I painted the beauty beyond my barred
   window. It all lived in my head anyway.
   I walked and smelled the scenes in our
   outings from the asylum I was a guest.
   Are we mad to think we exist at all?
   What god would leave so many questions?

Did paints or paintings make you mad?
The Starry Night made the moon the sun
and night the day. It was your soul on display.
You lived in that world until you couldn't.

I'm older than dirt and you are
breathing on land for the first
time. I want to shake my finger
at you and say get off my lawn.
Please understand I stood in
your frames of life seconds ago.
We're born in hubris and die
in sorrowful feeble humility.
I wrote **** poetry at 20.
I hope I write better **** at 70.
The poetry I read from young
poets here is amazing.
Your poems will steer your
generation. Be the conscience.

It plays out on a stage by the sea.
  Violence, money, *** and drugs
  paint the scene blood red smelling
  of copper and naked angels die again.
  I'm left with your artifacts as proof
  you loved me when I was still pure.

If we want anyone to give our poem
a glance we need to go crazy.
Batboy Lives in My Attic.
That Time I Killed My Wife.
Boy Discovers His *****!
Open Season on *******!
Bring Parents to Your Room Day.
Sell it.

We ***** these poems faster than HP can
handle. You need a fire hose to keep up.
We're a chatty bunch with endless sins we
need to confess into your priest hole.
We need to know our penance so we can
wipe our slates and fill them up again.

A bunch of teacher's pets
move the sun back and forth
and the rest of us suffer from
their hubris and arrogance.

I brought my little girl into the garden.
She delighted in colorful blooms and
fragrance and my tender love that will
never die. She'll give it to her little girl.

They caught my stray heart.
   It went into a kennel and was
   put on the auction block where
   women would rescue it and try
   to keep it. It always jumped
   their fences and got away.

I came to the same fork as Frost
but took the worn path and never
looked back or wondered what if.
It made all the difference after all.

We're born into a tiny slice of history.
    Dropped into roles in small orbits around
    each other and we're caught and spin in
    our gravity falling in and out of Love.

Where do you come from?
  A billion brain cells click
  and turn and you laugh or
  cry. You never forget. It
  simmers for years until one
  night in your cups it moves
  your fingers on keys and
  you give birth to a Poem.

If I could die for you I would.
I see you withered from cancer.
You're young with youngsters
and I'd be you in a firing squad.
I'm spent and ready for blindfolds
and a shot in the heart. I wish.

I was lost inside myself. I was at
  a casual party, loud music and beer
  and some tiny madness tugging at my
  mind all day. My life was broken on
  rocky shores where lives perish.
  I walked naked from the bathroom.
  They were overdressed while I was
  the only one to come as you are.
  Only that not understood
  is truly irresistible.

I have to hold you by your edges
    careful not to smear your makeup,
    not to muss your hair, ruin lipstick.
    You are my porcelain china doll.
    I'm your curator. Look but don't touch.
    I'll keep you perfect forever.

In the aftermath I thought
  how small the sound was.
  I expected a bigger noise.
  I thought it was snowing.
  It was just ash, a feeble
  reminder of what was,
  floating on nuclear winds.
  The only sound was silence.

It belongs to those I love.
I'd end it sometimes but I
would never hurt them.
Loss might drive them
to despair and dominoes
would fall on and on.

Reggie

    He's dying in his bed above his bar.
    The jukebox plays soundtracks
    of life and people live out loud
    drinking and laughing in fierce
    lives below. Life on fire!
    He dies smiling above it all.

I pray on my knees every night
to my plastic Jesus bleeding on
his made in China plastic cross.
My world is ***** and pillaged.
I still believe church and state will
jail the guilty and save us fools.

I've outlived everyone of you
******* who wanted to ****
on my grave. I'm not pretty.
I'm a lump of clay but still.

I drop my frozen tears into
my cup of wine for comfort.
I pray for your soul and visit
you often at your grave to
share gossip and heal my
heart just one more time.

It's been eroding more and more.
I can't remember hatreds I had or
races of people I disdained or my
lovers or children or you anyway.
I'll evaporate in a vacuum while
you pull the plug on my DNR.

Christ! When I was in high school
a band made a song that reached
through the years and touched my
70 year old self and I'm stunned.

I'll climb into the cockpit
of this beast that threatens
to beat the speed of light
though I might disappear.
I have Einstein's photograph
in my pocket for good luck.

I'm an old poet with a young heart.
  I'm Scrooge on Christmas morning.
  I'm George Bailey at the end thankful
  because it's a wonderful life after all.

We kissed like lovers.
    We kiss like friends.
    What happened to our
    greatest love story?
    Time is our tragedy;
    just lambs to slaughter.

I visit them all.
  I crave their stories.
  Maybe I want their lives.
  So many lived more proper.
  Some thought they lived sacred.
  Hate seethes from some graves.
  It's red fog in night's demise.
  Tears are everywhere in this ground.
  Wind whispers secrets. I listen.
  Life is Death's reason to exist.

I'll wear your costumes
and dance your steps
graceful as a swan
and eat your sins
until they fill me and
I ask to be forgiven.
I'll fall down your
cruel well and die.

We're cool
  we're hip
  we're writing everything
  you wish you'd been doing
  all along. We live in attics
  and drink cheap beer and wear
  clothes of the proletariat.
  we smoke anything, defy death.
  We're the Beats back again.

harvests can be bountiful
    they can be wanting
    I've known you both ways
    and I know elegance no matter
    always a pleasure when we dance in
    ballrooms or barns or not at all.
    One of us will kiss the other's hand
    goodbye in a casket then dance alone.

Death be certain.
    Death be kind.
    Death be easy.
    Death be blind.

  Carry a soul if one there be
  and put it to rest where I
  never know the joys of life.
  I never know life's sorrows.

    Death be eternal.
    Death be dark.
    Death be forgiven.
    Death be forgotten.

It's gonna' be a dark lonely
  Sunday alone in Motel 6 with
  the queen who owns my soul.
  We met in the war overseas.
  I brought my darling home.
  She quiets noise, calms nerves,
  fills my empty space awhile.
  We'll marry when I overdose.

The clock scratches its way to 11 pm.
I'm deep in my cups and celebrate.
I'll wander into bed and dream of the
lovers and enemies I slayed in their time.

I see everything in black and white.
Black man, white man, shades of grey
spells the end, my friend. I always
loved you and I'll miss us gone.
We crossed the color divide and
God ****** died for it.

There's a calm in chaos
  silence while the world
  fades and clarity of
  reason in madness.
  "There's more good than
  bad in this one", is the
  best they can say over
  this bleeding out corpse.

I asked to be forgiven.
     You didn't have it in you.
     I'll build a cross and carry
     it 12 lashes and be nailed
     upon it and die in agony with
     a crown made from thorns in
     your heart. Pierce me with
     hatred to die all alone.

We swarm to be heard.
We write to plant our seeds
in your furrows. Ideas take root.
Cocktail chatter and bedroom whispers
spread them far and wide from church
to AA to shooting galleries.
We shout words in sound proof rooms
wrapped in straight jackets and put down.

My skin doesn't fit anymore.
It's 2 sizes too big and my bones
live in a circus tent and my face
gaunt and eyes sunk in my skull.
I'll still write these poems so you
will be prepared for being old.

I've chased love over and over
like a dog chasing ***** in a field.
I have it in my jaw and drop it at
her feet. She just throws it again.
There are always more dogs than
hearts being thrown in our midst.

Love is fog that blinds you.
     It is perfumed lustful fangs
     into your neck as you laugh.
     Lust comes disguised as love
     to tear your holy vows to hell.
     Love can never pretend at lust.

As poets this would be impossible.
A neighbor got this for a job interview.
I love "fierce". I use that often. My wife
suggested "quest". I thought it quite good.
What might you choose, poets?

He makes me feel inadequate.
I'll never measure up so **** it.
Like a mother who hates how you
make your bed and does it over
every time and I start to see the
cracks in her shell and the madness
that finally brings her to her knees;
visits to a shrink to put her back how
she used to be but the puzzle is short
of pieces and nothing ever seems right.

We kissed our fierce goodbyes.
I got on the troop plane and flew
to Viet Nam to **** commies and
keep our freedoms safe.
Jungle. Moist with poison life.
Snakes in tree limbs and frogs
with deadly skin. Not Kansas.
We wrote less and less. I knew
you had needs I couldn't touch
10,000 miles away. You wrote
a Dear, John but I was too tired
to give a **** 10,000 miles away.

I've been put upon all along
    for this broken heart song
    so keep your tears for later
    when you read my final letter.
    I still love you but I surrender
    to our fractured pretend splendor.
    I tried to live in ticks of time
    that bled like a watercolor crime.

Some similarly hideous beast
will offer you stardom for your
wound that never heals.
LA is full of predators who
lust for the young beauties
flocking there from small towns
to be discovered at lunch counters
but end up on director's couches.

I love you more than life itself!
You took my virginity with your
needle and launched me like a kite
upon a warm summer breeze.
I never want to leave you, but
my life has been stripped bare
by the vultures. It's just us now.
I hope to a god of sorts that I
never go to the corner where
you sell yourself short, after all
I gave everything for your sting.
I'll die if you won't let me go, Love.

Let us pretend that all is well and
life isn't drowning in a sea of wine.
Our passion is alive and hungry.
Years ago it never died on the vine.
We live in separate hearts.
We live in separate rooms.
We crave other spaces.
We crave other tombs.
If only we could fall in love
again like we did before.
We could forget the winter
and devour each other.

Poems hung out like laundry
  on the strings of my heart to
  dry in gentle summer breezes
  wave goodbye to all my lovers.
  I never wanted to leave but I
  knew that someday you'd **** me.

My home away from home.
My elbows on the bar lifting
a drink to my eager lips.
It's elixir like a first kiss.