No one has
ever given me
anything greater
than time, light
and silence.

Time to work.
Light to see.
Silence to think.

What could mean
more than these?

   ~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

I am here and you are far away,
beyond this strong relentless pain,
there's really nothing more to say.
For here I sit at break of day
beneath this darkened sky of rain:
I am here and you are far away.
And though I sigh out loud all day,
I know it in my bones and brain:
there's really nothing more to say.
There's little that I wouldn't pay,
but nothing I could hope to gain:
I am here and you are far away.
If I begin to dream and play,
to soothe my soul and keep me sane:
there's really nothing more to say.
Though I must find some other way,
the problem's easy to explain:
I am here and you are far away,
there's really nothing more to say.

Naked but warm
beneath the blankets,
at first light
watching you asleep.

A man could go far
and lead many lives
to find an image
this simple,
this perfect:

You, naked but warm
beneath the blankets,
asleep in my bed,
in my arms.
   ~mce

Not mine, but the best poem about "new" that I know of.

Poetry
By
Mary Oliver

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.

I do not write these thoughts
only because I love you. I do.
But I cannot create perfection.
It is your spirit calls them forth.
Your eyes flutter them into being.
Your lips smooth and polish them.
Your fingers shape and craft them.
I'm just the simple monk who writes
them down and returns them to you
as an offering to your inner beauty.

~mce

Arrival**

And yet one arrives somehow,
finds himself loosening the hooks of
her dress
in a strange bedroom--
feels the autumn
dropping its silk and linen leaves
about her ankles.
The ****** veined body emerges
twisted upon itself
like a winter wind . . . !

The old gods are as useless
as they always were.
The new gods run hedge funds
and order drone strikes
on weddings and birthday parties.
They are busy playing powerful
and have no time for mere us.
Only our own hearts can save us
until their numbered beating ceases.
Believe in that heart. It is closer
than any god and more reliable, too.
Use it for empathy and love.
Share it with others you care for.
Trust it because it is yours alone.

  ~mce

Join me
between
pillow
and sheet,
the bower
where soul
and body
meet.
  - mce

Blossoms
are god's kisses
made visible
on the face
of creation.

  ~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.

Some days
I just want
to strangle
the world.

A bottle
of whiskey
and a well
of anger

        say:

Back off.

Today is one
of those days.

  ~mce

Lasciviously
as the wind
blown from afar,
you arouse
my insatiable
eagerness:
a gentle breeze
across bare skin,
naked desire flares.

  ~mce

If you want to be free,
Get to know your real self.
It has no form, no appearance,
No root, no basis, no abode,
But is lively and buoyant.
It responds with versatile facility,
But its function cannot be located.
Therefore when you look for it,
You become further from it;
When you seek it,
You turn away from it all the more.

To Carthage then I came.*

Deep down,
who doesn't want
to **** a saint,
to penetrate
the mystery
of holiness,
to enter
the enigma
of eternity.

Pile the wood
high as you like.

Oh sweet
  and lonely Joan,
I will follow
  you into
    that fire.

    ~mce

I stole a copy
of The Back Country
when I was sixteen
and it set me
upon the Poet's Road.

You signed it
for my friend
while I was
far away at war.

After most
of a lifetime,
I have it still.

May your
mountains and rivers
never end.

  ~mce

“Time does not bring relief; you all have lied”**

Time does not bring relief; you all have lied  
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!  
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;  
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,  
And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane;  
But last year’s bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide.  
There are a hundred places where I fear  
To go,—so with his memory they brim.  
And entering with relief some quiet place  
Where never fell his foot or shone his face  
I say, “There is no memory of him here!”  
And so stand stricken, so remembering him.

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

Every place you go
becomes just another suburb
of everyplace you've been.

   ~mce

Do not mistake
the poems for the poet.

The exquisite grace
of a panther
stalking the jungle
in blackest night
renders it
not one iota
less dangerous.

Enjoy my words
at a safe distance.

Never, dear reader,
confuse the words
with the man.
- mce

Electrons whirl and leap
able to be in more
than one place at a time.
They move between
many worlds with ease
sometimes more than one
at a time.
Many lives;
many worlds.
Nothing ever as simple
as it appears.

~ mce

The squirrel
that regularly
visits my deck,
blinks at me
through
the *****
plate glass,
unconcerned
as a fat, gray
Buddha,
just going about
his business,
casually and
without concern.
I can almost
hear him thinking:
what is that
in there?
- mce

sometimes your body wavers
becomes transparent as light

yet still somewhere
solid lovely flesh

in such moments
contradictions define us

and distance casts a shadow
black as lonely night

but we shall keep trying
until we get it right

until flesh and light
merge simply into living sight

and together becomes
a wholeness of delight

  ~mce

I have written
a dictionary
of universal
comprehension.

If you could
read it all
would be revealed.

Unfortunately,
it is out of print
and the remaining
copies burned.

You are not allowed,
even now,
to taste the fruit
of the tree of life.
  ~mce

by Sharon Olds**

I knew little, and what I knew
I did not believe–they had lied to me
so many times, so I just took it as it
came, his naked body on the sheet,
the tiny hairs curling on his legs like
fine, gold shells, his ***
harder and harder under my palm
and yet not hard as a rock his face cocked
back as if in terror, the sweat
jumping out of his pores like sudden
trails from the tiny snails when his knees
locked with little clicks and under my
hand he gathered and shook and the actual
flood like milk came out of his body, I
saw it glow on his belly, all they had
said and more, I rubbed it into my
hands like lotion, I signed on for the duration.

I do not understand
the geography of love.
Perhaps I dozed
through that class.
Again and again,
I lose my way
in Love’s wilderness.
When I ask directions,
women answer
in languages
I can’t understand.
So many wrong turns.
So many dead ends.
Sister, if you
know the way,
show me the way.
  - mce

by E. A. Robinson*

WHENEVER Richard Cory went down town,
  We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
  Clean favored, and imperially slim.
  
And he was always quietly arrayed,         
  And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
  "Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.
  
And he was rich—yes, richer than a king,
  And admirably schooled in every grace:   
In fine, we thought that he was everything
  To make us wish that we were in his place.
  
So on we worked, and waited for the light,
  And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,   
  Went home and put a bullet through his head.

After being discharged,
he installed a stone lion
in his heart to ward off evil;
sadly, it scared off good, too.

  ~mce

This morning,
looking at a stand
of broken trees,
fallen and strewn
randomly about
by the storm,
I remember
battlefields and
the futility of war.
  - mce

In war everyone
carries something
for good luck
and protection.

A rabbit's foot,
a piece of twine,
their girl friend's
*******.

I had a mantra.

It was simply,
**** me.

When the ****
got hot and thick
and the tracers
reached out
their lovely,
lethal fingers

I would chant:
**** me, **** me,
**** me, **** me,

perhaps thinking
god would hear

and say,

for christ's sake
**** him and
get it over with,

but god was AWOL
(as usual)

so it worked
and I lived.

  ~mce

A book is
a good place
to be alone,
but not so good
as  when
you are also
drinking bourbon
with a purring cat
on your lap.

April of 1972*

All that spring,
the choppers fell
like fat, black flies,
swatted by rockets,
their crews tumbling
in abrupt terror,
but I soared on
like Icarus, only warier
of the burning sky
and made it home
  ~mce

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

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

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

Ignition, spark,
a turning key,
sets the writhing
serpent free.
Worlds spin,
words collide;
realities begin
to slide.
Markers
fall away,
lines implode;
unlikely voices
yawn in code.
The palette
melts to a
fluid smear
that  trickles
down a
thirsty ear.
Sounds skew,
scream, resonate
at an inaudibly
alarming rate.
Neither sense
of life nor joys,
only cacophonic noise.
The birds of touch
are flown away,
leaving vacuums
in the day.
The chain-mailed,
twisted, human heart,
tortured from
its fatal start.
Find the answer,
spin the wheel,
stop the madness,
cease to feel.
  - mce

Life says no
in a million ways;
yes in only a few.
~ mce

Many folks
live inside walls.
The walls
of their houses
their yards,
their offices
their minds.
Their world lies
inside those walls.
They believe those walls
are the world.
But the real world
the green, verdant world
the world of danger
and of delight
lies beyond.
Few people venture
out and into it.
These few people
are called alive.

Morning doves and sunlight;
waking up with a fuzzy head,
logy and still half dreaming,
I remember that
you are real and warm.

Knowing that somewhere
you may be smiling
like a Cheshire angel,

how could I not?
   ~mce

The Oracle at Delphi said:
Know thyself.

Oscar Wilde said:
Only the shallow know themselves.

After long, painful consideration,
I'm with Oscar.
- 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

True Love
All the lost loves
of my life
have prepared me
for you.
Isn't it about time
you show up?
- mce

The sun went down on me
right when you went down on me.

Sweetness explodes
when the planets align.

I did not know
that sunsets could scream.

  ~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

How rare to truly hear
what another person
is actually saying,
caught up, as we must be,
in the imagined resonances
of our own perceptions.
Do I hear you or do I
hear me hearing you?
By no means the same thing.
  - mce

Live too long and friends will become ghosts.
Corpses will fill your address book.
The ghosts show up in the crushing morning silence
and depart into your dreams after the twilight.
They never seem to have much to say.
I often ask them questions. What's it like being dead?
Is it cold? Are there animals. Is there anything to read?
Should I join you or hang out on earth a while yet?
The answers, when there are any, are not satisfactory.
And so I stick to earth for another bruising day.
In the Shack nothing happens and that is more than enough.
It is hard to fall asleep and truly hell to wake up.
I often feel like a road killed skunk that just had electroshock
or a successful suicide who just ****** a shotgun to ******.
Between dawn and twilight exists a pointless purgatory.
Still, heaven remains a vague possibility.
But that is what is meant by life. I'm off to participate.

  ~mce

You'll depart when you feel like it:
goddesses do not adhere to timetables.
Your body is so lovely
it scares away sharks.
Why should it fear time?
Your grace comes from deep caverns.
The tocks of clocks mean nothing more
to you than the creaking on weary stairs.
You leave no footprints as you glide the beach.
Millennia would not allow
half enough moments to describe
the tiny eternity
of your arms around me.
You arrived in a dream and
you'll depart when you feel like it.

   - mce

wake late
into slatted sunshine

force your mind
to gather fragments
and embrace chaos

take a shower

become a shark

swim in water
you do not understand

play Vivaldi

let the lute notes
wash over you

feel the feather
plucking your heart

vibrations in rented rooms
resonate and vanish

listen intently
to the wisdom
of a cat
who says nothing

the coffee cup looms empty
the ashtray overflows

dust motes in a sunbeam
regularly portend disorder

disregard them

clarity is a fiction

be still and grateful
content to know
you cannot know
which way
this day will go

until the circle
closes tight

until this day
returns to night
   - mce

I’m a 65 year old white guy.
What could be more bland?

So, a little help here.

Dreadlocks? Man bun?
Floppy knit hipster hat?
Steam Punk shades?
A few visible tattoos?
Hajib scarf around neck?
Piercings? (But only painless.)
Purple hair? Perhaps pink?

Come on man. I’m struggling.

I want to change my
old cliché for a new one.

All advice considered.
Sadly, no payment.