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.

These are just horrible God ******
truths hidden behind the curtain
of The Wizards of Oz.
Soldiers fed to meat grinders of war.
Generals in the rear play chess
with cavemen from Boise
with no skin in their game.
They drink and **** and live.

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.

Promise me. Not a word to anyone.
I think I'm in love with the nanny.
She's young and vibrant and dark.
I'm blooming in her midnight garden.
My wires spark. My heart's ignited.
Keep it secret. Not a word to anyone.

You calm me. You terrify me.
I'm kissed gently at your edge
but your riptide can sweep me
out where love dies 3 times.

I've chased love over and over
like a dog chasing ***** in a field.
I have it in my jaw and drop it at
her feet. She just throws it again.
There are always more dogs than
hearts being thrown in our midst.

We are poets. We are emotional to extremes.
      We love more and hate more and suffer most
      of all.  We feel everyone's pain and write it
      in our blood for you. You're welcome.

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 can't remember your name.
I can remember my cruelty.
I was broke and didn't know why.
I left you in a rich neighborhood.

I'm older and wiser and fixed again.
I'm a kind owner of a rescued dog.

You planted your red rose in my heart
    and I was in love with you. It's all that
    matters. We bleed all over everything
    from thorns but being in love saves us.

I was a catholic schoolboy, altar boy
  totally against abortion. I knocked up
  a cheerleader who still blows bubbles.
  I took her to planned parenthood. We
  lost our problem and were given condoms
  we don't use because we want to be close.

Which lie will finally destroy
my love? I love the truth of you.
It's eroding each time you use.
White lies are turning darker as
our time together has a stench.
Be right back.You never returned.

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.

madness

the dearth of death
is birth and breath
when a broken bed
betrays my stead
petulant reaper
becomes my keeper
when madness rules
this house of fools
I'll always pledge
this razor's edge
to my neck's vein
to spare you pain.

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.

I broke the chain of cruelty
    from father to son beatings.
    I was cruel to a dog we had.
    I set him free in a rich place
    he'd find love and kindness.
    I'm between time and Timbuktu.
    I see me in a thousand mirrors.
    One of them might be perfect.

I was lost inside myself. I was at
  a casual party, loud music and beer
  and some tiny madness tugging at my
  mind all day. My life was broken on
  rocky shores where lives perish.
  I walked naked from the bathroom.
  They were overdressed while I was
  the only one to come as you are.
  Only that not understood
  is truly irresistible.

I live day shifts. You live night shifts.
   Lovers living through different lives.
   We have a grown girl and dogs and a cat.
   I want more and you want more. Goodbye.

Christ! I hear the ice like thunder
in the tumbler and he pours wine
and drinks in metronome time.
Night after night he dissapoints.
We were perfect. Then we weren't.
Time ticks, ticks and ticks in time.

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.

If you and I were in the vicinity
of the same age I'd invite you to
get coffee. It's an invite to be lovers
but now I'm just a ***** old man.

Throw the stone tablets from the
mountain top and break the only
chance to pass on lessons learned,
who we were and disappointing
expectations. I miss my *****
time machine and touching you.

There's a place among the living
   we've provided for the dead. Remains
   in graves we never walk on. Bad luck.
   Superstition keeps our dead harmless.

   I died helping the sick and dying. Ha!
   I actually died in my sleep. I was dreaming
   of being strapped in a guillotine during the
   French Revolution and I lost my head.

   I've lived a good and bad life. Depends on
   who writes the moral code. Do we condemn
   our lustful desires? Do we arrest for stealing
   a loaf of bread or meds for our children?

   Society has a lot to answer for. Who died
   and left you boss? My chemistry and my
   biology are my puppet masters. I am a naked
   ape who has been "Blessed" with self awareness.

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 lost faith in my religion and wander.
      Who can forgive my sins? Who can cast my
      demons from me? Who can bless me at death?
      Can I never be buried in sacred ground?

      Now my faith is in pills and ***** and soft
      places with perfume and happy endings.
      My church is a bar with a pastor named Tia.
      She speaks in tongues with a snake that bites.

      Her venom is the sweetest thing I've tasted.
      She brings me to my knees and I bow to her.
      I drink her blood and eat her in communion.
      I wake calm with my savior. I found my faith.

Christ doesn't live in a gold box.
    He lives within all our miseries.
    He lives in the slums and prisons,
    grungy dive bars and crack houses.
    
    His body is stale bread from soup kitchens.
    His blood is cheap wine shared on city grates.
    He offers hope to the hopeless and guidance
    to the lost souls. He suffers inside each of us.

One more glass of wine
  Into my time machine I
  travel back before you die.
  We'll laugh until we cry!
  remembering, remembering...
  We agree death tops our fears.
  and morning overwhelms.
  I drown again in a sea of tears.

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.

Let feelings pass through like weather
    and never mind why caged birds sing.
    Guillotines left talking heads blinking.
    These things are meant to be forgotten.
    My people were starved in Ireland by
    the British who sold the crop instead.
    These things are meant to be forgotten.
    If we let hate marinate we'll burn in
    our own hell we create with gasoline
    and clubs and guns. Only ashes are left.

You counsel me to choke on the
**** he stuffs in my throat and
be the wife a husband needs.
I'm in a night sea in a fragile boat
rowing to a god I hope listens
but I take on water and drown.

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.

We kinda live here and kinda don't.
Depends on point of view after all.
Is it half full or half empty?
Most of 'em think you did it,
the rest of 'em just don't care.
I was born on death row. I never
belonged where I was and
I was never where I belonged.
I was a square peg in her hole.
I always loved her but never me.

I was ****** into a womb with
love's angry *******.
A terrible spark set me afire
on my way to Greenhills.
1949
I was born in March like a mad
hatter with no name in anger's nest.
Dad screamed discontent PTSD
yet to be diagnosed. WW2 flack
floating in our home unknown
we found foxholes anywhere.
You won't remember me.
I won't remember you as well.
Our features were melting into
the surrounding darkness.

The streets are alive with barkers
  and for rent by the hour lovers for
  any taste. Cross dressers and trannys
  confuse your drunken *** with desire.
  You ignore your family and catechism
  kneel in her church and eat the host.

There's a piece of the moon
floating in clouds tonight
like ships on a lonely sea.
I lost faith long ago and hope
to god I'm wrong. Save me.
I need a miracle, saving grace.

My life lies folded between plastic
    sheets. The photos chronicle 71 years.
    The scenes are long forgotten. I'm
    looking at a stranger's comic book.
    He must have been loved by many.
    Laughter surrounds him. He looks
    like a leprechaun stealing hearts.
    I don't like me. I never did. I don't
    know why anyone would. I know I'm
    here but don't know who wanted me.
    I was a mistake that no eraser
    could remove the ******* stain.

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?

Roadmap to painless suffering.
Do penance for just being born
through a birth canal into Coney Island
where everything is fun
and Leave it to ****** Church
gives ****** for communion.
Embrace the fog and forget you
ever doubted. Drive your bus.
Deliver us all to our evils.
Punch transfers to mortal sins.

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.

I'm 71 and want another lover
who can drink my wine and laugh
at my jokes and dance in the dark
while I kick her shins and hold her tight
and she shares the smell of her hair
and we lie naked in bed and ****
like teens and never act our age.
I'm an absolute beginner and I'll
love you forever. Just keep smiling
then there's nothing more I need.

Empire Builders

They sit on couches with the Mrs.
watching TV and planning tomorrows
thousand chess moves to dominate the
market and destroy their competition.

I've got no time for your suffering.
I've got no time for your struggles.
No time for your ugly riots and fires.
I pour the gas and set myself in flames.

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.

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.

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.

Never mind a suit. I want to
be warm and comfortable
for my eternal B&B.
Drop a pint of Guinness
in the box and a pack of ****.
I won't need any matches.

Our masters have given us answers
        abandoned the truth to bend us to
        totalitarian dreams where everyone's
        a widget, cogs in wheels of commerce.
        They have homes for all the seasons.
        We live in boxes with lofty promises.

What am I?
You can't fix it,
can't make them forget it.
You can't take it away from them.
You can only treat it with respect.
It's peoples' pain and they own it.

We all throw love at your feet
all you do is walk your street
strutting like the Queen of hearts
with all your pleasure arts.

It's a beauty of a red rose.
  It's a watercolor on a bed sheet
  petals bloom from his wound.
  She'd had it and found a gun
  and courage and anger enough
  to put him out of her misery.