sometimes,
   we find ourselves
with no choice,
   but to watch.

Settle down
I'm sinking in
     to this dingy motel tub.
Stain the water
     with the paint
from my sardonic, smiling face
now, babe, I got a flower in my hatband and
a sloshing bottle in my white gloved hand.
     Do you think we'll still be laughing
                              in the morning...?

Blinking lights and bleary eyes
in a neon wash for a bloodshot lifetime,
and a swallow
     is all I wanna take.

     Besides, I'm still holding the bag.

Puddle up
pull the plug
     colors circle 'round the drain
Pollute the night
     with a laugh
from inside this facepaint bath.
And, babe, I been swirled 'round the world's full glass
and, for a bit, I guess, it was a helluva gas
but, ya know,
                  nobody makes it in the end...
                  
                  so where's the joke end or begin?

Reddened nose and ***** jokes.
Life's a vacation, I'm a pig in a poke
and a mouthful
     is all I need to take...

     We all get left holding the bag.

Let the secret in the rosebud
Retain its secrecy,
Afore the wind will scatter
And set the petals free.

LOVE  
Lust
Fear
Trust
Give
Take
Bend
Break
Fire
Ice
Naughty
Nice
Push
Pull
Wise
Fool
Hope
Doubt
Water
Drought
St­ay
Leave
Encourage
Grieve
Manipulate
Passive
Base
Acid
Free
Bound­
Lost
Found

Threescore and ten is an average, not a promise, and all too easy to take for granted.  
The years pass, not with the ticking of the clock, but with the silent hissing of sand through the center of an hourglass.  
Their passage is felt more than heard; their piling at the bottom a slow and subtle thing.
The fighter can grasp all he wants.  
He will never hold it all.  
In that fight, time is always the winner, and the grave always receives the trophy.

Winding and throwing
A blow like summer thunder,
He misses the mark

Every second he is missing,
The wheels of my heart whine
With the ache and the longing
For his hand to hold mine.

Gone a man, beaten, and brave
I embodied his wine.
God dug him a grave—
I made it a shrine.

Love settles in the back of my head and chest, but if love was a thought it was a feeling in the time of sadness which is all the time of course, sadness does not exist without reality and reality be nothing without despair. The balance of life is not black in white, yin or yen,  or happiness and sadness it is sadness and less sadness because sadness with always cover everyones head with the veil of death because death, is inevitable and death brings sadness therefor sadness is inevitable.

Death lines the corners of my mouth waiting to be inhaled as i smoke my first and maybe last cigarette maybe last because I can die at any moment.