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

I walk the steps to my gallows.
I smell anger's blood at the door.
We're fighting. We love and hate
like old enemies, salt and the sea.

I'm north and south, east and west.
I spin my compass in confusion.
We live in shifting times in odd places
where we seek solid ground but
we stand on sand and shores that
move our world beneath our feet.

A magic box where all of your
ugliness and cruelty are forgiven
when you recite the sin list to
your priest and perform penance.
The guilt still lives in shadows
of the heart shaking foundations.

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

It eyes me with suspicion
like I'm a heretic.
Will it burn me at a stake?
Am I Joan of Arc or Jesus Christ?
The congregation can't be satisfied.
Can't be bothered with the ways or whys.

When I lose my way will you be my conscience?
Show me the errors of my ways. I'm pulled
into dark places and tight spaces. I drink potions
and eat from sinful women and break in two.
The worst is I love it all and kneel on broke knees.
I still smell her and like a wolf want more.

Wheels spinning and lovers sinning
   in the dark of the tunnel of love.
   Kids giddy on wooden horses while he
   wins her heart with a stuffed unicorn.
   Guess your age. Guess your weight.
   See the freaks for your amusement.
   We live among acres of corn, slaves
   to it dawn to dark, too tired for love.
   Endless winters making children to
   bring another crop to market and we
   live for the same things we all do.
   Moonshine in lemonade at the Fair.

One more glass of wine
  Into my time machine
  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.

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.

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.

We're all being swept to sea in a
riptide of madness in a sinister
world of mad science and trusted
aides with long knives and smiles.

Cradles to caskets and everything
  between you need we have for sale
  at the General Store. We're living
  at the edge of society with savages
  just outside our walls bloodthirsty
  and hunting for scalps and women.
  Remingtons for sale and Colt pistols.
  Tend your fields and break horses.
  Whip mules to pull your plows and
  pray to your god for rain and sun.
  Feed your infant and **** for more.
  You need field hands for the harvest.

I walked down crooked aisles
  to promise our broken vows
  then dragged lovers through miles
  of mazes lost in endless ends.

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'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.

I live inside a mirror today
where everything's reflection.
Kiss my shadow's shadow.
Break my heart. It shimmers
in  puddles wrinkled in wind.
You only break a looking glass
and suffer 7 years bad luck.
I curse you with all my love.

Every night we drink sacred wine
to excess and get angry for no reason.
We're trapped in a play we've written
since we impaled us in ourselves and
perform each night at curtain time
like dancing bears without claws.
I love you. I don't know. Do I?
Throw an ashtray and accuse me.
I'll curse your love and beg for it.
We sleep, perchance to dream.

When did you awaken my monster?
I took as many punches as I could!
I had enough. I want to **** my father.
I still want to **** him but he's dead.

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.

Harvests can be bountiful
    or they can be wanting.
    I've known you both ways.
    I know elegance no matter.
    Always a pleasure when we dance in
    ballrooms or barns or Night, Love.
    One of us will kiss the other's hand
    goodbye in a casket then dance alone.

Drunk and trying to write coherent
I'm on a high wire bicycle juggling
as you all stare open mouthed just
waiting for the horrible ending.
I'll still be in our bed tomorrow.
For better or worse we promised.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A bunch of teacher's pets
move the sun back and forth
and the rest of us suffer from
their hubris and arrogance.

The night is ending
   the light is bending
   into another day we  
   live as if we planned
   the whole **** thing
   all along but we know
   we're lost in riptides,
   swept up in tornadoes,
   we're dice tossed in a
   drunken frenzy crossed
   fingers and the house
   always wins. Hangovers
   are our mornings and
   a hair of the dog gets
   me to work on time for
   Friday donuts and smiles.

I see my naked body on the stainless steel.
They drain my blood out while
pumping formaldehyde in me.
I'm dressed in my black suit.
They make me up like a *****
so I might look alive again.
Friends never see the corpse.
They only see their memory.

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.

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.

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.

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 love you more than life itself!
You took my virginity with your
needle and launched me like a kite
upon a warm summer breeze.
I never want to leave you, but
my life has been stripped bare
by the vultures. It's just us now.
I hope to a god of sorts that I
never go to the corner where
you sell yourself short, after all
I gave everything for your sting.
I'll die if you won't let me go, Love.

I love everybody who has ever lived
and whoever will. Evil, indifferent,
kind, cruel, bully, ******, Ed Gein,
Jeffery Dahmer, Mother Theresa,
Gandhi. We are blank canvas born
into color and brushes. Some gentle
and some rough and some unsure.
The great destroyer rules our world.

Staring into death's eye is final.
I have no need for secrets or guilt
or hate for anyone who ever hurt me.
Scars don't survive dead. Scabs on the
heart are delicate food for the worms.
Earth's a distant star where souls meet.
I'm a jar of ash on your mantle. You
think me alive until your turn to die.

Death is ill timed, never expected
  and awkward for those left behind.
  Funerals are Death's surreal plays.
  Tears won't always come on cue.

  It's bad luck to talk about death.
  We speak kind of the dead. We don't
  talk of their human frailties.
  We deny our own sins and theirs.

We forgive the world for our sins.
If we never lived in your creation
with temptations forbidden we'd
never suffer birth and death.

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.

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.

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've seen the priest and lawyers
and had my last meal. Big Macs
and fries and apple pie dessert.
To bed early, big day tomorrow.

I sleep. I dream. We're in a field
of wildflowers in youth's kind
innocence fumbling our way to
Eden, ****** and laughter.

A stranger takes me away to
a naked room with the smell
of death. Am I still in Eden?
I'll wait for your scent forever.

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 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.

Truth reveals itself near midnight
when I swim in deep pools of wine.
I'm lost. My family died in my depths.
I need shallows to hide in.
I need a goddess named Georgine
to help me find my North Star.
I'll sail back home and find my
broken life and fix it best I can.

I dress invisible and tiptoe to my spot
where I wait quiet with a rifle ready
to **** a deer. I look for my manhood
in death's dominance, a deer in my truck.
I drink a six pack. Country music plays.
In bed we ****. I cry quiet for the deer.

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?

I'm all alone stranded here
without a prayer.
My boat broke on the rocks
and I eat sushi and coconuts.
I'm alone in paradise
which is a hell of its own.

My skin is fragile. My veins are brittle.
I might melt in the boiling summer heat.
Each day I grow weaker. I'm almost corpse.
Let's move to the desert where death looms
in shower stalls with scorpions and coiled
rattlers in rare shade just waiting for us.

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?

I sit on the castle wall drunk.
I tilt left and right and back and forth.
I'm Humpty Dumpty the big egg.
My destiny is to fall and break.