I am three glasses into a bottle of iced Chardonnay, sitting alone on a Sunday afternoon, watching feathery clouds being torn apart by the mountain peaks on the horizon. Proud, impossibly white billowing beauties sailing along on a brilliant sun day, but flying too low, then shredded by an immovable object which has stood there since God started the clock. Many of the days of my life ended up on those sharp peaks.

Arrogance, indifference, indecision… all weighted my ass down at times, leaving me unable to rise above the weakness within, bringing the inevitable correction, that moment when what…

No tomorrow for you
Only the yesterdays of your life
Your future lost,
ignored as you cling to your past
What was, will always be what is, for you

You are held hostage by anger
at what you cannot change
Never accepting what is today, is what is
Endless madness, over what was, rots your soul
Love lost by comparison of what is no longer
Families denied, one by one
Tired of rants of the
perceived injustices in your past
All because twenty years ago
is more important to you than now

And you will fail now because of then
The…

If you took everything
I screwed up out of my long life,
I’d have about three hours of living left

Women I should have
left in the bar after the first drink
Women who should have run from
me after the second shot
No money, no brains,
the arrogance not yet beaten out of me

I burned down the early days of life
Realized young, life begins out there
on the fringe,
this is where I wanted to live,
past the comfort
where living goes to die
Way out there where the
good folks never venture,
afraid to step in the sins of the common man…

Just whiteness
tucked around her
Sun streaks from a hot, cloudless sunset
poured through a dirty window
her bed the illusion of untouched snow
Her pillows the pure white of God,
brilliance only seen on Sunday nuns
My mind numb knowing
I was here to watch her die

We were both twenty-nine
She a red headed, six-foot work of wonderous art
Me, the faithful friend,
sitting quietly by her side as she dazzled the world
One night with a stranger was going to kill her

Together forever we wrote in crayon
Notes passed shyly when we were seven
We loved each other…

The only light in the room
the soft blue light from the stereo
Hours past midnight
but I was restless,
too many hours writing,
too tired to sleep just yet

I sprawled in my chair
Head back
Glass of wine cradled in my lap
Listening to voices
dead for thirty years
Their songs still speaking to me,
words of gentle love and hard lives

Artists of the pen and song age and die
but their magic lives on
into the late-night hours of my life
Lyrics heard a thousand times,
still speaking to me
as if played only for my…

Watching a homeless guy digging through the garbage, looking for that treasured, wasted half sandwich or tossed jelly donut, reminded me of my writing. I was sitting in the park, sipping on a glass of wine, waiting for some Friday afternoon inspiration to find me, but nothing but senseless gibberish filled a single page in my notebook. The old guy then moved on to the next garbage can and I realized my entire writing career was a reflection of him. How much garbage do I have to endure, how many endless hours at my desk late at night do I…

The beauty of life
is the certainty of death
I don’t fear death,
I fear being alive…
yet not living within myself
I am terrified of wasting
the precious minutes that are mine,
the hours of this fading gift
counting away towards nothingness,
no one ever sure how
close he is to the end

Death is the constant
impetus to get on with life,
to experience what can be,
to love without fear
and be now in the moment of you,
to remember you
have no guarantee
of a tomorrow,
this breath one closer to your last

You can be…

Picked up an apple
rolling under foot at the store
Little, wobbly,
squeaky old guy dropped
it from his cart
It had been bright red,
heavy, round and shiny,
a specimen admired by other apples,
those lesser fruits
not as voluptuous,
but my new friend now bruised
and a little lop sided

Staring at the apple reminded me of me
It was like looking into
a mirror of the fruit gods
My head has always
been big for my body
Large man,
with the huge, round head
Looking down at my new friend,
I know how my mom
felt when I was born
Giant head baby in her lap
all red…