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.

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.

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

She seems happiest working in the dirt.
  She looks like a gypsy. Wild midnight
  hair, coal eyes and autumn's complexion
  smelling of earth, grass and dying leaves
  she takes my breath away and bends my
  knees as I beseech her to hold me close.
  She lives around the corner. I live in
  poet city where nothing is as it seems.

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.

We bury a great Lady
who kept us safe since
1776. She was ***** and
pillaged by the DC vipers
in expensive shark skin suits
and 500 dollar haircuts
thousand dollar ******
and selling the country
piece by piece as jobs
disappeared and they
became billionaires and
we wept at our burials.

I turn a century tomorrow.
All my friends died long ago.
My face is melted candle wax.
My body is a question mark.
My hands are crooked claws.
My kin won't visit anymore.

Last Train Home
by John Mayer


     If you wanna roll me
Then you gotta roll me all night long
And if you wanna use me
Then you gotta use me 'til I'm gone

[Chorus]
I'm not a fallen angel, I just fell behind
I'm out of luck and I'm out of time
If you don't wanna love me, let me go
I'm runnin' for the last train
I'm runnin' for the last train home

[Verse 2]
If you wanna know me
Then you gotta know me through and through
And if you're gonna hurt me
Then you gotta hold me next to you

[Chorus]
No matter how you work it, things go wrong
I put my heart where it don't belong
So if you're comin' with me, let me know
Maybe you're the last train
Maybe you're the last train home?

Stop This Train
John Mayer
[Outro]
I'm on the last train runnin'
I'm on the last train runnin'
And I surrender, and I surrender
I'm on the last train runnin'
I'm on the last train runnin'
And I surrender, and I surrender
I'm on the last train runnin'
I'm on the last train runnin'
And I surrender, and I surrender
I'm on the last train runnin'
I'm on the last train runnin'
And I surrender, and I surrender
Oh-yeah
Oh-uh-uh-uh

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.

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 Chevrolet Bel Air.

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

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.

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.

The party was on fire the
  music was beating our hearts
  and we were courting on the
  the back stairs alone together
  and we held tight and soared
  into an impossible place and
  rode the beautiful beast as long
  as we could buried in my lies
  a grave stone in our eyes,
funeral choir played Our Song.

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

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.

Life is real
we lie
we steal
we cry
girl killed me
robbed her womb
too small to see
tiny attic room
we would've
had a ton of fun
you could've
loved your son.

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."

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.

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.

Children pick flowers
  in lazy summer fields
  rage hiding in hours
  innocent one yields
  counts to ten ready
  or not here I come
  daddy's pistol steady
  warm in noon's sun.

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.

Sometimes people
spend their adult hood
getting over their youth
children treated wood.

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 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.

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

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.

You thought you'd live forever
in the ***** of your lover
but she drowned in a river
of your overflowing liver
and you lost your direction
and died in imperfection.

All boozed up on Chardonnay,
   swapping virginity lost stories
   drinking from ***** straws and
   holding ****** as scepters while
   ropes of ***** crown our heads.
   We puke and cry and wear our
   hideous bridesmaid's dresses at
   the wedding and catch the bouquet
   and send the married couple off to
   a honeymoon in the ****** Islands.

Itches
*******
crucifixes
altar boys
priest toys
lover joys

lesbian nun
so much fun
spank girls
warm curls
flag unfurls
****** pearls

father priest
never inferior
grandpa pope
mother superior.

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.

Too young for bars, but thirsty.
  Uncle Reggie owned a beer joint so
  we went in and had beers carte blanche.
  He was upstairs dying of cancer.

  We went up for an impromptu visit.
  He and his woman in a small room.
  He was in bed weak with sickness.
  We made small talk then escaped.  

  We went downstairs. One for the road.
  Everything I drank after tasted bitter.
  One day we'll all be in that bed upstairs.
  May God rest all of our souls.  Amen

I've lost 3 wedding rings
frantic looking for last one.
Love is chains lost things.
Wars fought hope we won.
Loveless marriage thorn
so bored with repetition
routine is just forlorn
slaves to tradition.

Angry every time I wake
Xanax first thing I take.
Nightmares electrocuted
on the throne executed.
The king smells like ****
in the end that's just it.

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

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.

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.

You cannot Love
in moderation
all in or all out
no *******
no blowup dolls
or Centerfolds
just she who
really matters.

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 was well into my cups by then
angered by my arrogant cowlick.
I always go to war at midnight
armed with beer's beloved logic.

I juggled scissors and mirrors
snip snip drink more beers.
Wake hungover hair butchered,
wife wanting divorce in tears.

Numbers I adore
are God's own drunk
******* on the floor
old small and shrunk.

It wasn't only JFK.
  Democracy died that day.
  Say goodbye to the USA.
  Thank Allen Dulles's CIA!

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.

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.

A shout out to Bill and Melinda
the philanthropic magic tricks
20% ROI African sterile vaccine
baptism by shots black eugenics.
I am old and ripe to be deaded.
Save me from your mathematics.

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.

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.

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

Cremated fireplace ashes in a box
  with my name on it. Is this me or
  an imposter who was a ******* ****?
  Sounds like me anyway just a *****.
  Take my cremains and flush me down
  a favorite throne with a padded seat.

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.