Truth reveals itself near midnight
when I swim in deep pools of wine.
I'm lost. My family died in my depths.
I need shallows to find redemption.
I need the goddess Tara my
North Star to Enlightenment.
I'll sail back home and find my
broken life and fix it best I can.

Truth reveals itself near midnight
when I swim in deep pools of wine.
I'm lost. My family died in my depths.
I need shallows to hide in.
I need a goddess named Georgine
to help me find my North Star.
I'll sail back home and find my
broken life and fix it best I can.

So quiet on the surface
   as it's eating you alive
   like a starving furnace
   you never quite survive.
   Morphine keeps it quiet
   tortured silent screams  
   while cancer cells riot
   heaven's delicate dreams

I broke my life into
  pieces of an unknown
  puzzle one afternoon's
  confession of my own.
  You took clothes and
  kids and left me alone
  to wallow in freedom
  Delilah in our home.
  Doomed from the start
  she sunk like a stone.
  I call forever hoping
  you'll answer the phone.

First it steals small names
   then dreams of cunning lust.
   It smothers white hot desire
   then steals my flaccid trust.

   It hides joys I knew and my
   hate I once kept in my head
   steals lovers not forgotten.
   It buries me before I'm dead.

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.

She comes and goes. My wife in
   an instant becomes a stranger
   a vacant stare. Holds her purse
   tighter to her fearing my danger
   There's a loose thread in her mind
   she keeps pulling until she holds
   the end and everything is gone but
   me. She sees it slip from my hand.

This must be what forgetting is.
   Erosion of memory year by year
   until the landscape is barren now.
   I remember your ******* but can't
   find my way home. I taste you still
   but forget my child's name. I still
   remember tall grass with virginity
   lost and we created what's her name?

I'm in lost memories fear.
My already played out acts,
more pieces gone each year.
My old brain missing facts.

Find a word a guessing game
I've forgot everybody's' name.
Nothing ever seems the same.
Strangers in a picture frame.

I was conceived
  with demon seed
  in a devil's *****
  always wanting more
  settling for less
  love's such a mess
  am I boy or girl
  give both a whirl
  I'll lick and ****
  let's give a ****
  be my honored guest
  we'll decide the rest

Friends and lovers
   years ago in Boston
   I reach back in time
   call you on a loose
   wire and I hang up
   without a message
   I don't know what
   to say tonight
   maybe tomorrow
   sober and older
   wiser and denial
   always an option.

I'm on my worn out bar stool
drinking one Depth Charge
after another hoping to die
tonight. I can't stop waking
without remorse in sunlight.
My liver keeps betraying me.

How can we possibly be original?
Suicidal poets have been done to death.
Ogden Nash made us chuckle with wordplay.
Robert Frost took us through New England.
e.e. cummings lost the shift key on his Royal.
Dylan Thomas wrote language of gods in
a tiny boathouse in Wales in his cups.
Ezra Pound hungered for his own kind.
Allen Ginsberg broke the rules when he
mentioned unmentionables. *****
weren't roosters anymore.
Do we stand a chance in this century?
Anybody?
Shock. Astound. Hunger. Justice.
Anarchy. We all know heartbreak.
We know injustice. We use bad words
all over the place. We want to be loved.
Our whole class raises arms, pick me!
Let my voice be heard. Please.

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.

God's wrath struck the Joshua tree
   and reduced it to cremated ashes
   then let our world settle. Let it be.
   We watched it in lightening flashes.
   We live in angry desert cactus scrub
   hidden branches of the poison creosote
   where the only touch is death's rub.
   We just grow colder without antidote
   join our bodies on this unmarked dune.
   The stars are your bright eyes above.
   I stare at your beauty in a full moon.
   Wind is a final breath our dying love.

God's wrath struck the Joshua tree
   and burned it to its cremated ashes
   then let our world settle. Let it be.
   We watched it in lightening flashes.
   We live in angry desert cactus scrub
   hidden branches of the poison creosote
   where the only touch is death's rub.
   We have all but given up any hope.
   The stars are your eyes up above.
   The wind is my hands on our love.

We live in cages built of sin
      the bars are forged of guilt.
      I pray on bleeding knees to be
      free from my ******* prison.
      I desire and hunger and need
      passion and mouth and *******.

I can't not desire
my heart on fire
for your perfume
permeates the room
I'll stalk you tonight
just a perfect flight
always arrives on time
bar stool next to mine.

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

I can't explain desire
it's like a forest fire
raging against a sin
we'll always do again.
I don't want to fall
in love not at all.
Foolish people do
let them dream of you.

I drink from a poison well
and we will all go to hell
don't swear what you can't
just accept the devil's chant
we die and still eat the apple
that is forever in our reach.

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 read the news
flawed reviews
singing the blues
missed all the cues.
Join me in my bed
where we all bled
alive then dead
suicide instead.

I'm a desperado from the wild west.
I'm bow legged and dusty and smell.
I need a ******* bath and perfumed
lover to tame my need. I'll eat steak and
drink whisky and lose my pay at poker.
I ride off in morning again a desperado.

Century Inn
        1940 Pittsburg, PA

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

  They cursed bosses and dealt
  cards and forgot misery.
  They went home in drunk
  shame at midnight. Loud.

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

I heard the trains as I fell asleep.
I grew up and found them and
hopped on a freight to take
me to my destiny. I'm here.

You can keep your sun.
    My moon's on fire tonight.
    I'll keep my laughter and
    let you hold onto your pain.
    Pets will be our Waterloo.
    Live together apart again.

I know I'm just some kind of machine
    aware of my history and moment now.
    I can guess at tomorrow and expect
    another disappointing day or death.

    We're born into the sea and crawl
    to sand onto the rocks and end as
    plaster statues frozen in Times
    Square among junkies and ******.

    Spinning on this top we call Earth
    we can't understand and time that
    is seconds and a billion lifetimes
    we feel lucky and cursed and loved.

I know I'm just some kind of machine
    aware of my history and moment now.
    I can guess at tomorrow and expect
    another disappointing day or death.

    We're born into the sea and crawl
    to sand onto the rocks and end as
    plaster statues frozen in Times
    Square among junkies and ******.

    Spinning on this top we call Earth
    we can't understand and time that
    is seconds and a billion lifetimes
    we feel lucky and cursed and loved.

I can't control my inclinations.
I try so hard for explanations.
All I got in and out deviations.
Might I buy your expectations?

All the kings lied.
All the pawns died.
Lonely lovers cried.
Justice again denied.
Cannot change fate
once more checkmate.

I pushed the button
  I need the shot in
  the devil's purse
  it seemed like hours
  probably minutes as
  I ground teeth to dust
  comes the angel nurse
  she memorized the verse
  heaven's squirt in vein
  I wander in the cool rain
  come soon morphine noose
  **** pain or me. Choose.

Belgian Congo owns us.
You break our black backs
with your profit margins as
we get your diamonds and
make you rich and we starve.
Yellow eyed hatred never dies.

I'm always tired lately. Can't wait
    for bedtime to lay me to rest and
    wake tomorrow to the same day again.
    I'm caught in a whirlpool forever.
    What can I drink or smoke or inject?
    What religion will help me out here?
    Maybe I'm dead and don't know it yet?

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

I don't know how to tell you
I don't love you anymore.
I never want to hurt you so
I'll just turn love off and
you die of thirst not sudden.
I'm a coward. I hate me too.

I wish I had
a different life
a different husband
a different wife
a different name
and different pets
just not so tame
without regrets.

I'm diminished
almost finished
just one more
day open door
outlive fears
phony tears.

Do you know these people
  dirt poor with joyful eyes?
  No tears or pity asked they
  work hell's cloudless fields
  every meal fatback and beans  
  sharecropper hands of stone.
  Sunday overalls starched go
  to Church praise Jesus, atone.
  Saturday nights there's music
  and moonshine and slow dance
  they give up the ghost midnight
  still clutching in fierce romance.

Do you know these people
  dirt poor with joyful eyes?
  No tears or pity asked they
  work hell's cloudless fields
  every meal fatback and beans  
  sharecropper hands of stone.
  Sunday overalls starched go
  to Church praise Jesus, atone.
  Saturday nights there's music
  and moonshine and slow dance
  they give up the ghost midnight
  still clutching in fierce romance.

Do you know these people
  dirt poor with joyful eyes?
  No tears or pity asked they
  work hell's cloudless fields
  every meal fatback and beans  
  sharecropper hands of stone.
  Sunday overalls starched go
  to Church praise Jesus, atone.
  Saturday nights there's music
  and moonshine and slow dance
  they give up the ghost midnight
  still clutching in fierce romance.

Do you know these people
  dirt poor with joyful eyes?
  No tears or pity asked they
  work hell's cloudless fields
  every meal fatback and beans  
  sharecropper hands of stone.
  Sunday overalls starched go
  to Church praise Jesus, atone.
  Saturday nights there's music
  and moonshine and slow dance
  they give up the ghost midnight
  still clutching in fierce romance.

I'd like to be considered
a '***** Old Man' until further notice,
unless I have a stroke or die or worse
vote for Woodrow Wilson again!

Now I see me.
Now I don't.
Trick mirror
steals my image
and makes it
disappear.
One more drink
I'm gone for good.

Never live or die
just disappear fly
too fast to splatter
too small to matter.

You better get
   your makeup kit
   make the fear
   last night
   disappear.
   wear your shades
   'til the black eye fades
   people just stop asking
   when shopping at the IGA
   repair the fist holes
   in walls and doors
   and in your heart.

I write my essentials so as not to be forgotten
   by the time my funeral service and the casseroles
   and my cold ashes in some anonymous jar are an
   afterthought while the living move on as we do.

   Know that I was born March 23, 1949, at 5:32 am
   in Cincinnati, Ohio. Named William John Donovan
   the second. Firstborn son, 2 older sisters. I'm sure
   I was shriveled like a prune and PTSD after the chute.

   I lived a typical baby boomer life in that time.
   A whole bunch of hi jinks and other mistakes marked
   my time. A million laughs, a billion grins and pain
   and regret, etc. The scale is centered as far as I know.

   I'm now 69 (oh how long I wanted to say that) and I'm at
   a delicate place. I must dismantle my life. The **** collected
   is monumental. It's precious to me, only me. Proof of stuff
   I did at school, sports, work and clothes that defined me.

   Books are my essence. They map my life more than anything.
   I pile myself into boxes. I drop them at Goodwill. Goodbye.
   Soon I'll be empty enough to disappear. Please read this
   prayer and put me in a special place inside your heart.

I don't know where I am
this vast wilderness my life.
I starve for your touch again,
instead I feel your knife.

Are you soft or are you hard?
Are you in or are you out?
What says your Tarot card?
All that's certain is doubt.

Dive bar
    Depth Charge
    Pickled eggs
    Slim Jim's
    Fat *****
    hang over
    bar stools
    no fear of death
    it's 4 am and
    last call saves
    them one more time
    maybe we all die
    sleeping at last
with no hangover.

Dive bar
    Depth Charge
    Pickled eggs
    Slim Jims
    Fat *****
    hang over
    bar stools
    in fear of life
    it's 4 am and
    last call saves
    them one more time
    maybe we all break
    tomorrow finally.