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

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

Four Hundred Thirty Seven Miles
to a place of hope and possibility.
Not so much a trip as a voyage;
a quest not to be taken lightly.
In your ears, the asphalt seas whisper:
Take to the road, soldier.
There is always a way home for those
who have the guts to risk it.
Crafty Odysseys found the will;
his reward was the great, rooted bed
and the arms of his lonely Queen.
Do you have the strength and courage?
Only take to the highway and drive.
Four Hundred Thirty Seven Miles;
Not far to see an Angel smile; to hear
ancient, faithful Argos  bark again.
Four Hundred Thirty Seven Miles.
The road for the brave always leads home.

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

He once knew
a woman who made
every room
she entered
a work of art.
Her sentences
pronounced
like calligraphy,
pure as plums.
Her walk an
aphrodisiacal promise
of terpsichorean
delights.
Her laughter
a paint brush
deftly caressing
the atmosphere.
Her body a unicorn
every man dreamed
of hunting, but
feared to possess.
When she left
a room it was
transformed.
She should have
signed the walls
and left a mark
on the masterpiece
of herself.

~mce

An Evening In Winter**

When snow kisses
my window
the evening bells
seem to peal forever...

The table is set,
the house neat,
prepared to receive.

From wandering,
many follow
their dusky paths
to this portal.

The earth's cool sap
sprouts a flowering tree
dripping golden grace.

Be still, sojourner, step in:
Sorrow has worried
this threshold
to naked stone.

But  look:
wrapped in pristine,
radiant light,
there on the table,
shine bread and wine.
  - trans. mce

When
neither
of us
can tell
where
we end
and the
other
begins
then
we are
both
exactly
there.
  - mce

"Hell is a place without birds." D.A.*

A tiny bird in my heart sings
that although the time of kisses
is not yet, it will be.
Like Dante, I have always
trusted the wisdom of birds.
   ~mce

It's all in The
Formula, boy, and
I have perfected
the formula.

It has worked on
women from
seventeen to seventy.

It even works
when you are older
with grey hair,
a (small) gut
and no money.

Start with the smile,
(still boyish),
self-deprecating
and selfless.

The look of a victim
that says I've
been hurt many times,
but for you
I'll risk it again.

Listen engrossed to
their every mortal word
with the intensity
of a fortune teller
and gaze deeply
into their private eyes
to see what is
really there.

Make them feel they are
the sun you circle around.

But mostly it's about
the poetry.
           You write
them a poem and
they melt like sugar
in a microwave.

'You wrote that for me?'

(Soulfully)

'Every woman is a poem
waiting to be written.
All I did was write you down.'

Offer them your
heart as a hostage.

Bingo!

Make love slowly,
their pleasure predominant,
and gently open them like
petals on a fresh flower.

Then, in bed, read them
a few lines from Neruda
or Lorca.

All cakes need icing.

Say a few wistful things
about war and
'back in the day.'

Few women can resist
a wounded warrior or
the Magick of nostalgia.

But what you must
absolutely remember,
boy, is that this is
not some scam.

Even if it's only
for a moment or a week,
you have to really
mean it all.

That is the
secret ingredient.

Make them feel special;
own their hearts.

It took a lifetime
to discover this recipe.

Use it well and
often and
you will decrease
the loneliness in
the world, if only
for a while.

That is true Magick.

And no one ever
hates you for
making them happy.

Women come and go,
but The Formula
is eternal.

Good luck, kid.
You won't need it.

  ~mce

Seven years
of molt and shed,
people lost,
mistakes made.

We change,
but we live
one person
at a time.

OK, I'm a new man.

But what kind
of man.

mce

Marching**

At dawn I heard among bird calls
the billions of marching feet in the churn
and squeak of gravel, even tiny feet
still wet from the mother's amniotic fluid,
and very old halting feet, the feet
of the very light and very heavy, all marching
but not together, criss-crossing at every angle
with sincere attempts not to touch, not to bump
into each other, walking in the doors of houses
and out the back door forty years later, finally
knowing that time collapses on a single
plateau where they were all their lives,
knowing that time stops when the heart stops
as they walk off the earth into the night air.

On the borrowed
coffee table,
four candles lit
against the dark
share space with
a pack of Camels,
a glass of bourbon.

A Bach sonata
fills the evening
with elegant
notes and silences.

An old man,
remembering
the absent,
sits alone
and smiles.

He is forgotten,
but he is free.

Call that a
New Year's Eve
party:

he does.
  - mce

I am at war with time.
At war with. At war.
With time. War. I. Am.
I am at war with time.
Second by second,
I am losing the war.
  - mce

Thank you, Al.*

I was born poor, came up hard,
learned early to fight. I didn't die.

Streaming fire struck me three times
from the sky; I didn't die.

I lost my money, wife and children
to a bout of madness; I didn't die.

Many drugs, much alcohol, dead friends,
despair and depression; I didn't die.

Life is what I overcame and survived.

Life is the practice of suffering and joy
that I will continue until I die.
   mce

I am a thirsty man who
has spent long in the desert
dreaming of sweet juices,
succulent, lovely liquids.

You are a chalice of desire
brimming with moist, damp,
fluid lust and love.

I want to drink you dry.

Your legs end in heaven.
Your ******* are gentle hills.
Your lips an ***** of sighs.
Your eyes a green portal.
Your fingers pleasure's promise.
Your dress opens to paradise.

I will slide my lips
along your ivory thighs
and draw you rhythmically
into the torrid night,
where the world's marvels
are all released in joy

then, thirst satisfied,
desire quenched,
fall into life again
safely in your arms.

I was a kid during
the Space Race
and loved all things
aeronautical.

Wanted to be
an Astronaut
or an ace
fighter pilot.

Then I went to war
and spent every day
in the Unfriendly Skies
of sudden death
hoping not to meet
the ground in pieces.

These days,
I prefer to drive.

   ~mce

We wax eloquent
in forgotten
languages
describing marvels
to the dead.

Even when
they remember
the languages,
the dead are not
impressed.

~mce

The nervous afflictions
of poets drive
doctors to dismay;
it is difficult
and dangerous
to diagnose
a chameleon
in a thorn bush.
   - mce

Otherwise**

I got out of bed
on two strong legs.
It might have been
otherwise. I ate
cereal, sweet
milk, ripe, flawless
peach. It might
have been otherwise.
I took the dog uphill
to the birch wood.
All morning I did
the work I love.

At noon I lay down
with my mate. It might
have been otherwise.
We ate dinner together
at a table with silver
candlesticks. It might
have been otherwise.
I slept in a bed
in a room with paintings
on the walls, and
planned another day
just like this day.
But one day, I know,
it will be otherwise.

Most folks
live in small yards
circled by walls;
eventually the walls
become reality.

This is known
as death.

Because your
fine white body
slept beside me,
I failed to dream
of anything else.
And when dawn
broke rosy red,
I hurled invectives
at the darkness
for ending.
But your tangled hair
thawed my heart,
as your talented
mouth said
good morning
in the most
soothing way
a lover can.
At times, this life
hurts like
a *******.
But this morning
you gave me
a dandelion
with a white poem
larger than my heart.
A new way to breathe
and face the tragic day.

  ~mce

for John Berryman*

How many poets,
by alcohol and despair,
choose to depart
this living air?

The Muse can be
an evil *****:
she'll **** your brain,
she'll make you twitch.

With her it's not
a casual roll,
she wants your *****,
she'll eat you whole.

You strive to strike
the head of the nail;
one blow comes home,
but a dozen others fail.

Soon you despair
to ever succeed:
you open your veins,
commence to bleed.

You give to her,
and give and give,
until it's just
too hard to live.

Then in the bottle
you sadly seek
another day,
another week.

It isn't pretty,
it isn't fair,
and so you depart
down the dying air.
  - mce

Those moments
when you want
to crawl back in
to the metaphorical
womb and
close your eyes
and pull the covers
over your head
and pretend
the monsters
can't see you,
but they always
do.
~ mce

When I speak to you
I tremble
as my words penetrate.
I think of
wet thighed surrender.
Deep inside you
I feel the pulse of god.
And we are making love
without even touching.

Like some antique schooner,
his heart vanished
into the Bermuda Triangle
of her eyes' green oceans.

    ~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.

Many folks
wouldn't read
a poem
unless you put
a gun
to their heads.

I am that gun;
these words
are my bullets;
exactly
those people,
my target
of choice.
  - mce

not so much writing as stuttering, said L.W.
no matter. The whole always false. donut.
only the peace meal may be milled to flower.
periplum. plot a coastline. only pieces seen.
fear unity. seek multiplicity. in a grain of sand.
rethink. remake. re-imagine. explore chaos.
old trials lead nowhere. only blind allies.
forms remain but meaningless. void. nada.
sweet sounds engender projectile vomiting.
foundations all rotted. build anew on a nothing.
chains do not signify. schizophrenic fragmentation.
the world and everything in it. complex system.
complex systems temporal. made of time. tick.
turbulence & unpredictability. not unlike weather.
poem a piece of time. complete universe. hole.
prose means. poetry makes. difference of kind.
form is meaning. words only place markers.
never theory. of stuff. practical & experimental.
art desires dissonance even as the ear rejects.
polar bear on white canvas howls to pallid moon.
take up tools. create the unknowable knowable.
      who surfs the froth of anarchy’s wave
      reaps only the freedom of the brave.

the hippie life:
**** and acid;
the blues life:
****** and whiskey.

one a party,
the other
a funeral.

good times,
bad times,

but oh,
what
a Time.
   ~mce

when i wear
a suit
i look like
exactly
the kind
of old man
who would
wear a suit,
the kind
of old man
i almost
was
but never
became.

   ~mce

For Jim Harrison, 1938–2016*

Everyone takes the Ghost Road. End as beginning. Flowing.
You loved water more than fish, birds, even poetry.
Now your soul is immersed in infinite waters. Paradise.
Now you swim the particles. Fish the waves. Dead eye open.
Nothing foreign. Parts. Whole. Served. Serving. Never alone.

everyone thinks
they are unique

every trouble
and torment
theirs alone
to endure

until they open
a novel or
a newspaper
and find
their travails
already
experienced

suddenly, they feel
like they are
on some grand tour

just part of
a study group

with a tour guide
pointing out

the unknown
they didn't know
was known
that he knew

such a sudden
kick in
the ego's ***

  ~mce

She arrived fresh
as tomorrow;
she departed stale
as yesterday.
In. Out. Up. Over.
   Gone for good.

~mce

-a fragment. For MD.

We must not speak of this. ******* and nonsense swirls around old age. It’s truths are inconvenient. *Golden Years. Honored old age. Valuable old age. Deserved Rest. Most never get what they imagined: honor, comfort, love, troops of friends. We must not speak of this. They no longer look to have those things. Drugs and medicine have turned old age into an endurance race, difficult to endure, much of it unrelenting, inert, isolated boredom. Forced longevity has ****** up pensions, health care, housing and happiness. It has ****** up the entire experience of retirement. Life everlasting, mummified. What disturbs our blood is this longing for the tomb. Oh Reason not the need. We must not speak of this. Memory becomes diaphanous, stretches and thins until it is all skin, no snake. Those who delivered important opinions or stinging rebukes fade to faces without names. Or vice versa. The old become greedy and selfish (we must not speak of this), because they have been abandoned by the living world and must look out for themselves. It becomes more difficult to share the joys and pains of others. Our own impending deaths render other’s less substantial. No matter. Even *** becomes selfish. There are needs which succeed *** and affection. We must not speak of this. Many older folks who are perfectly capable abandon it because it involves relationships which are (we must not speak of this) too much trouble. Been there, bought that T-shirt, wore it out. Primates die, the oceans become poisoned potions, the very weather conspires against life. **** it. The future is no longer our concern. We must not speak of this. We are ghosts in a country no one visits or forgotten photographs without identifying marks. We are the muddled memory of our generation, dead but walking. Young people look through us as if we aren’t there. We look at them and think (schadenfreude) they deserve exactly the world they got. Good luck with that. Grin. We must not speak of this. We have entered the realm of No More Second Chances, where all that happens is just more of what has. We are riding the Turnpike of Infirmity which has only one, involuntary exit. Wishing the destination more distant, we drive on through the Valuable, the Honored, the Deserved Rest, The Golden Years, waiting for the bony hand to collect the final toll. The one that, in the end, we all must pay. The day thou gavest Lord is ended. We must never, young or old, ever think of this.

I am an aging man;
you are a younger woman.

So much uncertainty
caught in the few words

of such a simple sentence.

The world will have
something harsh to say
about this.

It always does.

Lucky for me I am
no longer a worldly man.

But you must still
find your path in it.

I hope that path
leads you to me,

but

I am an aging man;
you are a younger woman,

and that's plain for
all the world to see.

  ~mce

A competition of realities. Every narrative a life. Choose.
You tells yer story and you takes yer chance. Gambol.
No one knows the truth but you and you don't either.
Truth as Hydra. Lop off them heads to no avail.
Grey cat on bookcase. truth. Pain of broken heart. truth.
First morning cigarette. truth. Collapse into ******. truth.
Millions of truths conspire to create The Truth.
     We are fabrics woven of infinite strings
     Complexly simple in this world of things.

From whence springs his or her story?
Just what drives the wave to surge and break.
Evolution, not revolution, determines destiny:
Lungfish gasping in a mudflat. Initial syllables.
Every beginning begins at the beginning.
Only victories allowed to repeat themselves.
This is the way the way the word begins.
Endless repetition until only Now remains.
Homer, Dante, Shakespeare: one human voice:
One song sung sighing across the sky.

"I vow to save
all sentient
beings."

A big order,
worthy of
many lifetimes.

The Dharma wheel
spins.

Lifetimes
fall away.

Perhaps,
after enough
times around
the wheel,
this is possible.

I hope so.

After all:

I am
a sentient being
too.
   ~mce

Revel in
the flesh,
but examine
the heart;
one lasts,
the other can't.
- mce

Ditty of First Desire**

  In the green morning
I wanted to be a heart.
A heart.

  And in the ripe evening
I wanted to be a nightingale.
A nightingale.

  (Soul,
turn orange-colored.
Soul,
turn the color of love.)

  In the vivid morning
I wanted to be myself.
A heart.

  And at the evening's end
I wanted to be my voice.
A nightingale.

  Soul,
turn orange-colored.
Soul,
turn the color of love.

These former treasures
now transformed into
anonymous junk.
Where did their history flee?
I stroll this flea market
with 10 dollars and no plan.
How many lives held these items?
Like mute Zen Masters
each has found its original face;
the desire that attached them
to life has evaporated.
They are only sad things in boxes
waiting for new hands
holding disinterested dimes,
seeking meaningless curiousities
to gather dust on lonely shelves.
This is what stuff comes to.
   - mce

Somewhere in this city,
an old woman lies dying of
                                   life.
Her mind dances across years.
She half remembers young lovers
deep and hard inside her
and she gasps.
                        Her grey hair
becomes once more
a lustrous black pool.
She smiles and shudders
a tremor of pure pleasure,
gasps again and smiles
her way fearlessly towards
                                   death.

  ~mce

Life turns on a dime,
usually at just the moment
when I have no change.
  - mce

Woke to sunshine and lawn mower song;
either the world is speeding up
or I am slowing down.
I daydream of being the beloved dog
of a wanton ***** in Ontario
and no one is less Canadian than I.
It takes longer than ever
for my discordant head to awaken fully.
I planned to be a Pirate, but I got drafted
and the ship left without me
and now I am stuck ashore in Pennsylvania
without even a scar or tattoo.
It needs coffee, cigarettes, Mozart and time.
Still, it's the only world there is
and eventually I must clamber back into it.
Let us prepare for anything. Semper Paratus.
The apocalypse could happen today.
I would hate to miss out.
Or the Second Coming; I missed the First.
It is all mumbles and blather and babble,
so I am still working on a new language.
Difficult to understand, is it not?
The sky is vivid blue but not in a bad way.
Let's call it a day and just show up.
God morning Blues; Blues how do you do?
If you find this poem incomprehensible,
rejoice, for you are probably sane.

If I saw you
naked and dancing
in the pale moonlight,
your body
perfect in my mind,
your grace a holiness
of abandon,
a Muse of lust
and purity,
I would still be
jealous of Luna's eyes.

  ~mce

Another dreary, dismal,
kidney stone of a day
that doesn’t want to pass.
You might name it suicidal
if you were an optimist.
The rain pearls like tears
on every wet, black bough.
Not enough bourbon in
the entire weeping world
to wash them all away.
Dreams of white beaches
and bikini clad women
just do not suffice.
Might as well go out
and sit naked in it,
become one with moisture.
The neighbors will doubtless
not approve. Better to keep
this satori to yourself.

A shaft of sunlight
sparkling with motes
falls through the window
on the cat plopped
purring on my stomach.

There are many things
I could be doing;
there are many things
I should be doing.

But the sun is warm
and the cat is purring

and it is important
to have your priorities
straight.

  ~mce

Spring And All**

By the road to the contagious hospital
under the surge of the blue
mottled clouds driven from the
northeast -- a cold wind. Beyond, the
waste of broad, muddy fields
brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen

patches of standing water
the scattering of tall trees

All along the road the reddish
purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy
stuff of bushes and small trees
with dead, brown leaves under them
leafless vines --

Lifeless in appearance, sluggish
dazed spring approaches --

They enter the new world naked,
cold, uncertain of all
save that they enter. All about them
the cold, familiar wind --

Now the grass, tomorrow
the stiff curl of wildcarrot leaf

One by one objects are defined --
It quickens: clarity, outline of leaf

But now the stark dignity of
entrance -- Still, the profound change
has come upon them: rooted they
grip down and begin to awaken

What falls away is always. And is near.* - Theodore Roethke

It begins when you are small:
some marbles, a jack knife, lunch money,
simply seem to vanish.

Older, the stakes go up:
lovers, chances, a bag of primo ***,
disappear without explanation.

In war, it's your comrades,
your lighter, perhaps your sanity,
gone in a ****.

And then the big stuff leaves:
wives, children, careers,
down the cosmic rabbit hole.

It's not all bad. No one misses
a mortgage, car payments or taxes.

But then your body retreats:
a hip replaced, wobbly knees,
no more rock hard erections,
the creaking back and bad omens.

Until, at last you are an old man
- sitting with a beatific grin -
        alone, broke, bored, yet
                                        curiously joyful
at having nothing else left
                                         to lose.

Looking down, you find a missing marble.

  ~mce