Home Depot. Need a gas can. A woman
spraying plants told me where to go.
Aisle 3. I was met by John who said his
wife had cancer and told me the best
gas can to get. I asked about his wife
and he said she lost her hair and was
sick to her stomach. Hemp oil helped
her pains and I promised prayers
as the helpless hope all I can offer.
Sorry for your loss comes soon after.

Every beginning has an end.
Every ending has a start.
All the **** in between we call life.
Love is a votive candle.
Lust is the forest fire that moves
our herd onward so we
wake tangled together and
give it another go just lust.

Your music was honey poured on my heart.
Blue eyed blond voice so **** sweet
kept me alive inside my bleak terrain.
I loved you, Joni, from the very start.

I could never find you
in the vastness of living.
We never shared a beer
never found a wedding.
You bent chords like I
bent my tiny day to day
shuffling decks forever
without a card to play.

Pose with me. Smile.
   I'll be your friend
   in a picture frame
   'til the bitter end
   nailed to the cross
   of your destruction
   buried in shame
   and a resurrection.

Slit a throat
stab a heart
sacrifice a goat
just do your part

kiss Christ's cheek
mark of the beast
just don't be weak
celebrate the feast.

I deny the truth
swear the lies are true
gaslight my vows
swore an oath to you

Now I'm gonna' **** you
drag life from the bone
flesh feeds the buzzards
we all end up alone.

My mother slammed her Gavel down screamed *******!
    You're nothing more than a renegade sinner reprobate!
    I had no recourse. I was at mom's mercy. She sentenced me
    to face the executioner, my father's brutal temper to see.
    Dad would be home at 3 to mete out lashings by his belt.
    Growing up I told the shrinks the history of every welt.
    I've spent too much of my life wary of women with lips
    who held behind their backs brutal wicked devil's whips.

I'm old and play
my final hand.
No words to say.
Silence the band.
Show me the way
hold my bone hand
on judgement day.

Boiling heaven's elixir in a spoon
  I visited the dark side of the moon
  siren singing in the distant noon
  from the rocky shores of my doom.

Just one more drink of courage
another shot of heaven will
take me to the promised land
the full moon is a giant pill
my veins have all collapsed
I'll love you in this night
no air or life or time
no moments of delight.

Please don't save me from myself
I have my needs and want them.
My shaking hand will write my song
just a ***** with his sharp pen.
The needle holds the promise
of a heaven and final Amen.

Please don't save me from myself
I have my needs and want them.
My shaking hand will write my song
just a ***** with his sharp pen.
The needle holds the promise
of a heaven and an Amen.

I'm just a junkyard dog.
Old scars tell my story.
I'm left water and scraps.
Alone in the dark I sleep
and dream of a better life
and love with *******
I smell beyond fences.
Love is just out of reach.

I saw you on the subway
  lost you in the crowd
  love you like yesterday
  alone in the party cloud
  backstairs naked chance
  touch hearts and parts
  we make our music dance
  I drink to love's starts.

Years ago I said
Just a dog dead.
Didn't have a soul
down memory hole.
Years ago we did It
West Side Story ****
Tony and Maria vows
forever eternal now's.
We made our Kate
in a Mustang date.
Years ago somehow
we fell to our fate.
We adopted black
Jack Daniel's broke
into our own flack
and we all awoke.

Here's to sharp knives
slitting the throats
of the pharma killers
of us innocent goats.

Beware life's destroyers
putting us into a report
on death sheets of lists
killing is a blood sport.

I'm a little pink punk
    walking to the Waffle House
    with a stray dog named Wendy
    and it's love never in poetry.
    We have no white weddings and
    bride maids and bachelor parties
    or toasts or rice or noisy cans
    on a string or honeymoon. We
    have Motel 6 and Waffle House
    and tricks and dealers and us.

I'm sun you're rain,
    Pleasure to the pain.
    Cracked heart sustain.
    Join in Love's refrain.

The mob overtook me
tied me up in rope
spit and mocked me
destroyed any hope.
Lift up the curtain see
the butchered beast
still hovering above the feast

A coin dropped in a poor box don't change a thing.
Church candles lit won't save starving children.
Madmen write pamphlets and spark flames that set
worlds afire with noble promises always broken.
Trust our Elites to balance the rich and the poor.
They'll **** the dissidents who were too outspoken.

A pound of flesh an ounce of truth
  scales of justice fool our youth.
  Hammer and sickle we all embrace.
  The clingers gone without a trace.
  I'll die without complaint for Marx.
  We change the world with red sparks.

Old gray man passed out
   cold in a gutter. Kashmir is
    what he dreams. Exotic markets
    wild with smells and colors and
    women he'd never known.
    She is center. She is universe.
    She is symphony in his head.
    The night comes where she
    steals the beat of his heart.

I was a hormone raging teenage boy
     shaving just a month with an urge I
     didn't fully grasp. I would soon. You
     were like lightening at midnight as
     I chased dreams in booming thunder.
     You were my movie queen, centerfold,
     every girl I ever desired. Life had a
     reason. West Side Story. You were my
     Maria and I was your Tony. I loved you
     so much back then. Years ago it's been.
     I threw the dice and landed on couches
     of shrinks with pills but never answers.

I was a hormone raging teenage boy
     shaving just a month with an urge I
     didn't fully grasp. I would soon. You
     were like lightening at midnight as
     I chased dreams in booming thunder.
     You were my movie queen, centerfold,
     every girl I ever desired. Life had a
     reason. West Side Story. You were my
     Maria and I was your Tony. I loved you
     so much back then. Years ago it's been.
     I threw the dice and landed on couches
     of shrinks with pills but never answers.

What about the children? You **** a new ******
  and leave them orphans. Soon enough we'll be dust.
  Children's cries are mute in lust's thick walls.
  I put them in an orphanage while I suicide every
  night but still wake in unwanted mornings with ugly
  sunlight bathing my bitter coffee I stir you into.

My fingernails grow like claws
the older I look beast like crooked
and bent in age. I hate my destruction
against my permission. I lost control
so long ago when I broke your young
honest heart. I set it in motion then.

What a dream I had
    lost virginity found
    my voice again called
    your name best I could.
    I love you girl. Sit by my
    death bed praying rosaries
    to my betrayed god and hope
    like we used to do holding
    hands and touching heads
    sharing tears and laughter.

I fell in love with a boy
and I gave him my toy
he said it was forever
always be together
Romeo and Juliet
I'll never forget
our stage in light
the final night.
The curtains close
frozen in our pose.

My face betrays its youth
in cratered flesh and truth
trenches of war torn living
in need of your forgiving.
You need confession as well.
Pour cool tears into our hell.

What about the children?
You **** a new ******
and leave us orphans.
Soon enough we'll be dust.
Children's cries are mute
in lust's thick walls.
  I put them in orphanage
while I suicide every
  night but still wake in
unwanted mornings with
  ugly sunlight bathing my
bitter coffee I stir you into.

We pretended back then.
We put our pretend love
on the line and made your
pregnancy a hostage for
pretend marriage doomed
by pretend happy ever after.

You weren't seen
in my blind spot
too old so young
perfect ink blot
no trouble at all
self absorbed dad
in and out of love
edge of mind mad.
I forgot to care
for the tattered
broken Daughter
always mattered.

You weren't seen
in my blind spot
too old so young
perfect ink blot
no trouble at all
self absorbed dad
in and out of lust
edge of mind mad.
you were a rock
in my slaughter
never faltered
first Daughter.

You weren't seen
in my blind spot
too old so young
perfect ink blot
no trouble at all
self absorbed dad
in and out of love
edge of mind mad.
I forgot to care
for the tattered
broken Daughter
always mattered.

I will love you
when I die I'll
stir your brew
in death smile.

I'm searching my heart
looking for our start
where love had birth
she gave true worth
to our fiction love
wingless black dove.

You weren't seen
in my blind spot
too old so young
perfect ink blot
no trouble at all
self absorbed dad
in and out of lust
edge of mind mad.
you were a rock
in my slaughter
never faltered
broken Daughter.

December 1, 2017

        From midnight to one
        her life came undone,
        the world's fabric torn
        as a ghost became born.

        She haunts across our street
        noises made with dragging feet;
        trembling voice says with a whisper,
        "Beware the coming of the Reaper".

She died 4 years ago today
left me wanting for any love
I can't sleep in the empty house
all night I talk to her above
keep the TV ghetto blasting
keeps the memories at bay
breaks my heart a little less
every little fallen lost day.

I have a shiver climbing up my spine.
      The air is alive with static and sparks.
      The sun is burning out and the oxygen
      is gone. Our time is coming to an end.

      This comes on the heels of my dead friend.
      She's all that was good in our fragile world.
      Together we brought scary to Halloween.
      She started it and I helped her to the end.

My brother who let me climb
upon his back to save myself.
It's a debt I can never repay.
If you needed a liver I'd give
you mine but you'd not want it
knowing I needed yours anyway.

You saved me from my despair.
I had nowhere to go, Kevin.
Boston was world's end. You
offered sanctuary and I jumped
from impossible heights.
You saved me from myself.

sun soaked and salted drunken poet
eyes bleached blind looking at her
beauty framed naked in bright halo
gulls ride winds kite like a blur

I'm in love with a perfect stranger
Everybody gathers at dusk the beach
we hold hands in just pretend
to watch the sun lose its reach

sun soaked and salted drunken poet
eyes bleached blind looking at her
beauty framed naked in bright halo
gulls ride winds kite like a blur

I'm in love with a perfect stranger
Everybody gathers at dusk the beach
we hold hands in just pretend
to watch the sun lose its reach.

Cambodia
Prison camp S-21
Angkor kills but does not explain

your blood bleeds into my veins
so I can feel your pains
whatever god you pray to
beg for deliverance.
In the good old USA we are
unaware of unseen suffering.
Usually but not always.
we met at a wedding and
you shared your story
in broken English until
I understood that you
had been in the killing fields.

I move my rook to Queen
a bold move never seen
in the 60's summer of love.
Pieces go down and go above.
Waifs put in an orphanage
Queen turns an ugly page,
Catholic guilt on the stage
I burn my religion in rage.

I stood aside
let you ride
life's terrors
fix the errors.

Every day's the same.
Life's passed me by and I'm
just an old man killing time.
I stab it hourly. I'd **** for
a lover to give me life again.
I can't afford the hourly rate.

Every day's the same.
Life's passed me by and I'm
just an old man killing time.
I stab it hourly. I'd **** for
a lover to give me life again.
I can't afford the hourly rate.