William Saroyan said, "I ruined my
life by marrying the same woman
twice."

there will always be something
to ruin our lives,
William,
it all depends upon
what or which
finds us
first,
we are always
ripe and ready
to be
taken.

ruined lives are
normal
both for the wise
and
others.

it is only when
that life
ruined
becomes ours
we realize
then
that the suicides, the
drunkards, the mad, the
jailed, the dopers
and etc. etc.
are just as common
a part of existence
as the gladiola, the
rainbow
the
hurricane
and nothing
left
on the kitchen
shelf.

Sad, mooning morning
Lost beasts and time
Disgust for machine lust overwhelming
It's not that I don't love you
That you don't love me enough
To sinfully and wantonly **** me
After all it's my birthday
Cause I'm old and you've lost interest
in being the man I loved
That's why our children tricked you
into writing and sending your confession

Stand up and take a bow
we learned your lessons well
who to trust, how to trust, and when
Turned us kids into your spies,
your lies, your alibis
to get us to create the software to do it
So you could **** your mystic **** genie
please know our kindness as hatred
All access passes to dumb *******
This memeallscene is a gallery crawl,
a gallow's walk of perps,
who should have known better

Just a thanks for clogging
the artists' ether with kiddy ****
much love for Kate Torn
we used your magick
to put us back together
Your address is on the ticket,
the reddress that you bought her.
Tap lightly, tap lively not,
the tuoche of Jack Frost is upon you.

All the best and much kindness.
Perfection is a trick of the mind.

This poem will change and tighten
the ties that bind us together
From the women and men of Bandahache.
for the women who sign away the right
to tell their stories
I hear you Anita Hill
But we've been stalked and stifled long enough
Yes, that's what prayer can do

Swelling squalls of erectile tissue
encountering memories of you

wickering through me like a swish of ink making it's way across paper

the other day
seated in his office
I asked my stubborn, mean-looking
bushy-eyebrows editor
if he’d consider two books:
“Short Stories for Real Short People”
and “Truly Tall Tales for Tall People”

and he sat back with that air
(actually, made you think he wanted to release air)
and he said:
“You’ll get shot for titles like that…
'Short Stories for Real Short People'
will directly offend people
who are vertically challenged
And the same people would shoot you
for excluding them by implication
in the epithet 'Tall' –
They’ll sure shoot you for that…
They’re both just politically incorrect”

And I leaned forward
(releasing air myself –
anything he can do, I can do better!)
and I said:
“Sure, it’s not politically correct – but it sure
ain’t psychologically correct, given our times,
to speak of shooting while we are in an office”

I hear the Editor no longer works there
and is now in some publishing house
who are specialists  in books on Accounting
and Engineering
where he knows, for sure, I’m never likely to go

He told me
people are like
long
dark
hallways.  
You flicker on the lights
and wobble around
but you have to just keep
going forward.

His eyes
Pressed into her with the pull of polarity
A haunting indication of an impossibility too beautiful to protest
He looks
With a longing he has hidden deep in his sock drawer
So no one can tell him he’s wrong or irrational
A locket only to be worn round his pulsating mind’s mannequin
But she wears on her sleeve what he’s trying to leave
And dressed like a nightingale
In feathers so free
Her eyes with a fire that waves like the sea
Closer they crawl
Past night’s shadowed humans getting drunk off doubt and betting on beauty
Past the scratches on stools once straddled by sorrow
And Isolation, his lover
Who lost her last words somewhere under the covers
That they shook out in morning
To shake off the mourning
But the streets crave a sweep
For the ashes are thick and catch on their tongue
Reminding the runaways to stop feeling young
And as they both draw so near
With the friction of fear
And the whip of a wish
And a harsh hit of hope
For the call of a kiss
Her hairs stand on stilts at the nape of her neck
An impatient frenzy that’s waiting on deck
But the lights left her lonely
A bubble-bruised brain
And he left her only
The promise of pain
As he grabbed another hand and rushed out the door
She smiled a sadness that left her lips sore
And gathered her hollows
And the last of her trust
And took to the streets with the ashes and dust

don't kiss me in the morning
with coffee on your breath

don't rest your shower drenched
head on my thighs in the middle of the day

don't run my ***** hair through your fingers
at a quarter to two in the morning
and tell me that i'll be okay

don't light my cigarettes
             don't drive my car
                             don't use my cellphone
don't read my poetry
                        don't sing to me
                                             don't laugh with me
           don't tell me about your mother
or your father or your sister or your brother

              and don't you dare cry
                            don't cry under the stars
                                or on the stairwell
don't cry in my bed
            or on the roof of your favorite building
                         don't cry because you're happy
don't cry because you're scared
                   don't cry because you're sad or sick or confused
             please don't ever ******* cry

*because i can't fall in love again
it's such an ugly mess in the end