COA

You can try Creek Watcher but beware, it is a horse of a very different color...

Leonard Cohen

I did my best; it wasn't much.
I couldn't feel, so I learned to touch.
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you.
And even though it all went wrong,
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
with nothing on my lips but Hallelujah.

Benefaction

Lord, accept
my madness
as an offering.
Crazy as  I may be,
you created me.
  - mce

Some Wars Never End

Beauty is a war
that must be fought.
She will not
surrender herself
easily.
Gather your strength,
attack relentlessly.
In the end,
you may win
a bit of her
for yourself.
Only do not
imagine total victory.
This war rages
without end.
  - mce

Hierarchy

The creeds of men
are condoms
creating a barrier
between ourselves
and God.
Consummation
must be direct.
You must enter
and feel the Fire.
The Divine
is a disease
you must want
to catch,
an infection
you must embrace.
Touch and burn.
 - mce

Unoriginal Sin

There is a girl in my cabin.
She sits on my brown, velor
porno couch with her long legs
tucked beneath her
like folded promises.
She wears nothing but a pair
of wool socks and an old, flannel
shirt of mine.  The wood fire blazes.
Her honest blond hair
cascades to the small of her lovely back.
Her skin is the flawless pink
of an unexpected spring sunrise.
Her eyes are emeralds that blaze
like novas when we make love.
Botticelli might have painted her.
I am reading Neruda to her aloud.
She imbibes his words like a toddler
learning language for the first time.
I light her cigarette and she laughs,
radiating the shameless pleasure
only the very young experience.
She expects nothing of me,
but this one evening,
and that is all she will get.
She says her name is Casey;
she is all of twenty-one.
Perhaps I am a dirty old man;
perhaps I am incorrigible;
perhaps I will burn in Hell;
perhaps I am a casualty of Eros;
or, perhaps, I am simply alive.
 - mce

Credo

Judge me if you like,
I do not care.
My sins are mine.
Look to your own.
The flesh beneath
my lips is my choice.
Choose what you must.
I am not a saint,
only a man
caught in my desire,
needing what I need
and taking it.
Get your own.
Take what you need.
Leave me in peace.
I will do the same.
This is all any of us
can manage.
  - mce

Identity

I am a pirate
pacing a quarterdeck
before a battle.
I am Adam
beneath the apple tree
waiting to bite
into the New Order.
I am a hopeful heretic
praying for immolation
but unable
to strike a match.
I am a corpse
writing a will
in blood and semen.
I am a soldier
watching a friend
erupt in a fog
of pink viscera.
I am a madman
twitching on a couch,
forgotten in a corner
of a windowless chamber.
I am a hero
slaying griffins,
destroying dragons,
ravishing maidens
as my rightful reward.
I am a lover
to whom ladies
open their thighs
and abandon
their honor,
willingly.
I am a tone deaf poet
singing a defeated song.
I am the amateur torturer
carefully sharpening
his instruments,
but then unable to find
meaningful work.
I am a voyeur priest
hearing my own
confession
and finding it
absurdly tedious.
I am all of these
impossible people.
Who are you?
  - mce

Prescription

You shall not find solace
in the marble laws of Man.
Self-help programs
will not dispel the emptiness.
Sex alone will not prevail.
The constructs of religion
will not abide your dreams.
God is a disinterested third party
waiting to be approached,
not caring if he is or isn't.
Submit to the vacuum
of your heart at four a.m.
Surrender to the void
that only love can fill.
Drink deeply; hold tight.
Dawn must come.
  - mce

Antipodes

A pirate sailed south, but too far.
The good ship's prow found
harbors filled with icebergs,
frolicking penguins and walruses:
it began to snow inside his mortal soul.
He dreamed of perfect white beaches,
warm sand, sunlight, palm trees
and (perhaps) a lovely French poet in a slight bikini
lolling like Erato on holiday.
He could taste the sun and coconut on her skin.
It was only a vision, but one worthy of a quest.
He preferred living dreams to dead conclusions.
Many people told him he dreamed too much,
to accept this landfall and be content.
But cold and darkness are not a pirate's lot
and contentment does not appear
in the official pirate's vocabulary.
Even an aging pirate holds true to course,
pinned like a medal to his longing and desire.
More sail, he cried, and turned the helm
toward the islands of his heart,
toward a landfall of warmth and color,
toward hot and willing flesh,
toward parrots and monkeys and blue skies.
Leaving the nay-sayers in the cold,
he headed the only direction a pirate can, further.
 - mce

The Sunny South

Woke with a start
from a nightmare
at five a.m.
to find the valley
covered with snow.
Even the weather
betrays me.
  - mce