The air in my bedroom is blue,
I float through it, a stark vessel
tussling against the dark hue
desperate to nestle into sheets,
or clouds,
or weary dreams filled
with a dark street,
a slammed foot,
and a hair's breadth
from turning a deer into dead meat,
resulting in a crash,
leaving a dead me;
Only to awake shaken,
recollecting a statement
from my grandma's dementia ridden mind
"I always see it with you,
it's always right behind..."
then I sit up with a sigh
and a shrug,
and open up to the blue air,
at least whatever it is
will always be there,
will always...
care

Tra-la-la-la-la-la-laire—nil nisi divinum stabile
   est; caetera fumus—the gondola stopped, the old
   palace was there, how charming its grey and pink—
   goats and monkeys, with such hair too!—so the
   countess passed on until she came through the
   little park, where Niobe presented her with a
   cabinet, and so departed.


Burbank crossed a little bridge
  Descending at a small hotel;
Princess Volupine arrived,
  They were together, and he fell.

Defunctive music under sea
  Passed seaward with the passing bell
Slowly: the God Hercules
  Had left him, that had loved him well.

The horses, under the axletree
  Beat up the dawn from Istria
With even feet. Her shuttered barge
  Burned on the water all the day.

But this or such was Bleistein’s way:
  A saggy bending of the knees
And elbows, with the palms turned out,
  Chicago Semite Viennese.

A lustreless protrusive eye
  Stares from the protozoic slime
At a perspective of Canaletto.
  The smoky candle end of time

Declines. On the Rialto once.
  The rats are underneath the piles.
The jew is underneath the lot.
  Money in furs. The boatman smiles,

Princess Volupine extends
  A meagre, blue-nailed, phthisic hand
To climb the waterstair. Lights, lights,
  She entertains Sir Ferdinand

Klein. Who clipped the lion’s wings
  And flea’d his **** and pared his claws?
Thought Burbank, meditating on
  Time’s ruins, and the seven laws.

Well hello, sweet Muses.
How nice of you to drop by
at four in the morning.

Let me make you some tea.

How are you all today?

Oh, I forgot for a moment
that you are goddesses
and are always
exactly as you should be.

I'm fine except my sleep
has become oddly contrary.

But you all know that and more.

You are the magic that
stirs my dreams until
I give up and get up.

You betray me to nightmares,
insomnia, memories and poems
that could certainly wait
for morning if you so desired.

And where have you all been?

For three years, you've been gone
and I have been left mute.

Such fickle ******* you are,
only bestowing your favors
according to your whims.

But we have all, back to Homer,
known how unfaithful you can be.

Now you've returned and I can't sleep.

You know I'm not so young
as the last time you visited.

I need a little rest occasionally,
but you are working me to death
as if no time at all has passed.

There should be a union for poets.

Of course, I will do your bidding as usual.

Calliope, Clio, Euterpe,
Thalia, Melpomene, Terpsichore,
Polyhymnia and sweet demanding Erato.

It's nice to see you all again,
all so lovely and immortal,

but please remember I am only a man
and a man can only take so much.

So please, try not to show up before 8 AM.

~mce

I used to be able to forgot who I was
The easiest way was to stare at my hand
I was young
Nine or ten was the last time
After a while I would look away from my hand
and I would not know where I was or who I was
I would be fearful and magnetized
And question where I was,
Who I was.
I remember asking
"Is this real?"
"Whose eyes are these?"
Yes...eyes,
It was through rapid blinking that would bring me back
to life as I know it
I never knew what I was experiencing;
A seizure
A mystical experience
A temporary return
Whatever it was
I cannot go back
No matter how hard I try.

A poet is
a low rent god.

He gets
to name things
and insist
on meanings.

Even broke
and out
of cigarettes,
he is
the absolute
divinity
of the universe
of words.

Keep your
pecker up,
buddy.

Better days loom.

I insist upon it
and I am the keeper
of the keys
to the Garden.
  ~mce

We lay motionless,
restless,
contemplating every single step,
entombed in our
forty-degree-below-zero cocoons,
praying for midnight to arrive.
Some call it the witching hour,
but not us,
my compadres,
we call it the ******* hour,
like why couldn't we all be home
in a big comfy bed
instead of lying on hard rock.
But I guess it's why we love hell,
the view at the top
is worth
every headache,
every nosebleed,
every bowl of victory chicken soup.