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

~mce

Forgiving strangers
who have hurt strangers
is a cheap luxury.
Forgiving those close
who have hurt us,
an expensive necessity.
The truth reveals itself
clearest in suffering.
The hard path,
often the best path.
But oh how difficult
to take those first steps.
- mce

Judge me if you like,
I do not care.
My sins are mine.
Look to your own.
The flesh beneath
my lips is my choice.
Choose what you must.
I am not a saint,
only a man
caught in my desire,
needing what I need
and taking it.
Get your own.
Take what you need.
Leave me in peace.
I will do the same.
This is all any of us
can manage.
  - mce

Gems are
like gold,
you find them
where you find them,
faster, the harder
you dig.
People, books,
ideas, poems
and songs,
there at the opening
of a mouth,
a door, a book,
a heart,
that change you
forever.
Keep mining,
you never know
what is next
these pickings
can be rich
indeed.
- mce

Let me be drunk
on your beauty.
Let me be warmed
by your touch.
Let your arms
enfold my heart.
Let your grace
wash over me.

Do not withhold
yourself, Love.

Death hovers
wearing
a patient grin.

So little time
and none
to waste.
- mce

What happens
when every road
is a detour
and you are
too tired
to keep driving?
- mce

My true love
made me a gift
of an exquisite
Swiss watch
for my birthday.

If only the
elegant seconds
it perfectly
ticks off
were spent
with her.

~ mce

deep chill
of early morning

another
lost autumn
disappears

winter the
only promise

always kept

  ~mce

I have heard
there is not enough
love in the world.

I don't believe it.

There just aren't
enough lovers
in the world.

See, we can make
the world a better place.

(And enjoy the work!)

   ~mce

Pretty words
do not make
a life;
pretty words
do not
make a man.
I am good with
pretty words.

What have
they brought me?

No wife,
no kids,
no home.

I have bought
a good deal
of nothing
with my
pretty words.

More;
there must be
more.

I want to sing
meaning
into creation.

I want the stars
to dance
to my songs.

I want
elegant women
to swoon
when I speak.

I want
nightingales
to envy me.

I want God
to hear
my breath.

I want trees
to smile
at my syllables.

I want...
I want...

But all
that happens
are more
pretty words.
  - mce

I tell people in poems or speech
that I do not fear death.
They scoff and say that everyone does.
There is no convincing. I am quiet.
But to myself I think: I don't believe
that death can hurt me more than life did.
Oh, I stood it like a man and gave some back
But Hurt after hurt until pain became balm.
Life or death, what reason to fear eternity,
at its worst only brings more of the same.

How sad,
to admit
your love
only after
the funeral.
  - mce

The hardest life to bear
is the one you didn't live,
but should have.
  - mce

The Self
we cling to
so tightly
departs
in an instant.

Ephemeral moments
we could spend
making love,
eating, napping,
thinking, sighing,
engrossed in beauty

we waste on war,
greed, grasping,
hatred, hurting
and senseless ******,
the profound anxiety
of power, jealousy
and envy.

Worrying all the time.

And still,

the Self
we cling to
so tightly
departs
in an instant.

  ~mce

Get up in the morning,
look in the mirror,
and realize
that you have aged
ten years
in eight months.
- mce

If only I could
    plant myself
deep in the
    perfect earth
of your body
    and grow us
a new life
    together.
  - mce

Forget everything
you know about life
and write down
only what you imagine.

  ~mce

Times show up in life
when a man must decide
to face the fire or to flee.

They have visited me before
with fabulously mixed results.

Now again I hear,
if only in imagination,
the sound of bullets,
the whine of shrapnel,
the drone of rotors,
whispering to me:

Your life; your choice;
stand your ground
or run away.

May my heart choose wisely.
- mce

You wake
in a warm bed
and feel her
female presence;
she wakes,
opens her eyes,
and smiles.
What is more
lovely
and reassuring
than waking up
next to a lover
who wakes up
smiling?
The entire
coming day
seems to smile
along with her.
Small instances
like this
make the world
not only bearable
but beautiful.
- mce

If you leave me,
my heart will break
and the crash
of crystal on brick
will resonate
to the end
of the universe.
  ~ mce

We are all waiting
for a miracle
and then one
shows up
and you find
it makes your life
extremely difficult
and confusing
but delightful.

Winter knows
when a man's pockets
are empty.

"To write a poem you must first create a pen that will write what you want to say. For better or worse, this is the work of a lifetime."

I miss you in
tiny underground
nuclear explosions
that burn my feet
and send me
running towards you.

  ~mce

is a knot
we unravel
with something
other than
our fingers.

  ~mce

Just the memory
of the crook
of your knee
is worth
an entire life
to me.
  - mce

Just when you think
it can't get worse,
the bottom is
about to fall out.

  ~mce

She felt she was a writer
and therefore she was privileged
to edit the world.

  ~mce

Once, when married, my wife
was shopping in Victoria's Secret.
I was busy trying to be invisible.
But a young, perky sales associate
pounced on me and asked to help
in the eternally obnoxious
manner of such women.
I said I was looking
for the children's section.
Security was called. Out I went.
Now I will never find out
Victoria's special secrets.
If anyone knows  what they are
or why they are so special,
please let me hear from you.

It is so hard to know what
comes next because
the world is round and it's
hard to see around the corners.

  ~MCE

Discovering
that what you
were sure
was you last beer
is actually two.
- mce

We are caught out
in the cold road
and there's no door
to get back in.

  ~mce

~for JLB
I thought when you left
that it was just the end of you;
of course, I was wrong.
It was the end of me, too.
  - mce

I am weary
of being at war
with time;
take my hand,
lead me to
a country
without clocks.
  - mce

If I wished,
I could return
to  the world
without color
and all its
material prizes.
It would be
the easy path.
But I dream
a riotous palette
and insist
this new life
be drawn
of its varied
and vivid
hues and tints.
Difficult, painful
brush strokes,
but a canvas
so much richer
for the effort.
  - mce

I used to dream of true love
forever and ever.
Now I dream of one true heart
to share mine
for what time remains.
Forever and ever
reside only in this moment.
True love is just a name,
at best a portal,
the opening of a door.
Two hearts that touch and blend:
love true enough, and more.
- mce

When you are old
and looking back,
your regrets
will be the things
you didn't do,
not the things
you did.
   ~mce

Sometimes
I wake up
and think
I have been
here so long
that I am
walking on
myself and
every idea
I have is
nothing but
nostalgia.

I'd like
to leave,
but no desire
is simple
and we all
have to
struggle
against
something.

  ~mce

I only want to
be your heart's physician
keeping our love strong.

  ~mce

Did you hear
the round
that turned
your world
upside down?
Or was it but
a moment
of pain
and fumbling,
a silent
ecstasy
of tumbling?
Unscathed
myself,
I can
only wonder,
how it feels
to have
your flesh
torn asunder
and then,
how to live
and if
to forgive.
  - mce

I wrote a poem on the back
of an overdue electric bill.

It was a good poem.

Certainly that makes us even.

   - mce

Some lonely mornings
it is raining in the corner
of everyone's empty
bedroom.

  ~mce

This morning
no ordinary words
will do,
I want the poem
that is you.

The poem
of your lips,
the poem
of your eyes,
the poem
of your hips,
the poem
of your thighs.

These are the only
words that will do,
the fleshly poetry
of the woman
that is you.

  ~mce

Let my
tongue
touch the
very why
of you
so that
I can
hear your
soul
make its
sounds
out loud
in the
world.
  - mce

The universe
loves fools
and creates
a need for us;
otherwise
how could we
make it through
even one day.

~mce

You can write
all the love poems
you want to
as long as you
don't mistake
love for ****.

   ~mce

He's turned his back upon the fire,
he's turned his face away;
he's broke, he's cold and far from home;
he knows he's lost the way.
His children fled from his disease;
His wife's forgot his name;
He's traveled far but can't remove
the burden of his shame.
He wishes that he knew a way
to make his wrongs all right,
to bring the hearts of those he loved
back to his lonely night.
But now his path is solitude,
the way leads on alone;
the things he did, the pains he caused,
are only his to own.
There are some wounds that can't be healed,
some words he can't unsay;
the things he did that led him to
the mourning of this day.
So he will wake and think and write
of all he had that's lost;
the rage he knew, the words he hurled,
and just how much that cost.
He's turned his back upon the fire,
he's turned his face away;
he's broke, he's cold and far from home,
he knows he's lost the way.
  - mce