Once upon a Time there lived a peasant
whose poems were whisperings of nature.

Nature aims toward growth, abundance
and decays softly back to succulent soils.

My homeland is not for your feet to step
upon, you belong to surrealistic cynicism.

My psychedelia does not approve of horrors
mundi and skips on every third classical tune.

What was impulsively chosen, can be a mistake
in pompous rituals on established compilations.

Apologies, for all the misdeeds lacking a true
appearances. You implied my life is a great lie.

No, it's not! Sometimes it is a knotted charade,
noose chameleon dreams wanting to create in

Castles build upon puffy clouds, youthful Ars
Poetica meeting a Pat Metheney's wonderland.

Beck is a phenomenal artist loving green lands.
Bachus was a goat. And Artemis protects us all!

She was looking for poetry, she said.
I have some experience with that, I said.
I searched gallantly about
and presented her with trophies.
She looked through them.
Her hair was deep evening red
and her white skin translucent.
She wore a thin summer dress
of light green linen.
Choosing, she walked away,
thanking me for my help.
Never did I see her again,
but now she lives in one of my poems.

  ~mce

I could tell by the intensity she knew the game
But I was far superior
She was there for the taking
She was toying with me
Does she know who she’s dealing with
The gesture with her hand
How dare she
Fate was surely on my side
After all, I was a man of the world
She was watching me
Like she knew my next move
She was challenging me
Challenging me
How dare she
I composed myself
Honour was at stake
She was smiling, inviting
I had her
She battled well
But knew it was the end
She screamed
I might only be four, but I can count
That was a two you threw
Now get down the snake you cheat
Mummy, he’s cheating again
He’s a man honey, that’s what they do
Someday a man would come to the door and ask for her hand
I wouldn't stand in his way.

before i even write the title,
i set it to draft
selected as unworthy before it's born

i tell myself i might not want to write about writing
because of something someone said sometime
about mistakes

then if i remember right
i edit my memory:
after editing this poem
i am seeing clearly:
a censored Mnemosyne
raging from her shaded, titanic head

music may be involved.
or film,
or living well
or finding myself unable to speak out against bigotry
or those who'd impose their choice on another's body

the chills.
inseparable sensate emotions.
often they spread over the left side of my back, neck and head
.usually they feel good.
i think they may always feel good
like tears
and the urge to sing alone
or the sharp yearning:
i must tell this someone something soon

like
'the ocean overspills imaginal seas
and yet is less than what i want it to mean'

I do not want a plain box, I want a sarcophagus
With tigery stripes, and a face on it
Round as the moon, to stare up.
I want to be looking at them when they come
Picking among the dumb minerals, the roots.
I see them already -- the pale, star-distance faces.
Now they are nothing, they are not even babies.
I imagine them without fathers or mothers, like the first gods.
They will wonder if I was important.
I should sugar and preserve my days like fruit!
My mirror is clouding over --
A few more breaths, and it will reflect nothing at all.
The flowers and the faces whiten to a sheet.

I do not trust the spirit. It escapes like steam
In dreams, through mouth-hole or eye-hole. I can't stop it.
One day it won't come back. Things aren't like that.
They stay, their little particular lusters
Warmed by much handling. They almost purr.
When the soles of my feet grow cold,
The blue eye of my tortoise will comfort me.
Let me have my copper cooking pots, let my rouge pots
Bloom about me like night flowers, with a good smell.
They will roll me up in bandages, they will store my heart
Under my feet in a neat parcel.
I shall hardly know myself. It will be dark,
And the shine of these small things sweeter than the face of Ishtar.

the
     sky
           was
can    dy    lu
minous
            edible
spry
        pinks shy
lemons
greens    coo    1 choc
olate
s.

  un    der,
  a    lo
co
mo
      tive        s  pout
                               ing
                                     vi
                                     o
                                     lets

the mind is its own beautiful prisoner.
Mind looked long at the sticky moon
opening in dusk her new wings

then decently hanged himself,one afternoon.

The last thing he saw was you
naked amid unnaked things,

your flesh,a succinct wandlike animal,
a little strolling with the futile purr
of blood;your *** squeaked like a billiard-cue
chalking itself,as not to make an error,
with twists spontaneously methodical.
He suddenly tasted worms windows and roses

he laughed,and closed his eyes as a girl closes
her left hand upon a mirror.