We gave you all we had because you needed us
  and answered the siren's call of glorious war.
  Outnumbered and outgunned we lost our comrades
  and hills and limbs and minds. Pieces of us came
  home to never heal and burden loved ones forever.
  War's are never won we betting against ourselves.

I play the game my own.
Love never breaks me.
I break my heart alone.
Always set myself free.

Mojave desert. California.
Hot days and cold nights. I like extremes.
Sand wherever you look and imagine the
power of a windstorm at midnight.
I'm tired, been driving all day and
into the dark with sand blinding
me so I can barely follow the road.
I see a sign. Oasis Motel. I stop.
Vacancy yes. I drop my bags in the
room. A sign warns "look for scorpions
before taking a shower". OK.
I'm moving cross country from
Seattle to Nashville. I'm skipping
out on an unpaid bill. A promise
of marriage. The object of my
desire lost her luster over time.
An oft told story in my biography.

Why can't I stay together with
one woman like my dad?
60 plus years!
I wish in the morning I could walk
into a different life where I'm
some kind of normal.
The winds died down.
I hope the gunshot is not too loud.

Past a certain age we grow keen
of death's hot breath on our neck.
Some night we won't awaken and
hate the sun in our eyes at dawn.
We'll never have to walk our dogs.
We won't drive slow for squirrels
on our way to Costco and *******
the young ambitious  hustlers.
We'll miss great great grand kids
born in a world we'd never approve.

Your once proud *******
  hang like bitter tears.
  Your *** droops and your
  thighs cellulite pocked.
  I still dream of you
  in a motel naked drunk
  answer to my prayers.
  I wake and we are gone.

Your once proud *******
  hang like bitter tears.
  Your *** droops and your
  thighs cellulite pocked.
  I still dream of you
  in a motel naked drunk
  answer to my prayers.
  I wake and forget you.

Your once proud *******
  hang like bitter tears.
  I still dream of you
  in a motel naked drunk
  answer to my prayers.
  I wake and forget you.

I wander in my mind block
after block and see teeming
masses screaming for truth
that isn't there and hope was
long ago abandoned as the
projects die in flames and
their keepsakes are lost to
licking flames and time.
I think of her still as years
collapse upon themselves.

The ****** troll through the projects
   hoping for a bite or two and some money
   to pay the rent. The nights are full of
   screams and loathing but calm down by the
   time the kids chase the bus to school and
   mothers go to their pitiful jobs at take
   out windows and cleaning toilets and wiping
   ***** in old folks' homes. The night work
   pays better and is full of happy endings.

I just wish you knew me
before I lost humanity
before I lost my sanity
before war changed me.
You are me at that age.
Violence births rage.
Wash pain away with
tears I sob. I'm sorry.

The piano weeps notes.
Guitar laughs it's chords.
Drum beneath it in quotes.
Angry voice sings words.

We come from such humble beginnings.
  Earth, water, wind, god's spit and the sun;
  stir into a cosmic cauldron and a pinch of
  Darwin for the atheists and in eons
  mankind emerges from the sea and marshes
  and swamps until we come onto shore like
  guppies and master land and build empires.
  We learn how to wage wars and destroy those
  weaker and unlike us. We colonize the world
  sowing the seeds of hatred along the way and
  are shocked when they reap the crop and ****
  us as intruders from long ago never forgiven.

Last Train Home
by John Mayer


     If you wanna roll me
Then you gotta roll me all night long
And if you wanna use me
Then you gotta use me 'til I'm gone

[Chorus]
I'm not a fallen angel, I just fell behind
I'm out of luck and I'm out of time
If you don't wanna love me, let me go
I'm runnin' for the last train
I'm runnin' for the last train home

[Verse 2]
If you wanna know me
Then you gotta know me through and through
And if you're gonna hurt me
Then you gotta hold me next to you

[Chorus]
No matter how you work it, things go wrong
I put my heart where it don't belong
So if you're comin' with me, let me know
Maybe you're the last train
Maybe you're the last train home?

Stop This Train
John Mayer
[Outro]
I'm on the last train runnin'
I'm on the last train runnin'
And I surrender, and I surrender
I'm on the last train runnin'
I'm on the last train runnin'
And I surrender, and I surrender
I'm on the last train runnin'
I'm on the last train runnin'
And I surrender, and I surrender
I'm on the last train runnin'
I'm on the last train runnin'
And I surrender, and I surrender
Oh-yeah
Oh-uh-uh-uh

The world exists in my head.
It's where we met and fell in love
and put the spike into your father's
innocent heart. I never thought of him
at the time. We split the atom inside
our families and saw the mushroom cloud
hover at our wedding at St. Luke's Church.
There's no going back.
I'm 70 and need to be born again
into a ******'s womb.

I'm angry at what you said
left the embryo in my head
I won't rest until your dead
or just your ******* instead.

12 monkeys stole an election
in the greatest country yet!
Soros was richer than God so
he bribed monkeys everywhere
to turn keys and throw feces. He
erased religion. He replaced god with
small jealous men with small *****,
huge egos and armies of useful idiots
      propagandizing for a cause without fully
comprehending the cause's goals  who
is/are* cynically used by the cause's leaders.
Vote for Her ****** to bury Capitalism.

*Which is it? Extra points for correct answer.

Soros' monkeys stole an election
in the greatest country ever!
Soros was richer than God so
he bribed monkeys everywhere
to turn keys and throw feces. He
erased religion. He replaced god with
small jealous men with small *****,
huge egos and armies of useful idiots.

I've looked for you for years.
   Soulmate, where is your shadow?
   I see your black hair and tears
   a Gypsy who will be my maestro.

   We ride lust unbridled in heat.
   Where are you? Are you a lie?
   Is it time to admit our defeat?
   Cross my heart and hope to die.

You'd been dying for a year.
It seemed forever until the
night your last breath rattled
at 3am and said it's over now.
I wept begging a god for just
another breath or 2 so I could
whisper once more Kellee, you
live on in this old woman's heart.

South Africa
Diamond Mines

  Workers wait for the whistle anxious
  to get on the clock making money. They
  shuffle. Angry yellow eyes stare at
  white keepers with guns and sneers.
  They wait. They're strip searched at
  end of shift checking for diamonds
  smuggled out in *******. They wait.
  They revolt and the white turns red.

It's big and yellow and dangerous.
It smiles and kowtows while stealing
every brain cell you have. Secrets are
revealed in New Years Fortune Cookies.
SOS. All patriots on deck. Man the guns.
Sleep with the enemy if you must.

I was born in a spaceship
on its way to Mars to start
over. Leave Earth to fools
without a caring heart.
Halfway on our journey
asteroid storms start
we pray for God's help
our ship is torn apart.

I remember your taste
and the bed we shared
drunk lovers pretending
lust is love we're spared.
One night of debauchery
the tips of lover's spears.
Enjoy whatever's offered
high noon it disappears.

We are never prepared
  shock of wrinkled grey
  House of mirrors distorts
  Roger Bacon has been
  lurking in my shadows
  scared I'll be the next
  in the arms of Christ
  on the list of the dead.
  We just got used to us
  for blood and screams
  old men chasing dreams
  live beyond their means
  bursting at their seams
  play their monkey schemes
  nothing is as it seems.
 Life comes and goes
  lurking in shadows.

Valentine bleeds inside my shirt.
Mother's day celebrate kids' hurt.
Saint Pat's day just ****** Sunday.
July 4 fireworks scare us to pray.

I bring you invisible to the party to
   meet my friends on an autism spectrum.
   They drink every third beer and **** on
   the hour. They avoid eye contact and guess
   your IQ and love your smell and fear you.
   They like us. They invite us to come again.

Lately the turn of death's wheel
spins slower with fewer clicks.
I'm growing tired and can't drink
like my younger self used to.
I smell death in my bed now
reeking of those gone before.

I open all my old wounds
for your amusement my
favorite sadist who has a
raging ******* when I cry.
Beat me like a broke Christ
nailed to a splintered cross.
Crown of thorns adorn my
sacrifice to my Father's loss.

Everything came apart
shattered my heart
splinters always bring
paper cut pain unseen.

Christ, I'm fresh dead
torn from your cross
My God my hope bled
just wicked world loss.
Toss coins in collection
it's too little too late
buy Katie's affection
she ate an empty plate.

I watched my generation destroy pride.
    They spit on what our dads saved in WW2.
    Freedom to live in Greenhills, OH and
    be a working man hero, a decent man who
    followed the rules and prayed to his god.
    He loved his wife with fierce love I envy.
    Our parents gave us a spoiled world to make
    a ******* mess of everything we touched.

When I'm hungry
or just hungover
I'm madman angry
spurned French lover
willing to punish you
as I fly into the Sun
my wings won't do
Icarus come undone.

I was conceived in the wrong womb.
  That's my life in a sentence.
  It was one I never wore well.
  Greenhills, OH. Suburbia ad nauseam.
  Lovely family and all but Bumpkinville
  so boring I took up smoking 8th grade.
  A swimming pool but I craved an ocean.
  I wanted a boardwalk and girls
  bold enough to kiss me like I needed
canyons of skyscrapers to explore,
  junkies and perverts and hookers
who knew the price of meat.
I wanted a library  with every book
to devour so I'd be smarter than my father
and teachers and the ******* Parish priests
who loved their altar boys more than the poor
sick needy masses of their church.

I was conceived in the wrong womb.
That's my life in a nutshell.
It was one I never wore well.
Greenhills, OH. Suburbia writ large.
Lovely family and all but Bumpkinville
so boring I took up smoking in 3rd grade.
A swimming pool but I craved an ocean.
I wanted a boardwalk and carneys and girls
bold enough to kiss me like I needed.
I wanted canyons of skyscrapers to wander
and junkies and perverts and hookers who
knew the price of meat. I wanted a library
with every book ever writ held out for me
to devour and digest so I'd be smarter than
my father and teachers and the *******
Parish priests who loved their altar boys.

I was conceived in the wrong womb.
  That's my life in a nutshell.
  It was one I never wore well.
  Greenhills, OH. Suburbia writ large.
  Lovely family and all but Bumpkinville
  so boring I took up smoking 8th grade.
  A swimming pool but I craved an ocean.
  I wanted a boardwalk and carneys and girls
  bold enough to kiss me like I needed.
  I wanted canyons of skyscrapers to wander
  and junkies and perverts and hookers who
  knew the price of meat. I wanted a library
  with every book ever writ held out for me
  to devour and digest so I'd be smarter than
  my father and teachers and the *******
  Parish priests who loved their altar boys.

You were red wine on my white shirt.
I tried to make you disappear with magic.
You live in my blood and haunt my veins.
You're my ghost and I'll never forget you.
You are dressed in white and sing hymns
of ageless beauty. You're my stain.

It wasn't love. It was illusion.
Harvest moon's shadow
shifting in the midnight surf as
we stumbled to Eden's bed.
Stain of ******'s surrender red.

      there's hope in despair
      fear in bravery
      ignorance in certainty
      doubt in forgiveness
      lost love inside love.

It wasn't love. It was confusion.
Harvest moon's shadow all along
shifting in the midnight surf as
we walked to our forbidden bed.
Stain of ******'s surrender bled.

      there's hope in despair
      fear in bravery
      ignorance in certainty
      doubt in forgiveness
      love lost inside love.

It wasn't love. It was confusion.
Harvest moon's shadow all along
shifting in the midnight surf as
we walked to our forbidden bed.
Stain of ******'s surrender bled.

      there's hope in despair
      fear in bravery
      ignorance in certainty
      doubt in forgiveness
      love lost inside love.

I hope to God I don't become
a stalker of Stephen Dunn.
He's my touchstone and poet.
I read and learn and rein my
deaths in and focus on my days
walking dogs and cleaning a catbox.
I'm old and wrinkled and stubbornly
afraid to change my modus operandi.
My poetry may not be printed
but it's my most sacred diary.
Forget the confessional. I put
my sins in lines on the page
and think any God can see it.
Mr. Dunn, If you have a class
in my city I'll take a chance
and sign up and hope you help
me make better poems but please
don't burn my confessional down.

Until everything is revealed
  truth is clear in blind clarity
  no hope left for false charity
  JFK ****** is finally unsealed
  scales fall from eyes DC condemned
  Dulles CIA Hoover FBI in chains
  can't ever remove all the stains
  inside the beltway ashes remains.

I've been staring into the sun
where our  pain is born again
where poet's souls learn to give
in a life spent chasing after sin
and never finding absolution
write our confessions on scraps
ignoring talk of evolution
embracing divine creation.
Drunk poets have always
known genius in Absinthe.

In a Van Gogh painting
   cheap wine and waiting
   inside our favorite cafe
   out of focus strange day
   swirling forever wars
   madness midnight stars
   satisfy my lust's desire
   quenching passion's fire.
   Morphine in the vein
   quiets my lover's  pain.

In a Van Gogh painting
   cheap wine and waiting
   inside our favorite cafe
   out of focus strange day
   swirling forever wars
   madness midnight stars
   satisfy my lust's desire
   quenching passion's fire
   morphine in the vein
   quiets my  dying pain.

He finally finished his last canvas.
  It satisfied his mad desire for love
  but left him wanting for his sanity.
  He shot himself and bled to death in
  the night he turned into day with the
  stars he painted into midnight suns.

Vincent's starry madness
let loose with his paints
ghost's at Midnight Mass
praying for living saints.

I live in Van Gogh's
mad sky of midnight
dance with the ******
settle in our delight.

We bury a great Lady
who kept us safe since
1886. She was ***** and
pillaged from DC vipers
in thousand dollar suits
and 500 dollar haircuts
thousand dollar ******
and selling the country
piece by piece as jobs
disappeared and they
became billionaires and
we wept at our burials.

Stephen Dunn is dead at 82.
He captured life on the page
in lines I felt when I was 42
heart's know nothing of age.

Valentine in his shirt pocket
suffered from Love's black kiss
used to be its favorite neglect.
It's always been a hit or miss.