Most mornings
I wake up satisfied
with the life I have.
My bowl may be empty,
but it is my bowl,
my choice. Still,
if a wayward Muse,
say one with
a diamond in her nose
and a chip
on her shoulder,
were to pass by
and choose to dally
for a while,
I could move up
from satisfaction
to contentment
with a smile.

  ~mce

Rhododáktylos Ēṓs*

Good mornings,
rosy fingered promise;
front row ticket
to creation.

Bad mornings,
gray diluting black;
thundering kettle drum
of Armegeddon.

Both mornings,
exactly the same
morning.

Only one life
in which to awaken.

Sunday morning
I went down on you
until you cried out
a prayer of pleasure.

That's close enough
to Holy for me.

Amen.

  ~mce

A man sits
along a dry creek
in an unmoving desert
with a fishing pole.
Every day he returns
to that bank,
drops his line
into the sand
and catches nothing.
The sun does not blink.
No water flows.
Not a cloud
disturbs the sky.
He continues to fish.
This is the definition
of hope
and
of insanity.
It is what
keeps us going.
  - mce

That's where he lives
and he spends his days
nailing up perfectly framed
pictures of nothing.
  - mce

by Patricia Smith*

Poseidon was easier than most.
He calls himself a god,
but he fell beneath my fingers
with more shaking than any mortal.
He wept when my robe fell from my shoulders.

I made him bend his back for me,
listened to his screams break like waves.
We defiled that temple the way it should be defiled,
screaming and bucking our way from corner to corner.
The ***** goddess probably got a real kick out of that.
I’m sure I’ll be hearing from her.

She’ll give me nightmares for a week or so;
that I can handle.
Or she’ll turn the water in my well into blood;
I’ll scream when I see it,
and that will be that.
Maybe my first child
will be born with the head of a fish.
I’m not even sure it was worth it,
Poseidon pounding away at me, a madman,
losing his immortal mind
because of the way my copper skin swells in moonlight.

Now my arms smoke and itch.
Hard scales cover my wrists like armour.
C’mon Athena, he was only another lay,
and not a particularly good one at that,
even though he can spit steam from his fingers.
Won’t touch him again. Promise.
And we didn’t mean to drop to our knees
in your temple,
but our bodies were so hot and misaligned.
It’s not every day a gal gets to sample a god,
you know that. Why are you being so rough on me?

I feel my eyes twisting,
the lids crusting over and boiling,
the pupils glowing red with heat.
Athena, woman to woman,
could you have resisted him?
Would you have been able to wait
for the proper place, the right moment,
to jump those immortal bones?

Now my feet are tangled with hair,
my ears are gone. My back is curving
and my lips have grown numb.
My garden boy just shattered at my feet.

******, Athena,
take away my father’s gold.
Send me away to live with lepers.
Give me a pimple or two.
But my face. To have men never again
be able to gaze at my face,
growing stupid in anticipation
of that first touch,
how can any woman live like that?
How will I be able
to watch their warm bodies turn to rock
when their only sin was desiring me?

All they want is to see me sweat.
They only want to touch my face
and run their fingers through my . . .

my hair

is it moving?

Love Minus Zero / No Limit**

My love, she speaks like silence
Without ideals or violence
She doesn't have to say she's faithful
Yet she's true, like ice, like fire

People carry roses
And make promises by the hours
My love, she laughs like the flowers
Valentines can't buy her

In the dime stores and bus stations
People talk of situations
Read books, repeat quotations
Draw conclusions on the wall

Some speak of the future
My love, she speaks softly
She knows there's no success like failure
And that failure's no success at all

The cloak and dagger dangles
Madams light the candles
In ceremonies of the horsemen
Even the pawn must hold a grudge

Statues made of match sticks
Crumble into one another
My love winks, she does not bother
She knows too much to argue or to judge

The bridge at midnight trembles
The country doctor rambles
Bankers' nieces seek perfection
Expecting all the gifts that wise men bring

The wind howls like a hammer
The night blows rainy
My love, she's like some raven
At my window with a broken wing

I never sought
this calling.

So difficult,
even painful.

The Poet must
find a way
to use words
to create beauty
to keep chaos
at bay.

Chaos never
relents.

Beauty is fragile.

And yet we
soldier on.

this morning
my lips
are blistered

too many bites
of hard life

i guess

  ~mce

You can learn
to love a voice
on a telephone,
but you can never
hold it
in your arms.
   mce

i saw the Cobras
coming straight for us

thought of my parents
my brother and sister
back at home in the north
said a prayer to my ancestors
for protection

                     then

their rockets launched
and a moment later

i dissolved out of history
   ~mce

Obviously,
the human heart
can subsist
on hope alone;
the question is:
how long before
hope turns bitter?
  - mce

I trace my family
back to the
first slimy critter
that crawled up
onto a beach
and took breath.

Beats the hell
out of the Mayflower
doesn't it?

   ~mce

She was looking for poetry, she said.
I have some experience with that, I said.
I searched gallantly about
and presented her with trophies.
She looked through them.
Her hair was deep evening red
and her white skin translucent.
She wore a thin summer dress
of light green linen.
Choosing, she walked away,
thanking me for my help.
Never did I see her again,
but now she lives in one of my poems.

  ~mce

Music hath charms...*

Our heart’s fingers
were never made
to play but one tune.

And so
we practice
songs of
joy, hate,
envy, jealousy,
empathy and
affection.

Wonderful and
terrible compositions.

Harmonic
intention
crashes into
dissonance.

Scores of love
and
scores to settle.

the days disappear
into winter
like leaves falling
from old trees
in your hometown
that you never noticed
until someone
cut them down

  ~mce

You have taken
the betrayal
of your past,
the hypocrisy
of your present,
your fear
of the future
and built
a circular wall
to exclude
the world;
just enough room
for you and a dog.
Oh, you foray
sometimes
for money, food,
a check up,
but always
you retreat
inside that
solid, safe wall.
I, who have no money,
care little for food
and refuse to be
a check up,
where can I
possibly fit.
Where is there room
for someone who cares.

  ~mce

I keep attending
my own funeral;
I am the
only one there;
somehow,
I find that
comforting.
  ~mce

If you have never
heard God laugh at you,
you need to listen harder.

/////

It's easy
to bite off
more than you
can chew;
but difficult
not to choke
on it.

/////

Some evenings,
the voice
you don't hear
is loudest
in your heart.

/////

Should women
truly learn
men's hearts,
convents
would flourish.

/////

I always wake up
exactly where I am,
uncertain where
exactly that is.

/////

The poet owns
a closet packed
with skeletons,
whirling and gliding;
he never needs
to dance alone.

/////

The owl's call
at three in the morning
asks the question
who who who
am I?

/////

When you aren't there,
I often caress the air.

/////

Old tears
cling tightly
to their hurts.

/////

Myths don't age,
people do.

/////

Two wrongs often
make a fright.

/////

A university is where
ants train cockroaches
to make new pesticides.

/////

Words create worlds.
Try it. Know what
it means to be a god.

/////

The only thing
that can slow
a clock is Joy.

  ~mce

Make mine Velveeta.
Cheese is only cheese.
As Janis Joplin
once observed:
*It's all the same
******* day,
man.

There is a Lady in my head.
She has been there since Easter.
She moved in before I even noticed.
She has Tiger green eyes, red hair
and dangerously voluptuous curves.
Since she arrived I can't sleep;
days and nights, awake and not
are blended into a fine mist.
I have lost Twenty pounds without trying.
I wander around in a puppy dog fog
like some drooling, smitten 17-year-old.
I listen to music I haven't heard in decades.
I write poems even I can't understand.
I experience lust that consumes like ******.
The world around me seems to be fading.
Books no longer speak my language.
There is a luscious Lady in my head.
She does all these things to me and more.
And I never, ever want her to leave.
  ~mce

Make a Zendo
of your hovel.
It doesn't matter
where you park
that lovely ***,
it always floats
on nothingness.

  ~mce

If you were here
and warm,
I would inhale
your breath,
hold your spirit
in my lungs
and become
young again.
  - mce

“The thought of suicide is a powerful solace: by means of it one gets through many a bad night”* - Nietzsche

He slept alone,
the nights were long;
suicide
sang its song.

Walking in
the light of day,
its melody
seemed far away,

but in the night
the song rang clear,
tantalizing
in his ear,

promises of
rest and peace,
oblivion
and sweet release.

He slept alone,
the nights were long;
suicide
sang its song.
  - mce

I have looked
in many directions,
but never before north;
What a short sighted
southern fool
I have been,
   ~mce

Today I saw a blurb
that said: 20% off
on sheet sets
for all veterans.

Ain't that America?

The blood of millions
transformed into
an advertising opportunity.

  ~mce

Through a
thickly frosted
window of pain,

he watched
         bewildered
as Winter forced
its icy tongue
down Summer's
hot, *******.

Looks like
seasonal ****
to me.

Quick!

Call the
Spring police.
   ~mce

I dreamed you
were a poem
and woke up
inside a poem
inside you.

  ~mce

The air is numinous.
The sun shines through branches
Illuminating everything
and every bird expresses
a lascivious symphony.
The light pierces your hair and
You shake it loose, set fire to air.
Aromas of our bodies,
sweat, sweet and ******,
rise in olfactory splendor.
I cannot remember
a time before summer when
your nakedness was not all
that made my world
everything magical and endearing.

Not
one
heart
ever
stuck.
  - mce

You do your best.

You fail.

You try again
hoping you
have learned
something,
intending
to do better.

The merciless
world does not
care for your
intentions.

Try, fail
and on it goes.

In this case
mere facts
are not
instructive.

What must a man
do to be at home
in the world?

  ~mce

A man tries
to crawl down
a whiskey bottle's
neck
         finds
no bottom
only finds an
endless ocean
of doom in which
to drown
slowly.

  ~mce

Nothing taunts
a geezer so much
as the life unlived,
so if you are young
and still breathing,
get out and live it.

  ~mce

I want to learn
to play your body
like an instrument.

When that is done,
I will play it
with wild trembling
fingers.

And when my fingers
touch your strings
you will make sounds
so wanton and sweet
even the angels
will blush.

  ~mce

At 30,
you could only
look ahead.
At 55,
I could only
look back.
We only looked
in the same direction
when we looked
at each other.
Looking at you
was all my pleasure,
but future and past
pulled too hard
to overcome.
There are lilacs now,
new lovers,
fresh beginnings.
Still,
I remember
your eyes
looking back
at me,
greener
than even this
soft,
new spring.
–mce

She tells me,
as I unbutton
her dress,
that she no longer
believes in love;
I murmur
agreement,
but stick to
the task at hand.
  - mce

Yesterday, the knockout girl
at the checkout counter -
who looked straight through me
as though I wasn't there -
handed me a Caffè Americano
instead of my ordered Latte.

I said nothing:
paid, took it and left.

After a certain age
you learn to expect what you get.
   ~mce

As a teacher,
you must always ask yourself:
do I really believe
this drivel I am vomiting?
If not, have the guts
to shut the **** up.
   ~mce

When you have to
pass a drug test
and a background check
to shovel mulch
on some rich dude's
sorry-assed shrubs
for seven dollars
and fifty cents an hour,
the very notion
of freedom
becomes a farce.
  - mce

It's OK that the world
wants to read my work,
but the only poems
that matter to me
are those I publish
in your heart.
   ~mce

For 63 years
I have broken
every rule I could:

despised money;
hated power;
loathed greed.

Standing alone
like a radio beacon
broadcasting
my only message
over and over:

I will not provide
aid and comfort
to my enemies.

I will not ******
for desire.

I will not.

  ~mce

everything seems
normal

inside and warm
the illusion
of safety and
permanence

outside the
executioner
shivers and
sharpens

suddenly an icy
guillotine
pops our heads off
mid-sentence
through a
witty conversation

death is a pop quiz
you cannot prepare for

sooner or later
all our heads
will be tested

and only get
to fail once

   ~mce

Just as day broke,
mission safely over,
red tracers reached up
to grab our chopper:
Ah, the rosy-fingered dawn!
- mce

odd, how an
ordinary evening
can turn
miraculous
when you've had
a bit too much
to drink
and your woman
is very beautiful
poised against
the unexpected snow
that makes
everything shine

   ~mce

I lost my Normal
at 20 in Vietnam.
I've been looking
for it ever since.
If you see it around,
let it know
I'd like to get
in touch.
Forty-five
abnormal years
is a long time.
Maybe we could
become friends
again.

How do you
fall in love
with a few words
on a telephone
or a few lines
on a computer.

You don't.

But I have.

~mce

At 6 AM as I sat
on my porch
drinking coffee,
smoking an evil
cigarette and
thinking of nothing.

Exactly eleven crows
on the electric wire
began hurling
what I imagine
were cacophonous
insults at my
barely alive being.

I answered nothing.

Crows are not
to be messed with.

They have powers.
They remember slights
and are prone to plan
violent revenge.

Why do you think in
groups they are called
a ****** of Crows?

And how could I,
being one man alone,
answer an entire
choir of them?

I beat a hasty retreat,
innocent though I was.

  ~mce

Sure, I write for love, beauty and seduction,
but those are just the fun parts.
Mostly I write because it is my duty
to speak words for the innumerable
dispossessed millions who have no voices.
To be an angry pain in the ***** of
power, money, greed and corruption.
I know that I cannot destroy them
but perhaps I can create an itch
they cannot reach far enough to scratch.
Perhaps that itch will make them mindful
and uncomfortable at what they are and do.
If that is true, my duty is done
and I can go back to the prurient pleasures
of love, beauty and seduction
with something like a clear conscience.
  ~mce

Μάλια 1969/PA 2015*

Last night you came
to me in a dream,
vivid, alive, your eyes
still sparkling like
those perfect Greek stars.
Time's tears diminish or
erase most memories,
but some faces, like
like sun on Attic water,
shine too brightly
for even nearly
fifty years to fade.
I hope you are safe.
I hope you are happy.
I hope you stop by
my dreams again
sometime.

  ~mce

Life is too valuable
to be ****** for money.
Poverty, unless crushing,
forced or dangerous,
at least has integrity.
So life's too short
to be a ***** anymore.
I paid those dues.
I am a human; I will
only do it for love.
  ~mce