At 3am we were drunk and ******.
My conscience called my phone.
My conscience said leave me alone!
We crawled back to a quiet womb
with black light in a tiny tomb
born in fierce sunlight at noon.

I'm a boy lost in lust.
No need for more trust.
More boom than bust
***** turned to rust.

Betrayed by my mother in easy summer days
    my father home from work at 3:00 drags me
    kicking and screaming to the whipping post.
    They never understood my Irish let me be.

    My rebellion was ******* all!
    I was forbidden to see West side Story
    I read the play from the library
    my father caught me and was angry?

    The catholic church can go straight to hell
    and use their fortune off the back of the poor
    to ransom their way to the heaven they offer
    to everyone as their own righteous *****.    

    I drag others into my whirlpool
    I want to die in my confusion...
    I want to fix broken parts and return
    to a corrected life in perfect fusion.

    I always aligned with the quirky ones
    where I always felt myself and real
    not correct and punctual, happy...
    no going back to squareville. Deal.

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

The sky's so clear
  in the atmosphere
  stars perch on a tree
  caged birds set free
  my mind takes flight
  into the cold night
  an old lover beckons
  naked in the street
  I'll chase her heat
  I saw her in a window
  her curly hair in a bow
  when I just can't feel
  what's dream or real
  my dogs walk me home.
  I still dream alone.

We've  been running
in circles no starting
over you're stunning!
I missed the parting.

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.

My old blue veins
are a map to a lover
bleeding past stains
still left to discover.
Tomorrow never comes.
I am yesterday's news.
We were the only ones.
I sing tomorrows blues.

He always sat
in a **** fiat
on His throne
no press, alone,
Godly everything
wears God's ring.
Creation progressed
we all confessed
sins big and small
in the confessional.
I told
of my hold
on my *****
vomited sick
white puke
as a rebuke.
God is dead
shot in the head
with my ***
midnight sun.

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.

Poets are rats in no man's land.
Death rotting on the bone is a
cratered field of dead poems.
We charge into the endlessness
set our words on fire and fall
onto them as sacrifice.

I'll die for
a day or two
and return
to you.
In fantasy
and dreams
in our naps
all as it seems.
We look at stars
drink a beer
make our love
as one my dear.

Hold my hand to the end and beyond
  where souls never break their bond.
  No flesh to navigate lust's spasm.
  We exist as one in our perfection.

I will forgive you
I hope you will
remember the dew
naked on the hill

Moments still eat seconds that
eat from minutes that feed from
hours while we toil at jobs that
steal from ticking life's hourglass
sand in tiny pieces never quit
until we are just dead clocks.

I put the tent
on hot cement
where we never went
Jesus moves hell scent
cools our sins spent
praise our pain's sweat.

I'm your portal to eternity
      take my hand and dance with me
      whirl and curtsy you will see
      how wonderful to be so free
      unadorned with puppet strings
      no more irksome gravity
      no appointments to obey
      no monthly bills left to pay
      no more Hail Marys to pray
      my soul found its home today.

I was conceived in the wrong womb.
  That's my life in a sentence.
  It was one I never wore well.
  Greenhills, OH. Suburbia ad nauseam.
  Lovely family and all but Bumpkinville
  so boring I took up smoking 8th grade.
  A swimming pool but I craved an ocean.
  I wanted a boardwalk and girls
  bold enough to kiss me like I needed
canyons of skyscrapers to explore,
  junkies and perverts and hookers
who knew the price of meat.
I wanted a library  with every book
to devour so I'd be smarter than my father
and teachers and the ******* Parish priests
who loved their altar boys more than the poor
sick needy masses of their church.

I keep scarring my heart
with scabs from my tears.
I keep playing my part
for too many years.

Autumn turns nature more intense.
     Peasants harvest Burnt sienna and
     other shades of red while black crows
     crawl across the French blue sky.
     Leaves catch fire briefly falling
     into winters Payne's grey grave.
     I clutch hope in my lonely winter.
     Please visit soon, Lad. Love, Vincent.

What is the difference
between  rogue and hypocrite?
A rogue knows he's a rogue.
A hypocrite thinks he's God.

I'm barely awake from a dream. I
    need to call home. 6 Alcott Lane,
    Greenhills. Is my room still there?
    Is the Xavier pennant still nailed to
    the wall, and Christ on the cross?
    That room was my growing up womb.
    
    I found my *** in that room. I puked
    beer in that room. I played with my
    plastic super heroes in that room. I
    was sent to that room when I told my
    parents that I got Kathy pregnant.
    I know there's no going home.

Every part of me recycled
into flies, maggots and dirt.
Give back all that made me
from my fathers lust squirt.

Mom's heavy lifting pregnant.
Her piles, puke and constipated
the zygotes don't know or care.
One day they'll be cremated.

Her fingernails grow
like vampire teeth
bleed your back slow
when I come I seethe.
The hottest heartbeat
explodes in lust flame.
You're my kindest treat
no sin left for any blame.

I love you inside your mind
  I love you outside your head.
  I love you in solitude or screaming
  stroking you gently or kissing thighs
  in dreams or nightmares bravely or
  shrinking in fear from your anger.
  I love you inside out and upside down
  north south east west night or day.
  I always love you most at 3AM while
  you gently snore and talk in your sleep.

My name is Joseph and I fought
in a madman's curse called war.
Our leaders had a hissy fit and
screamed like brats for honor.
They declared war and fed us
to the machine from which we
can never return intact.
Something is always missing.

To be my friend you need a sense of humor,
  my lover also needs a tolerance for tears.
  I have friends and lovers who laugh
  for hours orbiting my odd but special sun.
  I give everything to orbit theirs as well.
  Kindred spirits, my own kind, I get them.
  We're slightly bent and drunk a little off.
  I live loud, laugh louder but I'll die quiet.

My face betrays its youth
in cratered flesh and truth
trenches of war torn living
in need of your forgiving.
You need confession as well.
Pour cool tears into our hell.

Foothills of the Rockies
  Aspen's spread gold leaves,
  grey branches in the trees
  shake in the Autumn breeze.

I hope to God I don't become
a stalker of Stephen Dunn.
He's my touchstone and poet.
I read and learn and rein my
deaths in and focus on my days
walking dogs and cleaning a catbox.
I'm old and wrinkled and stubbornly
afraid to change my modus operandi.
My poetry may not be printed
but it's my most sacred diary.
Forget the confessional. I put
my sins in lines on the page
and think any God can see it.
Mr. Dunn, If you have a class
in my city I'll take a chance
and sign up and hope you help
me make better poems but please
don't burn my confessional down.

More than her cat died that night.
  Childhood a decaying corpse as well.
  Nothing lasts forever or should it?
  Maybe our soul? Maybe heaven, hell?
  Prayers before bed on bent knees
  seem silly now. It is a mad world in
  which we pretend to know how to live.
  No instruction manual. Just a final breath.

We choked on our stock's ashes.
1929. The crash. We lost it all.
nothing left to bear my burden.
nothing left to sing my praise.
my body aches. my soul despairs.
Forget friends. Never mind prayers.
The only warmth a stranger's "Hello".
I doubt innocence. What does he want?
I'll sleep on benches and city grates
and wipe my *** with worthless paper.
I'll walk the stairs for the first time
to the top of my building and perch
and gaze upon the city that betrayed
and step into death's cool flight.

Jesus Christ promise me
  there's hope for us still
  that you'll drop from the
  sky and set things right
  keep the communists away
  and stop the lies and let
  me drink my wine in peace
  and write madness in poems
  while You do heavy lifting
  and we won't be so reckless.

Bring me bent widgets,
midgets with no place.
Round in square holes
never fit in disgrace.
We're among you always.
We are broken freaks.
Our god will bless you.
Listen while It speaks.
I lied of my pedigree.
I'm not from royalty.
I hope you'll agree
let well enough be.

You want to speak to my heart
you broke not too long ago.
I'll see if it's here. Who is calling?
It's not ready to hear you yet.
Call back in a life or two and
maybe I'll forget your cruelty.

The river ran backward
   the day you suicided
   posed lifelike in water
   yesterday's undecided.
   The books left unread
   words still left unsaid
   dead praying for dead
   no feelings of dread.

You were set loose upon our young souls.
  We laugh uneasy on bar stools when you
  come to mind. We're here to drown old sin,
  nun's black habit fallen catholic guilt.
  We live our bent lives remembering
  Sister Mary Holy Water's Catechism.

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.

I was driving a Uhaul filled
    with my meager life thus far
    with my latest burned out love
    beside me going to Nashville.
    I thought she'd stay behind.
    I couldn't break hearts clean
    like a good hanging neck snap;
    always death by a thousand cuts.

5am we crowd in the rickety cage
   take us down to hell's cold entry
   into the mines. We stoop and dig
   claws into the rock to drag coal
   into the carts we roll to a rich
   man's greed and we end our days
   in poor man's bars swallow coal
   dust into our angry hearts keep
   score waiting for God's smite.
   We sleep with our sacred wives.

It carries bruises from years
of fighting wars with lovers
hating my weakest fears
always avoiding others
all hidden distant stars
brutal parchment stains
like albino mega scars
no one  claims cremains

I always want what I don't have
  and don't want what I have?
  I'm a dog chasing my tail
  'til I can't move any more.
  I sat with parrot like shrinks
  saying what do you think?
  A simple answer for my confusion
  I think we're all mad as hatters.

Rip our jaw away
silence the sway
we have for folks
excite provokes.
Feed us to Judas
one more exodus.
Nailed to thunder
left us to wonder
why are we so alone
for humans' atone?

My drunkard hand shook so much
I chipped the fine china teacup and
spilled the ******* tea on my despair.
I pulled the poem from my pocket
and gave it to my host as a gift.
He printed it in The New Yorker.

He reminds me of me at 10
  best of intentions and trust
  a world that hasn't had time
  to **** a spirit and hope yet
  I'm not that cynical. I'm 72
  still love women at a distance
  and dream young boy dreams
  where we dance all night in
  7th grade with dark beauty's
  desires I never understood.

the dearth of death
is birth and breath
when a broken bed
betrays my stead
petulant reaper
becomes my keeper
when madness rules
this house of fools
I'll always pledge
this razor's edge
to my neck's vein
to spare you pain.

It's a beauty of a red rose.
  It's a watercolor on a bed sheet
  petals bloom from his wound.
  She'd had it and found a gun
  and courage and anger enough
  to put him out of her misery.

Road map to my heart's center
  where all broke pieces collect
  tear it apart never any better
  for all quiet but silent neglect.

Sometimes I forget
   to remember you
   day to day as we
   live our small life
   together and alone.
   I remember you now.

I steal what I want.
    The sun and moon and
    your heart and stars
    time and beauty and
    wistful looks crying
    I'll build a universe
    for us. We are King
    and Queen. I steal dreams.
    I always dream of you
    You dream of me too.