How I long
to unbutton you,
Lady, to slowly
peel off the layers
of your being
and feel you,
body and soul,
naked and true,
beneath my
exploring hands,
touching the core
of who you
really are,
there where
you are hidden
beneath it all.

I think, Lady,
you have
been buttoned
against the world
too, too long.

Open the inside
to the outside.

Take a chance.

A world at bay
is no world at all.

Nothing of value
can be learned
at a distance.

Direct my fingers;
they are willing
if you are.

Bare hands,
bare hearts,
bare bodies:

to open,
always better
than to close.

When I get really decrepit,
I will wear mismatched clothes
on purpose; fill my pockets
with useless pennies; leer
lasciviously at girls far too
young; mutter arcane
wisdom to myself just loud
enough to hear but not to
understand; eat everything
that makes the health Nazis
cringe; smoke in inappropriate
places; get drunk in the
mornings if I so desire
and smoke *** in public.
It will be an ecstasy to
not give a rat's *** what
anyone thinks. My only
regret will be that I
did not start sooner.

   ~mce

A self-portrait.*

Gaze into the mirrored face
of the drunk man. See the
blurred innocence of
the departed boy. There are
no worlds but this world.
War, women and whiskey
do their destruction.
A man becomes what
a man does, but sometimes
that can’t be helped.
Perhaps a thousand more
lives must be lived
to undo the doing, to
break the bonds of Karma,
to find the arms of peace.
Every day a good day to die.

  ~mce

For Jim Harrison, 1938–2016*

Everyone takes the Ghost Road. End as beginning. Flowing.
You loved water more than fish, birds, even poetry.
Now your soul is immersed in infinite waters. Paradise.
Now you swim the particles. Fish the waves. Dead eye open.
Nothing foreign. Parts. Whole. Served. Serving. Never alone.

Poetry is plunder. Ages provide words. Dig.
An immense temple to pillage. Random pieces. Mine.
Fit them to your hands. Create in you what is new.
Craft, not magic. Become a better maker, Strive.
Content created hound snaps. Only ignore. Cur.
What will you do with these little fragments. Frown.
Camels have seductive eyes but remain ugly.
Difficult metaphors in bow ties, black swans, duchesses.
Screaming trees fuse with sound. Crows. Funereal fowl.
Dancing butterflies darken sky. The chairs are leaving.
Piece together fragments against your ruin. Futility.
On other mornings, seek silence. You won't find it.
What you loveth well remains. Of the heart. Be.
You are an artist. Shut the **** up. Do your art.
     Most of the time you will fail,
     but sometimes, your poems will sail.

  ~mce

The way the world ends...*

All birth a seed of mortality. The reason we come and we go is the same.
Parrots lose speech. Scarecrows attract birds. Zucchinis forget their meaning.
Clay pots yearn for earth. Everything inverts. Love> indifference> dislike.
Melting paragraphs. Pedestrians looking downward. Undelivered mail.
Fruit shrivels into donuts. The fix is in. Short everything. No tomorrow.
Empty Greyhounds ply apathetic Interstates. Nowhere to go. Not magic.
Frames without pictures. *** but motion. Carelessness abounds. No worries.
Cracks in the concrete. Death by delay. Rusted arteries. Repairs unmade.
     London Bridge is falling down, falling down
     and into the torrent we plummet and drown.

  ~mce

Seriously*

15 ways to wake up in the morning alive.
7 ways to enjoy and be productive at your ****** job.
52 start-up ideas that will leave you starving.
72 products that no one wants or cares about.
100 services that don't matter and no one needs.
16 hints for moving out of your parents' house.
11 methods for reading things longer than paragraphs.
42 reasons why you will never, ever get a real job.
97 hacks for surviving without a phone for 10 minutes.
26 things to do about tattoos that will haunt you.
33 ways to publish content and never get paid.
63 reasons the world is just not that into you.
One million ways to write an article that is not a list.
Show that entrepreneurial spirit. I believe in you.

  ~mce