The Mayfly
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
When the wind blows southwest
It reminds me of the days
When Eric and I planed
Off the sea’s milky platter
On his thirty-foot sloop
Where we went didn’t matter
Where we went wasn’t named
Jumping through life’s hoop
In a medicinal haze
Off the salty, blue crest
To our own little world
God held us, and we were hurled
Intrepid we flew
On a sublime broad reach
A skipper and crew
In a tide like a leech
Burning in the apocalyptic sun
Setting the Genoa for a rollicking run
The more we skipped further
Youth gripped our souls
Traveling by the luff while the sea rolls and rolls
Wisdom is so relative
We chased it like the rain
We surfed God till the sun was lame
Those were rare days
And it helps to breathe
Any lovely mess the past conceives
Forever on our way
“Hiking” the snowing
A singeing sunrise is always glowing
I’m there too
Cap in hand
Ready for all a human can stand.
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Book Details
About the Book
Michael Head's newest (or second) volume of poems, The Mayfly, explores both the poet's inner world, and the physical world around him. In tender detail, and in the painterly way of one trying to manifest himself in in what he sees, Michael Head, documents the relationship between thought and matter. These poems are lyrical, imaginative, and extremely vivid, like a series of photographs. The ocean, the off-season colors of Cape Cod, will render the reader nautical, salted, and ever so slightly turned around in the wind, as dreams blur with sadness and memory, love and isolation. The heft of his moods and insight define the ever-evolving craft of an artist searching for the music of brief but meaningful thought. The poems have a certain elegance, the author a romantic sensibility. A thoroughly enjoyable book.
--Rachael Mayer
"I loved the clarity of the images; Mike Head is a medium for of the deep image school. He interprets classics of that world and makes them his own. Cross this with a cyclical mind and a reverence for the necessity of confessing and for believing one's way into a fresh, 'natural', cape cod-borne fresh start. He has a keen sense for the weather of emotions and the imagination to express them in new twists on the nature poem."
-Sarah Pearlstein
"Great wit and feeling fill The Mayfly. Little treats like ladybugs and rhubarb dwell in there too. This collection of poetry is a pleasure to hold, to read, and to ponder."
-A.J. Glassman
The bio. (no picture) on bottom should read: This is Mike head's second volume of poetry--the first being Solstice: A Cape Cod Notebook; and this, of course, being The Mayfly (both of which can be found on Amazon.com through Authorhouse.com). Mike is a Mid-Westerner educated on the East coast and inspired by Cape Cod's unique naturalism. He now works on his music and his third volume of poetry in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts.
About the Author
Michael has been writing since grade school (Over 25 years) and has flourished nicely into a tender and unique kind of communication--seeing himself as a kind of antenna that nature passes through. Because of the average reader's short span or interest in poetry these days he has made his compositions concise and almost always less than a page long. Like Frank O'Hara's Lunch Poems, Michael writes on his "nerve" and has extended it into a philosophy not just about art, but art moving in time which transitively moves in art. The Mayfly displays a wonderful leap in progress from his previous book, and has come to embrace the macrocosm as well as the microcosm. Michael is also a singer/songwriter who thrives on improvisation. He is currently working on his third volume of poetry in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts.