When does the
champ know that  
he doesn’t have  
It anymore?
Is it after that
first loss to a
*** he should  
have knocked out in
the second round?
Is it when his body
doesn't do what
his mind tells it
to do?  

His punches are
slow.
His legs are
weak.
He once was one
of the greatest.
Iron Mike, they
called him.

He loses to an
overhyped cute
boy with little skills,  
and blonde curls.
It was brutal to watch.

He was king of
the jungle in those
early Brooklyn days.
Old lions don’t just
wander off and die
alone.  
They get killed and
eaten by  
younger lions.

After this charade,
I hope the champ
hangs up his
gloves for good.

I woke up with
A sore back, and
stepped in cat
***** when my
feet hit the floor.
I turned on the
radio, and My Favorite
Things was playing,
the John Coltrane
version.
It reminds me of
rainy July nights.

I make some coffee,
And check the book sales.
Hey, I got a couple in
India, and the coffee tastes
right.

I take it as it comes.
Black and true, like
Steinbeck's bones.
Don’t forget about the
goings of mice and men.

It’s hot in
Missouri.
The summer  
sun looks down  
jealous of
youth playing in
the fields,
carefree and
careless.
Kids drown
muskrats with
rocks in the
stream, and have
funerals for flies.
Death watches, and
waits for
winter to come.

All the hard
times prepared me
for this.
The hopeless
times, black sun
sadness.
The long seasons of
madness.
Starving, like a
winter tomcat.

The hospital stays.
Jails and psych wards.
The fist fights under
bridges.
Midnight swims, drunk in
the Iowa River,
not drowned, only out
of spite.
All of this, and
much more got
me ready for this.

I’m sitting up in bed.
It’s 5:00 AM.
My three cats chase
each other, like
lovers in spring.
I’ve been sober
for almost two years.
I even quit smoking
cigarettes.
I’m writing regularly,
and publishing much
of it.
It’s mostly well received
worldwide.
I’m sipping a hot cup
of coffee.
It’s from Sumatra and has
notes of herbs and earth.

I look at the pictures of
Van Gogh and
Hemingway above my
antique maple desk,
as I listen to Mozart.
A writer needs four walls.
I have so much more,
children
wisdom
cats
and gratitude, the most
important thing I
found.

My mind is a
scrapbook of
tattered
memories and
ghosts that waltz to
sullen Cohen
songs in my heart.

Sometimes
it hurts
like a
rotten tooth.
I have a foul and
electric
taste in my mouth.
A metallic bitterness.
There’s a febrile and
pale stranger in the
mirror that cowers
back at me.
Tears, like candle wax.

I used to
try and drink the
pain away.
Chase worldly
pursuits, like a
dog at the track
after that mechanical
rabbit.

As I get older,
I try to practice
wisdom.
I got off that
dirt road to
damnation Island.
We are in this
carnival of ****
together.
I seek a higher love
and try to ease another's
aching,
a pursuit worthwhile.

When the urge
to react to the
tactless clowns,
and
down looks like
up,
and life's teeth
are sharper than
a steak knife,
breathe,
and take a
sacred pause.

When anger and hatred
flow through your veins,
let love reign.
On gentle Spring nights when
memories haunt you like
the lost dead,
let love reign.
When stress and confusion
overwhelm you and the
future seems as
uncertain as a roll
of the dice,
let love reign.

When you think God is
a grand prankster and
it feels like an
eternal winter in
your heart,
let love reign.
When the pictures remind
you of times long gone,
and the mirror is
a hard place to live,
let love reign.

If you get lost,
like I do in a
poem or a song,
let love reign.
In my dreams, I will
see you, and kiss you,
and hold you forever,
and there will be no
good-byes
only good mornings,
if we let love reign.

On my windowsill,
of that indigo night
you took me,
and I haven't
been the same since.

Something about you
makes me want to
be a better man.
I've grown wings,
so I take to the sky.

You slipped
away from me,
like the robins and
cherry blossoms when
spring ends,
and the fractured nights
of winter come.
I will search the
midnight alleys, and the
mountains of Chile.
I will listen for
your sweet laughter.
I long to taste your
honeysuckle lips, and
hear your heartbeat.
If I never find you,
I will be a lost leaf
on the lonesome
vagabond wind.

Another lunatic trip to
the hospital.
Nine days, this
go around.
For the first two
days, I just pulled
the covers over my
head and pretended I
was back in the womb.
It was warm and safe.
As much as I
wanted to stay,
I knew it was time to
be reborn into this
strange world of
sick streets, and
broken dreams.

amor tardius occidit
We should have
been so much
more.
Now we're just a torn
page
in a finished book.
The memories are
fading,
but the pain still lingers.
I still smell you on
my fingers.
I still taste you on
my tongue.
Love kills slowly;
a backward glance from
an invisible god.
I'm a bird that sings,
but cannot fly.
I'm the ticking of a
clock.
A rocking chair.

tick

tock...

I've been to the crushing
place.
It smells of death, and
spider mums.
Daisy chains dropped
when the music died.
The lake is murky now.
Clowns roam the street,
looking for carnivals
and meat.
Silly boys still believe
in love and dreams, and
girls that like opera and
giving head.
This world is strange, and
Picasso walks the lonely
avenues, feeding
seagulls' peanuts and paint.
No one blames him.
It's his blue period.
All the while,
an old bent man plays
the guitar.
He smells like camels,
and hope.

She worries about
everything,
real and imagined,
"what if this? What if that?"
I watched my
Mom
worry herself right
into the
grave one disastrous
December night.
My girlfriend doesn't care.
She wants me to
worry right along
with her.
And when I don't
she
gets angry.

My Dad said,
"They can **** us,
but they can't eat us."
I share this with her.
Nothing!
Just
worry, worry, worry.

Make the static go
away,
the dead-dog depression;
the fleas tip-toeing across
my brain.
Hate locks the
door to the heart,
and puts the
soul in a cage.
The rage consumes,
like a West Coast fire.

Make the static go
away,
the electric anxiety;
the butterflies swimming in
my blood.
Love is a fantasy,
a fairy tale for children.
Devotion
imprisons
the mind and
subdues the heart.

Give me sweet
apathy, beautiful
sedation, let me
float in bliss;
not tethered by emotion.
Let me get lost, deep
in the core of the orchid,
and sail aimless,
in the
vast chasm
of the sea.
Give me radical
lethargy.

Jack-o-lantern love,
stabbed by the autumn leaves;
bleeding all burnt orange and sienna.
And it smells like
cloves and vanilla,
and loneliness. Kaleidoscope confusion,
that dog bite pain
in my soul.
I don my navy blue corduroy,
as I bundle up for
the great void.

In my night
terror,
I hear the pounding
of
your wings, ripping and
tearing
at my feeble heart.
It's beating,
but
barely,
bomb-blasted by your
attack.
your love is like
a stroke;
like a bloated toad.
I'm road weary,
teary-eyed like a
sunflower.
And you scream in
the darkness like
a lamb.

I long to *** in
you.
I'm like dentures
chewed on by a stray dog;
teeth missing,
jagged like a
jack-o-lantern.

Damage control is
your best bet.
I let you way too
far in.
No turning back now.
I'm like a dumb
cow led to slaughter.

I'm miles away.
You're on a
different
island.

In her deadly
blue eyes, I fall down the
rabbit hole.
Down
down
down I go.
I hit the
earth like a
mock turtle on its
back;
with a smack;
like a shot to the vein.
She travels through my
bloodstream with the
force of a mad tea party.
Her hair is dormouse soft.
I touch it, and feed
her tarts, as she
rides me like
a guillotine;
sharp and final,
with a purpose;
like a porpoise with a
fish hook in
its mouth.
I hold on tight
and never let go.

He wants to shake the moss off his back
and leave the tad-poles behind.
They remind him of his misspent youth
and wasted Spring.
The blackbird sings of blue skies,
far off lands,
and the bullfrog dreams of flying.

I can't count how many times
I've been to D-Tox.
she was always
there by my side.
I turned her on to
the cheesecake and
yogurt berry parfait.
It was a plain yogurt with
fresh blackberries, raspberries,
strawberries and blueberries.
It was amazing- it still is.
We'd stir up the parfait and
pour it on the cheesecake.
It was divine.

I sit here and eat
it alone tonight.
The berries explode when I
put them in my mouth and
chew on them, it's like a
food that the Greek gods
would eat- an ambrosia for
the brokenhearted.
I think of you as the little
blueberries roll around on
my tongue.
It's all so creamy and succulent.

But, I sit here forlorn and eat our
yogurt berry poetry and cheesecake.
And each berry stores a memory in
every luscious bite.
I feel downhearted that you
aren't here with that juicy
purple fluid running down your chin.

I've lost everything I
owned more times than
I can count.
All I had left was
the clothes on my back.
In some ways, there was
a sense of relief.
What else could I lose?
That answer came hard
and fast like the night.
I could lose my health,
my sanity,
my friends,
my sense of peace
and love,
I could lose my
creativity and
the muse
She could end up at
the Deadwood, bellied-up
to the bar, tickling
some young English major.
I could lose a lot more
than I thought

Well, here I sit
in a three-bedroom
house that fell out
of the sky,
a few pieces of clothes,
some food,
coffee and cigarettes.
I have a blue and
orange cast on my
left leg.
I have the cast
because I fell and
broke my ankle
on a debauched
lonely winter
night.
I had surgery
ten days ago.
Now I have
more than I
bargained for, a plate and
screws galore,
and a nice healthy
****** addiction.

He had that
groaning soul
loneliness, like a
puffy white cloud,
floating aimless and
aching toward the
black abyss- that gray sky
sadness,
like he was
five years old, and just
watched his dog get
hit by a car.
You could smell
the pain- taste it
like potato chips on a
sore throat.
It smelled like a
basement or cobwebs.
I told him,
'Nothing will fix that
****- just time and dirt.'
He didn't blink,
and his soft walnut eyes
flashed
crossword confusion.

Life wears me out with its
twists and turns, and
hairpin curves.
I keep waiting for
a long, peaceful stretch
of a highway, bathed in
the rising sun.
A golden wheatfield to
to the left, a moss-covered
pond with dragonflies to
the right.
The road turns to gravel
and climbs rapidly uphill.
There are signs along the
way that promise the world.
The road gradually turns
to dirt and ultimately
disappears.

There are moments in
my life that are
too wild and
beautiful to be
tamed or captured by
words or sentences.
Musical notes could
do a better job at
conveying the experience.
D minor
or C sharp major.

My mind replays
the moments,
alive with pentatonic scales
and the taste of homemade
apple cider, and pomegranate
security.
I smell the burning leaves of
late October, and feel
the smooth nose of my
childhood Appaloosa, her
dappled coat, and trusting eyes.

Sometimes the world, and
all its goodness
stupifies me, and leaves
my spirit rocking gently in
a cradle, where I know it's
all going to be okay.

When Summer's heat
gives way to
autumns bliss,
I will kiss this
world goodbye
and walk to
the woods
to save
the last sliver
of my humanity,
where the creek
meets the river of
my destiny.
Far away from
the ****** city of
sick Streets
and broken
dreams.

Once there was this
woman that I could talk about
writing and
poetry with.
We talked about Emily and Bukowski,
and many others.
We were poets in our own right.
We shared tears and laughter,
like a joint among friends.
Once, we sang our daughter to sleep.
It was beautiful and sublime.
But, the brutal dawn destroyed that
glorious night.

She farted a lot, but I fell
in love with her anyway,
and her son too.
We even cooked together.
It was magnificent,
although she got a little bossy in
the kitchen.
I can still smell the coriander
and garlic and taste the salt on
the back of her neck.

I picked her wildflowers, and
ate well from her garden- all slippery and divine.
She had these pastel soft blue eyes,
like something out of a Degas painting.
She could be as mean as Humpty Dumpty,
all cracked and broken, yoke flowing everywhere.
And I couldn't fix her. And I certainly
couldn't put myself back together again.

And then one autumn, I turned around,
and she was gone. A wall went up.
Occasionally I could see her through the
holes in the bricks. But I knew that
I would never touch her again;
hold her, kiss her.
It made me feel sad and lonely.
But I keep her real close in my heart.
And some days that gets me by.
And other times, it's like she was
never there at all just a tender dream.

I want to escape the memory of her;
overdose on artichokes and avocados,
drowned in a sea of ****** Marys,
or run away to far-off lands,
like Montana or Idaho.
But, I'm afraid I'd still see her there,
in the Snake River or the wide open sky.

You build me with
turquoise and
the mountains of Taos.
Cerulean blue
serenity in my soul.
My heart chases
after you.
Even your chisel
helped me
grow through
the pain.
You
are the
grand artist,
The Supreme
sculpter.

I'm an athlete.
I can throw and catch,
and run in the sun-
all shiny and bright.
And you just sleep, sleep, sleep.
Look at me, mama.
I'm a writer.
I do poetry and stories,
all pretty and pink,
and all you do is,
sleep, sleep, sleep.
Look at me, mama.
I can dance.
I'm lonely,
I'll move to France,
meet a woman, get married.
Look at the ants crawl through
the spilled red juice on
the grass; nature everywhere,
as you sleep, sleep, sleep.
Look mama,
look at me, mama!
I have children now,
all good and wise,
you're a grandma.
Why don't you wake up?
Please look at me, mama.
I'm lonely and afraid.
I'm old now, and cold,
and you still,
just
sleep, sleep, sleep...

The days crawl by like
tortoises.
My purpose is obscured by
***** nights, and
raven-haired sadness.
Naked branches of
the maple trees dance in
the autumn wind, and
leaves rustle in
the dead grass;
all burnt orange and yellow ocher.
They're like a
little surreal sunrise.
Hope
is eternal.

Chain smoking sadness, slapped by time.
Winter doesn't freeze the pain.
There was one thing that
Mom wanted desperately:
It was to have a
picture of her
seven kids all together,
in one place,
at one time.
There was an age
difference of 23 years between the
youngest and the oldest,
and 1000 miles separating us.

In December of 1987
two weeks before Christmas,
I held a picture of
the seven of us all together.
I put it in the
right front pocket of
her navy blue blazer.
After the funeral,
we buried her with it.
Oh, Mom, I wish we
could have done this
when you were alive.

I don't want to go a
gentle journey,
from convoluted to
convalescence.
I quit drinking again;
found love in
the psych ward.
She's my broken-winged
angel.
So much pain behind that
sweet smile.
She's drinking again,
and I can't fix her.
It hurts, like an arrow
through the stomach.

I have a rabbit that comes
to my yard.
She lies in the same
spot every day.
So much so, that
she has worn down a
place for herself--the surrounding
grass grows around her.
She feels safe.
I feed her spinach, and my
brother sings her
show tunes.
That's what we get
for having a drama
teacher for a father.
Thanks, Dad.

It's been an unseasonably
cold April.
I feel sorry for Harvey;
That's her name, thanks
again Dad.
I talk to her softly.
"Hi, baby--what are you doing?
Do you want to come in?"
She doesn't answer.  I'm sober.
I want to take care of her...
Both of them...
My two little bunnies.
It's cold, and the wind is
blowing hard,
beneath a mean grey sky.

Homeless and roaming the
streets like an orphan.
It was the dead of winter, and
I was still alive—barely.
My ex-girlfriend let  
me crash on her couch for
a few days.
She didn't smoke.
I did,
so whenever I wanted  
a cigarette, I went out in
front of her
apartment and lit up.
One night, bent on nicotine,
I entered the January thaw.
As I had my  
smoke fix,
a man with a  
huge Rottweiler slowly
walked by.
The dog caught sight of
me, and gave me a low growl.
The guy talked to
his pet like he was
his best friend.
'Leave him alone, that's his home;
let him smoke.'
The dog knew better, and
glared at me.
He barked loud and viciously.
'Leave that poor man alone.
Let him enjoy his cigarette,
that's his home, '  the man said.
A small dog began  
yapping in the distance.
The man said,
'Oh great, you've upset that little dog.
Come on, let's go.'
The Rott gave me an evil look, and
sauntered off.
He recognized his own  
kind.
He also knew that there
was something different about me.
He could smell it,
almost taste it.
He knew I was a mongrel
and a stray.
He knew I didn't
belong.

You Got lost in
the deep end of life;
far from the
safe shallows.
Elf-like grin,
leftover from
childhood.

I couldn’t
save you.
9 months of
milky memories and
shipwrecks to
the soul.
Your grief killed
you as much as
the ***** did.
I hope you’re now
resting
safely on the shore.

If not for you where would I be today?
Most likely dead or on some distant shore.
Your love does not drift like the ocean waves.
It stays close to my heart, I can't ask for more.
Your skin, so soft, like velvet on my tongue.
Your orchid, sublime, responds to every kiss.
To my ears, your heart beats like a song.
If I never met you my life would be amiss.
But now we build the future bold and brave.
There is no fear when I am in your arms.
The ***** is gone and I'm no longer a slave.
My soul is not in a state of alarm.
Your breath is like the wind on a barren land.
I swear to you I'll always be your man.

We've been apart
now for a while, and
the pain has begun to
subside. But today, something
triggered it all fresh
and sharp.

I ran across some
pictures of your
****** that you let
me have.
It makes me sad
to look at them
for hours on end.
I may be reading
too much into the
three different views,
but in one of them,
your dormouse seems
to be whispering,
"I miss you, Thomas,
we had so much fun,
you and I."
In another shot,
the light hits little Jezebel
just right (she loved it when I called her that.)
And I swear it seems as though
she is pouting like she's sad too.
And the third picture is
the hardest to view of all.
It's in black and white
so it has that artsy film noir
look to it, like a sad French
mime. Quite artistic as far as
closeups of vajayjays go.
It has a fussy, pouty
look to it, with a twinge
of anger, as if to say,
"why did you break up
with that great poet who
idolized me, and took such glorious
pictures of me." It seems to be
beckoning, "Please take him
back, maybe if you do,
he won't drink so much and
disappear for days on end
with your car, and then come
back smelling of *****, and
old painted up ******."
It breaks my heart
to look at that one.
I'm almost crying as I write
this because Jezzy looks so sad, and
lonely, and a bit angry at
you for selling my collection
of baseball cards.

This isn't a poem.  It's an invitation to check out
my youtube channel where I read my poetry.  Hope you like it.

There is an
eternal winter
that lingers around
my heart.
It beckons with
icy music,
gray clouds, and
marches by Wagner.
Vultures, like ghastly
puppets picking at
my brain.

I drive it away with
sunflowers and walleyes,
fish fries and the gathering
together of friends and saints,
old soldiers that beat the odds,
and the neutered con game.
Leonard Cohen overcame,
and so did I.
Life was playing chess,
While I was playing
checkers.
Well, baby, it's checkmate.

I didn't need lucky bamboo
or a four-leaf clover, I needed to
use the wisdom that God gave me.
I made some changes in my actions.
When I behaved differently, I found
serenity and a Winnie the Pooh and
Piglet sort of happiness.
I was drowning, so I grew gills and
swam away to a river that flowed
through the Million Acre Woods,
and now when I am on land,
I waltz down Love Street.

We used to talk about
going
to Montana--escaping it all,
building a log cabin and
making a garden.  We were
going to hunt and fish for
food--make rugs and
hats from the fur.

But look at us now.
You live in the
city and drive a Volvo.
Goldfish in a glass bowl.
You even taught your
cat to walk on
a leash.
Can you see the
sky with all the smog?

I'm not any better.
Living under the bridge;
the only hunting I do is
for cans, the rare and
illusive
aluminum nickel, so that
I can buy *****.  

I walk down to the
river's edge and look up at
the expansive sky.
I close my eyes.
And when I open them, baby,
we're in Montana.

Cleanse me from
the dust of
the night, and
the apocalyptic
visions of my
slumber.
Fish guts, ****, or
insomnia may have
conjured these rotting
skin nightmares,
these mosquitoes from
hell.
I struggled to wake up,
but couldn't, and finally,
while I was flying in
a gray land of desolation,
and killers,
of nighthawks and harpies.
I soared through a
hazy wasteland, and arrived
safely back home
in my serene, August Sabbath.

Night comes on like
an old hound lumbering
in from the field.
I don't fight it.
I'm getting too old.
I sit with pen in hand,
and wait for the
darkness to show
me something.

I think about vaginas and
Ireland and fish that
hunt a t night.
I think about
Bukowski and
Beethoven, and the
*******, and a kernel
of corn.
I think about my
life and this night, and
how it is better than
those near-death years of
caterwauling and chaos;
drunk by the river, lonely
as a glass snake.
I was living to drink, and
didn't give a **** about
anyone.
I was searching.
I found it
when the light came.

I'm going to write this.
I say that to myself, and
to you, the reader.
Every time I sit down to
work on poetry lately,
I'm overcome by lethargy.
I look at the whiteness
and go blank.
I thumb through notes,
nothing.

The thought of
lying down for
a nap rides by on
a tri-cycle in
my mind.
I hated naps as a
child, they interfered
with my plans to
conquer the world.
The coolness of the
sheets subdued me.

Instead of admitting
complete defeat,
I say to myself,
Maybe, I will wake
up refreshed and
inspired.
Perhaps, the muse will
visit in my slumber.

I retire to the bed,
Mojo, one of my cats,
Join me at the
foot.
She is soon
dreaming of catching
the elusive moth that
has been bothering
her for days.
And I will dream of
catching words like
butterflies with a big net.

My wife agreed to marriage counseling before the great divorce,
and of course, she picked the counselor.  This is it; one session, one shot at redemption.  I waited with bated breath for the day to arrive.
It did.  We met at his office, where hope was dashed to shreds like a ship
on a coral reef, like dreams of domestic bliss made of glass and shattered on the kitchen floor with no broom to sweep them up.
We shouldn't get lawyers and go to court.  We should have a funeral and sing, Rock of Ages, because divorce is the death of a family.

The room is nice and cold as ice, and he's friendly, boisterous, and bold, but here's the clincher, he wore an eye patch.  Maybe he had surgery or some type of injury, but everything he said was drowned out by the voice in my head that screamed, "He looks like a pirate, and no ******* pirate is going to tell me how I should have been a better husband."  I quickly scanned the room for a cage where he kept his parrot, which usually sat on his shoulder and sang old songs of the sea.  I glanced at his right hand, but conveniently it was hidden by the desk.  Now I was sure.  It wasn't a hand at all, but a hook, that he used to scratch his ***, or to spear the shreds of broken lives left over from a long day's work.  His hand was probably a casualty, lost on a voyage to a shark he tried to advise.

I leaned over and whispered in my wife's ear, "Where did you find this ******* nut. Long John Silvers?"  The humor eluded her like the sunken treasure did the old sea dog that sat across from me.  I swore if he said, "Aye aye matey."  I would smack him, and jack his ship, and maybe my wife and I would sail south to the Caribbean, not to the ride at Disneyland, Pirates of the Caribbean, but to the islands, where we would lie **** on the sandy beaches and drink Pina Coladas, or some other fruit-filled umbrella drink, until we were so drunk we couldn't see straight, and all our problems would sink like the setting sun into a brand new horizon.  But the old scalawag had no pirate lingo, so the hour came and went, our money was poorly spent, and it was lunchtime, and I was bent on seafood.

There is a gravity to
sadness; it pulls me
downward into a
deep dark well.
I can't climb out.
It's my own private hell.
I pray for levitation.
I jump, only to fall.
I feel forgotten.

I put one foot in
front of the other,
and I will rise.
I move on.
Hope returns like
a long-lost friend,
and I find my sanctuary.

My friend asks
me where I get
the fodder for
writing my poems.
I tell him, life.
He says that's too
simple.
He isn't satisfied.
I tell him that
sometimes, I sit at
my desk and open
the window above the
litterbox, and look
outside at the
orange daylilies and
wait.

He says he writes
from a small place above
his left ear.
It tickles at times, but
often it's painful.
I nod and make a
note to call my
doctor about the
headaches I've been having.

He reads his posey at
the coffee shops while
drinking espresso and
chatting with the other
young poets in sweaters.
I tell him that I used
to live under a bridge,
I read my poems to the
savage river and the
Mallard ducks, and the
drunk friends that
wandered in for a drink of
***** or a beer.
He says the little place above
his left ear is beginning to
hurt.

I walk him to the door and
tell him goodbye.
He asks if I will come
to the coffee shop to
hear him read his poetry.
"Sure", I say, smiling blankly.
After closing the door,
I sit and smile at the view from
my window.
I can smell the freshly cut
grass, and hear the
grinding whine of the
lawnmower.
A woman across  
the street is lying in
the sun.
She's wearing a turquoise
bikini and big sunglasses.
Just then, a slight hint
of coconut wafts into my room.
I get hard and pick up the pen.

Hobbled by the
sun, and laid
prostrate by
days of
degenerate
behavior.
Days of
nothingness,
and worse.
Only writing
could save me.

Poor and lonely.
No warm woman to
hold.
No *****.
No home.
But, I had my
writing.
It let the light in,
and buffered me from
the crowds of
scarecrows with sewn
on smiles.

Writing keeps me
immortal and kills
the pain.
It soothes the
mice lost in
the maze, and
brings the stray cat
home to a house where
he's safe.
Writing is the
pillow that keeps
my head up, and
my heart engaged.

Look at
them gather
at the gallows.
That's entertainment.
Monkeys sell
popcorn, and do
tricks, dressed in
sailor suits.
You bought your
tickets,
Now enjoy the show.

The crowds get bigger.
Everyone loves a
good tragedy, except
the one being hanged.

There is a
screaming
screeching pain
that is so raw.
It's like a
mouse caught in
a glue trap.
It must be locked
away for no one
to see or handle.

And sometimes
on moonless nights
when no one is
around, and the
owls have killed
their prey, and the
teardrops have been
bottled and sold on
the black market,
you may be tempted
to take that pain out,
like a slice of pie,
and taste it.
Be careful.
It may have
fermented and
developed a mind of
its own.

They say it's
the sport of kings.
I have royal
memories of being
at Santa Anita and
Hollywood Park with
my dad and brother.
As kids, we watched
some of the best horses
and jockeys in the world.
The jocks were our
tiny heroes, gladiators
in silks riding tremendous
beasts.

Dad taught us
how to bet and study
the horses.
He called it
doping the form.
I liked the show bet.
I still cashed the ticket, as
long as the horse didn't
do worse than third.
My heart still gallops when
I think of those Southern
California afternoons.

Dad used to say, don't ever
gamble what you can't
afford to lose.
I live with my brother
now in Iowa.
Dad is long gone, and so is
the shoe, our favorite ****.
There are new jockeys on
the scene.  New horses.

We drove to Des Moines, to do
some off-track betting on
the Kentucky Derby.
The pageantry is decadent.
The hats and mint juleps.
Someone sings a beautiful
version of, My Old Kentucky Home.
It was truly a sublime scene.

Now, we have to
figure out how
we are going to pay
the rent.

In our times,
no one wants
to be politically
incorrect.
"Let's not offend."
seems to be the
chant.
Nice little
sheep
that
stay
in line.
Simple smiles, and
polite applause,
but just
a smattering.
Agreement en masse.

Next time you see
this, look for the
return of public
hangings, the blotting
out of the sun, and the
death of art that is
forged from the
marrow of the spirit.

As the day
closes, and the
night slides in.
The big fish hunt
in shallow water.

The old dog
leaves home to
die alone.
Orphans cry for
love
and the arrogant
choke on
rotten meat.

The libraries
become hostels
and owls
break the backs
of tom-cats on
the prowl.
The ***** is gone
and the cigarettes too.

And somewhere
in this silly
world, a father kisses
his daughter good night.

Hey everyone.
My book is free today only on Amazon.  Here's a link.  It's the Kindle version that is free, but there are paperbacks and hardcovers available as well.