For two million years
we didn't live outside,
we existed outside.

Things have changed.

Now outside is something
we see on TV or in photos
or on the internet.

We chose central heat
and plumbing over
rivers and trees.

We dreamed of safety
and chose not to know
the world.

Most folks would die
in two short weeks
without grocery stores.

How this will play out
remains to be seen.

The omens are not
auspicious.

  ~mce

~ for Erwin Schrödinger

Facts are light;
sometimes photons,
sometimes waves,
always dancing,
never for certain,
purely the creation
of the observer,
only the stories
we tell ourselves
about what is,
the dramas
we act out
on the stages
of imagination,
in the theaters
of our hearts.
  - mce

You sit in front
of your computer
and telephone
thinking of the wife
(or husband),
the kids, your IRA,
making money
for other people.
Who loves you, baby?
How long has it been
since you could call
your life your own?
Do you possess
what is your's
or does it
possess you?
Obligation
is not a virtue.
Does your heart dance
or does it merely labor?
There is still time.
Reject the full catastrophe.
Dismiss obligation;
embrace possibility.
There remains
a beautiful world
out there:
hoist the black flag,
live like a pirate,
get naked,
dive in,
be alive.
-mce

If you shout
long enough
into oblivion,
eventually,
nothing replies.
  - mce

Just as dawn
hinted at itself
I saw something
large and winged
staring at me
from the roof of
my neighbor's garage,
dark against
emerging light.

Angel or vulture,
I couldn't see.

No doubt the
day will tell.

  ~mce

Just once,
I would like
to make love
in a joyfully
tended garden
on a promisingly
hot spring day.
Sun warmth,
soil warmth,
woman warmth:
the best meaning
of back to the earth.

The world worships nascence; only the young are seen as truly alive. The old become transparent and obsolete as ghosts. It is not the event of death we fear so much as the slow fading away that proceeds it. To be old in a world where the young no longer see you: that is one definition of loneliness.
~ mce

After John Keats*

I have no fears that I may cease to be,
but long for the still silence of the grave.
Nothing remains in this world to long for;
nothing that I wish to keep or to save.
The best of youth, love and hope are vanished,
Driven away by time and loss and pain;
things that made the world a place to live in,
will never return in fullness again.
Just to breathe has no value in itself;
to wake to nothing does not make a day;
a walk to nowhere is not worth taking;
and nothing of value remains to say.
  Come death and be quick, take these blues from me;
  I’ve seen it all and no more wish to see.

by Wendell Berry

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.

Listen to carrion -- put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.

Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.

As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go.

Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

Risk**

And then the day came,
when the risk
to remain tight
in a bud
was more painful
than the risk
it took
to Blossom.

if only
i knew
where poems
are from
i'd go there
pick them up
like rocks
stuff them
into my socks
and hobble
home lame
and write
them down
for you.

  ~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.

"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

These maple trees
leaf out, each year,
copper-purple.
They know spring,
but they
do not know
of spring.
- mce

a red pony
in a slate-grey
trailer behind
a blue
pick up truck
in the falling
rain

what else
can be said

  ~mce

Living alone,
I am randomly
eccentric.

It's not a quirk,
if no one sees.

Often at odd hours,
day or night,
I sneak a glance
at my mirror
hoping
to be surprised
by a young
and happy
reflection.

Never happens.

   mce

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

I am a pirate
pacing a quarterdeck
before a battle.
I am Adam
beneath the apple tree
waiting to bite
into the New Order.
I am a hopeful heretic
praying for immolation
but unable
to strike a match.
I am a corpse
writing a will
in blood and *****.
I am a soldier
watching a friend
erupt in a fog
of pink viscera.
I am a madman
twitching on a couch,
forgotten in a corner
of a windowless chamber.
I am a hero
slaying griffins,
destroying dragons,
ravishing maidens
as my rightful reward.
I am a lover
to whom ladies
open their thighs
and abandon
their honor,
willingly.
I am a tone deaf poet
singing a defeated song.
I am the amateur torturer
carefully sharpening
his instruments,
but then unable to find
meaningful work.
I am a ****** priest
hearing my own
confession
and finding it
absurdly tedious.
I am all of these
impossible people.
Who are you?
  - mce

The Way that can be named is not The Way.*

This cannot
be said, only
felt.

An old dog
sleeping alone
dreaming
of chased cats
past;

the red sun
rising like
a kept promise
in the east;

hot, brown
liquid in a
simple yellow
cup;

a woman's ***
surrounding
who you are
until you know;

the lulling coo
of mourning doves
lamenting.

Whatever
orders disorder
yet allows chaos
and makes
it good.

Whatever renders
the ordinary
extraordinary.

The inexplicably
deep awareness
of beauty in
an impersonal
universe.

A way to be
and a way to see

how to live
another day.

   ~mce

****,
I am cold,
and I want
to hibernate
for a very
long time.
Maybe even
forever.

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

When we meet
I will not
even say hello.
I will take you
in my arms
and kiss you
so hard you will
begin to melt
as will I
and finally
we will become
one hot,
steaming puddle
on the floor
with nobody
else to say
hello to.

~mce

Writing is not unlike fishing.

You take up the instrument
of your art, cut a raw chunk
of your heart for bait, cast
as far into your imagination
as possible and wait for
something likely to strike.

Then you reel it in, slowly
and with craft. With luck
you have caught a poem. But
quite often, just when you
think you've got it, it simply
slips away, leaving you alone,
frustrated and bewildered,
but still hoping it might be
only another cast away.

Poetry is ephemeral;
difficult to catch
when sought. Hard
to hold onto and
easily lost when caught.
All you can do is
keep the poem in play
and hope to land it
another day.

  ~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.

The ploughman stands above,
his stick hard and thick.
With effort and pleasure
he opens the green earth's seam,
penetrates her fecund being.
She accepts the treasure
of his sticky, slick seed.
There is a burgeoning...

  ~mce

The silence
of morning;
the silence
of midday;
the silence
of evening:
all subtly
different.

I don't
understand
why,
so I'll
just be
silent.

mce

After you turn fifty,
women tend to look
six inches over your head,
as if your genes
are a pile of dog ****
not worthy of registering
in their senses
much less allowing
inside their
worthy bodies.
After sixty
they consign you
without a thought
to the biological
dumpster.
The seeds of
this evolutionary
disaster are planted
even earlier.
No blame:
they are only
listening to
the humming
of their ovaries.

  ~mce

Sometimes
what
you don't know,
can
hurt you.
-mce

Life twinkles
and vanishes
like fireflies
in the July night.

There really
is no past,
only what
we remember.

  ~mce

I slept poorly last night,
a night of tremulous dreams
and not much rest.

Poorly, an odd adverb.
The old sleep poorly.
How strange to be that old
and dream young dreams.

I dreamt I was alone
on the floor of the Dojo,
failing my next belt test.

My fading body would not flow:
it stumbled, faltered and forgot.

Beneath my teacher's gaze,
I tasted my failure as if a kid.

I have not feared failure
in the decades since I became one.

But again I knew the metallic
panic of inadequacy,
like the stricken adolescent
who prefers stillness to misstep.

I miscarried and once more
knew the terror of it,
as if I were fourteen,
at a school dance,
wearing the wrong shoes.

Where do these
stabbing visions
originate?
How does fear
stop our hearts?

I do not know these answers,
only that I slept poorly last night
and had not much rest.

  ~mce

Western wind, when wilt thou blow,
The small rain down can rain?
Christ, if my love were in my arms
And I in my bed again!

I miss your voice,
I have never heard;
I miss your eyes,
I have never kissed;
I miss your warmth,
I have never felt;
I miss your body,
I have never touched.

How did this happen;
how is it even possible?

I used to be safe
within my old self,
comfortable, certain
that I'd seen It all.

Now I miss what I've
never known.

As long as I draw breath,
always more surprises.

Life never fails to grin
in my general direction.

Thanks life; back at you.

Trying to will a new life
is as absurd as reasoning with death,
weighing the heart of beauty
or throwing stones at the moon.
No one is allowed to start over.
Everything is exactly what it is
and nothing is like anything else.
The effort to begin anew
is as hopeless as trying
to erase the stars.
Only keep moving. Wake up,
put your feet on the floor,
take a step, take another.
There is your new life.
Just whatever happens today.
   ~mce

I sometimes think
people believe
poetry is easy
as some ****** girl
who will swallow you
for any kind of fix.

They believe whatever
escapes their mouths
is poetry. They open
and out it pours, complete.

It is not.

Inspiration is easy,
just lines that leap to mind.
But to make a poem takes sweat.
It is a craft that requires
work, and thought and pain.
It means finding the exact,
right word out of millions.

If it simply pours out of you
and you do nothing to shape it,
it is just words and probably
not even good ones that are true
and will outlast your broken heart.

Dig in. Learn. Read. Practice.
Become a sculpture of words.
Pay the price for beauty.
It will be worth it.

At sixteen
in 1968
I said **** it
and ran away
from home.
Forty-seven
years later,
I'm still running.
Forty-seven years
still seeking
the answers
to that
wayward kid's
questions
and not
much closer:
from what,
to what?
- mce

Everytime
some health ****
tells me smoking
will take ten years
off my life,
I remember my mother
and grandfather
both in their eighties
and their last
ten years of misery,
decline and dementia,
smile, light another
and think
how wise I am.

I am often told I am charming,
but I don't feel charming.
The days of dinner conversation
and cocktail chatter are gone.
Now I speak from the heart
without care for whom
I might offend or wound.
Poetry is asking the questions
that hurt and then
writing down the answers
without regard for consequences.
It is putting your neck
on the chopping block
and laughing at the executioner.
It is announcing to the world
your total disdain for its opinions
and not being surprised
when the world kicks your ***.
It is spitting globs of truth and beauty
into the faces of those most comfortable
with the conventional and the merely pretty.
It is the open wound you display
dripping and draining in public.
It is the dis-ease you create
and flaunt because you
have never sought or valued ease.
It makes people depart abruptly
as if a ***** had just
offered to shake their hand.
It is the legless soldier
whose stumps remind you
that your taxes bought his loss.
It is the bullet that finds its mark;
the blade that pins you to the wall;
the bomb that shreds you into pink meat.
It is not charming; it is never charming,
and neither am I because
I have just written this down
for you to read.
  - mce

I found a note
from the Muse
this morning.

It read:

I've gone to Aruba
to work on my tan;
you're on your own,
do the best you can.

Capricious *****.

She knows
I'll wait for her;
I always do.

How very like
a woman;
so certain
of her charms.

But I don't have
to like it.

When she returns,
I'll sulk a bit.

It stings to be so
taken for granted,
even by a goddess.
  - mce

The unarmed
fleeing
  black man
    takes six
warning shots
  in the back.

Ain't that America.

Call it
the Law
   of Supply
     and The Man.

  ~mce

If they will
make your fortune
or get you laid
or just charm
someone beautiful,
go ahead and steal
my poems.

I'm 63 and
don't care.

I'd prefer
them used
rather
than dead.

Information
wants to be
free.
   ~mce

Wraiths pull strangers
into imaginary embraces
and pretend to feel
what isn't there.

Like butterflies and breezes,
some intimacies should
always be reserved
for the flesh.

My heart is a
crumbling mansion.
Hard to heat,
hard to cool,
dangerous wiring,
dubious plumbing.
It looks OK
in a haunted way.
It's dangerous
to let others in.
So I rarely do.

  ~mce

Love Minus Zero / No Limit**

My love, she speaks like silence
Without ideals or violence
She doesn't have to say she's faithful
Yet she's true, like ice, like fire

People carry roses
And make promises by the hours
My love, she laughs like the flowers
Valentines can't buy her

In the dime stores and bus stations
People talk of situations
Read books, repeat quotations
Draw conclusions on the wall

Some speak of the future
My love, she speaks softly
She knows there's no success like failure
And that failure's no success at all

The cloak and dagger dangles
Madams light the candles
In ceremonies of the horsemen
Even the pawn must hold a grudge

Statues made of match sticks
Crumble into one another
My love winks, she does not bother
She knows too much to argue or to judge

The bridge at midnight trembles
The country doctor rambles
Bankers' nieces seek perfection
Expecting all the gifts that wise men bring

The wind howls like a hammer
The night blows rainy
My love, she's like some raven
At my window with a broken wing

Rhododáktylos Ēṓs*

Good mornings,
rosy fingered promise;
front row ticket
to creation.

Bad mornings,
gray diluting black;
thundering kettle drum
of Armegeddon.

Both mornings,
exactly the same
morning.

Only one life
in which to awaken.

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

Once you understand
there is no truth
beyond magick,
you know
that sometimes
silence is a poem.
   ~mce

She is a clear running stream,
her pools a mirror reflecting me.
She wakes me up
to my virtues and failings.
She fiercely challenges me
to be the best I can be.
Like water, she is irresistible,
but conquers slowly,
wearing away the bad,
leaving the gold beneath.
The sounds of her fluid flowing
speak the language of creeks,
saying: you are more than you think.
A clear stream running
through my life, my heart.
White hot corona of fire;
tempering cold stream of desire.
Opposites reconciled.

Most mornings
I wake up satisfied
with the life I have.
My bowl may be empty,
but it is my bowl,
my choice. Still,
if a wayward Muse,
say one with
a diamond in her nose
and a chip
on her shoulder,
were to pass by
and choose to dally
for a while,
I could move up
from satisfaction
to contentment
with a smile.

  ~mce

Sunday morning
I went down on you
until you cried out
a prayer of pleasure.

That's close enough
to Holy for me.

Amen.

  ~mce

That's where he lives
and he spends his days
nailing up perfectly framed
pictures of nothing.
  - mce