She drinks beer and farts like a sailor.
She cusses like someone with Tourette's.
She complains constantly,
like it gets her high. She's never read a book,
and the look on her face when I
bring up Hemingway, Bukowski, or Gogol
is something to see.
She doesn't have the faintest clue what
fidelity means. Yet, with all of
her shortcomings, I've never met a woman that
could **** like her. It's magical; sometimes
I think she put a spell on me;
our ****** chemistry is mythological. She rides me like
I'm the wild frontier. She makes the cutest
face when she comes.
Sometimes, I wonder if Papa, Buk, or Nicolai
had it this good?
Besides, who doesn't like drinking beer and farting?
And after a glorious night with her,
I'm pretty sure that reading is overrated.

When it's quiet, except for
the fan in the hall
and apathy crawls across the
floor like a spider
and the enemies are
thicker than friends
and the brain dries up
and the flame goes out
and writing a decent line is
like panning for gold...
Remember
it's a long row to ***.

When nothing touches
you but the rain
and the wind, and the
pain from the sins of
your youth
and every fruit in
the garden is rotten
and you take a bite
just to keep from starving, and now
what you know can't be forgotten,
remember
it's a long
row to ***.

When each pain is new
and every sorrow is fresh with
the opening of the eyes
and
if
you're blind to the darkness
of the world
or
you see it all too well...
remember
it's still a
long row to ***.

For the first time in my
life, I saw colors- not like
normal people see colors; my recent woman
sees colors all the time.
This morning, there was
purple splashed all over my room.
Once, in her sleep, she said
the word 'purple.'
I asked her what it meant,
she said, 'Knowledge of the future.'
I know she will try and ***** this
sickness out of me; God Bless her.
What do I know about the future?
I know it looks bleak, and the
doves are crying.

I was walking in
that old betrayer,
rain.
I was soaked to the gills,
and my wingtips were
sloshing on every
broken sidewalk.
The wind took my last
match, so smoking was out.
I'd give my liver for
a lighter and two
dimes to rub together.
I think I'll join the
carnival, get on that
tunnel of love and never
get off.

I made a
vision board
in treatment
the other day.
I had to
hunt for a
picture of
Mom and Dad.

Where the ****
did the time go?
They have been gone
for over 30 years now.

The hour glass
broke,
and the sand
blew and blended
me in with the
storms of life.
I tried to
drink
all the pain away;
to become a
lobotomized shell.
It didn't work.
The poet in me
felt everything.

I have four
kids that my
parents never got
to meet.
Sometimes I see
Mom and Dad
in my son's and
daughter's eyes.
Two have blue
like Dad.
And two have brown
like Mom and me.
They are
intelligent
sensitive
and caring.

When I was
little, I thought
my parents would
live forever.
On my vision
board,
I become a
better father.

I remember walking miles with
our blackies (big garbage bags)
They were full of cans, a nickel a piece.
We were poor aluminum cowboys.
Kind of like Don Quixote and Sancho.
Chivalry wasn't our thing, but we
didn't shy away from it either.
We certainly had our share of
adventures, and misadventures too.
We headed East into the
glorious tangerine and lavender sky of
our La Mancha/Iowa City.
We should be chasing windmills, and
*****, and cigarette butts;
except late one Summer day,
providence ended it all.
We sat behind our castle
(which closely resembled a grocery store.)
Your face went pallid and you fell on me.
I did C.P.R until the ambulance arrived.
You didn't make it.
I hope there are
adventures in Heaven,
my aluminum cowboy.

Writing is my love that
never betrays.
It doesn't lie or
cheat.
It never complains that I
leave the toilet seat up or
that I leave hairs in the sink.
It has never said, "You drink too much or
not enough." It always wins the bets,
sets the sun, and skins the cat.
It's always raw and never
well done—medium rare at
worst, and never burnt.
It doesn't ask me to
do aerobics or yoga, and it
would never tell me to quit smoking;
I would stake my life on it.
Writing is my love that
will be with me until
the end.