You thought you'd live forever
in the ***** of your lover
but she drowned in a river
of your overflowing liver
and you lost your direction
and died in imperfection.

An old cigar box holds treasures
from my childhood. My father's watch,
marbles and crayons fighting for space,
wedding band and Atticus' glasses, Jem
and I carved in wood by Boo Radley  
and my tears for our Mother's death.
Black or white or something within.
To **** a Mockingbird is a mortal sin.

Going mad in complete silence
is easy, military drums snap
rat a tat tat, the bugle plays Taps
A million soldiers march
silent past me to their graves
while my son is buried alive.

Going mad in complete silence
is easy, military drums snap
rat a tat tat, the bugle plays
Taps. A million soldiers march
silent past me to their graves
as my son is buried still alive.

I died quietly last night in a cancer
  ward with whispering machines and
  silent sobs gripping my hand as it
  turned stone cold and stiff at last.
  Sirens screamed and patients screamed.
  I was at peace in perfect silence as
  the horrible noises of living in pain
  kept fading into death's forgiveness.

Coney Island roller coaster screams
      pleasure screams through the motel walls
      screams as the happy married couple drive off
      Painful birth screams of motherly love
      screams of anger as spouse ***** the help
      screams of cancer through the night
      no god in sight just morphine in the drip
      the worst is the silent scream before suicide.

Your pills keep me sublime
living life in perfect time
Ambien close to midnight
or before an ocean flight
AM coffee with a ******
keeps anxiety at a minimum.
****** with our martinis
breaks the bed with ease.

doctors' bag of tricks
elixirs, shots, magic mix.
cure the sick. sight to blind.
take madness from your mind.
Sad? a pill. Mad? a pill.
ADD? pills keep you still.
Cancer? You need poison
kills you slowly within
leaves you barely alive
to hopefully survive.

Time is a brooding storm
hovering behind my back
threatens every tick tock
as universes always stack
Tarot decks against a ****.
We're always hanged seconds
before we *** on the clock.
we love the patient serpents.

I try drawing you from  old memories
   but can't get your eyes right. I don't see
   the body that destroyed my earnest vows.
   I can't feel your warm young ******* and
   ******* that grew so hard by my caress.
   I can't see us dancing naked in the dark.
   I wish I'd kept the photos. I cremated us
   in an ashtray drunk so many years ago.

I try drawing you from  old memories
   but can't get your eyes right. I don't see
   the body that destroyed my earnest vows.
   I can't feel your warm young ******* and
   ******* that grew so hard by my caress.
   I can't see us dancing naked in the dark.
   I wish I'd kept the photos. I cremated us
drunk in an ashtray so many years ago.

I try drawing you from  old memories
   but can't get your eyes right. I don't see
   the body that destroyed my earnest vows.
   I can't see your warm young ******* and
   ******* that grew so hard by my caress.
   I can't see us dancing naked in the dark.
   I wish I'd kept the photos. I cremated us
   in an ashtray. I can't see you anymore.

Another Bowling Alley died today
on the chopping block for pennies
on the worthless dollar's payday
please expose my secret diaries.

I tear my face off and give
you one you'll fancy for love.
I build my body however
you want if you'll desire me.
I can pour gasoline on me
and burn to a seed if you
will plant me within you
inside your secret garden.

I keep drinking trying to beat
the life out of me before I lose
my fragile sanity and speak truths
nobody wants to hear. It shatters
their bones and exposes secrets.
Suffer in silence and die discreetly.

My desires stay in their little prisons.
I release them with liquor. They crawl
all over the bar and my mind. I see you
in spotlights on stages waiting for me.
We're young again at the beach with the
rock we dive and swim through and the
sun makes us gold and we **** in bed all
night long and wash our beautiful sins
away in baptism in the morning surf.
I puke in the gutters at closing time.
I stagger to my rooming house and drop
into bed and ache for you all night long.

My desires stay in their little prisons.
I release them with liquor. They crawl
all over the bar and my mind. I see you
in spotlights on stages waiting for me.
We're young again at the beach with the
rock we dive and swim through and the
sun makes us gold and we **** in bed all
night long and wash our beautiful sins
away in baptism in the morning surf.
I puke in the gutters at closing time.
I stagger to my rooming house and drop
into bed and ache for you all night long.

My desires stay in their little prisons.
I release them with liquor. They crawl
all over the bar and my mind. I see you
in spotlights on stages waiting for me.
We're young again at the beach with the
rock we dive and swim through and the
sun makes us gold and we **** in bed all
night long and wash our beautiful sins
away in baptism in the morning surf.
I puke in the gutters at closing time.
I stagger to my rooming house and drop
into bed and ache for you all night long.

Set my heart on fire.
Melt my chains
with fierce desire.
Cool Love's rains.

Her fingernails grow
like vampire teeth
bleed your back slow
when I come I seethe.
The hottest heartbeat
explodes in lust flame.
You're my kindest treat
no sin left for any blame.

Her fingernails grow
like vampire teeth
bleed your back slow
when I come I seethe.
The hottest heartbeat
explodes in lust flame.
You're my kindest treat
no sin left for any blame.

The wind blew up her dress.
  Those lips sang to me from
  shore like sirens of Ulysses.
  I was tangled in the sight
  caught in a net of memory.
  I was trapped in her riptide.

Destroy my ears and eyes
cut my tongue in quiet cries
I'm a scarecrow of straw.
A seer who will see it all
the future better or worse
give it a blessing or curse
I live forever after death
stealing livings' breath.

I brought it on myself
with Chardonnay
by the big box
forgot what to say.
I forgot her name
lovers look the same
in the tiny picture frame
so I'm never to blame.

I drink spirits as a self inflicted madness.
   a welcome respite from mundane day to day.
   scratch in ink upon parchment my truth, be
   that as it may. devils in the details.

   I believe with all my heart tomorrow I will
   see young lovers hand in hand disappear into
   the mist where they do what we all would.
   therein lies my hope the world won't end.

I'm old enough to be my grandpa
  who was thrown in his grave years
  ago when I was 13. I'm gray haired
  and wrinkled with laughter etched
  in my face with no lips to speak of.
  Teeth aren't white but they're mine.
  I'm better in some light than others.
  I'm probably at my best in the dark.

Smell the wealth. Taste the money.
Breathe the corruption and ******.
Pretend you're better than them and
confess truth to the priest pray his
penance and get tested for the clap.
Go blind and see bitter truth at last.

To be my friend you need a sense of humor,
  my lover also needs a tolerance for tears.
  I have friends and lovers who laugh
  for hours orbiting my odd but special sun.
  I give everything to orbit theirs as well.
  Kindred spirits, my own kind, I get them.
  We're slightly bent and drunk a little off.
  I live loud, laugh louder but I'll die quiet.

Sleep in a stranger's bed
2 days later head and crotch
magic lover's itch instead
of marriage down a notch.

I drove the 57 Chevy
family station wagon
to my first real date
to the posh East side
too fast don't be late.
Met mom and dad
she liked my cologne
hasty exit to be alone
so we could be bad
bench seats our bed
puzzle bra distressed
I calmed as I was fed
inches in secret garden
we screamed as we bled.

I pour gasoline on me and
my poems and set on fire.
Words burned funeral pyre.
Ashes are all left of desire.

I always set the table
even as we starve
potatoes' blight
extinguish light
black in coffins
ordered flight.

abstracts, metaphors, colorful exaggerations,
it is poetry in motion and blinding light,
your heart might explode but you don't care,
we're inside that moment as one together
time ceases we exist in our cocoon our womb
our hearts slow we sleep like lovers spent.

I was young once
like you and bored
before the *** came.
I finally cut the cord.
I entered her garden
to taste of her flowers
begging her pardon
I tasted for hours.

We were *** dead corpses
  catching our breaths.
  15 and nobody home we
  jumped off sin's steep cliff
  and practiced 'til it was right.
  I fell in love. You loved *******.

My libido was off the charts
with Striptease dancer's arts.
15, last row tiny women dance
tempting with teased romance
sweating in worn broken row
they pop balloons and I know
I swear I saw her tattoo thigh,
one more drink staying high,
one more pull from my flask.
Just one last question to ask.

My libido was off the charts
with Striptease dancer's arts.
15, last row tiny women dance
tempting with teased romance
sweating in worn broken row
they pop balloons and I know
I swear I saw Tia's neon thigh,
drop one more tab staying high
one more pull from my flask
no more questions I need to ask.

Call or text your special needs.
  Wheelchair to your hollow knees?
  **** her oyster desert dry
  as you break your heart to cry.
Pay the price for what it's worth
empty vessel killed at birth.

Silence and noise
destroys my poise
up and down again
the madness within
shadow in noon light
it is my final flight

I let my shadow go today.
I set my youngest free to be
herself with her own shadow.
She will call me less now but
she'll be in love and I won't let
it matter. God, I'll miss her.

I let my shadow go today.
I set my youngest free to be
herself with her own shadow.
She will call me less now but
she's in love and I won't let
it matter. God, I'll miss her.

I don't know who I am. Please help!
I'm trapped inside this madness.
If I stumbled down a rabbit hole just
let me know so I can seek out Alice
and the Cheshire Cat and the high
caterpillar with the hookah.
Maybe I've eaten mushrooms
and my imagination has run wild.
Maybe I've found Bedlam.
Bright light in the white
with kind nurses hovering
over my gurney with my straps
lovingly swaddling me like the
baby Jesus. I know I was born
from a ******'s womb, untouched
by the brutal act of human conception.

I have no fear or hate,
just a shadow of a fate.
Never too early or late,
nothing I can anticipate.

Our shadows make of us what will.
Candlelit images dance closer on walls.
Shadow moves as one. Our passion
kills the light. We slowly drift away.

Bright lights who guided me
are now long dead shadows
beautiful shaded memories
waiting for my shadows.

To be or not to be?
   I paint a black halo around
   your blond hair at midnight
   while you hide the moon from
   me and I wonder at your games.
   It's all intense; music, acid,
   *******, the beautiful things
   I've known, but  not seen lately
   We wait naked in the dark for
   dawn's first vague glimpse of
   love in our eyes. We stare blind
   and reach into the dark for lovers.

I was of an age
drunk in a rage
trapped in a cage
spilled on a page
escaped onto stage
writ large a sage.

To be or not to be?
   I paint a black halo around
   your blond hair at midnight
   while you hide the moon from
   me and I wonder at your games.
   It's all intense; music, acid,
   *******, the beautiful things
   I've known, but  not seen lately
   We wait naked in the dark for
   dawn's first vague glimpse of
   love in our eyes. We stare blind
   and reach into the dark for lovers.

Yesterday we were boys running
  through summer's green fields.
  Today we're old men haunting bars
  and shadows of our memories.
  We curse time's stubborn march.
  We curse ruthless gravity that
  drapes thin skin over our bones
  and bends and shrinks our body.
  We barely eat. We're diminished.
  We die ghosts not much to bury.