While teaching at a local
community college,
A 19-year-old man
announced to my class
there was no reason
to learn foreign languages
because if English
was good enough
for Jesus, it should
be good enough
for everyone.

I dreamed I saw Tom Paine last night…*

The dream became a nightmare. Ride it. Fall.
A Republic if you can keep it. You didn’t.
Every four years a buffoon appears in TVs
who can bleed the American people to disaster.
Burnt Knees. Hill artillery. Hearts not Trump.
An article on now. The inherent absurdity of politics.
Infamy. Liars in public places. Old lies. New faces.
Abandoned factories. Angry workers, Abandoned. All.
Pick a pack of proven paupers. No one cares.
We lust for the stud who can wave his thick wand
and magically make everything better. But won’t.
Even if that he is a she. Show me the money.
How can the one percent eat everything yet never ****?
Faceless bureaucrats cannot be held responsible.
Zombie politicos bought and sold like cats in sacks.
Still the mindless parade charade continues
off to the public polls to be pummeled. ****** on.
  Get down on your knees and set lips to *****,
  Due your duty, turn your trick.

You shapeshift
in my dreams
and whichever
shape you take
fits perfectly
with mine.

~mce

They gathered
in skinny packs,
in laughing circles
around him.

He stitched their cuts,
bound their wounds,

gave them,
like some OD Santa,

chocolate bars,
antibiotics,
aspirins and
C-Rations.

They laughed louder,
begging for more,
shrieking and calling him
Doc-san #1.

This phony comedy
made him feel better,
feel human,
even though he knew
at night their parents
would do their best
to take his life.

Decades on,
he knows behind those grins
they must have hated him:
his height, his food,
his round eyes
and the doom
he had brought their world
that no trinkets
could ever allay.

Now, there is nothing to do
but remember and be sorry.

   mce

It’s not that a photon can be in two places at once, it’s that a photon is everywhere at once.*

We are
two photons
apart, together,
everywhere
at the same time,
different but
the same
yet always
radiant.

  ~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

The paper of life is dangerously thin
yet we dump heaps of words upon it
and are still surprised when it splits.
  ~mce

for Paul Brandt and Patrick Dunnigan

Somewhere,
the choppers
still beat
the air.
  - mce

My day was spent Here
reading, writing,
meditating and practicing
kung fu forms,
quite content Here in my
aging baby boomer bubble.

I know that Somewhere

a surgeon struggles
to save the legs of a child
blown off by a landmine
from some forgotten war

and Somewhere

a startled soldier
who never knew what hit him
slowly burns to death
in his mangled humvee

and Somewhere

a shy small Muslim woman
trips the timer on
her suicide vest
and walks into
a marketplace prepared
to die for her god,

but I have lived those lives.

Here and now,
I am no longer a man
of this century
or even this
dying digital world;

no longer
in the Somewhere,
Now content to
play out my hand,

to just be
in the Here.

  ~mce

by Randy Newman*


Broken windows and empty hallways
A pale dead moon in the sky streaked with gray
Human kindness is overflowing
And I think it's going to rain today

Scarecrows dressed in the latest styles
With frozen smiles to chase love away
Human kindness is overflowing
And I think it's going to rain today

Lonely, lonely
Tin can at my feet
Think I'll kick it down the street
That's the way to treat a friend

Bright before me the signs implore me
To help the needy and show them the way
Human kindness is overflowing
And I think it's going to rain today

Simply sit down.

Don’t seek the Way,
you are already
on your way.

Just be present and
as you awaken,
the world awakens:

colors shout fragrance,
birds recite poetry,
breezes whisper caresses,
rivers of music flow.
light smells of hope.

Consider your past,
but do not dwell there;
consider your future,
but do not expect it.

Now is Is.

Peel away the squawking
layers of your heart
like an onion unwinding,
like a snake molting.

Approaching nothing,
you arrive at everything.

Do this until you think
you will vanish
and then vanish:

the more you lose,
the more you are.

Take an ancient iPod
(click wheel!),
splash a few words
on Craigslist,
wait a short while
and it transforms
into fifty dollars
which morph into
a bottle of fine
Tennessee whiskey,
a haircut, cigarettes
and change.

Economists call these
transactions.
Alchemists called them
transmutations.

I call them proof
that miracles
still exist
in the ordinary.

I will now
have a drink,
light a smoke
and luxuriate
in just what is...

   ~mce

my tongue in my cheek…

I despise the word relationship, singular and plural,
as it inevitably applies to swooning couples.

I’m old enough to remember the time
before Woody Allen made it a permanent part
of everybody’s everyday *lingua franca.

That was his truly heinous crime.

Finally, I have banished them from my life.

I can leave dishes unwashed for weeks,
sleep on the whole bed with all the covers,
allow the trash to grow into mounds,
and, best of all, never have to shave again.

I like not having to read anyone’s mind,
satisfy anyone’s endless, mysterious needs,
or do things I really do not want to do.

Selfish of me, surely, but such sweet relief.

Relationships mostly lead to too many
conversations, usurpations, explanations,
denunciations, recriminations, vivisections,
and, finally, to rancorous separations.

They are necessary for the romantic young
and for propagating the species, but
I am old and well past propagating.

I keep them lodged firmly in my past where
I can remember the best and forget the rest.

I prefer my cat, my books, solitude, silence,
microwave tacos, and peace of mind.

Hey, I’m not kidding about this!

And yet, there is the loneliness factor…

So I might welcome a companion who
was not desperately “seeking a relationship.”

But that is no woman I have ever met
and, I fear, no woman I ever will.

Riprap*

Lay down these words
Before your mind like rocks.
placed solid, by hands
In choice of place, set
Before the body of the mind
in space and time:
Solidity of bark, leaf, or wall
riprap of things:
Cobble of milky way,
straying planets,
These poems, people,
lost ponies with
Dragging saddles--
and rocky sure-foot trails.
The worlds like an endless
four-dimensional
Game of Go.
ants and pebbles
In the thin loam, each rock a word
a creek-washed stone
Granite: ingrained
with torment of fire and weight
Crystal and sediment linked hot
all change, in thoughts,
As well as things.

What is sadder
than the poem
you forgot to save
vanished forever
into digital darkness?

Where do words go
when computers forget
and memory fails?

Is there a
dead letter office
for lost poems
and in which
circle of hell
would that be found?

Do the poor lost poems
huddle and keen
knowing no lips
will ever sing them?

Too many mysteries
for an ordinary morning.

Birds and lawn mowers
call out for justice
but the lost poem
purrs just beyond reach.

   ~mce

Love Poem**  

It's so nice
to wake up in the morning
   all alone
and not have to tell somebody
   you love them
when you don't love them
   any more.

My life has been
upside down
for so long that
I can now walk
on the ceiling
without leaving
footprints.
   ~mce

In each finale, there is a start.
It is hardly difficult to argue
that this is no time for the fatuous
and that nothing is more fatuous
than scribbling poetry at dawn.
But compulsion and desire will out.
We must sing of this world
not some better unknown star.
The given is the wool we weave.
All times are equally terrible
and equally sublime.
The eternal politics of horror
must never stifle the human heart.
Which serves to make clear that
we must begin again seek the light
and toll the bells of our human souls.
  - mce

Every day I toss it
a raw piece of my heart
so it doesn't **** me.
Strange to feed something
so it won't devour you.
I have lived with this
for years beyond memory.
Perhaps, I have always
been like this,
rending my heart
to keep death at bay.

  ~mce

Softer,
smarter
than men,
they
smell better,
too.

Certainly
a subject
for a
lifetime
of study.

The final
examinations
can be fun,
as well.

But about
the time
you become
arrogant
enough
to consider
yourself
an expert,
their unique
beings
will slap
you silly.

Admit it:

ninety percent of
human existence
is teasingly absurd.

That's OK with me.

I love the smell
of the preposterous
in the morning.

It smells like
domesticated primates,
irrational and
incongruous, hurling
their own ****
at each other.

Exorcise your
inner monkey.

Take a deep breath.

Nothing like a
whiff of nonsense
to start your day
with a smile.

I want to breath your perfect breath
I want you dance me to edge of death.

The time short, the night is long,
indulge me the joy of this final song.

Sing me a simple lover's lullaby,
bring me to life before I die.

I want to see the Glory through the lies,
Just one last time through your green eyes.

Let me remember how to be young
before I vanish and the song is sung.

   ~mce

~to The Fallen

No one is invincible.

The world makes soldiers
of willing nineteen-year-olds
because they believe they are
invicible.

I have heard them die
screaming for their mothers,
crying out to a deaf god,
begging for another chance,
amazed this could happen
to them.

If you had heard them
whimpering and bawling
in their final moments,
completely baffled
by death,
you would understand
what they learned too late:

No one is invincible.
- mce

You are a
gentleness factory;
I want to
wrap my heart
up in all your
easy goods.
  ~mce

Be humble, you
are mortal flesh.
Be noble, you
own a brave heart.
Be joyful, you
have tasted the
sweetness of love.
Enjoy your life,
it is the vessel
that contains
these wonders.

Poem 1403**

As the poets have mournfully sung
Death takes the innocent young,
The rolling in money,
The screamingly funny,
And those who are very well hung.

At this point my in life as a man
I'm certain I have already heard
every lame ****** innuendo
about women and ***.

The one that obnoxes me most is
"get into her pants."

Not just intentionally crude,
but also illogical.

Unless she is a very large woman,
how would I ever fit?
  ~mce

Listen for the silences,
intervals between notes;
silence engenders song;
without it mere cacophony.

Poetry is no different:
what is not said
often says the most.
  ~mce

~Vietnam/ Laos 1972

Known variously as:

Indian Country,

the ****,

the Jungle
& the Zone.

****** stumps,
flying metal,

charred flesh,

screaming agony,

cellular fear,

burning choppers,

dying men,
dead eyes

staring,

betrayal.

“Don’t mean ******* nothing.”

Not a place
on a map,
but a state of mind
-
my mind.

Vietnam has fallen,

but the Zone
remains
a jungle
in my head
& some things

return me there.

There I learned
the necessary.

In the Zone,
only predator and prey,
**** or be killed,

win or die,

the quick and the dead.

In the Zone

only survival matters
-
no morality,

no right or wrong

no lies,

no truths,
no fair,
no unfair.

No rules at all.

"It's only a ****.
**** it."

In the Zone
everything is allowed…

meet the enemy,
destroy him,

maim him,

outsmart him,

walk away
with the blood of others
squishing in your boots

feeling gloriously alive.

Friend,

brother,
enemy,

child,

lover,

you do not
- ever -

want to meet me

in the Zone.
–mce

It is six AM.
Do you know
where your poet is
right now?

  ~mce

There is great danger
in seeking the Truth
outside your own mind;
do so and you risk
the Truth becoming a devil.
  ~mce

Steal the pencil sketch
god drew to design you,
erase it line by line,
uncreate your self.
What remains to say?
Only the nothing
that is and the
nothing that isn't,
two nothings that
don't make something.
  ~mce

Three times the gods of war
snatched me from the sky;
three times the gods of war
decreed I shouldn't die.

The gods of war knew full well
that I must live til I met you;
the gods of war knew full well
that we would be divinely true.

The gods of war are not often kind,
A man to them is but a fragile toy;
The gods of war are not often kind,
But they spared me to discover joy.

All praise to you Aries and Mars
for sparing me to kiss the stars.

  ~mce

At the end of the road is the road...*

I used to live in a town,
but all that remains
is empty storefronts
and peopleless porches,
hardly a community.

Strangers on the streets
do not know their
neighbors and never will.

The woods and creek banks
where I hunted pheasants
and fished for trout
are overgrown now
with McMansions full
of bloated consumers.

All the orchards grow
houses instead of fruit.

The only country left is
corn and soybean fields,
slathered in pesticides,
about as natural as ******.

Now it is two towns,
the one remembered,
and the one that is.

I live in the latter,
but prefer the former.

I would leave, but
six years ago I fell
into a man-trap and
haven’t figured out
how to escape yet.

Not that it much matters.

We all end up exactly
where we are.

I think I am
finally ready
for that other life.
You know,
The one without
all the mistakes.

  ~mce

Reading poetry,
early in the morning,
very nearly
restores my life,
only not quite.
- mce

Eat, sleep, breathe, excrete,
a body living does not a life make.
Oh! Black dog do not my heart devour.
Only the lonely know only the lonely.
Know thing not without touch lives.
Do you smell that smell? Do not inhale.
Kick hard to keep the burly beast at bay.
Or cross the bar onto wine-dark depths,
Song of sirens. Whispers of doom.
How soothing simply to sink. Down.
Sometimes, the brain may prefer the drain.
Make the judgementally ill be still.
In my mania is my maintenance.
The abyss remains to revisit always.
Difficult balance: live or cease pain.
To resist. To defy. All that does remain.
Good morning, blues, how do you do?
To keep it or to give it away.
Bump. Bump. Down the funny steps.
Bear up. Hold on. Call that another day,
though sand through the glass’ neck still drips.

Complexity sometimes so basic.
The most common sentence,
"I love you," only understood
by a single, unique reader
in all the living world.

  ~mce

Shot down three times
in that forgotten war;
an old man now,
all his dreams
are of falling.

Not nightmares
or flashbacks;
not specific,
just generally
of falling.

He never dreams
of those abruptly
ended flights
or the strange
loose sensation
of the chopper
headed for the dirt,
just of falling.

Age has brought
a new fear of heights
and he won't get on
or near an aircraft.

Despite these obvious
precautions, the dreams
continue to plague him.

It sounds so pleasant:
"falling asleep,"

but falling, falling,
falling in your sleep
brings no rest.

To sleep calmly
and peacefully
remains his most
elusive dream of all.
  ~mce

It is difficult
to find anybody
who hasn't been
diagnosed
with something
and seems
to wear their
alleged affliction
like a shiny
merit badge.

People seem to want
to be rewarded
for being troubled,
as if falling into a hole
is the same as
jumping down
into it.

I suppose
they want sympathy,
but put sympathy
in a shoebox
and see how much
it weighs.

Victimhood:
the new disease
of our time.

Prognosis: poor.

  ~mce

Slide that dress up
over your hips,
part your thighs
like a promise,
pull your knees up
in welcome.

I am a thirsty man
who needs a deep drink
from paradise.

You are a woman
who understands
and quivers
at necessity,
who loves to have
her liquids lapped.

Tongue on secret lips,
we nourish each other.
Love and lust,
the perfect marriage.

  ~mce

Open yourself
up to me
like a delicate,
fresh blossom;
I will become
a wanton,
profligate
hummingbird
getting drunk
on the nectar
of your soul.
  - mce

Just a few
sharp instants
of clarity
snatched
like ghosts
from blurry
lives.

  ~mce

Old men usually wake up with desire
only for coffee and ibuprofen.

So if you wake up
on a perfect spring morning
with a powerful desire
for that magic crease where her
inner thigh meets  her mystery,

Rejoice!

You have just experienced a miracle
and the day will certainly be
a vibrant and delicious one.

  ~mce

The buzz
   of madness
       in the
          cicadas' whir;
insanity in
   the manic
      croak of
         tree frogs.

No quiet;
   never quiet;
        no quiet.

How fragile
   the fabric
        of personality;
how easily
   it rends, frays
       and tears

until what remains
   are loose threads
       blown randomly
           by howling wind

twirling within
   the whir
       of cicadas,
          the croak
             of tree frogs.
  - mce

Since
she left me,
I have never
really
been able
to unpack,
not once.
- mce

I am not the kind of man
who wants to possess anyone;
We are not things to buy.
You can only give love,
you can never own it.
    ~mce

Sonnet XVII**

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

I don't work,
in the usual sense,
and I won't ever
do other's bidding
again, but many do
(I had not thought
death had undone
so many) and they
wear me out.
Mornings away,
afternoons home.
In between,
nugatory labors.
It is exhausting
to consider and
makes me want
to take a nap.
I'm weary
in general
and drowsy
in particular
and have
a great notion
to depart this
aeonian hell
of automatons
and hebetude
for some place
where birdsong
and sunlight
and kisses
are work enough.

~mce

It contains
many volumes.
Women show up,
check them out,
but never
return them.
I keep hoping
one will
come back
and say,
do you have
anything else
by this author?
She will be
the reader
of my heart.
  - mce