Michael Hessel-Mial
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mrpoemguy.bsky.social
Michael Hessel-Mial
@mrpoemguy.bsky.social
490 followers 230 following 830 posts
Poet and scholar, college writing instructor, wife guy, dad to Melody. I’m an editor at specpoverse.org. Science fiction, PDFs, socialism, Jewish mysticism. Free Palestine 🇵🇸
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mrpoemguy.bsky.social
If I got a month-late freelance check I wouldn’t tell anyone but there’d be signs
Grocery store display of Little Debbie snack cakes
October 28, 2025 at 12:26 AM
mrpoemguy.bsky.social
It’s here! My copy of @thedeadlands.com has arrived, including my poem, “Query Telling on Other Elder.” You should get a copy of your very own!

I’m getting to writing the companion essay to this poem for my substack, but you can look forward to that soon as well!
Physical copy of the Summer 2025 issue of The Deadlands magazine.
September 15, 2025 at 9:22 PM
mrpoemguy.bsky.social
Me watching Gone With the Wind and discovering that the movie is extremely racist
Michael from Arrested Development looking into a paper bag, saying “I don’t know what I expected.”
September 11, 2025 at 3:54 AM
mrpoemguy.bsky.social
Devastating
Screenshot of the webpage Maoist Standard English Converter, with “Lana Del Ray” as both the input and output; I.e. there is no funny way to spell her name in Maoist Standard English.
August 27, 2025 at 1:43 AM
mrpoemguy.bsky.social
I feel pretty good about my odds
The four members of Disney Jr show Super Kitties on left facing down a burglar on right.
August 22, 2025 at 2:23 AM
mrpoemguy.bsky.social
From “Query Telling on Other Elder,” up this week courtesy of @thedeadlands.com

Take a look if you haven’t yet and you will make this poet very happy!

psychopomp.com/deadlands/is...
My crèche and my conductor didn’t like my girlfriend; We were both becoming directors, And my relations didn’t want two directors together. I flew away and a man found me. His name is Understory Shoal Troposphere Counterfloat. He told me, You know by my name that you’ll be safe with me. He became my other elder and helped me feel safe. I came back to my relations feeling safe. Then the sectioning happened and I couldn’t find him.
July 30, 2025 at 4:12 PM
mrpoemguy.bsky.social
From my daughter’s gingerbread man book. You know this kid is gonna screw it up by opening the oven
Illustration from “The Gingerbread Man” story book, where the old lady admonishes the little boy, who clearly isn’t paying attention.
July 9, 2025 at 6:50 PM
mrpoemguy.bsky.social
When people refer to “Das Kapital” instead of just saying Capital
The “three fingers” image from Inglourious Basterds, where the protagonist blows his cover by lifting three fingers in the American style rather than the German style.
July 2, 2025 at 3:58 AM
mrpoemguy.bsky.social
Little clips from 3 of the pieces of mine out from @stateofmatter.bsky.social

A little camp romanticism, anarchist parodies of far-future sports anthems, genuine decolonization, and a riff on Writers Workshop verse (not pictured)

stateofmatter.in/poetry/the-c...
May 19, 2025 at 9:37 PM
mrpoemguy.bsky.social
My daughter is three and every day I’m unbelievably proud of how sweet, smart, wise and fun she is. Raise your teacup or your Disney princess doll of choice and say, happy birthday Melody!
From left: my wife, me and my daughter at a table in a restaurant. My daughter is holding a numbered table sign.
March 21, 2025 at 1:01 PM
mrpoemguy.bsky.social
Bowling pins fear me, invented poetic forms reflecting a far future society want me (my friend won both matches)
March 9, 2025 at 4:00 AM
mrpoemguy.bsky.social
Been workshopping this joke on the old site and now I think the new site is ready for it
Man goes to doctor. Says he's depressed. Says his philosophy is moribund because it can’t escape the baggage of the history of western thought. Doctor says, "Treatment is simple. Great philosopher Husserl is in town tonight. His introduction to transcendental phenomenology will restore attention to the things themselves." Man bursts into tears. Says, "But doctor...I am Husserl!
February 26, 2025 at 7:42 PM
mrpoemguy.bsky.social
Me: you better not be leaving the apple reddening on the tallest bough because nobody could reach it

Sappho:
This is a picture of country singer Alan Jackson serving in jeans, denim jacket and cowboy hat/boots. It doesn’t really contribute to the joke
January 31, 2025 at 5:33 PM
mrpoemguy.bsky.social
You’ve all been working hard. Here’s a selfie with turkeys, for free
Me on a snowy college campus standing next to some wild turkeys
January 28, 2025 at 3:02 PM
mrpoemguy.bsky.social
Broken down by category
January 1, 2025 at 12:49 AM
mrpoemguy.bsky.social
For those interested, my 2024 books finished, in order
January 1, 2025 at 12:49 AM
mrpoemguy.bsky.social
Back from Kansas City family holidays stuff. The left four books I bought at Prospero’s, an amazing used bookstore. The right two books were Chanukah gifts from my dad
December 29, 2024 at 1:39 AM
mrpoemguy.bsky.social
Getting conceptual with the holiday cookies
December 23, 2024 at 9:55 PM
mrpoemguy.bsky.social
Drop an alien that’s not from Star Wars or Star Trek

(The joke is that this is my own weird alien poetry)
Screenshot of poetry extract reading as follows: One-and-skip percussive clack, sweet spicy emission All fountains bear litters early yet watch their young pair later in life, And in cradling the brood I am reminded of my growing hollow, Whose radiance will expand to peel back the layers of the world: The slow crawlers who lived and died long before the hinge-breasted, Whose dwellings took different proportions after the coming oldest friend. In these I see the plan in the dirt that guides my viscera in all my deeds. Someone tap my back legs with the cane, lest I favor my front! [This persona and the one that follows both appear to address the inevitability of loss, and the difference between the two is perplexing to the translator. The former depicts that inevitability more naturalistically, using metaphors of a fading star (“fountain”), many-legged death in old age (“growing hollow”), and the extinction of ancient megafauna (“slow crawlers”). This persona seems unconcerned for death. The translator is unable to parse the final line, which was interpreted as a joke.]
December 19, 2024 at 9:07 PM
mrpoemguy.bsky.social
Reminds me of this:
Screenshot from an Atlantic article opening as follows: It is said that, just before the Sino-Soviet split, Nikita Khrushchev had a tense meeting with Zhou Enlai at which he told the latter that he now understood the problem. “I am the son of coal miners,” he said. “You are the descendant of feudal mandarins. We have nothing in common.” “Perhaps we do,” murmured his Chinese antagonist. “What?” blustered Khrushchev. “We are,” responded Zhou, “both traitors to our class.”
December 13, 2024 at 3:58 AM
mrpoemguy.bsky.social
Extract from some science fiction / speculative poetry of mine

What if Pindar’s Olympian odes, fragments and all, were set in space?

#speculativepoetry
Screenshot of a poetry extract reading as follows: “Scoring Performance 9” by Regolith Crosser, ca. 32,000,000 hours past ADDRESS: /records/non-operations/narrative_set/disordered/regolith_crosser/+8~0/GUIDE ENTRY: Your work is finished, keeper, and mine is begun, with the cube of lots returned to its lovingly restored box as I draw up the sleeves of my blouse, [... nodes on …] to assemble the song of triumph for the victors of Limb and Payload, selecting the most richly gated waveform, for who can rival the feats of Oracular Circuit [...] most accomplished of poets, For little can be said of those crushed by the fickle vacuum, still less of those who do not reach the battered array ahead of them. As if the will of the crowd had synced with the cube of lots in desire for a contest to challenge a team, the Oracular Circuit faced a lengthy maintenance phase [... amply …] to pressure, steering and resource cycles, [... requiring ...] to change the configuration of people or pass tools from hand to hand, always keeping the coming collision in view, as if guided by the wisdom of Fighter’s Elixer, who once freed from Hut-Dwelling-Wolf could teach every person the mysteries of spaceflight.
November 26, 2024 at 2:00 PM