After two years
of additions
and relentless work,
just now turned
by shovel and
again by tiller,
this loose earth
slips through
my warm hands
soft as a willing
woman's belly
wanting only spring
to arrive, to penetrate,
to enter with soft seed
planted deeply,
before the quickening,
before the ripening,
before the bursting
forth into abundance
and delight.


  ~mce

She drops her dress
like a bouquet
and steps like a bride,
naked and trembling,
brave and eager,
onto a new path,
into a new world
beyond imagining.
- mce

I do not create poems
from fancy or for fun,
but to engender reality.

Stories I tell
about stories
I have been told,
or told myself.

All the more real
for being imaginary.
- mce

by Jaroslav Seifert**

Life taught me long ago
that music and poetry
are the most beautiful things on earth
that life can give us.
Except for love, of course.

In an old textbook
published by the Imperial Printing House
in the year of Vrchlický's death
I looked up the section on poetics
and poetic ornament.

Then I placed a rose in a tumbler,
lit a candle
and started to write my first verses.

Flare up, flame of words,
and soar,
even if my fingers get burned!

A startling metaphor is worth more
than a ring on one's finger.
But not even Puchmajer's Rhyming Dictionary
was any use to me.

In vain I snatched for ideas
and fiercely closed my eyes
in order to hear that first magic line.
But in the dark, instead of words,
I saw a woman's smile and
wind-blown hair.

That has been my destiny.
And I've been staggering towards it breathlessly
all my life.

Death determines life.
Embrace it: ecstasy.
Reject it: despair.
Scary choice isn't it?
Choose well. Your existence
completely depends upon it.
No pressure.

When I die
my words will scatter
like fallen leaves.

All I have made
blown carelessly
to the four corners.

This is both
heartbreaking
and amusing.

They are
not really mine
anyway.

Hold on to nothing,
you become free
to do anything.
  - mce

its report

sharp as
a rifle crack

the shot
that misses

this time

jangling the brain
with anxiety

for the bullet

next time

that will not
be heard

  - mce

What is the smell
of yesterday,
the color of pain,
the taste of love?
How many blueberries
in a second?
Are women
really human?
Does death
make a sound?
Are cats truly smart
or just pretending?
Will those I've
loved and hurt
ever forgive me?
So many questions
to answer
before I can depart.
- mce

He lived.
He pleased himself.
Small things
amused him.
He endured.
He smiled.
Life was as good
as it could be.
That was enough.

  ~mce

The very young
like to believe
they will paint
their own lives.
To some degree
this is true,
but many
loving hands
will touch
the brush.
  - mce

In one frozen moment
I watched my friend's guts
erupt from his body
onto the deck
of our chopper.
Forty-three
years later,
it visits my dreams:
this image of death,
ineluctable
as death itself.
Wars end;
war never does.
- mce

Even after
he had touched her
in more places
than she knew she had
he plunged onward
like some crazed explorer
seeking out El Dorado,
looking for that golden city
where rest and consummation
might be possible
for both of them.
No need to hurry.
You can't be lost inside
someone you love.

  ~mce

They all
want to hear you
sing of the light;
****** few
will listen
when the song
turns dark.
  - mce

Take the
flowers,
woman,
and dance
with me...
soon.

~mce

Aside from loving you,
I feel more nothing
than anyone
you will never meet.
  ~mce

Here I stand, with all my lore,
Poor fool, no wiser than before.*

We die right now;
not in some alien future.
Some days, the sun shines.
Others the gloom gathers.
Wisdom is a fleeting moment.
Death does not defeat life.
Experience is the path
to transcendence.
Take it all in
before you can't.

So tell me God,
isn't divinity
ever boring?
Don't you tire
of being distant,
unapproachable,
and worshipped?
Isn't it lonely?
Don't you ever wish
you could have
a burger,
sip a beer,
just hang out
and *******?
If you ever
get the notion,
let me know.
I'd be happy
for the company.
- mce

July 15th,  2015,
6:30 AM, 55 degrees:
the summer that doesn't
want to happen.

Once every seven years
we shed our skins
like inevitable serpents.

I am in my ninth seven.

I know the time has come
to make a new life,
not so easy at sixty-three.

Although I practice
avoiding desire and craving,
I do so want this.

To be born again,
at least this once more,
into a fresh existence.

To plunge my clean hands
into pellucid water
and be made pure.

To walk with a new woman
through another rendition
of the fabulous Garden.

To be content with what is
and if the right birds sing
maybe even occasionally be happy.

I know that my story,
like every other story,
can only end in death.

I only want this last chance,
which is what we all want,
before the final curtain falls.

I am in my ninth seven
and I shall see what I shall see:
what remains possible for me.

  ~mce

In my country
home is no longer
a place, it has
become
a journey.

Folks have
a thousand
Facebook friends
but 80% of
Americans can't
name one of
their neighbors.

Small wonder
we are so
frazzled and
frustrated here:
work has
replaced life
and no home
exists where
we can enjoy
solitude
and peace.

Where do you go
when there is no
place left to go?

   ~mce

Let me help you
get that dress
over your head.

Wait a minute:

Let me take you
while that dress
is over your head.

I'd like to be
more helpful,
but lust strikes
powerfully,
hard and deep.

Please pardon
my greed,
but I can see
what I need

and right now,
I need you.
~mce

for Sharon Olds*

No one
in our time -
except perhaps
Leonard Cohen -
has written
so exquisitely
of Love, Lust
and Loss.

It is as if
you have
commandeered
God's voice.

What must
it be like
to know
the Human
so well?

Sweet Poetess
of illuminated
darkness;

your words
fall like stars
into the
dusky world
and brighten
each obscure
corner.

Such a gift
to be given;
such a gift
to give.

  ~mce

You know
you are drunk
when the game
is count to
two without
making
a mistake
and no one
wins.
  ~mce

If you submitted
to a moment of sanity,
tore off your clothes,
removed your mask
and stood boldly,
for just an instant -
glorious, trembling
and naked -
before another
human heart,
who would you be?
  - mce

He wants
so much
to remove
his armor
and rest
awhile
in arms
safer than
steel.
  - mce

The man of deeds who lacks the word
is simple, stupid and absurd.
He works and struggles all the day
for nothing more than mindless pay.
He loves the rich and thinks them smart
for gaining through their lack of heart.
He loves his boundaries; worships rules;
considers those who break them fools.
His mind is closed; his world is small;
he has no words to think at all.
His conversation tends to stink
because he never learned to think.
His only drive is buying more;
he's little but a robot *****.
He does and does and that's enough,
if he can just keep buying stuff.
He never questions what he's told;
he's just a thing that's bought and sold.
And when it is his time to die;
he'll lack the words to wonder why.
- mce

In the chill morning darkness
the soul gropes blindly about
trying to find its pants.
  - mce

No devils,
no pitchforks,
no screams,
no fire,
no brimstone:
just
more people
and another
day.
  - mce

Even if you
have convinced
yourself
(wrongly)
that you are
nothing special
you should
still insist
on a Tsunami
of love.

  ~mce

Poetry tells the truths
that cannot be told
but must be told
the kind that hit
you hard and leave you
punchy with grace.

~mce

a modest red house

two minds dying

age and disease/
grief and despair

two minds crumbling

a small red house

a slow falling away

faint footsteps
on narrow stairs

the patter of death

in a modest
                  red house
  - mce

Take a minute.

Click on my
portrait picture.

Forty-three years
since that was snapped.

Look how skinny,
how starched.

Look how hard I'm
trying not to show
my terror,
the absurdly
casual stance.

Look at a child
of twenty
sent to die
for old men.

Look at a picture
taken thousands
of times since.

Think of the pictures
of the lost who never
came home or in pieces
or mentally broken.

America
you demand
too much.

  ~mce

You are tired
and heartbroken.

Your words just now
can stay unspoken.

What you must say
can wait a day.

Meantime:

I will steal it,
take your pain
into my brain
where it can sit,
where it can stay
hidden away

within a rhyme.

Not to speak of
till a better time.
~ mce

Answers only dull the senses.
Even right answers
often make what they explain
uninteresting. Not knowing
provides a reason to live.

   ~mce

The Iraq War cost
three trillion dollars.

Tonight a mother
and her  two children
sleep in an
abandoned car
in Detroit.

Something doesn't
add up.
  ~mce

We are made
to promise things
to one another
and to ourselves
beneath the
crushing duress
of desire.

Promises we
fling like silver
into magical
fountains,
convinced of
fulfillment.

Promises
we never meant
to keep.

  ~mce

Women
blow through
my life
like neurotic
hurricanes.
In their
aftermath,
I repair
what I can,
knowing
that the next
tropical depression
gathers
just beyond
the horizon.
- mce

Imagining two bodies
becoming one
delights the mind;
two bodies actually
becoming one
is less delightful,
more difficult.
The transition
from ideal to real
defeats most.
Imagining and effort,
not always the same.
Spirit and flesh
do not merge easily.
Often it is easier
to meander on
to the next imagining
and dream away
your chance at love.

   ~mce

The Storm**

Now through the white orchard my little dog
romps, breaking the new snow
with wild feet.
Running here running there, excited,
hardly able to stop, he leaps, he spins
until the white snow is written upon
in large, exuberant letters,
a long sentence, expressing
the pleasures of the body in this world.
Oh, I could not have said it better

I have spent 45 tedious, difficult
years trying to learn the universe.
Now, I spend all my energy
trying my best to unlearn it.

Which is better?
Which is even different?

  ~mce

If the Christian afterlife
is so cool, why would
Jesus play such a cruel
and mean trick as to raise
Lazarus from the dead?

  ~mce

He's sitting in
these rented rooms;
he's waiting
for the end.
He knows that
there are things
he knew,
he'll never know again.

The parting of
your lovely knees;
the glistening
of your lips;
the way your *******
reached out for him;
the lilting of your hips.
The time of lust
has drained away,
there's little
left to trust.

He's sitting in
these rented rooms;
he's waiting
for the end.
He knows that
there are things
he knew,
he'll never know again.
   -mce

My ghosts are hungry
this morning
and demand to be fed
or they won't shut up.
Where, exactly,
do you buy ghost food?
  - mce

Anyone can
be a Hero
for five minutes;
it's minute six
that tells the tale.
  - mce

If you put yourself
at the mercy
of life's events,
you will find life
merciless
and never have
one of your own.

You are playing dead.

If you play dead
long enough,
your chance
of coming back
to life
is questionable.

It is not a question
of choose or die;

the challenge is
to choose and live.

  ~mce

Say it. Say it all. Say it out loud. Do not be afraid. A poet must first be bold. Will they disapprove? Who are they? **** them. Say it. Say it all. Say it out loud. Be true to your muse. That's all you've got and it is everything...

Winter
cries out
for warmth.

Remember
those lovely
lost girls,

hot as poems
penned with
the Devil's
own ****,

vivid as movies
never seen.

Who they were,
where they went,

unknowable,

names lost
in time.

Yet,
in memory,
anonymous
faces and bodies
flare and warm
the soul

one last time.

Warmth
for winter,

proof against
the frozen
emptiness

of departed
desire.

  ~mce

Describe experience
and you get a novel;
distill experience
and you get a poem.

  ~mce

A black dog
sitting on a dock
staring silently
through the darkness
at the mute moon.

  ~mce

How do you separate
the **** from the *******...

  ~mce

Be thankful
for your breath.
Everything and
everyone else
will leave you;
when your
breath departs,
it won't matter.
- mce