It's dark
Eden Park
we ****
we ****
break rules
naive fools
hard times
little crimes
no forgiving
live and let living

They came from London
armed bobby's to North
Ireland to subjugate us
steal our very worth

we fight tooth and nail
the ******* British
****** Sunday ******
us like a barrel of fish

we won't forget
we'll never forgive
bombs guns fires
this is how we live

What a splendid place you are,
spaces, smells and tastes galore.
I've been everywhere in my mind
I'm Helen Keller and I'm blind.
I see more than you might think.
Remember each time you blink.

Read it like a ****** having ***.
It means something different to
each of us. It can be painful or
funny or full of **** or falling
like Alice down the rabbit hole.
It can mean different things at
different times and circumstance.
It makes us feel in a Chemo Life.

The petting
the kissing
the getting
just missing

That night we came together
into the sacred secret Eden
my Adam your Eve forever
forbidden fruit not eaten.

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.

Everybody's angry
Everybody's afraid
Everybody's in love
Everybody's enslaved
Everybody's dying
Everybody will fade
Everybody's lying
Everybody's played
Everybody's misunderstood
Everybody's depraved
Everybody has a god
Everybody prays
Everybody sleeps
Everybody has 1 more day.

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.

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.

I'm frozen in my own time
in my own Pompeii at 72.
Every day is a play with
the same cast and acts.
It's been lived to death but
still plays to smaller crowds
who leave at intermission.
It's the freakiest show on earth
ready for the road shows in
small burgs with the hicks.

I'm in pain
  inside your
  ****** dancing
  in winter rain
  in your freezing
  bed our breathing
  like dragon smoke
  forever pleasing.

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.

I'll bring all
our dreams
when I die
no what or why.
Just pieces
of us to try
again on the
other side.

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.

Climb down off your cross
  forget crucifixion's dying
  wow the gathered crowd by
  feeding them and free wine.
  Have the band play the hits.
  Do your comic act. Applause.
  Sign autographs no charge.
  Beg money for your cause.

She's a spur in my saddle
  a boil on my ***
  drive 10 hours rattle
  heart attack just gas

  to any question asked
  recites her biography
  point to pain for me
  I was born by the sea

  she's stone in my shoe
  she just wants to die
  I hate to disappoint,
  just can't say goodbye.

I wake in a hall of mirrors.
I stand inside a different me.
I see me loving a lover
who begs me to love her
forget the kids. I can't.
I want a mirror to fool me.
I see my kind friend Joe
who always saw the good
and was killed picking up
a hitchhiker after all.
I want a mirror to fool me.
I see my father still wet
behind the ears flying
a bomber in a war as a pawn
for them who don't care.
I want a mirror to fool me.
I see my cousin with ancient
broken heart, the wound
that never heals, choose
slow suicide by *****.
I want a mirror to fool me.
I see a man who doesn't
know how to love a wife
no matter how many times
he tries. He writes a poem.
I want a mirror to fool me.

Stubborn lover on my knees
eating 'til I hear you scream
Oh, my ******* god, please!
Interrupt your primal dream
I enter you our final tease
fill you with love's stream.

I'll break my own heart.
I always do. I hate love.
It has fangs and poison
and scorpion tails and
disapproval of Mother.
Never mind the grief.

Jack Daniels slept in my bed
kept me warm for empty years.
My lovers, always bored, fled.
Always chased a shot with tears.

I made you beg again
for my tiny treasure.
Gold by the ounce sin.
Never mind a measure.

The minute hand crawls to 10
wonders what might have been
permission given to finally sleep
pray to god my soul to keep.

Whenever you think of me
I'm just lost flawed beauty.
We were always meant to be
madness always set me free.

I live in a Church
soul kept in a jar
I stop Jesus search
found him on a bar
stool next to mine
we talked of fate
society's decline
everybody's hate.

I launched at the starting gun
the course was always planned
trained your feet to run
mile 20 muscles cramped
I had the 26.2 tattoo
  on my fragile ego.
Round here I never
forgive me ever
I'm my own worst enemy.
Dad always said so.
Stand up straight, Boy.
Crawl across the finish line.

I'm not sure which of us is dead.
  One alive in the other's head.
  Underage found our way to beer.
  Young drunks toast without fear.

  We have Gramps show the way
  how men live brutal day to day
  without complaint in silent pain
  through time it's always the same.

  We visit in bars at end of day.
  My time machine is Chardonnay.
  We remember and laugh too loud!
  See you in tomorrow's drunk cloud.

There's an ounce of truth
in a landfill made of lies.
The best politicians money
can buy. They become rich
delivering milk to lobbyists.
USA sold off pennies on the $.

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.

Life starts in a **** farm
smelling like day old fish.
The oldest boy with charm
the parents get their wish.

PTSD father's nervous love
nurtures Junior's anxiety.
War hero shot down above
prays for son's sobriety.

I am cruel and I am kind,
hate me most of the time.
Lust is love is just blind.
Marriage the worst crime.

Paint me in watercolor.
  Bring me back to life.
  Hues of laughter and desire,
  light inside brilliant light
  husky brawling of youth
  half naked, sweating, proud.

I write poems like I fish.
Wrap words around hooks
and drop them in waters
hoping for hungry looks
from bug eyed poets
willing to strike
for a chance to eat
they give me a like.

I'm just a junkyard dog.
Old scars tell my story.
I'm left water and scraps.
Alone in the dark I sleep
and dream of a better life
and love with *******
I smell beyond fences,
Love just out of reach.

Hold my hair out of my puke.
Clean me when chemo's nuke
lands inside my cancer foxhole
and liquefies my very soul
change the sheets of ****
and never lose your wit.

I wish I knew you then.
I wish we'd start again.
I wish we've grown thin.
I wish I remembered then.

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
known your son.

I'm at a carnival midway.
My mouth's agog at the freaks.
Tents for 10 cents to see naked.
Lobster boy displays deformity.
Bearded lady drops her veil.
***** covers the cement floor.
The stench is bathroom overflow.
I try to wake from this nightmare.

Every time I fell in love
    my heart became more fragile.
    The snow fell beautifully into
    love's yawning massive grave
    where all true loves go to die.
    Tears of my soul drip upon pages
    and I scratch my stories for you.
    Read and understand my journey.

Breaking *****
  and protocols
  **** all the rules
  ignore the  fools
  under the radar
  meet in the bar
  toast to the fun
  good guys won.

Vinyl lover named Susan Tucker
the first girl I kissed and missed.
I blow her up she lets me **** her
she yearns for me she can't resist.

A failing wind after 16 days
   madness erupted in many ways
   cook with a cleaver menacing
   captain in his cabin dancing
   to a tune that only he can hear
   and the rest of us can only fear
   we pray to Poseidon set us free
   wind just wasn't meant to be
   things might take an ugly turn
   fierce equator sun might burn
   the whole ****** thing down
   laugh in cool waters and drown

Keep the killer afloat above
targets through black flack
avoid the deadly white dove
promises never going back.

I'm born then die.
Life worth a try.
I disappoint and cry
I laugh and I fly
to a northern star
not really very far
it's my favorite bar
we **** in your car
on a carousel I spin
a lucky wheel of sin
cancer grows within
I lose myself thin
I leave a dark stain
always death's pain
funeral in the rain
infinity once again.

Born of a ******
so many of us are.
Why Christ a God son?
I want Tablets of God
in burning bushes
giving us more rain
demanding less pain
so much to explain.

My guilt overwhelmed me and I ran
  faster to the ***** and the pills.
  Drowning in stormy seas I reached
  desperately for a ticket to Boston.

  I was born again in Harvard Square.
  A stranger with a clean slate and a
  winning smile and a way with women.
  It shames me to the bottom of my soul.

  I broke hearts and promises back home.
  Wife and kids adrift their anchor lost.
  I couldn't find my magnetic north. Tara
  was my north star. I found my way home.

I drink alone
in the attic room
of a boarding house
furnished minimal.
Lamp, chair, ashtray,
a small bed to crash.
I write my Collection
on paper with classical
music on a tinny radio.
I'll die young like Dylan.

There's a giant coke spoon
in my cereal bowl today
we eat in silence and don't
know who started the fracas
last night. We slept separate.
Our 4 year old fell 53 floors
and left a broken heart in
a paper sack 8 miles high.

I died but didn't know.
There never was a burial.
They dug me a hole
in clouds for my soul
I didn't know my role
apostles my body stole

lose your dress
forget duress
just say yes
I'll confess
let's bless
our mess.

I'm a blind man without a sun.
We live in different mirrors.
You have light for everyone.
I live life that never appears.

All my friends are gone.
Feelings are lost in ashes.
I am alone like in a womb.
Dark is come and go flashes.

I yearn but still say **** it all
reach out in darkness for touch
fingers have disappeared
death is nothing much.