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.

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.

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.

I was 5
insecure
living
not sure
dad was
war torn
bomber
reborn
in flak
no way back.
PTSD
what it be
a misery
die me free
if only
it'd be.

Bring your hearts
to a band in a barn
just fits and starts
inside our tiny farm.
**** me dead again
in our ****** sweat
of the mortal sin
without any regret.

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'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.

Crossing Texas I hear
a voice on my AM radio
sounded like my grandpa.
A comfort to hear truth
of DC's gaslight gigolos.
He faded in the thunder.
I turned the dial all day
looking for his wonder.

Church bells are mute this time.
Carols are quiet in a silent night.
Tree lights are dark and children
laugh without mirth. It's a funeral.
Christ was aborted from a womb in
a Hollywood motel on 5th and Main.
Return all the toys and ***** candles
and pour the eggnog down the drain.
Elves work in sweatshops in China.
Burn Santa in effigy slaughter his rides
12 fillets and beers on the house
and slippers of reindeer hides.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 found a magazine
left lonely in a field.
I was 13, what I'd seen
set me free. I was healed.

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

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 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.

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.

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.

We young lust fools
broke sacred rules
back in the day
when I started decay
to shred my soul
leave an empty hole
where decency exists
temptations to resist
embraced the libation
the pure celebration
a stone was my heart
we played our part
West Side Story
Maria and Tony
Star crossed love
in worlds above
I will lie dead
our lovers' bed.

I drink wine and write
some thing or another
reach in my aching pool
fears and tears and mother
we **** a rubber ******
purple breast milk denied
Dad fed at her fountain
I think she always lied.

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.

The picture was from long ago in 1920's.
  Forget color they lived in black and white
  muted times with talcum powder and fancy
  hats and brooches. They look posed for a
  wax museum. 4 are smiling big but 1 is
  reluctant and looks forlorn. Maybe her
  husband died in Europe's wars or influenza.
  They're toasting something. Raised glasses
  to what I wonder? We all have things to
  celebrate and all have things to mourn.

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.

1967 Class Reunion

  We are never prepared
  shock of wrinkled grey
  House of mirrors distorts
  Roger Bacon has been
  lurking in my shadows
  scared I'll be the next
  in the arms of Christ
  on the list of the dead.

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 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.

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.

balanced above circus
clowns and crazy fate
it's just the two of us
always been too late

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.

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.

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.

raindrops upon the window pane
coffee on my undershirt stain
a laugh and a little bit of pain
my face Picasso's **** refrain
bits and pieces of my old brain
all that matters will still remain.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.