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 ***.

Dad dropped bombs on Dresden.
   I was born into wars aftermath
   first born son his namesake I
   had to endure his brutal wrath.
   Light the flame do your magic.
   Mix your powders into elixirs
   for me to shoot or snort and
   sing praise to almighty fixers.

I dreamed I was a lesbian
stage frightened thespian
infinity inside a clock
a manikin but with a ****
blindfold at a firing squad
playing racquetball with god
Einstein teaching ABC's
an atheist on his knees
a poet ******* in a tree
a monkey typing poetry.

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!

Confederate veteran sizing up his devastated farm.
His family all dead, fields burned, house ashes
of memories. He holds his pistol to his temple.
The day Old Dixie died he pulled the trigger.

Angry every time I wake
Xanax first thing I take.
Nightmares electrocuted
on the throne executed.
The king smells like ****
in the end that's just it.

Slightly ****** and drunk
  we enter into far out reaches
  of the universe to microscopic,
  subatomic worlds. We wonder if
  life's a dream, then argue whose.
  Is time travel possible? Maybe
  we're all from the future or past.
  If we changed an event from the
  past would we exist in the now?
  3am we all dream of tomorrow.

You staged my imminent demise
in your dreams behind your eyes
I was just an afterthought
a cheap trinket that you bought

I didn't turn into a pumpkin.
I have both of my shoes.
Now I take a sleeping pill
and dream my dead alive.

I've held on as long as I can
to this slippery eel of life
that feels all wrong for me.
I never found "The One".
I never measured up.
I float away from time
with a needle in my arm
finally an honest smile.

I chased my dad into traffic
thinking he was leaving me
broken leg alive was magic
an old man will always see.
I try to remember the tragic
but I can only let it all be.

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. I love you, Dad."
In an honest man to man way.
Eye to eye we just up and die.

I was well into my cups by then
angered by my arrogant cowlick.
I always go to war at midnight
armed with beer's beloved logic.

I juggled scissors and mirrors
snip snip drink more beers.
Wake hungover hair butchered,
wife wanting divorce in tears.

Katie was our first born.
Proof of our forever love.
Years evaporate, her scorn
tells us Good Bye shove.

Your innocent smile
   his guilty face
   it's been a while
   his fall from grace.

   He fuels his anger
   with cheap whisky
   you fear the danger
   you can still see

   love in his heart
   first time kiss
   like at the start
   bell's silent remiss

Sometimes people
spend their adult hood
getting over their youth
children treated wood.

Throw a final dart
place to live to die.
Final beat of heart,
final kiss goodbye.
Cremate me I learn
be happy in an urn.

D.C. Addicted ******

Civilization crumbles with laws
made of DC lies from the jaws
of mindless government ******
barter dignity at Dollar Stores
buy the fish on Motel 6 floors
commies finally won the wars.

I'm 72 and I'm drunk
and fearless and still
think I'll live forever
even though I know
I'd be the first one and
all my friends are dying
and I can't play checkers
alone or take trips down
memory lane by myself.

I have a blind cat that knows me
and sees things I can't even imagine.
She meows loud each night
demanding to be heard.
If she wrote a poem it would Howl and
change the course of Human Events.

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.

Train rolls on down the line
takes me miles back in time
when life was an easy living
of just us taking and giving.
Now much more is at stake
MacArthur Park ruined cake
left out in the rain all night
spurned lover denies delight.
Slits wrists dies in bathtub.
Death's feather is final rub.

Your breath rattles in a fragile chest
the heart feebly clanks to push blood
when there's a bit in the aorta. You're a
young man in an ancient failing body by
an unknown disease. You lean on a cane
slumped in a chair waiting for a miracle
that won't come for you. You're a skeleton.
We fear death. We fear you. I fear ignorance.

Monster Under My Bed

    When that whole Christ as son of god drama
    played as a young catholic I was spellbound.
    When I was older skipping church smoking in
    the woods I doubted but still harbored shame.
    I gave up the holy ghost long ago but the scars
    remain and guilt is the stain follows me like
    shadows even in moonless midnight and I wish I
    believed in prayer to quiet Christ under my bed.

I abandoned myself
kids and wife on
Mariana's shelf
reborn my son
staged crazy life
always have fun.

I lost my wedding ring
it fell into the mud
with all the other ones
our horror of blood.

The end wouldn't come.
***** to death by many
rag doll kissed by some
just a **** for a penny.

I have become inured
  the never ending drama
  too much I've endured
  **** the magic karma.

  Too much to process
  the beheading queen
  I've much to confess
  I'm not who I seem.

I live inside a mirror today
where everything's reflection.
Kiss my shadow's shadow.
Break my heart. It shimmers
in  puddles wrinkled in wind.
You only break a looking glass
and suffer 7 years bad luck.
I curse you with all my love.

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.

Death is everywhere
bodies puzzle pieces
never together again
pray on dead graves.

We drink mint juleps
flirt in old oaks' shade
We kiss make promises
dance upon dead graves.

When your shrink pays a *****
   he swears is his wife
   you pay by the hour
   his pills keep me sane
   my eye always burns
   my psyche always yearns
   for truth not found on couches
   answers asked as if he knows.

The invisible gears hiding in plain sight
who keep our world moving smoothly despite
neglect. Doorman. Barista. Waitstaff. Mechanic.
Receptionist. Host. Pizza delivery. Painter.
Lawn care. Trash Collector. Plumber. AC repair.
Nurse. Janitor. Mechanic. Clerks. Stokers. Cooks.
Maintenance. Apartment Manager. Sales force.
Middle management. Secretaries. Teachers.
This list could go into infinity and I know
we'd all fit into a group at one time or so.
All I ask is each day greet the faded ones
with sincerity and let them into your thoughts
so that they'll never have to be forgotten.
I think that is my greatest fear. Death
without a footprint in the world.

Thanks for birthing me!
   Without you I'd be a spot.
   The only thing I ask is
   reduce me to my essence.

   Rid me of peacock verbiage
   and self absorbing preening.
   I know I've suffered in
   ways known only to me.

Let me be rejected by
City Lights and Beats
quiet as a Xmas mouse
dead in morning sheets.

I'm tilting at windmills to fight.
   I slay dragons save broken hearts,
   bring these dogs of hell to heel.
   I still sleep with her ghost tonight
   and find small comfort in my living.
   I swim in wine 'til Don Quixote's real.

I travel forever to the end of time
leave a spy glass inside this rhyme
I fell for you in a newsreel at 10
brave and boyish I fell in love then.
You were always on my distant horizon
but the yearning was always poison.
Amelia, you disappeared from sight,
broke a million hearts that night.
You were my constant north star
always so close and yet so very far.

They said I needed help.
They admitted me to the
ward of madness and shoved
pills into me that made me a
scarecrow. A man of straw
shaking mad in the wind as
weak as my resolve to be me.
I never came to life again.
I died in bright light at peace.
The crows sent me on my way.

It was an antiseptic space. The doctor said
   something I couldn't quite hear because loud
   seconds echoed from recent life I lived instead
   and the waiting room had an infested crowd.

   I heard stage 4, in your blood, invading your
   entire body, maybe 3 months. The noise shone
   louder. Each tick became a bomb in a war zone.
   Deafening. I thanked her and shuffled home.

   My girl just turned 2. Collateral damage.
   What god does this to my wife and our baby?
   I'm smaller each day disappearing in young age
   I smile air kisses goodbye to my fading family.

You better get
   your makeup kit
   make the fear
   last night
   disappear.
   wear your shades
   'til the black eye fades
   people just stop asking
   when shopping at the IGA
   repair the fist holes
   in walls and doors
   and in your heart.

I try to keep my life inside the lines.
I drink Alice's potions and it all bends.
Can hardly see where I'm going now or
where the whole **** thing finally ends.
The Queen of Hearts says off with my head.
The Wizard of Oz speaks with certainty.
Toto exposes his act behind the curtain.
I'm in a Cuckoo's Nest; wine is my gravity.

I try drawing you from  old memories
   but don't get your eyes right. I can't see
   the body that destroyed my earnest vows.
   I can't feel your warm young ******* and
   ******* that grew so hard by my caress.
   I can't see us dancing naked in the dark.
   I wish I'd kept the photos. I cremated you
   in an ashtray drunk mourning our death.

I have reached an age
without another page
pay an obscene wage
shouting more rage
on my silent stage
death's golden cage.

I died but the clock kept ticking
   and I wished I could start again
   but the second hand kept sticking
   I cracked the code and had to win
   I was buried on Easter weekend I
   thought I'd see the Jesus Christ
   leave His grave and finally fly
   I stayed dead I was sacrificed.

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 more fear or dread.

I am kind.
  I am cruel.
  I am loved
  and a fool.
  I am guilty.
  I am free.
  You'll find me
  suffering in
Cincinnati,
Ohio.

This old poet poses with his worn out lines.
Tender poetry of youth and love's beginnings,
faltering steps beyond puberty's uncertainty.

I've pounded my love on typewriters, each letter
has a part to play in this drama with a weight
all its own. Smash a key and it opens old wounds.

Cousin Mike more than a brother over years.
You had *** at 14. I kissed them made them cry.
Wyoming was roaming with eager wet tears.
You broke your heart and used ***** to die.

Strip our beds
of all the sheets.
Wash wet dreams
off the ***** streets.
Sleep on warm grates
wrapped in old news
sleep in a needle waits
dream death's blues.

FDR, Churchill and Stalin
J Edger Hoover's FBI,
Spies and greed and hubris.
Cowards, liars, cheats and
compromised judges,
schools and ignorance,
CIA and politicians,
rich strutting peacock Mayor,
biased news and Twitter and
Facebook and YouTube.
Washington Post, NYT,
WSJ, Fools and kings and
geniuses stuck in the rain
who betray us with Covid 19.

Am I your lover?
Or pretend Mother?
Criticize and flatter
find war's splatter
on the kitchen wall
wake in shame all.
Perfect hair perfected
my children neglected.
We'll always own stain
and confused love pain.

My true love was a desert
beautiful and deadly soul
scorpions and rattlers and
poison creosote she stole.
She fed me her deadly milk
of scarce and stubborn rain.
I'll die in her cursed sand
and feed our lover's pain.