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!

Paint me in watercolors.
  Bring me back to life.
  Hues of laughter and desire,
  light inside brilliant light
  husky brawling of youth
  half naked, sweating, proud.

The clocks all move backwards. tock tick.
My skin is parchment and my heart beats
in slumber quiet as a mouse.
I might have died last night.
I was old and palsy struck. I don't
think anyone is ever ready to die.

I'm frantically looking for my *****.
  It's hiding behind my chair like a cat.
  Like old lovers we feel comfort again.
  Don't tease me like that. I need you.

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

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.

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.

Did you ever see the perfect woman?
I did. She was always on a movie screen
and larger than life itself. She shimmered
and spoke loud like a goddess might.
The light was perfect for her and I lost
my heart that night in the dark and swore
I would look forever to find her and I'd
kiss her in a final scene every night.

You can't rush a still's chemistry.
Mountain folks know all about
revenuers and they're reaching
for our wallets. Taxes is just a
word for robbery. Leave us to
ourselves. We scratch a living
from the rocky soil and barely
eat from day to day. We dance
to banjos and fiddles and love
in the hayloft to fill our needs.
Our mountains cradle our hearts.
Hardscrabble is our legacy.
We have hearts of coal
and love our mountain!

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.

We kissed our fierce goodbyes.
I got on the troop plane and flew
to Viet Nam to **** commies and
keep our freedoms safe.
Jungle. Moist with poison life.
Snakes in tree limbs and frogs
with deadly skin. Not Kansas.
We wrote less and less. I knew
you had needs I couldn't touch
10,000 miles away. You wrote
a Dear, John but I was too tired
to give a **** 10,000 miles away.

Susan had the house and
child support and alimony.
Rick had a young love and
a condo and bills that left
him short of breath and
missing old comforts.
He lost his hair and then
his mind and died alone.

I'm older than dirt and you are
breathing on land for the first
time. I want to shake my finger
at you and say get off my lawn.
Please understand I stood in
your frames of life seconds ago.
We're born in hubris and die
in sorrowful feeble humility.
I wrote **** poetry at 20.
I hope I write better **** at 70.
The poetry I read from young
poets here is amazing.
Your poems will steer your
generation. Be the conscience.

The plans are everywhere. How to
   live the American Dream. Be born
   on her soil in projects or mansions.
   Tame your anger like a stallion and
   ride it hard chasing the dream forever
   until you rope and tie it. Live it.

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.

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.

I'm ageless as the ruins of Rome.
I live in the white cliffs of Dover.
I'm the Pyramids and Great Wall.
I'm the tiny voices in your head
that never leave you alone and
chant your failures out loud in
bed with lovers never satisfied.
I'm Death's brutal echo forever.

I lead them with my baton.
   My whole crazy orchestra
   plays frenzied on the sun.
   I hum in ****** nirvana.

I want to scream to the world
at 3am and wake them all from
dreams and complacency.
Look out your windows and
feel the flames licking at you.
Don't cower. Fight. Save us!

He's dying in his bed above his bar
    where juke box plays soundtracks
    of life and people dance out loud
    laughing and living fierce desperate
    lives below his death bed. Life on fire!
    Reggie dies quiet. His bar closes
    for his Memorial. All his customers
    remember Reggie and forget bar tabs.

We've all gone crazy lately.
I don't wear a tie or cut my hair.
I smoked some hash and lost my
mind a little bit. Save me from
a world I don't recognize anymore.
I dress like a clown and eat drugs
to keep me up and down and level.
Friends are straight or hippies each
seeking their very own Nirvana and
I walk a tightrope above insanity.

I reach into my ice bucket.
I feel like the Titanic ruined
as I cover the bergs with wine
and crash into my destiny again.

I'm an old poet with a young heart.
  I'm Scrooge on Christmas morning.
  I'm George Bailey at the end thankful
  because it's a wonderful life after all.

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 shoot up and live death awhile.
  I keep dropping dead and come alive
  and die again and death holds the
  best dreams for us living zombies.
  We lose families. We lose ourselves.
  We wish prayers helped or AA or
  sponsors or your heart and soul.
  I dream of our first night *******.

My brain won't stop spinning.
  I've drunk my share of *****.
  What's wrong with me? Am I
  diseased? I worry I might die.
  I thank God and chemists
  I have my blessed Ambien to
  fly me into Dreamland.
  I'll live again just better.

Last night's debauchery is washed away.
   The front stoop drenched in morning light.
   Blood fades into a stain that looks like Jesus
   with a wink and smile. That happens in Queens.
  
I wake from dark dreams in a room deluged
   in sunlight so bright I'm blind to my ugly
   truths from last night. I could eat a horse.
   I find the diner. That happens in Manhattan.
  
The heat is long shut off and I light Sterno
   to melt some ice for a spot of Dreamtime tea.
   Sunlight won't come this far north past 96th st.
   It knows better. This happens in East Harlem.

Set up the chess board for us.
String barbwire between us.
Introduce Gatling guns to the battle
and make it a meat grinder and weeks
become months become years and it
seems there are no pieces left to save.
Widows and orphans and lovers all
weep for their ghosts in our cellars.
The broke men who returned had
lost limbs and most of their minds.

Now I love low light and shadows.
     Night is my flattering friend who
     understands the ugliness of aging.
     My skin turns purple as my veins
     capture hold on my thinning skin.
     Onion skin. Thin translucent, like
     strong wind could rip it off bones.
     I was a fetching beauty not too long
     ago. Full sun on the beach I had
     men staring agog. I strutted and
     knew they didn't have a chance. I
     decided who would plant their flag.

Have you ever read a poem and been
profoundly touched? Your world
trembled for a moment and you
were compelled to write  a poem
to shake other's worlds.
A leaf, a door, a poem unread.

The mad dog foams and hates down
  the dry street in Maycomb and we
  need Atticus to put the bullet in
  its skull to put things right again.

Empty wine bottles and cigarette butts.
  Old pictures of us in love and babies.
  Dust rests on every surface like death.
  I don't feel anything. I'm mostly dead.
  The only living thing is a keyboard where
  I pound tears into my coffin one at a time.

Poison flows from the grapes of wrath.
   It spoils the soil with its honest path.
   You're hated for your poverty and bad luck.
   You'll do anything for a shot and a buck.
   Anything for a crust of bread and a beer.
   Sleep with me. Keep me warm. Hold me near.

Anger Leaves Jagged Wounds
  Its wounds are horrible, never razor clean.
  Like a monster's dripping jaws tearing at
  the flesh with a mad hunger and thirst for
  blood never satisfied, always wanting more.

     Wounds Leave Jagged Anger
  A child is rained upon by anger until he
  crawls to safety in a dark silence of his
  own creation where he ponders how unfair
  it is and learns to lash out in his own anger.

We drink stale coffee and eat
stale doughnuts and chant
stale prayers and stale hope.
12 steps are our savior.
Find your own way out.
Behavior modification works.

harvests can be bountiful
    they can be wanting
    I've known you both ways
    and I know elegance no matter
    always a pleasure when we dance in
    ballrooms or barns or not at all.
    One of us will kiss the other's hand
    goodbye in a casket then dance alone.

I tried tears of regret.
I tried flowers and
candy. I was contrite.
I was drunk, jealous,
convinced you had a
lover in the wings
waiting to take you
away from my lost.

Left behind with stuff we didn't need.
We found you as a puppy and kept you
safe and loved you 'til we had to scram
and left the stuff we didn't need.
Forgive us our sins. I ache for you.
The day will come I'm left behind.

She lived in a big house with her sister.
  They'd been there all their lives in Glendale.
  Ohio.  She was a dear woman who thought of us
  as her own children.  She was a spinster Aunt.

  She spoiled us and had a wicked sense of humor.
  She always welcomed me, even with my ***** wife.
  Seduced away from my 2 kids by this wicked beauty.
  She seemed to understand men's devotion to lust.

Nature's fierce ****** finally spent
  we dare to leave our caves and stare
  at her debris. Neighbors in pieces by
  we don't know what. Picasso painted all
  of it years ago...madness on a canvas
  in our streets among us living dead.
  How can we explain it to the children.
  How can we sleep with the nightmare?

I brought my little girl into the garden.
She delighted in colorful blooms and
fragrance and my tender love that will
never die. She'll give it to her little girl.

The righteous quote their bibles
  the sinners quote their poetry
  the desperate quote them both
  The suicides quote Van Gogh's
  stars he set afire and French Blue
  skies of birds cawing invitations.

Run away from me first chance.
I'm dangerous. I love you in ways
you've never known. I kiss you in
places you've never been kissed.
I vow to break your crystal heart
I'm your Aphrodite *****
I will be forever missed
you beg on knees for more.

Music readies the poet's table.
     My poem starts with nicotine.
     After awhile I mixed in alcohol.
     Catholicism is a main ingredient.
     Puberty is a wicked mix of Absinthe.
     Next I add a father broken from war.
     My mom could be friend or betrayer.
     I had to maintain a delicate balance
     between being real or just amusing.
     Amusing is easy. Real is impossible
     yet here I am pounding the dough.
     Put it in Hell's oven for a lifetime.

Attica

At the edge of consequence
razor wire upon the fence
captured in our human cage
heartbeats full of rage
inside we all adjust
to fragile realms of trust
Attica was hearts of stone
Musketeers none left alone.
We swelled in riot as one
beat the guards and won
the right to be heard on TV
passion play on bended knee.
Some died on both sides.
The ending was denied.

Needed ASAP! A brain, a heart and courage.
  I'm a simple farm girl swept up in a tornado
  and landing on and killing some old witch with
  a cold heart and ruby slippers. Dorothy. Kansas.

I'm sleeping in the guest room tonight.
  Why can't you be my centerfold from '75?
  I heard your voice from the womb and now
  it has a cruel pitch and it's not enough.
  You screech at my mistakes. I curse you for
  yours. We both swim in the same cesspool.

The march of the chardonnay,
    a battalion of wine boxes at
    attention in formation against
    my bedroom wall ready for war.
    I'm captain. Music is crashing.
    Empty boxes marching on parade.

The sun looks angry today.
Harsh shadows are everywhere.
Winds are kicking up and fires are
running wild. Pity the wildlife.
Abandon your homes in the hills
and hope the brave can save you.