Give the suckers what they want.* PT Barnum

Vibrating condoms that stay hard when you can't.
Pigeons that don't ****. Invisibility cloaks.
Parents with a mute button. Happy nightmares.
Politicians with Pinnochio noses. A ******* app.
Self-repairing cars. Seduction lie detector.
A time machine. Mind reading headset. Hope.
****** pills. Portable STD scanner. Edible cups.
Gourmet cook robot. Sincerity meter. Honesty.
Gun gloves. X-ray specs, Teleporter. Laughter.
Anti-loneliness inhaler. Broken heart tape.
Complete do it yourself dental care kit.
Many other brightly colored useless objects.
Find an Angel. Do a start-up. Go public.
The American Dream: have more money than god.

  ~mce

Technology meant as tool, not lifestyle. Zombies walk.
ROM wasn't built in a day. I tweet therefore I am.
Change comes wicked fast. Computers becoming doorstops.
Weeping tablets die barely born. Phones devour brains.
My whole life is on my phone. Small life indeed.
Friends redefined as virtual entities. Sit on my Facebook.
AI will make *** safe, instant, anonymous and irrelevant.
Gaming console warriors. *******. Know nothing of war.
Search engines substitute for knowledge. Shallow.
Mere flesh flees before silicon reality. Resistance futile.
Pin all of this to your *** and see if you still bleed.
  ~mce

Every day, make a pledge
to find something where
you’ve never looked before.
Find a banker fried
on the arc lights of power;
a pair of lacy ******* in
your grandpa’s sock drawer;
come stains you can’t recall
on you best umbrella;
a hundred silver dollars
in the cookie jar;
two used condoms
in your aunt’s jello salad;
Nixon’s missing 18 minutes on
the 8 track of your Gremlin;
The Ark Of the Covenant
behind your broken fridge;
a hit of Owsley acid
in your dad’s bible.
Wonder, wonders, wonderful.
Forget a rebirth of wonder.
The truly marvelous lurks
everywhere around
waiting to be found.

  ~mce

Pull down thy vanity.*

Woe be unto you. Sighing children. Left behind.
Make the best of it. Stand by your Brand. Freelance.
Start-ups of futility. Write content for six blogs.
Wake up and smell the copy. Serve drinks.
In three bars. Kludge together the rent. Part-time.
Hustle. Hurry. Make of virtue of activity. Be productive.
Convince yourself busyness is productive. Deliver.
Productivity as Divine. Ten steps to improve.
Seven ways to better. Fifteen hacks to boost.
Means of production stolen long before you.
You are cormorants with rings tight on your necks.
The truth shall make you work. Harder and longer.
Believe you are on your way. You are. To getting old.
Old and broke and lonely. To wondering what went wrong.
Your children will disdain you and the world you made.
Same story told with tattoos and piercings. Good luck.

Lover, please find me.
I'm over sixty!

   ~mce

An aged man is but a paltry thing,*

Bones awake groaning. Sing the body decrepit. Don't moan, Agonize!
Neurons snap, crackle, plop. Locate head. Try to find shoes.
Dreams dismissed. Day bleeds into sameness. Relentless boredom.
Tread the doomed bog of Old with attentions. ***** traps.
Each step the future. Abandon all dope. Mortality worm gnaws.
Denentiasand *****. Tumorgators lurk. Snappers break hips.
EDacondas slither. Limply. Lungconstrictors hide in tar. Gasp.
Peer through blurry eyes. Portage cataracts. Slow streams drip.
Lust peters out. Prostate yourself. Up becomes down. Flexile.
Shelf life gets shorter. Discard after. Only expiration Dates.
So what if life is ebbing. Reality is an unhappy meal. Ignore.
     Be a clueless American. Slap on a big grin. No fears!
     Pretend to enjoy the swamp of these Golden Years.

One demagogue, two ayatollahs,
a socialist fossil, a withered feminist.

The best of 360 million people?

Thanks so much, Amerika, for the
right to vote for such imposing choices.

I know I won't show up.

Anarchists know the lesser of two evils
is still and only ever can be… evil.

Enjoy the farce.
   ~mce

The wind is part of the process/The rain is part of the process.

Gesamtwerk.* Parts making whole from parts.
Language. Alphabet, words, phrases, sentences
create a total work based firmly upon... alphabet.
Throw in grammar, punctuation, syntax. Anything possible.
To be. Verb not noun. Moves beyond syntax. To real.
Poet as tinker. No matter. Poems as language. Do.
Right language, correct path, shining mountain.
Seeker sits. Solitude. Transcends journey. World announced.
End as beginning. Form. Gestalt. The beginning of Awe.

  ~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

Seeing a future that does not exist.
Dead child. Lost mother. Empty cradle.
Loveless heart. Soul minus zero. No companion.
Friends far away. Leaden morning stillness.
Noun without verb. Lonely adjective. Period.
Days upon days upon days of endless same.
Dysfunctional GPS. Maps that lead nowhere.
Rooms of the void. House of many sorrows.
Untold story without ending. Unwritten poems.
Homeless veterans. All soldiers at night. Fear.
Imaginary kisses. Touches of air. Lost caresses.
Knowing that everything that comes next is nothing;
     knowing that you really know that.

  ~mce

Nouns and verbs swirls. Word anarchy. Everyone a poet.

Pay no attention to my browsing history. I’m a writer, not a serial killer.
Women never want much, only everything you are or will be.
He said he would stuff my taco unlike any man before him,
and boy did he! I've always wanted a man who could cook.
Someday's you just know that the jail time was worth it.
Cows who give milk for free never know what a respectable farmer is.
Relearn the dying art of thinking before you ******* speak.
I scream. You scream. We come.  Police come. Awkward.
Thought it was a loofah but it turned out to be steel wool.
Sixty is the new 40. Try getting your ***** to believe that.
The only fact is that you'll never understand anything at all.
I never flirt with danger but danger just insists on it.
He lost me at: Do you prefer the ropes really, really tight?
She dumped me because I just stood there with my moves unbusted.
Watching internet *** is like ******* without arms.
I bet that pride of yours doesn't enjoy snuggling like I do.
You don't have to be desperately lonely to tweet, but it helps.

Say anything you like. After all, only everyone will see it.

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

Divorce is the sign of knowledge is out times.* wcw

Empty chair. Sun frowning through blinds on lifeless rooms.
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
Singing now to only one. A history of the void. Hollow words.
Know the past. You were there. In everything done.
Boxed up kid's toys. Forgotten gifts. Solitary thoughts.
Echoes of children's voices. Fading to grown up.
No one knows what lurks down the road. Dead end.
Memories of the missing. One way conversations. Unsung songs.
Days without direction. Nights of nothing. Empty bed blues.
Ransacked nostalgia. Random recollections. Loneliness.
     You and I we're like water to the sea,
     What can one without the other be.

  ~mce

brighter than a thousand suns...*

Helicopters scud the night. Syllables penetrate deeply.
Mulch has no value. Fingers curled softly in sleep.
Style marks the spot. Weapons hidden beneath kilts.
Pinpoint errors. Know where you are. Charlie Parker got lost.
You're a little teapot. The cat ponders these things.
Glamour a kind of architecture. National Enquirer a house.
Her only idea disastrous. He entered from behind. Stealth.
Take it any way you want it. ****** distillations of poison.
Something longer perhaps? Squash blossoms lovely. Preferences.
Ferns are not intentional. He wants a mulligan. Sentences question.
Ahead engorged. The color purple. Glance. Not quite wet.
Humpty-Dumpty the primary archetype. Master Coder. Triple Helix.
   If this gum be stale: do not chew it;
   If you are a window: draw the blinds.
   Or writhe in  ******* of meaningful.
      Come along to Carthage and Burn.

  ~mce

Every poem a foundling. Ancestry uncertain. Cuckoo. Kidnapped.
Each line liberated from a huge, noisy foul. Taken not stolen.
Don't put all your words in one. Task it to be new.
Almost bought organic bananas yesterday like some kind of millionaire.
Some of the best times of my life have no photographic evidence.
I often wonder where my thoughts come from. Perhaps Uranus.
Date a girl with small hands.. Everything will look bigger next to them.
Get to the point. My medication is starting to wear off.....
Karaoke, because being an obnoxious drunk isn't embarrassing enough.
If I am the man of your dreams, my condolences. Stupid is.
It's all fun and fiction until you show up missing. Internet romance.
My thighs are looking awfully lonely without you between them.
You've spent an entire day creating the ultimate sheep pun,
but have you ever considered the ramifications? Disordered thoughts.
Die a quick and painless death: the new American Dream. Lonely kills.
All I need is just a little cherishing. Comeuppance. Cherish is the word.
Listen, karma is the *****. I am simply her occasional instrument.
Meaning becomes data becomes information becomes content becomes meaningless.
Writer creates order. Otherwise only words in a row. Whole more than parts.
Big bird tweets often. Means nothing. Vacancy. Disappear into void.
Shout out the words you don't understand. Leave them to the poet's hand.

  ~mce

Finally a day devoid of sharp edges.
The world in focus. For a moment. Enjoy.
Insomnia burns like Saint Augustine's fire.
Nights much longer than swooning pig *******.
Days that shimmer, stab, shake and ****.
Aching eyes and aching I. Queasiness.
Every eternal question demanding answer.
Random blasts from unwelcome pasts.
Useless drugs. Alcohol too much pain.
Eventually, to sleep, to dream. Oblivion
attained. But then, it all begins again.
  ~mce

In America, nichts neues. Death stalks street corners
like a lurking cassowary. Blood the National Color.
Random acts of madness practiced from ambush.
General lack of civility. Shout each other down.
The Other is out there being otherwise. Fear.
Arm yourselves! Disarm yourselves! Dead anyway.
Impenetrable, crystalline, indestructible ignorance.
Nothing to be done but hold on by sitting tight
until the next blasts of rage rend the night.

   ~mce

Rather seek a mad climate:
happy, peaceful, elegant.
By brilliant abstractions lit.
A revolution must occur
in the people's minds
years before
the Revolution occurs.
Plant a seed. Pray for rain.
Life languishes
where usury pervades,
ignorance doth flourish.
The arts a septic sewer.
The marketplace a God.
Carcasses for sacrifice.
Remove base appetite
and this generation dies.
Send them on their way.
Flush the bankers.
Lose all interest. Live
to write another day.

~mce

Read and weep...*

16 Ways to a Bigger Sock.
Why you should **** your boss now.
7 Ways to Thieve Your Lover.
11 ways to Grow Your Own Bud Lite.
The One Hard Thing Harried Women Want.
43 Reasons to Die Young.
Vladimir Putin For President!
13 Yoga Positions Against Entropy.
Learn to Pick ******* From Trees.
33 Reasons to Love Your Shingles.
Genuine Faked Proof Obama Murdered Scalia.
14 Methods For Preventing Dottle.
Why Internet Lists Make You Stupid.
666 Ways To Fail At Suicide.
The Number One Reason Literacy Is Dead.
  ~mce

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

What have I made? What have I done?
Let those I love forgive what I have made.
Let the gods forgive what I have done.
Let the wind that speaks Paradise,
let it speak of what I have tried to do.
To be a man and not a destroyer.
To find the path to Paradise.
Beauty, not madness or unfinished
tangled works. The pillow, not the case.
In my homeland only shades stalk.
Fear is the forefather of cruelty.
To escape fear and find the way.
There are many ways but only One Way.
We live a thousand years in a wink.
Many wrong turns but perhaps a few right.
Let those I love forgive what I have made.
Let the gods forgive what I have done.

  ~mce and elp

She arrived fresh
as tomorrow;
she departed stale
as yesterday.
In. Out. Up. Over.
   Gone for good.

~mce

Only the worst poets
spoon feed their readers.
The rest sing it out
and let the chips
splatter as they will.
No one writes
to be misunderstood.
Spout your words
like a fountain.
Perhaps a few drops
will fall into
thirsty mouths
and satisfy.
Then again,
                  maybe not.

Eat, sleep, breathe, excrete,
a body living does not a life make.
Oh! Black dog do not my heart devour.
Only the lonely know only the lonely.
Know thing not without touch lives.
Do you smell that smell? Do not inhale.
Kick hard to keep the burly beast at bay.
Or cross the bar onto wine-dark depths,
Song of sirens. Whispers of doom.
How soothing simply to sink. Down.
Sometimes, the brain may prefer the drain.
Make the judgementally ill be still.
In my mania is my maintenance.
The abyss remains to revisit always.
Difficult balance: live or cease pain.
To resist. To defy. All that does remain.
Good morning, blues, how do you do?
To keep it or to give it away.
Bump. Bump. Down the funny steps.
Bear up. Hold on. Call that another day,
though sand through the glass’ neck still drips.

Try to paint imagining. What does that look like?
Maybe use a thinner brush or none at all.
Wear Birkenstocks with white socks.
Helpful? If not, look for details of masochism.
Listen for the fractal music. Hear its nots.
Those are swirls that were your eyes. Blink!
Try playing dinosaurs at a local **** store.
Chug a quivering quart of whiskey as primer.
Focus on penetrating the dance of ******.
No? Then imagine your imagination imagining.
Or, just give up and buy a copy of Cheese For Dummies.
Kick back and enjoy a gnawing evening off.

Enter only through the revolting door.
River running down sleep steeps to the sea.
A dearth of beer cans wish for so much more.
Content and coherence all plain to be.
Why were we made large to become so small?
Desperate succulents clinging to rocks.
Play what you will, by good, and pluck it all!
That bunch in the noose really rooked your socks.
Worlds woven with words wear quickly away.
Be grateful for just a line of knowing.
This weather appears to be hear to say.
Everything's gathered in tears a-flowing.
     Play with those sounds completely at your ease:
     No words were harmed in the making of these.

From whence springs his or her story?
Just what drives the wave to surge and break.
Evolution, not revolution, determines destiny:
Lungfish gasping in a mudflat. Initial syllables.
Every beginning begins at the beginning.
Only victories allowed to repeat themselves.
This is the way the way the word begins.
Endless repetition until only Now remains.
Homer, Dante, Shakespeare: one human voice:
One song sung sighing across the sky.

Solitude is a fine thing before it tips into loneliness.
Loneliness and solitude live in the same house
and balance until lonesome perfection prevails. Then,
isolation, black and deadly, squeezes from the heart
a choked scream of gasping need, until, finally emptied,
all that remains is a ruined cavern bereaved of light.

  ~mce

The days run away
like frightened children.
Brevity is the soul of life.
Each sunrise becomes a miracle.
The only true sadness
is to age without a song.
This can go either way.
Some mornings the black dog licks;
but on others, you still feel
the kiss of fire upon your lips.

  ~mce

The day's inertia grips an old, cold body.
Too dangerous to doze while ice melts.
Early morning commotion at the brain station.
An unnamed bird tweets but lacks followers.
Gesticulation of unknown parts. Shake the
waking brain: dissolve the haze of logic.
A Day Of Decision: to shave or not to shave.
Curse all the rules you learned in schools.
The difficulty of simultaneously breaking out
and in. White boys with hoodie-heads clearly
ignorant of color wheels. Each word waffle
in the mind meaning means. This craft makes
crazy but air and fire clarify these lines.
Poets voluntary outlaws in American eyes.
Who needs shrink wrapped verses? You are
implicated in whatever you choose to read.
Do not interrupt and demand exegesis;
we do not deal in scripture or litany;
you may only get the interpretation of wolves.
Only this blinky moment of alphabet unites us.
You are changed by this reading
if you get my memeing or not.
Armageddon is your beard to scratch. Have at it.

Complexity sometimes so basic.
The most common sentence,
"I love you," only understood
by a single, unique reader
in all the living world.

  ~mce

February a baleful month
dabbed with deep darkness,
the calendar's mortuary
nature's own Gulag.
Its window opens upon
possible impossibilities
none of which yield joy.
Crows plummet murderously
from the heavens
vainly trying to flee
into spring but merely splat.
Roads are crushed
beneath a carpet of ****.
Frosted blimps soar naked.
Boots refuse to stay tied.
Your parent's nightmares
freeze your sweaty sleep.
Snow falls like dead swans.
Eclairs crystallize into
lumps too solid to enjoy.
A month of undeserved
solitary confinement
that trembles the soul.
A deep achromatic terror
keening coldness
in a huge white wail
penetrating the ears
until march stops
the madness and hope
blossoms as crocuses,
apricity achieved,
small phosphorescent
dots of desire.

  ~mce

The best game in town
must be playing chess with God.

The omniscient old dude
really ****** up by installing
that pesky free will.

Now he knows every possible
move you can make, but not
the one you will make.

Scholar's mate or Fool's mate;
pieces of cake, both sweet
redemption in the mortal mouth.

  ~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

Where poor money
goes
to spend people.

  ~mce

Those lost in war
are mostly
gone for good,
but sometimes
their ghosts pry
my ears open
and softly
weep into them.
I can only listen
and wonder,
why not me?

  ~mce

by Ramond Carver**

You don't know what love is Bukowski said
I'm 51 years old look at me
I'm in love with this young broad
I got it bad but she's hung up too
so it's all right man that's the way it should be
I get in their blood and they can't get me out
They try everything to get away from me
but they all come back in the end
They all came back to me except
the one I planted
I cried over that one
but I cried easy in those days
Don't let me get onto the hard stuff man
I get mean then
I could sit here and drink beer
with you hippies all night
I could drink ten quarts of this beer
and nothing it's like water
But let me get onto the hard stuff
and I'll start throwing people out windows
I'll throw anybody out the window
I've done it
But you don't know what love is
You don't know because you've never
been in love it's that simple
I got this young broad see she's beautiful
She calls me Bukowski
Bukowski she says in this little voice
and I say What
But you don't know what love is
I'm telling you what it is
but you aren't listening
There isn't one of you in this room
would recognize love if it stepped up
and buggered you in the ***
I used to think poetry readings were a copout
Look I'm 51 years old and I've been around
I know they're a copout
but I said to myself Bukowski
starving is even more of a copout
So there you are and nothing is like it should be
That fellow what's his name Galway Kinnell
I saw his picture in a magazine
He has a handsome mug on him
but he's a teacher
Christ can you imagine
But then you're teachers too
here I am insulting you already
No I haven't heard of him
or him either
They're all termites
Maybe it's ego I don't read much anymore
but these people w! ** build
reputations on five or six books
termites
Bukowski she says
Why do you listen to classical music all day
Can't you hear her saying that
Bukowski why do you listen to classical music all day
That surprises you doesn't it
You wouldn't think a crude ******* like me
could listen to classical music all day
Brahms Rachmaninoff Bartok Telemann
**** I couldn't write up here
Too quiet up here too many trees
I like the city that's the place for me
I put on my classical music each morning
and sit down in front of my typewriter
I light a cigar and I smoke it like this see
and I say Bukowski you're a lucky man
Bukowski you've gone through it all
and you're a lucky man
and the blue smoke drifts across the table
and I look out the window onto Delongpre Avenue
and I see people walking up and down the sidewalk
and I puff on the cigar like this
and then I lay the cigar in the ashtray like this and take a deep breath
and I begin to write
Bukowski this is the life I say
it's good to be poor it's good to have hemorrhoids
it's good to be in love
But you don't know what it's like
You don't know what it's like to be in love
If you could see her you'd know what I mean
She thought I'd come up here and get laid
She just knew it
She told me she knew it
**** I'm 51 years old and she's 25
and we're in love and she's jealous
Jesus it's beautiful
she said she'd claw my eyes out if I came up here
and got laid
Now that's love for you
What do any of you know about it
Let me tell you something
I've met men in jail who had more style
than the people who hang around colleges
and go to poetry readings
They're bloodsuckers who come to see
if the poet's socks are *****
or if he smells under the arms
Believe me I won't disappoint em
But I want you to remember this
there's only one poet in this room tonight
only one poet in this town tonight
maybe only one real poet in this country tonight
and that's me
What do any of you know about life
What do any of you know about anything
Which of you here has been fired from a job
or else has beaten up your broad
or else has been beaten up by your broad
I was fired from Sears and Roebuck five times
They'd fire me then hire me back again
I was a stockboy for them when I was 35
and then got canned for stealing cookies
I know what's it like I've been there
I'm 51 years old now and I'm in love
This little broad she says
Bukowski
and I say What and she says
I think you're full of ****
and I say baby you understand me
She's the only broad in the world
man or woman
I'd take that from
But you don't know what love is
They all came back to me in the end too
every one of em came back
except that one I told you about
the one I planted We were together seven years
We used to drink a lot
I see a couple of typers in this room but
I don't see any poets
I'm not surprised
You have to have been in love to write poetry
and you don't know what it is to be in love
that's your trouble
Give me some of that stuff
That's right no ice good
That's good that's just fine
So let's get this show on the road
I know what I said but I'll have just one
That tastes good
Okay then let's go let's get this over with
only afterwards don't anyone stand close
to an open window

I think I am
finally ready
for that other life.
You know,
The one without
all the mistakes.

  ~mce

I want to make poetry
from poverty.
I eschew women.
I buy nothing.
I eat little.
I own less.
I have neither
TV nor cellphone.
This is not asceticism.
I just want
to know the bones
of life before
I become
the bones of death.
  ~mce

To the many readers, I ******* with my poem about Bukowski.

I don't loathe Bukowski. My point is that he is a cult writer. His cult seems to be made up of people who are ignorant of other much better writers of his time. If they read the Beats (in particular Gary Snyder) or others like Richard Brautigan, Jim Harrison, Wendell Berry and many others, they would see how poorly his writing stands up to comparison.

Bukowski's persona is what seems to attract people. He knew that and cultivated it. It was his meal ticket. The poor, drunken, uncouth, outsider, loser who was scorned by the literati of his time. In truth, he was a writer of pulp poetry. What he needed was a good editor. You could take all of his books of poems, cut out the rambling, self-serving, tedious, self-glorifying *******, and cut them down to maybe two books of decent poetry. His prose is better, but not that much.

Young people, lacking better poetry for comparison, are mainly attracted by this cult of personality. Young people are attracted to rebels, even bogus ones. He himself said he didn't write, he just typed. Some hero.

He portrays himself as a big, tough *** willing to fight the whole world. Actually, he was a fat drunk barely six feet tall. That's why I laughed at him when he threatened me. I was 20, just three weeks back from Vietnam. The thought of fighting an old drunk seemed pathetic to me. I could have easily killed him. Who goes to a poetry reading for that?

There was also his attitude toward women. I believe he really hated women. He saw them as receptacles for his *****, nothing more. He used his fame to **** a good many young admirers. He's not alone in having done that, but he was obsessive about it. Women were a perk, nothing more.

In the end, his cult status will remain, but he will never be taken seriously as a writer, because - by his own admission - he wasn't. There is much excellent poetry out there by better writers of his time. Do yourself a favor, read them, educate yourself. If you only read mediocre poetry, you'll only ever be a mediocre poet.

Even at his most unheroic, he is the hero of his stories and poems, always demanding the reader’s covert approval. That is why he is so easy to love, especially for novice readers with little experience of the genuine challenges of poetry; and why, for more demanding readers, he remains so hard to admire.

Please: Join in. Tell me why I am wrong or right.

Mike Essig

1 - Sweep out the International Space Station.
2 - Eat Kale every day and like it.
3 - Learn to know and like a republican.
4 - Become a Mixed Martial Arts champion.
5 - Be kind to extinct wolverines.
6 - Develop at taste for Rap music.
7 - Explore gastronomic excess with you $16 in food stamps.
8 - Teach the cat how to vacuum and dust.
9 - Find the last person under 30 without a smartphone.
10 - Figure out why God created Twitter.
11 - Solve the riddle of what women really want.

12 - Give up on all the above by Ground Hog Day.

  ~mce

(N) Everything pleasant
you can do with your tongue
that doesn't involve ***.

  ~mce

A reading at Kenneth Rexroth's bookstore,
Union Street in San Francisco, 1971.

He was incoherently drunk, slurred his poems,
insulted the host, insulted the audience,
hit on the awestricken hippie girls,
delivered every kind of obnoxious possible.

Fortunately, I had read his poems
and arrived prepared to witness his act.

I'd thought his poems were overrated,
I found his persona to be spot on.

At the reception, I drank a beer beside him.
He glanced up, called me a *****
and said he ought to kick my ***.

Three weeks back for Vietnam,
I laughed directly into his face.
He turned onto another potential victim.

Instead of some street smart poet,
I saw him as just the flip side
of the New York pretentiousness
he professed to despise.

But everybody loved the clown.
Entire younger generations still do.

Still, I'm sticking to my first impressions.
Only toddlers beg to be worshiped.

Sometimes it feels good to be the odd man out.

  ~mce

Steal the pencil sketch
god drew to design you,
erase it line by line,
uncreate your self.
What remains to say?
Only the nothing
that is and the
nothing that isn't,
two nothings that
don't make something.
  ~mce

I could never
be married
to myself.
We just aren't
that compatible.

  ~mce

Love and war
are much alike.
Both are exhilarating,
both frightening,
neither last.

~ mce

All poets are young,
some are just trapped
in older bodies.

  ~mce

Random stones huddle
close as lonely turtles
in the morning rain.

~mce

The paper of life is dangerously thin
yet we dump heaps of words upon it
and are still surprised when it splits.
  ~mce

Often love's soft, sweet offering
shows up when you are least prepared,
busily preoccupied with tracing
ephemeral alphabets in the rain,
rejoicing in former suffering,
learning the grammar of mud or
experiencing eye blasting hallucinations.
Love does not know patience;
its moans return to oblivion.
You never notice and it vanishes
and doesn't matter at all because
you can't miss something unseen,
not even love's soft, sweet offering.
  ~mce