can you save me from fires of hell?
were you born poor in a lean to barn?
do you talk to the animals and heal sick?
are you celibate? are you a catholic priest?
who was your father? was he a pharaoh?
was your mother really a ******?
did you attend Catholic School?
are you a time traveller without a watch?
are you mostly carbon, mr. christ?
did you die ****** nailed on that cross?

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.

Each poem is stained with wine,
   sweat, tears and sometimes blood.
   I'll write gently of my doomed
   loves. We were sincere and naive,
   too young to taste death's smell.
   Promises were made and abandoned
   for lust. My only friend after all.
   Never trust poets for truth, just honesty.

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.

We're cool
  we're hip
  we're writing everything
  you wish you'd been doing
  all along. We live in attics
  and drink cheap beer and wear
  clothes of the proletariat.
  we smoke anything, defy death.
  We're the Beats back again.

I left what mark I could.
A tree in the meadow has
our hearts carved on it.
We cut us and shared blood.
That was a century way back.
Now we're dust and forgotten.
Maybe we're stars in the night
still terribly in desperate love.

You hid your ****** away. I forgot its utility.
  You are still beautiful in certain light.
  **** you for hiding behind matronly flannel
  while I gave up on ******* and beat me to death.

I was Catholic from birth born with
  original sin and doomed to rosaries and
  Novenas and nuns, priests and confession.
  My guilt would tear God to pieces.
  Heaven would be empty and hell cool ash.
  Atheists would dance if they knew how.
Zealots still speak tongues with poison  snakes.
  Preachers would still make their fortunes.

I meet you over and over again.
We're perfect together then not.
I like the cut of your jib until I don't.
My Medusa the curly haired
realtor with ******* beckoning.
I eat you up and suicide again.
Ella with daddy issues is a love
I had long ago. We **** and suicide.

She was my oxygen and gravity and heartbeat.
  She died and broke our universe. She loved me
  enough to bring me back from Mars. I was lost.
  She died out of our orbit and chaos made me mad.
  You rob me blind and I know but don't really care.
  Nothing matters anymore. I'm heading back to Mars.

I was in a box the size of memory.
  A field of wildflowers I gathered
  to my heart. They were warm and
  your scent. I wept at your grave.
  We danced. We ******. We laughed.
  We slept in your grave. We died.

Church choir grabs my heart and soul.
My anger disappears. I reach for all
your hands to help me to Monday's
challenge to help my child die easy.

I love/hate the dance of romance.
I feel like I'm in a house of mirrors.
Nothing is what it seems. Where am I?
Is this love or a bent reflection?
Are we pretending at love in the dark
touching then surrendering our flesh?

Teeming steaming city where everyone
  is looking for lovers everywhere.
  Women dressed in small dresses naked
  and men strut straight and tall and point
  to them one by one and **** them and
  go home to family's who ignore naked truth.

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

I'm a poet. My job is to drag your heart
   kicking and screaming through your past
   reminding you of kindnesses and cruelties.
   Against my wall blindfold and last cigarette.
   Truth is my weapon. There is no confessional.
   We're naked and always ugly in our own light.

I visit them all.
  I crave their stories.
  Maybe I want their lives.
  So many lived more proper.
  Some thought they lived sacred.
  Hate seethes from some graves.
  It's red fog in night's demise.
  Tears are everywhere in this ground.
  Wind whispers secrets. I listen.
  Life is Death's reason to exist.

Desire terrifies me.
I have no control.
It's bumber cars
at Coney Island.
Madness gone mad.
Bed bound after drinks.
I ***** for your love.
My clumsy claws miss.
We wake sober awkward.
You're late and run and
I feel a failure again.
Where can I turn? Priest
or Shrink or Doctor or
Madam or Barkeep or noose?

Earth spinning like a top
    clowns running to stay put
    don't mention the trenches
    and amputations and rats who
    nibble on our numb legs as we
    try to sleep in muck and wonder
    which lucky men will die tonight?
    Let's not talk about it anymore.

The popes of poetry demand it.
No matter the structure and
rhythm or rhyme or Howl
from the bleachers the
popular kids get noticed.
We just write poetry.

I can't swallow a bottle of pills.
   Who would pick up our dog's ****?
   Who'd feed and walk and calm him
   in thunderstorms? He needs me.
   My wife died. The center is gone.
   My worlds can't stay in their orbits.
   I weep at your grave with your dates
   in stone and small talk like always.
   You remind me of stuff I can never
   forget. We laugh out loud and cry.

Men sweat. Woman bleed.
Both are beasts of burden
until their bodies coil as one
ready to strike cruel masters.
They float upon love's breeze
and feel no pain, just healed.

Life's a carnival, a festival and
    a tragedy and comedy in one pie.
    It's a terrifying and wild roller coaster
    and that first time in the deep end
    when you thought you'd never find
    another breath but did. It is lost
    time in the bumper car ride at Coney.
    It's kissing grandma's corpse goodbye.

You fell in love, my girl, I'm
happy for you and open the
champagne to celebrate!
We welcome the Scotsman
to our clan. I see how he
holds you like I did years
ago and know he'll keep
you safe and warm and
make you happy after all.
Let's toast your Love!

I've nothing left to offer
    and nothing left to keep.
    I smoked our treasures in
    a crack pipe made of glass.
    I'll never leave you poor
    offering yourself as *****.
    I absolutely love you and
    if our love stays the course
    we'll find our way in rehab
    and absolutely not divorce.

Night defeats the sun
    and hangs its pale imposter
    in its own sky
    to wax and wane
    and woo young lovers
    under the boardwalk.

    Monsters hide under beds
    while skeletons fill closets
    and life gets lived always
    hanging in the balance.
    Dawn beats back the dark and
    makes us live another day.

She found the love of her life.
They move into their love home
and build their nest and begin
to compromise and give up a piece
here and there and lose bits of them
until they look in a mirror and see
strangers and wonder where they
went. She's gone.

I'll die when it is my turn.
I won't argue that my coupon
gets me another week or so.
I'll vacate the body known as Bill.

We met at mile marker 237.
Maine. You were tough enough
to go the distance and we both
dragged us to the final mile.

Grandma taught me everything I know
    that really matters. Irish to her boots.
    She was kind to everyone, never spoke
    ugly and took me to special places.
    We took the El to the track. She showed
    me ways to win and ways to lose.
    We stopped for ice cream before we
    went to her bar full of friends.
    They all fussed over me and filled me
    to my top with Cherry Cokes.
    I never saw such happy people again.
    We caught the last train home and
    she tucked me in bed and kissed me night.
    She said life's a pie full of comedy and
    tragedy. Eat it all and you'll die happy.
    She died. I laughed when I kissed her bye.

The clock scratches its way to 11 pm.
I'm deep in my cups and celebrate.
I'll wander into bed and dream of the
lovers and enemies I slayed in their time.

I'm stumbling over my own thoughts.
I feel like a scarecrow in fierce wind.
I love everyone and promise all.
I always disappoint tomorrow.

We're born into a tiny slice of history.
    Dropped into roles in small orbits around
    each other and we're caught and spin in
    our gravity falling in and out of Love.

I remember the day we drove all over
looking for our perfect graves. We were
18 and determined to never say goodbye.
We settled for under a strong Oak in
fertile ground where our souls grow.
We swore to die together in one grave.

It's not a place you can get to by a boat,
or a train.
It's far, far away. Behind the moon,
beyond the rain. *

I'm homeless in California. Everything's free.
I fly barely over the rainbow every day when
I fill my blood with ****** and die for a day
or so. I rise like Christ and feel the same pain.

I see him in my dreams.
He's not an old god on a throne.
He's an eye in my mind's eye.
I see him as he sees me and
His creation vast and alone
wanting to understand what's
behind the great curtain of OZ.
He died and we're his dreams.

I'm lost in the dark ink black room.
  A single candle lights my way as I
  walk from room to room looking for
  broke levers or jammed gears of fear.
  A tiny flame tries to die in the wind.
  My psyche is vast, with desire and sin.

I was always second string.
Red shirt dummy for practice
in summers of Spartans glory.
Bacevich was a legend coach.
I shone one hot August day
hungover and craving nicotine.
**** these poseurs of fame.
We scrimmaged and played
our usual parts, but I was angry.
I stopped the blockers like stone
and tore the runners down.
Over and over I was a Hero
for an afternoon. The Coach said
I'd be a Gridiron Legend.
Just for one day.

I need to be pinned on your cross
like a specimen kept under glass
to bear witness to political victims
like Julian Assange who speak truth
to power and crawl ****** to Golgotha.

I see my breath and bright stars.
Wine keeps me warm while I wonder
at the grand scheme of it all.
Who painted this masterpiece for
the likes of me? God? Einstein?
Are we architects of these dreams?

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

Thin lipped men without souls
    in million dollar suits with
    thousand dollar ****** steal
    livelihoods of working stiffs.
    Inside the DC beltway they feed
    on governments' billion teats.

I haven't been inside a church
since my first marriage was annulled
after 2 kiddos and 5 bored years and
enough money to get some catholic
upper management to sign off on it.
I was lonely and cold on xmas eve so
I stood at the back of a packed church
midnight slightly drunk and nostalgic
for when I believed in youth's lies.
Black and white was true. Color is
blended into whatever you want it.
The play was comfort. The body of
Christ stuck to the roof of my mouth.
Some things never change, thank God.

I'm an old poet with a young heart
pleading for an honest appraisal.
Is my poetry worth the time to read?
Do I matter now? Did I ever?
That is the bigger question.
I know the answer. Nothing lasts.
Shakespeare and Yeats and God will
someday be lost to time's cruelty.

When did we become
irrelevant? We were poets!
We could turn a phrase.
Our lines could sit on a pin
so precise to spin in orbits around
what world's we once were.

I'm 12 and in bed for the night
    listening to WSAI. Dusty Rhodes
    is the DJ playing Rock and Roll
    on my crystal radio in my ear.
    I'm frozen there forever. I will
    never die. I'm 12. I hear the world.

Gangs of doctors a
hundred patients deep,
cancer is the currency
dying in their sleep.
We don't make promises.
We ask your permission.
Sign the waiver. There's
no cure maybe remission?
Promise us that you'll
always take your pill.
Most importantly arrange for
loved ones to pay your final bill.

Now I put a pencil mark on the
page and call it art. I splatter hate
on watercolor 300 lbs paper and
in a frame fools will pay fortunes.
My monkey paints and ***** on the
paper and it fetches small fortunes.

We've been beat near to death
  Irish mules to pull English
  plows through rocks and clay.
  Steal our country at your peril.
  We keep our dignity and fight.
  Our pubs crawl with hatred.

Like used rubbers old lovers haunt my bed.
  As I drift to sleep I hear words like Love,
  Need, Forever, Till Death. I take a ******.
  I sleep a fitful sleep and wake with ghosts.

  We eat breakfast and shower and I
  have to get to work. They visit me
  through the day and remind me
  to never disregard another heart.

  After work I go to a bar stool and
  proceed to lobotomize my brain with
  alcohol and smokes and small talk.
  The laughter burns bright and I forget.

  We cab it to my place and drunk and naked
  play at love forever for an hour or two.
  She goes and I try to sleep with the ghosts
  but their numbers! I take all the ******.