The Vanity Of Agendas

Three crows
perched above
the newly
planted corn;
how the world
mocks our plans.
  - mce

It's Not A Math Problem

Some questions
just hang in the air
and probably
should not
be answered.
  - mce

Stepping Up To The Checkout Counter

Each shot
of whiskey,
another amber,
liquid bullet.
  - mce

Memorial Day

  - for Paul Brandt and Patrick Dunnigan

Somewhere,
the choppers
still beat
the air.
  - mce

Dangerous Symbiosis

If you make yourself
as tough as a nail,
you become a nail,
and should be very
wary of hammers.
  - mce

Rising

Lover,
I wake
to you
and
I ache
for you.
  - mce

Time Won't Tell

I have bartered my life
for handfuls of pretty words.
Bargain or folly?
Every new day
tells a different lie.
  - mce

Solar Flare

He imagined her smile
and the sun exploded
the morning gloom.
- mce

Why Drink Is Futile

Even the smallest life
won't fit inside a bottle.
  - mce

Ambitious Mirror

An ambitious mirror
can never reflect
even one true thing.
  - mce

Short Changing Eternity

How foolish I was
to think this whiskey
would last forever
  - mce

Road Trip

Always, in the before,
he managed to find
a way, if not the way.
Now, the interstate
is dark and he can't
make out the exit signs.
Driving, driving, driving...
endless black the road.
Oh when is the city
of his heart?
  - mce

The Minotaur Takes A Cigarette Break

The dark enigma
of the human heart:
we look so simple
on the outside,
but such a twisted
and undetected
labyrinth within.
 - mce

What A Difference A Year Makes

Serenity has fled this place.
The filigree of sunlight
through green leaves
falls across my legs
in no recognizable pattern.
Birdsong is just cacophony.
The breeze that used
to whisper to me
has nothing to say.
The blueberries no longer
want me to pick them.
Magick has divorced the creek.
Everything remains beautiful,
but provides no answers.
And yet, that's OK.
Few questions and
little time remain.
  - mce

Zen Cavalry

Forget it;
help is not
on the way.
  - mce

Negative Epistemology

To accept that there
is nothing to learn:
hardest lesson of all.
  - mce

Thank You, Stephen Daedalus

The past is
the nightmare
from which
I keep trying
to awaken,
but can't
quite.
  - mce

Why Won't The Dead Stay Dead?

The trees are full of ghosts today.
I wish that they would go away,
But all they do is stay and stay.
The trees are full of ghosts today.
  - mce

Dream Lovers

Sometimes dream lovers,
if not the best, are very good.

Someone with whom
you can get
metaphorically naked
and roll around
in a big imaginary bed
without having to worry
about your blemishes
or the inevitable
effects of gravity
or bad hair
in the morning
or what they will
want for breakfast
or having to say
that you love them,
when you don't.

Someone with whom
there are no sad residuals
or lingering consequences.

The living flesh is best of all,
but, still, sometimes
dream lovers are very good.

Would you like to slip
into my bed of dreams?

We can do anything
we can imagine
for as long as you like.

You are welcome there.
  - mce

The Simplest Reason To Keep Breathing

Sometimes,
the morning sun
just sings out:
Yes!
  - mce

Good, Better, Best

Dreaming
is good;
living
is better;
waking up
is best of all.
  - mce

Yes, There Is A Difference...

Lying is
tedious
and
difficult,
which
is why
I prefer
to  invent
the truth.
  - mce

4000 Hits

Thank you all
so much
for reading;
your visits
help me
to continue
breathing.
  - mce

Investment Advice I Should Have Taken

If only I had
saved a dollar
for each
hangover
in my life,
I'd be quite
well off.
  - mce

Imagined Conversation

Aren't I a nice girl, she said? You are, he whispered, and when you stop trying so hard to be so nice, you'll be a nice woman.
  -mce

But Will She Respect Me In The Morning?

Just when
I am about
to give up,
the Muse
glides up
silently
and blows
seductively
in my ear.
God, I am
so easy.
  - mce

The Ultimate Self-Help Book In Seven Sentences

Stop craving things and people.
Assume that what will come will come.
Don't expect to be happy.
Watch where you put your feet.
Hope for good luck.
Try not to fuck up too often.
Be prepared to die at any moment.
  - mce

Karma Promethean

He tried
to remember
nothing;
instead, he
remembered
everything.
Make one
mistake
and time
becomes
an eagle
that gnaws
on your liver
forever.
  - mce

Dream Secrets

He dreamed
of a woman
who could
read his heart,
but he blushed
when one
finally did.
  - mce

Rest Awhile In My Heart

Rest awhile in my heart.
It has been empty
a very long time
so there is lots of space.
Drop your burden
of shoulds and musts.
Accept this repose
beyond the chaos
of the day.
I will watch over you
and keep you safe.
I ask nothing of you,
not your body,
not your love,
not your future.
I know how weary
it is to be
too wanted,
too needed,
too necessary.
Be at your ease,
there is as much time
as you can spare.
Curl up and dream
softly as the little girl
you once were,
innocent dreams
of ponies yet to come.
Be soothed.
Rest awhile in my heart.
  - mce

I Can See Right Through Me

I have been
a ghost
for a very
long time;
it takes
practice,
but you
get used
to it.
  - mce

Never Fall In Love With An Angel

I can heal your heart, she said, only I can't give you mine. She touched me then, and I was filled with joy, but when I reached out for her, she was gone.
  - mce

My Old Buddy

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

Just Another Day

In the late night darkness
William Carlos Williams
delivered a baby;
this morning I heard Pound
rant on the radio;
I had lunch with HD,
(notoriously easy)
but didn't get lucky;
later, Wallace Stevens
penned beauty on the back
of a voided insurance policy;
as the day ended, Eliot
closed up the bank office
put on his bowler and left.
In the world of poetry
these are not people who were,
they remain people who are.
   - mce

Offerings

Planting beans and squash:
each seed pressed into earth
a simple act of faith;
not much to offer up,
but the most my frail spirit
can manage these days.
When they ripen, (if they ripen),
even should it sojourn elsewhere,
some part of my heart will too.
  - mce

Morning Kiss

Even when
there's no one
to kiss good morning
but the sun,
it's still a new day
worth another try.
  - mce

What We Leave Behind

A poem is
a hand traced
on a cave wall
that finally says,
"I was here,"
that's all.
  - mce

Lost Days

If you ever
think that
it is sometimes
hard to live
with the past,
consider
how lonely
it would be
to live
without one.
  - mce

Void

Suppose
the word
home
was erased
from your
lexicon,
what exactly
would be left
to say?
  - mce

The Morning Rain

"What harm have I done to all the gods?" - Fernando Pessoa

The morning rain
wants to tell me something;
the morning rain
says I have been a fool;
the morning rain
says I will always be a fool;
the morning rain
is no friend of mine.
  - mce

Possible Palliative

If only
I could feel
the whisper
of your breath
on the back
of my neck,
this emptiness
might abate.
  - mce

A Matter Of Volume

He tried to fill
the caverns
of memory
with whiskey,
but they
were too large
and he
was too small.
  - mce

Better Than Reality

I dreamed
that your lips
were tracing
the curve
of my spine
and woke up
smiling.
  - mce

Merger Without Acquisition

When
neither
of us
can tell
where
we end
and the
other
begins
then
we are
both
exactly
there.
  - mce

Poet For Hire

Let me write
the secret story
you can't tell
and publish it
in my heart.
 - mce

A Pirate Comments On Poverty

Life's a bitch, Matey:
tonight, I had
to eat my parrot.
  - mce

What All Poets Know

When the Muse
throws off her clothes,
bares her teeth,
and gestures you
towards her bed
only a damned fool
says no.
  - mce

Five Erotic Fragments

   - after Sappho

I

The sound of silk
sliding softly
off your skin:
simply sublime
alliteration.

II

Rest your legs
on my shoulders,
Love;
let us begin
a deep
conversation.

III

The pressure
of your hands
on the small
of my back
urges me
to speak faster.

IV

Let me
kiss you
until we
dissolve
and blend.

V

Where do you go
in that moment
when you disappear?
  - mce

Robinson Crusoe Considers His Audience

Last night a stranger
in El Reno, Oklahoma
hit this blog twenty-two times.
I don't know a soul in that state.
The endless mystery of it.
I sit in Tennessee
stuffing messages into bottles
and throw them willy-nilly
into a virtual ocean
never knowing whose hands
will find and pick them up
or what they will make of them
when they do.
Who are these strangers
who bother to read
these simple laundry lists
of my heart?
I rarely know.
Sometimes, you must
simply trust in the tides
and let your words
float away.
  - mce

The Solution To This Endless Tennessee Rain

Soon,
I will simply
grow gills
and swim
away.
  - mce

How Right You Were Wallace Stevens

The poem of the heart
must be the poem of the body.
The imagination of the flesh
contains the pure source
of all poetry.
You must touch yourself
in silence and gasp
your words into the world.
  - mce

The Pleasure Of Your Company

Waking up alone
here,
I imagine you
waking up alone
there.
It's so much warmer
to wake up alone
together.
Though we
are distant,
yet we
are near.
Snuggle up, Love,
wherever
you are.
  - mce

The Girl Next Door

Every man has one. You notice her when you are sixteen and she still inhabits your heart at sixty. She is the angel always just out of reach. Her scent is of Ivory Soap and lilacs and spring and youth. You never quite forget her. She becomes the template of desire. You tremble for her flesh, but wouldn't know how to touch it.You spend your life wishing she would invite you up to her room to play, knowing that she never will. You want to embrace the texture of her being. You want to brush your tongue along the thighs of her most secret longings. You want to hear her moans echo in your own throat. You measure all the women you stumble into against her. Some fit; most don't. You believe she holds the answers to all your unasked questions, the dark ones your soul is afraid to speak out loud even to itself. Sometimes you wish she would release you, but that can never be. She is the Queen of your dreams. You are her subject. You will always kneel before her. You will always believe that her touch could heal your deepest wounds. You will be her Fool forever and be glad of it. On your deathbed you will catch her scent one last time, smile and carry her with you into infinity. Every man has one.
  - mce

A Heart Full Of Water

Fill me with you
until I overflow,
until I leap
my banks,
until I flood
like a river,
like a torrent
back into you
and satisfied,
you are filled,
too.
  - mce

Talent

Oh, he was
a clever fellow.
How clever?
Clever enough
to bite himself
in the ass
repeatedly.
That takes
real talent
and diligent
practice.
Try it yourself.
Not as easy
as it looks,
is it?
  - mce

Drinking With Marcel

Someday
I will write
a history of
hangovers.
It will go on
for volumes.
It will be
Proustian
in detail
and duration.
Readers
will despair
of living
long enough
to reach
the end.
It will
drive them
to drink.
Finally,
they will
have to
construct
their own
chronicles.
Better
stock up
on aspirin
before
you begin
to read.
  - mce

The Physics Of Hope

Infinity extends
in every direction;
there is no once;
in an endless
universe
there can be no
unique occurrences:
one day love
must come again.
  - mce

Death Is A Sheriff

Death is a sheriff
who knocks
unexpectedly
on your door
with a warrant
to arrest you
for a crime
you never knew
you had committed.
  - mce

In Which, Preparatory To Leaving TN, I Take A Complete Inventory Of My Permanent Possessions...

Only my imperishable stupidity
and two eyes that see
deep, clearly and through;
not so much to pack
after fifty-eight years.
  - mce

Motto

Nothing
is what
it appears
to be.
  -mce

Don't Deny It

Culture paints only
the thinnest veneer
from beneath which
we still want to howl.
  - mce

Marriage

What puzzling
creatures
we become
after love flees.
  - mce

Even Witches Get The Blues

"Maybe I've had
my happiness."
The most
terrifyingly sad
thought of all.
  -mce

Contrition

Confessing
your sins
to another
person
makes him
anxious
and God
jealous.
Some things
must not
be said
out loud.
  - mce

Not Unlike Gregor Samsa

Errands to run
decisions to make;
clothes to wash:
the endless
trivial particulars
that weigh life down.
Where is my
personal assistant,
my life coach,
my hot French maid?
Damn, once again
I've woken up
in the wrong life.
  - mce

Just Flip The Damned Switch

Looking at my stuff,
trying to figure out
what to do with it
as I depart this place
engenders vertiginous
uncertainty, like when you
lift your foot on a dark
stairway and step out
into nothing you can see.
Six years of stepping off
into the darkness;
won't somebody, please,
turn on the lights;
I can't make out
the next step.
  - mce

Why It Is So Difficult For A Man To Be A Romantic In America

    "Helen, the radiance of women..." - Homer

Had Helen of Troy been a modern American woman,
she would have checked her email, called her boss,
updated her Facebook page, looked at her calendar,
gone to the gym and talked with her therapist
before running away with Paris.
She would also have consulted her girlfriends
to determine if he was really that into her
and examined a bevy of relationship
self-help books just to make sure.
Certainly, she would have googled him,
had a friend perform a credit check,
and demanded an STD clearance from his doctor.
When the ships and soldiers arrived
to redeem her honor and rescue her,
she would have told them in a huff
that she was an independent woman
quite capable of taking care of herself
and didn't need the help of any men,
before stepping over the dead male bodies
and accepting a free ride home.
Later she would write a wildly popular
estrogen drenched memoir about her trials
filled with spiritual advice, travel notes and recipes.
Paris, of course, would be conveniently dead.
Some stories do not improve when updated.
  - mce

Unlikeliest Woman

I remember you for a moment
standing on my shabby steps,
your stabbing green eyes,
your long hair blowing,
the tilt of your perfect hips,
the uplift of your breasts
and your crooked, distant smile;
in that moment you return to me,
but only for an instant
until you fade back
into the eternity
of everything that no longer is
and never could have been.
  - mce

Trekking The Regions Of The Heart

I used to try
to shape
the journey;
now I know
the journey
shapes me.
No footsteps
will be
left behind.
The jungle
always wins
in the end.
  - mce

Now I Understand

A Zen Drill Sergeant
once told me,
you always got to have
a fall back position, boy.
I asked what happens
if you don't.
He said, you don't
want to know that,
shit for brains.
  - mce

Salome Redux

Drop your veils,
lover, allow me
to see the body
beneath the flesh.
  - mce

Body Count

Liver shot,
heart fluttering,
lungs questionable,
brain fried:
tag me and bag me, Doc,
I'm headed home.
  - mce

Developing Good listening Skills

Just beyond
the sound
comes
the silence
that unfolds
the meaning.
  - mce

Too Close To Home

I have always
disliked the phrase,
"damaged goods,"
probably because
it so perfectly
describes me.
  - mce

The Uncertain Spring Creek Valley Wind

It used to whisper:
stay, stay, stay;
now it murmurs:
go, go, go...
but it never says
where to or how.
  - mce

A Brief Course On Writing Erotic Poetry

 "The greatest poverty is not to live
In a physical world..." - Wallace Stevens

Craft it oblique,
nearly opaque.
English lacks an
erotic vocabulary
and the merely
clinical or brutal
fail to convey
the delicate
butterfly kisses
two human hearts
caught up in
the dance of desire
hope to bestow
upon each the other's
fragile essence
as they briefly
touch, embrace
and release
in a physical world
that is so much more
than flesh and facts.
  - mce

Sung Coversation

Let your
thighs open
softly
and sing
to me, lover;
my mouth
will listen,
open,
and whisper
back its
own song.
  - mce

There Must Be Some Kind Of Way Out Of Here...

The minefield
of Karma;
cruelest judge
of all.
Be careful
where you put
each thought,
every action.
One wrong move
and you are
sentenced
to do it all
over again.
  - mce

The Inherent Irony Of Getting What You Want

You finally
did turn out
to be
the woman
of my dreams:
fleeting, elusive,
increasingly
difficult
to remember.
  - mce

Another Dawn Patrol

Nine dead soldiers
in loose formation
on the coffee table.
A long night
of empty bottles
and broken dreams.
Sometimes
the soul sings,
sometimes
it suffers.
Where has dawn's
promise fled?
Even the light breaks
empty and cold.
Pick up your weapons
and fall in for more.
  - mce

The Well Of Silence At 4 AM

Four in the morning
and sleep has gone.
Four in the morning
and nothing to say.
Four in the morning
and too many ghosts.
Four in the morning,
just another day.
   - mce

Roadkill

I saw
an old man
kneeling
on the side
of the road
the other day.

I stopped
to ask
if I could
help in
any way.

I could
see him
flap his arms,
hear him
mutter
and pray.

"There is
no help,"
he shouted.
"Be on
your way!"

I left then
because
I was afraid
that should
I stay,

I might begin
to kneel,
to flap
my arms,
to mutter
and to pray.
  - mce

A Little Friendly Advice

What is missing
often contains
the subtlest
portion
of the poem;
learn to look
for it.
  - mce

Why It Is Dangerous To Love A Poet

You must give him your life.
He won't settle for less.
He will turn it into poetry
and become you
for a little while.
He will wear your skin
next to his own
and feel your darkest pains,
your most exquisite pleasures.
He will finally understand
your definition of love
and why you will leave him.
He will steal the secret
of your deepest longing
and know how to satisfy you.
Perhaps he will make
a few subtle alterations.
Then he will return it
as something different
from who you were
and hope that it
still makes a good fit,
but it never really will
again.
  - mce

A Trade Secret Disclosed For The Benefit Of My Female Readership

Mostly,
the poems
are much more
interesting
than the poet.
  - mce

A Serious Question For Unemployed Philosophers

OK,
smart guys...
is there
too much
whiskey
or just
not enough
world?
  - mce

The Point Of It

Tremble me,
lover, and I
will flutter you.
Your tiny gasps
awaken me.
Your secret sighs
lift up my soul.
I will melt
within you.
At just that
moment,
we become
two dancers,
but one dance,
two hearts,
but one beat,
two streams,
but one river.
Come, lover,
let us merge
and flow
together
into ecstasy.
Best destination
of all.
  - mce

Loneliness Epidemic

Someone recently
said to me,
"there is an epidemic
of loneliness."

There it is!

Now I know why
my heart flutters
when dusk approaches
and my soul
shivers at dawn.

I forgot to get
vaccinated.
  - mce

Mock Memory Soup

The memory
of your beauty
mocks these
groping words.
  - mce

Not Rocket Science

If you wanted me,
I would come to you.

There you go.

That is the shortest
love song that I
know how to sing
and I just sang it,
for your heart alone.
  -mce

Too Much Rain

The two foot long snake
dead on the branch
twisting in the current
doesn't appear to be
enjoying this weather
and neither am I.
  - mce

"Sing, Muse..."

Invoke her as you will:
sometimes the Muse
is generous and loving;
sometimes, just another
mean-spirited bitch.
As is so often
the case with females,
you never know which
version will show up.
  - mce

How Come?

Everyone
seems to want
to be young again,
but me;
I want to be old
with a vengeance.
  - mce

Massively Dysfunctional Morning

It is a morning in 2010.
Last night I dreamed
my cabin was crawling
with insects and when
I woke up the invasion
had already begun.
It is a morning in 2010.
A shrink once called me
Massively Dysfunctional.
I didn't know what
she meant and still don't
but aren't the sounds
and syllables of it lovely?
It is a morning in 2010.
I am receiving your signals,
but can't quite make them out.
It is a morning in 2010.
I am just trying
to breathe out and in.
It is a morning in 2010.
I don't want to know
the stories of your
vital organs or the depth
of your suffering.
We all suffer and healthy
livers are ever rare.
It is a morning in 2010.
Many are called,
but few are chosen
and most of them fail.
It is a morning in 2010.
The memory of her mouth
on my flesh sustains me.
It is a morning in 2010.
Two days of pouring rain
and irritable wind
have made this forest
a roiling angry ocean
where trees crash
around me like breakers.
It is a morning in 2010.
The thought of her naked
beneath that sun dress
is making me even crazier.
It is a morning in 2010.
I am baffled and dismayed
that my children disappeared.
It is a morning in 2010.
I am drinking myself
into productive oblivion.
It is a morning in 2010.
I wonder why it is always easier
to write with a hangover.
I wonder if I will see
a hummingbird today.
I wonder if she will love me
when my words are gone.
I wonder if my ship sank
before it could come in.
I wonder at the deep
wetness of her kisses.
I wonder why I wasn't born
beautiful and rich
and famous and brave.
I wonder if today is the day.
But mostly I wonder
how it ever came to be
this morning in 2010.
  - mce

Train Station In The Rain

Damn, it's so quiet:
my heart feels like
an abandoned
railway station
rusting in the rain
that no one visits
anymore because
it's so much
easier to fly.
  - mce

Freedom

It's just a
shinier name
for loneliness.
  - mce

Guilty As Charged

Three words
that summed up
an entire life.
  - mce

Add To Wish List

A watch
that tells
exactly
how much
time
remains.
  - mce

An Honorable Death

He would
have been
quite
satisfied
to sink
between
her thighs
and drown
within
her sighs.
  - mce

Sorry, Woody Allen

It is not
always about
Love and Death;
sometimes,
it is about
Love and Betrayal.
  - mce

Containment Vessel

Her iron-bound heart
was a cauldron
simmering full
of lust and desire
that she never quite
allowed to boil over.
  - mce

Calling In Well

If you submitted
to a moment of sanity,
tore off your clothes,
removed your mask
and stood boldly,
for just an instant -
glorious, trembling
and naked -
before another
human heart,
who would you be?
  - mce

Behind The Mirror

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

A Brief Existentialist Discourse On A Nonexistent Volume Of Unpublished Poems

   - for Richard Brautigan

I would like
to self-publish
a book
of poems
for my friends.

You know
who you are.

If you aren't
my friend,
you won't get
a book.

That is the
simplest explanation
of existentialism
that I know.
  - mce

The Eternal Question At Five AM

What exactly
does a good
night's sleep
feel like?
  - mce