The grace of losing
self-importance
is the simple question
"who cares."

If you must
participate,
you might
want to boil
the air
before
you enter.
  ~mce

When he walked into that room, he carried his whole life with him.

There is something.

It all began when the umbilical was cut.

After that conversation, he just wanted to drink and be whole again.

She sighed with pleasure and slipped the bonds of the appropriate.

He was as nervous as a ***** in an earthquake.

A thousand years ago, he would not have made that promise.

Jesus, get that thing out of here!

Life was good; he had just gotten an NSA grant to study the speed of darkness.

Sure, I knew your mother; she was great in bed

A book is
a good place
to be alone,
but not so good
as  when
you are also
drinking bourbon
with a purring cat
on your lap.

I own a
black t-shirt
that proclaims
(on the back):

Disturbed Veteran
Do Not Approach

When I wear it,
mothers clutch
their children and
I am rarely jostled
in check out lines.
You'd think
I was a *****
asking to shake hands.
Mostly, they pretend
blindness and just
walk away as they
did long ago
when the war ended
*for them.

I Am 25**

Play Poem Video
With a love a madness for Shelley
Chatterton Rimbaud
and the needy-yap of my youth
has gone from ear to ear:
I HATE OLD POETMEN!
Especially old poetmen who retract
who consult other old poetmen
who speak their youth in whispers,
saying:--I did those then
but that was then
that was then--
O I would quiet old men
say to them:--I am your friend
what you once were, thru me
you'll be again--
Then at night in the confidence of their homes
rip out their apology-tongues
and steal their poems.

One night a very young man sat in a jungle foxhole, an M-16 cradled in his arms and all his nerves twitching outside his skin. First night in Indian Country.

The darkness was octopus inky and his heart fluttered doom. Roots pained his *** and ants nipped his body. His lust for daylight was a ******* in a kindergarten. Nothing moved, continuously and at once. He inhaled fear, exhaled terror and knew despair.

Beside him, a comrade slept the agitated, concentration camp slumber of the ******, but he was more awake than he would ever be again.

He felt it before he saw it, felt it gliding there where nothing could possibly be.

Before him, a spider web of death awaited its prey. Claymore mines, strung from bush to branch, waited for the gentle caress that would explode their lethal lead fruit in a ****-storm of destruction.

Nothing could pass through it alive, yet something loomed in the murk.  

A sudden hairline fracture broke the clouds and a single moon ray defined the big cat's sleek body, reflected its yellow feline eye. A panther black as nightmare walked untouched through this garden of death and then vanished.

His heart surged hope. The slithering dreads departed. That cat had walked where nothing could and silently survived. So might he.
- mce

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'll pluck poetry
from the flowerbeds to read.
you are not alone.