Imperfect child, imperfect man
Shouts from his father looking down with shame
Stuck in his head like demons in the flame

Giving the love he never found
Making family out of friends
Desperate for a full heart

Always searching
Never receiving
Depression looms
Trusting the demons in reality
Holding on to something he can't see
While paper crowds his home
Hoping paper will block the void he feels every day

Happiness existed
Only in the city of lights
Torturous summers, capable winters
She broke his dream

Immediate recognition does not come
Perseverance fading quickly

Screaming child inside him
Eternal college experience of brotherhood, beer, whiskey and Vegas trips
Living through the joy of children

Desperate to find a woman
A woman that won't die
A woman that won't disappear
Someone he won't disappoint

Long have I searched for answers,
Met not one that knows
Over different lands and waters
This quest takes me high and low
The furnace heats up and I cannot bear
But clutch my heart with silence and tears

A thin line between love and hate,
Many have died in faith or is it fate,
For things they believe or things they want to believe,
Many talk, many walk, many more fear,
But in those last moments, they take it all in silence and tears.

First it was love, now it is hate,
Vengeance burns red in her heart like hells gate
Who could she tell, who would believe her
Weak and helpless she succumbs to her father
Who always has his way and ties her to a chair
Here she cries every night...In silence and tears

Another day, another lay- he would say
Little did he know there was a price to pay
Now he lays helpless on his sick bay
Another passenger on the broad way
If only he’d known there was something to fear,
He wouldn’t be here, watching them – watching him
In silence and tears

In my darkness I see the light,
Blazing hot but not blinding me eyes
Now, I remember it was sometime in March
It must have come from her smile
The kind that puts color on a black heart
With only a name she leaves me in silence and tears.

I wanna get to know you.
The real you,
The you that doubts herself every time she looks into the mirror and just sees scars.
Open up that fragile side of you, I'm yearning to understand it's ins and outs.
I wanna know the parts you don't show those idiots and fools.
The ones who don't listen to your spirit move.
They claim to love you but do they know in which direction your soul will inevitably move at the sound of your favourite tune?
I too may be classified as a one of em fools, but truth truthfully speaking I'm in tune with the tune that's sets your soul on fire.
I've spent split seconds of each day trying to work out how much of myself to sacrifice to you in order to see or hear you smile.
See I can hear it when you smile, you try to hide it so well but there's a sound you let out and oh God,my God even though I have not yet found it's definition but I'm quite certain my existence is somehow intensely complete when I hear it.
Can we get our melodies in tune?, forgive me Im guilty for liking your groove.
Dare I say your heart beat takes me to the moon, yours is the only rhythm I hear in any room.  
Every time you smile I hear angels sing, you have no idea the joy your voice brings.
Your silence isn't my peace, give me your melody so our hearts can sync.
Keep me content by interlocking our souls,
I exist for you, whether you know it or not, I'm whole and at peace at the thought of you.
Don't end the rhythm please speak, make a sound or just sigh.
You make my heart feel like it's stuck in the sky
Let me in, make me whole
Let me write a song for your soul.
I want us to embody the perfect verse, I want your body please forgive my thirst.

TRUMP ON THE ELECTION CAMPAIGN
IT WAS THE HILLARY EMAIL SCANDAL
NOW TRUMP HAS EMAIL SCANDALS OF HIS OWN
IS HE ABLE TO HANDLE


MIKE PENCE USED PRIVATE EMAILS
AND CHATS WITH THE RUSSIANS
WILL THIS LEAD TO NOT CHATS
BUT INTENSE MAJOR DISCUSSIONS


JEFF SESSIONS LIED UNDER OATH
NOW HE IS STEPPING AWAY WILL THE
TRUMP PRESIDENCY HANDLE THE PROBLEMS
AND REMAIN TOO LEAD FOR ANOTHER DAY

It's a fact of life that we'll laugh and fight
Get stabbed right in the back, so then you grab a knife
Miss the past, the vice, habits that you had to bite
Balancing the sadness with this pen, can I grasp the light?
Acting passive like no pain is really seeping through
But I guess there's reasons I've barely been sleeping too
I hear your name and feel it's scary, can't believe the truth
I feel insane, go solitary then start feeling blue
Keeping to myself as if I'm found in that demon's hell
Wrath keeps on mocking me, I'm drowning in a weeping well
Wishing I was walking free but bound inside the evil's spell
Feeling like I'm falling, Lee's recounting how the bleeding felt
You see, MIC watched as the people yelled
Says he wants to paint a picture but the easel fell
Lately I'll complain as the sinner in the mirror swells
Askin' "Why can't God can make a scripture like the steeple's bell?"
Deer in the headlights, I ended up in the ditch
Went for love, left questioned what it even is
Fear that my head's right, I bent the wrongs to a grin
Mental drugs, rest threatened such would leave me stiff
If you believe in this, I'm saying I believe in you
You don't need a noose, escape it and just breathe as you
Try to find the two U's inside the I
Try to find the truth's glue, it binds the pie
Just take your fist and raise it to the sky
If you have a wish, well then today you won't be crucified
Seed to grow the fruit, pineal of the nuclei
Freedom so that you get the people here to unify

Everybody's lacking confidence
Everybody's just a slave to the banking's dominance
Everybody's backing arguments
Everybody's in a maze of ever-ranking documents
Everybody's wanting paradise
Everybody's facing hate and then responding scared of life
Everybody's falling, paralyzed
Everybody's hesitating when they see a haunting pair of eyes
They're always drinking on the victim's blood
Their rain's got me thinking that existence rusts
We should be shouting that "the system's ******!"
Now, stop the doubting, let resistance flood...
Everybody's seeming blinded
Everybody's blighted, everybody's teaching me a virus
Everybody's seeking eyelids
'cause when it comes to really being
They ain't seeing through their iris
Everybody's mind is stuck in the end
Everybody's lied, and then were judging a friend
Everybody's cried and then said "**** it, I'm dead"
Everybody's died, I bet they're loving the dread
Everybody's heard the story
Everybody's missing when they're on the search of Dory
Everybody's sure they're sorry
Everybody's wishing they could find the worth of glory
Everybody's been through hardship
We peer through the glass of a see-through market
Lately I'm thinking that I've been too modest
'cause they want me in a cage, so I speak zoo knowledge
Ha - who's calling me? 2Pac and B.I.G, 'cause we're dying to live
Who's calling me? 2Pac and B.I.G., 'cause we're dying to live
I'm just trying to give back, that line is a zig zag
I want some food for thought but all I find is a big mac
Deep in your head's where they mine with a pickaxe
Claiming we have freedom but they silence the chit chat
I'm simply thinking we should bridge the cut
Instead of always sinkin 'cause the distance was
Shorter than we thought to keep persistence up
So join me when I say that the systems ******

Way back, way back
Rewind time like a VHS
Way back, way back
Yesterday was feeling stressed
Today I am feeling changed
Things don't have to be the same
Way back, way back
I feel just like a kid again
Walk around the world with wonder in my eyes
From the darkness I emerged, you would love it if you tried
You've got to accentuate the positive
We're all gods and goddesses
Never falling off, 'cause we're on top of it
Watched the topic shift quick from an obelisk
To talkin' shhh, I don't really get why people follow it
'cause last night - I had an epiphany
The ambrosia full of life we can grab, no hostility
Way back, way back, see I was really free
But as the days past, gained masks like I was shielding me
Now there is no fear in me, I'm way back revering Lee
I don't **** a beat - I pick it up, it's healing me
Now I only deal in peace, surrendered to my dying wish
To just be climbing higher, Mike - remember how you livened it
Likened to the older you, both in the past and what's to pass
And what's to pass? It wasn't bad, I know this 'cause I'm coming back
Hard to be the chosen when you're lost in awfully deep emotion
Prophecies unspoken, walking tokens, ought to see awoken
Qualities unfrozen, brought to motion harmonies and woven
All this in a piece, no apologies for being open
Calling pleas, you know him as a quiet kid, who tried to spit
Might have tripped a couple times, but that's alright, I write to live
Mic is gripped tight in my fist, I've got my own back
Own path, own goals, no wrath, all soul

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.