#wwwthomaswcasecom
We lived for the
next drink; the elixir to
erase the memories of
a thousand cruel dawns.
It took work when we
were broken and bedraggled.
Creativity and thirst drove
us through the day.
"Do you have anything to pawn?"
"Hey, why don't we stop by the
old carnival guy's place, he's
always good for a belt."
"Big Brenda will you give you a
10 spot to go down on her,
are you
up for it?"
The **** we did to stay liquid smooth.
We redeemed cans for nickels, It took
hundreds to get a bottle.
In and out of dumpsters filled with
the most vile trash imaginable.
Me and those aluminum cowboys,
knee-deep in the filth just to
get a drink.
Winter was bad, frostbitten hands and
hearts, but summer was worse.
Something about the way the sun
cooked the trash had a hellish putrid
effect on the soul.
That smell was the seed of my
sobriety.
Aug 12, 2025
Aug 12, 2025 at 10:00 AM UTC
Writing is my lighthouse when
I'm lost at sea in the
dark fog
among the sirens singing their
seductive songs.
It is my net
that catches fish to feed
me when I'm starving and afraid.
An albatross silently looms, while
waves swell and break against my
raft.
The kraken yawns and waits,
but the words and lines tow
me safely to shore.
Aug 8, 2025
Aug 8, 2025 at 4:31 PM UTC
The efficiency room days were
the worst and the best.
Broke and bent,
sick and deranged.
Disheveled dreams, like
horses with broken legs.
There was an occasional
miracle.
A forgotten five-dollar
bill crumpled in the
front pocket of some *****
jeans, lying by the fake
plant and a copy of Hamsun's
Hunger, long overdue from
the library.
The fiver would buy a
pint of cheap *****
My nerves settled for a
moment.
Friends seem to drift
away by the month.
"Where's Johnny?"
"He froze down at the Raccoon River."
"Oh **** he was always good for a snort."
"Have you seen Sue lately?"
"The cirrhosis finally took her."
"Son of a ***** I used to get drunk and
tell her I loved her, while she gave me head."
Poverty and death drank with us in
those cheap rooms,
Singing sad songs and songs
of victory.
Battles were won and lost
and great debates waged in our
addled minds.
We took care of each other the best
we knew how.
Life was just a myth.
Aug 6, 2025
Aug 6, 2025 at 12:42 PM UTC
Music isn't the same anymore.
The purity and grit are gone.
It's mechanical and cold.
I remember the days of
records and record players.
The crack and pop, the
sizzling booming bass that
rumbled in my soul.
I think of a song, let's say
something by Zeppelin.
I close my eyes and smell
the **** see the
blacklight poster on
the brick basement walls.
I lift up the needle and
ramble on.
Aug 3, 2025
Aug 3, 2025 at 6:44 PM UTC
A strange pattern for
writing has come
to me lately.
The skeletons of
poems form when I
lie down for a nap.
Sleep always calls,
and bones want to
dance and grow skin.
Lilacs bloom, and I feel
the inner thigh of
eternity, soft and wet.
I can't get any rest.
I have to jot down the
notes or they turn
to ashes and blow away,
or, they are buried deep in
mud and slumber,
impossible to dig up.
I sleep with a notebook and
pen, as I drift off,
I whisper to the tortured
bones,
don't cry and try not to worry.
I'll bring you to life.
Jul 30, 2025
Jul 30, 2025 at 2:00 PM UTC
I cuddled up with
a metaphor that was
caught in the corner of
my room.
I dressed it in the
silk of kings, and fed
it from the fractured
trees of innocence.
Low-hanging fruit of
despair gets us
every time.
Jul 27, 2025
Jul 27, 2025 at 1:49 PM UTC
What happened to your heart?
It used to be so strong.
When did these **** nights
get so ****** long
You're my Lady of ashes,
and I'm all burnt up.
You threw me in the fire;
And my soul has had enough.
I've had enough...
I've had enough,
I've had enough
Yeah.
Jul 24, 2025
Jul 24, 2025 at 6:17 PM UTC
One of the first times I
went to jail, it was in
Polk County for
public intox.
Drunk in public.
I was homeless for years,
where else was I supposed
to get drunk?
They took me to the
station booked me, and gave
me my phonecall.
I called the bail bonds.
They wanted collateral.
I didn't have anything.
To act tough, I said,
**** you." and hung up.
The cop asked if I felt suicidal.
I didn't but in my drunken
stupor, I said,
"I wish I were dead, you ******* pig."
My next steps were to a small
room with a drain in the middle of
the floor. They had me strip all my
clothes off and gave me a paper gown.
It was the worst ten hours in jail I
ever spent.
Then, I did wish I was dead.
I was released the next morning.
Kind of sober, and kind of glad to
be alive.
I changed into my clothes.
I found two valiums in my back pocket.
I took them quickly and thought I
need to find a safer place to
get drunk.
Jul 20, 2025
Jul 20, 2025 at 7:13 PM UTC
Nobody knows when
love will roll in and
waltz with your crippled
soul.
Nobody knows when
the chickens will come
home, or when the dog
will have its day.
I heard of a place where
silence blossoms into
flowers of wisdom, but
when I ask for directions,
nobody knows.
I taste the sadness of
the sky in every poisoned
drop of rain.
I was born to swallow it.
To be consumed by the
gray expanse.
I ask for the antidote,
the cure.
Nobody Knows.
What happened to the
street signs, the picket fences,
all the love and empty spaces?
People play games, and only
traces of humanity remain.
How do I pull the cord on
this parachute?
Nobody Knows.
Jul 16, 2025
Jul 16, 2025 at 10:39 AM UTC
Where did the literary
giants write their masterpieces?
Thoughts like this plague
me when my mind stews.
I heard that Hemingway
stood to write.
Did any of them write on
the toilet?
Straining to ****
"Call me Ishmael"
Could that have been the genesis
for Moby ****
I like to write in bed, sleep
competes with the creative
process, but I keep coffee on
my nightstand.
I prop myself with
Hawkeye pillows, and
arrange the vapes.
Cigarettes are gone, but the
nicotine addiction remains.
No ***** to spill on
the pages, and no woman to
vie for my affection.
Tonight, I make love to
the page.
Jul 13, 2025
Jul 13, 2025 at 4:55 PM UTC
There are days
when the fat
rain beats the
tent like a snare
drum.
Sleep is impossible,
a distant
memory from youth.
Beautiful flowers die,
and green isn't quite
green enough.
It turns to olive brown,
then black.
People don't behave
and we can't make them.
I hope there is
rest when it's all
said and done.
Jul 10, 2025
Jul 10, 2025 at 2:15 PM UTC
Of all the literary
devices, my favorite
one is living.
There's no substitute.
As poets, we pull back the
curtain to our view of life.
You can shape your craft as
you go.
Metaphors will come all
over the page.
Your imagery will become
pencil-sharp and vivid.
Be patient.
If you don't have to
write, it will be easier if
you choose not to.
There are more enjoyable
activities:
***
Eating a lobster at dawn
Fishing
Swimming
Playing with your dog
or cat
************
traveling.
Even getting your teeth
pulled can be less frustrating.
But if you must write,
you will.
Try not to ***** when
you are sick to your
stomach.
Paint a picture with
words.
Frame it with phrases.
Shine a light into the
vast darkness of mankind's
soul.
Be the light.
Jul 8, 2025
Jul 8, 2025 at 7:46 AM UTC
Hope migrates to
sunny island shores.
There is no sorrow,
roses always bloom,
and the birds of paradise
fly forever free.
The salty ocean
cleanses the rot
from the skin
and the heart.
Jul 4, 2025
Jul 4, 2025 at 6:42 PM UTC
It didn't matter if it was
August, and the air felt like an
oven on broil, or if it was
February, and the dumpsters
were icecicles to the soul.
We needed ***** and since we
didn't have jobs, the cans, at
5 cents a piece were our
aluminum tickets to sweet relief.
The magic click.
Enough cans meant a bottle of
whiskey
*****
gin,
anything to dull the
sharp, vivid pain of life.
We sifted through
cat ****
catsup
***** diapers
discarded ***** mags,
and all the other
garbage from the
rich and the poor.
One winter morning,
I threw back a heavy metal lid,
and there was a fat
raccoon looking up at me.
If Bacchus or Dionysus were
smiling, we found a
full bottle.
It happened once in
a while during summer when
the college kids headed home.
Miles of walking,
freezing or burning up,
We were the aluminum
cowboys.
Jul 2, 2025
Jul 2, 2025 at 12:34 PM UTC
We became friends later.
On that day we were
combatants.
Two kids trying to
prove their manhood.
I circled left, shot a quick
jab.
I missed and Doug laughed.
He hit me fast with a right.
Laughed again.
I circled right, this time my
jab landed.
There was a gush of
blood from his nose.
He wiped at it, and said,
My ******* sister hits
harder than that.
I hit him again.
I'll bet she doesn't hit
harder than that, I said.
You'd lose that bet, Doug said.
Mr Jester came running out of
his house.
You boys quit fighting and shake
hands right now...I want you to
say something nice about each other.
He motioned towards me.
Well, Sir, Doug here has a tough sister.
She hits harder than most boys,
at least that's what I heard.
Doug grinned.
Oh, a regular Marciano, huh Doug?
Oh yes, sir.
She can be a real mean ***** when she
wants to be.
Mr Jester said,
Hey, watch your language you
little degenerate.
Who do you think you are,
John Dillinger?
Doug muttered some
sort of apology.
Go on, the old man said, it's
your turn.
"Tommy boy here has a
great curve ball.
He got five strikeouts last week."
"Hey, that's great son, you gonna be
in the major leagues when you grow up?"
Yes, Sir, I said.
Someone was mowing their lawn, and
the smell of fresh-cut grass filled the air.
We were young, green, and tough.
"How about you son, do you want to play
in the big leagues too?" Jester asked.
Doug grinned.
"No sir, baseball isn't my thing.
When I get older, I'd like to ***** one of
your daughters."
Doug took off running.
He ran track for the team.
100-yard dash if I remember right.
I could hear Mr. Jester just
barely over the lawn mower.
Come here you rotten little
son of a *****
Jun 28, 2025
Jun 28, 2025 at 7:51 PM UTC
In every room
I've lived in,
all the dilapidated shacks
over the years that I've
stayed in, always had a
brown spider that crawled
the walls.
It had a little suitcase.
I thought to myself that it
planned on leaving, moving to
someplace better.
It never did.
It always just set up shop, and
spun a web in the corner and caught
flies, and occasionally a small moth.
On drunken sad moon nights,
I sang dirges to the trapped bugs.
They smiled and laughed, even though
they were dying.
Jun 26, 2025
Jun 26, 2025 at 10:43 AM UTC
On my last drunken escapade,
I was sitting in my girlfriend's
living room.
It was 3:28 am, I was *******
on a cheap bottle of ***** and
It was ******* the soul right
out of me.
I knew things needed to change.
She had just ****** me dry in
the bedroom, and I was losing
all my strength.
I had the wisdom of a snail,
inching along, waiting to be
crushed.
I wasn't drunk, just liquid smooth.
Contemplating and configuring the
degradation and the lack of
windmills to chase.
The mirror had become a horrible and
pitiful place. Out of the corner of
my eye, I saw a large shadow zip
across the wall.
A second later, our cat, Patches, leapt
into the air.
I heard a terrible
Squeak, tweet, squawk,
I ran to her and began prying
at her mouth.
It was a small night bird.
I took it from her and put it
outside.
It was still alive, and there was
no
blood on my hands.
I said,
Bad Patches.
It freaked me out.
I woke up my girlfriend and told
her what happened.
She said,
are you sure it wasn't a dream?
I went into the bathroom and looked
in the mirror.
I drained the last of the *****
and walked to the hospital.
When it's time,
you just know.
Jun 22, 2025
Jun 22, 2025 at 2:26 PM UTC
The words and lines
aren't coming today.
I lie down for a nap.
I dreamt of metaphors
and similes.
I woke up.
The years swim away
like bass at spawning
time.
Jun 20, 2025
Jun 20, 2025 at 12:25 PM UTC
On our way into
Santa Anita one day,
an old man had tipped
over in his wheelchair.
There was a pool of blood
beneath his smooth head.
I was with my Dad.
He was around the same
age as the poor injured man.
I was 12.
Seeing that man, and watching
the blank stares of the apathetic
crowd gathering around the
man, and the blood, and the
fallen wheelchair, I knew that
nobody would win, and the
horses that ran were the luckiest
of us all.
Jun 17, 2025
Jun 17, 2025 at 9:53 AM UTC
As nightmares subside
at dawn, your eyes
reflect the fear and the
pain.
They spill a desire to try.
Please try.
You can walk in the
rain without an umbrella
and let the clover and
honeysuckle guide you
to safety.
Evict the chaos from
your thoughts, and
leave the incubus behind.
Jun 14, 2025
Jun 14, 2025 at 8:16 PM UTC
On the backs of
flies
we wait for the
next thing.
Something is
always coming.
A birth or death,
food or hunger
hatred
laughter
love...
Something is always
coming around the
corner.
The Mad Hatter with
mushroom tea.
A strange color of
blue that tastes like
almonds.
A ****** that sparkles
in the night.
Listless mornings
of languid
walks with the
wife in the cool
of the evening.
A knife in the back,
a shark attack,
or maybe, just
possibly, you write
a poem about
waiting for the
next thing.
Jun 12, 2025
Jun 12, 2025 at 10:02 AM UTC
Bowing to the ***** god,
I lived like a pleasure
seeking missile, propelled
toward all things ME.
Empty as a carcass.
Hungry as a desert.
I didn't see the
strawberry moon of
summer.
It was me and the
Ferryman, until the
river ran dry.
Eternal winter for
the soul.
And then
A revolution in my
being.
A total shift in
my values and
perception.
The Creator purchased
my dilapidated heart.
He moved in and lives
there still.
My home, on the outside
might look like
a shack to some, but inside
it's a mansion with the
most sublime bread you
ever tasted.
Fruit trees in every room.
Jun 10, 2025
Jun 10, 2025 at 5:56 PM UTC
We talk about the
past like it's a
movie we
watched together.
You liked the
cinematography.
I didn't care for the
cruelty of the
protagonist.
We disagree on the
theme, and every
scene holds different
aspects of
symbolism for us.
I'm not sure I want
there to be a sequel,
despite the good
acting.
Jun 8, 2025
Jun 8, 2025 at 11:00 AM UTC
You were worried about
the storm, so you
invited it in,
wanting to control the
damage through your
kindness and friendship.
But you can't.
The storm doesn't have
a conscience.
It will never be a cute
pet on your leash.
Jun 4, 2025
Jun 4, 2025 at 9:19 AM UTC
When my oldest brother, Todd,
came back for my mom's funeral,
he had this light about him.
His face was a poem.
Sure, he was the oldest, and he
had a healthy-looking tan from the
hot New Mexico sun, working
outside with turquoise, silver,
and bear claws to make
jewelry for the tourists, but there
was more than that.
He was an artist, and all artists have
a fractured ease about things, but he
lit up. Something from the inside
projected out.
He comforted everyone else, we leaned
on him. His eyes oozed serenity.
A few calendars later, when I traveled
back for his funeral, I saw the same
look on a few of his friends' faces.
His wife told me after the service
that Todd had gotten sober years before.
Jun 1, 2025
Jun 1, 2025 at 8:26 PM UTC