I want you to be
the very last thing
my tongue tastes
so I can die
happy.

~mce

On Tuesday I drove near
my ex-wife's house
for the first time
in almost three years.
At just that moment,
in just that place,
my car's clutch blew up.
Curse or coincidence?
Spooky to think about.
Hard to say.
- mce

Poetry
is the sound
of your heart
speaking aloud.
Listen.
Ignore the voices
that say no,
and you
are already
a poet.
- mce

Loving you,
body to body,
mouth to mouth,
sums up
all my hopes,
all my desires.

Only a fool
would keep
searching.

When you meet
someone who
fulfills your
dreams, if you
take to wandering,
you will be lost.
  ~mce

There seems
to be a fatal flaw
in the world's design
that keeps those
who care for each other
separate and at a distance,
sometimes forever.

  ~mce

The man with no eyes
fixed his vacant gaze
hard upon me and said:
You don't look so well
today, my friend.
Honestly, I replied,
I do feel a bit blank.
- mce

I knew a woman
whose perfect ***
could send men
to die horrible
deaths, smiling.

  ~mce

Our secret kisses
are deeper
than what most folks
call reality.

  ~mce

Consider:
every time you think
you have met the One,
he is probably
just One more
before the Next One.

   ~mce

Most folks
have a past;
I have
nightmares:
same difference.
  - mce

Every rope
has an end;
the question is:
do you hold on
once you've
reached it
or do you
make a noose?
  - mce

Run away with me, Love.
We will build a tiny house
and live a tiny life together
with just us, a dog, a cat
poetry, wine and passion.

We will do only what we wish
and leave the world to itself.
I will love you more
than the stars can imagine
in the time that remains
until the years betray me
and then kiss you and
send you on your way
to what I will not see.

Run away with me love
and we will be happy and free
and content with our quiet,
intimate personal mystery.

This explains our love:
not the first love,
perhaps the last love,
certainly the best love.
~ mce

quit needing,

quit wanting,

**** the rules,

be at peace...

Myself I yearn
for love and light
but must it come so cruel
must it be so bright?*

  ~Joan of Arc

Fly, little poem.
Make your way
into her heart
and wait for me
to join you there.
I'll be along
as soon as possible.
  ~mce

by Joanne Harris**

If you can still write
in spite of the fact
that you’re not getting paid,
that nobody cares about
what you’re writing,
that nobody wants to publish it,
that everybody is telling you
to do something else,
and you still want to
and you still enjoy it
and you can’t stop doing it …
then you’re a writer.

Living alone,
I am randomly
eccentric.

It's not a quirk,
if no one sees.

Often at odd hours,
day or night,
I sneak a glance
at my mirror
hoping
to be surprised
by a young
and happy
reflection.

Never happens.

   mce

It exists as
so much more
than just
a principle;
ask the Cat
in the Box.
Expect at least
three answers.
Accept them all.
  - mce

Time is the only gift
I have to give.
Unwrap it
moment by moment.
You are opening
my heart.
  - mce

When the Past is dead,
the Present disappointing
and the Future short.
When everything is so fragile
that a breath could break you.
Where better could you be?

  ~mce

In 1967
I watched Detroit
burn on TV
and saw my own
country invaded
by its own tanks.

Even at sixteen
I knew I was
watching the
beginning
of the end
of something
that had been
magical and rotten
for too many years.

Sometimes even
young kids
can see
the future.

And now it is here.

The fire next time
is come upon us.

And we burn before
we will change.

   ~mce

I'm waiting for a message.
I'm sitting in a bar.
I've flown 10,000 miles.
I've journeyed from afar.

The stranger who would meet me
is no one that I know;
I dreamed her voice in Paradise,
she told me she would show.

Oh where are you my only love,
when will you dance with me,
step from the crowds into my heart,
I long to set you free.

When will you stand before me,
when will your face appear,
I'm sinking into loneliness,
I'm sinking into fear.

I want to lift your flouncing skirt;
I want to touch your soul;
I want my hands to trace your *******;
I want to make you whole.

They're wiping down the tables,
it's time to disappear;
I guess that you are far my love
and yet you feel so near.

But I will haunt this table,
each long and empty night
until you finally show up,
until the time is right.
-mce

An aging man wearing
a used field jacket stuffed
full of words
who knows a million things
that won't make any money,
stuck in a culture
where only what can be bought
is good for you.

After one bill is paid,
the next stalks you
like an enemy soldier.

Friends dead or far away;
silence your only true companion.

Marriage failed; children grown and gone.

Days and hours to fill with emptiness.

Mornings broadcast sameness
like endless TV reruns.

The price of intelligence
is constant isolation.

Nothing lasts forever
and today feels like nothing.

Stuck like a refugee
between breath and death.

In the distance, a woeful,
lonely moan from the world.

Too long a sacrifice
makes the heart a stone.

Hope isn't just a feathered thing,
it is an extinct bird flown forever.

Not much time left to live,
but it feels like eternity.

Some mornings you would
prefer to wake up dead
but it's just too much trouble.

Get up, stagger through the day
dragging your life behind you
like a bag full of skeletons.

We all have to struggle
against something.

Cheer up!

After all, with a little luck
it could be the last.

  ~mce

Where is God
at four AM?
  - mce

Sometimes the silence
in my life
whispers, you're lucky.
Sometimes the silence
in my life
whimpers, you're lonely.
From moment to moment
I never know
which voice it will be.
- mce

Remember:
the chance
you won't take
is the life
you won't live.

Pull on your boots.
Be open
to possibility.
Saunter forth.

Trust luck
and curiosity
to manage the rest.
- mce

I broke my soul
and lived
in an empty world
until madness
set me free.

Few people
have heard
as much silence
as I have
nor accomplished
as much nothing.

And yet,
content,
I sit here
being what I am
expecting
nothing more.

  ~mce

The birds of dawn wake to song.
Slow at first and then cacophony
We wake to their audacious clamor.
Move closer, love, I need your warmth,
your peace, your breath, your body.
Stay with me and you will clasp my neck,
and I will enter your being
and our oneness will bring courage
and the darkness will become easy.
We will enter the uncertain day together.

~mce

Lovers live hard lives;
always in that no-man's land
between self and other.
  - mce

If only you loved me
I would be a better man.
Less angry, more gentle.
But on this chilly morning
you are far away and unlikely.
Still, hope sticks.
I must only endure to find out.
She loves me; she loves me not.
Showered by your kisses,
I could live the life I ought to.
I could be lenient, soft, smooth,
forgiving, tender, calm, serene.
I own a good but wounded heart.
Kiss me Lover and hold me tight.
Help me to be the man I can be.
I will pay you back with a love
beyond any  ever known.

~mce

I saw
an old man
kneeling
on the side
of the road
the other day.

I stopped
to ask
if I could
help in
any way.

I could
see him
flap his arms,
hear him
mutter
and pray.

"There is
no help,"
he shouted.
"Be on
your way!"

I left then
because
I was afraid
that should
I stay,

I might begin
to kneel,
to flap
my arms,
to mutter
and to pray.
  - mce

Women:
they show up,
they smile,
they love my poems,
they grace my bed
and then,
they leave.
Something
is awry here.
- mce

She doesn't
have a clue
how sweet
she is.
My job is
to melt
that gelid
heart and
open her
like a
blossom
to her own
delight.
I'm on it.

  ~mce

Each time
I've faced
a major change
in my life,
I was sure
I would die

and I did.

I will gladly
build you
a new
universe
if you will
kneel
between
my legs
and pull me
out of this one.

  ~mce

The poor hate the rich,
the stupid hate the smart,
the lonely hate the lovers,
the ill hate the healthy,
the ugly hate the beautiful,
the losers hate the winners,
amidst all of this hate
miraculously you love me.

  ~mce

I have lived alone
so long that
I have learned
to hug myself
and enjoy it.
  - mce

It is simple
to be a poet:

slice your chest open
with the fine edge
of imagination;

wrench your heart loose;

take a bite;

smile and offer
a taste
to anyone
who might be interested,

not caring
whether they find it
sweet or bitter.
- mce

If you
can't make
your life
larger than
your grief,
you
will never
be alive
again.
-mce

The essence
of the poem
in the poet's heart:
a long, soundless
wailing
that won't stop
until written.
  - mce

I admit that
I have been
a fool for love.
I don't care.
It was worth it.
If you won't be
a fool for love,
you will always
be a fool.
  - mce

Most men
do not require
poetry.
They can
take it
or leave it.

But women are poetry
and very interesting
to read.
~mce

Every morning
I wake up to
a different world.
Sixty-three years
and each day
a new beginning.
Somehow it
never gets old.
   ~mce

The silence of words
or the silence of no words:
difficult to know
which screams the loudest.
~ mce

Reality resides in the mind,
all dark shards and sharp edges;
the imagination
smooths and softens them
into something
bright and better.

Poetry is the great shaper;
the focusing lens.

To be a poet is to see
not what is
but what ought to be
with holy, burning intensity.
   ~ mce

You make
wearing nothing
seem ******
fashionable.

  ~mce

In life's vivid
green spring,
I dreamed
of embracing
all of creation.
Now, life fades
to russet autumn,
and you are all
I desire
in my arms.
  - mce

Do we ever
really grow up
or do we just
get tired?

~mce

An indigo bunting
landed on my deck railing.
We looked at each other
for a few seconds
before it flew away.
Beauty explodes
in an instant.
- mce