I sit here in
county jail sporting the
orange jumpsuit and I
write more poems and  
memoirs in a week than
I’ve written in a year.
It feels ******* when
I’m pounding out the
word and the line.

When you’re homeless and
the temperature is minus ten,
jail isn’t a punishment,
it’s a reward.
I got busted for public intox two days in
a row, and again three
weeks ago.
The state remembered—they
recommended 30 days,
the judge gave me two weeks.

Every time I go to jail
I’m very drunk,
and by morning I’m
coming down hard.
I remind the guards of
my predicament—the danger of
withdrawal seizures.
They say, “We are aware of
your condition, Mr. Case.”
And within a couple of
hours
I’m on Librium,
making detox bearable.

Within a couple of days the
drunken haze dissipated
and the need to create returned.
I got their tiny safe
pen (impossible to stab someone with),
and I went to work.
I looked out my little
window in my cell and I
saw a male bald eagle gliding
lazily over downtown.
I felt as free as he was.

My friends are dropping like flies,
and by dropping, I mean dying.
I mean no longer trying to
fly in a world that wanted
them grounded.
Perry drowned,
and Greg was
found on Highway 6 hit by a
minivan—***** in hand.
They say the best laid
plans of mice and men oft go
astray—that’s an understatement.
My life plays out like
a scene from  Dante’s Inferno.
Abandon all hope.
A month back, Kristin dies from
too much dope.
Tibbs goes out from a  
stroke
or some kind of strange brain
malfunction.
I did C.P.R. at the
great wall,
the junction where
the drunks drink and the
dreamers scheme.
It doesn’t work—he goes into a coma.
No more roaming the streets with
my Sancho,
no more
beating the heat with
stolen wine in the  
summer slick shade by
the river,
trying to save the
last sliver of our  
humanity—only to walk head
long into a ****** up
destiny.
Providence can be a
punk *** ***** when it
wants to be.
See,
I’m not fooled by
life’s strong arm tactics,
one day my friends are fine;
the next,
they’re in caskets—and I’ll  
be a basket case when it’s
all said and done.
****
standing still and
****  
the sun.
**** the
moon and the stars
and the ******
and the bars.
****
This silly world
I’m done.

She steals candles from
the craft store.
I stole a ceramic
rooster for her and said,
“Here’s your ****.”
We rock the stores like
they’re our *****.
It’s like an itch that
has to be scratched.
We get drunk, and
It’s game on—it’s a high like
******* in public,
like that first
shot when you’re
shaking
and sick.
Someday, it will all
come crashing down,
but until then,
it’s the flash of
lightning and the crown.

You used to say it was ****.
You’d get this gleam in your
eyes as you kissed  
me ******* the lips and  
rubbed the back of
my head; but not  
anymore.
We had our laughter and
drunken songs,
but as always,
the end seeps in.
The poet in me hopes
one ******* thing will
last forever.
It started with
complaints, then
resentments and almost
hatred.  It’s sad.
There was a time when
the love was gooey—like  
chocolate in the sun.
We had an amazing
****** chemistry.
we were like
dogs in heat.
We ****** everywhere:
swimming pools,
the grass,
the beach,
the hospital,
our tent, other people’s tents.
Something was
always missing though, and
*** couldn’t fix it..
The end felt like swans dying,
like butterflies burning.
I always imagined us more
like Bonnie and Clyde than
Romeo and Juliet.
It doesn’t really matter, same ill fate.
****, who were we kidding?
Lovers inevitably get
their turn in hell.

She loves the
darkness.
It’s like a scar on
her soul.
She constantly complains about
my drinking,
yet daily, she fades
to black.
Sleep, oh what an
escape, but she
rapes the sunrise with
worry and
dreams deferred.
I write by candlelight because
she’s in a  
foul mood.
It’s like a tomb.

Our hypothermic love makes me
feel like a frozen lizard.
Road tripping to Cedar Rapids—
it’s a ******’ blizzard.  
I need some spirits quick to
warm me, then I’ll give her
my hypodermic rod;
one hundred cc’s of thick
hot nectar of the gods, then
this ******* nightmare of
frostbite will end.
And the light and the heat of
my **** inside her will be
our fervor and our grandeur.

Fear is like
the shadow of a bat,
larger than life.
I taste the
rabid nightmares;
they poison my soul.
Anger masks the fear.
I hear the harpies scream
in my febrile brain
and my faith is
small as a
grain of sand
growing slowly
over time.

My window of
tolerance is
more like a peep hole.
My comfort zone has gone
to hell.
They say, fight or flight;
I tend to freeze.
I miss the easy
days of youth,
when everything was
green and serene.
The cicadas and bobwhites
sang me to sleep.
The fields and streams
called to me.
I dreamed of
fish and candy
and the perfect girl.
I smelled love and
tasted simplicity.
I pray someday,
my window grows

As the ***** and
chemicals leave
my body
I realize that
anger wears many
masks.
It has lots of
colors and shapes:
sarcasm,
jealousy,
envy,
intolerance and contempt.
It's like being at
a masquerade.
I try to figure out
who or what is behind the mask.
It's only when I take them
off that I see
the truth.

My autocrat of a
cat
sat on the pedestal
and watched me type.
His eyes, slits, like
slivers of emeralds.

He took a paw,
licked it, and
washed his despot face.
He owned me.
I did whatever he
wanted.
He sauntered off,
then turned and
watched , as I
took liberty with
truth, for the
sake of
imagination and creation.

I dreamed last
night that he could
talk.
He just said two words.
"Beautiful lies."

There is a road to
sorrow.
The pain is palpable;
it involves
drugs, *****, and
bad women.
It ends with
life under a bridge.
There are lots of
hospitalizations.
It's hell on earth.
Seizures and sickness.
Love was my
haven, but I lost it.
I left ME behind.

It's been five years, but
I still miss her.
Home was in
her arms.
That brown hair and
those blue eyes still
dance through my
dreams.
Everyday was
Valentines Day when
we were together.
She's always in my
heart, but the
sky calls;
time doesn't

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.

I am declaring my
independence from the
tyranny of ***** induced
debauchery.
I no longer need listen
to my addictive voice.
It only seeks my destruction.
No more am I in *******;
The chains lay at my feet

Psilocybin silly when the
cops arrive.
Sitting on the couch naked,
laughter aching jaws.
They ask where my wallet is?
I ask, where my pants are?
Even they laugh.
I can't say mushrooms are
all bad.
They are the catalyst that
brought me back to the
hospital to deal with the
real killer...
*****.

Hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach.
******* surround me and send me into a rage.
Lonesome soul sinking in the mire.
Too tired to fight, I might need a drink.

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 barren land.
I swear to you I'll always be your man.

I'm blinded by your kindness.
Science doesn't do it for me.
I know that you know God,
by the way you treat
your fellow man.
Baby, you're a Saint.

I'm fermenting in
isolation.
Covid 19 for the third
time this year.
After a skyrocket of a
writing streak,
I've had a two month
dry spell.
I'm sure the dope and
***** didn't help.

Hell smells like
loneliness and
white paper.
It tastes like
sulfur and burnt toast.
I see ghosts around
every corner, and they
sound like bats,
screeching at the
black night.

I'm in treatment,
and I will spend five
days in my room.
They will bring my
meds and meals.
They also gave me
a tablet and said,
I can watch all the
Net Flix that I want.

****!
To write or to watch
the idiot box.
That is the dilemma.
I sure hope that
this
febrile state that I am
in produces some
good writing material.
Pun intended

He rolls like the
river,
always on the move.
I said,
"What are you afraid of boy?"
He said,
"Nothing; I just can't stay still."
I said,
"They got meds for that."

It's in my bones, I gotta
keep going.
Knap sack...no sack,
don't matter, just me and
those highways.
I said, well, it cost you everything;
your house, your wife,
don't you want to settle
down sometimes?
Nope, he said, as he turned
his back and headed west
towards the desert.
His face to the sun.

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.

It's the little things that
drives one mad,
a snapped shoelace,
on your way to the
liquor store in the
driving snow.
A cockroach in
the cereal,
dead batteries, when all you
want to do is listen
to music.
Shifty eyed people in
my house, quietly plotting
my demise.
It's the tree of
life, cut down to clear
space for a parking lot.
No love from my brother.
Another frosty day in April.
Cigarette prices constantly
rising astronomically.
Footsteps in an empty
hallway.
It's Just a hop, skip, and
a jump to the madhouse.

The standard for humanity has
gone down tremendously since this
whole Covid thing.
It’s like everyone has Mad Cow disease.
It has affected their judgment.
People seem to have
forgotten what love is.

It’s simple–serve the need.
If your brother is cold,
give him a coat.
If he is hungry, give him food.
Love is a straight line.
If you can’t help,
don’t hurt.

The nights are
filled with corrupt
doctors and cops.
Justice, like a dog bite.
Madmen prey on
the weak and needy.
This seedy town ain't got
nothing for me.
I'm heading out west,
get a longboard
ride the breeze, and
taste the waves...
all the way to
Hawaii baby.

The fruit cake child molester
gets acclaim and promotion,
put on a pedestal, while the
righteous underdog gets
exiled or killed,
kicked out and abandoned
like a stray cat.

The very thing
I seek for hope
is robbing me of it.
So I drink more;
Surely, this will
do it.
I become more
hopeless,
degradation of the
mind sets in.
I'm sunk in the mud
and despair.

Pretty things fly
away.
Nothing stays for
long.
Before the wings
get tattered and shorn,
the sky calls, and all the
pretty things fly away.

Love finds me in
the nuthouse
wandering in
Delerium, sweat-drenched
dreams.

She's my ******* angel,
and she ***** the
vagabond poison from
my veins.
Arms are bruised to
a Dijon yellow.

I forgot the
ecstasy of
connection and ******
chemistry.
The heat...the
smiles that set the
bones on fire.
This is birth.

Winter will soon slip into
spring, all dressed in 
green; bouquet nights and
the rebirth of love.
Snakes gliding through
the grass.
But for now, we deal
with ice and snow,
slick roads and cold
hearts.

I was on the bus the
other day.
The driver had a
slippery scowl pasted
on her chubby face.
My mask had inched
down on my nose, and she
yelled, "put your mask
on or you will be off the bus."


I was having a terrible day already.
My asthma was acting up,
I could hardly breathe, and I had
just had to put my beloved
dog to sleep.
I miss her, but she slipped
away peacefully.


I rang the bell to get off at
my stop, as I chewed my
gum in passive anger.
I stood up and walked toward
the front of the bus.
The aisle was slick from
the snow and ice.
As I neared the exit door,
I took the gum out of my
mouth, so that I could throw
it away, but things went
horribly awry. 


I slipped on a wet
spot, and to catch
myself, I firmly planted 
my gum hand on the back
of the driver's head.
She had short hair, but still,
the *** of gum was now 
embedded in her golden 
locks.
I'm sure a haircut is
her near future.


Since then, I intend
to tread softly and cautiously,
and just maybe,
she does too.

What has become of me?
I've turned into such
a reprobate.
Watching ****, and
neglecting writing.
I think of Nin and
Henry Miller, turning
lust and clitoral
stimulation into
****** literature.
And here I am...
*** stains on my
laptop, and looking
sadly at the miniature
bust of Shakespeare on
my writing desk.
Even he looks disgusted.

The steeple penetrates
the puffy pink
clouds, and the
horizon squirts
sweet rain.
My face gets
sticky.

I work at a
gym that is 
popular all over
the country, because
of its family values, and
sliding fee scale.
I am a custodial artist.
It's mindless and gives
me time to write.
I get a free membership.

Men walk around the
locker room ****, and
try to have full conversations
with me.
I want to say,
put your **** away,
it doesn't talk.
This is a gym,
not a nudist colony.
I take no delight in
seeing your shriveled *****.


Where is your modesty,
your decency?
Wrap yourself in a
towel before you try
chatting me up about
the weather.
I'm trying to work out,
and then get the **** away
from you screwballs.

That bubble of a moon is 
playing peek-a-boo behind
the wispy night sky.
Confirming to me
everyone's lunacy.
Words stick to the
roof of my mouth
like peanut butter.
It could have been 
a better world,
I should have been a
better man.

January snowflakes
are like guilt falling from
the sky.
little frozen starfish...
cold and raw on 
the soul, and tongue.

  

.

I take the remnants of my
childhood OCD,
and I put it to
hard work at my
custodial arts job.
Janitor to be PC.
All the initials make
my BP rise.

And the pounding
of the basketballs attack 
my eardrums in
a mad staccato
beat.
The blue toilets, and
the chemicals assuage
my nasal cavity.

Leggings and tight shorts
get my Nabokov mind calling
******, come, let me
touch your pink flower.
I'm wet now at
the head; can they see
it through my pants?

How many times did
I touch the light switch?
Do I need to blink
my eyes two more times?
Ah, if I could only
swim to heaven in
the blueness of the sterile
chlorine in
that big cerulean pool...
wash this
wretched disease 
off, once and for all.

The mediocre march into oblivion
while watching Tik Tok videos
and never reading a 
book or writing a
poem.
They don't know 
the difference between
an orchid or an iris.

The mediocre march into
madness sleeping until
noon, while neglecting
Bukowski and Mozart.
They don't know how
to play an instrument.
No idea what a C
major chord is.
But they know all
the emojis.
The sad sheep masses
don't
know the difference
between a Van Gogh or
Monet painting, and a
digital reproduction on
a coffee cup.
Their phones look 
like grotesque growths
attached to their ears.
Everyone should
contribute to the
cosmic dance,
Carpe Diem
*******!

There were times
that I floated; almost flew.
The wind tasted fresh,
as the clouds hissed by.
My sweat kissed the
hot sidewalk below.
I dunked any
basketball that
I could palm.
Seventeen years old,
and a sanguine grin
the powerful legs,
and a 
skinny frame.
Life was mine, and I
knew it.
I spent more time in
the air than I 
did on the concrete.
The sky and
tree lines were
my home.
I was Icarus and a hawk
soaring above the
common folks.
Now, I never leave
the ground.

This sickness has
derailed me.
I've scaled back on
the things that
matter most.
Life has become
askew.
I'm tangled up in
blue and red lines,
back against the
fence.
I'm frozen and febrile.
Insecticide burns on
my spirit.
Pesticide in my lungs.
I'm sick of all
these chemicals.
They are in my dreams,
and in my bones.
Maybe, she is the infection...
Never mind, it's just Covid 19.

A tenderhearted rage flows from my
pen, like the Mississippi river after six
months of a hard rain.  
Suffering released, I long
for peace, as I grab the pen like
a ****** grabs the syringe, like my
very life depends on it because it
probably does.

The passion that flows within
my veins give a voice to my
soul when the pen vomits
words on the paper, like a
drunk the morning after a
night on the town, trying to
drown the memory of her.

I'm bent on writing because the
world's dim lighting cast shadows on
everything that mattered to me.
I'm shattered you see by
circumstances beyond my control.
Life just seems to roll right over me,
but I take my plight with the fight of
a soldier, whose battle cry is:
furor scribendi, a rage to write; because
in the revealing comes the ultimate
healing and that ******* light will
never die.

She wanted the
pans handed to
her a certain way.

I gave them to
her the wrong way,
and in her superior
voice, she said,
"I'm tired of telling you,
handles lined up,
pans facing down.
I will give them
back to you if it's
not the right way!"

I made $5.15 an hour,
my pants and shirt
were dripping wet.
I bit my tongue.

I knew she was no
chef.
Cooking is an
art, but she was too
bunched up to
understand that.
I could have outcooked
her, no matter how she
handed me the pans.

It's the continual
opening of the
eyes that disappoints,
not that sleep brings peace,
but it's the momentary
reprieve from life's
clenched fist, and
it's ruthless apathy.

Life is a toss of
the coin,
a roll of the dice.
Often, it's snake eyes.
As a kid, I always
thought that everything
would be alright.
Now I see the
randomness of
it all.

I'm always trying to
get back to Eden.
Sometimes, the
dreamer in me
forgets the futility.
The banishment is
forever.

Tepid water
between
my toes,
I know
life.

Three burly sheriffs showed
up at my neighbors
house yesterday.
Scowls on scarred faces.
Tattered lives, tarnished
brains.
Five minutes later,
they were walking my
friend out in handcuffs.
He shuffled, head down.
Autumn frowned and the
leaves scuttled away in
disgust.

Today, the vultures swooped
in, picked the bones of all
his earthly possessions that
littered what was once his
front lawn.
Jackals, and hideous
hyena faced men and
women took the last of
his things.  

Even though he was
arrested, he still
grows.
and although they are
free, they die more
daily in their own
private evictions.
I've seen more
humanity at a
hanging.

He asked my advice.
Eighteen years old, and 
no fire in his eyes.
No fight, no spark.
Just fluff, and
nonsensical darkness.

When I was your age,
it was all
sunshine
vaginas, and
*******.
I drank daily
and painted with
blood.
I drank so
much, I ******
myself once a week.
I lived in the
river and ******
beautiful mermaids.
What seems to be
your problem George?

He said he was a ******,
and that he was lazy, and had
no self-esteem.

I said,
why do you always wear
yellow?
maybe, you should do
something with your
life; join a club, or
protest something.
You look like a
giant daffodil.

I'm lazy though,
I don't want to do
anything.

Well, I said,
that could be why
your self-esteem is low.

Try reading, writing,
or taking a walk
in the woods.
It worked for
Frost and Thoreau.
And hey George,
if you don't motivate
yourself, you will
never get laid.
Women take work.

I don't like work,
he said.

How are you going to
support yourself?
Do you want to
live in homeless shelters
or under bridges?
It's no life for
a kid like you George.

You should do something
about that mop of  red
hair you got.
You are white, and you
have an afro.
You look like a chunky
Ronald Mc Donald.
Maybe, try fast food or
a carnival.

I need *****, he says.

George, ***** is great,
but it isn't going to just
show up one magical
night while you live
in your mom's
basement
and play video games.

Forget about women for
now and read some
Bukowski
Hunter
Hamsun,
even Tolstoy.
Listen to some
******* music.
Try the greats,
Mozart
Beethoven
Sublime, and
The Grateful Dead.

I don't like music,
and reading
is boring.

Well, then my advice
is to 
watch more
TV.
I can tell you like
television.

Alright, George,
I have some writing
to do, I will see you
around.

I went back to my
room,
sat down, and
thought,
now, what the hell
did I do with that
hard
boiled egg?

All of you are
such amazing poets.
And poetry has a long oral
history.

Why not start your
own youtube channel
and perform your
poetry?
Some say poetry is a
dead art.
I say it isn't.
Let's return to
our roots and scream
our poetry from the
roof tops.

So I challenge all
of you poets,
let's kick some ***
with our voices.

Saturn is in
line with
Venus tonight
but, nothing's easy
when you're down.
The clowns walk
around, dressed in
yellow; fast food smiles
and cheeseburger
souls, and nothings
easy when you're down.

The dancers with poles
and sadness, that Halloween,
fires burning, childhood
perfumed dreams,
kind of sadness fills the
navy blue night.
I can't find the North star,
and the jack-lanterns lie rotting
in the streets of Nebraska
and Kansas, and the candies
all gone, and the kids wait.
And I can't find  
the deep blue shirt I bought
at Goodwill, and Billy Burroughs
is filled with worms and earth,
and Bukowski looks at Satan
and says, "what do you
mean, we're out of whiskey?"

I've never been much for the stars,
and family and Thanksgiving are
painfully overrated,
and nothing's easy when
you're down.

I am working the
kinks out of
my you tube
channel.

But, if you
search Thomas
W. Case on
you tube,
you can watch me
recite some of
my poetry.

Meanwhile,
autumn's feral winds
blow the beggars
from my mind.
I'm just a windmill's
dream, haunted by
a thousand empty
bottles.

Yours isn't gentle lunacy,
It's hammerhead insanity.
Great white crazy.
I'm not even safe walking on
the sand.
You ******* learned to graze on
the land.
Evolution is a *****.

She had that
octopus smile,
always reaching for
something.
I was her small
fish; her handmaid.
I lived in her nebulous
world for far too long.
Inky confusion...

There's a reason for
your treason, said the
old man to the shark,
but Hem forgot, a beast
is a beast, they do
beastly things.
We all have to eat.

I'm done being the
meal.
It's your Ocean,
I'm just trying to
swim in it.

You're an oyster,
and I want your
pearl,
but I won't drown
for it.

To sleep the sleep of
an artist is
the best sleep ever.
All the foes lie vanquished,
and I paint words with
their blood.
All the letters spent on
the paper in
ejaculatory fashion,
like ***** to the egg.
There is no fodder from
dreams to be marshaled,
just the birth of my
creation,
when I
awake.

Above all, 
God is an artist,
and His greatest
creation is us.
We are made in
His image, and so
we create.
Our creations pale
in comparison to
the sunset, the mountains,
and the oceans;
but we try.
And sometimes, we succeed.
And it is good,
and He is well pleased.