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

Spacious skies
    beautiful eyes
    you soothe the beast
    afterward the feast
    paleface took the bait
    red man chose his fate
    better never than late
    death served on a plate
    we set up shop here
    moved teepees there
    cleared the fields
    for lovely yields
    nothing else cares
    corpse never swears
    buy a black slave
    pick cotton and save
    your precious crop
    and blood they drop
    each day something new
    my open minded view
    set them free
    lost as they can be
    40 acres and a mule
    offered to a fool.

    Chicago. Baltimore.
    Jungles in city's
    in deadly playpens
    no hope. Deal dope
    die young a hero
    all you left was zero.

I write this sonnet for you
purer than our midnight
full moon, *** act one, in
the dead bed in motel 6,
you left for other tricks.
Afterward I got my fix
the purest of any mix
I ever shot up for kicks.

I wrote my soul word for word
on a grain of rice big as Mars
and called it my Suicide Note and
plastered it on windows of my bars
they took my ashes once they cooled
packed them to sell in Jelly jars.

Got you worrying from your gate post
to the cane fields. Got you fearing for
your life while the yellow eyed
black beasts stare with hatred at your
whips and ******* cruelty without
an ounce of fear anymore.

Do you know these people
  dirt poor with joyful eyes?
  No tears or pity asked they
  work hell's cloudless fields
  every meal fatback and beans  
  sharecropper hands of stone.
  Sunday overalls starched go
  to Church praise Jesus, atone.
  Saturday nights there's music
  and moonshine and slow dance
  they give up the ghost midnight
  still clutching in fierce romance.

I'm 72 and I'm not you.
Now I know I'm not me.
I'm just an afterthought
created with no purpose.
I'm a troubadour to amuse
the royal court confuse
the drunk King his *****
leaves him wanting more.
I write his sordid story
lies about false glory.
We watch as the stars
all fall from the sky
and we smell hell and
finally all just die.

I don't pray
per say
I hold hope
in my heart
and do what
I can to help.

It scares me how you turn
  your face into a wall
  how you rip your ears off
  when I call
  You turn your lips to stone
  when I try to kiss you when I fall
  in love with you and kneel at your
  feet with ****** knees after I crawl
  your just an old wrinkled crow almost
  forgotten except for your distant caw.

I was born a turtle. Kids put me on
the road and watched me squashed.
I was born a parrot and captured and
broke into an odd pet in your cage.
I was born a duck and cruelly drowned
for your convenience. My father was
at war and lost his kindness and I
was squashed, caged and drowned

God help me in these godless times.
A black sabbath, corrupted holiness
inhabits our hearts and souls.
Sulfur from Satan delivers his kiss.

If I were a younger me
I'd steal you from your
so called life and show
you how we could live
without the fences. Lust
would be our guide to an
ending we'd always regret.
The wonders we'd know on
the way would be worth it.
The kids would never forgive.

Old Joe's drumming on the pots and pans
    as someone hums a harmony and starts a
    symphony as others join into the noise.
    Soon dancers move into the picture and
    flail about as only the mad can. They
    are perfect in this human zoo. I love
    every scar. We each own every flaw.
    There but for the grace of you go I.

Women were dancing with women.
  Men were dancing with men.
  Donkeys were ****** and dogs too.
  Chains kept the whole thing civil.
  Love songs flew over mountains and
  the moon kept a billion secrets.

I'm aching naked
  in the raw dawn
  of our kitchen
  I found my new soulmate
  I'm leaving you and the kids
  to write poetry with answers

  I'm aching naked
  in the raw dawn
  of your dorm room
  our last kiss and
  I'm off to Boston
  to discover myself.

  I'm aching naked
  in the raw dawn
  of my garret
  a broken fist I put in your wall
  I'm jealousy's beast of burden
  I won't bother for my stuff. I'm sorry

  I'm aching naked
  in the raw dawn
  with a drunk *******
  I'm just another *****
  gather your stuff, bye
  why do I keep dying inside?

  I'm aching naked
  in the raw dawn
  Nashville new job, we're over
  I'll mail your stuff.
  you were the cruelest month
  still I couldn't set you free

  I'm aching naked
  in the raw dawn
  always
  no cure for romantics
  who believe in God
  and impossible love.

I'm tilting at windmills tonight.
   I will slay dragons and broken hearts
   and bring dogs of hell to heel after all.
   I still sleep with her ghost tonight.
   We find small comfort living and dead.
   Cervantes'  certainty keeps our faith.

I was desperately drunk and desperately in love.
    I made promises I wouldn't keep. She invited me
    into her garden. I ate forbidden fruit. Nirvana!
    Pains, doubts, anxieties, fears gone instantly.

    The morning after had a sour taste.
    God and priest and nun and catholic world
    collided with our promised land of love.
    We stayed drugged with flesh and defiance.

    Pregnant, we were married in the Church.
    We had our daughter and a son soon after.
    I wish lust didn't fade with time.
    I wandered and became a ******* cliche.

It's a lost cause
   broke Santa Claus
   corrupt without pause
   king without *****
   queen without claws
   shark without Jaws
   country without laws
   election full of flaws!

Not all love is lost as time can't heal all wounds.
   Lust has no use for time beyond a fortnight. It withers.
   Keep your heart under lock and key but your knees apart
   for my midnight wine stoked visit to your sacred chamber.

I eat your poetry like ice cream.
It settles in orbits in my mind.
A universe of words swirling
into meanings understood by
the lost souls called poets.

You fool no one but yourself
  with ***** and peppermints.
  You slur words and stumble.
  I will love you always.
  You're the funniest man I
  will ever know and kindest
  and fiercely loyal to a fault.
  You're broken and know it.
  You don't know how to fix it.
  I'll keep your broken as best
  I can. We'll live in a crooked
  house on a crooked street with
  less and less. Our world is
  small. It shrinks often as our
  friends and family drink into
  their early graves as sure as
  you will or give up on us as
  too broke to bother with.

I fall in love easy
with all the others.
Snake hair and *******,
thin as ice I skate on.
We play our parts on cue.
We laugh and cry sculpted.
Life like posed in wax in
Madame Tussaud's museum.

Truth reveals itself near midnight
when I swim in deep pools of wine.
I'm lost. My family died in my depths.
I need shallows to hide in.
I need a goddess named Georgine
to help me find my North Star.
I'll sail back home and find my
broken life and fix it best I can.

I write a thousand poems.
  Some good, bad and so so
  and put them in bottles
  in the ocean to be found
  by The New Yorker or
  Harriet Monroe's POETRY.
  It's bad when family flies in.
You know you're almost gone
and it'll be printed in the very
next issue my favorite one.

Each pencil is an arrow, every pen a spear,
     each typewriter key a grenade of "truth".
     Propaganda sways masses where writers steer.
     Who are we to doubt the almighty news?

Judas wakes and takes his bag of silver
  after betrayal with his kiss like I've
  done a thousand times before. Great White
  Whale Moby **** ripped off dark Ahab's leg
  black hates white hates yellow hates brown
  hates rich hates poor hates young hates old
  hates drunk Irish and drunk French and fat
  Germans like little ******. Almost a disease
  write your soul down word for word see who
  is your friend and who is unkind. Almost like
  being free. Take yourself out to the curb sit
  and wait for a life I'm no longer hungry for.

Kathy
  I'm aching naked
  in the raw dawn
  of our kitchen
  I found my new soulmate
  I'm leaving you and the kids
  to write a Great American Novel

  Betsy
  I'm aching naked
  in the raw dawn
  of your dorm room
  our last kiss and
  I'm off to Boston
  to discover myself.

  Georgine
  I'm aching naked
  in the raw dawn
  of my garret
  a broken fist I put in a wall
  I'm jealousy's beast of burden
  I won't bother for my stuff. I'm sorry

  Terry
  I'm aching naked
  in the raw dawn
  of my latest *******
  I'm just another *****
  gather your stuff, bye
  why do I keep dying inside?

  Lynette
  I'm aching naked
  in the raw dawn
  Nashville new job, we're over
  I'll mail your stuff.
  you were the cruelest month
  still I couldn't set you free

  Jayne
  I'm aching naked
  in the raw dawn
  always
  no cure for romantics
  who believe in miracles
  and impossible loves.

I learned abuse from my
war torn father. He taught
me cruelty and hair trigger
anger. Always anger at me
and those I hoped to love.
I hate me. I don't know why.

17 years old. My heart was ready.
"For Emily, Whenever I may Find Her"
was my soundtrack and I met you and
we were doomed to live the song. It was
softer than the rain in fields hidden
from sight and we made our love and
had our child in juniper and lamplight.
Your cheeks flushed with the night
on frosted fields you both died.
I kissed your honey hair with my tears.

I've seen the priest and lawyers
and had my last meal. Big Macs
and fries and apple pie dessert.
To bed early, big day tomorrow.

I sleep. I dream. We're in a field
of wildflowers in youth's kind
innocence fumbling our way to
Eden, ****** and laughter.

A stranger takes me away to
a naked room with the smell
of death. Am I still in Eden?
I'll wait for your scent forever.

Before time and matter and
love and hate and you and me
a movie started it all. Why not?
Big Bang on the biggest screen
we call universe. In a pool hall
the gods racked their ***** and
Zeus broke and sent nothing
into an acid trip of everything.
Some find their paradise.
Some find comfort dying.

Love is a 4 letter word as is ****.
   I've given both like the ***** I am.
   If I were rich I'd buy the sweetest
   wife I ever wanted. I roll poor man's
   dice and live in walk ups with you
   and work a ****** city job bringing
   home the bacon and beer to survive
   panic attacks that last until I sleep.

PTSD ADD OCD ABC XYZ
look in the Shrink's book they
pretend to know our afflictions
catalogued with treatments.
Our despair is hope in hopeless
shadows cast from burning bridges.

I exist inside a tiny space of your heart
called my universe I'll never understand.
You blind me with your drunken rage.
I'll never see your stars inside my eyes.
I remember your taste and white heat
burning me as I go down in your flames.

Wheels spinning and lovers sinning
   in the dark of the tunnel of love.
   Kids giddy on wooden horses while he
   wins her heart with a stuffed unicorn.
   Guess your age. Guess your weight.
   See the freaks for your amusement.
   We live among acres of corn, slaves
   to it dawn to dark, too tired for love.
   Endless winters making children to
   bring another crop to market and we
   live for the same things we all do.
   Moonshine in lemonade at the Fair.

Each click of the second hand
    validates my life. It's seamless.
    I'm here and now. Maybe not smooth
    as time can be reduced to billionth
    of a second.  Slices of time we can't
    even begin to imagine. An incredible
    number of snapshots! Life continues.
    We desperately try to slow it down,
    somehow tame time.  This a beast we'll
    never defeat. Nothing lasts forever.

You want to see naked truths?

    Look into the sun.
    War makes billionaires.
    Puppet dictators make billionaires.
    Slave wages make billionaires.
    Addictions make billionaires.
    Bought politicians make billionaires.

    Look into the moon.
    Most of us are fools
    who live by rules.
    We wear denim and flannel
    and pray to God Almighty.
    We buy a suit off the rack
    to wear to weddings and dances
    and funerals. We'll be buried in it.
    We eat casseroles and drink cheap beer.
    We stink from the work we do.
    We laugh as hard as anyone, maybe more.
    You'll find us pinching pennies at Walmart.
    We just have one spouse from high school
    and we sleep in the same bed and cuddle.

    Look into the abyss if you can stand it.
    It's pitch black. Blinded by the sun or just
    sick to death of truth's brutality?
Buried in forever midnight.

I work my little *** off filling Santa's shelf.
    We're non union cheap labor and I'm an angry elf.
    I can't feed my family like the fat man eats.
    All we can afford from the company store is beets.
    Communists keep infiltrating our elf bars at night
    buying us beers. They sow unrest. I see the light.
    Marx. Karl not Groucho had the whole game right.
    If you want to grab your share you have to fight!

I smoked the wine
   I drank the smoke
   I was gone when I
   rang my doorbell.
   I was Tinman with
   no heart you took.
   I'm rust and dust
   just inside Bedlam.

I was young and lost. I was
unable to keep up when he
went in the bank. I saw him
leaving across the street and
ran after him and a car hit me
and broke my heart and leg.
He was the god I disappointed,
the man I was always chasing.

I'm an altar boy raised by nuns
trying to dance on the wild side with
guilt my constant companion. I bury my
conscience under absinthe and *******.
I wake naked and bewildered among people
searching for clothes caught in piles
never to be found again. We cover our
shame with anything we can and slither
out the door in splendid wonder at what
we dared do in such a strict world. We
are strangers who will meet again in
tomorrow's ****** of our own creation.

It's unjust, mistaken, rained upon the lambs.
  They're all innocent. I own each ounce of anger.
  Brutality lurks just beneath my smile.
  I inherited my war broke dad's rage as my own.
  I keep it at bay best I can. Addiction is my lover.
  She holds me. She calms me. She makes me forget.

There's a stranger in my heart
  who won't let me get to know him.
  I learned he doesn't trust love.
  It broke his heart on a whim.
  He travels back streets alone
  sleeps under stars full of lies
  of lovers for money by the hour.
  Love's out of my reach 'til he dies.
  Then we'll find a place for our love
  with no doubt. A bed for love again.

You make me dance.
I'm not a dancer.
You make me sing.
I'm not a singer.
You make me your lover.
I'm not anyone's lover.
I'm not Pinocchio.
I'm a real boy.
You pull strings of my heart
and I love you for it.

We met in a bar called Ulysses.
Our puzzles fit perfectly.
I was your perfect shadow
in your perfect mirror and
you seduced me but forgot
to silence the sirens on shore
who called me to the rocks
love was eaten by a *****.

Light strikes summer night
  brilliant thought is thunder
  we stare out windows to see
  what our minds only wonder.
  A distraction from boredom
  serving our life sentence out
  make love a time or two then
  lightening kills your shout.

I'm an altar boy raised by nuns
trying to dance on the wild side with
guilt my constant companion. I bury my
conscience under absinthe and *******.
I wake naked and bewildered among people
searching for clothes caught in piles
never to be found again. We cover our
shame with anything we can and slither
out the door in splendid wonder at what
we dared do in such a strict world. We
are strangers who will meet again in
tomorrow's ****** of our own creation.

Alcohol stole my life.
  It made it all about it.
  It gave me pieces of me
  to juggle like I had a me.

I beat you once. I'll beat you twice.
  I promise I won't but you'll set
  me off with a look and I will.
  You always ask for it you know?
  I'm a fragile brute, nitroglycerin.
  I love you but I never loved me.

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.

Christmas vacation and promises
of  presents leave us frenzied for Santa's
magical visit on the Eve of
our holy child's birth.
We hover on the upstairs
at 4 am whispering.
Who will wake mom and dad?
The short straw descends in the dark
to their door. Knock Knock
and they stir and grumble
and prepare for the explosion
of 6 kids upon treasures.
Lights are lit and we stampede
down the stairs and think,
"Is that all there is?"
That's all there is.