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.

We poets watch the world our eye
    glued to a microscope. We pick it
    apart and we lecture in slow motion.
    We examine nerve ends as blood explodes
    when your soul mate breaks your heart.
    We've felt your pain and suffer with you.
    We are undertakers dressed as clowns.
    We are clowns who bury your dead
in irony. They never looked so good?
Poets always die misunderstood.

We rattle the cages in which we live,
  not the poorest but near that bottom.
  Our boots are always muddy and hands
  callused from working in the trenches.
  Denim is our uniform and we hide anger
  behind our smiles and booties on boots
  so as not to soil your perfect houses.
  We work hard and don't need your gyms.
  We drink like you every night but we
  have cheap wine and beer while you
  toast with scotch and fancy martinis.
  Old pickups we drive on a prayer and
  hope our kids will prosper like I know
  you hope yours will get into Harvard.

******'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 *******.

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.

Raise your beers to us common men.
We wear denim and carry lunches to
rough jobs with rough hands packed
by rough wives in rough drafty homes.
We raise kids with rough love who can
endure in rough times and love men
with rough ways. We are common folk.
We're no better than the rest of you.

It lives in the world as we,
stealing what was ours and
living in it as its own now.
It won't even notice what no
longer is we surrendering
cells the universe collapsing.

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.

It's so good but wreaks havoc
on my tongue. Like a lover
who breaks my back and tears
my life to pieces with kids who
are orphans from Dickens's
world. Chess pieces after all.

Lets have beers and shots and
share metaphors and broke hearts
and write poems to bring tears and
laughter and bury the dead finally.
Barkeep, bring us similes and drinks
to keep this wild madness alive.
We'll dedicate one to suffering wives
and suffering children and ourselves.
There's always something for us.
Poems cease at last call with periods.