Whenever
you enter
a room,
your
whole life
enters
with you.

---

Once I wandered
into the labyrinth
of madness.
I spent
some quality
time there.
I don't know
that all of me
returned.

---

We were as gods then, he said, but the clocks came and rendered our lives into pieces.

---

People misunderstand me;
I only mean what I am.

---

On good mornings
I wake up
and sincerely vow
to change my life
for the better
which never
seems to happen.
On bad mornings
I realize that
I am what I am
and even
in America,
land of
mindless optimism,
endless second chances,
tsunamis of self-help books,
and an infinity
of religions,
that is all
I'll ever be.

---

If something
we value
means nothing,
then more
of something
becomes
an excess
of nothing.

---

Life without
a woman
to temper
my stupidities
is difficult
indeed.

===

It is easy
in stray moments
to forgive
yourself.

---

Don't be afraid of the world;
it isn't afraid of you.

---

Love rarely suffices;
friendship often does.

---

You are
the only sunlight
on my skin;
when you go,
I slip
into darkness.

---

The future
is a patient
dog,
always beside us
waiting
to be noticed.

---

I would die
for your eyes.
   ~mce

Seat a great philosopher,
mathematician, physicist,
and theologian at a table
at a swank outdoor cafe.
Have a lovely, graceful woman
approach to take their orders.
I can tell you exactly
what they are not thinking.
They are not thinking about
Physics, Math, Philosophy or Theology.
Big issues expire in the face of beauty.

mce

There's birth,
there's death,
and in between
there's maintenance.

****, shower, shave;
how boring
sometimes
to be a primate.

Enforced ritual
*****.

Perhaps
the meaning
of life really is
just to floss
your teeth
while waiting
to croak.

Now there is
a wonderful
cosmic joke.
  ~ mce (with a nod to TR)

Illness
Early in life,
     it's an
          interruption:

later in life,
     it's an
          omen.

Early and late
     the mortality worm
                    chews.

Early or late,
     it will have
          the last
                    bite.
  - mce

Beauty is an
evanescing
vapor trail
against an
azure sky.

Be prepared
to notice it
or expect
to miss it.

  ~mce

Solitude is a fine thing before it tips into loneliness.
Loneliness and solitude live in the same house
and balance until lonesome perfection prevails. Then,
isolation, black and deadly, squeezes from the heart
a choked scream of gasping need, until, finally emptied,
all that remains is a ruined cavern bereaved of light.

  ~mce

Dear Louise,

At 2:30 AM after
two hours of sleep
I feel I am looking
through a keyhole
and reality
is sneaking up
from behind
to give me
a much needed
kick in the *****.
Somehow, I have fallen
into a hole so deep
I can't climb out.
The arena of death
destroys the illusion
of safety and
at some point
the naked heart
cannot recover.
Everything seems
after the fact.
Everything is
after the fact.
You can't change
anything after
a split second ago.
I feel a curious desire
to do the right thing,
but there are not
enough right things
to go around.
Is life accessible?
Is life inaccessible?
I have the curious urge
to puke out forty years
of my life's garbage.
Maybe I'll change my name
to Antonio or Ivan,
move to Hiroshima or Dachau
and see the world
through the binocular
but astigmatic
eyes of a tiger.
If you asked me
to describe someone
I really know,
I'd be very hard put.
As a kid I wanted
to be a writer.
I wasn't sure
what that meant;
early ideals can **** you
but you probably
deserve it.
I know I am wrapped
so tight that if
I spring a leak
I'll sink in a day.
Could there be a way
to fence my life in
and keep the world out?
I am consumed
by fatuous sincerity.
I'd write down
all the options
int this case
but I loathe
the **** fascism of lists.
My hormones seem
to be deliquescing
into a viscous pâté
of late life protoplasm.
They belong on a shelf,
not in your pants.
I guess if no one else
will make use of me,
I'll have to make use
of myself.
This is a difficult task.
My life has been
a long preparation
for something that
probably won't occur.
For too long I have
defied almost everything.
A strong man would simply
drink himself to death,
but I'm not that strong.
Many of my sins of omission
are beginning to bother me.
Perhaps the only real use
for today is today.
Maybe I need to get
back to the basics:
eating, ******* and dying.
How to maintain
my equilibrium in the face
of incomprehension?
Waking up is a kind of homage.
Or could it be that
I don't need to change?
I'm just this.
Anyway, it's 2:30 AM
on a long night
in a strange life.
I'd better go.
Dawn may creep up
and release the
stench of coffins.
Louise, if you get this note
and understand it
please let me know
because I don't.

Sincerely,

Mikey

All poets are young,
some are just trapped
in older bodies.

  ~mce

You Learn**

After a while you learn the subtle difference
Between holding a hand and chaining a soul,

And you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning
And company doesn’t mean security.

And you begin to learn that kisses aren’t contracts
And presents aren’t promises,

And you begin to accept your defeats
With your head up and your eyes open
With the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child,

And you learn to build all your roads on today
Because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain for plans
And futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.

After a while you learn…
That even sunshine burns if you get too much.

So you plant your garden and decorate your own soul,
Instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.

And you learn that you really can endure…

That you really are strong

And you really do have worth…

And you learn and learn…

With every good-bye you learn.

JLB

They sit down and order beers,
but soon quarrel over whether
crows can speak or are telepathic.
Things turn ugly. They slip from
their stools and circle each other.
Anger has sharp blue eyes
and produces a fine-edged blade.
Rage is the epitome of cool,
his eyes are grey, he knows Kung Fu,
he waits for the fatal opening.
The crowd howls and eggs them on.
Then Death arrives brandishing
a loaded gun. Shots ring out.
Anger and Rage bleed out on the floor.
The crowd turns back to drinking.
Death calls for a round
of blood for the house.
Every weapon is relative;
But ****** is absolute.

  ~mce

Two solitudes
greeting,
touching,
and protecting
each other.

Once on a miserably
hot, humid day
cruising above
a silent jungle,
I watched
a twenty-two year old
Cobra pilot
clear his machine guns
on an ancient,
abandoned,
Buddhist temple.

All the hubris
of western civilization
explicated
in one burst.

Homer, who best
knew the hearts
of men at war,
could not
have sung it better.
- mce

Men ask the way to Cold Mountain
Cold Mountain: there's no through trail.
In summer, ice doesn't melt
The rising sun blurs in swirling fog.
How did I make it?
My heart's not the same as yours.
If your heart was like mine
You'd get it and be right here.
     ~ trans. Gary Snyder

You can find The Biology Of Strangeness  and my other books at my Amazon Author’s Page: www.amazon.com/author/mikeessig. You can get print or ebook. Read for free with Amazon Prime.

If you are kind enough to buy, please, please, please leave a review on Amazon. It takes a minute and makes a huge difference for any Indie writer.

Here is a chance to feed a poet’s starving cat. Not as much fun as sleeping with the poet, but more important.

Off to Minnesota to my God Son’s wedding. See you on Thursday. :) Mike

Perhaps balance is on the way.
Truly most of them are now poor drunks,
but that is what we wanted and got.
Manifest Destiny = I am going to steal
your land, crush your culture,
outlaw your religion and place you
on worthless scrub in human zoos.
But their tobacco has killed untold millions
and now their casinos take redneck money
from fat racists in polyester wrappings.
Perhaps in the dying American interior
abandoned for the masturbatory
promises of the glittering coasts,
in a few hidden thickets and glens,
their old ways survive and wait upon
a time, the right time, to emerge.
Maybe, when our greed has eaten us,
they will materialize, the buffalo return,
and the Ghost Dance will be unnecessary.
Hey, what goes around comes around...

~mce

Mykonos, 1969 - for H.M.
"Memory is a kind of accomplishment," - William Carlos Williams

Forty-five years later
I still see you
standing on that
dazzling Greek beach
wearing nothing
but your bikini bottoms
and an innocent grin.

A vision like that
can last a man
a lifetime.

Where are you now
smiling Venus?

Where am I?

   ~mce

a man of no fortune with a name to come.*

Important things are happening
in the outside world of events,
but no one ever mentions you.
You have had a celebrity buzz cut.
You are not attuned to twittering.
The glasses you broke work better now.
Your hunger for renown is so great
that you can't stand to order poverty.
The cat looks at you like protein.
Your bed is an ancient dry well.
The ghosts of your memories
can't even afford clean sheets.
Do not these signal events import?
If you could but get your boyish face
out there on the Internet, someone
in that outside world might mention you,
and the virtual lottery of fame would
allow you to purchase and stockpile
marrow bones, crème brûlée and ******.
You could go out with a belch of flame,
and everyone would say they knew you
long before you were even nothing.

You never know what you will find.
The eyeball of a cow. Weeping condoms.
Deserted televisions lacking flat screens,
no longer desirable, abandoned, forlorn.
A pair of torn, lacy,black *******
in an alley; must be a story there.
A cat with one eye and three legs,
devouring a vole. Scattered books awash.
A depressed, deflated hemorrhoid donut.
Soaked album of ruined wedding pictures.
Forever mute, broken, vinyl LPs.
Three shotgun shells but no shotgun.
Not a sign of the splattered victim.
Almost everything you can't imagine.
The devious flotsam and jetsam of life.
The ordinary stuff of nightmares and poems.
All the world's magnificent mysteries,
strewn like tears on streets and alleys,
waiting to be rediscovered, again,
like dangerous, lost New Worlds,
yours for the simple effort of walking.

A poem is
a hand traced
on a cave wall
that finally says,
"I was here,"
that's all.
  - mce

The universe has
a millions signs
that say no,
but
only a few
that say yes.



Everything is fragile
except the rope
around your neck.



Just another
day in paradise:
exciting as a
hole in the ground.



Please send me
a difficult woman
with a mind
like a razor
and a kiss
like a shotgun
blast.



If you think
with your ****
expect a few
headaches.



All the world's misery
is caused by people
who wear suits.



Sometimes, you must
must open a window
in your soul
just to let a little
oxygen into your life.



My anscestors
marched to war.
I flew.
Maybe there is
such a thing
as progress.



Why do we
fall in love
instead of
rise in love?
Because there's
no such thing
as a rise with
a thud at the end.



Cat's know everything
but divulge nothing.




Death waits
patiently as
a dead cat.



Enough now,
I am moving to
Lake Michigan
where I will
hunt wolverines
for a living
and learn
to eat ice.



Have to flee,
there is a warrant
out for me for
everything I
never did.



So difficult
some mornings
to face the
ugly emptiness of
the sober page



Wanted:
a future
without
a perhaps.



If you turned
wine into water,
made the living dead,
and called in demons
would these
be called miracles
and you hailed as
the new messiah?
Might be dangerous.
Listen: the sound
of hammers and nails
calling your name.



The Law is the Law;
**** is ****;
do the math.



Try not to **** away
your life on nonsense.



While I wasn't looking,
the whole earth was
zoned commericial.



There is always
another corner
around the next
corner.



Never let clocks
control your life.



Waking up
every day
is another
chance at
Spring.



Wherever you go
you carry along
all the places
you've ever been.



We are
breeding people
who will
have no place
in the world.



It takes
a life's work
to recognize
the mystery
of the obvious.



Much that you see
isn't for your eyes.



Exactly how long
does forever last?



I keep waiting
unsure of what
I am waiting for.



Sometimes, you walk
through doorways
in you mind
and can't get out.



When you are sure
you can't stand more,
the worst is just beginning.



We must learn to appreciate
our fatal savagery.



Don't disrespect alcohol.
It provides consolation
for the inconsolable.
Not a small feat.



Sometimes, art must be foul
in order to scrub the soul clean.

*

There are no
brave, new worlds;
just this one,
over and over,
until seen clearly
at last.

Oh, goddess Athena.
Bright-eyed
daughter of Zeus.
Third-born of the gods
whose spear hurls thunder,
tireless hope of soldiers:
lift me on my broken shield
and bear my body home,
far from these hollow ships,
the wine-colored, loud-roaring sea
and these high-hearted men
who have called down
stony-death upon me...

"Say it plainly, the human name doesn't mean **** to a tree." - Grace Slick

Stumbling the rocky falls path,
two large trees,
hickory and sycamore,
fallen to the last thunderstorm.

Soil and stones
festoon their naked roots;
leaves still fresh,
green, not wilted.

I clamber over and continue.

Now an obstacle,
in the cool of autumn
we will return
with chain saws, axes,
cut and carry this wood,
transform it into heat
for winter.

Walking, falling, cutting, burning:
all magical steps
in the inescapable process
of age, death, decay and rebirth.

The earth provides
and points the way.

We do what must be done,
following her lead,
taking our place,
in the process,
not so different
from grubs or termites
as we might like
to imagine.
- mce

Nice people
can only make love.

Sad people
can only ****.

Smart people
learn to do both
at once.

Smart couples
create that
kind of luck.
   ~mce

I am drawing
a pentagram
around our bed.
From within it
we shall issue
spells and charms
into the universe
and then lie together
in awed silence,
listening
for their echoes,
magick whispered
promises of
love to come.
   ~mce

for Pablo Neruda*

In your poems
the sun sang
yellow invitations,
eagles swam
in lilac ink,
butterflies discoursed
on desire,
the moon
whispered white
mysteries.

Your syllables said:
these are my arms, Lady,
lose that silky frock
and come into them.

My love feeds
on your love,
Love.

My lips
are for you.

You are mine;
I am yours.

We stand here,
the briefest moment;
let us stand together,
naked in eternity.

Dare to embrace this,
you murmured,
for it is all
the world can offer.

Eyelids fluttered out
ardent yeses;
sighs replied;
fingers danced;
many dresses
glided to the floor
with tiny gasps
of imagined pleasure.

Flesh and spirit
conjoined.

What woman,
could resist
the implacable sweetness
of your songs?

What woman,
having a heart
to hear,
would want to try?
- mce

You seem to remember robust days of anarchy. Heroic limbs. Tungsten nerves. Oak-like tumescence. But they may have been fictions imagined beneath dripping choppers or among Tennessee wild flowers. Your feathers now reject flight and time has pressed all blossoms. Everyday chaos directs your steps. The anaconda in the mud puddle only a curious worm. Shrunken shoes, but reminders of mortality. Where does light go when it’s dark? Why these dreams of deserted airports? Where has lust absconded? The universe looms a question of questions. The mute shades know all, but it’s difficult to comprehend nothing. You miss the caprice of logic. Confusion rains. You stagger beneath the headlines of oblivion besotted with sobriety. A corpse in Argentina guards the labyrinth's portal. Kale refuses to surrender its secrets even under torture. The fangs of women drip enigmas. Even the slugs have abandoned reason. The antennae of the night sing silence. You await a message from reality announcing the invasion is imminent. Do nothing until you hear from me. The sun shines, having no alternative, on the nothing new world.

However much think you know,
It is no more than
the thinnest gossamer thread
In the vastness of what is;
However much you value
Your worldly experience,
It is only a tear
In cistern of salt water.
Take courage, only the earth abides.

  ~mce

If you don't know
your watershed,
the names
of local trees
and plants,
who grows
what you eat,
where your
waste goes,
and what
generates
your electricity,
how do you know
where you are,
much less
who you are?
We are local
or we are nothing
at all.
- mce

I dreamed I opened a bookshop
where you had to pass a reading test
before you could buy anything.
I just might have promulgated
a radiant, renaissance of literacy,
but I went broke long before that.

Never chase your desired.
Just go to the place she will be
and wait patiently for her arrival.
She will find you at her journey's end
through her own life's labyrinth.
Only then, at exactly the right moment,
can you begin your twin journey,
gliding in harmony, together.

I'm standing in a massacre
the sky is streaked with red,
we took the hill, we won the day,
but most of us are dead.

We fought to save each other's lives;
We fought for mom  and dad;
now all of that's been blown away,
I'm weary now and sad.

The bankers took the houses
and Wall Street still stands tall;
we only took this ****** hill
that matters not at all.

I've been a soldier all my lives:
Shiloh to Vietnam,
from Valley Forge to Gettysburg
to bleak Afganistan.

But I am through with fighting now
these wars for gold and oil;
I'm falling back, I'm headed home,
to win my native soil.

You politicians better fly,
you bankers run away;
For I am home and angry
and that's how I'm going to stay.

You've never seen a battle,
You've never smelled the dead;
you shipped us off like cattle
to do the work instead.

Take back my broken medals,
Take back your shining lie,
for Armageddon's coming
and it's time for you to die.

I'm standing in a massacre,
the sky is streaked with red
we took the hill, we won the day,
but most of us are dead.

The bugles all are silent
as the night begins to fall,
but the living have a purpose
to go home and **** you all.

In the alleys
of my hometown,
ghosts jostle metaphors,
but today
I am not seeking
memories or poetry,
crocuses and snowbells
suffice.
   - mce

A Zen Drill Sergeant
once told me,

(screamed at me)

you always got to have
a fallback position, boy.

I asked what happens
if you don't.

He said, you don't
want to know that,
**** for brains.

The Buddha is
everywhere
at once.

Enlightenment
arrives from
strange mouths.
  - mce

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 *****.
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 ****** priest
hearing my own
confession
and finding it
absurdly tedious.
I am all of these
impossible people.
Who are you?
  - mce

On my Father's death last night.*

Death of a father. Night of nothing. Morning of less.
Anhedonia. A family like the Walton's on crack.
Drama looms. Not a human feeling in the bunch.
Death a hyena at camp fire's edge. Light goes out.
Step up to the grave. Now you are first in line.
Mortality worm gnaws. No exemptions. Gnaw back.
We are but a moment's sunlight. Some not even.
Only lesson. World goes on. Without us. An instant.
Good morning blues. Blues how do you do.

  ~mce

He told me once,
at seventeen,
in my parents' attic,
that he would be a star,
remake the world
in his own image,
forge his life
by his own hand
with his own tools.

It would all happen,
he assured me,
through his own will
and determination.

Other people
were unnecessary;
fate, destiny, karma
and bad luck
only existed
in the heads
of losers,
not for him.

He was exempt.

Nothing could stop him.

He declared
himself
invincible,
(he had been reading
Ayn Rand)
and smiled
patronizingly
at my own
pathetic hippie
lack of ambition.

Now,
forty years gone,
divorced, broke
and unemployed,
he bums a cigarette
and whines
about the economy.

Apparently
the world
had other plans.
- mce

Did not work out well for Brits circa 1857.
Sepoys blown from guns. Lesson learned. Empire upheld.
In America, history does not apply. Only winning.
When 3.3 million get up and leave. Syrian Chaos.
Oh, that magic feeling: nowhere to go. Or elsewhere.
Have much. Use much. Enjoy much. Care little.
Other than genocide. No obvious solution. Or Malthus.
Cats cry in Gelid winter. Home where you don't find it.
Gigantic cakewalk with no chairs. Only losers.
Oh where, oh where, will these little lambs go.
Anywhere but your back yard. Concern, not Welcome.
Find great open spaces: Australia, Antarctica.
Out of sight out of mind. Heart grows forgetful.
Remember Law of Unintended Consequences:
     I and the Public know what all schoolchildren learn;
     Those to whom Evil is done, do Evil in return.

   ~mce

To Be Governed**

“To be GOVERNED is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be placed under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality."

"A college professor is someone who talks in someone else's sleep." - W. H. Auden

Off to teach once again.
Another semester beckons.
Students who don't read,
respect or understand words.
Colleagues mostly
young enough to be
my own children.
Migrant worker wages.
If only I had learned
a decent, honest trade,
like mortician or plumber,
I wouldn't be in this fix.
Oh well, we must all do
what will feed us.
Once more, into the breach.
  - mce

At Blackwater Pond**

At Blackwater Pond the tossed waters have
settled
after a night of rain.
I dip my cupped hands. I drink
a long time. It tastes
like stone, leaves, fire. It falls cold
into my body, waking the bones. I hear them
deep inside me, whispering
oh what is that beautiful thing
that just happened?

~for all my new, young female friends here

Don't try to inhabit
your lover's heart.
It is occupied.

If you are truly smitten,
invite him into yours.

Let him rattle around,
poke and ****,
take some measurements.

Devour him
if you are fierce
enough and
so desire.

But then send him
on his way.

Remind him
your heart is not for sale.
You live there.

Keep your heart
for yourself.

Allow him his own.

Live nearby; visit often.

You will be
happier, truer,
and avoid needless
heartbreak.

And you will still
have yourself.
   ~mce

Three ravens
perched on
a bare branch
above the creek
stare at him,
but say nothing.

An old man
shivering
in the cold,
with many
questions and
no answers,
stares back.

They sit like
mute black oracles.

The truth
of the world
cannot be spoken
by the world.

An old man,
shivering;
three ravens
perched on
a bare branch.

Nothing but this
can be known
for sure.
  - mce

Someone recently
said to me,
"there is an epidemic
of loneliness."

There it is!

Now I know why
my heart flutters
when dusk approaches
and my soul
shivers at dawn.

I forgot to get
vaccinated.
  - mce

Suppose I caught
you one day
and gently kissed
the sole of your
tiny foot,
wouldn't you limp
a little then,
afraid to crush
my kiss?

  ~mce

Do not disdain
the mundane
eternal language
of now.
You must
understand that.
The common
is the exquisite.
This is a vivid
new morning.
Flowers open.
Women turnover
in familiar beds
to regard
their lovers anew.
Everything desires
to begin again
just as it was.
Do not disdain
the exquisite intimate
or you will be
lashed to the past
by a rawhide braid
of dead words.
Take joy in what
you are offered.
Flourish where your
seeds have fallen.
Love your world.

  ~mce

Sneaks up like a VC assassin
quick, invisible, deadly
the knife slides into your ribs
while you are thinking far away.

A sharp, sudden pain
and then sudden falling away
into a world of hurt.

Emptiness floods your body,
frozen and stuttering
in incertitude.

Ice enters your stunned heart.

It lasts a second, a minute,
an hour, a day a week, a year.

For that interval you gasp
with the hopelessness of life.

You do not want to die,
you only want to feel nothing,
to escape into nothingness.

And then it departs suddenly
and the earth returns to view.

Birds sing and women are beautiful,
the sun winks and you are saved.

Until the next time when
the unseen blade again finds
your soul and chaos blinds
you to life.

How far is it really from the murdered children
dead in the snow at Wounded Knee
to the crows eating the frozen eyes of German soldiers
before the gates of Leningrad?
How far from the hanging flesh of Hiroshima
to the piles of bodies at My Lai?
I have watched the news for 50 years
and it all seems like reruns to me.
So on the advice of a frisky, fearless wise woman
I stopped and now although death and destruction persist
I am free to concentrate on the things that matter to me.
Anyway, if the world ends, someone will let me know.

  ~mce

When I was a kid
and ****** something up,
my grandfather would say:
"If you choose to live
on the railroad tracks
you can't be surprised
when a train hits you."
All these years later,
I've been hit by so many
I no longer notice them.
And I still haven't
moved off the tracks.
   ~mce

Ten years ago when
I got divorced, I
owned 6,000 books,
a riding mower,
a house on an acre
and enough other stuff
to supply a Syrian
family for a  year.

Now I live in a three
room shotgun apartment.

A year ago I embarked
on a minimalist frenzy.

Out went the LPs,
the vintage stereo
equipment and radios,
the remaining books
(a Kindle is a
minimalist's best
friend), most of the
furniture (no one visits
here), boxes of magazines,
all the clothes not
worn in the past year,
all of my gadgets
and, best of all, my
wretched teaching job.

I wanted to pare my life
down to the essentials
and see what remained.

Now I live on practically
nothing with practically
nothing. I give my
occupation (when asked)
as Poet. That gets
wonderfully baffled looks.

I am eccentric to the
extreme and love it.

The cat and I, an old
anarchist and mute feline,

make the perfect minimalist
family living out the dregs
of an obscure, minimal life.

We are what we are, free
from the tyranny of things,
content to quietly
careen into whatever bit
of future remains to us

enjoying the minutes,
ignoring the years.

   ~mce

This morning I enrolled
in the Nihilist University,
but I don't believe
that I will attend.

  ~mce