Our crop failed another year.
Naught grows in dust and wind.
I'm weak with thirst and hunger
and have no more tears left.
I can bear doing without.
My hungry child's desperate
eyes bring me to a brink I never
knew existed. I'm perched on it.

5am we crowd in the rickety cage
   to take us down to hell's cold entry
   into the mines. We stoop and dig
   claws into the rock to drag coal
   into the carts we roll to a rich
   man's greed and we end our days
   in poor man bars swallowing the
   dust into our angry hearts where
   we keep score and wait for God.
   We sleep with our sacred wives.

We come from hopeless histories
  to America with hope in pockets.
  We work like madmen tireless to
  earn our keep and feed we Irish.
  I feed coal to iron furnaces and
  load cargo in ship's hot holds.
  We won't starve to death here.
  My great grandson scratches
  my story into your memory.

I am a man who doesn't
know how to love
no matter how many times
I try. I write poems
hoping my heart might be
captured by one love at last.
I am still not able to love.
I love impossible hearts.

I am a man who doesn't
know how to love
no matter how many times
I try. I write poems
hoping my heart might be
captured by one love at last.
I am still not able to love.
I love impossible hearts.

I wake each day in a house of mirrors.
I stand inside of a different me.
I see me ******* a *****
who begs me to love her
for the kid's sake. I can't.
I want a mirror to fool me.
I see my kind friend Joe
who always saw the good
and was killed picking up
a hitchhiker after all.
I want a mirror to fool me.
I see my father still wet
behind the ears flying
a bomber in a war as a pawn
for them who don't care.
I want a mirror to fool me.
I see my cousin with ancient
broken heart, the wound
that never heals, choose
slow suicide by *****.
I want a mirror to fool me.
I see a man who doesn't
know how to love a wife
no matter how many times
he tries. He writes poems.
I want a mirror to fool me.

Mad hatter. White rabbit. Tea party.
    Alice small. Alice tall. Cheshire cat.
    Hookah smoking caterpillar. Door mouse.
    The Red Queen. Steel yourself. LSD.
    Acid. Window pane. Loony tunes. Microdots.
    Tripping. Mind altering. I was then not.
    I have lucid moments. I'm catatonic.
    I just want to **** Alice again.