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.

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 always reached beyond my reach.
   Heartache and love in one breath.
   Finger's burned in Eden's garden.
   I lost my heart inside her death.

The stars like fireflies in the dark
  as we lie naked in love in Eden Park
  I leave the broke vows and broke kids
  hidden in shadows behind my eyelids.
  It all fell apart on the rocky shore
  the night I could pretend no more.
  I hated me more than I had for the cost.
  I wandered in Hell's fires forever lost.

I eat the sacred apple
in our secret garden
we sow ABC's
growing  poems
in fertile soil
of boiling oil
pain love sorrow
hope despair
tomorrow
another day.

On the edge of another summer of love
  we always mistake for a Garden of Eden.
  We had beer to drink and hash to smoke.
  Cool, man. Let's reach the moon
  tonight and touch God's robe.
  I was ****** and laser focused
  on the center of my world that held
  love that I'd terribly betrayed.
  I weighed a thousand pounds in guilt's gravity
  lost within the Garden of Eden again.

It's dark
Eden Park
we ****
we ****
break rules
naive fools
hard times
little crimes
no forgiving
live and let living

Alchemist of words
  makes us weep and hope
  swoon and wonder why
  give us a poem of rope.

  We met in Eden Park and
  ******, red A's burned
  on our skin for the sin.
  The world still turned.

I do not think there's any time
to worry of End times rhyme
or Eve's betrayal of raw greed.
Lucifer planted her ugly seed.

We're clamoring for Eden again!
The beasts stole it from simple
folks and built a Washington DC
and made Kings and Lords and
Ladies and **** on us peasants.
Bring the serpent back to fix it.

Heroes always save the day.
White horses and blazing guns
chase the bad guys far away.
Never happens. We're stunned.
America is now a paradise for
terrorists. The effete elite
opened this country's doors
guaranteed our final defeat.

8/14/2000.
Lost my Wife.
Michele Parkinson Garris.
21 years ago.
I don't live a day without her.
I have been blessed with knowing
what love and life is.
Barbara has always been
understanding and I love her very much.
Thanks, Barbara for loving me and putting
up with me . You are the best. Love

When you stole my heart I was dancing.
  I was clumsy on my knees romancing.
  When I kissed splendid siren *******
  We slept and we ****** slow as beasts
  in morning and you wept. I wonder why
  the mirage gets closer **** it will die.

Climb down off your cross
never mind your loss
stay in the moment with us
guilt is so **** useless.
Love while you still can
embrace her understand

The poet's curse. We feel your pain.
We'd rather not but we have no choice.
We need to put it on the page like a
tiny red corpse we never forget. Weep and
pray and deny a god. Death lives inside you.

She brought me cheese and bread.
She gently kissed my broken head.
We played at love and broke the bed
flew close to a sun crashed and bled.
Love's fiercest feelings lying dead
in bottoms of amber bottles instead.

Pour your tears in my eyes
and I will weep for you.
Wrap your despair in a red box
with a satin bow and gift it to
me at Christmas to bear alone.
Shove your sobs down my throat
and I gasp for better times.
I find it kind of our last hope.

I want you all to be okay
    just quit dying day to day
    why the empty hourglass?
    count corpses as they pass
    to death's final goodbye
    blood all let go to die.

I want you all to be okay
    just quit dying day to day
    why the empty hourglass?
    count corpses as they pass.

Born in a coal mine town
rarely up mostly down
into a dead cold hell
make a living in a well.

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.

There's too many broke pieces
need to be fixed before we move.
Each one reminds me of time and
place too sacred like a graveyard
to be disturbed. Sell it as it is.
Let buzzards buy and discard.

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.

There's too many broke pieces
need to be fixed before we move.
Each one reminds me of time and
place too sacred like a graveyard
to be disturbed. Sell it as it is.
Let buzzards buy and desecrate.

Fill it with laughter
or tears or silver or
anger or lust or my
vows worth nothing
though we lived all
that in our lifetimes.

If it stays empty I might find my way back
  to my job and family and a dog named Jack.
  I might become a poet printed in a magazine
  or put in the Anthology of Poets of 2016.
  I might be an astronaut and jump on the moon
  or despair and slit my wrist in the afternoon
  maybe cook elixir for a syringe in my spoon
Jeopardy 400 Alex, "Overdosed too soon".

If it stays empty I might find my way back
  to my job and family and a dog named Jack.
  I might become a poet printed in a magazine
  or put in the Anthology of Poets of 2016.
  I might be an astronaut and jump on the moon
  or despair and slit my wrist in the afternoon
  maybe cook elixir for a syringe in my spoon
  overdose during Jeopardy not dead too soon.

I call this death
end of breath
laughs silent
life is spent
No dreams
light beams
dark as buried
casket carried
planted deep
soul to keep.

The universe occupies my head.
I never asked for it. I don't want it.
How do you say "No" to God?
I see the dot of the Big Bang and
white light blinds me for an instant
and everything exists in lovely
madness like a perfect juggler
tossing the whole **** thing
precise in orbits and spinning
and keeping perfect distance
like Victorian dancers used to.
The universe dies with me.

wind roars and thunder crashes
prophets warn all the masses
all our bones reduced to ashes
minds set free see only flashes
of truth free from mortal lies
tears spill from blinded eyes.

Flash of light
blinding night.
Sounds astound
everything caves
explodes insane
death is blind.

Friday August 30 2024 11PM EST
Time ceased to be frozen rhyme
tick tock just a broken clock
Love's birth ran out of time.
The end of human kind
Earths' sun went blind.

Time is worth more than gold
on your deathbed being sold.
Expiration dates aren't legible.
Just ask a drowned 10 year old.
Cancer is the roulette wheel.
After chemo see how you feel.
Just sell my soul for morphine
with the pain in my machine.

Death is falling through a hole
   feeling me go holding my soul
   like a life vest in dark waters
   thinking of my missed daughters
   telling me this is the bitter end
   I just regret that I can't defend

Alphabet. Morphine.
The pill. Free will.
Opera. *******.
Shot deer the sad ****.
Love replaced by lust.
Bigger is a better bust
****** or ***** a must
waits for tongue's ******.

Everything is fragile now.
I take special care walking.
A fall could break a hip and
send me to death's landfill.

I used to climb trees and fall
and bounce up to climb again.
I rode bikes downhill as fast
as I could risking everything!

I smoked and drank all night
with loose boys and girls. We
skipped class and ****** in
impossible spaces. We lived!

We have bingo and "dances" where
we shuffle with our walkers.
Fading memories bent like
question marks, with no answers.

Lust is demanding
delivers pleasure.
Love is thoughtful
delivers treasure.
each equal measure

In the backseat with
   barely dressed girls
   I study skin stretched
   on a ****** bone fetched
   by Lust's determined dog
   found in Love's blind fog
   there's always some regret
   that I can't seem to forget.
   You're not what I thought
   but always what I sought.

My life is metaphor and simile
  between Shakespeare and Bukowski.
  Light like Nash, dark like Plath.
  Drunk like Thomas, deep like Yeats.
  I won't go gentle. An honest poet
  slouching to Bethlehem for fame.

Drunk on a shaking plane
escaping myself again.
Everyone wants some.
I bled out and it's all gone.
I love all of you.
I hate all of me too.

Katie has become estranged.
Old ghosts quiet rearranged
simmering in hidden anger.
Her grandson is a stranger.
Infidelity licks vows away
lust plays music's easy lay.

Katie was our first born.
Proof of our forever love.
Years evaporate, her scorn
tells us Good Bye shove.

I'm done with wedding rings,
babies and any other things
that make me walk the plank,
dead still living in a blank,
still pay interest to the bank.
I die with no one to thank.

You are finally facing
my demons left behind.
I am now facing yours
to whom I've been blind.

If I could scream a silent prayer
into eternity I'd whisper I was
a piece of chalk and a mermaid
and I enjoyed what was offered
and confessed my tiny sins as
if my ghost soul was real and
*** was just a dream when we
screamed in unison in eternity.

If I could scream a silent prayer
into eternity I'd whisper I was
a mermaid drawn with crayon
and I enjoyed what was offered
and confessed my tiny sins as
if my ghost soul was real and
*** was just a dream when we
screamed in unison in eternity.

A tune stuck in my brain
about Eve of Destruction
nothing's left the same
no answer just question.
I want to wish I believed
DC  puts us in prisons
I'm finally relieved
clarity of our visions.

God's wrath has no beginning
  or end. It's in my blood and
  bones. It reigns inside my brain
  as a conscience. A nun's whisper.
I drown in my baptism font.
I bathe in the river Jordan.
I drink wine made of the wrath
of an ever present sword of God.

Everybody's angry
Everybody's afraid
Everybody's in love
Everybody's enslaved
Everybody's dying
Everybody will fade
Everybody's lying
Everybody's played
Everybody's misunderstood
Everybody's depraved
Everybody has a god
Everybody prays
Everybody sleeps
Everybody has 1 more day.

Birth and Death and between
we call ticks on the clock life
filled with laughs and tears
first periods and brassieres.
******* a disappointment
raw without the ointment.
Can't remember your name
though you swear I came.