Just noticed I haven't
looked at my news feed
in over a week.

Either the world
has managed to get along
without me
or it ended and no one
told me.

Either one pretty much
the same.

I remain blissfully
ignorant.

And it doesn't matter.

~mce

Beneath my window
some workmen are blaring
bad 80s rock and, worse,
singing along.

How come
I never seem to have a gun
when I could use one.

This will go on
for mindless hours.

The day's silence but a memory;
It's time for me to flee.

  ~mce

Axis**

Through the conduits of blood
my body in your body
spring of night
my tongue of sun in your forest
your body a kneading trough
I red wheat
Through conduits of bone
I night I water
I forest that moves forward
I tongue
I body
I sun-bone
Through the conduits of night
spring of bodies
You night of wheat
you forest in the sun
you waiting water
you kneading trough of bones
Through the conduits of sun
my night in your night
my sun in your sun
my wheat in your kneading trough
your forest in my tongue
Through the conduits of the body
water in the night
your body in my body
Spring of bones
Spring of suns

After Work**

The shack and a few trees
float in the blowing fog

I pull out your blouse,
warm my cold hands
     on your *******.
you laugh and shudder
peeling garlic by the
     hot iron stove.
bring in the axe, the rake,
the wood

we'll lean on the wall
against each other
stew simmering on the fire
as it grows dark
            drinking wine.

The Journey**

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.

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

It is inevitable if we are determined
to take chances with our heart
that we find it shattered some mornings
Only when we must bend
to fetch the shards
do we again wish that we had been safer
more cautious

But then
when I think about life without such love...
I smile that Mona Lisa smile
I know myself better than that

Some people brave mountains or the stars
I dare to love crazy and wild