Bring me bent widgets,
midgets with no place.
Round in square holes
never fit in disgrace.
We're among you always.
We are broken freaks.
Our god will bless you.
Listen while It speaks.
I lied of my pedigree.
I'm not from royalty.
I hope you'll agree
let well enough be.

Freak Show

  I dreamed I was a lesbian
  trapped inside a manly man
  infinity inside a clock
  broken heart inside a lock
  blindfold at a firing squad
  playing 3D chess with god
  Einstein teaching ABC's
  an atheist on his knees
  drunk poet spying in a tree
  a monkey typing poetry.

I dreamed I was a lesbian
  trapped inside a manly man
  infinity inside a clock
  broken heart inside a lock
  blindfold at a firing squad
  playing racquetball with god
  Einstein teaching ABC's
  an atheist on his knees
  drunk poet feeling free
  a monkey typing poetry.

I dreamed I was a lesbian
  stage frightened thespian
  infinity inside a clock
  broken heart inside a rock
  blindfold at a firing squad
  playing racquetball with god
  Einstein teaching ABC's
  an atheist on his knees
  drunk poet spying in  trees
  a monkey typing poetry.

They gave me a prison suit to wear outside.
   They gave me cab fare. I was free at last.
   The only bars keeping me prisoner were my
   appetites of my own creation. I fear freedom.
   Choices are heavy with unseen consequences.
   I love chemicals that stir my blood into a boil
   that take me part way to heaven. Just enough
   to see God on stage raging at the crowd. "What
   is wrong with mankind? Why do you keep ashes
   in your hearts from fires dead so long ago?"
   I wonder at that and wake in my walk up and
   remember her touch and taste from long ago.

Such lovely thighs
the wonder whys
I hear your cries
we say goodbyes
time always flies
your beauty dies.

Party keeps raging on fire
I leave out the front door
like a ghost without desire
float into a bed of a *****
donate my seed to the choir
I hear my Symphony's score.

There's a graveyard beneath my bed
at 3AM filled with my dear dead
or maybe it's just inside my head.
We left without saying goodbye.
What a horrible way for us to die
slit a wrist drunk, laugh not cry.

Such lovely thighs
the wonder whys
I hear your cries
we say goodbyes
time always flies
your beauty dies.

There's a graveyard under my bed
at 3AM filled with my dear dead
or maybe it's just inside my head.
You left without saying goodbye.
What a horrible way you die.
**** your liver, laugh don't cry.

There's a graveyard beneath my bed
at 3AM filled with my dear dead
or maybe it's just inside my head.
We left without saying goodbye.
What a horrible way for me to die
slit my wrist drunk laugh not cry.

Bewildering array of possibility
  you were born you and me born me
  God died in the Time's Headlines
  life is accidents of French Mimes.

I'll see you in the ever after.
We'll drink with laughter.
Remember when you froze
and she broke your nose?

Giant  black green trees
feel the growling wind
purple haze starts to freeze
calls for my dying friend.

My frightened little boy
  still lives inside my head
  always in background noise
  'til I'm drunk and go to bed.
  I take a pill to keep him
  from screaming when I wake
  so I can drink my coffee and
  his fragile hands won't shake.
  Every lover wants to save him
  suckle from her ****** breast
  but he drinks her dry and none
  is ever left for the needy rest.

I want to
and have
apply you
magic salve.
Stop the clocks.
Turn off time
no more tocks
froze in rhyme.
Famous painting
hangs in France
with crooked smile
and one more dance.

We never have enough to eat.
Winter is brutal up north and
we can't pay for heat huddled
around Dollar Store candles.
My Goldy is dead in morning.
Daddy can't keep a job anymore.

**** the God that gives us cancer
and the ******* god stillborn
when we need deliverance.
Kings and despots bury us in
random ditches with no names.
Take my head. Remember me.

We called it making love
but all we did was ****.
I'm old and remember
the lovers like ******
births and walking on
water turned to wine.
Each a more precious
jewel with every drink.

You were a bright shadow I touched
  fingers tracing your body memorized
  stiff *******, wet lips high and low.
  I taste your love and you taste mine.
  We made our child of uncertainty then
  we named her Lunar Solar Eclipse.

I always run away from home
threatening to die alone a ******
in a ******* world of Hefner
in the heartland of the winter.
I want a tropical island with
mermaids beckoning my love.

**** the New Year.
I want old ones back
when I lived my life
between lovers
I promised forevers
set them adrift
a kindly gift
great pretender.

**** your paid for destruction, Cowards.
I'm old and will still meet you in a battle.
War is just a shot away. Grow the hell up.
Who pays you to be brown shirted Nazis?
Lost boys and girls looking for meaning
might do better reading Catcher in the Rye.

Night defeats the sun
    and hangs its pale imposter
    in its own sky
    to wax and wane
    and woo young lovers
    under the boardwalk.
  
    Lust ebbs and flows.
    Our tide was high.
    Our moon enormous
    balanced on the horizon.
    Reach out and touch it and
    be reborn with me tonight.

I face tonight's full moon
carrying my ******* spoon
fearful of tomorrow's light
when you'll pick a fight
that neither of us wins
we share our mortal sins.

I feel jumpy tonight. My skin's crawling.
    A Xanax and beers can't sort it out.
    I walk the dogs under a full moon.
    A subtle pull gathers me to its orbit.

    Moonlight bathes me in its calm blah blah blah!
    I'm feeling broken with all the distress around me.
    Friends I must save are perilously close to the drain.
    Death makes it clear who has the final say. Not me.

    Tomorrow I find the moon fell from the sky rocking
    gently in the wind in the creek in my backyard.
    I see it's like a ball kids would toss back and forth.
    Maybe I'm losing my mind or maybe just finding it.

Lover leaves. No reason.
  My nerves are on edge
  maybe it's the season
  we stand upon the ledge.

  We're always drunk again.
  The moon is huge tonight.
  Where in hell have we been?
  Both are blinded  by the light.

The full moon winks with evil grin
lights us naked lovers bathed in sin.
Refuse salvation welcome home again.
Eden awaits mankind where we begin.

Forget the rules
don't be tools
be brave don't doubt
turn on, drop out
on Abbey Lane
myself to blame
eating Eden's plum
in full moon's sun
nothing as it seems
outside our dreams.

I drove a dump truck
full of lies and blight
through the blinding
of the sun's true light.
I delivered it to you
Happy Hour at night.

We all move stiffly around the body
  and whisper gentle sorry for your loss
  while looking for an exit from death to
  join the living with sign of the cross.

I float above my body in a box.
I look like I'm made of wax.
I'm never happy with the crowd.
This one seems way too loud.
My kids speak. Make me proud
to be who I am in death's shroud.

It almost drove me crazy
   that sound of a low thrum
   like electric through wires
   all who died sorrow's hum.
   She died in some drive by
   put to rest beat of a drum
   just push off don't come back
   go my way to a place I'm done.

Gaiety Burlesque, Cincinnati, 16 and bug eyed in
   the middle of the theater watching a small act
   of a woman with feathers desperately teasing
   a tiny audience with glances of naked *******
   and imagined private pleasures. It was a dying
   art, along with vaudeville. I was enthralled.

I'm shadows
of the gallows
from long ago
carnival show
our cold sheet
yearns for heat.

kick me to the curb
garbage collected
sorry to disturb
never one selected
in my dream
on my bent knee
I asked for your
hand you say maybe
I fell for a *****
dancing naked in a bar
I played g string guitar
I always loved you so
I gave you a ring
a cheap glass thing
cold rains falling
old lovers calling
over all my hope
make a hanging rope.

She left in Autumn's harvest
rich reds and orange and rust.
I kept her love for many years
through all the neglected tears.
My nerves all burn in my shame
fearing she can't recall my name.

He's broken and lame
played but lost the game
destroys himself in flame
sorry that he even came.
Bleeds to death at the pool
shot like a useless mule.

Everyone has told me they don't like
me when I'm myself. Drunk. Honest.
The other me is society's child.
I won't curse or speak off color.
I tried to do it right.
I'll bleed in my own good time.
I'm a wild and honest lover until
I wander into your witch's woods.
Snake hair girl waits for me there
drunk and naked and her legs spread.

what's finally in doubt
is what the war's about
dead are checks in charts
families of broke hearts
brave general never dies
never sees the dead eyes
can't explain the whys
dead covered with flies

Commander of the Allied Forces
WW2.  So many dead heroes buried
in his conscience never the less
he lived with Mamie married
would never leave his mistress
who all his dead tears carried.

Small men standing tall
wearing giant hats and
medals they can hardly
carry. They feed soldiers
to the war machine like
butchers making sausage.

Small men standing tall
wearing giant hats and
medals they can hardly
carry. They feed soldiers
to the war machine like
butchers make sausage.

I'm quirky
and murky
outside lines
traffic fines
not serious
just delirious
tell the truth
with the proof
doesn't matter
blood splatter
paints suicide
maybe genocide
taste the penny
of the many.

The you I knew way back then
  haunts my dreams these days
  black and white luscious sin
  the stain it left always stays.

A gap toothed lover with kink.
The kindest saint I ever knew
who helped me find my way back
from Oz on a yellow brick road.

Breaking *****
  and protocols
  **** all the rules
  ignore the  fools
  under the radar
  meet in the bar
  toast to the fun
  good guys won.

It's really okay
I died back in the day
tomorrows were rare
today's didn't care
we took fool's risks
bet our gold on tricks
lost it in the *****
died in faulty fuse.

I'm always hoping
without an ounce of it.
I'm always in love with
no waiting hearts.
I beseech the Almighty
without truly believing.
I'm just a ghost. A sheet
hanging to dry in a breeze
flapping about alive like
but just full of hot air.

I lost myself among the frozen stars
   in the dark palette of a cold midnight.
   Nowhere left to go I came by your door
   for old times and knocked. You were gone.
   You were never here. Pretend marriage.
   Me with a wife and 2 young kids and mad
   as a hatter I fell down the rabbit hole
   where we played house and thought we
   were in love. We were burned by lust
   and divorced and last time I saw you
   **** in your dorm and me leaving for
   Boston next day. We killed a 12 pack
   and pretended one last time at love
   and I went away and lived my life as
   best I could you always on my mind
   but knowing better. I came home to
   see my kids and came by to see you.
   I lost myself among the frozen stars
   in the dark palette of a cold midnight.
   Nowhere left to go I came to your grave
   whispering your name as a prayer.

Your bones are gone.
Your skin is invisible
you're mute as a mime.
I've been left for dead.
You ghosted me not to
break my broken heart.