Mykonos, 1969*

I met you on a tourist island
bright beneath the sun.
I met you back when we were both
in love with being young.
I danced with you in an empty bar
and looked into your eyes,
for that only moment you get in life,
I gazed into paradise.
We wandered on together.
We knew it wouldn't last.
Our lives were much too different,
no one escapes their past.
I walked with you on the sand dunes,
I walked with you in the rain,
I walked with you in that instant
before life dissolves into pain.
Where are all those bright days gone,
those days beside the sea,
when the mystery of your freckles
was mystery enough for me.
That was nearly fifty years ago,
but you know I love you still,
for your innocence and your courage,
at a distance, I always will.
You taught me love and beauty,
in a lovely, beautiful land,
I've never quite let go of that,
never quite let go of your hand.

Pull down thy vanity.*

Woe be unto you. Sighing children. Left behind.
Make the best of it. Stand by your Brand. Freelance.
Start-ups of futility. Write content for six blogs.
Wake up and smell the copy. Serve drinks.
In three bars. Kludge together the rent. Part-time.
Hustle. Hurry. Make of virtue of activity. Be productive.
Convince yourself busyness is productive. Deliver.
Productivity as Divine. Ten steps to improve.
Seven ways to better. Fifteen hacks to boost.
Means of production stolen long before you.
You are cormorants with rings tight on your necks.
The truth shall make you work. Harder and longer.
Believe you are on your way. You are. To getting old.
Old and broke and lonely. To wondering what went wrong.
Your children will disdain you and the world you made.
Same story told with tattoos and piercings. Good luck.

My first real job
was trying to glue
blown up teenagers
back together.
I was twenty, old.
I held them in my arms
and told them lies
while they cried and died.
Told them it was ok,
they were fine, going home.
Their spirits lodged in
the secret chambers
of my broken heart.
I can never forget.
Their faces stick
in in my brain
like photos in a wallet.
I will never forgive
those who sent us to die
and then treated us
like mad, pariah dogs
if we made it back.
But we knew what we knew.
He today who sheds
his blood with me
shall be my brother.
Brothers in arms.
Brothers forever.

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

Weave your
nightgown
out of the
darkness.
Modesty
imparts to
your nakedness
willowy grace.
I thirst for
clarity.
I want
to drown in
the white bones
beneath it.

  ~mce

If creation
were simple,
it would be boring.

Contradictions,
internal and  external,
the garlic
of existence:

Pass me that clove!
- mce

It's not a hobby. Be prepared to give your life to it.
Read, read, read: The more poetry you read now,
the better your's will become.
Don't quit your day job. No one ever got rich writing poetry.
If you are seeking fame or to get laid,
there are obviously easier methods.
Ignore criticism, unless it is useful, and even then be wary.
Consider: Your feelings do not constitute the universe;
your love life may not be all that interesting.
Write every day. Don't wait for the Muse.
She is a fickle ***** prone to take random vacations.
Forget originality. It will paralyze you.
Write like a ******. That's what poets are.
Look forward to embarrassing yourself.
Say it in the fewest, best words.
Nothing is easy. Be prepared to burn for it.
Be joyful, though you have considered all the facts.

~mce

Well hello, sweet Muses.
How nice of you to drop by
at four in the morning.

Let me make you some tea.

How are you all today?

Oh, I forgot for a moment
that you are goddesses
and are always
exactly as you should be.

I'm fine except my sleep
has become oddly contrary.

But you all know that and more.

You are the magic that
stirs my dreams until
I give up and get up.

You betray me to nightmares,
insomnia, memories and poems
that could certainly wait
for morning if you so desired.

And where have you all been?

For three years, you've been gone
and I have been left mute.

Such fickle ******* you are,
only bestowing your favors
according to your whims.

But we have all, back to Homer,
known how unfaithful you can be.

Now you've returned and I can't sleep.

You know I'm not so young
as the last time you visited.

I need a little rest occasionally,
but you are working me to death
as if no time at all has passed.

There should be a union for poets.

Of course, I will do your bidding as usual.

Calliope, Clio, Euterpe,
Thalia, Melpomene, Terpsichore,
Polyhymnia and sweet demanding Erato.

It's nice to see you all again,
all so lovely and immortal,

but please remember I am only a man
and a man can only take so much.

So please, try not to show up before 8 AM.

~mce

I wake, you sleep on.
Your body in white
tight against mine
shares its warmth,
reminds me
of what I'd lost:
there is a world
and a life
worth living.

You make it real.
   ~mce

It is useless work that darkens the heart. - Rumi*

And what is work for,
beyond survival or
occasionally joy?

It produces surplus
which is bartered,
traded and sold
until it becomes money.

The dark alchemy of usury
piles it into the hands
of the few who use it
to oppress the many

who created it
in the first place.
     mce

The Universe is compelled to Upgrade!
Stars, Nebula, even Black Holes must be Improved!

Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Sis Boom Bah! Rah! Rah! Rah! Sis Boom Bah!

It is risen! It is risen! It is Risen!

Most marvelous, miraculous divine device!

Forget turning water into wine... Lame!
Forget Muhammed moving that mountain... Lame!
Let Lazarus flop back into the tomb... Lame!

This is Miracle as it was meant to be!

Oh grand glorious God of International Capitalism!

The triumphant product of American Genius manifest
in the work of many skilled primates' foreign hands.

Truly an event of Startling Global Significance!

And you have stood like a lemming on methamphetamine
many long hours in the rain to be possessed by its majesty
and now it is yours, yours, yours, yours alone
for only $649 dollars plus a few hundred monthly.

Let all the bells be rung! Let high Hosannas be sung!

A phone so smart it was beta tested on the lobotomized
and made them look like slightly scarred Steven Hawings!

The apps that are available will explode your existence!

They can provide *******, wipe your ***, ******* you.
Yes! Imagine Siri willingly kneeling between your legs!

Oh, but what to do about that first important call or text?
It must be equal in loftiness to this Digital Masterpiece!

Perhaps command it to call Obama and implore him to gain weight,
or Alexander Putin to tell him a Polar Bear needs wrestling,
or perhaps God to tell him he is no longer necessary.

No, all of these are far too paltry for that first message.

Instead, tell Siri to search for the nearest Lunatic Asylum
and book as many cells as possible for self-obsessed consumers.

That way they can text and call in medically supervised bliss,
undisturbed until Apple provides them with the next Transfiguration.

It will probably only be six months from now... **Suckers.

Tempus pro nemine manet*

It's the day there comes
a knock on the door
and you open it to find
a government agent
with a glowing, hot iron.

You drop your drawers
and OLD is eternally
branded on your ***.

It is painful, sad,
absurd and funny.

Sweet relief, too.

Never again must you
worry about getting old
or dying young.

You are old. It is official.

From now on there is
only older and older
until there isn't

and then the mystery.

Merrily, merrily,
merrily, merrily,
life and death,
but the same dream.

Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, Lady, were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk and pass our long love’s day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side
Shouldst rubies find: I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow;
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast;
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart;
For, Lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.
   But at my back I always hear
Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song: then worms shall try
That long preserved virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust:
The grave’s a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.
   Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapt power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.

It is usually best to avoid
crushing hopelessness, to swerve
and defer disaster, but even so
the world is well and truly ****** up.

Seek solutions to this conundrum.

Try to avoid curiosity, a pernicious
strain of insanity that conjures up
irrational fears of orangutangs
with meat cleavers, lethally ascetic
Tibetan monks, bathroom carpets
of abandoned razors or Big Macs
rife with E. Coli.

Avoid metaphysical musings that lead
to questions of coleslaw, vegan
water parks, the Team Quadraplegic
Gymnastics squad and the horrors
of the Hilary Clinton Naked Network.

Seek refuge in the present tense to
escape the interrogation of mirrors,
the crafted answer, dacryphilia,
remedial rage, landslides of therapy
and memorizing each month's horoscope.

Consider that mercy is on back order from God.
Remember the best lines of an unread book.
Nap on a battlefield; haggle over imaginary debts.
Set fire to the umbrellas of passing strangers.
Stop to watch the loudness and burn the recovered dead.

Call up new magic for a dying world.
Find beauty in the irradiated glow of burning cities.
Try not to bounce existential checks or notice
the crumbling of distant walls, ruined outhouses,
and the immense bleakness of forever and ever.

Take up training small rodents and lighting holy fires.
Ignore the broken stars, long dead and beyond grief.
Discover the pleasure in erasure, enjoy the biology
of strangeness. Walk many miles without a map
beneath innumerable ladders carefully detouring
around immense flocks of rabid cassowaries.
Throttle the recalcitrant blue sky's silent throat.

Listen to the melody of car wrecks and smashed guitars.
Abandon assumed corpses to dreams of endless cold.
Appreciate futures you cannot believe in but never visit them.
Learn to diagram sentences in Esperanto then speak with toads.
Ignore the slot machine odds against your deepest desires.
Hide beneath the ravenous trees from time's famished maw.
Seek sanctuary in toothy optimism and complete amnesia.

Follow these impossible instructions to the letter
and you will become non-valent, invisible, immune
and no longer notice the world is ****** up
beyond redemption. Go on, give it a try.

  ~mce

Sometimes
it's the only thing
between you and
death.

Distillers
have saved more lives
than all
the suicide hotlines
in the world.

Here's to you.

mce

Today is made real
by changing yesterday.
Time is not a line,
but a field within which
we particles dance,
and dancing, alter all,
making the past future,
creating active history,
performing our lives
behind living masks.

Dead people are no doubt bored, so I'm sure these folks would be happy for free food and conversation. Of course, this is just a partial list, subject to addition and deletion. Feel free to add your own in comments.

Buddha, but a light lunch.
Jesus, but kosher of course.
******, come on, who wouldn't.
James Joyce, just to mock him.
George Washington, to try to catch him in a lie.
Hemingway, but just for drinks.
Reagan, to deliver some Depends.
Bakunin, for mutual aid.
William Butler, my ancestor who survived The Wheatfield at Gettysburg.
Audrey Hepburn, but a date, not lunch.
Ingmar Bergman, just to cheer me up.
Ervin Schrödinger, about that cat.
Shakespeare, because I've always wanted to meet an extra-terrestrial.
Ezra Pound, to tell him he was right about usury.
God, to let her know how disappointed I am.
Richard Nixon, so I could drive a stake through his heart.
Julia Child, just to hear her voice again.
Lenin, because he was a self-starter.
Mozart, because he would be fun.
Emma Goldman, to dance.
James Dean, as we look so much alike.
Janis Joplin, because I might get lucky.

Come on, I'm sure you can add to the list. Don't be shy, try.

mce

You choose any noun
you would like to be;
I'll become your adjective,
gratefully.

How did it feel
not to be touched
for all that time?

Especially
for a woman born to touch,
who feels so deeply
the colors of the day.

You know more
of the hidden power
of loneliness
than you let on.

~mce

Last night he was eighteen
when he fell asleep.

The darkness filled with
insubstantial events,
visions of women and war,
marriage, jobs, divorce,
disasters and recovery.

When he woke up he was 63.

Life is but a dream.

She was
the Queen of Spring;
even her softest sighs
could sing.

Daffodils sprouted
from her lips;
Lilacs grew
around her hips.

Tulips blossomed
in her eyes;
Forsythia
bedecked her thighs.

Oh, she really was
the Queen of Spring;
even her softest sighs
did sing.
  - mce

It wasn't until the sixth century that the Christians
decided animals weren't part of the kingdom of heaven.
Hoof, wing and paw can't put money in the collection plate.
These lunatic ****-brained fools excluded our beloved creatures.
Theologians and accountants, the same thing really,
join evangelists on television, shadowy as viruses.

On her breast, my lover wears
a necklace of abalone shell.
Iridescent, it shimmers
in the light of day
scintillating and luminous,
a whirl of colors, radiant as her face
shining in my heart when she is gone.
  ~mce

There's nothing new
about this song
it's all been sung before
I'm just a broken soldier
bleeding from an ancient war

When I came home
there were no crowds
no bands for me did play
I slunk back like a refugee
And now I'm here to stay

Every door
was closed to me
no woman and no lover
to take my hand  to comfort me
to lead my heart to cover

You found me like
some fallen bird
you took me home and said
I feel this pain you carry
now come with me to bed

You took me in
you eased that pain
and soothed me in your arms
outside I heard the sirens scream
inside I learned your charms

You tried your best
to heal my wounds
to get me on my feet
but guilt was far too much for me
I left you for the street

I live alone
in poverty
I guess I'm here for good
there are no saints or saviors
in this fallen neighborhood

But listen to me
if you please
I need to hear your name
to know I'm not completely lost
upon these streets of pain

It's cold it's dark
I'm fevered and
I'm lost in bed alone
I never was much good at love
too weary to the bone

I need to kiss
your shining eyes
but you are far away
and I am caught so far from you
upon this lonely day

You were much
too good for me
my dark relentless lies
too good to see the enemy
within my felon eyes

I thank you
for your comfort
your body and your heart
the way you shared your bed with me
forgave me from the start

There's nothing new
about this song
it's all been sung before
I'm just a broken soldier
bleeding from an ancient war

The miles between us
are like sewing needles
each with a thread
the exact color of sadness.
  ~mce

Watching
an improbable
hummingbird
dart beneath
my deck,
I wonder
how being
without thinking
must feel.
Good,
I imagine.
- mce

It seems to have spontaneously combusted, but it didn’t. The disease struck long ago, brewed in the petri dish of Depression, WWII, and convergent technologies. Well before that, really, but that was the point of critical mass. By the 1950's, it was an epidemic. The independent Republic of individuals, small towns, coherent communities, distinct cities, local diners, shops and stores tied together with two lane blacktop was crumbling. Things only got worse faster. It was a disease of toxic, lulling dreams. American Dreams. And standardization was its crushing foot that flattened everything and left a homogenized wasteland in its trail. The old gods vanished and the new became despots. Go anywhere in America, Boston or Biloxi. You can’t tell where you are. Most shop at the same stores (real or virtual), eat at the same chain restaurants, wear the same clothes, gulp from the same Internet, swallow similar information, and think (within acceptable variations) the same thoughts. Even sin has become tediously consubstantial. Knowledge has been supplanted by content. Words are squeezed of meaning. Everyone is an expert and no one knows anything. Except Siri and Alexa. The Dreamtime of consumerism, consumption and conformity dominates. All that remains to come is the dominion of AI. Then we will all be watched over by machines of loving grace, free to graze in bovine bliss in the cybernetic meadows of bland utopia.

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

Call out for Love.
Call out for Love.
Call out for Love.

Repeat until it becomes
a chant, an incantation,
a summoning, a charm.

Expect no answer.

Love is a tattered,
weary ***** standing
on an unlucky corner.

Her feet hurt and she
wants to go home alone.

She is disenchanted
of desire; dog-tired of
endlessly being needed.

Love does not listen.
Love does not hear.
Love does not respond.

Love owes you nothing
and pays her debt in full.

RPW*

There are moments
in life when
unconsciousness
seems your truest friend.

And now
I lay me down
to sleep.

To what
unimagined world
will I awaken?

Unless, if I
should die
before....

  ~mce

One night
of shameless ***
with a warm,
willing, talented,
obscenely younger
woman
works every time.
- mce

I have read
the poem of your life
as I have lived
my own.

You are broken-hearted.
You are lonely.
You are defeated.
You are in despair.

So be it.

Embrace your pain.
Hold it close.
Surrender to it.

If you evade
your suffering,
you lose your chance
for joy.

Joy lives on
the other side
of suffering.

Wake up each day
and soldier on.

Show up for life.

That's all there is,
but it's a lot.

~mce

follow the yellow brick road...*

The terrible freedom unleashed by typewriters.
Condition of complexity judged without criteria.
Radical provocations. Urinals and prams. Contingent.
Anarchist aesthetic. Not truth nor beauty but freedom.
Materiality of language. Multi-hued wheel barrows.
A cuttlefish. A crate. A cassowary. A cigarette. A ******.
Paratactic order. Particular phrasing. Pulsing pastiche.
An infinite conversation without resolution
as with the stupid friend who won’t shut up. Ever.
A transcendent dialectic based solely on proximity.
Ineluctable modality of the near. Only that. Buck it.
An unquiet ghost endlessly self-questioning. No answers.
Moaning in the meaning. A simple stuttering. Sibilant.
Turbulent and unpredictable as waddling wolverines.
Words that only mean whatever is seen. Juxtaposition.
Dissolving into desired dissonance. The magic chord.
Absolute verity in the experience of the fraudulent
for the same reason as the ubiquity of toothpaste.
     The poem as its own universe, complete and whole,
     fodder for the mind, not balm for the soul.

by Kim Addonizio

I have been one acquainted with the spatula,
the slotted, scuffed, Teflon-coated spatula

that lifts a solitary hamburger from pan to plate,
acquainted with the ******* known as the Pocket Rocket

and the ***** that goes by Tex,
and I have gone out, a drunken *****,

in order to ruin
what love I was given,

and also I have measured out
my life in little pills—Zoloft,

Restoril, Celexa,
Xanax.

I have. For I am a poet. And it is my job, my duty
to know wherein lies the beauty

of this degraded body,
or maybe

it's the degradation in the beautiful body,
the ugly me

groping back to my desk to ****
on perfection, to lay my kiss

of mortal confusion
upon the mouth of infinite wisdom.

My kiss says razors and pain, my kiss says
America is charged with the madness

of God. Sundays, too,
the soldiers get up early, and put on their fatigues in the blue-

black day. Black milk. Black gold. Texas tea.
Into the valley of Halliburton rides the infantry—

Why does one month have to be the cruelest,
can't they all be equally cruel? I have seen the best

gamers of your generation, joysticking their M1 tanks through
the sewage-filled streets. Whose

world this is I think I know.

Send me dead flowers...*

He wanted his tombstone
to exhibit just the facts, Ma'am.

No cherubs or platitudes,
meaningless dates or military service.

Only the really important stuff.

Which toenail had the fungus.
His endless dreams of falling.
His penultimate decision about
the imminent existence of God.
How he became a hermit.
Why bourbon was the best medicine.
How, after 57 years, he found a voice.
His two or three best puns.
The virtues of solitude and celibacy.
The best *** he ever had.
Who really killed the Kennedy's.
How he came to fear cassowaries.

Just the things that really mattered.
The things that actually made a life.

This might require a billboard
intsead of a tombstone.

Little enough to ask for eternity.

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

Craft it oblique,
nearly opaque.
English lacks an
****** 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

Beneath my window
some workmen are blaring
bad 80s rock and, worse,
singing along.

How come
I never seem to have a gun
when I could use one.

This will go on
for mindless hours.

The day's silence but a memory;
It's time for me to flee.

  ~mce

If you must
participate,
you might
want to boil
the air
before
you enter.
  ~mce

Sometimes naked,
Sometimes mad,
Now the scholar,
Now the fool,
Thus they appear on earth:
The free men.

A Ballad For A Thin Man.

Understood backwards. Lived forward. Life.
Haunted by diverging others. Us but not. Wraiths.
Ghosts of what if? Who then? What might have been?
Leave room. Turn left. Lovely house, wife, retirement.
Leave same room. Turn right. Shack, loneliness, poverty.
Theorize games. Physik quanta. Slide down strings.
Into Wonderland, Oz, Middle-Earth. Narnia.
All the places that don’t exist and matter the most.
Where doors open up to impossible possibilities.
Fight your way through every day. Pit bull of potential.
Just do your work and be kind.* That is a separate peace.
We may be others in other universes, but here we are just us.
**** it up. Love your life. Do what you must. Soldier on.
Real realities can really hurt. Take it like a Man. Or Woman.
Be grateful for your trials. Trials are you. Struggle.
Mount the philosopher’s donkey backwards, advance.

THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS**

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
— Wendell Berry

Quit acting like
a hungry alley cat
or a salivating dog.

Pounce!

Just kiss the girl!

What, other than
stitches or a black eye,
can really go wrong?

And imagine what could
go right...

   ~mce

for Nietzsche*

Relax a bit.
Stop being so
****** Germanic.
Too much questing
after the truth
engenders, finally,
heartburn
and hemorrhoids.
Purge yourself.
**** epistemology.
Eat a paw paw.
Have a drink.
Count the cobwebs.
Learn to know
your toes.
Put that book
back on the shelf.
Accept the sunshine
that may illuminate
an uncritical moment.
Bask in it.
Release your mind
to wander aimlessly
in nature's delight.
Penetrate the Goddess.
Become the lover
content to enjoy
what cannot last,
what will be lost.
Save your questions
for a cloudy day.
There is more
to knowing
than knowledge
can say.
  - mce

If I can but
squeeze through
the narrow Bardo
one more time,
perhaps
I'll get it right.
  - mce

A strange woman
dances in dreams
snug in bed
far to the north
in a kingdom
of ice and desire.
She is wrapped
in red velvet
and flowing hair;
her ample *******
rise and fall sighing
for the lost sun;
her hips recall
the warmth
of summer lovers.
Something stirs
between her thighs.
Wise otters
gather and chant
about her
in a charmed circle
intoning mystery.
She is at once
their priestess
and their captive;
a rosetta stone
not yet deciphered
for a language
as yet unspoken.
They offer her
perfect lake pearls
dripping light;
their fur glistens;
their tiny paws
clap out ecstasy.
Her world is cold,
but she is warm.
She does not see
as others see;
does not feel
as they feel.
She is caught
in the ceremony
she leads.
He feels
her body sway
across the boundaries
of man and time.
The gods of poetry
disdain distance.
Far away
in a south of hills
and waterfalls,
imagining her,
he knows
that she knows
what he knows.
  - mce

I have always believed
that every woman
deserves a poem.

If you have never
read those words

(though doubtless
you deserve better)

accept these words
until your own
arrive.

   ~mce

To The Woman**

Yes, you remember,
You certainly remember
The way I listened
Standing at the wall
As you walked to and fro about the chamber
Reproving me
With bitter words and all.

You said
That it was time we"d parted,
And that my reckless life,
For you, was an ordeal,
And it was time a new life you had started
While  I was fated
To go rolling downhill.

My love!
You didn"t care for me, no doubt.
You weren"t aware of the fact that I
Was like a ruined horse, amidst the crowd,
Spurred by a dashing rider, flashing by.

You didn"t know
That I was all a-smoke,
And in my life, turned wholly upside-down ,
I was in misery,   downhearted, broke,
Because I didn"t see which way we were bound.

When face to face
We cannot see the face.
We should step back for better observation.
For when  the ocean boils and wails
The ship is in a sorry situation.

The world is but a ship!
But all at once,
Someone, in search of better  life and glory,
Has  turned it, gracefully,  taking his chance,
Into the hub of storm and flurry.

Well,  which of us
On board a mighty boat
Has never brawled nor barfed nor fallen down?
There are not many of them that will not
Despair when they"re about to drown.


Me,  too,
To loud hue and cry,
But knowing well what I was doing
Went down to the hold where  I
Might keep away from scenes of spewing.

"Hold" was a Russian pub
Where I
Drank,   listening to the loud bicker,
I tried to stop my  worries by
Just drowning myself in liquor.


My love!
I worried you, oh my!
Your tired eyes revealed dejection,
I didn"t hide from you that I
Had spent my life in altercation.

You didn"t know
That I was all a-smoke,
And in my life, turned wholly upside-down,
I was in misery, downhearted, broke,
Because I didn"t see
Which way we were bound.

....................................

Now many years have passed,
I"m not so young today.
I do not  feel the same, and I  have new ideas,
And here at festive table  I will say:
Long live the one who"s at the steers!

Today I,
Seized by tender feelings so,
Recall your  wistfulness,  and I am happy  
To tell you straight, for you to know,
About what I was  
And what has happened!

My love,
I"m glad to tell you that
I have escaped a bad descent, an"
Today I"m in the Soviet land
A staunch supporter and defender.

I"m not the man
I used to be.
I wouldn"t hurt  you now
The way I did.  So silly!
And I would follow Labour, feeling free,
As far as English Channel, really.

Forgive me please,
I know that you have changed.
You live with an intelligent,
Good husband;
You don"t need all this fuss and all this pledge,
And you don"t need me either, such a hazard.

Live as you do
Lead by your lucky star
Under the tent of fern, if there"s any.
My best regards,
You"re always on my mind, you are,
Yours, faithfully,
           S e r g e y   Y e s e n i n.

on belatedly hearing of an old friend's death*

A simple 18-year-old
Pennsylvania kid.

He volunteered
to lead a patrol
down a heavily
mined road.

Gifts were exchanged.

He gave them
half a left leg
and a whole
right foot.

They gave him a
shining silver star
in a beribboned box.

A few moments
of congratulations
before whiskey, drugs
and homelessness ensued.

The hero's life.

Now he is dead,
the medal long pawned.

Life can be merciless
even for the brave.

No part of this story
means anything.

  ~mce

When I go out,
my cat sprawls
on the carpet and
dismisses me with
a half-opened eye.

When I return, I
find him in the
same disdainful
posture.

But I imagine that
when I am gone
he calls his cat
buddies, they come
over, drink beer
and whiskey,
smoke cigars, play
poker and watch
kitty ****.

Small wonder the
poor beast needs
so much sleep.

  ~mce

So many lovely, young girls
brimming with despair and despondency.

Makes an old man sad.

You are like buds that can't blossom.

Casual ***, attempted suicide,
drugs, alcohol, broken hearts:
all accrue to the self-aware.

Self-awareness is a great gift,
but acutely painful
to the very young.

Never use a man to define yourself.
Only disappointment lives there.
Men aren't all that smart
or valuable, you know,
and can be easily replaced.
In 40 years, you won't remember
his name.

None of this is new.

The trick is to find
your way to survive
and do it no matter what.

On the other side of suffering
is life, and perhaps more suffering.

You don't need bunnies and rainbows,
you only need yourselves and time
and toughness and belief.

Go ahead and blossom.

Make an old geezer smile.