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.

I see him in my dreams.
He's not an old god on a throne.
He's an eye in my mind's eye.
I see him as he sees me and
His creation vast and alone
wanting to understand what's
behind the great curtain of OZ.
He died and we're his dreams.

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

Give me your last dance
   on your card. Take a chance.
   You might find some romance
   rock to the music in a trance.
   In France I'll buy you a beret
   you can wear every single day.

Keep laughing
you never cried
at my dancing
all I did was died.
My soul is prancing
pearly gates pride.

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.

sun soaked and salted drunken poet
eyes bleached blind looking at her
beauty framed naked in bright halo
gulls ride winds kite like a blur

I'm in love with a perfect stranger
Everybody gathers at dusk the beach
we hold hands in just pretend
to watch the sun lose its reach.

Wizards of Oz exist.
Toto leads our resist.
Truth will Trump lies,
open up sleepy eyes.
Save souls in the tent
sacred snakes for rent.

I finally felt at home in a womb
  safe against a hostile world. I had
  a radio and listened to Boston's
  Classical station and read People's
  Almanac and smoked Parliaments and
  drank beers while finding the truth.

I love humanity
fear their insanity
understand frailty
eat sins of the guilty.
Drag me off my cross
plant me like a flower
into this sacred land to
rise again at your hour.

She's troubled and twisted
    my earth bound mistress
    offers me all my dreams
    without faulty promises.

    She lives in constant rain
    but loves without any pain
    and reaches me in places no
    honest woman could ever do.

love.
  ouch.
    touch.
    don't.
   hate.
        forever.
   ­   never.
    stop.
     once.
       again.

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.

Empathetic. Tear stains.
  Heart afire and broken.
  Youth. Broke vows. Broke
  family. Round the drain.
  Angel saved me. Broke her
  heart. Angels saved me.
  Broke their hearts. Devil
  saved me. Broke her heart.
  Queen Jayne saved me as
  stars in our dark night
  alone together we do it
  til we create new light.

With a flash of light
  a twisted violent wind
  and mushroom cloud we
  met the wicked monster
  we made on the hill to
  end war's little murders
  with massive death. Dust
  to dust ashes to ashes
Set the atmosphere on fire.
End the world of all desire.

I draw my face on a bar napkin.
    I look like the night we met.
    Take me back to that night again
    when we hadn't touched just yet
    but yearned for Love and touches.
    I draw our family on a bar napkin.

Live or die a tick of time
every life worth a dime
cries of help from a mime
all birth and death a crime.

Delivered from womb to light
blinded by the sun in flight
nobody has an actual face
in this white beeping space.

Wrapped in a tight shroud
my burial a gathered crowd
weep and laugh all so loud
baptized in a raining cloud.

Tonight I smell something in the air.
  The city's burning down in despair.
  The water's up to my ankles on the deck.
  I feel the noose tightening on my neck.
  I'm in dad's bomber in fields of flack
  we're on fire and aren't coming back.

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

At 5 I broke my leg.
At 12 a girl
broke my heart.
At 18 I broke apart
everything for Love
set adrift at start.
Drowned and burned
to death I turned
around my own sun
another day of fun
searching for Eden
rebirth in a garden.

I spent my father's cruelty upon that poor dog.
   Every night of my life I feared what I did.
   I spared my children for awhile but abandoned
   them in the end as I was swept up in madness
   and delivered to Boston. The land of Oz. It had
   computer wizards and shrinks with ******.
   I kept my mind intact with drugs, *****, ***
   and guardian angels with curly hair and
   warm places within their hearts and souls.
   They helped me find my way back home again.

I'll boil you in my angry heart.
    We'll serve you as appetizer and
    cheap wine to accompany. I'll ****
    your friend on our bed at midnight.
    I'll wake in morning sun you're gone
    always feet on the ledge of a death
    you can't avoid until I pull a trigger
    to my temple and take my last breath.

grow your hair
no underwear
smoking grass
sharing ***
wear Birkenstock's
**** the clocks
be brave, don't doubt
turn on, drop out
Michigan Avenue
we're born anew
paint a full moon
in the living room
nothing as it seems
in midnight dreams.

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.

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.

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.

Is there any other kind
young without any clues?
I'm a Helen Keller blind
off key singing the blues.
Fire's desire demands touch
forbidden by all I've heard.
West Side Story is too much.
I Love You forever my word.

I stare into my bloodshot eyes.
I count the stains of long goodbyes.
Forgive my sins rosary bead lies.
Let her sleep or the baby cries.

I broke my own first
maybe it was worst.
It hurt me from Dad
war's scars were bad.
So much love wasted
Lovers barely tasted.

Crossing Texas I hear
a voice on my AM radio
sounded like gramps.
A comfort to hear truth
about DC's gaslighting.
He faded in the thunder.
I turn the dial all day
on my way to wonder.
We need his voice
guide us to rejoice.

Love exists in a carnival
house of mirrors
each reflection fetching
in certain light such dears.
One night I'll decide
eat the lead of my .44
commit my sacred suicide
avoid blood on the floor.

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.

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

Ides of March
     March 15, 2024

Turning point in our decline
Soros' Obama's Biden's crime
on full display all in place.
Never shame, never disgrace.
Proud comrades fill the gulags
that is after all just prologues.

I was born in a spaceship
on its way to Mars to start
over. Leave Earth to fools
without a caring heart.
Halfway on our journey
asteroid storms start
we pray for God's help
our ship is torn apart.

I'm moving to Nirvana
a place beyond the sun
millions of promises
never a broken one.

I heard a snake hiss
our heated first kiss
love unknown is lust
hearts in blind trust
broke piece by piece
rent by wedded lease.

I saw God's spark set me in motion.
     Hell broke loose and molten metals
     exploded into a universe too big to
     imagine. Light begot light and suns
     were born. Globes crashed into globes
     stars blinked in night's black canvas.

We're 2 peas in a pod.
Twins almost but
you're a cat and I'm
just your servant. Bill.
You have sacred routines
as do I. You **** in sand
and I scoop it into a bag.
You reserve affection
for those who deserve it.
You have one eye. I have two.
We see the same good and
bad and touch our hearts.

We'll bury our hearts
in their aching parts
later when blood dries
we understand whys.
We love certain things
hate no wedding rings.

It gets hard to hear over the noise of our times.
Everyone screams their bedridden complaints over
again like we've never heard. We're blind not deaf.
The Voice whispers at 3am when I can't stop thinking
long enough to sleep. It sounds like mom and god and
lovers lost long ago and old men speaking of old wars
and young pups who want to taste blood of new battles.
I lament and repent and resent and relive my life told
in dead night quiet as I listen with laughs and tears to
The Voice That is Great Within Us.

A speck exploded in nothing
made everything in something
we fall in love in moonlight
burn our skin in the sunlight
drown in the vast oceans deep
dream in endless night's sleep
science denies a divine design
Darwin is their sacred shrine

God's wrath struck the Joshua tree
   and reduced it to cremated ashes,
   let Rattlers unwind. Left it to be.
   We watched it in lightening flashes.
   We died in angry desert cactus scrub
   hidden branches of the poison creosote
   where the only touch is death's rub.
   We just grow colder without hope,
   join our bodies on this unmarked dune.
   The stars are your bright eyes above.
   I stare at your beauty in a full moon.
   Kiss is a final breath our dying love.

A knock on my attic walk up,
no good reason for my fear,
I'm a starving poet birthing
a poem to our new frontier.
Different like Bukowski and
cummings,  Dylan and Frost.
They had tears in their eyes for
every poet's fierce lonely cost.

My poetry starts with nicotine.
     After awhile I mixed in alcohol.
     Catholicism is a main ingredient.
     Puberty is a wicked mix of Absinthe.
     Next I add a father broken from war.
     My mom could be friend or betrayer.
     I had to maintain a delicate balance
     between being real or just amusing.
     Amusing is easy. Real is impossible
     yet here I am confessing my sins.

Raise your beers to us common men.
We wear denim and carry lunches to
rough jobs with rough hands packed
by rough wives in rough drafty homes.
We raise kids with rough love who can
endure in rough times and love men
with rough ways. We are common folk.
We're no different than the rest of you.

The broke heart heals
with laughter's peals
new love broken beds
always goes to heads
or tails depending
on a happy ending.

We aren't nuclear wasted
dust lost in wind's burn
one more whiskey tasted
one more Sun we turn.

War or tumor radiation
are we really more dead.
Always fight eradication.
No fear inside my head.

She was stuck in a loop her memory brief.
      She was still my Mom but not quite.
      I broke at the loss but kept answering
      her questions in a litany. Doing fine.
      Bailey's in Grad school. Sean's job's great.
      Kate's art is magnificent. Such talent.
      Jayne's as beautiful as ever. No, I'll never
      forget the life we lived on Alcott Lane.

Grand kids I see infrequently.
Great grand kids I never met.
Whose fault doesn't matter now
the ticking clock can't be reset.
Each day is harder to feel alive.
I can't keep hiding all the hurt.
I leave for you all I have.
I give you my empire of dirt.