Morgan Michaels Poems

I prefer to believe the latter, because I find
The more you believe, the easier it becomes
To believe, that is, and that, operationally,
Doing good for others is the best way to become loved-
...

The flames leapt higher and the fellow was dancing insanely about it when I arrived on the scene with my walkie-talkie and my fire
extinguisher. I jumped from the jeep before it stopped, kissed the driver and off she sped. I'd been sent by headquarters to look into a 'situation'. There, as expected, I saw a scene of unspeakable desecration. A grinning hulk of a figure was burning bibles in the little square before 'TICKETS'.
'Stop! Are you crazy? I said, running up. Do you know what you're doing? '?
'Yes', he giggled proudly, 'to both questions'.
...

'I'm sick and tired of this nonsense'.
'What do you mean 'nonsense. Those are perfectly good bibles. They cost alot'.
(I must admit this last point was speculation on my part)
'That's what I mean'.
...

'Look', I protested, 'I voted for Obama. And I probably will again. And I have a degree from bible school that I still owe for. So, there'.
The hulking form shrugged, mumbled something and continued dancing.
Someone, obviously a colleague, ran up with a wheel-barrow full of slightly worn Gideons', doubtless collected from the surrounding hotels. These he dumped alongside the raging bon-fire.
'More fuel', he cackled. 'Hey, is this guy botherin' you'?
...

'Once they get your deposit, there's no end of their 'little charges'. Pretty soon you're twenty-thousand in hock. And still no divorce.
He stirred the embers with a stick and began to feed the flames with the Gideons as if they were lobsters at a clam-bake. Then he lit a cigarette. His face was deeply scarred. He was missing two fingers of his right hand, which he used, anyway.
'No wonder', I thought. 'But the poor bibles. All that gold leaf'.
'Would you like to burn one', he said suddenly.
...

What you do is not exactly murder
You could not be for murder penible
Yet I die and still you surely kill
This indifference carried any further.
...

Too long, my only, we have kept apart
Divided by your stern decree-
The pillow that we shared is cold, my heart
And iffish like it never used to be;
...

Nature gave you lustrous eyes, but weak
And lovely apricot ears, though deaf to hear
Weak to see the damage that you wreak
Deaf to hear my importuning air.
...

As a slave observes his master and so grows
Familiar in his ways (though still in fee)
I have studied Love to bend his blows
Hoping, eventually, to be free:
...

You're the one
my heart dreams on
and I swear
that nightly bare
...