I watch the wall clock
seconds tick then tock
stranger blows my ****
I come on my left sock
and ask what's your name
she says I'm all the same.

There's a poem in there if
   I can strip away the debris
   and polish it like silver
   and read it at a posh affair.
   I'll use a singsong baritone
   to give it gravity like Dylan.

I was Jesus Christ walking
  on the ocean out to dolphins
  playing on the sea to toss
  ***** to fetch like my dog
  used to do before he died
  and left me broke apart
  never could find my heart
  I don't know where to start

As the raven's shadow eclipsed the sun
   I trembled with doubt for my beliefs.
   I wished I knew hidden truths gods are
   privy to and I'll die in ignorance again.
   Once more I claw beneath dignity in
   search of a captain's beauty with wild
   hair and wild heart and a poet's blood
   to write this history upon bent knee.
   Maybe we'll discover we're pieces of the
   same puzzle and complete a masterpiece.

I am kind.
  I am cruel.
  I am loved
  and a fool.
  I am guilty.
  I am free.
  You'll find me
  in Agony.

Come now, child, life is long.
Learn loves, hates and pains
as you hum your silly song
a cancer with cruel refrains,
never really actually a Fair.
Most of the herd won't care.
Some will always beware
of a bad luck death stare.

I found parts of me
inside my poetry
I could never see
in strange reality.

This old poet poses with his worn out lines.
Tender poetry of youth and love's beginnings,
faltering steps beyond puberty's uncertainty.

I've pounded my love on typewriters, each letter
has a part to play in this drama with a weight
all its own. Smash a key and it opens old wounds.

I pound Kathy Cindy Betsy Karen Georgine Terry
Lynette and my final keys are JAYNE.
It spells my final breath named Tia.

Our souls bright light
in sin's darkest night
expose our true delight
as death takes it flight.

A magic box where all of your
ugliness and cruelty are forgiven
when you recite the sin list to
your priest and perform penance.
Guilt  lives in shadows of the
heart always whispering madness.

As angels go Dorothy was my favorite!
She knew our talents. She believed.
She helped us believe in ourselves.
She laughed the hardest, she loved us all,
she led these lost souls into places of peace.
We miss you dearly. I miss you most of all.
The scarecrow, tin man and cowardly lion.
We'll meet at the end of the yellow brick road.

I'm going to say goodnight
and say my prayers
and hope to God
there won't be bears!

I finally forgot how to breathe
I've lived in a vacuum so long.
I drown in an ocean full of life,
surface days later in this song.
We confess our serial betrayals
acting like lovers forgiving
turn our black souls outward
continue to act out our living.

Death is the forever
no clocks or never.
No pesky calendar
no future or past
no appointments
no nagging or
disappointments
forever no more.

I keep my mistress
in my faded Levi's
in case of distress
guilt for all my lies
wedding vows broken
our kids are betrayed
silent them spoken
I leave as they played

My life is fading away
day by day going astray
I can't place you I forget
I love you but I regret
I forgot your name again
I know where we've been
I remember cans on cars
cheers in so many bars
laughter and pleasure
beyond any measure.

The world is splendid. It's
     bright and loud and colorful.
     I could blow a fuse and bring
     my machine to a sudden halt.
     I keep my light low and noise
     whispers and never love fully.
     I walk among the tombstones of
     those who've gone before me as
     others will dance upon my grave
     and drink toasts to this madman.

I saw God's spark set us in motion.
     Hell broke loose and molten metals
     exploded into a universe too big to
     imagine. Light chased dark and light
     was born. Globes crashed into globes.
     Someone's soul began the human blight.

They tried to break me.
I kept spitting out the bit.
You can't tame the righteous  
Fire burned my spirit.
Wedding bands won't
shackle me like chains
I buck and snort and rebel
burn you with my flames.

Pose with me. Smile.
   I'll be your friend
   in a picture frame
   'til the bitter end
   nailed to the cross
   of your destruction
   buried in shame
   and a resurrection.

Hanging on old bones
I'm parchment skin
my story tattooed
litanies of my sin.
I rattle when I breathe
and forget most things
except my lovers and
my wedding rings.

Our baby got tangled
up in tubes and died.
Buried our lust with
the forgotten bride.
Forgive my lost way
I want to want you
it just won't be today

I'm little people and work in a kitchen as a sous chef.
    Long hours and chop chop chop all ******* shift 'til it
    finally ends and we escape to our addictions of pleasure.
    We wake in different beds tangled with strangers we know.
    I'm a ******. I've slept with every braniac you can imagine.
    They come in minutes and spend hours trying to convince me
    their *ism is the one true god. I listen, I'm paid and I leave.
    There's no difference. We need love of any kind and any cost.

We were young and beautiful.
     We tasted each other and feasted
     on our banquet. I smell you still
     and I'm 73 and you're beside me in
     bed in dreams that are more alive
     than my daily crawl toward death.

Kick the cat and beat the dog.
   Burn the children's presents.
   Leave them alone in the fog.
   Desert them with resentments
   chasing lust's false promises
   thinking love finds us again.
   Only more willing mistresses
   never love, just lusts' pain.

You pose for me from time to time
   I sketch you with my words.
   Perfect curves angles and shadows.  
   Sun frames hair in a halo;
   cheekbones of a movie queen;
   Cleopatra smile of yours
   brings me to my knees.
   You stop time.
   I see forever
   in your eyes.

When the mirror became a window
   I finally saw me as I've always been.
   I saw the storm of war blood that
   goes on forever through its martyrs
   veins both living and dead destroying
   happiness with wounds of memories.

Picasso Dali Escher Dylan,
     The force that through the
     green fuse drives the flower
     drives my green youth
     is my destroyer. Life Story.
     Black ink portraits of me
     begging for colors corpses
     whiter shades of pale.

Just dying to be grown up
forget my father I'm a man
I shave, drink beers in a cup
war is my first time woman
taste of Eve and ammunition
boys line up on walls to die
murmured Act of Contrition
chewed up in jaws of a lie.

I've finally come undone
   the whole crazy orchestra
   plays frenzied on the sun.
   I stare hard to see them
   in the blinding light of
   noon finally seeing truth.

Can I cure the sick or raise the dead?
   Can I feed a crowd with fish and bread?
   Can I turn water into Chardonnay?
   Can I walk across your pool today?
   Can I count on a betrayal Judas kiss?
   Can I die and rise reborn in bliss?

The bullets in the water fly
like a flock in autumn's sky.
Blood paints the sea burnt red.
My lovers always wash up dead
on the white sand beach instead
of satisfied next to me in our bed.

For the most part I was never sane.
I was drunken numb to everything.
Power lines fell into your rain.
You deadly siren, your wires sing.
I needed to touch your flesh.
We were so alive and young.
I needed to taste your ***.
You're always on my tongue.

I'm not equipped to be an easy love.
I don't know why. Women can be the
nectar I need and ease my aching heart.
Desire is always offered with an
enormous cost that I'm unable to pay.
I try to make a silk purse from a pig's ear.
I give her pearls and lipstick.
Party girls don't want to meet the parents.

Rockefeller was a villain
back in the olden times
until he gave away all of
his pockets full of dimes.
A gentle kind old man frail,
caring, generous to a fault
sold his soul on newsreels
to an adoring sheep like cult.

People everywhere but I'm not here.
Loud. Noise. Laughter. Music.
I'm numb to it. I mingle and help them
laugh and toast my dear friends.
I'm outside in a tree house looking at stars.
I am crying for a terrible loss only I see.
A friend calls for me and says we're leaving.
My love demands she's going. The loss to be.

Welcome true Love.
I trust. Tread easy.
Don't become a ghost
haunt my memory.

My heart has become
fields of unmarked graves
calcified and numb
we're all Love's slaves.

75 and moving to last page
time to clear an empty nest
just accept the final stage
then  throw away the rest.

Dumpster in the driveway
collects my broken dreams
books bought never read
nothing as it ever seems.

Guitars and keyboards tossed
lyrics forgotten as stutters
all my words are dead lost
poems die in wet gutters.

Dodged a bullet called life
so beautiful yet shattered
fine crystal bloodied hands
we all act as if it mattered.
We protest in graveyards cry
blood tears for tiny abortion
boy or girl we never know now
just another ignored correction.

I feel your shadow from above
  hunting me with your eager eyes.
  I always told you of my weakness
tear my love apart with  your lies.
  Keep your talons from my flesh.
  Spare my heart. Ignore my carrion.
  Share your heat on our wedding bed.
  Stay with me through the bitter end.

She hypnotized me.
She mesmerized me
staring in my eyes
telling me the lies
I never believed
her love deceived
I broke my own heart
just like I always do.

Absinthe at dawn
a night club
a dance hall
a bordello
the world swept up
in Bohemian revolution
bright colors explode
inside fuddled brains
full of acid and do me
next or I steal your
planet Earth for my
Butterfly collection.
Orbits in orbits in
more orbits brick on
brick make a church
with graves outside
fading light at vespers
when they pray forever.

We're all being swept to sea in a
riptide of madness in a sinister
world of mad science and trusted
aides with long knives and smiles.

It's just me. I can't be you.
You are sunset. I'm morning dew.
I haunt you but you evict me.
You live in my bones for free.
Love is the harshest mistress
wearing the smallest dress.

They had to have a live tree
instead of a fake ironically.
The thing ended up killing me.
It's not big enough can't you see?
It was monstrous as it could be
but kept them quiet and happy.
I tried to lift it, was on a knee.
Help! They ignored my plea.
Coroner delivered me for free.
Moving the tree cost a hefty fee.

Who fumbled the ball?
I think it was us,
the spoiled rotten
Baby Boomers.
Misinformed we
sold our souls to
Wall Street and her
golden treasures.
When everything
has a price on it
there is no value.
We sold our America.

I'm 7. I want to be like God.
He makes my mom laugh out loud.
I want to be Him when I grow up.
I smoke the butts in His ashtray and
drain His beer too warm to finish.
He's the God that I wish God was.

I used to look to the future,
        the only thing left is a past.
        There's an emptiness I can't fill.
        I've always been troubled fun.
        It's a steep price for a ticket
        to a ride that lasts a minute.
        The line is long but moves fast.
        Afterwards you change your name.
        We never drown in the shallows.
        We always preferred the deep.

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 still hear her whispered pleas
in poetry she wrote in need.
Abuse, excuse, forgive and live.
"I know the beast loves my beauty.
I just need to keep it perfect!
He purrs so lovely when he's sated."