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.

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.

We're loose power lines in an angry storm. Dangerous
  because we state truths that mere mortals don't want
  to hear. They color inside the lines and live within
  the box. They seek safety. At times I envy them.

  I refuse to live in a black and white world.
  I drag crayons wildly on the paper and draw
  what others can only entertain in nightmares.
  We'll gather in alleys and graffiti our hearts.

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?

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.

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.

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 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
for Irishmen to bury anger.

I never believed in anything
as much as I believed in you.
I'll never forget you. Your
heartbeat is still in my own.
You taught me how to love.
You taught me patience and
humility and to be kind when
it wasn't deserved but needed.
God's own Golden Retriever.

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.

Last night's debauchery is washed away.
   The front stoop drenched in morning light.
   Blood fades into a stain that looks like Jesus
   with a wink and smile. That happens in Queens.

   I wake from dark dreams in a room deluged
   in sunlight so bright I'm blind to my ugly
   truths from last night. I could eat a horse.
   I find the diner. That happens in Manhattan.

   The heat is long shut off and I light Sterno
   to melt some ice for a spot of English tea.
   Sunlight won't come this far north past 96th st.
   It knows better. This happens in East Harlem.

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.

First it steals small names
   then dreams of cunning lust.
   It smothers white hot desire
   then steals my flaccid trust.

   It hides joys I knew and my
   hate I once kept in my head
   steals lovers not forgotten.
   It buries me before I'm dead.

Laughter on fire starts.
I promise broken hearts.
Dance naked in the dark
******* in our Eden Park.
Acid tripped to Erie Lake
Wedding a pathetic fake.

This old poet poses with his worn out lines.
     Tender poetry of youth and love's beginnings
     and faltering steps beyond puberty's uncertainty.

     I've pounded my love on typewriters, each letter
     has a part to play in this drama with a weight
     all its own. Smash a key and it opens old wounds.

     This beast is my heart demands fresh love.
     I find love again and again and again. Love.
     I see my final horizon. I see a lovely angel.

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
  old lover's heartbeat
  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 yearn alone.

I've Gone Missing

I don't know where I am anymore.
I don't remember my own name now.
You're a beauty vaguely familiar
ghosts dancing among sunflowers.

We wore suicide vests
into our love nests.
Friends come and go
some fast some slow.
Drunk on your wine
everything was fine.

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.

God must be Irish.
He can't forget a slight.
He only sees darkness
never sees  the  light.

We nailed Jesus Christ
son of God to a cross.
Waiting for tribulation
for His heinous loss.

old enough
to know better
never old enough to
forget her pleasure
lost the map to it
the buried treasure
search my heart
for promised start
never find an X
no Eden's ***
no youth's excess
no more I confess
I broke all hearts
flame less bonfire
of the broken parts
screams of desire.

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.

You weren't seen
in my blind spot
too old so young
perfect ink blot
no trouble at all
self absorbed dad
in and out of love
edge of mind mad.
I forgot to care
for the tattered
broken Daughter
always mattered.

We wear white hats
and ride white horses
to rein in the sheep
to right wrong courses.

I drink alone
in the attic room
of a boarding house
kind of furnished.
Lamp, chair, ashtray,
**** out the window.
I write my Collection
on paper with classical
music on a tinny radio
rejected each **** time.

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.

Life's a carnival, a festival and
    a tragedy and comedy in one pie.
    It's a terrifying and wild roller coaster
    and that first time in the deep end
    when you thought you'd never find
    another breath but did. It is lost in
    time in the bumper car ride at Coney.
    It's kissing grandma's corpse goodbye.

insane love is the best love
you fight yourselves to death
then **** yourselves to life
your kiss is your first breath.

We were young and beautiful.
     We tasted each other and feasted
     on our banquet. I smell you still
     I'm 73 and you're beside me in bed
     in dreams that are more alive
     than my daily crawling to death.

We poets are witnesses to history
as it unfolds before us and most
people don't hear the banging of
drums or the joy of children laughing.
We write our feelings. Most of us feel
too much and suffer because of it
but we are driven to record the
tears and fears and bombs exploding
and screaming of men in trenches  as
they lose limbs or lives. We spell it
out in poems. We offer our souls
to the mob and fear they eat it.

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.

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.

People in relationships
are not half of each other.
We are complete in ourselves.
Just complement each other's
strengths and weaknesses,
when you meet the mothers.

We always saw you on our horizons.
We drank to your health and to ours.
We went to meetings and confessed
helplessness and drank bland coffee
and ate stale donuts and smoked
an endless chain of cigarettes.

I found my way back to my family
on bar stools and raucous laughter
with our dreams hiding in liquor's
fog. We live in the doldrums. Can
we ever know normal? I'll answer
when I've had a hair of the dog.

Notable characters I've known
touched raw nerves I exposed
vulnerable like being alone
forever in a Polaroid posed.

Activities on Death Row,
there's always room to grow,
AA, therapy and anger management.
How to share a small apartment.
It's a day too late it seems to me
hangmen never understood irony.

2 coolios met at Rugby's and we
  crawled into each others heart.
  We died for 3 days and rose again
  into Southern light a fresh start.

I go to sleep feeling dread
    in the morning I feel dead
    fog never lifts from my head
    I need Methadone to be fed
    I can't forget what she said
    Take the red pill instead.

I had a room in a garret.
She had a room without heat.
We had holes in our hearts.
I called her from a phone booth
and went to her cold bed. We
pretended love and slept warm.

The disaster took me by surprise. I never
  saw it coming. Madness piled on madness like
  a quilt made of patches of blown up skin.
  So much debris in the air we lost breath
  and went blind and called for our lost loves.
  We slept snug beneath the quiet aftermath.

It's huge
melodious centrifuge
stealing rhythm
with no misgiving
from each to give
to each to live
fabulous Commune
a marvelous tune

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.

They tried to break me.
I kept spitting out the bit.
You can't tame the righteous  
Fire burned my spirit.
Wedding bands won't
shackle me like chains
I buck and snort and rebel
burn you with my flames.

A ****** horror show
  promises of death's door
  anchors pretend to know
  we believe but we ignore.

Life to death
are bookends to
our story lived,
Birth to Burial.

My life is not a page
full of pretty poetry
more like fire of rage
Hiroshima imagery
molten hearts boiled tears
flowers were never grown
countless wasted years
lives were never known.

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.

As Cesar was assassinated.
Rome burned as Nero despaired.
A lyre string wept for his death.
Rome's bones weren't spared.
We remember crown of thorns,
Crucifixion, 40 lashes and denial.
Bury Assange before sundown.
Empires hate truth's bright light.

We live the lives we are assigned
  predestined inside God's giant book
  we walk our chapters weak and kind
  hoping to avoid death's horrid crook.
  The only ending is finally dying
  the body surrenders to God's demand
  never mind if only and but for trying
  sleep forever in the clay of our land.

Do you know these people
  dirt poor with joyful eyes?
  No tears or pity asked they
  work hell's cloudless skies
  every meal fatback and beans  
  sharecropper hands of stone
  Sunday overalls starched go
  to Church praise Jesus, atone.