Michael Kriesel, 42, is a widely-published poet and reviewer living in the 
countryside near Wausau. His reviews are in each issue of Small Press Review, 
and his poems have appeared in over 200 journals including Chiron Review, Main Street Rag and 
Wisconsin Academy Review. Winner of the Council for Wisconsin Writers 2004 Lorine Niedecker 
Poetry Prize, his poems combine the blue collar themes of the small press with the 
craftsmanship more often found in the academic community. Michael is a lifelong Wisconsin 
resident except for ten years in the Navy as a TV journalist and newspaper editor. 

PUBLICATIONS
Chasing Saturday Night, Poems About Rural Wisconsin, Marsh River Editions, 2005 - $10.00 + 1.25s&h
Sailor on a Greyhound, E-book available at www.tmpoetry.com
Matter Ballet, Bone World Publishing, 2001 - $5.00
Heart's Run, Green Bean Press, 2000 - $5.00


 

FOLLOWING EACH OTHER
                                                                                                            
It’s Sunday                                                                                           
mom’s taking a nap
after supper

you’re standing
by the bedroom door
listening for snores

then you say
let’s take our bikes
for ice cream

showing off
you race ahead
without a headlight

to the mini mart
always a decade
behind me and

too far ahead
to hear me yell
slow down

the trees are
disappearing
in the dark


TARGET PRACTICE

We’d been sailing in a circle for a week
part of some big exercise
a bunch of us were on the helo deck
to qualify with .45s

we saw a whale
a couple miles away
dark as a barn in a storm

one guy started shooting at it
then we all did
emptying our clips into the distance

staring at the deck while the Gunner’s Mate
chewed our asses raw
for wasting ammo


TICKETS

Like magic beans
they cost you
everything

your lover
your liver
your future

they expire
at midnight
tonight

tickets to the movie
they were making
of your life

the one where
immortality’s
your drinking buddy


FEBRUARY

All winter
the sky’s a gray hammer

When I’m outside
I stare at the ground
so it won’t hit me


BAD KNEES

Oak leaves bright as rubber noses
tumble across the lawn

reminding me
I’ll never be a rodeo clown