Al

Brooklyn born and bred,
the foundation for an empire,
I got my start with rippers and thieves
and took Five Points to the top,
there I met Mae of Mary's Star
and Papa Johnny the Fox,
and found myself on Rum Row.

It was there that I broke
two fingers of the White Hand,
and found myself on the road
for the Windy City.

Here I rose in Chicago
with a Slugger and a fist,
I carved out my bungalow by brick
to plan for the topple of Cicero.

Wealth and fame allowed all pleasure:
in fine cigars and suitable suits,
as well as Rye and the kind dames,
but the world was not ready for me
in St. Valentine's at Lincoln
with Machine Gun McGurn
and the outspoken Thompsons.

And yet I was caught in law
by the make-good treasurer of lie
who soon served the same empire
once their wit ran Dry
in the sodden spring of '33.

Creation Through Destruction

There is beauty in the burning of a building,
the process of creation through destruction.
It is much easier to destroy than to create
unless you shape a mould from the ash.
War conceives death and consumes life,
the process of creation through destruction.
You will dismantle for the means to repair
and make substance from each obliteration.
Death fathers life and all life will end
because construction becomes destruction.
Conservation laws tell matter can change form,
but will never be created or destroyed.
This is a process of belief, truth as untruth,
if death is life then trust is bound in aeon.

Cap Gun Veterans

Far behind that veteran white farmhouse
built long before the American Civil War
my brother and I played with toy guns.
He would put on gray and I wore blue.
Just like Gettysburg and Fort Fisher
we reenacted the battles every morning.
Our plastic rifles became our muskets
and the crops became the battlefield.
Hiding behind trees, crouching in grass,
we marched forward and fired lucid rounds
just as stray brethren did so long ago.
Sometimes I shot first and he would fall,
having struck down my kin in cold, clear blood.
Far behind that veteran white farmhouse
he and I would relive the American Civil War.
Yet my brother's feigned wounds healed,
and he would rise back up and walk home.
Because when our own wars came to an end
he had always lived to see another day.

Tempo

In that heap of sheet metal and glass
we climbed in and then hauled ass,
rolling on four stretched rubber-bands
I listened to all your shitty bands,
it was a race before we ran outta gas,
and yet we were always getting passed,
that mound of junk died every stop,
and we prayed we didn't pass a cop,
that shit-can was more matter than mass,
I can't believe we never ran outta gas,
and yet I think I miss it a little bit,
you, me, and your Tempo piece of shit.

Humanizing God

Man born of dust, woman born beneath his chest,
upon knowledge of a hominine god did they digest,
you blamed all but yourself for their wonder,
you created curiosity, yet they met your sunder,
and though you punished serpent, yet not devil,
you permitted him free to roam at Earth's level,
you cast them out and they left upon the morrow,
when you sealed the entrance, did you feel sorrow?

To children your own became you ruthless and vile,
but I only wonder if you did it all with a smile,
you forsake heart and brood for a Table of Nations,
for all exempt Noah and his there was no salvation,
then fretting the Tower of Babel and ambition of man
you confused words and scattered them at world's span,
in the land of Shinar you acted in manners unclear,
in this time of undaunted men, did you feel fear?

Blessed Abraham sought you out and he sought to believe,
and you repaid him in kind in a son you sought to bereave,
still though he fell short upon your request to delay,
but neither he nor I could know what you felt that day,
murderous Moses rose up and followed plague at tenfold
and led your chosen ones through Red Sea uncontrolled,
given he a solemn list of laws, as there were many,
and he destroyed the golden calf, did you feel envy?

Not until your human incarnation, or your son some say,
did you feel regret and allowed our sins washed away,
yet forsaken are those before his coming and time,
still, he inspired hope and love by words sublime,
but he was doomed from the start, you needed a symbol,
we are fallible, yet he was not, he was unforgivable,
a duality to your nature, human doesn't imply humane,
you put on quite a show that day, did you feel vain?

Validation not an objective, risk is more your game,
wherever you are, you're the king of hermetic fame,
but personally, I'd do the same and hide from truth,
I'd bedevil the simple and inflict fear into the youth,
but my deism is found opposed, not all feel this way,
for some go so far as to parade their love's display,
"the heart has reasons which reason knows not of,"
Pascal spoke with full intent, did you feel love?

Beneath this scope you're scrutinized and humanized
and so therefore I feel for you and I empathize,
so I wouldn't think apathy in a deity such as you,
but I beg that you just show me the means to construe,
I know deep down that you've seen the duality in my being,
perhaps my faith is hope that you're seeing what I'm seeing,
but if you felt those emotions, those human traits,
then, God, I must ask you, do you feel hate?

4 o’Clock Craft Show

On the road home from buying some smokes
I passed a hand-painted cardboard sign
for a craft show, just today until four.
I was never one for art or old wives' tales,
but today on impulse and rash chance
I took the turn and followed the trail.
I found a weary house with broken windows,
weatherworn white paint and a collapsing roof.
An old woman with creases around her eyes
that whispered from an era of bitter burdens
sat at a table with an ivory cane at her side.
Her pale hands were wrinkled and wilted
and her hair was chalky and wire thin.
She smiled at me from behind her glass eye
and called out, "Take a gander 'round, sonny,
if ya see somethin' ya like, let ol' Annie know."
I saw the mason jars full of colored sand,
and the patchwork quilts with children's names,
the rough charcoal sketches of forgotten faces
and the crude pottery once forged in a kiln.
I looked over the first bowl and the second,
and picked up the third, an amber-glazed bowl
with dilated dents and harsh, husk edges,
and deep inside I saw prints from fingers
belonging to a worn woman of age and grief,
imperfections that were intentionally left
simply to appreciate for their faults' sake.
"Do ya like 'er, sonny? She can be yers,
for jus' an Abe an’ a George it's all yers."
I took out my wallet and gave her the cash,
and she asked, "Buyin' it fer yer sweetie?"
I told her no, that I wasn't in love anymore.
As her grinning eye changed to pity, she said
"Sonny, ya ain't livin' life without someone,
with no one to love an' love ya back th' same."
I told her that one day I found I wasn’t loved back
and that things were just no longer that simple.
So then she replied, "Not true there, sonny,
love is somethin' easier than kids today think,
ta show love is th' reason we're all even here,
but one day ya kids will learn it on yer own."
I didn’t really have an answer to give back
so I gave Annie thanks and took my yellow bowl
and got into my truck to head back home,
but on the drive back I came to the realization
that today I went to a craft show and bought a bowl
and met God in the glass eye of an old woman.

Dearest Regards from Africa

Today I got the postcard you sent in the mail,
the one with the zebras standing in tall, lank grass
and the unsympathetic, saffron sun beating down.
I flipped it over and read about all the kind work
you and your boyfriend were doing for the children,
gratified with the good deed of aiding the infirmary
and hopeful for how you needed more helping hands.
You wrote how his little girl was starting school soon
and that all public education was free in Ghana.
You took a safari to Mampong, deep into the savanna,
into the low bush and the perpetual grassy plains.
You spoke to me of lions and elephants and hyenas,
yet the oceanic humidity had left you unwell.
Still, I could sense you were blessed and blissful.
You apologized and wished me a happy belated birthday,
and you asked how I was doing and if I was happy.
I did have a lot to say and I would have sent one back,
but you always knew what was really on my mind
and you surely remembered what home looked like.
But even though compassion bled through in African ink,
as I read to the end, I realized this card would be my last.
Written in your own, always unique, penmanship --
"I hope you're happy, like me. My dearest regards, E.E."

Tick Tock

Born from the wreckage near the Everglades,
a being of techno-organic flesh remade,
and all came to greet with guns in a raid,
and Molotov cocktails, pitchforks and spades.

Deep in the swamps I was birthed by his precision,
but they didn't approve of my maker, my technician,
the voters were anonymous, with unanimous decision,
so I fled Florida, but something new had arisen.

In the fields of the mid-west, a purpose I found,
that deep within my casing, my maker had bound
a metal box with random numbers and a sound
of a ticking time bomb that would soon astound.

The Dredging Machine

With my shovel in hand
I will uproot the land.

I will curse at the dying sun
for all that is left undone,
I will bore into the earth
and hope to escape my dearth,
I will sift through the dirt
and my eyes will not avert,
I will dig an open channel
that will never be dismantled.

And with my shovel in hand
I will uproot the land.

I will curse at the dead sun
for all that is left undone,
I will excavate the ruins
and bore out my new tomb,
I deepen a hole and make wide
and crawl down to lay inside,
I cover in soil and regret,
but soon the world will forget.

And while laying beneath land
I now go to sleep to remand.

Me and Eddie

One night on the dawn of October
back in good ole ‘49
in that beat-down bar on Thames
I sat down next to you and your stout.
You said they all called you a poet,
but you said you were more of a sot.
My words were never very noteworthy
so I bought you a brew instead.
You spoke of a German explorer,
though I can’t recall his name,
and about how we all used to be one.
I knew it was the drink talking for you
so I bought you another.
You continued on about pushes and pulls
and about something called "atoms,”
so I bought you another--
one part whiskey and one part Adam's ale.
The hours went by and morning was near,
so as the barkeep called out
I bought you another for the road.
Ed, I never caught your full name,
but it was only a few days later
I knew I had bought brews for a king.

Of Sand and Scotch

I often sleep in tall sandcastles
until the waves roll in
and wash me away out to sea,
I stand in the sand
and let the surf take me
back with the tide,
the foam filling my lungs,
the salt burning my eyes,
and from inside the undertow
I can see the stars.

Back on the beach
the grain walls topple,
flooded and pushed down,
an old bottle of scotch
slides through an open door
and right into my hand,
it wants me to drink
and I don't contend,
the scotch burns my throat,
the glass swallows me,
and from inside the bottle
I can see the stars.

As I swim back through the brine
making my way for the shoreline,
a shooting star drops from place
and passes my tower,
so I give the bottle my note:
"When the stars fall from grace,
I will be right here waiting."
scribbled in green
and tossed back to sea,
and back inside the new sandcastle
built by the children
I can see the stars.

On my throne of sand and sea,
with patience and soft heart,
drunk on the drink, and looking up,
I watch the night sky
and I wait and wait.

Beseech in Sheol

I find no comfort beneath the earth
for I feast on the dirt to live,
there is no mirth or satisfaction
and I see no reason to forgive,
I sleep in silence and the oblivion
and my crimes were never stated,
cords tighten as death surges 'round
and your belly will never be sated,
together with fellows of my wretch
and in sod we are buried abut,
snares come and made wide is your throat
and your mouth will never be shut,
out of the belly of soot I cry,
but still you do not hear my voice,
or maybe your ears are not deaf,
perhaps you do not listen by choice.

Demon of the Past

Outward arm cast over a sea of names,
finger pointing, swearing and making claims
of treachery and disloyalty.

The crowd sits, so quiet, and
devouring each single and malice lie
passed down from devil to demon.

Courage is vacant, as well as diversity,
amongst the perverse persuasions
of this man, and history lies.

Masquerade for an Irishman

I once, on Samhain Night dwelling on a folly,
with ponderings swollen of glum melancholy,
called out to a lone wolf Moon,
and She to Eris by way of croon,
a wan gal of reverie, yet still I remained wary.

Her moist merlot lips brushed against my ear,
and only when She was certain I would hear,
She whispered it to me first,
"this tonight we are cursed,"
Her words were knots, but Her eyes sincere.

With my hand in Hers, She uprooted my stay,
though my heels stood place, they swept away
to just outside the ivory gate
upon edge of Oceanus straight,
to confetti shores alive with sprightly soiree.

A shroud parade locked in permanent promenade
which with my fair Lady I faced unequally afraid,
fragrant of lavender and jasmine
and yet, a faint trail of other men,
and all by Her nothing else ever so unswayed.

In cloak and gown each spectre donned a mask,
the Lady skimmed steadily to an open wine cask,
amber nectar gilding the lily,
and I pledged of sweet cherry,
Her promises professed and relished and basked.

In this Old Malmok house on the isle of Bonaire
fleet footing fancied the glowworms on the air,
this rapture clothed my fear
as if so silent all these years,
thus a king and queen, Castelo Branco for a pair.

We danced upon the colors of Harvest grapes
and freely stepping through deciduous scapes
to each lullaby of seraphic prose
of each awed key of lovely Amos,
between soot and stars we waltzed to our agape.

As we spun around and round, She apprised
and so pleaded me with wistful viridian eyes
from deep behind Her ashen mask
to guess Her true name or ask,
and so I adopted the auguring wind to advise.

Within a sultry sense I whispered, "Pandemos,
the one for whom I desire, for whom I obsess,
the dove, the swan, the sparrow,
Gaelic voice of a Secret Rose,"
as tongue came to rest, She waited to confess.

Below the two branches we swayed as seagrass
beneath the banks of the Great Euphrates pass,
across the spectrum of Stone space
She removed the white veil from face
revealing that the omen breeze led me amassed.

Twin leaf sea dragons swam aside the isle's brooch
as the delicate, dreary Dawn's opaque sister awoke,
but atop Venus I was found aflame
in gardens of Twilight by no name,
and writer's ink spilled as Night made for approach.

She held illimitable dominion by ghastly caste,
perhaps borne of Babel or Ishtar all long past,
again She said as if rehearsed,
"this tonight we were cursed,"
and anew I slept of lament back home in Belfast.

The Crumbling of a Lotus Eater

The proud oaf of apparent misanthrope,
the skeptic, the scoffer content in apathy
can express himself through his sneers only,
and remains consistently lonely in bigotry.

No modesty, but misery, no recovery, but ruin,
his descent to atrophy brings an end too soon,
yet he stands sure, with no future in a cocoon
lest to a poison of decay could he be immune.

The sloth found complacency in a land of dreams
from an opiate rising only to a lifeless regime,
yet plans born of remiss and mindlessness seem
to accomplish naught, they leave nothing undreamed.

Hear Me, Atlas

Sweat on your brow,
your back aches,
you kneel before
the weight of the world.

They don't see you,
they don't want you,
they don't give a damn,
they don't care.

Let them stand on their own,
let them feel pity,
let them regret,
now let them fall.

Make them hurt,
make them pay,
just give it back,
just let go.

Your arms release,
you rise to your feet,
you stand before
the fall of the world.

The Purpose for Being

Mother has found her own nature
within her womb, and that which she bore out,
she knows herself, better than any,
and understands the plight,
but she cannot answer
and she will never speak.

She lets us smell it first,
the fermented scent
that lavishes in the morning air,
to simply let us know she's still there.

The question scratches at us
like a turntable now covered in dust,
we feel obsolete,
we circle around and play
the same dreary tunes of yester years,
and we can't bring ourselves to escape the past.

Losing our own reason
and we, pondering our purpose,
can only question out,
though the sole meaning can only be found
through a query within.

If we search ourselves for a reason to be,
are we one amongst many with just cause
or are we separately selfish and soulless?

Good Night, Sweet Prince

Cast out, and marked of divergence
from good will and stolen chance,
one forsaken wanders of unrest,
of unkind and unjust circumstance.
Time ebbs on, to endure eternal
may prove too fruitless to heart,
lest a generation make whole
and sooth old fires while apart.
The tumultuous and disconcerted
are all but left to embrace,
it only maddens but emerges
through a veil of covered face.
A heart stays quickened and wicked
from his lassitude becoming decline,
and that found comfort of wantonness
but yet through a series of thine.
Though remaining while relinquished,
his fever begins taking breath,
"Good night, sweet prince, may flights
of devils wing you to your rest."

Your Last Effort

Wrap your fingers around me,
clinching and strangling,
consuming all you hold without thought,
never second guessing, never resting,
using your last effort to eat at my soul.

Anticipation

The tires glide parallel to power lines
that are alive with electricity like the night air.

The worms come out to play with the bullfrogs,
and I can see them on edge because I am too,
my eyes wide with anticipation
like a child waking on Christmas morning.

The lightning tears open the sky,
and I wait for the words to emit from the hole.

I wait in silence
with nervous hands upon the wheel,
and when the opened mouth is ready
it finally speaks.

I Think They Know

I think your dreams know something I don't
and I really wish they'd tell me,
I hate not knowing
because I feel like they're holding back
on the truth,
like a little bit of info
that could unlock and unravel it all.

I think Dylan knows something
and he's not telling,
his voice carries a sadness,
and though I can relate,
I just don't understand
when he says her name with hope.

I think your dreams know something I don't
and I wonder if they even tell you,
and I hate not knowing
because I feel like they're holding back
on you,
they’re betraying you
like an once identifiable source
that could piece together it all.

I think your dreams know something,
and Dylan does too,
and they're holding you back.

No More Seattle

In a past now forgotten, you had drawn
a visage of villainy in your kin,
it grew like a sickness and spread.
In a past now forgotten, you had drawn
a nightmare of memories once been
that birthed a persuasion in my head.

There's no more Seattle,
so the rain comes here instead,
no hope for tomorrow, and none for today.
There's no more Seattle,
you only lied when you said
there's hope for tomorrow, hope for today.

Somewhere in time, when we were young
we set out to vanish into the void,
to pack our belongings and move west.
Somewhere in time, when we were young,
long before Seattle was left destroyed,
I still remember you making your request.

There's no more Seattle,
so the rain comes here instead,
no hope for tomorrow, and none for today.
There's no more Seattle,
you only lied when you said
there's hope for tomorrow, hope for today.

You forsake your name that day,
feeling constrained and wanting free,
but you still needed a hand to hold.
You forsake your name that day,
so in the summer we planned to flee,
and yet this would never come to unfold.

There's no more Seattle,
so the rain comes here instead,
no hope for tomorrow, and none for today.
There's no more Seattle,
you only lied when you said
there's hope for tomorrow, hope for today.

Now we've grown tired, withered and old,
you've grown weary of vindictive remarks,
and I can't escape my towering failure.
Now we've grown tired, withered and old,
and so frustrated since we never embarked
that my dreams implode without closure.

Drunk in Palestine

I'm drunk in the land of milk and honey,
I march down the street to my own beat,
because here the days are always so sunny.

Yet it's funny, I'm the only one here
with a smile on my face, the whole place
seems so grim and it sure seems sincere.

But in all fairness, it probably has to do
with the fact of a little item I lack
which is a pair of pants, and must be taboo.

I just haven't the time to pay such heed,
I'm having so much fun parading in the sun
as free as can be just drinking my mead.

From Jordan to Egypt I march and I sing
of women I've lost, and men that I've crossed,
but at least in Judea I'm a drunken king.

Yet it's funny, I'm the only one here
with a smile on my face, the whole place
seems so grim and it sure seems sincere.

They're so angry, I know what it must be,
that in my stupor I made a small blooper
when I pissed in the Mediterranean Sea.

But I haven't the time to pay such heed,
I'm having so much fun parading in the sun
as free as can be just drinking my mead.