To my old love
I know it’s hard
Do you get tired of carrying
The weight of my poetry
On your shoulders
Until I have something better
To worry about?

It’s the weight of the world
And nothing at all
Really matters

To my friends
I really feel like
I’m starting to disappoint you
And then
It starts to feel like
You are too

It’s the weight of the world
And nothing at all
Really matters

To my parents
I know you’re afraid;
I am too
But I’m really
Much more tired
Of running

It’s the weight of the world
And nothing at all
Really matters

To self-help
To patience
To glasses of water
To deep breaths
And better drugs

I promise,

It’s the weight of the world
And nothing at all
Really matters

He pushed the weight of the world
To the top of the milky way
And he leaned, and he sighed
As the world rolled away

He put the globe on his shoulders
As he prepared to climb again
He shrugged and it shuddered
Spreading fear to little men

Igby! Igby, my boy!
I feel it coming down on me!
This pressure, this weight!
Why can I not be free?

Some weights are corporeal
Like the dumbbells at the barbell
Tabs overflowing, drinks and meals
These simple weights are easy to quell

Then there are the really heavy ones
The ones no eyes can see
The ones that drag us down to earth
That make it hard to flee

Our words and obligations
All form a lofty load
We are all carrying something
Along our personal roads

And our roads, they go forever

But, to where?

No one knows...

A colony of Atlas Stones
defends itself with heavy handedness
intercession relies on physicality
only power warrants movement
and only movement measures success
pushing what's in your way becomes a master key
to move through a locked down nation
a girdle is worn on America's underbelly
bloated by an autoimmune disease.

The Atlas Stones reproduce
tiny innocuous pellets that take an edgier form
filling up the feed trough until they're mature
enough to buzz like flies over the deceased
burrowing inside anything not made of concrete
turning their reluctant host into stone
a facsimile of a fairer, freer fossil
these stones infect everything with their heaviness
so we must remove the concrete and steel inside.

let's say atlas' body is full of birds
and when he is crushed to death
they will escape
free and resplendent
let's say i am atlas and
you are the face in the mirror
let's say atlas is screaming and
crying and begging
but you are silent and
your face is unmoving
atlas' mother gets that
worried look on her face
and the part of atlas that
still loves himself
is trying to get him to
just put it all down for a second
let's say atlas is smoking
a cigarette
let's say atlas' rib cage
is cracking under the pressure
and it's worth pointing out
that no one will notice
atlas is gone
until the world starts falling down
around his body

Childless
by Michael R. Burch

How can she bear her grief?
Mightier than Atlas, she shoulders the weight
Of one fallen star.

Keywords/Tags: mother, mothers, motherhood, child, childless, death, grief, weight, burden, Atlas, epigram, epitaph, elegy, eulogy, lament

Not just another dead word from a
   book
But a magical word...straight out of
   childhood
Gathered from a fascination with
   looking at maps and Atlas books
And globes of the World
All the different countries in all their
   different colors
With all their fantastic sounding
   names
All spread out in wonderful greens pinks and oranges, yellows reds and
   purples
And then... that wonderful blue sweep
   of the Pacific...the Pacific ocean.

Through the eyes of a young small
   child
The wondrous...sweet Blue Pacific
   ocean
So vast and so full of romance
With its mermaids, its whales and its
   dolphins
Coconuts and palm trees and
   treasured islands
Its flying fish and grizzled pirates,
Its blue skies forever smiling
   overhead
The surf rolling up onto its sun kissed
   beaches.

.....There long ago I glimpsed the lovely
   blue of her blouse
And the wonderful patterns on it
As she lifted me up and spun me
   around
Just like being up on the swing boats,
And she laughed with her laughing
   smiling face
And her laughing smiling eyes
And I laughed too, out loud and
   unashamed
This was how it should always be
And I didn't want it to end
Wanted it to go on forever,
It brought me a Bluey Bliss
And suddenly all this world it was a
   magic place.

She was like Life or Love itself
Wanting to embrace you and kiss you
And sweep you off your feet
Life, it held so much promise and
   beauty
So much wonder and mystery
Yea! all was magic in those Summer
   months
The coloured pictures in our comic
   books
The kicking football on the lovely
   green lawns,
The fluttering and flapping of the
   clothes on the clothes line
Were like the sails of a Great Ship...
Sweet dreams and sunbeams as we
   ran out to meet the tide.

And still she calls to me today, wild
   blue ocean
How I love... like that sweet feeling of
   blue
The sight of her on a globe or Atlas
   still
And that name like some ancient
   spell
It sends me up into the sky
Delights, makes me feel so peaceful
The sweet blue Pacific ocean
You can...can almost taste it.

Sweet intimations of a world that
   came before,
A world underneath...that still lies
   there...somewhere
Whispering like some sweet lost
   Atlantis
Forever calling you back, calling you
   back home.

I'm afraid I can't be more specific
About the wonderful, the beautiful
...The Blue Pacific.