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

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

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 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.

Stalling is my only move.
We'll really live tomorrow.
One more chance to prove
one more chance to borrow.
Promise to pay my bar tab
with an IOU of pure sorrow.

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 a blind man without a sun.
We live in different mirrors.
You have light for everyone.
I live life that never appears.

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 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.

We prepare ourselves
  for blood and screams
  and smoke machines
  old men chasing dreams
  live beyond our means
  bursting at the seams
  float our money schemes
  nothing as it seems.

On the beach in early fog
I love your saintly halo
watching the surf crawl
at your feet in afterglow.
We'll do it again tonight
light candles and ****
we might take flight
make a baby with luck.

I will follow you
to the peace tree
where you jeer
and hang me.
I dared to say
forbidden word
Capital N
and bigger.

Surrounded by familiar strangers
funny birthday hats bonfire cake
singing a song I almost remember.
Hug me. I hate liberties they take.
Presents I can't open without help.
I have a memory of a wedding night
first time for everything naked we
bleed and sweat call God in flight.
We birthed all you ***** and egg
it's why we're all here this night.

Birthday cake's on fire.
I'd **** for some desire.
Blue pill's too risky
for me to get frisky.
Take matters in hand
make a flaccid stand.
Play out jammed gun
sleep without a ***.

Birthday cake's on fire.
I'd **** for some desire.
Blue pill's too risky
for me to get frisky.
Take matters in hand
make a flaccid stand.
Play out jammed gun
to die without a ***.

The clock ticks
like a bomb as
I obey the march
of time to
another year
and candles on
another cake that
just makes me fatter
and mirrors that lie and
broke bathroom scales.

We were always naked
proud of youth's biology
you turned 21 I sang a
happy birthday apology
my gift was the same
******* as always
coward's painful shame
never gone always stays.

The broke heart heals
with laughter's peals
new love broken beds
always goes to heads
or tails depending
on a happy ending.

How many lashes of your belt are
enough to pay a debt for our birth?
How many broken bones and tears
will be enough to prove our worth?
5 diamonds and 3 bags of threats.
5 adoring girls and 3 scheming sons.
You were jealous of us young and strong.
We threatened the king's winter seasons.

I'm not crafty like a fox.
I'm just an idiotic drunk
surfing on a buzz of my
own creation. I have a
clever thought or two.
My chaotic life is gentle
at happy hour. I ignore
dripping faucets and
past due bills and time
chasing me to my eulogy.

I'm not crafty like a fox.
I'm just an idiotic drunk
floating on a buzz of my
own creation. I have a
clever thought or two.
My chaotic life is gentle
at happy hour. I ignore
dripping faucets and
past due bills and time
chasing me to my eulogy.

Harder  to live, just be brave.
Dollars now just worth dimes.
Nothing worth a **** to save.
These are known as harder times.
Eating cat food or moldy bread.
Forgive my crass expression
hunger has gone to my head.
Another greater depression.

My guilt overwhelmed me and I ran
  faster to the ***** and the pills.
  Drowning in stormy seas I reached
  desperately for a ticket to Boston.

  I was born again in Harvard Square.
  A stranger with a clean slate and a
  winning smile and a way with women.
  It shames me to the bottom of my soul.

  I broke hearts and promises back home.
  Wife and kids adrift their anchor lost.
  I couldn't find my magnetic north. Tara
  was my north star. I found my way home.

birth the earth allows
seeded after the plows
food for us to try again
another year in Eden
**** the clearance bin
we're flush Gatsby gin.

Trump voters are haters.
Who or what do they hate?
Minorities? LGBT? Women?
He wants peace? Orange man bad?
Trump derangement syndrome.
I am sad by the hate. My family
hates me for being a hater.
My siblings are gone and I pity
their ignorance and hope they
thrive in Socialism.
I love all of you. I fear for tomorrow.
I'll try to help you in the camps.

We're all terribly broken
but will never ask for help
until we swerve outside lanes
wake up to our ****** pains.
Jump into 12 step meetings
'til we can't stand pity again.
We are bones in a mirror with
our ghost a haunting savior.

I bring me here now to confess
my complete ignorance of this
thing we call life. I'm old and
I know better than to give advice.
Ask the cocky sharks in the Bowery
what to do for money and girls.
I won't overstay my welcome.
Have a drink on me when I die.

I was lost inside my speed
  drugged mind hoping for calm
  but all I got was lost in Oz,
  a shrink's chair with no exits.
  I jumped from mountains of lies
  and fell into the truth's grave.
  I settle for lesser compromise.
  I'm saved by a clock's loud tick
  death's second hand metronome
  keeping track of all our lives.

By the time we met June and December
     I made you laugh and remember me
     when I called you and set us both free
     we drink cheap and **** like monsters
     in the Motel 6 an old grey cowboy and
     another lover hoping in my despair.

Find your favorite toy
stash it in the toy box
*** drugs rock and roll
find your biggest *****.
Never tell the Vicar his toll
God forbid you speak truth, Boy!
The powers that be will destroy
your kind of queers
preying on your fears
washing souls clean in
your futile sweet tears
a baptism  original sin.

He didn't know I was a psychopath.
He never saw me angry out of reason.
It was dark as tar and I was silent when
he left the bar. He was almost to his car
when I spoke. You are ******.
He's been in traction for awhile.
She's moved on to a kind and
loving man, so far, we'll see.

I was ****** and drunk at 3am.
My conscience called my phone.
We ****** and never answered.
I crawled back to my quiet womb
with black light in a little room.
I woke in hell's sun naked tomb.

At 3am we were drunk and ******.
My conscience called my phone.
My conscience said leave me alone!
We crawled back to a quiet womb
with black light in a tiny tomb
born in fierce sunlight at noon.

I was ****** and drunk at 3am.
My conscience called my phone.
We loved and never answered.
I crawled back to bed now alone
a little room at hell's midnight.
I woke in your fierce sunlight.