I try so hard to be indifferent
but I'm angry and happy and
sober and drunk and love and
hate you like puppies and *****.
I'm a lost jewel you miss but still
feel it on your locket on a breast.

I deny. I lie. I try. I cry.
Always anger in the chamber
shakey finger on the trigger
I fly off the handle again.
I sow fear among loved ones
beg forgiveness and do it again.
One night drunk I held my 45
against my ear and saved us.

Near my end I found a shoe box
    full to the brim with IOU's I'd
    written over my lifetime to those
    I loved most. They indulged all
    my erratic allegiance and suffered
    kindly my drunken promises to try
    harder tomorrow. If IOU let this
    last promise be a paid in full?
    After all each one of you made
    this beautiful madness possible.

    I stood on broad shouldered men
    who showed me how to live in bars
    and barmaids who showed me gentle
    love among neon and smoke stained
    rooms. We had hard scars and broke
    bones and blood in our hair but we
    showed them what the Irish can do.
    We rise from the dead each day with
    a song in our hearts and ready for
    a hard days work. We do it all again.

How can we possibly be original?
Suicidal poets have been done to death.
Ogden Nash made us chuckle with wordplay.
Robert Frost took us through New England.
e.e. cummings lost the shift key on his Royal.
Dylan Thomas wrote language of gods in
a tiny boathouse in Wales in his cups.
Ezra Pound hungered for his own kind.
Allen Ginsberg broke the rules when he
mentioned unmentionables. *****
weren't roosters anymore.
Do we stand a chance in this century?
Anybody?
Shock. Astound. Hunger. Justice.
Anarchy. We all know heartbreak.
We know injustice. We use bad words
all over the place. We want to be loved.
Our whole class raises arms, pick me!
Let my voice be heard. Please.

I watch the moon move along the sky.
  Sleep eludes me but my faults resonate
  like echoes of thunder at three am. Your
  breathing keeps me sane. Tick tock love.
  Inevitable as sunrise a pill helps me to
  be me. I'm on the cusp of myself again.

I finally felt at home in a womb
  safe against a hostile world. I had
  a radio and listened to Boston's
  Classical station and read People's
  Almanac and smoked Parliaments and
  drank cans of beer learning truths.

I was conceived and 9 months later
was dragged from the womb to an
alien world of light and masked goons
in white gowns and tools and grinning
fools. Put me back in the world I know.
I grow up a stranger in a strange land.