The Poetry of
Michael G. Khmelnitsky

I am straightforward. I am cliché. Originality is cliché. Cliché is not originality. I am not original. I am straightforward.

I am human. Protest is a label. Protest does not exist. Protest is inevitable. Being is protest. Protest is not being. Silence is a label. Silence exists. Silence is not intentional. Silence is not organized. Silence is non-being. Silence is the default setting. Silence is entropy. I am human.

I am the luckiest person in the world. The greatest poem in the world has already been written. The greatest book in the world has already been written. The greatest painting in the world has already been painted. The greatest sculpture in the world has already been sculpted. The greatest scientific discovery has already been made. The greatest contraption in the world has already been built. But the greatest life has never been lived. I am the greatest life that has ever lived. I am the luckiest person in the world.

I despise labels. I am a poet. I am a writer. I am an artist. I am not a trainee. I am not an understudy. I am not an apprentice. I am not a student. I am not humble. I am not obedient. My soul knows its place. My body is irrelevant. I am a poet. I despise labels.

I create my own language. I am wordsmith. I do not shy from repetition. I do not shy from repetition. I do not shy from repetition. I create my own grammar. I create my own syntax. I create my own sentence structure. I create my own words. I create my own phonemes. I create my own morphemes. I create my own sounds. I create my own language.

I celebrate wearing two faces. Hypocrisy is a label. Hypocrisy does not exist. Hypocrisy is existence. I celebrate hypocrisy. I celebrate saying left yesterday and right tomorrow. I celebrate incongruity. I celebrate incompatibility. I celebrate misunderstanding. I celebrate knowledge. I celebrate wearing two faces.

I refuse to conform to social constructs. I am not responsible for my body. I am responsible for my soul. The government is responsible for my body. The parents are responsible for my body. The friends are responsible for my body. The school is responsible for my body. Let the school teach it. I will teach my soul. I refuse to conform to social expectation. I refuse to do as I am told. I do not shy from imitation. I am not afraid of paying tribute. I despise interpretation. I bury understanding. I refuse to conform to social constructs.

I am art. I am style. I am the form. I am the content. I am the message. I am the ability. I am the frustration. I am creation. I am alienation. I am participation. I am oppression. I am depression. I am happiness. I am lust. I am love. I am beauty. I am ugliness. I am incomprehension. I am understanding. I am conformity. I am nonconformity. I am peace. I am war. I am perception. I am existence. I am expectation. I am avoidance. I am deception. I am truth. I am the past. I am the future. I am convoluted. I am straightforward. I use big words. I swear like a sailor. I am man of the people. I am elitist. I am embarrassment. I am pride. I am arrogance. I am conceit. I am honesty. I am humility. I am proud. I am persevering. I am naïve. I am age-old. I am now. I am then. I am never. I am forever. I am repetition. I am iteration. I am leap of faith. I am empirical measure. I am wealth. I am poverty. I am the world. I am self-contained. I am beautiful. I am disgusting. I am more than a sum of my parts. I am sum of my parts. I have already been said before. I have never before been spoken. I am repletion. I am truth. I am fiction. I am science fiction. I am novella. I am historical narrative. I am narrative poem. I am heroic couplet. I am Petrarchan sonnet. I am the bee in your bonnet. I am the sixties. I am the seventies. I am the eighties. I am the nineties. I am time. I am always late. I am wine. I am sandwich. I am sex. I am flesh. I am lust. I am betrayal. I am seven eight and nine. I am repetition. I am blank page. I am spidery scribble. I expand. I contract. I counteract. I evolve. I convolve. I expand. I contract. I am naughting. I make up new words. I am repetition. I am serendipity. I am life as second language. I am first-class citizen. I am knee-deep in shit. I am Aristotle's penis. I am Plato's vagina. I am Anselm's certainty. I am Kant's misogyny. I am Hume's rock. I am Hegel's imagination. I am Camus's L'Étranger. I am Sisyphus. I am Foucault's disease. I am unabashed. I am a Japanese schoolgirl. I expand. I contract. I have never existed. I am alive. I am integration. I am disintegration. I am déjà vu. I am invisible. I am repetition. I am not original. I am cliché. I am well digested. I am not understood. I am grateful. I am unconnected. I am umbilical. I am independent. I am youth. I am old age. I am not a direct opposite. I am in control. I am elemental fire. I am spermatozoa. I am lightning. I am chain. I am handcuff. I am misery. I am salty tears. I am rain. I am optical illusion. I am parallax. I am the sun. I am dark. I am continued. I am dead. I am decomposed. I am full of ice cubes. I am sugar. I am tea. I am ice. I am sugar and spice. I am rhyme. I am vex. I am anal sex. I am drive. I am driven. I am the need to rhyme. I am the need to pretend. I am the need to understand. I am blank verse. I am reverse. I am revise. I am rewrite. I am the night. I am repetition. I am the sun. I am molecule. I am pause. I am quark. I am consciousness. I am a stream of piss. I am beer. I am dark. I am warm skin. I am delight. I am ice cream. I am exclamation. I am declaration of independence. I am slavery. I am slave driver. I am the whip. I am foresight. I am question. I am alert. I am alarm. I am a lock. I am seven o'clock. I am midnight. I am noon. I am repetition. I am break. I am black. I am control. I am body. I am father. I am spirit. I am son. I am two. I am twenty-one. I am twenty-two next week. I am rhyming. I am flight. I am the weak. I am muscle. I am satin. I am silver. I am pain. I am sliver of light. I am a black eye. I am the night. I am fist. I am arm. I am repetition. I am harm. I am destiny. I am dirt. I am depletion. I am word. I am letter. I am good. I am bad. I am better. I am disease. I am cure. I am back. I am a shoe rack. I am absurd. I am surreal. I am post-modern. I am post-mortem. I am recycled. I am lilted. I am tilted. I am extracted. I am inserted. I am blanket. I am sleep. I am weeping. I am pain. I am repetition. I love repeating. I am balance. I am Chinese clouds. I am wisp. I am wasp. I am capital. I am clasp. I am electronics. I am tectonics. I am the eternal Jew. I am wine. I am blood. I am happy. I am simple. I am mad. I am balance. I am total. I am repetition. I am Aristotle. I am together. I am pregnant. I am aborted. I am married. I am divorced. I am arm. I am leg. I am hair. I am wood. I am ear. I am touch. I am plastic. I am fabric. I am glass. I am class. I am derision. I am distinction. I am division. I am a punch in the mouth. I am froth. I am sloth. I am white. I am wrong. I am strong. I am repetition. I am right. I am left. I am today. I am tomorrow. I am heart. I am destiny. I am cliché. I am repetition. I am art.