I'm broke and alone
into a river a stone
a desert bleach bone
don't answer a phone

I'm ashamed of my affliction
   through no fault of my own.
   My life's been lived in parts
   watching from the dark alone.

   Afflicted. Conflicted. Addicted.
   Betrayal. Portrayal. Burial.

Cold fingers touch me like a corpse.
I touch my neck and wonder am I dead?
Simple things gather important weight
poems gather like mobs inside my head.
Torches and pitch forks chase mistakes
bury your past in tomorrow's sorrow.
Calloused hands from the sacred shovel
pay back the cost always due tomorrow.

Plastic picnic
plastic spoons
plastic love
plastic moons

plastic vows
plastic years
plastic ******
plastic tears

plastic promise
plastic flowers
plastic fuckless
plastic hours

plastic hospice
plastic dying
plastic caring
plastic crying

plastic boxes
plastic keepsakes
plastic palaces
plastic mistakes

plastic bride
plastic honeymoon
plastic false alarm
plastic lover soon.

I'm ancient
my life
packed neat
in boxes
in the attic
by my wife
just waiting
for last breath
and my burial
in our plot.
Send the lot
to Goodwill
to be forgot.

She was terrorized of heights.
   I marveled at her bravery and
   pain that put her on that cliff
   she jumped and broke hearts
   and more lives than she knew.
   We gather mute to mourn.

Make a collection and submit
it for consideration
forget the apprehension
each poem bleeds
of it's own beating heart
we all have poem seeds.

Wish I could reach back through time
  and touch those gone still remembered.
  I'm pieces of them sewn into a quilt
  keeps me warm in my dreaming slumber.

It's the little things. Second hands in school
  clocks like hammers striking anvils too loud.
  Bored seconds are forever. Years later are now.
  We argue about everything. I'm always the fool.

  I fret over this old typewriter's ancient keys.
  I look for perfect words to write perfect rhymes
  that refuse to be born. I miss the simple times,
  young me at bedtime begging god on my knees.

Everything makes sense. I love my life.
I'm a genius and perfect parent and a
motivational speaker and **** star.
I split atoms and human nature.
I paint you beautiful and real as
impossible as that might seem.

3 am in a diner inside of Nowhere
we gather like the dead sipping coffee.
We're lost souls. We love bright light
flickering florescent and neon spelling
our message to the dark night. We are
nighthawks who travel your dreams.

free as the blowing wind
  naked in your dorm room
  where the light will bend
  watch us lost on our moon

  it feels like the first time
  but I'm leaving tomorrow
  no reason and no rhyme
  off to Boston no sorrow.

I saw God's spark set us in motion.
     Hell broke loose and molten metals
     exploded into a universe too big to
     imagine. Light chased light and suns
     were born. Globes crashed into globes.
     Someone's in my head but it's not me.

2022 will carry her own
baggage from the future.
We'll welcome her with false
hope drunk midnight kisses
hit or miss it's just another year
closer to death still unforgiven.

A Bach piece never heard
was played for the first time
by a cello player in a courtyard
of a bombed Berlin hotel.
I knew it as lovers know each other.
No secrets. It resonated in my heart
a lifetime of troubles and
brief interludes of joy
where baptisms don't matter
and nothing is ever blessed.

My life is not a page
full of pretty poetry
more like a dark stage
dead of winter imagery
dead hearts boiled tears
I never gave you flowers
over 31 married years
life's countless hours.

it makes us better
   love harder
   never quit trying.
   biting monkeys
   screeching madness
   always on our backs
   a time bomb to
   keep us guessing
   when when when
   the answer is
   too late to matter
   too late to change.

Time is worth more than gold
on your deathbed being sold.
Expiration dates aren't legible.
Just ask a drowned 10 year old.
Cancer is the roulette wheel.
After chemo see how you feel.
Just sell my soul for morphine
with the pain in my machine.

She's one of a kind. She's royal and common.
She's electric with boombox loud laughs
that shake me from my very foundation.
I'm struck dumb in her company like a boy.
I fear what I feel. It resembles lust but I
am a prisoner of the life that I've created.

I fell through skies of forever
then I landed in fields of never
clocks gave back the stolen time
I'm quick and strong in my prime
desperate I search for a rhyme
to match my unscrupulous crime
pink elephant in edge of my eye
in a tragic wreck helps me die.

I'm old enough to be my grandpa
  who was thrown in his grave years
  ago when I was 13. I'm gray haired
  and wrinkled with laughter etched
  in my face with no lips to speak of.
  Teeth aren't white but they're mine.
  I'm better in some light than others.
  I'm probably at my best in the dark.

I hear your bones rattle in the attic
  after midnight and my fear beats in
  my ears. I know you'll come for me down
  the stairs silently and do it all again.

I'm tap dancing as fast as I can, Mom.
    The sparks jumping off the sidewalk like
    demon flares half mad in the dark!
    all seems to be going swimmingly,
    but you turn to stone and deliver me
    to the monster at 3 o'clock sharp!
    Read my crimes and grant no leniency;
    the sentence is beating with Dad's belt.

Dark stage
awaits a play
to entertain
show us rage
proper display
poetry on a page
story be told
line by line
my heart is old
beating in time
looking for you
a perfect rhyme.

Echoes rebound off the bedroom walls
   as she screams in pleasure to a deity
   that better hears whispered prayers.

   Violin Concerto in F Minor, Vivaldi
   is the soundtrack when seed and egg
   meet in her and make our child.

   Love bleeds all over feuding families
   as guns like thunder roar through the
   night delivering the required martyrs.

   The dead are mourned with a dirge of
   voices echoing off the hills and the
   building threat of vengeance. Storms.

   Anger thrums just out of hearing,
   just out of sight as our child is
   born into this unwelcome cauldron.

   This night defines me. Unbridled joy.
   Hope for our familial peace. Not to be.
   My child loses her mother to violence.

   Echoes rebound off the bedroom walls
   as she screams in hunger to a mother
   who better hears whispered prayers.

****** marys at breakfast
blood red roses at her feet
blood upon her pink suit
bloodless as LBJ sworn in.
JFK sacrificial lamb on the
altar of the Deep State.
A storm is always coming.
Death is always on the table.

I was dragged to a whipping post
    and ******* desperate naked angry.
    Bring blood from lashes of a devil's
    tongue until I'm moved to creation.
    
    Writing poetry is a lonely effort
    full of doubt. No one likes a word.
    I drink me insane and set it on fire
    I burn lines of smoldering emotion.

I'm living but
I'm dead am I
Schrodinger's
cat in a box?
Maybe I'm just
a loose thread
unravels in time
world comes apart.

Unaware we live our lives
happy as our wedding night
busy bees inside our hives
demanding the Lilacs flight.
Biology. Chemistry. Lust.
We all buzz to our flower
for white powdered dust.
Snort until we lose power.

The earth isn't flat.
God is not a puppeteer.
Earth shifts beneath us.
Life's not a dream of gods.
I'll nail my heart still beating
to anybody's church door.

Going mad in complete silence
is easy, military drums snap
rat a tat tat, the bugle plays Taps
A million soldiers march
silent past me to their graves
while my son is buried alive.

I come to life
of the living
through you
I see a light
Lay my soul
naked to fight
swallowed alone
I am coming home.

******'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 was the night we finally bled.

****** floats wild on the wind.
Her cheap perfume makes me drown.
She died birthing our mortal sin.
I cried for her. Lust took us down.

It wasn't love. It was illusion.
Harvest moon's shadow
shifting in the midnight surf as
we stumbled to Eden's bed.
Stain of ******'s surrender red.

      there's hope in despair
      fear in bravery
      ignorance in certainty
      doubt in forgiveness
      lost love inside love.

We've all gone crazy lately.
I don't wear a tie or cut my hair.
I smoked some hash and lost my
mind a little bit. Save me from
a world I don't recognize anymore.
I dress like a clown and eat drugs
to keep me up and down and level.
Friends are straight or hippies each
seeking their very own Nirvana and
I walk a tightrope above madness.

I'm finally done
  answered to the gun
  held to my ear
  without any fear
  this is my suicide note
  final everlasting quote

Katie has become estranged.
Old ghosts quiet rearranged
simmering in hidden anger.
Her grandson is a stranger.
Infidelity licks vows away
lust plays music's easy lay.

Plastic picnic
plastic spoons
plastic love
plastic moons

plastic vows
plastic years
plastic ******
plastic tears

plastic promise
plastic flowers
plastic fuckless
plastic hours

plastic hospice
plastic dying
plastic caring
plastic crying

plastic boxes
plastic keepsakes
plastic palaces
plastic mistakes

She is delivered from
the froth of the sea.
The goddess of love
and  perfect beauty.

I've loved her many
times strange brew
I can't resist. All were
Aphrodite I always knew.

You can't rush a still's chemistry.
Mountain folks know all about
revenuers and they're reaching
for our wallets. Taxes is just a
word for robbery. Leave us to
ourselves. We scratch a living
from the rocky soil and barely
eat from day to day. We dance
to banjos and fiddles and love
in the hayloft to sow our seeds.
Our mountains cradle our hearts.
Hardscrabble is our legacy.
We have hearts of coal
and love our mountain!

old soldiers sporting bravery's medals
  then comes the blaring marching band
  next are the clowns and the jugglers
  children waving flags don't understand

  still too young to know war's truth
  soon enough it will be their turn
  fresh young faces eager for glory
  will march into their hell and burn.

I'm always of two minds
both at different times
I love you more each day
and hate you in some way.
We disappoint and please
kisses or on bent knees
try to right some wrong.
Who's weak? Who's strong?
Does it really matter?
Mix the human batter.

I Love You! Every living one of
you. I think kindly of you all.
Come over for Sunday supper
and bring a dish and stories.

We've loved in planes
  that spin out and dive
  loves crash and burn
  yet we still survive.
  I crash into your arms
  and hate I'm so weak.
  People cheer me but
  never what I seek.

I die in little bits of me.
Day to day I never see.
Disappearing cells
never ringing bells.
Decades in a mirror
cracks will appear.

I write my poem
will never rhyme
too long alone
no word no time.

a ****** room
an empty womb
a tiny casket
in a tiny tomb
already forgot
a small mistake
untied the knot
vows were fake

There's anger
in the chamber
no love lost
with a stranger
remind me to keep
track of every sin

I'm trying
I'm lying
I'm crying
I'm spying
I'm flying off
the handle again.

He's broken and lame
played but lost the game
destroys himself in flame
sorry that he even came.
Bleeds to death at the pool
shot like a useless mule.

I stand cold and naked
outside of the head
at the party sacred
ignored like the dead.
My life is unraveled
****** fills my head,
my maps untraveled.
Not addicted he said
great escape I knew
Oxy is a fierce God
until our lips are blue.