Earthquake. Atom Bombs.
Commies' hungry tombs.
Homecoming once more
Dad's back home from war.

Since birth
I have been
God ******
by original sin.

No clean slate
**** fresh start.
blackened soul
a Devil's heart.

Don't ask questions.
   Don't rock the boat.
   Drink their beer as
   they steal your vote.
   Government never lies
   they work for us bosses.
   Budgets never balance
   just ignore the losses.

I found the other side of grief at last.
It's fine. I live again in a mirror of sorts.
Motion and light and sound are odd but cool to
the touch and familiar enough to feel normal.
I buried my grief in an old graveyard
just beyond moonlight's feeble reach
in the bayou by the haunted tree with a
wooden stake pounded in wasted suffering.

Poetry happens when you tame doubts
with wine or **** or a broken ego that
demands attention. Meet me in our bed.
We'll settle scores and compromise.

Rip our jaw away
silence the sway
we have for folks
excite provokes.
Feed us to Judas
one more exodus.
Nailed to thunder
left us to wonder
why are we so alone
for humans' atone?

We collided at a party. Your unfettered
******* were spectacular! ******* centerfold.
Take my breath away and **** me in bed.
We came to in the morning and made love.

You softly wept after. I never knew why.
We were a couple for awhile. Your family
loved me and I them. We had game nights
and laughed and drank 'til we'd go to bed.

Drunken clumsy *** before sleep. Love.
I knew all along our cupid was contrived.
Making love out of lust never ends well.
We imploded just like all my other loves.

Why is my dad in my mirror?
His skin's stretched paper
veins bulging and angry
a lifetime sinless Quaker.
He died years ago I thought
he's buried inside my body
from a grave like Christ
live and die again lordly.

We found love on a blanket in the park.
   The river ran backward while the moon
   fell from the night sky into the creek
   where it rocked gently in the breeze.

   At that instant that was timeless
   we raised the dead and cured the sick.
   We brought nations together in peace.
   I fell into you and rocked in the breeze.

I just keep dying a day at a time.
I want to write a symphony.
I need to cure my cancer.
If I were running in Summer
grass barefoot at 10 again I'd
tell me to just do it the same.

Atoms. ***** and egg. Lovers
lost in lust and sleeping as your
miracle ignites into a life that finds
itself dying a day at a time wishing
to write a symphony and not ever
changing the script. Our lives.

We're embryos in a prison, no escape.
  Released after serving 9 months inside.
  Finally on the outside in a searchlight;
  aliens grab for me while I cry in terror.

  Time passes and I'm allowed to join peers.
  Daycare is where we compare notes and learn
  about wardens keeping us from our freedom.
  We pinky swear allegiance to our new cause.

  We are imprisoned in elementary school and
  bored to a death sentence. Cursive, add, subtract,
  multiply and divide. Memorization of everything.
  History is reduced to indoctrination. God save us.

  Middle school is blemished skin and puberty at
  odds with one another. Let's get close. Eww!
  Cliques are the prison gangs. You belong or not.
  We take care of our own and you can go to hell.

  High School is the big house. ****, nerd or normal.
  There's a special cruelty reserved for "losers".
  Those are people different from established groups.
  They're prey to be driven to their own demise.

  College is the great escape. Finally on our own.
  We can drive our own lives wherever we want.
  Study and obey the rules, or party every night.
  No middle ground. **** the torpedoes!

  I enter the work force. I'm an associate at Target.  
  I'm tethered by a walkie talky.  We're drones.
  I feel like I'm a cog with a target on my back.
  I marry a coworker and we serve time together.

  We raise a family of prisoners and near the end
  when our health is waning, I go into the garage
  and put a hose from the exhaust into my window,
  and finally find my way out of Alice's Wonderland.

Our lust
betrays trust
destroys love
at the cost of
broke children
a mortal sin
nowhere to hide
suicidal bride
****** Mother Mary
suckles us sinners
while we are buried
beneath our married.

Our masters have given us answers
        abandoned the truth to bend us to
        totalitarian dreams where everyone's
        a widget, cogs in wheels of commerce.
        They have homes for all the seasons.
        We live in boxes with lofty promises.

Our souls bright light
in sin's darkest night
expose our true delight
as death takes it flight.

Our world's afire
anarchists crawl
with firebombs in
their insane jaw
spread Lenin's
caustic seed
to the poor mans
desperate need
**** the emperor
expose a sterile king
sit upon the throne
sell his royal ring.

We got crazy in outer space
promised love face to face
we swore that it was honest
nothing as good as promised
bumped ugly after it all
left a fake number just call.

I sat in His wooden pews.
I knelt on His Jesus cross.
Reading the Holy news
mourning religion's loss.

I dreamed inside a dream
inside another dream and
still another dream lost light
left my anchor and took flight
forever into eternal night
never to fear your fright.

Unaware we live our lives
happy as our wedding night
busy bees inside our hives
demanding the Lilacs flight.
Biology. Chemistry. Lust.
We all buzz to our flower
for white powdered dust.
Snort until we lose power.

I watch them under streetlamps
strutting near naked in tall heels.
They remind me of every fantasy
I ever knew and I desire them now.
Married far too long in lean times
I want love's lies in motel rooms.

I watch them under streetlamps
strutting near naked in tall heels.
They remind me of every fantasy
I ever knew and I desire them now.
Married far too long in lean times
I want love's lies in motel rooms.

I want to be a scapegoat
or a monkey's uncle's aunt
or insufficient postage owed
maybe a thing I can you can't.
Can I be your toy and ****
in your bed our ersatz love?
Friction is a fickle friend
maybe needs a latex glove?

He snores and farts in sleep.
Unabashed as we kids creep
looking at Grandpa's books
borrowing them like crooks.
Salinger's Catcher in the Rye.
Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.
Bronte's Wuthering Heights.
Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath.
Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar.
My 100 Night's in the Bar
tanned in neon's sunlight
stumble home in moonlight.

old soldiers sporting bravery's medals
  then comes the blaring marching band
  next are the clowns and the jugglers
  children waving flags don't understand

  still too young to know war's truth
  soon enough it will be their turn
  fresh young faces eager for glory
  will march into their hell and burn.

The rich men and poor ******
at the Moulin Rouge to give
and get what they both must.
She sold her love to live.
Absinthe dreams made love a
loaf of bread goblet of wine
pretending you're all knights
'til my hourglass is out of time.

She was looking for seduction,
Lust's promise of destruction.
Blood red velvet curtains hide
the naked heated acts inside.
We never see the virgins bleed
fears and tears and finally need.
Pleasure demands its addiction
a pound of flesh for seduction.

I stand cold and naked
outside of the head
at the party sacred
ignored like the dead.
My life is unraveled
****** fills my head,
my maps untraveled.
Not addicted he said
great escape I knew
Oxy is a fierce God
until our lips are blue.

I found parts of me
inside my poetry
I could never see
in strange reality.

I'm a part time atheist
praying to a 9 to 5 god
I fall in love with strangers
everywhere and always
I try to live outside my skin
until it drags me into rehab
I can't live in here and now
or then and there until I
find me inside a mirror
take a selfie with Alice.

People everywhere but I'm not here.
Loud. Noise. Laughter. Music.
I'm numb to it. I mingle and help them
laugh and toast my dear friends.
I'm outside in a tree house looking at stars.
I am crying for a terrible loss only I see.
A friend calls for me and says we're leaving.
My love demands she's going. The loss to be.

Bring your addictions and lovers
to my party. I'll have music and magic
and buds and needles full of love.
We'll have naked hour at midnight.

The piano sets a mood for this
that I want to say to you, Patty.
I never meant to leave but you
wore gossamer with those ****!
You knew how I'd react and set
a stage I tore it up and left forever.
You were a party girl who just
wanted another free drink.

You bring me to my knees
     begging or praying or both.
     I've been on a razor's edge
     since our orbits collided at
     that party down the rabbit
     hole. I was mad as a hatter
     and we fit like a glove.
     We flew too close to love.

He tied her down with lines of coke.
He was a rich kid with no soul.
She had bruises living in the trenches.
His nails were manicured.
He kept her as his plaything, his
****** doll to **** 'til he was done.
Abandoned. She ended up in rehab.
She stopped the carousel with pills.

He's an optical illusion
thick glasses confusion
I disappointed him
works mortal sin
he passed away
I die another day.
He buried me
long ago at sea.

I offer my soul to you
for payment that is due.
Lies told were never true.
We drank sorcerer's brew.

My dear, Savior
Erase my debts.
make me braver,
admit my regrets.
Anyway let me be
in a peaceful place
where I can see
better time space.

Wage your wars with swords.
I'll defeat you with my pen.
The defeated are buried and
forgotten. Victors never forget
the horror of it. Madness lurks.
Answers lie on printed pages.

The hundred dollar bill in 1998
buys less than a twenty in 1958.
Tax us to battlefields for wars.
Pay for *******'s lovely ******.
Forget unwashed trash's pains.
Genocide removes their stains.

Comrade, our fragile freedoms are gone.
We just don't know it yet. We've been
betrayed by our politicians who sold
their empty souls for bags of silver.
We send our sons to die in their wars.
They drink Champagne toasting wins
and dismiss massacres as bad luck.
Where did it all go wrong? We pay.

Mom and dad in their cushion
thrones regal at 6 Alcott Lane.
Modest castle I am favorite son
who caused them the most pain.
I kept them in stitches of laughs
war's scars acid rain in our life
old roof leaks dripping epitaphs
one more day and one more wife.

Hormones off the chart
we race to broken heart
time has cruelty loaded
in the chamber exploded
face another day ghosted
as our goose is roasted.

It's just a perfect day.
We are just perfect.
Our puzzle fits perfect.
Arguments end perfect.
*** in an out perfect.
Proposal on knee perfect.
Wedding was perfect.
Baby girl was perfect.
Hampton's house perfect.
Night's at work perfect.
Hotel rooms are perfect
with my lover so perfect.
Divorce sad but perfect.
Visitation almost perfect.
Proposal on painful knee.
lover showing perfect.
baby growing perfect.
it's just a perfect day?

Let your feelings slip boy
but never your mask boy
stand strong before the mast boy
while the sea rises to your knees
dashing pirate woos a maiden boy
hearts throb in the audience boy
pelicans float on the wind dancers
to a throbbing beat finding answers.
chemicals in needles in arm veins
fed to blood biology loose reigns
between life and death perfect day
visiting the dead with so much to say.

When the night seems
   forever cold and alone
   desiring selfish dreams
   hearing him on a phone

   that just wouldn't ring
   sweat in uneasy slumber
   here's the actual thing
   he calls a wrong number

   our love is still alive
   we were so **** perfect
   I know we always thrive
   always a perfect defect!

I've been chasing you forever
broken hearts left behind
love smoke in fingers never
a real ghost I will ever find.

I want to write a perfect poem.
Touch all the hearts' tears and joys
terrors into unknowns we roam
boy gets girl and girl gets boys.
Tears wash away the stains
burn memories in the fire
cheap beers arrest the pains
try to forget the dead desire.

Hold my broken heart
bring it back to life.
Love's perfect storm
has a sharper knife.

There's always talk
in costumes on stage
of innocence and guilt
I'll live in your cage
of my rage you built.
We bow and turn a page.

When I grew into my ball's
puberty I drank a first beer.
I puked that night on walls.
Then I knew how to steer
my own course in my life.
I know right from wrong
I know songs of *****'s
from Ulysses's shores
blinded by the sun light
in never ending night.