Drink a toast to all us liars!
We keep the peace in marriage.
We keep love alive in old age.
We sleep cuddled in anger.
We never forget but never
remember as time dulls it all.

Lets have beers and shots and
share metaphors and broke hearts
and write poems to bring tears and
laughter and bury the dead finally.
Barkeep, bring us similes and drinks
to keep this wild madness alive.
We'll dedicate one to suffering wives
and suffering children and ourselves.
There's always something for us.
Poems cease at last call with periods.

It's so good but wreaks havoc
on my tongue. Like a lover
who breaks my back and tears
my life to pieces with kids who
are orphans from Dickens's
world. Chess pieces after all.

Butcher of the poor in black hoods.
  The projects destroy futures for most.
  Stacker of bodies, stormy, brawling, cruel.
  City of bully's with big shoulders.
  They say you are wicked and I know.
  You are fierce as a mad dog foaming
  through white teeth, tongue lapping,
  laughing as a young man laughs
  under the terrible burden of living.
  He cries stunned as his blood spills.

I look the same day to day like the
dogs and cat and cereal and toast.
I wake a stranger every day afraid
of different outcomes with unknown
villains plotting my demise. You are
the only constant in this universe.
You are my sword and armor and
resolve. You are my Bedlam with
restraints and pills and cruel men
with straitjackets for my comfort.
Strength is deep inside us all.
It's our ever present Hallelujah.

It lives in the world as we,
stealing what was ours and
living in it as its own now.
It won't even notice what no
longer is we surrendering
cells the universe collapsing.

Raise your beers to us common men.
We wear denim and carry lunches to
rough jobs with rough hands packed
by rough wives in rough drafty homes.
We raise kids with rough love who can
endure in rough times and love men
with rough ways. We are common folk.
We're no better than the rest of you.