The caged bird sings!
Such a wonderful song
to wake to begin the day.
She is screaming for her
freedom from the cage.
I scream from my perch
in this zoo of houses and
neighbors and weight on
me to provide and be king
with all the answers for you.

Answers are hiding in questions;
truths barely hidden in lies.
Fancy women fill my heavens.
Cupid wore me down. Love dies.

Sardines inside a subway car
Pickles packed inside the jar
Soldiers so close in a foxhole
Welfare office for the dole
A billion windows with a story
some of love or hate or glory
huddled masses in a dormitory
overwhelm every inventory.

Drunk love is magic
kinda true and tragic
born in a Dali womb
a melting clock tomb.

In moments of drunkenness
I dared to speak the truth.
He's nothing more or less,
not an argument or proof.
He's just a black mirror
inside a house of cards
see nothing but my beer
lost in broken shards.

Lovers never stay lovers.
They become friends
brothers and sisters and
lose ****** desires.
Fires don't burn forever and
candles blown out on cakes.

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

If the lights are all out
and I listen to a song
I carry the cross to the
finish line where you
are nailed to it and die
for 3 days and escape
magician or sorcerer
drunk apostles write
a holy bible set it in
motion forever after.

Do you know these people
  dirt poor with joyful eyes?
  No tears or pity asked they
  work hell's cloudless fields
  every meal fatback and beans  
  sharecropper hands of stone.
  Sunday overalls starched go
  to Church praise Jesus, atone.
  Saturday nights there's music
  and moonshine and slow dance
  they give up the ghost midnight
  still clutching in fierce romance.

Half naked in the backseat
fingers caress your skin
finding my way back to lust
I want my heart to adjust,
fall in love with you again
picking a lock to our Eden
praying for the power of sin
to show us the way back in.
Our shrink told us the secret.
Like Nike he said, "Just do it!"

I was a hormone raging teenage boy
     shaving just a month with an urge I
     didn't fully grasp. I would soon. You
     were like lightening at midnight as
     I chased dreams in booming thunder.
     You were my movie queen, centerfold,
     every girl I ever desired. Life had a
     reason. West Side Story. You were my
     Maria and I was your Tony. I loved you
     so much back then. Years ago it's been.
     I threw the dice and landed on couches
     of shrinks with pills but never answers.

2 lost souls met at Rugby's and
  crawled into each others heart.
  We loved 3 days and rose again
  into Southern light's fresh start.

Raised glasses troops back home,
  five dames toasting a new need.
  Maybe tomorrow's no more alone.
  Wombs hoping for a lover's seed.

The alcohol was kerosene
lust crazy house on fire.
Naked in our bed obscene
flames feeding our desire.
We're pyromaniacs in love
but always end in ashes
our smoke climbs above.
Memories rise in flashes.

Not chemo tired
not marathon tired
not **** *** tired
not old man tired
I want for nothing
finally dead tired.

Do you know these people
  dirt poor with joyful eyes?
  No tears or pity asked they
  work hell's cloudless fields
  every meal fatback and beans  
  sharecropper hands of stone.
  Sunday overalls starched go
  to Church praise Jesus, atone.
  Saturday nights there's music
  and moonshine and slow dance
  they give up the ghost midnight
  still clutching in fierce romance.

I sleep on concrete and blacktop
side of highways and parking lots
I live between sentences mostly
small spaces tiny forgotten spots
beneath overpasses in pouring rain
eat stole cans of chili and ravioli
dream of soft places feather beds
waiting for the likes of you and me.

In a Van Gogh painting
   cheap wine and waiting
   inside our favorite cafe
   out of focus strange day
   swirling forever wars
   madness midnight stars
   satisfy my lust's desire
   quenching passion's fire.
   Morphine in the vein
   quiets my lover's  pain.

I never meant to hurt you.
I'm just a clumsy lover.
Throw down your gun.
Don't be so reckless.
I hit the wrong hole and
didn't hear your screams.

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 them both.

We've had our fun
with Yeats and pun
illicit lovers and
others at hand
I love you best
now time to rest
tomorrow night
resume our flight

I keep drinking trying to beat
the life out of me before I lose
my fragile sanity and speak truths
nobody wants to hear. It shatters
their bones and exposes secrets.
Suffer in silence and die discreetly.

An invisible force that pulls
objects toward each other.
We were magnets and apples
falling from trees. Two planets
trapped in love's gravity kissing
in our photo booth universe.

5 am we're in the cage.
It takes us a mile below
to grab the coal from Earth's
stubborn hold. We wage war
and explode it loose and gather
it in buckets like we do love.
We end the days in bars. We
drink our fill and sleep with
her, the reason we do it all.
She endures me like the mines.

Cotton obsessed, ***** oppressed,
    Southern charm and whipping the help
    mint juleps in the oak tree's shade as
    Delta planters tamed this flooded jungle
    with a thousand slaves bought in kennels
    filled with a savage fear of lost orphans
    from lands beyond reach of our dreams.

    A noble savage we tried to free in Civil War.
    Free to live in squalor with **** schools and
    **** jobs and **** projects to call home.
    Don't fear these truths. Don't stare blind.
    Carry this prayer to your altars and pulpits
    and shout from pews demanding justice.
    Sing of misfortune and tomorrow's hope.

The devil checks hell's manifest
every day looking for my name.
The mortal sins never confessed,
unrepentant sins of my shame.

God keeps me unto Himself.
He knows my romantic heart,
My ideals are always top shelf.
Put the horse before the cart.

A shout out to Bill Gates on
his philanthropic magic tricks
20% ROI African sterile vaccine
baptisms of fire black eugenics.

Give me our broke vets
under bridges in tents.
I give them all money
for a cheap pint of honey.
Thanks for your service.
July 4th makes you nervous
1812 Overture torn apart
from bottom of your heart.

Life is Blink of an Eye
      
I was born through time and space
      landed in this crazy bright place
      furious at light and white beasts
      with no faces but ******* and feces.
      I lived parts dealt me rich or poor.
      Bully or bullied Methadone *****.
      AA and AlAnon LGBTQ and straight.
      I always struggled most with weight.
      I had visions through time and space
      in Hospice in Morphine dreams place
      light's candle abandoned the living
      accepting a blink of eye forgiving.

My brain has become a web
of confusion and delight as
I hold you close dancing out
of step with yearning heart.
I know this place spinning
like a plate on a stick as
I lie in fields in a scarlet
sky with you yearning too.

We gave you all we had because you needed us
  and answered the siren's call of glorious war.
  Outnumbered and outgunned we lost our comrades
  and hills and limbs and minds. Pieces of us came
  home to never heal and burden loved ones forever.
  War's are never won we betting against ourselves.

She lived in a big house with her sister.
  They'd been there all their lives in Glendale,
  Ohio.  She was a dear woman who thought of us
  as her own children.  They were spinster Aunts.

  She spoiled me. She had a wicked sense of humor.
  She seemed to understand men's weakness for lust.
  She always welcomed me, even with my ***** wife.
  My kids went to an orphanage. I went to a nuthouse.

  My shadow demands the thrill of fangs and claws.
  My beast going wild after a lifetime on the leash.
  I betray all my dear loves for carnal pleasures.
  I starve for youth's smell and taste and innocence.

I'm a clown burned in fires
most days I don't know me
scarred in midnight desires
I stare in a mirror to see
who I was before the liars
bent my image what to be.

I have dreams.  I have nightmares.
  I hope for the best and fear the worst.
  I'm just one of God's creatures in a zoo
  called my mind. Walls everywhere I can't
  go beyond. Gravity, time, our biology
  keep me inside my tiny world tethered
  to my appetites. Will death set me free
  to live again in nightmares and dreams.

I made it to the finish line.
Near dead on my feet still not
sure who won this race of
Pegasus runners not caught.

My commas are in a hurry
exclamation points worry
colons horribly confused
periods indecisive abused
question mark is unsure
semicolon can't endure.
Quotation marks ensure
what you said will be pure.

Always fighting over bones
huge dark wings cast shadows
over death's tasty aftermath.
Reporters crawling ants look
for missed bits to sow doubt
and leave truth unrecognized.

Shifty eyed, *** covering bureaucrats,
   everybody knows 'bout the Beltway bubble,
   the plague is here and now, ****** USA
   $50 buys a loaf of bread and pint of *****
   and votes enough to steal any election
   print monoply money, kiss Soros' *** and
   take a slice of American Pie 'fore it's gone
   read this fast before it dies in a gulag.

I want to write the poem
you always quote to impress
friends at Hampton parties
and read to your children
so they understand why this
whole mad spinning life is
worth the price of admission.
We might be born in a manger.
We might be Mary Magdalen.
We might be a million peasants.
No one ever remembers peasants.
We all remember Jesus Christ.

I'm a Bukowski
not a debutante
I know what I need
you know what I want

With war painted eyes
weapons between thighs
in Boston's combat zone
tempting men all alone
smell the pungent bait
pay the fee for no wait
you always want it pure
no promise nothing sure
no heartache to endure
kiss a wife at the door.

You bring me to my knees
     begging or praying or both.
     I've been on a razor's edge
     since our orbits collided at
     that party down the rabbit
     hole. I was mad as a hatter
     and we fit like a glove.
     We flew too close to love.

The party was on fire the
  music was beating our hearts
  and we were courting on the
  the back stairs alone together
  and we held tight and soared
  into an impossible place and
  rode the beautiful beast as long
  as we could and were thrown into
  the grave of my stinking debris.
  It burned my fingers and I drifted
  with my beer and shrinks and
  beautiful naked imposters to
  remind me of your perfection.

The moon stays
through lazy days
of Autumn's ways
red leaves praised
this old man crazed
I'm finally amazed.

Pain stain strain insane refrain
  You sacrificed your body beautiful
  for this precious life of our love
  this is how you hide the pain now
  baggy dress and wine at noon and
  sleeping alone inside yourself again.

I misled you from the start.
I adored your kind heart
and your weaker knees
spread apart to please.
We made our Love baby
no if and or maybe.
25 years we downsize
sleep alone realize
these rooms don't fit
sleep in beds of regret.

I start looking for night at noon
   in dark bars searching on bar stools.
   I couldn't sleep in a raging sea of a
   thousand clowns and useless fools.
   I live in asylums' promises of hope.
   The storm is coming for us all again.
   Find a home find a harbor an anchor
   find a God who will forgive that sin.

An empty hospital bed in the living room
  morphine pills in the fridge and bed pan
  full but forgotten in the night's grief.
  They took her body away and I still cry
  every night even though it's been years.
  I'll drown at 3am in a pool of my tears.

You were glorious and spectacular
   more fun than a barrel of monkeys
   a thrill a minute with roller coasters
   and Ferris wheels and side shows, cotton
   candy and near beer to persuade dates
   to the tunnel of love and a kiss or 2.
  
   Now the splendor is just rusted iron
   and rotted wood and peeling paint and
   graffiti and broken windows. We live
   old and fat and bald in misery we got
   used to long ago. We ride this Beast in
   terror and thrills to the bitter end.

I dreamed I was a lesbian
  stage frightened thespian
  infinity inside a clock
  broken heart inside a rock
  blindfold at a firing squad
  playing racquetball with god
  Einstein teaching ABC's
  an atheist on his knees
  drunk poet spying in  trees
  a monkey typing poetry.