Buried emotions, snuffed stale air,
vacant expressions with sunken stares.

All who come to the evening tomb,
cloud their lives within the room.

Clinking of glasses the flame of the lighter,
two strangers meet, become one-niters.

Reaching from trust now failed,
hopes wrapped up now kept and jailed.

Speaking present, the buried past,
masking in drinks, in hopes it will last.

Long enough to help forget,
strangers, soon lovers, talk and sit.

She now with her tinted hair light,
sits as he listens throughout the night.

Each one look for the night of need,
knowing dawn their guilt will breed.

A different loss, a hollow space,
another night to seek; erase.

Copyright: 2000 CMM

Wrote of love and how he felt…

Yet he seemed to be confused,

even in his witty muse.

He loved a lady fair with scarlet,

yet he often called her harlot.

He loved a young male of letters wrote,

but begged him times a sorrowful note.

His mind of genius and of words,

repeated times are often heard.

In plays and sonnets and in verse,

Thespians memories do rehearse.

So, his creative thoughts of madness,

the soulful writer’s joy and sadness.

A birthday we do with rememberance,

and seek our own Shakespearean semblance.

Copyrighted:  CMM  2009

Voices came in sizes and inflections
telling their lives in all directions.

Stories of anger, mothers and life,
sexual encounters and academic strife.

Nationalities were all represented,
each as they stood an presented.

Works of art in a smoke filled room,
coffee ordered and quickly consumed.

Listeners listened and interpreted the verse
some as a blessing, some as a curse.

Emotions were heightened as one gesticulation
stood on the edge of suicide or elation.

Others subdued in memories of war,
while others recalled the evenings they scored.

Readers and audience like me were all strange,
as we take words and life and uniquely arrange.

Then step to the mic, they gave up their soul,
from the very young to the seasoned and old.

My hair caught the smell of smoke in the air
while I listened and captured the love and despair.

I turned in the end and stood to see
they all were a fraction of reflection of me.

Copyrighted: CMM 2004