Mike Finley
Mike Finley Poems
i hear the chime of the poem's voice
and in the notes you write
a guy who hungers for truth and tells it too
who understands that pain is the face
...
Let a thing be what we say it is,
if a donkey is eating corn
let the donkey not be an allegory
nor the corn a corn byproduct.
...
1. Stop talking and listen. Listen to yourself listening. Then listen to that.
2. Pile all your hats in the back yard and burn them. Especially any with feathers.
...
You are the winking stream,
We are all hiccup and failure.
You are love, a perfect dream.
...
How confusing it all is.
'Humility' suggests crouching.
But what it means is relaxing,
Allowing happiness to happen.
...
As the mountain hungers to be made flat
So I burn for your salvation.
Help me to forgive the airplanes
...
Is in the breath so simple.
Breathe in, breathe out,
Then tell where one begins
And the other ends.
...
You were innocent, you shared
The prejudices that connected us
Like prayer, and the world held firm
Behind its insipid certainties.
...
The hardest lesson of the sinner
Is that all is in you, and nothing in him.
Why are we given these garrulous minds
If the end-challenge is only to submit?
...
Where I am going, I don't know
The road ahead twists out of sight
Where it will lead no one can say
...
How can you kill what cannot be killed?
Why weep for those who have been taken?
Why furnish ammunition to the enemy
...
Stars, ignore the crimes occurring
like catfights under the windows.
Sometimes we're ashamed
...
You told yourself you could do this without them
If you had their help it would undo the purpose
Recused yourself from the argument at hand
And folded into quietness there
...
Taking down my office before the move,
I come across a picture of my daughter and me
at Disneyland, when she was little.
Frozen in the plastic elephant, our faces a riot
...
I was eating minestrone
when I heard something fall
outside my apartment window.
Too dark to see much
...
spring flows all around us or ought to
each field of corn is taut
with its arrows and bows
our hands can't contain
...
Mike Finley Biography
In the 1970s I was a much-published young poet. But I have since gone into hiding. http: //mfinley.com/booklist2.htm)
The Best Poem Of Mike Finley
Denis Joe
i hear the chime of the poem's voice
and in the notes you write
a guy who hungers for truth and tells it too
who understands that pain is the face
of injustice in an off-kilter world
some feel a lot, some shoosh through life
as through an operation
and I know what it is like to fall forever
and wonder how there coud be
anything additional below
no whiskered root to grab hold of
but this is not all there is
or why we were so intense for so long
why rage against a world
that can't help being broken?
your fire is proof that fire exists
and can't be extinguished ever
not by a train a thousand miles long
the human heart is infinite
it survives these raggedy envelopes
it keeps beating when red-faced suns
have hissed and gone out
i don't even know you
but we are one substance
neurons sparking in the dark
and flesh that sobs all through the day
and i tell you against all reason to hold on
untill all that will be has been revealed
for our beauty is whole
in just the way we need
and the poem of fire boils and sings
like golden letters in our blood
Healing and grace to Denis Joe
May 4,2006
Mike Finley Comments
You are a breath of fresh air, Mike, a welcome addition to our little dysfunctional family. From the poetry of yours that I have read, I am quite impressed with you as a word artist. Your sense of humor and devil-may-care attitude about critics or self-proclaimed experts is fun to play with. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Mike, I tried to find words to express what your poems mean to me...
You have shamed me Mike! You have made me laugh, you have made me think more than twice. You have chastised me for many a vice, but you have also always been nice. I have been slight in my comments of your work, because there are so many of my subjects to spead myself amongst, but you are a poet of fine imagery and insight, stretching back through a long and successful career. You are a fair and fine man and an inspiration to all who read you. Is that ok? lol Grinning at you, Tai
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5/17/2026 2:18:04 AM # 1.0.0
Hats off to you for your many avenues of writing.