I try to keep my life inside the lines.
I drink Alice's potions and it all bends.
Can hardly see where I'm going now or
where the whole **** thing finally ends.
The Queen of Hearts says off with my head.
The Wizard of Oz speaks with certainty.
Toto exposes his act behind the curtain.
I'm in a Cuckoo's Nest; wine is my gravity.

He splashes light in night sky,
  wants love that makes her cry
  remembering yesterday's goodbye,
  begs her to explain. She just sighs.
  She was a ***** he loved, paste white.
  He splashes light into the midnight
  making stars that swirl like madness.
  He splatters a yellow sun in our world
  with crows in skies warning us of doom.
  He cuts his ear off in a white room.
  He wraps it in paper and gives it to her.
  He's taken away to a place to get better.
  In a French field he paints and asks why
  shoots and ends his life and the crows fly.

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.

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

Walk the dog.
Feed the hog.
Shake my snake.
A nap I'll take.
Wine at seven.
Dream at eleven.

I dreamed I was a lesbian
stage frightened thespian
infinity inside a clock
a manikin but with a ****
blindfold at a firing squad
playing racquetball with god
Einstein teaching ABC's
an atheist on his knees
a poet ******* in a tree
a monkey typing poetry.

I've been unlucky in love. I will
   be rich when I make a risky bet
   on a new innovation. Trust new
   love because you're near 70.
   Just grab for the brass ring
   one more time and remember to
   take your blood pressure meds
   and ******. Update your will.

Adults

  Keep the awful truths from
  the children. Hide them behind
  a velvet curtain and sing sweet
  songs of innocence 'til daylight.

           Children

  We eavesdrop from the stair top
  hearing the adults in their cups
  spilling the beans on every ****
  thing we are "too frail" to know.

Alchemist of words
  makes us weep and hope
  swoon and wonder why
  give us a poem of rope.

  We met in Eden Park and
  ******, red A's burned
  on our skin for the sin.
  The world still turned.

Strip our beds
of all the sheets.
Wash wet dreams
off the ***** streets.
Sleep on warm grates
wrapped in old news
sleep in a needle waits
dream death's blues.

This old poet poses with his worn out lines.
Tender poetry of youth and love's beginnings,
faltering steps beyond puberty's uncertainty.

I've pounded my love on typewriters, each letter
has a part to play in this drama with a weight
all its own. Smash a key and it opens old wounds.

It was an antiseptic space. The doctor said
   something I couldn't quite hear because loud
   seconds echoed from recent life I lived instead
   and the waiting room had an infested crowd.

   I heard stage 4, in your blood, invading your
   entire body, maybe 3 months. The noise shone
   louder. Each tick became a bomb in a war zone.
   Deafening. I thanked her and shuffled home.

   My girl just turned 2. Collateral damage.
   What god does this to my wife and our baby?
   I'm smaller each day disappearing in young age
   I smile air kisses goodbye to my fading family.

Drunk Grandpa has a phone
and texts me concern
warns me of his mistakes
hopes that I can learn
where the mines are
buried I keep my legs
he means well I love him
he begs me to hope, pray.

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

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.

I try drawing your memories fading.
   Your eyes aren't right. I can't taste
   you that destroyed my earnest vows
   with Lust's cruelest and rapid waste.

   I can't feel your warm young *******,
   ******* that grew so hard by my caress.
   I can't see us dancing naked in the dark.
   We drink we fight we wonder at the mess.

   I wish I'd kept the photos. I cremated us
   in an ashtray drunk so many years ago.
It all plays out eventually after all.
We all end up ashes in afterglow.

The old poet poses with his worn out lines.
    He's near 80 and written everything that matters.
    Loves, lost loves, betrayals, redemption, children
    recovered from his own disasters. Lines repeated
    they're frayed of their own weight, Autumn's dust.
    Stay with me and view me in Winters graveyard.
    I'm an old poet with a young man's heart pleading
    for an honest appraisal of my balance sheet.

I read your poems.
I'm stunned! I'm mute.
I write Dr. Seuss.
I write the same poem
everyday. Sin. Guilt.
Broken promises.

I've lived stone cold lover.
Punched you into the stars
forgotten in morning sun.
You never forget the scars.
I've loved all your women.
They always wanted more.
Pound me harder while my
husband pounds the door.

There's a poem in there if
   I can strip away the debris
   and polish it like silver
   and read it at a posh affair.
   I'll use a singsong baritone
   to give it gravity. It matters.

The best meal ever, Shug!
Dad said it every time.
Mom smoked her Salems.
I stole a few small crime.
Got kid drunk by a beer at
the creek all by myself
a cheap case dad bought
ironically called Top Shelf.

Death is everywhere
bodies puzzle pieces
never together again
pray on dead graves.

We drink mint juleps
flirt in old oaks' shade
We kiss make promises
dance upon dead graves.

I believe in air
and growing hair
patches puberty,
free me liberty.
All lives matter,
same old batter,
never quite right
too dark or light.
We live too long
to love a song
or smoke a ****
or love her ****.
Oh My God, I do
confess it's true.

I am kind.
  I am cruel.
  I am loved
  and a fool.
  I am guilty.
  I am free.
  You'll find me
  suffering in
Cincinnati,
Ohio.

Everything came apart
shattered my heart
splinters always bring
paper cut pain unseen.

Christ don't live in churches.    
    He lives in the slums and prisons,
    grungy dive bars and crack houses.
    He offers hope to the hopeless
    and direction to the lost souls.  
    Christ doesn't sleep in church pews
    he sleeps on park benches and grates.
    his blood is cheap wine communion
    on city streets his body stale bread
    from the soup kitchens for the poor.
    He lives where he's most needed;
    then and there and here and now.

I'm a forgone conclusion
    and an empty promise.
    My words fail to inspire.
    My loves are always lost.
    Trouble always finds me.
    Read between the lines and
    find the real me with you
    in my heart on my sleeve.

Everyone prays they always have another day,
   but every one's always the same as ones before.
   We're stuck inside of quicksand only slower than
   we thought and the time ticks faster only more.
   I'm going to the end of time as the seconds tick
   we grow ugly and bald and pale and dead sick.

Can you hear the mighty roar
of the angry noise of war?
UN troops go door to door.
Steal from rich. Give to poor.
Billionaires demand justice
not for them, but just for us.

I was driving a Uhaul filled
    with my meager life thus far
    with my latest burned out love
    beside me going to Nashville.
    I thought she'd stay behind.
    I couldn't break hearts clean
    like a good hanging neck snap;
    always death by a thousand cuts.
    The worst lovers stick like glue
    and never seem to have a clue.

Peeing through a hose is nice.
Erratic aim past 60 roll the dice.
Pregnancy is a woman's dream
until birth's agonizing scream.
Marriage vows we both are one.
4 weddings later and I am done.

Forever student at Ohio State,
brilliant or simple who knew?
Never bathed smelled of B.O.
so bad his nickname was Phew.
Mascot of comp sci department
everywhere on every spectrum
pity and love together arrived
we all learned to respect him.

Those who did the deadly deeds
are now as dead as poison weeds.
Truth will always out finally
then we learn the true history.
CIA and FBI and Dulles brothers
and LBJ and J Edgar. Many others.

I lost my mind
in a poker game.
I saw the blind
never the same
just nocturnal
not to blame
just eternal
end of flame.

Let me speak in holy tongues.
  Let me live in streets of rage.
  Let me eat cancer in my lungs.
  Let me turn another blank page.
  Let me fill it with my poetry
  read in baritone from the stage
  notable for the drunk cruelty
  kept at bay in a prison cage.

The universe is on display tonight.
    A storm is coming. Birds in flight
    as lightening cracks the sky in two.
    There's half for me and half for you.

Butcher of the poor in black hoods.
  The projects destroy futures for most.
  Stacker of bodies, stormy, brawling, cruel.
  City of bully's with big shoulders.
  They say you are wicked and I know.
  You are fierce as a mad dog foaming
  through white teeth, tongue lapping,
  laughing as a young man laughs
  under the terrible burden of living.
  He cries stunned as his blood spills.

I just had myself to blame
   no control of love's flame.
   I saw her and felt the heat
   on the backstairs we meet.
   God awful lightening flash
   burns our world to cold ash.

FDR, Churchill and Stalin
J Edger Hoover's FBI,
Spies and greed and hubris.
Cowards, liars, cheats and
compromised judges,
schools and ignorance,
CIA and politicians,
rich strutting peacock Mayor,
biased news and Twitter and
Facebook and YouTube.
Washington Post, NYT,
WSJ, Fools and kings and
geniuses stuck in the rain
who betray us with Covid 19.

Some would call it only chance.
   Some would name it circumstance.
   Others say it's writ upon high.
   Her name is Fate. She'd never lie.
   She won't predict your tomorrow.
   She won't promise joy or sorrow.
   We never see any rhyme or reason.
   Like weather it betrays the season.

It's all subscription,
small extermination.
We own nothing.
We have everything.
Rent us our souls
and burial holes.
The bills always come
compound 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.

Ride subways to your job
go type at a plastic tube
wait for bosses to lob
demands and the KY ****.
Bring the ***** or tea
and the New York Times
offered on a bent knee
guilty of Pravda's crimes.
Careful or live in our hell
you will own nothing at all
at the bottom of a deep well
nobody will accept your call.

I was 13 in a hormone driven rage
  trying to put the moves on Linda
  in a hayloft. He was in my ear
  whispering his disapproval. I was
  deaf and have been ever since. ****
  it. Kennedy was shot in Dallas that
  day and the worlds been upside down
  since the last time I heard Jesus.

My black hole velocity
escapes cruel gravity
unchained again finally
death sets us all free.

Why do we obsess on your death?
Wear mother's furs and die in a car
painless, breathing her dead breath
as your own in the closed garage.
You painted your suffering in such
splendid colors and signed it AS.

You'll laugh at my dad jokes
and Camo Crocs I wear.
Laugh out loud and cry
have a baby name her Bill.
I'm living in your memory
I'm the flower and butterfly.

I loved the fireworks.
    I loved the fierce heat.
    I loved the moisture and
    your heart inside mine.
    The first week we never
    came up for air. We'd
    gladly drown together.
    We found each other and
    we abandoned the world.

In a fancy restaurant a tank
  of lobsters on death row
  waiters penguin like hover
  with rice ready to throw
  at a newly wedded couple
  with their baggage in tow
  no pedigree but filthy rich
  going south to escape the snow.

You weren't seen
in my blind spot
too old so young
perfect ink blot
no trouble at all
self absorbed dad
in and out of love
edge of mind mad.
I forgot to care
for the tattered
broken Daughter
always mattered.

It's a beauty of a red rose.
  It's a watercolor on a bed sheet
  petals bloom from his wound.
  She'd had it and found a gun
  and courage and anger enough
  to put him out of her misery.