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May 2015 · 4.1k
Night Sky
Mike Essig May 2015
Sky of black satin,
stars of white lace,
delicate lingerie
caressing the
voluptuous body
of the newly risen
full moon.
May 2015 · 606
All That Is Left Of Me
Mike Essig May 2015
We live in an abrupt time
without ancestors.
Those gossamer threads
that bound us to the past
have long ago melted away.
I am a lone man on a bed in a room.
Adjectives do not accrue.
Only your mouth tracing my body
outlines me into reality,
your pretty teeth nip me
into the dangerous present.
And what then shall I give you?
Neither famous nor rich,
I possess only mundane flesh
and a grab bag of words.
These will have to do, lady.
Allow me to adorn you with them:
earrings made of desperate syllables,
a necklace of my broken fingers.
These are the offerings
I place before your body's altar
where I have come to worship
before the magic of your touch.
Only a man on a bed in a room,
everything that is left of me,
waiting with anxious longing
for your mouth to create me again.
May 2015 · 543
Bird Wisdom
Mike Essig May 2015
"Hell is a place without birds." D.A.*

A tiny bird in my heart sings
that although the time of kisses
is not yet, it will be.
Like Dante, I have always
trusted the wisdom of birds.
   ~mce
May 2015 · 613
Sweetheart Of The Rodeo
Mike Essig May 2015
Your pretty dress
pushed up
to your hips;
your boots kissing
the small
of my back;
that is a ride
I want to take,
a picture
to hold close
forever.
   ~mce
May 2015 · 1.1k
May 4th, 1970
Mike Essig May 2015
“History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awaken.”*

History is gravity
pulling me helplessly
into time's abyss.

Forty-five years ago
the sound of guns

in Cambodia,
in a small Ohio town.

I am not
responsible for what
I could not
prevent.

Such a thankless truth.

Do your best
and get on with it.

Leave the lost wars
where they belong:
eternally lost.

Stop trying to explain
what you don't understand.

Do not listen
to the chattering
of Hungry Ghosts.

Walk in the Now
if you hope
to keep walking
at all.
   ~mce
May 4th, 1970. The Kent State Massacre following the American invasion of Cambodia.
May 2015 · 18.9k
Your Eyes
Mike Essig May 2015
Pale green fire
that consumes me.

Your gaze
reduces me to ashes.

Most
marvelous
burning.

   ~mce
oh, my!
May 2015 · 457
The Source
Mike Essig May 2015
People often ask me,
as if they care,
where poems derive.

I care and have
given it much thought
for decades.

It is a hard
and genuine question
that deserves
an answer.

I believe poems
come from a spring.

They begin as
the slightest trickle
beneath a mossy boulder
on a steep, green
Tennessee ridge
that manifests as a run,
a river, many rivers
until it flows into
the Gulf Stream.

The spring
is a place on earth
where something
begins.

The spring is not
the water.

I am the poet.
I am that spring.

But I am not the poems.

The poems are the water,

they flow,  
seeking something larger

than I can hope to be.

~mce
May 2015 · 1.8k
Saudade
Mike Essig May 2015
The slightest brush
of melancholy
tinges the evening:

that time of day
when ghosts awaken

and memories stir;

that time of day
when thousands
of lives lived
lean into now.

Where are you,
bright eyed lover?

I need a
gentle boost
to lift me above
this roar of silence,

this emptiness
that fills the
twilight.

Come to me.

Sing me songs
until smiles return
and we will smile
together.
   ~mce
And speak in that private language...
Mike Essig May 2015
"No Gods. No Masters."*

Thursday last while
driving to the convenience store
I was pulled over by a local policeman.

It was midday. I wasn't drunk,
****** or driving recklessly.

He approached my car.
I rolled the window down.

He asked to see my papers.

I asked why.

He said just a "random traffic check."

I asked randomly checking for what.

He told me there was no need
to get belligerent.

I said I wasn't belligerent.

I said I was a free American
who lived in a country
where stopping people randomly
violated the Fouth Amendment
of the Constitution.

He asked again for my papers

I said not until he told me
for what probable cause
I had been stopped.

He said nothing, took a step back.

I asked him if I was under arrest
or being detained for arrest.

He said no.

I said I would be going then,
rolled down my window
and drove away,
being careful to signal.

He glared but did not follow.

Oh my sick and sorry America,
look what you have become.

He expected me to cower
before his uniform.

He was surprised when I didn't.

Never show fear to a cop or a dog.

He wasn't there
to serve and protect
but to harass and intimidate.

He was nothing but a ****
hired by the money that owns us.

Our police are beginning to act
like an arrogant, occupying army.

Let them beware and remember
what Thomas Jefferson said,

"The tree of liberty
must be refreshed
from time to time
with the blood
of patriots and tyrants."


Sometimes poetry can murmur gently,
but sometimes it must howl in rage.

I refuse to be occupied,
harassed or intimidated
by hired thugs and gangsters
in black uniforms with tin stars.

I want my country back.
I will have my country back.
I am not alone. There are many.

Let Officer Friendly consider:
There will come a reckoning.
The tree will be watered again,
even if it takes rivers of blood.

  ~mce
Those of you who don't live here may not understand this. I apologize.
May 2015 · 783
Our Very Private Language
Mike Essig May 2015
We shall need

a very private
language for this.

Let us create it.

A language
for lovers,
not strangers.

We are those lovers,
supplicants at this altar.

These syllables
will bind us
in lovers knots.

The ceremony begins.

We shelter
in our bodies
holy flesh
steadily chanting
this communion.

Slowly touching,
slowly turning,
slowly burning,

we begin the dance.

We whirl
until we merge

and the magic
takes hold

as we pronounce

in sounds never
heard before,

the incantation
of a spell
that begins
with words,

but ends
in ecstasy.
   ~mce
Only one other person in the world knows this language.
May 2015 · 7.4k
Cherry Blossom Festival
Mike Essig May 2015
Let your body
be a
cherry tree
in spring,

its petals
falling slowly
to cover me

completely.

   ~mce
May 2015 · 596
Timor Mortis Conturbat Me*
Mike Essig May 2015
Lightening
in a night sky:

not there,
there,
not there.

Our lives
in this world:

not here,
here,
not here.

From nothing
a brief flash
of being
before nothing.

Death does
not end,
it resumes.

No fear.

   ~mce
* The fear of death disturbs me.
May 2015 · 650
Federico García Lorca
Mike Essig May 2015
Gacela of the Dark Death**

  I want to sleep the dream of the apples,
to withdraw from the tumult of cemeteries.
I want to sleep the dream of that child
who wanted to cut his heart on the high seas.

I don't want to hear again that the dead do not lose their blood,
that the putrid mouth goes on asking for water.
I don't want to learn of the tortures of the grass,
nor of the moon with a serpent's mouth
that labors before dawn.

I want to sleep awhile,
awhile, a minute, a century;
but all must know that I have not died;
that there is a stable of gold in my lips;
that I am the small friend of the West wing;
that I am the intense shadows of my tears.

Cover me at dawn with a veil,
because dawn will throw fistfuls of ants at me,
and wet with hard water my shoes
so that the pincers of the scorpion slide.

For I want to sleep the dream of the apples,
to learn a lament that will cleanse me to earth;
for I want to live with that dark child
who wanted to cut his heart on the high seas.
May 2015 · 284
Dream Stuff
Mike Essig May 2015
Soft skin,
creamy and
glistening,
wet and ready.
Now there
is the stuff
of dreams.

  ~mce
Take that Shakespeare!
Apr 2015 · 669
Looking At A Picture
Mike Essig Apr 2015
Your red hair has
fallen over one eye
making the other
seem even larger
and  deeper green
against your creamy
skin

I know you.

Before you were born,
I read your face
in many fine books;
saw it look at me
from many fair paintings.

We met in many lives.

We will meet again.

Muses are eternal
and they are free.

I am not the first
poet you have smitten,
nor am I prideful
enough to imagine
I will be the last.

Doesn't matter.

What matters
is only this moment
and my eyes
meeting yours
for the first time
again.
Sing, Muse...
Mike Essig Apr 2015
Just how important do we
imagine ourselves to be?

Maybe not so much
as we would like to think.

Perhaps we are merely quirks
of sexuality and history.

Does that bruise our egos?
Who would we be if our
parents had never met.

The Moirae spin our fates
which hang on feeble threads;
the fragilest of continuities
bind us to this world
of brutality and beauty.

Yet we count our money
as if it were steel cable,
proof against rust forever;

we fight our wars as though
something noble and eternal
depends upon their outcomes;

we pretend we are playwrites
instead of actors reading lines.

Vanity of vanities.

In error, we drive ourselves
to beat hard against the wind,
headlong against time and death
as if we are actually steering.

Until the Day we must look
the Tiger in the eye and know,
too late, in that certain fatal second,
that we are small and weak
and mortal and always have been.

And the earth closes over us.
Morbid and under construction.
Apr 2015 · 619
Envoi To Forty Years
Mike Essig Apr 2015
Forty years ago today Saigon fell.
I wonder what my 60,000
fallen brothers would think
of the country they died for
if they could see the prison
it is becoming now.

No knowing.

But I think: sad and angry;
especially angry,
and perhaps, vengeful.
  ~mce
Just another day.
Apr 2015 · 2.0k
Transformative Power
Mike Essig Apr 2015
Looking into your green eyes
makes me want to be warrior monk
in the service of beauty,
wandering the earth
on a sublime quest
to slay dragons, destroy demons
and bring them to lay
at your feet as offerings
before the holy altar
of your lovely gaze.
Only blink and I will do this;
Only wink and it is done.
   ~mce
Magic lives in her eyes.
Apr 2015 · 426
Simple Equation
Mike Essig Apr 2015
Spirit
Flesh
Dance
Merge
Ecstasy
How could this possibly require an explanation?
Apr 2015 · 2.4k
We Know
Mike Essig Apr 2015
We know
and to know is to invent,
and to invent is to lie.

Poets deal in beautiful lies,
especially when convinced
we are telling the truth.

Not malicious lies,
not the ones meant
to wound or ****.

Call them
improvements
on reality.

Our charm and power
gestate from our inventions.

We take nothing,
add our souls,
engender words
and only expect awe.

The kind of awe that sends
dresses, skirts or pants
tumbling toward the floor.

The kind of awe that
grows roses in their hearts.

We call that romance,
another invention
that becomes a dance.

Dance with me
and I will whisper
the sweetest lies
I can invent.

You deserve nothing less
than very my best.

Relax, sweet lover.
Don't be afraid.

The lies that
I invent for you
have always been,
and always will be,
true.

  ~mce
Apr 2015 · 346
Nothing
Mike Essig Apr 2015
The only thing
left to say
when you have
already said
too much.
  ~mce
Apr 2015 · 1.4k
Abalone
Mike Essig Apr 2015
On her breast, my lover wears
a necklace of abalone shell.
Iridescent, it shimmers
in the light of day
scintillating and luminous,
a whirl of colors, radiant as her face
shining in my heart when she is gone.
  ~mce
Hmm...
Mike Essig Apr 2015
Shot down three times
in that forgotten war;
an old man now,
all his dreams
are of falling.

Not nightmares
or flashbacks;
not specific,
just generally
of falling.

He never dreams
of those abruptly
ended flights
or the strange
loose sensation
of the chopper
headed for the dirt,
just of falling.

Age has brought
a new fear of heights
and he won't get on
or near an aircraft.

Despite these obvious
precautions, the dreams
continue to plague him.

It sounds so pleasant:
"falling asleep,"

but falling, falling,
falling in your sleep
brings no rest.

To sleep calmly
and peacefully
remains his most
elusive dream of all.
  ~mce
For my crew, who walked away from that broken wreckage with me. I hope they sleep soundly.
Apr 2015 · 1.3k
Soldier Song V 1.0
Mike Essig Apr 2015
There's nothing new
about this song
it's all been sung before
I'm just a broken soldier
bleeding from an ancient war

When I came home
there were no crowds
no bands for me did play
I slunk back like a refugee
And now I'm here to stay

Every door
was closed to me
no woman and no lover
to take my hand  to comfort me
to lead my heart to cover

You found me like
some fallen bird
you took me home and said
I feel this pain you carry
now come with me to bed

You took me in
you eased that pain
and soothed me in your arms
outside I heard the sirens scream
inside I learned your charms

You tried your best
to heal my wounds
to get me on my feet
but guilt was far too much for me
I left you for the street

I live alone
in poverty
I guess I'm here for good
there are no saints or saviors
in this fallen neighborhood

But listen to me
if you please
I need to hear your name
to know I'm not completely lost
upon these streets of pain

It's cold it's dark
I'm fevered and
I'm lost in bed alone
I never was much good at love
too weary to the bone

I need to kiss
your shining eyes
but you are far away
and I am caught so far from you
upon this lonely day

You were much
too good for me
my dark relentless lies
too good to see the enemy
within my felon eyes

I thank you
for your comfort
your body and your heart
the way you shared your bed with me
forgave me from the start

There's nothing new
about this song
it's all been sung before
I'm just a broken soldier
bleeding from an ancient war
Probably not finished; may never be.
Apr 2015 · 398
Wish Before Sleep
Mike Essig Apr 2015
I want to die
in the forest
of your red hair
and be reborn
in a field
of your kisses
You know who you are...
Apr 2015 · 869
Seriously?
Mike Essig Apr 2015
Poetry as a mental illness.
Interesting proposition.

Poets do not see like others.
Poets do not feel like others.
Often, they do not live like others.
Ergo: Poets are not like others.

Assuming others are normal
(assuming that normal exists)
then poets are not normal.

Does that make poetry a mental illness?

I haven't a clue and the mad-hatter
is throwing a party for which
I cannot be late. Forget normal.
Come along. We shall take tea
and play croquet with
flamingoes and hedgehogs,
while speaking in puzzles and rhymes.

That feels normal enough to me.
   ~mce
Normal: a nonexistent mental state.
Apr 2015 · 9.3k
Doors
Mike Essig Apr 2015
The doors
of the world
are surprisingly
open unless
you lock them
yourself.

   ~mce
Homage.
Apr 2015 · 707
The Shining Path
Mike Essig Apr 2015
The past is a lie.
Don't let it bother you.
There are no facts,
only memories we create
and call the past.
Some memories are benign;
others are feral,
hidden in the landscape
waiting to attack.
You invented the past;
you can let it go.
Instead, take the shining path.
Live in the last, best
country of Now.
It is green and real.
It is radiant and full.
It loves you, body and heart.
It wants you to be happy
and if you are sad,
it is because of the past
that you invented,
that you still cling to,
that only you can destroy.
**** it. Walk away. Be free.
Now is the time that matters,
the only time
that belongs to you.
    ~mce
Mike Essig Apr 2015
Sit. Meditate. Forgive. Repeat as needed.
Forgiveness holds great virtue. Forgive.
Try to let your anger at the world,
even though it deserves it, melt away.
You will fail, but to try has great merit.

Use your body as it was meant to be.
Move or die. The choice is yours.
Even as you creak and hurt,
pretend that you are a supple leopard.

Spend time with the young.
Mostly, they won't understand you
and you may not like them much,
but they are only future there is.
Share with them what is possible;
don't expect them to listen.

Eat and drink as you like, moderately.
Ignore the shouts of the health nazis.
Let the ******* eat Kale.
Only you know what is best for you.

Ignore or break any rules that you
believe to be stupid and chickenshit.
For the most part, only you will notice.

The bankers and politicians
have already owned enough of your life.
Quietly, but firmly, tell them to *******.

Fall in love no matter what your age.
Being in love is the true Fountain of Youth;
it awakens things you thought long dead.

Act freely, but consider the consequences.
The only sin is hurting someone. Be careful.
Make kindness your constant companion and mantra.
It will return to you many times over.

Remember, no matter what you do or try,
no one lives forever and time is not your friend.
Get on with it. Live now.
A list poem that could, and probably will be, added to forever.
Apr 2015 · 1.1k
My Ambition
Mike Essig Apr 2015
I want to be
the Troubador
of your Heart;
allowed to roam
freely within it,
singing you songs
that no one else
can hear.
  ~mce
Troubador: wandering medieval minstrel.
Mike Essig Apr 2015
Do not think you are free
because you have nice clothes,
plenty to eat and a mortgage.
Do not think yourself free
because you attend a good college,
and get to party and have fun
before the student loans hit.
Do not think yourself free
because you are white
and consider yourself a good citizen
while those others cause trouble.
It takes a lifetime to free your head
and that doesn't begin to guarantee
that your body and words will remain free.
We have forgotten that freedom
is never just about stuff.
Stuff is the drug they use to lock you up.
It is the new ***** of the masses.
Only those who can proudly walk naked
cradling the Revolution in their hearts,
willing to pick up their guns
and die for that Revolution,
can ever be well and truly really free.
   ~mce
The illusion of freedom is far more insidious than the lack of freedom.
Mike Essig Apr 2015
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."
Not all poems are about love.
Apr 2015 · 457
Baltimore Burns
Mike Essig Apr 2015
Just a flicker,
a small flame
compared to
what is coming:

the fire next time

will not be
extinguished.

Americans are
slow to wake,
but you can only ****
so many people
over for so long

before they begin to burn.
   ~mce
No Gods. No Masters.
Apr 2015 · 464
Without Her
Mike Essig Apr 2015
I feel like a hole
without a doughnut.
  ~MCE
The nothingness of missing her.
Apr 2015 · 612
Love After Love
Mike Essig Apr 2015
You are no longer the
tortured tumescent terror
you were at twenty.

After sixty, the ****** urge
waxes and wanes,
but still arrives
promptly when called upon.

A kind of peace lives in this.

Arousal now requires love,
whereas when young
it arrived at the glimpse
of a leg or a skirt's flounce.

This is more personal
and more satisfying.

The young deserve lust and
the tempestuous heartbreak
it inevitably brings
when mistaken for more
than it can ever be.

Those older need the touch
of a beating heart
as much as the touch
of simple, hot flesh.

No time remains
for the merely casual.

Your desire reminds you
of ruins, fallen towers,
the pressure of mortality.

You want the body beneath you
to touch your soul as well.

You want to touch it back,
to make it gasp and moan
but to hear it in your heart
as well as in your ears.

You want to hold it close
and keep it near forever,

remembering that forever
is not nearly as long
as it used to be.

No time to fool around;
find someone real
and clutch them as if
they were your last chance,
which they may well be
at any age.
I was going to call this Older ***, but I could hear the "ewws" of my younger readers, so I didn't. Not everything belongs to the young. When your time comes, you will be pleasantly surprised.  :)
Mike Essig Apr 2015
When you hear
the methamphetamine
buzz of a bullet
just missing your ear,
you wake up and know
you are really alive.
   ~mce
Somethings just jar us awake. This is one.
Apr 2015 · 716
Desuetude Deferred
Mike Essig Apr 2015
Entropy hunts you down;
until around 60,
this remains abstract.
Then, it becomes fact.
"Things fall apart;"
bodies are things.
Hearts and souls
improve with age.
Minds and flesh do not.
Fight the good fight.
You can only delay
inevitable decrepitude.
Every day, a battle
against the inevitable.
War with a grim enemy
that can never give up.
Entropy will hunt you down
Until your walls collapse
and death, relentless,
roars through the breach.
Apr 2015 · 543
An Odyssey In 437 Miles
Mike Essig Apr 2015
Four Hundred Thirty Seven Miles
to a place of hope and possibility.
Not so much a trip as a voyage;
a quest not to be taken lightly.
In your ears, the asphalt seas whisper:
Take to the road, soldier.
There is always a way home for those
who have the guts to risk it.
Crafty Odysseys found the will;
his reward was the great, rooted bed
and the arms of his lonely Queen.
Do you have the strength and courage?
Only take to the highway and drive.
Four Hundred Thirty Seven Miles;
Not far to see an Angel smile; to hear
ancient, faithful Argos  bark again.
Four Hundred Thirty Seven Miles.
The road for the brave always leads home.
Do I dare...  I think I do.
Apr 2015 · 434
Leonard Cohen
Mike Essig Apr 2015
Beneath My Hands**

Beneath my hands
your small *******
are the upturned bellies
of breathing fallen sparrows.
Wherever you move
I hear the sounds of closing wings
of falling wings.
I am speechless
because you have fallen beside me
because your eyelashes
are the spines of tiny fragile animals.
I dread the time
when your mouth
begins to call me hunter.
When you call me close
to tell me
your body is not beautiful
I want to summon
the eyes and hidden mouths
of stone and light and water
to testify against you.
I want them
to surrender before you
the trembling rhyme of your face
from their deep caskets.
When you call me close
to tell me
your body is not beautiful
I want my body and my hands
to be pools
for your looking and laughing.
Apr 2015 · 466
Processional
Mike Essig Apr 2015
As your lips
trail slowly
down my stomach,

Lady,

I care nothing
about war, death,
scandal or even
climate change.

I am focused on
your touch and
your destination,

your wanton progress,

but mostly

on this flesh
we share so gently.
   ~mce
"but in the flesh, it is immortal."  Stevens on beauty.
Apr 2015 · 4.1k
Accidental Treasure Hunt
Mike Essig Apr 2015
I admit
that I pillaged
your Facebook page
for more
of your pictures.

Forgive me.

I couldn't
help myself.

Not doing so
would have been
like walking
on a beach
covered with
sparkling gems
and not bending
to pick them up.

Forgive me.

I am too much
of a pirate
to pass up
such treasure.
   ~mce
Should have asked permission. Oops.
Apr 2015 · 502
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
I see you sitting
on the red bed
drinking Retsina
against the white wall
where we had
drawn hexagrams,
in your black slip
smiling up at me
in the pellucid
Greek light.

Since that moment,
Forty-five years
have dissolved
like tears
in a hurricane.

You are only a
ghost who smiles
in my memories.

I never thought
I would find another
woman like you,
strong and complete.

But I have travelled
far and long
and like magic,
here she is.

Thank you for saying
that one day
I would know love
because I was worthy.

And you went away,
and  she is here.

Ghosts always
tell the truth.

If you are patient.
Listen to your ghosts. They won't lie to you.
Apr 2015 · 509
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.
Apr 2015 · 439
"Valentines Can't Buy Her"
Mike Essig Apr 2015
She is content.

She knows her mind;
keeps a close watch
on her heart.

She makes appointments,
She goes to lunches.

She is not a woman
who can be snowed.

She has known pain
and isn't looking
to add more.

Solitude is her
companion and friend.

Wine, poems to write,
a warm dog beside her.

How do I insert
myself into such
a complete life?

I am a stranger, a monk,
a poor man in a shack,
broken by war, poverty,
bad luck and life itself.

No woman would
call me a catch.

What can I offer
such completeness?

Only what I have:
open, empty hands
and a living heart
that will be true.

I don't know
if it will do,
but this is my
humble
offering to you.

    ~mce
Apr 2015 · 1.2k
Green Eyed Lady
Mike Essig Apr 2015
Think what you like,
I say your eyes are green.

Green is the color
of spring, hope,
rebirth, renewal.

It is spring.
I have new hope.
I feel renewed
and even reborn
because your eyes
have spoken their
green language
and awakened me,
to what might be,
to possibility,
to dreams I thought
evaporated, divorced,
gone for good.

So whatever you may think,
I say your eyes are green.
Green, ah...
Apr 2015 · 589
Screenwriting Is Different
Mike Essig Apr 2015
The future is a movie.

We sit in darkness
before a blank screen,
worried and uncertain.

This is our movie
and we know that
we don't know
how it turns out.

Will we be happy?
Will we be together?
How can we make it
happen as we'd like?

Separated by distance,
country and age,
we have to write
this script together.

No one will see
this movie but us,
yet it must be
perfect as a
a technicolor dream,
perfect as this
deep attraction
that we feel.

Only we can write it.

We hold it in our hands
like a crying newborn.

What does it require;
how will we know?

Whatever lies between
the now and the then,
I'm holding out
for a happy ending;

how about you?
Hard to know.
Apr 2015 · 372
Robert Zimmerman
Mike Essig Apr 2015
Love Minus Zero / No Limit**

My love, she speaks like silence
Without ideals or violence
She doesn't have to say she's faithful
Yet she's true, like ice, like fire

People carry roses
And make promises by the hours
My love, she laughs like the flowers
Valentines can't buy her

In the dime stores and bus stations
People talk of situations
Read books, repeat quotations
Draw conclusions on the wall

Some speak of the future
My love, she speaks softly
She knows there's no success like failure
And that failure's no success at all

The cloak and dagger dangles
Madams light the candles
In ceremonies of the horsemen
Even the pawn must hold a grudge

Statues made of match sticks
Crumble into one another
My love winks, she does not bother
She knows too much to argue or to judge

The bridge at midnight trembles
The country doctor rambles
Bankers' nieces seek perfection
Expecting all the gifts that wise men bring

The wind howls like a hammer
The night blows rainy
My love, she's like some raven
At my window with a broken wing
Mike Essig Apr 2015
The other day in a bar
a young man threw down,
called me out, and Said,

"How do you
become a poet,
oldtimer?"

I sat my bourbon down,
looked him dead in the eye,
thought I might fling
an impossible koan
to take him out,
but instead I answered.

"Listen close and I'll tell you true.
It's all in the Muse, kid.
Not a muse; The Muse.
The only Muse for you.
And you'd better start looking now
because it can take your whole life."

I finished my drink.

"Next time," I said," ask me why
the bridge flows, but the water
is motionless."

He sat stunned,
philosophically
out-gunned.

I sat my empty glass down
and slowly walked away.

Another notch on the handle
of my Karma pistol.

No matter how good you are,
they just keep coming.

  ~mce
Zen Gunfight?
Apr 2015 · 773
Resignation Poem
Mike Essig Apr 2015
Sorry, I'm giving up poetry
to become a full-time thief
and spend all my time
stealing your kisses...

  ~mce
I'm not too old for a career change.
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