Darkness
leans toward me
like a lover
for a kiss.
So difficult
to resist
her charms.
Darkness,
sleep,
respite.
Perhaps
this time
I'll simply
relent,
surrender
and disappear
inside her
forever.
- mce

Embrace the impossible.
Exclude no mixtures.
Learn the secret, lost
signatures of things.
Immerse yourself in the
language of silk and thighs.
Assume you are only
one step away from success.
Take the Holy Dove prisoner;
learn its arcane language.
Believe your fingertips
may shoot flames at any time.
See through appearances
to the invisible core of being.
Guard your aura carefully.
Do not expect gainful employment;
even poets have better prospects.
Burn your fingernails.
Accept and nurture absurdity;
make it the reason you never
give up.

  ~mce

I am your favorite red lipstick
that got away,
the expensive one your mother gave you
because she had an extra.
I used to grip the sheen of your swears,
while you pressed me against
dinner napkins before meals.
I know the words you'd like to say,
the curses you'd breathe.
I taste your grief.
You want me to return,
you won't come to terms
with the thought that I might think
I just look a little better on her
pallid pallid skin.
You've inhaled spores today,
it's your day off and you're trying
to forget you ever lost me.
Writhing with our friends.
You're afraid of blood.
But you love the sauce.
Your skin is crimson,
flushed from the heat.
What a shock
to know,
it was you
that came on
a little too strong.

Throwing rocks into the winter river.
Ice as thin as a child's soul's skin
Carries not the weight
Of History's oldest weapon.

Like a paperless poem it shatters,
Floating away with the fleeing stream.
Water needs no windows.
Nothing is outside to its within.

BODY of Jesus taken down from the cross
Carved in ivory by a lover of Christ,
It is a child's handful you are here,
The breadth of a man's finger,
And this ivory **** cloth
Speaks an interspersal in the day's work,
The carver's prayer and whim
And Christ-love.