I'm an angry man
war's shattered bones
war's missing limbs
war's burned on skin
Autumn a calm season
full moon bright
through branches
seductive shadows
offering their
forbidden fruit
out of reach for a
man with no arms.

I write my essentials 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.

I hate its expectations
demands and frustrations
tired drools and snores
and all the ****** bores
wandering eyes are trouble
divorce broke kids in rubble.

I wandered so off course I didn't
  even recognize myself. A stranger
  I feared. What was I willing to
  destroy? Was anything sacred?
  Children? Wives? Family at all?

  I gladly sent the church to hell.
  Empty platitudes and all the rest.
  I never trusted holier than thou.

  I was saved by angels. Women who
  cared enough to approach my heat.
  It was warm but sometimes caught
  fire and burned out of control.

  They showed me my north star.
  I found my way back home then.
  No happily ever after. Never.
  Regained a foothold with my kids.
  That was enough. We love on and on.
  The angels still come around.

I splash in the waves with my kids.
Sun and surf and family. Beautiful.
I venture out in deeper water. I'm
swept out to sea in a riptide. It was an
innocent kiss, small desire, a tiny sin.
Storms destroy everything in a blink.

Bette Mann doesn't exist.
The world's a lesser place
without her fierce resist.
We will never replace.

I try drawing your memories fading.
   Your eyes aren't right. I can't taste
   you that destroyed my earnest vows
   with Lust's cruelest and rapid waste.

   I can't feel your warm young *******,
   ******* that grew so hard by my caress.
   I can't see us dancing naked in the dark.
   We drink we fight we wonder at the mess.

   I wish I'd kept the photos. I cremated us
   in an ashtray drunk so many years ago.
It all plays out eventually after all.
We all end up ashes in afterglow.

There was an easy way into your heart.
There's no easy way out. You thought it
was forever but there's no such thing.
You don't need to hear it or even fear it.
We ****** goodbye in your dorm room.
I went to Boston and was reborn again.

Crown of bobby pins and scarf,
   she hoists a beer bottle scepter,
   dime store paste royal necklace,
   moth holed sweater Queen's cape,
   her well worn lawn chair throne.
   She keeps watch from  her tower,
   surveys her realm on Alcott Lane.
   Nothing escapes the queen's watch.

They always say
you're not supposed to fight
in front of your kids.
Everybody fights
in front of their kids.
That's family.

I'll come for you
I bring a bottle
and ****** or two
loosen the throttle
set fire to the bed
sleep in splendid ash
wake you give me head
I always pay with cash.

Birds cawing. Rats gnawing. Cats clawing. Craving.
  Bells ringing. Choirs singing. Dead bringing. Score.
  ****** faking. Thief's taking. Mischief making. Under.
  Alice small. Alice tall. Red Queen's fall. Floating.
  Birds cawing. Rats gnawing. Cats clawing. Craving.
  **** cawing gnawing clawing faking or OD. All work.
  Fists punching. Fingers touching. Lips turn blue. Bye.
  Tears spilling. Sobs drilling. Graves filling. Grief.

We gave you all we had because you needed us
and answered the siren's call of glorious war.
Outnumbered and outgunned we lost our comrades
and hills and limbs and minds. Pieces of us came
home to never heal and burden loved ones forever.

A bag of red hot suns
one of cool full moons
serenaded by Pink Floyd
with powdered spoons.

I'm naked at the party.
Such wonder and awe.
Welcome to my mind
a puzzle with a flaw.

She comes around
when I'm in my cups.
I hear a meow at 10:20
wonder what she wants.
I wait and turn around
but she's still there.
She stares from her eye
haunting me purring.
I tell her goodnight.
She purrs. I go to bed.

Syd was just a crazy spark
LSD flash of lightening
at midnight in Eden Park
got too high frightening
left his acid laced mark
on apples over ripening
Pink Floyd born in dark.

I'm god awful alone with friends.
Why? What piece of me is missing?
Is my world always just pretends?
Married again and again dismissing
cracks in my mind the shrinks deny
the quacks follow Freud 'til we die
over and over they ask only "Why?"
no answers to questions always lie.

Forever student at Ohio State,
brilliant or simple who knew?
Never bathed smelled of B.O.
so bad his nickname was Phew.
Mascot of comp sci department
everywhere on every spectrum
pity and love together arrived
we all learned to respect him.

When I first saw you
I'd loved you forever.
We danced in Pompeii
died welded together
under blankets of ash
statues of our history
witness carnal cash,
*******'s mystery.

I drag my broken soul
down your rabbit hole
looking for a red queen
lavish and in between
sexes not binary
my lovely fairy
smooth and perfumed
Love always doomed.

The **** tumbleweeds blowing
in the desert wind kept flowing
always lost in the darkest nights
spent angry fragile tattered kites
in the mad howl of the hurricane
right on the edge of going insane.
So many dead war's broke waste.
Macho boys brave in drunk haste
just numbers, penciled in to die
sent in letters for mothers to cry.

Our sacred backstair lust
diamond turns to dust.

I love you, but
not enough to *******.
What is that about?
Loveless marriage is
something I never heard
until you said something
about possibility and I cooled
towards red hot poker ***.
Now we both **** ourselves
like monkeys in a monkey tree.

I slit my wrist a million times with pieces
of the broken heart's razor sharp deflections
in my attic room Penthouse desire increases
illusion of an endless tunnel of reflections.
mirrors on walls showed me every angle
my naked drunken midnight freedom dance
with my Irish too small little dangle
always chasing the mirage of desert romance.

I always want what I don't have
  and don't want what I have?
  I'm a dog chasing my tail
  'til I can't move any more.
  I sat with parrot like shrinks
  saying what do you think?
  A simple answer for my confusion.
  I think we're all mad as hatters.

She had a toddler. We hooked
up in a club and I met
her folks and workmates
a week later and her kid.
I had my 2 kids I neglected
****** kept my guilt at bay.
I knew hers was a desperate
failing impossible ghost love.

I was empires once
now reduced to dust
cars were everywhere
now just orange rust
high majestic mountains
worn to infertile dirt
wind leaves parched pains
time demands hours of hurt.

The light we never see
our life not meant to be
remember the forgotten
grapes of wrath rotten.
Seeking a Promised Land
struck dead by God's hand.

We all thank our sacred gods
we're living the American dream.
Our slums are better than the others
less disease more milking mothers.
Irish, Italian, German, English all
came through Ellis Island hoping
for tickets to a better maybe place
looking for the better opportunity.

Chelsea Hotel

Addicted to your taste
your crazy waste
self inflicted pain
to your flesh stain
I gladly confess
squalor's mess
rats scurry
in a hurry
to nowhere
already there
mirror over bed
you giving head
come again
love the sin
tip the maid
don't be afraid
Janis won't care
lay her truth bare.

I learned my ABC's and read the secrets.
  Words like puzzle pieces showed me truth's
  that Gods never thought we'd understand.
  I found poetry at world's darkest edge
  when flying too close to her boiling sun
  at midnight in my blind blank black heart.
  Ginsberg spoke his generation's addiction
  crawling at dawn to find their needed fix.

You'll promise love.
You'll stay strong.
Almost like being free.
You broke my neck to ****
the pain and I hid my heart
from love's terrible lies.
I have nowhere else to go.
I can break vows and crucify us.

She suffered out loud in poetry.
He punished her with his many
lovers who never read a poem.
She punished him with suicide.
Poets slit throats with razor
sharp lines and metaphor.

Poem For People Who Are Understandably Too Busy to Read Poetry

A poem by Stephen Dunn




Relax. This won't last long.
Or if it does, or if the lines
make you sleepy or bored,
give in to sleep, turn on
the T.V., deal the cards.
This poem is built to withstand
such things. Its feelings
cannot be hurt. They exist
somewhere in the poet,
and I am far away.
Pick it up anytime. Start it
in the middle if you wish.
It is as approachable as melodrama,
and can offer you violence
if it is violence you like. Look,
there's a man on a sidewalk;
the way his leg is quivering
he'll never be the same again.
This is your poem
and I know you're busy at the office
or the kids are into your last nerve.
Maybe it's *** you've always wanted.
Well, they lie together
like the party's unbuttoned coats,
slumped on the bed
waiting for drunken arms to move them.
I don't think you want me to go on;
everyone has his expectations, but this
is a poem for the entire family.
Right now, Budweiser
is dripping from a waterfall,
deodorants are hissing into armpits
of people you resemble,
and the two lovers are dressing now,
saying farewell.
I don't know what music this poem
can come up with, but clearly
it's needed. For it's apparent
they will never see each other again
and we need music for this
because there was never music when he or she
left you standing on the corner.
You see, I want this poem to be nicer
than life. I want you to look at it
when anxiety zigzags your stomach
and the last tranquilizer is gone
and you need someone to tell you
I'll be here when you want me
like the sound inside a shell.
The poem is saying that to you now.
But don't give anything for this poem.
It doesn't expect much. It will never say more
than listening can explain.
Just keep it in your attache case
or in your house. And if you're not asleep
by now, or bored beyond sense,
the poem wants you to laugh. Laugh at
yourself, laugh at this poem, at all poetry.
Come on:

Good. Now here's what poetry can do.

Imagine yourself a caterpillar.
There's an awful shrug and, suddenly,
You're beautiful for as long as you live.

Come closer into the light.
  I need to smell your beauty
  to quiet demons in my head.
  God's tears cleanse our souls.
  Come closer still, touch me,
  calm my tremors still my hands.
  Closer hold me closer and we'll
  transcend broken in our world.
  Dance closer, watch the stars.
  Hear death's music ever closer.

People study me like a Picasso
two heads and eyes to match
all on one side inside a lasso
some kind of legality catch.
I stare at you in your seat
sip your wine at noon's show
I'm frozen for you no retreat
I stare you stare we both know.

Alchemist of words
  makes us weep and hope
  swoon and wonder why
  give us a poem of rope.

  We met in Eden Park and
  ******, red A's burned
  on our skin for the sin.
  The world still turned.

I've got no time for your suffering.
   I've got no time for your struggles.
   No time for your ugly riots and burn
   down your hoods. My own destruction
is at hand drunk in Bond Hill with a
failed marriage fights and failures
strange fruit rotting on the tree
I called you all ******* below
you called me down and I went into
the white cotton fields in your dark mob
and picked with ****** fingers and said
"You're strange fruit, I'm strange fruit,
   we're all rotted fruit hanging from trees.
   You set me free. I share your despair.

I was driving a Uhaul 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.
    The worst lovers stick like glue
    and never seem to have a clue.

……..” The chair “…….
It’s a chair, just a chair,
Deep veined mahogany,
Hessian layered,
And filled with hair.
It’s a bed, just a bed,
A book without a binding,
Silently recanting,
Where once lay a head.
It’s a glass, just a glass
But, my God it’s sacred,
Lips once lingered,
Indelible morass.
It’s a frame, just a frame,
Capturing heaven,
Such youthful abandon,
And filled with your name.
It’s a home, just a home,
That became a building,
That become a shrine,
When all alone.
It’s a chair, just a chair,
Of crafted joints,
With sabered legs,
And skillful debonair.
It’s a chair, just a chair,
Utilitarian,
It sits a corner,
Now you’re not there.
Seamus Ginty

I'm trying to get drunk, burned down
   and struck out. Jukebox and bennies
   keep me up and at 'em. We old barfly's
   look for a sniff of the good old days.
   Lightning never strikes twice I'm afraid.
   I shuffle home at close and try tomorrow.

Swim against the current and
promise me to never die.
Riptides and sharks and cramps
we die alone but angry.

Evicted from your womb
into the mad carnival
of French clowns and
sideshow barkers who
pass me around and
forever toast my birth
promise shadows as time
just gets away from us.
Long days, years fly by.
The family flies in to be
by your bed as you die
and buried in your tomb.

You'll laugh at my dad jokes
and Camo Crocs I wear.
Laugh out loud and cry
have a baby name her Bill.
I'm living in your memory
I'm the flower and butterfly.

Everything came apart
shattered my heart
splinters always bring
paper cut pain unseen.

The universe is on display tonight.
    A storm is coming. Birds in flight
    as lightening cracks the sky in two.
    There's half for me and half for you.

You weren't seen
in my blind spot
too old so young
perfect ink blot
no trouble at all
self absorbed dad
in and out of lust
edge of mind mad.
you were a rock
in my slaughter
never faltered
broken Daughter.

The old poet poses with his worn out lines.
    He's near 80 and written everything that matters.
    Loves, lost loves, betrayals, redemption, children
    recovered from his own disasters. Lines repeated
    they're frayed of their own weight, Autumn's dust.
    Stay with me and view me in Winters graveyard.
    I'm an old poet with a young man's heart pleading
    for an honest appraisal of my balance sheet.

Adults

  Keep the awful truths from
  the children. Hide them behind
  a velvet curtain and sing sweet
  songs of innocence 'til daylight.

           Children

  We eavesdrop from the stair top
  hearing the adults in their cups
  spilling the beans on every ****
  thing we are "too frail" to know.

My black hole velocity
escapes cruel gravity
unchained again finally
death sets us all free.