Muse

The Missing Piece

The persistent,
menial tasks
are completed.

Papers graded,
supplies bought,
kitchen cleaned.

Time snuggles up.

I have a deck;
I have birdsong;
I have sunlight;
I have bourbon;
I have beer;
I have Vivaldi.

I have time.

What I
don't have
is you.

Why not
complete
the puzzle?

Everything
I do have,
I will gladly
share.

Stop by;
let us spend
some time
together.

Don't worry,
I've got
plenty.
  - mce

Slow Learner

The best lesson
to learn
from the past:
pleasure
is fragile,
but pain,
built to last.
  - mce

Birthday Poem

   - for Bear

Every action
is a sound
released
to resonate
throughout
your life
in ways
you cannot
imagine
or hope
to know.
May all
your notes
culminate
in sweetest
harmonies.
  - mce

Terra Incognita

Prepare the ship,
plot the course,
sail away;
all you can do.
Beyond that,
none can say.
  - mce

Curious Ibid

One morning
he woke up
disconcerted
to discover
that overnight
he had become
a merely
ambulant footnote
to his own life.
  - mce

Fortunate Coincidence

Drink might
have ruined
his life;
fortunately,
his life
was ruined
before
he began
to drink.
  - mce

Dichotomy

Heaven drifts
aimlessly around;
Hell, much more
easily found.
 - mce

Forget Wheelbarrows

So much
depends upon
a 1997 Saturn
firing up
when I turn
the key.
  - mce

Ephemera

I was born on Friday
October 19, 1951.

As of this day,
I am 21,438 days old.

I inhabit an Earth.

The actuarial tables
say I will live to be 70.

Soiled auditory scraps
barely overheard
in a random room
filled with grunts,
resonating nothing;
dry sounds for deaf ears.

Think about it:
nothing in this poem
means anything.

Born, live, die;
all commonplace.

Something is missing:
can you fill in the blank?
  - mce

A Pirate's Dilemma

Life, to be authentic,
demands roots;
rootless adventure
provides none;
you are bound
for Ithaca,
or you are bound
for nowhere.
  - mce

Apotheosis

When the veil
of the temple
is rent, only
the flawed man
of pure heart
dares enter.
  - mce

Blues, How Do You Do

If you have
the blues,
only hum them;
no one really
wants to hear
those words
sung out loud.
  - mce

Listen

Enlightenment
explodes in
an instant;
an ear pressed
against a shell
knows everything
the sea can tell.
  - mce

Too Much Of Silence

He knew
too much
of silence.
The flood
that issued
from his pen
sprang from
a deep well
of hush.
To hear
nothing
for too long
can become
a deadly
weight
to bear.
Solitude
and madness
coexist
uneasily;
a line emerges
one dare
not cross,
and yet... .
The endless
conversation
within
his head
cried out
for flesh.
Where
are the
living ears
for the
human word
that demands
resonance
in the physical
world?
Where is
the body
for the breath?
He knew
too much
of silence.
  - mce

Wonder

Strange,
how much
pleasure
your little
hands
can hold.
  - mce

On The Teleology Of Identity

The only truth
a wave can know
is how to break.
  - mce

The Nowhere Paradox

   ~ "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,
it's not worth
the effort.
  - mce

Not So Unusual

I only want
what you want;
to be rescued
from life.
  - mce

Death Dropped By

Death dropped by last night. I didn't expect him, but he was lonely and I was available.

What's up, I asked.

Same old shit, he said. You have no idea how hard this job is. Absolutely no one wants to see me. Ever.

Must be lonely.

Lonely, he said, you can't imagine. Most of them die as soon as they see me. Do you know hard that makes it to have a meaningful relationship? Or even get a date?

Oh, I can imagine.

Well, let me tell you; it's damned frustrating. Sometimes, I'd just like to cuddle, but I'm not into corpses. Yuck.

Death isn't much of a conversationalist. Mostly he just whines. It's all about him. He tends to ramble.

I just quietly let him talk.

Have to be going, he said finally. Must meet the soon to be dead. Rush, rush, rush... and Santa Claus thinks he has it bad. Thanks for listening. See you soon.

No hurry, I replied.

I swear his lipless face smiled as he turned and left.

It took awhile before I realized I had just been spared.

Sometimes, it pays to be a good listener.

 - mce

Traveling Shoes

Sometimes,
my shoes will
suddenly decide
to go for a walk
without me.
See you later,
they say;
so long,
I reply.
I never worry
about them.
They know
the way home.
  - mce

Profound Playfulness

Of course, he would like to utter words so dizzyingly profound that she would be compelled by passion to step out of her dress without even being asked. Sadly, he is a playful sort of fellow, a distinct drawback where profundity and passion are pursued. Guess she'll have to make up her own mind about that dress.
  - mce

Blind Prosperity

Ah, the daily vagaries
of poverty, life as
a churning succession
of uncertainties.
Will my old car die?
Will I break a tooth?
Will my appendix
suddenly rupture?
Will my creditors
never stop calling?
Will I manage to eat
more than once today?
These questions
(and many others),
so common
for so many of us
and so easily ignored
by so many more.
How casually
we choose
what not to see.
  - mce

Deepest Kiss

Let my
tongue
touch the
very why
of you
so that
I can
hear your
soul
make its
sounds
out loud
in the
world.
  - mce

Thanatos

The hard part
is not that
we must all die;
the hard part
is that so many
must die
more than once.
  - mce

Erato Redux

Kiss me hard
on the mouth,
Muse.
Your breath,
my inspiration.
  - mce

Secret Negotiation

I have made
a separate peace
with reality.
I accept it;
It ignores me.
I call that
a useful treaty.
  - mce

Summer Gifts

The light
drips golden
down your breasts
and thighs;
the sun exhales
in your gasps
and sighs.
  - mce

Flight

There is always
another landing zone.
Will you touch down safely
or will you crash and die?
No way to know
until you get there.
Suck it up; we're going in.
  - mce

Free Offering

My hands are
always empty;
nothing to offer
but these words.
Not much of a gift
in a world that craves
material blessings.
I am seeking
the someone
who will accept
that nothing
and return it
with a smile.
  - mce

Relief

First cool morning
after days of heat.
The breeze gently
kisses my skin
like an absent lover
unexpectedly returned.
Such an intimate,
delightful surprise.
  - mce

The Physics Of Lust

Your body
clamps to mine
like a magnet.
Feel the electric
current flow.
No where else
to be but here;
nowhere else
you need to go.
 - mce

The Knight's Desire

He wants
so much
to remove
his armor
and rest
awhile
in arms
safer than
steel.
  - mce

Two Backs, One Being

Lift your dress,
and let me in;
the lure of flesh,
the song of skin,
calls each of us
back again
to seek the One:
not a sin.
  - mce

Anthropomorphically Speaking

A big snapping turtle
seeking living water
struggles slowly across
the rough gravel road
toward a dry creek bed
filled with rocks and sand:
Human, all too human.
  - mce

Playing The Odds

So many
kinds of light,
but only one
darkness.
  - mce

The Eternal Grammar Of Failure

I fall; I fell;
I have fallen;
I am falling;
I will fall again:
this is the root
conjugation
of despair.
  - mce

Sonnet Upon Waking

Waking to birdsong and morning's promise,
the whispering breeze and murmuring light
dispels the fog of the evening's gloom,
the shaking terrors of the dreaming night.
Ghosts visit in the trembling darkness
and remain until they are chased away
by a soft explosion of solar hope,
by the advent of an untouched day.
To wake is to make a fresh pact with life,
to attempt to find a new way to see,
to take up the journey once again,
to struggle for another day to be.
Like the helpless moth to the fire drawn,
I cannot say no to the voice of dawn.
  - mce

Father's Day

Now, it's just
another
empty space
to be filled
with a bottle
of whiskey.
  - mce

Empty Echoes

The words
you'll never hear
are the one's
you already
miss the most.
  - mce

Ultimate Lingerie

Slip into
my soul
naked
and let me
drape you
delicately
in the silk
of my heart.
  - mce

Exile

Not a place,
but a state
of mind
where you
dwell
in the midst
of everything,
alone.
  - mce

Turn Left At Woe And Then Make A Hard Right At Misery...

On the other side of suffering
must be something complete,
sustaining and whole;
but that path is always up,
mad, lonely and dangerous;
the destination may be worthwhile,
if only you can survive the journey
which is never, ever for certain.
Perhaps, one day, with luck,
I will meet you there.
  - mce

The Poems Of Yesterday

A tear rends the blue world,
the green words leak away;
the magick of this place has gone
there's nothing left to say.
Pack it up, grab your things,
be out and on your way;
a poet cannot live upon
the poems of yesterday.
  - mce

Morning Smiles

On the best days,
the world is a lover,
not an opponent.
  - mce

How Very Human

On the inky
black velvet
of the ridge,
thousands
of fireflies
blink out
a primordial
message of
incandescent,
luminous lust;
endless
points of light
signaling:
choose me,
choose me,
oh please,
choose me.
  - mce

The Ninety-Five Percent Excuse

If you spent
ninety-five percent
of your time alone,
you would be
ninety-five percent
crazy too.
  - mce

A Morning After

This old body
needs a
healing touch:
oh where
are the hands
that soothe?
   - mce

Locking The Garage

   - for Anne Sexton

The flag of loneliness
whips in the air
signaling torpid,
static despair.
Where are the smiles
of yesterday?
Decamped and gone,
gone to stay.
Bullets and pills
whisper, follow me;
how much is left
remains to see.
Better to slip
into the night,
embrace the silence,
ease from sight
beneath the wave
that leads (or might)
to the welcoming
and peaceful grave.
  - mce

Reading Lesson

The I in the poem
is the eye
of beauty and terror,
loneliness and regret,
hope and wonder.
It is not simply my eye.
If you cannot
come to understand
this distinction
you will never learn
how to read
with your heart.
  - mce

Tennessee Portrait

It is always fifty feet
to the outhouse
in the pouring rain.
  - mce

No Question, No Answer

There's really nothing to say, he said. Then don't, she laughed, just come to bed.
  - mce

Marital Explosion

For decades
our mutual
disappointment
sat between us
like a case
of lonely
dynamite
just waiting
to meet
a friendly match.
  - mce

Poetry

  - for Theodore Roethke

It is dipsetic work,
a gasping kind
of mental sweating,
that takes its toll,
requires forgetting;
the work of words
will drain you dry,
leave you thirsty,
make you cry;
that withered husk,
the writer's soul,
requires fluids
to make it whole;
the desiccated,
wilted heart
craves a drink
to mend its art;
and this is why,
I've come to think,
in vats of whiskey
poets sink.
  - mce

Silent Articulation

Sometimes, he said, your silence speaks directly to my heart. Well, she smiled, as conversations go, that's a promising start.
  - mce

Critical Couplets

When I read Blake,
I begin to quake;
my mind as frail
as a skink's tail;
for in that grain
of sand I see,
not the beginning,
but the end of me.
  - mce

A Drink With John Berryman

How many poets,
by alcohol and despair,
choose to depart
this living air?

The muse can be
an evil bitch:
she'll suck your brain,
she'll make you twitch.

With her it's not
a casual roll,
she wants your balls,
she'll eat you whole.

You strive to strike
the head of the nail;
one blow comes home,
but dozens fail.

Soon you despair
to ever succeed:
you open your veins,
commence to bleed.

You give to her,
and give and give,
until it's just
too hard to live.

Then in the bottle
you sadly seek
another day,
another week.

It isn't pretty,
it isn't fair,
and so you depart
this living air.
  - mce

The Mike Essig Memorial Library

It contains
many volumes.
Women show up,
check them out,
but never
return them.
I keep hoping
one will
come back
and say,
do you have
anything else
by this author?
She will be
the reader
of my heart.
  - mce

Morning Swim

Waking up every morning
to what might have been
is to awaken into a dream.
Pinch yourself. Rouse the now.
Get your bearings. Blink.
The today that really is
must trump the yesterday
that never happened.
You must swim in that river of today
no matter how cold and lonely.
Take a breath and plunge in,
take a stroke, feel the possibilities,
exalt in the water of where you are,
then pull yourself up on a new shore
and let the sun dry your worries.
It is impossible to swim backwards.
  - mce

Squeaky Nicotine Free Whimper

I contrive
to quit smoking
(poverty the motive,
not health).
It sucks. It hurts.
I don't like it.
The odds do not
look good
for success.
This is not a poem,
it is a whine.
So unless you are
a connoisseur
of fine whines,
there is no reason
to read it at all.
  - mce

The Death Of The Past

Soon enough,
these wars
of memory
must end.
It is one thing
to engage
in battle
with the living,
quite another
to quarrel
with the dead.
  - mce

Matrimonial Fault Line

I demanded
the entire
topography of life
which is why
I no longer
have a wife.
  - mce

Flight Of Fancy

This morning,
I saw a bird
that doesn't exit.
It vibrated one
pregnant instant
in my fluttering head
and vanished;
by far the loveliest
I have never seen.
  - mce

I'll Meet You There

When I think of you,
I imagine a place
where thighs
converge in heaven.
  - mce

Transmutation

I thought of you in bed alone last night, she said. My words, he asked? Those too, she smiled. Well then, he conjured, I can only hope the words became flesh.

A Jolt Of Lava

Tease me to
a surge of utterance:
these words
you slowly entice
to eruption
belong in
your mouth alone,
swallow them
as you like.
  - mce

A Waltz Of Yearning

How we yearn
(in the space
between is
and could
have been)
for the unlikely
second chance:
for a new partner,
for a new gasp,
for a new world,
for another,
better way
to dance.
  - mce

Blind Observation

The man with no eyes
fixed his vacant gaze
hard upon me and said,
You don't look so well
today, my friend.
Suddenly, I replied,
I do feel a bit blank.
 - mce

The Geography Lesson

If I touch you here, will you touch me there, she said? Here, there, everywhere, he replied, and a delightfully dangerous voyage of exploration began.

Oh Well, What's In A Name?

Beyond
the inevitable
ravages
of time
all he can
remember
is the vision
of her slip
drifting
like a soft
white cloud
to the ground
and that
is enough.
  - mce

The Machu Picchu Of Possibility

They made love
like two archaeologists
uncovering the secrets
of what might have been,
but never really was.
  - mce

Falling Away

Words
sometimes
dissolve
into silence
like drizzle
into mist.
  - mce