The Gratiot County Darling

It was my dear friend: the "Howl"-ed out, foulmouthed, class act jack ass,
who taught me to brave the sex shop and giggle in its face,
to laugh at hardships known as kidney stones in the urethra of life,
to fearlessly make waves in the abandoned water park in the dead of night.

One day Big Tony will help you steal Tony's giant ceramic chicken,
thanks for the summer days, the plays, your originality, the visits,
the reminders to take life seriously but also to live it.

--Dr. Pen Name
Happy Birthday, Preston!

"Let Go Of My Daughter, You Black Eyed Bitch..."

--whose blank and gleaming eyes glazed with the demonic tint of onyx hopelessness
sees with transparent ease the opaque soul of time-worn fragility
and munches on the tender meat of the psyche...seasoned with sorrow

--Preston

I Pray This High Hope Lasts

My teary eyed gaze into the reflected face of my foe-side-me

—once pallid with the soul’s anesthetic—has dried with pleasant conversation

and sweet sensations of God-blessed hope

have again graced the damp and weary hearth  of my torpid temple of torment

So glad again am I that I no longer have the freedom not to feel

for just as a home without a family is just a house

a hearth without a flame is crumbled charcoal to the pit

--Preston

Damned by Bacchus

My bleak and bellicose age of white-knuckle sobriety

is sputtering near a desperate end

and twelve steps of self-denial hold no cards

I am an addict of my own undoing, a disciple of destruction

a steward of self-inflicted servitude

and the first step to freedom is to deny its existence

for I have been damned by Bacchus

--Preston

Just Ride It Out, Dude

My friend, I would absorb your plight if only I could for I know how it rules you

but let not your dreams’ deaths stay dead like the long absent father of joy

Grow strong, grow tall, and grow wise to the telltales of delusionary lore

for we both know that the Tree of Life bears many fruit

but too little good it does for the carnivorous hearts of men like us

for no salt of the earth can please our tongue, no river of joy can satiate our thirst

and no well-intended lie can ease the terrifying truth that we are utterly incurable

--Preston

Ardor Empire

We built an empire

with pillars of love-base philosophy

and fortified foundations of amorous affection

T’was not built in a day

But destroyed, it seems—

in far less time than it took to create

--Preston

The 9th of Every Month

While it emits a fragrance of bittersweet memories

upon which I'll never again know to be true

the 9th of every month will never be the same

I'm lost with loss after finding faith with what I found

and I'm fading now like the grey-skinned man

between the pre-shroud sheets of the last bed in which he'll ever rest

--Preston

"Preston my boy, you need to dig yourself a trench."

My past month has been nonstop bullcrap of heartbreak and disappointment

and the fifteen-million mile road of metaphorical manure seems to stretch on forever

but thankfully God gave me spades for fingers

--Preston

Craptastic Irony

I left and went to be cleansed

only to fall under attack by Fragile Heart and outside forces

and somehow wound up being baptized in the blood of my former self

It’s funny how things work out

--Preston

Human Subtractions

Human subtractions come—or go rather—

from life like missed one-time opportunities

that you beat yourself up over

for having not snatched it when you could

--Preston

A Stroll Through Clapp Park

I saw a boy sitting alone on the merry-go-round at the local park

and sensed within him a certain quiet lifelessness

…he was the closest thing to me I’ve ever seen

--Preston

Solipsistic Avenue

I’m not the one I was or could have been
and at my very best I am simply me
Nothing more but so much less

It’s back to the pre-you-me I go
residing on solipsistic avenue
population me…

--Preston

Pining Lonely and Pine River Longing

 I wish I could look into the river and have my future reflected back to me
To see all what-ifs and could-have-beens morph into something more than mere possibility
I don’t want us to be a could-have-been
And if fate will never bless my vision with foresight
then I beg to Him to send me back to before it all went wrong
And if course correction is not in the cards, then I pray the deck can be destroyed; that every king and queen and clubs of paths preordained may perish beneath the twitch of His wrist


--Preston

You Beautiful imagination, Far From Truth You Are

More than anything in the world I want                    YOU

are far too cruel for one so                                          BEAUTIFUL

is a figment of my                                                          IMAGINATION,

has gotten me                                                                  FAR

gone in self never back to where I came                    FROM

failure I have learned the                                             TRUTH

 is as beautiful and frightening as                              YOU

 are probably not who i think you                                ARE

--PRESTON

I Found God at Bravehearts

I found God in the rotten smile
of a liver-poisoned drunk
and said to Him "O', why do we suffer?"
to which He grinned and said
"Why not?
Cruelty cometh to man,
like earth to the grave."

--Preston

Dee Dee & the Brosephs

Pop-bottle bowling pins in place of the norm,
with basketball substitutes for three-holed marble
post-school pre-sleep tools of amusement to occupy our youthful minds
while left in Deidre's care, who in her unjust adultification
did the very best she could

--Preston

Potato Pete Will Seem So Far Away

Old friend though young as I and wise as time

what words have you to offer my troubled ears and shredded soul

and though you leave to mend shards of this broken globe in your own unique way

I will grieve the loss of your presence in my life

My brother, my mentor, my friend, be well

and forget me not when the tide of the plight in which you wade grows too cold

for I will be in the Mitt awaiting your return

--Preston

THE INFECTION IS SPREADING

Thinning diaphanous patience with Increasing fixation to alter irremediable truths of the retroperitoneal  void; the black organic hole of misery that sucks-like a raven black laden reaper-from happy rooms of more fortunate men the life force that keeps them smiling

No soul alone can escape the great magnetic pull of this pessimistic human vacuum
for despondency is a contagion without comfort or cure and the infection is spreading

T     H     E                                I  N   F   E   C   T   I   O   N

I     S                                       S  P   R   E   A   D   I   N   G       

I Can Feel Him Clawing Away In There

"We're almost there", says Wally from the farther corner of myself which too few have known
and what does he, this Pessimistic Prince mean when he tells me this?

Well, I think I have always know I wouldn't live passed a certain age, but the real question--the one which keeps me up most nights--is what do I mean by I?

And when will he, my dreadful darling, return to the wheel and live?

--Preston

Self-Control

Razor nails of digits clenching sweaty palms
quivering knees plant my frame at still posture
with water fall b.p. on the rise and trembling jaw
beneath a dome of hazy sight by twitching lids

Dual whisper evil cricket voices
voicing theirs and my desire to finally act
I just need a cold shower...

--Preston