My Muse takes me to peaceful cool pools,
Under suns and moons.
Exuding stillness through picture-view tunes,
Beneath the sky’s fine glittering crown jewels.

A poem is a statement, a speech or a song,
From twittering birds to the crash of a gong.
Some are short and some are long,
They sound like The Beatles and Louis Armstrong.

A song, a song, we can’t go wrong.
Let it play amongst the throng.
A hit that goes to number one,
To serenade the fit and young.

Those harmonies are with me now.
All I can say is Wow, Wow, Wow.
Songs of Love and chants of Hate,
Words of Hope and tunes of Fate.

Come on you’ve pulled, let’s have a date.
Time for dancing, I just can’t wait.

Paul Butters

Its cool to be a nihilist
And I was before
And my motto;
"I don't give a ****"
I really didn't
Because what is there to care about
Somethings really nothing anymore

But I began to see connection
And even the insignificant
Holds so much meaning
If you can see it
If you believe it
If that's what you make it to be

It's cool to be a nihilist
But it is foolish
Because music exists
And love
And happiness
And if you've felt them
You know how very real they are

My connection to god
Existentialism
The god inside of me says make it be

And it is

God
Or whatever god is
The universe
The cycles we don't understand

and you were mine

Let me digress

God
(As I've explained him above)
Or whatever god is
(The order in the chaos if you will)
The universe
(What we are, were, and will be)
The cycles we don't understand
(Some kind of ****** up cosmic plan)

Has designed it
So we can not lose
What truly belongs to us
So it is important
Nay, its is essential
That we not lose our joy and hope
When it seems we have suffered a loss

and you were mine

let me digress

All worldly possessions are transitory anyways

"What's the worst feeling you've ever experienced", she stared at her.

The girl cracks a smile and pulls back her caramel black hair, "My name is Kay by the way. It's not short for anything"

The girl blushes and puts her head down, "I'm sorry my manners seem to have disappeared. It's just that I've always wanted to have a serious intimate conversation with a stranger", she sighs.

Kay ***** her head and bites her lower lip. Looking at the beautiful girl with grey eyes. "Don't tell me your name then. Let's have that talk. I'll call you grey", Kay smiles exposing her pearly whites.
"I don't know what the worst feeling I've ever experienced could be really. I mean can we really compare each experience with the other?" Kay stares at the blue black sky.
"Each experience is traumatizing so can we really compare every traumatizing one with the other? Like they were all traumatizing but different from each they can't be compared", she closes her eyes as she allows the Sun rays to warm her face.

The girl looks at Kay admiring her carefree persona. She had some sort of atmosphere. It made the girl want to know her more, make her laugh and protect her? She furrowed her eyebrows and began to study her.
Kay had thin yet slightly full pink lips, she had a scar similar to Harry Potter which made her smile. She had an English nose and slightly pointy yet round ears. Kay opened her eyes and smirked. The girl lost her breath as she noticed Kay's honey eyes and began to clear her throat, "I uh I think unrequited love has to hurt the most", she bows her head.

Kay furrows her eyebrows in confusion, "How so?"

The girl scratches the back of her head, "We fall for someone and we love them with every bit of ourselves. In that process we lose ourselves by loving them but we gain parts of them from their love. However when the feeling can't be returned. We lose ourselves to someone who can't bear to lose themselves to us because they don't see us in that way. And it hurts because you know it yet you can't stop" she sighs.

"You can't stop loving that person. Loving them for all their wrongs and all their rights. For them simply being who they are. And sometimes you watch that very same person fall in love with someone else. And that part stings the most", she bows her head and clenches her fists.

"You wonder why not me. Why not fall in love with me", her voice breaks.

Kay looks at the girl with grey eyes intently and sighs. "You're really beautiful Grey", she immediately locks eyes with her and gives her a tight smile. "The truth about unrequited love is that there's always a third party you never know about. There's always that one person who watches you fall in love with someone that's not them. And to top it all off. The person you're in love with won't reciprocate your feelings. And it hurts. Watching the one you love, love someone else who isn't able to love them back. Talk about double unrequited love", she laughs.

"But then again there's this theory about unrequited love", her smile widens.
The girl with grey eyes furrows her eyebrows and scrunches her nose, "There is?". Kay giggles, causing goosebumps to show on Grey.
"No love is lost Grey", Kay stands up. Dusts her skin tight ripped black jeans.
"It's not unrequited forever", she gives Grey one last smile, exposing her pearly whites and dimples.

She sits upon her throne
With a crown upon her brow
A tangled mess of dead vines and bone
She holds a scepter of rotted bough

Her throne is black as obsidian
The arms are made of skulls
Around her are her subjects
these regretful wails of souls  

This is now her kingdom
This place she was delivered
All consuming fear and fire
Where prayers cannot be whispered

Even though she did not want
She will be forever despite her quell  
She pleaded and begged all for not
She is now the queen of **Hell

If you happen to find me with black coffee holding a peanut butter and peach jam sandwich in my hand you will find me loving life , sincere and at my very best ..

Catch you
my breath,
shambolic hope,
flustered thought.

Take you:
glimmer kissed tear,
aphotic state,
penny drop.

Hold you
my ridicule,
cowardness,
dreary repetitive wish.

Their weight devours me so.

I recently had the great privilege of editing Mike Essig's latest poetry collection, THE BIOLOGY OF STRANGENESS, and I'm honoured to have been entrusted with such fantastic material. Putting together a book like this is every poetry geek's dream.

It's a beautifully textured assortment of poems, earthy yet lyrical, narrated by a voice that's uniquely grained with experience. There are pieces that will make you smile, think, wince; there are pieces that hit you in the gut out of nowhere; there are pieces that welcome you into them like old, worn-in shoes; there are pieces you will remember late some night when you're by yourself, and remembering them will make you feel less alone.

This collection of poetry makes you look at the banal and the everyday afresh; it finds magic and mystery in the mundane, and even Hawaiian shirts are poem-worthy when Mike Essig's writing about them.

The Kindle version is already available through Amazon.

A paperback edition is due out next month, and I can't wait to have a copy of this book on my shelf as well as on my e-reader.

Mike's previous poetry books, Never Forgotten and Huck Finn Is Dead are also available through Amazon and are excellent.  

From his author profile on B Star Kitty Press:

"Mike Essig is a veteran of Vietnam and a retired English teacher. He’s also been recruited by the muse as a poet, like he hadn’t already been through enough."

Sample poems, links to sales pages and more info can be found at the B Star Kitty Press website.  www(dot)bstarkittypress(dot)com.

Please do support this very talented indie author.