I have come through
the wildfires and
abject poverty.
The sardine days filled
with ghoulish women and
cowardly men.
Now, I have four
walls, and a table to
write at.
I've decorated my castle:
pictures and tapestries,
a raven figurine sitting
on a stump by the aloe vera.
I have a bookshelf from
the curb; all my
favorites are on it.
I turned my brother onto,
A Confederacy of Dunces
I hear him laugh from his
4 walls.
He escaped the
parasitical nights and the
neon souled undead.

It's a great life if
you don't succumb to
the crowd and the slugs that
just slide on through.
Now, it's the simple
things that bring me pleasure:
house plants, coffee brewing,
and the sound of my
neighbor watering his grass.
I think I will get a goldfish.
All perfect and orange.
And on the fringe, I hear
that feral cat, howling in
the night, without his
4 walls.

If you get the chance, check out Seedy Town Blues Collected Poems by Thomas W. Case.  It's available on all formats on Amazon

Some people serve
little gods.
They keep them in
a shoe box with
other odds and ends.
They take them out when
they need something.
Their gods don't expect
much of them.
I can tell by the
way they treat people.
Cold and cruel.
Wars break out,
famine hits,
families disintegrate.
And there goes Betty,
reaching up in the
cupboard for her
dust covered god.
She asks it to
make everything okay.
She lights candles for it.
Sometimes she has a
little ceremony.
But her tiny god can't fix
her heart, it's brutal and lost.
It does like religiosity though.

She is safe in
her madness.
A comfortable
tomb, convenient,
but suspect.
I wish it were
a gentle lunacy,
like Don Quixote,
almost admirable.
But it's rabid like
a berserker or
harpy, shrieking at
love and light.
destroying everything.

Some people are
drunk on power, pride,
and control.
When they
wake up and realize
they aren't God,
they change
direction or perish.

I will not trade
my serenity for
madness.
This sadness only
lasts a little while.
I don't want to be
in Wonderland anymore.
Everyone is crazy.
whichever way I
turn, left or right,
it's lunacy.

I deal in reality now.
I won't play croquet with
the queen, no matter
how much she smiles.
The game is fixed, and I
know it.
The deck is stacked.
The cards are laid,
and I see the
***** behind
her eyes.

Hey everyone.  It has been quite a journey here.  I have come to think of you as family.  I love you all.  I am happy to announce that my book, Seedy Town Blues, Collected Poems is available on Amazon, All formats available. Thank you all.  If the link doesn't work, just search the title on Amazon.  If you do purchase the book, would you mind leaving a review?  All of you are great.
https://www.amazon.com/stores/Thomas-W.-Case/author/B0CL2RKDGX?ref=aprdr&storeref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

I watched a young
boy beat his
chest and scream at
the dawn until
the liquid sky drove
him away.
He chased thunder
and
butterflies with the
same enthusiasm;
oozing a lust for
living in his chasm
of youth.
Ten years full of
questions and scabbed
up knees, freckled dreams
running across green fields
and sunlit meadows.
Golden little life,
resting beneath a
willow tree to sip the
sweetness
from the clover and
honeysuckle flowers.
Hours full of pocketknife
afternoons, whittling sticks
into arrows to
shoot at the moon.
And after the rain
oh sweet green youth,
run barefoot with the
wind
toward a sinless
sky.
And live, live
live, for tomorrow
will come with a sigh.