Michael Seeger is a poet and educator residing in the Coachella Valley near Palm Springs, California. Prior to his life as a middle school English instructor, he worked as a technical writer for a baseball card company and served as a Marine infantry officer during Desert Storm. He considers poetry a passion and writing generally a way of life. Michael’s poems have recently appeared in US poetry journals/publications like the Lummox Press, Better Than Starbucks, Anti-Heroin Chic, The Mindful Word and as finalists in several GoodReads contests.
Closet Narcissist
I want to know if I exist,
Not some simple aphorism;
Am I a closet narcissist?
Should I ask a pharmacist
About this painful euphemism?
I want to know if I exist.
Or will it simply be dismissed;
Labels are a barbarism.
Am I a closet narcissist?
It seems even the arsonist
Eludes judgmentalism —
But without the fire does he exist?
How long will these symptoms persist
Without causing a schism?
I might be a closet narcissist
Or is it simply Darwinistic,
Or worse —existentialism?
I want to know if I exist —
I am a closet narcissist.
I Wait
It’s heavier here now
Since you left.
Like a miracle; Wow!
See: Bereft.
I have in my hand words
From a book;
An empty sky holds birds
As I look.
Slowly the past recedes,
Timelessly
Emptied, as the mind reads
Watchfully.
Hardened understanding
Changes us
In our views; Birds landing
Make a fuss.
It’s dark where sunlight fell;
You are late.
Silent as a cancer cell,
I wait.
Sestina (Going Green)
There's something to be said for taking stairs
instead of an elevator. Sometimes
life is seen from the bottom of a well;
for example, my blood pressure was high,
again, at the doctor's this afternoon.
And I wasn't even one bit nervous;
At least, consciously. What makes me nervous
is the thought that if I don't take the stairs
I may not live to see the afternoon
of my life. One has to take stock sometimes.
I need to stop seeking the sugar high,
cut the caffeine, and eat vegetables. Well,
I'll try harder (I want to be well);
It's time to go green, which makes me nervous.
And it's not just because the stakes are high,
or the taste is plain rotten; like the stairs
I just gotta do it. There are some times
when confidence comes, like this afternoon:
It was like any other afternoon
except "green lunch" didn't go down too well.
I try to branch out (going green sometimes),
but can feel the stomach getting nervous
outside my comfort zone; feel it downstairs
in the gut (pain tolerance is not high
here). And nothing compares, so far, to the high
sugar brings. Vegetables in the afternoon
can bring you down; and I mean down the stairs
to desolation's despair. To feel well again,
I drove to McDonald's (and a nervous
drive it was getting there, too). Though sometimes
habits are hard to break (there are some times
when I ask: What's the point? Then take the high
road), the alternative makes me nervous.
So it's salad, again, by this afternoon
for me (I know I'll get used to it. Well,
"bear's" a better word here). As for the stairs,
getting high (up stairs) ain't easy sometimes,
but you get there. Well, by this afternoon.
These Roses
These roses make me write a poem,
lightening the room by their sight
and fragrant hold upon the night;
a graceful presence in our home.
I've noticed that one petal fell
even though they're just cut fresh
recalling the decay of flesh;
how evanescently we dwell.
Beyond the stipule their stems twist
in a vase up on the countertop,
soon another leaf will drop;
I know tomorrow they'll be missed.
We drink the moment then disappear
like water through long rose stem-straws
A rose's beauty gives one pause:
in life our death is always near.
Reality Is Rarely What It Seems
The waking hours devolve into daydreams
while fantasy informs the afternoon;
reality is rarely what it seems.
And one need not go to any extremes
to perceive the truth of this; very soon
waking hours will devolve into daydreams.
Perception will drift to merge within schemes
and plans materializing rough hewn;
reality is rarely what it seems.
The workday weighs down pulling at the seams
of escapist hopes from which no one's immune;
waking hours will devolve into daydreams.
Projections leap out to flow in thought streams
that flood the mind then dissolve into ruin;
reality is rarely what it seems.
Visions arise in animated memes
as thoughts appearing like mist are left strewn;
the waking hours devolve into daydreams.
Reality is rarely what it seems.
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