Post Mortem Bar

Bartender, pour me a drink
Free of the ashes and ink
I smoked and spilled for years
With every high spoiled by tears.
I'll wade through the dead for a taste
Of any potion brewed to replace
The gasping thirst in my throat
To devour all I wrote,
But if I can hold it down
I'm ready for the next round,
And if I don't choke on rhyme,
We will toast again in time.

Some knotted and tightened ropes
To blacken their brains or hopes.
Others switched spikes and rails
Plunging when their hammer fails.
I went from bloom to blotto
Preaching more as my motto,
But there's no profit for drunks
To drink where the dead are sunk
And, wet for wear, shed more tears
For their bloody, wasted years.
No poem can call that bluff,
I've chased these voices enough
And what they would have me do
Is drink until I am through.

Bartender, serve the ghouls
Who still crown the bony stools
Strangling shots with shaking fists,
Scars slashing their necks and wrists.
For me, though, the taps are dry,
Soured by the bitter lie
That even the strongest stuff
Is never quite strong enough.
I write these words on barroom glass
Before pushing off at last,
If it's empty, my brother,
Where one bottle came from,
There's always another.

Train Wreck

Skyrocketing train wrecks, avalanches of ash,

Boxy steel corpses sprawl across the land

And dredge up the earth with their slide.

Broken bodies stretch and simmer, gears clash,

Flowers of steam billow and expand

And the screams of the dead will not subside.

These clanging dinosaurs segment the nation,

Carve out cities from the plains

And spike the soil with their tracks.

Charging over iron arteries and past dusty stations,

The engines of America char the grain

And man is under attack.

They die with their machines and we do as well,

The flashing lights steep our brains in glitter

That sends us crashing into electric graves.

No matter how much we talk, we cannot quell

The cold shock that causes us to fret and fritter

Away our time in a nation no one can save.

Springtime

Like a fist of grass bursting from the earth,
Like the skin of dew sweetening the flowers
In the dream-like glitter of the morning,
You blossom with the wonders of nature.

The springtime seedpods have sprung from their trees
But their ample yield has no way to match
The flush aromas sweeter than the sun
That color your eyes and trail in your wake.

Like a pillar of green propping up the sky,
The perfumed leaves propel you aloft.
I cannot command what opens my heart.
In you I live, love and find my being.

Our Needs Lain Bare

I knew it would end this way,
We could never repair
The desperate need to convey,
Our needs lain bare.

Our appetites succumbed to scales
Our sacrifice could not meet.
The power of forgiveness fails
To mitigate my defeat.

Who was I to challenge your way?
Who was I to conspire and cling?
How could I build only to betray
The essence of everything

That framed our visions in flame,
That lent a pulse to our light?
I beg the Gods to blacken my name
And shatter my taste and sight

So that I can forgive your disguise
And you can forget the tongue
That lapped the tears from your eyes
And believed you could be young.

The Drawers

The drawers are full of despair
And the dead have your tongue
Splattered on clots of paper and ink.

The heated missives still declare
Phantom passions sung
As we plunged over the brink.

We struggled in a spectral time
And loved as only we could.
The gentle vicissitudes of youth,

The years of articles and rhyme
No longer serve a greater good
And lack the ring of truth.

The Moon

If I were the moon, I would be cruel
And flatten men with my milky fist
Until they can come to concede
The reason I exist.

I would breathe to fill cradles of beauty
That imbue our days with meaning.
I would live to summon daily redemptions
With a mammoth hand of dreaming.

If I knew the moon, I would linger
Over limpid lips that persist
In spurning my every advance
And spoiling every kiss.

Songs To The Moon

When there is merit in songs to the moon,
Its poetry has secret syllables

Singing in enchanted intervals.

Such poetry cannot come too soon.

A spray of stars upon the slate of night,

It must wait until the moment is right.

Until I can find my mind an anchor
To the brash chemistry of verse and rhyme,

To the fierce formulas of art and time.

Until I can free my heart from rancor
I cannot make this power manifest
And nor can I hope to ever attest

To its motive for being and merit.

I must marry my blood to the spirit

That still sings, if I can only hear it.

I have this love, but I cannot bear it.

I wait in the wake of the moon for strength
And the courage to travel any length.

The Days

In days charged by thunder,
The hours rattled by currents,
I awaken with wonder
And savor my disturbance.

In the supple shine of morning
I start the long, lonely climb
Across worlds still forming
Under wet reliefs of lime.

In the sudden strike of noon,
The skies are an ashen paste
And though storms are coming soon
I cannot act with haste.

I must produce gold from gales
That chafes the gathering dead
Who die as heroes in my tales
That steeps their passage in dread.

In the evening’s dimming echo,
I found what I love and who I am.
The blue blossoms are now aglow
With the poem of life again.

In days charged by thunder,
The hours rattled by currents,
I awaken with wonder
And savor my disturbance.

When She's Near

Sorrow bogs me down when she is near
And the fact is too much for her to hear,
So I will never confess it.

Her hands will flaw my reserve,
Her touch is more than I deserve
And I cannot address it.

I know that this much is true
I do not love me and cannot love you,
But I cannot free you from this.

My grief will keep me from being alone
And there is nothing I can do to atone
For the crime of stealing your kiss.

I Knew A Woman

I once knew a woman who wanted to die;
That’s all she said again and again.
I wanted her without knowing why
And sought to savor her skin.

Our swim through ethanol pools
Found me passed over the rest
Who worked her over with tools
Her errant mouth blessed.

I once knew a woman who wanted to die
Adrift in a vessel of glass.
Her baby boy would cry and cry
While the men crept past.