These streets
are not just roads;
they hold our stories, and
embedded within them are our
poems

chasing the sunbeam
   across the carpet,
my dog finds happiness
in a single moment,
   in a single ray of light.

the little girl next door
skips breakfast
  to play outside in the same sun,
her stomach     empty
because mommy bought gin
instead of milk - again

both enjoy the moment,
oblivious to the shadows -
but my dog isn't hungry

Good men
won't be found here.
Chivalry is long dead.
Here, we sit in shadows and hide
our scars.

Handcuffed
for buying a
flower from a roadside
vendor.  America summed up
right there.

Walking
by me as I
wrestle with my regret,
she laughs - and for a short moment I
too smile

The way
you talk about
it, you seem to think that
time really does stand still in my
embrace

The taste
of my cigar
and the whiskey in my
gullet can't fill the pit inside
my chest

Whiskey
dark chocolate,
smooth jazz, and some gritty
poetry are all that I need
tonight

Ignore
racist bigots;
stand proud against their hate.
Trust me when I tell you that you
matter

staring
at Departures,
waiting with futile hope
that my flight's not cancelled; let me
get home

The work
isn't easy,
and doesn't satisfy,
but the burn of twilight whisky
sure helps.

So many
years behind me,
but instead of wisdom
all I seem to have acquired is
regret

Kälteschlaf
die Jahrhunderte
fliegen vorbei

Silky
smoke, with a hint
of leather - succulent
spice from the cigar teases my
palette

they tell us
having an open mind
is the stake against the
vampire heart of
stagnation
we must discard
what we know
and who we are
because what was
truth
yesterday is today a
lie
I like that - to
be the same man tomorrow that
I am today is terrifying
but then again - I'm a man
who orbits
nothing,
a chameleon of faith,
a kaleidoscope of
swirling belief that is never
still long enough to
find myself

Send me nudes, you said
I sent you my naked
truths instead -
An unfiltered and unapologetic
glimpse into my heart
my innermost self
That part of me that so
rarely sees the light
of day much less the
judgement
of another soul
In the end, staring at my
demons, at my fears, and
my weakness you
failed to see
my strengths, my beauty,
or my integrity
You looked into the
abyss of me and
blinked

Bravery
I thought I was brave
with the scars to prove it.
My legacy -
   broken bones,  split knuckles,
   black eyes and loose teeth.
   Adulation and respect.
I fought  both man and isms
Never backed down.
But a black man, driving
an Uber taught me the truth of
true bravery.
Harassed, insulted, threatened by
a low-life passenger,
  white racism covered in a cheap suit and tie,
he refused to take the bait.
He denied himself the pleasure of
      justified violence.
He told me his story -
and anger for him, righteous indignation,
crashed over me in furious waves.
I admonished him for not
confronting that mans ignorance
   with a closed and determined fist.
Never back down, right?
Gently, he spoke the truth of
   black men in America.
His eyes caught mine in the rearview mirror.
You, he said, are innocent until proven guilty.
Protected by a system that
oppresses me.
I am guilty - period - and would be lucky
to be arrested, not killed,
  in a confrontation with that bigot.
So he did nothing, let the swine in a tie
off at his destination,
and drove on - leaving that pig to
wallow in his hate.
His bravery earned him nothing.
No adulation. No respect. No recognition.
Nothing except another day of life.
Another day with his family.
In contrast - my lifetime of bravery.
A pale reflection, when set beside his truth.
He was brave, not I.
My self-styled bravery, forever
tainted
by my privilege.

l stand in awe and
   disgust
as l watch evangelical
Christians subject themselves to
moral gymnastics
trying to
  reconcile their faith with their
fear and hatred.
They place the teachings of Christ
on a virtuous scale alongside
the words,
    the actions, and
           the deeds
of the politician they elected and
somehow
they find a way to proclaim
balance.
That kind of
     tortured calculus
is as impressive as it is
repugnant.

Someone put an
     asterisk
in the Constitution and the
Declaration of Independence
when we weren't looking.
They added terms and conditions,
the ones nobody bothers to read
until they're ****** by them.

We live in the 'Land of the Free', asterisk.
We have the right to free speech, asterisk.
We can practice any religion, or none, asterisk.
We have the right of Life and Liberty, asterisk.

Rich, white, men know that the asterisk means
'for me, but not for thee," as they smile and
waggle their eyebrows at one another.

We live our lives surrounded by asterisks.
Truth lives in the asterisks.

The best men and women
in this life are not the
holy
or the righteous. They
are not
found in the
church or temple.
We live in a world
where religious
virtue
is conflated with
bigotry, racism,
and hatred.
Only the godless are truly
good.

A man and his child were
gunned down In my
neighborhood today.
My community did nothing -
leaving the blood-soaked street
as the only reminder of
mankind’s capacity for violence.
l did nothing except
gnash my teeth at the
****** of a small child and
wonder if l lived in the
wrong neighborhood.
l look at myself-
the silence in the mirror
reflects my face
but not my
hypocrisy nor the
agony of my
screaming heart.

Another ****** died today,
his blood steaming, cooling, in
Pittsburgh's winter streets.
The pale, blue, afternoon sky,
moving too soon into night,
settled darkness on the day,
and on the junkies life.
This all-too-common narrative,
the background noise of our lives,
fails to stir our outrage.
Crawling on top of the man,
as he gasps his last,
his seven-year old son.
They die together, son cradled
in father's embrace.
Both riddled with bullets.
And still, the community fails
to find the outrage.
A black man's death means
nothing to a society conditioned
to judge his worth by his vice.
The death of his son means
even less.

My green-eyed first wife -
fiery temper and hair to match -
slid the wedding ring on my
finger.

Twisting on my knuckle, it
never left my hand.  I grokked
with certainty borne from intuition
that BAD THINGS would happen
should that tri-colored gold band
leave my touch.

Years, a decade and change, passed
and one day I took it off and set it
on the bed beside me.
For two seconds I was fine, but then
I couldn’t breathe.
In a panic, I put the ring back on.

But

I put it on backwards.

BAD THINGS happened.

Weeks later, soul-weary and
tired of constant fighting
I remembered my
misstep and I
flipped the ring on my finger.

Things got better.  But now I knew.  
Like peeling blistered skin after a sunburn,
I couldn’t stop.

Flip. Fight. Flip. Make up.
Flip. Scream. Flip. Sweet nothings.
Flip. Slammed doors. Flip. Makeup ***.

I forgot which direction was safe and
which was dangerous.

That marriage - that ring - is gone now.
I’m married to a blonde angel now
with a temper as cool as her hair; who
loves me more than I deserve
and knows me better than I’d like.

From day one, I refused to let the
flip
of the ring mar my new marriage.  

I flipped it on my wedding night.
I flipped it the next day on my honeymoon.
I flip that ring every day,
daring
it to curse me again.

Another decade has passed,
I flip my new ring daily.

And cringe a little each time.

The Penguins are playing tonight
I have a belly full of high-quality
whiskey,
a fine cigar between my fingers,
and a pleasant buzz dulling my
constant anxiety.
The announcers play-by-play,
constant and frantic,
blares through my 70-inch television
adding artificial drama, but I like it.
I'm surrounded by my
precarious middle class wealth
while thousands of
slaves suffer and die in Lybia.
But I’m drunk, oblivious, and happy that
my team
just scored

his hipster beard -
mandatory accessory for this
gentrified borough of Pittsburgh -
leads him back and forth
from the kitchen to the tables

he serves more tables than he should
I wait too long for my
overpriced salad
as he drops a plate of greasy wings
in front of a table of oblivious
professionals who
judge him
find him wanting
without ever looking up from their phones

a small bead of sweat accompanies him
when he drops off my check

I pay with a twenty and he brings me back
a ragged five and a one-dollar bill.

I know what he did.  ****.

god ****** hipster server trying to fleece me
playing on social pressure
betting on pocketing that faded fiver
that he did not earn from me

I force him to break that Lincoln
I tip three bucks
because I ****** well won’t let him get the best of me

my indignation is an all-American righteousness
so much so that I forget -

forget I paid four times what the salad was worth
forget he doesn’t see a penny of that profit
forget that he makes less than three bucks an hour
forget that without tips he won’t make rent

I forget all of this in my pride at catching a huckster
who just wants to keep the lights on
one more day

I walked out of my office today at noon
and slid into the stream of pedestrians -
the hipsters stroking their beards,
the pale professionals blinking in the sun,
mothers pushing strollers through the crowd
with more skill than a racecar driver

before I knew it, I walked past my lunch destination
I kept walking - and watching
the people of my town share a sidewalk
without attacking one another

for a moment I was tempted to take a picture
post it on online,
make a socio-political statement;
if people from all walks of life
can share the sidewalk
can we not find common ground?

I left my phone in my pocket - decided against
adding my unnecessary opinion to the
manufactured outrage
that is the sad truth of social media

I smiled at a pretty lady pushing her baby
she smiled back
and we shared a brief human moment
I kept walking

there he is
a monster with a *****
but that’s redundant

all monsters have a *****
all penises are attached to monsters
right?

so  there he is
a monster at fifteen

a predator
walled away - kept from
the good people of the world
by police, bars, most importantly
social shaming

we have no room for monsters now
zero tolerance
and punishment is more
satisfying
than education

making examples of a monster
is the best way to cow all monsters
right?

and this monster,  he will serve nicely
a warning -
marked, shunned, condemned -
on display to all other
monsters
who would
snap a girl’s bra strap

"you are
so beautiful,"
I said, and then wept when
the uncertainty flickered in
her eyes

lost in his phone
that businessman
misses the sunset

(note - This is a haibun; a Japanese writing form that combines haiku with prose.)*

Two days on the road, two thousand miles on my motorcycle. Hard miles; my *** so sore that every bump in the road brings biting pains up my back and down my legs.

I’m riding alone. No highways. No hotels. Camping in fields and eating in greasy diners. Seeing the America not available to the Interstate. The real America. I’m rough riding across the continent and this isn’t a mid-life crisis. I’m on a mission.

There’s been a ghost haunting me for five years. And yesterday, somewhere on the back roads of Nebraska, I left that ghost, the ghost of my cancer, behind. The specter of death that lingered on me, over me, and around me after excision of the tumors is finally gone.

Contrary to opinion, ghosts are heavy. With mine gone, I ride through the night – the stars and my newfound peace my sole companions. I stop only when the false dawn begins to turn into the real thing.

serpentine road
​curves into the sun;
  my throttle opens

The country diner I find myself in front of welcomes both me and the morning sun. I’m tired, sweaty in my leathers, and covered in road dust as I enter. And I’m deaf, the roar of the road is still loud in my ears.

I tell the waitress I take my coffee black – as black as my soul. My joke falls flat; what comes from my mouth is a rough growl, thanks to a dry throat. It earns me dark looks from the other diners. The ***** biker with no manners.

I have a moment of tired reflection and then I get a visitor to my table. An old lady, dressed in her Sunday best, moves with slow deliberation and takes an unexpected seat across from me. Her frail hands wrap my grimy ones in a cool and gentle grip.

Her eyes, framed by a wrinkled face that smooths as she smiles at me, capture mine before she bows her head and prays loud enough for all to hear. “Lord, please help this young man find his way. He’s lost, alone, and needs your guidance to help cleanse his heart and his soul.”

She kisses my hand and, without another word, stands again. There’s a reverent silence as we all watch her sit back down at her table and take a bite of her breakfast as if nothing exceptional had just occurred.

I look out the window as the rising sun reflects off of my bike, thinking that, here, maybe it wasn’t really that exceptional at all.   And thinking; lady – I’m not lost; I’m finally finding myself again.

red cardinal
alights upon my bike –
  notices me

You've been here before.  You woke up today and realized that the stress, the angst, and the foreboding that you've allowed to rule your life is there by choice.  You've gotten lost in the spiral of anxiety, again.

If it's not your health, it's your money.  If it's not the money, it's your kids.  If it's not your kids, you're worried about past life choices and how they will affect you tomorrow.  Your fears line up at the door, wrap around the block, and await their turn.  Your door is open to them all and you don't deny them.  You let them in.  

Once they are inside, you wrap your fears around you.  They’re a welcome smothering; a wearying security blanket of trembling phobia.  They are as familiar to you as they are distressing.  These constant, restless, companions are more comfortable than the unknown.  

Today, though, you stare at the line of fears and realize that something is missing.  Happiness.  Contentment.  Acceptance.  These are conspicuous in their absence.  And you remember an old Cherokee tale.  You have two wolves engaged in eternal battle inside you; one is fear and anxiety and the other is peace and serenity.  The strongest is the one you feed and you've been feeding the wrong wolf.  

You've done this your entire life in a self-centered, selfish, guilt-ridden, indulgent, fashion.  You wallow in the darkness because you're afraid you don't deserve the light.

You know you’ll feed the right wolf today.  But can you do it tomorrow?  

  mighty river;
the fish navigates
​as it will

red cardinal
alights nearby -
  notices me

full flower moon
in its halo
a space station

on this cloudless night
pushing through the Pittsburgh haze,
daring to present themselves,
entwined in cosmic tango, are
Jupiter and the Moon.
the bands play across a
diluted Jovian face. while the storm
    rages on
the lunar rocks and craters,
perfectly visible imperfections,
cast petulant shadows -
reminding me that
from destruction one can
   still find beauty.

steamy
beads of sweat
between her dusky *******
little rivers of pleasure
that collect in her navel
and threaten to spill with
each exhalation
distract me long enough
to avoid the
     little death
that look in her eye
seen only when
riding me
or on the back of
my motorcycle
    reignites my
passion and
all too soon
    I die

I'm a throwback, baby
     atavistic and masochistic
I'll pay for dinner and
  I'll hold the door
you can complain and
     vilify this good guy
but I can take it.  Your
feminism does not and can not
     impel or compel
me to forgo my manners because
    you
        can't
           tell me how I should
                expect to respect
          you

when I met you
I was broken not desperate
you didn't save me
I didn't rescue you
I didn't beg and you
                    didn't bow
my heart and my soul
covered in scars -
some still angry and red -
didn't repel you
and yours, tattered and
covered with wounds
          long healed -
imperfections that made you
          wondrous to behold
we met as equals and so
fell equally in love
and this, my bride, is why
we will
         endure

I command it all
with imperious verbal commands
automation through the ether
my lights come on
the television, voice activated
spoken queries answered by the
computer in my home
    - sports scores
    - weather
    - news
    - reminders
vibration of my vocal chords
compels my thermostat
orders my groceries
and plays my music
I am the master of my domain
and yet now, more than ever,
I control
    nothing

Red cardinal
rooting for seeds to eat
  avoids yellow snow

crystal tears -
getting very wealthy
on alien grief

pixie wings
arachnids donate
   their gossamer

that satellite
is wearing a cape!
  super moon

E equals
MC^2?
    -- the tachyon laughed

I live
yet walk upon
my tomb. I long to fly
up there and escape my coffin;
this Earth

brittle leaves
swirl in circles
behind the motorcycle

Wear a bathrobe
when beating the keyboard,
when borrowing words from your muse;
Let the stale air in the
dim room
form as
     fragrant
beads of sweat,
thick with whiskey,
on your brow
Wonder if what you're
     writing
is poetry or ****
Proceed to not care and
write, write, write baby
because at the end of it all,
when the words are used up
and you've sobered up,
someone will tell you
     it's ****
and someone will tell you
     it's gold
But you don't give a ****, do you?
You just
     reach for the whiskey
bottle and ask your muse
     for some more
Netflix and chill
But hey, wear that bathrobe;
     it gives you character

the sting
of the needle
brings both pleasure and pain;
i’m addicted to getting new
tattoos

at my age
drinking whiskey
with young
Marines
is a poor choice
Decades of practice
and years of experience
keep me seemingly
sober
for longer -
I beat my nephew at
chess
in five moves
bragging about my skill and
prowess
but really, my nine shots
to his
three give me an
unfair advantage;
I’ve learned to handle
my whiskey
I mock these young
soldiers
for their lack of
stamina,
knowing all the while
they will wake at
0600,
run three miles,
and feel great
while I will
sleep
until 0900
and feel like
**** all day

the leaves fall;
my jasmine tea
scents the air

she lies on the bed facing me
the curve of her hips
giving shape to the
blankets

her bare shoulder and arm are
bent at a gentle angle
as she lightly runs her
fingers
through my hair
her tattoos a vibrant
splash
of color on her alabaster skin

half lidded eyes take me in
and she sighs, a Mona Lisa
smile
on her lips

A million thoughts run through my
mind, my manic mind,
while she caresses me in complacent
bliss

How did I end up here
with this woman
with her perfect peace contrasting my
inferior and harmful
psychosis -
my constant battle with myself
and the universe

How can she love me
a man
who screams in defiance
at the tempest
while she spreads her
arms wide
and turns her face into the
rain and glories in it

My thoughts swirl
and clash
with the outward serenity
of the bedroom

And this is normal for me

The surprise comes when,
in a single moment
of clarity,
in between one manic thought
and the next,
I sigh with her
release the knot in my chest -
say “**** it” and
kiss her eyelids

I join her in this
perfect
moment of contentment

even as she wonders at my
sudden exclamation