At 6 AM as I sat
on my porch
drinking coffee,
smoking an evil
cigarette and
thinking of nothing.

Exactly eleven crows
on the electric wire
began hurling
what I imagine
were cacophonous
insults at my
barely alive being.

I answered nothing.

Crows are not
to be messed with.

They have powers.
They remember slights
and are prone to plan
violent revenge.

Why do you think in
groups they are called
a ****** of Crows?

And how could I,
being one man alone,
answer an entire
choir of them?

I beat a hasty retreat,
innocent though I was.

  ~mce

I lost my Normal
at 20 in Vietnam.
I've been looking
for it ever since.
If you see it around,
let it know
I'd like to get
in touch.
Forty-five
abnormal years
is a long time.
Maybe we could
become friends
again.

I do not know
if you can love me
or even like me.

An old monk who
lives in a shack
with a fat cat,
without money,
fame or ambition.

Like Han Shan
on Cold Mountain
I contemplate and
try to sum up
a lifetime
in poor poems.

I am not a catch.

I do not know
if you can love me...

   ~mce

The years between us
are trivial lies;
you look at the future
I look at your eyes.

~Mce

Life is too valuable
to be ****** for money.
Poverty, unless crushing,
forced or dangerous,
at least has integrity.
So life's too short
to be a ***** anymore.
I paid those dues.
I am a human; I will
only do it for love.
  ~mce

Sure, I write for love, beauty and seduction,
but those are just the fun parts.
Mostly I write because it is my duty
to speak words for the innumerable
dispossessed millions who have no voices.
To be an angry pain in the ***** of
power, money, greed and corruption.
I know that I cannot destroy them
but perhaps I can create an itch
they cannot reach far enough to scratch.
Perhaps that itch will make them mindful
and uncomfortable at what they are and do.
If that is true, my duty is done
and I can go back to the prurient pleasures
of love, beauty and seduction
with something like a clear conscience.
  ~mce

"A man goes far to find out what he is."* - Theodore Roethke

It takes
a long time
and much pain
to get to nowhere,
but believe me,
when you do
it's not worth
the view.
  - mce

Holy are the days of boredom.
Holy are the days of loneliness.
Holy are the days of pain.

Pick a place to die and be content.

Life divided by time,
where time is the unknown,
always equals death.

Forget this fatal equation.

Weave the threads of memory
into tapestries of ritual;
rituals engender meaning.

Refuse to live an amputated life.

Remember that only joy slows the ticking clock.

Holy are the days that remain.
  mce

From the pellucid
night sky,
a waning half-moon
spills frozen light
on writhen branches
of forlorn trees.
Two owls
hoot conversation.
A distant coyote
attempts to join in.
I am the amanuensis
of early morning:
if I do not
write this down,
no one will know;
this useless,
frigid beauty
will disappear
unnoticed
with the dawn.
  - mce

The only thing
left to say
when you have
already said
too much.
  ~mce

Most every day
for years now,
I have taken up
Finnegan's Wake
and read a page
chosen randomly.

No doubt, I
have read
it through
at least twice.

I still have
not a clue
what it means,
but, oh, what a
magical stream
of consciousness
in which
to plunge,
to frolic
and to swim.

  ~mce

Take my hand, Love,
lead me about the world
you have brought me back to.
It is so warm and beautiful
to be in it with you.

    ~mce

Love, you are all
that holds my heart
together,
so please take good care
of your own.
   ~mce

Beneath My Hands**

Beneath my hands
your small *******
are the upturned bellies
of breathing fallen sparrows.
Wherever you move
I hear the sounds of closing wings
of falling wings.
I am speechless
because you have fallen beside me
because your eyelashes
are the spines of tiny fragile animals.
I dread the time
when your mouth
begins to call me hunter.
When you call me close
to tell me
your body is not beautiful
I want to summon
the eyes and hidden mouths
of stone and light and water
to testify against you.
I want them
to surrender before you
the trembling rhyme of your face
from their deep caskets.
When you call me close
to tell me
your body is not beautiful
I want my body and my hands
to be pools
for your looking and laughing.

At some point
hating becomes
just too tedious;
probably a good thing
(although many still
deserve hating).

Somewhere between
nearly old and old,
it's too much bother.

You have your
own worries,
for example
about dying tragically
forgotten (if not
too young).

So you give up hating.

You even get over
Richard Nixon.
(OK, maybe not
completely.)

You leave the
hate world knowing
plenty of others
will pick up
your slack.

Perhaps you had
a good career
as a hater;
perhaps you were
bush league
at best.

Doesn't matter now.
         Relax.
You aren't going back.

  ~mce

If I knew who
my readers are,
I would buy
them all a beer,
but I don't,
so I won't.
- mce

Life offers no real advantage to anyone.
Even the rich and powerful bleed and die
which brings some comfort to the poor and weak.
Every day we wake up
to an enormous jigsaw puzzle
containing billions of pieces
but missing the most essential.
Vainly we struggle to complete it
so we can think we master reality
as if our brains are really
that intelligent or we that important.
Of course, we fail and curse god
because it couldn't be our fault.
Life is ordinary and few people
can admit that to themselves,
although I have noticed that those who do
are happier than those who don't.
Forget perfection: the perfect job,  
the perfect lover, perfect ***, perfect anything.
It doesn't exist and the pursuit
will waste your time and
plunge your heart into darkness.
Try to be a bit humble
in this obnoxiously haughty world.
Consider the inevitable shortness of life
and revel in its imperfections.
Notice the drunken Indian, the hungry children,
the innocent murdered masses who have always been,
but accept that evil and destruction
have stalked the land hand in hand since Man began.
Do what little you can and forget blame.
Try to forgive ******, Stalin, **** Cheney
but remember your own sins, too.
Lift up your fractured soul and
let it sing a mortal song about how time
passes like a gentle, sweet,
nearly imperceptible breeze.
Be thankful for your breath,
take a deep one and move on.

  ~mce

If you miss
the pink of
the tongue
behind the
teeth behind
the throat's
entrance
so much
has been
lost.

  ~mce

Jesus weeps;
Buddha laughs;
Sufis whirl.
Are we waves
or particles?
Many masters,
one Way.
Listen to
your heart.
The answer
is always
yes.
  - mce

If you can't learn
to make a friend
of your suffering,
you will lead
a very lonely life.
  - mce

Creation,
so empty
and lonely
without a
Creator.

Creatures
cry out
to G-d,
hoping.

The reply?

An echo
of nothing
addressed
to no one.

  ~mce

You make me want
to be more:

An unlikely knight
unpacking my shining armor,
smiling at dragons
as yet unslain,

fearless before your eyes.

a shotgun rectangle
encircles his life

grey morning
sleek, purring panther
maybe Vivaldi
coffee and cigarette

later, perhaps,
maintenance:
vacuum, dust -
the dreary realities
of single life.

from nowhere
he imagines
hope as a burst
of butterflies
long since flown.

the circle is
a place on earth
and he is
a man on earth
caught
in the circle

for a while yet

even as the circle
shrinks
with each waning
moon.
  mce

Although I am
the most radical
of atheists,
each night
I fall asleep
praying to
whatever gods
may be
to send you
in my direction.

~ mce

swirling
     vertiginous
downward
    tumbling
freezing
    firey
gyre

  - mce

Souls that have kissed
cannot be separated.
This life or the next;
time after time;
everything turns
and returns.
When we meet again,
I will know you.
  - mce

You amble around
the battlefield
on the inevitable
morning after
and you see
the usual bodies,
but you also see
hands, heads, arms,
legs, boots and
unrecognizable
lumps of flesh
and you know
at twenty
you will never
believe in
god or order
again.

   ~mce

Why do I
always wake up
exactly where I am,
uncertain where
exactly that is?
- mce

Days and days
when the only sound
heard in the shack
is the silent padding
of cat's paws
on thick carpet.
Doesn't wear out
the carpet; just me.

  ~mce

I'm running from the thought police,
I'm reaching for my gun,
the parasites are wriggling
and the madness has begun.

I visited the jungle once
and held onto my heart,
I never knew the reasons why
the darkness fell apart.

Oh take me to your tower
where the ruins of love exist,
I'll pound upon its broken walls
my puny little fist.

But I've no time for poetry,
no time for women's charms,
no time to light the fires of love
or feel its red alarms.

I'm running from the thought police,
I'm reaching for my gun,
the parasites are wriggling
and the madness has begun.

If everything was clear to you
would you tell me what it means
and let me enter in and feel
the wisdom of your dreams.

The sun is thin and chilly,
the dawn is bleak and cold,
the birds have ceased their singing,
my bones are sad and old.

I want my wasted limbs to feel
the power of the dance,
to fling my arms and fall into
a deep ecstatic trance.

But I've no time for dancing,
no time to dream and pine,
the day is broke, the way is up
and they are close behind.

I'm running from the thought police,
I'm reaching for my gun,
the parasites are wriggling
and the madness has begun.
- mce

There Are Those Who Love To Get *******

There are those who love to get *****
and fix things.
They drink coffee at dawn,
beer after work,

And those who stay clean,
just appreciate things,
At breakfast they have milk
and juice at night.

There are those who do both,
they drink tea.

Whichever
way I look,
I only see you.

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

~mce

When the
fresh green
of spring
sighs;
I recall
the peridot
of your
eyes.
  - mce

to create it requires
a dive of faith into
murky, unclear waters

to catch an undercurrent
unknowable
          but including
the possibility of speech

an unconscious enigma

like sorrow splashed
upon an alien shore

lost in the wilderness
of blind existence

arching ever inward

insufficient but
insatiably real

difficult
         but
entirely
          possible

~mce

Prose blossoms
orderly
like a well
tended garden
of perennials.

Poetry explodes
anarchically
like an unkempt,
ragged field
of weeds.

Purpose and
creativity
thrive in
whatever magic
kingdoms they
encounter.

Their flowers
sob with
compulsive joy.

Fall arrives.

Such Holy ruin
contains a
naked ease.

Beneath the winter
sky's scar tissue
inscrutable love
and the whispered
promise of warmth
insist on new words
which tremble
like the rattles
of sleepy snakes.

The earth owes us
that simple pleasure
beyond the darkening
solstice shivers.

Words and flowers
express true emotion
to the genuine kernel
of our being physical.

At possibilities edge
there looms a human limit.

Not every heart
can bear to beat
forever as a  metaphor.

Speech of no word
and word of no speech.

Thought is only
an abstract labyrinth
reminding us
of the earth's
thin patience.

Flesh is needed
to pump out life.

Blood cries out
for its own
sticky human
sweetness.

mce

a knocking came at
my door this morning

i'm pretty sure
it was winter

as a pall of chill
froze the portal

no way was
I letting him in

i picked up my
knife and considered
slashing him into
frozen oblivion

but knives are not
proof against
ice and snow

so i just stood
and quietly listened
to his gusty breathing

hoping he
  would go away
for good
             and stay

fat chance

  ~mce

Sit down on your pillow.
Cross your legs, close your eyes
and breathe.

Nothing mystical here;
only practice.

In your own good time,
things begin to fall away.

Needless worries, anxieties,
agitation, even poetry
slowly dissipate
until there is just you sitting

and finally there is no you;

there is just sitting.
   ~mce

Be very wary.
Normal life
threatens to
engulf and
overwhelm you
at any moment.

  ~mce

BY MARILYN L. TAYLOR*

A reflection on my students

They are so beautiful, and so very young
they seem almost to glitter with perfection,
these creatures that I briefly move among.

I never get to stay with them for long,
but even so, I view them with affection:
they are so beautiful, and so very young.

Poised or clumsy, placid or high-strung,
they're expert in the art of   introspection,
these creatures that I briefly move among—

And if their words don't quite trip   off the tongue
consistently, with just the right inflection,
they remain beautiful. And very young.

Still, I have to tell myself it's   wrong
to think of them as anything but fiction,
these creatures that I briefly move   among—

Because, like me, they're traveling   headlong
in that familiar, vertical direction
that coarsens beautiful, blackmails young—
the two delusions we all move among.

~ for William Carlos Williams

The perfection of that
******* red wheel barrow
that caused such grief;
those ****** white chickens
that brought no relief.
How many readers foundered
upon these images?
How many would be poets
took to truck driving
and went completely daft?
   - 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 Are So Wonderfully Done with Each Other”**
BY KENNETH PATCHEN

As we are so wonderfully done with each other  
We can walk into our separate sleep
On floors of music where the milkwhite cloak of childhood lies

O my lady, my fairest dear, my sweetest, loveliest one
Your lips have splashed my dull house with the speech of flowers  
My hands are hallowed where they touched over your
       soft curving.

It is good to be weary from that brilliant work  
It is being God to feel your breathing under me

A waterglass on the bureau fills with morning . . .  
Don’t let anyone in to wake us.

This story has
been told over
and over forever.

Light a daybreak.
Darkness at dusk.
Leaves in Fall.
Ice in Winter.
Lilacs in Spring.
Storms in Summer.

There are no humans
in this story;

So the story
is pointless.

It simply is
as it has always been
and will be.

  ~mce

A lover,
whom I cherished
(and who left me)
once said:
I will always
love your words;
apparently,
my words
are easier to love,
than I am.
- mce

The poem is not
the words on the page.

The poem is not
reading those words.

The poem is
what resonates
and lingers
in the mind's silence

just after.

   - mce

Our lives do not
of themselves
engender personal
meaning.
          Instead,
it gathers to us
unbidden like
fallen leaves
something has
forgotten to sweep
away from our dreams.

It matters not
that anyone continues
to imagine providence,
as long as
we pretend to.

   ~mce

LOVE POEM**

There is always something to be made of pain.
Your mother knits.
She turns out scarves in every shade of red.
They were for Christmas, and they kept you warm
while she married over and over, taking you
along. How could it work,
when all those years she stored her widowed heart
as though the dead come back.
No wonder you are the way you are,
afraid of blood, your women
like one brick wall after another.

The people are mute
and enchanted by lies.

Only Capital speaks now
and shouts down
all resistance with the chant:
buy, buy, buy, buy!

Democracy but a
brief, bewildering moment.

Gone for good.

  ~mce

Returning alone
after work.

The shack
sitting empty,
waiting
for no one;

mist rising
from the still meadow
like silky,
slender ghosts;

the trees
keep their thoughts
to themselves;

a light rain
begins to fall;

no sounds,
but bird sounds
and my own breath,
both hushed.

How far away
the world
and all its bustle.

Money, ambition,
achievement
and success -
the cacophony
of modern life,
just so much noise.

In this silence,
I become
the best part
of silence:
myself.
- mce

I used to be
a scholar vulture,
picking the flesh
from other's texts;
now I read
for pleasure
and my mouth
is full of
other writers'
dreams.

  ~mce