We said "I do" before clocks ticked.
That was a time when broads like her
still existed thank all the gods! She
loved with the biggest heart and ******
with the most abandon and breathed fire
that scorched you to a cinder even though
she never would. We danced on tables in
bars long since gone. We partied with the
Fitzgeralds and Hemingway and entertained
Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas in Paris
when it glowed as bright as noon at midnight.
We died in the fierce light with no regrets.

Help! On a deserted island.
I desperately need toilet paper.
A bottle of scotch would be welcome.
Carol from junior prom please.

We will always find life like weeds and
cockroaches and leaves in spring. Nothing
stays dead. A tree grows in Brooklyn and
hope stays alive in this dead heart of mine.

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.

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.

We burn bridges.
We burn us in effigy.
We burn crosses with
no feelings of anger
just ignorant as sheep.
We burn brightest in love
and kindness we share.
We burn to ashes at the
world's end facing
fierce fire together
exiting this paradise we
surrender to the flames.

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?

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

I'll die as many times as it takes to
finally meet you the next time I live.
I live in your vast night full of stars
and your gravity keeps me close to you.

Did paints or paintings make you mad?
The Starry Night made the moon the sun
and night the day. It was your soul on display.
You lived in that world until you couldn't.

I'll climb into the cockpit
of this beast that threatens
to beat the speed of light
though I might disappear.
I have Einstein's photograph
in my pocket for good luck.

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 ******.

I watch them under streetlamps
strutting near naked in tall heels.
They remind me of every fantasy
I ever knew and I desire them now.
Married far too long in lean times
I want love's lies in motel rooms.

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.

That time you burned so bright
   a star I could never stop watching
   was the time I fell in love again
   but this love was forever after all.

What good are they now? Today pales in their lights.
We live for Early Bird Specials and matinees.
We are cursed with memories of years ago.
So many lovers in the 60's and up all night
******* and smoking and drinking and ******
to help us sleep to do it all again tomorrow.

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 have a bottle of tequila and
an attitude and straight razor
with the bleak night going on
for miles to endless horizons.
I'm looking for a motel where
I can rest a weary soul at last.

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.

It was a place where I escaped
my self pity and guilt and breathed
ocean air and entombed my body
in yours and slept at peace finally.
You were in all men's dreams,
the centerfold in the magazines.

We hunger for our own kind.
    Ordinary people touch us not.
    I yearn for the broken and bent
    like me. We color outside lines.
    We are on a spectrum invented by
    some cog in the wheel of boring.

Life's a lucky penny found then lost
in life's day to day mayhem of death.
Hashtag all you want. Protest and riot.
History has taught us no lives matter.
Wars waste it. Plague turns it black and
the stench fills the streets. Hunger won't
feed it and it dies on its own vine. Life
kills itself. It's fool's gold after all.

Lawyers always get paid up front.
  Victims are buried, killers in jail.
  Plea deal for living, prayers for dead.
  Children offered as sacrifices to laws.
  In cold light of day sins are laid bare.
  We dark souls pray to godless heavens.

When I die and they try to separate
the wheat from the chaff they'll find
odd stuff like Love **** and magazines
with naked ladies and gentlemen.
They might find things I wrote drunk
and angry and godawful truth.
Everything is lost in the long run.
Memories die with time's certainty.

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.

Rough edged saw of a man.
What a way with words you had.
Blue collar barfly a smoke in lips
put us all in the places we know,
where we feel comfort after all.
Our uncles smell of ***** and
aunts always favor aperitifs
in the afternoons then naps.
Being honest we all crawl in
bars when things fall apart and
we just need comfort of friends
we just met that very day.

Write your hearts out.
Tap dance on mean streets
throwing sparks into never.
Your words die wordlessly
rejected corpse buried in
The New Yorker's graveyard.

Promise forever love.
You might promise the moon and stars.
Promise never any deadly cancer
or acne or dying in our bed.
Don't worry. I know your promise
is as vacant as mine. Love is a lie.

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.

We have a type. We are mad as hatters
but crazy in love. Yin yang.
We burst into flames at happy hour
screaming about nothing anyway.
We swallow the fire and break the bed
and wake entwined in noon's mad sun.

Let Kellee live. Take her cancer
and if it needs to be someplace put
it it in me. I've spent most of life.
All I have is loose change and she
needs Time. It's Yours to give.
Just do me this favor, God?
I see. You don't do favors and
she dies. Why bother with God?

I look the same day to day like the
dogs and cat and cereal and toast.
I wake a stranger every day afraid
of different outcomes with unknown
villains plotting my demise. You are
the only constant in this universe.
You are my sword and armor and
resolve. You are my Bedlam with
restraints and pills and cruel men
with straitjackets for my comfort.
Strength is deep inside us all.
It's our ever present Hallelujah.

Our universe is on a slide where giant
  eyeballs will describe our lives in notes
  in some scientific journal of importance.
  We play our tiny parts as giants in love.
  You're constellations are prayers and beads
  we worry on. We live and die growing cold.

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.

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.

I'll live alone in my madness
in a world of my own invention.
I won't ever compromise or admit
you're right and I'm wrong. I eat
what I want when I want it. I
don't believe in god, only Math.

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'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.

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

I was ****** and drunk at 3am.
My conscience called my phone.
We ****** and never answered.
I crawled back to my quiet womb
with black light and little room.
I woke in hell's fierce sunlight.

I shine as brightly as I can.
     You don't see me in your night.
     If I explode will you notice me
     as I die spectacular star death?

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.

I wanted to make you proud.
Your first born boy namesake.
March 23,1949. You were back
from war nerves on edge and
work was scarce and you kept
exploding in rage and we all
vibrated with fear and felt
your pain and war's hell and
pitied and loved you always.
Mom closed the windows in
summer so the neighbors
wouldn't hear and we went
to our rooms and mastered
the art of disappearing.

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.

It gets hard to hear over the noise of our times.
Everyone screams their bedridden complaints over
again like we've never heard. We're blind not deaf.
The Voice whispers at 3am when I can't stop thinking
long enough to sleep. It sounds like mom and god and
lovers lost long ago and old men speaking of old wars
and young pups who want to taste blood of new battles.
I lament and repent and resent and relive my life told
in dead night quiet as I listen with laughs and tears to
The Voice That is Great Within Us.

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!

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

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?

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.