If I kiss the ring
will I be a thing?
I just want rules
so I'm not a fool.
I'll dance faster
for the Master.
Is it Eliot York?
Timetabled dork?
Do I need to find
a place more kind?

Uh Oh!
The monsters back in town
slow burn alcohol stove
keeps its water boiling
ready to blow this place
to hell any minute now.

Every poet has written a first
poem they'd rather never mind.
No one springs from mother's
womb Yeats or Eliot or Frost in
full bloom. Broke hearts come
before broke dreams come
before broke psyche. We all
start with our first rejection,
then an aunt dies. We learn
to empathize and we're poets.

In the womb I got drunk
and high on ******'s junk
not even born I'm an addict
the orphanage will predict.
I've tasted and never forget
this **** storm of regret.
Adopt me and my monkey
I'll try clean but we'll see.

I'll drink your poison tonight.
It was not your fault but mine.
Forgive me but you can't because
you don't know how. Maybe in my
mourning I'll nail me to your cross
and die for you one final time.

The poet's curse. We feel your pain.
We'd rather not but we have no choice.
We need to put it on the page like a
tiny red corpse we never forget. Weep and
pray and deny a god. Death lives inside you.

Every 28 days comes
the red tide we were
gifted as girls our curse.
Our red badge of courage.
Sherry marked his white Levis.
He put a red pen in his pocket.

I'm just pretending to be alive today.
I died years ago when I abandoned you
and the kids. I betrayed more than our vows.
I betrayed myself and there's no forgiveness.
I live in fragments between drinks and pills
when I see the top side of my world that
should have been but is a lost paradise.
Christ! I loved you so much back then.

Hippie times long haired
****** drunk poet
at a party as my second
marriage disintegrates
I came out of the head
naked with a beer.

Birkenstock's and halter tops
no bras no rules free love
drink acid from a tea cup
go naked chase the dove
smoke hash eat Quaalude's
understand my carnal stain
We met at Woodstock and
****** it out in all the rain.

I'm a part time atheist
praying to a 9-5 god
I fall in love with strangers
everywhere and always
I try to live outside my skin
until it drags me into rehab
I can't live in here and now
or then and there until I
find me inside a mirror
take a selfie with Alice.

We know we are going to die,
just not today or in our sleep.
Pencil it into your Day timer
then you can erase your erase.

I'm in my cups at midnight
ready to bury my old bones
in bed once more when she
comes around. Quincy my
cyclops my one eye cat
is up all night fixing
my poems. I never could
find the perfect lines.

I have no need for any God.
I rule my garret just fine.
I perch on tattered throne
broke springs drink box wine
from a chipped plastic chalice
writing my own drunk scripture
on the back of the final notice
envelope of my certain departure.

Every night we drink sacred wine
to excess and get angry for no reason.
We're trapped in a play we've written
since we impaled us in ourselves and
perform each night at curtain time
like dancing bears without claws.
I love you. I don't know. Do I?
Throw an ashtray and accuse me.
I'll curse your love and beg for it.
We sleep, perchance to dream.

I neglect everything.
I care for everything.
I sleep in strange beds
but dream of you
young and perfect
like impossible saints
I light candles for
in impossible churches.

I was drowning in drunk minutes
waiting for 10 pm. Bedtime. I held
the minute hand to fight the riptide
and landed in silent seas of dreams
where my torn life is stitched back
like a monster I never understood.

As angels go Dorothy was my favorite!
She knew our talents. She believed.
She helped us believe in ourselves.
She laughed the hardest, she loved us all,
she guided this lost soul into a place of peace.
I miss you very dearly. I miss you most of all.
The scarecrow, tin man and cowardly lion.
We'll see you at the end of the yellow brick road.
Love to our dear friend, Dorothy Rengsdorff.

My skin is fragile. My veins are brittle.
I might melt in the boiling summer heat.
Each day I grow weaker. I'm almost corpse.
Let's move to the desert where death looms
in shower stalls with scorpions and coiled
rattlers in rare shade just waiting for us.

It's a creator's diary of our
life's times start and stop.
He keeps meticulous records
like an OCD god might do.
He might die. A bigger god's
bigger book has his entry.

The music's still sweet and rocks!
  The band has liver spots and jowls.
  Fans on oxygen park in handicap and
  take walkers to their seats. Rock old!

There must be someway out of here
   said the patient to the shrink.
   I can write a script for ******
   that might help you think.
   Give me your magic I said
   maybe I'll find another door.
   Don't be in such a hurry
   just be grateful for the floor.
   I'll need to see you often
   you're in a fragile mind.
   I'll write your script forever
   as long as you stay blind.

I just want some time away
from war and anger in me.
It feels like WW1 in trenches
across no man's land forever
bleeding and crying
going mad in moments
rats wake me chewing
on me and I begin to
just let it go as normal.
I'm no longer myself.

You have to see the garden of my broken heart.
Everything is old as dirt itself and the biggest
Sunflowers and Roses and Trees split clear in two.
Tears grow love in barren soil.
I thought I was loveless until I met
her walking from the garden
with rose blood dripping
from her fingers for the unloved
to finally taste love. I did.

For birth
for need
for jealousy
for greed
for love
for lust
for envy
for trust
for anger
for hate
for planning
for fate
for breath
for darkness
for death

The only one I ever fear
is she who haunts my dreams.
The one who carries my heart.
She loves me more than life.
She knows everything about me.
I'm her world. I'll be her grave.

I'm ancient my life
       packed neat in boxes
       in the attic
       by my wife
       for my final heartbeat
       and my burial
       in our plot. Send the lot
       to Goodwill to be forgot.

Rest easy my loves. I'm at peace.
    I wish that I could take your pain
    and bury it with me. After all
    it's my fault that you feel so bad.
    I never complained in life and I
    swear to God I won't whine in death.
    No more aches and pains. The old corpse
    lies in a hole. My spirit soars above!

You have to be brave in this world. It can all feel like a bad dream. All the blood, all that pain. Your heart will break again and again. You'll have to journey through it all. Protect the ones you love, no matter the cost. Be honest, be loyal. Work hard. Read. Learn. Tell her you love her, everyday. Don't promise tomorrow, it's not yours to give. Don't just survive, live. Beware of the man on the money, He's in it for himself. If it feels wrong, it probably is. Open your eyes. Create. Don't be shy. It's never too late. Don't wait. Travel the world every chance that you get. Don't stand for cruelty of any kind. Speak your mind. Be on time. Give her space, take some for yourself. Drink to good health. Knowledge is wealth. We all must play the cards that we're dealt. It's not what you're given, it's what you gave. Don't be the master or the slave. Spend all your time, it's not something you save. Be happy my friends. Be strong. Be brave.?

    - Maximillian

******'s sin is mine alone.
  She never understood her power.
  Bubble gum puffy *******
  I desired her perfect flower.

  Her mother died to save her
  but she saved me instead.
  We went to my bed for comfort,
  that night she finally bled.

  ****** floats wild on the wind
  her cheap perfume my seduction.
  She died birthing our sin and
  caused my Eden's destruction.

You can't read my mind.
You've no idea what it's
like being close to you.
I'm stunned by your beauty.
Your laugh infects me.
Your wild hair brings me
to my knees in adoration.
I cower in fear of my love.
I'm quiet. I'm distant. I dream
of you that night. I write this.

I stand naked in a strange light
in my bathroom in the mirror
looking 35 but I'm 79 so what
magic does a young lover cast?
She thinks I'm moon and sun.
At death's door I've just begun.

Why do you always reach out for me
   when you know it's finally too late?
   You leave me living one second at a time
   breathing between heartbeats and dying
   inside broken promises. The things I
   was going to do are never started.

We've read your submission and don't
have a place for it in our magazine
at this time. We look forward to future
submissions and wish you well.

We have billions of submissions and
can't possibly read them all so we
count on poets in print to fill pages so
the rest of you must busk for change.

I told you I was broken
you silenced my spoken
word like you were dead
I stared inside your head
and wept at what I saw
the barman said last call
I offered you the drugs
you said you wanted hugs
I said they've sharp edges
you went to find tall ledges.

Coworker on a bus after nightshift
Waltham to Boston. He said he was sick
in a serious way. Doctors baffled and
he feeling worse by the day. I told him
not to worry because he'd be better soon.
They always figure it out. He died. AIDS.
Several years later at an AIDS hospice
I heard the rattled breath at deaths door.
Barely able to hold his cane he stood then
struggled mighty to make it to his grave.

There's a monster
that possesses me
living in my heart
never lets me be.
Angry as a boil
won't set me free.
You promise love
do you have a key?

I had a marble that
looked like the earth
I kept in my pocket.
It was never worth
spit except I knew
how God must fear
the Earth in his jeans.
Worn pockets tear
we roll out of sight.
He panics it's gone
lost in a bang we're
unexpectedly done.

Where all our monsters live
in luxury with wads of cash
if you stab a back or slit a throat.
Sell your soul pennies on a yuan.
Give the rubes a buck or two and
promise them what they need
to survive another term. You
retire a billionaire and they sell
businesses pennies on a dollar.
Suicides keep morticians rich.

Come closer into the light.
  I need to smell your beauty
  to quiet demons in my head.
  God's tears cleanse our souls.
  Come closer still, touch me,
  calm my tremors still my hands.
  Closer hold me closer and we'll
  transcend broken in our world.
  Dance closer, watch the stars.
  Hear death's music ever closer.

To what end can we possibly be?
Why do we exist? Give me answers
or I'm left no choice but to decry
god and satan and every reason for
anything in this demented dream of
mine. All suffering is in my mind.
Wars were fought in my frontal lobe
and peace reached in my temporal lobe.
I'm a madman in madness I'll never know.
I pray to godless gods until I die again.

Oh what a time we had! Bohemians.
  We drank too much and laughed too
  loud and danced wild into the night.
  We shocked the frozen faced prudes.
  We pulled the sun up, ate croissants
  and slept naked and in love 'til dusk.

Boston. January. Temperature near zero.
  You had no heat. Naked under covers our
  breath smokes in passion not to be denied
  like a fire breathing dragon called Lust.

I'm on a cusp of life or death.
     Not quick like suicide, more
     subtle.  Life's habits can be
     harsh on these bodies we've been
     gifted.  Treat it like a church or
     carnival side show. It's our choice.

     Alcohol is weakness or strength
     depending on one's point of view.
     My lab results raised grave concerns
     about my physical well being.
     I'd died long ago when I lost her.
     I knew that I'd regret my choice.

     The truth is when good and bad are
     placed upon the scale of God
     I believe it will favor my good.
     What brought me here was sadness.
     Joy died long ago when I lost her.
     Forgive me for my selfishness.

You brought us all to certain life, flesh and blood
  and every piece of celluoid with blinks of eyes we
  think it's real! You follow us home into our dreams
  replay every scene all night long and we wake wiser.

You bury your boys.
  We bury our boys.
  Our tears can never
  bring them back.

  What's the score in war?
  Number of men killed or
  maimed? Which is worse?
  No man returns the same.

  Those at home waiting
  will never know him again.
  He's silent or screams at
  night in dreams of war.

  The children will cringe
  at his cruelty he hates
  but never understands.
  It's war's carrion breath.

He works in a toll booth taking cash
and lifts a gate to let you pass.
God's a librarian lending knowledge.
He's president of an Ivy League college.
He sells pieces of heaven on corners to smoke.
She rents herself out for a rub and a stroke.

I'm riding the edge of my mind
2 kids and a fat wife I deserted
before I fell in love with all
the other disappointed lovers.

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 met the Cheshire cat in
Wonderland chasing Alice
and it disappeared until
I scratched its ear and it
stayed reappeared and
meows in my cups.

Like Vincent my art's invisible
now but maybe future generations
will find fire in the night sky
and read my blood on the page
and know what life was like in
my time spinning on this marble.