Every day, make a pledge
to find something where
you’ve never looked before.
Find a banker fried
on the arc lights of power;
a pair of lacy ******* in
your grandpa’s sock drawer;
come stains you can’t recall
on you best umbrella;
a hundred silver dollars
in the cookie jar;
two used condoms
in your aunt’s jello salad;
Nixon’s missing 18 minutes on
the 8 track of your Gremlin;
The Ark Of the Covenant
behind your broken fridge;
a hit of Owsley acid
in your dad’s bible.
Wonder, wonders, wonderful.
Forget a rebirth of wonder.
The truly marvelous lurks
everywhere around
waiting to be found.

  ~mce

Dear Louise,

At 2:30 AM after
two hours of sleep
I feel I am looking
through a keyhole
and reality
is sneaking up
from behind
to give me
a much needed
kick in the *****.
Somehow, I have fallen
into a hole so deep
I can't climb out.
The arena of death
destroys the illusion
of safety and
at some point
the naked heart
cannot recover.
Everything seems
after the fact.
Everything is
after the fact.
You can't change
anything after
a split second ago.
I feel a curious desire
to do the right thing,
but there are not
enough right things
to go around.
Is life accessible?
Is life inaccessible?
I have the curious urge
to puke out forty years
of my life's garbage.
Maybe I'll change my name
to Antonio or Ivan,
move to Hiroshima or Dachau
and see the world
through the binocular
but astigmatic
eyes of a tiger.
If you asked me
to describe someone
I really know,
I'd be very hard put.
As a kid I wanted
to be a writer.
I wasn't sure
what that meant;
early ideals can **** you
but you probably
deserve it.
I know I am wrapped
so tight that if
I spring a leak
I'll sink in a day.
Could there be a way
to fence my life in
and keep the world out?
I am consumed
by fatuous sincerity.
I'd write down
all the options
int this case
but I loathe
the **** fascism of lists.
My hormones seem
to be deliquescing
into a viscous pâté
of late life protoplasm.
They belong on a shelf,
not in your pants.
I guess if no one else
will make use of me,
I'll have to make use
of myself.
This is a difficult task.
My life has been
a long preparation
for something that
probably won't occur.
For too long I have
defied almost everything.
A strong man would simply
drink himself to death,
but I'm not that strong.
Many of my sins of omission
are beginning to bother me.
Perhaps the only real use
for today is today.
Maybe I need to get
back to the basics:
eating, ******* and dying.
How to maintain
my equilibrium in the face
of incomprehension?
Waking up is a kind of homage.
Or could it be that
I don't need to change?
I'm just this.
Anyway, it's 2:30 AM
on a long night
in a strange life.
I'd better go.
Dawn may creep up
and release the
stench of coffins.
Louise, if you get this note
and understand it
please let me know
because I don't.

Sincerely,

Mikey

You seem to remember robust days of anarchy. Heroic limbs. Tungsten nerves. Oak-like tumescence. But they may have been fictions imagined beneath dripping choppers or among Tennessee wild flowers. Your feathers now reject flight and time has pressed all blossoms. Everyday chaos directs your steps. The anaconda in the mud puddle only a curious worm. Shrunken shoes, but reminders of mortality. Where does light go when it’s dark? Why these dreams of deserted airports? Where has lust absconded? The universe looms a question of questions. The mute shades know all, but it’s difficult to comprehend nothing. You miss the caprice of logic. Confusion rains. You stagger beneath the headlines of oblivion besotted with sobriety. A corpse in Argentina guards the labyrinth's portal. Kale refuses to surrender its secrets even under torture. The fangs of women drip enigmas. Even the slugs have abandoned reason. The antennae of the night sing silence. You await a message from reality announcing the invasion is imminent. Do nothing until you hear from me. The sun shines, having no alternative, on the nothing new world.

From nothingness I fell
into the world of substance,
into the world of becoming:

and became, a toddler, a teenager,
a soldier, a husband, a father,
a professor, an old poet.

Sixty-four orbits of the sun;
over 37 trillion miles so far.
It should feel longer than it does.

Thirty-seven trillion miles of
Reality, Maya, Monkey Mind,
the inevitable, unceasing chatter
we call existence; all the pieces
of this enormous jigsaw puzzle
I have given up try to solve.

You cannot solve life
as if it were just a calculus problem.

Too many variables.

Instead, I try to compose
a kind of music I cannot understand,
only enjoy and share with strangers;

an often futile attempt to harmonize
the discords of living while
getting  a little peek of insight.

Poetry: an attempt to part
the reeds and see what there is
swimming behind the behind,

before the orbits finally end.
   ~mce

a man of no fortune with a name to come.*

Important things are happening
in the outside world of events,
but no one ever mentions you.
You have had a celebrity buzz cut.
You are not attuned to twittering.
The glasses you broke work better now.
Your hunger for renown is so great
that you can't stand to order poverty.
The cat looks at you like protein.
Your bed is an ancient dry well.
The ghosts of your memories
can't even afford clean sheets.
Do not these signal events import?
If you could but get your boyish face
out there on the Internet, someone
in that outside world might mention you,
and the virtual lottery of fame would
allow you to purchase and stockpile
marrow bones, crème brûlée and ******.
You could go out with a belch of flame,
and everyone would say they knew you
long before you were even nothing.

I dreamed I opened a bookshop
where you had to pass a reading test
before you could buy anything.
I just might have promulgated
a radiant, renaissance of literacy,
but I went broke long before that.

I am drawing
a pentagram
around our bed.
From within it
we shall issue
spells and charms
into the universe
and then lie together
in awed silence,
listening
for their echoes,
magick whispered
promises of
love to come.
   ~mce

You can find The Biology Of Strangeness  and my other books at my Amazon Author’s Page: www.amazon.com/author/mikeessig. You can get print or ebook. Read for free with Amazon Prime.

If you are kind enough to buy, please, please, please leave a review on Amazon. It takes a minute and makes a huge difference for any Indie writer.

Here is a chance to feed a poet’s starving cat. Not as much fun as sleeping with the poet, but more important.

Off to Minnesota to my God Son’s wedding. See you on Thursday. :) Mike

Axis**

Through the conduits of blood
my body in your body
spring of night
my tongue of sun in your forest
your body a kneading trough
I red wheat
Through conduits of bone
I night I water
I forest that moves forward
I tongue
I body
I sun-bone
Through the conduits of night
spring of bodies
You night of wheat
you forest in the sun
you waiting water
you kneading trough of bones
Through the conduits of sun
my night in your night
my sun in your sun
my wheat in your kneading trough
your forest in my tongue
Through the conduits of the body
water in the night
your body in my body
Spring of bones
Spring of suns

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

Whenever
you enter
a room,
your
whole life
enters
with you.

---

Once I wandered
into the labyrinth
of madness.
I spent
some quality
time there.
I don't know
that all of me
returned.

---

We were as gods then, he said, but the clocks came and rendered our lives into pieces.

---

People misunderstand me;
I only mean what I am.

---

On good mornings
I wake up
and sincerely vow
to change my life
for the better
which never
seems to happen.
On bad mornings
I realize that
I am what I am
and even
in America,
land of
mindless optimism,
endless second chances,
tsunamis of self-help books,
and an infinity
of religions,
that is all
I'll ever be.

---

If something
we value
means nothing,
then more
of something
becomes
an excess
of nothing.

---

Life without
a woman
to temper
my stupidities
is difficult
indeed.

===

It is easy
in stray moments
to forgive
yourself.

---

Don't be afraid of the world;
it isn't afraid of you.

---

Love rarely suffices;
friendship often does.

---

You are
the only sunlight
on my skin;
when you go,
I slip
into darkness.

---

The future
is a patient
dog,
always beside us
waiting
to be noticed.

---

I would die
for your eyes.
   ~mce

for Pablo Neruda*

In your poems
the sun sang
yellow invitations,
eagles swam
in lilac ink,
butterflies discoursed
on desire,
the moon
whispered white
mysteries.

Your syllables said:
these are my arms, Lady,
lose that silky frock
and come into them.

My love feeds
on your love,
Love.

My lips
are for you.

You are mine;
I am yours.

We stand here,
the briefest moment;
let us stand together,
naked in eternity.

Dare to embrace this,
you murmured,
for it is all
the world can offer.

Eyelids fluttered out
ardent yeses;
sighs replied;
fingers danced;
many dresses
glided to the floor
with tiny gasps
of imagined pleasure.

Flesh and spirit
conjoined.

What woman,
could resist
the implacable sweetness
of your songs?

What woman,
having a heart
to hear,
would want to try?
- mce

Once on a miserably
hot, humid day
cruising above
a silent jungle,
I watched
a twenty-two year old
Cobra pilot
clear his machine guns
on an ancient,
abandoned,
Buddhist temple.

All the hubris
of western civilization
explicated
in one burst.

Homer, who best
knew the hearts
of men at war,
could not
have sung it better.
- mce

One demagogue, two ayatollahs,
a socialist fossil, a withered feminist.

The best of 360 million people?

Thanks so much, Amerika, for the
right to vote for such imposing choices.

I know I won't show up.

Anarchists know the lesser of two evils
is still and only ever can be… evil.

Enjoy the farce.
   ~mce

Illness
Early in life,
     it's an
          interruption:

later in life,
     it's an
          omen.

Early and late
     the mortality worm
                    chews.

Early or late,
     it will have
          the last
                    bite.
  - mce

Beauty is an
evanescing
vapor trail
against an
azure sky.

Be prepared
to notice it
or expect
to miss it.

  ~mce

To Be Governed**

“To be GOVERNED is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be placed under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality."

All poets are young,
some are just trapped
in older bodies.

  ~mce

tis pity she's no more*

A redolence of musk pervades the evening's air.
Take situation in hand. Sweat and perfume. Lubricious.
Teasing digits. Pressures applied. Tense of touch.
An opening of skirts. A parting of lips. A portal.
Brush of thumb she begins to writhe. Early moaning.
Damp, wet, moist, oozing, dripping, slippy. Fruition.
Coming to. A dance of desire. So many ups and downs.
Withdraw slowly. Enter with alacrity. More is not less.
Hollows of legs on shoulders. Depth charges. Grasp of gasps.
Muscles massage. Internal grip. External eruption.
Bear down. Press your case. Silent screams. Everything ends.
Simply collapse into delight. Smooth texture. Fine night.

Two solitudes
greeting,
touching,
and protecting
each other.

Rain drop drip,
mist pale
as starving
white ghosts
clings
to tree limbs,
deck railing,
undergrowth.

A world
lightly glazed
or frosted
like a wedding cake
catered by God.

What secrets
this valley
whispers
through the damp
morning chill.

Cherokees,
long hunters,
dirt farmers,
lost hippies.

Listen closely and
the land speaks
their spirit stories.

In this drifting mist
their insubstantial
shades seek
to live again.

Actions of the heart,
lives of the past:

Nothing
the world
has known
is ever
completely
lost.
- mce

I'm standing in a massacre
the sky is streaked with red,
we took the hill, we won the day,
but most of us are dead.

We fought to save each other's lives;
We fought for mom  and dad;
now all of that's been blown away,
I'm weary now and sad.

The bankers took the houses
and Wall Street still stands tall;
we only took this ****** hill
that matters not at all.

I've been a soldier all my lives:
Shiloh to Vietnam,
from Valley Forge to Gettysburg
to bleak Afganistan.

But I am through with fighting now
these wars for gold and oil;
I'm falling back, I'm headed home,
to win my native soil.

You politicians better fly,
you bankers run away;
For I am home and angry
and that's how I'm going to stay.

You've never seen a battle,
You've never smelled the dead;
you shipped us off like cattle
to do the work instead.

Take back my broken medals,
Take back your shining lie,
for Armageddon's coming
and it's time for you to die.

I'm standing in a massacre,
the sky is streaked with red
we took the hill, we won the day,
but most of us are dead.

The bugles all are silent
as the night begins to fall,
but the living have a purpose
to go home and **** you all.

They sit down and order beers,
but soon quarrel over whether
crows can speak or are telepathic.
Things turn ugly. They slip from
their stools and circle each other.
Anger has sharp blue eyes
and produces a fine-edged blade.
Rage is the epitome of cool,
his eyes are grey, he knows Kung Fu,
he waits for the fatal opening.
The crowd howls and eggs them on.
Then Death arrives brandishing
a loaded gun. Shots ring out.
Anger and Rage bleed out on the floor.
The crowd turns back to drinking.
Death calls for a round
of blood for the house.
Every weapon is relative;
But ****** is absolute.

  ~mce

Mykonos, 1969 - for H.M.
"Memory is a kind of accomplishment," - William Carlos Williams

Forty-five years later
I still see you
standing on that
dazzling Greek beach
wearing nothing
but your bikini bottoms
and an innocent grin.

A vision like that
can last a man
a lifetime.

Where are you now
smiling Venus?

Where am I?

   ~mce

A poem is
a hand traced
on a cave wall
that finally says,
"I was here,"
that's all.
  - mce

Perhaps balance is on the way.
Truly most of them are now poor drunks,
but that is what we wanted and got.
Manifest Destiny = I am going to steal
your land, crush your culture,
outlaw your religion and place you
on worthless scrub in human zoos.
But their tobacco has killed untold millions
and now their casinos take redneck money
from fat racists in polyester wrappings.
Perhaps in the dying American interior
abandoned for the masturbatory
promises of the glittering coasts,
in a few hidden thickets and glens,
their old ways survive and wait upon
a time, the right time, to emerge.
Maybe, when our greed has eaten us,
they will materialize, the buffalo return,
and the Ghost Dance will be unnecessary.
Hey, what goes around comes around...

~mce

Silk's
soft
sound,
slowly
sliding
skin:
sensual,
******,
sensuous,
stirring
song.
  - mce

I am a pirate
pacing a quarterdeck
before a battle.
I am Adam
beneath the apple tree
waiting to bite
into the New Order.
I am a hopeful heretic
praying for immolation
but unable
to strike a match.
I am a corpse
writing a will
in blood and *****.
I am a soldier
watching a friend
erupt in a fog
of pink viscera.
I am a madman
twitching on a couch,
forgotten in a corner
of a windowless chamber.
I am a hero
slaying griffins,
destroying dragons,
ravishing maidens
as my rightful reward.
I am a lover
to whom ladies
open their thighs
and abandon
their honor,
willingly.
I am a tone deaf poet
singing a defeated song.
I am the amateur torturer
carefully sharpening
his instruments,
but then unable to find
meaningful work.
I am a ****** priest
hearing my own
confession
and finding it
absurdly tedious.
I am all of these
impossible people.
Who are you?
  - mce

(Note: The first two lines of this poem were used by Diane Wakoski as a prompt for students in her poetry workshops. I couldn't resist the challenge. The result was this poem. Try it yourself.  - mce)

Next time we meet,
let's keep our clothes on.
Let us observe
the proprieties,
proper and Puritan.
Let us maintain
the distance of fools.
Let us smile
the waxed smiles
of corpses.
Let us pretend
we have never
danced within
one another,
have never sung
unlikely songs
of flesh and desire.
It will be awkwardly
exact and Victorian,
but it will be safe.
No heartbreak will ensue.
Next time we meet,
let's keep our clothes on.
  - mce

Sit. Meditate. Forgive. Repeat as needed.
Forgiveness holds great virtue. Forgive.
Try to let your anger at the world,
even though it deserves it, melt away.
You will fail, but to try has great merit.

Use your body as it was meant to be.
Move or die. The choice is yours.
Even as you creak and hurt,
pretend that you are a supple leopard.

Spend time with the young.
Mostly, they won't understand you
and you may not like them much,
but they are only future there is.
Share with them what is possible;
don't expect them to listen.

Eat and drink as you like, moderately.
Ignore the shouts of the health nazis.
Let the ******* eat Kale.
Only you know what is best for you.

Ignore or break any rules that you
believe to be stupid and chickenshit.
For the most part, only you will notice.

The bankers and politicians
have already owned enough of your life.
Quietly, but firmly, tell them to *******.

Fall in love no matter what your age.
Being in love is the true Fountain of Youth;
it awakens things you thought long dead.

Act freely, but consider the consequences.
The only sin is hurting someone. Be careful.
Make kindness your constant companion and mantra.
It will return to you many times over.

Remember, no matter what you do or try,
no one lives forever and time is not your friend.
Get on with it. Live now.

On my Father's death last night.*

Death of a father. Night of nothing. Morning of less.
Anhedonia. A family like the Walton's on crack.
Drama looms. Not a human feeling in the bunch.
Death a hyena at camp fire's edge. Light goes out.
Step up to the grave. Now you are first in line.
Mortality worm gnaws. No exemptions. Gnaw back.
We are but a moment's sunlight. Some not even.
Only lesson. World goes on. Without us. An instant.
Good morning blues. Blues how do you do.

  ~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

Lying is
tedious
and
difficult,
which
is why
I prefer
to  invent
the truth.
  - mce

Solitude is a fine thing before it tips into loneliness.
Loneliness and solitude live in the same house
and balance until lonesome perfection prevails. Then,
isolation, black and deadly, squeezes from the heart
a choked scream of gasping need, until, finally emptied,
all that remains is a ruined cavern bereaved of light.

  ~mce

He sits rigidly, like
a calcified projection
on his porch chair
as four butterflies
churn the invisible
atmospheric milk,
indifferent to language.

For he is the type of verb
that disdains noise,
motion or being.

He listens to a radio
tuned to silence,
the acoustics of
emotion, lacking adverbs
or adjectives, pure
as an oblivious ******.

He listens with intensity              
to that envelope
of silence and says
nothing, knowing that
words cost a great deal
and syntax calls
for a life sentence
ending with a period.

Already, the tense
of time stalks him.

Better to leave
the unsaid unheard,
that single noun:
                           death.

  ~mce

He is a General making
a crucial decision.
His lips are on her belly:
does he ride north
to the mountains
or south to the valley.
Or should he split
his forces and with
mouth and fingers
descend on both.
So much depends
upon his decision.

~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

I am 64. On New Years Eve
I was sleeping and dreaming at 10.
You are 20. On New Years Eve
you were being kissed on the mouth at 12
Ten is the difference between 64 and 20.
Don't bother thinking about this.
The time will arrive too soon
when you will understand perfectly.

  ~mce

Do not disdain
the mundane
eternal language
of now.
You must
understand that.
The common
is the exquisite.
This is a vivid
new morning.
Flowers open.
Women turnover
in familiar beds
to regard
their lovers anew.
Everything desires
to begin again
just as it was.
Do not disdain
the exquisite intimate
or you will be
lashed to the past
by a rawhide braid
of dead words.
Take joy in what
you are offered.
Flourish where your
seeds have fallen.
Love your world.

  ~mce

Karma Repair Kit Items 1-4**

1.Get enough food to eat,
and eat it.

2.Find a place to sleep where it is quiet,
and sleep there.

3.Reduce intellectual and emotional noise
until you arrive at the silence of yourself,
and listen to it.

4.

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
---Those dying generations---at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unaging intellect.

II
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

III
O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity**.

IV
Once out of nature I shall never take
My ****** form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

However much think you know,
It is no more than
the thinnest gossamer thread
In the vastness of what is;
However much you value
Your worldly experience,
It is only a tear
In cistern of salt water.
Take courage, only the earth abides.

  ~mce

Did not work out well for Brits circa 1857.
Sepoys blown from guns. Lesson learned. Empire upheld.
In America, history does not apply. Only winning.
When 3.3 million get up and leave. Syrian Chaos.
Oh, that magic feeling: nowhere to go. Or elsewhere.
Have much. Use much. Enjoy much. Care little.
Other than genocide. No obvious solution. Or Malthus.
Cats cry in Gelid winter. Home where you don't find it.
Gigantic cakewalk with no chairs. Only losers.
Oh where, oh where, will these little lambs go.
Anywhere but your back yard. Concern, not Welcome.
Find great open spaces: Australia, Antarctica.
Out of sight out of mind. Heart grows forgetful.
Remember Law of Unintended Consequences:
     I and the Public know what all schoolchildren learn;
     Those to whom Evil is done, do Evil in return.

   ~mce

~for all my new, young female friends here

Don't try to inhabit
your lover's heart.
It is occupied.

If you are truly smitten,
invite him into yours.

Let him rattle around,
poke and ****,
take some measurements.

Devour him
if you are fierce
enough and
so desire.

But then send him
on his way.

Remind him
your heart is not for sale.
You live there.

Keep your heart
for yourself.

Allow him his own.

Live nearby; visit often.

You will be
happier, truer,
and avoid needless
heartbreak.

And you will still
have yourself.
   ~mce

Oh, goddess Athena.
Bright-eyed
daughter of Zeus.
Third-born of the gods
whose spear hurls thunder,
tireless hope of soldiers:
lift me on my broken shield
and bear my body home,
far from these hollow ships,
the wine-colored, loud-roaring sea
and these high-hearted men
who have called down
stony-death upon me...

A Zen Drill Sergeant
once told me,

(screamed at me)

you always got to have
a fallback position, boy.

I asked what happens
if you don't.

He said, you don't
want to know that,
**** for brains.

The Buddha is
everywhere
at once.

Enlightenment
arrives from
strange mouths.
  - mce

The real deserts are outside of tradition.* Leonard Cohen

Cloze reading does not run in jeans.
The eyes must fasten; synapses fire.
Practice, the way to Comprehension Hall.
Reading marks more than mere seeing.
The need to get a hold of yourself.
You must know stone to take up mining.
You must know the way of digging.
Pound your way to the Chapel Perilous.
No tradition equals no understanding.
Meaning illustrates a point in a process,
not an arrival at a place. Not home.
Volunteer yourself to be committed.
Engage the hard work first. Learn.
Forget the desert of individuality.
Follow the songlines of Culture.
They will lead to the Knowing of Know,
the springs and sumps of understanding.
Nothing easy, but all necessary.
Discover the way to where you must go.

I didn't know him well.
I was only just twenty.
He was the first Indian
I had ever met though
he called himself a Skin.
Came from northern Nebraska.
He was tall, strong, quiet
and soft spoken
with a strange authority.
Somehow, he could sense fear.
At the end of the first day
over An Loc I was
well beyond fear, beyond
terrified, barely functional.
While we refueled
he came over and told me
not to worry. Every day,
he said, was a good day to die.
First time I ever heard
Crazy Horse's famous phrase.
In the morning, his waddling,
overloaded chopper took
a SAM missile up the ***
and totally disintegrated:
no wreckage, no bodies,
no anything left at all.
There's nothing
really left to say
except I hope that for him
it was a very good day.

  ~mce

Only he who attempts the absurd is capable of achieving the impossible.*

Another day and what to make of it? Tu Du list.
Things start to happen, don't worry. Don't stew.
Water down darkness. Ask the sun for a light.
Loot Frederick's of Hollywood. Cultivate pompous grass.
Rewrite Moby **** as free verse. Irritate life with art.
Plant Rhino rhizome and grow *****. Turn over an old leaf.
Take a road trip to a state of anxiety. Try chewing gun.
Play the Jew's harp in a mosque. Pray for drains.
Steal a cop from a donut. See if LSD still works.
Listen to Rockabilly noir. Experiment with dysentery.
Set out buckets to catch sky. Talk with, not to, turnips.
Insist on having the last word. Get it. Die.
   Or just admit another wasted day,
   lonely as your heart, but not as gray.

There's birth,
there's death,
and in between
there's maintenance.

****, shower, shave;
how boring
sometimes
to be a primate.

Enforced ritual
*****.

Perhaps
the meaning
of life really is
just to floss
your teeth
while waiting
to croak.

Now there is
a wonderful
cosmic joke.
  ~ mce (with a nod to TR)