There's a terrible storm in my heart.
    It's fire and ice. There's no in between.
    Love memories and dead ones. I laugh and cry.
    I live the best I can in the middle of it
with vultures always in my sky.
How I wish for you today, Preston.

Don't make me the enemy
in your war with yourself.
Let her chase her love without
our doubts and fears. Shake in
your winds together and build
castles of your own in your skies.

She makes me feel inadequate.
  I'll never measure up so **** it.
  Just a mother who hates how I
  make my bed and does it over
  every time and I start to see the
  cracks in her shell and the madness
  that finally brings her to her knees.
  She sees a shrink to put her back how
  she used to be but the puzzle is short
  of pieces and nothing ever seems right.

Play the part you've been given.
We'll play ours as well, the 12.
Who set the table for a last supper?
Jesus was walking on water
before he turned it into wine
and we drink our courage.
We betray him before we nail
him to his page in history.

Jesus ******* Krist. Who just killed
  JFK? They blew his brains all over
  Jackie's pink outfit and pill box hat.
  We all died with him that fatal day
  in Dallas. LBJ and Hoover hated him
  and us for loving him. They shot us.

Everyone is worried about my prostate.
Beautiful young women want me.
Every store has 100 dollars to give me.
People promise me a bigger **** and
a smaller flawless body with a pill.
I'm 70 but I can have better ***. No ****!

Please don't save me from myself
I have my needs and want them.
My shaking hand will write my song
just a ***** with his sharp pen.
The needle holds the promise
of a heaven and an Amen.

Time is of the essence.
We have all the time in the world.
I've been thinking about time.
  Instants, blink of an eye, dog
  years, time of your life, years
  piled on years when time's weight
  crushes us back into this dirt we
  call earth and wish for more time.

Like me all you want.
I think you're swell.
I think you're funny.
I like how you smell.
I like your taste in music,
your wonderful cooking
and the cut of your jib and
how you're good looking.
The L word is a hex upon
the you and us and me.
I like you almost enough
to **** the guarantee

I told you I was broken
you silenced my spoken
word like you were dead
I stared inside your head
and wept at what I saw
the barman said last call
I offered you the drugs
you said you wanted hugs
I said they've sharp edges
you went to find tall ledges.

I was born in 1949 back before
every child was fragile. We
were just a brood of kids our
parents set loose in the woods.
We broke bones. We kissed girls.
We swung on vines like Tarzan.

You have to be brave in this world. It can all feel like a bad dream. All the blood, all that pain. Your heart will break again and again. You'll have to journey through it all. Protect the ones you love, no matter the cost. Be honest, be loyal. Work hard. Read. Learn. Tell her you love her, everyday. Don't promise tomorrow, it's not yours to give. Don't just survive, live. Beware of the man on the money, He's in it for himself. If it feels wrong, it probably is. Open your eyes. Create. Don't be shy. It's never too late. Don't wait. Travel the world every chance that you get. Don't stand for cruelty of any kind. Speak your mind. Be on time. Give her space, take some for yourself. Drink to good health. Knowledge is wealth. We all must play the cards that we're dealt. It's not what you're given, it's what you gave. Don't be the master or the slave. Spend all your time, it's not something you save. Be happy my friends. Be strong. Be brave.?

    - Maximillian

I'm a little pink punk
    walking to the Waffle House
    with a stray dog named Wendy
    and it's love never in poetry.
    We have no white weddings and
    bride maids and bachelor parties
    or toasts or rice or noisy cans
    on a string or honeymoon. We
    have Motel 6 and Waffle House
    and tricks and dealers and us.

To what end can we possibly be?
Why do we exist? Give me answers
or I'm left no choice but to decry
god and satan and every reason for
anything in this demented dream of
mine. All suffering is in my mind.
Wars were fought in my frontal lobe
and peace reached in my temporal lobe.
I'm a madman in madness I'll never know.
I pray to godless gods until I die again.

A pound of flesh an ounce of truth
  scales of justice fool our youth.
  Hammer and sickle we all embrace.
  The clingers gone without a trace.
  I'll die without complaint for Marx.
  We change the world with red sparks.

I'm just pretending to be alive today.
I died years ago when I abandoned you
and the kids. I betrayed more than our vows.
I betrayed myself and there's no forgiveness.
I live in fragments between drinks and pills
when I see the top side of my world that
should have been but is a lost paradise.
Christ! I loved you so much back then.

Love was so easy at 17 with you.
Hearts full of Simon and Garfunkel.
The only truth I knew was you, Kathy.
We brought our love to life in an MG.
The world was our oyster. We painted
it in watercolors and wrote poetry.

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.

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.

My brother who let me climb
upon his back to save myself.
It's a debt I can never repay.
If you needed a liver I'd give
you mine but you'd not want it
knowing I needed yours anyway.

Every day's the same.
Life's passed me by and I'm
just an old man killing time.
I stab it hourly. I'd **** for
a lover to give me life again.
I can't afford the hourly rate.

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.

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.

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.

My shrink introduced us.
She came with me everywhere.
She made the world a ghost I
never had to fear. Lady ******.
We slept together. We dreamed together.
We were married for 15 years.
The happiest years I can't remember.
I still love her. I had to **** her.

We kissed like lovers.
    We kiss like friends.
    What happened to our
    greatest love story?
    Time is our tragedy;
    just lambs to slaughter.

Judas wakes and takes his bag of silver
  after betrayal with his kiss like I've
  done a thousand times before. Great White
  Whale Moby **** ripped off dark Ahab's leg
  black hates white hates yellow hates brown
  hates rich hates poor hates young hates old
  hates drunk Irish and drunk French and fat
  Germans like little ******. Almost a disease
  write your soul down word for word see who
  is your friend and who is unkind. Almost like
  being free. Take yourself out to the curb sit
  and wait for a life I'm no longer hungry for.

We're not here for a baptism.
  We're here for an execution.

Tiny dress and **** me shoes
       bring me back from the dead.
       I was sleeping in a graveyard
       inside the cavern of my head.
       You made my heart beat again.
       It throbs wild like a beast
       hungry for the promised sin
       starving for your siren's feast.

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.

When your lies stack up like kindling
and she finally strikes a match and it
all bursts into fury that will not stop
until life is nothing but cold dead ash.

Light strikes summer night
  brilliant thought is thunder
  we stare out windows to see
  what our minds only wonder.
  A distraction from boredom
  serving our life sentence out
  make love a time or two then
  lightening kills your shout.

Life is indifferent to our pain.
It weaves too many tales to know
when our heart breaks or pet dies.
You care about me. I care about you.
We're small gods on our tiny altars.
We share tears and laughter and grave.

He hid in the bedroom I grew up in.
He showed Himself years later when
I visited my parents at 6 Alcott and
slept in my old bedroom. He was there
and made me wonder about all of it.
I put him in my shaving kit and
kidnapped our savior. He haunts
me in my cups every night. I hold him.

You people hiding in crowds who
  think I don't care of your pain
  need to ******* tears and know
  I bleed the blood you do and die
  in your pain while I think of
  loved ones who will miss the
  mess I am and always was but
  hold your hand to the very end.

The world I know is black and white.
Food is bland and love impossible.
If I smile it's by accident not joy.
He sterilized an ice pick and mind ******
me until he found my identity and killed it.
Lobotomy banished my demons and my self.

I don't know what they've done to you, my love.
    They claim they fixed you but I fear they stole
    your essence, your flame that burned too bright
    but kept us both warm in the bitterest winters.
    You look almost the same as before except your
    eyes seem vacant. Both seeing and blind together.
    I miss your outbursts of passion that thrilled
    and scared me. They always ended in mad *******.
    Now we don't ride the bed together. I tuck you in,
    a kiss and pulling a sheet over you like a shroud.

I used to be so angry at indifference
and cruelty rained upon the innocent.
I chased off the wolves and shot the
powerful cowards feasting on the weak.
I don't feel much anymore. Passion
lies in my waiting grave with love and
anger and desire to eat my lovers.
Tonight I'll sleep without dreams.

You floated wild on the wind
landing weightless on my life
and cracked my world to pieces.
No family's safe from ******,
coquettish nubile kitten who
drowns me in cheap perfume.

******'s sin is mine alone.
  She never understood her power.
  She wanted innocent flirtation
  while I desired her perfect flower.

  Her mother died to save her
  but just saved me instead.
  I brought her to my bed for comfort,
  that night we finally bled.

  ****** floats wild on the wind.
  Her cheap perfume keeps me hard.
  She died birthing our sin.
  She had to deal the final card.

******'s sin is mine alone.
  She never understood her power.
  Bubble gum and puffy **** and
  I desired her perfect flower.

  Her mother died to save her
  but she saved me instead.
  I brought her to my bed for comfort,
  the night she finally bled.

  ****** floats wild on the wind
  her cheap perfume my seduction.
  She died birthing my sin and
  baptizing our *******.

******'s sin is mine alone.
  She never understood her power.
  Bubble gum puffy *******
  I desired her perfect flower.

  Her mother died to save her
  but she saved me instead.
  We went to my bed for comfort,
  that night she finally bled.

  ****** floats wild on the wind
  her cheap perfume my seduction.
  She died birthing our sin and
  caused my Eden's destruction.

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.

I've been looking for something
since I was 5. I looked at fire and
nearly burned the woods down.
I looked at cigarettes mom smoked
and caught hell. I watched my god
gramps drinking beer and vomited.
I saw Jimmy Kuhn's dad's poker cards
with naked women on them and I
stole the Ace of spades who became
my lonely lover in the bathroom.
I've been looking for her ever since.

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.

I tried tears of regret.
I tried flowers and
candy. I was contrite.
I was drunk, jealous,
convinced you had a
lover in the wings
waiting to take you
away from my lost.

I eat your poetry like ice cream.
It settles in orbits in my mind.
A universe of words swirling
into meanings understood by
the lost souls called poets.

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.

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.

It's such a sweet notion after all.
I have an ******* so I'm in love.
I'm jealous so I'm in love.
I'll die if you leave, I'm in love.
You are my breath and heartbeat.
I love love love love love you!