ROTC at XU and baby on the way.
    Full time job and losing my mind.
    I took your speed to keep going.
    I thought we'd be my parents.
    It seemed so effortless for them.

    Paisley shirts and bell bottoms,
    lava lamps, pass the joint and
    long hair and free love
    This has to be the 60's.
    My world split in two.

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

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.

It's coming through a hole in the sky
It's decadence from back in the day
It's coming through a crack in the wall
It's debauchery and she's here to stay.
A time to live and a time to be our time
it might not fit just right but will do  
for our never mind and who really cares
we found our perfect paradise for us two.

I was driving across a burning desert
    in a Uhaul full of crap escaping from
    worn out love. I slept in a sandstorm
    in a motel of scorpions in the shower.
    We tell you where we've been but never
    where we're going. We just don't know.
Life becomes a travelogue of hope for
a happy ending to a perfect destination.

Hands begin to lose control
   start their palsy shakes
   like a *** of boiling oil
   angry bag of angry snakes.
   Can't operate shirt buttons
   or a steaming cup of coffee
   open a jar of dill pickles
   and pants look full of ***.

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.

Confederate veteran sizing up his devastated farm.
His family all dead, fields burned, house ashes
of memories. He holds his pistol to his temple.
The day Old Dixie died he pulled the trigger.

You are too perfect.
Your skin makes me cry.
******* are always *****.
We **** and we will fly
too close to my past sun.
Trapped in a shrink's room
****** babble for ******.
Russian roulette my *****.
We drink to all and naught.
Dead cremains hit the floor
while we screamed and fought
explodes into our Nevermore.

We have a name for everything.
This thing in which we exist is
called life. Like tadpoles exist in
a shallow creek swimming
among their gods.
Like fields of poppies
swim among the wind in
their own piece of heaven.
As rivers flow gently or angry
over the banks to punish those
who try to contain it.
This thing that we name.

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.

I didn't turn into a pumpkin.
I have both of my shoes.
Now I take a sleeping pill
and dream my dead alive.

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

You paid too great a price
  for your petty salvation
  Sin is much cheaper and
  delivers you to her haven
  Eden's fruits, lust's clam
  a lover's sacrificial lamb.

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.

I've held on as long as I can
to this slippery eel of life
that feels all wrong for me.
I never found "The One".
I never measured up.
I float away from time
with a needle in my arm
finally an honest smile.

As a child I believed in God with all my might
   My god passed into his own oblivion in his flight
   I drink with crazy drunks with voices in our head
   argue for our sanity with a broken God instead.
   Are we alone in this universe stretching forever?
   I sit on my bar stool an old woman holding a lever
   I pull and end this **** thing we call our life.
   The baby's home in bed and I'm a mother and wife.

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'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.

razor's edge
too sharp
to think
penthouse
don't jump
might awake
from dreams
die in trash
rats eat me
when I crash.

I'm always stillborn.
I don't know why but
it's easier than living.
I don't navigate hearts
I break or lost lovers in
hormones and jealously.

Train rolls on down the line
takes me miles back in time
when life was an easy living
of just us taking and giving.
Now much more is at stake
MacArthur Park ruined cake
left out in the rain all night
spurned lover denies delight.
Slits wrists dies in bathtub.
Death's feather is final rub.

I have become inured
  the never ending drama
  too much I've endured
  **** the magic karma.

  Too much to process
  the beheading queen
  I've much to confess
  I'm not who I seem.

Monster Under My Bed

    When that whole Christ as son of god drama
    played as a young catholic I was spellbound.
    When I was older skipping church smoking in
    the woods I doubted but still harbored shame.
    I gave up the holy ghost long ago but the scars
    remain and guilt is the stain follows me like
    shadows even in moonless midnight and I wish I
    believed in prayer to quiet Christ under my bed.

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.

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.

Throw a final dart
place to live to die.
Final beat of heart,
final kiss goodbye.
Cremate me I learn
be happy in an urn.

Your innocent smile
   his guilty face
   it's been a while
   his fall from grace.

   He fuels his anger
   with cheap whisky
   you fear the danger
   you can still see

   love in his heart
   first time kiss
   like at the start
   bell's silent remiss

I live inside extremes
between total despair
and boiling anger. I
will **** me or you
or I will be the one
to lead us to the water.

My **** loves your need
Until you make it bleed
Giving up the baby seed
Done the final deed.

Do I know you from somewhere?
You seemed so near in my rifle scope
across no mans land I tried to **** you.
Let bygones be bygones. Forget the rope.
I'll be your waiter can I fetch drinks?
Bury the hatchet and hold onto hope.

Katie was our first born.
Proof of our forever love.
Years evaporate, her scorn
tells us Good Bye shove.

I submitted a piece of me
for your consideration.
Weigh me on your scales
compare my ugly creation.
It lives in squalor with
other poem ****** ignored
forgotten forever until one
of us will finally be adored.

D.C. Addicted ******

Civilization crumbles with laws
made of DC lies from the jaws
of mindless government ******
barter dignity at Dollar Stores
buy the fish on Motel 6 floors
commies finally won the wars.

I promised lovers what they wanted.
  They gave me what I needed to survive.
  Kathy, Betsy, her and her and her again
  that left her imprint. I'm old and forget.
  They all show up in my morphine dreams.
  I'll die among them all with an *******.

I'm 72 and I'm drunk
and fearless and still
think I'll live forever
even though I know
I'd be the first one and
all my friends are dying
and I can't play checkers
alone or take trips down
memory lane by myself.

Our God Almighty
so we breathe easy
forget about gulags
and pedophiles ******
betray us from above
lick us for your love
wear the rubber glove
embrace pain's shove.

I have a blind cat that knows me
and sees things I can't even imagine.
She meows loud each night
demanding to be heard.
If she wrote a poem it would Howl and
change the course of Human Events.

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. I love you, Dad."
In an honest man to man way.
Eye to eye we just up and die.

Slightly ****** and drunk
  we enter into far out reaches
  of the universe to microscopic,
  subatomic worlds. We wonder if
  life's a dream, then argue whose.
  Is time travel possible? Maybe
  we're all from the future or past.
  If we changed an event from the
  past would we exist in the now?
  3am we all dream of tomorrow.

We live our lives
in paltry graves.
Dress like Queens
with violins and lovers
Hippies far out man.
I never could love
deserving lovers
I was never worth.

They said I needed help.
They admitted me to the
ward of madness and shoved
pills into me that made me a
scarecrow. A man of straw
shaking mad in the wind as
weak as my resolve to be me.
I never came to life again.
I died in bright light at peace.
The crows sent me on my way.

I'm a beat up old dog.
My name is just Bill.
I think I'm 76 in your years.
I have stories ugly still.
I know cruelty and kindness.
I've had good luck and bad.
I've been with lovely *******
and some lost in eternal sad.
I'm just a bother in the way
they want to put me down
limping each painful day
hold me under 'til I drown.

I'm tilting at windmills to fight.
   I slay dragons save broken hearts,
   bring these dogs of hell to heel.
   I still sleep with her ghost tonight
   and find small comfort in my living.
   I swim in wine 'til Don Quixote's real.

I abandoned myself
kids and wife on
Mariana's shelf
reborn my son
staged crazy life
always have fun.

When your shrink pays a *****
   he swears is his wife
   you pay by the hour
   his pills keep me sane
   my eye always burns
   my psyche always yearns
   for truth not found on couches
   answers asked as if he knows.

I died but the clock kept ticking
   and I wished I could start again
   but the second hand kept sticking
   I cracked the code and had to win
   I was buried on Easter weekend I
   thought I'd see the Jesus Christ
   leave His grave and finally fly
   I stayed dead I was sacrificed.

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 Chevorlet Bel Air.

I'm wearing Camo shorts
a wife beater undershirt
I'm 75 run 2 miles a day
ignoring arthritis  hurt.

I live with 2 dogs, blind cat
and the wife of my dreams.
Our happy hour from 7 to 11
Franzia romantic as it seems.

I'll come for you
I bring a bottle
and ****** or two
loosen the throttle
set fire to the bed
sleep in splendid ash
wake you give me head
I always pay with cash.