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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
Mike Essig Apr 2015
Do not mistake
the poems for the poet.

The exquisite grace
of a panther
stalking the jungle
in blackest night
renders it
not one iota
less dangerous.

Enjoy my words
at a safe distance.

Never, dear reader,
confuse the words
with the man.
- mce
Mike Essig Mar 2016
Grab Your ***** And Hide The Starch!*

Begin the day with a lean and hungry cook. Seize her.
Catch the tide or lose your dentures. Vault of jars.
Cry "Amuck!" and let slip the hogs of yore.
Bid me done, and I will thrive on the impossible.
This foul **** shall stink above the hearth.
Pardon me, you breeding piece of worth.
You crocks, you crones, you worse than senseless things!
Consider the I'd's and beware of scam.
Perhaps by dusk you can say: This was a yam!

  ~mce
Mike Essig Jan 2016
These gelid mornings
engender island dreams
of pinkest flamingos,
hot sands, swaying palms,
chattering parrots,
and rising tropical sun;
but finer far, Lady,
(closer, nearer, softer)
would it be to wake
beside your naked flesh
(willing, inviting, enfolding)
beneath a pile of quilts
in the dawn's iron chill
and coax from that
smoldering feminine heat,
from the striking sparks
of your eager kisses,
the exquisite, explosive fuel
of your caresses, deep
within the you of you,
the first fire of the new day.
  - mce
Mike Essig Apr 2015
Each time
I've faced
a major change
in my life,
I was sure
I would die

and I did.
Mike Essig Sep 2015
I used to be
a scholar vulture,
picking the flesh
from other's texts;
now I read
for pleasure
and my mouth
is full of
other writers'
dreams.

  ~mce
I don't miss being a professor.
Mike Essig Nov 2016
I'm only a poet with only a song,
and sometimes I get it, and sometimes it's wrong.
I live in a box, a box made of pain.
It sits in a field at the end of a lane.
A house without windows, a house without heart.
It's hardly a castle, but I call it a start.
It sits in its loneliness, no cars pass it by,
it crouches in loneliness beneath a gray sky.
The world stops outside. I stay within,
with my words, my memories, my pride and my sin.
I remember you baby when you came to this place
with your cheap lingerie and your lust on your face.
I remember you baby how you gave me that look
that no lonely alchemist could find in a book.
That look that told me that you wanted it all,
that led us to gasp and to writhe and to fall.
Your fingers were fever, your tongue was a snake,
you drew me inside you, your fire made me shake.
But love burns out as it flares in the night.
We got most of it wrong, but some of it right.
And then you were gone and I was alone
with a heart that was broken into pebbles of stone.
Left in that box, that box made of pain,
that sits in the field at the end of the lane.
See I'm only a poet with only a song,
and sometimes I get it, but for you I was wrong.
Mike Essig Apr 2015
"True initiation never ends." - R.A.W.

Forsake the bolted Temple gates;
dogma has frozen them shut.
Ride the howling night of storms
following the path of your heart.
Shed the armor of limitations.
Travel fast and travel light.
Expect no guidance but courage.
When the tempest abates,
the stars alone will light your way.
A gleaming chapel blocks the road.
To go on, you must go through.
Enter and confront the King;
ask the questions you carry.
Release the burden of your self.
A simple, earthen cup will appear.
If you dare to drink it deep and dry,
you will see a portal traced by flames
leading to a green and warm world.
If you falter, you must repeat the quest.
There is only one road, one chapel,
and each of us must approach it
broken, alone and filled with fear.
Steel your heart. Try again and again.
Each soul contains the proper moment.
  - mce
Mike Essig Apr 2015
“Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.”
My favorite quote from one of the most quotable.
Mike Essig Apr 2015
We are
Born like this
Into this
Into these carefully mad wars
Into the sight of broken factory windows of emptiness
Into bars where people no longer speak to each other
Into fist fights that end as shootings and knifings
Born into this
Into hospitals which are so expensive that it’s cheaper to die
Into lawyers who charge so much it’s cheaper to plead guilty
Into a country where the jails are full and the madhouses closed
Into a place where the masses elevate fools into rich heroes”
Not a big fan, but when he's on, he's on and here he is.
Mike Essig Jun 2015
Oh, my broken country.

You are cracking now,
faster and faster
and into the cracks
not light,
but darkness flows.

When that
darkness prevails,
you will
crumble into chaos
and your people
will wade in
in their brothers'
blood.

And there
will be no more
second chances.

  ~mce
Mike Essig Mar 2017
for KA*

There is something in this for both of us. We have chemistry, let's be lab partners. Help me with problems like which would make a better poem: a pandemic, a wolverine, or a broken heart? You know I only chose you because you enjoy my fondling your blond *** as you lean over the Bunsen burner, because we have flammable *** on the periodic table, but this is more serious than calculations or *******. As a poet, I need to access the deeper moaning of reality, but you are a screamer, not a moaner. Let's experiment anyhow. Lift that skirt and let's explore something elemental, make a new molecule, feel the reaction. Help me probe the fundamentals of creation and I may love you, though surely not enough, as we are both non-valent. Even though we may never bond, we are in this together, partner. Lift your beaker to my lips. Outcomes are never certain.
Mike Essig May 2015
Let your body
be a
cherry tree
in spring,

its petals
falling slowly
to cover me

completely.

   ~mce
Mike Essig Apr 2015
Morning doves and sunlight;
waking up with a fuzzy head,
logy and still half dreaming,
I remember that
you are real and warm.

Knowing that somewhere
you may be smiling
like a Cheshire angel,

how could I not?
   ~mce
Mike Essig Jun 2018
The wind is curiously silent tonight.
Nothing disturbs the deep darkness,
but the wafting scent of madness.

In the desert, captive children
toss and turn, whimper and sleep,
the government their souls to keep.

They will wake to razor wire,
and the company of strangers,
caught in concentration camps
of unknown bureaucrats and guards
blamelessly following the orders
of distant, calculating masters
who play political chess
with the lives of the innocent.

The country that separates
mothers from their babies
will rise and ask no questions,
going about its business,
buying, selling, grasping at more,
untouched by this insanity,
kissing its own kids good morning,
unwilling or unable to feel or see
the malignant cancer eating its way
through the complacent, rotting soul
of what, once upon a time, used to be

the home of the brave,
the land of the free.
Mike Essig Apr 2015
Another day
to show up for.

Chores to do,
people to love,
choices to make:

nothing special.

Just what is,
just all that is,
just everything
that matters.
  - mce
"Chp Wood, Carry Water" comes from a Zen description of enlightenment
Mike Essig Dec 2016
All I want for Christmas
is peace on earth
(well, at least in Amerika);
a black, velvet painting of Elvis
(the old, fat Elvis of course);
massive volcanic eruptions
along the Rim of Fire
with ensuing Tsunamis
for a bit of Yule excitement;
A Maserati (red, gently used);
health, happiness and peace of mind
for my friends and children;
a stuffed and mounted Cassowary
(but still safely caged);
a distance learning course
in Alchemy and White Magick;
continued success and mastery of
obscurity, poverty and poetry;
for all the men I served with
to be alive, thriving and happy;
for all the women I've loved
to remember me and smile;
for Steve McQueen to play me
in the upcoming movie of my life;
the usual end to world hunger
(more Kale for everyone!);
a bottle of pure testosterone,
tumescence and liver disease combined
(just once, Doc, I promise);
a routine, tropical winter for Pennsylvania;
release from the burden of time,
but not immediately;
to end all my dreams with laughter;
to meet and shake hands with Buddha;
and, of course, to see you again.
Think that's too much to ask?
It goes without saying
I have been very, very good
(just ask my loving, schizophrenic cat).
Mike Essig Jun 2015
For My Cat Jeoffrey*

For I will consider my Cat Jeoffrey
For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.
For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.
For is this done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant
quickness.
For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his
prayer.
For he rolls upon prank to work it in.
For having done duty and received blessing he begins to consider himself.
For this he performs in ten degrees . . .

For having consider'd God and himself he will consider his neighbor.
For if he meets another cat he will kiss her in kindness.
For when he takes his prey he plays with it to give it chance.
For one mouse in seven escapes by his dallying . . .

For the English cats are the best in Europe.
For he is the cleanest in the use of his fore-paws of any quadrupede.
For the dexterity of his defense is an instance of the love of God to him exceedingly.
For he is the quickest to his mark of any creature.
For he is tenacious of his point.
For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery.
For he knows that God is his Saviour.
For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest.
For there is nothing brisker than his life when in motion.
For he is the Lord's poor and so indeed is he called by benevolence perpetually -- Poor Jeoffrey! poor Jeoffrey! the rat has bit thy throat.
For I bless the name of the Lord Jesus that Jeoffrey is better.
For the divine spirit comes about his body to sustain it in compleat cat.
Written while locked in a madhouse.
Mike Essig May 2015
America The Proud**

******* parasites, ripping the cord,
bleed from your filthy *****
as you destroy the crumbling foundation,
bound by apes in suits, slinging bow ties
like ******* L.A. traffic jams.

Eat your fistful of ***** treats,
and swallow the Red, White, and Blue.
Mike Essig Apr 2015
Remembering Greece,
I imagine you there now:
naked, skilled in spells.

Your toes in the sand,
your bright green eyes radiant:
island conqueress.

   ~mce
Another form that is new to me. Be kind...
Mike Essig Apr 2015
Perhaps the most
honest woman
in all history;
she only did what
all women see.
  - mce
Turned men into pigs. :)
Mike Essig Aug 2015
He's sitting in
these rented rooms;
he's waiting
for the end.
He knows that
there are things
he knew,
he'll never know again.

The parting of
your lovely knees;
the glistening
of your lips;
the way your *******
reached out for him;
the lilting of your hips.
The time of lust
has drained away,
there's little
left to trust.

He's sitting in
these rented rooms;
he's waiting
for the end.
He knows that
there are things
he knew,
he'll never know again.
   -mce
Mike Essig Feb 2016
One demagogue, two ayatollahs,
a socialist fossil, a withered feminist.

The best of 360 million people?

Thanks so much, Amerika, for the
right to vote for such imposing choices.

I know I won't show up.

Anarchists know the lesser of two evils
is still and only ever can be… evil.

Enjoy the farce.
   ~mce
Mike Essig Jul 2015
She is a clear running stream,
her pools a mirror reflecting me.
She wakes me up
to my virtues and failings.
She fiercely challenges me
to be the best I can be.
Like water, she is irresistible,
but conquers slowly,
wearing away the bad,
leaving the gold beneath.
The sounds of her fluid flowing
speak the language of creeks,
saying: you are more than you think.
A clear stream running
through my life, my heart.
White hot corona of fire;
tempering cold stream of desire.
Opposites reconciled.
Mike Essig Apr 2015
Sandaled feet
fleeing into darkness
beneath the breached
and burning
walls of Troy.

That is what I fear
when you walk away
from me.
Mike Essig Jun 2015
Your lips
slightly parted;

pure smile
of ancient Greece
seen on endless
broken statues.

Smile of sun
and knowledge.

Smile of Artemis
and Athena.

Smile that smiles
in the endless
moment.

Eternal
feminine
smile of
the mysteries.
  ~mce
RLA
Mike Essig May 2015
Clocks are the butchers of life.
They take it and cut it into pieces.
Some folks get the good cuts:
houses, families, money, mindlessness.
The rest get the nose, hooves, tails.
Awaken, sleep, work, ****, drive, eat:
Relentlessly it drives us on following
directions, being where we must,
doing what the clock says is appropriate.
Slaves to its tick-tocking reminder:
death is coming, hurry up, hustle
or everything that will not matter anyhow
won't get done. Check your watch.
Step on the gas. Be where you must be
to make others happy and get a pat on the back.
I have been buggered near to death by clocks.
No more.I am taking time into my own hands.
I declare it obsolete. I ignore its chiding.
I won't know what day it is and I won't care.
And when my clock stops forever. I will be free.
Mike Essig Oct 2016
Sometimes
all you can do
with a broken heart
is close it up
for repairs
hoping to
to reopen it
later, shinier.
Mike Essig Apr 2015
An indigo bunting
landed on my deck railing.
We looked at each other
for a few seconds
before it flew away.
Beauty explodes
in an instant.
- mce
TN
Mike Essig Nov 2015
Open to me, love,
like a rose bud
unfolding,
surround me
with your being,
contain me
in your holding.
  - mce
rla
Mike Essig Apr 2015
I keep attending
my own funeral;
I am the
only one there;
somehow,
I find that
comforting.
  ~mce
Mike Essig Apr 2015
A cold has put me on the fritz, said Eugene O'Neill,
how can I forget certain things?
Now I have thirteen bottles of red wine
where once I had over a thousand.
I know where they went but why should I tell?
Every day I feed the dogs and birds.
The yard is littered with bones and seed husks.
Hearts spend their entire lives in the dark,
but the dogs and birds are fond of me.
I take a shower frequently but still
women are not drawn to me in large numbers.
Perhaps they know I'm happily married
and why exhaust themselves vainly to ****** me?
I loaned hundreds of thousands of dollars
and was paid back only by two Indians.
If I had known history it was never otherwise.
This is the song of the cold when people
are themselves but less so, people
who haven't listened to my unworded advice.
I was once described as "immortal"
but this didn't include my mother who recently died.
And why go to New York after the asteroid
and the floods of polar waters, the crumbling
buildings, when you're the only one there
in 2050? Come back to earth.
Blow your nose and dwell on the shortness of life.
Lift up your dark heart and sing a song about
how time drifts past you like the gentlest, almost
imperceptible breeze.
Mike Essig Dec 2015
The very young
like to believe
they will paint
their own lives.
To some degree
this is true,
but many
loving hands
will touch
the brush.
  - mce
Mike Essig Jan 2017
The very young
like to believe
they will paint
their own lives.

To some degree,
this is true.

But many
loving hands
will touch
the brush

before the canvas
stands complete.
Mike Essig Sep 2015
Who doesn't want
a secret life of adventure
beyond the day's work,
something decadent,
wild, preposterous,
lustful, dangerous
and enduring as
the babble of
poets and philosophers
who talk a good game
but rarely get around
to living.

   ~mce
Mike Essig Apr 2015
I am seeking
a Mechanic
to mend my heart.
She must be
adept, versatile
and competent.
Hopefully,
she will listen
to Scarlatti
while she works.
She will need
to carefully
disassemble the
damaged vessel
and be able
to reassemble it
whole and intact.
Can't pay much,
but other benefits
are available.
I have tried
Craig's List, Ebay
and the yellow pages.
So far, no luck.
Oh where have all
the Mechanics of Love
disappeared?
Call me,
if you know one.
  - mce
Mike Essig Apr 2015
The real America
died at Wounded Knee
where this plastic,
****-coated monstrosity
we now call home
was born,
appropriately,
in a hail of bullets.
- mce
Mike Essig Apr 2015
My laptop's
harddrive
sounds like gears
grinding.

I think
its time
will be soon.

How sadly mortal
these machines.

Announced
in glory,
soon they die
in obscurity.

I'd feel sad
if I didn't
hate them so.
  ~mce
The world was much more human before the rise of the machines. Really.
Mike Essig Oct 2016
Weary of the same old same old?
Don't flee your imperfections.
Instead, double down on them.
Stand naked before a mirror
like the one in the Bardo.
See what is really there rather
than what you'd like to see.
Your soul will either
turn cold as a frog's *****
or explode like a **** lab.
Instantaneous suicide or
blinding enlightenment.
Die, awaken, or just
continue to muddle through.
Corpse, Buddha, Zombie:
     Which of the three
     would you rather be?
Mike Essig May 2015
Sunbeams pale
on a white wall.
Love wavers.
Life whines.
Loss hovers.
All is uncertain.
I am in
desperate need
of more grace.
Release your
green eyes
into my heart
and I will know
what is real.

~mce
Mike Essig Apr 2015
She tells me,
as I unbutton
her dress,
that she no longer
believes in love;
I murmur
agreement,
but stick to
the task at hand.
  - mce
Memories
Mike Essig May 2015
Consider my lips
whispering secrets.
Consider my lips
nibbling your ears.
Consider my lips
touching your throat.

Consider my hand
running in your hair.
Consider my hand
brushing your cheek.
Consider my hand
caressing your breast.

Consider my tongue
sliding down your belly.
Consider my tongue
pausing in wonder.
Consider my tongue
tasting the best of you.

Consider our bodies
melting in euphoria.
Consider our bodies
sliding in ecstasy.
Consider our bodies
engaged in wonder.

So many marvelous
passions to consider.

So many astounding ways
to achieve rapture.

Only please, Lover, consider.

  ~mce
And another
Mike Essig Apr 2015
~for all the broken hearted women I read here.

Do not put your faith in men.

Men are simple:
they want to eat and ****;
Women more subtle:
they want to feel and touch.

The boy you are lamenting now
will not remember you in 40 years,
nor you him. Not that
it doesn't hurt. It does.

But love is brief and life is long.

Consider the world instead,
how bright and shiny
it really is
sometimes.

Give your hearts to that.
Marry the beauty of what is.
You will have
a long and marvelous
relationship.

~ mce
Sorry to get personal, but there is so much sadness and despair here. Think about it: if it was really love, can it really be lost?
Mike Essig Jan 2016
Job: work done for money,
to pay the mortgage,
to keep the wife and kids happy.

Vocation: what sustains you,
done for the love of it,
the pure craft of the doing.

Job: external, coercive,
necessary only for lucre,
status, accumulation, dross.

Vocation: internal, freely chosen,
necessary for your heart,
creative, affirming, alive.

The singer who sings
freely and from the soul
creates beauty
and informs the world;
the drudge who labors
for sustenance and stuff
murders time
and deadens reality.

What we do
paints the portrait
of who we are.

Real work brightens being;
useless work darkens the heart.

Choose carefully.
- mce
rp
Mike Essig Apr 2015
I am an aging man;
you are a younger woman.

So much uncertainty
caught in the few words

of such a simple sentence.

The world will have
something harsh to say
about this.

It always does.

Lucky for me I am
no longer a worldly man.

But you must still
find your path in it.

I hope that path
leads you to me,

but

I am an aging man;
you are a younger woman,

and that's plain for
all the world to see.

  ~mce
How much do you let opinion make your decisions?

Life is not always as simple or complicated as it seems.
Mike Essig Apr 2015
I loathe consistency. It is the premier hallmark of the small mind and the stunted spirit. Don't look for any from me. I am a jumbled mass of contradictions. I embrace them. They are me. I say what comes into my mind (what's left of it) as it does. Tomorrow (or even later today), I may write the opposite. I am a smeared and blurred painting. I disdain simple solutions and answers. I accept chaos. ****, I eat chaos for breakfast. Some have called me mad; I call myself human. What you see is what you get - for the moment...
Mike Essig Apr 2015
Jesus weeps;
Buddha laughs;
Sufis whirl.
Are we waves
or particles?
Many masters,
one Way.
Listen to
your heart.
The answer
is always
yes.
  - mce
Mike Essig Jul 2015
for Leonard Cohen*

*** and death
are the portals
to love and life.
They burn,
they are dangerous,
we are taught
to turn aside
and look away.
And so we do.
Only a few
have the guts
to face
these twin fires;
only a few
find the courage
to cross
these thresholds
into celebration,
ecstasy, madness,
transcendence
or come what may.
These are the lovers,
the poets, the pirates.
They long to see
the naked face
of creation,
to hold
the burning universe
in their open arms,
to penetrate
the Mystery.
They are not afraid
to be consumed.
  - mce
Mike Essig Oct 2015
Contempt is so easy.
Everyone who is not a saint
has their own laundry list.

Mine used to include:

bankers, generals, politicians,
voters, the smugly uneducated,
the greedy, loyal employees
and so on, World Without End.

I no longer have a list.

Not because I have
achieved compassionate
enlightenment,
but because
I realized that all of
the above suffer from
acute stupidity.

The only cure for
stupidity is death.

Now I am comfortable
in the knowledge that,
while not beneath contempt,
they will all vanish
beneath the earth.

Don't mean ******* nothing.

What a load off!

   ~mce
Mike Essig Feb 2017
Plumbing the abyss
is fine if you wish,
but there is much
to be said
for a full heart
and a warm bed.
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