I'm baseless
and faceless
and graceless
a scarecrow
waiting to be
brought to life

Tear your heart
with broken strings
pull it kindly apart
as the Angel sings
knit it together
as winter is dying
her grandmother
never stops trying.

God's wrath struck the Joshua tree
   and reduced it to cremated ashes
   then let our world settle. Let it be.
   We watched it in lightening flashes.
   We live in angry desert cactus scrub
   hidden branches of the poison creosote
   where the only touch is death's rub.
   We just grow colder without antidote
   join our bodies on this unmarked dune.
   The stars are your bright eyes above.
   I stare at your beauty in a full moon.
   Wind is a final breath our dying love.

I was driving a U haul 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.

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 lived through all the fairy tales
God, Santa, Tooth fairy, Christ arrives
from Kansas on the Yellow Brick Road
it's a miracle this tale still survives.

Childhood is magic but it has an ending
die into adulthood pay bills, take pills,
wed a *****, **** pinky swears and vows.
It never lasts forever the childhood ills.

My darling son please
I beg you on my knees
don't volunteer to fight
this war of mad delight
full of bravery and death
just wasted final breath

All my poems are postscripts
of The World's Greatest Poets
now dust and teeth in crypts.

Shakespeare still takes the cake
for all the scratches that we make
pretending exposed as a fake.

Nothing is new under the sun.
Every line's already been done.
Maybe world's end will rerun.

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.

Piano notes can break my heart
  first love lost in youth's chaos
  or have me cry with joy at our
  first child's birth. I hear echoes.
  "You've been at war with yourself
  far too long. Come home, son. I've
  loved you all along. Nearly out
  of time my end is coming soon.
  Metaphors keep burning us down."
  Fire hisses like snakes in the rain.

I stand naked in a strange light
in my bathroom in the mirror
looking 35 but I'm 79 so what
magic does a young lover cast?
She thinks I'm moon and sun.
At death's door I've just begun.
I just want to keep skin intact
so I'm not a circus freak show.

Colors faded cushions shot.
Our mom and dad thrones.
All used up and gone to a
better place. Old things are
dismissed forgotten ridiculed.
Dumps and graveyards are
overflowing. Remember us.

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.

I've been drinking
  since you died and
  left me talking to
  myself for comfort
  I just can't find here
  anymore with your
  shadows everywhere
  your touch is gone.

Intervention

I've been in the deep end
too long to ever get back
to shallows and G&T's.
The only ending is black.
Carnival lights blind me
I'll drown in an overdose
last thoughts are of you
before you got too close.

I remember your touch and I hunger
like the night we became us on the
back stairs as the party faded away
into white noise and my heart beat
into yours and I knew my world just
fell to pieces and broken promises
and broken children were here.
I relive it one second at a time.
I still look for you everywhere
to find our back stairs again.

Boiling heaven's elixir in a spoon
  I visited the dark side of the moon
  siren singing in the distant noon
  from the rocky shores of my doom.

I finally felt at home in a womb
  safe against a hostile world. I had
  a radio and listened to Boston's
  Classical station I read The People's
  Almanac and smoked Parliaments and
  drank 15 beers and faced ugly truths.
  I dreamed I was an evil Communist.
  I watched rich toast and poor starve
  under the same stars our same sky
  we're all born, live and we all die.

He finally finished his last canvas.
  It satisfied his mad desire for love
  but left him wanting for his sanity.
  He shot himself and bled to death in
  the night he turned into day with the
  stars he painted into midnight suns.

Sick as hell he needed to
be put out of his misery.
I spilled a river of tears
waiting until his ending.
We laid him on a blanket
and fed him endless treats
while the vet put poison
in him to give him peace.
We're both chasing *****
in our dreams together.

I'm 7 but feel like I'm Gramps.
  I smoke the butts in his car and
  drain his beer too warm to finish.
  I want to be him when I grow up.
  He makes mom laugh. I want to.
  He's like God that I wish I was.

The road to Utopia will always
end in fields of mass graves.
Someone needs to witness the carnage
alert the rest to their ferule rage
now we arrive to an enlightened age
just one more time on a perfect stage.

I put lipstick on a pig and
    called her my love. She was
    queen of Somerville. I love
    willing women of beauty.

    I knew it wasn't going to go
    the distance. It was shallow.
    Not love but a siren singing,
    tempting me to a rocky shore.

    There lies our relationship
   decaying lung or two, burst
    arteries, empty heart and
    putrid once beautiful flesh.

They gave me a prison suit to wear outside.
   They gave me cab fare. I was free at last.
   The only bars keeping me prisoner were my
   appetites of my own creation. I fear freedom.
   Choices are heavy with unseen consequences.
   I love chemicals that stir my blood into a boil
   that take me part way to heaven. Just enough
   to see God on stage raging at the crowd. "What
   is wrong with mankind? Why do you keep ashes
   in your hearts from fires dead so long ago?"
   I wonder at that and wake in my walk up and
   remember her touch and taste from long ago.

A picture from a thousand kisses ago.
We were so in love full of desire we
knew would last forever. We are always.
Until we aren't. What broke besides
our hearts? We never understood. We
just blamed boredom and each other.

A picture from a million kisses ago.
Older and wiser we still broke our
bed and didn't miss a beat. We were.
Then one day we found others to break
more beds and lost sight of love. ****
was what we did. Until we didn't bother.

A picture of me on my 90th. Wrinkled
and alone in assisted living with a
cupcake and candle and little cardboard
birthday hat aching for youth and
beaches and bars and young lovers
again to break more ******* beds.

I read the news today.
The great reset is here
all hands on deck
hold your loves near.
Wine and Xanax keep
me brave each night
dreaming of a magic
stupendous flight.

an inch or a mile
   or a simple smile
   or Peter Rabbit
   or deadly habit
   pull the lever
   just be clever
   slit your wrist
   never try to resist
   new world order
   with just one border
   without a fence
   or gaudy opulence
   just an open wound
   never healing
   a fierce desire
   without feeling
are you black or brown
or professor or clown?
never mind your history
it all remains a mystery
in this world with no past
an invisible cast.

We came to in the morning
naked stranger's hang overs
unsure of aching etiquette
should we be pretend lovers
or should I take French leave?
Call a cab and be on my way
I'll call but we don't believe
nothing more we need to say.

I drink spirits as a self inflicted madness.
   a welcome respite from mundane day to day.
   scratch in ink upon parchment my truth, be
   that as it may. devils in the details.

   I believe with all my heart tomorrow I will
   see young lovers hand in hand disappear into
   the mist where they do what we all would.
   therein lies my hope the world won't end.

Bring me your lust
disguised as love
your proper verbs
**** is making love
meet the parents
sober for a change
good impression
seems so strange

I travel forever to the end of time
leave a spy glass inside this rhyme
I fell for you in a newsreel at 10
brave and boyish I fell in love then.
You were never in my distant horizon
but the yearning was always poison.
Amelia, you disappeared out of sight,
broke a million hearts on that flight.

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.

I walk the streets with a poet's heart
looking for laughter or desperation
I can scratch or type into poems
I choose to name my inspiration.
We crazy poets ride the night train
screaming lines of vague insanity
I break the wild words like horses
and put them on pages of my vanity.
I was born with a poet's heart.

There's a space between us
we can never quite reach.
You're Mars and I'm Venus
opposites we'll never breach.
Shine on my broken heart
beckon in the blackest dark
Fire the gun. Race will start.
Keep score with a check mark.

door creaking
**** leaking
not speaking
spiders loud
she is proud
reddish cloud
Moses flood
made of blood
killed by stud
fence post thud
left in mud
held a grudge
faced a judge
he was snubbed
Michael Wehrung
****** ward swearing
her blood wearing.

Until everything is revealed
  truth is clear in blind clarity
  no hope left for false charity
  JFK ****** is finally unsealed
  scales fall from eyes DC condemned
  Dulles CIA Hoover FBI in chains
  can't ever remove all the stains
  inside the beltway ashes remains.

birkenstocks and halter tops
no bras no rules free love
drink acid from the tea cup
kiss God's ***, bless His son
smoke hash eat ****** and
keep your sanity balanced in
space and time we have left
with alarm set to die young.

I sold my soul for a woman before.
  I turned my back on love for lust,
  a black heart tarnished white knight.
  I want you so badly now. I can't trust
  wild haired beauty singing from rocky
  shores draws me ever closer every night.
  I'm no saint. I've starved for years and
  smell your feast hungering for a bite.  
  I feel death's cold breath on my neck
  strokes gift firework showers of light.
  I'm old and set in ways like a statue.
  I'm safe tucked away for the night.

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 beautys'
  desires I never understood.

Break our world's heart
**** our beloved JFK
Dallas November 1963
CIA was culpable in play
Grampa smokes his pipe
innocent chuckles display
Allen's duplicity again
now you **** poor RFK.

It shatters worlds
it won't touch me
I remain free as
will my family
1916 tears hearts
and friends apart
we need a restart
bombs guns fires
more needless dead
inside your head.
The troubles flame
always the same.
Horrible violence.
Horrible silence.

We wed in the snow
   divorced in the rain.
   The enemy you know
   embrace her in pain.
   We were soul mates,
   shared beating heart.
   Lust betrayed fates.
   Love played a part.

You lovely creature hairy and
too eager to jump on me barely
in the front door. I've never been
loved this much my whole life.
Do you mind if I lie with you
as you die in the soft grass and
sunlight and remember chasing
tennis ***** in your dreams?

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 keep
words forever asleep.

One more glass of wine
    I travel back in time
    hours before you die.
    We'll laugh 'til we cry.
    Remembering. Laughter
    takes my breath away.
    I swear I'll come back
    another day when I die.

To be or not to be?
   I paint a black halo around
   your blond hair at midnight
   while you hide the moon from
   me and I wonder at your games.
   It's all intense; music, acid,
   *******, the beautiful things
   I've known, but  not seen lately
   We wait naked in the dark for
   dawn's first vague glimpse of
   love in our eyes. We stare blind
   and reach into the dark for lovers.

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 monopoly money, kiss Soro's *** and
   take a slice of American Pie 'fore it's gone
   read this fast before it dies in a gulag.

Spring

We fall in love
fist in glove
a God above
birthing dove.

Summer

Build our nest
for our blessed
birth a ****** mess
she survives distress.

Autumn

Princess on a carousel
Loves knight foretell
parts heaven and hell
down the wishing well.

    Winter

Old bones always ache
cold as hell, a snake
as I die my soul take
to hell, no mistake.

I splash around the ice
while I drink box wine
write this broken verse
nothing could be worse.

Your once proud *******
  hang like bitter tears.
  Your *** droops and your
  thighs cellulite pocked.
  I still dream of you
  in a motel naked drunk
  answer to my prayers.
  I wake and we are gone.