I was driving a Uhaul filled
    with my meager life thus far
    with my latest burned out love
    beside me going to Nashville.
    I thought she'd stay behind.
    I couldn't break hearts clean
    like a good hanging neck snap;
    always death by a thousand cuts.

I love my Katie and Sean
Michigan Avenue red light
dogs are barking 'til dawn.
French leave take my flight.
Kids left as nun's orphans
while I exit my stage right
it bleeds into tear's plans.

Jesus Christ promise me
  there's hope for us still
  that you'll drop from the
  sky and set things right
  keep the communists away
  and stop the lies and let
  me drink my wine in peace
  and write madness in poems
  while You do heavy lifting
  and we won't be so reckless.

I love you inside your mind
  I love you outside your head.
  I love you in solitude or screaming
  stroking you gently or kissing thighs
  in dreams or nightmares bravely or
  shrinking in fear from your anger.
  I love you inside out and upside down
  north south east west night or day.
  I always love you most at 3AM while
  you gently snore and talk in your sleep.

I'm barely awake from a dream. I
    need to call home. 6 Alcott Lane,
    Greenhills. Is my room still there?
    Is the Xavier pennant still nailed to
    the wall, and Christ on the cross?
    That room was my growing up womb.
    
    I found my *** in that room. I puked
    beer in that room. I played with my
    plastic super heroes in that room. I
    was sent to that room when I told my
    parents that I got Kathy pregnant.
    I know there's no going home.

Betrayed by my mother in easy summer days
    my father home from work at 3:00 drags me
    kicking and screaming to the whipping post.
    They never understood my Irish let me be.

    My rebellion was ******* all!
    I was forbidden to see West side Story
    I read the play from the library
    my father caught me and was angry?

    The catholic church can go straight to hell
    and use their fortune off the back of the poor
    to ransom their way to the heaven they offer
    to everyone as their own righteous *****.    

    I drag others into my whirlpool
    I want to die in my confusion...
    I want to fix broken parts and return
    to a corrected life in perfect fusion.

    I always aligned with the quirky ones
    where I always felt myself and real
    not correct and punctual, happy...
    no going back to squareville. Deal.

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

It carries bruises from years
of fighting wars with lovers
hating my weakest fears
always avoiding others
all hidden distant stars
brutal parchment stains
like albino mega scars
no one  claims cremains

My drunkard hand shook so much
I chipped the fine china teacup and
spilled the ******* tea on my despair.
I pulled the poem from my pocket
and gave it to my host as a gift.
He printed it in The New Yorker.

The river ran backward
   the day you suicided
   posed lifelike in water
   yesterday's undecided.
   The books left unread
   words still left unsaid
   dead praying for dead
   no feelings of dread.

I always want what I don't have
  and don't want what I have?
  I'm a dog chasing my tail
  'til I can't move any more.
  I sat with parrot like shrinks
  saying what do you think?
  A simple answer for my confusion
  I think we're all mad as hatters.

5am we crowd in the rickety cage
   take us down to hell's cold entry
   into the mines. We stoop and dig
   claws into the rock to drag coal
   into the carts we roll to a rich
   man's greed and we end our days
   in poor man's bars swallow coal
   dust into our angry hearts keep
   score waiting for God's smite.
   We sleep with our sacred wives.

My name is Joseph and I fought
in a madman's curse called war.
Our leaders had a hissy fit and
screamed like brats for honor.
They declared war and fed us
to the machine from which we
can never return intact.
Something is always missing.

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?

Moments still eat seconds that
eat from minutes that feed from
hours while we toil at jobs that
steal from ticking life's hourglass
sand in tiny pieces never quit
until we are just dead clocks.

Life to death
are bookends to
our story lived,
Birth to Burial.

I put lipstick on a pig and
    called her my love. She was
    a queen of Somerville. I love
    willing women of beauty.

    I knew it wasn't going to go
    the distance. It was shallow.
    Not love but a siren singing,
    tempting me to a rocky shore.

    There lies our relationship
    an empty lung or two, burst
    arteries, exploded heart and
    putrid once beautiful flesh.

We choked on our stock's ashes.
1929. The crash. We lost it all.
nothing left to bear my burden.
nothing left to sing my praise.
my body aches. my soul despairs.
Forget friends. Never mind prayers.
The only warmth a stranger's "Hello".
I doubt innocence. What does he want?
I'll sleep on benches and city grates
and wipe my *** with worthless paper.
I'll walk the stairs for the first time
to the top of my building and perch
and gaze upon the city that betrayed
and step into death's cool flight.

Last night's debauchery is washed away.
   The front stoop drenched in morning light.
   Blood fades into a stain that looks like Jesus
   with a wink and smile. That happens in Queens.

   I wake from dark dreams in a room deluged
   in sunlight so bright I'm blind to my ugly
   truths from last night. I could eat a horse.
   I find the diner. That happens in Manhattan.

   The heat is long shut off and I light Sterno
   to melt some ice for a spot of English tea.
   Sunlight won't come this far north past 96th st.
   It knows better. This happens in East Harlem.

You want to speak to my heart
you broke not too long ago.
I'll see if it's here. Who is calling?
It's not ready to hear you yet.
Call back in a life or two and
maybe I'll forget your cruelty.

I hate when people I know die.
The rest of humanity is a lump of clay.
I see my friends souls fly
strangers just die another day

We're loose power lines in an angry storm. Dangerous
  because we state truths that mere mortals don't want
  to hear. They color inside the lines and live within
  the box. They seek safety. At times I envy them.

  I refuse to live in a black and white world.
  I drag crayons wildly on the paper and draw
  what others can only entertain in nightmares.
  We'll gather in alleys and graffiti our hearts.

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.

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

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

I steal what I want.
    The sun and moon and
    your heart and stars
    time and beauty and
    wistful looks crying
    I'll build a universe
    for us. We are King
    and Queen. I steal dreams.
    I always dream of you
    You dream of me too.

Sometimes I forget
   to remember you
   day to day as we
   live our small life
   together and alone.
   I remember you now.

It's huge
melodious centrifuge
stealing rhythm
with no misgiving
from each to give
to each to live
fabulous Commune
a marvelous tune

First it steals small names
   then dreams of cunning lust.
   It smothers white hot desire
   then steals my flaccid trust.

   It hides joys I knew and my
   hate I once kept in my head
   steals lovers not forgotten.
   It buries me before I'm dead.

I'm dragging myself cross country
   once again trying to find a place
   that I can recognize as home. I'm
   aching for my own kind. Tired of
   temporary jobs and lovers in bars
   I don't recognize in the morning.

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.

I'm worried. I heard a crack
   in the universe last night.
   When too much weight is on
   humanity to always do right.
   Our team is losing this fight.
   It is a terrible fright tonight.

All boozed up on Chardonnay,
   swapping virginity lost stories
   drinking from ***** straws and
   holding ****** as scepters while
   ropes of ***** crown our heads.
   We puke and cry and wear our
   hideous bridesmaid's dresses at
   the wedding and catch the bouquet
   and send the married couple off to
   a honeymoon in the ****** Islands.

I was lying on a shrinks couch
and had a straight jacket moment
when I couldn't find a window or door.
He prescribed ****** for 15 years.
I finally came back from living dead,
staring into the shining sun no fears.

Life's a carnival, a festival and
    a tragedy and comedy in one pie.
    It's a terrifying and wild roller coaster
    and that first time in the deep end
    when you thought you'd never find
    another breath but did. It is lost in
    time in the bumper car ride at Coney.
    It's kissing grandma's corpse goodbye.

Church bells are mute this time.
Carols are quiet in a silent night.
Tree lights are dark and children
laugh without mirth. It's a funeral.
Christ was aborted from a womb in
a Hollywood motel on 5th and Main.
Return all the toys and ***** candles
and pour the eggnog down the drain.
Elves work in sweatshops in China.
Burn Santa in effigy slaughter his rides
12 fillets and beers on the house
and slippers of reindeer hides.

He reminds me of me at 10
  best of intentions and trust
  a world that hasn't had time
  to **** a spirit and hope yet
  I'm not that cynical. I'm 72
  still love women at a distance
  and dream young boy dreams
  where we dance all night in
  7th grade with dark beauty's
  desires I never understood.

We wear white hats
and ride white horses
to rein in the sheep
to right wrong courses.

He had to flee his Ireland.
The God ****** British
stole his life and land.
He floated to America.
John Donovan from Cork
was my great grandpa.
Stubborn as a mule and
strong as an ox he lived.
There's a deep dark hole
for Irishmen to bury anger.

Do you know these people
  dirt poor with joyful eyes?
  No tears or pity asked they
  work hell's cloudless skies
  every meal fatback and beans  
  sharecropper hands of stone
  Sunday overalls starched go
  to Church praise Jesus, atone.

I never believed in anything
as much as I believed in you.
I'll never forget you. Your
heartbeat is still in my own.
You taught me how to love.
You taught me patience and
humility and to be kind when
it wasn't deserved but needed.
God's own Golden Retriever.

We always saw you on our horizons.
We drank to your health and to ours.
We went to meetings and confessed
helplessness and drank bland coffee
and ate stale donuts and smoked
an endless chain of cigarettes.

I found my way back to my family
on bar stools and raucous laughter
with our dreams hiding in liquor's
fog. We live in the doldrums. Can
we ever know normal? I'll answer
when I've had a hair of the dog.

You were set loose upon our young souls.
  We laugh uneasy on bar stools when you
  come to mind. We're here to drown old sin,
  nun's black habit fallen catholic guilt.
  We live our bent lives remembering
  Sister Mary Holy Water's Catechism.

As Cesar was assassinated.
Rome burned as Nero despaired.
A lyre string wept for his death.
Rome's bones weren't spared.
We remember crown of thorns,
Crucifixion, 40 lashes and denial.
Bury Assange before sundown.
Empires hate truth's bright light.

I've known you for years. Grandad introduced us.
    You always made the room glow and laughter flow.
    You forgave me when I betrayed those I promised
    to never betray. You made me smarter than I was
    and clever when I was dull and modest when clever.
    There's always a madness in the air when you grace
    us with your presence.
    I plan your funeral. I bury you in a potter's field.
    I buried you  before.. Like Christ you rise.
    I put a stake in your heart and salt on your grave.
    You refuse to be banished from the lives we live.
    Maybe you'll stay buried inside me in my grave.

Notable characters I've known
touched raw nerves I exposed
vulnerable like being alone
forever in a Polaroid posed.

A ****** horror show
  promises of death's door
  anchors pretend to know
  we believe but we ignore.

old enough
to know better
never old enough to
forget her pleasure
lost the map to it
the buried treasure
search my heart
for promised start
never find an X
no Eden's ***
no youth's excess
no more I confess
I broke all hearts
flame less bonfire
of the broken parts
screams of desire.

I go to sleep feeling dread
    in the morning I feel dead
    fog never lifts from my head
    I need Methadone to be fed
    I can't forget what she said
    Take the red pill instead.

The dogs are playing poker.
Quincy favors one eyed jacks.
The cats are always scheming.
Mice have the best laid plans.
Raccoons rob garbage cans at night.
Bears play Rugby in the clearing.
Pigs grab the grub by the seconds.
Dingoes look for babies to eat.
Nessie in the Loch is very timid.
Sunset Strip wildlife is insane.