I am often told I am charming,
but I don't feel charming.
The days of dinner conversation
and cocktail chatter are gone.
Now I speak from the heart
without care for whom
I might offend or wound.
Poetry is asking the questions
that hurt and then
writing down the answers
without regard for consequences.
It is putting your neck
on the chopping block
and laughing at the executioner.
It is announcing to the world
your total disdain for its opinions
and not being surprised
when the world kicks your ***.
It is spitting globs of truth and beauty
into the faces of those most comfortable
with the conventional and the merely pretty.
It is the open wound you display
dripping and draining in public.
It is the dis-ease you create
and flaunt because you
have never sought or valued ease.
It makes people depart abruptly
as if a ***** had just
offered to shake their hand.
It is the legless soldier
whose stumps remind you
that your taxes bought his loss.
It is the bullet that finds its mark;
the blade that pins you to the wall;
the bomb that shreds you into pink meat.
It is not charming; it is never charming,
and neither am I because
I have just written this down
for you to read.
  - mce

He sat gripping his beer bottle in one hand
and a pen in the other, tapping it repetitively
on the open notebook before him.

That's when a little red-haired squeeze
came in and sat beside him, grazing his leg
with hers as she ordered her mixer.

She saw the great potential for love in his eyes
and started questioning his mind accordingly.
Seeking his essence, searching his being.

Yet he never shifted his gaze from the lined paper,
and answered all of her inquisitions without hesitation
because he knew what she wanted.

But she shifted closer to him and started to speak under
her breath, asking him if he has a woman waiting for him
at home. Asking more than her words implied.

His knuckles whitened and tightened around the green glass,
and the pen started tapping faster and faster on the unwritten
words upon the empty sheets.

She put her hand on his forearm and the tapping ceased
as blood red mist started fogging his already blurred vision,
seeing crimson, he ripped his eyes from the blank pages.

The bottle shattered and broken glass sank into his palm,
the pen erupted painting his calloused fingers black.
He turned and faced this intruder.

"Please leave me alone now," he spits into her frightened face,
and the crimson fog covers his sight completely, as his thirst is
sparked, ignited, and begins burning furiously.

He slams his eyelids shut and searches for Arlo's words,
searches for Arlo's eyes in his mind.
Searches and searches for her heart.

He massages his temples and counts his breaths.
He fights for his sanity in the face of doubt and intolerance.
He just wants his dear to be here..
He sighs and opens his eyes.

And he's alone again.

How can you know where you stand

With somebody who doesn't know where they stand?

You can't

You Can

Just hold their hand

And you stand together

Banned,
momentarily.
young, impetuous
stubborn and aware,
tac sharp, she merrily
swears all contraband.
trapped by parental snare
in her room of thoughts
she battles valiantly
with screaming demons,
playing cleverly,
her winning
hand.

I sometimes wonder what would happen
If I took a box of colorful crayons
Out back into the garden
And into rows I plant them

Would some grow into rainbows
For all the unloved kids
Who have not had happiness
Shown unto their little eye lids

While others grow into colorful things
Of pinks and blues, yellows and greens
That fill those kids heads up with dreams
Like cotton candy, waterfalls, puppy dogs, and parties

But alas some kids will never know
Of brightly colored festive parades
Without their colorful seedling boxes
Being nourished in magical escapades

So I'll take from the crayons crop
Bring them into town and hand them out
To all the kids that have never known
The beauty that colorful crayons can grow

For in the rainbow's loving care
Kids everywhere will be happy to share
Crayon colors spread all about
A cavalcade of joyfulness that will forever ring out

Reason burns the prime
leaves in their cinders no solace
for one likely answer are a hundred questions
where crumbling bones can’t have the will
to climb anymore the rungs endless.

Finds beneath feet a resting ground
that in glimmer of hope abound
a tunnel light an emerging design
to craft from chaos a face divine.

Utters a prayer that’s never too late
succumbs blissfully to the savior the faith.

she’s the girl who will remember everything. from your birthday, to the story behind that scar on your left arm, to the number of freckles on your body.

she will love every inch of your body and your soul and even the heart you didn’t know you had.

she will take in everything you have to offer and give you back so much more. so much, that you won’t even know what to do with it.

she will open up the world for you. from books and music and film to things like culture and race and language.

she’s smarter and far more beautiful than she dares herself to show.

and you will love her.

you will love her like you’ve never loved anybody before.

she will level every winter your body has suffered with all the springs her bones have weathered.

and when you go, because you can no longer handle her, she will drown herself in alcohol and drugs and sorrow. and wonder why she wasn’t good enough.

she will refuse to be saved by any other hand because nobody can touch her quite like you.

she will **** herself with loneliness and then resurrect with her own scent.
and then she will do it again.

and again.

and again.

and again.

she will be weak and strong and bold and shy and mean and nice and everything in between.

she will grow. she will grow strong and tall.

and so will you.

and in ten years from now, when you run into her at the supermarket, she will ask about your marriage.

and while you’re there telling her about your wife, who is home with the kids, and your job, she will feel genuinely happy for you.

because she forgave you. she forgave you for walking away and she forgave herself for ever thinking she wasn’t good enough.

she will have realized by then that sometimes life will give you somebody just to watch you break when it takes them away from you.

and she will be okay with it.

and so will you.

but, she will walk away without telling you about her life because she doesn’t want you to hear it in her voice that she still remembers your birthday, and that birthmark on your right shoulder.

and that ten years ago, she had hoped you would run into somebody else and told them all about her being at home with the kids.

He is a fool
who, when the sky is lit
in the morning dew,
scowls at Spring
and shrugs.
She is immutable.
Brimming with chances
and hard won charm,
not a tremor in her voice.
She is singing.
Always singing
that honeysuckle song.
He is a fool
who misconstrues his gravity.
Ignorant of his orbit,
trying to tilt the world.
She is unruffled,
and he will roll off her back,
smooth as the mallard,
washing his face
in the sunrise pond.