They opened my head and peered inside.
    They found bric-a-brac at a yard sale.
    Junk no one wants anymore. Best offer.
    A fragile broken dream of crystal for
    you. Parent's screams in a lovely bottle
    of cheap perfume used only by virgins.
    Blanket upon which our love was consumed
    and our baby was conceived and we had the
    ****** of a lifetime. So long ago when
    I was in your heart and you in mine.
    Jars of catholic guilt. Gramps broke
    my world in a snow globe for pennies.
    The whole **** mess is yours. Please
    don't lock me up in a rubber room. I
    was such a lovely child running in
    tall grass in summer's green youth.

Believe me, Child
there's always an answer
waiting for your question.
Just ask me at noontime.
In the shade of the big oak
while we drink iced tea
and I'm sober and free
from the demon who
haunts me at two
demanding *****
to set me loose
to die another day.

We've all gone crazy lately.
I don't wear a tie or cut my hair.
I smoked some hash and lost my
mind a little bit. Save me from
a world I don't recognize anymore.
I dress like a clown and eat drugs
to keep me up and down and level.
Friends are straight or hippies each
seeking their very own Nirvana and
I walk a tightrope above them all.

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?

At 16 I thought I knew what Love was
at 74 still don't have a ******* clue
my compass points magnetic north
at midnight's sky muted black and blue.

Lust was our hearts' magic gravity brought
us into our biological and chemical orbit
around universe's endless carousel  until
our worlds collide and write our final obit.

I chew a bit of this pill
and feel a little less ill.
I swallow a blue moon
sleep through a typhoon.
A tab of acid in my tea
the world bewilders me.

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.

A bag of red hot suns
one of cool full moons
serenaded by Pink Floyd
with powdered spoons.

I'm naked at the party.
Such wonder and awe.
Welcome to my mind
a puzzle with a flaw.

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.

On rainy days I entertain some from Seattle.
   Sunny days remind me of Huntsville friends.
   Christmas brings Cincinnati childhood to me.
   Boston ghosts come in dreams. I love them.
   Catholic school. Deny physical; embrace spiritual.
   The spring flowers are my Tara in Virginia.
   So many angels have found my heart, I can't count.
   My heart is haunted most by my first. Kathy.

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

We had *** again on cruise control
silent grunts so not to wake baby
to prove my love for a sacred hole
We'll do it again next week maybe?

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.

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

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

I went to 6 Alcott Lane
I grew up joy and pain
For sale after the funeral
Mom and Dad now unreal.
Just sad empty spaces
ghosts call our places
Christmas mornings
Echoes of warnings.

Is it Church or is it State?
A dollar short and day late.
Holy water incense.
Scientific nonsense.
Teachers ****** virginity.
Senators leave you drowned.
Presidents become be clowned.
Don't trust the Vicars
always in your knickers.
Don't you worry, Baby, just
hold onto these matches.
I have the gas can full
and a nuclear winter in
my secret laboratory.
I'll write the wedding
vows that stick this time.

I eat live toads in the daytime
put it in the bank and spend it
in the night with drunken poems
I write listening to magic songs
that put me in frames of mind to
put my puzzles together again.

How to move from here to there?
With our entire life in tiny boxes.
Million rocks to move somewhere
Sisyphus calls the Uhaul  bosses.

There was something
   stuck in my brain
   like an ear wig
   maybe a silly song
   a painless pain
   an unseen stain
   lipstick beauty viper
   man of constant sorrow
   never a tomorrow
   barely a today
   nobody left to pay
   except the piper.

I'm 70 and blush like a 10 year old
    crushing on the girl with snake hair.
    She's electric and boombox loud laughs
    and shakes me from my very foundation.

    I have my life packed into boxes ready
    to sell for pennies at the yard sale.
    I can't dance. Rhythm was never my thing.
    I don't want to fall in love with her.

    This valentine inside my chest betrays me.
    I'm always ready to fall in love with crazy.
    The ashes smoldered and now come alive and
    We'll burn with lust in uncertain tomorrows.

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.

Your breath rattles in a fragile chest
the heart feebly clanks to push blood
when there's a bit in the aorta. You're a
young man in an ancient failing body by
an unknown disease. You lean on a cane
slumped in a chair waiting for a miracle
that won't come for you. You're a skeleton.
We fear you. We fear death.
I fear ignorance.

At a Mass Ave bus stop. Broken mirror in a
storefront. I see, in slivers of glass, pieces
of my mind apart from each other, madness.
Mostly I see guilt. Always GUILT! Like
being stalked by some ******* Russian writer!
Deliver me from me. Help me find redemption.
I left my wife and kids, just some suicide.
Life an emotional minefield I danced through!
******, beer and cigarettes kept me sane.
Angels guided me, so many I've lost count.
Some would call them friends and they were.
They guided me back to what mattered most.
My kids were the missing piece of me.
Awkward reunions, regaining trust, closeness.
Katie and Sean.  A mantra I never forgot.
An energy I felt while alone in the desert.

Before the War.
   Loud laughter, loud friends, loud desires.
   Dance with abandon and never look back.
   We're shooting stars going to the top!
   Keep your sour grapes for another harvest.

    After the War.
   Endless hours with silent men now broken.
   Laughs are obscene, desire died in trenches.
   I'm missing parts. I'm not me anymore. Stumps.
   Empty sleeves and pants sing mute in parades.

I've parchment skin
blue veins within
my brain goes wild
a mad sugar child
I see my life over
four leaf clover
deliver me to her
an old bed lover.

I forgot how much you loved me.
I forgot how much I loved you.
I found our new lover's writings
from 30 perfect years ago before
we knew ourselves. Before we just
went through the motions living
little lives too busy with work
and kids and avoiding intimacy.

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.

I've been drinking
since the river took
her from my arms.
I hold despair as
my lover now.

Drunk we ****** after work
in your car. You drove me home.
I told my wife the bus was broke.
Your perfume screamed I roam.

like a ***** the metaphor
keeps giving it out on, on
I did my best to live. I failed.
The fourth, the fifth,
the minor fall, the major lift.
Hallelujah. Midnight Mass choir
lifts me to tears of joy as he's
born to a ****** in an angry mob.

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 died long ago before you were born.
We're related over time. You are angry
like I was. You are strong as was I.
Don't worry like I always did that
outcomes were throw of the dice.
We're warriors who fight angry.

We're Subjugated Sycophants.
**** ourselves in innocence.
Fear the King's omniscience.
We set fire to our conscience.

My wife favors sweatpants and sweaters
  like a nun. Under her armor she hides
  Victoria's secret and pierces my heart
  and slays my dragon with her thong.

Heroes always save the day.
White horses and blazing guns
chase the bad guys far away.
Never happens. We're stunned.
America is now a paradise for
terrorists. The effete elite
opened this country's doors
guaranteed our final defeat.

Not old enough to buy beer
we virgins seduced ourselves
in Eden's garden of tall grass
in Greenhills we surrendered
broke vows and commandments
and parents' hearts for biology.

Never knew his wife
their complex life
look in her eyes
her vows or lies.
Guilt always bleeds
into all our seeds.
innocent grandson
never mind the fun.

I wish that I knew you more
than I knew your brother.
How can I even the score?

Please don't slam the door in anger.
   Don't go punching holes into our wall.
   Tame your madness or stay with her
   and don't bother to come home at all.

   You talk for hours to useless shrinks
   who, Freud like, say it's all your mom.
   We just need the child support to eat.
   I need your warmth and beauty and calm.

I still hear your voices
concerned with choices
I made while living
oddly now forgiving
live inside your shell
under the matrix spell
can you hear me running
for my precious living.

Like father like son
all we do is carry on
best we stay the course
never better never worse
rules are rules don't forget
cost of family some regret
marry at a crossroad's heart
love or pedigree is the start
***** and egg make me in womb
worms strip bones in the tomb

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.

On southern trees
pecans on knees
beg for hope
from the rope
dogs are howling
Klansmen growling
not denied their fun
raisins in their sun.

I saw your astounding beauty
  I noticed your imperfection
  I saw you in black and white
  asked for a dance in reflection
  we danced our still life posed
  and didn't bow or curtsy after
  we flirted shamelessly silent
  deaf to the quiet laughter.

We would do well to die before our dreams.
  I leer where once I aroused, an old fool.
  How do I limp to my finish line? Help me
  know my place now that I've packed my life
  in boxes. I yearn for my big sins. Where is
  lust's object of desire? Where is my ******?

Maybe I'm just a madman
screaming poems from attics
nobody hears or understands
the fragile needs of addicts
who suffers the pain of others
burned and broken down
orphans without mothers
raised by a circus clown.

doctors' bag of tricks
elixirs, shots, magic mix.
cure the sick. sight to blind.
take madness from your mind.
Sad? a pill. Mad? a pill.
ADD? pills keep you still.
Cancer? You need poison
kills you slowly within
leaves you barely alive
to hopefully survive.

My poetry happens when I rip my emotions
from their safe harbors and throw them into
my riptide of drink and music and crazy and
jump from thought to thought ****** like a
puzzle with pieces tossed but I see lines and
words hook to words and touch nerves and art.

I love you inside your mind
  I love you outside your head.
  I love you in solitude or screaming
  stroking you gently or kissing thighs
  in dreams or nightmares bravely or
  shrinking in fear from your anger.
  I love you inside out and upside down
  north south east west night or day.
  I always love you most at 3AM while
  you gently snore and talk in your sleep.