Ne Plus Ultra

Once you
jump off
the edge,
it's hard
to resist
the urge
to jump
again.
  - mce

Teflon Life

Not
one
heart
ever
stuck.
  - mce

Sehnsucht

The fact
that there is
no home
does not
decrease
the longing.
  - mce

Paradise Lost (For Good)

It is pointless
to live your life
dreaming of an Eden
to which you might return.
There isn't. You can't.
End of story.
  - mce

Family

The merest continuity of genes:
frailest thread of all.
  - mce

"Only Connect!"

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

Nemesis

Does character
determine fate
or are we fated
to our characters?
Either way,
doom lurks.
  - mce

Lack Of Foresight

His problem was
he never expected
consequences;
instead, they
surprised him.
  - mce

Breach

How
difficult
to kiss
someone 
goodbye
endlessly,
if only
in your
dreams.
 - mce

The Quirkiness Of Mortality

If I died today
few would notice,
fewer mourn,
but, being dead,
I wouldn't care.
The reward
of oblivion.
  - mce

Sons Of

Sometimes,
when only
the fire
crackling
disturbs
the deep
silence,
I remember
the faces
of small boys
and become
lonesome
for other times.
  - mce

Digging Deep

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.
  - mce

When I Was Young...

I hungered for many things:
enlightenment and revelation;
fame and its attendant bullshit;
the glorious butt of the girl
who lived just two blocks distant;
honesty, justice and revolution;
heroic deeds and ringing words;
the only wife who could deliver
true love, forever and ever;
children who would love me
no matter what sad fate befell;
foreign ports and holy mountains.
Now I am decidedly content
with a glass of Bourbon and Mozart.
Has the world shrunk or have I?
  - mce

A Bad Boy Laments

Women all like
to roll around
in the bushes
with Cain,
but they end up
at the country club
marrying Abel.
  - mce

Moon Gate

Beneath a woven,
wheaten grove,
slowly opening
to exploration,
a damp,
dark cavern,
a secret
chamber,
arcane and
mysterious,
to be entered
gently, slowly,
cautiously,
probing
before
plunging.
All men crave
this divine portal.
Gaia, Magna Mater,
Cybele, Earth Mother.
She from whom
everything issues,
from whom
we were born,
depart and seek,
eternally,
to return,
attempting
to complete
the circle.
  - mce

Exorcism

Burning wood three hours
and still I sit shivering:
winter, be you gone!
  - mce

Acknowledging Ignorance

Sometimes
people marvel
at everything
I seem to know.
Flattering.
But they would be
properly amazed
if they truly
understood
how little
that really is.
  - mce

Hootenanny

Sing me your pain, Love,
and I will sing you mine.
Together, we will make
a harmony of dissonance.
Lift your voice with me.
Let us make a song
against the darkness.
However brief and fragile,
the melody belongs to us.
What more can there be?
What more is necessary?
  - mce

Denying Time

A lover's touch
breaks the bonds
of pain, if only
for a moment.
Still, what a lovely,
lingering moment
of peace and respite
that fleshly instant
can provide.
The power in
the touch of bodies,
the touch of souls,
even if not
forever and ever
should never
be lightly denied.
  - mce

Ducunt Fata Volentem, Nolentem Trahunt

Oh yes, my friend,
you will be guided
or you will be dragged.
You can choose,
but you cannot escape.
  - mce

Potentiality

A man alone is but a lump of sifted earth.
Sprinkle your love upon my soil;
breathe your heart into my dust.
Let us see what might grow and blossom.
   - mce

Crossing The Chinvat Bridge

To behold the
beautiful damsel
demands an equally
beautiful soul.
Simple, but not easy.
What you are
is what you get.
  - mce

In A Sacred Grove

The dying god
born again,
only to die and
be born again,
mirrors the heart
that falters,
hiccups
and stumbles,
but perseveres
to find its way.
  - mce

Rachel

Just an email
from you
reminds me
that somewhere,
the world
remains young.
  - mce

Karma Mirror

Explanations, yes;
Excuses, no.
The clear light
of reality;
so hard to endure,
so necessary
to acknowledge.
  - mce

Bear Haiku

To hear your voice,
just once more before I die:
greatest happiness.
  - mce

Circe

Perhaps the most
honest woman
in all history;
she only did what
all women see.
  - mce

A Glance

   - for JLB

Her eyes shone
green as a garden;
looking into them,
he saw the world,
one last time,
as Adam did,
fresh, new and
entirely possible.
 - mce

Chapel Perilous

   "True initiation never ends." - R.A.W.

Forsake the bolted Temple gates;
dogma has frozen them shut.
Ride the howling night of storms
following the path of your heart.
Shed the armor of limitations.
Travel fast and travel light.
Expect no guidance but courage.
When the tempest abates,
the stars alone will light your way.
A gleaming chapel blocks the road.
To go on, you must go through.
Enter and confront the King;
ask the questions you carry.
Release the burden of your self.
A simple, earthen cup will appear.
If you dare to drink it deep and dry,
you will see a portal traced by flames
leading to a green and warm world.
If you falter, you must repeat the quest.
There is only one road, one chapel,
and each of us must approach it
broken, alone and filled with fear.
Steel your heart. Try again and again.
Each soul contains the proper moment.
  - mce

Moirae

Spinners of
the mortal thread
that limits
and constrains
even the Gods.
They could not
evade you.
What madness
made me believe
that I could?
 - mce

Sadly

Pain may
or may not
be good
for us.
Either way,
it still hurts.
  - mce

Enigma

No one
can teach you
anything
important
and yet life
demands:
learn or die.
  - mce

Hyperchromatism

If I wished,
I could return
to  the world
without color
and all its
material prizes.
It would be
the easy path.
But I dream
a riotous palette
and insist
this new life
be drawn
of its varied
and vivid
hues and tints.
Difficult, painful
brush strokes,
but a canvas
so much richer
for the effort.
  - mce

Futility

Synapses fire;
heart yearns;
veil remains.
  - mce

The (Pleasant) Deceit Of Late February

Sixty degrees at 10 AM;
sunshine, warm breeze:
a false promise of spring.
Mother Nature
(crafty bitch, cunning
shape-shifter)
whispers sweet lies
in our willing ears;
even knowing better,
we listen.
  - mce

Petco?

My ghosts are hungry
this morning
and demand to be fed
or they won't shut up.
Where, exactly,
do you buy ghost food?
  - mce

On Living Alone

It begins
as loneliness,
to be shunned
and run
from;
it becomes
solitude,
a way of life
to be
embraced.
  - mce

The Unstated Corollary

Many paths,
one mountain.
(All pain.)
  - mce

The Law Of Time And Distance

Shortcuts
lead
nowhere.
  - mce

Fortunately

You can't know the end
until you get there.
   - mce

Homo Caicagenus Est

Until you can see into
your own heart,
how can you ever hope
to know another's?
  - mce

Tactility

How I dream of your
gentle and delicate hands.
Oh, touch me again!
  - mce

Honestly

Everyone praises honesty
until it shows up one day
and slaps them in the face.
  - mce

Supplication

Oh, dreamed
of spring,
but whisper
to me
the possibility
of your return,
so that this cold
does not my
chilled heart
splinter,
and I might yet
survive
this deep
and dreary
winter.
  - mce

Mourning Song

He's turned his back upon the fire,
he's turned his face away;
he's broke, he's cold and far from home;
he knows he's lost the way.
His children fled from his disease;
His wife's forgot his name;
He's traveled far but can't remove
the burden of his shame.
He wishes that he knew a way
to make his wrongs all right,
to bring the hearts of those he loved
back to his lonely night.
But now his path is solitude,
the way leads on alone;
the things he did, the pains he caused,
are only his to own.
There are some wounds that can't be healed,
some words he can't unsay;
the things he did that led him to
the mourning of this day.
So he will wake and think and write
of all he had that's lost;
the rage he knew, the words he hurled,
and just how much that cost.
He's turned his back upon the fire,
he's turned his face away;
he's broke, he's cold and far from home,
he knows he's lost the way.
  - mce

Resistance

More snow is falling.
I need to go and split wood,
but I don't want to.
  - mce

"Wie Es Eigentlich Gewesen"

Each remembering
recreates the past;
to know it,
as it actually was,
exceeds our
merely human craft.
  - mce

A Fowl Absence

Cold day on Spring Creek;
even the turkeys are gone:
silence in the woods.
  - mce

Incongruity

Just at that time in life
when you have learned,
through pain and suffering,
enough and how to share,
you discover that,
while learning it,
you have driven away
all those you would like
to share it with.
And the point was?
  - mce

Only In The South

Two inches of snow;
evening classes are canceled;
two inches of snow...
  - mce

Cabin Fever

The Tennessee sky
once again drips ice;
these cabin windows
are sprouting bars.
  - mce

Paging Mr. de Medici...

The pay scale
for poets
is bleak indeed.
I could use
a wealthy
benefactor.
Where are you,
Lorenzo?
Even the Muse
needs to be fed
occasionally.
  - mce

Soteriology

Life demands
the promise
of redemption.
To own your sins
without hope
of forgiveness
is an exactly
proper definition
of Hell.
  - mce

A Brief Treatise On Wittgenstein

If it
cannot
be said,
it does not
exist.
  - mce

What Duality?

To despise the flesh
is to despise the soul.
In this mortal world
the two are one,
entwined, commingled,
impossible to separate,
body upon body,
heart upon heart,
only complete together.
  - mce

OK, The Odds Aren't Good, But...

Love is a lottery
you must play
to win.
If you won't
take a chance,
you won't
have a chance,
baby.
  - mce

Liquidity

Sunshine on one inch
frozen plastic feeder line;
soon, flowing water.
  - mce

Central Heat

These gelid mornings
engender island dreams
of pinkest flamingos,
hot sands, swaying palms,
chattering parrots,
and rising tropical sun;
but finer far, Lady,
(closer, nearer, softer)
would it be to wake
beside your naked flesh
(willing, inviting, enfolding)
beneath a pile of quilts
in the dawn's iron chill
and coax from that
smoldering feminine heat,
from the striking sparks
of your eager kisses,
the exquisite, explosive fuel
of your caresses,
deep within the you of you,
the first fire of the new day.
  - mce

Veritas

Time
forgives
nothing.
  - mce

"The Right Road Lost..."

Through the stark
and hopeless portal,
ever downward
into the spiraling gyre
of darkness, shade
and gloom, descends
the path necessary
to harrow a soul.
No escape; this road
must be taken.
Still, inevitable hope
drives the heart onward
to find its way back
to the dome of stars.
Sometimes, down
leads up.
  - mce

Litmus Test

If the words
don't hurt,
you haven't
written truly.
  - mce

Payday Irony

Were I a plumber
and not a poet,
I would have
a guarantee
of running water
and money,
but beauty
might no longer
flow though me.
  - mce

"More Light!"

Life's last breath
whispers out please
for what will not
be given:
another chance.
  - mce

Indian Country

You can bust
as much jungle
as you like
and still not
get back
to the world.
  - mce

The Lost Boys

It is futile
to embroider
emptiness
with lilacs
or to pretend
that pain
can blossom
and become
a flower.
The sweet bells
have fallen mute.
The sound
of nothing now
peals loudest.
Their silence
echoes in
the chasm
where my heart
used to be.
  - mce

Reciprocity

I kill time;
time kills me.
An equation
balanced
perfectly.
  - mce

Wake Up Call

Last night,
trying to chop
some kindling
in the dark,
the hatchet's blade
found my forefinger
instead of wood.
A sudden, exquisite
explosion of pain
sliced through
the cold night air;
an abrupt blast
of self-awareness.
There is nothing
like the shock
of your own blood,
dripping red,
to remind you
that your mortal
mammal body
is still breathing,
your all too
human heart
still beating.
  - mce

All There Is

Two mirrors
facing
each other.
  - mce

Rain Haiku

Rain on rotting snow;
when will the birds of summer
return to this shack?
  - mce

Messiness

It is easier to be chaos
than to live with chaos.
  - mce

Vision

To see the world clearly
is to know the meaning of fear
and of courage.
  - mce

Pointless

At some point,
you no longer know
what the point is,
or ever was.
  - mce

Seasons

In life's vivid
green spring,
I dreamed
of embracing
all of creation.
Now, life fades
to russet autumn,
and you are all
I desire
in my arms.
  - mce

Despair

Hovering
like a hyena
just beyond
the light
of a campfire,
always ready
to pounce.
  - mce