She was my most demanding.
  Claws always at my throat for
  attention. She ****** me into
  real dreams. I needed that *****.
Mother's milk and first ****
but always the final shot.

We were at the liquor store
waiting for it to open every
day. You were so pretty.
I wished I combed my hair.
We had poetry in common.
We liked Frost and Auden
and loved Dylan. We lived
in Bukowski's rawness.
We haunted warm libraries
in winter and read aloud
to each other in spring.
We huddled together in
the nights homeless but
together. We had each
other, so much more than
the rest of the lost world.

Alone
   Bon voyage in your
   lonely quest for fame.
   The band plays and
   locals bid adieu.
   Gulls and bells speak.
   Waves clap noisily
   slapping at shore.
   Cheering fades as
   miles add to miles.
   Now I know alone.

Harvests can be bountiful
    or they can be wanting.
    I've known you both ways.
    I know elegance no matter.
    Always a pleasure when we dance in
    ballrooms or barns or Night, Love.
    One of us will kiss the other's hand
    goodbye in a casket then dance alone.

When did we become
irrelevant? We were poets!
We could turn a phrase.
Our lines could sit on a pin
so precise to spin in orbits around
what world's we once were.

I was dead all along inside my
chalk outline drawn around my
broke body from 7 floors above
where I wrote my last poem.

Roadmap to painless suffering.
Do penance for just being born
through a birth canal into Coney Island
where everything is fun
and Leave it to ****** Church
gives ****** for communion.
Embrace the fog and forget you
ever doubted. Drive your bus.
Deliver us all to our evils.
Punch transfers to mortal sins.

I saw a dying brother bleed out.
   I saw a madman **** his flock.
   Parades celebrated the funerals.
   Little boys masquerading as men
   played war. Real men died for mud.
   Loved ones prayed their rosaries.
   No prayers were ever answered on
   our street. Gold stars filled sad
   windows. Widows cried in private.
   They would never dance again.

The day we went swimming in
our waterhole in underwear and
saw us as special boys who had
no rules was the day of our birth
baptized in the muddy water.
Our paths have diverged over
time. We set the world on fire
and made a difference at last.

I'm Okay and all of that.
It was only me that died.
Easier than I expected.
I feel for those poor souls
at my funeral shedding
tears and praying for me.

When I die release the doves to
     follow my spirit and have the band
     play 'When the Saints' and a buffet
     table a mile long. I don't want sorrow.
     Forget regrets and simmering feuds.
     None of that matters anymore. If I
     broke your heart forgive me, if you
     broke mine you're forgiven. I hope I
     was a decent son, brother, husband,
     father. I know I fell short at times.
     You'll never really know me. I don't
     really know myself.  We're complex
     and conflicted. I hope on death's
     scale I can come out even at the end.

When I die and they try to separate
the wheat from the chaff they'll find
odd stuff like Love **** and magazines
with naked ladies and gentlemen.
They might find things I wrote drunk
and angry and godawful truth.
Everything is lost in the long run.
Memories die with time's certainty.

I've been looking for something
since I was 5. I looked at fire and
nearly burned the woods down.
I looked at cigarettes mom smoked
and caught hell. I watched my god
gramps drinking beer and vomited.
I saw Jimmy Kuhn's dad's poker cards
with naked women on them and I
stole the Ace of spades who became
my lonely lover in the bathroom.
I've been looking for her ever since.

They always look torn to shreds
and halfway to dead but never
die. They gather like clouds and
demand attention and food.
They **** on your suit and hair
but pay you no mind at all.

You planted your red rose in my heart
    and I was in love with you. It's all that
    matters. We bleed all over everything
    from thorns but being in love saves us.

I heard you in the distance calling
   to your lover. I'm always so jealous.
   Call me. I'll be whatever you want.
   Silence so loud it breaks my heart.
   I've never heard silence like this.
   I hear silence only the dead hear.

I know I should repent but I
  gave that up long ago, like
  candy for Lent. Mortal
  sins have been my savior.
We joined ***** drunk and
fell in love for a week or 2.

It ticks and tocks the second hand
on the wall counting in jazz rhythm
my slow but constant disappearance
from this to that behind the mirror.
I've never felt solid. I may be a ghost
from the start. I slept with many angels.

When a cynic cries
  his stone heart dies
  blood flows from his eyes
  and forgives all his lies

I was a hippie in 1969.
A long haired barefoot
freak with yellow stains
on my white carpenter jeans.
I had a lover like no other.
She bumped around my brain
like a pinball machine in pain.
I wonder how she's doing now.

Walked the dogs across the bay from Gatsby's place.
      Dark as sin tonight. Rumor is Gatsby was shot dead by
      a jealous husband. The party's moved on and taken
      the lights and tents and champagne and laughter.
      Nothing is ever one of a kind. We're interchangeable.
      Another rich Gatsby a mile away with the right view.

Jesus wants to bring you
  back to life
  but you don't want to.
  You really have no choice with
  the power of God on His side.
  Just walk among the living
  then just die in your own time
  forgotten as you would've been.

Your perfume on the pillow
    is the only thing you left.
    My life's taking on water
    I just want to drown all the pain.
    Things have a way of working out?
    Sommerville and Harvard Square,
    Mass Ave, Boston you were there
    your Aphrodite I ate my share,
    you naked in the public square.
    This is what I am, a broken man.

The Postman and the *******

He was dependable in all weather.
She was a free spirit yearning for love.
Lost lovers destined to be,
united against all odds.
The take away is this;
Miracles happen every day
to everyone of us but we're
too blind to see them.

I never feel as helpless.
Thunderstorms and dogs shaking
our night apart. I curse gods
of thunder and try to comfort
my dogs in my arms to no avail.
Our love's never enough.

I'll fall in love forever.
I'll fall in love with the hospice nurse.
I fell in love with Susan Tucker at 8.
I always fall in love with kindness.
I wish I could love a billion of you
and maybe I really do after all.

I'm a ****** Romantic.
I keep falling in love.
I've been through Love's
terrible pain forever.
I'm 71 but pheromones
spin their magic and I
can't stop wanton desire.
Susan is my target tonight.

Promise me. Not a word to anyone.
I think I'm in love with the nanny.
She's young and vibrant and dark.
I'm blooming in her midnight garden.
My wires spark. My heart's ignited.
Keep it secret. Not a word to anyone.

Familiarity breeds contempt.
How can we stay together?
I adored you. Now I don't.
You adored me but not now.
We're tangled up in living.
I can't leave anymore.
I can't start over again.
The Valentine in my shirt
won't last much longer.
I'll finally die on time.

The devils in the details.
  The angels in the wings.
  I loved as hard as I could
  but it was never enough.
  I never saw the manual.
  I never understood how.
  The mechanics were easy
  in and out over and over.
  I needed Love for Dummies,
  ******* all I had back then.

We loved ourselves but loved
us more together and we danced
naked drunk to our music in your
dorm room in a black spotlight
we could only see when *******.
It was the last time we touched.
I'm trapped inside an ancient ruin
from 1967. I'll end my poem here.

I've had a broken heart or two.
I broke a few myself. Sorry.
Love is a double edge sword.
You can't love in moderation.
The best love is a storm at sea,
in for a penny, in for a pound.
Fierce fear but love has an eye
of calm if you find it inside her
and hold on for dear life.

Lust blasts the roots
of love is its destroyer.
It steals trust from homes.
It ignores children and
breaks vows and sows guilt.
Lust is a storm always coming.

I give up. I've tried all my life to find
Love that sweeps me off my feet.
West Side Story Maria and Tony love.
The only thing I find is lust.
It's loves' villain that kills families
and innocence and my hope after all.

The letter comes in the mail you've
been waiting your whole life for.
We want to publish your collection
of poetry you submitted and you'll
be famous and the toast of towns.
Women will swoon and you can
be as drunk as you want and
misbehave. You're celebrated.

I've seen a universe in my bedroom.
   In a ray of sun it looked like dust
   but I saw an order in the chaos and
   knew 6 Alcott was on a speck of dust.

It's a beauty of a red rose.
  It's a watercolor on a bed sheet
  petals bloom from his wound.
  She'd had it and found a gun
  and courage and anger enough
  to put him out of her misery.

I wear it proudly on my breast.
Shame the hell out of me if you must.
I scratch my words on your own stains.
I write my poems on your forgiven sins.

There's a sliver of time and space
where God hides. He hates fame
and created His hidey hole.
If you saw Him you'd go mad
by His perfection and Godliness.
Let's just say He's everywhere.

I broke the chain of cruelty
    from father to son beatings.
    I was cruel to a dog we had.
    I set him free in a rich place
    he'd find love and kindness.
    I'm between time and Timbuktu.
    I see me in a thousand mirrors.
    One of them might be perfect.

My world's so full of silence I can hardly think.
  At 3 am I finally hear my beating heart
  ticking my mistakes and reciting their names.
  My life passes before me like a movie once again.

I've run a thousand miles at least.
Am I running to or from I wonder?
Am I chasing youth? Do I run from years?
I run from promises I made and I run
to lovers to make more pinky swears.
I'll chase Her until I die in your heart.

We're all being swept to sea in a
riptide of madness in a sinister
world of mad science and trusted
aides with long knives and smiles.

I can't swallow a bottle of pills.
   Who would pick up our dog's ****?
   Who'd feed and walk and calm him
   in thunderstorms? He needs me.
   My wife died. The center is gone.
   My worlds can't stay in their orbits.
   I weep at your grave with your dates
   in stone and small talk like always.
   You remind me of stuff I can never
   forget. We laugh out loud and cry.

She was my oxygen and gravity and heartbeat.
  She died and broke our universe. She loved me
  enough to bring me back from Mars. I was lost.
  She died out of our orbit and chaos made me mad.
  You rob me blind and I know but don't really care.
  Nothing matters anymore. I'm heading back to Mars.

can we ever know?
are we really here?
we write our poetry
and stories and tales
as if a universe cares
about incidental atoms,
dust mites, extinction.
goodbye, dear friends.

When did my childhood
  disappear? When did I
  really notice girls and
  dress for their glances?

  When did we tie us in knots
  and end with child, married
  and I was crying, homesick
  not quite ready for this?

  At the drive in movie you
  dried my tears. We carried
  on to our cliched future. We
  split not knowing the why.

  Years have let it all play out.
  Many different players yet so
  alike. The parts don't change.
  I'm homesick for everything.

I wake each day in a house of mirrors.
I stand inside a different me.
I see me leaving a wife
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 him.

New York Times said it.
  God is dead. Heaven's empty.
  Hell is cold ash.
  The devil's in the details.
  Heaven will be Timeshares.
  Hell will be for Geologists.

From the get go when we're torn
  out of comfort into the mad sun
  we can never be sure it won't happen
  again. Maybe we are born nervous
  wrecks. What treachery is next?
  We all die? Why are we even here?