I drink wine from the box not the bottle.
     My empties are very functional. I make
     chairs to sit in alone for happy hour.
     Beds to sleep alone in case I can't atone.
     Dog house to be alone in when you're angry.
     Walls between us too tall to ever surmount.
     Even my own coffin hot as hell herself.
     I could never build a bridge back home.

I was thinking of our
wild drunk forest fire
from years long gone
ashes of lust's desire
sent a Facebook message
to reminisce good times
still ****** about my marriage
  and all my little crimes.

We met at Rugby's bar
shivering seeking heat
drink wish upon a star
mirror our heartbeat.
Born a crooked womb
drunk in a tiny room
push a baby carriage
now a sterile marriage
daily we both pretend
a marriage just smoke
laughs are our friend
old hearts just broke.

I'd still take you in tall grass.
I first planted my ****** flag
in your ****** ground and bled.
We spent Love's sweet spot making
our daughter in Mustang backseats,
shattered glass castles and broke
your father's heart and buried him
along a great divide of generations.

In a moment too small to measure
  my world was reinvented. I moved
  among a universe, not planet earth.
  Physical didn't matter, it was Sense!

  There were no clocks, no walls, no people.
  Thought was bigger than I'd ever known.
  I was floating in absolute, ironclad peace.
  Nothing and Everything are the same here.

  No pharmacies, no need for doctors or nurses.
  Anxiety is a quaint notion from long ago.
  We exist in absolute moments. Forget space.
  I am forever God's eye of indifference.

I'll bury you in parts
   left after explosions
   all the broken hearts
   tear stained emotions
   leave me to my own
   in fields of neglect
   where nothing is grown
   love will never resurrect.

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.

**** the New Year.
I want old ones back
when I lived my life
between lovers
I promised forevers
set them adrift
a kindly gift
great pretender.

I reached inside my heart
and found the broken part.
It was not believing in love
only hold lust's black dove.

Elder aunt adored
lazy Summer bored
reading Hardy Boys
stroke mystery toys.
Sleep in tent on her lawn
chickens wake at dawn.
Spoils us with ice cream
old man's boyhood dream.

One more shot and I die in my own arms
  full of holes from demon teeth and heaven's
  need to drag my soul across the finish line
  I filled the syringe to my lucky number 7.

Dying at your own hand left
  broken hearts behind. Maybe
  that was your intent? It might
  have been a desperate resignation
  from the pains all our lives inflict.
  Maybe one more day we'd have met.

I'm pyramid scheme.
I'm a silent scream.
I Love You forever
alone frozen lover.
Wish upon a star
hide a birth scar.

I stare in a mirror of ice
see myself in paradise
fever warm that night
walking into the light.

I'm not sure what to say
are you in a bad day?
Do you need space?
Am I leaving this place?
Is your garden forbidden?
Is your true heart hidden?
Just questions, no answers
always unknown cancers.

I will write my first song
play guitar chords along
sing it to myself with beer
in fogged bathroom mirror.

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

Tin cans off the Marriage
carriage to our honeymoon
too drunk to **** but one
for the road and drive to
Mars and a tree house
with a full moon and years
gone by and kids and
ulcers and shrinks and
finally divorce.
We die together.

Angels bleeding in the night
after their morning's flight
cry angel tears as we fight
addiction's horrible delight.

The grain of truth took hold
on the cracked tenement walls.
Graffiti headlined fierce anger,
oppression and despair of slavery.
Not in **** cloths but denim and
gang colors, angry yellow eyes.
Hate boils in the rat **** homes
and foments into a masters' hood.

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

After all it's just a hollow conceit.
Spill my guts upon a page to muster
some semblance of brilliance.
Shine a spotlight on me and gasp.
When all's said and done I'm the
lonely poet in the garret reading
pencil scratches on old envelopes
wishing they were in Anthologies.

Can I expose the making
   of a nation called America?
   Freedom the rich promised
   owned us all along let us
   vote and gloat we're boss.
   The federal reserve is
   our god almighty and
   keeps us trapped in rooms
   making trinkets and hourly
   wages taxed into destitution
   forced into credit cards we
   pay off with prostitution.

Love can be kind or cruel
for a king or a fool.
Whispers quiet screams
in her troubled dreams,
blushes at first touch
then can't get enough.
Lust eats her very own
then forgets his name.
Swallows ***** sown
always tastes the same.

Yellow Sticky Notes
No Forgetting

  Ultrasound to see alien in J's womb.
  Pick up Bailey at 3 from daycare.
  Take Bailey to shrink for anxiety.
  Walk Bailey down her wedding aisle.
  Pick up Bailey's son from daycare.
  Drop off the **** to the cleaners.
  Take your blood pressure meds.
  Mom and Dad 50th anniversary Dec. 12.
  Pick K and S up at the orphanage for w/e.
  Dinner at Robin and James Saturday.
  Mike and Kim at the Keg Tuesday at 5.
  Pack L and me lunch for tomorrow.
  Dori for drinks at pub friday.
  Tennis w/ Fuji sunday 10.
  Katie and Sean this w/e in Columbus.
  Xcountry skiing lesson w/ Dori.
  Lunch w/ Marc at Crossroads food court.
  Mojave desert sandstorm with L.
  T and I wed at JP at noon Wednesday.

Mysterious
not serious
magical
hysterical
feral cats
wharf rats
swinging bats
miss the ball
**** it all
give me a call.
Grandma
a trip to the mall
buy a spot
to be my plot
bury my ashes
in lightening flashes
while we live on
until we are gone.

Laborers in ties tending computers.
  9th floor and paper airplanes out
  the window. Benny Boo night shift
  games with Joe and Rick and Bill.
  Candy machine our pinata. We clutch
  our essence desperate not to be cogs.

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.

Everyone I've known
   fades into a lie.
   We're all children
   'til the day we die.
   Let's dance close
   let's be wicked.
   Take a chance
   be a bit addicted
   reduced to threads
   inside our heads
   above our beds
   torn to shreds

To be or not to be?
   I paint a black halo around
   your blond hair at midnight
   while you hide the moon from
   me and I wonder at your games.
   It's all intense; music, acid,
   *******, the beautiful things
   I've known, but  not seen lately
   We wait naked in the dark for
   dawn's first vague glimpse of
   love in our eyes. We stare blind
   and reach into the dark for lovers.

Curtain parts on birth scene
****** Mary's birth scream
Christ child inside friction
of time and crucifixion.
I love all of humankind
Love is so hard to find.

I drink Absinthe all alone.
I take my pills turn to stone.
I fade into the womb of night
I'm born once more into light.

I'm 87 this month and time has been unkind.
I was such a beauty in my youth beckoning
lovers with indifference. Always in demand.
Empty compliments from sales girls enrage me!
I can still be sweet like poison stealing pain from
your suffering.  Once again, Rudolph Valentino!
Make this old heart explode with your wild eyes.
Bring me a proper final curtain, roses at my feet.
I'll return for you forever for our curtain calls.

They trust our blind allegiance
    to their lies in their arrogance
    acquiesce for money or *** again.
    Blackmail us always with our sin.
    Billions of humankind rising tide
    against your sterile smug genocide.

We act our lives out
upon a strange stage
read from a script of
a bleeding ugly age
hating our creator's
sleight of hand trick
bring us to life our
clock has a final tick.

Let us make famous this field
   our armies' blood will make red
   victor makes vanquished yield
   both sides sort out their dead.

My world is on fire.
I can't quench my desire.
Vows burn down
scarecrows frown
fields in flames
each side blames
the other one
for what is done
spring we till earth
fields born a rebirth.

Verse Burns and Clicks

Poets live in meager attics.
We always have flask and pen
in hand whenever a random
line of verse burns and clicks
its way onto the blank page
drunk we finally surrender
to sleep and read what we
did to us in morning light.

We species
go on forever
because desire
****** fire
perfumed
consumed
Why?
Chemistry
Biology
Comedy.

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.

Sunlight is cruel
   hangover mornings
   with a loaded chamber
   I might turn it off
   laughing at death as
   she seduces in dark.

Turn the lights down low
while your shadows undress
in my private ***** show
your thigh begs my caress
******* need licks tonight
beg me love you once more
turn the lights up bright
nothing's like it was before.

I'm a part time atheist
praying to a 9 to 5 god
I fall in love with strangers
everywhere and always
I try to live outside my skin
until it drags me into rehab
I can't live in here and now
or then and there until I
find me inside a mirror
take a selfie with Alice.

Going mad in complete silence
is easy, military drums snap
rat a tat tat, the bugle plays
Taps. A million soldiers march
silent past me to their graves
as my son is buried still alive.

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 we want is someone to hold onto.

A coin dropped in a poor box don't change a thing.
Church candles lit won't save starving children.
Madmen write pamphlets and spark flames that set
worlds afire with noble promises always broken.
Trust our Elites to balance the rich and the poor.
They'll **** the dissidents who were too outspoken.

Word Trumps Sword

The word is mightier than sword
they say then slit our angry throats.
Listen to me people I speak truth.
Soldiers come wearing red coats.
Bankers come calling with due notes.
Farms defaulted with police escorts.
Filthy rich bought all the courts.
Voice of the people is silenced.

Tonight I visited an old Charleston girl.
   90 and sick to death of blacks and browns
   on the TV day in and day out. "******" will
   be buried with her along with angry frowns.
   This princess is from the old south royalty
   the riffraff and angry boys stole her crowns.

rain fell long and heavy
  it overwhelmed the levee
  downed a thousand trees
  drowned countless turkeys
  choked a million frogs
  soaked my fire dry logs
  cleansed my soul of agony
  won't you just let me be?

My drunkard hand shook so much
I chipped the fine china teacup and
spilled the ******* tea on My Despair.
I pulled the poem from my pocket
and gave it to my host as a gift.
He sold it to The New Yorker.