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

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

serpentine road
turns into the sun;
   my throttle opens

in the center
of my garden of thought
is an
     inky black pool
an obsidian mirror that ripples
     and grows
with each
          and every
hurt, pain, and torment I endure
circling the pool
     my verdant hopes
     my violaceous loves
     my carmine furies -
their blooms crawl, intertwine, creep
  in a mass of emotion and impulse
      pushing ever against the center
where my garden meets that
     ebony pond;
a barren desolate blight
  of decay and hopelessness
the vivid chromaticity of my
   emotion
in perpetual campaign against
          the void
        that forever
    threatens to
               consume
                    me

Given
to me for free;
a smile from a small child.
For a moment, I forget to
worry.

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.

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

Heavy
blues in the room.
Through the haze, ash and sound,
he caresses Lucille and then
plays on.

they say
that we're running -
but we're just migrating;
our hopes and our dreams are out there
somewhere

what will be
my last sensation
before I die -
will it be the
touch
of your hand within mine?

what will be
the final taste in my mouth
before I die -
will it be your
kiss
moist upon my lips?

what will be
the very last thing I hear
before I die -
will it be your
whisper
in my ear?

what will be
the last sight in my eyes
before I die -
will it be your
face
looking at me?

what will be
my last thought
before I die -
will it be
of you
and our life together?

what will be
has not yet happened, but
before I die
I will live every day
with you
until what may be becomes
what will be

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.

guitar's
wailing tonight;
long, slow, melancholy.
The only way he knows to say
goodbye

bullies
online and off-
they hide from their demons
by becoming monsters themselves
in vain

to live
     every day
     in morbid dread
sharp cold spikes
     driven deep into
          the chest
anxiety
  conditioned,
  learned, pressed

screams

     in my head,
          and yet
               remains unsaid

i was already dying
   when I met you
the
     cancer
eating away at my body
one
  cell
     at a time
for a year, in clandestine
   hostility
my carcass was animated by only
        the hope of love
        a yearning for
            something sensed
            not seen
     but then
    your aspect fell
       upon me
  savage, yet serene
proclaiming your love
   with all that you were
and the
       healing
           began

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

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

crystal tears -
getting very wealthy
on alien grief

young men
dance with bullets -
spill blood and fight in war;
sent to their deaths on the whims of
old men

his frail form
offers a salted tribute
to the warriors lying
dead and dying on and under
his geta.  A thousand
clacking sounds rise up
into the stormy seas as
these tiny samurai know
defeat once
again.

I know
the feelings she
stirs in my ***** when I
look at her are wrong 'cause she's my
sister

to live
in harmony -
to exist without that
horrible restlessness in me
each day

dog-paddling
in zero gee
   my beagle

E equals
MC^2?
    -- the tachyon laughed

the fog outside my window creates
miniature halos around each
streetlight -
mocking me with their
barometrically-induced
divinity
how the **** can a streetlight
find God when all I find
are more reasons to dislike
my fellow man?

every day, all day,
on every channel
(CNN, MSNBC, FOX, ABC, NBC, CBS)
I see hour after
hour
of so-called news about
the latest boogeyman Arab,
celebrity pregnancies,
something else that
causes cancer,
a book that will
change my life,
or a heartwrenching expose
on teen drugs use in
suburbia.

hundreds of hours of
"news"
every day.  We talk
so much and still
fail to communicate.

And all the while, the light
outside
my window reaches enlightenment
without ever
saying
a
word.

the stained glass window in my bathroom is broken
I see it every time I ***
three shards of missing colored glass
bleeding non-filtered sunlight -
a washed-out contrast to the flavored
beams shining next to those jagged wounds

a more discerning eye might notice
  the scars
on two more pieces of tinted glass;
cracks that promise
to sacrifice their host, hint at
a future for the frame with less glass
and remind of it's eventual doom

I’ve often considered repairing that window
but I never do
the missing glass, spiderweb cracks  the flaws
make the window less ideal,
but more perfect

Washing my hands today, my face illuminated by
green light,
  red light,
    yellow light,
      broken light,
        and spidered light through cracks of glass
      I think again;
I really need to replace
that glass.

the trial
is over; the
debate’s just beginning
they’ve all just earned their Facebook law
degree

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

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.

full flower moon
in its halo
a space station

disease,
poverty, war -
hatred and bigotry
everywhere; yet each day birds
still sing

Beneath
the tubes and wires,
past those frigid machines,
you'll see the pleading eyes of a
human.

I hate zombies
they are the infantile enemy
the foe against which there is
    no guilt
the essential
        human
questions of right of wrong
  of morality
never apply to the cerebellum-craving
undead.  It's us or them
   hunt or be hunted
   **** or be killed
they are enemies that fail to
      challenge
   our notions of what it is
   to be us
give me a werewolf any day
or rather - any moon
the tortured lycanthrope
   forces the protagonist to
choose to **** because
    unlike zombies
there's always
   a chance
   however small
   that a werewolf
can find
redemption

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

Alone
in the desert
of my sable anguish -
a solitary wildflower,
I weep.

amber
nectar that burns -
the whiskey on my breath -
fuels my rage, my lust, but weakens
my ****

when I was five and life was a song of
excitement and innocence
the world was full of mystery
and I had never felt
the pain of hurt or loss of
any kind    and then
one day
a playmate pushed me right off the swing
you picked me up   brushed me off
   told me not to cry
‘mommy,’ I said,
‘it hurts’

when I was sixteen and in love for the  first time
to a young Cuban girl I felt like
    an adult doing adult things
dates and kissing and groping
and late-night phone calls with the
cord stretched and twisted through the house
and under my door    and then
one day
she left me for another teenage crush
and I felt world-ending
anguish  burning, hot, consuming
as only a teenager can feel them
you held me close
   told me I’d be ok
‘but mom,’ said I,
‘it hurts.’

when I was thirty-five at the end of my marriage
holding on to it with desperate and futile hands
trying to be a good father to my sons
who put me on a pedestal high enough
to rival the gods
I fought depression
and anger
even as I felt co-dependent longing
for the woman who was
  breaking my heart
there at the end of that marriage
one day
you held your grandchildren
and me
   and told us we’d be ok
‘mom,’ I said
   ‘it hurts.’
  
when I was thirty-eight and dying
from the cancer eating  my body
  repulsed by
the very sight of my
shriveled and sunken body with
chemotherapy eyes set deep
deep inside my skull
and scars on my body finally
making me as ugly in life as I felt inside
I despaired and I grieved
the loss of innocence
in my children and the burden
on my new girlfriend
one day
you sat by my bedside
and held my hand,
  told me the kids
and I
were stronger than I knew
‘but mom’ I said, looking
at their pictures,
‘it hurts.’

when I was forty and strong again,
recovered from cancer
and from divorce
my scars a badge of character and honor
with a beautiful new bride by my side
a new life to live
and a new daughter to love
that day
  you lay in a hospital bed
clinging desperately to life
     machines to monitor
tubes to breath
nurses to care and
doctors to treat
I held your hand, like you always held mine,
  alongside
your daughter (my sister) and
your other son (my brother)
as you breathed your last
even as I
   sobbed at your passing
and fell into the arms of my wife and siblings
I wondered
  selfishly
who now will hold me like you did
like only you could
because oh god, mom
it hurts.

it’s not the video;
she really looks
like that

they frown
at my tattoos
as I ride past their church;
I think if they had stones they would
cast them

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.

Kälteschlaf
die Jahrhunderte
fliegen vorbei

little
nugget, wide-eyed,
hairless, with red-faced wails;
you just ate - why are we awake
tonight?

don't know
where we are now;
don't know how we got here.
all that matters is that I'm here
with you.

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

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

my scar
etiolate
but my vigor remains
I stand unbowed, unbeaten, and
alive

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

she lies
     amid a twisted and
       sweaty sheet
  a goddess basking in
     naked glory
  her silky wetness
     coats my beard,
     white and hoary
I grin,
     lay next to her,
   in mild conceit
as her body
   trembles in final throes
  of lascivious
     ******* delight
  low purr from her
    lips
  as my passion ignites
she gives
     me the look that I
     cannot oppose
     pushes me back,
  her head
     between
  my legs, a
   playful bite
  lets me know it's
     my turn

My arms held high, I glorify the night
which masks the horror of the world from me;
all the death, the sorrow and the spite.
I cannot fear that which I cannot see.

The night cries only to those who listen.
Deafened, I reach out and embrace the dark,
offering my soul in full submission.
And yet, the night cries dimly reach their mark.

The sweet comfort of night peels away
leaving ugly darkness and empty skies.
The keening leaves me in a disarray.
Frightened, I listen as the night cries.

The night cries torment me as there I stay;
I long only for the coming of day.

the room is filled with
old lady stank
the kind that assaults the nose
and crawls down the throat in
an angry attempt to
drive you right out of the building.

she says the walls are “peach”
but I can see behind the cracked flakes
that it was once yellow.
I just grunt and sit at the edge of the bed
determined to hate both colors on
principle alone

I don’t want to be here, in her stank
I don’t want to look at the cracked
and pitted
desert that was once her face
I don’t want to strain to hear her
wavering and whispery voice

Yet here I am,
surrounded
by horrific images of a ****** Christ
nailed ironically to the walls
rosary beads hanging from
every candle in the room
and the Blessed ******
fighting
for space on the walls next to her
zombie son

where’s her god now
I wonder sourly as I strain to hear
her wavering and whispery voice
relate how nice the orderly was
who
washed
her prune of a body this morning.

hell, forget the god
where was her family
or her friends
or her nut job preacher

there’s only me
carrying my own stank of
whiskey and smokes
sitting here on the edge of
her bed
listening to her stories