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.

Often, when I'm on the
streets, decaying in *****-
degradation of the soul,
I go under the bridge and watch
the ducks.
Sometimes I talk to them.
They don't talk back.
Some days, it's the only
beauty I can see.
I think and dream of
a different world.
A land without
brutal lunacy.
I can handle madness.
It's the wicked,
smiling hatred that I
can do without.
The Iowa River beckons
me to come swim-
float blissfully to heaven.
But I know better.
Katie and Perry drowned not
far from where I sat.
It's usually at this time that
I'm fresh out of bread for
the ducks and I have milked the *****
bottle for all it's worth, that a
warm blanket of a thought comes to
me- I need help- go to the hospital.
I stumble my way there,
sometimes by ambulance.
I go through nightmarish withdrawals.
At around the third day, I get a
laptop from the patient library.
I catch up with neglected family
and friends, then I try to write.
The first four days, my mind is
like a smashed snail.
But usually, the magic comes back.
The muse kisses me gently, and I
put the shaking pen to the paper.
I can order whatever food I
want between 6 am and 8 pm.
I discovered years ago that they
have phenomenal cheesecake.
So when I'm able to eat, it's the
first thing I order.
My withdrawals are deadly.
Diastolic blood pressure
numbers like 103,109.113.
So they give me Ativan.
It helps tremendously- Ativan and cheesecake.
**** the muse's ****, then more
Ativan and cheesecake.
If I'm lucky, I'll turn out a
poem or two-like this one right now.

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.

I just have to write.
**** everything else.
I've suffered for my art,
and there's no doubt that
I will suffer more.
We all have our agony,
that's life and I accept
my plight.
I am what I am
(as Popeye would say.)
And I couldn't change
it if I wanted to.
I remember one night,
staying in an abandoned
house.
I wrote some poems on
the walls.
I saw the words in
the moonlight through
a broken window.
Even though I was famished,
I hadn't eaten in
three days,
at that moment, I became
full and complete.
I knew right then,
as long as I had the words;
my words, I would never
feel empty again.
My black satchel full of
writing and the clothes
on my back were all
I owned.
I had no idea where I
was going at dawn,
but I sure the **** knew
who I was.

I will not be
subdued.
Cages don't suit me.
I have to be free.
Fly
run
sing
dance in the
open fields, swim
in the river with
the fish and water snakes.
My soul can't be
taken without my permission.
The access is denied.
My heart isn't yours to
mock and ****.
I will rise like
the phoenix from
the ashes and sail on against
the azure sky, free and
untethered.
Resurrected
I'm back from the dead.

I feel like I'm
stuck in a bad
video game,
like pong, from
the first Atari.
And I'm that little  
dot that gets ponged
back and forth.
Life is like a
Scene from Dante's
inferno...
Abandon all hope...
I need mountains,
The ocean,
And the breath of
6 week old puppies.

If you can no longer bear life's clenched fist, it's random smashing of all your hope, dreams, desires, and passion,
be drunk.

Be drunk on wine, music, poetry by the pages, or, on the agelessness of the silky moss covered pond or the fog thick meadows.

If you would not feel time's ticking brutality, be drunk.
If all memory does is remind you of the losses, the deaths, the divorces, the regrets, the remorse over your high ideals and standards, and your much lower behavior, choices, and antics; when life seems anti-climactic, be drunk.

As loneliness becomes like a rotten tooth, hot flashing pain, and the stain on your heart and hands won't come out, be drunk.

Whether it be *****, poetry, nature or music, be full, filled, consumed.

Until the glare of this cruel world becomes a soft gentle blur, be drunk and entombed.

Today, early on a
Saturday morning, I'm
trying a little trick I
learned from Bukowski.
I put on some classical
music and I am trying
to write.
Beethoven's 5th in C minor.

I sit in my favorite chair and
watch my black cat lie on the
back of the loveseat and
watch the snowfall.
She looks triumphant,
but it could just be the music.
The philodendrons that hang
around the house and the
bamboo plants seem happier, too.
There's no hope for the palm tree.

Well, the main thing is that I put the
pen to paper, and Beethoven,
my cat and you came along for the
ride.

Maybe the cellos, violins, and
trombones will fertilize my
creativity.
Now, my other two cats have joined
the fun.
They wrestle by the heater and laugh at
all the fat, rich *******.

Everyday that dawns,
you slip away a little more.
The distant stare,
the apathetic eyes.
Your love is as dead
as the roses in
the trash.
Your heart is an
abyss that I'm
lost in forever.
Belladonna drew me in.
The poison kept me there.

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

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.

I don't need
friends like Judas and Brutus.
It seems as though they're everywhere.
I've even had a few Delilah's in my life.
They have exploited my
weaknesses for their own gain.
Whether it's a knife in the back,
a few pieces of silver, or a kiss
they are all betrayers;
the rotten fruit of the earth.
So this short ditty goes out to them
and their kind.
Stay away from me.
and go **** yourself.

One of my
earliest memories is
of afternoons in
the backyard, standing on
a wrought iron chair that
was painted
lime green.
My creativity was feral
The paint was peeling,
And the sun beat down
upon me.

I was 5 years old.
and the Genesis of my
writing career began.
Below my chair was a plastic
swimming pool filled with water.
I sang leaving on a jet plane  I
I understood pathos,
and plot, and melancholia.
In my mind, I was a man
leaving a woman.
As I jumped into the pool
I could smell loneliness.
And I understood the
descent, the separation,
the sadness.

And in my little life,
and in my big heart,
under that hot July sun,
The poet was born.

It was a
****** mary morning,
with a Van Gogh sky.
I woke up early, and
found a bar that did the  
same.
My kind of place
dark
and empty.
I began ordering ****** marys,
one after another.

At noon I paid
my bill and
caught the bus downtown.
I had to be at the  
courthouse at one for a
probation violation hearing.
I met my lawyer in the  
hall.
He said,
“What the hell are you doing?”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“You’re drunk,” he shouted.
“I’m fine,”  I said.
I followed him into the
courtroom.
We sat down across the
table from the
prosecutor.
As soon as we sat
down,
he said,
“Come with me.”
I got up and followed
him into the
judges chambers.
He handed me a small
machine with a
tube attached,
and said,
“Blow in this.”
I did.

He said, "This must be your  
lucky day.
It’s broken.
Do you want a
week in jail or
a month more
probation?”

I’ll take the longer
probation, I said
I had nothing but
time, and a small
amount of cash.
I walked out of
the court house.
Everything
looked ******.

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.

Blue-eyed delusion;
living in the past.
I guess sanity doesn't
last forever.
Maybe she never
had it at all
I need a woman that
treats me right,
and knows how to love,
not a monster that rages
in the night.
The railroad tracks
know the truth;
so do those harsh Iowa winters.
And talking about a god
doesn't change it.

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.

Another sun sets on his ****** red
broken dreams.This is the kind of scene
where a leaky faucet could be the straw that
breaks the roaches back, a snapped
shoe lace, a closed liquor store after
a mile walk, sick and shaking in
the pouring rain.
It's so hot, you could bake a potato in
the dresser drawer.
Hot like hell in the summer.
And after it's all said and done,
it's not the heat that finally gets him
or the rickety gate. It's the beating in
his chest that began two hundred
years too late.

I used to have a friend from
New York that was a lawyer, she once
dated a famous NBA star.
We drank ***** together.
She was a bit smug, but smart and
funny—a dangerous combination.

One evening, we decided to
go to a neighborhood grocer that
sold spirits and wine.
She had a black schipperke named
Bruno.
One drunken night I dubbed
him the Senator, after Ted Kennedy,
another smart and funny drunk.

We called a cab to get
more *****. I put Anna’s
Dolce and Gabbana sunglasses
on; I grabbed a broom handle and
hooked the Senator
up to his leash.
I said, “Look, look, I’m blind and Teddy is
my seeing eye dog.”
Anna laughed and said,
“Oh we must bring him along.”
She used the word, “must” a lot.
The cab pulled up and the
act began.

I worked the cane, and the dog out the
door, with those big white
sunglasses covering my eyes.
We piled in the cab,
and
tore off into
the sweltering July night.
We pulled into the
grocery store parking lot
Anna told the cabbie to wait.
She was beat red and big tears of
joy flowed freely down her face.
I grabbed her arm and said,
“Quit laughing, or they’ll think it’s a joke;
I’m ******* blind; it isn’t supposed to be funny.”
She laughed harder.

We walk through the sliding doors,
I’m waving the broom handle back and forth on
the floor.
The Senator immediately proceeds to
**** on a display case of crackers.
Anna cackles,
we walk on like we didn’t just see Ted’s
indiscretions. We headed for
the *****.
Anna yells, “Did you see what the
Senator did back there?”
I say, “Of course I didn’t see it honey,
I’m blind, what did he do.”
She screamed, “He ****** all over that display case.”
"I know, I know—let’s get the
***** and get the hell out of
here before they kick us out.”
Just then, the Senator slipped out
of his collar and began to
run up and down the aisles.
I chased him, he dodged me.
Anna tripped and fell, she laughed until
she wet herself.
That ******* dog had
more moves than an NFL running back.
I finally cornered him by the
milk and butter section; I reached down to
grab him, and the little
******* bit me.
I smacked his nose and said,
“Bad Dog—Bad, Bad Dog.”
He bit me again.
I finally had him in my arms;
by then, those ridiculous looking
sunglasses were on top of
my head.
I lost the broomstick, and dragged the leash and
collar behind me.
We made it to Anna’s and drank into the
night. Most poets wouldn’t know how to end
a poem like this
but I do,
bow wow.

I was thinking about your
breath before you brush your teeth,
I love it.
It reminds me of simple, beautiful things,
like, streams flowing gently over
moss-covered rocks, and puppies at
about three weeks old, right before
they open their eyes, the way they
wiggle around with their ears pasted
to their heads, blind to the world.
Soft plump bellies full of
Mother's milk.  But I think most
of all, it reminds me of home,
a home with love and laughter,
and books and plants.
Classical music and sunlight-bending
through half-open windows.
It warms hearts and hands and
hours and days, that slip
away far too soon.
It reminds me of feathers and flight,
and babies--clocks ticking, pages turning,
and life--hard, fast, short, beautiful life.

There's an old gray
cat that wanders the
neighborhood.
Neutered and wild
green eyes.
He's confident, and
thick,
doesn't trust humans
but loves tuna.
I don't blame him.
I have three female
cats that watch him through
the window, wagging their
slim tails.
He couldn't care less.

I call him Bubba.
His head is the size of
a grapefruit.
Half of one ear is gone.
I put food out for him.
He waits until I go inside
to eat it.
He's tough.
Lived a rough life.
I can tell, I've been down
some of the same
back roads as him,
slept in similar
alleys.

But no one has
taken my *****

yet.

We used to meet at this
enclosed bus stop.
Glassed in, like a
blurry-eyed goldfish.
Diesel morning sadness.
We were drunks, dead, and
still dreaming.
There was Chuck, Dog,
Lefty
Lucky
and Beth.

We shared our minuscule
amounts of liquor, and sang
old Motown favorites.

"Mama said there'd be days
like this."

These were the days of the
drunk and debauched.
Liars and lovers, partakers
in this waddling life.
Shattered days and fractured
nights.
We shadowboxed with the
sun, and pretended tomorrow
was a century away.

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.

Those silver cans of
government meat, set
on the table with a red
and white checkered
tablecloth.
An old yellow light hung
on a chain illuminating
the can of meat.
It tasted like flavorless
gum.
It seemed like a mish-mash
of byproducts that no one
else wanted.
Mom always tried to make
a casserole out of it, but no
amount of pasta or sauce
would fix that roadkill.

Mom hid the cans in the
trash.  Tried to bury it
beneath empty packages
of mushrooms and onion
skins.
I'd dig lightly, and there it
was.
That silver government can.
Shadows for dinner.

A silhouetted pig, cow, or
chicken, made a cameo
on the can.
They reminded me of those
horrid souvenirs from
Disneyland that hung
above the antique *****.
As a boy, I'd look up to see
one of my brothers or sisters
likeness splayed out on the
wall in a creepy silhouette of
horror.
Deathlike, dark, and final.

It was like they caught the animal
at the
last stand.
Death and then eaten.
I know that's why I'm
here.

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
*******!

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
*******!

You're so sweet when
you're bleeding, and you're
needing that ****.
You're so lovely when
you study.
Let me give you
this rock.

Don't blame it on
emotion,
the ocean still rolls in.
Don't call it love,
when we both know
that it's sin.

I don't care about
the weather
when the ****
hits my veins.
I don't care about
the tether,
when I'm going insane.

If you were here,
I'd kiss you,
make my troubles
go away.
The problem lies
in the fact that I can't stay.

You can **** on me,
**** the poison from
my soul.
Keep me young.
Never grow old.

I'm always watching you,
through the Windows
of my mind.
My heart is true
even though my
soul is blind.

I dream of ******* you
in the darkness
Of your cage.
I want to slide it in
so you can feel all of my rage.

You're going to take it
Just like you took everything
From me.
I once was blind
But now I see.

I miss you,
but not as much
as I miss myself
I love you
but I hate my ******* self.

I watch the
parade of
trivialities line
up like
hemlock,
like mad dogs
yipping at
my ankles.

I'm too
crafty for them.
I laugh and
yawn
and watch
my cats play with
an electric fish.

This isn't a poem, it's a challenge to write a poem inspired by Tom Waits.  You could write a poem inspired by a particular song of his, or you could just write a poem inspired by Wait's gritty vibe.....it's loads of fun and everyone is welcome to try.

Debauched nights, destruction waning,
There is a twisted pull to the underbelly.
Chaos is ****, like silk stockings and
Bonnie an Clyde.
I can smell it a mile away,
like a dog in heat.
It lures me from the
safety of my sweet calm life.
There is an existence beyond
the bridge, but it's boring and soulless.
I want to ****** the light, and
the routine.  Dredge the marrow
from the bone

Drinking has been an exercise in
lunacy and sorrow,
like jumping off a cliff,
for tomorrow's dead dreams.
The fruit of the vine should
be sweet and sentimental,
like mamas and moonlight.
With a fistful of memories and
a soul full of pain,
I try it all again;
I chase the phantom.

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.

Why do some women worry so
much about the
outside?
Clean car,
clean dishes,
clean toilet,
clean face, clean little
bill of health,
clean credit rating,
clean dog, clean teeth,
clean floor?
What about the
inside?
The heart, the soul,
the conscience?

Hey, no.
I’m busy cleaning,
cleaning the carpet, the sink,  
the garden.
For God’s sake
what would the neighbors
think?

I have to clean the
tables, the ceilings, your
fingernails, ears and crotch.
And the bed that
we copulate in,
it’s all *****.
*****, *****, *****.
and the mirror…
just look at it.

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

Here comes another
classic case of
writer's block.
**** soft,
I spew
across the
white pages.
Maybe age is
catching up
with me.
Time has been
a friend,
but I'm only as
good as my last poem.
I long for the days
when songs filled
my heart, where every
part of me smelled
the rain and the
wet dogs, and the
streets of Spain.
The pain was always
fodder, the joy, the sadness
the madness of love and
*** and passion.
The rancid anger and rage
became the words of
a sage when I broke
out the notebook.

Not tonight though,
I will wait for the
******* and the blood
to simmer in
the red dot on the
white snow.
Patiently waiting for
the hemorrhaging of
the soul.

Here comes another
classic case of
writer's block.
**** soft,
I spew
across the
white pages.
Maybe age is
catching up
with me.
Time has been
a friend,
but I'm only as
good as my last poem.
I long for the days
when songs filled
my heart, where every
part of me smelled
the rain and the
wet dogs, and the
streets of Spain.
The pain was always
fodder, the joy, the sadness
the madness of love and
*** and passion.
The rancid anger and rage
became the words of
a sage when I broke
out the notebook.

Not tonight, though,
I will wait for the
******* and the blood
to simmer in
the red dot on the
white snow.
Patiently waiting for
the hemorrhaging of
the soul.

Rain splashes off the
screen door.
It's raining in
my heart
chubby little drops
splashing on my soul.
The sadness is deeper
than a lagoon,
bluer too.

There are days
it doesn't pay to
get out of bed.
Maybe,
in the next dream
I'll find my
prodigal cat.
We could listen to
Sketches of Spain,
Miles Davis knows
how to bring the lost home.

She's a black runt that
burrowed into my heart.

*** until the heart stops seems like the logical answer.
Death in sweat drenched ecstasy,
and preferably with
the nubile young Sherriff's wife.
Now, if she's not around, his sister
or Mother would do just fine.
Small town tasty freeze
serves as the last meal.
What a way to go,
behind some greasy cheeseburger
and chocolate shake.  Sheriff said the
budget wouldn't cover the French fries.
I don't care much about myself,
it's mama I'm worried about.
it will just break her heart...I ain't no good.
I hope I can see her if I can get to heaven.
Mama's the best in the world.

I used to crush
lightning bugs on
my face. I thought
I would glow in
the dark.
I don't, although,
my liver has given me
a nice jaundice cast.
Almost Miami tan.
The other night
she
punched me, then called
the cops- blood everywhere.
She went to jail for
five days.
She acted like it was
an eternity.
We ****** last night until
we were raw.
Today, she's a stranger;
self centered and
self absorbed.
I've been drinking Cooking Sherry
to keep from having seizures.
She couldn't care less.
She brought home a
six pack and gave me one
beer.
Oh well,
I knew she was no Iris when
I met her.
I just didn't realize she
was Nightshade.

Pages turn,
chapters end,
books are finished.
With resolution, and head
held high, I'll
fly away to somewhere
safer, where there's
less pain.
I try to love you,
but you just
push me away.
The heart is a
silly dreamer.
It sees life as it
should be...could be,
and not as it
really is.
The head sees what
the heart doesn't.
Emotions can be as
treacherous as a
rabid dog or a
razor blade.
I wish I were a
redwood or a rosebush,
or even a dandelion
just
swaying in the
breeze.

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.

Why is it that this ****** up
world labels all the creative people
crazy?
They do it all the time.
John Nash
Vincent Van Gogh
Poe
Sylvia Plath
Michelangelo
Edvard Munch
Fransisco Goya
Hemingway
Kerouac
H.P. Lovecraft
Virginia Woolf
This isn't an exhaustive list.
I think it is complete
*******.
I think Artists see the world
differently, so it's easier
to call them crazy, then to try
and understand why they
see the world differently.
As long as the world keeps
doing this...they can go
**** themselves with a
copy of On the Road,
and a tube of Cerulean blue
paint.

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 look at the pictures of us, and it's like looking at a paper graveyard.
The smiles, so frozen in time, so distant and temporary.

My memories are of cut flowers,
laid at the altar of us.
Bright and then fading, losing petals
like prayers scattered over fresh earth.

Your eyes have lost their shine in my mind.
I can barely taste you on my tongue.
My mouth starves at your garden.
As time slips away, the pain becomes like
an old rusty machine
on an abandoned farm.

We disintegrate and decompose.
A gentle thundering rain swallows us
in hazy downpouring sheets.
But a new life is carried
through turbulent groundwater currents.
A sprout, seeking root on fertile ground,
where fleeting moments of new joy
will be captured again and again.

And through the death of the old,
we embrace the birth of the new.

Let's all go
to Damnation Island.
Let's all go to
the lunatic's ball.
We'll  have
amusements, and
dancing, and the
magic lantern.
The stupefaction
is for us all.

The poor will
be there,
hungry
and tired.
The poor will
be there,
dresses in rags.
We'll all have fun
on  Damnation Island.
The degradation is
for us all.

The criminals
are on
Damnation Island.
They're dancing and
killing at the
lunatic's ball.
The criminals love
Damnation Island.
The mortification is
for us all.

If you go to
Damnation Island,
if you dance at
the lunatics ball,
you might stay on
Damnation Island,
there's a good chance
you'll sell
your soul

She dressed up like a
***** just to go to the
bank.
And she ****** like
one too—drunk on
cheap wine—mascara smeared all
over her face.
I took her in every
****** position there is—we even
invented a few.
She had the most beautiful
mahogany eyes—they said
so much. Her smile made
my **** salute.
From dusk till dawn
we ****** until we
collapsed into each others arms;
warm and safe and spent like
the sun.
**** tomorrow,
may it never come.

Down I go into the gray and brown.
I hit the sides, like being in a cradle that is
rocked too fast.  It's an abrupt catastrophe.
I didn't see this one coming; but I felt it, like
the slight rumble of an earthquake, or like the
false dawn, before the real light yawns, and
opens the sickly day.
It's just another ending, dapple and down.

There's a little
boy that hides in
the dark corners of
my soul.
He doesn't want to
be hurt anymore.
I spent eight years
with Beth.
For the most part,
it was hell and
constant pain.
She made nightmares
look good.
I heard the
little boy cry
late into the
silky night,
while snails got
smashed on the streets
of Ventura.

When I drank, which was often,
the little boy seemed
at peace for awhile,
while swans were
murdered in Venice,
and I tasted the ashes
of Neruda.
Years flew by
like seagulls;
up
down
and darting.
The little boy
continued to
hide in the
dark corners of my soul.

He wanted to
come out and be loved.
He was thirsty for it,
but there wasn't
any around.
It was dry, like the
deserts in hell.
It's too late for
sorries, here comes
the plow.

He began to see
the pattern of life.
There are monsters
that walk in the light.
Vulnerability equals pain.
The little boy got mean.
And now he carries
a knife.

I flirted with
the sun as it
blushed
pink
through the trees,
their naked branches
spread wide,
wet with dew.
Sticky sweet
dawn
winked with the
promise of a new day.
Swans mate for
life
and die in the spring.
And she
lied a little less than
the moon, and
the fog, and the
wet cat drunk on
feline dreams.
Her eyes looked like
they hated her face;
like they
wanted to
leap out, and
roll down the street,
find a mountain brook to
wash off all they had seen.
She saw too much...
felt too much,
as the fractured dawn
laughed
and flew away like
a mockingbird.

Sometimes, when I
talk to the ex,
I feel strong
as a rope.
Nothing she says
or does fazes me.
I guard my emotions
and keep the
conversation strictly
about the kids, and
how we can better
co-parent.

Other times, when
we talk,
I feel like
Humpty Dumpty
teetering on a brick
wall.
Her cruel words
are like strong
gusts of wind
sending me to the
cold hard ground
in a thousand pieces.

On days like these
I berate myself,
"What the ****
Is wrong with you?
Why did you
let
her in again?
Her heart is
small and
diseased."

I fell in
love with
hope
and a
false image.
When I saw
reality
It was
like
finding a
snake in my
bed.