350 million
petulant toddlers
throwing tantrums
in the dark.

The world is teeming
with those who want
somebody else.

And yet you want me.

Sometimes it happens:
you lose everything
and then wake up
in a strange, new room
full of everything
you want.

   ~mce

The weather guessers
are calling for
severe thunder storms
tonight.
That's the job for me.
Get it right half the time
and still get paid.
   ~mce

I have heard
the sound of pining;
its original voice,
the song of those
too long alone.
Not the song
of solitude
or loneliness:
the empty voice
of aloneness.
  ~mce

LOVE**

Love is clairvoyance.
It foresees you and me.

It’s from a chosen nation
and uses high-voltage
language.

In the National Library
it renders even
illiterate books speechless.

In the avalanche of choirs
it discovers an echo
of euphoria and death.

And when it seizes you
try to be at home.
Or somewhere like that.
Just as long as you meet each other.

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

God loves pain.
Inflicting it seems
his only form
of exercise.

There is no God
large enough
for a world
so huge
with meanness.

  ~mce

These black raspberries
do not understand
the intent
of my caresses.
When I reach
to prune them,
they scratch;
when I try
to **** them,
they clutch;
when I lean in
to mulch them,
they slash.
They are like
angry lovers
who want
to make love,
but want
to draw blood,
too.
Perhaps a poem
will soothe them;
it often works
on women.
- mce

Dulce pomum quum abest custos.*


He loved her
like his own death.
The one thing
he could hold onto
when all else
went away.

In his whole life,
he had loved
only three women;
she was the last.
If love
is a Trinity,
that makes her
his Holy Ghost,
the breath of God,
always present,
never visible:
so stunningly
appropriate.
  - mce

I believe
that inside you
are new worlds
to discover.

Like Captain Kirk,
I am on a mission.
   ~mce

The Earth only gets one day?
Seems a bit odd. I mean,
where else do you plan to live?
    ~mce

I'm sorry but it's 5 AM
and all I can think of
is your warm soft hands
and deep wet mouth
leaning over my body
wishing it a good morning
with your talented tongue
starting the new day
the best possible way.

  ~mce

Today I am holding on tight to nothing
and it is just enough to keep me breathing.
How marvelous to be an ordinary artist
who can survive on so little.
You taught me that a kiss matters
more than all the pain and terror on earth.
I leave the world's problems to its big men.
I am a small man working only on problems
a small man might hope to solve.
Why are there birds? What do dogs think?
Why do cats purr both when happy and sad.
Why do you taste like lost oceans?
These are the mysteries I care about.
The curve of your cheek matters more to me
than stock markets, earthquakes or wars.
My hands caressing your human *******
matter more than tsunamis and revolutions.
Your voluptuous *** speaks ****** volumes
about where the world should pay attention.
I would gladly lie down with you in Eden
smelling of apples and the loss of eternity.
I sing only for helpless humans and animals.
Let the wealthy and powerful purchase their
own poems though I doubt they even care.
I am content to feel the texture of your hair
and celebrate your green eyes with humble words.
We are human, we are warm and we are here.
That's enough for me, maybe more than I can bear.
I am holding on tight to nothing and I do not fear.

~mce

"Just to wake up is to make a separate peace."*

They come and go, each
the same and different.
The night of
tempestuous dreams
opens to a morning
of vague dread.

Ghosts have tracked you
into the waking world:
old lovers, dead friends,
battles fought and lost
a grinning death's head.

You must recover
your center,
find the unwobbling
pivot of existence,
the still point
to calm the monkey mind
and allow you
to reenter the world
of phenomena.

Go to your pillow and sit.
Just breathe, just breathe.
Just be here now.

Let the hyenas of night
slink back to their lairs.

Somewhere, she is warm
and lovely.  You feel
her soothing warmth
from a far away land.
Distance is only illusion,
Maya barking in your
trembling mind, but you
never really are alone.

Don't think; thought
will not suffice.
Only sit and breathe,
only sit and be.

The night terrors
retreat into the darkness.
It is light now and
you are still alive.
That is something
to be grateful for,
breath is a living gift.

Sitting there quietly,
the earth stops spinning;
the new day awakens
in the remains of your heart.

You get up, still broken
but better, and walk off
into what some mistakenly
call reality to meet
whatever must  be and,
perhaps, even to smile.
   ~mce

Love and war
are much alike.
Both are exhilarating,
both frightening,
neither last.

~ 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

I ache in the places where I used to play. LC*

Silence reigns
in the caverns of song;
the days grow short,
the shadows long.
Where are the flowers,
where is the sun
in the waning days
as the race is run?
Running out
of things to see;
running out
of things to be.
Dreams and lovers
lost and gone
and nothing waiting
further on.
With each new dawn
of each new day,
fewer reasons
to wish to stay.

some chilly days
you feel like
one of Napoleon's
frozen soldiers
two hundred
           years later
still trudging
through an icy hell
  retreating from
           the cold
  simply longing
           for home
           for warmth

  ~mce

for MA

Breeze through your
Augenblick* of a life
at ease in the world.

When your time comes,
drop like a ripe pear,

loving the earth that
fed it,
grateful to the tree that
birthed it,

content to rejoin the Cycles
as the Wheel spins on.

We still meet
as friends
in rooms, but
not the home
we shared for
thirty years.
My sadness
is not for
what we lost.
My sadness
is for what we
might have been
and won’t.

mce

“Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.”

Villanelle For Our Time*

From bitter searching of the heart,
Quickened with passion and with pain
We rise to play a greater part.
This is the faith from which we start:
Men shall know commonwealth again*
From bitter searching of the heart.
We loved the easy and the smart,
But now, with keener hand and brain,
We rise to play a greater part.
The lesser loyalties depart,
And neither race nor creed remain
From bitter searching of the heart.
Not steering by the venal chart
That tricked the mass for private gain,
We rise to play a greater part.
Reshaping narrow law and art
Whose symbols are the millions slain,
From bitter searching of the heart
We rise to play a greater part.

As we go marching, marching
In the beauty of the day
A million darkened kitchens
A thousand mill lofts gray
Are touched with all the radiance
That a sudden sun discloses
For the people hear us singing
Bread & roses, bread & roses

As we go marching, marching
We battle too for men
For they are women's children
And we mother them again
Our lives shall not be sweetened
From birth until life closes
Hearts starve as well as bodies
Give us bread but give us roses

As we go marching, marching
We bring the greater days
For the rising of the women
Means the rising of the race
No more the drudge and idler
Ten that toil where one reposes
But the sharing of lifes glories
Bread & roses, bread & roses

I cannot
make my bed;
the cat is dozing
peacefully
upon its ruin.

   mce

Look up,
only withered
husks
you don't
want
to see.
Look down,
the nubile
freshness
you want
to be.

Tending the fire
is tedious,
but necessary.

Money is very handy
when your tooth aches.

Everyone quits smoking
when they die.

Love hurts:
loneliness hurts
worse.

Whiskey may not be
warmer than her *******,
but is usually more available.

When someone tells you
something is better than ***,
they are lying.

Every newborn
has the Buddha nature...
for about thirty seconds.

Asking if this spiritual path or that
leads to God is like asking
if a photon is a wave or particle.
The answer is always yes.

Death is the answer;
the difficult part
is figuring out the question.

Say good-bye to love
and you say good-bye
to your life.

This is just to say
you have restored my voice
after three years
of oppressive silence.

Your words have opened
my soul and set me
once again in search
of that lost chord.

Such an unexpected gift!

I was so sure
that I would end
as a tortured mute
that I had given up
that holy quest.

Now, after a few words
and pictures,
I can sing again.

Thank you gentle Lady.

An old man now wakes
to possibilities
abandoned and forgotten.
An old man now wakes
to the warmth of a Muse.
An old man now wakes up alive.

I had forgotten how
to practice resurrection.

In your distant presence
I remember what I am,
a free-lance bhikkhu
stalking the dragon
of truth.
A man in whom
a fierce heart still beats.
  ~mce

by Kim Addonizio**

That summer they had cars, soft roofs crumpling
over the back seats. Soft, too, the delicate fuzz
on their upper lips and the napes of their necks,
their uneven breath, their tongues tasting
of toothpaste. We stole the liquor
glowing in our parents’ cabinet, poured it
over the cool cubes of ice with their hollows
at each end, as though a thumb had pressed
into them. The boys rose, dripping, from long
blue pools, the water slick on their backs
and bellies, a sugary glaze; they sat easily on high
lifeguard chairs, eyes hidden by shades,
or came up behind us to grab the fat we hated
around our waists. For us it was the chaos
of makeup on a bureau, the clothes we tried on
and on, the bras they unhooked, pushed
up, and when they moved their hard
hidden ***** against us we were always
princesses, our legs locked. By then we knew
they would come, climb the tower, slay anything
to get to us. We knew we had what they wanted:
the *******, the thighs, the damp hairs pressed flat
under our *******. All they asked was that we let them
take it. They would draw it out of us like
sticky taffy, thinner and thinner until it snapped
and they had it. And we would grow up
with that lack, until we learned how to
name it, how to look in their eyes and see nothing
we had not given them; and we could still
have it, we could reach right down into their
bodies and steal it back.

Stop craving things and people.
Assume that what will come will come.
Don't expect to be happy.
Watch where you put your feet.
Hope for good luck.
Try not to **** up too often.
Be prepared to die at any moment.
  - mce

a high school friend
came home from war

(long before
I went)

and told me

you know Mike,
Canada has
a lot more
to offer
than Vietnam

had i listened,
i'd probably be
watching hockey
this very
instant, eh?

   ~mce

Thoughtfulness
and kindness
will always
bring you more
than money.

Honor is a word
that is disappearing
from our vocabulary.
When it is gone,
we will be gone too.

Love is a word
said too much
and meant too little.

Freedom means privacy;
this is no longer
a free country.

When you run out
of alternatives,
life gets interesting.

We are all immigrants here;
remember that before you hate
someone who just happened
to arrive after you did.

When the choice
is between war and peace,
always choose peace,
but be ready for war.

A veteran is a person
who had to hold a gun
so you wouldn't have to.
Don't say thanks, say sorry.

If you don't see
your own beauty,
you will never see
the world's beauty.

Women are powerful,
men are just easy:
forget that at your peril.


   ~mce

"And love
is not
a victory
march
it's a cold
and a very
broken
Hallelujah."

"Lift me up, Lord,
for my soul is heavy
and my time is near."*

When you were
all shot to pieces
and death
was smiling
and prowling
nearby,
they made
the sweetest
sound in
the world.
   ~mce

He stroked
the air
where she
might have
been.

  ~mce

Hungry and tired,
I try to write this poem.

The only images
that come to mind
are the creamy white
mounds of your *******.

The world and
my mind
wobble as one.

This is both vertiginous
and thrilling.

Biology always trumps Art.

  ~mce

...in all this imperfection i seek the perfect tone the lost chord the forgotten lyrics that call the lord to action when last we made love i built a pyre of your clothes and burned them because i wanted to make an offering and to hold you perfect and naked forever but you were only chilly and distant like god well who knows what successful supplication requires so now i light many candles against the gloom lace my morning coffee with bourbon ply the fire how many shades of gray does the world contain i have tried to count them and failed perhaps you know tell me love what is the spark that sets alight and where is the fire that breaks the night i want to take you violently from behind deep and without remorse like a centaur mounting a greek maiden on a perfect frozen vase i am praying hard for redemption and more whiskey perhaps a smile but darkness swirls in my brain an old friend whispering me toward the abyss saying it's ok just a few more steps and silence shall reign so what is the sound of one synapse firing why did the golden rule tarnish where have the indigo buntings fled the squirrels in my walls are scratching out messages in code if i can decrypt them and expose the international rodent conspiracy will i become famous and rich will lovely women fling their lingerie at me like silken boomerangs and ride me like a trojan horse or will the masters find me first and sequester me and my waterfalls of words in the madhouse of obscurity and is this a chance worth taking that those who care not should know the truth i know i am a river but where am i running the words pour the words rain it is hard to know what all this means and yet it must mean...
  - mce

To His Mistress Going to Bed**

Come, Madam, come, all rest my powers defy,
Until I labour, I in labour lie.
The foe oft-times having the foe in sight,
Is tir’d with standing though he never fight.
Off with that girdle, like heaven’s Zone glistering,
But a far fairer world encompassing.
Unpin that spangled breastplate which you wear,
That th’eyes of busy fools may be stopped there.
Unlace yourself, for that harmonious chime,
Tells me from you, that now it is bed time.
Off with that happy busk, which I envy,
That still can be, and still can stand so nigh.
Your gown going off, such beauteous state reveals,
As when from flowery meads th’hill’s shadow steals.
Off with that wiry Coronet and shew  
The hairy Diadem which on you doth grow:
Now off with those shoes, and then safely tread
In this love’s hallow’d temple, this soft bed.
In such white robes, heaven’s Angels used to be
Received by men; Thou Angel bringst with thee
A heaven like Mahomet’s Paradise; and though
Ill spirits walk in white, we easily know,
By this these Angels from an evil sprite,
Those set our hairs, but these our flesh upright.
    Licence my roving hands, and let them go,  
Before, behind, between, above, below.
O my America! my new-found-land,
My kingdom, safeliest when with one man mann’d,
My Mine of precious stones, My Empirie,
How blest am I in this discovering thee!
To enter in these bonds, is to be free;
Then where my hand is set, my seal shall be.
    Full nakedness! All joys are due to thee,
As souls unbodied, bodies uncloth’d must be,
To taste whole joys. Gems which you women use
Are like Atlanta’s *****, cast in men’s views,
That when a fool’s eye lighteth on a Gem,
His earthly soul may covet theirs, not them.
Like pictures, or like books’ gay coverings made
For lay-men, are all women thus array’d;
Themselves are mystic books, which only we  
(Whom their imputed grace will dignify)
Must see reveal’d. Then since that I may know;
As liberally, as to a Midwife, shew
Thy self: cast all, yea, this white linen hence,
There is no penance due to innocence.
    To teach thee, I am naked first; why then
What needst thou have more covering than a man.

If my lips
kissed your neck
would it
kiss them back?

There are too many
stars out tonight.
I know you are among them.
Blink at me so I can
kiss you goodnight.

  ~mce

He smells like his life:

weary smells of
whiskey and leather,
the dead stink of
too many cigarettes,
the mingled perfumes
of many lovely women,
the dark, sticky
whiff of lust and ***,
the acrid stench of
cordite and ******,
the copper reek of blood,
the honest sweat of work,
with just a hint of ink
and **** thrown in.

This effluvium may not
be sweetly attractive
or call to butterflies
and hummingbirds,

but it is the aroma
of a life lived alive.

   ~mce

The day breaks like frayed shoe laces
and the situation only gets bleaker from there.
Poems written, bed made, dishes done,
it's eleven AM and the day is shot.
Not to say it couldn't redeem itself.
The mailman could deliver a bag of dead rats.
The food stamp Nazis could drop by
to ensure I am still appropriately thin.
Armies of angry squirrels could mass
outside my door preparing to begin their
drive for world ******* with me.
My cat might finally begin to speak,
albeit in a language I don't understand
or things could get really interesting
and it might just begin to rain.
After all, hope is a rabid dog that dies hard.
But none of these surprises  are very likely.
Physics says that inertia overcomes motion
and we are as rarely strong as our imaginations.
Don't fret, soon enough it will be evening
and you can fall asleep, best part of the day.

  ~mce

Get soddenly drunk,
see the moon reflected
in a limpid pool,
feel your heart
pierced by beauty,
reach to embrace it
and drown.

Try to write me
a better death
than that.

  ~mce

He spent his day in
hell's reading room,
so now he is trying
to put out the flames
in his brain
which threaten
to consume it
entirely.

He does not try
very hard.

His mind wanders
to death
at a crossroads,
names without meaning,
how so much love
fossilizes in the air.

It grows hotter
and hotter.

His nervous system
recoils in horror
like a defiled angel.

Purity seems the
better choice.

Even though
the flames stretch
out tortured hands,
he tries no harder.

He is lost
in the kingdom
of words.

A kingdom
only burning cleanses.

He hears Cerebrus
barking.

~mce

sometimes he wonders
why he lives this way

how he came to stay
alone with a silent cat
in rooms without ceilings
no plans less money
and debts to pay

waking to iron silence
at break of day

trying to fill it with words
that dance and play

old friends and lovers
dead or far away

loneliness
he cannot slay

somehow he simply
went astray

there isn't really
much to say

he couldn't tell you
why he lives this way

  ~mce

The stranger said "Love it can cry you a river -
Me, I'm a loner cause I can't take the heartache
And sometimes I'm a fighter when I get too much whiskey -
Here have a little whiskey, pretend you don't give a **** -*

I am a loner and
sometimes a fighter,
but there is
not enough
whiskey in the world
to drink you
out of my heart
or  allow me
to pretend
I don't give a ****
or to ignore
the heartache.

I take my pain
like a warrior:
straight up.
  ~mce

for that girl at a concert in 1968*

she shed her clothes
in a moment's abandon
and danced naked
before the swaying crowd

she was young
she was beautiful
she was a vision
of possibility

she must be
approaching 70 now

she is someone's
grandmother

she spends her days
in sweats feeling her
knee replacement ache

were she to suddenly
dance naked in public
her children
would commit her

still, sometimes
in her secret heart
she imagines
doffing her clothes
and twirling
once again
within the music
of a more generous time
before her world
was damaged beyond
recovery

she imagines,
but she doesn't

   ~mce

In it, all the debris of a life:

lost loves, pieces of
a broken heart, the smiles
of friends since gone,
a marriage, children,
jobs, cars, houses,
the shards of dreams,
various rainbows, sunsets,
thunderstorms, poems
never to be finished,
the chaos of battle,
squandered opportunities,
misplaced lusts,
the best *******,
the deepest kisses,
the worst disappointments,
betrayals, dashed hopes,
many resurrections,
bundles of broken promises,
and endless other items,
large and small.

It is the messy drawer
of a very messy man,
rarely opened anymore.
   - mce

lost
  too long now
   for anyone
    to remember
my mouth

(N) Everything pleasant
you can do with your tongue
that doesn't involve ***.

  ~mce