Not used to
The 13th floor
Of anything.
The lowlife
Calls me home.
Piercing loneliness
Of a hotel room
Where there was
A presence.
We know so little,
Suffer so much.
Nothing to do but
Breathe and hope.
Catch your train.
Make it through
Another day.
   Mce

Last night up on the ridge
a whippoorwill sang
its incessant sweet song
in the thick, firefly darkness.
Dante was right to make Hell
a place without birds.
They fill the world with music
and ask nothing in return.
The purity of sweetness
without the demand for profit.
What a lovely notion.
- mce

"Hell is a place without birds." D.A.*

A tiny bird in my heart sings
that although the time of kisses
is not yet, it will be.
Like Dante, I have always
trusted the wisdom of birds.
   ~mce

Every morning
I look in the mirror
and expect to see
the face that used to be.
Life passes
short as a shiver.
Yet ineluctably,
all those missing moments
belong to me
as surely as
thousands of pieces
of luggage
lost by a bankrupt airline.
Every morning
I hope in vain
that they will
be on the carousel
and find their way back
to my mottled hands
one more time.
   ~ mce

All these faltering words:

just a deal
I made with myself
as a personal reason
to keep breathing;

my own
hermetic language
designed for discourse
with the Divine,
with Madness.

When you think
you are reading them,
you aren't.

Really,
you are only
eavesdropping.

Listen too closely and
the worms may begin
to chew.

Not my responsibility.

- mce

Poetry is so hard to find,
quite like love.
When you do, you must
write it like a check
you owe for allowing it
to express how the world
comes to mean anything at all:
to cover the debt you pay
for being, for flashing brightly
before the day begins
to crumble.

  ~mce

If your heart doesn't bleed,
you are dead.
You have become
just another greedy
little **** factory
on your short path
to becoming
compost yourself.

~mce

Whichever
way I look,
I only see you.

Such a grand
vista, scenery
to set my heart
aflutter.

~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

The man with no eyes
fixed his vacant gaze
hard upon me and said,
You don't look so well
today, my friend.
Well, I replied,
I do feel a bit blank.
You need to concentrate
on being an atom, he said,
being particles
is just too difficult.
Taking up his observation,
suddenly I felt solid.
Only the sightless
see clearly.

  ~mce

For personal reasons,
that name conjures
in my mind only
images of war.

Yelling rebels,
teaming Lakota,
Nipponese samurai,
stealthy NVA.

Perhaps
it is time
to declare

a Peace Moon

and learn
to live quietly,

bathed in its
silken shining.

  ~mce

The buzz
   of madness
       in the
          cicadas' whir;
insanity in
   the manic
      croak of
         tree frogs.

No quiet;
   never quiet;
        no quiet.

How fragile
   the fabric
        of personality;
how easily
   it rends, frays
       and tears

until what remains
   are loose threads
       blown randomly
           by howling wind

twirling within
   the whir
       of cicadas,
          the croak
             of tree frogs.
  - mce

I am thinking
of you, Lady,
and my thoughts,
while tantalizing,
energizing,
and enjoyable,
are not, exactly,
of the purest sort.

Well now,
how I wonder
what runs through
through that
pretty mind
of yours.

Would I blush
to know?

Oh, I hope so.
  - mce

A great man said
fatigue makes cowards
of us all.
When I tire I falter.
After 72 straight hours
of flying at An Loc,
I slept with my eyes open
and was terrified
every moment
I was conscious.
No more wars for me,
an old man 50 years later,
an old body bent
on a different life.
When I am weary
I see the raw meat
on the floor
and think a new life
is impossible
but maybe some
variations on a theme
could happen.
I feel like
a worn out raccoon
treed by the hounds of life.
I feel giddy
with self-doubt
as if the world
is telling me something
I don't want to hear.
"Devouring time blunt
thou thy lion's paws."
And I will sleep
and tomorrow
what is impossible
tonight might
even seem likely.

  ~mce

You Learn**

After a while you learn the subtle difference
Between holding a hand and chaining a soul,

And you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning
And company doesn’t mean security.

And you begin to learn that kisses aren’t contracts
And presents aren’t promises,

And you begin to accept your defeats
With your head up and your eyes open
With the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child,

And you learn to build all your roads on today
Because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain for plans
And futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.

After a while you learn…
That even sunshine burns if you get too much.

So you plant your garden and decorate your own soul,
Instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.

And you learn that you really can endure…

That you really are strong

And you really do have worth…

And you learn and learn…

With every good-bye you learn.

JLB

Spring**

How many sticky buds, candle ends
sprout from the branches! Steaming
April. Puberty sweats from the park,
and the forest’s blatantly gleaming.

A noose of feathered throats grips
the wood’s larynx, a lassoed steer,
netted, like a gladiatorial *****,
it groans steel-piped sonatas here.

Poetry! Be a Greek sponge with suckers,
among green stickiness drenched,
I’ll consent, by the sopping wood
of a green-stained garden bench.

Grow sumptuous pleats and flounces,
**** up the gullies and clouds,
Poetry, tonight, I’ll squeeze you out
to make the parched sheets flower.

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

On the fourth
painful morning
after the fourth
drunken night,
he merged
with Reality
and achieved
Enlightenment:
he no longer
had a hangover;
he was a hangover.
  - mce

"I am here
and you are distant."

The essential sadness
of those words
seizes the heart
of loneliness.

Here/distant:
the kernel
of so much despair
and poetry.
- mce

As we go marching, marching
In the beauty of the day
A million darkened kitchens
A thousand mill lofts gray
Are touched with all the radiance
That a sudden sun discloses
For the people hear us singing
Bread & roses, bread & roses

As we go marching, marching
We battle too for men
For they are women's children
And we mother them again
Our lives shall not be sweetened
From birth until life closes
Hearts starve as well as bodies
Give us bread but give us roses

As we go marching, marching
We bring the greater days
For the rising of the women
Means the rising of the race
No more the drudge and idler
Ten that toil where one reposes
But the sharing of lifes glories
Bread & roses, bread & roses

Just an instant
twixt breath
and death.

In that living
blink-blink
let us lie
eye to eye

(moan to moan,
groan to groan)

so when we go
we will heart
happy know:

we were never,
not once,
not ever, alone.

Nothing
Friendship
Conversation
Lust
Consummation
Love affair
Nothing
  ~mce

How can
our hearts survive
so many battles
when they
can never be
satisfied and happy
at the same time?

When I have fears that I may cease to be...*

Obviously,

I am strongly opposed
to stating the obvious,
but there is forever
scant hope of forgiveness
and I expect none.

I only did what the crazy do.
Events cascaded as they are wont.

Never expect absolution.
Who could ever know all your sins?
How could there ever be time enough?

Much better to mirror
the Stoic habit of silence.

Bind your wounds and walk away.

Obviously,

the only path leading forward
into the vast unknown.

First gelid dawn
of the dying year.

A crescent moon
shivers above
achromatic frost.

Four crows perch
like fluffy black
lumps of ice
on taut power lines.

Hungry sparrows peck
the severe ground.

The old poet
fears the cold.

Chilled eyes notice
bare ruined trees
and windshields
waiting to be scraped.

The earth has pulled
the covers up
around its neck,
wakes stiff and slow,
but stays in bed.

Cold's bony fingers
probe the old house
like burglars seeking
points of entry.

Still, the chill roads
point toward the
inevitable return
of warmth;
                  spring sits
silent as a cat waiting
for a door to open,
bidding its time
to counterattack.

Even on the most
algid morning
hope slumbers,
but never dies.

  ~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

Every ending includes
a beginning.

The past can
never be escaped,
but it can be
left in the past.

The tree that
falls and rots
feeds new growth;
it remains,
but is transformed;
likewise the past
must nourish
the future,
not stunt its growth.

Open your arms
to what might be
and what has been
assumes it's
proper place.

A ****** fine world
waits out there:

time to get on with it.
_ mce

A lifetime's experience
in peace and war
tells me I can die
in the next minute.

But I know I won't.
I haven't met you yet.
I know I was meant for that.
Until then, I must live on.

On the frozen shortest night,
there is a street lamp
glowing against the cold.

Before I kiss you
beneath that lamp,
I remain bulletproof.

Once our lips meet
in that frigid night
life and death
will only be possibilities.

They won't matter anymore.
The circle will be complete.
I will fear no evil.

Did not work out well for Brits circa 1857.
Sepoys blown from guns. Lesson learned. Empire upheld.
In America, history does not apply. Only winning.
When 3.3 million get up and leave. Syrian Chaos.
Oh, that magic feeling: nowhere to go. Or elsewhere.
Have much. Use much. Enjoy much. Care little.
Other than genocide. No obvious solution. Or Malthus.
Cats cry in Gelid winter. Home where you don't find it.
Gigantic cakewalk with no chairs. Only losers.
Oh where, oh where, will these little lambs go.
Anywhere but your back yard. Concern, not Welcome.
Find great open spaces: Australia, Antarctica.
Out of sight out of mind. Heart grows forgetful.
Remember Law of Unintended Consequences:
     I and the Public know what all schoolchildren learn;
     Those to whom Evil is done, do Evil in return.

   ~mce

The heart
of the wood
burns hottest;
the heart
of a living man,
as well.

Both consume
themselves
to produce
light and heat.

A life of fire.

In the end,
only ashes
remain.

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

  ~mce

Big issues fade in the face of beauty.

Seat a great philosopher, mathematician,
physicist, and theologian at a table.

Have a lovely, perfect 18-year-old girl
gracefully approach to take their orders.

I can tell you exactly what they are not thinking.

Big issues fade in the face of beauty.*

  ~mce

If my lips
kissed your neck
would it
kiss them back?

Suppose I caught
you one day
and gently kissed
the sole of your
tiny foot,
wouldn't you limp
a little then,
afraid to crush
my kiss?

  ~mce

So many poems birthed at dawn
or just before
when the trickster gods
are passed out and cannot
plot pratfalls for mere mortals.
Turmoil eases up a bit,
but anything can come next.
You might lose the courage
to eat breakfast or find yourself
trying to type on liquid paper.
You could be struck by
nostalgia for hula hoops or
begin to feel your teeth dissolve.
You want to make a poem that
coils, rises up and strikes
the heart like an angry snake,
but it is easy to get sidetracked.
After all, you are only bones
in a sack spitting out words
that vainly seek forever and
the present so successfully
hides the future. But it's early,
go down into the quantum
quarry of language,
pick up a few likely chunks,
haul them back and let the world
select the words. Be patient as
a telephone waiting to ring.
Dare to ****  a peach. Let the
words gather unto themselves
like clouds until each new page,
scarred by those glyphs,
becomes the living promise
of the day just begun, like
a butterfly gliding over clover.
No task. Only the being of.

  ~mce

"The poem reveals itself
only to the ignorant man."* - Wallace Stevens

Become a child again;
indulge yourself
in ignorance and wonder;
be open to paradox,
uncertainty and amazement.
Recall the very first time
you noticed fireflies
blinking out rapturous glory,
the mystery and grandeur
of that innocent instant.
Return your heart to that state
of spontaneous marvel.
The world will reveal itself,
transformed and articulate,
into small, exquisite fragments
manifested as poems,
a wholly fresh vision
of the same old universe
experienced through
the welcoming eyes
of an idiot.
- mce

How I long
to unbutton you,
Lady, to slowly
peel off the layers
of your being
and feel you,
body and soul,
naked and true,
beneath my
exploring hands,
touching the core
of who you
really are,
there where
you are hidden
beneath it all.

I think, Lady,
you have
been buttoned
against the world
too, too long.

Open the inside
to the outside.

Take a chance.

A world at bay
is no world at all.

Nothing of value
can be learned
at a distance.

Direct my fingers;
they are willing
if you are.

Bare hands,
bare hearts,
bare bodies:

to open,
always better
than to close.

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

Just when
I am about
to give up,
the Muse
glides up
silently
and blows
seductively
in my ear.
God, I am
so easy.
  - mce

You know
you are drunk
when the game
is count to
two without
making
a mistake
and no one
wins.
  ~mce

I never sought
this calling.

So difficult,
even painful.

The Poet must
find a way
to use words
to create beauty
to keep chaos
at bay.

Chaos never
relents.

Beauty is fragile.

And yet we
soldier on.

If you submitted
to a moment of sanity,
tore off your clothes,
removed your mask
and stood boldly,
for just an instant -
glorious, trembling
and naked -
before another
human heart,
who would you be?
  - mce

Let us get naked
and frolic blue lipped
in the gelid waters
of Lake Michigan
and warm each other
on the fine white sand,
your painted toes
pointing out clouds
in the pellucid sky.

Call that a date.

  ~mce

by Trista Mateer*

After my father
left
part of me
became
determined
to always do the leaving

and I have
yet
to let it down.

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

It takes courage to live in a world
that doesn't love you.
But it takes a warrior's heart
to love it anyhow.

  ~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

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

I concentrate on your name, your face, your words
and throw the coins to call the hexagram,
dipping into The Great Flow for a random answer.

It gives me #46, Advancing, which contains:

There is no need to worry, things will go well.

How cool is that?

Even the universe flows in our direction.

   ~mce

Nothing
wrong with it.

Everybody
wants it.

The young
deserve it.

Only, after a point,
you realize that
you don't need it
and that taking
what you don't need,
can interfere
with getting what
you do need.

And that, as the
old, but true,
cliche points out,
makes for
a whole new
ball game.
- mce