We have a name for everything.
This thing in which we exist is
called life. Like tadpoles exist in
a shallow creek swimming
among their gods.
Like fields of poppies
swim among the wind in
their own piece of heaven.
As rivers flow gently or angry
over the banks to punish those
who try to contain it.
This thing that we name.

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 Chevorlet Bel Air.

You'll even miss your nightmares
    when they're gone. We exist on
    waves of time and build lives
    of small habits to hold our days
    together safe and sound. Change
    to routine is scary as hell and
    most unwelcome. I'll scurry like
    a mouse to your darkness. Trust
    you long enough to spend it all
    talking in a circle once again.
    We'll ride the wave again and
    wipe out over and over until
    the nightmare finally stops in
   a stone cold dead stillness.

When I wake again
I've lived too long.
Another day in prison.
My life is really gone.

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.

Dark women with coal black eyes,
   that's where all the passion lies.
   Fire and ice, extremes burn cool
   enticing poets into their pool.
  
   We already know broken trust
   now we know burned out lust.
   Hold me like a plastic doll
   poke me while I break my fall.

Drunk as a baboon
under a full moon
I walk the wild  dogs
a pack of wild hogs
drag me near mad
I curse them as bad
I stumble and fall
they lick my jaw
and they pull me up
pup by pup by pup.

It's coming through a hole in the sky
It's decadence from back in the day
It's coming through a crack in the wall
It's debauchery and she's here to stay.
A time to live and a time to be our time
it might not fit just right but will do  
for our never mind and who really cares
we found our perfect paradise for us two.

I wish you were alive
so I could apologize
for disappointing you.
You took my kids fishing
when I was drunk wishing
for miracles in Boston
the kids in an orphanage.
****** kept insanity at bay.
I never knew how to just say,
"Thank You and I love you, Dad."

Near my end I found a shoe box
    full to the brim with IOU's I'd
    written over my lifetime to those
    I loved most. They indulged all
    my erratic allegiance and suffered
    kindly my drunken promises to try
    harder tomorrow. If IOU let this
    last promise be a paid in full?
    After all each one of you made
    this beautiful madness possible.

    I stood on broad shouldered men
    who showed me how to live in bars
    and barmaids who showed me gentle
    love among neon and smoke stained
    rooms. We had hard scars and broke
    bones and blood in our hair but we
    showed them what the Irish can do.
    We rise from the dead each day with
    a song in our hearts and ready for
    a hard days work. We do it all again.

A shout out to Bill and Melinda
the philanthropic magic tricks
20% ROI African sterile vaccine
baptism by shots black eugenics.
I am old and ripe to be deaded.
Save me from your mathematics.

Fat ladies in drag beckon me then
   wish I were somewhere else. I ease
   my way into a thousand hearts and
   they soon know I'm love's sweet lie.

   I'm just an actor with a beating heart
   who pretends love but never knew it.
   I visit gay bars for the techno music
   and drinks. I never stay for last call.

   Self loathing is a Catholic thing. I
   seek a stage with a Dom to pretend
   whip me with Bohemian Rhapsody as
   the soundtrack of my humiliation.

   The final act is louder and brighter
   and with the colors of India it makes
   promises that it can't possibly keep.
   We are all actors doing what it takes.

A tune stuck in my brain
about Eve of Destruction
nothing's left the same
no answer just question.
I want to wish I believed
DC  puts us in prisons
I'm finally relieved
clarity of our visions.

Do I know you from somewhere?
You seemed so near in my rifle scope
across no mans land I tried to **** you.
Let bygones be bygones. Forget the rope.
I'll be your waiter can I fetch drinks?
Bury the hatchet and hold onto hope.

As a child I believed in God with all my might
   My god passed into his own oblivion in his flight
   I drink with crazy drunks with voices in our head
   argue for our sanity with a broken God instead.
   Are we alone in this universe stretching forever?
   I sit on my bar stool an old woman holding a lever
   I pull and end this **** thing we call our life.
   The baby's home in bed and I'm a mother and wife.

ROTC at XU and baby on the way.
    Full time job and losing my mind.
    I took your speed to keep going.
    I thought we'd be my parents.
    It seemed so effortless for them.

    Paisley shirts and bell bottoms,
    lava lamps, pass the joint and
    long hair and free love
    This has to be the 60's.
    My world split in two.

I don't need another drop.
I'll stumble to bed tonight.
I hope I dream of you and
not her with the snake hair.

They killed the Kennedy's
and MLK and Malcolm X
and Lenny Bruce and Marilyn.
They stole our truths and made
us ignorant. They gave us the
best politicians money could buy.
They live inside the DC Beltway
and grow fat on our silver. We grow
tired of bread and circus and fixed
elections and peaceful protests
burning buildings and cars and cops.
We want our country back in one piece.
If I pour gas on me and light a match
will it convince you I'm committed?
Will you **** on my ashes and dine
in opulence? You sold our jobs to
the cheapest bidder. You were supposed
to represent us. You bought anarchy and
unleashed it upon us to tame the unrest.
The 1% are the puppeteers holding all
our strings. We dance their dances with
our feet inside approved footprints.
Nothing's left to chance. They own our God.
The pen's mightier than the sword, poet!
Wield truth and set the world on fire.

I'm dead desert skulls
listening for living  calls
to arms the second coming
warriors hymns humming
Eat the rich raise the dead
take a Xanax and off to bed.
In morning's light  I blink
in secret dream black ink.

We live our lives
in paltry graves.
Dress like Queens
with violins and lovers
Hippies far out man.
I never could love
deserving lovers
I was never worth.

I was 13 in a hormone driven rage
  trying to put the moves on Linda
  in a hayloft. He was in my ear
  whispering his disapproval. I was
  deaf and have been ever since. ****
  it. Kennedy was shot in Dallas that
  day and the worlds been upside down
  since the last time I heard Jesus.

I'm blind but see everything.
I feel heat, hear breathing,
feel sweat on hands and face
as we kiss know hearts race.
I touch your secret garden
you hold my ***** harden.
Dark we consummate our love.
We sleep, dream stars above.

Too young for bars, but thirsty.
  Uncle Reggie owned a beer joint so
  we went in and had beers carte blanche.
  He was upstairs dying of cancer.

  We went up for an impromptu visit.
  He and his woman in a small room.
  He was in bed weak with sickness.
  We made small talk then escaped.  

  We went downstairs. One for the road.
  Everything I drank after tasted bitter.
  One day we'll all be in that bed upstairs.
  May God rest all of our souls.  Amen

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'm always stillborn.
I don't know why but
it's easier than living.
I don't navigate hearts
I break or lost lovers in
hormones and jealously.

Mixed messages can be confounding
   but if looked at through an alcohol
   filter they can be deciphered as if
   spoken in clear and precise language.

   Passive aggressive onslaughts are hell
   disguised as innocent comments. Clever
   warfare that has plausible deniability.
   Be vigilant and you can discern it.

   Manipulation uses ills often; migraines,
   back and/or neck pain, depression and the
   mother who visited her madness upon you.
   The first marriage tore holes in you.

   I married a 1 who became a 10. What can
   I do? signed Desperate. Dear Desperate,
   You can become a 10 or find another 1 and
   hope the new 1 will not become another 10.

I always love the quiet
    snow filled woods mute
    the dead have no words
    set me free with silence
    easy way to say goodbye
    without drama's screams.

It's a fragile thing I cry for.
Mommy and Daddy are long gone.
A million drunken mad clowns
storm this circus of my life.
I don't live in a straight line.
I live inside a pinball machine.

The enemy was just like we were.
  Cannon fodder for chess players.
  We killed them as best we could
  burdened monsters praying prayers
  cursing horrible ****** landscape
  skin in hair and mouth and eyes
  I held pieces of my brothers to
  say my insanity war torn goodbyes.

I'm a beat up old dog.
My name is just Bill.
I think I'm 76 in your years.
I have stories ugly still.
I know cruelty and kindness.
I've had good luck and bad.
I've been with lovely *******
and some lost in eternal sad.
I'm just a bother in the way
they want to put me down
limping each painful day
hold me under 'til I drown.

I'm not a communist.
  I'm not a socialist.
  I'm not a sadist or a
  satanist. I'm not an
  anarchist. I'm not a
  bonafide capitalist.
  I'll steal food to eat.
  I'll lie to get a beer.
  I'll love you for a bed.
  I am an individualist.

I'm wearing Camo shorts
a wife beater undershirt
I'm 75 run 2 miles a day
ignoring arthritis  hurt.

I live with 2 dogs, blind cat
and the wife of my dreams.
Our happy hour from 7 to 11
Franzia romantic as it seems.

I promised lovers what they wanted.
  They gave me what I needed to survive.
  Kathy, Betsy, her and her and her again
  that left her imprint. I'm old and forget.
  They all show up in my morphine dreams.
  I'll die among them all with an *******.

razor's edge
too sharp
to think
penthouse
don't jump
might awake
from dreams
die in trash
rats eat me
when I crash.

I'm 75
still alive
beat the odds
defied the gods.
My libido dead
wet the bed
depends instead
Keep your head.

Birth to Death is life.
On a pinball machine
bounces off bumpers
into brand new clean

gone a new you
no stretch marks
summer of love
**** in Eden parks.

I did French leave
I abandoned you
I went to Boston
built a life new.

I always saw you on my horizon.
I drank to your health and to ours.
I went to meetings and confessed
weakness and drank bland coffee
and ate stale donuts and smoked
an endless chain of cigarettes.

In my cups we danced in the neon.
On bar stools and raucous laughter
with my dreams hiding in liquor's
free fog I gave you life and baptism.
Can I ever know normal? I'll be home
at last call when I reach my rope's end.

At the corner of Love and Lust
all the broken hearts still bleed
buried in empty graves of trust
never had a chance to find seed.

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.

On the edge of another summer of love
  we always mistake for a Garden of Eden.
  We had beer to drink and hash to smoke.
  Cool, man. Let's reach the moon
  tonight and touch God's robe.
  I was ****** and laser focused
  on the center of my world that held
  love that I'd terribly betrayed.
  I weighed a thousand pounds in guilt's gravity
  lost within the Garden of Eden again.

Our God Almighty
so we breathe easy
forget about gulags
and pedophiles ******
betray us from above
lick us for your love
wear the rubber glove
embrace pain's shove.

I live inside extremes
between total despair
and boiling anger. I
will **** me or you
or I will be the one
to lead us to the water.

It wasn't only JFK.
  Democracy died that day.
  Say goodbye to the USA.
  Thank Allen Dulles's CIA!

Love between us is friendship.
   Lust between us is forest fire
   fierce chewing us to ash now
   blowing in wind. We are desire.
   Nowhere left for us to run we
   wonder what pleasures require.

I drove to Boston with
  a teacher and a dealer
  and a snake oil healer,
  left family like trash
  burned it down to ash
  in a lightening flash
  shrinks passed me on
  one to another ******
  to stay inside my mind
  and they rob me blind
  calm before the storm
  world's fabric is torn
  hear God's heart beat
  feel hell's cruel heat
  the panic attack I have
  a bus stop on Mass Ave.
  I walk miles to my womb
  my tiny safe attic room.

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

8 years old

Climb trees and break bones.
Swim in creeks and get bit.
Kiss Susan Tucker in the dark
go home with her on my lips.
Smoke gramp's spent butts
from his Buick's ashtray.
Drink his beer bottle dregs.
Frenchman's Holy Communion.
Lust for Jimmy Kuhn's dad's *****
card deck with naked ladies. I stole
the Queen of Hearts and fell in love
the rest of my life. She ruined me.
I loved girls on a pinball machine.
I always tilt the table on purpose.

          20 years old

I'm riding the edge of my mind
2 kids and a fat wife I deserted
before I fell in love with all
the other disappointed lovers
in a distant land called Boston
punched holes in innocent walls
alchemist making my anger love
thunder always roaring above.

Cremated fireplace ashes in a box
  with my name on it. Is this me or
  an imposter who was a ******* ****?
  Sounds like me anyway just a *****.
  Take my cremains and flush me down
  a favorite throne with a padded seat.

Chardonnay brings dreams to life
     until morning's brutal genocide.
     I untangle old lost memories,
     carry on throughout a busy day.

     Night always arrives while thirst
     demands attention. Dreams resurrected
     answering impossible questions.
     Morning kicks down the door again.

     Day follows day, feels like forever.
     I must have gone mad.  I stared into
     the sun then jumped to a final peace.
     Finally, I found my own great escape!

Hands begin to lose control
   start their palsy shakes
   like a *** of boiling oil
   angry bag of angry snakes.
   Can't operate shirt buttons
   or a steaming cup of coffee
   open a jar of dill pickles
   and pants look full of ***.