Another year killed in cold blood
with nothing to show for it. Tick Tock.
Maps always lead nowhere.
Directions are puzzles.
I'm 71 years old. I still have a brain
and a heart and courage. Dorothy
died awhile ago and I miss her
and her little dog too.
We laughed too loud not long ago.
She'd be 98 and giggle like a girl.

It's been eroding more and more.
I can't remember hatreds I had or
races of people I disdained or my
lovers or children or you anyway.
I'll evaporate in a vacuum while
you pull the plug on my DNR.

She was born and raised in Charleston's
rural islands with a view of the world we
could never understand today.
The slave market is a flea market now.

It's a lonely revolution
   with me against the world.
   I keep it laughing so it
   won't **** me in despair.

We forgive you for our sins.
   If we never lived in your world
   with temptations forbidden we'd
   never suffer birth and death.
   You created suffering for laughs.
   Some blow their brains out instead
   of living this boring day to day.
   You must be pulling wings off fly's.

You bring the casket and I'll
     bring the corpse. Wear black
     and arrive drunk on love.
     We'll drive a Hearse to the
     graveyard and howl at a full
     moon until the 6 foot hole
     demands its sacrifice. We put
     her in easy and sprinkle dirt
     with a prayer and send her away.
     We finally buried the past.

We're all conflicted between
   this and that, him and her,
   us and them, live or die,
   soul or soulless, I don't know.

As poets this would be impossible.
A neighbor got this for a job interview.
I love "fierce". I use that often. My wife
suggested "quest". I thought it quite good.
What might you choose, poets?

Hide your fear behind your
  beautiful smile and your
  bruises under makeup.
  Your beast has you trapped
  with gobs of babies you had
  and Christ I want to rescue
  the lot of you but he'd con
  the system and I'd be crucified
  and you'd be ostracized and that
  cruelty let loose would win the day.

Don't bother. I'll just break my own heart.
I always do what's necessary to keep me in
misery.  I'm just a country music song.
Pickup and boots and flask and goodbye!

4 am we kids are on the stairs
eager to see our bounty in the
living room. We've waited all
year and we might explode if
Mom and Dad don't let us see.
I'll die for your secret garden
an entrance into Eden at last.
In tall grass we surrender our
precious innocense and create
our **** all your rules child.
We always played at love but
the kids are the ones who pay.

At war with my soul for years
  since I was an innocent child.
  Born with original sin, never
  had a chance with a stacked deck.

  Seven deadly sins my enemy.
  After puberty under constant
  barrage of heavy artillery.
  Pleasure can't breach ramparts!

  Maps useless, terrain unrecognized,
  Holy water torrents destroy minds,
  drive men insane with guilt.
  We crawl to confession seeking

  a place in line to heaven.  All
  we see is the horror of this war
  waged against us in our innocence.
  We can never forgive ourselves.

  We find salvation in ******, beer,
  cigarettes, Xanax, coke, ******.
  Numb our conscience until we wake.
  Take it from the top one more time.

I want pleasure. Don't hate me.
Feeling good feels so good if
it's done right, but be careful.
Tread gently in this minefield.
Don't become a slave to desires.
Never get addicted. Just hold
the devil's tail loose and let go.
Abstain for a month to make
**** sure you haven't been
swallowed by his hell on earth.

I'm gone inside of moments
and lost inside of days and
live inside of hours with
chores wishing I was dead.

It's easy to fall in love in Cape Cod or
     the Vineyard or Nantucket in season, with
     roaring seas and ocean winds flying kites.
     Late afternoon we lie together in youth's
     embrace eating forbidden fruit. We love.

     It's tough to love after a broken heart.
     Plagued by bitter memories and subtle hints to
     look elsewhere. Doubting my appeal I try guilt.
     It just takes longer to the final gasp of death.
     Move on. There's no changing our chemistry.

I'm an old man with my young man memories
  that would make a ***** blush after all.
  Lots of ***** and naked and *** and more
  was how it unfolded and I loved them all
  and still do. I know I can't reach back to
  say hello. Some of them blame me for their
  unfulfilled lives with empty wombs but I
  can't save me and can't save them after all.

I wish I could describe
the totality of their sterility
of their banality
but it killed my brain.

Maybe it's my insecurity or your indifference.
We pretended as long as we could but our true
selves had to break out from the masquerade.
Bared **** at the party. Wasn't that my show?

I saw a dying brother bleed out.
   I saw a madman **** his flock.
   Parades celebrated the funerals.
   Little boys masquerading as men
   played war. Real men died for mud.
   Loved ones prayed their rosaries.
   No prayers were ever answered on
   our street. Gold stars filled sad
   windows. Widows cried in private.
   They would never dance again.

It sounds like it could be a gated community.
I guess it is in its own way. I'd hate to know
the date I was gonna' die and the how and why.
Invited to a goodbye party where you must go.

I think of the night we met
  and drink an ocean of wine
  to put me down and meet you
  all over again. I'd die for it.

I'm just a fool among fools.
   I'm invisible to the touch.
   I can be whatever you need
   for a month or two then I
   begin to melt like a Dali.
   I become the jealous child
   I am. Just 1 of 8 kids lost
   among the ******* litter.

Every living thing in this life
is harboring its ending. We
humans think it's just us.
Maybe every being knows
we are doomed. We pray
hope wish but know we die.
Turtles cross roads know risk.
Bugs fly fearless near light
know a magazine can ****.
We will never have been.

I'm your king.
I wear your crown of thorns.
My throne is broken hearts.
My scepter is lovers' lies.
I wear a robe of bruises.
My kingdom is your heartbeat.

I had no idea it was happening.
      The world caught fire and I blinked.
      My skin smelled like cooked meat.
      I was hungry and couldn't help myself.
      When I came to strapped down I thought
      I had died. I talked to you tomorrow.
      We spoke of beaches and sand and sun
      and salt that we would visit yesterday.

I think your synapses and wires and circuits
are state of the art. Your beauty is flawless.
You're a '57 Chevy with a 4 in the floor and
a V8 engine that screams along the highways.

We met in an airport bar on our ways to who
cares anyway? We fell in love and cancelled
flights and left it all to the carrion eaters.
The circus was in town. We went and never left.

The summer of love broke vows and
choked promises from our throats.
I grew my hair and quit robot jobs.
I wore carpenter jeans and earth shoes.
I ****** and called it love and loved
and called it *******. I'm always leaving.

there's so much pleasure
inside pain that's hidden
by thick walls of guilt
we can't hope to overcome.
we must live within shells
taught us from birth by
religion and parents who
were taught it from birth
and on and on until a bright
child might refuse to believe.
He'll write of straw men, men
who breathe dust and live as
dead men with pulse and vitals.
He will survive the riptide and
attacks from brilliant fools who
embrace ignorance for the power.
He will bleed for truth and die
again and again until he's heard.

In a house in Seattle a tiny
mouse scared my wife.
I set a trap with cheese.
That night in bed I heard a snap.
I went to bear witness to sorrow.
I wouldn't hurt a fly.
The house began to shake
off its foundation.
Earthquake of an
angry God reminding
me that every life is
sacred in ways we
have to accept on faith.
Cells have souls.

I'm such a needy poet.
Feed me drinks to make
me loved until I'm a bloated
drunken Dylan Thomas.
Do not go gentle. The force that
through the green fuse.
We poets are attention ******.
We look for the path not taken
so we can live in Frost's lost woods.
Now I sleep, perchance to dream.

Death be certain.
    Death be kind.
    Death be easy.
    Death be blind.

  Carry a soul if one there be
  and put it to rest where I
  never know the joys of life.
  I never know life's sorrows.

    Death be eternal.
    Death be dark.
    Death be forgiven.
    Death be forgotten.

I don't play along with HP's MO.
I wish I could but the young poets
you choose to feature haven't been
bent and broke as age can broker.
Few shine and I love them but,
they're rare and most are puppy love.
I'll live here quiet in shame
and watch from the distance
and wait for the virus to die.

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.

A mob lives in my head some nights
screaming like my angry lovers sounding
like sirens echoing down alley ways
going to emergency or going to jail
when I try to sleep at night.

   They shout angry slogans and
   scream ******* all night long.
   Sirens sound like bitter wives
   whining loud as white noise now,
   and some lives matter sometimes.
   Some never mattered in the womb.

When I die release the doves to
     follow my spirit and have the band
     play 'When the Saints' and a buffet
     table a mile long. I don't want sorrow.
     Forget regrets and simmering feuds.
     None of that matters anymore. If I
     broke your heart forgive me, if you
     broke mine you're forgiven. I hope I
     was a decent son, brother, husband,
     father. I know I fell short at times.
     You'll never really know me. I don't
     really know myself.  We're complex
     and conflicted. I hope on death's
     scale I can come out even at the end.

I step obedient in the line
  to the train waiting for us,
  the Jews. We took what mattered
  most. Children and old family and
  we tucked small sacred into pockets.
  Who'd do genocide in modern times?
  I lost my family. I lost my mind.
  I lived an afterlife, an abortion.

I left my love on the subway for
a stranger stole my heart with
glances and smiles and good vibes.
I'll marry her tonight in my dreams.

Do I bend my knee at your altar?
You are a God to print my poetry?
I stand in my familiar shadow and
let our alphabet fall where it will.

I'm a clown dressed in a suit
in a circus tent on Wall Street.
We'll take sucker bets all day
and spin our webs all night.
You'll leap out windows and
we'll cash our chips and laugh.

We blushed at the memories of passion
  from the years we were still hopeful.
  We're old fat people who fear time's
  unyielding brutality. I stare at name tags
  but wander among wreckage stunned by
  how close life flys to death day to day.

I managed a tear at the viewing.
My heart is a piece of coal.
I'm not a sociopath but I don't cry.
I wear black and bow my head
in prayer when it's called for.
She was my mother and she died.
I carry her casket to her grave
and wonder why I wept for my dog.

It's like holding your own heart.
Doubt beats metronome like in me.
I've never seen a miracle.
It's fiction, not fact.
My fables faded over time.
Santa died. Easter Bunny died.
Tooth fairy died. Mommy died.
Love finally died inside doubt.

Step off a bus and see the
little pieces of you in a storefront
shattered mirror and wonder why you
can't be whole like everyone else.
Then take another ****** to put the
thought back to sleep so you can go
to your shrink appointment.
Get another script for sanity.

What an end I had.
I died watching kids
laughing and chasing
fireflies and I pitied
the lightening bugs who
would die in jars as an
afterthought. I felt I was
losing air in my own jar.

I want pleasure. Mother's milk
and rock me gently to dreams.
I want laughter and kisses and
wine and lovers dancing naked
in midnight's full moon who
make me think I matter.

I came to the same fork as Frost
but took the worn path and never
looked back or wondered what if.
It made all the difference after all.

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 my sea of tears.

I was going to Twitter today.
I needed to get my fill of venom
and hate to feed my outrage
and fuel my despair and fear.
I ended up here instead.
I'm listening to upbeat music
and hope we all gather in a field
called Woodstock and drop acid
and get baptized in pouring rain
naked and free of anybody's chains.

Chess pieces off the board.
Playing in the park in shade
of oaks dropping Fall's leaves.
They lie stiff under sheets in
foreign fields loved ones won't
recognize in tears and sobs and
prayers of despair to a deaf God.
Darkness ends the games tonight.

If I pluck the strings of
   my worn out heart and it's
   as though an old man were
   leafing through an album
   with a ghost forgive me.
   I'm living in old photos.