When the monsters come looking for
my heart you keep it hidden in yours.
You always save me from my demons.
Keeping them away from my doors.

When you dig scarce ice cubes
   from the water logged cooler
   it's close to bedtime. Take one
   more shot of courage to face
   one more tomorrow and do it
   all again as if you mean it.

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 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.

Voluptuous woman full figure and
tight short jeans bending over your
garden as I walk my dogs by your
yard and I wonder at your wonders.
I imagine you'd be wild in bed.
You might scream and sweat as I
tasted you where it matters.
We'd sleep as spent lovers do.

I'm ancient.
Stuff seeps out.
Can't ignore it.
Always a stain
and smell of death
around the bend.

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.

Life is indifferent to our pain.
It weaves too many tales to know
when our heart breaks or pet dies.
You care about me. I care about you.
We're small gods on our tiny altars.
We share tears and laughter and grave.

I'll rip my face off and give
you one you'll fancy for love.
I can shape my body however
you want if you'll desire me.
I can pour gasoline on me
and burn to a cinder if you
will carry me within you
inside your secret garden.

She wears her red high heels.
   Dance, your hands love that woman,
   always swaying to her siren song.
   Go home at dawn and climb in bed
   with the owner of your heart and
   hold her flesh and blood to you.

I knew I'd break again. It was just a matter
of time. The insane monster inside of me
drives me mad. The whole **** thing needs to be
destroyed and buried deep inside my psyche.
We all live with these beasts in our heads. It
whispers, "I don't live normal like everybody".

I'm at a carnival midway.
My mouth's agog at the freaks.
Tents for 10 cents to see naked.
Lobster boy displays deformity.
Bearded lady drops her veil.
***** covers the cement floor.
The stench is bathroom overflow.
I try to wake from this nightmare.

I longed for you in your beauty
and fetching curves and promise
of travels to Mars and the moon.
You sit quiet but guarantee a riot.

The virus is lust.
It propagates us.
Keep me alive and
feed me love and grace.

I always saw you on my horizon.
I went to meetings and confessed
helplessness and drank bland coffee
and ate stale donuts and smoked
an endless chain of cigarettes.
I walked twelve steps in your shoes.

I missed my family and relapsed.
They kept my bar stool for me and
I drank to our health and you.
I'll see you in my dreams hidden in
liquor's fog. Will I ever know normal?
Maybe when I've had a hair of the dog.

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?

First lines are always full of lust
  and ******* in secret spots only we know,
  your birthmarks and cute imperfections.
  You're perfect for such a few lines.
  Magic dust blows away in wind of time.
  In sunlight you look too real and scales
  fall from my eyes and you are a corpse.
  These poems always end as eulogies.

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.

These nuthouses are full of
   sad stories. My heart bleeds for
   our circumstance. Sad is all.
   When they asked about you I said
   she's right as rain, a perfect wife.
   They said you were dead.  They lied
   and put me in a room full of dark.
   Bury her in my shadow if you find it.

The universe is on display tonight.
    A storm is coming with the wind and
    lightening cracks the sky in two.
    There's half for me and half for you.

We sit on our bar stools in afternoon.
The only light is neon. Night or day?
It's all the same in here with our
fellow drunks. We've no shame.
We circle death day to day.
We put quarters in the jukebox
grinning like scarecrows in
rhythm with the old tunes
stirring memories of love and
marriage and baby carriage.
We were decent men back then.
Good fathers and husbands and
bread winners, hard workers.
The coal mines paid good then.
The mines went dry and we died.
I touch the tears on my pint and
think of your tears when you left.
I remember your touch and hunger.

I see my naked body on the stainless steel.
They drain my blood out while
pumping formaldehyde in me.
I'm dressed in my black suit.
They make me up like a *****
so I might look alive again.
Friends never see the corpse.
They only see their memory.

It was poised to erupt in flames.
Every group with agendas poured
gasoline on the whole **** thing.
The spark was always gonna' be black.
Will it have to burn to the ground?
Can love even exist in rainbows?

My shrink introduced us.
She came with me everywhere.
She made the world a ghost I
never had to fear. Lady ******.
We slept together. We dreamed together.
We were married for 15 years.
The happiest years I can't remember.
I still love her. I had to **** her.

April 20th is our holiday.
We smoke joints at 4:20 pm.
Flip a finger to the world.
We won't march to your drummer.

I've never known a bad ****.
Some lovers are better dancers.
The ones who think they own
the crown jewels are just *****.
I've found Catholics to be guilty
but earnest participants in the end.
My favorite was a large Jewish girl
who devoured us both in a waterbed.
Patty was ******* centerfold stuff.
She was always in a hurry to finish
and complained of a sore jaw too much.
The first was Westside Story Maria
to my Tony and we dragged our ragged
families to our shotgun wedding and
played at marriage best we could.
It was the 60s and Summer of Love.

You beat this girl to death
    with a fence post, the destroyer.
    We cower in fear while you lose
    your mind among the living.
    You got away with ******.
    Her stain left us ****** as hell.
    How do you live with her death
hanging like moss from your soul?

It wasn't love. It was confusion.
Harvest moon's shadow all along
shifting in the midnight surf as
we walked to our forbidden bed.
Stain of ******'s surrender bled.

      there's hope in despair
      fear in bravery
      ignorance in certainty
      doubt in forgiveness
      love lost inside love.

You floated wild on the wind
landing weightless on my life
and cracked my world to pieces.
No family's safe from ******,
coquettish nubile kitten who
drowns me in cheap perfume.

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.

I woke up and hated me
  for what I called you in
  my drunken truth. I never
  want to hurt you but I do.
  It seeps out in weakness.
  I might quit drinking but
  it might turn to cancer and
  live within my blood and leak
  from my eyes and I'd turn to
  dust. Join me in a toast to us.

I sit on the castle wall drunk.
I tilt left and right and back and forth.
I'm Humpty Dumpty the big egg.
My destiny is to fall and break.

An institution offering shelter and support
to people who are mentally ill. Marriage.
We're all nuts! We're animals with urges we
can't control. We might as well fling ****
all over the place and parade red ***** to
the masses so they'll get we love them all.

I'll write lyrics and strum strings
to enhance your experience. I
want to entertain you and earn
your admiration and love to be
who you hum in hot days and
hear in dreams of yearning.

*** is the most beautiful and natural
  and necessary thing we do but treat
  it like a ***** film at a kid's party.
  Sister take your habit off and dance.
  Bishop drop your drape and shimmy.
  Naked we come and naked we leave.

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.

When did you awaken my monster?
I took as many punches as I could!
I had enough. I want to **** my father.
I still want to **** him but he's dead.

On an altar of fierce desire we
  two virgins devoured each other
  on a blanket in the tall grass
  of Winton Woods park.
  Woman Blood
  Man *****
  One for just an instant
  and a spark created life
  that changed our world
  forever and all we cared
  about were baby names.
Kathleen Ann.

Maybe I'm just a drunk old bird
complaining from the barn rafters.
I make noise and **** when it suits.
No one pays me any mind.
My world always grows colder.
Peck my carcass when it's time.

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.

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

My life is smoke from years ago I
can't remember with clarity.
The feelings are sharp as razors.
I miss everyone and everything.
******* my lap was fire in my ****.
I'm still in love with that poker card
with my first time you know what.
I miss time past. I'll miss time wasted.

I'm always hoping
without an ounce of it.
I'm always in love with
no waiting hearts.
I beseech the Almighty
without truly believing.
I'm just a ghost. A sheet
hanging to dry in a breeze
flapping about alive like
but just full of hot air.

They ask me what I want.
   I won't tell those *******.
   Why would I? I'll tell you.
   We're strangers in a bar.

   I want to move back home.
   I want to move on.
   I want to apologize
   to...everyone.

   I want to watch my wife
   learn to laugh all over, I
   want to make her feel good.
   I want to make her ****** again.

I'm a stooge on a stage
in a life ****** on me
not of my choosing. I'm
Shakespeare's Romeo to
a lost *****'s Juliet.
We wind our way forward
on a wind most foul
to Bethlehem's manger.
I curse the fools on the
stage tasked with nailing
my son onto his cross to
eat madness we embrace.

I was born in the deepest winter storm.
Made by God's own children I was packed
strong and given heart and brain and courage.
I was destined for great things but couldn't move.
I knew the meaning of life and was God's voice.
I was mute and by summer I was forgotten.

I need you tonight.
I need your dark love
the love I never had.
Drug to fill this hole
stab my vein and give
me the poison I need.
Hold me close tonight
and never let me go.

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 search everywhere for Love.
We never find it, just broken hearts.

Love is not forever. It comes and go's.
  It's not a North Star to guide your heart
  in shifting waters. It makes babies and
  breaks hearts and tears families apart.
  It makes impossible promises with an
  earnest whisper we all must believe.
  We drag broke hearts to bars looking
  for real Love this time. Will we find it?