Day to day
in every way
death on shoes
brain of *****
ants and gnats
Batman's bats.
Electrocute flies
and white lies.
Truth threshed
stretched flesh
on my crying
eyes Q is dying.

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.

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.

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.

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 chased my dad into traffic
thinking he was leaving me
broken leg alive was magic
an old man will always see.
I try to remember the tragic
but I can only let it all be.

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 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.

Words keep raining down
honest sweat tears and blood
caught in a riptide I'll drown
in tsunami anonymous flood.

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.

I can't regret
what I forget.

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.

Finally Jayne
No excuses
I abandoned
my children
like orphans
to crow nuns
without wings
to fly back again
always in love
I ran away to
another cave
called Betsey
named Karen
then Georgina
then Terry Morse
then Lynette
Finally Jayne.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

I tremble in wonder
born in Coney Island
tunnel of love thunder
in your ****** hand.
We soared heights
kissed coaster skies
******* in frights
I Love Your lies.

Countless pieces birth to death
put in place first to final breath.
Paint watercolor of lovers' fight
darkness to love over into light.
Too many shapes don't fit right.
I press harder until they fit tight.

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

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

I saw it sprayed on a rock.
  "Why Do You All Hate Me?"
  I thought I don't know you
  so I can't hate you but if
  we meet for coffee I'll try.
  Maybe you'll hate me instead?

Not a poem or tradition
just if only perdition
my end of world lover
kiss bye as we smother.

Memories like anorexic hangars
inside the closet out of sight.
The sun inside the Frigidare
keeps my secrets in the dark.

I knew things changed when
the moon was gently rocking
in the breeze in a creek
since falling from the sky.

Now you know my frailties.
I'm insecure and eaten up
with doubts. I can't even
imagine keeping you happy.

People study me like a Picasso
two heads and eyes to match
all on one side inside a lasso
some kind of legality catch.
I stare at you in your seat
sip your wine at noon's show
I'm frozen for you no retreat
I stare you stare we both know.

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.

Kids in the woods by the creek.
   I remember kissing Susan Tucker
   Cary Grant and the Blond Greek
   big screen no tongue no **** her.
  
   I'm 77 now broke my own heart
   too many times that I remember
   collateral damage from the start
   I face my final chapter December.

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

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.

It's a hoedown in the barn
Saturday night fiddles
harmonicas love riddles
we meet lovers on a farm
Love is tender no harm
necklace worn like a charm.

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.

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 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.

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

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.

My poetry starts with nicotine.
     After awhile I mixed in alcohol.
     Catholicism is a main ingredient.
     Puberty is a wicked mix of Absinthe.
     Next I add a father broken from war.
     My mom could be friend or betrayer.
     I had to maintain a delicate balance
     between being real or just amusing.
     Amusing is easy. Real is impossible
     yet here I am confessing once again.

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'd nail my madness to the tracks going West
   seeking freedom wearing a Dandy's NY vest.
   How long can we endure the vastest unknown?
   **** Indians and Buffalo and bury us in stone.

Hating me
set's me free
from the guilt
my cell I built.

The water is calm, motionless.
     Something disturbs the surface
     enough to wake doubt and fear and
     pound my heart and numb my face.

     Terrifying! Anxiety. I thought
     ****** had tamed your treason.
     You're always floating above me.
     Guilt with no anchor of reason.

Tiny dress and **** me shoes
       bring me back from the dead.
       I was sleeping in a graveyard
       inside the cavern of my head.
       You made my heart beat again.
       It throbs wild like a beast
       hungry for the promised sin
       starving for a siren's feast.

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."

We Lived Happily During the War
BY ILYA KAMINSKY



And when they bombed other people’s houses, we
protested
but not enough, we opposed them but not
enough. I was
in my bed, around my bed America
was falling: invisible house by invisible house by invisible house.
I took a chair outside and watched the sun.
In the sixth month
of a disastrous reign in the house of money
in the street of money in the city of money in the country of money,
our great country of money, we (forgive us)
lived happily during the war.

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.

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.

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.