The picture was from long ago in 1920's.
  Forget color they lived in black and white
  muted times with talcum powder and fancy
  hats and brooches. They look posed for a
  wax museum. 4 are smiling big but 1 is
  reluctant and looks forlorn. Maybe her
  husband died in Europe's wars or influenza.
  They're toasting something. Raised glasses
  to what I wonder? We all have things to
  celebrate and all have things to mourn.

I drove me to the corner
with an oversized *****.
She's a camouflage lover.
I wear bullet proof rubber.
We pretend love in Motel 6.
I sleep. She goes for a fix.
I buy her eggs and a waffle.
Our love was really awful.

I'm a country song
in a bar doing wrong
hope to sleep in beds
unknown tails heads
I bleed mercy after all
always sought after fall
Join me in my lonely death
give me your last breath.

Love letters
lost in translation
are always buried treasure
hidden in plain sight.
Sleep in Absinthe
and dream reality.
Wake in his catbox.
Claws on your neck
accused of infidelity
embrace our pretend.

I'll never meet expectations.
Disappointment is guaranteed.
The only thing that I promise
is your heart will go to seed.

A beard or discover
a truth in between
She/He a real lover
bulges seldom seen.

Me and My Arrow

I swore you called me Dad
walking barefoot to the bar
with your brother Sean
and a ***** gallon jug
cheap beer in the jar.
saw The Point a delight
put you two in beds
kissed you night.

If I could set myself on fire
and with a lighted heart tell
about the strangers swallowed
in hate and earth's endless
wars. Thousands dead and
missing and where's my dog?
If I could set my life aflame
and shed light and warmth on
this place and strangers then I
would strike the match and die.

It hasn't happened for years.
I tell my wife it's dream tears.
Bought Adult Depends at last
try holding the currents fast.
Sadly there is no more dignity
when you lose control of ***.

It's just a perfect day.
We are just perfect.
Our puzzle fits perfect.
Arguments end perfect.
*** in an out perfect.
Proposal on knee perfect.
Wedding was perfect.
Baby girl was perfect.
Hampton's house perfect.
Night's at work perfect.
Hotel rooms are perfect
with my lover so perfect.
Divorce sad but perfect.
Visitation almost perfect.
Proposal on painful knee.
lover showing perfect.
baby growing perfect.
it's just a perfect day?

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.

I lost faith in faith
and belief in belief
when you broke my
rose color glasses.
I see evil people
lusting for control
of mankind in cages
dancing on stages
**** the unwanted
the old the gimps
hookers and pimps
darkies and spics
addicts on trips.

I'm a quilt
sewn from
pieces of each
of you I've
touched  and
never forgot.

My life is not a page
full of pretty poetry
more like fire of rage
atomic bomb imagery
melted hearts boiled tears
I brought flowers never
over 31 loveless years
death broke our fever
buried our precious fears

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.

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

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.

Death is ill timed, never expected
  and awkward for those left behind.
  Funerals are Death's surreal plays.
  Tears won't always come on cue.

  It's bad luck to talk about death.
  We speak kind of the dead. We don't
  talk of their human frailties.
  We deny our own sins and theirs.

  We forgive the world for our sins.
  If we never lived in your creation
  with temptations forbidden we'd
  never suffer birth and death.

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.

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.

Christmas time
decorate pine
eggnog strong
Christmas song
It's a Wonderful Life
put away the knife
drink another scotch
goose Honey's crotch
she loves that
wear Santa hat
feed the fire
forget desire
kids are there
so unfair
lights blink
can't think
curse my *****
presents burn.
In hotel
Xmas hell.

She said she was pregnant.
I proposed with a ring she
said I'll think about it.
She strung me out then
she was in horrible pain
I carried her into Emergency
and saved her life ectopic
fetus dying in tubes.

Before the storm all was right.
  It tore us to shreds and then left.
  Dorothy's tornado took us to Oz.
  We've never found our way back.

  I get the tin man with no heart.
  Courage is lacking in us all and
  brains are in short supply. So?
  Look for the yellow brick road.

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.

I started it at birth
when evicted to light
tiny fists clenched
begging for a fight.
Angry always angry
Punch you in a bar
buy you a sorry drink
drive you in my car.
I'm the only war dead
buried in my sick head
I surrender to myself
I lie dead on a bar shelf.

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

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 needed honesty at last and
walk out of the bathroom naked
jaws drop eyes shock me  in a cocoon
of truth condemned now I'm free.
I broke sacred vows and my kids
and turned into a statue of salt.

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.

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.

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

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.

Touch my feelings
wet fingers with tears
weep as I weep old
near death's fears

I was a boy then
life was forever
before I found sin
my ****** lover

we rejected Eden
for Satan's fruit
out girl and boy
die in a black suit

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!

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.

Now I see me.
Now I don't.
Trick mirror
steals my image
and makes it
disappear.
One more drink
I'm gone for good.

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.

I put my brittle ego on the line
  each time I send you a drink or ask
  for a dance or your phone number.
  I break a frozen monster's mask.

  I wish I could guide my young self in
  a time machine and calm our fears.
The nest fell apart a long time ago.
I've lost count of the broken years.

Mullets and discotheques,
gold chains, too much cologne,
lines of coke, smooth *****.
Dance the night into the day
back when everyone was gay
then the scourge had its way.
Really nothing left to say
but for my dead and dying
friends I ask bend your knees
listen to their rattled breath
inches from their death
and hold my hand to pray.

I'll sprout again
  like stubborn sin.
  Kiss me goodbye
  but I'll refuse to die.
  I haunt your heart
  and I won't depart.
  I am a forever stain,
  I won't leave again.

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

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

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.

If I brought you the sun would you smother it.
  Would you deem a moon unworthy and turn it off?
  If you had redemption could you swallow pride?
  When I die will you forgive my refusal to love?

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.

Full moon ripples in the creek
true young love is never weak
from years long gone I speak
rotting vows will always reek

In 1940 it was scandalous.
  Let no man put asunder.
  It drove a wooden stake
  through God's great heart!
  Man's hubris knew no limits.
  Shame on the failed divorcee.

  Today with God on life support
  divorce is like a parking ticket.
  Marriage is ******* for a year.
  Kids are game pieces played in
  partner chess moved to beds on the
  board until you're too old to play.

Lover anticipation for a yes
on a knee anybody's guess.
We thank you for trying
you know you are dying
maybe the next poetry
will be of our quality.

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.

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.

Time stands still. My movie
plays on in stalled flashes
I imagine us back in the day
relive mistakes left in ashes.
Clock hands frozen at 9:23 pm
tock is silent like French leave
I drink to forget and remember
like the God I want to believe.