The casket
  like a basket
  of broken eggs
  kept closed from
  the horror inside
  JFK lying in state.
  LBJ stole his fate
  Hoover was his mate
  RFK killed by hate.
  All bow to deep state.

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

Just be my breath and heartbeat for a start.
   Be the stories that made me fiercely weep.
   Every lust that ever brought me to an end,
   the absolute to my doubt, strength to my fear.
   Be my broken vows and promises forgiven.
   Be my gentle ending when my end is here.

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.

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.

I slip out your backdoor
like a drunk love ghost.
Irish leave hurts more
but I always need it most.
I hate forever goodbyes
filled with forever lies.

My roommate was one of a kind.
  "******' A, Chump", belonged to him.
  He gulped life like a drowning man.
  He wasn't handsome but he had charisma.

  I worked in Waltham, Mass. We were all
  misfits but smart as whips! We kept the
  DECSystem 10 computers serving brainiacs.
  We worked and partied hard. The olden days...

"I love you"
"****"
"I quit"
"Don't worry
it will fit"
"I promise
it won't hurt"
"Forever"
"I want a divorce"
"You don't understand"
"She gets me"
"I'm sorry"
"It's not you"
"It's me"

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.
Nobody will ever remember a
million peasants. We know Christ.

Bomber shadow overhead
   to shelters rue the day
   we forgot our lost dead,
   fear black bird of prey.

   Pregnant with fire death
   steal your air and laugh
   as you die seeking breath
   think of that photograph.

Mail us c/o the Bar.
          We'll be sure to get it.
          Closest thing to family
          we've ever known.
          We're nervous wrecks
          self medicating staying
          steady as the Titanic.
          We cry in our beers
          confess all our sins
          drink our own tears.

I will try to tell you about a real me.
I'm not sure I know that version I see.
I love and hate. I always have a bottle and pen
in my hands. The days get shorter and nights
go on forever. I sleep getting used to death's
black infinity. Memories betray my surrender.
Black and white dreams replay my silent movies.
I wake to life's burdens another day. Until I don't.

I'm drunk enough to drink
a toast to my own demise
no fear no time to think
death comes no surprise.

I've been on your cross
nailed impaled beaten
I never felt your loss
you in my mouth eaten.

In 2 days I turn 73. Tonight I watched West Side Story 2.0.
Kathy was Maria to my Tony back when I was 18 and she 17.
We were in Love with love and nothing could deny it. We made our
baby girl in defiance and cracked our world in pieces. I cried at the
drive in movie on our wedding night and entered strange reality and
acid 1969 summer of love and walked a tightrope over ******
friends straight and bent ones in psychedelic colors and free love.
When I told them we had gotten pregnant they said go to your room.

I've run a thousand miles at least.
Am I running to or from I wonder?
Am I chasing youth? Do I run from years?
I run from promises I made and I run
to lovers to make more pinky swears.
I will run until I die inside your heart.

We prepare ourselves
  for blood and screams
  and smoke machines
  old men chasing dreams
  live beyond our means
  bursting at the seams
  float our money schemes
  nothing as it seems.

A glass of wine
  and I will sign
  on a dotted line
  free of me and mine
  no more empty threats
  morning's pained regrets
  always the unpaid debts
  just drunk and forgets.

Paint me in watercolor.
  Bring me back to life.
  Hues of laughter and desire,
  light inside brilliant light
  husky brawling of youth
  half naked, sweating, proud.

Scammed as I could be
you picked my pocket
while you set me free
exploded my rocket.

We found love on a blanket in the park.
   The river ran backward while the moon
   fell from the night sky into the creek
   where it rocked gently in the breeze.

   At that instant that was timeless
   we raised the dead and cured the sick.
   We brought nations together in peace.
   I fell into you and rocked in the breeze.

Some day I hope he sees
what everyone else sees
but now I'm on my knees
broken leg if you please.

She wears red **** Me heels.
   Dance, your hands love that woman,
   always swaying to her siren song.
   Go home at dawn and climb in bed
   with the owner of your heart and
   hold her flesh and blood to yours.

The wound is the place
where the truth enters
into blood's bright grace
creates 99% dissenters.
To vax or not to vax
destroy civilization
never the mob relax
hope for realization.

Catholic church captured them
in their shame and took babies
made them slaves to remorse
said their vaginas full of rabies.

Sing these poems silent
make them your song
feelings always spent
right a certain wrong.

I'm a worn out old man.
I want to go back to Alcott
where the world was in a jar
and we were masters of the
woods. We knew the creeks and
lake and swung on vines Tarzan
like and ran home to supper and
homework and TV and slumber
and dad off to work at 5am hacking
in the bushes and off he went in
the flesh colored rocket ship that
was a a '57 Chevrolet Bel Air.

Naked burned in my memory
I draw your beauty perfectly.
You ask if I would stay Sunday
Times crossword we will play.
Wake Monday sleet grey day.
Cash only when I leave to pay.

The sun whispers me awake
from a dream with you naked
nowhere to be but make love
the whole day long. We call in sick.
Who needs the rest of the world
we have ourselves to ourselves.

That day was so long ago
memory is vague shadows
quiet whispers in the snow
prayers for the widows
tears for Canaries caged
as the coal mine raged.

What a mishmash of the mismatched.
Potpourri of abandoned people in
search of connection. Singles' groups,
Parents without partners, church socials
and bars where all ye' abandon all hope.
Wait for last call and the dark corner
where the final pitch is made and you
follow a stranger as a stranger to his
bed and desperately ride a mirage to
an elusive satisfaction. Sickly morning
escape, vague promises of phone calls.
Happy ending always just out of reach.

You broke me in pieces
when you abandoned me
sent to an orphanage
you set yourself free
hopping freight trains
postcards of small love
from places in a granite
heart push comes to shove.
You keep guilt ***** quiet
sleeping in bar lover's beds
dreaming of your life's despair
wake sober reach for the meds.

I'll tell you things
I never tell 'cept
stranger in a bar
slam my fist into
the night time for
stranger in a bar
Forget the priest
forget confession
I'll tell my sins
to a stranger in a bar
nothing left but my
forgiveness and a
dime a dance and
sleeping in the arms
of a stranger in a bar.

Past a certain age we grow keen
of death's hot breath on our neck.
Some night we won't awaken and
hate the sun in our eyes at dawn.
We'll never have to walk our dogs.
We won't drive slow for squirrels
on our way to Costco and *******
the young ambitious  hustlers.
We'll miss great great grand kids
born in a world we'd never approve.

Homesick

  When did my childhood
  disappear? When did I
  really notice girls and
  dress for their glances?

  When did we tie us in knots
  and end with child, married
  and I was crying, homesick
  not quite ready for this?

  At the drive in movie you
  dried my tears. We carried
  on to our cliched future. We
  split not knowing the why.

  Years have let it all play out.
  Many different players yet so
  alike. The parts don't change.
  I'm homesick for everything.

I watch them under streetlamps
strutting near naked in tall heels.
They remind me of every fantasy
I ever knew and I desire them now.
Married far too long in lean times
I want love's lies in motel rooms.

I write My Prayer so as not to be forgotten
  by the time my funeral service and the casseroles
  and my cold ashes in some anonymous jar are an
  afterthought while the living move on as we do.

  Know that I was born March 23, 1949, at 5:32 am
  in Cincinnati, Ohio. Named William John Donovan
  the second. Firstborn son, 2 older sisters. I'm sure
  I was shriveled like a prune and PTSD after the chute.

  I lived a typical baby boomer life in that time.
  A whole bunch of hi jinks and other mistakes marked
  my time. A million laughs, a billion grins and pain
  and regret, etc. The scale is centered as far as I know.

  I'm now 69 (oh how long I wanted to say that) and I'm at
  a delicate place. I must dismantle my life. The **** collected
  is monumental. It's precious to me, only me. Proof of stuff
  I did at school, sports, work and clothes that defined me.

  Books are my essence. They map my life more than anything.
  I pile myself into boxes. I drop them at Goodwill. Goodbye.
  Soon I'll be empty enough to disappear. Please read this
  prayer and put me in a special place inside your heart.

I'm going to bed
to join the dead
for time it takes
dream mistakes
shake in sleep
soul to keep
wake in light
forget the night.

I smoked the wine
   I drank the smoke
   I was gone when I
   rang my doorbell.
   I was Tinman with
   no heart you took.
   I'm rust and dust
   just inside Bedlam.

And death shall have no dominion
Dylan Thomas - 1914-1953

And death shall have no dominion.
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan't crack;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.

I broke the fragile promises
that you could never keep.

You can keep your sun.
    My moon's on fire tonight.
    I'll keep my laughter and
    let you hold onto your pain.
    Pets will be our Waterloo.
    Live together apart again.

When I was a boy of endless summer
  I knew nothing of death's finish line
  or life's bills due by dates or hunger
  no heat pet fish die in frozen water
  I witnessed strays being slaughtered
  I saw the end of summer and youth.

To sleep
to dream
to die
painless
free of debt
and addictions
and love's
poison sting.

I just want to go home
  and die in peace alone.
  In my bed and pillows,
  not the sterile gallows.
  My Quincy cat will purr.
  I give treats. I hold her.
  She sees me with one eye
  and purrs loudly as I die.

I felt betrayed by you
drown in my sea of hate
I choke you out tonight
God's gift a chosen fate,
or I'll beat you to pulp
a club from a woodpile.
You die quietly with
a blood lipstick smile.

I love you for awhile.
Nothing else matters.
I promise forever, but
my forever is never.

We're drowning in lies
innuendo and suicides.
Lift us above the fatality
rearrange our dark reality.

I've used substances to balance my tilt.
     Smokes, beer, wine, ****** and Xanax.
     They've helped me to stay in the lines.
     I chose to ignore the rules and live on
     a pinball machine with frenetic energy.
     All I want is a drug to bring me back
     to this earth where I began the journey.
     Please take these cravings from my mind.
     The Chemists come up with carnival rides.
     Up and down and everywhere in between,
     Coney Island madness in their tiny pills.
     Bring me back from this life on Mars.

God, I have to ****
don't let me miss
I pray to be on time.
Need a good night kiss.