They live in crypt like bars
stained yellow with cigarettes
smoked over too many years.
Livers surrendered long ago
give them ugly yellow eyes
and skin the color of ****.
The stench of alcohol clings
like way too much cologne.
They never sleep. They just
pass out. Come to for a drink.
They just die day to day
while we all look away.

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.

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.

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 and Frost and Dylan.
They stood in the hall in tears
for this Poets timely killing.

Midnight and I see black umbrellas below
silent waiting to see their dead monarch
in his coffin in His grand state funeral.
I **** disdain white on the fierce dark.
I'm a lowly pigeon subject of the King
above pomp and circumstance living life.

My brain won't stop spinning
like plates balanced on sticks.
I've drunk my share of *****.
What's wrong with me? Am I
diseased? I worry I might die.
I thank God and chemists
I have my sacred Ambien and
fall into a rabbit hole to Oz.
Visit me in my dreams naked
just like a million years ago.

My life is metaphor and simile
  between Shakespeare and Bukowski.
  Light like Nash, dark like Plath.
  Drunk like Thomas, deep like Yeats.
  I won't go gentle. An honest poet
  slouching to Bethlehem for fame.

I gave you my heart but
    knew you couldn't keep it.
    I'm still expecting you to
    hold on to Love to a finish
    line that doesn't even exist.
    I set fire again and never look
    back. I smell the burning
    flesh. I hear familiar screams.
    The burning flesh is mine alone.
    The screams are in my head.

I live in Van Gogh's
mad sky of midnight
dance with the ******
settle in our delight.

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.

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

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.

She said, Sobriety is bliss.
I said, At best it'***** or miss.
Confess your sins of neglect
don't forget to genuflect
get your sponsor's signature
for court ordered overture.
What drags you back to a bar?
You barely move, gone so far.
I'm just in a legal time out
'til bell dings drunk and shout.

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.

Moscow steals grain.
Kulaks sacrifice
crops to rot in fields
starving in Ukraine
we despair then
we die as we must
we fall into snow
and sleep forever.

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.

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?

Pristine saints threaten
fingers crossed again
scout's honor weapon
slingshot to the shin.

Rough edged saw of a man.
What a way with words you had.
Blue collar barfly a smoke in lips
put us all in the places we know,
where we feel comfort after all.
Our uncles smell of ***** and
aunts always favor aperitifs
in the afternoons then naps.
Being honest we all crawl in
bars when things fall apart and
we just need comfort of friends
we just met that very day.

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.

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.

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

Protect my beating heart
from being torn apart
by love's broke promise
sealed with that last kiss.
Your taste always lingers
in my hair and fingers.

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.

I'm insecure
bad boy unsure
born broken
first son token
Dad a war hero
speed freak curio
temper short fuse
love hate confuse
minefield stroll
security was stole.

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

Outside my front door
the world dies in war.
It evaporated everyone
exfoliated life is done.
Blow my mind away, Son.
I know god is now gone.

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.

A million laughs
and bubble baths,
loud 1812 Overture
drugs open aperture.
Both mutes *******
broncos are bucking.
Watch silent movies
Garbo on her knees.

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.

Left or right near the brink
doesn't matter what I think.
I lose a daughter to TDS.
CNN is her bent goddess.
She's dead to me forgot.
Fruit from my tree to rot.

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.

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.

We young lust fools
broke sacred rules
back in the day
when I started decay
to shred my soul
leave an empty hole
where decency exists
temptations to resist
embraced the libation
the pure celebration
a stone was a heart
we played our part
West Side Story
Maria and Tony
Star crossed love
in worlds above
I will be dead
our lovers' bed.

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'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.

Waltham, Massachusetts.
First Data was my miracle.
My second coming.
A chance to get it right.
Don't nail me to a cross.
I always rise from the dead.

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.

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.

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.

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 ******?

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.

I have reached an age
without another page
pay an obscene wage
shouting more rage
on my silent stage
death's final gauge.

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

I'm torn between intense lust
and a vapid spent reality.
I live above a shop with my *****.
We play at marriage but know better.
My past vows and children haunt me.
When the bill comes due I'm spent,
nothing but debtor's prison of
my own guilt. I love in madness.

The full moon fills my window.
  Worries bounce around my brain
  like pinball's on gravity flight.
  I wait for a sunrise judgement.
  Where will death's gavel land?
  Inside a Savior's morning light.

I never believed in anything
as much as I believed in you.
I'll never forget you. Your
heartbeat is still in my own.
You taught me how to love.
You taught me patience and
humility and to be kind when
it wasn't deserved but needed.

We write poems like ants in colonies.
We submit our jewel here and hope
for the front page. I'm hanging on.
I wait for the phone to ring or the
letter in the mailbox but I feel like
I'm playing the lottery with my
submissions. Billion to one chance.

Hormones off the chart
we race to broken heart
time has cruelty loaded
in the chamber exploded
face another day ghosted
as our goose is roasted.

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.