Damp wood
sizzles;
Dry wood
explodes.
Smoke or fire?
To discover
which you
contain,
you must risk
the flames.
  - mce

This was just published so it is copyright 2015 by Holy Cow Press ~ mce**

Poverty is the fence around your life. Poverty wakes you up at 4 AM only to whisper meaningless slogans in your ear. It is the school of Piranha nibbling at the back of your brain. It is two hours waiting in the anteroom of despair for $22 worth of food stamps and being glad to be there. It is changing your phone number frequently because bill collectors are such boring conversationalists. It is the empty space your heels used to fill. It is letting your hair grow long and scraggly and your grizzled beard sprout because you know that although you sleep in rented rooms tonight, the street is not far off, and you want to fit in when you arrive. Poverty scalds the lint from your pockets. It is your private Treblinka within which you rage but are crushed. It is desperate prayers against dental catastrophes, blown tires, surprises of any sort. Poverty is when everything you own is frayed including your nerves from sleepless moments spent trying to solve the equation that will make X number of dollars cover X + ? number of bills, knowing that such math would defeat Newton or Einstein. Poverty is eying the cat's kibble imagining that with a bit of sugar and a splash of milk it might be fine and then eyeballing the cat himself thinking of protein of last resort and trying not to measure him against the microwave door. You ration your cigarettes; whiskey is a fading memory. Passing a diner on the street, you catch a whiff  of burgers too expensive to consider and experience a Pavlovian  moment. Poverty is trying to keep your head up and then remembering you pawned your neck. Poverty is watching the needle eat your last few gallons of gas. Poverty is the archeology of despair. It portends the death of irony. There is nothing ironic about a car with 217,000 miles and no insurance on it. Facts are facts in the world of poverty. Poverty is the last quarter reclaimed from beneath the cushions. It is too much time and not enough quarters. It is the specious logic of the self-righteous proclaiming that you deserve to be poor because you are, which in Amerika passes for wisdom. Poverty makes each day like the next because nothing does not vary. It is who you are and where you are going, although you won't get far. It is the life you lead inside the fence. It is the sum of what you lack. It just is.
   - mce

It is true that
poetry will never

buy you a beer
fix your flat tire
or pay your rent

but if you tend it
lovingly and well

it can blossom
and grow like a
gorgeous perennial

into the one
true friend

who will never
ever let you down

   ~mce

Although I am
the most radical
of atheists,
each night
I fall asleep
praying to
whatever gods
may be
to send you
in my direction.

~ mce

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

You shall not find solace
in the marble laws of Man.
Self-help programs
and sermons
will not dispel the emptiness.
***, drugs, madness, alcohol
will not prevail.
The constructs of religion
will only constrict your dreams.
God is a disinterested third party
waiting to be approached,
not caring if he is or isn't.
Submit to the vacuum
of your heart at four a.m.
Surrender to the void
that only love can fill.
Drink deeply; hold tight.
Dawn must come.
  - mce

Over the course of 64 years (and still), I have encountered so many women (including my still lovely ex-wife) in person and in writing who struggle with their looks. It seems to be an eternal theme that crosses generations. So, I decided to write this humble piece in reply.
There are some who would say I can’t write about women’s feelings because I am a man. A patronizing old, white man. I note their objecions, but I disagree. I believe humanity always trumps gender.
We live in an artificial culture created and controlled by advertisers. Not only do they sell us stuff, they convince us that we need it. Women are perfect targets for them.
So they have created impossible standards for women to live up to. You must always look like you are 25, young and thin. They tell you this is the key to being desired, even loved. As it’s impossible to be young and thin forever, they just happen to have the products that will “help” you. They want your minds so they can profit by manipulating them. They do a great job of it.
So the key to loving your bodies and yourselves is to take back your minds. This is difficult. You are bombarded with a barrage of words and images that say you are not good enough. If only you were younger, thinner, shaped like Barbie, not greying, had longer legs, bigger *******, wore a size 2, you would be happy, and — of course — men would desire you. You would never be traded in for a younger, sleeker model. So many insecurities to exploit.
But consider the difference between beauty and Beauty. Beauty is human, individual and eternal; beauty is abstract, mass and reliant on current tastes.
I have known many women of all shapes, sizes and ages who were Beautiful. That Beauty was expressed from their hearts through their faces and eyes. They radiated it. It was not dependent on my or any other man’s approval. It just was. So I know this can be done.
Fashion changes so there will always be new things to sell. To the current ad masters, the Gibson girls of the late 19th century would now be called fat. Sell them a diet plan and gym membership. The angular loveliness of the Venus de Milo too cold and boyish. Sell her cosmetics and plastic surgery. Mona Lisa, a dumpy Italian girl. So many things to sell her.
And then there is that intense desire to please men that begins with daddy. I often hear its echo even in the strident voices of the most ardent feminists. The advertisers trade on that. That’s deep. That’s very hard to overcome. That’s both an individual and a cultural problem.
But many women never seem to consider that a great many men aren’t dumb enough to buy the 25 and thin forever image and don’t really demand to be constantly pleased. They might actually be looking for intelligence, heart, affection and respect instead of a perfect ***. Not all, often not the young, but many.
At some point, you have to say no and mean it. You are not your age, dress size, cup size or waist size. Those are just outward manifestations of the true you. If someone rejects you on the basis of such ephemeralities, you are better off without them. You have to take control of your soul. No one can give you that except yourself. You have to live with yourself just as men have to live with themselves. Again, humanity trumps gender.
I unabashedly love women. They have been one of the great delights of my life. I love the difficulties and the differences. What a woefully dreary world it would be if men and women were they same. So, it pains me to see so many women in so much pain.
You are, first of all, a person and that is worth insisting upon. Insist. Demand. Escape, if necessary. Be the only you you can ever truly be. Then you will feel pretty. And you will be as pretty as you feel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dbshnvztGA

  ~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

However much think you know,
It is no more than
the thinnest gossamer thread
In the vastness of what is;
However much you value
Your worldly experience,
It is only a tear
In cistern of salt water.
Take courage, only the earth abides.

  ~mce

Another dreary, dismal,
kidney stone of a day
that doesn’t want to pass.
You might name it suicidal
if you were an optimist.
The rain pearls like tears
on every wet, black bough.
Not enough bourbon in
the entire weeping world
to wash them all away.
Dreams of white beaches
and bikini clad women
just do not suffice.
Might as well go out
and sit naked in it,
become one with moisture.
The neighbors will doubtless
not approve. Better to keep
this satori to yourself.

Make me your blank canvas.
Cover me with your juices,
your drippings, your burgundy,
place me beside your washed blue,
I will smear it with my kisses
until they become masterpieces
only understood by we two.

  ~mce

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

Autumn,
a coffin closing.

Winter,
a coffin buried.

Spring
violets on a grave.

Summer,
the season of amnesia...

when we forget
all other seasons
and begin again
because we must.

As your lips
trail slowly
down my stomach,

Lady,

I care nothing
about war, death,
scandal or even
climate change.

I am focused on
your touch and
your destination,

your wanton progress,

but mostly

on this flesh
we share so gently.
   ~mce

Find an unused closet.
Open it and in it
place your unlived life.
Close it and lock it.
Walk slowly away
and toss the key
where it can't be found.
Notice where you are.
True comprehension
requires all the senses.
Practice using them.
**** plans and goals.
**** life's petty details.
Be like any other mammal:
try, moment by moment,
to figure out what
you should do next.
There is always
another corner
around the next corner.
Don't think:
just choose and go.

  ~mce

the bright morning
no longer invites

every TV show
is a rerun

books that screamed
now murmur

even the body
speaks in the past tense

now becomes was

the falling away
of self
into shadow

even when time
falls and freezes
like winter leaves

the urge to consciousness
resists surrender

how we long for
bright new moments

right to the brink
of nightfall

even as the white flag of death

slowly unfurls

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

Today a ten-year-old girl
threatened suicide at school because
a trusted uncle had molested her.

What kind of ******* world
has this become?

Police were called,
Child Services arrived,
statements were taken.
no doubt social workers
were stirred into the mix.

I am a man of the 20th Century,
just old enough to remember outrage,
to remember when too much was taboo,
to remember personal honor.

When I was a kid, this monster
was snatched from his bed
by righteous neighbors, dragged begging
to a private place beyond help
and been beaten nearly to death
by the fathers of other potential victims.

Imagine a circle of men, ordinary men,
mostly World II and Korea veterans:
insurance men, car salesmen, farmers,
store keepers, salesmen, even a lawyer
tightening the circle in the torchlight.

The monster begged, pleaded, wept,
wet himself, **** himself, whimpered.

The sheriff  watched, smiled,
and then rearrested the pervert for resisting.

Had he lived, the monster would never
have touched a little girl again in our town,
knowing that his life would be forfeit
and end abruptly and anonymously.

Probably, he would have just slunk away.

This new state of bureaucracy cares nothing
for the victims it claims to protect.
It only wants the paperwork filled out correctly.

I was 11, 1962 in a quiet sleepy town.
My father took me to see what evil brings,
the best lesson he ever taught me.

If I had been old enough I would have joined in
without so much as a twinge of regret.

You liberal ostriches can call this brutality if you like.
I call it community action, community justice.
People protecting what is there's to protect
when the official guardians just go through the motions

I miss the 20th Century. I miss justice.

  ~mce

I will find my way to you.
We will meet and decide.
If we decide it is good,
I will take you into my arms
and hold you like a butterfly,
not to crush or to own you;
just to let you know I am there
and that I am yours to enjoy;
to possess and be possessed
for as long as we both desire.
No chains, no tortured promises
extracted under duress
and regretted later.
Just taking time, our time.
for as long as that lasts.

  ~mce

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

  ~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

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

~mce

Where everyone
is damaged goods,
there are
no damaged goods.

  ~mce

Check every treeline,
the enemy lurks there.
Get used to people acting
like you are tainted.
Scan the rooftops when you walk;
examine the bushes.
When entering a public space,
look for an alternative exit.
Notice every face you see;
especially children, you never know.
Self-medicate. Whatever it takes.
Whiskey for breakfast, speed for lunch,
****** for dinner. **** their opinions.
Spend endless hours talking
with clueless shrinks and doctors.
Spin violently when anyone
taps you on the shoulder.
Strain your ears for the sound
of long silent mortars.
Never sit with your back to a door.
Remember Wild Bill.
Keep a weapon nearby when you sleep,
if you do.
Cringe like a beaten dog
at every loud noise.
Worry about everything because
you know the world wants to **** you,
because you know what expendable means.
Repeat all of this and more for 45 years
until your brain feels
like sloppy scrambled eggs.
And, of course,
don't forget to love your country.

  ~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

It is six AM.
Do you know
where your poet is
right now?

  ~mce

Take me in your arms
and wrap me in the
creamy, satin blanket
of your skin.

I will make you,
shudder, squirm
gasp and scream

and when our breath
is nearly spent,

we will kiss
intensely, devoutly
and dissolve
into one rainbow
streaked
puddle of love

where our feet
used to be.

  ~mce

A poet must be willing
to walk naked through crowds,
hoping they are blind
while knowing they are not.
   ~mce

Everytime
some health ****
tells me smoking
will take ten years
off my life,
I remember my mother
and grandfather
both in their eighties
and their last
ten years of misery,
decline and dementia,
smile, light another
and think
how wise I am.

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

~mce

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

  ~mce

You have abandoned purity for perfection.
Even the blind have moments of clarity
but you ***** around like the Cyclops
feeling nowhere for noman while
affecting a quiet, moronic expression.
You can't knit without needles,
but you have mislaid the point and
so things unravel into random skeins.
Your typewriter rattles only in reverse.
Bards stub their toes and wail.
You hear them, but pay no attention.
You are listening for the atomic thunderclap.
Nothing less than finale of final will do.
When it explodes at last you will know
the inarticulate, unspeakable name of god.
Perhaps Fred. Perhaps Norma or Justine.
Perhaps merely a very loud Boom...
That will be more than enough for one life.

Watching you
lighting a cigarette,
your long legs
smiling beneath
that flouncy,
breeze-blown
skirt
reminds me
why I still bother
to breathe
at all.
- mce

Over and Over

Over and over,
no matter how vividly
we know love's landscape
and the lost cemetery
with its sad names
and the chasm into which
the others have fallen,
once again we walk together
beneath ancient trees
and lie down entwined
among the blossoms
facing the sky.
  - trans. mce

Autumn Day**

God, the time is now.
Summer was vast.
Drop your shadow
across the sundials
and loose your breath
upon the fields.

Command the last fruits
to fullness,
allow them a few warm days
to discover ripeness
and press their sweetness
into heavy wine.

No time remains
to seek refuge.

If you are now alone
you will remain so
for a long, long time.

You will stay up late,
writing letters
to no one,
restlessly wandering
the hollow streets
while the leaves
tumble aimlessly.
  - trans. mce

Each morning,
eyes open,
a combat jump,
falling back
into the world.

If you trample the world
don't expect it
to kiss your feet.

Practice kindness
or the world will die.
The inescapable choice
we must all make.

Greed is not a virtue.
Make that your mantra.
Greed is not a virtue.

Do not let the enemy
steal the language
of your heart.

You are dying.
Why bother doing
anything you
don't want to?

Wealth and power
don't mean ****
except on a
temporary basis.

Your name means
captivating in Hebrew.
I am your prisoner.

Mammals crave touch
and mammalian warmth.
We are mammals.
Touch me; warm me..

I wish you had
a thousand fingers.

Whenever
you enter
a room,
your
whole life
enters
with you.

---

Once I wandered
into the labyrinth
of madness.
I spent
some quality
time there.
I don't know
that all of me
returned.

---

We were as gods then, he said, but the clocks came and rendered our lives into pieces.

---

People misunderstand me;
I only mean what I am.

---

On good mornings
I wake up
and sincerely vow
to change my life
for the better
which never
seems to happen.
On bad mornings
I realize that
I am what I am
and even
in America,
land of
mindless optimism,
endless second chances,
tsunamis of self-help books,
and an infinity
of religions,
that is all
I'll ever be.

---

If something
we value
means nothing,
then more
of something
becomes
an excess
of nothing.

---

Life without
a woman
to temper
my stupidities
is difficult
indeed.

===

It is easy
in stray moments
to forgive
yourself.

---

Don't be afraid of the world;
it isn't afraid of you.

---

Love rarely suffices;
friendship often does.

---

You are
the only sunlight
on my skin;
when you go,
I slip
into darkness.

---

The future
is a patient
dog,
always beside us
waiting
to be noticed.

---

I would die
for your eyes.
   ~mce

I am often told I am charming,
but I don't feel charming.
The days of dinner conversation
and cocktail chatter are gone.
Now I speak from the heart
without care for whom
I might offend or wound.
Poetry is asking the questions
that hurt and then
writing down the answers
without regard for consequences.
It is putting your neck
on the chopping block
and laughing at the executioner.
It is announcing to the world
your total disdain for its opinions
and not being surprised
when the world kicks your ***.
It is spitting globs of truth and beauty
into the faces of those most comfortable
with the conventional and the merely pretty.
It is the open wound you display
dripping and draining in public.
It is the dis-ease you create
and flaunt because you
have never sought or valued ease.
It makes people depart abruptly
as if a ***** had just
offered to shake their hand.
It is the legless soldier
whose stumps remind you
that your taxes bought his loss.
It is the bullet that finds its mark;
the blade that pins you to the wall;
the bomb that shreds you into pink meat.
It is not charming; it is never charming,
and neither am I because
I have just written this down
for you to read.
  - mce

Every life,
a history crafted
from memory
and oblivion.

The forgotten,
misplaced,
and excluded
have a voice.

White spaces
on a printed page;
emptiness
between
notes of music;
missing children;
cold loves;
dead comrades...

Silence
speaks aloud
when we
quiet our souls
and listen.

Stories
we don't tell,
but know,
saved within
the labyrinthine,
lost libraries
of the heart.
  - mce

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

Just the brain
telling tales
we are helpless
to resist.

  ~mce

my brain burns
and i can't sleep

too much poetry
too many difficult books

a part of my head
has popped open

i believe i have
a metaphysical hernia
brought on by
too much thinking

only one thing to do

truss it up tightly
and turn on reality TV

after a few episodes
my brain turns to mush
and the swelling
subsides.

brain dead bliss
not a synapse firing

absolute relief
of no thought

perfect slumber
of the seriously
stupid

Never begin a poem with
"I miss (you, her, him) so much."
No matter How bad you hurt

you won't for long enough
to make lasting
poetry
from your pain.

Look around.

The world is more than lost lovers.
Set them free.

Find something
outside yourself
and write.

It will feel good.
I promise.

  ~mce

You don't have to love me
just because you are
the most woman
I have ever imagined possible
or because your eyes
speak an unknown language
only I can understand
or because your toes
are in need of kissing
or because I can't
stop thinking of you
long enough to sleep.

Those are only my reasons.

Certainly,
you don't have to,
but I would be pleased
if sometime, somewhere,

you did.

  ~mce

Immaculate,
white,
brightly lit,
sterile
and locked.
Ruled
by certainty
and good
intention,
not a solitary
doubt disturbs
its perfection.
As close to Hell
as you can get
on earth.
Worse even
than war.
No one
consigned
to such a place,
even by
mistaken love,
can help being
changed forever.
And no one
every truly
leaves.
  - mce

I ache in the places where I used to play. LC*

Silence reigns
in the caverns of song;
the days grow short,
the shadows long.
Where are the flowers,
where is the sun
in the waning days
as the race is run?
Running out
of things to see;
running out
of things to be.
Dreams and lovers
lost and gone
and nothing waiting
further on.
With each new dawn
of each new day,
fewer reasons
to wish to stay.

I **** time;
time kills me.
An equation
balanced
perfectly.
  - mce

Love, you are all
that holds my heart
together,
so please take good care
of your own.
   ~mce

What if the cost
of machines that think
is people who don’t?
Think about it,
before your phone does.
   ~mce

Consider my arms your refuge.
You are always welcome
and always safe there.
Come into my arms and
I will come into you.
Separate, we are people;
together we will be a poem.
We will create each other.
We shall be as complete
as a perfect villanelle,
whenever you come into
the refuge of my arms.

  ~mce

"every heart, every heart, to love must come, but like a refugee."*


Be wary, little, pretty one:
If you wander too far for love,
you may lose your citizenship
in the country of your own life.
Be sure of the direction you take.
Leave yourself a trail of breadcrumbs.
You may need to find your way back
to the safety of your own sanctuary.
The world already has too many refugees.
You do not want to become one more.
   ~mce