An old man smitten against the odds;
what could be more pathetic?
He knows a lot. He knows better than this.
He has been to war, married, divorced.
He knows all the games from both sides.
He knows she is young, beautiful, far away.
He knows that she chooses whom she wants;
that she runs the game.
He knows he brings nothing to her
but empty hands and a worshipful soul.
He has stayed alive this long
by knowing and covering the odds.
In that, he has always been smart.
Never play the other man's game.
Keep a clear head. Surprise your enemies.
Know when to laugh and walk away.
And yet, he wants nothing more
in the world than a seat at this table
in this most unlikely game.
A chance to win what can't be won.
A chance to have what can't be taken.
One very much last chance.
An old man smitten against the odds;
what could be more pathetic?

  ~mce

The women of ancient Greece
sang songs and stories
as the worked their looms.
Tales of heroes, great deeds,
love, desire, war, conquest,
gods, mortals and demigods
and not one ended in happiness.
The women change;
The looms still weave;
stories are still sung;
the endings remain.
  ~mce

Beyond
the inevitable
ravages
of time
all he can
remember
is the vision
of her slip
drifting
like a soft
white cloud
to the ground
and that
is enough.
  - mce

In the year
of our lord
865 CE,
at the council
of Agde
(after intense
debate)
the Bishops
decided that
women have souls.

In their silent
secret hearts,
many men
still question
that decision.

   ~mce

Lovers weave
the fabric
of creation.

Entering you,
I return to Paradise.
When your flesh
surrounds me,
the Garden
is restored.

Together
we become
much more
than each other -
one tapestry
woven
of two threads.

How many
existences
to arrive
at this life?

The particles dance,
rearrange, renew;
a universe
constantly reborn.

All of this
endless majesty
that my head
might find
the pillow
of your belly,
that my ears
might feel
the beating
of your heart.

Every breath,
divine
and precious;
each moment
a new world.
- mce

Let me cast
my heart
like a net
of desire
upon the body
of your soul.

Let us
struggle,
gently,
within it.

Let us
writhe
and turn
as one.

Let us
be caught
together.

Sweetest
*******.
  -mce

Sunbeams pale
on a white wall.
Love wavers.
Life whines.
Loss hovers.
All is uncertain.
I am in
desperate need
of more grace.
Release your
green eyes
into my heart
and I will know
what is real.

~mce

Naked Lunch*

A naked lunch is natural to us
We eat reality sandwiches.
But allegories are so much lettuce.
Don't hide the madness.
   From: *Reality Sandwiches

He had witnessed
the innocent kids
piled up
in a country
far away
where death
was commonplace
and no one
baked cupcakes
bearing the names
of the slain,
only keened
like maternal sirens
against the inevitable
moment.

He took comfort that
Back in the World
the children
roamed in safety
and grew plump
on promises
far from land mines,
shrieking Phantoms,
dangerous strangers
with barking weapons.

He did not,
could not,
foresee a time
when those
same weapons
would turn
their deadly mouths
on babies,
back in the world.

But the sins
of the fathers
circle back
to the world
and the bodies
of children
wear doomed grins
like death heads
at the karmic irony.

Now that illusion
of a last, safe place
is rent and torn
and there is
no longer a world
to go back to.

   mce

Her eyes are
intoxicaitingly
limpid pools.
Dive in.
Frolic. Romp.
Revel.
Get drunk.
Then enjoy
the best
hangover
ever.

Fear and faith
rule our lives.

Find a way
to reconcile
them
and life
becomes
a path to joy.

Real work,
worth doing.
- mce

for Sharon Olds*

Never have I
read words
that so truly
capture
the Ordinary;
that capture
the Ordinary
and encapsulate
it as if in amber
where it burns
with such
Extraordinary
intensity and
becomes a life
lived again.

   ~mce

~for Gary Snyder*

Beyond the edges
of the dying cities
the human
reasserts itself.
Shacks and gardens,
hermits and wise men,
woodsmoke rising -
flickering flames
of a new dawn.
  - mce

for RLA*

Life rarely gives good odds.
Yet even in ****** battle
I have managed to beat them.
I am a lucky Monk: bulletproof.
Take a chance with me, lover.
Maybe I have enough luck
to cover you too; maybe I don't.

But as the lotto sellers love to say:
you can't win if you don't play.

  ~mce

He can't afford a sacrifice,
the priests do not work cheap;
he's standing on the lip of Hell
considering a leap.
Will you walk beside him now
to the edge of the abyss,
and stay that final footstep,
preserve him with a kiss?
The money's gone, the game is up,
he's missed the gleaming prize;
there's cold within his lonely bones,
there's sorrow in his eyes.
He needs to know there's still a chance
to feel the brush of grace,
the lost caress of hopefulness
upon his aging face.
Throw the Tarot, toss the coins,
hear what the spirits say;
he needs a resurrection
on this January day.
So will you walk beside him now
to the edge of the abyss,
and stay that final footstep,
preserve him with a kiss?
For the world is gray and barren,
the land is deep in snow;
he's standing on the lip of Hell
with nowhere left to go.
  - mce

She is content.

She knows her mind;
keeps a close watch
on her heart.

She makes appointments,
She goes to lunches.

She is not a woman
who can be snowed.

She has known pain
and isn't looking
to add more.

Solitude is her
companion and friend.

Wine, poems to write,
a warm dog beside her.

How do I insert
myself into such
a complete life?

I am a stranger, a monk,
a poor man in a shack,
broken by war, poverty,
bad luck and life itself.

No woman would
call me a catch.

What can I offer
such completeness?

Only what I have:
open, empty hands
and a living heart
that will be true.

I don't know
if it will do,
but this is my
humble
offering to you.

    ~mce

You don't have to love me
just because you are
the most woman
I have ever imagined possible
or because your eyes
speak an unknown language
only I can understand
or because your toes
are in need of kissing
or because I can't
stop thinking of you
long enough to sleep.

Those are only my reasons.

Certainly,
you don't have to,
but I would be pleased
if sometime, somewhere,

you did.

  ~mce

It is
a long day
since
last night.

  ~mce

If you are a
modestly successful
wage slave,

your soul will
soon enough
be crushed by
repetition,
boredom and
the rich.

Enjoy your
****** toys
while the register
still rings.

Only silence
will follow.

  ~mce

Beneath My Hands**

Beneath my hands
your small *******
are the upturned bellies
of breathing fallen sparrows.
Wherever you move
I hear the sounds of closing wings
of falling wings.
I am speechless
because you have fallen beside me
because your eyelashes
are the spines of tiny fragile animals.
I dread the time
when your mouth
begins to call me hunter.
When you call me close
to tell me
your body is not beautiful
I want to summon
the eyes and hidden mouths
of stone and light and water
to testify against you.
I want them
to surrender before you
the trembling rhyme of your face
from their deep caskets.
When you call me close
to tell me
your body is not beautiful
I want my body and my hands
to be pools
for your looking and laughing.

He took the dagger
from the dead hand
of a Marine Major
on the battlefield
of An Loc
so the tame *****
wouldn't steal it
like the thieving
cowards they were.
Kept it, used it,
smuggled it
back to the world,
has had it for 43 years
and now it sits
on his coffee table,
still talon sharp,
against the day
when he might need
to cut the world's throat.

Sitting Bull, He Dog, Red Cloud,
Chief Joseph, Crazy Horse, Geronimo.

Hunted nearly to extinction
like the buffalo that fed them.

These were gods among warriors;
next to them we are puny imitations.

So when is their Memorial Day?

**** Norman Vincent Peale.
I will say it out loud.
There are mornings
when death would be better;
when you have slept but three hours;
when the dawn silence
crushes your damaged brain
into pea gravel;
when your 28-pound cat
disdains your company;
when you can feel your nerves
pulsing outside your skin;
when your stomach congeals
from unaccustomed food;
when you are nursing
a sixty-three-year-old hangover;
when the sunlight strikes you
through the ***** window
like a ten pound sledge
straight to the temple;
when the ghosts are
as thick as Nebraska stars,
but refuse to explain
why you are still alive;
when there is only one dream left
and she is a country away
and thinks you may be crazy;
when there isn't one
******* thing in the universe
to be positive about;
when you walk past the mirror
and see a landscape of ruins;
when birds and Mozart do not suffice;
and you finally know in your heart,
there really is no fool like an old one
and you my idiot friend are old.

  ~mce

The rain is of the process…*

Clouds gather in my mind;
rain falls in my brain;
ink flows through veins;
words drip from my fingers
to gather on pages.

What does that make me,
but a puddle of poetry…

Three words
(in English)
spoken out loud
for the first time
jangle my brain,
flutter my stomach,
turn my monkish world
upside down.
There are words
old men never expect
to hear again.
Yet such delight.
No different than
a teenager.
What do we do with this?
Where do we go?
I don't care.
I don't know.

Poetry is solely
the archeology
of consciousness,
the ***-shards
of a mind
whose true
experience
can just be
guessed at.
When you read it
you discover
mere pieces,
not the original
arrangement.
You try to wonder
them back
together,
but can't quite.
When you write it,
you leave clues
for scientists
yet to arrive
who will never
fully understand
who you were,
which is OK
because you
never did either.
  - mce

For My Cat Jeoffrey*

For I will consider my Cat Jeoffrey
For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.
For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.
For is this done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant
quickness.
For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his
prayer.
For he rolls upon prank to work it in.
For having done duty and received blessing he begins to consider himself.
For this he performs in ten degrees . . .

For having consider'd God and himself he will consider his neighbor.
For if he meets another cat he will kiss her in kindness.
For when he takes his prey he plays with it to give it chance.
For one mouse in seven escapes by his dallying . . .

For the English cats are the best in Europe.
For he is the cleanest in the use of his fore-paws of any quadrupede.
For the dexterity of his defense is an instance of the love of God to him exceedingly.
For he is the quickest to his mark of any creature.
For he is tenacious of his point.
For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery.
For he knows that God is his Saviour.
For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest.
For there is nothing brisker than his life when in motion.
For he is the Lord's poor and so indeed is he called by benevolence perpetually -- Poor Jeoffrey! poor Jeoffrey! the rat has bit thy throat.
For I bless the name of the Lord Jesus that Jeoffrey is better.
For the divine spirit comes about his body to sustain it in compleat cat.

I do not think
you are as complete
as you say you are.

I do not think
that your
comfortable solitude
will provide you
with enough for
the vivid life within you.

You are a young woman,
alive, sensuous, willing.

Too alive for a hermit's life.

Life, love, fulfillment
are still yours to command.

Courage is the greatest virtue.

Take your life in you hands
Like clay or marble or paint.
Demand your desires;
Insist on expressing them.

The way is yours to find.
Risks are eternal.

Sometimes you have
no choice but to walk away
from everything you know.

Make a new world;
the kind of world
in which you want to live.

The kind of world
where you belong.

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 dozens 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
this living air.
  - mce

i know you are out there

waiting for me
to shift
your transmission
into desire

to release the brake
on your inhibitions

to ride you with
a deep throaty growl
all the way to ******,

Michigan.

    ~mce

Each lover
helps
the other
to live
and finally
helps
the other
to die.
Gift after
gift.

  ~mce

Do not
describe
the thing,
become
the thing,
and then
tell its story
through
its own
mouth.
That is what
poets do.
- mce

Errands to run
decisions to make;
clothes to wash:
the endless
trivial particulars
that weigh life down.

Where is my
personal assistant,
my life coach,
my hot French maid?

****, once again
I've woken up
in the wrong life.
  - mce

A great man said
fatigue makes cowards
of us all.
When I tire I falter.
After 72 straight hours
of flying at An Loc,
I slept with my eyes open
and was terrified
every moment
I was conscious.
No more wars for me,
an old man 50 years later,
an old body bent
on a different life.
When I am weary
I see the raw meat
on the floor
and think a new life
is impossible
but maybe some
variations on a theme
could happen.
I feel like
a worn out raccoon
treed by the hounds of life.
I feel giddy
with self-doubt
as if the world
is telling me something
I don't want to hear.
"Devouring time blunt
thou thy lion's paws."
And I will sleep
and tomorrow
what is impossible
tonight might
even seem likely.

  ~mce

To make a new world
you must be willing
to ****** the old gods,
step over their corpses,
through the madness,
out of the darkness,
eternally alone,
into the empty garden
of your own creation.
  - mce

Circus to close after 149 years*

Speaking of apocalypses,
this current model is a yawn.

A large, loud golden retriever
barks out random orders
and fear collapses the world
like a wet tent or used ******.

People scream in the streets,
but facts remain few and unlikely.

A big chunk of reality is missing.

Even the elephants are confused.

You’ll never make a show out of that.

Smart women they were.
Knew a lost cause
when they saw one
and fled town
before it burned down.

  ~mce

Love is when
the here and now
doesn't matter,
which is impossible
and satisfying,
exactly like love:
a wound that
you are happy
to share.

  ~mce

The moon has poured
a welcome mat
of light before
my bed.
      Wipe your feet
in radiance
before you join me,
lover.
       We will
merge in incandescent
ecstasy and glow
white hot with
the night's fervid,
perfect photons,
one where once
there was two.

   ~mce

I was born to malinger.
I plan my days carefully
to allow time for nothing.
It requires effort
to avoid work.
Hemingway said that
all stories extended
far enough in time
must end in death.
Eternity is vast
and waits patiently.
I have seen what
comes of too much hurry:
a cloud of falling debris,
a puff of pink mist
where a man used to be.
I would rather stay
a shiftless old monk
for as long as I can,
just sitting, doing nothing,
trying to be better,
content to be me.

  ~mce

Poems are messages in bottles
tossed into a sea
that does not care
if they be found or not.

Thank you for finding this one.

You can keep the bottle.

   mce

Disappointments and delusions
make time scream by so fast
our pasts, so full of freedom,
seem to have belonged to others.
If only time's roaring train
could be slowed a bit,
we might enjoy our complete lives
the way lovers enjoy every inch
of each other's bodies.

Odd that Auden
who never heard
a shot fired in anger
wrote the best poem
about the coming of WWII.
This only proves
that you don't have
to be a warrior
to understand war.
War is a corruption
in the hearts of men.
If you know the human heart,
if you understand
that infection,
you know all you need
to know about war.

I just published a humorous (I hope) essay on elephant journal at http://www.elephantjournal.com/2015/04/henry-miller-i-think-you-need-to-stink/

If interested, have a look.

Thanks

Mike

Lover, please find me.
I'm over sixty!

   ~mce

I am here and you are far away,
beyond this strong relentless pain,
there's really nothing more to say.
For here I sit at break of day
beneath this darkened sky of rain:
I am here and you are far away.
And though I sigh out loud all day,
I know it in my bones and brain:
there's really nothing more to say.
There's little that I wouldn't pay,
but nothing I could hope to gain:
I am here and you are far away.
If I begin to dream and play,
to soothe my soul and keep me sane:
there's really nothing more to say.
Though I must find some other way,
the problem's easy to explain:
I am here and you are far away,
there's really nothing more to say.

Not to worry, Doc.
Don't mean ******* nothing.
We are all dead men here.
- mce

Met you
in the fall;
loved you
through
the winter;
you left me
in the spring

In between,
you saved
my life.

True love
need not
be forever
to be true.

Come, Muse,
don't be just
another teasing
*****.
Sing through me.
Time is short.
Everyone dies.
Breathe into me
while I still
have a voice.
No one wants
a song
from a corpse.
  - mce