Cancer is completely indifferent to 5K beat cancer runs
    and pink fight cancer ribbons and fervent prayers and
    candle lighting and novenas and incense and myrrh.
    Cancer has no hate or love for us. We're their Earth.

    Chemo wasn't a walk in the park nor walking on hot coals.
    "good days and bad". It was managed. The "cure" is ironic.
    Bring the patient near death. **** the cells, good and bad.
    Let the body recover and scan to look for dead tumors. :-)

    In Cancerville we all have ports to pump us with chemo.
    Pour in the heavy metals and Mustard gas derivatives.
    We all puke and **** accidentally. Think of your worst
    hangover times 10. Oddly we want to continue to live on.

    Time crawls at a snail's pace in Cancerville; wait and despair.
    MRI's and Scans and blood work. Expecting the worst always!
    Cancerville is a casino where you can only bet your life.
    It's a game of chance in Cancerville. Bets against the house.

A funeral procession
a box for confession
the Fourth of July
and wondering why
the young had to die
can souls really fly?
Without arms or legs
no saluting the flags.

adrift in the sea that is humanity
    where we meet by chance in water's
    fickle movements. I want to hold you
    only for a clock tick to love you
    for a lifetime. we'll float apart in
    stormy seas and be with other debris
    clutching and touching and trusting
    in another lifetime in a second.
we believe in god and miracles
but we can't find our way home.

Two lovers court you
give you sweets and all
the lust you would want
peg, hole or blow up doll.

first son arrives
into some mad carnival
of French clown and
angry war torn father
stern German granny and
carnival barkers promise
just more disappointment
drunk strangers pass him
around like an empty flask
hoping someone fills it soon
time just gets away from us
we pass in forgot memories

first son arrives
into some mad world
of French clowns and
angry war torn father
stern German granny and
carnival barkers promise
just more disappointment
drunk strangers pass him
around like an empty flask
hoping someone fills it soon
we die as the photo fades
lost in light of full moon.

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.

She comes around
when I'm in my cups.
I hear a meow at 10:20
wonder what she wants.
I wait and turn around
but she's still there.
She stares from her eye
haunting me purring.
I tell her goodnight.
She purrs. I go to bed.

Catcher in the Rye
Men all learn to lie
Women learn to cry
shrinks learn why
soldiers learn to die
angels learn to fly
we all say goodbye
regret we never try

Men all learn to lie
Women learn to cry
shrinks learn why
soldiers learn to die
angels learn to fly
we all say goodbye

What happened? We were so in love.
  You were life itself. I ached for you.
  Pinky swear, the first, my only Love,
  be gentle, be mine forever. I'm blue.

  Babe? Love? I'm cold. I need you.
  I let you have my secret taste.
  You've split my world in two.
  You laid my world to waste.

  I will rise from these ashes.
  I am reborn. I see the new
  as it is and will conquer it on
  my own terms. ****, You.

Itches
*******
crucifixes
alter boy
priest toy
lover joy

lesbian nun
so much fun
spank girls
warm curls
flag unfurls
****** pearls

Catholic Charities  

We play into your emotion
to some son of god martyr
with memorized devotion.
50% ROI buy into a charter.
Fill pews Cloward Piven
love third world forgiven.
Erase borders invite
every known parasite.

We leave you in droves.
You betrayed our beliefs.
Treason to Constitution.
My uncle was a priest.
****** a congregation.
**** the evil devil  beast.

creeping around brothels
  in the stroke of midnight
  crawling to confessional's
  pardon in noon's sunlight

I was a catholic schoolboy altar boy
  totally against abortion. I knocked up
  a cheerleader who still blows bubbles.
  I took her to planned parenthood. We
  lost our problem and were given condoms
  we don't use because we want to be close.

I have a vampire cat
sleeps all day
up all night
I bet she has
a magic cape
I've never seen
her in a mirror.
I sleep with a cross.
She lost one eye
but she'll never die.

We're born in cauldrons
  full of boiling regrets,
  disappointments, neglect
  with no time to reflect
  questions never answered
  death beckons  feather bed
  rest for troubled dead
  bathed in blood in irons.

He had a lust for a life
chose a female for a wife.
She grew fat with his child
but was killed in the wild.
He grieves as best he can
his wife chooses a man.

Ice cubes ring like church bells in my drink.
I smell incense like the altar boy I was.
I drink Christ's Chardonnay from a chalice.
    
Celibacy is much easier than sexually complex
relationships with jealousy and doubt and *******
measuring the success or failure of a marriage.

I'm my father and his father
angry Irish keep our fury on
a chain of whiskey and beer
the ******* beast is English
take our crops leave potatoes
black for us to die eating
angry Irish with long fuses
but furious explosions finally.

Your flesh so inviting
  but we kept on fighting
  ******* until I was bored.
  Lust beheaded by my sword.

Nubile girls excite me
puffy ******* want me
to take their virginity
taste them on my knees
bleed them as I please
colored Autumn leaves.

1940 Pittsburgh, PA

  Spent men went to bars then.
  They were iron workers from
  hell's furnaces with parched
  thirst needing beer and fun.

  They cursed bosses and dealt
  cards and forgot the pain.
  They went home drunk with
  midnight's bar songs again.

  Sleeping kids and skeptic wife
  greeted him in angry silence.
  Up at dawn for another shift
  and a beer to face the violence.

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.

Make me want you.
Take me on adventures
that might make me die
I go with no regrets
when I'm with you.
Hold me in a tent
snowbound naked
in our cocoon of love.

There's a stench in the air
    that you can't stop smelling.
    We live in squalor with rats
    for pets and corpses bloated.
    Social workers come round
    to count living and dead
    and promise more help but
    just give us maggot bread.
    The swells attend fundraisers
    in latest styles dressed to ****
    feast on caviar and champagne
    while my dying child goes stiff.

He reminds me of me at 10
  best of intentions and trust
  a world that hasn't had time
  to **** a spirit and hope yet
  I'm not that cynical. I'm 72
  still love women at a distance
  and dream young boy dreams
  where we dance all night in
  7th grade with dark beautys'
  desires I never understood.

He lost his mind as mirrors shatter
   in the dark the puzzle pieces scatter.
   The pain rains in angry fury again
   no more chance of love freely given.
   Rainbows fade. The floodwaters recede.
   He seethes and hates his pathetic need.

He reminds me of me at 10
  best of intentions and trust
  a world that hasn't had time
  to **** a spirit and hope yet
  I'm not that cynical. I'm 72
  still love women at a distance
  and dream young boy dreams
  where we dance all night in
  7th grade with dark beauty's
  desires I never understood.

We're open wounds that
refuse to heal again
stubborn stains won't
be forgotten any more
just dice from a womb
a game of Chance and
Charli place your bets
hopscotch over and over
black or red even or odd
feeling lucky? Just nod.

You and I aren't that different.
  I'm insecure and missed love's touch
  fighting ghost's dying while I dream.
  Am I breaking my own heart as such?
  I'll be your dancing monkey if you want.
  I promise you I will break every mirror
  too honest with your reflection as it is
  hovering near your worst nightmare fear.

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.

Did I find you in debris?
Chaotic love set us free.
We bought a leaky boat
our love keeps us afloat.

I lost you in my chaos
an indifferent attitude
I've felt the sacred loss
inside the tiny solitude
I look for you everyday
in the out of way places
we always seemed to stay
searching all the  faces.

I lost you in my chaos
some hurricane attitude.
I've felt the sacred loss
inside painful solitude.
I look for you everyday
in the out of way places
we always seemed to stay
searching all our spaces.
Always holding hands
just smelling your hair
dream of wedding bands
We haven't got a care.

Act I and II are powerful
I never have an Act III.
Love always turns awful.
I have no choice but flee.

I lost you in my chaos
some hurricane attitude.
I've felt the sacred loss
inside painful solitude.
I look for you everyday
in the out of way places
we always seemed to stay
searching all our spaces.

It helps me color inside the lines.
   I paint soft green landscapes instead
   of red hot flames in catholic hell.
   My glass is full of Christ's blood
   that I drink to dream in poet sleep.
   I'll pay my tab in tomorrow's light.

I've read some brilliant poetry on restroom walls.
Where the smell is rough and **** on the floors.
Charles Bukowski was in the stall next door I think.
He snored and farted and died in there for all I know.

Where the slaves were auctioned is
      a market selling trinkets to fools
      who don't understand why the black
      man who carries their bags to their
      rooms won't look them in the eye and
      thanks them for the tip and dismissal.

I was young and lost. I was
unable to keep up when he
went in the bank. I saw him
leaving across the street and
ran after him and a car hit me
and broke my heart and leg.
He was the god I disappointed.
He was the man I kept chasing.

You lovely creature hairy and
too eager to jump on me barely
in the front door. I've never been
loved this much my whole life.
Do you mind if I lie with you
as you die in the soft grass and
sunlight and remember chasing
tennis ***** in your dreams?

I buy me a drink
laugh as I think
of yesterday's ink
talk to my shrink
asking questions
making sugestions.
Why do I *******?
It is a cheap date.

Cheap wine and cigarettes
    classical music on a tinny
    sounding radio in a garret
    writing poetry to other
    lost souls in Boston and
    Southie and Sommerville
    and anyone who ever lit
    a candle for lost souls.

    We poets die each night.
    Our poems are lost in waves
    of cheap wine as we surrender
    to night's promises of a better
    tomorrow. Another chance to grab
    the brass ring on wooden horses.

    We wake with scraps of paper
    bearing witness to last nights
    binge of accidental brilliance.
    We stitch them back together
    best we can and offer them as
  poetry to anyone who cares.

I have no time to listen
to your supposition
of the conversation
of your observation
when you found her ****
swimming in an attitude
she thought it amusing
and started refusing
to name her admirer
who set her on fire.

Chelsea Hotel

Addicted to your taste
your crazy waste
self inflicted pain
to your flesh stain
I gladly confess
squalor's mess
rats scurry
in a hurry
to nowhere
already there
mirror over bed
you giving head
come again
love the sin
tip the maid
don't be afraid
Janis won't care
lay her truth bare.

When your demons win you live in filth
    in ugly memories just beneath eyeballs.
    It's a hall of mirrors truths are blurred
    and all I see are lies. Keep me holding on.
    We stretch light. We slow time. We fill our
    veins with science and always keep waiting
    for redemption. It never comes. Last chance
    one more shot this will hit the top. Wait.

You spoke above the music
I heard you as I sat in a corner
You shifted my chemistry and I
was in love with you forever.

I slipped through a wormhole
born of this time and place
naked ruined fists raised for
yes or no or maybe I found
the breast and suckled 'til
I sought my mother for my
wife 'til death and died easy
I know life's best left drugged.

We're game pieces on a chess board.
We might be peasants or knights or pawns.
We play our roles in turns and win some,
lose some and never know true love at all.
I begin to understand the cruelty of our
history where we live our fragile lives.