Mike Finley Poems

Hit Title Date Added
11.
A Prayer At Planting Time

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?
...

12.
Rustic

you strip like an ear of corn
gold & beautiful
silk tumbling
...

13.
Prayer Of Thomas Merton (Rewrite)

Where I am going, I don't know
The road ahead twists out of sight

Where it will lead no one can say
...

14.
A Prayer In Defiance Of Grief

How can you kill what cannot be killed?
Why weep for those who have been taken?

Why furnish ammunition to the enemy
...

15.
The Spot

Stars, ignore the crimes occurring
like catfights under the windows.

Sometimes we're ashamed
...

16.
Living Without Friends

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
...

17.
Flying Dumbos

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
...

18.
The Clarinet Is A Difficult Instrument

I was eating minestrone
when I heard something fall
outside my apartment window.
Too dark to see much
...

19.
In Kansas

spring flows all around us or ought to
each field of corn is taut
with its arrows and bows
our hands can't contain
...

20.
Horses Work Hard

they clamp their bits in the riding ring
kicking the sawdust behind them
all day the children mount and pace
and when the animals rest
...

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