Oh, What a Lucky Man

He had white horses and ladies by the score
All dressed in satin and waiting by the door

Ooh, what a lucky man he was
Ooh, what a lucky man he was

He said money and success weren't
The measure of a life but that if he touched
One person's heart he was satisfied

So Emerson he went and cancer gripped Lake
He struggled for nine months and birthed death

So here we are
Lost in fear life death life death
A sick perverse man for president

Despair so easy, oh, so easy but
The truth is that we have now, today
Have I touched someone now in any way

I don't want to get to my end, or
The end of the Trump's term and
Realize I didn't live, I waited, I dreamed

Lost in the past and the future and
The only place I could live could act --
The now, was abandoned by me.

You see Greg Lake acted, and created
And cared and worked for others and
Oh, what a lucky man he was

Oh what a lucky man you are
Oh what lucky men we are
Ooh, what a lucky man he was

#therevolutioncontinues

Woke up yesterday and for realz
Mentally ill here
I thought to kill myself

But sometimes so much despair out there
Means we've got to pull it together in here
So I started to rally. Fuck that shit.
They're not worth my down.

Then today high school kids cut school
No KKK No Hate In The USA No Trump
No KKK No Hate In The USA No Trump

They made me so happy I cried
I mean gasping couldn't catch my breath
Turned red and sobbed on the street cried

It's going to be alright, y'all
We've got this.
I've got you.
You've got me.
We've got them.

The revolution continues.
¡Viva la revolucion!
¡Viva la revolucion!
¡Viva la revolucion!

Some of us -- Invisible

Some of us were always invisible
Some of us made no impression
Teachers just ignored us
We were doing pretty well and

If something seemed a bit off --
Well it was easier to just ignore it
Wasn't it
No problem there.

Not one teacher ever reached out to me
Not one teacher ever tried to solve me
Not one teacher ever saw my pain
Or if they did it was just easier to
Turn just part away.

I suffered. Abused. Horrific. Marks.
No one asked. No one talked to me.
If they had I would have burst in tears
If they had I might have started redemption
If they had I might not be suicidal at sixty one

Some of us were always invisible
Some of us made no impression
Some of us were just ignored
We seemed to be doing pretty well

Some of us weren't

Angels on the Sidewalks

Blessed are the poor — the angels among us.
Blessed they sleep on  cardboard
Blessed is the smell of their urine
They have no place to go

Blessed are the children

Raised among poverty
Homelessness
Drug addiction
Alcoholism.

Blessed are the passed out
With syringe in arm or fallen bottle beside
They flee the pain for all of us
Soaking up our pain
And numbing it

Blessed are my sisters
Blessed are my brothers
Blessed are they when the cops roust them
Moving them along so the better off don't see.
Blest are they.

Blessed is the community
The watching out for one another
Blessed is the shamed theft of another
Victim's scanty wealth
Blessed are they both

You are walking by them
You are walking by them

You are walking by them

And they are angels on the sidewalk

Sacrifices to the rush to wealth.

They are your brothers

They are your sisters

They are your cousins and aunts and uncles

They are your family

They are angels among us

Blessed be.

Blessed be.

Blessed be.

Blessed be.

Mindful

Angry
You
Ahhhhh
I
Breathe

Prince

A musician God
Supported always women
A hole in our lives.

Walk Right By

You always see them –
Walk right by the line
Startled by
The locked door
Thought only they
Were waiting for
The bathroom.

Baby in Stroller

Kicking legs awave
A baby is filled with glee
The world going by

Undercover

Two undercover cops
Handcuff two guys
Across from Philz

Oh such excitement
The coffee shop buzzes
People peer through the glass

Exotic aquarium

Gold iPhone

She sits
Drinking coffee
Like everyone else
Touching her phone
But she has the
Gold iPhone case.
Miss fabulous.

Karen

She writes to the pulse
To the beat with the
Words coming naturally.
Muse speaking freely
In beautiful verse.

I love
To think
About the
Lengths of
The lines and
The shapes
That they
Make -- Poetry

NaPoWriMo

Today's the day
Not April Fools
A different day --
Of Fools
Driven mad by the goddess
And striving just to get the
Poetry spewed -- enscribed
Before it slipperies back into the
Stream
And a different fool
Gets to
Dive for it.

Too Afraid

I saw a young girl, seventeen or eighteen
So so high, stumbling, with a guy that
She orbited about, older, not wasted
In a horrible part of town.

He had taken over her life.
I imagined prostitution and
Heroin and OH SUCH TRAGEDY
But I made a terrible mistake

I didn't intervene
I did not intervene.
I was too afraid.

Someone Tonight

Someone tonight told me
That they would drop by and
Spend some time with me.
They seemed to be saying

That they thought I was interesting.
But that wasn't true. They
Didn't show up they
Left me high and dry.

I don't quite get it. I'm
Pretty straightforward, I
Tell people what I mean and
Am lost when they deceive.

Why would they say that they
Want to be with me when,
It turns out that they choose to
Drop me to the side.

A Strange Change Day

I told my therapist that
I cut last night and
Then I cut again and
I didn't know why.

All the last month things were bad.
I hurt. I triggered. I depressed darkly,
And all that time I wondered
Why I didn't cut.

That's what I do when things are hard.
I cut cut cut and it helps me.
But when it was bad all last month, no.
And now things are better and cut cut cut.

So. Walking home from the therapist
I eat and get a beer or two and
Walking home I keep seeing great
Attractive women and thinking

I should get a girlfriend.
I should get a girlfriend.
This is such a shift. I never believe
In the possibility of that.

I think that they won't want me
If they knew who I was they would
Be horrified. That they couldn't
Ever ever ever want me.

Now all of a sudden I think that
I should get a girlfriend?
Just like that?
That is so confusing.

Who am I?
Es tan extraño.
No puedo comprender.
Claro, que barbaro.

The last three lines in Spanish mean that It is so strange -- I can't understand -- Clearly, how barbaric, with the last having the sense that it is outside the normal realm of understanding.

She Loves She

 

Now sad the other way
She, enamoured,
Stars in her eyes.

The other unaware
Shares pics of cute guys
Never seeing the pain.

The Victim

So sure you're the victim
You push and push
Obnoxious
Cruel
Telling everyone that
They are victimizing you.

They leave angered
They leave in disdain

You are sure that proves -- something

The FBI comes and you defend yourself.

Now you are dead.

Buddha Wants Us

The Buddha wants us to
The Buddha wants us to
See the people
See them
In the tenderloin
And let go of our stories

Now.
See them.
Homeless or
Drug addicted or
Drunk drunk drunk and

They are our sisters
They are our brothers
They are in such pain how
Can we pass them and
Not see.
Not see.

The Buddha wants us to
Let go -------- of delusion
They are not different
They are like us
Can you hope looking at them?
Neither -- can they.

Find it.
Find it for them.
See them
Exactly as
They are
There is hope -- hope

Corn Dog Days

 

Back to my childlike
Simple days.
No worries just eat
Oh! Such a gift
A dog and
Corn! bread and
Stick-like love.
It's back to my childlike
Simple days
Simple love
Missing you
Corn dog
Missing you
And you

A Poem For Drinkers

Sometimes when drinking it goes awry
And you can just see that there is not a point,
That if you keep drinking it will acrid and
Weird sober and maybe hangoverish while still drinking.

Other times it is cool -- drink for drink
Take me to soft cushy happy drunk
And I like it, it is why I have been drinking
And I will have no complaint.

But -- nicely, and occasionally (but) rarely
There are times that start out to be the first
And quite to my (your) (our) surprise
Sneak over to it is ok after all.

I like that.
It is out of focus
The pain is muted
And I can not complain

¡Que barbaro!

After the open mike
Last month I saw a man,
Pienso que de Mexico,
Pero no se.
Pues claro que si,
El tiene hambre.
Diga a el que fue
Pan dulce en Alley Cat
Pero el hesitated.
Digo que lo fue
En la basura si
No lo come.
¡Que barbaro!
But he could not bring
Himself to enter into a bookstore.
My heart broke.

Oh it hurts so

When people I care for yo
Show up at my bar though
I do not expect them
And they tell me how much they love
Seeing myself though
And then when they go to
The next bar and
They do not ask me to go
And -- I feel like nothing yo.
I feel like nothing yo.
I am nothing.
I am exactly nothing
To them.
I do not matter.
At all.
Truth.
I die.

Crush the Smart Girl

Some times I crush.
Someone is smart
And creative and
Blond and
Nice and
Pretty and
I crush on all of that, but --
I don't expect that --
They will also find that --
I am attractive in
The least.
Lonely is.

Lonely Self

Here's the thing.
When I/you admire someone
It seems like a connection,
But it is not.
It is not.
Liking them is not them liking me
(Or you) and thinking it is
Is what leads us to creepy stalking.
So.
I like her. (Won't name her.)
But. I will not think, (pretty sure not),
That she likes me.
One does not imply the other.
That is sad.
I really like her.
I will just
Lonely be.I will just
Lonely be.

Oh. Such fear

I see that she wants to
Risk and talk to.
I want to too.
But if she doesn't dare
I can not give to her
Her boldness
Her balls
I want to, but
My heart
Is not her heart.
She has to stand up.
If she doesn't will,
Then I will not will
Sorry. She lacks.

Your Annoying Self

Someone told her that
That poem was about her
And push and pull
She sends someone
She wants to see
The poem about her.
No. Ask for yourself
Don't send emissaries.
I don't care enough about
Your annoying self
To gift you poem.

Chinese Girl

Walks with grandpa
He is to her
As she is to him
Family.
And I yearn.

Loud

Loud loud woman in the bar
Woooooohhhttttttt!
Fuckin everything is exciting
Made a shuffle board play.
Saw a scene on TV
Someone walks in the door.
Just
Shut
The
Fuck
Up.
But.
Something in me
Wants
To take her.

Drunk Time

There is a thing, a drinking thing
Where -- as you drink more and feel --
The bliss that grows, it is pretty nice.

I don't mean the other thing where
The more drinking makes more feeling
Sober (though drunk test would bely).

I mean the happy thing. The thing that
Happens sometimes. The thing that makes
Us at such risk for alcoholism, (at such risk).

I guess all of this is to say that I
Like this thing and wish that it were the
Thing that always showed up when I drank.

Out of Place

Much homesickness
Suddenly and unexpectedly
Guts me
Guts me
Missing what?
Scrub?
Brush?
Mexican food?
People who
Share my experience?

That's it.
I think I miss my life
Even though I
Do not want
To leave here.
I want and
Do not want
All now.

There Are Places

There are places
That I show up
Only when drunk.
Like a combination
Taco Bell and KFC.

They do not judge.
They accept me.
They know that I only
Show up when I am drunk
And they welcome me.
They treat me like a human being
And I love them.
I love them.

Sometimes I See

Sometimes my admiration
Of a woman is flavoured by
My realization that, although
They pretend to not know
That I am looking at them,
They know.

I met a guy

He was a worker
Low level
Worked for the building – Logan
Instead of the businesses
In the building
Sweeping the sidewalk
A stand up guy.
A stand up guy.

Sometimes

Sometimes I see people
That are culturally similar
So they imagine that
They should be together
And I hope that
Their worldview
Is broad enough
That they can see that
It is possible too
Serve themselves.