Mike Finley Poems

We know you are the self-concealed God
because to do otherwise,
skulking behind sycamores,
would be a dead giveaway.
...

Everything we know suggests decline.
Pebbles tumble down the mountain.
The whale lies panting on the sand.
My love for you, which was undying, fades.
...

I thought it was so tragic
And nothing could be badder
I peeked inside the basket
and beheld the speckled adder
...

The soul knows it is standby equipment.
Some days for it are not days at all,
because it stays in its box,
uninvited to the world.
...

It was so cold
the dogs
were sticking
to the trees
...

The young must hunt for poignancy
the bleared eyes of the whore
the stickiness of sidewalk blood
...

He underestimates its importance,
the touch of him on the skull
the patting and the scratch.
...

He made so many of us
When we talk to ourselves
on a busy street and not
talking into a cellphone
...

It's got it all backward,
that you are an appendage to it,
and not the other way around.
...

You heard sounds in the middle of night downstairs.
The clicking of hammers, drills, tiny saws.
If it was a prowler, why did you get up?
You could have been hurt.
...