I lost faith in my religion and wander.
      Who can forgive my sins? Who can cast my
      demons from me? Who can bless me at death?
      Can I never be buried in sacred ground?

      Now my faith is in pills and ***** and soft
      places with perfume and happy endings.
      My church is a bar with a pastor named Tia.
      She speaks in tongues with a snake that bites.

      Her venom is the sweetest thing I've tasted.
      She brings me to my knees and I bow to her.
      I drink her blood and eat her in communion.
      I wake calm with my savior. I found my faith.

I lost faith in my religion and wander.
      Who can forgive my sins? Who can cast my
      demons from me? Who can bless me at death?
      Can I never be buried in sacred ground?

      Now my faith is in pills and ***** and soft
      places with perfume and happy endings.
      My church is a bar with a pastor named Tia.
      She speaks in tongues with a snake that bites.

      Her venom is the sweetest thing I've tasted.
      She brings me to my knees and I bow to her.
      I drink her blood and eat her in communion.
      I wake calm with my savior. I found my faith.

I lost faith in my religion and wander.
      Who can forgive my sins? Who can cast my
      demons from me? Who can bless me at death?
      Can I never be buried in sacred ground?

      Now my faith is in pills and ***** and soft
      places with perfume and happy endings.
      My church is a bar with a pastor named Tia.
      She speaks in tongues with a snake that bites.

      Her venom is the sweetest thing I've tasted.
      She brings me to my knees and I bow to her,
      swallow her cream and eat her in communion.
      I wake calm with my savior. I found my faith.

I lost faith in my religion and wander.
      Who can forgive my sins? Who can cast my
      demons from me? Who can bless me at death?
      Can I never be buried in sacred ground?

      Now my faith is in pills and ***** and soft
      places with perfume and happy endings.
      My church is a bar with a pastor named Tia.
      She speaks in tongues with a snake that bites.

      Her venom is the sweetest thing I've tasted.
      She brings me to my knees and I bow to her.
      I drink her blood and eat her in communion.
      I wake calm with my savior. I found my faith.

I plunge my gorged soul
into your rabbit hole
looking for a red queen
perfumed in between
the sexes not binary
a lovely green fairy
smooth and perfumed
Love always doomed.

I drag my broken soul
down your rabbit hole
looking for a red queen
lavish and in between
sexes not binary
my lovely fairy
smooth and perfumed
Love always doomed.

We didn't know where we'd been.
  We smoked and drank like lovers
  on Red Wine Road until dawn showed
  and we went separate ways forever.

He's dying in his bed above his bar.
    The jukebox plays soundtracks
    of life and people live out loud
    drinking and laughing in fierce
    lives below. Life on fire!
Sharks circle his lifetime
where the sun don't shine.
He dies smiling above it all.

I'm so ******* wasted.
  You're never tasted.
  I love your innocence.
  I can't find my way home.
  I'll remember you in 50 years
  lamenting our lost chance.

I've been here before. I know
  the drill, the prayers, the coffee
  and stale cookies we learn to love.
  Some are court ordered going through
  the motions. Some are earnest with
  hope in their eyes. We're all addicts.
  We want to live in a different place
  where we change it to suit our needs.
  Forget the past. Let it grieve itself.
  We must move beyond *******.

I was never comfortable in
  sobriety. It felt like a cheap
  suit that rode up places it had
  no business. It chafed. My skin
  itched beneath the coarse cloth.

  The days were calm but seemed
  to never end. I longed for my
  old conflicts when the demons
  beat their wings against the
  walls of my mind. I love storms.

  I sit in my dive bar at my corner
  table. My love keeps me well oiled
  while I labor to write perfect
  poems of life's imperfections.
  I feel alive living day to day.

I always saw you on my horizon.
I went to meetings and confessed
helplessness and drank bland coffee
and ate stale donuts and smoked
an endless chain of cigarettes.
I walked twelve steps in your shoes.

I missed my family and relapsed.
They kept my bar stool for me and
I drank to our health and you.
I'll see you in my dreams hidden in
liquor's fog. Will I ever know normal?
Maybe when I've had a hair of the dog.

Mixed messages can be confounding
   but if looked at through an alcohol
   filter they can be deciphered as if
   spoken in clear and precise language.

   Passive aggressive onslaughts are hell
   disguised as innocent comments. Clever
   warfare that has plausible deniability.
   Be vigilant and you can discern it.

   Manipulation uses ills often; migraines,
   back and/or neck pain, depression and the
   mother who visited her madness upon you.
   The first marriage tore holes in you.

   I married a 1 who became a 10. What can
   I do? signed Desperate. Dear Desperate,
   You can become a 10 or find another 1 and
   hope the new 1 will not become another 10.

Mixed messages can be confounding
   but if looked at through an alcohol
   filter they can be deciphered as if
   spoken in clear and precise language.

   Passive aggressive onslaughts are hell
   disguised as innocent comments. Clever
   warfare that has plausible deniability.
   Be vigilant and you can discern it.

   Manipulation uses ills often; migraines,
   back and/or neck pain, depression and the
   mother who visited her madness upon you.
   The first marriage tore holes in you.

   I married a 1 who became a 10. What can
   I do? signed Desperate. Dear Desperate,
   You can become a 10 or find another 1 and
   hope the new 1 will not become another 10.

I know.
we've all played it.
Relationship Roulette.
Spin the wheel and ****.
Is this forever after?
Wake blinking in a bed
smelling of *** and regret.
Do the walk of shame.

A hotbed of deception
  A dollar each confession
  tenfold more to forgive
  trade your lust to live.
  Kneel take your penance
  in your mouth this once.
  Don't forget again to come
  penance take it up the ***.

skies alive tonight
stars are on fire
libidos take flight
quench our desire

skies alive tonight
stars are on fire
libidos take flight
quench our desire.
You gave me breath
when I couldn't breathe
helped me avoid death

I don't remember names
but never forget the feel
of warmth from flames
touch it that is real

You'll laugh at my dad jokes
and Camo Crocs I wear.
Laugh out loud and cry
have a baby name her Bill.
I'm living in your memory
I'm the flower and butterfly.

I promised something last night.
  I was slightly askew. What was it?
  Remind me again. I was in my cups.
  Take ballroom dance lessons? Groupon?
  What the **** is that? I hate dancing.
  I have two left feet and an old man's
  aversion to new tricks. Spare me.
  Try me again tonight at happy hour.

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 for too long in lean times,
I want lovers' lies in motel rooms.

As a child I believed in God with all my might
   My god passed into his own oblivion in his flight
   I drink with crazy drunks with voices in our head
   argue for our sanity with a broken God instead.
   Are we alone in this universe stretching forever?
   I sit on my bar stool an old woman holding a lever
   I pull and end this **** thing we call our life.
   The baby's home in bed and I'm a mother and wife.

It loves for a moment.
After it's restless and is
looking on horizons for
love that might last but
never does. Horizon to
horizon in heart's desert.

I left the bathroom naked
at a party for awhile
the only thing I wore
a slightly crooked smile.
Punched a hole in a wall
instead of her heart
broke my hand and
everything fell apart.
I'm old now harmless
living life out desperate
for a new Lover's hole
for a thrill's moment.

Walk the dog.
Feed the hog.
Shake my snake.
A nap I'll take.
Wine at seven.
Dream at eleven.

I pack 40 years into a box.
We have stale cake like me.
Handshakes and hugs all around.
Goodbye and keep in touch. Of course
we never talk again. Is it retirement
or is it a rehearsal for my funeral?

I'm in tears seeing you again.
Hold me tight and let me smell
you and me again as we were
holding hands. Mine are gone.

You paid too great a price
  for your petty salvation
  Sin is much cheaper and
  delivers you to her haven
  Eden's fruits, lust's clam
  a lover's sacrificial lamb.

She left me a long time ago.
  I found her ****** in a crack
  under the bed overlooked cargo.
  If I knew where I'd send 'em back.

Show me your desires
reveal your wildfires
never mind my neglect
I have to face my regret.

Revolution
  We seeded discontent
  increased the angry want.
  We butchered our oppressors
  became the new expresses
  we were elite suppressors
  buried unwashed confessors
  called it the flip of a coin.
  Queen, off with their heads.
  The sheep survived and join
  Reds starve them no breads.

We butchered our oppressors
  became the new suppressors
  we were the elite professors
  punish unwashed confessors

Love is a fever trapped
in rhapsody wrapped
in a chocolate heart
Valentine play your part.

We're all being swept to sea in a
riptide of madness in a sinister
world of mad science and trusted
aides with long knives and smiles.

I took your cruelty
inside my frailty
I found my *****
in your claws
endless lies
in your eyes
made you blind
could not find
kindness but I
learned to fly.

I took your cruelty
inside my frailty
I found my *****
in your claws
endless lies
in your eyes
made you blind
could not find
kindness but I
learned to fly.

We have our angry bulls to ride.
We take a gulp at a flask and mount
our truth in the pen. The gate is open
and we pray and hold on for dear life.

Poetry snobs can kiss his ***
and beg his fans for a pass
into his simple connection
an honesty of real reflection.

What is the difference
between  rogue and hypocrite?
A rogue knows he's a rogue.
A hypocrite thinks he's God.

We chose the roles we played.
   The roles chose us after all.
   I played my father with 8 kids,
   Catholic and war hero after all.
   It wasn't a part for me and I quit
   the play and lived my own script.

I used to look to the future,
        the only thing left is a past.
        There's an emptiness I can't fill.
        I've always been troubled fun.
        It's a steep price for a ticket
        to a ride that lasts a minute.
        The line is long but moves fast.
        Afterwards you change your name.
        We never drown in the shallows.
        We always preferred the deep.

When everything falls apart
    deep within a broken heart
    it's last call and time to pay
    the long night's final tab.
    I expected perfection.
    We live our lives looking
    for our soulmate and find
    them on the corner of Myth
    and Pretend. They are perfect!
    Next time I'll find my soulmate.

We young lust fools
broke sacred rules
back in the day
when I started decay
to shred my soul
leave an empty hole
where decency exists
temptations to resist
embraced the libation
the pure celebration
a stone was a heart
we played our part
West Side Story
Maria and Tony
Star crossed love
in worlds above
I will be dead
our lovers' bed.

Alone in a city above
the rest of you I love
I drink from a paper sack
swaddle a bottle of Jack.
Father was a Christ child
taught me all about wild
living appetites of lust
forget love's naive trust.

I lived in a garret in a rooming house
with dead flowers in an old crystal vase.
We dead always live inside our vanity.
I was in a womb waiting to be reborn.
I was in Boston, 1000 miles from home.
The Italian and Irishman were my friends
and St. Georgine from Jersey saved me.
I'm old still crawling in the birth canal.
I'll be delivered any day now in tomorrow's
muted light my ashes in an old crystal vase.

I finally felt at home in a womb
  safe against a hostile world. I had
  a radio and listened to Boston's
  Classical station and read People's
  Almanac and smoked Parliaments and
  drank beers while finding the truth.

I finally felt at home in a womb
  safe against a hostile world. I had
  a radio and listened to Boston's
  Classical station and read People's
  Almanac and smoked Parliaments and
  drank cans of beer learning truths.

I pray my holy rosary
a whispered treasury
sincere convictions
the devils' evictions
I use my mother's beads
Catholic's sacred seeds.

I pray my holy rosary
a whispered treasury
sincere convictions
the devils' evictions
I use my mother's beads
Catholic's sacred seeds.

I lost faith in faith
and belief in belief
when you broke my
rose color glasses.
I see evil people
lusting for control
of mankind in cages
dancing on stages
**** the unwanted
the old the gimps
hookers and pimps
darkies and spics
addicts on trips.