My mother's father Grampa
was a fallen woman's champ.
Amusing drunk wicked smile
he had his fancy bow tie style.
French and sniffing all about
sows seeds of grandson doubt?
Truth with age revealed a fact.
He was just a cheap carnival act.

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.

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.

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

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.

My dear old friend
I can't watch your end
between the seconds
ticking it's threatens
life's final surrender
the great pretender.

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 was 10 running in a field to the pool
where Patty wore her 2 piece and owned
my boyish heart. She was 15 and I was
******* her alone in my bedroom at night.
Everyone I ever ****** was 2 piece Patty.
She was beat to death with a fence post.

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.

I was ****** and drunk at 3am.
My conscience called my phone.
We loved and never answered.
I crawled back to bed now alone
a little room at hell's midnight.
I woke in your fierce sunlight.

We wired kids drank coffee
   in Kroger's and stoled fire
   and cigarettes. We were free
we were open to inspire.
   We kissed girls felt fears
   something like young desire,
   warmth we'd chase for years.

The best politicians
easy money can buy
promise satisfaction
unwashed masses die.

Gates and Fauci are
eugenic reasons why.
Filthy rich wage war
poison shots then lie.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

the *****'s strewn about the room
     like branches from a violent storm
     some ascending some descending
     some dying some better off dead

     you better watch your manners even
     in a crack house lust will bend even
     stubborn knees to adore coveted bones
     and defile you with stubborn needs

     a savior is born from these ashes
     hope delivered from a crack head
     rising above human frailty we
     will all crawl to a promised land

     the crack house is no place for
     punctuation or capital letters
     My arrogance is misplaced. We
     have needs that won't be silenced.

I love you more than life.
Addiction is so seductive.
I lose things left and right.
You are most destructive.

My frightened little boy
  still lives inside my head
  always in background noise
  'til I'm drunk and go to bed.
  I take a pill to keep him
  from screaming when I wake
  so I can drink my coffee and
  his fragile hands won't shake.
  Every lover wants to save him
  suckle from her ****** breast
  but he drinks her dry and none
  is ever left for the needy rest.

You call, leave a message
"call me back when you can".
I check my schedule see
appointment for my scan.
Films like a Xmas tree
tumors invade me again.
Call me. I'm afraid to die.
My phone is dead as am I.

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.

The kindest man I've ever known,
  to a fault. Gave his everything
  freely for a perfumed kiss and
  ******* and wedding and divorce.
  He fixed our mistakes on night shift,
  broke window and snack machine.
  He couldn't fix his broke judgement
  why pick up your killer hitching?

I hate me. I don't know why.
I want to live in a cocoon
forever. I won't hurt you
again. I'm a live love grenade
never in it for the long run
just a night or two and watching
you go into love's harsh fog.
I'm a live wire in a storm.

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.

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

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.

I barely beat the dawn home.
It was a long night more alive
than ever. I'll die later on.
****. Coke. Jack. Lust. Love.
My humors keep me balanced.
All is right with the world.
Lust is never too old or too drunk.
I'll crawl into the city again
and find the fast lane and jump
the tracks into the stratosphere.
I burn brightest for an instant
and die inside you satisfied at last.

My world has become lava
  pouring from some volcano
  I'll never see. I smell the
  hell fire and feel the heat
  but never drown in molten
  ***** flowing over my small
  life that is a blink in some
  god's eye as we're swallowed.
  I'll wake and walk the dogs
  and pick up their **** and
  let them **** where they must
  and wonder why it all works.

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

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.

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 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.

By the time we met June and December
     I made you laugh and remember me
     when I called you and set us both free
     we drink cheap and **** like monsters
     in the Motel 6 an old grey cowboy and
     another lover hoping in my despair.

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 know life matters
except road splatters
and children eaten
and cruelly beaten
blood and tears
rivers of fears.

I can always make you smile.
Take a Polaroid say cheese.
In a minute, takes awhile
Mona Lisa if you please.
Your beauty breaks my camera.
Your beauty breaks my heart.

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.

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.

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

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 see your shadow from above
  hunting me with your eagle eyes.
  I always told you of my weakness
  now you know just where to strike.

  Keep your talons from my flesh.
  Spare my heart and fervent wishes.
  Share your heat on our wedding bed.
  Stay with me through the bitter end.

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.

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

Life is ice and fire
cold as hell desire
words are whips
lashed from lips
in hurt or rage
from next page.

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

I go each day and put my offering on the bar.
  Heal my broken soul 'til the things used up.
  Be sure to keep a tip for all your hard work,
  saving all us from choking on the coal dust
10 percent for our funerals buried inside
the mine's indifference who lives or dies.

To yank a soul out
of nonexistence into
this meat and to force
a life into this thresher
my child died painless
still inside my innocence
she spared me the sin
of having been a father.

Bury my heart
at Wounded Knee
I played my part
now set me free.