Mountain Wisdom

Nothing is
ever given,
or taken,
that doesn't
have its price.
  - mce

The Last Poem

The last poem
will be written
in blood,

but that time
is not yet.

Smiles, tears
and wonder
remain;
hangovers,
laughter
and joy
as well.

Not just yet.

When the time
is right
he will open
a vein
and write
that last
bloody poem.

Until then,
he will live
and breathe
and love
in his painful,
imperfect
human world.

Until then,
until that
last poem
is written
in blood.
  - mce

A Terrifying Question

If my heart
should stop
soon;
is there
anyone who
will remember me
(even one
person)
and smile?
  - mce

Self-Knowledge

One thing
for sure:
I am an
easy man
to forget.
  - mce

The Comforts Of Logic

An evil man
cannot be loved.
I am loved.
Therefore,
I cannot be
an evil man.
Sweetest
syllogism
of the soul.
  - mce

How I Know What I Don't Know

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

Whiskey In The AM

There are
some mornings
when it is
drink or die.
This morning,
he chooses drink.
He makes
no promises
about tomorrow,
but he hopes.
  - mce

Upon Hearing Of My Ex-Wife's Marriage

    ~ for Uli

I loved you
with the purity of
a young man's heart;
I truly believed
we would never part.
The vows were broken,
that love died;
the wife that was
is another man's bride.
The unanswered questions
we will never know:
how did love die,
where did it go,
do not matter anymore,
love your new life,
be happy, soar.
  - mce

The Friend

   ~ for WHS

Not born
     of the same
         blood,
but knitted
     into one bone
by the breaks
     of life.
Friends to
     the death;
friends beyond.
  - mce

"For My Sins, They Gave Me A Mission..."

Everyone has
a unique mission
in the world;
mine seems to be
to determine
how many times
one heart can break.
How I hope the limit
has been reached.
  - mce

The Troubles: Four Years On

Somewhere
beyond
the ocean
of suffering
must be
a land
where rest,
relaxation
and perhaps
redemption
are possible
for even
the most
broken
Pirate.
  - mce

Local Passport

When you are
able to discern
the marvelous
in the familiar,
travel becomes
unnecessary.
  - mce

"Suffering Is Caused By Attachment."

Eighty-three degrees
inside my stuffy cabin
at eight in the morning.
All winter I cursed the cold;
now I curse the heat.
The grasping Monkey Mind,
never content to just be.
  - mce

The Calculus Of Failure

Apparently,
there exists
an infinity
of ways
to disappoint
yourself
in any given
lifetime.
  - mce

Perceptions

At fifty-eight,
I understand
I can drop dead
at any moment.
Somehow,
this only makes
the trees
look greener.
  - mce

The Price

It has cost
21,464 nights
to buy
this sunrise.
The price
of morning,
greater
every day.
  - mce

Mulligan

Every do over,
increasingly
difficult to take.
  - mce

Redemption Song

The morning
after the day
you didn't die
seems bright
and shiny
indeed.
- mce

Inversion

For the longest time,
it was all about the future;
then, there came that
strange, unexpected
and terrible moment
when the past began.
  - mce

Illness

Early in the day,
     it's an
          interruption:

later in the day,
     it's an
          omen.

Early and late
     the mortality worm
                    chews.

Early or late,
     it will have
          the last
                    bite.
  - mce

For Men Who Fantasize Insatiable Lovers

You should
meet the Muse;
she'll wear
your ass out.
She never takes no
for an answer.
Sure, when
she comes
she screams
out poems.
That's fine, but
her demands
will leave you
limp and gasping.
It's not all
sighs and play.
Be careful what
you wish for.
  - mce

Thunderstorm

The rumble
of the gods
making love
in the sky.
  - mce

An Open Invitation

This bed
is narrow,
but my arms
are wide;
you are
always
welcome
here inside.
  - mce

Triumph

Writing poems
to a body
that can never
be touched.
  - mce

Nip And Tuck

Love is a force that transforms.
It is the unsteady hand
of a drunken plastic surgeon
who badly needs a drink;
sometimes the results
are beautiful; sometimes
they are ugly. You can't know
until the bandages come off.
  - mce

The Lost Drawer

In it, all the debris of a life:

lost loves, pieces of
a broken heart, the smiles
of friends since gone,
a marriage, children,
jobs, cars, houses,
the shards of dreams,
various rainbows, sunsets,
thunderstorms, poems
never to be finished,
the chaos of battle,
squandered opportunities,
misplaced lusts,
the best orgasms,
the deepest kisses,
the worst disappointments,
betrayals, dashed hopes,
many resurrections,
bundles of broken promises,
and endless other items,
large and small.

It is the messy drawer
of a very messy man,
rarely opened anymore.
   - mce

Always Pack Bread-Crumbs

At six I went
out to play
in the forest
of the world;
fifty-two
years later,
I'm still lost.
What did
I forget?
  - mce

The Disturbance In The Field

Sex, violence,
food, drink
and, of course,
love.

It's so easy
to be a man
until you
get to
that last
word.
  - mce

Why Poets Disdain Eternity

So much effort
is required
to capture one night
of moans and sighs;
leave eternity to God
who owns time
and never dies.
  - mce

Demise Delayed

At twenty, even as
bullets and shrapnel
sizzle your ears,
you trust in your
immortality beyond
any doubt.

Nearing sixty,
death has become
a dark lover
whose possibility
you take to your bed
every mortal evening.

Opening your eyes
to a new morning:
the least certain,
sweetest gift of all.
  - mce

The Cosmic Significance Of The Simplest Gesture

Only lean back
into my arms.
Life is short;
the day is long.
Together, both
become possible.
  - mce

Barred Vista

The buzz
   of madness
       in the
          cicadas' whir;
insanity in
   the manic
      croak of
         tree frogs.

No quiet;
   never quiet;
        no quiet.

How fragile
   the fabric
        of personality;
how easily
   it rends, frays
       and tears

until what remains
   are loose threads
       blown randomly
           by howling wind

twirling within
   the whir
       of cicadas,
          the croak
             of tree frogs.
  - mce

Aries Thanks Daddy

The clash of arms,
the screams of pain,
the groans of death:
Thank you, Father Zeus,
for the mortal toy
of human breath.
  - mce

Guide Wanted, Apply Within

The soul's disquiet
singes the fabric
of the human day.

The heart grown brittle
forgets how to sing,
forgets how to play.

There must be a path
leading back to hope
and away from pain,

a path where birds sing,
the world exalts,
the faltering brain

knows rest and repose;
a path to a place
like a still bower

where spirit and flesh
are reconciled
in the human hour.

Lead me, Love, to that
simple, quiet place
where the human heart
dares to show its face.
  - mce

Landfall

Seven years
of open sea,
a Pirate
badly battered,

seeks a harbor
to repair
the dreams
life's storms
have shattered.

Loose your limbs,
envelope him;
say, rest awhile
within my smile.

Be the harbor
of his dreams,
the end
of voyaging
and schemes.

If you allow him
to sail in,
he may not
seek the sea
again.
  _ mce

Doubt As A Practice

Certainty:
not sure
what that
means.
  - mce

Tin Roof Blues

Rain,
new day
gray;
Muse,
sing my
blues
away.
  - mce

Dream Fragment - After Sappho

She writhes
         in a slither
                of dyed silk
rending
         the darkness
                with her sighs.
   - mce

Meaning That Inheres

shabby
    broken deck

aging man
    softly smoking

stained
    blue rocker

laughing song
    of birds

dripping green
    of trees

nothing more
    to know

nothing that can
    be known

  - mce

Further Instructions

Nature contains
the elements;

where nothing
is forbidden,
beauty blossoms.

The world exists
because it
sounds and shines.

The Vortex
remains
and reappears
unbidden.

Part your thighs;
open your mind:

the numinous
exists to find.
  - mce

"Le Paradis N'est Pas Artificiel"

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

A Discourse On Method

The artist is made
to pick and choose.

No turning back.

He lives in
the world of flesh,
or he doesn't
live at all.
  - mce

Abendlied

Another evening alone:
not quite in this world,
not yet in the other.
  - mce

A Dark And Horrible Confession

I love Hawaiian shirts,
the louder the better.
I wear them every
chance I get.
I'd wear them in winter,
if it weren't too cold.
There, I've admitted it
to the whole world.
Truly, I have no shame.
I know women hate them,
but I can't help myself.
They are so garishly male,
as I am so garishly male.
OK, now you know the worst.
I'll understand,
if you decide to leave.
  - mce

Periplum

   ~ for E.P.

Find the facets,
the sharpness,
the clarity of line:

    on the edges,
    on the faces,
    on the boundaries
    and frontiers

that is where
the poem awaits
the touch
of your tongue.

Not to see this
is not to see;
not to be this
is not to be.
  - mce

Nomina Sunt Consequentia Rerum

If I say out loud
that I love you,
do our names
and beings change
or do our names
and beings define,
in the first place,
the simple phrase,
I love you?

What can we be
without each other?

Breath without lungs,
kisses without lips,
fingers without touch.

To name it is to be it;
to say it is to birth it
in the world of flesh.

Less than that,
only silence;
less than that,
nothing at all.
  - mce

It's A Simple Enough Offer

Take my hand
And walk with me
All the unfinished way.

Death is long;
Life is what we have;
Take my hand and stay

To celebrate
The fragile moments
Of each remaining day.
  - mce

Anticipation

This morning
portends storms;
the air,
thick and damp
as lovers' breath,
hovers just
on the cusp
of release,
just the instant
before the peal
of thunder,
the slash
of lightning,
the hot, wet
moment
of surrender
and rain.
  - mce

Scansion

The
line
shortens,
collapses,
falls
inevitably
inward
upon
itself,
exactly
like
life.
  - mce

Not Impossible

Even Odysseus
made it home
eventually.
  - mce

Hush

Words falter,
but silence
never does.
Reduce
your noise
to nothing.
There
you are.
  - mce

Can't Get This At Starbucks

Into my
morning coffee
I stir sunlight,
birdsong, Mozart
and thoughts
of you.
Sweetest mixture
to begin a day.
Think I'll take
another sip.
How lovely,
a cup full
of smiles.
  - mce

The Poem

A dappled fawn
leaping through
green undergrowth:
glimpsed in an instant,
remembered forever.
  - mce

Ah, Alliteration

Silk's
soft
sound,
slowly
sliding
skin:
sensual,
sexual,
sensuous,
stirring
song.
  - mce

Not Quite Yet

The descending gyre
of vultures whirling
above my deck
reminds me,
it can be dangerous
to sit still for too long.
  - mce

A Journey Of A Thousand Miles

You drop your dress
like a bouquet
and step like a bride,
naked and trembling,
brave and eager,
onto a new path,
into a new world.
 - mce

Against The Current

The vortex of this
endless silence
must be resisted.
Too soon to slip
beneath the water.
  - mce

Complementarity

I am the particle,
you are the wave;
two natures,
one substance:
always and forever
a single light.
  - mce

July 4th, 1776 - July 4th, 2010

So many
           broken
and unkept
           promises.
  - mce

Stunde Null

   ~ "A man of no fortune, and with a name to come."  - E.P. Canto I

My ship becalmed in this dying day;
the sun that warmed now fails;
the constant wind now falls away;
cold, my bones; empty, my sails.
  - mce

Musing

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 bitch.

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

Morning Dream

Deep kisses
in the cool
of morning
breathe life
into the day;
nowhere
to go, Love,
kiss me again,
and stay.
  - mce