train to Chicago...*

See it from a train.
Should have called it
the Rust Apocalypse.
Endless piles of industrial
woolly mammoth skeletons
turned red by the rust
that never sleeps or blinks.
Miles and miles of factory,
mills, and foundry corpses.
The workers long scattered
to $10 per hour ***** jobs.
Businesses gone with the workers.
Globalization at its finest.
The end of the people's value.
Amerika crumbles of dry rot.
Enjoy your stuff, good citizen.
This will all come to you.
There is no immunity
to endless, mindless greed.

   ~mce

On this shortest day,
the dark has risen,
a black cloak
covers creation.
The light,
reduced to spark,
awaits its time.
The earth turns,
the trees remember,
the flowers,
in imagination,
dare to hope
and blossom.
On this shortest day
the darkness falters.
Smoldering embers
flare again.
Soon, the world
will turn once more
from cold to warmth.
The light of the east
will not be denied.
Death, rebirth, new life.
On this shortest day,
darkness defeated.
  - mce

I will find my way to you.
We will meet and decide.
If we decide it is good,
I will take you into my arms
and hold you like a butterfly,
not to crush or to own you;
just to let you know I am there
and that I am yours to enjoy;
to possess and be possessed
for as long as we both desire.
No chains, no tortured promises
extracted under duress
and regretted later.
Just taking time, our time.
for as long as that lasts.

  ~mce

Thanks for the title, Boss.*

When I was a kid
my hometown
basked in that
(uncertain) period
of peace and
prosperity between
Korea and Vietnam.

It bustled
with busyness
and it seemed like
everyone knew
everyone and there
was always more.

Even the poor
felt included.

Half a century later,
peace has fled
for good and
prosperity too,
leaving only
vacant storefronts
and neighbors
who do not know
each other.

Perhaps this
was inevitable;
perhaps it is
progress.

But there are
moments when
it feels like
a lifetime is
just too much
to witness,
just too long
to live.

Nobody loves
a corpse.

~mce

Just found my
honest to god
vintage 1963
James Dean Ray Bans
in the garden where
I must have
dropped them
last summer.

Even as an old man
they make me feel
like Steve McQueen.

Now I can pretend
to be cool and smooth
again; but I doubt
my Lady will be fooled.
   ~mce

thirsty pages
gasping
for ink

a Muse
shriven
to whispers

the whiteness
off the Whale
unmarked

a privacy
of sadness
and desire

a dumbfounded world
demanding
a departed
Logos

mostly
disappointed.

   mce

Sometimes
silence
is a gift
to be
savored.

   ~mce

That instant
when everything
equals
everything else
just before nothing
equals
anything else
again.

alabaster
ivory
white
creamy
eggshell
and just
the size
of a woman's
thigh.

Sadly,
you can take the boy
out of the jungle,
but you can
never
take the jungle
out of the boy.
- mce

How I long
to unbutton you,
Lady, to slowly
peel off the layers
of your being
and feel you,
body and soul,
naked and true,
beneath my
exploring hands,
touching the core
of who you
really are,
there where
you are hidden
beneath it all.

I think, Lady,
you have
been buttoned
against the world
too, too long.

Open the inside
to the outside.

Take a chance.

A world at bay
is no world at all.

Nothing of value
can be learned
at a distance.

Direct my fingers;
they are willing
if you are.

Bare hands,
bare hearts,
bare bodies:

to open,
always better
than to close.

Over the course of 64 years (and still), I have encountered so many women (including my still lovely ex-wife) in person and in writing who struggle with their looks. It seems to be an eternal theme that crosses generations. So, I decided to write this humble piece in reply.
There are some who would say I can’t write about women’s feelings because I am a man. A patronizing old, white man. I note their objecions, but I disagree. I believe humanity always trumps gender.
We live in an artificial culture created and controlled by advertisers. Not only do they sell us stuff, they convince us that we need it. Women are perfect targets for them.
So they have created impossible standards for women to live up to. You must always look like you are 25, young and thin. They tell you this is the key to being desired, even loved. As it’s impossible to be young and thin forever, they just happen to have the products that will “help” you. They want your minds so they can profit by manipulating them. They do a great job of it.
So the key to loving your bodies and yourselves is to take back your minds. This is difficult. You are bombarded with a barrage of words and images that say you are not good enough. If only you were younger, thinner, shaped like Barbie, not greying, had longer legs, bigger *******, wore a size 2, you would be happy, and — of course — men would desire you. You would never be traded in for a younger, sleeker model. So many insecurities to exploit.
But consider the difference between beauty and Beauty. Beauty is human, individual and eternal; beauty is abstract, mass and reliant on current tastes.
I have known many women of all shapes, sizes and ages who were Beautiful. That Beauty was expressed from their hearts through their faces and eyes. They radiated it. It was not dependent on my or any other man’s approval. It just was. So I know this can be done.
Fashion changes so there will always be new things to sell. To the current ad masters, the Gibson girls of the late 19th century would now be called fat. Sell them a diet plan and gym membership. The angular loveliness of the Venus de Milo too cold and boyish. Sell her cosmetics and plastic surgery. Mona Lisa, a dumpy Italian girl. So many things to sell her.
And then there is that intense desire to please men that begins with daddy. I often hear its echo even in the strident voices of the most ardent feminists. The advertisers trade on that. That’s deep. That’s very hard to overcome. That’s both an individual and a cultural problem.
But many women never seem to consider that a great many men aren’t dumb enough to buy the 25 and thin forever image and don’t really demand to be constantly pleased. They might actually be looking for intelligence, heart, affection and respect instead of a perfect ***. Not all, often not the young, but many.
At some point, you have to say no and mean it. You are not your age, dress size, cup size or waist size. Those are just outward manifestations of the true you. If someone rejects you on the basis of such ephemeralities, you are better off without them. You have to take control of your soul. No one can give you that except yourself. You have to live with yourself just as men have to live with themselves. Again, humanity trumps gender.
I unabashedly love women. They have been one of the great delights of my life. I love the difficulties and the differences. What a woefully dreary world it would be if men and women were they same. So, it pains me to see so many women in so much pain.
You are, first of all, a person and that is worth insisting upon. Insist. Demand. Escape, if necessary. Be the only you you can ever truly be. Then you will feel pretty. And you will be as pretty as you feel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dbshnvztGA

  ~mce

Twenty or twenty-one. All volunteers. Barely women.
Straight from school in a thousand small towns.
Straight into the mud and blood and madness.
We dragged our dying to their open arms.
Twelve hours shifts; often more. Wreckage of violence.
Round eyes. Smiles that healed. Hearts that broke.
Girls treating boys. Telling the necessary lies.
You're OK. You're fine. You're going home.
Valor danced in their faces. Lips that spoke hope.
Old now or dead. But forever young and alive
in the memories of 150,000 wounded soldiers
they saved and sent back to the world.
   ~mce

You are the
sandcastle
in my heart
I will never
let wash away.

  ~mce

When you take
the weather report
personally.

  ~mce

You'll be a mysterious cavern
I discover by accident.
I'll be an intrepid explorer.
I will enter you like a cathedral
expecting holiness and hidden treasure.
You will grip me in your darkness
and hold me like the man I am.
Holiness and treasure will keep us there
until spent and satisfied,
we will return to our worlds
better than we have ever been before,
pleasured by the treasure we have shared.

~mce

aunt lucy during the recent

war could and what

is more did tell you just

what everybody was fighting

for,

my sister

isabel created hundreds

(and

hundreds)of socks not to

mention shirts fleaproof earwarmers

etcetera wristers etcetera, my

mother hoped that

i would die etcetera

bravely of course my father used

to become hoarse talking about how it was

a privilege and if only he

could meanwhile my

self etcetera lay quietly

in the deep mud et
cetera

(dreaming,

et

  cetera, of

Your smile

eyes knees and of your Etcetera)

Here's to all my Aussie friends.

You fought with bravery and honor
at Kimberley, Passchendaele,
Gallipoli, Romani, Crete,
Tobruck, Milne Bay, Yongju
and even in Vietnam.

And I know why you did it.

Abounding in your back yards
were stalking cassowaries, spiders
that rot your flesh, invisible
but lethal jelly fish,
Coastal Taipan and Brown snakes,
not to mention saltwater crocodiles
Great White sharks, Stone Fish,
blue ringed octopi and
the odd Marble Cone Snail.

War must have seemed safe
compared to he horrors of home.

Here's to you mates. Fair Dinkum.
I would have been on the first
transport out, too.

  ~mce

Last night up on the ridge
a whippoorwill sang
its incessant sweet song
in the thick, firefly darkness.
Dante was right to make Hell
a place without birds.
They fill the world with music
and ask nothing in return.
The purity of sweetness
without the demand for profit.
What a lovely notion.
- mce

We know
and to know is to invent,
and to invent is to lie.

Poets deal in beautiful lies,
especially when convinced
we are telling the truth.

Not malicious lies,
not the ones meant
to wound or ****.

Call them
improvements
on reality.

Our charm and power
gestate from our inventions.

We take nothing,
add our souls,
engender words
and only expect awe.

The kind of awe that sends
dresses, skirts or pants
tumbling toward the floor.

The kind of awe that
grows roses in their hearts.

We call that romance,
another invention
that becomes a dance.

Dance with me
and I will whisper
the sweetest lies
I can invent.

You deserve nothing less
than very my best.

Relax, sweet lover.
Don't be afraid.

The lies that
I invent for you
have always been,
and always will be,
true.

  ~mce

Four A.M.

Nothing, at first,
then clouds part,
and stars fall
like showers
of seed pearls:

perfect white
particles
of creation,

God's tracers,

tiny droplets
of beauty

raining
on a still,
dark world.
  - mce

I would  kiss you
under cherry blossoms,
pink petals drifting down
like parachutes of desire
covering us with beauty.

I would kiss you
in the rain, drenched to
the bones not noticing
the fat raindrops
kissing us both back.

I would kiss you
in the wildest woods
surrounded by rustling leaves
beneath the jealous eyes
of voyeuristic birds.

But I have no idea
when I will kiss you
or where or even what
will happen when I do.

Still, in my imagination
it will be the right time,
the right place and
the right circumstance.

And it will be exactly
like kissing lightening.
   ~mce

Your body
clamps to mine
like a magnet
or an electric eel.

Feel the jolting
current bounce
and flow and
jerking take
hold of you.

Particles dance
us tighter
together
like fleshly
puppets.

See how we
clutch and
writhe and
grind, hum
like overloaded
lines.

No escape
once you
touch the
live wire.

And anyway:

nowhere else
you want
but here;
nothing else
you want
to be,

but a jello mold
of...

Quantum,
Quivering,
Lust.

- mce

No one
is more
qualified
than you
to decide
what
your life
will be.

Don't fight
the power;
be
the power.

On the subject
of you, you are
the only expert
you will ever
really need.

~mce

You have abandoned purity for perfection.
Even the blind have moments of clarity
but you ***** around like the Cyclops
feeling nowhere for noman while
affecting a quiet, moronic expression.
You can't knit without needles,
but you have mislaid the point and
so things unravel into random skeins.
Your typewriter rattles only in reverse.
Bards stub their toes and wail.
You hear them, but pay no attention.
You are listening for the atomic thunderclap.
Nothing less than finale of final will do.
When it explodes at last you will know
the inarticulate, unspeakable name of god.
Perhaps Fred. Perhaps Norma or Justine.
Perhaps merely a very loud Boom...
That will be more than enough for one life.

I have grown
a beard,
luxuriant
in its whiteness.

Whenever I encounter it
in my mirror,
it says, sensibly:

Behold, Mike,
time is short.
Grow up,
find a place,
take a wife,
be an adult,
settle.

To which I reply,
delighting
in my recalcitrance:

No way, beard!
The difficult
is my destiny.
Be my beard
Black or white,
I will always
be a pirate.
- mce

Women mostly like
to roll around
in the bushes
with Cain,
but they end up
at the country club
marrying Abel.
Bad boys win
the battle;
good boys win
the war.
  - mce

by Gary Snyder**

One afternoon the last week in April
Showing Kai how to throw a hatchet
One-half turn and it sticks in a stump.
He recalls the hatchet-head
Without a handle, in the shop
And go gets it, and wants it for his own.
A broken-off axe handle behind the door
Is long enough for a hatchet,
We cut it to length and take it
With the hatchet head
And working hatchet, to the wood block.
There I begin to shape the old handle
With the hatchet, and the phrase
First learned from Ezra Pound
Rings in my ears!
"When making an axe handle
            the pattern is not far off."
And I say this to Kai
"Look: We'll shape the handle
By checking the handle
Of the axe we cut with–"
And he sees. And I hear it again:
It's in Lu Ji's Wen Fu, fourth century
A.D. "Essay on Literature"–in the
Preface: "In making the handle
Of an axe
By cutting wood with an axe
The model is indeed near at hand."
My teacher Shih-hsiang Chen
Translated that and taught it years ago
And I see: Pound was an axe,
Chen was an axe, I am an axe
And my son a handle, soon
To be shaping again, model
And tool, craft of culture,
How we go on.

She was the
heavenly centerfold
in the magazine
of his imagination.
Taunting angel ****.
Too unreal to touch,
too real not to try.

  ~mce

for Matthew and Richard*

Your children are not yours.
They are a gift on loan
from a generous universe.
They honor you with their presence.
They bring you laughter, joy
and sometimes worry and tears.
They are not your life,
but they are the substance
of the best part of it.
You try to raise them with love.
You would take a bullet for them
and smile as you died
knowing your brothers
would take revenge.
And when they are grown
you regift them to the world,
but you never stop worrying or hoping.
You know, that with luck,
through you, they will make
the world a richer place.
You hope they will always love you
and hold you in their hearts
because you know you
that you can never let them go.
You know you weren't perfect
and hope they will forgive you.
You pray that someday
they will speak of you
to their children with affection.
War, friendship, madness, romance,
nothing can compare
to the time they were in your lives
and nothing ever will.

  -mce

may i feel said he**


may i feel said he
(i'll squeal said she
just once said he)
it's fun said she

(may i touch said he
how much said she
a lot said he)
why not said she

(let's go said he
not too far said she
what's too far said he
where you are said she)

may i stay said he
(which way said she
like this said he
if you kiss said she

may i move said he
is it love said she)
if you're willing said he
(but you're killing said she

but it's life said he
but your wife said she
now said he)
ow said she

(tiptop said he
don't stop said she
oh no said he)
go slow said she

(cccome?said he
ummm said she)
you're divine!said he
(you are Mine said she)

The process
is Neuroscience
not rocket science.

A poem is simply
an assembly of a few
thousand neurons
out of trillions
which like a trout
rises through
the currents
of your brain
and takes the bait
of your imagination.

All you must do
is reel it in,
clean it, cook it
and eat it.

Then, cast again
and hope for luck.

Maybe; maybe not.

  ~mce

Properly nurtured, it alone will last;
enduring blossom of the wilted past.
   - mce

I lie down to take a nap
with only a blanket, a cat,
and the image of your perfect eyes.

Plenty enough to keep me warm.

The only thing missing is you.
  ~mce

Anonymous English Folk Song.*

A holiday, a holiday
And the first one of the year
Lord Donald's wife came into the church
The Gospel for to hear

And when the meeting it was done
She cast her eyes about
And there she saw little Matty Groves
Walking in the crowd

"Come home with me, little Matty Groves
Come home with me tonight
Come home with me, little Matty Groves
And sleep with me 'til light"

"Oh, I can't come home, I won't come home
And sleep with you tonight
By the rings on your fingers
I can tell you are Lord Donald's wife"

"But if I am Lord Donald's wife
Lord Donald's not at home
He is out in the far cornfields
Bringing the yearlings home"

And a servant who was standing by
And hearing what was said
He swore Lord Donald he would know
Before the sun would set

And in his hurry to carry the news
He bent his breast and ran
And when he came to the broad mill stream
He took off his shoes and swam

Little Matty Groves, he lay down
And took a little sleep
When he awoke, Lord Donald
Was standing at his feet

Saying, "How do you like my feather bed
And how do you like my sheets
How do you like my lady
Who lies in your arms asleep?"

"Oh, well I like your feather bed
And well I like your sheets
But better I like your lady gay
Who lies in my arms asleep"

"Well, get up, get up", Lord Donald cried
"Get up as quick as you can
It'll never be said in fair England
I slew a naked man"

"Oh, I can't get up, I won't get up
I can't get up for my life
For you have two long beaten swords
And I got a pocket knife"

"Well, it's true I have two beaten swords
And they cost me deep in the purse
But you will have the better of them
And I will have the worse"

"And you will strike the very first blow
And strike it like a man
I will strike the very next blow
And I'll **** you if I can"

So Matty struck the very first blow
And he hurt Lord Donald sore
Lord Donald struck the very next blow
And Matty struck no more

And then Lord Donald he took his wife
And he sat her on his knee
Saying, "Who do you like the best of us
Matty Groves or me?"

And then up spoke his own dear wife
Never heard to speak so free
"I'd rather a kiss from dead Matty's lips
Than you or your finery"

Lord Donald, he jumped up
And loudly he did bawl
He struck his wife right through the heart
And pinned her against the wall

"A grave, a grave, " Lord Donald cried
"To put these lovers in
But bury my lady at the top
For she was of noble kin"

Looking into your green eyes
makes me want to be warrior monk
in the service of beauty,
wandering the earth
on a sublime quest
to slay dragons, destroy demons
and bring them to lay
at your feet as offerings
before the holy altar
of your lovely gaze.
Only blink and I will do this;
Only wink and it is done.
   ~mce

Odd, how fast it happens.
An hour ago you felt
like a man on a mission from god.
Then, it strikes like lightning
from an impossibly cloudless sky
and your heart explodes into
a confetti puff of darkness.
Suddenly you feel
like a bleached out
pile of cat **** in the rain.
"Good days and bad days
and going half mad days."
It never lasts, but that
doesn't make it any less real.
Attachment breeds suffering.
Let it go and it will,
until your next turn at bat.
Till then the sun will shine down
on the nothing new world
again for a little while.
Enjoy the warmth while it lasts.
   ~mce

Sandaled feet
fleeing into darkness
beneath the breached
and burning
walls of Troy.

That is what I fear
when you walk away
from me.

As easy as
accidentally
falling off
a log into
a vat
of ****.

As a poet,
you might
drown.

Watch
your step!
   - mce

Mostly
my heart knows
the right thing
to do,
but doesn't.

No surprise.

It's only
a stupid muscle
after all.

   - mce

Written by Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger; adapted by Mike Essig.


Halfway around the world tonight
In a strange and foreign land
A soldier packs his memories
As he leaves Afghanistan

And back home, they don't know too much
There was just no way to tell
You know* you had to be there
To know that war was hell

And there won't be any victory parades
For those that's coming back
They'll fly them in at midnight
And unload the body sacks

And the living will be walking down
A long and lonely road
Because nobody seems to care these days
When a soldier makes it home

Somewhere in America tonight
In this strange and foreign land
A soldier unpacks memories
That he saved from Vietnam

They said it wasn't easy
Just another job, well done
Then the government in Saigon fell
To the sounds of rebel guns

And the faces of the comrades
Who were blown out of the sky
Leaves you bitter and disgusted
That they didn't have to die

The old men who planned that war
You know they all died safe in bed
With none of their rich and privileged sons
Ending up torn or dead

Back home they didn't know too much
There was just no way to tell
You know you had to be there
to know that war was hell

And there wasn't any big parades
For those that made it back
They flew them home in secret
and told them to make tracks

And the living were left walking down
A long and lonely road
Because nobody seemed to care back then
When a soldier made it home

The night is coming quickly
And the stars are on their way
As I stare into the evening
Looking for the words to say

That I saw the lonely soldier
Just a boy that's far from home
And I saw that I was just like him
While upon this earth I roam

And there may not be any big parades
If I ever make it back
As I come home under cover
To a world that can't keep track

Of the heroes who have fallen
Let alone the ones who roam
Guess that's why nobody seems to care
When a soldier makes it home

In the woods walking,
early morning cool,
one eye on the ground
for snakes otherwise
empty-headed not looking
for anything;

over a rise and down,
a rotten chestnut stump
probably 100 years old
and at its roots
twenty-three Morels.

Instant hunger:
the smell of frying
butter, salt and
tender mushrooms.

I lust for them.

Take off my shirt
to carry them home.

Real desire often
takes us by surprise;
pure delight
of the unsought.

  ~mce

The Wild Geese**

Horseback on Sunday morning,
harvest over, we taste persimmon
and wild grape, sharp sweet
of summer's end. In time's maze
over fall fields, we name names
that went west from here, names
that rest on graves. We open
a persimmon seed to find the tree
that stands in promise,
pale, in the seed's marrow.
Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear,
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye
clear. *What we need is here.

After 63 years
of living hard and
hard work at living,
I do know, quite clearly,
that I don't know
much.

~mce

You came to me this morning and you handled me like meat.
You’d have to be a man to know how good that feels, how sweet.
My mirrored twin, my next of kin, I’d know you in my sleep
and who but you would take me in, a thousand kisses deep.

I loved you when you opened like a lily to the heat,
you see I’m just another snowman standing in the rain and sleet,
who loved you with his frozen love,
his second hand physique, with all he is, and all he was,
A thousand kisses deep.

I know you had to lie to me, I know you had to cheat,
to pose all hot and high behind the veils of shear deceit,
our perfect **** aristocrat so elegant and cheap,
I’m old but I’m still into that,
A thousand kisses deep.

I’m good at love, I’m good at hate, it' s in between I freeze.
Been working out, but its too late, it’s been to late for years.
But you look good, you really do, they love you on the street.
If you were here I’d kneel for you,
a thousand kisses deep.

The autumn moved across your skin, got something in my eye,
a light that doesn’t need to live, and doesn’t need to die.
A riddle in the book of love, obscure and obsolete,
till witnessed here in time and blood,
A thousand kisses deep.

And I'm still working with the wine, still dancing cheek to cheek,
the band is playing Auld Lang Syne, but the heart will not retreat.
I ran with Diz and I sang with Ray, I never had their sweep,
but once or twice they let me play
A thousand kisses deep.

I am not a poor man.

Just a rich man
without money.

Not the same thing.

  ~mce

It is not a state
of mind,
but a place
in hell
that you
do not wish
to enter,
although
you have no choice;
once you have visited,
nothing will ever
be the same
again.
If others
understood
the finality
of this horror,
they might not be
so quick to judge.
- mce

Enjoy what’s possible
in this impossible world.
Eat any food the 
health ****’s despise.
Grin maniacally at
every toddler you meet.
Chant politically incorrect
words on public transportation.
Kiss random puppies.
Face down glowering cats.
Chuckle in the face of death.
Forget the odds,
you didn’t calculate them.
Make a joyful noise
with everything you’ve got.
If you can’t imagine a future,
you’re already dead.
Celebrate with enthusiasm,
time is very, very short.

   ~mce

I loathe consistency. It is the premier hallmark of the small mind and the stunted spirit. Don't look for any from me. I am a jumbled mass of contradictions. I embrace them. They are me. I say what comes into my mind (what's left of it) as it does. Tomorrow (or even later today), I may write the opposite. I am a smeared and blurred painting. I disdain simple solutions and answers. I accept chaos. ****, I eat chaos for breakfast. Some have called me mad; I call myself human. What you see is what you get - for the moment...

for KA*

There is something in this for both of us. We have chemistry, let's be lab partners. Help me with problems like which would make a better poem: a pandemic, a wolverine, or a broken heart? You know I only chose you because you enjoy my fondling your blond *** as you lean over the Bunsen burner, because we have flammable *** on the periodic table, but this is more serious than calculations or *******. As a poet, I need to access the deeper moaning of reality, but you are a screamer, not a moaner. Let's experiment anyhow. Lift that skirt and let's explore something elemental, make a new molecule, feel the reaction. Help me probe the fundamentals of creation and I may love you, though surely not enough, as we are both non-valent. Even though we may never bond, we are in this together, partner. Lift your beaker to my lips. Outcomes are never certain.