The Tao of Longing by Michael Henson

Michael Henson’s poems in The Tao of Longing speak to our underlying, unifying desires. That which completes us, or might, if it did not always out-run us. The old object of the heart, to be ever made new, in the face and body of desire.

An Excerpt

I wanted for you,
a poem of odor and clutter.
Odor of oil.
Clutter of small gears
plastic forks
two straws from a broom
and a napkin stained
with the juice of pear.

About the Author

Michael Henson is the author of Ransack, a novel, and A Small Room with Trouble on My Mind, a book of stories. His poems have been published in Threepenny Review, Red Crow Poetry Journal, Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel, The Merton Seasonal, Wind, and in the anthologies Smaller Than God: Poems of Spiritual Search, Old Wounds, New words: Poems from the Appalachian Poetry Project and Blue Collar Review. He is the winner of the 2002 Jack Kerouac Poetry Prize. He is a frequent contributor to StreetVibes, the Cincinnati homeless newspaper. He lives in Cincinnati with his wife Elissa Pogue.