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Mike Essig Apr 2015
The digital world
makes us lazy.

Music on your phone,
your tablet, your laptop:
instantly and casually
accessible at a whim.

But placing a record
on a turntable
is making love.

It is tactile
and personal.

Your hands must
be steady and
proceed mindfully.

It takes time
and intention.

You must handle it
gently, with care
and pay attention
to the process.

When you do,
you reach its sweet
analog ******.

Effort worthy
of Euterpe, Muse
of music.

She will keep you
coming back for more.

I do.

    ~mce
514 · May 2015
Hubris
Mike Essig May 2015
We flew into battle
like young Gods,
but fell from the sky
like shattered birds.

  ~mce
A war of choppers ridden like chargers by young men who thought themselves invincible but were not.
Mike Essig Aug 2016
I have heard rockets and mortars fall,
the screams of wounded men, heard it all.
In my deepest sleep, still those soldiers creep
into my dreams and beg me recall
that they once lived and still they exist
as more than names on a dusty list,
but each one a soul, though no longer whole,
whose memories must always persist.
514 · Apr 2015
Casting The I-Ching
Mike Essig Apr 2015
I concentrate on your name, your face, your words
and throw the coins to call the hexagram,
dipping into The Great Flow for a random answer.

It gives me #46, Advancing, which contains:

There is no need to worry, things will go well.

How cool is that?

Even the universe flows in our direction.

   ~mce
I-Ching, The Chinese Book of Changes. An oracle. One of the oldest texts in the world.
514 · Apr 2015
Manic With Poetry
Mike Essig Apr 2015
That's how it is lately.
Not getting any time off.
Grabbing each elusive line.
Searching out the exact word.
Images swamping my head,
so many and so fast that
soon I'll need an image sifter.
Barely time to eat.
Sleep at a premium.
Exercise neglected.
Shack becoming a sty.
Cat neglected and angry.
Never get outside anymore.
I love it, but
can I outsource any of this?
  ~mce
513 · Dec 2015
Even Angels Get The Blues
Mike Essig Dec 2015
I ran into an Angel
at the cafe this morning.

He looked shabby and sad
as he told me that
he has been unemployed
and at loose ends
since God died.

The stimulus package
hadn't helped
and there was
no unemployment
compensation
available for
the formerly Divine.

I commiserated,
agreed that times
are tough all over,
and paid for his latte.

It seemed the least
I could do.

  - mce
513 · Oct 2016
For My Shrink
Mike Essig Oct 2016
The nervous afflictions
of poets drive
doctors to dismay;
it is difficult
and dangerous
to diagnose
a chameleon
in a thorn bush.

Integrity:

All these decades
thirsting in the wilderness
and still he refuses
to drink the kool-aid.

Delight:

He has lived alone
so long that
he has learned
to hug himself
and enjoy it.

Where is the illness
in either?
512 · Apr 2015
Why I Live This Way
Mike Essig Apr 2015
Today at work
I saw:
A box turtle
treading water
while
a three foot long
water snake dozed
on a nearby rock;
two Admiral butterflies
making shameless, passionate
colorful love
in the uncut clover;
four indigo buntings
slicing the air
like Imperial lightening;
six vultures
sailing the thermals
above the berry patch
in an eternal gyre.
What did you see?
-mce
A Tennessee poem. My valley was beautiful.
512 · Apr 2015
Take That, Heraclitus...
Mike Essig Apr 2015
Each day
when I take
my morning walk
along the creek,
everything
is different;
some things
never change.
- mce
TN
Heraclitus said: You can't step in the same river twice.
512 · Jan 2016
Never Expect; Only Hope
Mike Essig Jan 2016
A ****** of crows
perched above
the newly
planted corn;
we expect sustenance,
they simply wait.
See how the world
mocks our plans.
  - mce
511 · Jun 2015
Why I Quit Teaching?
Mike Essig Jun 2015
I no longer
wanted to be
part of a system
whose sole intent
was to produce
reliable employees
when I didn't want
to be one myself.

  ~mce
It's nice or necessary to have a job, but that has little to do with education.
511 · Jan 2016
Ovens Of Suffering
Mike Essig Jan 2016
The holocausts
of personal tragedy
are an absolute necessity:
our egos are forged
of coldest steel,
only the fire of pain
renders us malleable.

  ~mce
510 · Jul 2016
Desolation Clues
Mike Essig Jul 2016
See how it all returns. Circling vultures.
Grief like a dull blade hacking.
Rend ourselves apart. Dingy heartbreaks.
Delicate stringency of stale perfume.
Dead kisses. Final whimpers of regret.
Quicksilver of light turns to sheets of lead.
Gunmetal pall falls across the bed.
Whispered passion breaks against life.
Night sighs succumb to bleak morning.
Time to turn the page to emptiness.
Gray days of walking away. Lonely streets.
You know this will all happen again,
men full of anger and women of pain.
Where do you walk to when you walk away?
You walk out of yesterday into today.

mce
510 · Sep 2015
Fall into place
Mike Essig Sep 2015
by Sarah Law**
You love the way my hair falls
over your bones, your prone body, how
I choose to cover you with words
so close to your own. From here
I can't imagine why we ever worried,
even the span of my hand, small
compared with yours, fits to your plan.
I write you down in barely perceptible
whispers, just so I know you exist;
you look for patterns that promise us
an ultimate alignment. It's so crystal clear,
the night sky's X-ray. Bright with symmetry.
I can't expose myself to this often;
I'd end up broken, on the floor,
like a cutting waiting to be swept
clean of its own implications. Tether me
to this quiet language. This one prophecy.
509 · Dec 2015
Cat Thoughts
Mike Essig Dec 2015
My cat Evan knows nothing of war
or famine or pestilence or blood.
Bravo to his ignorance of ideology!
He cares nothing for torn soldiers,
starving children, the Ebola virus,
or oozing traumatic amputations.
He sits solemnly on the recliner
listening to John Coltrane
thinking only tranquil cat thoughts,
imagining nothing more disturbing
than kibble and another day of naps.
He does not need to consider himself.
He is himself - a sleek, gray
untutored genius of silence:
the only true Buddha I've ever met.
   - mce
509 · Sep 2015
Aces and Eights
Mike Essig Sep 2015
Grinning Death
who smiles and waits
holds a handful of cards
that never loses;
I am not ready to call,
yet.

  ~mce
508 · Jan 2016
Hear Ye! Hear Ye!
Mike Essig Jan 2016
Disdaining experts, he specializes in
generalizations. He knows just enough
about everything and almost everything
about nothing. It won't earn him a Ph.D. or
gainful employment, but it's much more fun.
Poetry, like physics, announces the universe.
Who would not want to be
the town crier of eternity?

  ~mce
508 · Jan 2016
When The News Depresses You
Mike Essig Jan 2016
Just say ***** it.
Pull your lover into bed.
Be sure to call in well.
Spend the day swimming
among the sheets.
Practice every stroke
you know. Invent others.
By evening, you'll feel better.

~mce
507 · Oct 2015
America The Beautiful
Mike Essig Oct 2015
Obese women
in yoga pants
with garish
tattoos
sweating
like bovine
demons
while
screaming
at their
doomed
brats.

  ~mce
Mike Essig May 2015
I have wasted so much life
learning the unimportant.
I will spend what's left
sitting and unlearning.
Nothing is as important
as letting the breeze
flow through you like
an ocean current that
only exists to exist.
Current, wave, no-thing.
I am on my way.

  ~mce
507 · Dec 2015
Up The Rabbit Hole
Mike Essig Dec 2015
The world is comprised
of the four directions;
I stand squared within,
eyelids closed tightly,
gazing sightlessly upon
the nothingness that is,
the nothingness that isn't;
a blind navigator
hoping to discover
the impossible path
back up the rabbit hole
to the reservoir of tears
some men call life.

  ~mce
507 · Oct 2015
October Ghost
Mike Essig Oct 2015
the sound of a
helicopter above
a small
Pennsylvania
town in the
October dawn

time vanishes

once again
you swoop
above the
jungle in
terror

years pass
people die

your fears
cold and
sharp as

a knife

stick in you
forever

some wars
never end


  ~mce
506 · Oct 2015
Lover
Mike Essig Oct 2015
only a moment
between breath
and death

in that blink
let us lie

eye to eye
moan to moan

so that
when
it ends
the instant
flown

we truly know

we were
not alone

   ~mce
slugger
505 · Apr 2015
Leonard Cohen
Mike Essig Apr 2015
Who By Fire?**

And who by fire, who by water,
Who in the sunshine, who in the night time,
Who by high ordeal, who by common trial,
Who in your merry merry month of may,
Who by very slow decay,
And who shall I say is calling?

And who in her lonely slip, who by barbiturate,
Who in these realms of love, who by something blunt,
And who by avalanche, who by powder,
Who for his greed, who for his hunger,
And who shall I say is calling?

And who by brave assent, who by accident,
Who in solitude, who in this mirror,
Who by his lady's command, who by his own hand,
Who in mortal chains, who in power,
And who shall I say is calling?
For all those who think suicide romantic or inevitable. It's not.
504 · Nov 2015
Snap Poems #1
Mike Essig Nov 2015
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 commercial.

/////

There is always
another corner
around the next
corner.

/////

It is hard
on your soul
to admit
how often
you have
been full
of ****.

/////

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 heart clean.

/////

There are no
brave, new worlds;
just this one
seen clearly at last.
Random jots; hence, snap poems. Cookies that didn't turn into cakes.
504 · Nov 2015
Guerrilla Epistemology
Mike Essig Nov 2015
Although
running short
of ammunition,
he continues
to skirmish
hopelessly with
the unknowable.
  - mce
Mike Essig Apr 2015
If all the politicians
died tomorrow,
it would be a blip.
If all the scientists
and engineers died,
it would be an apocalypse.
If all the poets died,
so would god and love..

  mce
502 · Oct 2015
An Open Invitation
Mike Essig Oct 2015
This bed
is narrow,
but my arms
are wide;
join me.
you are
always
welcome
here inside.
  - mce
weezy
Mike Essig Jan 2016
His truest desire
was to free her from
her nailed down skirt
and pluck an
intimate chord,
plant feral kisses,
taste the sweetness,
hear the moan
and learn the language
of sighs and thighs
from the lips
that matter most,
to make a poem
from their
murmurings.

  ~mce
501 · Jul 2015
Une Femme Canadienne
Mike Essig Jul 2015
I wasn't paying attention
until I saw your face
and love struck like lightening
detonating a sacred grove
while the soul of thunder
swept through my body
in precise explosions
of unexpected desire.

  ~mce
501 · Nov 2015
Suburban Morning
Mike Essig Nov 2015
Instead,
of birdsong,
the endless,
grating drone
of idiot
homeowners
grooming their
perfect,
unnecessary
lawns:
mindless
*******
by leaf blower
  - mce
501 · Nov 2015
Inverted Karma
Mike Essig Nov 2015
The Zen Masters say,
when you reach the top,
keep climbing;
the deeper question is
what do you do when
you reach the bottom:
keep on digging?

  - mce
500 · Sep 2015
Obvious Slut?
Mike Essig Sep 2015
The fake blond
with low standards
sits on the bar stool
in a dress so short
it immodestly
screams take me home,
but I think she would
really rather have
a home of her own
and not have to hunt
a new man each night.
500 · Sep 2015
Life Force
Mike Essig Sep 2015
Our bodies
demand pleasure
to dispell fear.

We work hard
to keep death
at bay.

Every ******
says to death:

I am still here
and ****
I feel good.

  ~mce
498 · Apr 2015
Garden Song
Mike Essig Apr 2015
I only want to be
a flower in your garden;
I would never dare
to dream of being the garden.
Only a perfect man
would hazard that.
   ~mce
Mike Essig Apr 2015
Love is a dangerous word.

You should not say it
without consideration.

It contains a promise
that must be kept.

Can you? Will you?
Do you want to?

Don't proclaim what
you cannot deliver.

At least two hearts
may be broken.

Wait for exactly the moment
you know for sure.

When you are certain,
don't say it at all.

Instead, yell it loudly
and linger to hear
its beautiful echoes
wash back over you,
your own voice clearer
than you have ever heard.

Love is a dangerous word.
   ~mce
498 · Jan 2016
Silenus Laments
Mike Essig Jan 2016
Silenus, sad old satyr, wearied of seduction.
He'd cultivated enough nymphs
to last an immortal lifetime.
They were all the same anyway,
ubiquitous, their beatific bottoms
lifted and eager to be impaled.
He dreamed of mortal women, wary and with wiles.
A bit more of a challenge.
But a job is a job, even for a demigod.
Onward. he plowed another furrow.
Back to work. Hard at it. Poking eternity.
Once more into the breach.
  - mce
496 · May 2015
Electric Promise
Mike Essig May 2015
A storm is coming,
lightening and thunder
consummate.

Soon, it will be
on top of me.

If only that storm
was your electric body.

I would wail out a thank you
and place flowers
on Ben Franklin's tomb.

   ~mce
496 · Jan 2016
The Loneliness Dilemma
Mike Essig Jan 2016
Even
an octopus
wants
to be
tickled
occasionally.

~mce
Mike Essig Apr 2015
“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.
Hope only ends with death. While you remain, it remains.
495 · Nov 2015
Debauch
Mike Essig Nov 2015
it's great fun
when young
drink hard
inhale often
talk merrily
laugh deeply
pass out on
a strange couch

but when older
the terrible
price you'll
pay is only
a fluttering
of eyelids
away
Mike Essig Jul 2015
Time has lost track of me.
Daytime, night time, no difference.
Go to bed imbibing the right drugs.
Still no sign of sleep.
Finally at 3 AM I say **** it.
Get up, smoke a cigarette,
get out the cushions.
Twenty minutes of ZaZen.
I sit, I breathe, I wait.
The meditation concludes.
My knees and hips hurt.
Another cigarette, write this poem
and back to bed. Will I ever sleep again?
No way to know, no way to know anything.
I am a poor Monk lost in time.
The monkeys chatter, I am getting old.
I love a woman who frightens me.
My body deteriorates year by year.
My friends age, sicken, die.
Should I worry or just let it go?
Am I a fool or have I followed my Karma's path?
No way to know. Know way to know anything.
I am going back to bed to try again.
Only one thing for certain:
There are no more days in my life.
Every day is just the same ******* day.
Nothing to do but hit the sheets and hope.
Hope that today will be better than today.
Hope to keep breathing. Nothing else exists.
Night thoughts of an insomniac Monk.
Silence and submission, signifying nothing.

  ~mce
495 · Jun 2015
The Fringe Man
Mike Essig Jun 2015
He was born
not to cooperate
with the world;

to be proudly
contrary and
indifferent.

He tried
the straight
and narrow
just long enough
to discover
the axe finds
the necks
of free men first.

He thought
about it
and decided
life is better
if you are
no one's victim
and that he
did not want
to **** his
away on nonsense.

Contact with
humans had
fried his brain
into a remnant
of carnage,
a napalmed city
or forest,
cold scar tissue.

He had to unlearn
the universe.

Naturally
he became
picturesque
and poor.

Men thought him
lazy or crazy;
women, mostly
interested in
money and power,
avoided him.

It was easy
to become a hermit.

He wanted a life
as free from
other people
and consequences
as possible.

He hides out now
in the edge places,
the waste places,
where no one
looks or cares.

You might
find him there,

but you will
never catch him.

  ~mce
494 · Oct 2015
Tour Of Duty
Mike Essig Oct 2015
In Viet Nam
(if you lived)
it meant
365 days.

So wrong.

Coming home
began the real tour.

Each day an unseen mine,
a ****** sighting you in,
punji sticks along the trail,
choppers falling and burning.

All have their
civilian counterparts.

The worries of
the day to day
far exceed the
perils of war.

What they have
in common is
the ever present
possibility of
unseen death.

365 days was nothing.

Man, woman or child:
living your life is
the real Tour of Duty.

   ~mce
493 · Oct 2015
Head Sought
Mike Essig Oct 2015
It was a
frustrating day
and I admit
I lost my head.

Yes, it's true.

I have searched
everywhere
and can't find it
anywhere.

Of course, I
must get another
for a
headless life
is just
too dreary.

So if you have
a spare and
would like to
give the
aforesaid head,
contact me.

I'll keep it
under my hat.

  ~mce
Mike Essig Oct 2015
if you can
make poems

pellucid  
             limpid
clear & direct
as fine cut glass

but

(simultaneously)

fuzzy as
the stuffing
in a Teddy Bear's
head

occasionally

something might
actually get said

  ~mce
490 · Jan 2016
American Nightmare
Mike Essig Jan 2016
Once you find
your true niche
as a cog within
the system,
your soul turns
to steel, your
mind freezes,
you are caught
on the treadmill
and already dead.
Enjoy your
commute.

  ~mce
490 · Jan 2016
Slippage
Mike Essig Jan 2016
Darkness
leans toward me
like a lover
for a kiss.
So difficult
to resist
her charms.
Darkness,
sleep,
respite.
Perhaps
this time
I'll simply
relent,
surrender
and disappear
inside her
forever.
- mce
rp
Mike Essig Sep 2015
The world is teeming
with those who want
somebody else.

And yet you want me.

Sometimes it happens:
you lose everything
and then wake up
in a strange, new room
full of everything
you want.

   ~mce
490 · Apr 2015
What To Do Next
Mike Essig Apr 2015
Imagine
the eternal loneliness
that seized the Angels
when they heard
of God's death.

Every evening
I relive
that Angelic
loneliness
which reminds me
that no one
is in charge
and help
is not on the way.
  mce
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