We're open wounds that
refuse to heal again
stubborn stains won't
be forgotten any more
just dice from a womb
a game of Chance and
Charli place your bets
hopscotch over and over
black or red even or odd
feeling lucky? Just nod.

It's a hoedown in the barn
Saturday night fiddles
harmonicas love riddles
we meet lovers on a farm
Love is tender no harm
necklace worn like a charm.

When the bar lights blink off and on
  last call announced half hour before
  we work the odds as drunken sailors.
  Singing sirens calling from the door.
  We waltz into the night rain then we
  ***** our naked way to the sacred bed.
  We love the best drunk strangers can.
  I wake in light a prisoner in my head.

I'm in my cups looking at yellowed photos.
   I laugh and cry. You died. I drink my wine.
   I'm with you once again crazy flying down
   the winding road top down Triumph TR3
   free young men with our lives before us.
   Aimless with high hopes and fearless we
   ride life's rails wherever they carry us
   as long as we live. You left me memories.

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.

Who am I
Truth or lie
Do or die
Laugh or cry
Hello or bye
*** or deny
One more final try
Catcher in the Rye.

I pull the shade down and turn a blind eye
       to the city's darkness. No one even cares.
       It's hard to live in Baltimore anymore.
       We can't buy our way out. We do best we can.
       City's dying after all. Blood's everywhere
       and death's smell corrupts every surface.
       Fools party in the harbor and pay a price
       whitey never understands. Anger seethes
       in ghettos like a garden party in Riverside
       they curse the help for warm Champagne.

I'd nail my madness to the tracks going West
   seeking freedom wearing a Dandy's NY vest.
   How long can we endure the vastest unknown?
   **** Indians and Buffalo and bury us in stone.

Just square pegs round holes.
  Unable to fit in approved roles
  looking for love in gay bars
  neon lights exploding stars
  I saw you in the magazine
  you take me in a limousine
  to decadence I've never seen.
  you make me a beauty queen.

I bought breakfast for a Communist
to discuss our differences. He drank
***** and I had coffee. I don't feel
superior just sick from last night.
He hates god. God is evil to poor.
I said he deprived the poor as
the rich process fat from masses
to boil it into flame to read Marx.
I asked if I wore his Marx hat
and shout among the masses
could I convince them God is
not dead but Marx is long dead?

Calling all stations...
I'm ****** and alone
lost in my thoughts in
Autumns cornfield maze.
My memories tease me
and almost please me
but fade before the end
messages do not send.

Lover's fingers on ivory keys
play moving music all about
broken vows on bent knees.
Sowing Love's forever doubt.

I wish I weren't so angry
but I watch my world *****
and pillaged by Communists.
The USA is now USSR shaped.
We fear where we were brave
meek lambs on slaughter floor
they killed our middle class
put in communes for the poor.

Not a poem or tradition
just if only perdition
my end of world lover
kiss bye as we smother.

I fell in love with your poetry
just a grey haired Aphrodite
imperfect face artifacts of age

we head to the all night diner
full of drag queens and communists
to steal a few words lost in smoke

amid the buzz we grab lines and
put them back like Salvador Dali,
Dylan Thomas and Charles Bukowski.

The things we've been through,
some were lies but mostly true.
We drank our strangest brew,
dreamed our lives, never knew
tomorrow what madness grew
what in love's trance we'd do.

If I said it once
I said it a thousand times.
It comes and goes and comes
echoes persistent rhymes
clock ticks of my nightmares
heartbeats of my dreams
infinite souls in harmony
keeping time with screams
licked a slithering snake
for every ever afters sake.

beware the dreamers
keep their souls
locked in chains

beware the workers
they will march in
unison to take a share

beware the lawyers
who set you on fire and
charge to **** on you

beware the poets
who seek purity
truth at all cost

I've lived rough and troubled
with flask and pen in hands
writing songs for the rest of us
dancing to rowdy bar bands.
Fall in love on Monday night.
Tuesday in our broken bed
Wednesday buy a ring for you
Thursday by George we are wed.

Where are we going
Calvary or Bethlehem?
  Not one more track
  of your sacred smack.
  Our ships go down
  and we all drown
  with our devils
  in our deep blue seas.

I want to be a scapegoat
or a monkey's uncle's aunt
or insufficient postage owed
maybe a thing I can you can't.
Can I be your toy and ****
in your bed our ersatz love?
Friction is a fickle friend
maybe needs a latex glove?

I was 5
insecure
living
not sure
dad was
war torn
bomber
reborn
in flak
no way back.
PTSD
what it be
a misery
die me free
if only
it'd be.

We share deepest secrets.
  I know your odd appetites.
  You know my worst regrets.
  We toast our sweet delights.
  I hunger for my own kind
  on the ends of a spectrum.
  Ordinary people are blind
 to nature colors of Autumn.

I tremble in wonder
born in Coney Island
tunnel of love thunder
in your ****** hand.
We soared heights
kissed coaster skies
******* in frights
I Love Your lies.

"The Fall Of Rome"

What ever happened to the fall of Rome?
What a strange thing to ask
When I was taking you home
As we walked alone through the parking lot
I said I don’t have much
You said I like what you got

And I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t picture you then
In your wedding dress
In the days I hoped we’d someday spend
In our Sunday best
We were light as a flame
Both batshit insane
We were lost
We were just the same

What ever happened to the fall of Rome?
You were a mystery to me
But the place felt like home
And there are no rules when you’re falling in love
You just take what you get and you hope its enough

And I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t picture you then
In your wedding dress
In the days I hoped we’d someday spend
In our Sunday best
We were wrong from the start
With our broken arms
You played your role
And I played my part

And the road was so long
I was never as strong
As the love you gave to me
And it all took its toll
You become so cold
You forget what you were born to be

What ever happened to the fall of Rome?
Those people all turned to ashes and stone
Its a trick of the mind when you think it won’t end
Its a contest with time
And time always wins
I saw a picture of you the other day
In your wedding dress
And wondered why I’d walked away
Like I had with the rest
The only thing that was worth saving
And I swear that I did my best
And sometimes at night
I dream of you now
In your wedding dress
And I hope it doesn’t seem somehow
Like I gave you less
I have nothing to show
From these years on the road
But these songs that I wrote you

I divorced my 7 siblings
blinded by bylines
rabid dogs snapping at lies
from the usual Headlines
The sacred cows. NYTimes,
Washington Post, NPR, CNN,
MSNBC, Mother Jones.
We're in a ceramic fishbowl
drowned upside down bones
flushed down a toilet bowl.

Hungover on a bench
in our own Eden Park
smell of the beauty sins
from screams in the dark.
Pretend marriage in flight
never able to lose the night.

I threw my family away
beer cans along the way.
Ohio to Boston ******
saved me from asylum.

I know.
we've all played it.
Relationship Roulette.
Spin the wheel and ****.
Is this forever after?
Wake blinking in a bed
smelling of *** and regret.
Do the walk of shame.

Do you know these people
  dirt poor with joyful eyes?
  No tears or pity asked they
  work hell's cloudless fields
  every meal fatback and beans  
  sharecropper hands of stone.
  Sunday overalls starched go
  to Church praise Jesus, atone.
  Saturday nights there's music
  and moonshine and slow dance
  they give up the ghost midnight
  still clutching in fierce romance.

I missed me when I had to go away.
  They said it was for my own good.
  I sort of existed in a Lithium fog.
  I was gone from me except in dreams.

I dreamed of the sun born from hell.
I dreamed of angels called sisters.
I saw a cruel king with eyes of hate
who threatened me with his love.

  Now I'm kind of back. They kept pieces
  of my brain, the pieces that made me
  cut myself in a tub of tepid water to
  bleed out this life of threatened love.

I met you at a party
  in a house of mirrors
  you snake haired Medusa
  thirsty for my tears.
  We danced in lightning
  groped our way to love's
  eager bed. Promises made
  to be broken in day's light.
  My face was stone as you
  swallowed my soul in flight.

full moon bright
through branches
puppets dancing
forbidden fruit
always tastes best
gone by morning's
death and my final
bye and period.

The rich men and poor ******
at the Moulin Rouge to give
and get what they both must.
She sold her love to live.
Absinthe dreams made love a
loaf of bread goblet of wine
pretending you're all knights
'til my hourglass is out of time.

Not for profit tax free
Non Government Organizations.

Not Elected
Just selected
Deep state piled
upon deep state.
Sleight of hand
in dark of night
we take your land
without a fight.
You live in a box
in a tiny square
no need for locks
we always care.
Burial plots
are Timeshare.

Without sin I'd be a cardboard
  cutout of a plastic life lived.
  I burned bridges and made
  impossible vows and charmed
  ******* off and excited *******
  and made lovers wet and happy.
  We all felt alive and touched
  for years in our golden dreams.

Each generation
moves the wheel
proud another turn.
It's all been done before.

The hundred dollar bill in 1998
buys less than a twenty in 1958.
Tax us to battlefields for wars.
Pay for *******'s lovely ******.
Forget unwashed trash's pains.
Genocide removes their stains.

We own nothing.
We have everything.
Rent us our souls
and burial holes.
The bills always come
compounded interest sum
late payment fees
bank account freeze
live in prison states
guards wait at gates
It was Dayton, Ohio
now it's zone Zero.

1890 was a time when women gave birth or died trying
    upstairs as not to disturb the rest of the family below.
    The husband sits in the parlor ******* on a flask and cigar.
    He barely hears muffled screams and reads his London Times.

On the beach in early fog
I love your saintly halo
watching the surf crawl
at your feet in afterglow.
We'll do it again tonight
light candles and ****
we might take flight
make a baby with luck.

Happy accident
stole my breath
homework not
done, but death
gave me an A+
my casket desk
a silent pulse
wicked wreck.

He screamed aloud
  with tortured voice
  no one leaves alive
  never had a choice
  the lever switched
  long ago silently
  doomed his ship to
  the bottom of the sea.

Truth reveals itself near midnight
when I swim in deep pools of wine.
I'm lost. My family died in my depths.
I need shallows to hide in.
I need a goddess named Georgine
to help me find my North Star.
I'll sail back home and find my
broken life and fix it best I can.

Our world grew quiet like the dead.
   I never heard silence like this before.
   I knew it was over when we ate alone
   and slept apart and watched our own
   shows. We always adapt. We're good at it.
   It's easier than fixing what is broken.

I never cared.
Pretend heart
never shared
from the start.
How'd it break?
We made it love
my own mistake
an innocent dove.

I'm 75 years old. I'm 17 again.
Old memories playing on a screen
in silent black and white, piano
music, time sees where I've been.
Happy Birthday. Blow years away
the candles set the years on fire
burn the bridges and words we say
regret the lost fierce brief desire.

I can't regret
what I forget.

Can we pour tears on the page?
  Paint war's horrors in poetry?
  Draw portraits with words?
  Make you feel love? First kiss?
  Broken heart? Pet's death?
  Parent's divorce split in two?
  Anguish of love in back seats?
  Can we poets make you feel it?
Life's butchers pacing beats
always end up eating ****.

My poetry starts with nicotine.
     After awhile I mixed in alcohol.
     Catholicism is a main ingredient.
     Puberty is a wicked mix of Absinthe.
     Next I add a father broken from war.
     My mom could be friend or betrayer.
     I had to maintain a delicate balance
     between being real or just amusing.
     Amusing is easy. Real is impossible
     yet here I am confessing once again.