Diogenes in a hot tub of curdled dreams,
I tinker with emotion’s safe.
Nylon stockings of a lyric
hide my flesh but call it up.
Judgment dandruff mixed with snow.
The apple rots from inside out.
For many years my only salve—
a shot glass with its line respected.
God, I held that ether well
like chlorine poured in swimming pools.
Something snapped. Sheets went stale.
Sad passed out, got stinkin’ drunk.
I was robbing myself without regret
or knowing how much cache was gone.
I’ll tell the plain brown-wrapper truth:
train wrecks on the rails of wine
took semi-trucks and made them small
like Matchbox Cars in Christmas socks.

Pillbox words in stanza wallets
take the heat I used to drink.
Ghosts and cobwebs suck their breath
from cloisters of my whittled bones.
Belittled, befuddled, be agony’s fire.
For nearly twenty winter years,
mints upon my pillowcase
were bottles emptied for escape.
I know I should have prayed instead,
but God would surely understand
how pain can rape a midnight mass.
The pillar monk of crippled tides
was sadly sealed off from wise.
Crusoe on the cross of pain,
I wonder wander courage caves.
Sing Sing out of key but there.
Shame sham concentration leads.
Sober’s closet sees the dark for what it is
and somehow corners breaking light.
Liquor’s penitentiary was holding cells
for “do not touch me with the night.”