Groom Training

Get up you tired old grumpy whimper!
And take the fracken elevator
If you have to
Down to the kitchen
And eat the breakfast
That people who have already been up
For three hours
Have made for you
If they can rise and shine
Day after day
Doesn't mean that you can
But they prove it's possible.
And probably with a lot less fuss
Shower, brush and focken shine!
It's the least you can do

Sometimes it takes
Some pretty harsh
Inner language
To get scruffy old oil tankers
Trying to navigate through an archipelago
Of any inevitably unknown future
to get moving.

It's a slow train
On a very fast track
And it's not gonna end well
All things that end
Don't end well
All things don't end
That doesn't make them better
Just longer lasting
And slower decaying
The final stages
Smells and linger
Whistle stop
Fried green bladders
Golden hags

Like Hitchcock would have said:

Let's go out
On dark waters
Too deep
Because that's where all of you perverts want to go anyway
You don't care about happiness in fairy land where it's raining flowers
You want AIDS, ADHD, narcolepsy, funerals, junkies, alcoholics, ***, ****, ******, brothels, snipers, war veterans, drugs, criminals, motorcycles, accidents, models, size queens, gypsies, hairy hung cops, shemales, ****, ******, robbery, space aliens, punk, romance, opera, revenge...
And probably some splatter and gore on the side
No problem
What do you want to know?
I have no secrets

The simple art of growing old

We trade words like old coins,
Rattling them in our piggybanks
Until they clink past our teeth
And onto the floor between us.
Coin for coin,
They slide in exchange.
Fair is fair,
Each is stashed in the others collection.
And when we leave,
I know our sums have stayed the same,
But somehow I always feel richer.

My worst fear is that I will never be satisfied.
Nothing I do will ever be good enough, and not to the minds of everyone else, but that of my own.
I am scared I will never be happy with who I'm with because I'm not happy with myself.
When I'm alone, I'm at my best.
Unaffected by the world and secluded in my sanctuary of a room.
But should someone be alone for the rest of their life?
Is it healthy, will it drive me to insanity?
Always chasing something that I may never get.
Like I am, for the rest of my days, always chasing the rim of the sunset.
Maybe I should stay alone..
Maybe, just maybe..
I need to be solely on my own.

I've thought about ending it a few times.
Frankly that's all that's been on my mind.
Don't leave me alone with my thoughts.
I'm reckless and I might just give in and seal my own box.

I'm ready to walk this journey alone.
I've been ready since the day I met you. I knew I was doomed the second I fell for your smile and the moment you shook my hand..

Trying to find myself has caused me to lose everything I had.
I do not pity myself and wish for you to do the same.

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.