The hood won't be the same,
We're out standing in the rain,
To encourage sprouts as we once did our children;
For down the road you see it's as legal,
As a Timmy's and a cream-cheese bagel,
We're good to grow the free green grass at home.

On this side of our border,
Starting this October,
We'll bake it, vape it, roll and bowl to take it;
Down the road you see it's now legal,
The price of home grown's dropped to zero,
We're good to grow the free green grass at home.

Yes we're all on board to greet it,
Some inhale and some will eat it;
We're good to grow the free green grass at home.

I'm awake and it astounds me,
My four plants that surround me;
We've realized what we've long been dreaming;
For there's a store where we can cop some,
Come the fall fresh buds will blossom,
We're good to grow our free green grass at home.

Yes we're all on board to greet it,
Some inhale, and some will eat it,
We're good to grow our free green grass at home.

Let me be your Isis
I'll scavenge the land for the pieces of you they've stolen
and fit each and every piece back together with delicate fingers
Your kintsugi astounds me, each and every break so beautiful
It is not my reflection I admire as my eyes dwell along and ride
the golden rivers you try and keep from me
Let me be your Isis
let me see the melancholy spill from your eyes
the snap of your spirit when my words are like sin
I am not perfect, and I will drown in my folly like gin
down my father's throat
my father does not know how to swim.
But your pain is like a gasp of breath sometimes
when it reminds me that you are of the firmest birch tree
your bark does not bend to just any wind
and the symphony of susurrus that accompanies the midnight
breeze, escaping the ivory lamina of your leaves, each note
leaping off of every blade like a dancer,
are NOT composed by just any sultry sylph
Let me be your Isis
Be my Osiris, a masterpiece

A Jersey girl came along
and I started to think about angles of yaw
needed to take flight,
how the force of a kick skirts
the delicate line between winning and losing.
I’ve seen it all before, but not like this. Besides, seeing
has nothing to do with believing.
Corneas can't capture the vibrations of molecules or excitations
of electrons. Champions defy biology,
overcome gravity and I believe what goes up
does not always come down.
I want to know the point where focus takes control
of epinephrine, who’s cascade is initiated by the roar of a crowd,
but negatively regulated by doubt,
when to take a long shot or build up slowly.
I want to live the difference between accuracy and precision,
taste the dirt, become painted with bruises and scorch my heart.
A flag is heaviest when you carry it,
lightest when it’s raised,
worn as a cape and allowed to wave in the wind.
Countries aren't build, they're created created
denying muscles oxygen but allowing them to taste gold.
It's ability to conduct electricity astounds me.
It’s not about alchemy
but transforming sweat into tears,
fixing nitrogen, reducing triglycerides.
Not all reactions need light, some create it.
It’s only over when there’s not enough energy for activation.

It astounds me
The way it sounds to me
When you almost-bitterly laugh,
Like it's so ridiculous and you're not quite
Getting the point or the question,
But you laugh anyway,
Because it's obvious to you when you explain
"I brag about you."
Or
"Because I love you."

And there's an edge to your voice,
But it's almost delightful,
It's a type of sharp warmth,
A type of stinging comfort.

It astounds me
The way it sounds to me,
When your voice is loving and gentle,
When you're understanding and kind.

And it's astounding
That you found me,
Whistling and singing and humming,
Amid the ashen trees and soot-stained grasses.

And among ever light step you took towards me
I would flit and fly away,
Leaving a trail of violet and daffodil petals in my wake.
But you perched in my tree,
And I buzzed and hummed along your trail to me,
And upon finding me and the burning embers
Of the fires I have a tendency to ignite,
You captured the remains of my heart
That you didn't already have,
And when I took to the sky,
You followed suit,
With a flight pattern a little more sensible,
A little more practiced than mine.
As though you were much more prepared
For the oncoming tidal waves of feelings,
Than I was for the familiarity of them.

The hood won't be the same,
We're out standing in the rain,
To encourage sprouts as we once did our children;
For down the road you see it's as legal,
As a Timmy 'n cream-cheese bagel,
We're good to grow the free green grass at home.

On this side of our border,
Starting this October,
We'll bake it, vape it, roll and bowl to take it;
Down the road you see it's now legal,
The price of home grown's dropped to zero,
We're good to grow the free green grass at home.

Yes we're all on board to greet it,
Some inhale and some will eat it;
We're good to grow the free green grass at home.

I'm awake and it astounds me,
My four plants that surround me;
We've realized what we've long been dreaming;
For there's a store now where we can cop some,
Come this fall fresh buds will blossom,
We're good to grow our free green grass at home.

Yes we're all on board to greet it,
Some inhale, and some will eat it,
We're good to grow our free green grass at home.

LOVE POEMS by Michael R. Burch

These are love poems by Michael R. Burch: original poems and translations about passion, desire, lust, ***, dating and marriage. On an amusing note, my steamy Baudelaire translations have become popular with the pros ― **** stars and escort services!



Sappho, fragment 42
translation by Michael R. Burch

Eros harrows my heart:
wild winds whipping desolate mountains
uprooting oaks.



Preposterous Eros
by Michael R. Burch

“Preposterous Eros” – Patricia Falanga

Preposterous Eros shot me in
the buttocks, with a Devilish grin,
spent all my money in a rush
then left my heart effete pink mush.



Sappho, fragment 155
translation by Michael R. Burch

A short revealing frock?
It's just my luck
your lips were made to mock!



Sappho, fragment 22
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

That enticing girl's clinging dresses
leave me trembling, overcome by happiness,
as once, when I saw the Goddess in my prayers
eclipsing Cyprus.



Negligibles
by Michael R. Burch

Show me your most intimate items of apparel;
begin with the hem of your quicksilver slip ...



Warming Her Pearls
by Michael R. Burch

Warming her pearls,
her ******* gleam like constellations.
Her belly is a bit rotund ...
she might have stepped out of a Rubens.



She bathes in silver
by Michael R. Burch

She bathes in silver,
afloat
on her reflections ...



****** Errata
by Michael R. Burch

I didn’t mean to love you; if I did,
it came unbid-
en, and should’ve remained hid-
den!



Are You the Thief
by Michael R. Burch

When I touch you now,
O sweet lover,
full of fire,
melting like ice
in my embrace,

when I part the delicate white lace,
baring pale flesh,
and your face
is so close
that I breathe your breath
and your hair surrounds me like a wreath ...

tell me now,
O sweet, sweet lover,
in good faith:
are you the thief
who has stolen my heart?



The Effects of Memory
by Michael R. Burch

A black ringlet
curls to lie
at the nape of her neck,
glistening with sweat
in the evaporate moonlight ...
This is what I remember

now that I cannot forget.

And tonight,
if I have forgotten her name,
I remember:
rigid wire and white lace
half-impressed in her flesh ...

our soft cries, like regret,

... the enameled white clips
of her bra strap
still inscribe dimpled marks
that my kisses erase ...
now that I have forgotten her face.



Moments
by Michael R. Burch

There were moments full of promise,
like the petal-scented rainfall of early spring,
when to hold you in my arms
and to kiss your willing lips
seemed everything.

There are moments strangely empty
full of pale unearthly twilight
―how the cold stars stare!―
when to be without you is a dark enchantment
the night and I share.



The Communion of Sighs
by Michael R. Burch

There was a moment
without the sound of trumpets or a shining light,
but with only silence and darkness and a cool mist
felt more than seen.
I was eighteen,
my heart pounding wildly within me like a fist.
Expectation hung like a cry in the night,
and your eyes shone like the corona of a comet.

There was an instant . . .
without words, but with a deeper communion,
as clothing first, then inhibitions fell;
liquidly our lips met
―feverish, wet―
forgotten, the tales of heaven and hell,
in the immediacy of our fumbling union . . .
when the rest of the world became distant.

Then the only light was the moon on the rise,
and the only sound, the communion of sighs.



Righteous
by Michael R. Burch

Come to me tonight
in the twilight, O, and the full moon rising,
spectral and ancient, will mutter a prayer.

Gather your hair
and pin it up, knowing
that I will release it a moment anon.

We are not one,
nor is there a scripture
to sanctify nights you might spend in my arms,

but the swarms
of stars revolving above us
revel tonight, the most ardent of lovers.



Once
by Michael R. Burch

Once when her kisses were fire incarnate
and left in their imprint bright lipstick, and flame,
when her breath rose and fell over smoldering dunes,
leaving me listlessly sighing her name ...

Once when her ******* were as pale, as beguiling,
as wan rivers of sand shedding heat like a mist,
when her words would at times softly, mildly rebuke me
all the while as her lips did more wildly insist ...

Once when the thought of her echoed and whispered
through vast wastelands of need like a Bedouin chant,
I ached for the touch of her lips with such longing
that I vowed all my former vows to recant ...

Once, only once, something bloomed, of a desiccate seed―
this implausible blossom her wild rains of kisses decreed.



For All that I Remembered
by Michael R. Burch

For all that I remembered, I forgot
her name, her face, the reason that we loved ...
and yet I hold her close within my thought.
I feel the burnished weight of auburn hair
that fell across her face, the apricot
clean scent of her shampoo, the way she glowed
so palely in the moonlight, angel-wan.

The memory of her gathers like a flood
and bears me to that night, that only night,
when she and I were one, and if I could ...
I'd reach to her this time and, smiling, brush
the hair out of her eyes, and hold intact
each feature, each impression. Love is such
a threadbare sort of magic, it is gone
before we recognize it. I would crush
my lips to hers to hold their memory,
if not more tightly, less elusively.



Le Balcon (The Balcony)
by Charles Baudelaire
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Paramour of memory, ultimate mistress,
source of all pleasure, my only desire;
how can I forget your ecstatic caresses,
the warmth of your ******* by the roaring fire,
paramour of memory, ultimate mistress?

Each night illumined by the burning coals
we lay together where the rose-fragrance clings―
how soft your *******, how tender your soul!
Ah, and we said imperishable things,
each night illumined by the burning coals.

How beautiful the sunsets these sultry days,
deep space so profound, beyond life’s brief floods ...
then, when I kissed you, my queen, in a daze,
I thought I breathed the bouquet of your blood
as beautiful as sunsets these sultry days.

Night thickens around us like a wall;
in the deepening darkness our irises meet.
I drink your breath, ah! poisonous yet sweet!,
as with fraternal hands I massage your feet
while night thickens around us like a wall.

I have mastered the sweet but difficult art
of happiness here, with my head in your lap,
finding pure joy in your body, your heart;
because you’re the queen of my present and past
I have mastered love’s sweet but difficult art.

O vows! O perfumes! O infinite kisses!
Can these be reborn from a gulf we can’t sound
as suns reappear, as if heaven misses
their light when they sink into seas dark, profound?
O vows! O perfumes! O infinite kisses!

My translation of Le Balcon has become popular with **** sites, escort services and dating sites. The pros seem to like it!



Les Bijoux (The Jewels)
by Charles Baudelaire
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

My lover **** and knowing my heart's whims
Wore nothing more than a few bright-flashing gems;
Her art was saving men despite their sins―
She ruled like harem girls crowned with diadems!

She danced for me with a gay but mocking air,
My world of stone and metal sparking bright;
I discovered in her the rapture of everything fair―
Nay, an excess of joy where the spirit and flesh unite!

Naked she lay and offered herself to me,
Parting her legs and smiling receptively,
As gentle and yet profound as the rising sea―
Till her surging tide encountered my cliff, abruptly.

A tigress tamed, her eyes met mine, intent ...
Intent on lust, content to purr and please!
Her breath, both languid and lascivious, lent
An odd charm to her metamorphoses.

Her limbs, her *****, her abdomen, her thighs,
Oiled alabaster, sinuous as a swan,
Writhed pale before my calm clairvoyant eyes;
Like clustered grapes her ******* and belly shone.

Skilled in more spells than evil imps can muster,
To break the peace which had possessed my heart,
She flashed her crystal rocks’ hypnotic luster
Till my quietude was shattered, blown apart.

Her waist awrithe, her ******* enormously
Out-******, and yet ... and yet, somehow, still coy ...
As if stout haunches of Antiope
Had been grafted to a boy ...

The room grew dark, the lamp had flickered out.
Mute firelight, alone, lit each glowing stud;
Each time the fire sighed, as if in doubt,
It steeped her pale, rouged flesh in pools of blood.



The Perfect Courtesan
by Michael R. Burch

after Baudelaire, for the courtesans

She received me into her cavities,
indulging my darkest depravities
with such trembling longing, I felt her need ...

Such was the dalliance to which we agreed—
she, my high rider;
I, her wild steed.

She surrendered her all and revealed to me—
the willing handmaiden, delighted to please,
the Perfect Courtesan of Ecstasy.



Invitation to the Voyage
by Charles Baudelaire
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My child, my sister,
Consider the rapture
Of living together!
To love at our leisure
Till the end of all pleasure,
Then in climes so alike you, to die!

The misty sunlight
Of these hazy skies
Charms my spirit:
So mysterious
Your treacherous eyes,
Shining through tears.

There, order and restraint redress
Opulence, voluptuousness.

Gleaming furniture
Burnished by the years
Would decorate our bedroom
Where the rarest flowers
Mingle their fragrances
With vague scents of amber.

The sumptuous ceilings,
The limpid mirrors,
The Oriental ornaments …
Everything would speak
To our secretive souls
In their own indigenous language.

There, order and restraint redress
Opulence, voluptuousness.

See, rocking on these channels:
The sleepy vessels
Whose vagabond dream
Is to satisfy
Your merest desire.

They come from the ends of the world:
These radiant suns
Illuminating fields,
Canals, the entire city,
In hyacinth and gold.
The world falls asleep
In their warming light.

There, order and restraint redress
Opulence, voluptuousness.



What Goes Around, Comes
by Michael R. Burch

This is a poem about loss
so why do you toss your dark hair―
unaccountably glowing?

How can you be sure of my heart
when it’s beyond my own knowing?

Or is it love’s pheromones you trust,
my eyes magnetized by your bust
and the mysterious alchemies of lust?

Now I am truly lost!



Passionate One
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Love of my life,
light of my morning―
arise, brightly dawning,
for you are my sun.

Give me of heaven
both manna and leaven―
desirous Presence,
Passionate One.

Manna is "heavenly bread" and leaven is what we use to make earthly bread rise. So this poem is saying that one's lover offers the best of heaven and earth.



Second Sight
by Michael R. Burch

I never touched you―
that was my mistake.

Deep within,
I still feel the ache.

Can an unformed thing
eternally break?

Now, from a great distance,
I see you again

not as you are now,
but as you were then―

eternally present
and Sovereign.



After the Deluge
by Michael R. Burch

She was kinder than light
to an up-reaching flower
and sweeter than rain
to the bees in their bower
where anemones blush
at the affections they shower,
and love’s shocking power.

She shocked me to life,
but soon left me to wither.
I was listless without her,
nor could I be with her.
I fell under the spell
of her absence’s power.
in that calamitous hour.

Like blithe showers that fled
repealing spring’s sweetness;
like suns’ warming rays sped
away, with such fleetness ...
she has taken my heart―
alas, our completeness!
I now wilt in pale beams
of her occult remembrance.



Love Has a Southern Flavor
by Michael R. Burch

Love has a Southern flavor: honeydew,
ripe cantaloupe, the honeysuckle’s spout
we tilt to basking faces to breathe out
the ordinary, and inhale perfume ...

Love’s Dixieland-rambunctious: tangled vines,
wild clematis, the gold-brocaded leaves
that will not keep their order in the trees,
unmentionables that peek from dancing lines ...

Love cannot be contained, like Southern nights:
the constellations’ dying mysteries,
the fireflies that hum to light, each tree’s
resplendent autumn cape, a genteel sight ...

Love also is as wild, as sprawling-sweet,
as decadent as the wet leaves at our feet.



Violets
by Michael R. Burch

Once, only once,
when the wind flicked your skirt
to an indiscrete height

and you laughed,
abruptly demure,
outblushing shocked violets:

suddenly,
I knew:
everything had changed

and as you braided your hair
into long bluish plaits
the shadows empurpled,

the dragonflies’
last darting feints
dissolving mid-air,

we watched the sun’s long glide
into evening,
knowing and unknowing.

O, how the illusions of love
await us in the commonplace
and rare

then haunt our small remainder of hours.



Smoke
by Michael R. Burch

The hazy, smoke-filled skies of summer I remember well;
farewell was on my mind, and the thoughts that I can't tell
rang bells within (the din was in) my mind, and I can't say
if what we had was good or bad, or where it is today.
The endless days of summer's haze I still recall today;
she spoke and smoky skies stood still as summer slipped away ...



How Long the Night
(anonymous Old English Lyric, circa early 13th century AD)
translation by Michael R. Burch

It is pleasant, indeed, while the summer lasts
with the mild pheasants' song ...
but now I feel the northern wind's blast―
its severe weather strong.
Alas! Alas! This night seems so long!
And I, because of my momentous wrong
now grieve, mourn and fast.



Shattered
by Vera Pavlova
translation by Michael R. Burch

I shattered your heart;
now I limp through the shards
barefoot.



Snapshots
by Michael R. Burch

Here I scrawl extravagant rainbows.
And there you go, skipping your way to school.
And here we are, drifting apart
like untethered balloons.

Here I am, creating "art,"
chanting in shadows,
pale as the crinoline moon,
ignoring your face.

There you go,
in diaphanous lace,
making another man’s heart swoon.
Suddenly, unthinkably, here he is,

taking my place.



The Darker Nights
by Michael R. Burch

Nights when I held you,
nights when I saw
the gentlest of spirits,
yet, deeper, a flaw ...

Nights when we settled
and yet never gelled.
Nights when you promised
what you later withheld ...



Moon Poem
by Michael R. Burch
after Linda Gregg

I climb the mountain
to inquire of the moon ...
the advantages of loftiness, absence, distance.
Is it true that it feels no pain,
or will she contradict me?

Originally published by Borderless Journal (Singapore)

The apparent contradiction of it/she is intentional, since the speaker doesn’t know if the moon is an inanimate object or can feel pain.



If
by Michael R. Burch

If I regret
fire in the sunset
exploding on the horizon,
then let me regret loving you.

If I forget
even for a moment
that you are the only one,
then let me forget that the sky is blue.

If I should yearn
in a season of discontentment
for the vagabond light of a companionless moon,
let dawn remind me that you are my sun.

If I should burn―one moment less brightly,
one instant less true―
then with wild scorching kisses,
inflame me, inflame me, inflame me anew.



Because You Came to Me
by Michael R. Burch

Because you came to me with sweet compassion
and kissed my furrowed brow and smoothed my hair,
I do not love you after any fashion,
but wildly, in despair.

Because you came to me in my black torment
and kissed me fiercely, blazing like the sun
upon parched desert dunes, till in dawn’s foment
they melt, I am undone.

Because I am undone, you have remade me
as suns bring life, as brilliant rains endow
the earth below with leaves, where you now shade me
and bower me, somehow.



Stay With Me Tonight
by Michael R. Burch

Stay with me tonight;
be gentle with me as the leaves are gentle
falling to the earth.
And whisper, O my love,
how that every bright thing, though scattered afar,
retains yet its worth.

Stay with me tonight;
be as a petal long-awaited blooming in my hand.
Lift your face to mine
and touch me with your lips
till I feel the warm benevolence of your breath’s
heady fragrance like wine.

That which we had
when pale and waning as the dying moon at dawn,
outshone the sun.
And so lead me back tonight
through bright waterfalls of light
to where we shine as one.



Insurrection
by Michael R. Burch

She has become as the night―listening
for rumors of dawn―while the dew, glistening,

reminds me of her, and the wind, whistling,
lashes my cheeks with its soft chastening.

She has become as the lights―flickering
in the distance―till memories old and troubling

rise up again and demand remembering ...
like peasants rebelling against a mad king.



Medusa
by Michael R. Burch

Friends, beware
of her iniquitous hair―
long, ravenblack & melancholy.

Many suitors drowned there―
lost, unaware
of the length & extent of their folly.



Daredevil
by Michael R. Burch

There are days that I believe
(and nights that I deny)
love is not mutilation.

Daredevil, dry your eyes.

There are tightropes leaps bereave―
taut wires strumming high
brief songs, infatuations.

Daredevil, dry your eyes.

There were cannon shots’ soirees,
hearts barricaded, wise . . .
and then . . . annihilation.

Daredevil, dry your eyes.

There were nights our hearts conceived
dawns’ indiscriminate sighs.
To dream was our consolation.

Daredevil, dry your eyes.

There were acrobatic leaves
that tumbled down to lie
at our feet, bright trepidations.

Daredevil, dry your eyes.

There were hearts carved into trees―
tall stakes where you and I
left childhood’s salt libations . . .

Daredevil, dry your eyes.

Where once you scraped your knees;
love later bruised your thighs.
Death numbs all, our sedation.

Daredevil, dry your eyes.



Mingled Air
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Ephemeral as breath, still words consume
the substance of our hearts; the very air
that fuels us is subsumed; sometimes the hair
that veils your eyes is lifted and the room

seems hackles-raised: a spring all tension wound
upon a word. At night I feel the care
evaporate—a vapor everywhere
more enervate than sighs: a mournful sound

grown blissful. In the silences between
I hear your heart, forget to breathe, and glow
somehow. And though the words subside, we know
the hearth light and the comfort embers gleam

upon our dreaming consciousness. We share
so much so common: sighs, breath, mingled air.



Elemental
by Michael R. Burch

There is within her a welling forth
of love unfathomable.
She is not comfortable
with the thought of merely loving:
but she must give all.

At night, she heeds the storm's calamitous call;
nay, longs for it. Why?
O, if a man understood, he might understand her.
But that never would do!
Darling, as you embrace the storm,

so I embrace elemental you.



Duet, Minor Key
by Michael R. Burch

Without the drama of cymbals
or the fanfare and snares of drums,
I present my case
stripped of its fine veneer:
Behold, thy instrument.

Play, for the night is long.



honeybee
by Michael R. Burch

love was a little treble thing―
prone to sing
and (sometimes) to sting



don’t forget ...
by Michael R. Burch

don’t forget to remember
that Space is curved
(like your Heart)
and that even Light is bent
by your Gravity.

The opening lines were inspired by a famous love poem by e. e. cummings. I have dedicated this poem to my wife Beth, but you're welcome to dedicate it to the light-bending person of your choice, as long as you credit me as the author.



Sudden Shower
by Michael R. Burch

The day’s eyes were blue
until you appeared
and they wept at your beauty.



She Was Very Strange, and Beautiful
by Michael R. Burch

She was very strange, and beautiful,
like a violet mist enshrouding hills
before night falls
when the hoot owl calls
and the cricket trills
and the envapored moon hangs low and full.

She was very strange, in a pleasant way,
as the hummingbird
flies madly still,
so I drank my fill
of her every word.
What she knew of love, she demurred to say.

She was meant to leave, as the wind must blow,
as the sun must set,
as the rain must fall.
Though she gave her all,
I had nothing left . . .
yet I smiled, bereft, in her receding glow.



Isolde's Song
by Michael R. Burch

Through our long years of dreaming to be one
we grew toward an enigmatic light
that gently warmed our tendrils. Was it sun?
We had no eyes to tell; we loved despite
the lack of all sensation―all but one:
we felt the night's deep chill, the air so bright
at dawn we quivered limply, overcome.

To touch was all we knew, and how to bask.
We knew to touch; we grew to touch; we felt
spring's urgency, midsummer's heat, fall's lash,
wild winter's ice and thaw and fervent melt.
We felt returning light and could not ask
its meaning, or if something was withheld
more glorious. To touch seemed life's great task.

At last the petal of me learned: unfold.
And you were there, surrounding me. We touched.
The curious golden pollens! Ah, we touched,
and learned to cling and, finally, to hold.



Myth
by Michael R. Burch

Here the recalcitrant wind
sighs with grievance and remorse
over fields of wayward gorse
and thistle-throttled lanes.

And she is the myth of the scythed wheat
hewn and sighing, complete,
waiting, lain in a low sheaf―
full of faith, full of grief.

Here the immaculate dawn
requires belief of the leafed earth
and she is the myth of the mown grain―
golden and humble in all its weary worth.



Heat Lightening
by Michael R. Burch

Each night beneath the elms, we never knew
which lights beyond dark hills might stall, advance,
then lurch into strange headbeams tilted up
like searchlights seeking contact in the distance . . .

Quiescent unions . . . thoughts of bliss, of hope . . .
long-dreamt appearances of wished-on stars . . .
like childhood’s long-occluded, nebulous
slow drift of half-formed visions . . . slip and bra . . .

Wan moonlight traced your features, perilous,
in danger of extinction, should your hair
fall softly on my eyes, or should a kiss
cause them to close, or should my fingers dare

to leave off childhood for some new design
of whiter lace, of flesh incarnadine.



Redolence
by Michael R. Burch

Now darkness ponds upon the violet hills;
cicadas sing; the tall elms gently sway;
and night bends near, a deepening shade of gray;
the bass concerto of a bullfrog fills
what silence there once was; globed searchlights play.

Green hanging ferns adorn dark window sills,
all drooping fronds, awaiting morning’s flares;
mosquitoes whine; the lissome moth again
flits like a veiled oud-dancer, and endures
the fumblings of night’s enervate gray rain.

And now the pact of night is made complete;
the air is fresh and cool, washed of the grime
of the city’s ashen breath; and, for a time,
the fragrance of her clings, obscure and sweet.



A Surfeit of Light
by Michael R. Burch

There was always a surfeit of light in your presence.
You stood distinctly apart, not of the humdrum world―
a chariot of gold in a procession of plywood.

We were all pioneers of the modern expedient race,
raising the ante: Home Depot to Lowe’s.
Yours was an antique grace―Thrace’s or Mesopotamia’s.

We were never quite sure of your silver allure,
of your trillium-and-platinum diadem,
of your utter lack of flatware-like utility.

You told us that night―your wound would not scar.
The black moment passed, then you were no more.
The darker the sky, how much brighter the Star!

The day of your funeral, I ripped out the crown mold.
You were this fool’s gold.



Desdemona
by Michael R. Burch

Though you possessed the moon and stars,
you are bound to fate and wed to chance.
Your lips deny they crave a kiss;
your feet deny they ache to dance.
Your heart imagines wild romance.

Though you cupped fire in your hands
and molded incandescent forms,
you are barren now, and―spent of flame―
the ashes that remain are borne
toward the sun upon a storm.

You, who demanded more, have less,
your heart within its cells of sighs
held fast by chains of misery,
confined till death for peddling lies―
imprisonment your sense denies.

You, who collected hearts like leaves
and pressed each once within your book,
forgot. None―winsome, bright or rare―
not one was worth a second look.
My heart, as others, you forsook.

But I, though I loved you from afar
through silent dawns, and gathered rue
from gardens where your footsteps left
cold paths among the asters, knew―
each moonless night the nettles grew

and strangled hope, where love dies too.



Unfoldings
by Michael R. Burch

for Vicki

Time unfolds ...
Your lips were roses.
... petals open, shyly clustering ...
I had dreams
of other seasons.
... ten thousand colors quiver, blossoming.

Night and day ...
Dreams burned within me.
... flowers part themselves, and then they close ...
You were lovely;
I was lonely.
... a ****** yields herself, but no one knows.

Now time goes on ...
I have not seen you.
... within ringed whorls, secrets are exchanged ...
A fire rages;
no one sees it.
... a blossom spreads its flutes to catch the rain.

Seasons flow ...
A dream is dying.
... within parched clusters, life is taking form ...
You were honest;
I was angry.
... petals fling themselves before the storm.

Time is slowing ...
I am older.
... blossoms wither, closing one last time ...
I'd love to see you
and to touch you.
... a flower crumbles, crinkling, worn and dry.

Time contracts ...
I cannot touch you.
... a solitary flower cries for warmth ...
Life goes on as
dreams lose meaning.
... the seeds are scattered, lost within a storm.



Chloe
by Michael R. Burch

There were skies onyx at night ... moons by day ...
lakes pale as her eyes ... breathless winds
******* tall elms; ... she would say
that we loved, but I figured we’d sinned.

Soon impatiens too fiery to stay
sagged; the crocus bells drooped, golden-limned;
things of brightness, rinsed out, ran to gray ...
all the light of that world softly dimmed.

Where our feet were inclined, we would stray;
there were paths where dead weeds stood untrimmed,
distant mountains that loomed in our way,
thunder booming down valleys dark-hymned.

What I found, I found lost in her face
while yielding all my virtue to her grace.



If You Come to San Miguel
by Michael R. Burch

If you come to San Miguel
before the orchids fall,
we might stroll through lengthening shadows
those deserted streets
where love first bloomed ...

You might buy the same cheap musk
from that mud-spattered stall
where with furtive eyes the vendor
watched his fragrant wares
perfume your ******* ...

Where lean men mend tattered nets,
disgruntled sea gulls chide;
we might find that cafetucho
where through grimy panes
sunset implodes ...

Where tall cranes spin canvassed loads,
the strange anhingas glide.
Green brine laps splintered moorings,
rusted iron chains grind,
weighed and anchored in the past,

held fast by luminescent tides ...
Should you come to San Miguel?
Let love decide.



Vacuum
by Michael R. Burch

Over hushed quadrants
forever landlocked in snow,
time’s senseless winds blow ...

leaving odd relics of lives half-revealed,
if still mostly concealed ...
such are the things we are unable to know

that once intrigued us so.

Come then, let us quickly repent
of whatever truths we’d once determined to learn:
for whatever is left, we are unable to discern.

There’s nothing left of us here; it’s time to go.



The Sky Was Turning Blue
by Michael R. Burch

Yesterday I saw you
as the snow flurries died,
spent winds becalmed.
When I saw your solemn face
alone in the crowd,
I felt my heart, so long embalmed,
begin to beat aloud.

Was it another winter,
another day like this?
Was it so long ago?
Where you the rose-cheeked girl
who slapped my face, then stole a kiss?
Was the sky this gray with snow,
my heart so all a-whirl?

How is it in one moment
it was twenty years ago,
lost worlds remade anew?
When your eyes met mine, I knew
you felt it too, as though
we heard the robin's song
and the sky was turning blue.



Roses for a Lover, Idealized
by Michael R. Burch

When you have become to me
as roses bloom, in memory,
exquisite, each sharp thorn forgot,
will I recall―yours made me bleed?

When winter makes me think of you―
whorls petrified in frozen dew,
bright promises blithe spring forsook,
will I recall your words―barbed, cruel?



Nothing Returns
by Michael R. Burch

A wave implodes,
impaled upon
impassive rocks . . .

this evening
the thunder of the sea
is a wild music filling my ear . . .

you are leaving
and the ungrieving
winds demur:

telling me
that nothing returns
as it was before,

here where you have left no mark
upon this dark
Heraclitean shore.



First and Last
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

You are the last arcane rose
of my aching,
my longing,
or the first yellowed leaves―
vagrant spirals of gold
forming huddled bright sheaves;
you are passion forsaking
dark skies, as though sunsets no winds might enclose.

And still in my arms
you are gentle and fragrant―
demesne of my vigor,
spent rigor,
lost power,
fallen musculature of youth,
leaves clinging and hanging,
nameless joys of my youth to this last lingering hour.



Your Pull
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

You were like sunshine and rain―
begetting rainbows,
full of contradictions, like the intervals
between light and shadow.

That within you which I most opposed
drew me closer still,
as a magnet exerts its unyielding pull
on insensate steel.



Love Is Not Love
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Love is not love that never looked
within itself and questioned all,
curled up like a zygote in a ball,
throbbed, sobbed and shook.

(Or went on a binge at a nearby mall,
then would not cook.)

Love is not love that never winced,
then smiled, convinced
that soar’s the prerequisite of fall.

When all
its wounds and scars have been saline-rinsed,
where does Love find the wherewithal
to try again,
endeavor, when

all that it knows
is: O, because!



The Stake
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Love, the heart bets,
if not without regrets,
will still prove, in the end,
worth the light we expend
mining the dark
for an exquisite heart.



The One True Poem
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Love was not meaningless ...
nor your embrace, nor your kiss.

And though every god proved a phantom,
still you were divine to your last dying atom ...

So that when you are gone
and, yea, not a word remains of this poem,

even so,
We were One.



The Poem of Poems
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

This is my Poem of Poems, for you.
Every word ineluctably true:
I love you.



BeMused
by Michael R. Burch

You will find in her hair
a fragrance more severe
than camphor.
You will find in her dress
no hint of a sweet
distractedness.
You will find in her eyes
horn-owlish and wise
no metaphors
of love, but only reflections
of books, books, books.

If you like Her looks …

meet me in the long rows,
between Poetry and Prose,
where we’ll win Her favor
with jousts, and savor
the wine of Her hair,
the shimmery wantonness
of Her rich-satined dress;
where we’ll press
our good deeds upon Her, save Her
from every distress,
for the lovingkindness
of Her matchless eyes
and all the suns of Her tongues.

We were young,
once,
unlearned and unwise . . .
but, O, to be young
when love comes disguised
with the whisper of silks
and idolatry,
and even the childish tongue claims
the intimacy of Poetry.



There’s a Stirring and Awakening in the World
by Michael R. Burch

There’s a stirring and awakening in the world,
and even so my spirit stirs within,
imagining some Power beckoning—
the Force which through the stamen gently whirrs,
unlocking tumblers deftly, even mine.

The grape grows wild-entangled on the vine,
and here, close by, the honeysuckle shines.
And of such life, at last there comes there comes the Wine.

And so it is with spirits’ fruitful yield—
the growth comes first, Green Vagrance, then the Bloom.

The world somehow must give the spirit room
to blossom, till its light shines—wild, revealed.

And then at last the earth receives its store
of blessings, as glad hearts cry—More! More! More!

Originally published by Borderless Journal



POEMS ABOUT POOL SHARKS

These are poems about pool sharks, gamblers, con artists and other sharks. I used to hustle pool on bar tables around Nashville, where I ran into many colorful characters, and a few unsavory ones, before I hung up my cue for good.

Shark
by Michael R. Burch

They are all unknowable,
these rough pale men—
haunting dim pool rooms like shadows,
propped up on bar stools like scarecrows,
nodding and sagging in the fraying light . . .

I am not of them,
as I glide among them—
eliding the amorphous camaraderie
they are as unlikely to spell as to feel,
camouflaged in my own pale dichotomy . . .

That there are women who love them defies belief—
with their missing teeth,
their hair in thin shocks
where here and there a gap of scalp gleams like bizarre chrome,
their smell rank as wet sawdust or mildewed laundry . . .

And yet—
and yet there is someone who loves me:
She sits by the telephone
in the lengthening shadows
and pregnant grief . . .

They appreciate skill at pool, not words.
They frown at massés,
at the cue ball’s contortions across green felt.
They hand me their hard-earned money with reluctant smiles.
A heart might melt at the thought of their children lying in squalor . . .
At night I dream of them in bed, toothless, kissing.
With me, it’s harder to say what is missing . . .



Fair Game
by Michael R. Burch

At the Tennessee State Fair,
the largest stuffed animals hang tilt-a-whirl over the pool tables
with mocking button eyes,
knowing the playing field is unlevel,
that the rails slant, ever so slightly, north or south,
so that gravity is always on their side,
conspiring to save their plush, extravagant hides
year after year.

“Come hither, come hither . . .”
they whisper; they leer
in collusion with the carnival barkers,
like a bevy of improbably-clad hookers
setting a “fair” price.
“Only five dollars a game, and it’s so much Fun!
And it’s not really gambling. Skill is involved!
You can make us come: really, you can.
Here are your *****. Just smack them around.”

But there’s a trick, and it usually works.
If you break softly so that no ball reaches a rail,
you can pick them off: One. Two. Three. Four.
Causing a small commotion,
a stir of whispering, like fear,
among the hippos and ostriches.



Con Artistry
by Michael R. Burch

The trick of life is like the sleight of hand
of gamblers holding deuces by the glow
of veiled back rooms, or aces; soon we’ll know
who folds, who stands . . .

The trick of life is like the pool shark’s shot—
the wild massé across green velvet felt
that leaves the winner loser. No, it’s not
the rack, the hand that’s dealt . . .

The trick of life is knowing that the odds
are never in one’s favor, that to win
is only to delay the acts of gods
who’d ante death for sin . . .

and death for goodness, death for in-between.
The rules have never changed; the artist knows
the oldest con is life; the chips he blows
can’t be redeemed.



Pool's Prince Charming
by Michael R. Burch

this is my tribute poem, written on the behalf of his fellow pool sharks, for the legendary Saint Louie Louie Roberts

Louie, Louie, Prince of Pool,
making all the ladies drool ...
Take the “nuts”? I'd be a fool!
Louie, Louie, Prince of Pool.

Louie, Louie, pretty as Elvis,
owner of (ahem) a similar pelvis ...
Compared to you, the books will shelve us.
Louie, Louie, pretty as Elvis.

Louie, Louie, fearless gambler,
ladies' man and constant rambler,
but such a sweet, loquacious ambler!
Louie, Louie, fearless gambler.

Louie, Louie, angelic, chthonic,
pool's charming hero, but tragic, Byronic,
winning the Open drinking gin and tonic?
Louie, Louie, angelic, chthonic.

I used poetic license about what Louie Roberts was or wasn't drinking at the 1981 U. S. Open Nine-Ball Championship. Was Louie drinking hard liquor as he came charging back through the losers' bracket to win the whole shebang? Or was he pretending to drink for gamesmanship or some other reason? I honestly don't know. As for the word “chthonic,” it’s pronounced “thonic” and means “subterranean” or “of the underworld.” And the pool world can be very dark indeed, as Louie’s tragic demise suggests. But everyone who knew Louie seemed to like him, if not love him dearly, and many sharks have spoken of Louie in glowing terms, as a bringer of light to that underworld.



My wife and I were having a drink at a neighborhood bar which has a pool table. A “money” game was about to start; a spectator got up to whisper something to a friend of ours who was about to play someone we hadn’t seen before. We couldn’t hear what was said. Then the newcomer broke—with such force that his stick flew straight up in the air and shattered the light dangling overhead. There was a moment of stunned silence, then our friend turned around and remarked: “He really does shoot the lights out, doesn’t he?” — Michael R. Burch



Rounds
by Michael R. Burch

Solitude surrounds me
though nearby laughter sounds;
around me mingle men who think
to drink their demons down,
in rounds.

Now agony still hounds me
though elsewhere mirth abounds;
hidebound I stand and try to think,
not sink still further down,
spellbound.

Their ecstasy astounds me,
though drunkenness compounds
resounding laughter into joy;
alloy such glee with beer and see
bliss found.

Originally published by Borderless Journal



Poems about Fathers and Grandfathers



Ultimate Sunset
by Michael R. Burch

for my father, Paul Ray Burch, Jr.

he now faces the Ultimate Sunset,
his body like the leaves that fray as they dry,
shedding their vital fluids (who knows why?)
till they've become even lighter than the covering sky,
ready to fly...



Free Fall
by Michael R. Burch

for my father, Paul Ray Burch, Jr.

I see the longing for departure gleam
in his still-keen eye,
and I understand his desire
to test this last wind, like those late autumn leaves
with nothing left to cling to...



Sanctuary at Dawn
by Michael R. Burch

I have walked these thirteen miles
just to stand outside your door.
The rain has dogged my footsteps
for thirteen miles, for thirty years,
through the monsoon seasons...
and now my tears
have all been washed away.

Through thirteen miles of rain I slogged,
I stumbled and I climbed
rainslickened slopes
that led me home
to the hope that I might find
a life I lived before.

The door is wet; my cheeks are wet,
but not with rain or tears...
as I knock I sweat
and the raining seems
the rhythm of the years.

Now you stand outlined in the doorway
―a man as large as I left―
and with bated breath
I take a step
into the accusing light.

Your eyes are grayer
than I remembered;
your hair is grayer, too.
As the red rust runs
down the dripping drains,
our voices exclaim―

'My father! '
'My son! '



Sunset
by Michael R. Burch

for my Grandfather, George Edwin Hurt Sr.

Between the prophecies of morning
and twilight's revelations of wonder,
the sky is ripped asunder.

The moon lurks in the clouds,
waiting, as if to plunder
the dusk of its lilac iridescence,

and in the bright-tentacled sunset
we imagine a presence
full of the fury of lost innocence.

What we find within strange whorls of drifting flame,
brief patterns mauling winds deform and maim,
we recognize at once, but cannot name.



Sailing to My Grandfather
by Michael R. Burch

for my Grandfather, George Edwin Hurt Sr.

This distance between us
―this vast sea
of remembrance―
is no hindrance,
no enemy.

I see you out of the shining mists
of memory.
Events and chance
and circumstance
are sands on the shore of your legacy.

I find you now in fits and bursts
of breezes time has blown to me,
while waves, immense,
now skirt and glance
against the bow unceasingly.

I feel the sea's salt spray―light fists,
her mists and vapors mocking me.
From ignorance
to reverence,
your words were sextant stars to me.

Bright stars are strewn in silver gusts
back, back toward infinity.
From innocence
to senescence,
now you are mine increasingly.

Note: Under the Sextant's Stars is a painting by Benini.



Salat Days
by Michael R. Burch

for my grandfather, Paul Ray Burch, Sr.

I remember how my grandfather used to pick poke salat...
though first, usually, he'd stretch back in the front porch swing,
dangling his long thin legs, watching the sweat bees drone,
talking about poke salat―
how easy it was to find if you knew where to look for it...
standing in dew-damp clumps by the side of a road, shockingly green,
straddling fence posts, overflowing small ditches,
crowding out the less-hardy nettles.

'Nobody knows that it's there, lad, or that it's fit tuh eat
with some bacon drippin's or lard.'

'Don't eat the berries. You see―the berry's no good.
And you'd hav'ta wash the leaves a good long time.'

'I'd boil it twice, less'n I wus in a hurry.
Lawd, it's tough to eat, chile, if you boil it jest wonst.'

He seldom was hurried; I can see him still...
silently mowing his yard at eighty-eight,
stooped, but with a tall man's angular gray grace.

Sometimes he'd pause to watch me running across the yard,
trampling his beans,
dislodging the shoots of his tomato plants.

He never grew flowers; I never laughed at his jokes about The Depression.

Years later I found the proper name―'pokeweed'―while perusing a dictionary.

Surprised, I asked why anyone would eat a ****.
I still can hear his laconic reply...

'Well, chile, s'm'times them times wus hard.'



All Things Galore
by Michael R. Burch

for my grandfathers George Edwin Hurt Sr. and Paul Ray Burch, Sr.

Grandfather,
now in your gray presence
you are

somehow more near

and remind me that,
once, upon a star,
you taught me

wish

that ululate soft phrase,
that hopeful phrase!

and everywhere above, each hopeful star
gleamed down
and seemed to speak of times before
when you clasped my small glad hand
in your wise paw

and taught me heaven, omen, meteor...



Attend Upon Them Still
by Michael R. Burch

for my grandparents George and Ena Hurt

With gentleness and fine and tender will,
attend upon them still;
thou art the grass.

Nor let men's feet here muddy as they pass
thy subtle undulations, nor depress
for long the comforts of thy lovingness,

nor let the fuse
of time wink out amid the violets.
They have their use―

to wave, to grow, to gleam, to lighten their paths,
to shine sweet, transient glories at their feet.
Thou art the grass;

make them complete.



Be that Rock
by Michael R. Burch

for my grandfather George Edwin Hurt Sr.

When I was a child
I never considered man's impermanence,
for you were a mountain of adamant stone:
a man steadfast, immense,
and your words rang.

And when you were gone,
I still heard your voice, which never betrayed,
'Be strong and of a good courage,
neither be afraid...'
as the angels sang.

And, O! , I believed
for your words were my truth, and I tried to be brave
though the years slipped away
with so little to save
of that talk.

Now I'm a man―
a man... and yet Grandpa... I'm still the same child
who sat at your feet
and learned as you smiled.
Be that rock.



Of Civilization and Disenchantment
by Michael R. Burch

for Anais Vionet

Suddenly uncomfortable
to stay at my grandfather's house―
actually his third new wife's,
in her daughter's bedroom
―one interminable summer
with nothing to do,
all the meals served cold,
even beans and peas...

Lacking the words to describe
ah! , those pearl-luminous estuaries―
strange omens, incoherent nights.

Seeing the flares of the river barges
illuminating Memphis,
city of bluffs and dying splendors.

Drifting toward Alexandria,
Pharos, Rhakotis, Djoser's fertile delta,
lands at the beginning of a new time and 'civilization.'

Leaving behind sixty miles of unbroken cemetery,
Alexander's corpse floating seaward,
bobbing, milkwhite, in a jar of honey.

Memphis shall be waste and desolate,
without an inhabitant.

Or so the people dreamed, in chains.



Keep Up
by Michael R. Burch

Keep Up!
Daddy, I'm walking as fast as I can;
I'll move much faster when I'm a man...

Time unwinds
as the heart reels,
as cares and loss and grief plummet,
as faith unfailing ascends the summit
and heartache wheels
like a leaf in the wind.

Like a rickety cart wheel
time revolves through the yellow dust,
its creakiness revoking trust,
its years emblazoned in cold hard steel.

Keep Up!
Son, I'm walking as fast as I can;
take it easy on an old man.



My Touchstone
by Michael R. Burch

for my grandfather George Edwin Hurt Sr.

A man is known
by the life he lives
and those he leaves,

by each heart touched,
which, left behind,
forever grieves.



Joy in the Morning
by Michael R. Burch

for my grandparents George Edwin Hurt Sr. and Christine Ena Hurt

There will be joy in the morning
for now this long twilight is over
and their separation has ended.

For fourteen years, he had not seen her
whom he first befriended,
then courted and married.

Let there be joy, and no mourning,
for now in his arms she is carried
over a threshold vastly sweeter.

He never lost her; she only tarried
until he was able to meet her.

Keywords/Tags: George Edwin Hurt Christine Ena Spouse reunited heaven joy together forever



Poems about Mothers and Grandmothers



Dawn
by Michael R. Burch

for my grandmothers Lillian Lee and Christine Ena Hurt

Bring your peculiar strength
to the strange nightmarish fray:
wrap up your cherished ones
in the golden light of day.



Mother's Day Haiku
by Michael R. Burch

for my grandmothers Lillian Lee and Christine Ena Hurt

Crushed grapes
surrender such sweetness:
a mother’s compassion.

My footprints
so faint in the snow?
Ah yes, you lifted me.

An emu feather ...
still falling?
So quickly you rushed to my rescue.

The eagle sees farther
from its greater height:
our mothers' wisdom.



The Rose
by Michael R. Burch

for my grandmother, Lillian Lee, who used to grow the most beautiful roses

The rose is—
the ornament of the earth,
the glory of nature,
the archetype of the flowers,
the blush of the meadows,
a lightning flash of beauty.

This poem above is my translation of a Sappho epigram.



The Greatest of These ...
by Michael R. Burch

for my mother, Christine Ena Burch, and the grandmother of my son Jeremy

The hands that held me tremble.
The arms that lifted
fall.
Angelic flesh, now parchment,
is held together with gauze.

But her undimmed eyes still embrace me;
there infinity can be found.
I can almost believe such infinite love
will still reach me, underground.



Arisen
by Michael R. Burch

for my mother, Christine Ena Burch

Mother, I love you!
Mother, delightful,
articulate, insightful!

Angels in training,
watching over, would hover,
learning to love
from the Master: a Mother.

You learned all there was
for this planet to teach,
then extended your wings
to Love’s ultimate reach ...

And now you have soared
beyond eagles and condors
into distant elevations
only Phoenixes can conquer.

Amen

Published as the collection "Love Poems by Michael R. Burch"

Keywords/Tags: love, Eros, ******, erotica, passion, desire, lust, ***, dating, marriage, romance, romantic, romanticism

Desire
astounds, by glint of a smile.
Always careful when find,
dream wearing awhile.

In gold
reclaim, mindful of failings.
Gift precious when dare,
love among tailings.

210,089 views on the internet, you sorta get the picture
as to why there's this need to keep count... esp. given
the video content...
    well... it's not that i live
   in a big brother society,
i can't believe that the concept of
a minority report by philip k. ****
hasn't become mainstream...
   and yes, i have this great distrust of
what was once oath, but now has become
a case of: all things otiose...
concerning Hippocrates...
        people begin to question reality
because: there's no reality beyond touching
a brick, or licking a postage-stamp...
psychiatry is contrary to Hippocrates...
   given that there's this illness
that incorporates the whole world,
and that a god omni-this-that-and-the-other
has created people who seem to want
to establish themselves as: with those
attributes inherent in them...
      all we can say about the god we created
is that: he's unthinkable...
   now come the pronoun assaults...
what if i weren't a man, and merely called
god a she or a gender-neutral it...
        jesus against the slackers...
   i find the second coming that happened
in 1945 with the unearthing of the Egyptian
library so, so so ******* revolting,
that every time i burp up a canape of *****
i only think about swallowing it back down...
   that's how revolting i find the second
coming to be... it happened... hello!
back in 1945... it already happened when
the nag hammadi library was unearthed at
the end of world war ii: "ironically"...
         well, sure: foretell the end of the world
drop an atom bomb on hiroshima and nagasaki...
i still don't see how the professional philosophers
of our age draw the line past the big bang theory
and darwinism and look for "ideas"
or "laws of thought" with a "beginning"
starting from the Greeks... don't know,
it passed me by... i found a new beginning
with the Germans... the so-called titans:
and yes, i: the little man...
    as akin to heidegger: how there is nothing
worth observing and everything must be willed:
the asian maggot-brains would just look
at Everest and not think to climb it...
when thought turns into verb...
you don't see a Vishnu... you see a Shiva...
people can't be trusted with heidegger's concept
of dasein... sure, people need a will,
but when will becomes obliterated
  due to certain nuances that only demand
such a light-stroke of being kept:
you don't get anything profound from
   a physics akin to working from dasein
coordinates (0, 0)...
       well, you do: violence and numbers...
angry ***...
           on an individual basis the dasein doesn't
work... on an individual basis there is no dasein...
it's really about a personal trainer, a newspaper,
a rhetoric manipulator...
   working from heidegger's dasein
   there emerges no concern for a hersein
(a hereness, a being here) -
always that ******* flight toward the stratosphere
of heaven...
         and always that fetish for looking
at the ancient Greek ego like the genital parts
you're about to **** off...
    it's become a case of: i could easily
discard the 20th century advert of what was lived
and return to the late 19th century
   with the genesis of the 21st century:
and i wouldn't even flinch.
   read a book and look at the stillness of it all...
and i did, i then turn onto the internet
and see this ******* pigeon...
   and it really is a pigeon talking really
profound things... i listen to this pigeon from time
to time... and he really is a pigeon:
   paul joseph watson on youtube really
is a pigeon... i hope his neck doesn't break...
a bit like O'Hara's ode to Ginsberg
   and that ref. to adolf deutsche, the composer:
no, not the maniac genocide artist...
   i'm really, only slightly against the concept
of dasein... for me there's no there with me
included... but then again: i might only be
half human when i think it out...
    plus, given the fact that this mass-connectivity
construct exists, i can sorta jump from
one end of the earth to another and feel:
nothing equivalent of sniffing jasmine in Lebanon...
none of the 20th century writers could have
predicted the internet canvas...
  and given that: they're not even out of vogue:
they very much are the vongue:
   but their context, contained within a book
  is dodo.
       so what i find from the concept of dasein:
a need for physics...
******, you ain't moving, i'm not moving!
and as the two tiers of language emerge:
a. noting the langusage sausage as: about to be said
and b. language noted: i can't believe i just thought that up!
funny how bilingualism works...
   deemed by strict authoritarians as worth
the noun schizophrenia... naturally...
   but then shrapnel words do make up the cocktail...
the Greek oν (meaning being) translates into
Polish as merely: he...
    and pronouns can be so much more involved in
kinetics: the pyramid hierarchy of pronoun motivational
tactic: how you can become him... by not listening
to your i... the whole shabang of: me, myself and i...
   let's treat nouns and alzheimer's on a segregational
level... given we have to establish nouns
on a firm basis... so everyone knows what everyone
else it talking about...
    what really ***** the game up to give
pronouns the full categorical impetus for a worth
to change is this (recently unearthed) game
of changing the he to a she...
      not transcendental concerns but transgender
escapes... god is by now unthinkable,
given the prefix omni- there is absolutely no
way to discuss (gender neutral) it... easier said
and done with stephen king's clown...
i swear to oh oh...
    but why is no one catching on why Islam is
so agitated? given the pages were unearthed by
some Egyptian shepherd, and the authority of
the church was bypassed... people started to think
it would be as non-kinetic as donning a pink
scarf when wearing a tuxedo...
       approx. 2000 years, gone, down the drain...
this is what you get when you bypass
established authority, and still keep the said
authority and create this weird quasi-religious
secularism... long gone the church-state divide...
long gone the church... and so too the state...
it really has become a case of money
being akin to water or fire...
  an element, for the most part we can contain it,
but in some cases: it astounds us...
a but like man's second dream contained within
the a.i., sure, pocket-money / wage and we have
ourselves a campfire... inflation and national
expenditures, tax and the likes? well... throw your
marshmellows into that raging forest-fire!
we created the concept of an element in how
we kneel to the dynamic of transcending beyond
the category: animal...
     we drink water so we can rehydrate...
we breathe air so... d'uh...
    we start fires so we can keep warm...
we created money so we can have a plumber
   or an electrician: in order to not have to talk
or eat with the said plumber or electrician...
           i can only see money as i see fire...
but that doesn't mean i equate money with god...
   better still: that word will not disappear or become
devoid... but the fact that the said word is
given the omni prefix: it's become unthinkable to
even begin with entering a narrative or a dialectics
concerning it... but there we were: most of us:
incubating the word, the concept, the whole shabang!
still... i have that pigeon online: paul joseph watson...
   it's really called lazy when you wrote it
and someone else read it and when you reciprocated
something of mutual effort and when you
weren't the really eager speaker and someone else
wasn't but a miser of a listener...
   just the motto of what the Russians call:
keeping it real... and alive, and bothering to read books.
and yes, having settled out differences,
    revised Marxism and did with it as one might
confuse using a hammer to a pencil /
prior to cultural marxisim there was, once upon a time:
an economic premise - we settled our
differences and became whining bull-mawled
ponces that didn't really care to make it to
the zummit (on purpose) of inter-racial marriage...
never mind making dating boring
by de facto disclosure of ourselves in profile:
  tourism really did **** off a sense of adventure
when diving into another person alongside
it being staged in a theatre of uncertainty...
   art is such an autocrat: it wants to make us
believe we can all be artists...
art did that to me: hence i realised i'm merely a drinker;
and sure, i have a riddle for my palette:
     bourbon whiskey is equivalent to rosé wine...
                          (olé emphasis)
scotch whiskey is equivalent to red wine...
  i.e. bitter... for care of a better word -
laphroaig? smoked salmon -
                                       may i say bourbon
really is: ***** liquor? ever time i drink it i get
this nasal infusion of the perfume of
walking into a ******* brothel...
         and all the fine bollocking that is...
but i wanted to avoiding writing this digression and
go back to heidegger and dasein and how
  that german ****** is merely prescribing kinetics...
movement... how being = doing...
             or something like that...
     oh right! the whole: pronouns are the sole
motivational tools in how they behave to make me
'''jealous'' of him having attained his achievements
could make me move toward attaing his stasus
   (italics and ditto marks are the knife and fork
of existentialism) / emphasis and ambiguity respectively...
   but i mean that as " " denotes being passed-on
(or that's how existentialists took to it...
that it was akin to a hereditary concern with
a beginning, and therefore a chinese-whisper
that became mutated across the years -
in a shorter version, any word with the " " membrane    
could also be encapsulated by, e.g. ~red, i.e.
crimson).
aren't we living in times when the mathematical
sprechen is having due ******* with
linguistic sprechen, just like the pronoun debate
akin to an igloo in Hawaii, only because we all gained
access to this digital canvas? where else if
not in the anglophone world would you actually
experience a feast of acronyms?
   n00b... i thought that meant: ****... apparently
it just means colt... or beginner...
   of l8er...           this leads me to only
one conclusion... when the Greeks started to dress up
their language with very complex diacritical
marks (even though they really didn't have to):
English / pseudo-Latin was asleep...
            and it's still sleeping...
            this acronym safe-haven is getting ulgier
and uglier... i feel like i'm 70
even though i'm 30... well... at least i can tune
into the pigeon online and pass the time.

Before you, no one I had fallen for had ever really seen me naked.

No, not the literal way with the clothes off and the skin bare and the turn ons. More people than I'd like have seen me that way.

With you its like you see me, see deeper than my soft skin and deeper than my bones, you see right through me and break down the walls I've been carrying up for so long.

You've managed to see that I'm tied together with a smile, but with you I come undone. You see me, no guts, not glory, just plain, broken, unattractive me and somehow you find it beautiful. I know you do, but the fact that you do still astounds me.

After waking up so many mornings next to you, sometimes i wish it was the only way I could wake up anymore. Sometimes nights haunt me, and they torment me and torture me with the memories of my past and the shadows of my own darkness, but in the morning, its just you and me and I'm happy. I love how purely happy I am to glance over to your sleeping face and realize that maybe for once I did something right, maybe I chose right.

I'm falling in love with you, I hope you know. Each second the feeling compounds until sooner or later I won't be able to stop myself from saying I am in love. But for now, I'm content with falling. Most times it terrified me, it broke me down to tears, because I was fully aware the person I was falling for would not be there to catch me.

But with you? Oh you, I know you. You'd do anything to be at the bottom of that cliff, right where you belong, ready to catch me when I'm done.

You, the one who I never expected. You see me better than most people have in years. You are strong even when you don't fully believe it, and remain confident even when you feel insecure.

There is one promise I must make to you, unexpected one, and its this; I may falter and I may break down every once in a while, and you may feel like you always have to be strong for me, but I will always be there for you. I will always try to smile for you. I will do anything to make sure you stay the strong, confident person you are because I know that's who you want to be. I will try to keep you strong even when you feel at a loss. I will take down my walls and instead put them elsewhere to hold you up, and not quite protect you from the world, but make that strength of yours easier to bear. I will fight my disorder. I will for you.

Why?

Because you've seen me naked, and instead of wishing for the happy me or shunning the sad me or insisting the sadness isn't real, you held me and promised things would get better and promised I could be stronger than I think I am. And for that I will never falter.

Now that you've seen me imperfect, and now that I see you naked too, there is no going back.

And there is no way I would want to.

The essence of true beauty
Lingers in all-encompassing rainbows
Of your joy and laughter

You hold my hand and smile
As we ensconce ourselves in our world of fire
Our love is all there is

I touch your face
Your gentleness astounds me
I'm held in the honour of your love

Then overnight, the wrold truns suor
61 mInnIts past the ELevenTHH HouRR
I'M A L 0 N E

I love you so much.
But I don’t know exactly who you are
A combination of all my favorite people!
Or a question of who I truly want.

Your eyes are so beautiful
Your body is perfect.
Your hair; as soft as the breeze
Your kisses relax me.

Your gentle laughter brightens my day
Your obnoxious laughter makes me giggle; I know it’s just you now.

Your arms are strong enough to hold me forever.
Your touch is gentle enough to put me to sleep.

When I hear your voice, I fall in love all over again
You don’t realize how much I need you.
I need you like a bird needs wings or a tree needs roots.
Sure, birds can walk, but it’s just not the same.
Yes, trees can lie down; but can’t you see they’re dead?

I’ll never stray from you.
I’ll stay near as long as you’ll have me.
I’ll be here as long as you need me; if you need me at all.
You, though, I feel like you don’t need me.
I feel like you need someone, but it’s not me.
I wish it could be me. I don’t know how to make that happen.

Your advice gets through to my core.
I listen, I truly do.
The sincerity in your voice astounds me
You really are a nice person; you mean no harm.

I would do anything for you.
Anything at all.
You have been with me through thick and thin no matter what.
You are my best friend.
You are my lover.
You are my therapist and my conscience.
You are my co-workers and my family.
I love you so much.

This thought always astounds me so,
It has to be the greatest show.
How every atom that life is made of,
Makes you and me and all that we love.

Can be traced back to vessels that had cooked,
Within them all the bad and good.
Converting small to heavy elements,
These were stars and they made amends.

Small or massive they were formed in the fore,
And when they could not take it anymore.
They would collapse and then they would explode,
Releasing their enriched guts in their heavenly abode.

Guts that would have all that is needed,
From which life could be seeded.
And then the gases cooled and planets formed,
And in them they carried the spice of life, entombed.

So it is true don't you see,
You and I are as complex as universe can be.
As when I gaze upon the stars,
I know we are made of the same dust near or far.

And when I stare at night sky I don't feel small,
I feel rather big and tall.
For I contain the the universe in me,
As far and wide and as big it can be.

And then I smile as I know all is connected,
You me and the stars included,
We are relevant and connected just across the bend,
Isn't that all we are searching for in the end?

-the vagabond

There are certain things
That attract my attention
Here I will tell you
But first I have to mention

That I like girls
And that I find them attractive
The more they're sporty
And the more they're active

With a slim curvy waist
And super nice thighs
The ones who're blonde
With the bright blue eyes

It's important to me
How you deliver your hugs
Cute punk rocker
With big *** plugs

Body like a canvas
Covered in ink
Falling more for you
With each and every blink

Sunglasses bigger
Than your tiny face
Underwear lined
With thin white lace

Piercings here
And piercings there
Short shorts
That you love to wear

A girl's playful aggression
Is totally enough
You might be able to tell
That I like it rough

If you bite my neck
And hold me down
Leave a bruise
And go to town

You'll have my heart
As easy as that sounds
But a good attitude
Is really what astounds

My favorite thing ever
Is when you sit on my lap
So I can wrap my arms around you
And keep you in my trap

I wonder why
It's so hard to find
A cute girl
With a chill mind

I don’t see black and white.
I don’t understand why people fight,
For a freedom they have already received.
Is it just how they have perceived,
The world around them.
My attitude sometimes astounds them.
‘Black Lives Matter’ yes, they do,
But that already’s been taken care of, for me and you.

I don’t see black and white.
While people put on mental shackles like it’s their birthright.
“I can do this because he’s racist.”
When you really don’t understand just where your place is.
Inside yourself you want to reach for the stars.
But your state of mind keeps you where you are.
I know racism is still apart of our problems,
But stop being negative and figure out how to solve them.

when i get lost
i find myself

in the most various of places
as the echo of my paces
reach outer spaces
i delve inward

like the whirlpool
at the center of a ripple
touching the banks of the pond
and defining itself by them
i am
utterly interdependent
externally anchored
and implicitly bound
to the web of meaning
spun around me
and when you found me
lost
in the most various of places
as the echo of my paces
reached outer spaces
i delved inward

and i found me,
my lost self,
all around me
in everyone
and everything else

(it astounds me
how the pronoun 'he'
implies that
which surrounds the
not-so-isolated subject.)

so when i found 'me'
lost
in the most various of places
as the echo of my paces
reached outer spaces
i delved inward.

i delved inward
and saw outward
myself
a shard of glass
reflecting and refracting
the light bouncing
between so many shards of glass
and i shattered

and i dissolved
and i splattered
so many dots of paint
in an impressionistic painting
that got smudged
and delved inward.

so when you found me
lost
in the most various of places
the echo of my paces
reached outer spaces.

and when i
delved inward
i found myself
outside myself.
like the whirlpool
at the center of a ripple.

Deep and full of wisdom
I can't help but stare into them
Rich, dark, and chocolaty brown
When I see them I cannot frown
Their beauty astounds me
When you sweep me off my feet
I look into them and my heart no longer cries
I absolutely love your beautiful eyes

for all its worth, ad inviduum matters,
as any stress imposed
to, "break away from the herd"...
the ever becoming need for
flamboyance and bombast
to not be: the drowning man
in a sea of corpses in the inevitable
inferno...
      as much as the saying goes
about vanity projects,
   hair make-up, or rather:
less extravagence and more on
the lines of: you can walk in *****
and torn clothes...
       but at least you've taken a shower
prior...
             yet there still remains
a stressor on individualism...
    in that...
            as long as individualism
is accepted by a herd of "individuals"...
i remember that outside of school
i knew one black guy,
as the black joke goes: he was a drug
dealer, and a single father...
what the white boy knows a black guy
joke doesn't follow up is that
he was ostricized... a fellow *****...
because they really tell you
about the Bangladeshi workers
    dead beneath the burn khalifa...
even individualism has limits,
with the motto:
   as long as it doesn't mingle with
eccentricity,
    as long as individualism doesn't
mingle with eccentricity...
   because in the latter sense?
that's the individualistic norm shattered...
everyone gets to over-hit the mark...
which shows the cracks in
the so-called notion of individualism...
notably in the west:
        cogitans est cassus primo
                    gratia rideo...
      logos incognito.
                     as such, individualism
as spare, auxiliary / collateral change...
trend setters,
    if famous for 15 minutes,
   pack leaders for 15 seconds,
and then back to the frivolous intrigues
of peacocks on a catwalk...
by individual, i think of the:
                 hersch...
                      a dangerous line between
setting a vogue and a minor
sentiment for the vanguard...
and becoming ostricized as a *****,
humouresly being attached
the term: eccentric...
     or just plain weird in the harsh
tongue of the children's blunt...
phraseology...
                             the world comes
to the boundaries of a small town
exactly 1.5 days later,
  give or take the algorithm
via prior searches...
                                   perhaps how i
understand individualism is
how Narcissus might understand
the vampirism of his brother
     Solipssus...
                  a kind of people who
behave as if without a body,
a type of people who, like vampires,
can't see their reflections...
not that they can't in a literal sense...
      as everything small begs
a curiosity,
   as everything large astounds
with awe...
             paradoxical thus,
the content of a church,
                 and the church itself...
        after all...
     the legionnaires did soak
a sponge with wine and offered it to him
on the end of a spear... which he refused...
   a pale comparison
as blueprint, to what subsequently
came to pass...
              well...
it is pale... considering you'll
never actually know, upon giving
himself up so freely...
  that there wasn't anything,
remotely comparative
with the infamous example
of Albert Fish:
              self-embedded needles
lodged in his pelvis and perineum...
just as the other case in point:
marquis de sade seems more like
a scapegoat than the sadist
his imagination and only his imagination
allowed him to be...
because what,  screaming from
the window of the Bastille, or locked
in an asylum, he could really
compete with the power of the clergy
in the form of his uncle,
the abbé de sade...
                       how can it not be
a fiction, when the power of fiction itself
has become slowly obliterated
wriggling in a cul de sac?
     how could I ever write a work
of fiction, when what was deemed
as truth, credo, is facing up to
non-mainstream footnote reading
and the 1945 archeological findings
that match up to the 2000 or so years
of heretical speculation?
riht now, he can be brown olive
tanned mulatto or whatever Dalton
hue of orange...
              if white is ivory if it is
a scalped cranium a pharmacological
soup woth of brain...
             if white is white and even amrican
south: h'white...
        clingy *******
to the feet of the Urals...
    pardonable warm *****,
only Sveedish, and only at 25ml a pop...
talking to two old people
half-awake, half-asleep...
      buddha-eyed sleepwalking almost...
as i came in contact with
the dark chapter of medicine,
not even past the 1950s America...
                 the infamous tactic
of regression: also known as
    false memory implants...
                    two old people trying
to fall asleep,
   a bottle of *****,
       shy drinking, 10 years of celibacy...
with the odd purely physical encounter
like a rag and a hand and a ***** sink...
my grandfather bemoans that
he never had a chance to say: father...
i could bemoan not having said:
i love you...
                ascribed her an endearing
nick'...
                it seems this world
hides higher pleasures bound
to a rigour so few make eruditions of.

The rain fell backed by a mist almost as dense as fog most of the time car lights offend glaring from the
Water but in this rain they seemed amber and filled your eyes with a diffused softness that was middle
Enthralling to drive by a friend’s house everything seemed trimmed the house the windows the lights
Shining it was this comforting glow that seemed to be frozen and they were the center piece presents
Unseen were laying at their feet memories made the sheer net swirl all about them I was no longer in
My car I wasn’t in my body but I was pure soul I touched and held the fabric of their life it was golden
We run through life and miss the deeper meaning the glory the unveiled story the real the fabulous
Leave your home and the tap water that runs so freely but go to the prince of waters “the Poseidon the
Great Olympian god of the sea the Mediterranean he is the god of fluid element” see in these terms I
Look I see them in their elemental state the fleshly house is a barrier get beyond that common
Rudiments of creation but see them as they truly are spirit’s capable of grace astuteness that astounds
You enter a tempest driven by immortal winds that carry the shadow that clothes the true person on the
Inside no wonder the boredom men and women are masters not the brute and bound that betray them
Selves when they build hovels out of sticks I will insert this for clarification I wrote in my piece river of
Time that I was seventeen sleeping and this dream streamed through my mind the great stars started
Moving from their natural place they formed these great wheels in space it was without the element of
Being over whelmed as I looked two great white transparent hands started pulling the wheels down
When they stopped I knew time was no more God was bringing the world to an end and then these two
Hands reached to the corners of darkness took hold and started to pull the natural world as a great
Curtain was pulled away to reveal the brightness of the spiritual world he started to fold and put away
This former meaningful but now replaced with the superior the real we are going to rule angels in the
Future I know your getting it my wife is fretting about the election would kings and queens concern
Themselves with trifles of truth we behave ourselves as persons of this natural life but there is no law
That says you can’t respectively look on the glory that is your promised heritage a lot of dark forbidding
Should be overturned by the glimmering pulses as I leave my friends my face is glowing the natural face
Shines with great brightness when it tiptoes through the real verses the temporary so truthfully by this
Piece I have visited you also to hang your head is to deny your birthright to speak of these things now
Seems strange but just in a little while they will be the norm so face life with the power of this
Knowledge you’re on a far flung frontier and you’re not home yet

The sun falls swift as an overripe cherry,
Lighter than air, it still laughs like a fairy
Warm and wet and juicy and red
Along the horizon it slowly spreads.
Tossing up splatter to stick to the clouds
Filling the sky, its sweetness astounds

Then washed away by crisp starry rain
Silvery ice that soaks through your veins.
And each sweet day, and every night
The lights fly away, and out of sight,
But surely my dear, to beautiful eyes
Sunset sweet always brings sunrise

Restoration

I found myself in a desert the sun beat down relentlessly you see I was just one more fool living on the
Devil’s life plan he comes and sizes you up watches with intensity not of care but hate he doesn’t take
Long he has seen the same thing multiplied many times before he does a little razz and dazzle if you
Could have seen my face you would know how appealing it was oh that’s right you got the same
Treatment you see this desert is where he houses all of his captives it’s so wide and vast the thought is
Who’s trapped but we are like the icy ice berg but with us it’s the conscious like the tip then the
Subconscious is all that mass the true awe and power of being human I want to insert two pieces I wrote
That deals with the subconscious I believe you will benefit from them just one more person’s thoughts
On Such a grand subject
Piercing the Inner Sanctum
The trivial the less important will never even get a start into the bastion of peace and well being that is
Sacred and defended to the last breath the one irresistible caller that is never barred and who is as a
Master key is beauty to no avail can you post guards loveliness has no comparisons like spectacle in any
And all forms it governs and rules all of our hearts once seen the invitation is never with drawn like the
Vistas seen from a high mountain incomparable glory is touched sequestered in depths of appreciation
Moments of grandeur with this spell compression is ultimate the thick richness slowly sinks beyond all
Comprehension it will linger for a life time the blues are the high honor of dress befitting a person of
Rare quality to have and squander cherished gifts the emptiness can never be measured but to make
Contact with the sublime on a desert plane the one invaluable gift of solitude no pretense or frivolity
To cause error or a missed chance to speak and hear wonders undeniable voice that is attended by rare
Essences of tranquility that robes itself in splendor it beckons in pure language simplicity that astounds
Bewilderment of the highest order lodges in your soul the hush of holy beings are noticed if only by the
Assured peace that builds a walled fortress nothing can assail these attainments visited and began
By The unutterable beauty that moves with conscious and deliberate design to bestow upon you
The Perfection that once ruled in Eden

Now deeper the mind seeks to find the way where all rules are absent

Bedazzled Dreamer
Put the long boat in the deep waters of the mind the calm peaceful knowing all is glowing we glide not
Knowing where were going the subconscious will be our guide dividing the two worlds the quiet
Submersible is wild anything may be floating in these depths we have left shore far behind truly
We have entered unchartered waters there is no fixable Bering a lustiness takes over there is no helm
Just a pervading looseness not unsettling but truly uncharacteristic for the coconscious must always
Have a grip a grasp of what is where it is and every detail must be quantified now all senses are blown
A storm is brewing its far reaches unknown but there is softness that excludes fear the overriding
Thought is possibilities can be forged maximized eternalized thoughts are ghost like unknown entities
They were formally known but now remain a mystery dislodged from thought bases that are not solid
All is free association tantalizing in one sense then disconcerting in another what do I do with my mind
Surly it has jumped off the track I could be bewildered if I could get a hold on the situation free flowing
Unspoken but still distinctively saying volumes where is the slow button reams voluminous thoughts
Are spewing into nothingness being lost I can’t keep up the discernible is mixed with eons and theorems
Time and space is void of meaning the world here is elastic mass it convulses at will no parameters exist
The only thing constant is high velocity change being in one place is impossible all is jumbled who stirred
This caldron in my mind voice and pure thought are the same think it know it what burdensome lives we
Live when it is all a tattered sail on rough seas we behold nothing know nothing in the extreme
Romanticism blurts out sail for Trafalgar we are strangers in a plush gifted void try as we will there is
No simple answers but we are a simple people truly the only time were are fit is when we are
Sound Asleep well then sleep on and I will do the same dreaming is therapeutic just think how
Crazy we would be without it

So with that small insight this is more truth I signed my life away to the devil and here is the fun
Part it’s like your hardly comfortable on a computer your on this small frame here he is on a
Worldwide super computer and he is a **** like no other you are slowly crawling along he is
Miles Ahead of you try to strike order in life this answer comes back it has been high jacked its
Not even your thoughts any more it’s completely contrary to all that is decent and ideal but it
Comes as a fog it creates a state of disinformation this is how we find we are bound in half truths
In this state how far from love how desperate is our circumstances what caused and allowed
Us to be left to the dry treacherous land of being forgotten misplaced without remedy to know the dark
Embrace of loneliness we are a people of language it finds us it speaks health to our inward being it is
The gentle soothing the spell that alone provides the structure the melodious times hear the flow of
Refreshing water from hidden springs they bend at just the right place they find us where dark
Broodings Are pulling us into compromise and ruin we feel and taste the surety of joy the call of
Assuredness is known in these depths this internal dismay of mazes infernal are their crushing blows
Does it wash away the meaningful is the face of grace seen to be drowning in walled in terrain to high to
Climb to understanding that enlightening that is our very humanness our ability to connect to share
Never forgetting who and where we came from the integral foundation that builds us as a people was
This first dislodging the first steps of chaos the hardness that drives and separates to quickly we are
Adrift and at the stern is ego without measure and the seeds of discontent are what we are sowing not
The creative roots of harmony and good will burned black by the desert sun all descriptors fail to show
The unique the part that truly was wondrously made no one is looking they are only into the new
Exciting theses very words are the quiet assault that is aimed at them they need restored but they never
Will agree then a nanny kills two little ones in her charge stabs them to death with this insane step into
Yet deeper subterranean darkness the roots of life are growing but they are poisoned throughout it
Reflects on the service the body is racked twisted as a gnarled old tree that can look picture perfect in
Nature but terrible in human life in this state of waste and need of restoration I could hardly see who
Cares at that point the view is most disgusting and in this condition all hope lost the final boat has sailed
With it the last of human dignity goes under the deep black waves when this thought was strongest the
Sea was not my reality only the lifeless desert it was all there was but all of a sudden was it mind tricks a
Mirage I was seeing this beautiful bough filled with blossoms and from there it continued to grow and
Spread out before me all green grasses a profusion of glorious colored flowers of all kinds it started to
Break through the deadness of my mind a time long forgotten slowly started to emerge I couldn’t see
Anyone but I knew that a visitor had joined me tears started like a dam had broken somewhere deep
Within all I knew I was truly loved I had worth and value I could feel it being added anew where I was
An eye sore just moments before now I was a princely person I had this intense sense of whoever it was
Who joined me had known extreme suffering He got me on every level and he was repairing and
Restoring those long festering wounds they just seem to fall off and the greatest peace started to emit
From my inner being there was just a sense of well being that was mountainous and truly rivers of joy
Started to flow out and away my friends step into these words they come from the great restorer your the gift that the thief stole and now you have been reclaimed

SELF REFLECTIONS

These are poems about mirrors, images, self-image, reflections and self-reflection. How do we see ourselves differently than other people see us? Why do our impressions of ourselves sometimes end up like so much shattered glass?



Self Reflection
by Michael R. Burch

for anyone struggling with self-image

She has a comely form
and a smile that brightens her dorm ...
but she's grossly unthin
when seen from within;
soon a griefstricken campus will mourn.

Yet she'd never once criticize
a friend for the size of her thighs.
Do unto others—
sisters and brothers?
Yes, but also ourselves, likewise.



Reflections
by Michael R. Burch

I am her mirror.
I say she is kind,
lovely, breathtaking.
She screams that I’m blind.

I show her her beauty,
her brilliance and compassion.
She refuses to believe me,
for that’s the latest fashion.

She storms and she rages;
she dissolves into tears
while envious Angels
are, by God, her only Peers.



Is the mirror unkind
by Michael R. Burch

To your lovely brown eyes is the mirror unkind,
revealing far more than reflections defined
in superficial glass, so lacking in depth?
Is the mirror unkind, at times, darling Beth?

What you see my dear, I see different by far,
as our sun from Centauri is just a “small” star,
but here it brings life and warms each day’s start.
Oh, and a mirror can never reveal a true heart.



On Looking into Curious George’s Mirrors
by Michael R. Burch

for Maya McManmon, granddaughter of the poet Jim McManmon aka Seamus Cassidy

Maya was made in the image of God;
may the reflections she sees in those curious mirrors
always echo back Love.

Amen



The Mistake
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

All your life, O Ghalib,
You kept repeating the same mistake:
Your face was *****
But you were obsessed with cleaning the mirror!



Shattered
by Vera Pavlova
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I shattered your heart;
now I limp through the shards
barefoot.



Radiance
by Michael R. Burch

for Dylan Thomas

The poet delves earth’s detritus—hard toil—
for raw-edged nouns, barbed verbs, vowels’ lush bouquet;
each syllable his pen excretes—dense soil,
dark images impacted, rooted clay.

The poet sees the sea but feels its meaning—
the teeming brine, the mirrored oval flame
that leashes and excites its turgid surface ...
then squanders years imagining love’s the same.

Belatedly he turns to what lies broken—
the scarred and furrowed plot he fiercely sifts,
among death’s sicksweet dungs and composts seeking
one element that scorches and uplifts.



Downdraft
by Michael R. Burch

for Dylan Thomas

We feel rather than understand what he meant
as he reveals a shattered firmament
which before him never existed.

Here, there are no images gnarled and twisted
out of too many words,
but only flocks of white birds

wheeling and flying.

Here, as the sun spins, reeling and dying,
the voice of a last gull
or perhaps a lost soul,

echoes its lonely madrigal
and we feel its strange pull
on the astonished soul.

O My Prodigal!

The vents of the sky, ripped asunder,
echo this wild, primal thunder—
now dying into undulations of vanishing wings . . .

and this voice which in haggard bleak rapture still somehow downward sings.




Resemblance
by Michael R. Burch

Take this geode with its rough exterior—
crude-skinned, brilliant-hearted ...
a diode of amethyst—wild, electric;
its sequined cavity—parted, revealing.
Find in its fire all brittle passion,
each jagged shard relentlessly aching.
Each spire inward—a fission startled;
in its shattered entrails—fractured light,
the heart ice breaking.



Wonderland
by Michael R. Burch

We stood, kids of the Lamb, to put to test
the beatific anthems of the blessed,
the sentence of the martyr, and the pen’s
sincere religion. Magnified, the lens
shot back absurd reflections of each face—
a carnival-like mirror. In the space
between the silver backing and the glass,
we caught a glimpse of Joan, a frumpy lass
who never brushed her hair or teeth, and failed
to pass on GO, and frequently was jailed
for awe’s beliefs. Like Alice, she grew wee
to fit the door, then couldn’t lift the key.
We failed the test, and so the jury’s hung.
In Oz, “The Witch is Dead” ranks number one.



Mirror
by Kajal Ahmad, a Kurdish poet
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My era's obscuring mirror
shattered
because it magnified the small
and made the great seem insignificant.
Dictators and monsters filled its contours.
Now when I breathe
its jagged shards pierce my heart
and instead of sweat
I exude glass.



Polish
by Michael R. Burch

Your fingers end in talons—
the ones you trim to hide
the predator inside.
Ten thousand creatures sacrificed;
but really, what’s the loss?
Apply a splash of gloss.
You picked the perfect color
to mirror nature’s law:
red, like tooth and claw.



Mending Glass
by Michael R. Burch

In the cobwebbed house—
lost in shadows
by the jagged mirror,
in the intricate silver face
cracked ten thousand times,
silently he watches,
and in the twisted light
sometimes he catches there
a familiar glimpse of revealing lace,
white stockings and garters,
a pale face pressed indiscreetly near
with a predatory leer,
the sheer flash of nylon,
an embrace, or a sharp slap,
. . . a sudden lurch of terror.

He finds bright slivers
—the hard sharp brittle shards,
the silver jags of memory
starkly impressed there—
and mends his error.



The Poet
by Michael R. Burch

He walks to the sink,
takes out his teeth,
rubs his gums.
He tries not to think.

In the mirror, on the mantle,
Time—the silver measure—
does not stare or blink,
but in a wrinkle flutters,
in a hand upon the brink
of a second, hovers.

Through a mousehole,
something scuttles
on restless incessant feet.

There is no link
between life and death
or from a fading past
to a more tenuous present
that a word uncovers
in the great wink.

The white foam lathers
at his thin pink
stretched neck
like a tightening noose.
He tries not to think.



POEMS ABOUT POOL SHARKS

These are poems about pool sharks, gamblers, con artists and other sharks. I used to hustle pool on bar tables around Nashville, where I ran into many colorful characters, and a few unsavory ones, before I hung up my cue for good.

Shark
by Michael R. Burch

They are all unknowable,
these rough pale men—
haunting dim pool rooms like shadows,
propped up on bar stools like scarecrows,
nodding and sagging in the fraying light . . .

I am not of them,
as I glide among them—
eliding the amorphous camaraderie
they are as unlikely to spell as to feel,
camouflaged in my own pale dichotomy . . .

That there are women who love them defies belief—
with their missing teeth,
their hair in thin shocks
where here and there a gap of scalp gleams like bizarre chrome,
their smell rank as wet sawdust or mildewed laundry . . .

And yet—
and yet there is someone who loves me:
She sits by the telephone
in the lengthening shadows
and pregnant grief . . .

They appreciate skill at pool, not words.
They frown at massés,
at the cue ball’s contortions across green felt.
They hand me their hard-earned money with reluctant smiles.
A heart might melt at the thought of their children lying in squalor . . .
At night I dream of them in bed, toothless, kissing.
With me, it’s harder to say what is missing . . .



Fair Game
by Michael R. Burch

At the Tennessee State Fair,
the largest stuffed animals hang tilt-a-whirl over the pool tables
with mocking button eyes,
knowing the playing field is unlevel,
that the rails slant, ever so slightly, north or south,
so that gravity is always on their side,
conspiring to save their plush, extravagant hides
year after year.

“Come hither, come hither . . .”
they whisper; they leer
in collusion with the carnival barkers,
like a bevy of improbably-clad hookers
setting a “fair” price.
“Only five dollars a game, and it’s so much Fun!
And it’s not really gambling. Skill is involved!
You can make us come: really, you can.
Here are your *****. Just smack them around.”

But there’s a trick, and it usually works.
If you break softly so that no ball reaches a rail,
you can pick them off: One. Two. Three. Four.
Causing a small commotion,
a stir of whispering, like fear,
among the hippos and ostriches.



Con Artistry
by Michael R. Burch

The trick of life is like the sleight of hand
of gamblers holding deuces by the glow
of veiled back rooms, or aces; soon we’ll know
who folds, who stands . . .

The trick of life is like the pool shark’s shot—
the wild massé across green velvet felt
that leaves the winner loser. No, it’s not
the rack, the hand that’s dealt . . .

The trick of life is knowing that the odds
are never in one’s favor, that to win
is only to delay the acts of gods
who’d ante death for sin . . .

and death for goodness, death for in-between.
The rules have never changed; the artist knows
the oldest con is life; the chips he blows
can’t be redeemed.



Pool's Prince Charming
by Michael R. Burch

this is my tribute poem, written on the behalf of his fellow pool sharks, for the legendary Saint Louie Louie Roberts

Louie, Louie, Prince of Pool,
making all the ladies drool ...
Take the “nuts”? I'd be a fool!
Louie, Louie, Prince of Pool.

Louie, Louie, pretty as Elvis,
owner of (ahem) a similar pelvis ...
Compared to you, the books will shelve us.
Louie, Louie, pretty as Elvis.

Louie, Louie, fearless gambler,
ladies' man and constant rambler,
but such a sweet, loquacious ambler!
Louie, Louie, fearless gambler.

Louie, Louie, angelic, chthonic,
pool's charming hero, but tragic, Byronic,
winning the Open drinking gin and tonic?
Louie, Louie, angelic, chthonic.

I used poetic license about what Louie Roberts was or wasn't drinking at the 1981 U. S. Open Nine-Ball Championship. Was Louie drinking hard liquor as he came charging back through the losers' bracket to win the whole shebang? Or was he pretending to drink for gamesmanship or some other reason? I honestly don't know. As for the word “chthonic,” it’s pronounced “thonic” and means “subterranean” or “of the underworld.” And the pool world can be very dark indeed, as Louie’s tragic demise suggests. But everyone who knew Louie seemed to like him, if not love him dearly, and many sharks have spoken of Louie in glowing terms, as a bringer of light to that underworld.



My wife and I were having a drink at a neighborhood bar which has a pool table. A “money” game was about to start; a spectator got up to whisper something to a friend of ours who was about to play someone we hadn’t seen before. We couldn’t hear what was said. Then the newcomer broke—with such force that his stick flew straight up in the air and shattered the light dangling overhead. There was a moment of stunned silence, then our friend turned around and remarked: “He really does shoot the lights out, doesn’t he?” — Michael R. Burch



Rounds
by Michael R. Burch

Solitude surrounds me
though nearby laughter sounds;
around me mingle men who think
to drink their demons down,
in rounds.

Now agony still hounds me
though elsewhere mirth abounds;
hidebound I stand and try to think,
not sink still further down,
spellbound.

Their ecstasy astounds me,
though drunkenness compounds
resounding laughter into joy;
alloy such glee with beer and see
bliss found.

Originally published by Borderless Journal

Keywords/Tags: mirror, image, images, imagery, self, self-image, self discovery, fear of self, self control, self harm, reflection, reflections, reflecting, glass, mrbref

I want to learn everything; everything comprises of everything,
be it the knowledge of the nature or the horizons of the cosmos
I want to canvas over the universe, multiverses;
to paint my reality with a brush of joy.
But, it's tough for me, because I'm dementic
If I decline it while inclining towards a book
Dyslexia obliterates my desires and hurt me badly
If I ignore all this, ADHD comes forward to poke me
with a stick of astounds and pains of eventide
If I cut down the roots of ADHD, S.A.D greets me
and enter to my dark world and enhance its darkness
I'm confused, shattered; directionless in a myopic way
Highly myopic, no direction, but I do have vision
I want to crisscross my myopia to an extent
where it diminishes.
Meningitis, shut up, you *******,
Please have mercy on me, I don't deserve U at least,
But do I really need someone to have mercy on me?
I guess no, I can build my own world where
Dementia strengthens my spirits by saying,
Why just Embryology, what secrets do you want to find
Ova is not dependent on a ****** *****,
it is a complete YOU.

Decadent choirs bemoan the prudish proctor of the inevitable and decisive test
Profligacy anneals and the knaves repeal the prohibition of the earth’s very best
Despondent clouds tower over a garbled loud and an unapologetic proud
Panache whisks the hallowed cross into transmogrified dross amassing a boisterous crowd
Hidebound ideologies tether the masses to masses and gather the rust of the bustle and bust
Recusant allegiance mocks the science of sanctimony and dissolute lust
Deathless in prayer and breathless in despair rhapsody creeps and percolated ideals leap
Arriving in the limelight of providence, the renegades daunted by the specter of commination weep
Proofs now exist and investment in their emphasis burgeons into a divine cease and desist
But in the hubris of victory and the rubrics of history pleasure wrenches control and importunacy insists
Brisk alacrity and savvy rapacity beseech the death of the stodgy gate
Time lingers in evanescent turmoil satiated only by the fish and the bait
But when the bait runs in low supply the society hearkens the agents of the sky
They pout over water even with verdant temptations escorting them away from the dry
How do you anoint in a world preoccupied with the next joint rather than the next joint venture
Revelations lies to stultify the brides of misadventure
Caprice rampant, society recusant deadlocked in hedonistic dreadlocks
The fools boast of victories never won, and the prattle of yesteryear is stalked
Restraining order duly noted but never imposed
Stygian elements wrought apparel to contribute to indecency in clothes
To the master of destiny and the architect of decency
I advise the future to focus more than just on recent sprees
Ignominy forgotten in tokes, we forget about the labor of cotton
We forget also about the putrefaction of the rotten
Abdicate the uprooted era squelched by disorientation wrought by intensified sensations
And return to the regal promise of prudes living beyond temptation
But who is the fool foolish enough to forswear the hide of the bear in the dead of the winter scare
Lilting in sumptuous praise and reckless abandon this charge and travesty seems unfair
Slanted lies of stodgy disguise revile the return to primitive commode and camaraderie
To loot of the panaceas and nepenthes to the extent of dearth seems a more egregious robbery
But in the uprooted future the past has no say
The primacy of today shines the refulgent and overpowering rays
The sun won’t burn out but the burn outs won’t establish any clout
Even in a world divorced from prudishness in sanctimonious doubt
Powerless in the rout of pleasure over the scourge of dearth
The earth awakens renewed even with the impossibility of rebirth
Resurrecting the indulgences of Rome while abdicating the tome
The theophany astounds especially the most prone
The coming of righteousness working to castigate immoderacy
The renegades listen barely enough to subvert their own profligacy
Shouting over the skylines the rain announces the sentences for the wicked crimes
Of a past forgotten and a future rotten because of an ill-designed time
An ill-designed design leading to wanton men groveling in grime
Time to indulge time to abstain
Either extreme ultimately lame.

In the sky tonight hangs a perfect Half-Moon,
when I looked up above, I thought about you,
in your paint-stained clothes and all your artwork, too,
memories of our friendship flourished and bloomed.

With your hands so hearty and your talents unbound,
I saw close up how you artistry astounds,
I remembered our fights, disagreements and tears,
but we always remained close friends over the years.

I sure miss our talks about art over wine,
snacking on crackers and cheese every time,
yet the thing I treasure most about you, my friend,
is the respect and love that will never end.
___

See Nolan's toilet here:
http://www.addictedtowalls.com/contemporary-art-paintings/graffiti-tag-art/Duchamp-new-contemporary-art.html

See Nolan in his paint-stained clothes here:
http://www.addictedtowalls.com/contemporary-art-paintings/graffiti-tag-art/Graffiti-MSK-nolan-painting.html

See all the amazing artwork of Nolan Haan here:
http://www.addictedtowalls.com/
__
The "Half-Moon Inn" is the historic building/art gallery I lived in that Nolan had restored with the help of his partner-at-arms, Mitchell.

Read my blog story for all the exciting details and breath-taking photos of The Half Moon Inn and it's lush, tropical gardens!
http://dee-light-full.blogspot.com/

Don't tell me I'm perfect.
Don't kiss my finger tips
and slide a necklace over
my collar bones.
Don't tell me I'm the one.
Don't kiss me goodbye because
I kissed her with
lust in my eyes just an
hour ago.
Don't tell me that I deserve
so much more than you.
Because I might reply "ditto".

I've been caught in my mind for
so long, that this has become the only
place I understand things.
She feels like he did.
Always breathing this fog
that I could never wrap my
head around, so I mistook it for
a good fuzzy feeling in my gut.
But when I'm not around her
I want to cry for the
secret kisses we shared
that I know I meant. I know I
wanted to feel her lip piercing
between my teeth
and I know that her hands between
my thighs again was something
I craved. But it's not something
I can have. I have something
that is so much better than
"secrets" when really I should
call them ***** lies.
Maybe that's why my tongue has
swollen and I can feel
cavities rotting into my teeth.
I've been trying to keep her
name in my mouth for so long,
rigor mortis has set in
and the decomposition has begun.

With this black mold inside my lungs
I knew it wouldn't be long before
you noticed the wheeze that went along
with me moaning your name.

Now don't tell me I'm perfect
because I can feel your anger
pound in your veins
harder than your dad ever hit you.
I know that when you kiss me
you don't fully push your
body against mine
and your stomach shrinks away
from my hands
because they were on her chest
earlier that week.
And you know it now.
You know now that you
aren't the only person
to have taken pleasure from
my double tongue piercing.
She felt the venom sink
in as I bit her neck and she
shivered, getting high off me
and I got drunk on her,
and we could not be healthy.

But there's nothing I could
say to reassure you
because you have seen the way
I stare at stars,
and she's an entirely different
planet to me.

"They laugh at you because you intimidate them"

So young and naive you did not know who you are
confused your worth for being used for pain
oblivious of the fact that you are a shining star
entrapped by these ideologies of steel bars
you are told you are too weak to make it to tar
Dragged and beaten, a passion still lives that will take you far
brave enough to search for your soul, you'll soon found out who you are

As you have been made to witness death
Failure has been your tail and has shortened your length
For you have been bewitched by a predator that feeds on your strength
watching your loved ones hammered and stabbed to sudden death
you resort to camping where heaven has a tent

you have seen all you knew crumbling down like a stack of cards
before your eyes the fires of hell have been shooting like darts
your friends have laughed at your downfall and called you a ****
chances and opportunities gone leave you a worry-wart

this is the walk of shame,
***** up and they preach your name
do good and they praise your fame
unaware that you are a beast hard to tame

and the women weigh your accountability against money
you can be sweet but can you buy the sugar and honey?
you share jokes but she sleeps in the arms of another man, it's funny
you're smart and craft sharp ideas but your ***** are left blunt, you dummy
Don't you know that you lie to keep them from running?
and that the truth and being yourself keep them from coming

the walk of shame would be your fame
as they laugh at your faults and lames
if they see not a fault they'd nail and frame
leaving you wondering where the true ones are, the sincere friend and fair dame...

So you rise and it is news to them
For they only saw soil and not the seed that'd stem
They were unaware that you're being polished for your term
uninformed that they're killed, tired and drenched, by the lazy worm
that you're the deepest element that swum when they swam
the coolest bell that tingled ring and softly rang
the one impaired during production but forms in time, ***** and span
alive and upright, a driven and passionate man...
Your walk of shame astounds them then, shame shem shem.

Restoration

I found myself in a desert the sun beat down relentlessly you see I was just one more fool living on the
Devil’s life plan he comes and sizes you up watches with intensity not of care but hate he doesn’t take
Long he has seen the same thing multiplied many times before he does a little razz and dazzle if you
Could have seen my face you would know how appealing it was oh that’s right you got the same
Treatment you see this desert is where he houses all of his captives it’s so wide and vast the thought is
Who’s trapped but we are like the icy ice berg but with us it’s the conscious like the tip then the
Subconscious is all that mass the true awe and power of being human I want to insert two pieces I wrote
That deals with the subconscious I believe you will benefit from them just one more person’s thoughts
On Such a grand subject
Piercing the Inner Sanctum
The trivial the less important will never even get a start into the bastion of peace and well being that is
Sacred and defended to the last breath the one irresistible caller that is never barred and who is as a
Master key is beauty to no avail can you post guards loveliness has no comparisons like spectacle in any
And all forms it governs and rules all of our hearts once seen the invitation is never with drawn like the
Vistas seen from a high mountain incomparable glory is touched sequestered in depths of appreciation
Moments of grandeur with this spell compression is ultimate the thick richness slowly sinks beyond all
Comprehension it will linger for a life time the blues are the high honor of dress befitting a person of
Rare quality to have and squander cherished gifts the emptiness can never be measured but to make
Contact with the sublime on a desert plane the one invaluable gift of solitude no pretense or frivolity
To cause error or a missed chance to speak and hear wonders undeniable voice that is attended by rare
Essences of tranquility that robes itself in splendor it beckons in pure language simplicity that astounds
Bewilderment of the highest order lodges in your soul the hush of holy beings are noticed if only by the
Assured peace that builds a walled fortress nothing can assail these attainments visited and began
By The unutterable beauty that moves with conscious and deliberate design to bestow upon you
The Perfection that once ruled in Eden

Now deeper the mind seeks to find the way where all rules are absent

Bedazzled Dreamer
Put the long boat in the deep waters of the mind the calm peaceful knowing all is glowing we glide not
Knowing where were going the subconscious will be our guide dividing the two worlds the quiet
Submersible is wild anything may be floating in these depths we have left shore far behind truly
We have entered unchartered waters there is no fixable Bering a lustiness takes over there is no helm
Just a pervading looseness not unsettling but truly uncharacteristic for the coconscious must always
Have a grip a grasp of what is where it is and every detail must be quantified now all senses are blown
A storm is brewing its far reaches unknown but there is softness that excludes fear the overriding
Thought is possibilities can be forged maximized eternalized thoughts are ghost like unknown entities
They were formally known but now remain a mystery dislodged from thought bases that are not solid
All is free association tantalizing in one sense then disconcerting in another what do I do with my mind
Surly it has jumped off the track I could be bewildered if I could get a hold on the situation free flowing
Unspoken but still distinctively saying volumes where is the slow button reams voluminous thoughts
Are spewing into nothingness being lost I can’t keep up the discernible is mixed with eons and theorems
Time and space is void of meaning the world here is elastic mass it convulses at will no parameters exist
The only thing constant is high velocity change being in one place is impossible all is jumbled who stirred
This caldron in my mind voice and pure thought are the same think it know it what burdensome lives we
Live when it is all a tattered sail on rough seas we behold nothing know nothing in the extreme
Romanticism blurts out sail for Trafalgar we are strangers in a plush gifted void try as we will there is
No simple answers but we are a simple people truly the only time were are fit is when we are
Sound Asleep well then sleep on and I will do the same dreaming is therapeutic just think how
Crazy we would be without it

So with that small insight this is more truth I signed my life away to the devil and here is the fun
Part it’s like your hardly comfortable on a computer your on this small frame here he is on a
Worldwide super computer and he is a **** like no other you are slowly crawling along he is
Miles Ahead of you try to strike order in life this answer comes back it has been high jacked its
Not even your thoughts any more it’s completely contrary to all that is decent and ideal but it
Comes as a fog it creates a state of disinformation this is how we find we are bound in half truths
In this state how far from love how desperate is our circumstances what caused and allowed
Us to be left to the dry treacherous land of being forgotten misplaced without remedy to know the dark
Embrace of loneliness we are a people of language it finds us it speaks health to our inward being it is
The gentle soothing the spell that alone provides the structure the melodious times hear the flow of
Refreshing water from hidden springs they bend at just the right place they find us where dark
Broodings Are pulling us into compromise and ruin we feel and taste the surety of joy the call of
Assuredness is known in these depths this internal dismay of mazes infernal are their crushing blows
Does it wash away the meaningful is the face of grace seen to be drowning in walled in terrain to high to
Climb to understanding that enlightening that is our very humanness our ability to connect to share
Never forgetting who and where we came from the integral foundation that builds us as a people was
This first dislodging the first steps of chaos the hardness that drives and separates to quickly we are
Adrift and at the stern is ego without measure and the seeds of discontent are what we are sowing not
The creative roots of harmony and good will burned black by the desert sun all descriptors fail to show
The unique the part that truly was wondrously made no one is looking they are only into the new
Exciting theses very words are the quiet assault that is aimed at them they need restored but they never
Will agree then a nanny kills two little ones in her charge stabs them to death with this insane step into
Yet deeper subterranean darkness the roots of life are growing but they are poisoned throughout it
Reflects on the service the body is racked twisted as a gnarled old tree that can look picture perfect in
Nature but terrible in human life in this state of waste and need of restoration I could hardly see who
Cares at that point the view is most disgusting and in this condition all hope lost the final boat has sailed
With it the last of human dignity goes under the deep black waves when this thought was strongest the
Sea was not my reality only the lifeless desert it was all there was but all of a sudden was it mind tricks a
Mirage I was seeing this beautiful bough filled with blossoms and from there it continued to grow and
Spread out before me all green grasses a profusion of glorious colored flowers of all kinds it started to
Break through the deadness of my mind a time long forgotten slowly started to emerge I couldn’t see
Anyone but I knew that a visitor had joined me tears started like a dam had broken somewhere deep
Within all I knew I was truly loved I had worth and value I could feel it being added anew where I was
An eye sore just moments before now I was a princely person I had this intense sense of whoever it was
Who joined me had known extreme suffering He got me on every level and he was repairing and
Restoring those long festering wounds they just seem to fall off and the greatest peace started to emit
From my inner being there was just a sense of well being that was mountainous and truly rivers of joy
Started to flow out and away my friends step into these words they come from the great restorer your the gift that the thief stole and now you have been reclaimed

I found myself in a desert the sun beat down relentlessly you see I was just one more fool living on the
Devil’s life plan he comes and sizes you up watches with intensity not of care but hate he doesn’t take
Long he has seen the same thing multiplied many times before he does a little razz and dazzle if you
Could have seen my face you would know how appealing it was oh that’s right you got the same
Treatment you see this desert is where he houses all of his captives it’s so wide and vast the thought is
Who’s trapped but we are like the icy ice berg but with us it’s the conscious like the tip then the
Subconscious is all that mass the true awe and power of being human I want to insert two pieces I wrote
That deals with the subconscious I believe you will benefit from them just one more person’s thoughts
On Such a grand subject
Piercing the Inner Sanctum
The trivial the less important will never even get a start into the bastion of peace and well being that is
Sacred and defended to the last breath the one irresistible caller that is never barred and who is as a
Master key is beauty to no avail can you post guards loveliness has no comparisons like spectacle in any
And all forms it governs and rules all of our hearts once seen the invitation is never with drawn like the
Vistas seen from a high mountain incomparable glory is touched sequestered in depths of appreciation
Moments of grandeur with this spell compression is ultimate the thick richness slowly sinks beyond all
Comprehension it will linger for a life time the blues are the high honor of dress befitting a person of
Rare quality to have and squander cherished gifts the emptiness can never be measured but to make
Contact with the sublime on a desert plane the one invaluable gift of solitude no pretense or frivolity
To cause error or a missed chance to speak and hear wonders undeniable voice that is attended by rare
Essences of tranquility that robes itself in splendor it beckons in pure language simplicity that astounds
Bewilderment of the highest order lodges in your soul the hush of holy beings are noticed if only by the
Assured peace that builds a walled fortress nothing can assail these attainments visited and began
By The unutterable beauty that moves with conscious and deliberate design to bestow upon you
The Perfection that once ruled in Eden

Now deeper the mind seeks to find the way where all rules are absent

Bedazzled Dreamer
Put the long boat in the deep waters of the mind the calm peaceful knowing all is glowing we glide not
Knowing where were going the subconscious will be our guide dividing the two worlds the quiet
Submersible is wild anything may be floating in these depths we have left shore far behind truly
We have entered unchartered waters there is no fixable Bering a lustiness takes over there is no helm
Just a pervading looseness not unsettling but truly uncharacteristic for the coconscious must always
Have a grip a grasp of what is where it is and every detail must be quantified now all senses are blown
A storm is brewing its far reaches unknown but there is softness that excludes fear the overriding
Thought is possibilities can be forged maximized eternalized thoughts are ghost like unknown entities
They were formally known but now remain a mystery dislodged from thought bases that are not solid
All is free association tantalizing in one sense then disconcerting in another what do I do with my mind
Surly it has jumped off the track I could be bewildered if I could get a hold on the situation free flowing
Unspoken but still distinctively saying volumes where is the slow button reams voluminous thoughts
Are spewing into nothingness being lost I can’t keep up the discernible is mixed with eons and theorems
Time and space is void of meaning the world here is elastic mass it convulses at will no parameters exist
The only thing constant is high velocity change being in one place is impossible all is jumbled who stirred
This caldron in my mind voice and pure thought are the same think it know it what burdensome lives we
Live when it is all a tattered sail on rough seas we behold nothing know nothing in the extreme
Romanticism blurts out sail for Trafalgar we are strangers in a plush gifted void try as we will there is
No simple answers but we are a simple people truly the only time were are fit is when we are
Sound Asleep well then sleep on and I will do the same dreaming is therapeutic just think how
Crazy we would be without it

So with that small insight this is more truth I signed my life away to the devil and here is the fun
Part it’s like your hardly comfortable on a computer your on this small frame here he is on a
Worldwide super computer and he is a **** like no other you are slowly crawling along he is  
Miles Ahead of you try to strike order in life this answer comes back it has been high jacked its
Not even your thoughts any more it’s completely contrary to all that is decent and ideal but it
Comes as a fog it creates a state of disinformation this is how we find we are bound in half truths  
In this state how far from love how desperate is our circumstances what caused and allowed
Us to be left to the dry treacherous land of being forgotten misplaced without remedy to know the dark
Embrace of loneliness we are a people of language it finds us it speaks health to our inward being it is
The gentle soothing the spell that alone provides the structure the melodious times hear the flow of
Refreshing water from hidden springs they bend at just the right place they find us where dark
Broodings Are pulling us into compromise and ruin we feel and taste the surety of joy the call of
Assuredness is known in these depths this internal dismay of mazes infernal are their crushing blows
Does it wash away the meaningful is the face of grace seen to be drowning in walled in terrain to high to
Climb to understanding that enlightening that is our very humanness our ability to connect to share
Never forgetting who and where we came from the integral foundation that builds us as a people was
This first dislodging the first steps of chaos the hardness that drives and separates to quickly we are
Adrift and at the stern is ego without measure and the seeds of discontent are what we are sowing not
The creative roots of harmony and good will burned black by the desert sun all descriptors fail to show
The unique the part that truly was wondrously made no one is looking they are only into the new
Exciting theses very words are the quiet assault that is aimed at them they need restored but they never
Will agree then a nanny kills two little ones in her charge stabs them to death with this insane step into
Yet deeper subterranean darkness the roots of life are growing but they are poisoned throughout it
Reflects on the service the body is racked twisted as a gnarled old tree that can look picture perfect in
Nature but terrible in human life in this state of waste and need of restoration I could hardly see who
Cares at that point the view is most disgusting and in this condition all hope lost the final boat has sailed
With it the last of human dignity goes under the deep black waves when this thought was strongest the
Sea was not my reality only the lifeless desert it was all there was but all of a sudden was it mind tricks a
Mirage I was seeing this beautiful bough filled with blossoms and from there it continued to grow and
Spread out before me all green grasses a profusion of glorious colored flowers of all kinds it started to
Break through the deadness of my mind a time long forgotten slowly started to emerge I couldn’t see
Anyone but I knew that a visitor had joined me tears started like a dam had broken somewhere deep
With in all I knew I was truly loved I had worth and value I could feel it being added anew where I was
An eye sore just moments before now I was a princely person I had this intense sense of whoever it was
Who joined me had known extreme suffering He got me on every level and he was repairing and
Restoring those long festering wounds they just seem to fall off and the greatest peace started to emit
From my inner being there was just a sense of well being that was mountainous and truly rivers of joy
Started to flow out and away my friends step into these words they come from the great restorer your the gift that the thief stole and now you have been reclaimed

My dictation program has an accent
It types out the most unreadable things,
When I say something like " my bunion stings",
It types back to me about onion rings.
There have been embarrassing moments
When I was chatting along quite normally.
I found myself feeling very thankful
That I hadn't been chatting formally.

The conversation needn't be special,
Nor use any esoteric phrases.
But some of the crap this program prints
Astounds, stultifies and amazes.
It can't be brushed off as an accent thing;
My speech is quite non-dialectic.
Sometimes it seems that Apple, Inc
Wants to render me apoplectic.

But, the way it is I have no human beings
That I can focus my frustration on
When something that company sells at a store
Turns me into an unwitting pawn.
As it is it's an iPhone and I can't pity it
When I hit "send" too fast and seem an idiot.
It’s possible I am asking far too much
Of the current reach of technology.
Even though our phones seem part of us
They aren’t really part of our anatomy.

It's always you
My hornèd demon
I hold your hairy head between my legs
My head pounds as yours torments
Your forked tongue finds every opening
You slither hither; hypnotic dance
I forget myself. I forget what else
You love me deeply
Our twin flames flicker wildly &
Burst the sunrise
You wild beast of animal and man.
I will catch you if I can
You were my all, my reason for life
I once dreamed of being your wife
Stars fall like fireworks from the sky
But Night descends quicker than stars
Entranced, trapped, enslaved
Not love but tortured dreams
Your cruelty astounds me
your manipulation and slight of hand
The curve ball, the trick in your eye.

How do you do it?
Smoke & mirrors. All of it.
Here now, now gone.
So long.
Hear the echoes of the crowd.
Memories of your face.; Trickster grin.
And I, the fool born every minute.
And again, The Mask.
The mask we all wear, but tear off.
Your mask, you keep on.
Rip-Off
Under the smiles and grin.
The hornèd demon is reality
I think.
The animal that walks like a man.
A beast walking upright, horns gleaming
in the moonlight.
Pan Satyr, your Dionysian dream.
Your mask so sweet & smiling.
Your funhouse & shattered mirrors .
Your thousand faces laughing.
I’ve left it all-behind me.

©  Lesley Wood

https://soundcloud.com/lescelin/mask-the-9deep-beat-squad

~
          I'm afraid to die
          But don't we all fear our dreams
          The limit's the sky.
          Can you hear my screams?

Night and death, the same
The silence echoes
Who will win this deadly game?
No one really knows

          What drove me to losing my mind,    
          this wasn't in my plans.
          Could I find it in your hands or did
          you drop it along the way?
          I've yet to find my heart so I sculpted
          one from clay.

This heart, has been carved out of stone,
Hollow inside, filled with tears
Terrified of love to my bones
I've forgotten all my other fears.

          It's Love that keeps me up at night.
          Or perhaps it's The absence of
          Your strong arms that held me so
          tight.
          I wore you out, now nothing fits right.

You were the other half to my heart,
Now it's in pieces and battered,
I think there's still some missing parts
You left me alone and completely shattered

          That leaves me as half of who I used
          to be.
          I thought hearts were inseparable.
          And of course that means half of you
          is missing as it is with me.
          And it's beating but it's miserable.

Locked away, never to be loved
Thoughts of you keep me up at night
That you could of done this, astounds me,
Now, no other love will ever feel right

          And I wonder if anything will be so
          tight
          That it could cut off my circulation
          I'm tired of life's fight
          I've already lost my imagination..

My mind has gone blank,
From all this destructive hate
It was a love lost, forever gone
I'd like to just say it was fate

my words are ungracious
and spill forth today
like mewling puke....

it astounds me....
that we celebrate
landing, badly i might add,
an overpriced
piece of mechano
on the backside of a space rock...

while.....
there are people
dying... right here....
on earth....from...ebola cancer....and other diseases

it astounds me....
that one person,
can get paid, 20 million $$$$
for acting in a ****** movie
while....others beg for change and sleep rough
under park benches....

it amazes me,
that  so many in the world
cannot read or write
and do not have,
basic and i mean basic
sanitary facilities....

it confounds me.....
that wars are fought
over race and religion....

it scares me...
that my son, will grow up
in a world where safety is
far less of a gaurantee...

it saddens me....
that i am as guilty
as the next person
of passing by
oe looking the other way
become too busy, too be
involved...in other peoples
pain...

my words,
ungracious
and hypocritical
are but the useless prattle
of a ranting raving imbicele
mere  spit upon the winds
of a word in turmoil....

but come on...
should we not try
to fix this world
before discovering others

Piercing the inner Sanctum

The trivial the less important will never even get a start into the bastion of peace and well being that is

Sacred and defended to the last breath the one irresistible caller that is never barred and who is as a
Master key is beauty to no avail can you post guards loveliness has no comparisons like spectacle in any

And all forms it governs and rules all of our hearts once seen the invitation is never with drawn like the
Vistas seen from a high mountain incomparable glory is touched sequestered in depths of appreciation

Moments of grandeur with this spell compression is ultimate the thick richness slowly sinks beyond all
Comprehension it will linger for a life time the blues are the high honor of dress befitting a person of

Rare quality to have and squander cherished gifts the emptiness can never be measured but to make
Contact with the sublime on a desert plane the one invaluable gift of solitude no pretense or frivolity

To cause error or a missed chance to speak and hear wonders undeniable voice that is attended by rare
Essences of tranquility that robes itself in splendor it beckons in pure language simplicity that astounds  

Bewilderment of the highest order lodges in your soul the hush of holy beings are noticed if only by the
Assured peace that builds a walled fortress nothing can assail these attainments visited and began by

The unutterable beauty that moves with conscious and deliberate design to bestow upon you the
Perfection that once ruled in Eden

Is it really so wrong
To covet thy neighbor
When they truly cannot see
what treasures lie before them?

Emaciated and broken,
As a starved wanderer I watch,
A man with a feast before him
Yet he turns up his nose

Through the emerald gaze
of a green-eyed monster I view
This disgraceful display of gifts
Woefully cast aside

This spectacle I witness
Confuses and astounds
For anyone can clearly see
The problem with this scene

Mortified, I stare
And with hunger, I despair
I wish the feast to be mine
But with none they will share

But with a glimmer of hope I will continue
And reflect on this sad, sad venue
One day I will sate this monster of mine
And no longer for the feast shall I pine

Desiring mumurations, or solitude
What an absolute
Such a possible, impossible truth
Now beyond the age of youth

With the sounds of the inaudible
Crossing obstacles
The road;  horrible
Can our souls be bondable?

Times passed; not wanting to be regretted
From this sight; don't want to forget
The battle; don't want to conquest
This life; many things to confess

Head in the clouds, my feet on the ground
I hear sounds: your voice, astounds
I doubt I can turn my life around
Life: a merry go round

Just take it slow,
Feeling my head on the pillow
Life takes me round and round like a merry go
Here's to you, cheers, one more go