Americans scramble about
like hyperactive lemmings
trying to fix themselves.
Vanity; egotistic futility;
pointless self-obsession.
How can you fix yourself
when you are already you?
  - mce

~for my students

Beginning a new semester
once again I encounter
bright, thoughtless faces
staring at me as if
I were a curious, irrelevant
antiquity from a museum
they don't wish to visit.
The earth is fresh to them
and they are unbruised,
for a little while yet,
by the unforgiving realities
that life must provide.
I shuffle papers and make
solemn pronouncements
about the beauty of learning.
They yawn and ******
the ubiquitous cell-phones
I have so cruelly
ordered turned off.
I no longer envy them
their youth or their future.
They remind me of pigeons
ready to be plucked.

I am tempted to tell them
the  necessary brutal truths:
half their marriages
will end in anger and divorce,
others will drag on in despair;
there is no such thing
as true love forever and ever;
the jobs they dream of will
mostly be empty and boring
and obsolete in short order;
the corporations and the usurers
have already captured the world;
that the earth is poisoned
and dying a slow, certain death;
how there are no more secrets
and the government may now legally
read their texts and emails,
listen to their conversations
and learn down to the last moan
even how and with whom
they make love;
that there will be more
than just rumors of war
and they will have to pay for them
in blood, loss and treasure;
that God is otherwise occupied
murdering children in the middle-east;
that we have utterly failed them.

But I don't, of course.
They wouldn't hear me if I tried.
******, weeping holocaust
that it has always been,
the world must be rediscovered
by every shiny, new generation.
Mentally wishing them luck,
I do my job, stick to the syllabus,
say a prayer for their possibilities,
turn it all over to them, smile,
and continue to pretend.
  - mce

The sky was appropriately the color of gun metal. The smell of cordite clung like rancid perfume. He inhaled. It wasn't much to look at. Not so much a field as a clearing. A patch of nothing blasted onto the hilltop by the exhalation of a few 500 pound bombs. The earth was loose; plowed by mortars and cultivated by machine guns. A place men would have to cross under fire without cover; a place where men would be harvested. Not completely, though. It had been awhile. Some vegetation had encroached. Here and there it smoldered. The jungle never slept. Like the enemy, it kept coming back. There were lumps strewn about at random. Large lumps, the bodies of the dead. Smaller lumps, pieces of them. Dragon's teeth, clumsily sown. At first light the grunts had gone out and executed the wounded, laughing as they blew their brains out. He didn't blame them. Mercy was absurd in war; only death was logical. The bodies would be left to caution the enemy. It wouldn't help, though. They would return. Like the jungle. Until it was theirs for good. The first result would be stench; the second, compost. When the jungle finally returned, where the lumps were would be just a little greener. That a man's death might produce so little. He took it all in one last time. So this is what a battlefield looks like. *******.
  - mce

They all
want to hear you
sing of the light;
****** few
will listen
when the song
turns dark.
  - mce

Every step taken
contains the possibility
of an adventure,
when seen with
the heart and eyes
of an explorer.
- mce

Thinking myself invincible,
I tried to break the world.

Instead, the world broke me.

Surprise!

Sometimes, to learn humility
requires taking a beating.

The pain doesn't matter;
what you learn through it does:

be wary of pride;

you are not as strong
as you imagine;

no one is immune
to reality.

Getting my *** kicked,
the only way for me
to know these things:

the price I always pay
for being a slow learner.
- mce

So tell me God,
isn't divinity
ever boring?
Don't you tire
of being distant,
unapproachable,
and worshipped?
Isn't it lonely?
Don't you ever wish
you could have
a burger,
sip a beer,
just hang out
and *******?
If you ever
get the notion,
let me know.
I'd be happy
for the company.
- mce

Nothing
wrong with it.

Everybody
wants it.

The young
deserve it.

Only, after a point,
you realize that
you don't need it
and that taking
what you don't need,
can interfere
with getting what
you do need.

And that, as the
old, but true,
cliche points out,
makes for
a whole new
ball game.
- mce

If I knew who
my readers are,
I would buy
them all a beer,
but I don't,
so I won't.
- mce

To reject compassion,
a path of great danger:
hard hearts, in the end,
are prone to break.
- mce

Forgiving strangers
who have hurt strangers
is a cheap luxury.
Forgiving those close
who have hurt us,
an expensive necessity.
The truth reveals itself
clearest in suffering.
The hard path,
often the best path.
But oh how difficult
to take those first steps.
- mce

I used to dream of true love
forever and ever.
Now I dream of one true heart
to share mine
for what time remains.
Forever and ever
reside only in this moment.
True love is just a name,
at best a portal,
the opening of a door.
Two hearts that touch and blend:
love true enough, and more.
- mce

Love, you make
me tremble.

There is marvel
in that movement.

I do not ever wish
to be merely still
in the presence
of your body, your spirit.

Stir me and wake me;
raise me to a new state
of feeling and knowing,
both scary and lovely.

Allow me the pleasure
of our souls touching,
quivering, merging,
one from two,
two in one.

When I am near you,
I want to become
a holy, knight-errant
slaying impossible dragons
only because you are
in the world
for me to please,
only because
you make me tremble.
- mce

Sometimes the silence
in my life
whispers, you're lucky.
Sometimes the silence
in my life
whimpers, you're lonely.
From moment to moment
I never know
which voice it will be.
- mce

Broke,
busted,
tapped out,
destitute.

Once again
I have
no money.

Once more,
I don't care.

Too bad
my stomach
and creditors
do.

Oh well,
let them wait.

Money,
like women
or luck,
shows up
in its own
good time.

Patience,
my thin
little wallet.

You will
be fed again
directly.

Meantime,
chew on
a bit of faith.
- mce

I do not create poems
from fancy or for fun,
but to engender reality.

Stories I tell
about stories
I have been told,
or told myself.

All the more real
for being imaginary.
- mce

"The only questions that really matter
are the ones you ask yourself."
- Ursula K. Le Guin

For some of us
the universe
provides
a long list
of questions
and a short list
of answers.

Our work,
the real work,
the only work
that matters,
is filling
in those blanks.

A hard blessing,
but a blessing,
still.
- mce

by Wendell Berry

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.

Listen to carrion -- put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.

Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.

As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go.

Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

To stand alone
before the Burning Bush.

No Jesus, no Buddha,
no Muhammad,
no intercessors.

To stand alone
before the Burning Bush,
to hear the Voice,
feel the Fire,
to be penetrated
by its Light.

Madness,
enlightenment,
realization,
revelation.

To stand alone
before the Burning Bush.

To become One
with the Am that Is.
  - mce

Be thankful
for your breath.
Everything and
everyone else
will leave you;
when your
breath departs,
it won't matter.
- mce

Beauty is a war
that must be fought.
She will not
surrender herself
easily.
Gather your strength,
attack relentlessly.
In the end,
you may win
a bit of her
for yourself.
Only do not
imagine total victory.
This war rages
without end.
  - mce

~for all the broken hearted women I read here.

Do not put your faith in men.

Men are simple:
they want to eat and ****;
Women more subtle:
they want to feel and touch.

The boy you are lamenting now
will not remember you in 40 years,
nor you him. Not that
it doesn't hurt. It does.

But love is brief and life is long.

Consider the world instead,
how bright and shiny
it really is
sometimes.

Give your hearts to that.
Marry the beauty of what is.
You will have
a long and marvelous
relationship.

~ mce

The hardest life to bear
is the one you didn't live,
but should have.
  - mce

At three AM, on the deck
gathering stove wood,
the air is as cold
as an ex-wife's heart,
the looming full moon
drips luminescence
through stark black branches
onto perfect new snow,
and the only sound
is one lonely owl
asking his eternal question.
  - mce

In life's vivid
green spring,
I dreamed
of embracing
all of creation.
Now, life fades
to russet autumn,
and you are all
I desire
in my arms.
  - mce

I **** time;
time kills me.
An equation
balanced
perfectly.
  - mce

He's turned his back upon the fire,
he's turned his face away;
he's broke, he's cold and far from home;
he knows he's lost the way.
His children fled from his disease;
His wife's forgot his name;
He's traveled far but can't remove
the burden of his shame.
He wishes that he knew a way
to make his wrongs all right,
to bring the hearts of those he loved
back to his lonely night.
But now his path is solitude,
the way leads on alone;
the things he did, the pains he caused,
are only his to own.
There are some wounds that can't be healed,
some words he can't unsay;
the things he did that led him to
the mourning of this day.
So he will wake and think and write
of all he had that's lost;
the rage he knew, the words he hurled,
and just how much that cost.
He's turned his back upon the fire,
he's turned his face away;
he's broke, he's cold and far from home,
he knows he's lost the way.
  - mce

If I wished,
I could return
to  the world
without color
and all its
material prizes.
It would be
the easy path.
But I dream
a riotous palette
and insist
this new life
be drawn
of its varied
and vivid
hues and tints.
Difficult, painful
brush strokes,
but a canvas
so much richer
for the effort.
  - mce

"True initiation never ends." - R.A.W.

Forsake the bolted Temple gates;
dogma has frozen them shut.
Ride the howling night of storms
following the path of your heart.
Shed the armor of limitations.
Travel fast and travel light.
Expect no guidance but courage.
When the tempest abates,
the stars alone will light your way.
A gleaming chapel blocks the road.
To go on, you must go through.
Enter and confront the King;
ask the questions you carry.
Release the burden of your self.
A simple, earthen cup will appear.
If you dare to drink it deep and dry,
you will see a portal traced by flames
leading to a green and warm world.
If you falter, you must repeat the quest.
There is only one road, one chapel,
and each of us must approach it
broken, alone and filled with fear.
Steel your heart. Try again and again.
Each soul contains the proper moment.
  - mce

~ BY THEODORE ROETHKE
The whiskey on your breath  
Could make a small boy dizzy;  
But I hung on like death:  
Such waltzing was not easy.

We romped until the pans  
Slid from the kitchen shelf;  
My mother’s countenance  
Could not unfrown itself.

The hand that held my wrist  
Was battered on one knuckle;  
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.

You beat time on my head  
With a palm caked hard by dirt,  
Then waltzed me off to bed  
Still clinging to your shirt.

The poem of the mind in the act of finding
What will suffice. It has not always had
To find: the scene was set; it repeated what
Was in the script.
Then the theatre was changed
To something else. Its past was a souvenir.

It has to be living, to learn the speech of the place.
It has to face the men of the time and to meet
The women of the time. It has to think about war
And it has to find what will suffice. It has
To construct a new stage. It has to be on that stage,
And, like an insatiable actor, slowly and
With meditation, speak words that in the ear,
In the delicatest ear of the mind, repeat,
Exactly, that which it wants to hear, at the sound
Of which, an invisible audience listens,
Not to the play, but to itself, expressed
In an emotion as of two people, as of two
Emotions becoming one. The actor is
A metaphysician in the dark, twanging
An instrument, twanging a wiry string that gives
Sounds passing through sudden rightnesses, wholly
Containing the mind, below which it cannot descend,
Beyond which it has no will to rise.
It must
Be the finding of a satisfaction, and may
Be of a man skating, a woman dancing, a woman
Combing. The poem of the act of the mind.

Not
one
heart
ever
stuck.
  - mce

Disregard
the notes;
enter into
the silences.
  - mce

The essence
of the poem
in the poet's heart:
a long, soundless
wailing
that won't stop
until written.
  - mce

The passage of the years
constrains possibility;
calendars squeeze life.
Now I know there are
poems I won't read again;
books I won't open again;
places I'll not visit again;
people I won't see again;
lips I'll never kiss again.
Age narrows time.
Passing sixty,
everywhere around me,
the sound of closing doors.
  - mce

Souls that have kissed
cannot be separated.
This life or the next;
time after time;
everything turns
and returns.
When we meet again,
I will know you.
  - mce

When you have to
pass a drug test
and a background check
to shovel mulch
on some rich dude's
sorry-assed shrubs
for seven dollars
and fifty cents an hour,
the very notion
of freedom
becomes a farce.
  - mce

It is ever more difficult
to sing of One's-Self.
The En-Masse
has swallowed up
the simple separate person;
the Democratic
is dying, if not dead.
The Leaves of Grass
now all look the same,
chant the same slogans,
believe and buy
what they are told
to believe and buy.
The power, pulse
and passion of Life
are subsumed
in blind conformity.
You said a man should,
"Resist much; obey little."
How many, in all this land,
now have the courage
to live those words?
That vast American energy
you rightly celebrated
is channeled now
to serve war and greed
and evil usury.
You would find little
in the current version
of The Modern Man
worth singing about;
little worth the immensity
of your vision and voice.
If you could return now
and chance to see
the empty, constricted husk
your country has become,
I wonder how Cheerful
your song would be.
  - mce

In the late night darkness
William Carlos Williams
delivered a baby;
this morning I heard Pound
rant on the radio;
I had lunch with HD,
(notoriously easy)
but didn't get lucky;
later, Wallace Stevens
penned beauty on the back
of a voided insurance policy;
as the day ended, Eliot
closed up the bank office
put on his bowler and left.
In the world of poetry
these are not people who were,
they remain people who are.
   - mce

If you can't learn
to make a friend
of your suffering,
you will lead
a very lonely life.
  - mce

Did you hear
the round
that turned
your world
upside down?
Or was it but
a moment
of pain
and fumbling,
a silent
ecstasy
of tumbling?
Unscathed
myself,
I can
only wonder,
how it feels
to have
your flesh
torn asunder
and then,
how to live
and if
to forgive.
  - mce

Mornings are the worst,
dissolution and despair,
the terror of karma
in the pallid, dim air.
Witches of memory
shriek and taunt:
you'll never be free.
The past pukes demons
that chant and moan:
you belong to me.
Oh Muse of light,
protect me from sadness;
Oh Muse of light,
shield me from madness.
Keep my soul safe
for just one more day;
hold my heart in your hands,
keep the past at bay.
  - mce

At 30,
you could only
look ahead.
At 55,
I could only
look back.
We only looked
in the same direction
when we looked
at each other.
Looking at you
was all my pleasure,
but future and past
pulled too hard
to overcome.
There are lilacs now,
new lovers,
fresh beginnings.
Still,
I remember
your eyes
looking back
at me,
greener
than even this
soft,
new spring.
–mce

Poetry is powerful
because it is real;
it grabs our throats
and makes us feel.

Real as the dead cat
upon the road,
at noon, smashed flat.

Real as the wounded men
I have known,
who will never walk again.

Real as the broken heart
that, having stopped,
will not restart.

Real as the delight
with which your body
fills my night.

Real as your love
nestled in my heart,
soft and gentle as a dove.

Real as death
whose siren call,
forgets, in the end,
no one at all.

Poetry is powerful
and real, indeed,
it grabs our throats,
it makes us read.
- mce

Last night
I dreamed of war.
The choppers buzzed
like mad whirring insects,
the ****** exploded
like hell's own fire,
the wounded screamed
like tortured babies,
the dying begged me
to tell them why
and I couldn't
because there is
no why in war,
no moral, no reason.
Waking, I dream
of dreams of peace
that will never arrive.
"Only the dead
know the end of war."
- mce

Visit Tibet
while it still exists.
Quit smoking.
Forget the war.
Complete
a pilgrimage
to Rumi's tomb.
Experience
the world
as an
Indigo Bunting.
Strike a truce
with the past.
Learn to cook.
Make
passionate love
with a nice
southern girl.
Find
the meaning
of life
and set it free.
Eat more
paw-paws.
Resolve
the mystery
of the Three.
So many things
remain
to do, to be.
- mce

Where is God
at four AM?
  - mce