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

first son arrives
into some mad world
of French clowns and
angry war torn father
stern German granny and
carnival barkers promise
just more disappointment
drunk strangers pass him
around like an empty flask
hoping someone fills it soon
we die as the photo fades
lost in light of full moon.

I missed me when I had to go away.
  They said it was for my own good.
  I sort of existed in a Lithium fog.
  I was gone from me except in dreams.

I dreamed of the sun born from hell.
I dreamed of angels called sisters.
I saw a cruel king with eyes of hate
who threatened me with his love.

  Now I'm kind of back. They kept pieces
  of my brain, the pieces that made me
  cut myself in a tub of tepid water to
  bleed out this life of threatened love.

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.

I wish I weren't so angry
but I watch my world *****
and pillaged by Communists.
The USA is now USSR shaped.
We fear where we were brave
meek lambs on slaughter floor
they killed our middle class
put in communes for the poor.

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.
  We just got used to us
  for blood and screams
  old men chasing dreams
  live beyond their means
  bursting at their seams
  play their monkey schemes
  nothing is as it seems.
 Life comes and goes
  lurking in shadows.

Susan Tucker
Thomasina Latina
Virginia Keenly
Linda Hotze
JFK Killed
Curly hair girl
Kathy my Love
broke our *****
made our Katie
in a Ford Mustang
killed your father
broke his heart
summer of love
tore us apart
burn the bras
halter tops
I drowned
in *******.

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.

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.

My skin is plastic. My veins are rubber.
I might melt in the boiling summer heat.
Each day I grow weaker. I'm closer to corpse.
Let's move to the desert where death looms
in shower stalls with scorpions and coiled
snakes in rare shade just waiting for us.

I threw my family away
beer cans along the way.
Ohio to Boston ******
saved me from asylum.

Jesus Christ maybe
born in Catholic guilt
an original sin baby
wrap me in sin's quilt.

I want to be a scapegoat
or a monkey's uncle's aunt
or insufficient postage owed
maybe a thing I can you can't.
Can I be your toy and ****
in your bed our ersatz love?
Friction is a fickle friend
maybe needs a latex glove?

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.

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.

I'm 75 years old. I'm 17 again.
Old memories playing on a screen
in silent black and white, piano
music, time sees where I've been.
Happy Birthday. Blow years away
the candles set the years on fire
burn the bridges and words we say
regret the lost fierce brief desire.

The ****** troll through the projects
   hoping for a bite or two and some money
   to pay the rent. The nights are full of
   screams and loathing but calm down by the
   time the kids chase the bus to school and
   mothers go to their pitiful jobs at take
   out windows and cleaning toilets and wiping
   ***** in old folks' homes. The night work
   pays better and is full of happy endings.

*** 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

appetites are brakeless
    incessant sinners faceless
    ghosts hang everywhere
    whisper inside our lair
    we call it our dreams
    fearful what it means
    stare at the sun we see
    what will set us free
finally
gently
over edge of earth
back into universe...

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.

Happy accident
stole my breath
homework not
done, but death
gave me an A+
my casket desk
a silent pulse
wicked wreck.

I think I understand our subtle hatred
  for each the other. How long can we live
  in each other's shadow before we disappear?
  I had your children bloated while you took
  a lover. I ached for suicide but went nuthouse.
  Shrinks and pills and shocks convinced me
  to put my head in our oven and let it go.
  I thought of our children at the very end.

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.

He played the piano beautifully.
    He went to war and lost his arms
    in a skirmish. Almost sounds like
    a rugby match with deadly charms.

    War is a meat grinder that shreds
   bodies and limbs by the thousands a day
    a week a month. Haig's Butcher Shop
was what everyone would always say.

I've looked for you for years.
   Soulmate, where is your shadow?
   I see your black hair and tears
   a Gypsy who will be my maestro.

   We ride lust unbridled in heat.
   Where are you? Are you a lie?
   Is it time to admit our defeat?
   Cross my heart and hope to die.

Without sin I'd be a cardboard
  cutout of a plastic life lived.
  I burned bridges and made
  impossible vows and charmed
  ******* off and excited *******
  and made lovers wet and happy.
  We all felt alive and touched
  for years in our golden dreams.

This poem is born from the same
inkwell as Koko the Clown who
climbed the stairs endless nights
coming for my innocence as I
was still beneath my blankets.
They all come for my purity.
I gave it away at 11 to a Vargas
pin-up girl. I faux loved women
who never stayed my fantasy and
I took forever to breakup so I
wouldn't hurt them but always did.
Dismounting is always painful.

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

I told my cat to live forever.
   I gave my baby girl away.
   I listen to a song that breaks my heart
   I can't shed a tear or I turn to dust.
   I can't accept my tail end life
   just pick up dog **** and sleep alone.
My life becomes a catalogue of six
things to never do again.

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.

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.

1890 was a time when women gave birth or died trying
    upstairs as not to disturb the rest of the family below.
    The husband sits in the parlor ******* on a flask and cigar.
    He barely hears muffled screams and reads his London Times.

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.

"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 lost faith in my religion and wander.
      Who can forgive my sins? Who can cast my
      demons from me? Who can bless me at death?
      Can I never be buried in sacred ground?

      Now my faith is in pills and ***** and soft
      places with perfume and happy endings.
      My church is a bar with a pastor named Tia.
      She speaks in tongues with a snake that bites.

      Her venom is the sweetest thing I've tasted.
      She brings me to my knees and I bow to her.
      I drink her blood and eat her in communion.
      I wake calm with my savior. I found my faith.

If I said it once
I said it a thousand times.
It comes and goes and comes
echoes persistent rhymes
clock ticks of my nightmares
heartbeats of my dreams
infinite souls in harmony
keeping time with screams
licked a slithering snake
for every ever afters sake.

Unwashed masses
clean our ashes
chimney chimps
blackened pimps
soot stained child
dies in the wild

Near my end I found a shoe box
    full to the brim with IOU's I'd
    written over my lifetime to those
    I loved most. They indulged all
    my erratic allegiance and suffered
    kindly my drunken promises to try
    harder tomorrow. If IOU let this
    last promise be a paid in full?
    After all each one of you made
    this beautiful madness possible.

    I stood on broad shouldered men
    who showed me how to live in bars
    and barmaids who showed me gentle
    love among neon and smoke stained
    rooms. We had hard scars and broke
    bones and blood in our hair but we
    showed them what the Irish can do.
    We rise from the dead each day with
    a song in our hearts and ready for
    a hard days work. We do it all again.

I never cared.
Pretend heart
never shared
from the start.
How'd it break?
We made it love
my own mistake
an innocent dove.

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

Where are we going
Calvary or Bethlehem?
  Not one more track
  of your sacred smack.
  Our ships go down
  and we all drown
  with our devils
  in our deep blue seas.

We share deepest secrets.
  I know your odd appetites.
  You know my worst regrets.
  We toast our sweet delights.
  I hunger for my own kind
  on the ends of a spectrum.
  Ordinary people are blind
 to nature colors of Autumn.

I died yesterday
light floats away
into night's star
neon sign in a bar
my obituary cool
bury a dead fool

At the corner of Love and Lust
all the broken hearts still bleed
buried in empty graves of trust
never had a chance to find seed.

Calling all stations...
I'm ****** and alone
lost in my thoughts in
Autumns cornfield maze.
My memories tease me
and almost please me
but fade before the end
messages do not send.

You'd never believe what I saw.
Staring into the gaping maw
I saw Rusty's puppy paw
took him in my heart raw.
He died on the 4th of July
bombs exploding in the sky
I held him tight and knew,
it broke our hearts in two.

I divorced my 7 siblings
blinded by bylines
rabid dogs snapping at lies
from the usual Headlines
The sacred cows. NYTimes,
Washington Post, NPR, CNN,
MSNBC, Mother Jones.
We're in a ceramic fishbowl
drowned upside down bones
flushed down a toilet bowl.

I met you at a party
  in a house of mirrors
  you snake haired Medusa
  thirsty for my tears.
  We danced in lightning
  groped our way to love's
  eager bed. Promises made
  to be broken in day's light.
  My face was stone as you
  swallowed my soul in flight.

We were baptized in wars violence.
Friends blown up bless us in blood.
Flak blows dear friends to death as
we watch. We're angry and terrified.
We're at bat and bases are loaded.
We roll dice. We **** and **** us
fingers crossed will death get our
next door foxhole and we live on?

He screamed aloud
  with tortured voice
  no one leaves alive
  never had a choice
  the lever switched
  long ago silently
  doomed his ship to
  the bottom of the sea.