This is not for a Birthday

 I hope you find this when

you are alone and it pushes you

in the wrong direction 

I hope you start praying to Jesus 

to ask him 

for his lost protection 

I hope you find the pain

that you hold tight and

that you have long been avoiding

I hope that this hurts you 

as much as it hurts me 

because that would be so rewarding 

oh and I hope the ash from 

your cigarette butt lights the 

trash heap ablaze 

I hope when you read this

it sticks to you and pushes 

you to end your daze 

because we die

yes, we all die 

we're all gonna die 

I just hope your death comes before mine 

I hope you fall asleep 

behind the wheel, 

the radio plows through your chest 

I hope the waterslide breaks 

mid-freefall, you scream 

while you're clutching your breast

I hope your mother rests 

beside your bed 

while you're in a vegetable state 

I hope these words make you

squirm and recoil 

so finally I can relate 

because we're gonna die 

yes, we all die 

maybe tonight 

I just hope your death comes before mine

A Poem for Weary Boomers in Autumn’s Repose

 Crisp morning air

Caught in the outer

Branches of your lungs

Your love once hung

In that air, on the bus

To school, her perfume

Dancing in lilac

And jasmine, her

Hair in pin-curls

For Dr. Dennis Gowans 

Your loved-ones

Hang in the balance

Between light and sunrise

Oh, how has love

Come again between

Summer and Fall

We fall like leaves

Like sundresses

That undresses in one motion

Our pink young and

Healthy hearts naked

On the beach

In the desert diner

On the back of the bus

A kiss like grape jelly

And then the sun again

And then the dawn again

And then awake again

And then, and then again -

A world full of possibility

Of second chances, of light

Feeling like a woman again

 Sometimes I yearn to feel like woman again

Even though I’m a man

And technically, I was never a woman

Or even a girl for that matter

But I used to dance and used to sing the high part

And when people called my parents house

On the phone, and I answered, they would

Think I was my mother.

I remember sitting in a group of older

Women, my mother’s friends, and

Just hearing dirty gossip

that I didn’t understand

We laughed for the sake of it

I still want to cry so hard that I think

I may never stop,

to make love like a symphony

I want to smell like her

And as I resurface, I see myself

In the mirror, at twelve, in her dress

And her heals, in my mothers bathroom

So young and so beautiful

now I’m a father and now

I am sloppy and I sleep sitting up

In the laz-e-boy chair like all fathers and

Grandfather

And now I get anger

And make love like a construction crew

And I smell like coffee and Ben-gay

And the men I’ve always hated.

Sept 30th 20

 Touching the inside of your elbow 

where the needle would go 

with the end of my middle finger

You, with your cream dress, 

and me with my suit 

We veer past the red carpet 

And I lean against the elevator button

it opens and closes 

we descend lower, beneath the stage 

Son in the Bath

 I write with my son in the bat 

with my word in waiting, with my 

world holding still 

the bath is deep and my son

is still two and he sings 

little splashing songs 

he doesn't dance the dance

of breathlessness underwater 

with bubbles and blood 

his pink and blue bronchial

breathe deeply with flush 

of smiling cheeks 

pinched by December - 

oh shit, he just stood 

at on the edge of the tub and 

I throw my laptop down and he

 sits so effortlessly, so gingerly 

"daddy I want banzan" 

"Vitamins?" 

"Yeah banzan" 

Banzan it is