Kiss me like there's no tomorrow
hold my hand like yesterday
dance with me on time we borrow
with life's memories to replay.

I'll bark all night
neighbors fight
I'm just so cold
dog years 90 old.
Short chain
will refrain
my hunger pain
my dying stain.
Blood in the snow
tears always flow
the more we know
pain will always  grow.

I've finally gone insane
with all the inane same
cookie cutter days I live
always asked I will give
each day the same movie
hanging from the Oak tree
threatening a new ending
with space and time bending.
Drunk I walk dogs end of day.
A billion stars light our way
home to our bed again
our tiny Garden of Eden.

Circus 1944
                  body# 1565

  I was 9. The circus was coming that summer.
  It promised to bring life to the cornfields.
  4th of July. Circus matinee and evening
  fireworks!Daddy had it all planned out.
  Mama smelled pretty. Papa looked fancy.
  I wore my favorite white church dress.

  We were in the biggest tent I ever saw
  with people everywhere. Louder than
  anything I ever heard. I never felt like
  this. So much energy in so much space
  and my skin was electric, my eyes wide
  with the wonder of it all. Magical.

  It really was the Greatest Show on Earth!
  Girls swinging on trapeze and men balanced
  100 feet above us on a wire. Elephants huge
  powerful beasts tame as puppies on the farm.
  Clowns silly and mute and lovely made us laugh.
  It was heaven. We were suspended in a moment.

  I smelled smoke. I saw smoke and fire and panic.
  8000 people wanted out now. I wanted to see the
  fireworks in the dark. So many died. Animals died.
  Mama and Daddy died. They smelled like cooked meat.
  I died from smoke. I was found perfect in my dress.
  I'm unknown. I'm called body #1565. I love the circus.

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.

some seek solace in their Bible
some look inside their poems
those desiring death's release
will take its flight no matter
I hope they find a perfect dark
where all is none. eternal sleep
no more panic in guts or fear
of the wicked clown in closets
or teachers who **** us and we
like it but shouldn't. but we do.

I gave my baby girl away.
   I listen to a song over and over
   that breaks my heart, wrings out tears
   until I turn to dust. The cat won't die.
   I won't accept my tail end life just
   picking up dog **** and sleeping alone.
Meet me in our secret space where sin
is encouraged and we light up the night.

A filthy, disgusting,
morally corrupt place
where government
sows its disgrace

their power to abuse
jail with impunity
our taxes they steal
congress immunity.

**** all the atheists
our Christ to crucify  
hope is our pacifists
rain is tears they cry.

I wear his flannel shirt and see his
old hands how can I be free? Let me
live my broken life the best way I can.
You were a war hero but I'm just a kid
who adored you and fell short of the mark.
Give me a mission. I'll fly and die for you.

I wrap my arms around my tears
raining upon my misery. I'm in no
position to make demands. I beg for
you to unfold me upon myself until
they see the real me as you did. You
knew me with Virginity before you
took it from me and left me to bleed
from the wound that never goes away.
It never shows mercy. It cheapens me.
It leaves the smell of blood perfume.

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

Time warps are real
God cheats, will steal
minutes become hours
night's stolen stars.
We live in sideshows
freaks nobody knows
the rules to follow.
It all seems shallow.
It's right or wrong.
It's weak or strong.
all crooked rhyme
warped bent time.

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.

******'s sin is mine alone.
  She never understood her power.
  Bubble gum and puffy ****.
  I desired her perfect flower.

  Her mother died to save her
  but she saved me instead.
  I brought her to my bed for comfort,
  the night she finally bled.

  ****** floats wild on the wind
  her cheap perfume my seduction.
  She died birthing our sin and
  baptizing my *******.

Your once proud *******
  hang like bitter tears.
  Your *** droops and your
  thighs cellulite pocked.
  I still dream of you
  in a motel naked drunk
  answer to my prayers.
  I wake and forget you.

We live and we change,
some easy some strange.
I can't rhyme it tonight
maybe tomorrow's light?
Maybe there's no rhyme
or reason the last time.

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

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.

**** 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.

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.

We unwashed seek to protect us
from rich gods to give us access
to our own needed food and water.
Kings will die in the slaughter.

Blood flows in the empty streets.
My brave one eye cat finally meets
her maker on a street called Lost
as a witness to our final Holocaust.

We put Jesus away for the week
back to our world for the meek.
Slaves 9 to 5 and kids at night.
I disagree and lose another fight.
I drink beers and man the grill.
Drunk enough to sleep I eat a pill
for an easy landing tomorrow,
another week survive the sorrow.

I'm tap dancing as fast as I can the
    sparks jumping off the sidewalk like
    demon flares half insane in the dark!
    I'd bend over backwards to please you.

    I don't know what rule I've broken but
    I'm sorry. Your brutal silence breaks
    my back. I'm stillborn in a quiet place.
    My dead dreams are mute and fakes.

19 and called to serve in Nam.
  You said no strings keep me.
  We ****** as if there were more
  the flight to war is always free
  the flight home in body bags
  tin medals on the shredded boys
  flag draped coffins all the same
  dead sons playing war with toys.

I'm very profound at last call.
I stagger home to spill my poem
upon a ****** page for drunk poets
to bless my selfish stains as love.

In the backseat with
   barely dressed girls
   I study skin stretched
   on a ****** bone fetched
   by Lust's determined dog
   found in Love's blind fog
   there's always some regret
   that I can't seem to forget.
   You're not what I thought
   but always what I sought.

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.

He found my need and fed it.
I'm an empty vessel in a shroud.
A thousand ****** kept me calm.
I died for you to make you proud.

I'm just another trophy to make
me lifelike with glass blue eyes
convincing color of the skin and I
promise I'll keep safe all the lies.

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'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.

I play the game my own.
Love never breaks me.
I break my heart alone.
Always set myself free.

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.

Romance is born of pretty lies
   and poor judgement and alcohol
   and low bar light and juke box
   siren song swaying our hips in
   surrender as we dance to a cab
   and feed our weakness at 3 am
   in a bed of grand hotel roses.
   We wake up at noon in thorns.

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'm a drunken man
  with a fragile heart
  could be an ending
  could be a start
  I'm fun full of laughs
  but too many years
  I have drowned
  beneath my tears.

It bullies us constantly to
be at a place a specific time
God help us if we're late
no excuses it's a crime.
Seconds we race to please
the clock we fear wicked lies
it rules the fools we truly are.
We live and die like flies.

Love always dies.
Heaven or Hell?
Her sobbing cries
in a wishing well.
We tore love apart
as we made it raw
I ate your heart
in my loveless jaw.

Someone has to be the first
  to enter your shallow grave,
  steal Virginity, smell blood.
  Forever my flag is planted.

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 have to find you
tell you I need you
scattered lovers
under life's covers.

The god ****** British
drove me from my home
across the sea to America
I became  John Donovan.

We Irish spread seeds in
winds of certain change
ethnicity lost its way
melting *** rearrange.

I slept in a UFO last night.
Creatures crawled over me
with probes and putting my
fluids into tubes I could see.
I watched tiny beasts swim
seeking the one we all want
in my ***** like tadpoles
in a frenzy of life's hunt.

He splashes light in our eyes,
  heart breaks that make him cry
  remembering yesterday's goodbyes,
  begs her to explain. She just sighs.
  She was a ***** he loved, ghost white.
  He splashes light against the night
  making stars like madness that whirl.
  He splatters a crazy sun in the girl
  with crows in skies warning us of doom.
  He cuts his ear off in his attic room
  wraps it in paper scratched with vows.
  In madhouse on starry nights he howls.

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
and finally a true smile.

I woke up and hated me
for what I called you in
my drunken truth. I never
want to hurt you but I do.
It seeps out in weakness.
I might quit drinking but
it might turn to cancer and
live within my blood and leak
from my blind eyes I'd turn to
dust. I'll have another glass.

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.

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.

I'm not real
just your fantasy
some lost dream
when it was easy
lost your religion
found your sanity
inside the mirror
captures vanity

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.

We are both in our cups
when we drunk connect
one calls one answers
the same numb correct.
We talk forever after
with echos of laughter.