We wanted to confess our sins but there were no takers.
White clouds refused to accept them, and the wind
Was too busy visiting sea after sea.
We did not succeed in interesting the animals.
Dogs, disappointed, expected an order,
A cat, as always immoral, was falling asleep.
A person seemingly very close
Did not care to hear of things long past.
Conversations with friends over ***** or coffee
Ought not be prolonged beyond the first sign of boredom.
It would be humiliating to pay by the hour
A man with a diploma, just for listening.
Churches. Perhaps churches. But to confess there what?
That we used to see ourselves as handsome and noble
Yet later in our place an ugly toad
Half-opens its thick eyelid
And one sees clearly: "That's me."

Gray skies fill my window.
My heavy eyes open.
Those were the days
When you would hold me
-Wash away
All my doubts.

More and more, I find myself waking early in the morning. Four AM; geezer time.

Time to be alone in the world. Time to remember dead friends and lost loves. Time to consider what went wrong and right and how I came to be here. Time to remember the scars of war and peace.

Time for the blues:

"Nobody loves me but my Mother and she could be jiving too."

Time to write and think.

Geezer time. All that's left. All the time in my world.

an answer comes always
if just seen on the backs
of eyelids
in nightmares
or dreamiest visages
according to our
attenuating them
listening whilst asleep,
the screams of millions
born and dead
evolve in the
nightly scenery
keep we down or free us
instead.
I try to keep my eyes open,
when I dream.

You shall not find solace
in the marble laws of Man.
Self-help programs
and sermons
will not dispel the emptiness.
***, drugs, madness, alcohol
will not prevail.
The constructs of religion
will only constrict your dreams.
God is a disinterested third party
waiting to be approached,
not caring if he is or isn't.
Submit to the vacuum
of your heart at four a.m.
Surrender to the void
that only love can fill.
Drink deeply; hold tight.
Dawn must come.
  - 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...

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