I must be going blind
nothing of the kind
I see your shadow
where rivers flow
my favorite dreams
******* in streams.
I always see our end
time and space bend.

Hell, let's all go to church
    and throw a 20 in the basket
    to save us from Satan's heat
    and get us a ticket to heaven.
    Confess your secrets and say
    your penance and the soul is
    cleansed, the Golden Ticket.

We poets are mining our past
    for something of importance
    I tapped into a vein of youth
    and found a nugget of truth.
       From a Father to my Father
I saw a cruel king with eyes of hate
who threatened me with his love.
       From a Son to my Son
I saw a kind prince with eyes of gold
who kept me warm in years gone cold.

Pearl Harbor disturbed a hornets nest.
WW2 was won that day a giant awoke.
Sacrifices of million sons moms put a
gold star on a window so we all knew.
The holes in them were graves for the
boys who went to war and died men.

there was a time and place
   a sacred agonizing space
   hands feet nailed to wood
   betrayal always understood
   body blood host chalice
   remember without malice

I've been drinking
  since you died and
  left me talking to
  myself for comfort
  I just can't find here
  anymore with your
  shadows everywhere
  your touch is gone.

There was an easy way into your heart.
There's no easy way out. You thought it
was forever but there's no such thing.
You don't need to hear it or even fear it.
We ****** goodbye in your dorm room.
I went to Boston and was reborn again.

There was an easy way into your heart.
There's no easy way out. You thought it
was forever but there's no such thing.
You don't need to hear it or even fear it.
We ****** goodbye in your dorm room.
I went to Boston and was reborn again.

The kind morphine drip
   eases me into death's grip
   her dream's lovely trips
   life to death's curtain rips

Poetry's glory days are gone.
We had our Frost and Auden
and Plath and Sexton and God
****** Bukowski. We still do
what poets always did. We do
everything in excess and say
outrageous **** and write
little truths hidden in tiny
locked drawers in psyches
we hope decompose silently.

the time it is a coming
the end is getting near
guitar strings strumming
the sorry sound of fear
I die without last breath
nobody notices or cares
body burned in an oven
cremains in a cheap jar
destined for our Heaven.

I'll drink your poison tonight.
It was not your fault but mine.
Forgive me but you can't because
you don't know how. Maybe in my
mourning I'll nail me to your cross
and die for you one final time.

I miss my daughter
I miss my youth
the good old days
I miss the truth
I toast lost chances
with broken hearts
but keep hope alive
with brand new starts.

Crown of bobby pins and scarf,
   she hoists a beer bottle scepter,
   dime store paste royal necklace,
   moth holed sweater Queen's cape,
   her well worn lawn chair throne.
   She keeps watch from  her tower,
   surveys her realm on Alcott Lane.
   Nothing escapes the queen's watch.

I'm barely 18 and got my girlfriend pregnant.
We were in love! I was there when she broke
the news to her father. "Young man, leave!"
I left. I went home to share the good news
with my parents. "Go to your room!" I did.
It was a tiny room shared with 2 brothers.
At least now I'd only have to share a room
with the love of my life and our child. Perfect!

In 2 days I turn 73. Tonight I watched West Side Story 2.0.
Kathy was Maria to my Tony back when I was 18 and she 17.
We were in Love with love and nothing could deny it. We made our
baby girl in defiance and cracked our world in pieces. I cried at the
drive in movie on our wedding night and entered strange reality and
acid 1969 summer of love and walked a tightrope over ******
friends straight and bent ones in psychedelic colors and free love.
When I told them we had gotten pregnant they said go to your room.

In 2 days I turn 73. Tonight I watched West Side Story 2.0.
Kathy was Maria to my Tony back when I was 18 and she 17.
We were in Love with love and nothing could deny it. We made our
baby girl in defiance and cracked our world in pieces. I cried at the
drive in movie on our wedding night and entered strange reality and
a new world in 1969 summer of love and walked a tightrope over
friends straight and bent ones in psychedelic colors and free love
that ended up costing us everything we ever really cared about.

Mobsters in expensive suits
wife home hookers in suites
devils always in the details
deals are made with entrails
taxes of ugly small masses
pay for our obscene excesses
we **** interns no penance
offer money for your silence.
Maybe suicide you if pay
doesn't satisfy our play.

Shapes don't matter anymore,
  no one a ****** or a *****.
  Now everything is vertigo,
  no color left, all is indigo.
  Violence is now a life style.
  North star's been gone awhile.
  East is west is north is south.
  Dali made melting clock a mouth.
  Madness is our New World rules
  Now we're all Government mules.

He was a strong, hard drinking man.
His charm was never contained.
You loved him and wanted to be him.
He was a scoundrel you'd never hate.
He charmed his way into my grandma.
He showed me how to live in bars and
how to make people laugh out loud,
take French Leave from a boring crowd.

I hope we did you proud.
  Mike died young of cirrhosis
  I live on in an alcoholic haze
  no connection with the living
  just a **** or two and meet
  another dame in some dive bar
  where your ghost cheers for
  conquests without a heart.

I hope we did you proud.
  Mike died young of cirrhosis
  I live on in alcoholic haze
  no connection with the living
  just a **** or two and meet
  another **** in some dive bar
  where your ghost cheers for
  conquests without a heart.

My mother's father Gramps
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.

I'm 7. I want to be like God.
He makes my mom laugh out loud.
I want to be Him when I grow up.
I smoke the butts in His ashtray and
drain His beer too warm to finish.
He's the God that I wish God was.

He was a strong, hard drinking man.
His charm was never contained.
You loved him and wanted to be him.
He was a scoundrel you'd never hate.
He charmed his way into my grandma.
He taught me how to live in bars and
how to make people laugh out loud.
He showed me the good in everyone.

Before you let it take you away
Gramps showed us Faith in alcohol
neon confessionals soothe us by day
we float in empty air before we fall
into another pretend lover's arms
tangled morning after twisted sheets
vaguely search for last night's charms
finally taste one last time our sweets.

I arrived on time
through tiny slit
of slickest slime
***** a tiny bit.

I will be gone long
while you live life
into your own song
avoiding your knife.

Resent the war on our religion
stealing our crops and rich meat
leave us starving eating Pigeon
rotted potato our fragile defeat.

God ****** English burn in Hell
drink **** water you gave to me
from the poisoned tree fruit well
I Catholic hate you as far I see.

I'm a soldier in the womb
  they will believe in us someday
  sober Irish freaks can light a fuse
  and send the British overlords away
  fat self righteous lords order peasants
  to burn the Irish mud huts and stay

I stumble over vowels and fall
slapstick like over consonants.
I use cuss words and talk about
my needs and girl parts and so
I guess I'm writing drunk again.
Truth is so hard to cough up and
put on the page naked in spotlight.
I need a little liquid courage.

Poison flows from the grapes of wrath.
   It spoils the soil with its honest path.
   You're hated for your poverty and bad luck.
   You'll do anything for a shot and a buck.
   Anything for a crust of bread and a beer.
   Sleep with me. Keep me warm. Hold me near.

I'm  planted into this sacred ground
one last time 'til I'm buried and blessed.
The priest sprinkles holy water on my grave
with a prayer I'll carry like a card to God
to the Gate of Heaven and ask for mercy
as I'm judged for my faults and kindness.

Here lies my innocence, my religion, my hope
and dreams and trust and my caring anymore.
I bury my despair and belief in another lover
next to my naivety. My bones are picked clean.
They are bleached in an O'Keeffe painting
next to the cattle skulls and scorpions.

Gravity, a force nobody can explain why it is,
    is an attraction that exists between all objects
    everywhere in the universe. I want you. It isn't
    love. It's gravity. We're objects in the universe.
    I dream of you day and night, remember perfume;
    just two planets dancing naked in gravity's dark.
    When you break my heart and upset perfect balance
    the universe implodes and destroys us all at last.

Gravity seems frail
just a cardboard jail
the moment I die
my soul will fly
weightless,  defy
gravity's true lie.

Our worlds are full of dark rooms
    with cobwebs in corners like tombs.
    We frail grey children still fear
    the wicked clowns getting too near
    to our bed to do what we most dread.
    Too late to climb in mommy's bed.

I was always second string.
Red shirt dummy for practice
in summers of Spartans glory.
Bacevich was a legend coach.
I shone one hot August day
hungover and craving nicotine.
**** these poseurs of fame.
We scrimmaged and played
our usual parts, but I was angry.
I stopped the blockers like stone
and tore the runners down.
Over and over I was a Hero
for an afternoon. The Coach said
I'd be a Gridiron Legend.
Just for one day.

I dreamed of you early morning.
I woke and wished I were dead
so we could be together again.
I live the motions and keep a smile
but it all means nothing anymore
without your light at the end of day.

I remember first kiss
and first time *******
just a swing and miss
my bronco kept bucking.

Forget carousel giggles
heat on my lap burned
as you teased and wiggled
after all our world turned.

I dismounted the love
  I created beneath me,
  abandoned I Do and 'til Death
  and my kids to be free.
  ****** kept me in a spectrum.
  I fell in love in bars at night.
  I ****** our love to death again,
  never minds in morning's light.
  Guilt hung off my soul like moss
on witches ghost swamp trees
dragging me to my execution
praying at last on my knees.

Nuns line us up alphabet
huge crows all powerful
bow heads to say Jesus
or you will go to hell.
Sister Mary Holy Water
Jesus' bride a ******
here is guilt's slaughter
everything's a Mortal sin.

Dying in a planned genocide
Victoria's Secret of the dead.
Burn corpses. Deaths we hide
before the truth can spread.

Make the vaccine poison law.
Booster shots make it worse.
The sheep won't see the flaw,
just an ancient Gypsy curse.

I have the restraint
of the holiest saint
I still ****** a nun
black habit was fun.

He played the piano beautifully.
    He went to war and lost his arms
    in a skirmish. Almost sounds like
    a rugby match with deadly charms.

    War is a meat grinder that shreds
   bodies and limbs by the thousands a day
    a week a month. Haig's Butcher Shop
was what everyone would always say.

I'm a blind man staring at the sun.
You love and hate me.
I hate and love you.
We live in different mirrors.
You have a genie in your bottle.
I live life in wine's soft fog.

I'm a blind man without a sun.
We live in different mirrors.
You have light for everyone.
I am where is what disappears.

I'm trying to sort it out
the wreckage of silently
dying in a riptide of doubt
astonished by my brevity.
Corner of Hope and Despair;
hookers, dealers and breath.
Walk 12 steps to my repair,
always arrive at my death.

I feel the sick in my bones
     and the death in my blood.
     I wish we'd live forever and
     dance naked and drunk and taste
     each other and scream pleasure's
     hallelujah into endless nights.

I wake in a hall of mirrors.
I stand inside a different me.
I see me loving a lover
who begs me to love her
forget the kids. I can't.
I want a mirror to fool me.
I see my kind friend Joe
who always saw the good
and was killed picking up
a hitchhiker after all.
I want a mirror to fool me.
I see my father still wet
behind the ears flying
a bomber in a war as a pawn
for them who don't care.
I want a mirror to fool me.
I see my cousin with ancient
broken heart, the wound
that never heals, choose
slow suicide by *****.
I want a mirror to fool me.
I see a man who doesn't
know how to love a wife
no matter how many times
he tries. He writes a poem.
I want a mirror to fool me.