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.

agent orange in the wind
kept our eyes burning
as the fortunes of the war
just kept on turning
now we're just gray and angry
for the friends long dead
without any proper goodbyes
words  from the heart unsaid

I swear broken promises for
entry to your secret garden
I stab your heart once more
and once again beg pardon.

Lust is brutal and raw
   blood in a shark's jaw.
   Absolutely pure desire
   humans' procreation fire.
   We devoured us forever
   always find a new lover.

Friends and lovers
   years ago in Boston
   I reach back in time
   call you on a loose
   wire and I hang up
   without a message
   I don't know what
   to say tonight
   maybe tomorrow
   sober and older
   wiser and denial
   always an option.

You don't have to be clever.
You don't need to rhyme.
You have to be honest.
You need courage to
write truth upon pages
for others to read and
risk their judgement.
Favored or reviled.
Both have sharp edges.
Poets are never innocent.

Fireworks started early as usual.
   They terrify my pets and veterans
   and I will lose my mind soon and run
   out the door and beat up the world
   or maybe set the atmosphere afire
   steal all the oxygen so no fuses light.

I see a stone a leaf and a door. I knock.
  It opens and I float into clouds that make
  me step gently. I want to kiss everyone I
  have ever known. Yoko lives for my sake
  in my mind beckoning. I go to her and die
  inside her womb hear ticking of her clock.

We live
then die
we laugh
and cry
wonder why
still try
to pray
for a day
He comes again
we answer sin.

Lightning flashed that night
frequent like a strobe light
an old time silent movie
we loved quiet and free.

My mind is cavernous. There's enough
    room for madness and love and petty
    slights and high school crushes I
    thought I'd die without. Nooks and
    crannies where insecurity thrives
    are everywhere. Bats are in vast
    belfries. My giant eye that stares
    me down each night sits where it
    pleases. Old lovers swing from
    drafty eaves flipping me their
    birds. My heart bleeds into a pool
    where all my mistakes feed endless.
    Guilt has its own penthouse suite.
    I dream among the attic's memories.

The mad dog foams and hates down
  dusty streets in Maycomb and we
  need Atticus to put the bullet in
  its skull so it once again can see.

We never talked of pleasure.
  It was always buried treasure.
  Marriage was a woman pure
  as a ****** bride to endure.
  Bette on Charleston Island
  she finally made her stand.
  Took her kids and left behind
  ashes they'll never find.

Holden Morrisey Caulfield
     Phoebe Josephine Caulfield

I.
retching
stretching
kvetching
fetching
leching

II.­
I'm ready to die.
bullet in my eye.
just say goodbye.
angels learn to fly.
lovers learn to cry.

III.
sleep on empty skies
catch the catcher in the rye
make him tell us the why
we know he always lies
keeps Phoebe from cliffs

I'm ****** and Genghis Khan
Chuck Manson and Joe Stalin
I'm the monsters under beds
evil clowns coming up stairs
who denied Christ thrice and
left my kids in an orphanage
while I ****** a fallen nun
in Boston. I was saved against
my will. Shrinks gave me pills
to keep hell's hounds at bay.

Time capsules in walls
from there to the now
birth to hair on *****
sparse and grey somehow.

Kiss Susan Tucker at eight
Mrs. Reddy crush when ten
virginity offered on a plate
lost myself in a garbage bin.

Hospice room's machines
a healthy noise harmony
song of the Opera queens
perfect pitch is the irony.

The end is always near
morphine drip constants
dreams of lovers so dear
death gets what it wants.

The final absolute end
with her infinity reach.
Flowers mourners send
Hymn a buzzard screech.

They're hills are huge,
defeat us in numbers
and never give up ever
and always remember.
Marx. Lenin. Stalin. Mao.
Senate and congress now
in broken USA anyway
middle class dead today.

It waits around a corner.
She haunts your dreams.
Under your bed fluid beast
bleeds through your seams.
You wake in the sunlight.
Wonder at the blood
God's intervention
takes hold of the flood.

She comes and goes. My wife in
   an instant becomes a stranger
   a vacant stare. Holds her purse
   tighter to her fearing my danger
   There's a loose thread in her mind
   she keeps pulling until she holds
   the end and everything is gone but
   me. She sees it slip from my hand.

All boozed up on Chardonnay,
   swapping virginity lost stories
   drinking from ***** straws and
   holding ****** as scepters while
   ropes of ***** crown our heads.
   We puke and cry and wear our
   hideous bridesmaid's dresses at
   the wedding and catch the bouquet
   and send the married couple off to
   a honeymoon in the ****** Islands.

When my demons win I'll live in fear
    in ugly memories just before the dawn.
    In a hall of mirrors truths are blurred
    and all I tell are lies, the devil's pawn.
    We stretch light. We slow time. We fill our
    veins with black tar. We welcome the flight.
    It never lasts but the next taste is the final
    shot that will hit the top. Follow the light.

Born into baffling worlds
With double edged swords
Marching from birth to death
Fighting life to the final breath.

I expected to die by now.
I'm lost in a lost world.
Bette's 92 lost in her past.
I visit she sees ghosts,
thinks I'm her brother
asks about our mother.

Love is slippery full of lies.
I hear promises feel your heat
seduction into my secret garden.
Feast on my sacred ****** treat.

Everything is currency
buy whatever you see
easy for you not to care
just another billionaire.
Have a little more fun.
  Charge us a fee for sun.
We pay you for breath.
    You rent graves at death.
         Subscription only accepted.
        Miss a payment be evicted.

What stool softener do you use?
Where's the cheapest Fixodent?
I was a ****** in my last life.
Old is a smell you never forget.

The Irishman's Grave

He had to flee his Ireland.
The God ****** British
stole his life and land.
He floated to America.
John Donovan from Cork
was my great grandpa.
Stubborn as a mule and
strong as an ox he lived.
There's a deep dark hole
we Irishmen bury anger.
God help you if you ever
find yourself in our hell!

they take our orders
  clean our tables after
  fractured smiles always
  with an eye on the clock
  coins left like charity
  count it fingers crossed
  feed the kids or keep
  them warm or buy a pint
  and dime bag to feel a
  little like a big shot.

When the bar lights blink off and on
  and last call announced half hour ago
  we calculate the odds as drunken sailors.
  The bar is full of sirens calling from shore.
  These beauties must've appeared recently
  cause I never saw them earlier. We take
  their measure and like dancers we choose
  partners and meet near the door and waltz
  away together into the night. We find our
  way to beds holding on to this life raft
  as desperate lovers often do. We love
  the best two drunk strangers can do.
  We wake in morning light blinking.
  We'll always do this dance again.

The beats are howling for truth
   angry wolves in need of a fix
   in a pack in Central Park at
   3 am, junkies on the prowl.
   They won't be denied a deity.
   Ginsberg's Howl their Bible.

My first fantasy was a Vargas print
of a brunette in stockings and a garter belt.
She kept me at attention for a year or two
and I still see her at 72 and miss her.
Pantyhose killed a world of lust.
We hate you Allen E. Gant Sr.

Don't go back in the deep end
for a breath or two, be real
don't break in two just bend
hearts need time to heal.

Here lies my innocence, my religion, my hope
and dreams and trust and my caring anymore.
I bury my despair and belief in another lover
next to my naivety. My bones are picked clean.
They are bleached in an O'Keeffe painting
next to the cattle skulls and scorpions.

Welcome to Crazy Town.
Everything upside down.
Church for **** priests
steal altar boys' feasts.
I ****** Christ's bride.
I have nowhere to hide,
broke her sacred heart.
Crazy Town comes apart.

Mommy works a waitress
I quit my job proud protest.
We walk barefoot to dive bar
a gallon jug to fill with beer.
We watch The Point on TV.
We three just wander free.
Mommy cries real tears
frightened by real fears.

I lived in a garret in a rooming house
with dead flowers in an old crystal vase.
We dead always live inside our vanity.
I was in a womb waiting to be reborn.
I was in Boston, 1000 miles from home.
The Italian and Irishman were my friends
and St. Georgine from Jersey saved me.
I'm old still crawling in the birth canal.
I'll be delivered any day now in tomorrow's
muted light my ashes in an old crystal vase.

I fell in love with a boy
and I gave him my toy
he said it was forever
always be together
Romeo and Juliet
I'll never forget
our stage in light
the final night.
The curtains close
frozen in our pose.

I crave love.
I hunger for White Castle.
Your hair smells like rain.
Box Chardonnay is coolio.
Keep me in your thoughts.
I'll spy on you in dark from
the tree in your yard and
sign the divorce papers.

poems scattered around the room
in my never ending fool's errand
as poet laureate of Watercolor's
perfect world of happy accidents.
We drool and weep out of context
but scratch a portrait of Sexton
asleep in her car in the garage.
We copy Plath's ****** scene of
geese escaping winter to warmth.
We suffer cures of lobotomies.

At the edge of consequence
razor wire upon the fence
captured in our human cage
heartbeats full of rage
society inside will adjust
to fragile realms of trust
Attica was hearts of stone
Musketeers none left alone.
We swelled in riot as one
overpowered guards and won
a right to be heard on TV
passion play on bent knee.
Some died on both sides
the end was just abides.

I love you beauties
   I fear your stings
   Scorpions in showers
   Snakes in G-Strings
   poison in my coffee
   Love always brings.

If I had a heart I'd pray
  If I had a heart I'd stay
  If I had a heart I'd try
  If I had a heart I'd die
  If I had a heart I'd lie
  If I had a heart why?

play the hand
a twist of fate
pay the band
never too late

the red door
says a mime
Tia's encore
wrinkles time

I want you all to be okay
    just quit dying day to day
    why the empty hourglass?
    count corpses as they pass.

You have limited weeks
that are still available
small vacation peeks
your time unassailable.

Leave it clean so new
guests thoroughly enjoy
their pristine view
of this brand new toy.

I was desperately drunk and desperately in love.
    I made promises I couldn't keep. She invited me
    into her garden. I ate forbidden fruit. Nirvana!
    Pains, doubts, anxieties, fears gone instantly.

    The morning after had a sour taste.
    God and priest and nun and catholic world
    collided with our promised land of love.
    We stayed drugged with flesh and defiance.

    Pregnant, we were married in the Church.
    We had our daughter and a son soon after.
    I wish lust didn't fade with time.
    I wandered and became a cliche.

'Til death we vowed
heads fervent bowed
We'd been drunk wild
belly full of child
18 and 19 naive
tonight we believe.

A drop of blood in rain
makes a watercolor,
as wine spilled on a letter
to a secret lover.
I paint with words.
You pose for these lines
heavy with lust, lost loves
over many lifetimes.

We worship on bar stools in smokey
  churches with neon gods and clergy
  behind the altar with the holy blood
  bottled in rows in front of mirrors.
  Our hymns play on a jukebox while
  we sway in harmony feeling the grace
  flowing between our souls as one.
  Our bible is the newspaper and we
  confess our sins to each other.
  At last call we're given absolution.