I'm over served and under read.
   I'm almost every poet ever lived.
   We thrive in squalor and denim
   and body odor and the stink of us.
   We've been banished from polite
   society until we are published,
   feted and rude to ******* snobs.
   The rich love slumming with us.

Earth spinning like a top
    clowns running to stay put
    don't mention the trenches
    and amputations and rats who
    nibble on our numb legs as we
    try to sleep in muck and wonder
    which lucky men will die tonight?
    Let's not talk about it anymore.

You might want to ask for my
  blessing someday. I ask little.
  Be kind. Be a gentleman. Hold
  her hand when she needs it.
  Give her your coat in the cold.
  Protect her from her monsters.
  Know she'll never deceive you.
  Trust her love. It is absolute.

I see my naked body on the stainless steel.
They drain my blood out while
pumping formaldehyde in me.
I'm dressed in my black suit.
They make me up like a *****
so I might look alive again.
Friends never see the corpse.
They only see their memory.

I think your synapses and wires and circuits
are state of the art. Your beauty is flawless.
You're a '57 Chevy with a 4 in the floor and
a V8 engine that screams along the highways.

We met in an airport bar on our ways to who
cares anyway? We fell in love and cancelled
flights and left it all to the carrion eaters.
The circus was in town. We went and never left.

I haven't been inside a church
since my first marriage was annulled
after 2 kiddos and 5 bored years and
enough money to get some catholic
upper management to sign off on it.
I was lonely and cold on xmas eve so
I stood at the back of a packed church
midnight slightly drunk and nostalgic
for when I believed in youth's lies.
Black and white was true. Color is
blended into whatever you want it.
The play was comfort. The body of
Christ stuck to the roof of my mouth.
Some things never change, thank God.

It can't be silenced. It echoes
louder than thunder and guilt.
It roars inside the conscience
and makes us all beg for mercy.