If only I could summon the will to banish my daemons;
Exorcise the rot that for too long has brought me low;
Waged a war unseen and unheard by the outside;
Inside, a mutinous cacophony of a ****** battlefield;
Where the parts of me unfouled by corruption, weep;
Tears of crimson blood run down as flowing rivers rage;
Anger, that the current refuses to change its course;
Sadness, that I was the one who had diverted destiny;
Swept away by tides no mortal man can hope to shake;
Trapped, like mighty Atlas, beneath the weight of fate;
An unfortunate purgatory of endless indecision;
A fear to see myself beyond the scars I have caused;
Calloused, my pessimism knows no boundaries;
There can be no going back to brighter days;
When days are comparable only to the blackest night;
Sunrises carry the gravitas of the setting sun, reversed;
Life, loses the beauty that once inspired the muse;
Leaving me feeling empty, lost on 'oft forgotten seas;
Praying for Charybdis to churn and drown my daemons;
Finally setting me free from this self imposed slavery;
Shattering the chains holding my past to my present

Though I'm not in jail it all just feels the same
Waking up depressed told just not to complain
A shotgun to my head i feel like Curt Cobain
Not a literal sense, but the context sustains
I don't want money, success, not even some fame
I just want to learn to play this game
Each day it gets hard i just keep  breathing
Wondering how the **** this happened, it feels like treason
From a comical skeptic to a reliable source
I question the water that was gave to the horse
Viewed as a sinner but always in doubt
"Read from the scripture and figure it out"
Nightmares keeping me awake like a proxy
SO many bad thoughts I wish I could get off me
Do your 12 steps Bob, everything is kosher
Yet I wake every night screaming still sober
A stranger does the same, and everyone wants to know her
A technicality set, a glimpse for closure
Different from most but related to some
I feel alone but second to none
Shaking again always be the **** up
"drinkings a sin" Always press my luck up
Some things I will never understand
But if it doesn't change I will be ******

The cats gather
en masse every
time I sit
down to write.
One by one, they
jump up on the
big maple desk,
and walk across the
keyboard.

Mojo swats at
Shadow's tail.
Bukowski nips at
my fingers as they
peck at the keys.
It's going to be
a long night.
The cats don't
understand poetry
or marketing.
Shadow hisses, and
jumps down.
Bukowski gets
bored, and bites at
the cords.
He gets overly
excited, and slips off
the back of the desk.
The wild look in
his eyes flash
centuries of power
and sadness.

I think of my feral
days on the streets,
stealing *****, and
sleeping under
bridges in
December.
I wrote my words on
the walls of the
abandoned
houses.
And now,
such beautiful
providence.
I quit drinking and
I live in a town with
a clear lake.  I catch
fish and eat them.
I've published three
books and I write my
poetry on a
computer that my
three cats view as
a playground.

Sometimes,
it all seems like a
furry dream.