I think I've had my fill. I'm 71.
My hands shake and I can barely
hold the needle to hit the vein to
calm me for another day to act
like living matters anymore.
I look for death's  final sting.

I put the melted ice in my cup
and pour one for the road again.
This is my final last call. I'll drive
home one eyed to keep the road
from ******* with me. I stay in
lines and park crooked. I'm home.
I thought by now I'd figured it out.
I'm older than my grandpa was
when he took pessimism to a grave.
I'll drive until I see the green moon.

I finally accept I'm insane
nothing will be the same
I no longer have a name
nobody is to blame
USA consumed in flame
burn my number I remain.

I think the world's become a
cartoon we're expected to believe.
We'll drink and smoke and swallow
pills and clench fists to shoot hope
into our veins. Nothing is forever.
We die in mourning. Always noon.

I have reached an age
without another page
pay an obscene wage
shouting more rage
on my silent stage
death's final gauge.

I missed me when I had to go away.
  They said it was for my own good.
  I sort of existed in a Lithium fog.
  I was gone from me except in dreams.

I dreamed of the sun born from hell.
I dreamed of angels called sisters.
I saw a cruel king with eyes of hate
who threatened me with his love.

  Now I'm kind of back. They kept pieces
  of my brain, the pieces that made me
  cut myself in a tub of tepid water to
  bleed out this life of threatened love.

My life is smoke from years ago I
can't remember with clarity.
The feelings are sharp as razors.
I miss everyone and everything.
******* my lap was fire in my ****.
I'm still in love with that poker card
with my first time you know what.
I miss time past. I'll miss time wasted.

Everyone I've laughed with
and parted ways awhile
I laugh at every memory
I miss you with a smile.

Each and everyone I knew
I'm blistered in my grave
cold earth warms my blue
lie dead wait to be saved.

I'll weave words
into a quilt of who
and not forget what
time demands when
point the map where
***** explains why.

I'm lonely tonight in a house full
   of laughter and bars full of friends
   and work and church and funerals and
   birthday parties. I feel nothing now.
   We do our weekly ritual of *** and I
   think of the waitress at lunch today.
   Hate me if you will. I never feel it.
   Nothing ever happens any more.

Pretend boy made of wood.
Call me whatever you would.
I love you with splintered heart.
Burn me down from our start.

Friends ask how are you?
I say I'm doing fine. OK.
I smile and walk along
to my dealer for blow
or **** or ecstasy
or crack to blow my
mind inside my mind
feeling dead above life.

forever love

I'm not gay
in prison

I'll respect you
in the morning

Voices whisper
Jesus in my mind

I'm God by default

I'm forever 21
and a size 0

Nothing makes
your *** look big

I don't *******

I'm an imposter
pretender of me
cannot get closer
but I want to be.
I can't fix it now
just set me free
I don't know how
In dark I can't see.

I'm trying to look sober. I'm drunk.
I know she knows it and I'm drunk
enough not to really care. I'll still
pretend as will she. Punch and Judy?

Everyone needs saved.
I have tiny purity to give.
My world finally caved.
Nobody here left to live.
Reptiles and roaches
carry on life at last
Cinderella's coaches
to mankind's past.

Love is nothing but a memoir
broke hearts are just keepsakes
remember to fall in love no more
'til you find your perfect soulmates

I came of age on a cusp, staid or hippie.
I stood with a foot on each side as my
whole world cracked in 2 and I with it;
Down a rabbit hole, into a looking glass.
The world was at odds. Beer or ****? Acid?
Martini lunch? Suit or bell bottoms? Free
love? Married with kids? Free spirit?
Obligations? The hall of mirrors.
Head shrink. Find me in shattered glass.
Discover myself. Survive the in between.

Try again or slit your throat
the easy way out all she wrote.
Round here we just shake hands
enough to make promises stand.

I'm not a communist.
  I'm not a socialist.
  I'm not a sadist or a
  satanist. I'm not an
  anarchist. I'm not a
  bonafide capitalist.
  I'll steal food to eat.
  I'll lie to get a beer.
  I'll love you for a bed.
  I am an individualist.

Please don't slam the door in anger.
   Don't go punching holes into our wall.
   Tame your madness or stay with her
   and don't bother to come home at all.

   You talk for hours to useless shrinks
   who, Freud like, say it's all your mom.
   We just need the child support to eat.
   I need your warmth and beauty and calm.

I need you more
  than want you.
  You're ******
  a lovely shrew
  demanding flesh
  you say is due.
  A cuckoo nest
  I need rescue.

It waits around a corner.
She haunts your dreams.
Under your bed fluid beast
bleeds through your seams.
You wake in the sunlight.
Wonder at the blood
God's intervention
takes hold of the flood.

I'm born then die.
Life worth a try.
I disappoint and cry
I laugh and I fly
to a northern star
not really very far
it's my favorite bar
we **** in your car
on a carousel I spin
a lucky wheel of sin
cancer grows within
I lose myself thin
I leave a dark stain
always death's pain
funeral in the rain
infinity once again.

I love every little thing in my cups.
I breathe Swansea's air from the sea
where Dylan Thomas wrote drunk.
Genius happens in late nights when
you've tamed the doubts with wine.
Naked Caitlin beckons from shore.

A drunk old man's explanation
  of the beginning of creation
  a thought became a universe
  beating with a single pulse
  we made a God who created us
  to help us explain this mess
  we made heaven and hell
  and sins to count as well
  we all transition to death
  rage against a final breath.

She went to a school dance
against his wishes that night
for Stoney her brand new love.
They made out making promises
that were never meant to be.
Wehrung beat Rebholz to death with a
fence post because she wanted to
break up, didn't love him anymore.
He smelled her perfume and
pictured her naked in his arms.
Her body was found in a vacant lot
near his home broken alone.

Rebholz went to a school dance
against Wehrung's wishes that night
she wanted to end their relationship.
She sat in a car with her new lover
making promises that would never be.
Wehrung beat Rebholz to death with a
fence post because she wanted to
end their relationship.
He smelled her perfume
and pictured her naked in his arms.
Her body was found in a vacant lot
near Wehrung's home.

Flotsam and jetsam trapped
in errant brain cells electric
hits on every nerve tapped
face twitch gnarl hand sick.
Cells break up and divorce
cheat alone and together
by love or brute force
insane light as a feather.

I yelled at my fingers and they
refused to move. I knew they
understood my broken mind.
I muttered aloud in public like
a spittle screaming madman.
I beg strangers for kindness
who look away pretending I
don't exist. I begin to think I don't.
I beg my fingers to talk to me but
they're silent and I'm insane..

When I saw you in the bar
I knew your every secret
and desire and we were one
and we've been 50 years.

Notable characters I've known
touched raw nerves I exposed
vulnerable like being alone
forever in a Polaroid posed.

Alarms beep and buzz and click.
   Morphine. Blood Pressure. Heartbeat.
   We chant prayers and despairs.
   Sirens scream outside and choirs
   of saviors sing orders to ICU.
   A quiet hymn calls time of death.

Alarms beep and buzz and click.
   Morphine. Blood Pressure. Heartbeat.
   We chant prayers and despairs.
   Sirens scream outside and choirs
   of saviors sing orders to ICU.
   A quiet hymn calls time of death.

Intervention

I've been in the deep end
too long to ever get back
to shallows and G&T's.
The only ending is black.
Carnival lights blind me
I'll drown in an overdose
last thoughts are of you
before you got too close.

You held my hand tight to never disappear
   below the white ocean falling from the sky
   full of white horses and ice castles and princes
   you'd dream of that night. I keep you safe now.
   I won't always be there. Spring comes. You grow.
   You meet your prince and white horses prance off
   with your coach to your castle and my ice gets so
   thin I fall into my own cold dream in your heart.

In the tock of the tick
we live our brief life
broken sacraments
vows die by a knife.
Run faster stay alive
another moment
long enough for
another torment.
I promise there
really is an end
time evades but
it refuses to bend.

I'll take you to my barber.
Introduce you at my club.
Meet my skinny lovers
living it up in my hot tub.

They came from London
armed bobby's to North
Ireland to subjugate us
steal our very worth

we fight tooth and nail
the ******* British
****** Sunday ******
us like a barrel of fish

we won't forget
we'll never forgive
bombs guns fires
this is how we live.

They came from London
armed bobby's to North
Ireland to subjugate us
steal our very worth

we fight tooth and nail
the ******* British
****** Sunday ******
us like a barrel of fish

we won't forget
we'll never forgive
bombs guns fires
this is how we live

They came from London
armed bobby's to North
Ireland to subjugate us
steal our very worth

we fight tooth and nail
the ******* British
****** Sunday ******
us like a barrel of fish

we won't forget
we'll never forgive
bombs guns fires
this is how we live.

I don't exist anymore.
Maybe I'm dead and gone.
I still shout out poetry
to dead ears who won
a contest I never got
rules I never read
front page space is bought
poor poets are just dead.

She's 6 and so serious when she invites me to
join her and her friends for tea. Be prompt.
I arrive at the appointed hour in suit and tie.
She and her stuffed friends are decked out and
wearing fancy hats. I'm introduced around the table
and we proceed to drink "tea" from tiny fancy cups.
I talk to her friends and learn my girl is Queen.
They assure me the King will come soon. I can wait.

Near my end I found a shoe box
    full to the brim with IOU's I'd
    written over my lifetime to those
    I loved most. They indulged all
    my erratic allegiance and suffered
    kindly my drunken promises to try
    harder tomorrow. If IOU let this
    last promise be a paid in full?
    After all each one of you made
    this beautiful madness possible.

    I stood on broad shouldered men
    who showed me how to live in bars
    and barmaids who showed me gentle
    love among neon and smoke stained
    rooms. We had hard scars and broke
    bones and blood in our hair but we
    showed them what the Irish can do.
    We rise from the dead each day with
    a song in our hearts and ready for
    a hard days work. We do it all again.

The loose ends of my youth
tangle me up and bring me down
sometimes. I didn't know it would
do that! I so want to tell so many
people that I'm sorry, but I'll never
reach them again and the regret will
stay stuck in my craw. Forgive me.
On the upside there have been many
of you that I've shared incredible
great times and unassuming love...
laughs never experienced since!
I raise my cup to you all.

A billion people died today when
an orange man said it didn't matter.
Every immigrant is separated from
children and thrown into cages.
All the white men are racist  and
sexist and xenophobic and we need
to be exterminated like Jews in death
camps. Then socialism will finally work.
Burn my white *** in effigy.
Hate me if you will.
I just quit believing *******
fed to the masses as truth.

A billion people died today when
an orange man said it didn't matter.
Every immigrant is separated from
children and thrown into cages.
All the white men are racist and
sexist and xenophobic and we need
to be exterminated like Jews in death
camps. Then socialism will finally work.

I recognize  the signs
of the bent fork tines
your desire forbidden
my broke heart hidden.
I ******* forever
pretend you're my lover.

I know you poets
I read your pains
I read about lovers
I see blood stains
we bleed the same
You inspire rhyme
I'm nothing without
you every **** time.