Time is the only gift
I have to give.
Unwrap it
moment by moment.
You are opening
my heart.
  - mce

You cannot buy the revolution.You cannot make the revolution.You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit or it is nowhere.
   ~ from *The Dispossessed

Damp wood
sizzles;
Dry wood
explodes.
Smoke or fire?
To discover
which you
contain,
you must risk
the flames.
  - mce

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.

Three A.M.
Standing
on my deck.
No sleep.
Something calls.

Still and frigid,
waiting quietly,
I breathe in and out.

My breath rises
in misty, white
mortal plumes.

Inspiration;
expiration.

Beyond my cabin,
I feel the deer
dancing
in the deep night,
chanting the old
secret songs
of their antlered clan.

Exaltation.

I watch meteors
drop on
the ridge top
like God's tears
streaking the sky.

Clarity.

Two coyotes
howl a duet
in the darkness;
the creek whispers
and I understand.

Revelation.

I think
of your flesh
warm beneath
a thick quilt.

Expectation.

So many marvels
attend me.

Surely I am
a lucky man.
  - mce

Jesus weeps;
Buddha laughs;
Sufis whirl.
Are we waves
or particles?
Many masters,
one Way.
Listen to
your heart.
The answer
is always
yes.
  - mce

Four A.M.

Nothing, at first,
then clouds part,
and stars fall
like showers
of seed pearls:

perfect white
particles
of creation,

God's tracers,

tiny droplets
of beauty

raining
on a still,
dark world.
  - mce

I am a contributor to a new Anthology called Out of the Depths: Poetry of Poverty, Courage and Resilience, which will be published on April 15th. You can find it on Amazon.

Alas, in my little bio it says I died in 2013.

What a surprise! I guess I died for Art.

Am I dead or aren’t I. Being dead would have benefits: cheap, no need for healthcare, food, housing, clothing or transportation. No taxes either.

But I think it might be too dull. Even at 63 I enjoy the pleasures of the flesh. I think I’ll just hang around here and pretend to be alive.

~mce

Because
I don't want
ever again to be
a businessman
stuck at a desk,
selling ****
to morons.

I'd rather be
Han Shan,
cold and hungry,
uncertain,
but joyous,

writing poems
to the void
on cave walls,

laughing at vanity,
chuckling
at attachment,

wandering the woods
like a happy ghost
riantly doing real work,

struggling
up one mountain,
down the next.

No path; no plan,
but never lost.
  - mce

Cold without
and cold within.
I light huge fires
in my stove,
but the embers
of whole forests
do not warm;
I pour the output
of entire distilleries
down my throat,
but the spark
does not catch.
I think
some essential
kindling
is missing.
Perhaps that
is You.
- mce

A pirate sailed south, but too far.
The good ship's prow found
harbors filled with icebergs,
frolicking penguins and walruses:
it began to snow inside his mortal soul.
He dreamed of perfect white beaches,
warm sand, sunlight, palm trees
and (perhaps) a lovely French poet in a slight bikini
lolling like Erato on holiday.
He could taste the sun and coconut on her skin.
It was only a vision, but one worthy of a quest.
He preferred living dreams to dead conclusions.
Many people told him he dreamed too much,
to accept this landfall and be content.
But cold and darkness are not a pirate's lot
and contentment does not appear
in the official pirate's vocabulary.
Even an aging pirate holds true to course,
pinned like a medal to his longing and desire.
More sail, he cried, and turned the helm
toward the islands of his heart,
toward a landfall of warmth and color,
toward hot and willing flesh,
toward parrots and monkeys and blue skies.
Leaving the nay-sayers in the cold,
he headed the only direction a pirate can, further.
- mce

Judge me if you like,
I do not care.
My sins are mine.
Look to your own.
The flesh beneath
my lips is my choice.
Choose what you must.
I am not a saint,
only a man
caught in my desire,
needing what I need
and taking it.
Get your own.
Take what you need.
Leave me in peace.
I will do the same.
This is all any of us
can manage.
  - mce

If you
can't make
your life
larger than
your grief,
you
will never
be alive
again.
-mce

Watching you
lighting a cigarette,
your long legs
smiling beneath
that flouncy,
breeze-blown
skirt
reminds me
why I still bother
to breathe
at all.
- mce

One night
of shameless ***
with a warm,
willing, talented,
obscenely younger
woman
works every time.
- mce

These maple trees
leaf out, each year,
copper-purple.
They know spring,
but they
do not know
of spring.
- mce

An old lover
called me Messy
instead of Mike.
She was right
(always).
My gift orders words,
not things.
I exist
in a cluttered world,
but reside
in the order
of imagination.
I am a ruby
gleaming
in a pile
of dog ****.
Watch me shine!
- mce

Say it. Say it all. Say it out loud. Do not be afraid. A poet must first be bold. Will they disapprove? Who are they? **** them. Say it. Say it all. Say it out loud. Be true to your muse. That's all you've got and it is everything...

Wallace Stevens
once wrote
that money
is a kind of poetry;
he did not say
that it is good poetry.
- mce

Get up in the morning,
look in the mirror,
and realize
that you have aged
ten years
in eight months.
- mce

An indigo bunting
landed on my deck railing.
We looked at each other
for a few seconds
before it flew away.
Beauty explodes
in an instant.
- mce

Each day
when I take
my morning walk
along the creek,
everything
is different;
some things
never change.
- mce

These black raspberries
do not understand
the intent
of my caresses.
When I reach
to prune them,
they scratch;
when I try
to **** them,
they clutch;
when I lean in
to mulch them,
they slash.
They are like
angry lovers
who want
to make love,
but want
to draw blood,
too.
Perhaps a poem
will soothe them;
it often works
on women.
- mce

Today at work
I saw:
A box turtle
treading water
while
a three foot long
water snake dozed
on a nearby rock;
two Admiral butterflies
making shameless, passionate
colorful love
in the uncut clover;
four indigo buntings
slicing the air
like Imperial lightening;
six vultures
sailing the thermals
above the berry patch
in an eternal gyre.
What did you see?
-mce

In 63 years
as a refugee,
I have never really
unpacked, not once.

Every place
is just a place.

People arrive
and disappear.

Home, hearth
and household
do not adhere
to me.

This morning
rain drips
from the trees;
birdsong
fills the air;
in the mist
across the road
from my cloud cabin
three deer graze.

A good place,
but not home.

I belong nowhere;
I will not stay here;
I know that.

I am the shade
of a Long Hunter,
always passing through,
never settling,
or a Hungry Ghost,
observing, remarking,
but never involved.

I am not
a determined king
and no Ithaca
awaits me,
no rooted bed
or loyal hound.

Yesterday
I followed a path
through the woods
that went nowhere,
simply ended.

Perfection,
of a kind,
existing for itself,
no reason
or destination,
just a way.

But it is my path,
and I will follow it.
- mce

I have grown
a beard,
luxuriant
in its whiteness.

Whenever I encounter it
in my mirror,
it says, sensibly:

Behold, Mike,
time is short.
Grow up,
find a place,
take a wife,
be an adult,
settle.

To which I reply,
delighting
in my recalcitrance:

No way, beard!
The difficult
is my destiny.
Be my beard
Black or white,
I will always
be a pirate.
- mce

The man of deeds who lacks the word
is simple, stupid and absurd.
He works and struggles all the day
for nothing more than mindless pay.
He loves the rich and thinks them smart
for gaining through their lack of heart.
He loves his boundaries; worships rules;
considers those who break them fools.
His mind is closed; his world is small;
he has no words to think at all.
His conversation tends to stink
because he never learned to think.
His only drive is buying more;
he's little but a Hoople *****.
He does and does and that's enough,
if he can just keep buying stuff.
He never questions what he's told;
he's just a thing that's bought and sold.
And when it is his time to die;
he'll lack the words to wonder why.
- mce

The real America
died at Wounded Knee
where this plastic,
****-coated monstrosity
we now call home
was born,
appropriately,
in a hail of bullets.
- mce

At sixteen
in 1968
I said **** it
and ran away
from home.
Forty-seven
years later,
I'm still running.
Forty-seven years
still seeking
the answers
to that
wayward kid's
questions
and not
much closer:
from what,
to what?
- mce

Remember:
the chance
you won't take
is the life
you won't live.

Pull on your boots.
Be open
to possibility.
Saunter forth.

Trust luck
and curiosity
to manage the rest.
- mce

The ultimate arrogance:
believing you can live a life
without consequences.
- mce

"Say it plainly, the human name doesn't mean **** to a tree." - Grace Slick

Stumbling the rocky falls path,
two large trees,
hickory and sycamore,
fallen to the last thunderstorm.

Soil and stones
festoon their naked roots;
leaves still fresh,
green, not wilted.

I clamber over and continue.

Now an obstacle,
in the cool of autumn
we will return
with chain saws, axes,
cut and carry this wood,
transform it into heat
for winter.

Walking, falling, cutting, burning:
all magical steps
in the inescapable process
of age, death, decay and rebirth.

The earth provides
and points the way.

We do what must be done,
following her lead,
taking our place,
in the process,
not so different
from grubs or termites
as we might like
to imagine.
- mce

If you don't know
your watershed,
the names
of local trees
and plants,
who grows
what you eat,
where your
waste goes,
and what
generates
your electricity,
how do you know
where you are,
much less
who you are?
We are local
or we are nothing
at all.
- mce

The heart
grows weary
of endless
debate.

Abstraction:
a human talent,
but not
a human virtue.

Keep it simple,
concrete, and local.

What can be touched,
can be counted upon.

Live now;
die later.

In between,
be alive
to the glory
and possibility
of Creation.

Pursue the eternal
through the portal
of your living flesh.

Difficult,
frustrating,
necessary.

If only this
can be done,
it is enough.
- mce

Watching
an improbable
hummingbird
dart beneath
my deck,
I wonder
how being
without thinking
must feel.
Good,
I imagine.
- mce

Fear and faith
rule our lives.

Find a way
to reconcile
them
and life
becomes
a path to joy.

Real work,
worth doing.
- mce

Every ending includes
a beginning.

The past can
never be escaped,
but it can be
left in the past.

The tree that
falls and rots
feeds new growth;
it remains,
but is transformed;
likewise the past
must nourish
the future,
not stunt its growth.

Open your arms
to what might be
and what has been
assumes it's
proper place.

A ****** fine world
waits out there:

time to get on with it.
_ mce

Men ask the way to Cold Mountain
Cold Mountain: there's no through trail.
In summer, ice doesn't melt
The rising sun blurs in swirling fog.
How did I make it?
My heart's not the same as yours.
If your heart was like mine
You'd get it and be right here.
     ~ trans. Gary Snyder

I have always
wondered
why so many
women
have such
horrible
taste
in men.

Ladies?

You came to me this morning and you handled me like meat.
You’d have to be a man to know how good that feels, how sweet.
My mirrored twin, my next of kin, I’d know you in my sleep
and who but you would take me in, a thousand kisses deep.

I loved you when you opened like a lily to the heat,
you see I’m just another snowman standing in the rain and sleet,
who loved you with his frozen love,
his second hand physique, with all he is, and all he was,
A thousand kisses deep.

I know you had to lie to me, I know you had to cheat,
to pose all hot and high behind the veils of shear deceit,
our perfect **** aristocrat so elegant and cheap,
I’m old but I’m still into that,
A thousand kisses deep.

I’m good at love, I’m good at hate, it' s in between I freeze.
Been working out, but its too late, it’s been to late for years.
But you look good, you really do, they love you on the street.
If you were here I’d kneel for you,
a thousand kisses deep.

The autumn moved across your skin, got something in my eye,
a light that doesn’t need to live, and doesn’t need to die.
A riddle in the book of love, obscure and obsolete,
till witnessed here in time and blood,
A thousand kisses deep.

And I'm still working with the wine, still dancing cheek to cheek,
the band is playing Auld Lang Syne, but the heart will not retreat.
I ran with Diz and I sang with Ray, I never had their sweep,
but once or twice they let me play
A thousand kisses deep.

The old
think the young
can't know anything
of importance
at their age.

The young
think the old
have forgotten
how to feel
anything
at their age.

What a waste
of knowing
and feeling.

Every age
has it's own
wisdom, feeling,
passion.

How to cross
that rope?
   ~mce

****!
I think I'm
a Cylon...
- mce

Old lovers
sit like drained
wine bottles
on wooden shelves
kissed by sun rays:
empty vessels,
their openings
still exquisite
in memory.
-mce

Sometimes
what
you don't know,
can
hurt you.
-mce

Not to worry, Doc.
Don't mean ******* nothing.
We are all dead men here.
- mce

man
bench
sun

Facts are not
a life.

Details.

old man
park bench
hot sun

Better,
but not enough.

An old man
on a green park bench
baking in the hot sun.

Closer,
but not the truth.

An old man,
still boyish,
sitting on a
green park bench
baking in the hot sun
remembering
that strange young girl
wearing
a paisley scarf,
red and blue silk,
standing like Venus
poised above
blue Aegean water
on the deck
of a white steamer,
her black hair flowing,
four decades past.

Closer still, yet missing...

An old man,
still boyish,
sitting on a
green park bench
baking in the hot sun
remembering
that strange young girl
wearing
a paisley scarf,
red and blue silk,
standing like Venus
poised above
blue Aegean water
on the deck
of a white steamer,
her black hair flowing,
four decades past.
He smiles,
considering
her hot breath,
her long sighs,
her silken thighs:
she lives again.

The poem at the confluence
of memory and imagination
engenders the stories
which render meaning.

Stories about stories;
all we can know of life,
yet enough.
-mce

Anticipation
holds the key
to paradise:
not the moment
of entry,
but the instant
before.
- mce

In one frozen moment
I watched my friend's guts
erupt from his body
onto the deck
of our chopper.
Forty-three
years later,
it visits my dreams:
this image of death,
ineluctable
as death itself.
Wars end;
war never does.
- mce

It is simple
to be a poet:

slice your chest open
with the fine edge
of imagination;

wrench your heart loose;

take a bite;

smile and offer
a taste
to anyone
who might be interested,

not caring
whether they find it
sweet or bitter.
- mce

Sadly,
you can take the boy
out of the jungle,
but you can
never
take the jungle
out of the boy.
- mce