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
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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.
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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.
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You are the winking stream,
We are all hiccup and failure.

You are love, a perfect dream.
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How confusing it all is.
'Humility' suggests crouching.
But what it means is relaxing,
Allowing happiness to happen.
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The sugar house is shutting down,
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As the mountain hungers to be made flat
So I burn for your salvation.

Help me to forgive the airplanes
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Is in the breath so simple.
Breathe in, breathe out,
Then tell where one begins
And the other ends.
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You were innocent, you shared
The prejudices that connected us
Like prayer, and the world held firm
Behind its insipid certainties.
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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?
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