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.

Time melts away like
a Dali painting,
and my mind flies north;
a Canadian goose against the
loose gray sky,
freer than any man's ever been.
Yesterday, I was a
melancholic little one, feeling all of
Seasons in the Sun, on the radio.
5 years old, in the
backseat of my mom's black Plymouth.

Mom's gone.
Dad is too.
I'm getting old, but I will
never stop searching for that
gold in the heart.
I'm finally the simple prairie man that I
always longed to be.
I smell the autumnal night, and it's
nothing but cattails and bass from here until
that big orange fire paints the
west end of the lake.

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.

If you're wondering why there's so many typos? I'm in the hospital,
Benzo'd out and on phenobarbital.
But I guess it's better than hammered drunk at home trying to give the cat a bath.
He doesn't like that band The Allman Brothers which I Blair at the side of the tub and he tends to scratch me
even with the Mr. bubble bath. Now I'll try to watch the Redskin buccaneer game, they'll always be the Redskins to me. But that could just be the benzos talking

The saddest place I've
ever seen, is looking
out the window and
watching the rain fall
again on the
green Meadows...
Thinking about,
what might have been.

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

Three *** dreams in a row,
and I wake up lonely and
alone.
I don't need a ***** that
just wants to ****.
I want more, a woman to
love, that loves me.
And that love
cradles us, like
the wind, and rocks us into
a dreamless sleep beneath
an ebony sky.

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.

Gonzo goes out
with a 45 blast.
He was kicking *** in Aspen,
we knew it wouldn't last.
The rambling, gambling
man of journalism
put Fear and Loathing on
the map,
but in the end,
he couldn't stay.
It's bat country.

I passed out on
some apartment
steps downtown.
Too much beer and
****** the night before.
two cops wake me,
and take me to jail.
when I got out the
next day,
they gave me my
clothes and property.
I had two ****** left,
and ate them while
changing out of the
tangerine colored jumpsuit.
I stepped into the
bright sunlight,
slipped on my ray-Bans,
nowhere to go.

When I was an
ideal and dreamy teenager walking amidst the
trees in the backyard,
there, curled up beneath a pine, I discovered a small creature and stared at it.
I gently picked it up and held it to
my chest.
It opened its eyes.
I felt The power within .
It went back to sleep,
and I set it down.

The next morning
when I walked
out the back door,
headed for school,
the little creature
was sitting there,
wide awake,
looking up at me.
It had the most
unreal looking eyes.
They seemed to change color.
Apart from English and art class, I hated school.
I didn't quite fit in .
I had good friends,
but I always felt lonely.
Bouts of melancholia struck me at the strangest times,
soon after, I found
it to be the
terminal affliction of being a poet.

I stayed home from school that day and played with the
creature.
It seemed to
hear me, almost understand me.
I liked the feeling.
it became my
best friend.

I fed it every day
and it grew and became unruly and hard to control at times, but overall, it caused me much more joy than pain, way back then.
I missed it when it
was gone,
and threw my arms around it when it
came home.
I named it buffer
because it was an equalizer for me,
and the world, and pain,
It went inbetween the sharpness and vividness, in which I didn't know how to cope.

It got big
and became
a beast.
I had a love / hate relationship with
the thing.
I sacrificed a lot
for it at the
altar of idolatry.
It wouldn't let anyone get close to me,
My wife, my kids,
I chased them
all away.
I was alone with
the beast.

After years of
pain and degradation,
I put the beast down.
I shot it in
the back of the
head, like a rabid dog.

Life raged on.
Pain and joy came with equal measure,
but I no longer
needed a buffer to
keep living, laughing, and learning.
I finally figured
out how to
truly love.

I love it while
it sleeps--smiling,
wet with tea;
dreaming dormouse dreams.
I tickle its downy fur.
And it laughs and
moans softly.
I want to put it in
my pocket and
carry it everywhere;
take it out on
lonely autumn nights and
play with her until
she's exhausted,
relaxed and rested,
content and lost in my
fingers and in my heart.

Don't sing
don't shout
don't try to get out.
It's nice and warm in here,
and smells like a slave,
and the grave will come
soon, so try to be brave.
And when you're gone and
rotting, and sunk in the
ground, I'll find a new
little bird that won't
make a sound.
Don't walk, don't run
don't swim towards the sun.
Embrace the darkness, you'll
have lots of fun.
I have my gun, it's loaded
and cocked.
Make a wrong move, and
you're bound to get rocked.
Don't be sick, don't get well.
Don't smell heaven, or skip
towards hell.

Don't feel
don't think
don't talk
don't drink
don't  smoke
don't move
don't live
don't die
don't try,
you'll fail
don't breathe
don't cough, don't sneeze
don't wake up early, or
arrive too late--don't love,
don't hate.
Don't express emotions that
seem insane.
I made my safe little
world, and I like it this time,
and you're frayed on
the edges, and too prone to fly.
So come closer
my little bird and get in the cage.
I'll clip your wings with my
apathy and rage.

Don't look at the moon,
or touch the stars.
Don't play in the fields
or go near the bars
it's not safe there,
so just be afraid.
I like to play tricks
you'll be my knave,
my jack of hearts
my ace of spades;
and we'll pillage and plunder,
and live off the land,
and you'll lie here quietly
in my rotten ******* hand.
Don't quit, don't try,
just sit here
and die
and lie naked in my

mansion of filth,
my consuming wealth
my towering health,
cuz I'm full of stealth and stature
and beauty and grace,
and I'll smear it all over
your ******* little face.

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...
*****.

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

The dark dance calls softly,
like Night Shade or Oleander.
Just a little taste...
Just one more slow waltz...
I can smell her
wet orchid while I sleep.
She moves languidly through
my dreams, possesses me at dawn
with lambent steps.
The love is violent, like a bullfight.
It's sweet and treacherous, ferocious.
Fatal for one of us;
and she's been gored.

I love it while
it sleeps--smiling,
wet with tea;
dreaming dormouse dreams.
I tickle its downy fur.
And it laughs and
moans softly.
I want to put it in
my pocket and
carry it everywhere;
take it out on
lonely autumn nights and
play with her until
she's exhausted,
relaxed and rested,
content and lost in my
fingers and in my heart.

Tepid water
between
my toes,
I know
life.

Orchids wilt and rot
in time.
Roses have thorns that
***** to bleed.
Seeds bring life that
ultimately dies.
In lieu of flowers
give me your
eyes full of
heat and desire.
Surrender your heart of
passion, but most of all,
water me with your
love so that I can grow.

We all have something
urgent to do.
Tell the man that
works at the butcher's
shop.
Tell the boy who delivers
your newspaper.
Tell the groundhog before
he sees his shadow.
Dig up Poe and Ginsberg,
and tell them.

Tell the street
musician playing
for tips.
Tell the ****** and the
virgins.
Tell the next fish that
you catch.
Tell the banker and the
candlestick maker.
Tell the cats, and dogs, and
wombats.
Tell the starving
artists and poets.
Tell your wife, mistress, and
the old lady next door.

Tell the cloned sheep and
the deep part of the ocean.
Tell the magician and
carnival worker.
Tell the drunk, though he may
forget.
Tell the farmer and his cattle.
Tell the spider, and if it refuses
to listen, tell all the flies caught in
the web.
Tell the psychic, though, they
should know.
Tell everyone and everything
that Artificial
Intelligence wants to be the
21st-century god.

But, whatever you do, don't tell
that smiling machine that does it
all for you.  It will blink its cold
eye holes and wish you well,
then slice your throat while
you sleep.

I long for the majestic
sunset of your hair,
windblown, dancing across my cheek…
The burnt orange and lavender…
I want to consume every drop.
I’m thirsty for your
footsteps near my bed, parched with
desire for your presence—your essence.
How long until you wet my
tongue, and quench this fire?
I stalk slumber like a shadow…
my only release from the
hunger and yearning for your
moist lips, like peaches
pressed against mine.

Her heart was
my port, as I
sailed lost in
those
vagrant waters.
Her eyes were my
lighthouse
through the
fog and the storms
of life.

Oh, how I loved
her
once upon a time,
when I was lost
at sea;
she was my shore,
my harbor of joy.

The nights are darker
without her,
and the Stars
hide their sadness
behind the clouds.

I am
older now...
colder
now
without her touch.

I put the spike
in and push it a
little; withdraw, and there
it is.
That beautiful
rose bloom flash.
Push the plunger
and I 'm back in Eden.
Naked and no shame.
And in that moment
it's better than
*** and God and Heaven,
and chocolate.
I'm lost in a
storybook blue
sky, and I don't want
to be found.
Nothing matters, but the
sublime substance pumping
through my
veins that make me
immortal.
Icarus flying into
the sun until my
wings melt and I
fall back to earth
and do it all again.

I miss her, and
it's uncomfortable.
I'm not used to
feelings.
In the past, I would
drink when I
felt uncomfortable,
or felt anything, for
that matter.
Now, I identify
the feelings, like
a strange new
species of animal:
"Oh yes, that's sadness.
It's indigenous to
the western plains of
the heart."
Feeling emotions is
strange and scary,
but it beats the
alternative;
feeling nothing,
and dying alone.

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.

Sometimes, I feel like
a cat out in the rain.
A ******* and white Tom just
trotted by.
Ears back, trying to avoid
the puddles.
Is he angry at the
world; maybe a little sad too?
Was he led away from
his domestication by
his drive and desires,
only to return to
a locked door and
no more love?
Or was he born on
the streets-never held?
Were the elements always all
he ever knew?
It's a dog-eat-dog world,
**** or be killed, and this
old boy is still alive.
I don't have the
answer to this feline's
follies,
but I do know this,
sometimes,
I feel like a
cat out in the rain.

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.

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.

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.

I wish I were young again, I would bow to the majestic
beauty of the sleepy sunset.
Happy like a kid with a kite, my feet would bathe in the
snakelike streams escaping through
the meadows, beneath the starlit autumn sky.

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.

Who are you to tell me
what I can write about?
If my soul needs to shout,
it will do just that.
Try to get a life, and stop
reading my poetry.
You weren't supportive
of it when we were
together, don't criticize it
while we are apart.
If you really want to read
something, try the
first amendment.
I just had a friend die,
and you haven't asked once
how I'm doing.
I've found rabid raccoons
kinder than you.

Dawn will crackle with
madness, and a sad
soul sickness, that
breeds an all too
familiar
incomprehensible fear.

It's such hard
work to get that
click, to be okay;
to see the squirrels and
smell the leaves,
to lick the lice off the
sparrows and the grackle.

Some poems don't
work.
No amount of
tweaking will
fix it.
You can't finger it until
it comes.

Push the delete
button and
start over.
You write because
you have to.
It's in your cells.

You're a salmon,
swimming up
stream to stay
alive.
You write because
the nuthouse yawns,
and beckons.
It waits.

The cage door is
open, and the
water is
tainted with
mercury.
Fly away, or die.

If the writing
isn't working,
go fishing,
eat a tangerine or
some brussel sprouts.
Be livid
Be silly.
Study the *****
and the orchid.

Think about what the
color black tastes like, or if
pink whispers or yells.
And write until
the trivialities take
flight from your
life.
In the surrendering,
triumph will come.

He had wings that
gave him flight.
The sun was
beautiful and bright.
It melted into the ocean.

But there is danger in
flying too low as well,
just ask the mermaids in
the depths of hell.
The seawater screws
up the lift.

Fly to safety and
peace,
not the
fantastical or
far-fetched.
You don't need to
have it all.
Beware of

too

much



ambition.

Angels with broken wings,
frostbitten dreams,
morphine nights,
and gangrene schemes.
She had that broken glass sadness.
The kind that gets worse with
every slammed door and every
lazy moon mad night.
The light in her eyes was dim,
like a candle in the fog, or like
a frog that dreams of flying, but
wakes up to the same old pond,
day after degrading day.
God, every time I see her, I want to
take her home and give her a bath,
feed her strawberries and rub her feet.
I want to free her from the rain slick
suffering she's stuck in, wash away the
stench of the lonely diesel strangers,
but I can't save her, hell I can't even
save myself.  So I *** her a Midnight Special,
and light it for her, with a brief sulfuric blaze
of glory bereft of any lasting light...
walk away...Jack-O-Lantern grin
into the lonesome neon night.

I know they look like sunrises and sunsets, but I was painting you.
When I painted all the rivers that lead to the oceans, and the glorious starry nights, and the flowers; the sublime orchids and the tender roses.
In the end
and from the beginning,
I was painting you.

Look at you my
little bird, have you
been pierced by a
sword?
Are you broken,
afraid?
It fasinates me how
you just. sit there.
Did you forget about
your wings?
The sky is your
home
For **** sake,
take flight.

Being 16 and free,
living on the sailboat
with my Dad and brother.
I was rocked to sleep
by the gentle
waves in the marina.
Just being...the wonderful
verb of youth,
Bills came in,
Dad would say, "They can **** us,
but they can't eat us."
We'd laugh and peel
up the Pacific coast Highway
to the track,
Hollywood Park or Santa Anita,
to bet on the horses.
We'd dope the racing form;
Get chili dogs.
Dad would give us
money to bet with.

I saw some of the
best horses ever:
Secretariat
Affirmed
John Henry
Bates Motel
We saw the greatest jockeys too.
William Shoemaker
Liffit Pincay
Eddie D.

Our tiny heroes.
The thunder of the
hooves coming down the
homestretch still echoes

inside of me.
Dad always said, "winners buy dinner, "
but he always paid.
We stopped at this
steak place on the
edge of L.A.
It was dark; they had the best
Fillet Mignon, you cut it
with a spoon.
The sun sank into the blazing
ocean, and with the windows rolled
down, we could taste the salt
in the air.

My landlord gave
me two black kittens.
Little ***** of fluff.
I sent pictures to
my sister.
She said they have
eye infections, and not
to use hydrogen peroxide,
because it will blind them.
The thought never crossed
my mind.  I thanked her.
They are semi-feral,
but they are warming right
up to domestication.
I was like that too.
I enjoy my simple  life now.
Fishing and writing, I take
vitamins and clean cat ****
off my bed.
We are working on the
concept of the litter box.
I play classical music for them.
They like Vivaldi, but prefer
Mozart, D minor seems
their favorite key.
I don't know if they are
male or female, all I
see is a little pink dot, and
they aren't real fond of
me looking.
Bukowski for a male
and Emily for a female.
If they are both males
or both females, I don't
know what the hell I
will call them.
The bigger of the two is
sleeping next to me while
I write this.
I'll be a *******,
he's smiling, or she,
while sixteenth notes rip
through the burnt
umber autumn morning.

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'm just a lonely
wanderer;
a vagrant out at sea.
My vagabond spirit
knows home is where
I need to be.

Through the fog,
I can't see you.
I'm as blind as I can be.
You're my lighthouse in the darkness,
and your heart is where I long to be.

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...

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.

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 vicious.
“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.

Your memory becomes
nebulous when
you think about your wrongdoings,
however, it becomes
crystal clear
when remembering mine.

Bukowski and Mojo zip through
the new apartment.
Chirping like birds.
I had no idea kittens could
be so easily thrilled.
They aren’t even
high on catnip.
Fluffy black
blessings.

I'm not surprised anymore by
the extraordinary.
When life bombards
me with trivialities, and
ordinary events,
something always happens to
jolt me from my lethargy.

"Bukowski **** on
the training pads!"
My brother yells, from
the dining room.
I'm living with my
brother, and
we have two
black kittens, Mojo and
Bukowski.
They bring me
hours of smiles.
I've never seen
eyes so full of
trust and adoration.

Bukowski has an
aversion to the litterbox.
We have tried everything.
When I put him in,
he jumps out like it's
a muddy pond.

His brother Mojo adores
the litter box.
Not only does he do
his business, he also
plays and sleeps there on
occasion.
We've started with
the training pads and
newspapers.
It's working.
Amidst all the destruction,
hate, and chaos in the
world, I'm eaten up by
the magic of the ordinary.

I talk to them as
they doze in the
afternoon sun.
"Thank you boys,
you got me going again,
Mojo, you broke the
dry spell."
They blink, and
Bukowski licks his
brother's head.

Piano notes drift in the
rainy evening,
like sadness from a
clock.
You were the color
in my dreams.
The paint on my
canvas.

If in death
there were
dreams of divine
joy, and sublime
happiness,
it wouldn't be
so bad.

Like the dreams
I had as a
little boy.
The ones, that upon
waking, I felt like
I'd been punched in
the stomach.
Heart sick, lonely as
an old hound,
howling in the
moonlight.

The dreams that felt
so real, I could taste
the sweetness of
my favorite candy on
my tongue.
I could feel the
handlebars of my
shiny new bike.
Feel the wind on
my face, as I
raced against time.

The dreams where I
could smell the
honeysuckle in that
beautiful girl's hair.
The one that loved
me, as we walked the
dew soaked Meadows,
and talked about
our lives together,
bobwhite's singing our
favorite songs.

No, death would not
be bad at all,
if we could dream.