Raised glasses troops back home,
  five dames toasting a new need.
  Maybe tomorrow's no more alone.
  Wombs hoping for a lover's seed.

I was a hormone raging teenage boy
     shaving just a month with an urge I
     didn't fully grasp. I would soon. You
     were like lightening at midnight as
     I chased dreams in booming thunder.
     You were my movie queen, centerfold,
     every girl I ever desired. Life had a
     reason. West Side Story. You were my
     Maria and I was your Tony. I loved you
     so much back then. Years ago it's been.
     I threw the dice and landed on couches
     of shrinks with pills but never answers.

Drunk love is magic
kinda true and tragic
born in a Dali womb
a melting clock tomb.

Pain stain strain insane refrain
  You sacrificed your body beautiful
  for this precious life of our love
  this is how you hide the pain now
  baggy dress and wine at noon and
  sleeping alone inside yourself again.

If the lights are all out
and I listen to a song
I carry the cross to the
finish line where you
are nailed to it and die
for 3 days and escape
magician or sorcerer
drunk apostles write
a holy bible set it in
motion forever after.

I have dreams.  I have nightmares.
  I hope for the best and fear the worst.
  I'm just one of God's creatures in a zoo
  called my mind. Walls everywhere I can't
  go beyond. Gravity, time, our biology
  keep me inside my tiny world tethered
  to my appetites. Will death set me free
  to live again in nightmares and dreams.

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.

Half naked in the backseat
fingers caress your skin
finding my way back to lust
I want my heart to adjust,
fall in love with you again
picking a lock to our Eden
praying for the power of sin
to show us the way back in.
Our shrink told us the secret.
Like Nike he said, "Just do it!"

Not chemo tired
not marathon tired
not **** *** tired
not old man tired
I want for nothing
finally dead tired.

Always fighting over bones
huge dark wings cast shadows
over death's tasty aftermath.
Reporters crawling ants look
for missed bits to sow doubt
and leave truth unrecognized.

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.

I splash around the ice
while I drink box wine
write this broken verse
nothing could be worse.

Crossing Texas I hear
a voice on my AM radio
sounded like my grandpa.
A comfort to hear truth
of DC's gaslight gigolos.
He faded in the thunder.
I turned the dial all day
looking for his wonder.

Bring me your lust
disguised as love
your proper verbs
**** is making love
meet the parents
sober for a change
good impression
seems so strange

He died a long time ago
but lives inside us each
he's every inch we grow
never outside his reach.

A forever after universe
breathe his magic dust
infinite prayer and curse
always doubt and trust.

I was driving a U haul 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'm a Bukowski
not a debutante
I know what I need
you know what I want

Catholic church captured them
in their shame and took babies
made them slaves to remorse
said their vaginas full of rabies.

I stand naked in a strange light
in my bathroom in the mirror
looking 35 but I'm 79 so what
magic does a young lover cast?
She thinks I'm moon and sun.
At death's door I've just begun.
I just want to keep skin intact
so I'm not a circus freak show.

We've had our fun
with Yeats and pun
illicit lovers and
others at hand
I love you best
now time to rest
tomorrow night
resume our flight

An invisible force that pulls
objects toward each other.
We were magnets and apples
falling from trees. Two planets
trapped in love's gravity kissing
in our photo booth universe.

You were glorious and spectacular
   more fun than a barrel of monkeys
   a thrill a minute with roller coasters
   and Ferris wheels and side shows, cotton
   candy and near beer to persuade dates
   to the tunnel of love and a kiss or 2.
  
   Now the splendor is just rusted iron
   and rotted wood and peeling paint and
   graffiti and broken windows. We live
   old and fat and bald in misery we got
   used to long ago. We ride this Beast in
   terror and thrills to the bitter end.

A shout out to Bill Gates on
his philanthropic magic tricks
20% ROI African sterile vaccine
baptisms of fire black eugenics.

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.

I love you for awhile.
Nothing else matters.
I promise forever, but
my forever is never.

Give me our broke vets
under bridges in tents.
I give them all money
for a cheap pint of honey.
Thanks for your service.
July 4th makes you nervous
1812 Overture torn apart
from bottom of your heart.

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.

We lived through all the fairy tales
God, Santa, Tooth fairy, Christ arrives
from Kansas on the Yellow Brick Road
it's a miracle this tale still survives.

Childhood is magic but it has an ending
die into adulthood pay bills, take pills,
wed a *****, **** pinky swears and vows.
It never lasts forever the childhood ills.

My commas are in a hurry
exclamation points worry
colons horribly confused
periods indecisive abused
question mark is unsure
semicolon can't endure.
Quotation marks ensure
what you said will be pure.

My brain has become a web
of confusion and delight as
I hold you close dancing out
of step with yearning heart.
I know this place spinning
like a plate on a stick as
I lie in fields in a scarlet
sky with you yearning too.

Piano notes can break my heart
  first love lost in youth's chaos
  or have me cry with joy at our
  first child's birth. I hear echoes.
  "You've been at war with yourself
  far too long. Come home, son. I've
  loved you all along. Nearly out
  of time my end is coming soon.
  Metaphors keep burning us down."
  Fire hisses like snakes in the rain.

You lovely creature hairy and
too eager to jump on me barely
in the front door. I've never been
loved this much my whole life.
Do you mind if I lie with you
as you die in the soft grass and
sunlight and remember chasing
tennis ***** in your dreams?

The moon stays
through lazy days
of Autumn's ways
red leaves praised
this old man crazed
I'm finally amazed.

1967 Class Reunion

  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.

I start looking for night at noon
   in dark bars searching on bar stools.
   I couldn't sleep in a raging sea of a
   thousand clowns and useless fools.
   I live in asylums' promises of hope.
   The storm is coming for us all again.
   Find a home find a harbor an anchor
   find a God who will forgive that sin.

I found a magazine
left lonely in a field.
I was 13, what I'd seen
set me free. I was healed.

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.

A glass of wine
  and I will sign
  on a dotted line
  free of me and mine
  no more empty threats
  morning's pained regrets
  always the unpaid debts
  just drunk and forgets.

That day was so long ago
memory is vague shadows
quiet whispers in the snow
prayers for the widows
tears for Canaries caged
as the coal mine raged.

Homesick

  When did my childhood
  disappear? When did I
  really notice girls and
  dress for their glances?

  When did we tie us in knots
  and end with child, married
  and I was crying, homesick
  not quite ready for this?

  At the drive in movie you
  dried my tears. We carried
  on to our cliched future. We
  split not knowing the why.

  Years have let it all play out.
  Many different players yet so
  alike. The parts don't change.
  I'm homesick for everything.

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 my heart
we played our part
West Side Story
Maria and Tony
Star crossed love
in worlds above
I will lie dead
our lovers' bed.

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 beautys'
  desires I never understood.

I put lipstick on a pig and
    called her my love. She was
    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
   decaying lung or two, burst
    arteries, empty heart and
    putrid once beautiful flesh.

One more glass of wine
    I travel back in time
    hours before you die.
    We'll laugh 'til we cry.
    Remembering. Laughter
    takes my breath away.
    I swear I'll come back
    another day when I die.

I want to write the poem
you always quote to impress
friends at Hampton parties
and read to your children
so they understand why this
whole mad spinning life is
worth the price of admission.
We might be born in a manger.
We might be Mary Magdalen.
We might be a million peasants.
No one ever remembers peasants.
We all remember Jesus Christ.

I'm a worn out old man.
I want to go back to Alcott
where the world was in a jar
and we were masters of the
woods. We knew the creeks and
lake and swung on vines Tarzan
like and ran home to supper and
homework and TV and slumber
and dad off to work at 5am hacking
in the bushes and off he went in
the flesh colored rocket ship that
was a a '57 Chevrolet Bel Air.

I remember your touch and I hunger
like the night we became us on the
back stairs as the party faded away
into white noise and my heart beat
into yours and I knew my world just
fell to pieces and broken promises
and broken children were here.
I relive it one second at a time.
I still look for you everywhere
to find our back stairs again.

God's wrath struck the Joshua tree
   and reduced it to cremated ashes
   then let our world settle. Let it be.
   We watched it in lightening flashes.
   We live in angry desert cactus scrub
   hidden branches of the poison creosote
   where the only touch is death's rub.
   We just grow colder without antidote
   join our bodies on this unmarked dune.
   The stars are your bright eyes above.
   I stare at your beauty in a full moon.
   Wind is a final breath our dying love.

We wed in the snow
   divorced in the rain.
   The enemy you know
   embrace her in pain.
   We were soul mates,
   shared beating heart.
   Lust betrayed fates.
   Love played a part.

Colors faded cushions shot.
Our mom and dad thrones.
All used up and gone to a
better place. Old things are
dismissed forgotten ridiculed.
Dumps and graveyards are
overflowing. Remember us.