by Kenna Marie*

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Yet, people smolder every meaning of the word beauty.
Taking procedures in order to obtain this image of perfection, but it is right built inside of you. Believe it or not, whatever you need you got!
Reading this now with your eyes, heart beating to the sound of survival.

Educating yourself on how to accomplish revival because you are dead.
The laughter comes in sequences syncing perfectly to those begging for attention.
Revolt revolt!
Build a catapult to launch yourself away from here.

Lose yourself in all the sincere.
Perform a test to see if you're the best.
“You are defeat compared to the rest!”
Start to dress to impress when the isn’t up to par.
Spend days alone at empty bars.

“Dare to make a move!”
“It won’t improve you.”
“You got nothing to lose!”
“Yeah, well how about your skeleton starting a rebellion. You’re yelling, starting to tell your children the beginnings of this addiction.”

It swallows you whole, your body is totaled.
Now, you’re in the rusting pile of traveled miles of rot...
Forgetting what you are and what you’re not.

The mundane world
must yield to imagination.
Eyes are not microscopes,
nor lips but for drinking.
Facts do not make a life;
events alone cannot explain
a single, beating human heart.
Nothing exists so basic that
it cannot be expanded and exploded
by whimsy and effort.
A butterfly is just an insect
until the tale teller awakens its potential;
a lover is just a lump of flesh
until a story renders her beautiful.
Our fictions generate a reality
beyond the dreary limitations of mere truth,
and truth is always mere,
always waiting for the magic touch of more.
Knowing only the particulars
amounts to knowing nothing.
Lift your hand to the world
like an astonished magician
and cast your soul’s spell,
ensorcell the ordinary;
lift your brush and paint a scene
with huge, wild brush strokes;
shout your words into the chaos,
bring about a new order,
a vivid, lush world,
a world that echoes, on and on…

A few moments ago,
my computer crashed
and I lost a poem
I had been writing since dawn.
Why did it vanish?
Where did it go?
Possession
is a comfortable illusion,
but uncertainty
rules the universe;
we own nothing in this life,
not even our words.
- mce

Kiss me, Love.

Your body
is a soft,
white temple
discovered
at the end
of arduous
pilgrimage.

I stand
before you,
the pilgrim
who knocks,
waits,
and hopes.

Kiss me;
open your
secret heart
that I might
enter you
and dissolve
in your
mysteries.

Let me worship
at the altar
of your flesh,
of your spirit.

I have traveled
long and hard
seeking
the one
engendered
by two.

I tremble before
the possibility
of who you are,
who you might be.

Kiss me, Love,
please be
the end
of my journey,
the sanctuary
I have sought.
- mce

You must give him your life.
He won't settle for less.
He will turn it into poetry
and become you
for a little while.
He will wear your skin
next to his own
and feel your darkest pains,
your most exquisite pleasures.
He will finally understand
your definition of love
and why you will leave him.
He will steal the secret
of your deepest longing
and know how to satisfy you.
But he will make
a few unasked for
subtle alterations
in your soul.
Then he will return it
as something
slightly different.
You will notice.
He will amaze you;
he will charm you.
You might even love him,
but you will never trust him.

  ~mce

The days run away
like frightened children.
Brevity is the soul of life.
Each sunrise becomes a miracle.
The only true sadness
is to age without a song.
This can go either way.
Some mornings the black dog licks;
but on others, you still feel
the kiss of fire upon your lips.

  ~mce

Look It Over**

I leave behind even
my walking stick. My knife
is in my pocket, but that
I have forgot. I bring
no car, no cell phone,
no computer, no camera,
no CD player, no fax, no
TV, not even a book. I go
into the woods. I sit down on
a log provided at no cost.
It is the earth I've come to,
the earth itself, sadly
abused by the stupidity
only humans are capable of
but, as ever, itself. Free.
A bargain! Get it while it lasts!

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

When you were born,
I was 25 and had
already been a hippie,
a soldier, a husband.

If I had known
your birthdate,
I would have sent
you a card saying:

Happy Birthday!
I'll meet you
in a few decades.
Can't wait.  Mike

It's a little late,
but here it is.

The future is a movie.

We sit in darkness
before a blank screen,
worried and uncertain.

This is our movie
and we know that
we don't know
how it turns out.

Will we be happy?
Will we be together?
How can we make it
happen as we'd like?

Separated by distance,
country and age,
we have to write
this script together.

No one will see
this movie but us,
yet it must be
perfect as a
a technicolor dream,
perfect as this
deep attraction
that we feel.

Only we can write it.

We hold it in our hands
like a crying newborn.

What does it require;
how will we know?

Whatever lies between
the now and the then,
I'm holding out
for a happy ending;

how about you?

In warmth and safety,
the lucky few
argue about slogans
on coffee cups,
red, green and blank.

On a frozen
Syrian mountainside,
caught in
a season of hate,
men are tortured,
women are *****,
and children starve
like trapped
forgotten vermin.

A world away,
angry arguments
about which words
to best mark this
season of love.

Whose side are
you on, God?

Hallelujah.

  ~mce

Let us make Spanish the official American language.
All Spanish speakers have a touch of the poet in them.
There is a bit of Neruda in every humble trucker.
It is a mellifluous and sonorous tongue.
If you want her in your bed, te amo is more likely than I love you.
English, on the other hand, is a language to make deals in.
How much? is probably the most repeated phrase in English.
English is the language of ******* people over.
English is the language of conquest, money and ******.
We insist that the world speak it so that after
we bomb them, invade them and **** them they can thank us in English.
Let us make the change official. What have we got to lose
except our insufferable indifference, arrogance and greed?
On top of which, siestas will become the national pastime.
I am taking this to the UN. I have no hope but it's worth a try.

   ~mce

The future is a portal,
invisibly outlined,
through which time rushes
like a flooded river
sweeping on its torrent
the flotsam of our lives
and the years
swallow themselves
and disappear
forever into forever.

  ~ mce

for SJH

Even when most frozen,
the soil of the heart
contains the possibilities
of fresh and better life.
Water it; tend it; nurture it.
Wait for the warmth to return.
Many flowers wait to blossom.
New bouquets for new days.
  - mce

Try to paint imagining. What does that look like?
Maybe use a thinner brush or none at all.
Wear Birkenstocks with white socks.
Helpful? If not, look for details of masochism.
Listen for the fractal music. Hear its nots.
Those are swirls that were your eyes. Blink!
Try playing dinosaurs at a local **** store.
Chug a quivering quart of whiskey as primer.
Focus on penetrating the dance of ******.
No? Then imagine your imagination imagining.
Or, just give up and buy a copy of Cheese For Dummies.
Kick back and enjoy a gnawing evening off.

Every man has one. You notice her when you are sixteen and she still inhabits your heart at sixty. She is the angel always just out of reach. Her scent is of Ivory Soap and lilacs and spring and youth. You never quite forget her. She becomes the template of desire. You tremble for her flesh, but wouldn't know how to touch it.You spend your life wishing she would invite you up to her room to play, knowing that she never will. You want to embrace the texture of her being. You want to brush your tongue along the thighs of her most secret longings. You want to hear her moans echo in your own throat. You measure all the women you will ever stumble into against her. Some fit; most don't. You believe she holds the answers to all your unasked questions, the dark ones your soul is afraid to speak out loud even to itself. Sometimes you wish she would release you, but that can never be. She is the Queen of your dreams. You are her subject. You will always kneel before her. You will always believe that her touch could heal your deepest wounds. You will be her Fool forever and be glad of it. On your deathbed, you will catch her scent one last time, smile and carry her with you into infinity. Every man has one.
  - mce

Lightening
in a night sky:

not there,
there,
not there.

Our lives
in this world:

not here,
here,
not here.

From nothing
a brief flash
of being
before nothing.

Death does
not end,
it resumes.

No fear.

   ~mce

I see you sitting
on the red bed
drinking Retsina
against the white wall
where we had
drawn hexagrams,
in your black slip
smiling up at me
in the pellucid
Greek light.

Since that moment,
Forty-five years
have dissolved
like tears
in a hurricane.

You are only a
ghost who smiles
in my memories.

I never thought
I would find another
woman like you,
strong and complete.

But I have travelled
far and long
and like magic,
here she is.

Thank you for saying
that one day
I would know love
because I was worthy.

And you went away,
and  she is here.

Ghosts always
tell the truth.

If you are patient.

Temagami, Ontario. 1967*

Take out wheat wafers,
spread on thick cheese
and crunch loudly.

Wash it down with
long cool swallows
of Molson's.

Sit by the window
and watch the rain,
smoking a cigarette

and dreaming.

  ~mce

Once I fought in a losing war,
I never asked what I was fighting for,
but now my warrior days are done,
I leave the battles to the young.
They will fly and they will die,
I’m content to watch  and sigh.
It seems that I am not so brave
as I approach the yawning grave.
It felt much easier to fly and die
when swooping from a youthful sky.
I took those chances, I made that bet,
but now it’s easier to forget.
My wars are over, my fight is done,
I leave the battles to the young.
They will fly and they will die,
but pray they ask the reason why.

Rain plummeting
like rivets.

Seated in the mud,
soaked beyond notice,
beside a fried APC hulk,
eating cold C-Rations
with my ***** fingers.

Eyes like vacant windows.

This photograph
can never fade.

  mce

Tonight,
the Dark
gathers it's
greatest might,
but will
be broken
by morning's
triumphal
Light.

  ~mce

He has devoted his life
to a Ph.D. in Uncertainty.
Now he is aging
and thinks it nearly done,
but he just can't be sure.

  ~mce

She was my student;
twenty-five years younger.
I noticed her
the first day of class,
got to know her slowly,
fell into bed
with her later,
and then
in love with her
abruptly.
It was unlikely,
broke many rules,
was doomed from the start.
Still, I have never
regretted a moment of it.
You never get to touch
what you are afraid
to reach for.
- mce

Lovers Dream World - a Villanelle**


Katie could put her feet behind her head
Or do a grand plié, position two,
Her suppleness magnificent in bed.

I strained my lower back, and Katie bled,
Only a little, doing what we could do
When Katie tucked her feet behind her head.

Her torso was a C-cup'd figurehead,
Wearing below its navel a tattoo
That writhed in suppleness upon the bed.

As love led on to love, love's goddess said,
"No lovers ever ****** as ****** these two!
Katie could put her feet behind her head!"

When Katie came she never stopped. Instead,
She came, cried "God!," and came, this dancer who
Brought ballerina suppleness to bed.

She curled her legs around my neck, which led
To depths unplumbed by lovers hitherto.
Katie could tuck her feet behind her head
And by her suppleness unmake the bed.

The overwhelming
importance of beauty.

What could be more brutal
than the meeting of a child
and a bullet?

I have seen it.

There is a choice in this.

Accept chaos and ugliness
or fight back by
creating beauty against them.

Artists are essential.

The only beauty in the world
is the beauty we create.

Taken together, that is enough.

  ~mce

The ones I loved,
who made me what I am,
dead or dying.

Jim Harrison,
Leonard Cohen,
the other Saints
of word and song.

Death spreads like ink
from an octopus.

Not so long now.

I'm running short
of things to be.

With each passing,
my broken heart
breaks again.

The poem sprouts
from the compost
of the mind.

People, events, desires
memories, hopes,
dreams, disappointments,
all mixed and turned,
watered with imagination,
until something
catches and clutches,
pale and fragile,
and begins to *****
slowly for the light.

Coax it,
nurture it,
tend it.

Pour your soul
and your love
into it.

Bring all that is you
to the task.

Perhaps a poem
will blossom.
- mce

Just an instant
twixt breath
and death.

In that living
blink-blink
let us lie
eye to eye

(moan to moan,
groan to groan)

so when we go
we will heart
happy know:

we were never,
not once,
not ever, alone.

The wind is part of the process/The rain is part of the process.

Gesamtwerk.* Parts making whole from parts.
Language. Alphabet, words, phrases, sentences
create a total work based firmly upon... alphabet.
Throw in grammar, punctuation, syntax. Anything possible.
To be. Verb not noun. Moves beyond syntax. To real.
Poet as tinker. No matter. Poems as language. Do.
Right language, correct path, shining mountain.
Seeker sits. Solitude. Transcends journey. World announced.
End as beginning. Form. Gestalt. The beginning of Awe.

  ~mce

TN 2008

There is a girl in my cabin.
She sits on my 70s brown, velour
*****-couch with her long legs
tucked beneath her
like folded promises.
She wears nothing but a pair
of wool socks and an old, flannel
shirt of mine.  The wood fire blazes.
Her honest blond hair
cascades to the small of her lovely back.
Her skin is the flawless pink
of an unexpected spring sunrise.
Her eyes are emeralds that blaze
like novas when we make love.
Botticelli might have painted her.
I am reading Harrison to her aloud.
She imbibes his words like a toddler
learning language for the first time.
I light her cigarette and she laughs,
radiating the shameless pleasure
only the very young experience.
She expects nothing of me,
but this one evening,
and that is all she will get.
She tells me her name;
she is all of twenty-one.
Perhaps I am a ***** old man;
perhaps I am incorrigible;
perhaps I will burn in Hell;
perhaps I am a casualty of Eros;
or, perhaps, I am simply
still alive.
- mce

I am what is around me.

Women understand this.
One is not duchess
a hundred yards from a carriage.

These, then are portraits:
a black vestibule;
a high bed sheltered by curtains.

These are merely instances.

for Uli*

I am divorced,
but not stupid.
Time was, I was a
mentally unstable
*******. That is
why my wife divorced me.
She did what was necessary
to protect herself
and our children.
I don't blame her,
I am grateful
for her courage.
I tell people
I will never marry again
because I couldn't
find someone better.
That is true
and from the heart.
You can't be sorry
about 30 great years.
Sadly, not all endings
are fairy tale happy.
I can only sincerely
wish her happiness
and I do.

Simple Song
a wooden room:

waking in the morning light
beside you in a simple bed.

we drink from simple cups
subtle waters.

simple wood and light
simple cup and bread
simple warmth and calm.

difficult -

the simple world
is difficult…

or

simply open the door:

the breeze calls us
the birds sing
our mortal names…

plain table,
subtle fire.

two plates as round
as owl’s eyes.

your heart and mine:

simple,
simply,
beautiful.
  –mce

It’s all smoke and mirrors,
he declaims in Caesar's voice.
Do nothing until you hear from me.*
The yokels weep sincere tears.
Women get wet and men tumesce.
He mounts a gilded Mercedes,
glances over a shoulder with disdain,
and motors away, counting the take.

Love**

Love is twain, it is not single,
Gold and silver mixed to one,
Passion ‘tis and pain which mingle
Glist'ring then for aye undone.

Pain it is not; wondering pity
Dies or e'er the pang is fled;
Passion ‘tis not, foul and gritty,
Born one instant, instant dead.

Love is twain, it is not single,
Gold and silver mixed to one,
Passion ‘tis and pain which mingle
Glist'ring then for aye undone.

he calls it that -
last,
      long,
            five
                 days
before pension payday

always an adventure:
will he, won't he,
how much is left?

this time 30 bucks
to last till Wednesday

piece of cake

money is a fickle *****
a goddess of tease

never let her force
you to despair

her only real power
is to make you wait

and being poor
in Amerika
you have already
mastered that skill

   ~mce

Sometimes words
cease to be a joy
and become a burden.
Sometimes you
must set them down
and take a rest.
The poet is a mailman
lugging a load of life,
carrying bundles
that most people
don't even want
to think about:
heavy thoughts
on weighty subjects.
Occasionally, even a
metaphorical mailman
needs a holiday.
  - mce

Resumé'**

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

What if the cost
of machines that think
is people who don’t?
Think about it,
before your phone does.
   ~mce

Were I a conspiracy theorist
(which I'm not), I would
tell you there will be
no 2016 elections
because before then
another faked terrorist
attack, like 9/11 only
worse, will be staged,
the elections will be
suspended, martial law
will be declared
our own military,
will occupy America,
resistance will be crushed
and dissenters will
simply disappear.

But I'm not a
conspiracy theorist
and I won't
tell you this
because it would
make you
uncomfortable
and Americans
do not like to be
uncomfortable
regardless of
the cliff they
are about
to step off of.

  ~mce

You know it is over.
Your shoes walk away.
Your phone dives into
the pit of despair.
Your cigarettes
have become healthy.
Your knees no longer
knock, but clap.
The chipmunks are silent.
Wolverines arrange
mass suicide pacts.
Chameleons permanently
turn invisible.
Everything transforms
into Other.
You are a stranger
becoming stranger
day by day.
You know it is over.
Ten Four good buddy.

the night of the day
   before tomorrow
      becomes today

he tries to imagine
   ways beyond that

but loses the path

mired in the boggy
   random darkness
      of his own muddy soul
   ~mce

*****, Nip,
*****, ****,
Towel Head:
you call them
whatever
allows you
to ****** them
comfortably;
the terrible
dark side
of the power
of words.
  - mce

AT THE NIHILIST’S FUNERAL**

(Hope delivers the eulogy)

He was always so interestingly wrong.
I loved him, in fact for years couldn’t live
without him, he who helped crystallize
what I thought by being so opposed to it.
But it’s time to rejoice.
Some of the invisible roads
that run parallel to the great boulevards
can be seen now; the era of darkness-
as-illumination has passed. It was useful
while it lasted, but how nice to discover
that so few of us count on negatives
these days to preserve what we hold dear.
My friends, if you can think of me
as such, take heart. Meaninglessness
has ended its long run at the Palace.
Already, a few of us mere specks
in the universe have begun
to insist on our importance.
May the odors of lilac and laurel waft
across the river, and float over his grave.
The great nihilist is dead. He’ll rise again
when needed. He always has.
But those of you standing now,
having turned your backs to me in protest,
how right that you honor him so.
It’s the kind of negation that he, I suspect,
would have thought might lead somewhere,
might even have thought was hopeful.

One more same same morning.
Ah, but there are perks to poetry.

A flick of imagination and I am gone
to a warm country, green, with beaches
and castles and four poster beds
in one of which I am just now
waking to a vision of a lovely lass,
ready for a dash of dawn plunder,
to open a day of azure skies and heat.

In some ways, poetry doesn’t pay well,
but in others, it can make you rich indeed.

What have I made? What have I done?
Let those I love forgive what I have made.
Let the gods forgive what I have done.
Let the wind that speaks Paradise,
let it speak of what I have tried to do.
To be a man and not a destroyer.
To find the path to Paradise.
Beauty, not madness or unfinished
tangled works. The pillow, not the case.
In my homeland only shades stalk.
Fear is the forefather of cruelty.
To escape fear and find the way.
There are many ways but only One Way.
We live a thousand years in a wink.
Many wrong turns but perhaps a few right.
Let those I love forgive what I have made.
Let the gods forgive what I have done.

  ~mce and elp

Only the dead
       know the end of war.*

Sit abruptly upright
into shivering darkness.
Nothingness shimmers
before your eyes.
A whiff of cordite.
Echoes of screams.
Distinct feel of falling.
War holds on tight,
even in dreams.
Blessed absence of details,
although the stink
of fear remains.
Remember when you are.
Try to go back to sleep.
The past has passed.
The future will keep.

Often love's soft, sweet offering
shows up when you are least prepared,
busily preoccupied with tracing
ephemeral alphabets in the rain,
rejoicing in former suffering,
learning the grammar of mud or
experiencing eye blasting hallucinations.
Love does not know patience;
its moans return to oblivion.
You never notice and it vanishes
and doesn't matter at all because
you can't miss something unseen,
not even love's soft, sweet offering.
  ~mce

Love, my loneliness
is a necklace of diamonds
wrought from the crystal
of my soul's tears.
Take it, wear it, transform it.
I long to admire
the work of my pain
remade into beauty
sparkling at your neck.
Not much of a gift,
but all I have to offer.
- mce