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.

So quiet on the surface
   as it's eating you alive
   like a starving furnace
   you never quite survive.
   Morphine keeps it quiet
   tortured silent screams  
   while cancer cells riot
   heaven's delicate dreams

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
a new world in 1969 summer of love and walked a tightrope over
friends straight and bent ones in psychedelic colors and free love
that ended up costing us everything we ever really cared about.

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.

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.

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.

You got fired today.
   The money always gone
   again. I'm sorry.
   Ain't we got fun?
   Camping out on Main St.
   Puking over the bridge
   into the river's waters
   Ain't we got fun?
   I'm just a tattered *****
   beauty worn thin by time
   Ain't we got fun.
   anything for a dime.

A dime a dance
  seeking romance
  maybe seduction
  buying a chance.
  If hearts align
  among the stars
  our perfect sign
  and perfect scars.

I love my Katie and Sean
Michigan Avenue red light
dogs are barking 'til dawn.
French leave take my flight.
Kids left as nun's orphans
while I exit my stage right
it bleeds into tear's plans.

I wish you were alive
so I could apologize
for disappointing you.
You took my kids fishing
when I was drunk wishing
for miracles in Boston
the kids in an orphanage.
****** kept insanity at bay.
I never knew how to just say,
"Thank You and I love you, Dad."

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.

Can we pour tears on the page?
  Paint war's horrors in poetry?
  Draw portraits with words?
  Make you feel love? First kiss?
  Broken heart? Pet's death?
  Parent's divorce split in two?
  Anguish of love in back seats?
  Can we poets make you feel it?
Life's butchers pacing beats
always end up eating ****.

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.

I remember as a child a trip
  to the zoo. Accountants count,
  janitors sweep, hucksters steal
  wealth, priests save lost souls,
  prostitutes sell easy love by the
  hour and pimps take a percentage,
  preachers sell heaven by the ounce
  and the IRS always gets its pound
  of flesh, politicians take bribes
  and shred the constitution smiling.

I'm a cowboy who's run out of time.
  My world is almost all fenced in.
  I'll be a wild west show pretty soon.
  Towns will be cities and trains will
  **** cowboys and Indians and Bison.
  Bury our hearts at wounded knee.

Truth reveals itself near midnight
when I swim in deep pools of wine.
I'm lost. My family died in my depths.
I need shallows to hide in.
I need a goddess named Georgine
to help me find my North Star.
I'll sail back home and find my
broken life and fix it best I can.

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.

They killed the Kennedy's
and MLK and Malcolm X
and Lenny Bruce and Marilyn.
They stole our truths and made
us ignorant. They gave us the
best politicians money could buy.
They live inside the DC Beltway
and grow fat on our silver. We grow
tired of bread and circus and fixed
elections and peaceful protests
burning buildings and cars and cops.
We want our country back in one piece.
If I pour gas on me and light a match
will it convince you I'm committed?
Will you **** on my ashes and dine
in opulence? You sold our jobs to
the cheapest bidder. You were supposed
to represent us. You bought anarchy and
unleashed it upon us to tame the unrest.
The 1% are the puppeteers holding all
our strings. We dance their dances with
our feet inside approved footprints.
Nothing's left to chance. They own our God.
The pen's mightier than the sword, poet!
Wield truth and set the world on fire.

Fat ladies in drag beckon me then
   wish I were somewhere else. I ease
   my way into a thousand hearts and
   they soon know I'm love's sweet lie.

   I'm just an actor with a beating heart
   who pretends love but never knew it.
   I visit gay bars for the techno music
   and drinks. I never stay for last call.

   Self loathing is a Catholic thing. I
   seek a stage with a Dom to pretend
   whip me with Bohemian Rhapsody as
   the soundtrack of my humiliation.

   The final act is louder and brighter
   and with the colors of India it makes
   promises that it can't possibly keep.
   We are all actors doing what it takes.

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.

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

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.

It's a fragile thing I cry for.
Mommy and Daddy are long gone.
A million drunken mad clowns
storm this circus of my life.
I don't live in a straight line.
I live inside a pinball machine.

A tune stuck in my brain
about Eve of Destruction
nothing's left the same
no answer just question.
I want to wish I believed
DC  puts us in prisons
I'm finally relieved
clarity of our visions.

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.

You'll promise love.
You'll stay strong.
Almost like being free.
You broke my neck to ****
the pain and I hid my heart
from love's terrible lies.

The enemy was just like we were.
  Cannon fodder for chess players.
  We killed them as best we could
  burdened monsters praying prayers
  cursing horrible ****** landscape
  skin in hair and mouth and eyes
  I held pieces of my brothers to
  say my insanity war torn goodbyes.

At 6 feet apart
mask no kisses
love has no heart
only near misses.

Everybody dies. How doesn't matter.
    Life's a bad movie with a sad ending.
The living still send bills, call you up.
    Emails not returned to those sending.

The inks wet in the memory book.
Sooner than later you're forgotten.
Cremains in a dusty urn on a mantle. 
Funeral flowers turn black and rotten.

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.

Love between us is friendship.
   Lust between us is forest fire
   fierce chewing us to ash now
   blowing in wind. We are desire.
   Nowhere left for us to run we
   wonder what pleasures require.

I always love the quiet
    snow filled woods mute
    the dead have no words
    set me free with silence
    easy way to say goodbye
    without drama's screams.

On the edge of another summer of love
  we always mistake for a Garden of Eden.
  We had beer to drink and hash to smoke.
  Cool, man. Let's reach the moon
  tonight and touch God's robe.
  I was ****** and laser focused
  on the center of my world that held
  love that I'd terribly betrayed.
  I weighed a thousand pounds in guilt's gravity
  lost within the Garden of Eden again.

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.

Drunk as a baboon
under a full moon
I walk the wild  dogs
a pack of wild hogs
drag me near mad
I curse them as bad
I stumble and fall
they lick my jaw
and they pull me up
pup by pup by pup.

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'm not a communist.
  I'm not a socialist.
  I'm not a sadist or a
  satanist. I'm not an
  anarchist. I'm not a
  bonafide capitalist.
  I'll steal food to eat.
  I'll lie to get a beer.
  I'll love you for a bed.
  I am an individualist.

I drove to Boston with
  a teacher and a dealer
  and a snake oil healer,
  left family like trash
  burned it down to ash
  in a lightening flash
  shrinks passed me on
  one to another ******
  to stay inside my mind
  and they rob me blind
  calm before the storm
  world's fabric is torn
  hear God's heart beat
  feel hell's cruel heat
  the panic attack I have
  a bus stop on Mass Ave.
  I walk miles to my womb
  my tiny safe attic room.

8 years old

Climb trees and break bones.
Swim in creeks and get bit.
Kiss Susan Tucker in the dark
go home with her on my lips.
Smoke gramp's spent butts
from his Buick's ashtray.
Drink his beer bottle dregs.
Frenchman's Holy Communion.
Lust for Jimmy Kuhn's dad's *****
card deck with naked ladies. I stole
the Queen of Hearts and fell in love
the rest of my life. She ruined me.
I loved girls on a pinball machine.
I always tilt the table on purpose.

          20 years old

I'm riding the edge of my mind
2 kids and a fat wife I deserted
before I fell in love with all
the other disappointed lovers
in a distant land called Boston
punched holes in innocent walls
alchemist making my anger love
thunder always roaring above.

I always saw you on my horizon.
I drank to your health and to ours.
I went to meetings and confessed
weakness and drank bland coffee
and ate stale donuts and smoked
an endless chain of cigarettes.

In my cups we danced in the neon.
On bar stools and raucous laughter
with my dreams hiding in liquor's
free fog I gave you life and baptism.
Can I ever know normal? I'll be home
at last call when I reach my rope's end.

Stepping high through the cotton fields
  so pregnant for picking the ***** midwives
  delivers cotton to white men calling yields
  counting the gold, nobody counts black lives,
  sush, keep quiet, the master needs his slave
  she is perfect his Sally so light so golden
  she bears his tainted fruit quiet and brave,
  history digs up graves and DNA TJ's beholden.

You'll even miss your nightmares
    when they're gone. We exist on
    waves of time and build lives
    of small habits to hold our days
    together safe and sound. Change
    to routine is scary as hell and
    most unwelcome. I'll scurry like
    a mouse to your darkness. Trust
    you long enough to spend it all
    talking in a circle once again.
    We'll ride the wave again and
    wipe out over and over until
    the nightmare finally stops in
   a stone cold dead stillness.

I don't need another drop.
I'll stumble to bed tonight.
I hope I dream of you and
not her with the snake hair.

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.

You staged my imminent demise
in your dreams behind your eyes
I was just an afterthought
a cheap trinket that you bought

I'm dead desert skulls
listening for living  calls
to arms the second coming
warriors hymns humming
Eat the rich raise the dead
take a Xanax and off to bed.
In morning's light  I blink
in secret dream black ink.

I'm 75
still alive
beat the odds
defied the gods.
My libido dead
wet the bed
depends instead
Keep your head.

I'm blind but see everything.
I feel heat, hear breathing,
feel sweat on hands and face
as we kiss know hearts race.
I touch your secret garden
you hold my ***** harden.
Dark we consummate our love.
We sleep, dream stars above.

Chardonnay brings dreams to life
     until morning's brutal genocide.
     I untangle old lost memories,
     carry on throughout a busy day.

     Night always arrives while thirst
     demands attention. Dreams resurrected
     answering impossible questions.
     Morning kicks down the door again.

     Day follows day, feels like forever.
     I must have gone mad.  I stared into
     the sun then jumped to a final peace.
     Finally, I found my own great escape!

I watch the ****** on 5th St. dressed to ****
  circle over the wounded with starving appetites
  for all the sweets on display and perfume to up
  temptation for another 5 or 10 for Waffle House.
  Love is easy with fixed price and no strings.
  All I want is someone to eat forever after.