeared to contain a sweatshirt.
His pants were torn near the knee
and he wore old fashioned leather shoes
that had probably seen more miles and time
than any pair of shoes, or feet
should ever have to endure.

‘Excuse me,’ I said as we approached.
‘I'm wondering if you're Christ.’
The man grinned, revealing yellow, decayed teeth.
‘Is it that obvious?’
‘Yeah, pretty much.’
‘Fine. Just don't tell anyone else.’
The man then continued on his way.
I headed home
to make a sandwich.

A lone fisherman in his retirement years
sat in a folding chair just off the bike trail
along the Monongahela River.
‘Any look today?’ I asked.
‘Doesn't matter,’ he said.
‘I started fishing years ago
to get some time alone.
Any time I'm here I feel lucky.’
The smile across his face
proved his point.

The raindrops that fell
against the window this morning
were in perfect sync
with the coffee drips that fell
into my cup.
Down on the sidewalk,
a man in a suit and a woman in a dress
scurried along under an umbrella.
I watched for them to march in lockstep,
but it never happened.
Sometimes we thirst for the simplicity
of order,
and other times we quietly celebrate
the chaos.

A lot of **** goes down on sidewalks.
The most desperate souls
sell their bodies and their spirits
for a little bread that only leads
to temporary solutions, escapes
from everlasting problems.
They seek what they will never find,
peace within the landscape,
among the masses who profit
from their predictable failures
and untimely deaths.

On Sundays,
most people go to brunch with family
or take walks to lazy coffees shops
to meet with friends.
Some of us gaze out windows
to dream the dreams
we can only dream
away from the distractions
that rule our lives.

In the meadows of the countryside,
we're hypnotized by the stars
and the mysteries of the cosmos.
On the sidewalks in the city,
we're hypnotized by the lights
and the mysteries of human dynamics.
No matter where we stand
when we gaze upwards
there's always space for imagination
and wonder.

A man goes to work.
He sells his skills, his talents,
his ******* soul.
He pounds sidewalks, rides on buses,
flies on planes, and he drives in endless traffic.
The working man sacrifices
day after day
for his family.

On his own, that man will game the system,
he’ll do what he must
to scrape by on his own.
Dress codes, schedules, bosses, labor,
he puts up with forced servitude
out of the purest form of love
for his woman and his children.

On a few special days
that mark the working man’s life,
he deserves the best food and drink,
the devotion of his woman at his side,
and he deserves the companionship
of his closest allies.

Violence,
much like hopes and dreams,
the search for truth
and justice,
is not pursued solely by the mad.
Sometimes, the most mild-mannered person
walking down the sidewalk
can no longer absorb
the constant onslaught of attacks
doled out by life,
and suddenly,
the gun, the knife, the bomb,
they make a lot more sense.

There's a beauty that emerges
within those who have the courage
to break with conventional thinking.

The worker who finally tells off the boss,
no one owns him.
The **** who ignores the shaming,
she enjoys being enjoyed.
The father who embraces his gay son,
his career status be ******.

That flicker of confidence
in the eyes of those who awaken
to their truths
is living art, a gift
that each of us
can experience.

The best part of democracy
is taking the opposite position
of the lynch mob
on a public issue of the day.
The more they cry foul,
the more stubborn others become.
This behavior reminds the mob
popular rage
and the lust of desire
should never supersede
our freedom.

Sitting in the bar on a slow night,
a young robotics engineer from Europe
attending graduate school in Pittsburgh,
lamented about American politics.
"I don't know what's going to happen,"
he said. "There’s nothing we can do."
"Wait a minute," I said.
“Aren't you developing vertical farming technology?"
"Yes, that's right."
"So the poor can feed themselves?"
"Definitely.”
"Sounds to me that you’re doing plenty."
The young friend didn't reply,
and instead took a pull from his beer.
A minute later he laughed hard
at something on the television.
He wore a permanent smile
for the rest of the night.

On late Saturday nights
under the magnificent city skyline,
the young **** themselves
at varying rates of speed.
The old lie awake in their beds,
reminiscent of the better times.
All I can do is write my music
between mouthfuls of bourbon
and remember why I love you.

In our young adult years,
the novelty of liberation
sparked our imaginations.
We stayed out all night
in diners and on the streets.
We ****** whomever we chose
without fear
of man made consequences.
We penned horrible stories,
painted absurd portraits,
and drew the weakest comics.
Still, we were free spirits
with fresh souls
that we truly believed
would live forever.

In the bookstore cafe,
an old man in a ***** blue winter coat
struggled to eat an oversized chocolate cupcake
and sip at a small coffee.
His hands and thighs shook uncontrollably
as he focused more on safeguarding
his dignity, by not smearing the frosting
across his wrinkled face,
rather than enjoying the expensive treat.
The mall rats at neighboring tables
wore expressions of pity
for the man,
for his limitations.
He and I, we knew the truth,
that once he finished that cupcake
and downed that coffee,
he moved on with his day
a champion.

At the mall on the weekend
before Thanksgiving,
the army of American consumers
window shop, they browse,
they survey the battlefield.
Young women with similar shoes,
and similar hair, and similar politics
huddle in groups to plan
the impending attack next Friday.
Their body language indicates confidence.
Victory will be theirs.

Many years ago,
while taking an early spring walk
near the University of Pittsburgh,
I noticed a deep crack in the sidewalk,
and within the crevice
someone had wedged a lego action figure.
I'd considered removing the toy
as a keepsake of the first day outside
after a brutal winter,
but instead I allowed it to remain
as a small part of the urban landscape.
For several years, I took early spring walks
along the same part of the city,
and every year the lego man,
a little more weathered,
greeted me as an old acquaintance.
Eventually, the city replaced the sidewalk,
and like so many loose friendships,
based on convenience and circumstance,
the lego man was gone.

Late at night in the quiet,
when we relax the stranglehold
over our minds,
that's when our imaginations
can finally run wild
as stallions on the unending beach
of our limitless cosmos.
During these moments,
it's common to feel anxiety,
but once we scale over that wall
we are then free
to be the heroes
of our dreams.

"Running out the clock"
is maybe the most common term
in American working life.
Trapped, financially imprisoned
between four walls of servitude
on a late Friday afternoon,
we wait impatiently
for our parole from the crimes
our owners regularly commit.

A teenage boy sat alone at a picnic bench along the river,
twirling the tip of a pocket knife on the table top.
He then flipped the knife a few inches in the air
and watched as the blade landed and
stuck perfectly straight into a table plank.
A slight smile of satisfaction
pulled across his face.

When the cops came to remove the boy
from society, they found him gently carving
the bark from a fallen tree limb.
He'd planned on crafting a walking stick
for an elderly neighbor.

A week later, after the tears,
after the news coverage,
the half-carved limb remained on the ground,
next to the picnic bench, alone.

One autumn day on a stroll to the cigar shop
I sought out dead leaves on the sidewalk
and stepped on them
for that satisfying potato chip crunch.
A little boy, who stood with his parents
near the entrance of a restaurant,
stared at my peculiar walking style,
with squinted eyes and a crinkled nose
as if I were crazy.

After picking up a 60 gauge acid,
I stood on the corner to light up.
That's when I saw the same family
walking in my direction,
and that **** kid purposely stepped
on every dried leaf he could find
for that satisfying potato chip crunch.

I blew a large cloud of smoke
as they approached,
so that kid would know he was being watched.
My only hope is that he learned
there's often a world of difference
between what we observe
and what we experience
first hand.

A ******* dog without a leash
walked up to me on the sidewalk.
"Hello, dog," I said.
It didn't sniff me or lick me,
but instead sat right next to me
and leaned against my leg.

My first thought was that the
spirit of my late father or grandfather
had come to check up on me,
and for a moment, the stress
of the bills and the job were gone.

Then a young guy in a designer track suit
and moussed hair jogged toward us.
The dog got excited, jumped up,
and took off down the sidewalk.
“I hope he didn't bother you,"
the guy said as he ran past.
"Nope. He made my day."

There is so much beauty in this world,
and it exists all around us.
The old tree along the road,
its imperfect trunk has endured many winters.
The curvaceous young woman on the sidewalk,
she swings her hips as a gift
to all who take notice.
The priest with a hand pressed against the wall,
he prays for us all.
There is so much beauty in this world,
one really must work hard
to avoid it.

In front of the bar
a thin guy in an oil-stained t-shirt
pulled out a pack of cheap cigarettes
from his front jeans pocket.
"You got a light, buddy?"
I pulled out my black Zippo.
He turned his pack upside down
and a single gold coin fell into his palm
along with a half-smoked cigarette.
"What's with the coin?"
"I always carry it," he said.
"If I drop dead,
I want the ******* who finds me
to have a good day."

The kid with the beard and the ***** apron,
he's just trying to make it.
His shoes have small tears on the sides,
from the way water saturates and weakens the material.
He’s got this way of gliding from table to table,
the same way a dancer owns a stage.
He slides plates of salt-ridden tacos currently in vogue
to a roomful of overfed, undersexed office drones

A woman in a skirt and flip-flops rolls her eyes at a salad.
A ******* in a blazer flicks a ****** under the table.
Still, there's a twinkle in the kid’s eyes,
like he's on the make.
If the right circumstances unfold
he’d snag a loose twenty
from a wallet or a purse.

This is the server's life,
always under the thumb,
hated and stressed,
but always laughing
at the end
of each shift.