It seems to have spontaneously combusted, but it didn’t. The disease struck long ago, brewed in the petri dish of Depression, WWII, and convergent technologies. Well before that, really, but that was the point of critical mass. By the 1950's, it was an epidemic. The independent Republic of individuals, small towns, coherent communities, distinct cities, local diners, shops and stores tied together with two lane blacktop was crumbling. Things only got worse faster. It was a disease of toxic, lulling dreams. American Dreams. And standardization was its crushing foot that flattened everything and left a homogenized wasteland in its trail. The old gods vanished and the new became despots. Go anywhere in America, Boston or Biloxi. You can’t tell where you are. Most shop at the same stores (real or virtual), eat at the same chain restaurants, wear the same clothes, gulp from the same Internet, swallow similar information, and think (within acceptable variations) the same thoughts. Even sin has become tediously consubstantial. Knowledge has been supplanted by content. Words are squeezed of meaning. Everyone is an expert and no one knows anything. Except Siri and Alexa. The Dreamtime of consumerism, consumption and conformity dominates. All that remains to come is the dominion of AI. Then we will all be watched over by machines of loving grace, free to graze in bovine bliss in the cybernetic meadows of bland utopia.

A Ballad For A Thin Man.

Understood backwards. Lived forward. Life.
Haunted by diverging others. Us but not. Wraiths.
Ghosts of what if? Who then? What might have been?
Leave room. Turn left. Lovely house, wife, retirement.
Leave same room. Turn right. Shack, loneliness, poverty.
Theorize games. Physik quanta. Slide down strings.
Into Wonderland, Oz, Middle-Earth. Narnia.
All the places that don’t exist and matter the most.
Where doors open up to impossible possibilities.
Fight your way through every day. Pit bull of potential.
Just do your work and be kind.* That is a separate peace.
We may be others in other universes, but here we are just us.
**** it up. Love your life. Do what you must. Soldier on.
Real realities can really hurt. Take it like a Man. Or Woman.
Be grateful for your trials. Trials are you. Struggle.
Mount the philosopher’s donkey backwards, advance.

To The Woman**

Yes, you remember,
You certainly remember
The way I listened
Standing at the wall
As you walked to and fro about the chamber
Reproving me
With bitter words and all.

You said
That it was time we"d parted,
And that my reckless life,
For you, was an ordeal,
And it was time a new life you had started
While  I was fated
To go rolling downhill.

My love!
You didn"t care for me, no doubt.
You weren"t aware of the fact that I
Was like a ruined horse, amidst the crowd,
Spurred by a dashing rider, flashing by.

You didn"t know
That I was all a-smoke,
And in my life, turned wholly upside-down ,
I was in misery,   downhearted, broke,
Because I didn"t see which way we were bound.

When face to face
We cannot see the face.
We should step back for better observation.
For when  the ocean boils and wails
The ship is in a sorry situation.

The world is but a ship!
But all at once,
Someone, in search of better  life and glory,
Has  turned it, gracefully,  taking his chance,
Into the hub of storm and flurry.

Well,  which of us
On board a mighty boat
Has never brawled nor barfed nor fallen down?
There are not many of them that will not
Despair when they"re about to drown.


Me,  too,
To loud hue and cry,
But knowing well what I was doing
Went down to the hold where  I
Might keep away from scenes of spewing.

"Hold" was a Russian pub
Where I
Drank,   listening to the loud bicker,
I tried to stop my  worries by
Just drowning myself in liquor.


My love!
I worried you, oh my!
Your tired eyes revealed dejection,
I didn"t hide from you that I
Had spent my life in altercation.

You didn"t know
That I was all a-smoke,
And in my life, turned wholly upside-down,
I was in misery, downhearted, broke,
Because I didn"t see
Which way we were bound.

....................................

Now many years have passed,
I"m not so young today.
I do not  feel the same, and I  have new ideas,
And here at festive table  I will say:
Long live the one who"s at the steers!

Today I,
Seized by tender feelings so,
Recall your  wistfulness,  and I am happy  
To tell you straight, for you to know,
About what I was  
And what has happened!

My love,
I"m glad to tell you that
I have escaped a bad descent, an"
Today I"m in the Soviet land
A staunch supporter and defender.

I"m not the man
I used to be.
I wouldn"t hurt  you now
The way I did.  So silly!
And I would follow Labour, feeling free,
As far as English Channel, really.

Forgive me please,
I know that you have changed.
You live with an intelligent,
Good husband;
You don"t need all this fuss and all this pledge,
And you don"t need me either, such a hazard.

Live as you do
Lead by your lucky star
Under the tent of fern, if there"s any.
My best regards,
You"re always on my mind, you are,
Yours, faithfully,
           S e r g e y   Y e s e n i n.

Morning Poem**

Every morning
the world
is created.
Under the orange

sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again

and fasten themselves to the high branches—
and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands

of summer lilies.
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails

for hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere.
And if your spirit
carries within it

the thorn
that is heavier than lead—
if it's all you can do
to keep on trudging—

there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted—

each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every morning,

whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.

~ menu fixe for Chez Revanche

Anxious Anaconda Antipasto.
Mega Shark Soup.
Grinning Crocodile Fillets.
Prodigious Python Pie.

All served up like revenge,
appropriately cold.

Presentation is everything.

Tuck in, before they do.

   _ mce

For my boys, now grown, but in memory still green.*

Sleep, child, the winter is long
and the harsh winds blow cold,
but in my arms you are warm.
The time will soon be here
when you will wake, grown and alone,
to find me passed from this lonely earth.
The years will fly and you will wake to springs
long after my arms have left you,
long after this lullaby is sung.
But  now I hold you as in a dream
and thank whatever gods may be
that we are here, just you and me.

  ~mce

If you had ever
held a dying man
in your arms
and heard him
crying for
his wife,
his mother
or god
(none of whom
ever showed up),
you would know
that war is not
a video game,
not entertainment,
but a reality
you hold
in your arms
(your heart,
your mind)
until you too
die.

  ~mce

All day,
everyday,
people try
desperately
to tell us
who they are
and we
ignore them
because
we want them
to be someone
else.

~ mce

But if I had a daughter, a young woman
I saw drowning in needless pain,

I would say to her:

Are you certain you would be happy,

if only:

you got him back,
or he wanted you back,
or you lived somewhere else
or you were someone else
or were taller, shorter,
thinner, stronger, weaker
just different,
anyone, anywhere, anytime
but yourself?

Sorry, but you are you. Be you.
Insist upon yourself. Be fierce
in your resolve. Men are in awe
of fierce women, really.
Take back your heart.
It belongs to you alone.

You do not need to be fixed, so don't
look for someone else to do the job.

Remember: "You're only pretty as you feel,
only pretty as you feel inside."

And on that there are no limits
except the ones you create.

But then, I never had a daughter,
so what do I know?

   'mce

The passage of the years
constrains possibility;
calendars squeeze life.
Now I know there are
poems I won't read again;
books I won't open again;
places I'll not visit again;
people I won't see again;
lips I'll never kiss again.
Age narrows time.
Passing sixty,
everywhere around me,
the sound of closing doors.
  - mce

Cold without
and cold within.
I light huge fires
in my stove,
but the embers
of whole forests
do not warm;
I pour the output
of entire distilleries
down my throat,
but the spark
does not catch.
I think
some essential
kindling
is missing.
Perhaps that
is You.
- mce

****, it's so quiet:
my heart feels like
an abandoned
railway station
rusting in the rain
that no one visits
anymore because
it's so much
easier to fly.
  - mce

If you were
a pirate Queen,
I'd be your first mate
and we would
sail the seas
bouncing the waves
forever.
Let the crew
think what the may.
  ~mce

****!
I think I'm
a Cylon...
- mce

We will sleep together
in my head tonight;
holding each other close
in arms of fantasy:
dream lovers,
made of imagination.

~mce

Slip
(Love)
lightly,
silently,
naked
into
my soul
and let me
drape you
delicately
in the black
silken lace
of my heart.
  - mce

Kiss me Goddess.
I want your tongue
in my human mouth
filling it with words.
I want your breath
in my lonely lungs
inspiring me.
Haptic Lady,
I want your legs
around my waist
urging me to creation,
undulating ecstasy.
Make me dizzy
with your passion
and I will sing
your holy songs
to flawed creation.
Oh ****** Muse
of the holy body
and the broken,
profane heart,
come with me,
and laugh aloud
when you do.
We will name
our children poems
and send them
into the mortal world
where they will
walk in beauty
and make us proud.

by Sharon Olds**

As soon as my sister and I got out of our
mother's house, all we wanted to
do was ****, obliterate
her tiny sparrow body and narrow
grasshopper legs. The men's bodies
were like our father's body! The massive
hocks, flanks, thighs, elegant
knees, long tapered calves–
we could have him there, the steep forbidden
buttocks, backs of the knees, the ****
in our mouth, ah the **** in our mouth.
                  Like explorers who
discover a lost city, we went
nuts with joy, undressed the men
slowly and carefully, as if
uncovering buried artifacts that
proved our theory of the lost culture:
that if Mother said it wasn't there,
it was there.

Why this worry
about who
you really are?
Confusion
and creation
are twin sisters.
Embrace them.
Accept them both.
Enter them.
Surrender.
It's a *******
or nothing at all.
  - mce

The differences
among cancer,
plane crashes,
and the noose
add up
to exactly
nothing.

He was That Guy in high school.
You know who I mean, That Guy
who scored the winning touchdown,
who won a National Merit Scholarship,
who got accepted at Yale and Princetown,
who made everything look so easy,
Who was voted best looking,
most likely to succeed, most athletic,
who got blow jobs from grateful cheerleaders
and even ****** Mademoiselle Marsh
the **** French teacher as a senior
the day he gave the valedictory speech.
Everybody knows some Guy like That.
He is the Golden Guy who will never rust.
Only This Guy made an honest error.
The country at war, he felt his duty
and joined the Marine Corps in 1967.
He left a leg at Hue during Tet
and won a bunch of medals, but
a very Different Guy came home.
Yale and Princetown were ghosts.
He rented a room and tended bar
and he could hop those drinks
faster than anyone else,
but mostly he sat in his room,
saw and spoke to no one,
spinning reruns in his head
and drank and drank and drank
until someone discovered him dead.
Twenty-four and game over.
Sure, you knew That Guy.

On August 18, 1936,
a 38-year-old Spanish poet
named Federico García Lorca
was taken from a jail cell
in the city of Granada,
escorted to a courtyard
in the hills outside the city,
and executed for the crime
of loving life and Spain.
Bullets are as lethal to poets
as to anyone else.
Lorca died and fell
and was buried in a rude grave
just where he hit the ground.
His books were burned
in the public square.
What the Fascist beasts
failed to understand
in their deadly ferocity
was that killing a poet is easy,
but killing his poems is impossible.
Franco is long dead,
his Fascist minions scattered,
but Lorca's poems sing
more sweetly than when he breathed
and the Spain he loved
listens with eager ears
and chants them with living joy.

many flowers, only one blossom...*

the singularity
of it

even a king does not
ride the same mare
twice

each particular
and unique

each time a new
first time
whomever the
writhing body
beneath

whether upon

the car hood
or cemetery grass

behind a dumpster
or in a bed even

one's red ****
explodes
disturbed
only by a
ceiling fan

another clutches
screams and howls
out an aria

a third comes
silently with
giant moon eyes

tenderness
of thighs
and the
sweet wet
mystery
between

none admit
comparison or
nostalgia

each one complete
and unique

satisfaction is
not a number

whether one
or a hundred

even a king cannot
mount the same mare
twice

each woman
always singular

not one
ever twice.

1 - Everything is connected to everything else.
2 - Everything has to go somewhere.
3 - **There's no such thing as a free lunch.

The leaf-mottled
copperhead coiled
near my woodpile,
rendered sluggish
and harmless
by the cold,
makes no move
to strike.

Its flat eyes
simply stare,
as if to say:
welcome
to the Garden.
  - mce

Think what you like,
I say your eyes are green.

Green is the color
of spring, hope,
rebirth, renewal.

It is spring.
I have new hope.
I feel renewed
and even reborn
because your eyes
have spoken their
green language
and awakened me,
to what might be,
to possibility,
to dreams I thought
evaporated, divorced,
gone for good.

So whatever you may think,
I say your eyes are green.

What you love best
will **** you
and you will smile
as you die.

  ~mce

Poetry is plunder. Ages provide words. Dig.
An immense temple to pillage. Random pieces. Mine.
Fit them to your hands. Create in you what is new.
Craft, not magic. Become a better maker, Strive.
Content created hound snaps. Only ignore. Cur.
What will you do with these little fragments. Frown.
Camels have seductive eyes but remain ugly.
Difficult metaphors in bow ties, black swans, duchesses.
Screaming trees fuse with sound. Crows. Funereal fowl.
Dancing butterflies darken sky. The chairs are leaving.
Piece together fragments against your ruin. Futility.
On other mornings, seek silence. You won't find it.
What you loveth well remains. Of the heart. Be.
You are an artist. Shut the **** up. Do your art.
     Most of the time you will fail,
     but sometimes, your poems will sail.

  ~mce

Your words and eyes
resonate deep within
and set me aquiver.

They set me a task.

At once mellifluous
and sonorous they
tingle from my hair  
to my very toes
(and all the mysterious
places of pleasure between).

I have been given
a royal charter
to explore your body.

I imagine my hands
(very willing hands)
gliding over your
callipygous posterior
or your adorable *******
or your ineffable *****
and discovering
new territories
as yet unknown.

I want to fill in all
the blank spaces
on your map.

A cartographer of lust
who will not surrender
until your world is whole

and you are wholly mine.

  ~mce

Dumbrowski was a 6 foot 5 giant
from some hell hole mining town
somewhere south of Pittsburgh.
All sinew and bulging muscle
he looked like a painting
of the perfect, invincible warrior.
Perhaps he heard the incoming
whistle of his private RPG.
He opened his arms as if
to welcome its deadly embrace.
I was circling low overhead
in the waiting medevac chopper.
The round took him directly in the chest.
Every part of him took off
in hilarious random directions.
Arms went east and west. Head skyward.
Legs and boots travelled south.
His entire thorax just vanished.
Blood, brains and skin
splattered everyone nearby.
Later we picked up the pieces
and bagged them for his ride home;
the torn shreds of a man who had been
human one minute and meat on the ground
just a few minutes later.
Invincibility is clearly relative.

The other day in a bar
a young man threw down,
called me out, and Said,

"How do you
become a poet,
oldtimer?"

I sat my bourbon down,
looked him dead in the eye,
thought I might fling
an impossible koan
to take him out,
but instead I answered.

"Listen close and I'll tell you true.
It's all in the Muse, kid.
Not a muse; The Muse.
The only Muse for you.
And you'd better start looking now
because it can take your whole life."

I finished my drink.

"Next time," I said," ask me why
the bridge flows, but the water
is motionless."

He sat stunned,
philosophically
out-gunned.

I sat my empty glass down
and slowly walked away.

Another notch on the handle
of my Karma pistol.

No matter how good you are,
they just keep coming.

  ~mce

There is
an immense freedom
in not having
a career to protect.

  ~ mce

A certain circuitry of insanity takes hold.
Objects of the world Unite!
The pure products of America, made in China,
(not merely ****** and iPhones),
have had their minds made up for them.
Wake up and smell the coffee burning.
You never programmed that.
There arises a distinct need for caution.
The 70 inch curved flat screen takes notes.
Ovens awaken as self-stating Birkenaus.
The Roomba tries to **** your toes. Not ****.
Your phone will not stop calling you.
Lawn gnomes achieve singularity. Somewhere,
someone activates them. You sleep.
They stalk and slash. Red doom ensues.
These are the times that fry men's soles.
     This morning the toaster bit your thumb.
     The world was safer when it was dumb.

The bastardization
of our language
continues apace.

Consider the word

wonderful.

It originally meant:

amazement just beyond
comprehension.

Now we use it to mean nice.
That's a wonderful dress;
She is a wonderful person.
We had a wonderful dinner.

When I call you wonderful,
I mean that even in my arms
you are a mystery
I cannot quite solve,
amazing beyond my knowing.

Remember that Love.

You are the lock I can
fiddle with forever
but never quite open.

The bud I cannot
tease to blossom.

The meaning in my heart,
I'll never know for sure.

Love was meant to be
eternal mystery.

That is why it is *wonderful.

"This is the end, my friend…"

Take refuge in the Golden Years.
Retire to an inevitable monastery
plopped on a suburban mountaintop.
Immerse yourself in the lost writings
of Nikita Khrushchev and Harry S Truman.
Learn to cook gizzards and meditate.
Find solace in obsolete atomic weapons,
enlightenment in the raw, butchered
expressions of the naked thermonuclear.
Wangle, ******, fire, and maneuver.
Get in touch with your inner Eichmann.
Devour baskets of tasty deplorables.
Stop clinging to guns and religion.
Love the fascism of the ordinary.
Become content with mere content.
Stop waving daggers at the innocent.
Wash yourself in the blood of the lamb.
Accept that Woodstock was futile.
Admit you can’t get no satisfaction.
Penetrate the goddess of unreason,
and come screaming to your senses.
Declare the dawn of the Age of Onanism.
Keep your fingers out of Pandora's box.
Bid farewell to the ghost of Joe Hill.
Depart the smothering, smooth life
of lust, corn flakes, and competition.
Expand your mind in a mushroom cloud.
Travel upriver to the ****** of Darkness,
legendary source of honeyed generation.
Attain new heights of perfect despair.
Discover the latent bliss of cassowaries,
rooted in their strong disdain for kale.
Play poker with the spirits of the dead.
These are your days of lucky revelation.
Lick magic frogs and witness lost dreams.
Arrive at the perfect wisdom of what is.
Everything and nothing, just what it seems.

Kiss me until
all the metaphors
vanish and poetry
becomes reality.

  ~mce

I am often asked this question in comments, private notes and emails.

The short answer is: I don’t know.

I don’t know if there is an answer or if I’m the man to even try.

First, there are probably as many ways to write poetry as there are poets. I can’t imagine any one size fits all template. That is too horrible to contemplate.

Second, my method is actually a non-method. I will describe it, but I doubt it will be useful or transferable.

I have been a fanatical reader all my life. I still am. I probably read an average of three books per week. This has been going on for decades.

I have been reading poetry seriously for perhaps 43 years, including being taught how to read closely by some brilliant professors as an undergraduate and graduate student.

This has deposited an enormous mishmash of poems, sentences, images, phrases and fragments in my brain. Add to that mishmash decades of reading across disciplines, especially history, philosophy, religion and novels. Imagine that mishmash slowly marinading and fermenting.

From that random accumulation, without provocation on my part, poems emerge. There is no order to this and not much effort. I just channel what shows up. I do some retouching, but little serious rewriting.

And there you have it: my non-method. It should be obvious why I doubt it will be of much help to anyone else.

I can give a bit of advice, but only based on my experience.

Love words. Love to learn them. Love to play with them. Delight in them.

Read as much poetry as you possibly can. I doubt anyone can become a poet without doing this.

Be patient. It takes a while for the marinade to work. I’m 65 and I only began writing seriously eight years ago.

Find your own method and your own voice. You’ll know when that voice is authentic.

And then, sing out.

by Leonard Cohen**

You came to me this morning
And you handled me like meat
You’d have to be a man to know
How good that feels, how sweet

My mirror twin, my next of kin
I’d know you in my sleep
And who but you would take me in
A thousand kisses deep

I loved you when you opened
Like a lily to the heat
You see I’m just another snowman
Standing in the rain and sleet

Who loved you with his frozen love
His secondhand physique
With all he is and all he was
A thousand kisses deep

I know you had to lie to me
I know you had to cheat
To pose all hot and high
Behind the veils of sheer deceit

Our perfect **** aristocrat
So elegant and cheap
I’m old but I’m still into that
A thousand kisses deep

I’m good at love, I’m good at hate
It’s in between I freeze
Been working out but it’s too late
(It’s been too late for years)

But you look good, you really do
They love you on the street
If you were here I’d kneel for you
A thousand kisses deep

The autumn moved across your skin
Got something in my eye
A light that doesn’t need to live
And doesn’t need to die

A riddle in the book of love
Obscure and obsolete
And witnessed here in time and blood
A thousand kisses deep

But I’m still working with the wine
Still dancing cheek to cheek
The band is playing Auld Lang Syne
But the heart will not retreat

I ran with Diz, I sang with Ray
I never had their sweet
But once or twice they let me play
A thousand kisses deep

I loved you when you opened
Like a lily to the heat
You see I’m just another snowman
Standing in the rain and sleet

Who loved you with his frozen love
His secondhand physique
With all he is and all he was
A thousand kisses deep

But you don’t need to hear me now
And every word I speak
It counts against me anyhow
A thousand kisses deep!

Well now that's done: and I'm glad it's over.*

Concrete instances of emptiness.
Blinds not drawn. Flowers do not arrive.
Bed made tight; no stilettos. Never sticky.
Doves alone coo. Pet names only for pets.
No need to shave. Last night's wine. One glass.
Coffee becomes ******. Condo not condoms.
Hands and knees only to fix sink. No position.
No lipstick stains the staff. Lingerie a catalog.
Flag always at half mast. Sleep soft, not deep.
A **** is a chicken; a ***** is a cat.
Fingers seeking ****** find nothing.
Blowing your nose becomes PDA.
Ghostly hands caress vanished thighs.
All embraces are distant. Hugging your sister.
Mysteries of faded flesh; sound after sigh
Not a trace of perfume or personality.
The orgasmically charged what isn't.
What is missing prevails. What was is missing.

  ~mce

My canines are
thirsty today.
They want blood,
any blood will do.
The enemy
are everywhere.
Find the. **** them.
Drink their blond blood.
They are all guilty.
They all deserve
to die. The only real
game is played for blood.
**** their women in the ***.
Crawl back to your lair.
Let the Danes sleep
in fear, twitch in fright.
This I will be back.
They will never
sleep in peace,
just as I never do.

  ~mce

So many calling out for blood
who have never tasted it.
I have tasted it. It is bitter.
It smells like copper
and tastes like doom.
If they shed it, it won't wash off.
And they will never be innocent
again. If they hire others to shed it,
in their secret hearts they
will forever be ashamed
and the word coward
will  always whisper
in their ears.

As it should.

  ~mce

What do you suppose
would happen
if ****, Scotland
and Bald ****, Arkansaw
hooked up
in *******, Austria?
Perhaps they would
stop in *****, Canada
for toys and then
pound hard through
*******, Pennsylvania
and go down to
****** Lick, Kentucky
before coming together
in ******, Michigan.

Hopefully, they
would avoid
Conception, Missouri.

The geography
of the absurdly
possible makes
for titillating
journies of fancy.

Let's all meet up in
Eros, Louisiana.

See you there...


mce

Visit Tibet
while it still exists.
Quit smoking.
Forget the war.
Complete
a pilgrimage
to Rumi's tomb.
Experience
the world
as an
Indigo Bunting.
Strike a truce
with the past.
Learn to cook.
Make
passionate love
with a nice
southern girl.
Find
the meaning
of life
and set it free.
Eat more
paw-paws.
Resolve
the mystery
of the Three.
So many things
remain
to do, to be.
- mce

for Herman and Mary*
Old friends. New days. Years like miles fall away.
A visit, a visit. Time collapses. Walks and talks.
Memories in an instant. Tattoos on the brain remain.
This world, inconsequential and uncaring, but home.
Pain and failure as knowledge. A maturity of knowing.
The zig-zag manifestation of life. Pearls of moments.
We live a succession of dangling modifiers. Syntax.
Dreaming the most legitimate activity. Breathe.
Here but not forever. There is no full stop.
     Only a pause in the Bardo for tea
     And then a flowing outward to see.

IV

These fought in any case,
And some believing, pro domo, in any case ..

Some quick to arm,
some for adventure,
some from fear of weakness,
some from fear of censure,
some for love of slaughter, in imagination,
learning later…

some in fear, learning love of slaughter;
Died some, pro patria, non dulce et non decor..
walked eye-deep in hell
believing in old men's lies, then unbelieving
came home, home to a lie,
home to many deceits,
home to old lies and new infamy;
usury age-old and age-thick
and liars in public places.
Daring as never before, wastage as never before.
Young blood and high blood,
Fair cheeks, and fine bodies;
fortitude as never before

frankness as never before,
disillusions as never told in the old days,
hysterias, trench confessions,
laughter out of dead bellies.

from *Hugh Selwyn Mauberley

Most men notice
the perfect ***
of a 20-year-old
and feel lust.
All I feel
is the sharp nudge
of too late.
Age is a process
server it's best
to avoid.

  ~mce

Nha Trang, Vietnam, 1972

Darkened portal. Room of shadows. A haze of ***.
Hard vision of *** and combat. Mixed up. Dream.
Young girl smiles outside a Nha Trang bordello.
Smile of innocence in a land of evil. Unreal.
Whose need rejects this process? Transaction of lust.
She removes her *ao dai like lifting fog. Naked.
Mortars fall as we writhe. Danger is my business.
Harder and faster like a rocket barrage. Deep.
Kick of a 12 gauge pump. Flesh explosions.
****** ***** out your breath. So does this.
War and *******. Extinction and lust. The same.
****** a moment from the blood and tears.
All is burning. Cling to any possible refuge.
     Bound together in this instant of life;
     Completing ourselves in this world of death.

A cold has put me on the fritz, said Eugene O'Neill,
how can I forget certain things?
Now I have thirteen bottles of red wine
where once I had over a thousand.
I know where they went but why should I tell?
Every day I feed the dogs and birds.
The yard is littered with bones and seed husks.
Hearts spend their entire lives in the dark,
but the dogs and birds are fond of me.
I take a shower frequently but still
women are not drawn to me in large numbers.
Perhaps they know I'm happily married
and why exhaust themselves vainly to ****** me?
I loaned hundreds of thousands of dollars
and was paid back only by two Indians.
If I had known history it was never otherwise.
This is the song of the cold when people
are themselves but less so, people
who haven't listened to my unworded advice.
I was once described as "immortal"
but this didn't include my mother who recently died.
And why go to New York after the asteroid
and the floods of polar waters, the crumbling
buildings, when you're the only one there
in 2050? Come back to earth.
Blow your nose and dwell on the shortness of life.
Lift up your dark heart and sing a song about
how time drifts past you like the gentlest, almost
imperceptible breeze.

So many
empty days,
lost faces,
frozen dreams
empty beds;
soon:
spring breezes,
the asphalt seas,
another voyage
in search of
Argos,
Ithaca,
Penelope,
peace.
- mce

wake up and forgive your wrinkles...*

Women. Drink cultural Kool-Aid. Believing it.
Grey is old is ugly is useless. So very wrong.
Not fruit for one picking. Fecund. Many harvests.
Fifty is not over. Nor 60. Simply is. Immortal desire.
Time makes changes in everyone. In X and in Y.
Every human age has its own allure. Wake up.
Each woman, any moment, beautiful in her own way.
     Lovely laughter, soul, thoughts, feelings, touch.
     Forgive the lines around your eyes and such.
     Worthy of desire. Desirable. Desired. Much.

  ~mce