I would like
to write
a million poems
before I croak,
but given alcohol,
nicotine, the state
of my liver and
general bad luck,
I don't see it happening.

Don't mean a thing.

Ten or a million,
we do not sing to count,
we sing to sing.
  ~ mce

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

Look at the world,
not up your ***.

  ~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

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

Doesn't anyone
on this site
ever sleep?
  ~mce

Returning alone
after work.

The shack
sitting empty,
waiting
for no one;

mist rising
from the still meadow
like silky,
slender ghosts;

the trees
keep their thoughts
to themselves;

a light rain
begins to fall;

no sounds,
but bird sounds
and my own breath,
both hushed.

How far away
the world
and all its bustle.

Money, ambition,
achievement
and success -
the cacophony
of modern life,
just so much noise.

In this silence,
I become
the best part
of silence:
myself.
- mce

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!

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 mirrored 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 second hand 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 shear 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 its too late, it’s been to 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,
till witnessed here in time and blood,
A thousand kisses deep.

And 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 and I sang with Ray, I never had their sweep,
but once or twice they let me play
A thousand kisses deep.

Here's to you, Life.

You beat me up quite
a few times,
but mostly
you have been
kind and sweet.

Everything I am
and all I am not,
you created.

People curse you,
not understanding
you were meant
to be a mystery.

I understand.

You beat me up,
but never
let me down.

As time
grows shorter,
I look forward
to solving you
and enjoying
my surprise
ending.

Here's to you, Life

Writers often mistake themselves
for serious people because
they write about serious subjects.

Give this some serious thought.

We might be just be *******
with  excellent vocabularies.

The two are not the same thing,
nor do they have the same value.

  ~mce

the days disappear
into winter
like leaves falling
from old trees
in your hometown
that you never noticed
until someone
cut them down

  ~mce

I am never certain
which reality
I am living.
So many strands
dangling in a
multitude of
possible nows.
Like trying to weave
a tapestry out of
shadows of light.

i saw the Cobras
coming straight for us

thought of my parents
my brother and sister
back at home in the north
said a prayer to my ancestors
for protection

                     then

their rockets launched
and a moment later

i dissolved out of history
   ~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.

Because your
fine white body
slept beside me,
I failed to dream
of anything else.
And when dawn
broke rosy red,
I hurled invectives
at the darkness
for ending.
But your tangled hair
thawed my heart,
as your talented
mouth said
good morning
in the most
soothing way
a lover can.
At times, this life
hurts like
a *******.
But this morning
you gave me
a dandelion
with a white poem
larger than my heart.
A new way to breathe
and face the tragic day.

  ~mce

When the papers finally arrived and the seals were sealed and the law that had made had unmade he took off his wedding ring and felt truly naked for the first time in years. But in that nakedness rage boiled. He wanted revenge on women. And for seven misfortunate years he took it.

Seventeen or sixty, no matter. Meet them, charm them, tell them the lies they yearned to hear and then **** them. The ******* was extraneous, no more ****** than doing push-ups or eating  apples. Even as he ****** them he lied, telling them how **** and desirable they were, how he never felt this way before. Convince a woman that you believe what she wants to hear and her legs will be on your shoulders in no time.

Mission accomplished, he would simply vanish.Not take their calls, their texts or emails. He didn't just want to hurt them, he wanted to make sure they knew they had been hurt on purpose. He wanted them to know they had been ****** in the worst, truest, most brutal sense of the word. Degraded, used like a ******, taken like a **** and discarded. It is hard to say how many guiltless woman he punished this way. He didn't feel bad or guilty; he felt nothing.

There is no excuse for his behavior other than he was a strong person and when a strong person ***** up, he ***** up in a big way.

Then suddenly the nothingness closed on him like a clamp. All the manipulation, lies, and corruption exploded into his brain. He felt like a guard at Auschwitz directing jews into the gas chambers. For the first time in his life he was truly ashamed. So he did what had to be done. He simply gave up women. It was nowhere near as hard as he had imagined. After a while, it became peaceful, restful, satisfying. He invented his own Order and became a monk. He imagined this a permanent state that would last his life.

And then, wholly by accident, he stumbled across a woman. Her words ****** the breath from him; he swooned. It is an alarming thing to imagine yourself sexually dead for years only to wake up and discover that you aren't. Afraid for his very soul, he became smitten. But fear lurked in his *****. What if this was pay back for his sins. What if she did to him what he had done to so many others? It would be just, but he did not know if he could survive it.

But he held his breath and took the leap back into the world. He put his heart in her hands. He does not know how this will turn out or even if it will. But for the first time in years he feels like an entire man. It is worth flying too near the sun even if destruction is its end; better to be fully alive for a while than completely dead forever.

Redemption? That can only be bestowed by the gods.

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.

by Gary Snyder**

One afternoon the last week in April
Showing Kai how to throw a hatchet
One-half turn and it sticks in a stump.
He recalls the hatchet-head
Without a handle, in the shop
And go gets it, and wants it for his own.
A broken-off axe handle behind the door
Is long enough for a hatchet,
We cut it to length and take it
With the hatchet head
And working hatchet, to the wood block.
There I begin to shape the old handle
With the hatchet, and the phrase
First learned from Ezra Pound
Rings in my ears!
"When making an axe handle
            the pattern is not far off."
And I say this to Kai
"Look: We'll shape the handle
By checking the handle
Of the axe we cut with–"
And he sees. And I hear it again:
It's in Lu Ji's Wen Fu, fourth century
A.D. "Essay on Literature"–in the
Preface: "In making the handle
Of an axe
By cutting wood with an axe
The model is indeed near at hand."
My teacher Shih-hsiang Chen
Translated that and taught it years ago
And I see: Pound was an axe,
Chen was an axe, I am an axe
And my son a handle, soon
To be shaping again, model
And tool, craft of culture,
How we go on.

you must learn
     the music of death
          in short phrases
   and
     stitch them together
          into a complete piece
so you are not surprised
     at the Grand Finale

  ~mce

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

He had witnessed
the innocent kids
piled up
in a country
far away
where death
was commonplace
and no one
baked cupcakes
bearing the names
of the slain,
only keened
like maternal sirens
against the inevitable
moment.

He took comfort that
Back in the World
the children
roamed in safety
and grew plump
on promises
far from land mines,
shrieking Phantoms,
dangerous strangers
with barking weapons.

He did not,
could not,
foresee a time
when those
same weapons
would turn
their deadly mouths
on babies,
back in the world.

But the sins
of the fathers
circle back
to the world
and the bodies
of children
wear doomed grins
like death heads
at the karmic irony.

Now that illusion
of a last, safe place
is rent and torn
and there is
no longer a world
to go back to.

   mce

We would
lay in a good stock
of wine and
if dinner
didn't pan out,
we would
drink it all
and I would
read Neruda
to you out loud
until the candles
burned down
and we would
eat the darkness
for dessert.

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

It is ever more difficult
to sing of One's-Self.
The En-Masse
has swallowed up
the simple separate person;
the Democratic
is dying, if not dead.
The Leaves of Grass
now all look the same,
chant the same slogans,
believe and buy
what they are told
to believe and buy.
The power, pulse
and passion of Life
are subsumed
in blind conformity.
You said a man should,
"Resist much; obey little."
How many, in all this land,
now have the courage
to live those words?
That vast American energy
you rightly celebrated
is channeled now
to serve war and greed
and evil usury.
You would find little
in the current version
of The Modern Man
worth singing about;
little worth the immensity
of your vision and voice.
If you could return now
and chance to see
the empty, constricted husk
your country has become,
I wonder how Cheerful
your song would be.
  - mce

Words are bullets.
Sometimes,
I shoot myself
in the foot.
Be wary where
you point
that weapon.
Think before
you pull
that trigger.
If you don't,
you may not die,
but you will
feel pain.

  ~mce

False flags and panic. Fear the other. Hate.
Be a Patriot. Act. As you are told.
When the people are frightened, they obey.
These are the times that few men try. At all.
No one can own you unless you want them to.
Gun in hand worth ten senators. Boom.
Gay Straight Male Female Black White Muslim Jew.
Exactly the opposite of E Puribus Unum.
Stir and stir, yet the *** does not melt.
Too many soups only antagonize the cook.
The fires of discord sizzle and fry.
Dare not to think, just buy and buy.

Just a flicker,
a small flame
compared to
what is coming:

the fire next time

will not be
extinguished.

Americans are
slow to wake,
but you can only ****
so many people
over for so long

before they begin to burn.
   ~mce

I dreamed I opened a bookshop
where you had to pass a reading test
before you could buy anything.
I just might have promulgated
a radiant, renaissance of literacy,
but I went broke long before that.

"Men only notice two categories of women's clothing: off and on."
   From: *High Tide in Tucson

this plain of death

corpse-strewn
stone lonely
smashed objects
broken by

abstractions

what painted this scene?

decisions made
by ample men
in clean rooms
faraway

good reasons
bad intentions

abstractions

orders given
and followed

a soldier
slumps among
the bodies

abstractions

stained fatigues
silent rifle
dead eyes

wondering

how this happened
and who they were
and why

abstractions

no answers

boy, man,
executioner,
victims

abstractions

killer or killed

life will not
go on

   - mce

The sky was appropriately the color of gun metal. The smell of cordite clung like rancid perfume. He inhaled. It wasn't much to look at. Not so much a field as a clearing. A patch of nothing blasted onto the hilltop by the exhalation of a few 500 pound bombs. The earth was loose; plowed by mortars and cultivated by machine guns. A place men would have to cross under fire without cover; a place where men would be harvested. Not completely, though. It had been awhile. Some vegetation had encroached. Here and there it smoldered. The jungle never slept. Like the enemy, it kept coming back. There were lumps strewn about at random. Large lumps, the bodies of the dead. Smaller lumps, pieces of them. Dragon's teeth, clumsily sown. At first light the grunts had gone out and executed the wounded, laughing as they blew their brains out. He didn't blame them. Mercy was absurd in war; only death was logical. The bodies would be left to caution the enemy. It wouldn't help, though. They would return. Like the jungle. Until it was theirs for good. The first result would be stench; the second, compost. When the jungle finally returned, where the lumps were would be just a little greener. That a man's death might produce so little. He took it all in one last time. So this is what a battlefield looks like. *******.
  - mce

"Nobody loves me but my mama baby
and you know she could be jiving too..."

Really nothing left to say.

~mced

by Kenna Marie*

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Yet, people smolder every meaning of the word beauty.
Taking procedures in order to obtain this image of perfection, but it is right built inside of you. Believe it or not, whatever you need you got!
Reading this now with your eyes, heart beating to the sound of survival.

Educating yourself on how to accomplish revival because you are dead.
The laughter comes in sequences syncing perfectly to those begging for attention.
Revolt revolt!
Build a catapult to launch yourself away from here.

Lose yourself in all the sincere.
Perform a test to see if you're the best.
“You are defeat compared to the rest!”
Start to dress to impress when the isn’t up to par.
Spend days alone at empty bars.

“Dare to make a move!”
“It won’t improve you.”
“You got nothing to lose!”
“Yeah, well how about your skeleton starting a rebellion. You’re yelling, starting to tell your children the beginnings of this addiction.”

It swallows you whole, your body is totaled.
Now, you’re in the rusting pile of traveled miles of rot...
Forgetting what you are and what you’re not.

She kissed like barbed wire,
bruised his kidneys
with her vise grip thighs,
clenched his ****
like an anaconda,
climaxed like a volcano
spewing screams,
moaning like a torture victim;
always wanted more, deeper,
faster, harder, now.

She was the wanton
wild, *******
every guy longs to meet,
ravaging his bed,
bruising his body,
******* him dry

and he couldn't run away
fast or far or soon enough.

  ~mce

The first pile
you see is

a burned, ******
stinking, heap
of humans, bloated
and swollen,
swarming with flies,
squirming with maggots

and you puke
like you have
never ever
puked before.

After that,

it's just
another pile
of dead *****.

Don't mean
******* nothing.

  ~mce

a man of no fortune with a name to come.*

Important things are happening
in the outside world of events,
but no one ever mentions you.
You have had a celebrity buzz cut.
You are not attuned to twittering.
The glasses you broke work better now.
Your hunger for renown is so great
that you can't stand to order poverty.
The cat looks at you like protein.
Your bed is an ancient dry well.
The ghosts of your memories
can't even afford clean sheets.
Do not these signal events import?
If you could but get your boyish face
out there on the Internet, someone
in that outside world might mention you,
and the virtual lottery of fame would
allow you to purchase and stockpile
marrow bones, crème brûlée and ******.
You could go out with a belch of flame,
and everyone would say they knew you
long before you were even nothing.

Ah, the swoosh
of your dress
gliding off you,
finding the floor!

It pools black
and elegant
at my feet,
an entrancing
****** puddle.

But I
cannot look.

Nothing between
us now but
silk and flesh,
my hands
and fingers
have become
the only eyes
I have,
the only eyes
I need.

Your soft
yielding skin
offers
all the seeing
and knowing
they crave.

Love,
let them
look closely
and discover
the delicious
details
of the world
you are.

This seeing
transforms lust
into magic,
makes
a ceremony
of desire.

It can lift us
off the earth.

Soar with me.

Touch me
like the sound
of that black dress,
falling.

What more
is necessary?
  - mce

Do not squeeze
the life
out of your life
trying to follow
someone else's
principles of right
and wrong.

  ~mce

Ever the lady,
she neatly weaves
the tattered threads
of her torn life
into a pattern
of false smiles
displayed
convincingly
so that no one
will notice
she is just barely
holding it together
  - mce

Once I fought in a losing war,
I never asked what I was fighting for,
but now my warrior days are done,
I leave the battles to the young.
They will fly and they will die,
I’m content to watch  and sigh.
It seems that I am not so brave
as I approach the yawning grave.
It felt much easier to fly and die
when swooping from a youthful sky.
I took those chances, I made that bet,
but now it’s easier to forget.
My wars are over, my fight is done,
I leave the battles to the young.
They will fly and they will die,
but pray they ask the reason why.

The only way to discover
the world's true Knowledge
is to suffer and beg for it,
otherwise when it jolts your head
you will think it is only
rotten fruit dropping
from the branches
of the tree of good and evil.

   ~mce

We must all
live with a
full measure
of loneliness.

That is
inescapable.

We must never
destroy ourselves
with futile
attempts to escape
this loneliness.

Sit with it.
Accept it.

That will only
make it sweeter
when it ends.

  ~mce

When you were born,
I was 25 and had
already been a hippie,
a soldier, a husband.

If I had known
your birthdate,
I would have sent
you a card saying:

Happy Birthday!
I'll meet you
in a few decades.
Can't wait.  Mike

It's a little late,
but here it is.

Let us get together and share nightmares.
You show me yours. I'll show you mine.
We will tremble like off balance washing machines.
What is love if not a combination of horrors?
So many intimate fears and phobias to merge!
Assuredly we shall end up an old married couple,
mute at table, staring blankly into the void,
wondering whatever possessed us,
waiting for the inevitable exorcist to arrive.

Circus to close after 149 years*

Speaking of apocalypses,
this current model is a yawn.

A large, loud golden retriever
barks out random orders
and fear collapses the world
like a wet tent or used ******.

People scream in the streets,
but facts remain few and unlikely.

A big chunk of reality is missing.

Even the elephants are confused.

You’ll never make a show out of that.

~for Luke

I advise
my God Son
(for whom
I am called
to be wise),
just watch
what I do
and you do
the opposite.
You'll be fine.
  - mce

Say
her eyes are
intoxicatingly
limpid pools.
Dive deeply.
Swim joyously.
Get drunk
on her soul.
Later,
enjoy
the best
hangover
ever.

  ~mce

by Octavio Paz**

Between going and staying the day wavers,
in love with its own transparency.
The circular afternoon is now a bay
where the world in stillness rocks.

All is visible and all elusive,
all is near and can't be touched.

Paper, book, pencil, glass,
rest in the shade of their names.

Time throbbing in my temples repeats
the same unchanging syllable of blood.

The light turns the indifferent wall
into a ghostly theater of reflections.

I find myself in the middle of an eye,
watching myself in its blank stare.

The moment scatters. Motionless,
I stay and go: I am a pause.


Translated by Eliot Weinberger

Love remains
inscrutable
as prayer;
not something
you understand,
but something
you do.
   _ mce