A picture from a thousand kisses ago.
We were so in love full of desire we
knew would last forever. We are always.
Until we aren't. What broke besides
our hearts? We never understood. We
just blamed boredom and each other.

A picture from a million kisses ago.
Older and wiser we still broke our
bed and didn't miss a beat. We were.
Then one day we found others to break
more beds and lost sight of love. ****
was what we did. Until we didn't bother.

A picture of me on my 90th. Wrinkled
and alone in assisted living with a
cupcake and candle and little cardboard
birthday hat aching for youth and
beaches and bars and young lovers
again to break more ******* beds.

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.

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 keep
words forever asleep.

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.

I drink wine and write
some thing or another
reach in my aching pool
fears and tears and mother
we **** a rubber ******
purple breast milk denied
Dad fed at her fountain
I think she always lied.

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.

My darling son please
I beg you on my knees
don't volunteer to fight
this war of mad delight
full of bravery and death
just wasted final breath

Sick as hell he needed to
be put out of his misery.
I spilled a river of tears
waiting until his ending.
We laid him on a blanket
and fed him endless treats
while the vet put poison
in him to give him peace.
We're both chasing *****
in our dreams together.

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.

My roommate was one of a kind.
  "******' A, Chump", belonged to him.
  He gulped life like a drowning man.
  He wasn't handsome but he had charisma.

  I worked in Waltham, Mass. We were all
  misfits but smart as whips! We kept the
  DECSystem 10 computers serving brainiacs.
  We worked and partied hard. The olden days...

It shatters worlds
it won't touch me
I remain free as
will my family
1916 tears hearts
and friends apart
we need a restart
bombs guns fires
more needless dead
inside your head.
The troubles flame
always the same.
Horrible violence.
Horrible silence.

I'm 7 but feel like I'm Gramps.
  I smoke the butts in his car and
  drain his beer too warm to finish.
  I want to be him when I grow up.
  He makes mom laugh. I want to.
  He's like God that I wish I was.

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.

Intervention

I've been in the deep end
too long to ever get back
to shallows and G&T's.
The only ending is black.
Carnival lights blind me
I'll drown in an overdose
last thoughts are of you
before you got too close.

Too late to mend a fence
it's time for vengeance.
Damage is already done
bring your biggest gun!
Don't dare miss the fun
if you must, die in the sun.

I smoked the wine
   I drank the smoke
   I was gone when I
   rang my doorbell.
   I was Tinman with
   no heart you took.
   I'm rust and dust
   just inside Bedlam.

I offer my soul to you
for payment that is due.
Lies told were never true.
We drank sorcerer's brew.

Boiling heaven's elixir in a spoon
  I visited the dark side of the moon
  siren singing in the distant noon
  from the rocky shores of my doom.

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.

an inch or a mile
   or a simple smile
   or Peter Rabbit
   or deadly habit
   pull the lever
   just be clever
   slit your wrist
   never try to resist
   new world order
   with just one border
   without a fence
   or gaudy opulence
   just an open wound
   never healing
   a fierce desire
   without feeling
are you black or brown
or professor or clown?
never mind your history
it all remains a mystery
in this world with no past
an invisible cast.

I walk the streets with a poet's heart
looking for laughter or desperation
I can scratch or type into poems
I choose to name my inspiration.
We crazy poets ride the night train
screaming lines of vague insanity
I break the wild words like horses
and put them on pages of my vanity.
I was born with a poet's heart.

shifty eyed, *** covering bureaucrats,
   everybody knows 'bout the Beltway bubble,
   the plague is here and now, ****** USA
   $50 buys a loaf of bread and pint of *****
   and votes enough to steal any election
   print monopoly money, kiss Soro's *** and
   take a slice of American Pie 'fore it's gone
   read this fast before it dies in a gulag.

There's a space between us
we can never quite reach.
You're Mars and I'm Venus
opposites we'll never breach.
Shine on my broken heart
beckon in the blackest dark
Fire the gun. Race will start.
Keep score with a check mark.

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 will try to tell you about a real me.
I'm not sure I know that version I see.
I love and hate. I always have a bottle and pen
in my hands. The days get shorter and nights
go on forever. I sleep getting used to death's
black infinity. Memories betray my surrender.
Black and white dreams replay my silent movies.
I wake to life's burdens another day. Until I don't.

She wears red **** Me heels.
   Dance, your hands love that woman,
   always swaying to her siren song.
   Go home at dawn and climb in bed
   with the owner of your heart and
   hold her flesh and blood to yours.

I've been on your cross
nailed impaled beaten
I never felt your loss
you in my mouth eaten.

We came to in the morning
naked stranger's hang overs
unsure of aching etiquette
should we be pretend lovers
or should I take French leave?
Call a cab and be on my way
I'll call but we don't believe
nothing more we need to say.

BJ

first boy born
into your mad carnival
of French clowns and
angry war torn fathers
stern German granny and
carnival barkers who
promise salvation while
drunk strangers pass me
around like a flask
feeling almost full and
time just gets away from us
while years pass like seconds.

The wound is the place
where the truth enters
into blood's bright grace
creates 99% dissenters.
To vax or not to vax
destroy civilization
never the mob relax
hope for realization.

Between the trenches of war among the
    shell holes and pieces of men strewn about
    there is a patch of grass untouched to
    remind us of good old days in pubs where
    we shared pints with one another and spoke
    of the excitement of war's engagement how
    we scatter the enemy and in a month plant
    our flag on a hill of their blood and bones.

I sold my soul for a woman before.
  I turned my back on love for lust,
  a black heart tarnished white knight.
  I want you so badly now. I can't trust
  wild haired beauty singing from rocky
  shores draws me ever closer every night.
  I'm no saint. I've starved for years and
  smell your feast hungering for a bite.  
  I feel death's cold breath on my neck
  strokes gift firework showers of light.
  I'm old and set in ways like a statue.
  I'm safe tucked away for the night.

Spring

We fall in love
fist in glove
a God above
birthing dove.

Summer

Build our nest
for our blessed
birth a ****** mess
she survives distress.

Autumn

Princess on a carousel
Loves knight foretell
parts heaven and hell
down the wishing well.

    Winter

Old bones always ache
cold as hell, a snake
as I die my soul take
to hell, no mistake.

I slip out your backdoor
like a drunk love ghost.
Irish leave hurts more
but I always need it most.
I hate forever goodbyes
filled with forever lies.

Soros gold bought
the world from God,
our souls from God
and morals and sins
and babies in wombs
and death camps to
keep numbers small
only enough for us all.
I think evil owns us now
maybe it always has
innocents stand against
walls blindfolded crying
with **** in their pants.
The world is dying in war
only smolders in defeat
the sheep can only bleat.

And death shall have no dominion
Dylan Thomas - 1914-1953

And death shall have no dominion.
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan't crack;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.

Just be my breath and heartbeat for a start.
   Be the stories that made me fiercely weep.
   Every lust that ever brought me to an end,
   the absolute to my doubt, strength to my fear.
   Be my broken vows and promises forgiven.
   Be my gentle ending when my end is here.

door creaking
**** leaking
not speaking
spiders loud
she is proud
reddish cloud
Moses flood
made of blood
killed by stud
fence post thud
left in mud
held a grudge
faced a judge
he was snubbed
Michael Wehrung
****** ward swearing
her blood wearing.

We prepare ourselves
  for blood and screams
  and smoke machines
  old men chasing dreams
  live beyond our means
  bursting at the seams
  float our money schemes
  nothing as it seems.

I stopped believing in
Santa and Tooth Fairy
Easter Bunny  and God
and the government.
All I believe in now
is Death's certainty.

My fat veins beg for serenity
forgiveness from a syringe
for all of eternity
living on the strange
edge of life never a slave
a script played out
audience never forgave
death full of serene doubt.

Sing these poems silent
make them your song
feelings always spent
right a certain wrong.

You can keep your sun.
    My moon's on fire tonight.
    I'll keep my laughter and
    let you hold onto your pain.
    Pets will be our Waterloo.
    Live together apart again.

The picture was from long ago in 1920's.
  Forget color they lived in black and white
  muted times with talcum powder and fancy
  hats and brooches. They look posed for a
  wax museum. 4 are smiling big but 1 is
  reluctant and looks forlorn. Maybe her
  husband died in Europe's wars or influenza.
  They're toasting something. Raised glasses
  to what I wonder? We all have things to
  celebrate and all have things to mourn.

I broke the fragile promises
that you could never keep.

I write My Prayer so as not to be forgotten
  by the time my funeral service and the casseroles
  and my cold ashes in some anonymous jar are an
  afterthought while the living move on as we do.

  Know that I was born March 23, 1949, at 5:32 am
  in Cincinnati, Ohio. Named William John Donovan
  the second. Firstborn son, 2 older sisters. I'm sure
  I was shriveled like a prune and PTSD after the chute.

  I lived a typical baby boomer life in that time.
  A whole bunch of hi jinks and other mistakes marked
  my time. A million laughs, a billion grins and pain
  and regret, etc. The scale is centered as far as I know.

  I'm now 69 (oh how long I wanted to say that) and I'm at
  a delicate place. I must dismantle my life. The **** collected
  is monumental. It's precious to me, only me. Proof of stuff
  I did at school, sports, work and clothes that defined me.

  Books are my essence. They map my life more than anything.
  I pile myself into boxes. I drop them at Goodwill. Goodbye.
  Soon I'll be empty enough to disappear. Please read this
  prayer and put me in a special place inside your heart.

Scammed as I could be
you picked my pocket
while you set me free
exploded my rocket.

It scares me how you turn
your face into a wall
how you rip your ears off
when I call
You turn your lips to stone
when I try to kiss you when I fall
in love with you and kneel at your
feet with ****** knees after I crawl
your just an old wrinkled crow almost
forgotten except for your distant caw.

The sun whispers me awake
from a dream with you naked
nowhere to be but make love
the whole day long. We call in sick.
Who needs the rest of the world
we have ourselves to ourselves.

Naked burned in my memory
I draw your beauty perfectly.
You ask if I would stay Sunday
Times crossword we will play.
Wake Monday sleet grey day.
Cash only when I leave to pay.