I want pleasure. Mother's milk
and rock me gently to dreams.
I want laughter and kisses and
wine and lovers dancing naked
in midnight's full moon who
make me think I matter.

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.

I'm 70 and still work the mines
to feed my soul and family.
It's all I have to hold onto.
My coal face is cracked like
the rocks we fight each day.
My friends are mostly dead
from black lung and cave ins.
I toast them with a shot
each night in my empty bed
and pray for death tomorrow.

Just a drop of blood between
me and death. I'm nailed
to your **** cross after
I was soundly flailed.
Who fears my words
enough to **** me?
Who fears the world
enough to free me?

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.

I was going to Twitter today.
I needed to get my fill of venom
and hate to feed my outrage
and fuel my despair and fear.
I ended up here instead.
I'm listening to upbeat music
and hope we all gather in a field
called Woodstock and drop acid
and get baptized in pouring rain
naked and free of anybody's chains.

When your lies stack up like kindling
and she finally strikes a match and it
all bursts into fury that will not stop
until life is nothing but cold dead ash.

Someone will die tonight.
Someone will be born and
someone will be admitted
to a mental hospital.
Someone's going to jail
and the City eats them.

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.

If I could be remembered for
the rest of time we have on Earth
I would never be a savior nailed
onto billions of walls in rooms on
a plastic crucifix. I'd be a simple
man with a message of import
that seems to always be lost in
time. Treat others as you would
like to be treated. Protect the
weak from cruel monsters.

I always wanted to make
  everyone laugh out loud.
  I'd slip and fall down on
  purpose so they'd love me.

Christ escaped his tomb this day.
We cheered and built a business
called religion and made a fortune.
We sell snake oil and ***** and
ask you to tithe for Him.
Kneel before false profits.

I was conceived in the wrong womb.
  That's my life in a nutshell.
  It was one I never wore well.
  Greenhills, OH. Suburbia writ large.
  Lovely family and all but Bumpkinville
  so boring I took up smoking 8th grade.
  A swimming pool but I craved an ocean.
  I wanted a boardwalk and carneys and girls
  bold enough to kiss me like I needed.
  I wanted canyons of skyscrapers to wander
  and junkies and perverts and hookers who
  knew the price of meat. I wanted a library
  with every book ever writ held out for me
  to devour and digest so I'd be smarter than
  my father and teachers and the *******
  Parish priests who loved their altar boys.

I'm way too old to just die.
My capacity to accommodate
biological death is diminished.
I'll turn to dust and just blow away
in the morning breeze and wash
into gutters in the next storm.

The late 60's were sirens singing from
  Ulysses rocky shores. We smoked their
  joints and dropped their acid and betrayed
  our other lives. We grew long hair and we
  were groovy and far out, dressed as peacocks
  we ate from the feast until we had our fill.

I watch the ****** on 5th St. dressed to ****
  circle over the wounded with starving appetites
  for all the sweets on display and perfume to up
  temptation for another 5 or 10 for Waffle House.
  Love is easy with fixed price and no strings.
  All I want is someone to hold onto. I still wait.

You almost broke my heart but
    I beat you to it and did it myself.
    I know love is mirage on horizons.
    Feet on the ledge high above deceit.
    Wingless bird I leave your nest and
    fly forever into an endless night.

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

'Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone'

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

W H Auden

We all exist from random atoms
pieces made from star dust
billions of years ago and a
billion years out of reach.
We dig coal from the Earth
and plant our seeds into her
soil and love our women and
plant our seeds into them.
The seasons come and we
dance in barns Saturdays
and pray on knees in church
Sundays 3 blind mice eating
our harvest in silos all that's
left to hold onto after all.

I gave you my heart but
    knew you couldn't keep it.
    I'm still expecting you to
    hold on to Love to a finish
    line that doesn't even exist.
    I set fire again and never look
    back. I smell the burning
    flesh. I hear familiar screams.
The burning flesh is mine alone.
The screams are in my head.

Plant your flag in your soil of choice.
I don't love or hate you for politics.
I like you if you like me. I'll laugh
at your jokes and love your poems.

I feel like I'm the last soul alive.
Can anybody hear me? Am I
the only drunk man on Earth?
Once we were lovers but now
you live in a shaded grave.
You always had the best.
Why won't they answer me?
Calling all stations...

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.

No turkey neck or jowls or man *****.
   I was considered handsome and the girls
   all sought my company. I was picky then.
   The fall is always hardest for the vain.

****** river flowing red
deflowered on her bed
by a ******* brutal beast
long gone after his feast

Love, hate, indifference don't
matter in this thing we live.
Passion moves mountains.
It can save hope we need
in these hopeless times.
We lose friends to what we
believe. We make new bonds
as we fight against this enemy.

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.

Zoot suit, straight jacket, Tuxedo.
We are what we wear.
Rock, paper, scissors.
Hoodlum, insane, sophisticated.
Prison, asylum, penthouse.
*****, *****, ****.

So many sins bounce around
your soul never finding calm.
Bleed the ****** thing dry.
Forgive and forget it won't
break you. The soul is cruel.
Cassandra promises your fall.

I'm a monster
walking among my memories
scaring every **** one of them.
I've been here from the beginning.
I was born of pasts not mine and
guilt not mine and despair not mine.

When I lose my way will you be my conscience?
Show me the errors of my ways. I'm pulled
into dark places and tight spaces. I drink potions
and eat from sinful women and break in two.
The worst is I love it all and kneel on broke knees.
I still smell her and like a wolf want more.

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.

We rattle the cages in which we live,
  not the poorest but near that bottom.
  Our boots are always muddy and hands
  callused from working in the trenches.
  Denim is our uniform and we hide anger
  behind our smiles and booties on boots
  so as not to soil your perfect houses.
  We work hard and don't need your gyms.
  We drink like you every night but we
  have cheap wine and beer while you
  toast with scotch and fancy martinis.
  Old pickups we drive on a prayer and
  hope our kids will prosper like I know
  you hope yours will get into Harvard.

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.

I have nightmares and dreams.
  I hope for the best and fear the worst.
  I'm just one of God's creatures in a zoo
  called my mind. Walls everywhere I can't
  go beyond. Gravity, time, our biology
  keep me inside my tiny world tethered
  to my appetites. Will death set me free?
 I live again in nightmares and dreams.

3:00 am. I'm going to die tonight.
     I don't want to turn that light off.
     Let's live a little while longer
     and we might create perfect love
     and wake what lies dormant in us.
     Lust is life's great hallelujah.
     We'll **** in broken bed and not
     think of broken hearts as waves
     whisper of love and we drift off
     in impossible dreams to graves.

I have crazy dogs waking me.
  I fumble out of bed and ***.
  I feed the wild beasts and
  hold coffee with shaking hands
  from the night before wine.
  I walk them and pick up ****.
  One fine day they'll drag me
  to my grave chasing squirrels.

When you stole my heart I was dancing.
  When I was on my knees adoring you.
  When I ****** your splendid **** and
  we spent a night asleep and we ******
  in morning and you wept. Joy or sorrow?
  Never an easy answer to do you love me?

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.

I play with your neck and pluck
your strings and make the room
dance and act fools in love and
when the noise dies I need pills
and ***** to come back to Earth.
My fingers dance in my dreams.

I try to contain my mad dog
in some kind of cage but he
refuses to be less than he is
and snarls and tears my world
to shreds while I applaud.

She took my order at a drive thru.
She asked if I wanted the meal deal.
She helped me find a book on gods
of Greece at the library.
God's timid, humble doesn't
want to show off. He vents
with thunder and lightening.
He reminds us hurricanes and
tornadoes are His creations.
I met God at an AA meeting
at my bottom. He said  we all
have ups and downs and don't
despair. There's always love
waiting for us in dark shadows.

I found a photo booth picture of us
  when we'd just met. We are beautiful.
  Our hearts are fireworks in our sky.
  We caught an instant of perfect love.

Gather types of people together
and tell them group B hates them.
Trot to group B and say A hates you.
Tell group C they all hate you and
tell all the groups the same thing
until the rainbow catches fire.

Did you see the soldiers swarm
like bees into our village with
weapons pointed like stingers
for anything that moved?
We were still as death.
They moved on.
We came alive and
got away with it and
lived our simple lives
destroying our enemies.

I fought my way through her
****** and saw life pass before me.
Maybe it was my disaster or hers.
I screamed my breaths in anger.
I missed home like Dorothy in Oz.
I never found the yellow brick road.

They fussed over my birth like a Christ
child born in a manger. A toast to our new
boy with special in his bones and heart.
He'll suffer all our pain silent and with
laughter. He'll climb into many wombs to
find comfort but always birth himself to
slain what he needs to for his old dames.
I love them and raise a glass to toast them.

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.