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.

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

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.

He came through a wall and stood
  before me. Struck dumb I listened.
  "You've been at war with yourself
  far too long. Come home, son. I've
  loved you all along. Nearly out
  of time your end is coming soon."

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.

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.

Scales not dropped from eyes.
   We lived a fiction of quiet lies,
   for the children we still pretend.
   Perfect lives that will never end.
   We smile, secretly hope we die.
   Worlds collide in blink of an eye.
   Our stage explodes a fire a flash
   our truth revealed in the ash.

there's a lonely beach
I'm sitting in the hot sun
I wish you were here
to lend me your shadow
and oil my back and kiss
me one last time again.

Not all love is lost as time can't heal all wounds.
   Lust has no use for time beyond a fortnight. It withers.
   Keep your heart under lock and key but your knees apart
   for my midnight wine stoked visit to your sacred chamber.

It scares me how you turn
your face into a wall
how you rip your ears off
when I call
You turn your lips to stone
when I try to kiss you when I fall
in love with you and kneel at your
feet with ****** knees after I crawl
your just an old wrinkled crow almost
forgotten except for your distant caw.

Mixed messages can be confounding
   but if looked at through an alcohol
   filter they can be deciphered as if
   spoken in clear and precise language.

   Passive aggressive onslaughts are hell
   disguised as innocent comments. Clever
   warfare that has plausible deniability.
   Be vigilant and you can discern it.

   Manipulation uses ills often; migraines,
   back and/or neck pain, depression and the
   mother who visited her madness upon you.
   The first marriage tore holes in you.

   I married a 1 who became a 10. What can
   I do? signed Desperate. Dear Desperate,
   You can become a 10 or find another 1 and
   hope the new 1 will not become another 10.

I brought it on myself
with Chardonnay
by the big box
forgot what to say.
I forgot her name
lovers look the same
in the tiny picture frame
so I'm never to blame.

Old Joe's drumming on the pots and pans
    as someone hums a harmony and starts a
    symphony as others join into the noise.
    Soon dancers move into the picture and
    flail about as only the mad can. They
    are perfect in this human zoo. I love
    every scar. We each own every flaw.
    They define us and make us beautiful.

I won't burden you with advice
from an old man still lost as ever.
I swam against the current.
Don't do that. You will though
because you have my blood.
Trust your gut for guidance.
Be kind to everyone and you
will find love in the shadows.

I'll bring my wounded heart.
I know you'll bring yours.
We're both old soldiers
been through many tours.

He died a long time ago
but lives inside us each
he's every inch we grow
never outside his reach.

A forever after universe
breathe his magic dust
infinite prayer and curse
always doubt and trust.

Drunk old man's postulation
  on the beginning of creation:
  angry fierce crude hot lover
  energy exploding forever
  we made a God who made us
  to teach His splendid Opus
  we made a heaven and hell
  and sins to count and tell.
  We all transition to death
  rage against final breath.

The second hand
drags its clock
hour glass sand
to our desert rock
ancient wind land.

I'm in my cups looking at yellowed photos.
   I laugh and cry. You died. I drink my wine.
   I'm with you once again crazy flying down
   the winding road top down Triumph TR3
   free young men with our lives before us.
   Aimless with high hopes and fearless we
   ride life's rails wherever they carry us
   as long as we live. You left me memories.

Between the trenches of war among the
    shell holes and pieces of men strewn about
    there is a patch of grass untouched to
    remind us of good old days in pubs where
    we shared pints with one another and spoke
    of the excitement of war's engagement how
    we scatter the enemy and in a month plant
    our flag on a hill of their blood and bones.

*** or tat
   **** or shat
   this or that

   live or die
   truth or lie
   laugh or cry

   mix or match
   lose or catch
   fix or patch

   early or late
   choice or fate
   love or hate

My French peccadilloes brought me home
to New Orleans. A city without conscience.
Guilt avoids the gutters like the plague.
I live in them and hope to die in them.
Guilt lives in pews and AA folding chairs.
People afraid to die but terrified to live.

I sat in His wooden pews.
I knelt on His Jesus cross.
Reading the Holy news
mourning religion's loss.

When the bar lights blink off and on
  last call announced half hour before
  we work the odds as drunken sailors.
  Singing sirens calling from the door.
  We waltz into the night rain then we
  ***** our naked way to the sacred bed.
  We love the best drunk strangers can.
  I wake in light a prisoner in my head.

I've lived rough and troubled
with flask and pen in hands
writing songs for the rest of us
dancing to rowdy bar bands.
Fall in love on Monday night.
Tuesday in our broken bed
Wednesday buy a ring for you
Thursday by George we are wed.

beware the dreamers
keep their souls
locked in chains

beware the workers
they will march in
unison to take a share

beware the lawyers
who set you on fire and
charge to **** on you

beware the poets
who seek purity
truth at all cost

The Final Chapter

I thought I was a boy
runs in summer grass
no classes freedom joy
my lifetime is near pass.
I don't know death's
ugly end of my life
shortness of breaths
hatred of my ex wife.

We own nothing.
We have everything.
Rent us our souls
and burial holes.
The bills always come
compounded interest sum
late payment fees
bank account freeze
live in prison states
guards wait at gates
It was Dayton, Ohio
now it's zone Zero.

Lover's fingers on ivory keys
play moving music all about
broken vows on bent knees.
Sowing Love's forever doubt.

I look the same day to day like the
dogs and cat and cereal and toast.
I wake a stranger every day afraid
of different outcomes with unknown
villains plotting my demise. You are
the only constant in this universe.
You are my sword and armor and
resolve. You are my Bedlam with
restraints and pills and cruel men
with straitjackets for my comfort.
Strength is deep inside us all.
It's my ever present Hallelujah.

I pull the shade down and turn a blind eye
       to the city's darkness. No one even cares.
       It's hard to live in Baltimore anymore.
       We can't buy our way out. We do best we can.
       City's dying after all. Blood's everywhere
       and death's smell corrupts every surface.
       Fools party in the harbor and pay a price
       whitey never understands. Anger seethes
       in ghettos like a garden party in Riverside
       they curse the help for warm Champagne.

Hungover on a bench
in our own Eden Park
smell of the beauty sins
from screams in the dark.
Pretend marriage in flight
never able to lose the night.

I wrap my arms around my tears
raining upon my misery. I'm in no
position to make demands. I beg
you to unfold me upon me until
they see the real me as you do. You
knew me with Virginity before you
took it from me and left me to bleed
from the wound that never goes away.
It never shows mercy and kills us.
It leaves the smell of blood perfume.

"The Fall Of Rome"

What ever happened to the fall of Rome?
What a strange thing to ask
When I was taking you home
As we walked alone through the parking lot
I said I don’t have much
You said I like what you got

And I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t picture you then
In your wedding dress
In the days I hoped we’d someday spend
In our Sunday best
We were light as a flame
Both batshit insane
We were lost
We were just the same

What ever happened to the fall of Rome?
You were a mystery to me
But the place felt like home
And there are no rules when you’re falling in love
You just take what you get and you hope its enough

And I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t picture you then
In your wedding dress
In the days I hoped we’d someday spend
In our Sunday best
We were wrong from the start
With our broken arms
You played your role
And I played my part

And the road was so long
I was never as strong
As the love you gave to me
And it all took its toll
You become so cold
You forget what you were born to be

What ever happened to the fall of Rome?
Those people all turned to ashes and stone
Its a trick of the mind when you think it won’t end
Its a contest with time
And time always wins
I saw a picture of you the other day
In your wedding dress
And wondered why I’d walked away
Like I had with the rest
The only thing that was worth saving
And I swear that I did my best
And sometimes at night
I dream of you now
In your wedding dress
And I hope it doesn’t seem somehow
Like I gave you less
I have nothing to show
From these years on the road
But these songs that I wrote you

I stopped believing in
Santa and Tooth Fairy
Easter Bunny  and God
and the government.
All I believe in now
is Death's certainty.

The sun that keeps us alive
steals our souls to survive.

The things we've been through,
some were lies but mostly true.
We drank our strangest brew,
dreamed our lives, never knew
tomorrow what madness grew
what in love's trance we'd do.

full moon bright
through branches
puppets dancing
forbidden fruit
always tastes best
gone by morning's
death and my final
bye and period.

The hundred dollar bill in 1998
buys less than a twenty in 1958.
Tax us to battlefields for wars.
Pay for *******'s lovely ******.
Forget unwashed trash's pains.
Genocide removes their stains.

Each generation
moves the wheel
proud another turn.
It's all been done before.

I know.
we've all played it.
Relationship Roulette.
Spin the wheel and ****.
Is this forever after?
Wake blinking in a bed
smelling of *** and regret.
Do the walk of shame.

The rich men and poor ******
at the Moulin Rouge to give
and get what they both must.
She sold her love to live.
Absinthe dreams made love a
loaf of bread goblet of wine
pretending you're all knights
'til my hourglass is out of time.

Just square pegs round holes.
  Unable to fit in approved roles
  looking for love in gay bars
  neon lights exploding stars
  I saw you in the magazine
  you take me in a limousine
  to decadence I've never seen.
  you make me a beauty queen.

I fell in love with your poetry
just a grey haired Aphrodite
imperfect face artifacts of age

we head to the all night diner
full of drag queens and communists
to steal a few words lost in smoke

amid the buzz we grab lines and
put them back like Salvador Dali,
Dylan Thomas and Charles Bukowski.

Who am I
Truth or lie
Do or die
Laugh or cry
Hello or bye
*** or deny
One more final try
Catcher in the Rye.

The *****'s strewn about the room
     like branches from a violent storm
     some ascending some descending
     some dying some better off dead

     You better watch your manners even
     in a crack house lust will bend even
     stubborn knees to adore coveted bones
     and defile you with stubborn needs

     a savior is born from these ashes
     hope delivered from a crack head
     rising above human frailty we
     will all crawl to a promised land

     the crack house is no place for
     punctuation or capital letters
     My arrogance is misplaced. We
     have needs that won't be silenced.

We're open wounds that
refuse to heal again
stubborn stains won't
be forgotten any more
just dice from a womb
a game of Chance and
Charli place your bets
hopscotch over and over
black or red even or odd
feeling lucky? Just nod.

She comes to dinner wearing a corpses sheet
with a hangman's knot around her neck
holding a straight razor to her jugular vein
with a bouquet of dead roses wicked thorns.
Sitting in the Buick hose in the window
I fall asleep forever dreaming of you.

the time it is a coming
the end is getting near
guitar strings strumming
the sorry sound of fear
I die without last breath
nobody notices or cares
body burned in an oven
cremains in a cheap jar
destined for our Heaven.

Death is everywhere
Shells scatter soldier
bodies in puzzle parts
never fit together again
pray on dead's graves

We drink mint juleps
We flirt in old oaks' shade
We kiss make promises
forever and many kids
dance on dead's graves