Is it Church or is it State?
A dollar short and day late.
Holy water incense.
Scientific nonsense.
Teachers ****** virginity.
Senators leave you drowned.
Presidents become be clowned.
Don't trust the Vicars
always in your knickers.
Don't you worry, Baby, just
hold onto these matches.
I have the gas can full
and a nuclear winter in
my secret laboratory.
I'll write the wedding
vows that stick this time.

Bring your casserole of jealously.
  Make your casserole of hate.
  Don't forget your desserts of envy
  so sweet the congregation eats it all.
  The fudge pudding from the bachelor
  is never left to take a portion home.
  The punch might have a little kick.
  Enjoy your sins on painful pews.

Circus 1944
                  body# 1565

  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 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 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.

We always saw you on our horizons.
We drank to your health and to ours.
We went to meetings and confessed
helplessness and drank bland coffee
and ate stale donuts and smoked
an endless chain of cigarettes.

I found my way back to my family
on bar stools and raucous laughter
with our dreams hiding in liquor's
fog. We live in the doldrums. Can
we ever know normal? I'll answer
when I've had a hair of the dog.

Sardines inside a subway car
Pickles packed inside the jar
Soldiers so close in a foxhole
Welfare office for the dole
A billion windows with a story
some of love or hate or glory
huddled masses in a dormitory
overwhelm every inventory.

We live huddled masses in the city
   working in skyscrapers like ants.
   We find lovers in the bars and make
   love up against alley walls and snort
   another line in a diner booth and
   consider it a New York date. Goodbye.

I wander at 3 am in the city.
I can't sleep anymore.
I feel society's fingers on
my throat choking me silent.
I want to tell the world
about my little life that
means so much to me and
my generation. We sit on
a hill looking down on
the city lights and Howl.

I wander at 3 am in the city.
I can't sleep anymore.
I feel society's fingers on
my throat choking me silent.
I want to tell the world
about my little life that
means so much to me and
my generation. We sit on
a hill looking down on
the city lights and Howl.

There's a Yankee ship coming down
our river. We surrendered but blood
is still wet and bad. We keep our rebel
flag flying. I'm 15 and hold my dead dad's
rifle proud with unsure courage today.
I saw the cannon smoke before the sound.
and it sent me to the promised land my
head was vaporized and then my body fell.

There's a giant coke spoon
in my cereal bowl today
we eat in silence and don't
know who started the fracas
last night. We slept separate.
Our 4 year old fell 53 floors
and left a broken heart in
a paper sack 8 miles high.

Just a clever weaver of words,
not a poet really just pretend.
I smoke and drink like geniuses
and chase my fame to its end.

I'm a forgone conclusion
    and an empty promise.
    My words fail to inspire.
    My loves are always lost.
    Trouble always finds me.
    Read between the lines and
    find the real me with you
    inside my heart on my sleeve.

I'm a forgone conclusion
    and an empty promise.
    My words fail to inspire.
    My loves are always lost.
    Trouble always finds me.
    Read between the lines and
    find the real me with you
    in my heart on my sleeve.

Clinton suicide
nowhere to hide
better decide
****** genocide
red rain dried
democracy died.

It bullies us constantly to
be at a place a specific time
God help us if we're late
no excuses it's a crime.
Seconds we race to please
the clock we fear wicked lies
it rules the fools we truly are.
We live and die like flies.

We live in days.
We die in seconds.
It's all the same on
the face of the clock.
Tracking each moment,
breath and heartbeat.
We enter time in charts
to make us matter.
Our lives are smudges
in the grand scheme.
tick and then tock
steal a vicar's frock.
Preach to the sheep
fleece them in sleep.

The minute hand crawls to 10
wonders what might have been
permission given to finally sleep
pray to god my soul to keep.

The second hand
drags its clock
hour glass sand
to our desert rock
ancient wind land.

Come closer into the light.
  I need to smell your beauty
  to quiet demons in my head.
  God's tears cleanse our souls.
  Come closer still, touch me,
  calm my tremors still my hands.
  Closer hold me closer and we'll
  transcend broken in our world.
  Dance closer, watch the stars.
  Hear death's music ever closer.

When the bar lights blink off and on
  last call announced half hour before
  we work the odds as drunken sailors.
  Singing sirens calling from the door.
  We waltz into the night rain then we
  ***** our naked way to the sacred bed.
  We love the best drunk strangers can.
  I wake in light a prisoner in my head.

When the bar lights blink off and on
  and last call announced half hour ago
  we calculate the odds as drunken sailors.
  The bar is full of sirens calling from shore.
  These beauties must've appeared recently
  cause I never saw them earlier. We take
  their measure and like dancers we choose
  partners and meet near the door and waltz
  away together into the night. We find our
  way to beds holding on to this life raft
  as desperate lovers often do. We love
  the best two drunk strangers can do.
  We wake in morning light blinking.
  We'll always do this dance again.

In the Hippie days
American destruction
by Columbia U ways
C and P instruction
brought us to knees
beat the middle class
poor take our keys
USA was a flash.

I've lived my life as a clown
  in a circus that is my own.
  Seltzer water and horns have
  robbed me of my dignity.
  There's still a piece left in
  a corner of the big top that
  is my mind. We love there
  dark naked and beautiful.

I enrolled in college
accepted in Clown U.
My parents are ecstatic.
I finally see their view.
Ivy League it's not but
I might get a 4 point O
join Cirque du Soleil
free tickets to the show.

I'm a clown dressed in a suit
in a circus tent on Wall Street.
We'll take sucker bets all day
and spin our webs all night.
You'll leap out windows and
we'll cash our chips and laugh.

I never meant to hurt you.
I'm just a clumsy lover.
Throw down your gun.
Don't be so reckless.
I hit the wrong hole and
didn't hear your screams.

5am we crowd in the rickety cage
   take us down to hell's cold entry
   into the mines. We stoop and dig
   claws into the rock to drag coal
   into the carts we roll to a rich
   man's greed and we end our days
   in poor man's bars swallow coal
   dust into our angry hearts keep
   score waiting for God's smite.
   We sleep with our sacred wives.

5 am we're in the cage.
It takes us a mile below
to grab the coal from Earth's
stubborn hold. We wage war
and explode it loose and gather
it in buckets like we do love.
We end the days in bars. We
drink our fill and sleep with
her, the reason we do it all.
She endures me like the mines.

5am we crowd in the rickety cage
   to take us down to hell's cold entry
   into the mines. We stoop and dig
   claws into the rock to drag coal
   into the carts we roll to a rich
   man's greed and we end our days
   in poor man bars swallowing the
   dust into our angry hearts where
   we keep score and wait for God.
   We sleep with our sacred wives.

Someone had to be the first
  to enter your shallow grave,
  steal Virginity, smell blood.
  Ever after my flag is planted.
  I'll never betray you. I promise.
  We'll live forever in a shanty
  clinging to a mountain of coal
  we'll birth miners. I promise.

I'm 70 and still work the mines
to feed my soul and family.
It's all I have to hold onto.
My coal face is cracked like
the rocks we fight each day.
My friends are mostly dead
from black lung and cave ins.
I toast them with a shot
each night in my empty bed
and pray for death tomorrow.

I'm 70 and still work the mines
to feed my soul and family.
It's all I have to hold onto.
My coal face is cracked like
the rocks we fight each day.
My friends are mostly dead
from black lung and cave ins.
I toast them with a shot
each night in my empty bed
and pray for death tomorrow.

Gather believers in coal mine
freight elevators to deliver you
into Hell's cold bowels to work
bent in half and pluck black nuggets
of West Virginia gold to scatter
on dead men's threshing floor.

We all must be equal
  inside the collective.
  One last ****** sequel
  proved to be defective.
  Just make us all agree
  to give up our right.
  Never need to be free
  blood paints our fight.

We lasted just a moment
    in my 72 years long ago.
    It seemed like a play date
    more than our marriage.
    ****** and beers and ***
    kept me inside the lines
    usually. I was naked at
    a party and climbing up
    trees to spy on you and
    recording private moments.
    I color outside the lines now.
    Nobody notices or cares.

It's a lonely revolution
with me against the world.
I keep it laughing so it
won't **** me in despair.

Coming of age
turning the page
into ice and rage
escape the cage.

It's huge
melodious centrifuge
stealing rhythm
with no misgiving
from each to give
to each to live
fabulous Commune
a marvelous tune
share our beds
lice in heads
millions die
millions cry
starvation
is salvation.

Communism 101

    Hours on the clock
    monkey's on my back
    the greatest reset
    never take that bet
    no time to chit or chat
    no time for this or that
    we'll all live in communes
    singing the same sad tunes
    while we all starve to death
    giving up our collective breath
    for the leaders inside castles
    we take time to collect our
    tiny weapons that will exact
    vengence and burn the guilty
    to their places in hell and
    we will finally rebuild a
    city to be proud of after all.

I wish I weren't so angry
but I watch my world *****
and pillaged by Communists.
The USA is now USSR shaped.
We fear where we were brave
meek lambs on slaughter floor
they killed our middle class
put in communes for the poor.

You were glorious and spectacular
   more fun than a barrel of monkeys
   a thrill a minute with roller coasters
   and Ferris wheels and side shows, cotton
   candy and near beer to persuade dates
   to the tunnel of love and a kiss or 2.
  
   Now the splendor is just rusted iron
   and rotted wood and peeling paint and
   graffiti and broken windows. We live
   old and fat and bald in misery we got
   used to long ago. We ride this Beast in
   terror and thrills to the bitter end.

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.

I'll meet you tomorrow
   wearing the bitter sorrow
   on my sleeve you can leave
   still refusing to believe
   I'm sorry for my betrayal.
   I die inside my confessional.

I call stupid drunk
from the phone booth
outside the Taco Bell
and slur my apologies
to answering machines
and confess my sins.

I confess and eat penance
having sinned I must dance
again with my true mistress
awed as you slowly undress
tempting Eve in the garden
God is lost no way to win.

I tear my paper heart in tiny
pieces of confetti to shower
on you at your wedding to
him, tin cans on the car on the
way to our honeymoon.
I thought it would be us.

My conscience is a loud cat.
Quincy wants this and that.
Always now never in a bit
3am wakes me up, the ****.