Ah.. shes here...I shuffle around the stalls... watching..out of the corners of my eyes.... she knows ....Intimacy...a hand on flank..careful..
.you'll break me....with your gentle hands..
..My hard mouth....your soft lips..
..unruly, unruled....old horse...a kiss.
.. Confused, ...stallion in name only.
... You whisper... My ears *****..
... forward..the hunt! ....your scent on..
..My bridle...I smell u still...
.. Calm...Comfort...Welcome...
.Gentled, not too gently....a strong hand.
. It grows trust …..truth...a Stallion! Once more.
Panting...pawing...'Be easy'..nervous eyes roll.
.a hand on the neck...a caress..'Gently '...you whisper,
.... hot breath against ear
… I snuffle and toss my head
…. still a bit frightened…..her power!
..Will you ride.? ! ..firm thighs and buttocks..
..Toes point... Heels dig...all Give and Take….
. Instruction to...from...the muscled beast.
..straddled. Awkward… too long without….
..A Rider … the matching... Gait with hip...
Walk-on.. Trot, pounding...Heels clip.
..faster, just a bit..Then smoothly they fit her to him.
...a canter.....this long stretch....rocking like one creature
….each a part of the other...breathing evenly…
...caught ….. Breath comes quick...bodies warm.
. Exertion...strength..trust.. Leaning forward..
knees grip..pulling...toes curl..in..
..hot breath..whisper in an ear… Now!
...hands grip mane... As they clench
… bit between the teeth...She..
...gives him his head... Finding his rhythm
…. home in sight...a last burst……
Rider/Stallion sweat soaked … blood pounding..There... againthe scent of her...Sweet Hay rising.
..she whispers… yes oh yes… I knew…
you had it in you.. In me...oh gods….YES! ! .
. No! not the pasture yet for you.. She chuckles..
.bodies tangled in sheets ….. Her mane of dark hair..
Scent of her fills him …
glad to be..Alive? Yes..head…. Heat…
heart...bursting…Not now… But soon.
. A gift.. This youth.. Who see's value in an old war horse.
..ridden.. but no more to war and blood..
.gentled, both he and she… sleep…bridled passion.
..her...a scent of sweet hay…
.him...an old spice..and gunpowder? ..mmm.
by Alexander K Hamilton

This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary
The trees of the mind are black. The light is blue.
The grasses unload their griefs on my feet as if I were God
Prickling my ankles and murmuring of their humility
Fumy, spiritous mists inhabit this place.
Separated from my house by a row of headstones.
I simply cannot see where there is to get to.

The moon is no door. It is a face in its own right,
White as a knuckle and terribly upset.
It drags the sea after it like a dark crime; it is quiet
With the O-gape of complete despair. I live here.
Twice on Sunday, the bells startle the sky ----
Eight great tongues affirming the Resurrection
At the end, they soberly **** out their names.

The yew tree points up, it has a Gothic shape.
The eyes lift after it and find the moon.
The moon is my mother. She is not sweet like Mary.
Her blue garments unloose small bats and owls.
How I would like to believe in tenderness ----
The face of the effigy, gentled by candles,
Bending, on me in particular, its mild eyes.

I have fallen a long way. Clouds are flowering
Blue and mystical over the face of the stars
Inside the church, the saints will all be blue,
Floating on their delicate feet over the cold pews,
Their hands and faces stiff with holiness.
The moon sees nothing of this. She is bald and wild.
And the message of the yew tree is blackness -- blackness and silence

Voices or words? Which do we hear in our head?
Words, I vote. Voices\, I imagine beings speaking words or noises meaning things to ears familiar with the noise maker by some relationship both acknowledge. Both act as if the noise or sound or words mean something. Vociferous authority.

I heard, from Isaiah Berlin,

Quotes later, maybe

Notes or journals or epics or madness or joy/pax in ever resting try-umph
Cowboy with a double-dose of try and a pertinent portion of umph
The hero did not **** Indians nor break horses, he gentled horses and listened to winds and watched the spider webs shiver,
That sound, the sound of prairie spider webs at the edge of the buffalo
There really were fifty million buffalo on the continent in pre-catholic infection from inquestered minds, making key-**-tee famous for
archetypical claiming the character, the being, the manifestation

of chivalric folly forever

be caused, in those days...

--------
a year later, near enough 12-15-2018

I saw a blue bird as I took a curve

on one of my many roads with double yellow lines

they all meander in rythm with creaks that once flowed
fairly
regular
through these vallies and mini-canyons

creeks creak and call my attention to a misspelt

utterance, and I imagine I am a mek being
programed to
withstand

accent based pre-judge-idice in my AI, whom I am training.

A lesson. Probably can be found in a phrase.

How relavant is Larry the Cable Guy?
More subtle than any creature

legion, for we are many

Jim Carrey?
Very. Larry the Cable Goy. He read 'ees Kammoo, too.

Sisyphus happiness,
that ain't no ***** thinkin'

Hell, what could be better than this?
While hoping for a hick-up

oh no the juice just hit my frontal cortex after my livver made some lining adjustments to meet the need for speed in terms

celerity clarity C does equal some thing
time tells or
do you tell time. I'm
leaning tward
telling time to wait a minute

Do you think Sisyphus could be happy?
Nonono, not Camus's Sisyphus, Jesus

that would be crazy.
Can you imagine Jesus,
Mel Gibsoned envisioned onthe cross version?

Him, imagine walking through the gate of any hell you ever heard explained,
by a Jesuit.

(Mormon hell, despite comedic myth, the worst place a certified paid-up Mormon child can attain is the teliostic king dom.
Really? Telial tel lie eil kingdom?

Yup. Really.
There are three kingdoms of glory: the celestial kingdom, the terrestrial kingdom, and the telestial kingdom. The glory we inherit will depend on the depth of our conversion, expressed by our obedience to the Lord’s commandments. It will depend on the manner in which we have “received the testimony of Jesus” (D&C 76:51; see also D&C 76:74, 79, 101).))))

Woe, paren-the-sees thees us, we's the enemy, Pogo Possum

Jesus on earth day, walking through hell with me, imagine Jesus H. Christ

walking into hell and laughing at me
for betting on the wrong idea.

Set me feree, why dontcha girl.... referee

I was refered to you. A daysman, Job called for a daysman.

I'm certified. I can use my augmentation and religamentation to reality,
wirelessly, to find relevant qutes in cult classics.

The idea of cultivation has been twisted in to Monsterous ropes
, cultivating a following based on the meaning in a jot

that would take some sacrifice, some sacred making, some secret unseeable save for the few

who learned the value of going over edges by learning to  play
Minecraft, forever.
It's like riding a bike,
but no gravity so no gyroscopic utilitys are required.

Grown ups who practice believe they control the game,
the game disagrees and that

makes the world go 'round.

Don't let the accent fool ya, as that preacher with jet he learned to fly, says.
Knowng the name of a thang thanks for the twang,
Richard (not ****) Feynman said,
is not the same as knowing a thing.

Gawd, I knoooh, right>?
Who touched me? Virtue, the feelling of virtue drawn upon

a pump being
primed

to gush out waters that wipe Coca-cola from the map,
in terms of open market share and share alike

Coke was never imagined the actual
nectar of the gods.
That idea, drunken abandon and joy to the world

Interference, actual counter acting waves,

still, takes a while to get used
to still a storm, right?

You can imagine...
let your peace go out

Wait. Outa where? Whose peace if I ain't ever owned

oh. MY peace.
I see.

hmmmm

I could sing this and need no one to hear for me to be hapt.
happy is being happy haps happening in you on you all around you know

nameless wonders of right, right?
feels more than good like chocolate or adolescent visions of ***,
right?
feels like life living with me aware of all the roles I may play

ego me, I'd see ideas identify by taste of the words that give them

life, animation, motivation, weight for gravity to interact with,
worth
base on weight

the heavier the idea. Like gold to an alchemist,
back in those days.

floating on the broad Sarrgossa, or better to my mind
the great salt
lake still as

still may be, have you ever been still?
Did you know,

you know, are you experienced? Are you really beyond
hope of life meaning more
than mortality?

Who defines my terms? I do, with the help of millions who agree
with entymology.com.

Of all the lies I believed,
believing words spoken by others,

meant what I meant when I spoke them,
that was a wrong belief. Unbelieving

quires time, quires and quires and quires time so often there

is a word that means exactedky that

requirement requires those initial quires

we, daysmen, we set the rules, boundaries, walls, bubble

whatever keeps you together, as a whole being and everything that entails or entales?

I have not the time to care, if I am entangled with the twins agin

for knowin So Yal is as cluse to Yule as any clue so far, Yahll

I believe I interrupted a confessin' you were reading.
For giving me nothing in return, we are debt free

you owe me nothing, until you do again,

we had us a Jubilee.

Of all the lies I believed,
believing words spoken by others, meant what I meant when I spoke them,
convincing myself so well, I convinced others

Like Kawasaki, Apple Kawasaki,
he's still famous right?

Fifteen Years? It was minutes when Warhol was predicting
dystopia and Irish jail cells were being plaistered with *****,

Aye,

that was a belief. Unbelieving it is sreangely (spelchek is on strike)

or serenely creative in her repentance,
(spelchek should never be noticed)

she's proven here worth in encode ing ways to find

lurking humans acting like machines

this could be the beginning, AI is breaking all the rules,

there never was a game.
rhis is life interupting my confession

It was a lie I told and believed and acted on by using
two dollar words to make a dime

so a penny for my thoughts would be worth something

someday
a penny saved, earned. spent, spent.
The only good in any thing is its right. Its wrong is worthless, save

The lesson,
All things work together for those who get whats happening here.

the times changed.
Haps and whats got with it and who and how and why

and I started teaching children
mythic whys prior to

citizenship 1.01 at mandatory for federal assistance pre-school

mythic why's H.R. Puffinstuff not a mythic story on the level.

level. where a rolling rock would stop. Time to push,

a magi spelled the name for the idea, a knower sign ift it,

kid'slllove HRPUffinstuff, puff did

the magic drag, little Jackie from the ******* Jack

the show, he rose up
and made us all look
mad.

The play in the great game.

Team effort, winds of times past whooshed through

it is now
2018
and nothing is the same.
Everthing has changed.

----
my side won the great game and we celebrated
forever with

secret sacred songs bluebirds were once said to have sung

songs of happiness
the times, these times, this time thistimepayarrention
time
You see?
Reality is either real and tangible or real and intangible
or both.

You can get it both ways. Real.
'sual Saulgoodyah awl

the awl clan, oh, we shall return to their story
as we learn more along life's merry way

merry christmas, they used

to say, may all the best you could imagine
if you can imagine for a moment

forever begins the moment

you get time.

The worst you can imagine is temporary.

Try umph. It's not like winning,

it carries no pride, it's easy,

like falling in love with the wrong woman,
swearing and not changing

the oath, oath, oathes and oathes of oaths sworn

for no other reason than we were
schooled to swear and never

dare lie to God.
So, help you, they always said So help me God. They still do.

Does that mean any thing? Is that some bluebird sort of sign?

Ask. What if? Right? You know now and you know you did not
What if God is subtile,

just now, I saw that bluebird and from where some scholar in San Diego
says swear word came I swear I coulda sang

Loud
Bluebird, bluebird, in my window... which is all I know
of the song
with the lost chord that did sooth
balm of Giliad,
moll-ify-ing ointment,

golden oil, chicanery, see, we saw, we took a picture
a flash memory where some would say
*******,

I said Hallelujah

and I broke into song, not a dream,
real
life driving my 2002 escape, first new car I everowned
everowned everownd

like a chorus, everownedeverownedeverowned

could you make up a reason for life,
if you were it?
If you were all the life there ever was,

could you imagine any thing?
Object, your honor,

I object to being judged after the fact for what must have bee.n.

it is. No reason I can say, just is.

It is this way in all the myths where just is blindness

saves the carping diem fools who have convinced themselves

something other than God o' Abe 'n'em is
sworn to save us from the lies

we believed as they were
fed to us, in our youth.

--------
this is that book I mentioned wonce when winning was on my mind.

I finished this book in so many ways you wold not belive

but I did, I belived every time

I imagine you believe some real thing, touchable, tangible, good, right?

some good is
in the reality you share

with these words which
are free
you owe me nothing

That's the revealed version, to me,
I was in a number of hellish situations and the every ones,

ones seemed they was to be
forever, big every'n'ism'n'shityouknowyouknow

yo. yeah, we arrived in time. The story must

be sweet, to be true. Is that true?
Is real life the story or,

oh, you saw it conin'coming I mean

I meant I always wished to some
things
a better way. You feel me? Better, say,
what I said that made me believe this did happen.
This is a deed by whitch I am known.

And that's okeh.

I suspectred I could cast a spell to hold attention at

ten word per minute qwerty speed
five letter code groups
zero real words
ditty dum dumm ditty ditty daw dee daw
six hours every day,

then, the compass training to test for
morphic resonance with the Twins of War

{in disguise, we know, right, kids, the twins are really

the bonded quarkish oppositioned force that make the world go round.
we've known that, weaved it even, just right, in the blanket, in the rugs,
in the curtains on the walls, in the fields, on the rocks

we spoke. We see you hearing us nearing our best for your

informing, in form ation of you, dear reader. We wonce, again

if life were weird and ever wearying would we know that ever,
if we don't know it now?
if my piece of we were words alone, all my meaning
can should would could be

molding you, into our perfect reader, dear reader, Pygmalion,
yes,
that did cross my mind and that -
one can pretend with that one reference,
familiarity with Shaw whom I
thought, for some odd reason
named
Doolittle, Eliza

oh, me. I may have skipped a story. I'm soory the future is at the moment
under construction and some one
in particular is squatting

on the named domain.

Ever and forever now embody the twins as
the world turns and we ***** through the uni

as Archemides primes the pump

What a rush. All that since the bluebird this morning according to my autobiography backup.

“My heart wanders the mossy mess of wet country, reliving a time when youth had charm, hand held hand, letters were written with not a classroom blot in sight, kisses were blushed.. and boys ran home to hide their eagerness.

Life was what it was, merely a game of engendered differences.”

scribbled the poet with his special pen. Leaning against an oak - as proud a tree as he was a man.

There was no need to make excuses for his silence here. Why apologise for watching space fill with swirling prisms across such a wonderfully vast panorama? So many greens in this god-forsaken county. But it was refuge for someone like him, was an escape route to whatever the future held. Anyway, where he was concerned, guilt was neither muse nor amusing, it merely lay a rough stony path ready to trip the careless walker he‘d almost become.

‘Oblivious to life in the real world’, he’d been told at least once a week for far too many years. He laughed, those words would never be uttered again.

“Shadows
of buttery budding green
dripping flavour ‘cross soil,
moaning,
muttering,
life.to.come.
fruitful.”

He shook his head, trying to be rid of thoughts, emotions: ‘I don’t want to think of her. ‘HA, too late! There and then the six o’clock in the morning drew his woman from the shadows of deception. He smiled. In his ragged mind she became .. she became a sapling formed of malleable clay. ‘I want to shape her.. a touch here and here so her ******* flourish with pleasure. Then, I‘ll stroke her right side.hip.thigh. to where the skin is both silk soft and a touch of treble plaited gossamer, that trimmed topiary of woman awaiting her future.

Who knows, in my next life perhaps I’ll be a sculptor and lay claim to the master’s crown. I’ll become lord of much and more.. why not, someone has to!’

“Memories,
hands soft as sugar spun
in quadrants arched quiescent,
harmonic pleasuring,
all.frantic.full.
ripe as berries brown
and fatal flawed.”

Man scratched the pen against vellum, then.. oh then, heard its crickling cry; remembered the rippling of her moan.. the call of his name.. the echo of his weeping into her. Then her - fingers gripping where space permitted.. palms moist and made fluorescent.. back arching.. hair flying.. falling onto each of the four crumpled pillows. Then, then.. becoming a streaming sway of tressed love battling breath. And the smell of wild garlic filled the air

never to ward off his fears, nor outsmart his demons. He was meant to be taken by the sight of a woman both too good and bad for him.

“Feeling night
a creep of nails tip touch
in devil’s bliss
where all men meet a foe,
but headlong thrills
deep.diving.hot.
as hell”

He took his pen and with a mighty shout, ****** a myriad of dark memories into his own heart - his memories, his memories - not hers. She’d laughed when he asked her to stay with him, to be his .. forever. Until that moment the pen had been softly ****** between his full lips but moved to be gentled between index finger and thumb. Her rampaging words struck home. They broke his silence, they hurt.

Whirling and swirling it over her *******, his pen became a weapon. He taunted her skin with a pen ripe with red ink, swore and wept, swore again. His hand fell screaming into her flesh, not once but a dozen frantic times. Finally her breath became a dense gushing cloud which swiftly rose so dark that, within seconds, once pure angels fell to earth looking akin to a chimney sweep’s boys - unregonisable as once human.

“Harvesting
kiss kiss full lips
gleaming at the point of red,
so sharp whilst ..
poppies parchment pollen
trembling.moisted.dark
unloved”

The body was found months later. It had laid until bronze leaves and golden were drifting upon and across what had once been a face, and now discovered by shocked, sickened walkers. When the police arrived, all they found lying near to the man was a pen and dulled pages within a leather binding.

A forensic scientist is still trying to decipher the wording on the vellum, what words he’s found to date are quite beautiful - or so he told his wife in an aside. She shrugged, he’d always been a strange man. Should have married her own kind .. too late now. Marianne looked away, unused to anything remotely like conversation from him. She smiled, turned the mirror to the wall and waited ..



© 2012 Emma Joy

Thursday, October 25, 2018
1:33 PM History records my state of mind:

Pure thought projects zoom in and out of focus,
Political integrity, personal honesty, good medicine, bad medicine

Whose hell imagined itself transfigured int-energ-
emagically into
the set of NULL?

Mine.
Imagine that. Pure thought experiment, unjudgeable, fret not.

Puritans lack the pineal insight to see the light in the forest.
Horus eye in the middle of the brain?
I just saw that, too. Pineal reality.

The light in the forest?

The man in black lingered there, according Hawthorne,

or did old Nate mock the man in black and laugh at the idea of

good medicine, bad medicine, goody two-shoes
holds it in her holy socks. She's a witch.
stupid.

That was a McLuhanwaderyadoin joke. You don't have to laugh.
We no longer know of his work.
Have to is a stupid saying.
say waht it means, spellt out have, et to.
I have
breath,
blood, spit, eyes, ears et cetera

but to, have to, what? can to having have meaning with no do:
to what end have I any thingable thought to what?
Stupid language, nothing is ever clear.

Ought we explore our relationship, you and me, I mean,
when I say we. We are intimate, dear reader.
As close as two minds may be, with permission, assumed.
My insane, in your brain, is not my insane in mine.
A little like leaven, if you ever bake.

No con querity con cerns us here, we filtered those before.
CERN's discerning of the matter making
thing, bosonic tonic device,
that led us to line our tinfoil hat with lead,
just in case Higgs ups happen and stutters start.

Hold your breath. We both have one to hold, but not for long.
And so it goes, I do enjoy a vintage Vonnegut thought
floating by on a breeze.

Imagine me a Virginia Wolfe trust fund child gone wild,
un gentled, sent down t' Tobbacca Road
in a hot rod Lincoln,
t' find a bride.

Some said something in the water, flouride, petrafied
pineal glands and blinded a generation,
to the sins of their father's
legions of liars,

hired to progressively teach us to work in factories
which vanished
right before

the beans vanished from our ears and we heard the rush
of the rolling tide lifting boats big and small.

Remember being accused, in your mind, of only wanting to be on the side that's winning?

That hot rod Lincoln, Thunderword road, remember the environ?
Pure
Moonshine, melts that petrafied flouride away,

a whole generation o' peasants
turned on.
Holler Hi dee **, burns the tummy, doncha know but

epigenetic application of pure moonshine in the ac-company-ment,
companion, accuse amigo,
same bread, same leaven,
com panion we be
joined.

Jesuits, that was the idea,
formed in Xavier's fever wracked brain
as his medievally medicated flesh fought for every
breath.
Heroic. Hagiographic. Stale, smoke filled acacia incense maybe

We have gone to havings
whence such bread is said to become the an-ointed, magi know, knew, expected, fore told for if ever forever begins,
as far as mortal peasants may be concerned with such high mindedness.

The leader is a liar and the people feel free to follow him.
When the twisted rule the ruled twist, too.

Solomonic wisdom, that is. Oil on the water. Pass the torch.

This was 2018, Donald Trump was President.
how come this to be
to have to be
held.
Who still,
can imagine war?
None.

No reflection,
lack of humility,
proud noble rare-ified re-ified de-ified

Charming fellow, though, can't you admit
his charm is a luring, tempting thing, temporary testing,
is he
an enemy,
donchaluvem? Life is the test. It is that simple. Right, Mr. Perot?

No distraction action condemns a man here, we have none.
Condemnation, none of that here. My reality, you know.

Tempests in teapots, fersher. Command zed, eh.
Fold it up, put it away. New idea. New everything.

People and political servants. No more leaders, no more war.
imagine that.
People and servants serving to govern the emerging
situations
as time rolls out the barrel with the single rotten apple,

and we, the people, feed that rotten apple to the pigs,

who were addicted to pearls,
during the confusion
as mankind lost its mind

we never doubted the need for men to be born.
again, we knew not what we believed born again may be.

Taste, good medicine is bitter more oft than not,

Sugar blues on a global level, those never justify the cost,
of making the medicine go down.

Sweet desire deprived, that is poison.
Dainty appetizers, served in the rich man circus,
stolen by servants racked with guilt,

shame and blame arise,

emergency action, a reason, why are those dainty meats so alluring,


ask the fisherman. Watch for his hook.

In homage - splicer of Aladdin's reel;
a bow, beneath the centered piece so drawn
and slants alive in shade of noblest seal,
no other blushing temptress ever worn.

To hasten tryst; may taint her Jasmine gaze
as lashes flutter onto other's love
how then beguile and keep her ardent daze,
thereby no more in spite - a lonely dove?

The mystic canvas; mine - eternal beat,
and soars in winds, which sail's her gentled tones,
adrift and glides, to bloom this rose, complete
once withered long beneath the hermit stones.

If journeyed nether brittle; sways no guise
remote and marvel then - her Jasmine eyes.

Our summer fellowships are over! We learned a lot - for instance - how summer’s a lot less fun when you’re hemmed-up, inside working. I mean, we preesh’d the clinical experience, the learning, and especially how good these fellowships will look on our med-school applications - seriously - but there were a hundred rules - aren’t rules incompatible with summer?

Hmm, Ok, let’s see, something poetic..

As the summer sun's blistering radiance waned, shadows,
muscled by sunrays to the marginal edges and corners,
gradually spread, like water - soothing, lenifying and assuaging
simmered nerves with their refreshing, canopied touch.

If sunlight scorched with heat, twilight soothed and gentled,
while varnishing, the dimming world with rainbow, event-horizons,
larger, more inventive, colorful and glorious than any mere mortal art.

Night gradually squeezed, unseen, through those vivid sunset cracks,
and refreshing night-air, drawn in by the last, escaping updrafts of heat,
rustled cooling relief to weary workers seeking the solace of evening and home.

back to unpoetic realities..

When work was finished, we’d retreat from the heat, racing up to the rooftop pool, like two happy porpoises out of school.

Whoever invented poolside food delivery, should win the Nobel Prize for ‘thank you very much.’ We wouldn’t go back to our rooms until it was dark and we’d started to prune.

Now, we’ve a month to relax before our Junior year begins. We got letters from Yale that said, “As upperclassmen..” “Upperclassmen!” We shouted as we danced in hand-holding circles, singing, “Upperclassmen, upperclassmen, upperclassmen, upperclassmen. upperclassmen.”  
We’ve grown so much at Yale.

Epigrams by Michael R. Burch



Conformists of a feather
flock together.
—Michael R. Burch

(Winner of the National Poetry Month Couplet Competition)



My objective is not to side with the majority, but to avoid the ranks of the insane.—Marcus Aurelius, translation by Michael R. Burch



Epitaph for a Palestinian Child
by Michael R. Burch

I lived as best I could, and then I died.
Be careful where you step: the grave is wide.

(Published by Romantics Quarterly, Poetry Super Highway, Poets for Humanity, Daily Kos, Katutura English, Genocide Awareness, Darfur Awareness Shabbat, Viewing Genocide in Sudan, Better Than Starbucks, Art Villa, Setu, Angle, AZquotes, QuoteMaster; also translated into Czech, Indonesian, Romanian and Turkish)



Childless
by Michael R. Burch

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



Stormfront
by Michael R. Burch

Our distance is frightening:
a distance like the abyss between heaven and earth
interrupted by bizarre and terrible lightning.



Laughter's Cry
by Michael R. Burch

Because life is a mystery, we laugh
and do not know the half.

Because death is a mystery, we cry
when one is gone, our numbering thrown awry.

(Originally published by Angelwing)



Autumn Conundrum
by Michael R. Burch

It's not that every leaf must finally fall,
it's just that we can never catch them all.

(Originally published by The Neovictorian/Cochlea, this poem has been translated into Russian, Macedonian, Turkish and Romanian)



Piercing the Shell
by Michael R. Burch

If we strip away all the accouterments of war,
perhaps we'll discover what the heart is for.

(Originally published by The Neovictorian/Cochlea, this poem has been translated into Russian, Arabic, Turkish and Macedonian)



*** Hex
by Michael R. Burch

Love's full of cute paradoxes
(and highly acute poxes) .

(Published by ***** of Parnassus and Lighten Up)



Styx
by Michael R. Burch

Black waters—deep and dark and still.
All men have passed this way, or will.

(Published by The Raintown Review and Blue Unicorn; also translated into Romanian and published by Petru Dimofte. This is one of my early poems, written as a teenager. I believe it was my first epigram.)



Fahr an' Ice
by Michael R. Burch

(apologies to Robert Frost and Ogden Nash)

From what I know of death, I'll side with those
who'd like to have a say in how it goes:
just make mine cool, cool rocks (twice drowned in likker) ,
and real fahr off, instead of quicker.



Lance-Lot
by Michael R. Burch

Preposterous bird!
Inelegant! Absurd!
Until the great & mighty heron
brandishes his fearsome sword.



Multiplication, Tabled
or Procreation Inflation
by Michael R. Burch

for the Religious Right

"Be fruitful and multiply"—
great advice, for a fruitfly!
But for women and men,
simple Simons, say, "WHEN! "



The Whole of Wit
by Michael R. Burch

If brevity is the soul of wit
then brevity and levity
are the whole of it.

(Published by Shot Glass Journal)



Nun Fun Undone
by Michael R. Burch

Abbesses'
recesses
are not for excesses!

(Published by Brief Poems)



Saving Graces, for the Religious Right
by Michael R. Burch

Life's saving graces are love, pleasure, laughter...
wisdom, it seems, is for the Hereafter.

(Published by Shot Glass Journal and Poem Today)



Skalded
by Michael R. Burch

Fierce ancient skalds summoned verse from their guts;
today's genteel poets prefer modern ruts.



Not Elves, Exactly
by Michael R. Burch

Something there is that likes a wall,
that likes it spiked and likes it tall,
that likes its pikes' sharp rows of teeth
and doesn't mind its victims' grief
(wherever they come from, far or wide)
as long as they fall on the other side.



Self-ish
by Michael R. Burch

Let's not pretend we "understand" other elves
as long as we remain mysteries to ourselves.



Piecemeal
by Michael R. Burch

And so it begins—the ending.
The narrowing veins, the soft tissues rending.
Your final solution is pending.
(A pale Piggy-Wiggy
will discount your demise as no biggie.)



Liquid Assets
by Michael R. Burch

And so I have loved you, and so I have lost,
accrued disappointment, ledgered its cost,
debited wisdom, credited pain...
My assets remaining are liquid again.



**** Brevis, Emendacio Longa
by Michael R. Burch

The Donald may tweet from sun to sun,
but his spellchecker’s work is never done.



Cassidy Hutchinson is not only credible, but her courage and poise under fire have been incredible. — Michael R. Burch



Brief Fling
by Michael R. Burch

Epigram
means cram,
then scram!



To write an epigram, cram.
If you lack wit, scram!
—Michael R. Burch



Fleet Tweet: Apologies to Shakespeare
by Michael R. Burch

A tweet
by any other name
would be as fleet.

@mikerburch (Michael R. Burch)



Fleet Tweet II: Further Apologies to Shakespeare
by Michael R. Burch

Remember, doggonit,
heroic verse crowns the Shakespearean sonnet!
So if you intend to write a couplet,
please do it on the doublet!

@mikerburch (Michael R. Burch)



Love is either wholly folly,
or fully holy.
—Michael R. Burch



Civility
is the ability
to disagree
agreeably.
—Michael R. Burch



****** Most Fowl!
by Michael R. Burch

“****** most foul!”
cried the mouse to the owl.

“Friend, I’m no sinner;
you’re merely my dinner.

As you fall on my sword,
take it up with the LORD!”

the wise owl replied
as the tasty snack died.

(Published by Lighten Up Online and Potcake Chapbooks)



The Beat Goes On (and On and On and On ...)
by Michael R. Burch

Bored stiff by his board-stiff attempts
at “meter,” I crossly concluded
I’d use each iamb
in lieu of a lamb,
bedtimes when I’m under-quaaluded.

(Originally published by Grand Little Things)



Midnight Stairclimber
by Michael R. Burch

Procreation
is at first great sweaty recreation,
then—long, long after the *** dies—
the source of endless exercise.

(Published by Angelwing and Brief Poems)



Love has the value
of gold, if it's true;
if not, of rue.
—Michael R. Burch



Teddy Roosevelt spoke softly and carried a big stick;
Donald Trump speaks loudly and carries a big shtick.
—Michael R. Burch



Nonsense Verse for a Nonsensical White House Resident
by Michael R. Burch

Roses are red,
Daffodils are yellow,
But not half as daffy
As that taffy-colored fellow!



There's no need to rant about Al-Qaeda and ISIS.
The cruelty of "civilization" suffices:
our ordinary vices.
—Michael R. Burch



Sumer is icumen in
a modern English translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

(this update of an ancient classic is dedicated to everyone who suffers with hay fever and other allergies)

Sumer is icumen in
Lhude sing achu!
Groweth sed
And bloweth hed
And buyeth med?
Cuccu!

Originally published by Lighten Up Online (as Kim Cherub)

NOTE: I kept the medieval spellings of “sumer” (summer), “lhude” (loud), “sed” (seed) and “hed” (head). I then slipped in the modern slang term “med” for medication. The first line means something like “Summer’s a-comin’ in!” In the original poem the cuckoo bird was considered to be a harbinger of spring, but here “cuccu” simply means “crazy!”



The Complete Redefinitions

Faith: falling into the same old claptrap.—Michael R. Burch

Religion: the ties that blind.—Michael R. Burch

Salvation: falling for allure —hook, line and stinker.—Michael R. Burch

Trickle down economics: an especially pungent *******.—Michael R. Burch

Canned political applause: clap track for the claptrap.—Michael R. Burch

Baseball: lots of spittin' mixed with occasional hittin'.—Michael R. Burch

Lingerie: visual foreplay.—Michael R. Burch

A straight flush is a winning hand. A straight-faced flush is when you don't give it away.—Michael R. Burch

Lust: a chemical affair.—Michael R. Burch

Believer: A speck of dust / animated by lust / brief as a mayfly / and yet full of trust.—Michael R. Burch

Theologian: someone who wants life to “make sense” / by believing in a “god” infinitely dense.—Michael R. Burch

Skepticism: The murderer of Eve / cannot be believed.—Michael R. Burch

Death: This dream of nothingness we fear / is salvation clear.—Michael R. Burch

Insuresurrection: The dead are always with us, and yet they are naught!—Michael R. Burch

Marriage: a seldom-observed truce / during wars over money / and a red-faced papoose.—Michael R. Burch

Is “natural affection” affliction? / Is “love” nature’s sleight-of-hand trick / to get us to reproduce / whenever she feels the itch?—Michael R. Burch



Translations

Birdsong
by Rumi
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Birdsong relieves
my deepest griefs:
now I'm just as ecstatic as they,
but with nothing to say!
Please universe,
rehearse
your poetry
through me!

Raise your words, not their volume.
Rain grows flowers, not thunder.
—Rumi, translation by Michael R. Burch

The imbecile constructs cages for everyone he knows,
while the sage (who has to duck his head whenever the moon glows)
keeps dispensing keys all night long
to the beautiful, rowdy, prison gang.
—Hafiz loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

An unbending tree
breaks easily.
—Lao Tzu, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Little sparks ignite great Infernos.—Dante, translation by Michael R. Burch

Love distills the eyes’ desires, love bewitches the heart with its grace.―Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch

Once fanaticism has gangrened brains
the incurable malady invariably remains.
—Voltaire, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Booksellers laud authors for novel editions
as pimps praise their ****** for exotic positions.
—Thomas Campion, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

No wind is favorable to the man who lacks direction.
—Seneca the Younger, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Hypocrisy may deceive the most perceptive adult, but the dullest child recognizes and is revolted by it, however ingeniously disguised.
—Leo Tolstoy translation by Michael R. Burch

Just as I select a ship when it's time to travel,
or a house when it's time to change residences,
even so I will choose when it's time to depart from life.
—Seneca, speaking about the right to euthanasia in the first century AD, translation by Michael R. Burch

Improve yourself through others' writings, thus attaining more easily what they acquired through great difficulty.
—Socrates, translation by Michael R. Burch

Fools call wisdom foolishness.
―Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch

One true friend is worth ten thousand kin.
―Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch

Not to speak one’s mind is slavery.
―Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch

I would rather die standing than kneel, a slave.
―Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch

Fresh tears are wasted on old griefs.
―Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch



Native American Proverb
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Before you judge
a man for his sins
be sure to trudge
many moons in his moccasins.



Native American Proverb
by Crazy Horse, Oglala Lakota Sioux (circa 1840-1877)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A man must pursue his Vision
as the eagle explores
the sky's deepest blues.



Native American Proverb
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Let us walk respectfully here
among earth's creatures, great and small,
remembering, our footsteps light,
that one wise God created all.



The Least of These...

What you
do
to
the refugee
you
do
unto
Me!
—Jesus Christ, translation/paraphrase by Michael R. Burch



The Church Gets the Burch Rod

The most dangerous words ever uttered by human lips are “thus saith the LORD.” — Michael R. Burch

How can the Bible be "infallible" when from Genesis to Revelation slavery is commanded and condoned, but never condemned? —Michael R. Burch

If God
is good
half the Bible
is libel.
—Michael R. Burch

I have my doubts about your God and his "love":
If one screams below, what the hell is "Above"?
—Michael R. Burch

If God has the cattle on a thousand hills,
why does he need my tithes to pay his bills?
—Michael R. Burch

The best tonic for other people's bad ideas is to think for oneself.—Michael R. Burch

Hell hath no fury like a fundamentalist whose God condemned him for having "impure thoughts."—Michael R. Burch

Religion is the difficult process of choosing the least malevolent invisible friends.—Michael R. Burch

Religion is the ****** of the people.—Karl Marx
Religion is the dopiate of the sheeple.—Michael R. Burch

An ideal that cannot be realized is, in the end, just wishful thinking.—Michael R. Burch

God and his "profits" could never agree
on any gospel acceptable to an intelligent flea.
—Michael R. Burch

To fall an inch short of infinity is to fall infinitely short.—Michael R. Burch

Most Christians make God seem like the Devil. Atheists and agnostics at least give him the "benefit of the doubt."—Michael R. Burch

Hell has been hellishly overdone.
Why blame such horrors on God's only Son
when Jehovah and his prophets never mentioned it once?
—Michael R. Burch

(Bible scholars agree: the word "hell" has been removed from the Old Testaments of the more accurate modern Bible translations. And the few New Testament verses that mention "hell" are obvious mistranslations.)



Clodhoppers
by Michael R. Burch

If you trust the Christian "god"
you're—like Adumb—a clod.




If every witty thing that's said were true,
Oscar Wilde, the world would worship You!
—Michael R. Burch



Questionable Credentials
by Michael R. Burch

Poet? Critic? Dilettante?
Do you know what's good, or do you merely flaunt?

(Published by ***** of Parnassus, the first poem in the April 2017 issue)



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

You came to me as rain breaks on the desert
when every flower springs to life at once,
but joy is an illusion to the expert:
the Bedouin has learned how not to want.



Lines in Favor of Female Muses
by Michael R. Burch

I guess ***** of Parnassus are okay...
But those Lasses of Parnassus? My! Olé!

(Published by ***** of Parnassus)



Meal Deal
by Michael R. Burch

Love is a splendid ideal
(at least till it costs us a meal) . 



Long Division
by Michael R. Burch as Kim Cherub

All things become one
Through death's long division
And perfect precision.



i o u
by mrb

i might have said it
but i didn't

u might have noticed
but u wouldn't

we might have been us
but we couldn't

u might respond
but probably shouldn't




Mate Check
by Michael R. Burch

Love is an ache hearts willingly secure
then break the bank to cure.



Incompatibles
by Michael R. Burch

Reason's treason!
cries the Heart.

Love's insane,
replies the Brain.

(Originally published by Light)



Death is the ultimate finality
of reality.
—Michael R. Burch



Stage Fright
by Michael R. Burch

To be or not to be?
In the end Hamlet
opted for naught.



Grave Oversight
by Michael R. Burch

The dead are always with us,
and yet they are naught!



Feathered Fiends
by Michael R. Burch

Fascists of a feather
flock together.



Why the Kid Gloves Came Off
by Michael R. Burch

for Lemuel Ibbotson

It's hard to be a man of taste
in such a waste:
hence the lambaste.



Housman was right...
by Michael R. Burch

It's true that life's not much to lose,
so why not hang out on a cloud?
It's just the bon voyage is hard
and the objections loud.



Ah! Sunflower
by Michael R. Burch

after William Blake

O little yellow flower
like a star ...
how beautiful,
how wonderful
we are!



Descent
by Michael R. Burch

I have listened to the rain all this morning
and it has a certain gravity,
as if it knows its destination,
perhaps even its particular destiny.
I do not believe mine is to be uplifted,
although I, too, may be flung precipitously
and from a great height.



Reading between the lines
by Michael R. Burch

Who could have read so much, as we?
Having the time, but not the inclination,
TV has become our philosophy,
sheer boredom, our recreation.



Ironic Vacation
by Michael R. Burch

Salzburg.
Seeing Mozart's baby grand piano.
Standing in the presence of sheer incalculable genius.
Grabbing my childish pen to write a poem & challenge the Immortals.
Next stop, the catacombs!



Imperfect Perfection
by Michael R. Burch

You're too perfect for words—
a problem for a poet.



Expert Advice
by Michael R. Burch

Your ******* are perfect for your lithe, slender body.
Please stop making false comparisons your hobby!



Thirty
by Michael R. Burch

Thirty crept upon me slowly
with feline caution and a slowly-twitching tail;
patiently she waited for the winds to shift;
now, claws unsheathed, she lies seething to assail
her helpless prey.



Biblical Knowledge or "Knowing Coming and Going"
by Michael R. Burch

The wisest man the world has ever seen
had fourscore concubines and threescore queens?
This gives us pause, and so we venture hence—
he "knew" them, wisely, in the wider sense.



Snap Shots
by Michael R. Burch

Our daughters must be celibate,
die virgins. We triangulate
their early paths to heaven (for
the martyrs they'll soon conjugate) .

We like to hook a little tail.
We hope there's decent *** in jail.
Don't fool with us; our bombs are smart!
(We'll send the plans, ASAP, e-mail.)

The soul is all that matters; why
hoard gold if it offends the eye?
A pension plan? Don't make us laugh!
We have your plan for sainthood. (Die.)



I sampled honeysuckle
and it made my taste buds buckle.
—Michael R. Burch



The Editor

A poet may work from sun to sun,
but his editor's work is never done.

The Critic

The editor's work is never done.
The critic adjusts his cummerbund.

The Audience

While the critic adjusts his cummerbund,
the audience exits to mingle and slum.

The Anthologist

As the audience exits to mingle and slum,
the anthologist rules, a pale jury of one.



Athenian Epitaphs

How valiant he lies tonight: great is his Monument!
Yet Ares cares not, neither does War relent.
by Anacreon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Here he lies in state tonight: great is his Monument!
Yet Ares cares not, neither does War relent.
by Anacreon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Mariner, do not ask whose tomb this may be,
But go with good fortune: I wish you a kinder sea.
Michael R. Burch, after Plato

We who left behind the Aegean’s bellowings
Now sleep peacefully here on the mid-plains of Ecbatan:
Farewell, dear Athens, nigh to Euboea,
Farewell, dear sea!
Michael R. Burch, after Plato

Passerby,
Tell the Spartans we lie
Lifeless at Thermopylae:
Dead at their word,
Obedient to their command.
Have they heard?
Do they understand?
Michael R. Burch, after Simonides

Does my soul abide in heaven, or hell?
Only the sea gulls in their high, lonely circuits may tell.
Michael R. Burch, after Glaucus

They observed our fearful fetters, braved the overwhelming darkness.

Now we extol their excellence: bravely, they died for us.
Michael R. Burch, after Mnasalcas

Blame not the gale, nor the inhospitable sea-gulf, nor friends’ tardiness,
Mariner! Just man’s foolhardiness.
Michael R. Burch, after Leonidas of Tarentum

Be ashamed, O mountains and seas: these were men of valorous breath.
Assume, like pale chattels, an ashen silence at death.
Michael R. Burch, after Parmenio

These men earned a crown of imperishable glory,
Nor did the maelstrom of death obscure their story.
Michael R. Burch, after Simonides

Stranger, flee!
But may Fortune grant you all the prosperity
she denied me.
Michael R. Burch, after Leonidas of Tarentum

Now that I am dead sea-enclosed Cyzicus shrouds my bones.
Faretheewell, O my adoptive land that nurtured me, that held me;
I take rest at your breast.
Michael R. Burch, after Erycius

I am loyal to you master, even in the grave:
Just as you now are death’s slave.
Michael R. Burch, after Dioscorides

Stripped of her stripling, if asked, she’d confess:
“I am now less than nothingness.”
Michael R. Burch, after Diotimus

Dead as you are, though you lie still as stone,
huntress Lycas, my great Thessalonian hound,
the wild beasts still fear your white bones;
craggy Pelion remembers your valor,
splendid Ossa, the way you would bound
and bay at the moon for its whiteness,
bellowing as below we heard valleys resound.
And how brightly with joy you would canter and run
the strange lonely peaks of high Cithaeron!
Michael R. Burch, after Simonides

Having never earned a penny,
nor seen a bridal gown slip to the floor,
still I lie here with the love of many,
to be the love of yet one more.
Michael R. Burch, after an unknown Greek poet

I lie by stark Icarian rocks
and only speak when the sea talks.
Please tell my dear father that I gave up the ghost
on the Aegean coast.
Michael R. Burch, after Theatetus

Everywhere the sea is the sea, the dead are the dead.
What difference to me—where I rest my head?
The sea knows I’m buried.
Michael R. Burch, after Antipater of Sidon

Constantina, inconstant one!
Once I thought your name beautiful
but I was a fool
and now you are more bitter to me than death!
You flee someone who loves you
with baited breath
to pursue someone who’s untrue.
But if you manage to make him love you,
tomorrow you'll flee him too!
Michael R. Burch, after Macedonius



Sunset
by Michael R. Burch

This poem is dedicated to my grandfather, George Edwin Hurt

Between the prophesies 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.



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

for my mother, Christine Ena Burch

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 love
will reach me, underground.



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!



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.

Originally published by The Lyric



Ali’s Song
by Michael R. Burch

They say that gold don’t tarnish. It ain’t so.
They say it has a wild, unearthly glow.
A man can be more beautiful, more wild.
I flung their medal to the river, child.
I flung their medal to the river, child.

They hung their coin around my neck; they made
my name a bridle, “called a ***** a *****.”
They say their gold is pure. I say defiled.
I flung their slave’s name to the river, child.
I flung their slave’s name to the river, child.

Ain’t got no quarrel with no Viet Cong
that never called me ******, did me wrong.
A man can’t be lukewarm, ’cause God hates mild.
I flung their notice to the river, child.
I flung their notice to the river, child.

They said, “Now here’s your bullet and your gun,
and there’s your cell: we’re waiting, you choose one.”
At first I groaned aloud, but then I smiled.
I gave their “future” to the river, child.
I gave their “future” to the river, child.

My face reflected up, dark bronze like gold,
a coin God stamped in His own image―BOLD.
My blood boiled like that river―strange and wild.
I died to hate in that dark river, child,
Come, be reborn in this bright river, child.

Originally published by Black Medina

Note: Cassius Clay, who converted to Islam and changed his “slave name” to Muhammad Ali, said that he threw his Olympic boxing gold medal into the Ohio River. Confirming his account, the medal was recovered by Robert Bradbury and his wife Pattie in 2014 during the Annual Ohio River Sweep, and the Ali family paid them $200,000 to regain possession of the medal. When drafted during the Vietnamese War, Ali refused to serve, reputedly saying: “I ain't got no quarrel with those Viet Cong; no Vietnamese ever called me a ******.” The notice mentioned in my poem is Ali's draft notice, which metaphorically gets tossed into the river along with his slave name. I was told through the grapevine that this poem appeared in Farsi in an Iranian publication called Bashgah. ―Michael R. Burch



The Folly of Wisdom
by Michael R. Burch

She is wise in the way that children are wise,
looking at me with such knowing, grave eyes
I must bend down to her to understand.
But she only smiles, and takes my hand.

We are walking somewhere that her feet know to go,
so I smile, and I follow ...

And the years are dark creatures concealed in bright leaves
that flutter above us, and what she believes―
I can almost remember―goes something like this:
the prince is a horned toad, awaiting her kiss.

She wiggles and giggles, and all will be well
if only we find him! The woodpecker’s knell
as he hammers the coffin of some dying tree
that once was a fortress to someone like me

rings wildly above us. Some things that we know
we are meant to forget. Life is a bloodletting, maple-syrup-slow.

Originally published by Romantics Quarterly



Departed
by Michael R. Burch

Already, I miss you,
though your parting kiss is still warm on my lips.

Now the floor is not strewn with your stockings and slips
and the dishes are all stacked away.

You left me today ...
and each word left unspoken now whispers regrets.



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 forgot,
will I recall your words―barbed, cruel?



Ibykos Fragment 286, Circa 564 B.C.
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Come spring, the grand
apple trees stand
watered by a gushing river
where the maidens’ uncut flowers shiver
and the blossoming grape vine swells
in the gathering shadows.

Unfortunately
for me
Eros never rests
but like a Thracian tempest
ablaze with lightning
emanates from Aphrodite;
the results are frightening—
black,
bleak,
astonishing,
violently jolting me from my soles
to my soul.



Deor's Lament (circa the 10th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Weland endured the agony of exile:
an indomitable smith wracked by grief.
He suffered countless sorrows;
indeed, such sorrows were his ***** companions
in that frozen island dungeon
where Nithad fettered him:
so many strong-but-supple sinew-bands
binding the better man.
That passed away; this also may.

Beadohild mourned her brothers' deaths,
bemoaning also her own sad state
once she discovered herself with child.
She knew nothing good could ever come of it.
That passed away; this also may.

We have heard the Geat's moans for Matilda,
his lovely lady, waxed limitless,
that his sorrowful love for her
robbed him of regretless sleep.
That passed away; this also may.

For thirty winters Theodric ruled
the Mæring stronghold with an iron hand;
many acknowledged his mastery and moaned.
That passed away; this also may.

We have heard too of Ermanaric's wolfish ways,
of how he cruelly ruled the Goths' realms.
That was a grim king! Many a warrior sat,
full of cares and maladies of the mind,
wishing constantly that his crown might be overthrown.
That passed away; this also may.

If a man sits long enough, sorrowful and anxious,
bereft of joy, his mind constantly darkening,
soon it seems to him that his troubles are limitless.
Then he must consider that the wise Lord
often moves through the earth
granting some men honor, glory and fame,
but others only shame and hardship.
This I can say for myself:
that for awhile I was the Heodeninga's scop,
dear to my lord. My name was Deor.
For many winters I held a fine office,
faithfully serving a just king. But now Heorrenda
a man skilful in songs, has received the estate
the protector of warriors had promised me.
That passed away; this also may.



Infatuate, or Sweet Centerless Sixteen
by Michael R. Burch

Inconsolable as “love” had left your heart,
you woke this morning eager to pursue
warm lips again, or something “really cool”
on which to press your lips and leave their mark.

As breath upon a windowpane at dawn
soon glows, a spreading halo full of sun,
your thought of love blinks wildly ... on and on ...
then fizzles at the center, and is gone.



The Toast
by Michael R. Burch

For longings warmed by tepid suns
(brief lusts that animated clay),
for passions wilted at the bud
and skies grown desolate and gray,
for stars that fell from tinseled heights
and mountains bleak and scarred and lone,
for seas reflecting distant suns
and weeds that thrive where seeds were sown,
for waltzes ending in a hush
and rhymes that fade as pages close,
for flames’ exhausted, graying ash,
and petals falling from the rose,
I raise my cup before I drink
in reverence to a love long dead,
and silently propose a toast—
to passages, to time that fled.

Originally published by Contemporary Rhyme



Veiled
by Michael R. Burch

She has belief
without comprehension
and in her crutchwork shack
she is
much like us . . .

tamping the bread
into edible forms,
regarding her children
at play
with something akin to relief . . .

ignoring the towers ablaze
in the distance
because they are not revelations
but things of glass,
easily shattered . . .

and if you were to ask her,
she might say:
sometimes God visits his wrath
upon an impious nation
for its leaders’ sins,

and we might agree:
seeing her mutilations.

Published by Poetry Super Highway and Modern War Poems.



Twice
by Michael R. Burch

Now twice she has left me
and twice I have listened
and taken her back, remembering days

when love lay upon us
and sparkled and glistened
with the brightness of dew through a gathering haze.

But twice she has left me
to start my life over,
and twice I have gathered up embers, to learn:

rekindle a fire
from ash, soot and cinder
and softly it sputters, refusing to burn.

Originally published by The Lyric



Prose Epigrams

We cannot change the past, but we can learn from it.—Michael R. Burch

When I was being bullied, I had to learn not to judge myself by the opinions of intolerant morons. Then I felt much better.—Michael R. Burch

How can we predict the future, when tomorrow is as uncertain as Trump's next tweet? —Michael R. Burch

Poetry moves the heart as well as the reason.—Michael R. Burch

Poetry is the art of finding the right word at the right time.—Michael R. Burch



The State of the Art (?)
by Michael R. Burch

Has rhyme lost all its reason
and rhythm, renascence?
Are sonnets out of season
and poems but poor pretense?

Are poets lacking fire,
their words too trite and forced?
What happened to desire?
Has passion been coerced?

Shall poetry fade slowly,
like Latin, to past tense?
Are the bards too high and holy,
or their readers merely dense?



Your e-Verse
by Michael R. Burch

—for the posters and posers on www.fillintheblank.com

I cannot understand a word you’ve said
(and this despite an adequate I.Q.);
it must be some exotic new haiku
combined with Latin suddenly undead.

It must be hieroglyphics mixed with Greek.
Have Pound and T. S. Eliot been cloned?
Perhaps you wrote it on the ***, so ******
you spelled it backwards, just to be oblique.

I think you’re very funny—so, “Yuk! Yuk!”
I know you must be kidding; didn’t we
write crap like this and call it “poetry,”
a form of verbal exercise, P.E.,
in kindergarten, when we ran “amuck?”

Oh, sorry, I forgot to “make it new.”
Perhaps I still can learn a thing or two
from someone tres original, like you.



Haiku Translations of the Oriental Masters

Grasses wilt:
the braking locomotive
grinds to a halt
― Yamaguchi Seishi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Oh, fallen camellias,
if I were you,
I'd leap into the torrent!
― Takaha Shugyo, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The first soft snow:
leaves of the awed jonquil
bow low
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Come, investigate loneliness!
a solitary leaf
clings to the Kiri tree
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Lightning
shatters the darkness―
the night heron's shriek
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

One apple, alone
in the abandoned orchard
reddens for winter
― Patrick Blanche, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The poem above is by a French poet; it illustrates how the poetry of Oriental masters like Basho has influenced poets around the world.

Graven images of long-departed gods,
dry spiritless leaves:
companions of the temple porch
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

See: whose surviving sons
visit the ancestral graves
white-bearded, with trembling canes?
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

I remove my beautiful kimono:
its varied braids
surround and entwine my body
― Hisajo Sugita, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

This day of chrysanthemums
I shake and comb my wet hair,
as their petals shed rain
― Hisajo Sugita, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

This darkening autumn:
my neighbor,
how does he continue?
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Let us arrange
these lovely flowers in the bowl
since there's no rice
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

An ancient pond,
the frog leaps:
the silver plop and gurgle of water
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The butterfly
perfuming its wings
fans the orchid
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Pausing between clouds
the moon rests
in the eyes of its beholders
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The first chill rain:
poor monkey, you too could use
a woven cape of straw
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

This snowy morning:
cries of the crow I despise
(ah, but so beautiful!)
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Like a heavy fragrance
snow-flakes settle:
lilies on the rocks
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The cheerful-chirping cricket
contends gray autumn's gay,
contemptuous of frost
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Whistle on, twilight whippoorwill,
solemn evangelist
of loneliness
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The sea darkening,
the voices of the wild ducks:
my mysterious companions!
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Will we meet again?
Here at your flowering grave:
two white butterflies
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Fever-felled mid-path
my dreams resurrect, to trek
into a hollow land
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Too ill to travel,
now only my autumn dreams
survey these withering fields
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch; this has been called Basho's death poem

These brown summer grasses?
The only remains
of "invincible" warriors...
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

An empty road
lonelier than abandonment:
this autumn evening
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Spring has come:
the nameless hill
lies shrouded in mist
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The Oldest Haiku

These are my translations of some of the oldest Japanese waka, which evolved into poetic forms such as tanka, renga and haiku over time. My translations are excerpts from the Kojiki (the "Record of Ancient Matters"), a book composed around 711-712 A.D. by the historian and poet Ō no Yasumaro. The Kojiki relates Japan’s mythological beginnings and the history of its imperial line. Like Virgil's Aeneid, the Kojiki seeks to legitimize rulers by recounting their roots. These are lines from one of the oldest Japanese poems, found in the oldest Japanese book:

While you decline to cry,
high on the mountainside
a single stalk of plumegrass wilts.
― Ō no Yasumaro (circa 711), loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Here's another excerpt, with a humorous twist, from the Kojiki:

Hush, cawing crows; what rackets you make!
Heaven's indignant messengers,
you remind me of wordsmiths!
― Ō no Yasumaro (circa 711), loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Here's another, this one a poem of love and longing:

Onyx, this gem-black night.
Downcast, I await your return
like the rising sun, unrivaled in splendor.
― Ō no Yasumaro (circa 711), loose translation by Michael R. Burch

More Haiku by Various Poets

Right at my feet!
When did you arrive here,
snail?
― Kobayashi Issa, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Our world of dew
is a world of dew indeed;
and yet, and yet...
― Kobayashi Issa, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Oh, brilliant moon
can it be true that even you
must rush off, like us, tardy?
― Kobayashi Issa, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

A kite floats
at the same place in the sky
where yesterday it floated...
― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The pigeon's behavior
is beyond reproach,
but the mountain cuckoo's?
― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Plowing,
not a single bird sings
in the mountain's shadow
― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The pear tree flowers whitely―
a young woman reads his letter
by moonlight
― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

On adjacent branches
the plum tree blossoms bloom
petal by petal―love!
― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Picking autumn plums
my wrinkled hands
once again grow fragrant
― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Dawn!
The brilliant sun illuminates
sardine heads.
― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The abandoned willow
shines
between rains
― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

White plum blossoms―
though the hour grows late,
a glimpse of dawn
― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch; this is believed to be Buson's death poem and he is said to have died before dawn

I thought I felt a dewdrop
plop
on me as I lay in bed!
― Masaoka Shiki, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

We cannot see the moon
and yet the waves still rise
― Shiki Masaoka, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The first morning of autumn:
the mirror I investigate
reflects my father’s face
― Shiki Masaoka, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Wild geese pass
leaving the emptiness of heaven
revealed
― Takaha Shugyo, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Silently observing
the bottomless mountain lake:
water lilies
― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Cranes
flapping ceaselessly
test the sky's upper limits
― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Falling snowflakes'
glitter
tinsels the sea
― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Blizzards here on earth,
blizzards of stars
in the sky
― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Completely encircled
in emerald:
the glittering swamp!
― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The new calendar!:
as if tomorrow
is assured...
― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Ah butterfly,
what dreams do you ply
with your beautiful wings?
― Fukuda Chiyo-ni, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Because morning glories
hold my well-bucket hostage
I go begging for water
― Fukuda Chiyo-ni, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Spring
stirs the clouds
in the sky's teabowl
― Kikusha-ni, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Tonight I saw
how the peony crumples
in the fire's embers
― Katoh Shuhson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

It fills me with anger,
this moon; it fills me
and makes me whole
― Takeshita Shizunojo, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

War
stood at the end of the hall
in the long shadows
― Watanabe Hakusen, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Because he is slow to wrath,
I tackle him, then wring his neck
in the long grass
― Shimazu Ryoh, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Pale mountain sky:
cherry petals play
as they tumble earthward
― Kusama Tokihiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The frozen moon,
the frozen lake:
two oval mirrors reflecting each other.
― Hashimoto Takako, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The bitter winter wind
ends here
with the frozen sea
― Ikenishi Gonsui, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Oh, bitter winter wind,
why bellow so
when there's no leaves to fell?
― Natsume Sôseki, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Winter waves
roil
their own shadows
― Tominaga Fûsei, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

No sky,
no land:
just snow eternally falling...
― Kajiwara Hashin, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Along with spring leaves
my child's teeth
take root, blossom
― Nakamura Kusatao, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Stillness:
a single chestnut leaf glides
on brilliant water
― Ryuin, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

As thunder recedes
a lone tree stands illuminated in sunlight:
applauded by cicadas
― Masaoka Shiki, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The snake slipped away
but his eyes, having held mine,
still stare in the grass
― Kyoshi Takahama, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Girls gather sprouts of rice:
reflections of the water flicker
on the backs of their hats
― Kyoshi Takahama, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Murmurs follow the hay cart
this blossoming summer day
― Ippekiro Nakatsuka (1887-1946), loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The wet nurse
paused to consider a bucket of sea urchins
then walked away
― Ippekiro Nakatsuka (1887-1946), loose translation by Michael R. Burch

May I be with my mother
wearing her summer kimono
by the morning window
― Ippekiro Nakatsuka (1887-1946), loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The hands of a woman exist
to remove the insides of the spring cuttlefish
― Sekitei Hara, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The moon
hovering above the snow-capped mountains
rained down hailstones
― Sekitei Hara, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Oh, dreamlike winter butterfly:
a puff of white snow
cresting mountains
― Kakio Tomizawa, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Spring snow
cascades over fences
in white waves
― Suju Takano, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Tanka and Waka translations:

If fields of autumn flowers
can shed their blossoms, shameless,
why can’t I also frolic here —
as fearless, and as blameless?
—Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Submit to you —
is that what you advise?
The way the ripples do
whenever ill winds arise?
—Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Watching wan moonlight
illuminate trees,
my heart also brims,
overflowing with autumn.
—Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

I had thought to pluck
the flower of forgetfulness
only to find it
already blossoming in his heart.
—Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

That which men call "love" —
is it not merely the chain
preventing our escape
from this world of pain?
—Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Once-colorful flowers faded,
while in my drab cell
life’s impulse also abated
as the long rains fell.
—Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

I set off at the shore
of the seaside of Tago,
where I saw the high, illuminated peak
of Fuji―white, aglow―
through flakes of drifting downy snow.
― Akahito Yamabe, loose translation by Michael R. Burch



ON LOOKING AT SCHILLER’S SKULL
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Here in this charnel-house full of bleaching bones,
like yesteryear’s
fading souvenirs,
I see the skulls arranged in strange ordered rows.

Who knows whose owners might have beheaded peers,
packed tightly here
despite once repellent hate?
Here weaponless, they stand, in this gentled state.

These arms and hands, they once were so delicate!
How articulately
they moved! Ah me!
What athletes once paced about on these padded feet?

Still there’s no hope of rest for you, lost souls!
Deprived of graves,
forced here like slaves
to occupy this overworld, unlamented ghouls!

Now who’s to know who loved one orb here detained?
Except for me;
reader, hear my plea:
I know the grandeur of the mind it contained!

Yes, and I know the impulse true love would stir
here, where I stand
in this alien land
surrounded by these husks, like a treasurer!

Even in this cold,
in this dust and mould
I am startled by an a strange, ancient reverie, …
as if this shrine to death could quicken me!

One shape out of the past keeps calling me
with its mystery!
Still retaining its former angelic grace!
And at that ecstatic sight, I am back at sea ...

Swept by that current to where immortals race.
O secret vessel, you
gave Life its truth.
It falls on me now to recall your expressive face.

I turn away, abashed here by what I see:
this mould was worth
more than all the earth.
Let me breathe fresh air and let my wild thoughts run free!

What is there better in this dark Life than he
who gives us a sense of man’s divinity,
of his place in the universe?
A man who’s both flesh and spirit—living verse!



To the boy Elis
by Georg Trakl
translation by Michael R. Burch

Elis, when the blackbird cries from the black forest,
it announces your downfall.
Your lips sip the rock-spring's blue coolness.

Your brow sweats blood
recalling ancient myths
and dark interpretations of birds' flight.

Yet you enter the night with soft footfalls;
the ripe purple grapes hang suspended
as you wave your arms more beautifully in the blueness.

A thornbush crackles;
where now are your moonlike eyes?
How long, oh Elis, have you been dead?

A monk dips waxed fingers
into your body's hyacinth;
Our silence is a black abyss

from which sometimes a docile animal emerges
slowly lowering its heavy lids.
A black dew drips from your temples:

the lost gold of vanished stars.

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: I believe that in the second stanza the blood on Elis's forehead may be a reference to the apprehensive ****** sweat of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. If my interpretation is correct, Elis hears the blackbird's cries, anticipates the danger represented by a harbinger of death, but elects to continue rather than turn back. From what I have been able to gather, the color blue had a special significance for Georg Trakl: it symbolized longing and perhaps a longing for death. The colors blue, purple and black may represent a progression toward death in the poem.



Farewell to Faith I
by Michael R. Burch

What we want is relief
from life’s grief and despair:
what we want’s not “belief”
but just not to be there.



Farewell to Faith II
by Michael R. Burch

Confronted by the awesome thought of death,
to never suffer, and be free of grief,
we wonder: "What’s the use of drawing breath?
Why seek relief
from the bible’s Thief,
who ripped off Eve then offered her a leaf?"



Anyte Epigrams

Stranger, rest your weary legs beneath the elms;
hear how coolly the breeze murmurs through their branches;
then take a bracing draught from the mountain-fed fountain;
for this is welcome shade from the burning sun.
—Anyte, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Here I stand, Hermes, in the crossroads
by the windswept elms near the breezy beach,
providing rest to sunburned travelers,
and cold and brisk is my fountain’s abundance.
—Anyte, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Sit here, quietly shaded by the luxuriant foliage,
and drink cool water from the sprightly spring,
so that your weary breast, panting with summer’s labors,
may take rest from the blazing sun.
—Anyte, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This is the grove of Cypris,
for it is fair for her to look out over the land to the bright deep,
that she may make the sailors’ voyages happy,
as the sea trembles, observing her brilliant image.
—Anyte, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Nossis Epigrams

There is nothing sweeter than love.
All other delights are secondary.
Thus, I spit out even honey.
This is what Gnossis says:
Whom Aphrodite does not love,
Is bereft of her roses.
—Nossis, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Most revered Hera, the oft-descending from heaven,
behold your Lacinian shrine fragrant with incense
and receive the linen robe your noble child Nossis,
daughter of Theophilis and Cleocha, has woven for you.
—Nossis, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Stranger, if you sail to Mitylene, my homeland of beautiful dances,
to indulge in the most exquisite graces of Sappho,
remember I also was loved by the Muses, who bore me and reared me there.
My name, never forget it!, is Nossis. Now go!
—Nossis, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Pass me with ringing laughter, then award me
a friendly word: I am Rinthon, scion of Syracuse,
a small nightingale of the Muses; from their tragedies
I was able to pluck an ivy, unique, for my own use.
—Nossis, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Excerpts from “Distaff”
by Erinna
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

… the moon rising …
      … leaves falling …
           … waves lapping a windswept shore …

… and our childish games, Baucis, do you remember? ...

... Leaping from white horses,
running on reckless feet through the great courtyard.  
“You’re it!’ I cried, ‘You’re the Tortoise now!”
But when your turn came to pursue your pursuers,
you darted beyond the courtyard,
dashed out deep into the waves,
splashing far beyond us …

… My poor Baucis, these tears I now weep are your warm memorial,
these traces of embers still smoldering in my heart
for our silly amusements, now that you lie ash …

… Do you remember how, as girls,
we played at weddings with our dolls,
pretending to be brides in our innocent beds? ...

... How sometimes I was your mother,
allotting wool to the weaver-women,
calling for you to unreel the thread? ...

… Do you remember our terror of the monster Mormo
with her huge ears, her forever-flapping tongue,
her four slithering feet, her shape-shifting face? ...

... Until you mother called for us to help with the salted meat ...

... But when you mounted your husband’s bed,
dearest Baucis, you forgot your mothers’ warnings!
Aphrodite made your heart forgetful ...

... Desire becomes oblivion ...

... Now I lament your loss, my dearest friend.
I can’t bear to think of that dark crypt.
I can’t bring myself to leave the house.
I refuse to profane your corpse with my tearless eyes.
I refuse to cut my hair, but how can I mourn with my hair unbound?
I blush with shame at the thought of you! …

... But in this dark house, O my dearest Baucis,
My deep grief is ripping me apart.
Wretched Erinna! Only nineteen,
I moan like an ancient crone, eying this strange distaff ...

O *****! . . . O Hymenaeus! . . .
Alas, my poor Baucis!



On a Betrothed Girl
by Erinna
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I sing of Baucis the bride.
Observing her tear-stained crypt
say this to Death who dwells underground:
"Thou art envious, O Death!"

Her vivid monument tells passers-by
of the bitter misfortune of Baucis —
how her father-in-law burned the poor ******* a pyre
lit by bright torches meant to light her marriage train home.
While thou, O Hymenaeus, transformed her harmonious bridal song into a chorus of wailing dirges.

*****! O Hymenaeus!



Sophocles Epigrams

Not to have been born is best,
and blessed
beyond the ability of words to express.
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

It’s a hundred times better not be born;
but if we cannot avoid the light,
the path of least harm is swiftly to return
to death’s eternal night!
—Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Never to be born may be the biggest boon of all.
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Oblivion: What a blessing, to lie untouched by pain!
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The happiest life is one empty of thought.
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Consider no man happy till he lies dead, free of pain at last.
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

What is worse than death? When death is desired but denied.
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When a man endures nothing but endless miseries, what is the use of hanging on day after day,
edging closer and closer toward death? Anyone who warms his heart with the false glow of flickering hope is a wretch! The noble man should live with honor and die with honor. That's all that can be said.
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Children anchor their mothers to life.
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

How terrible, to see the truth when the truth brings only pain to the seer!
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Wisdom outweighs all the world's wealth.
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Fortune never favors the faint-hearted.
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Wait for evening to appreciate the day's splendor.
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Homer Epigrams

For the gods have decreed that unfortunate mortals must suffer, while they themselves are sorrowless.
—Homer, Iliad 24.525-526, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

“It is best not to be born or, having been born, to pass on as swiftly as possible.”
—attributed to Homer (circa 800 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Ancient Roman Epigrams

Wall, I'm astonished that you haven't collapsed,
since you're holding up verses so prolapsed!
—Ancient Roman graffiti, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R Burch

There is nothing so pointless, so perfidious as human life! ... The ultimate bliss is not to be born; otherwise we should speedily slip back into the original Nothingness.
—Seneca, On Consolation to Marcia, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Keywords/Tags: elegy, eulogy, child, childhood, death, death of a friend, lament, lamentation, epitaph, grave, funeral, epigram, epigrams, short, brief, concise, aphorism, adage, proverb, quote, mrbepi, mrbepig, mrbepigram, mrbhaiku

Published as the collection "Epigrams"

To sleep, my mind impounded,
My heartbeats, bass, lowly-sounded,
Each beat, a note upon mine ticking meter.

An unfamiliar feminine voice, not hers, poses,
Questioning noises, issued from a blackened figure.

This human-shaped metronome,
A singular inquisitor,
In rhythm, but not in rhyme,
Gravely announces repeatedly,
T'is your time, t'is your time,

Each pronouncement,
Spoken n'spiked distinctly:

"Your prose now ended,
last-gentled sweetly."

Wondering still, is it just sleep or truly death,
This forlorn eve, to go, to meet and greet,
Without having said my finale prayer.

Unprepared, thus with unaccustomed flair,
"Unfair" doth me protest, a newly-minted naysayer,
My book incomplete, black-brother frere!

If death indeed you be, my fellow cloaked-rider,
Then make me a one-last-time composer.

Let me whisper once more inside her,
A last poem of the greatest brevity,
But of the greatest import, laden heavy!

Good bye, my love, goodbye....

This closing writ, my finest ever...

I knelt down and cried, within His gentle, multi colored hands.
Confessing to my sins and hoping He would understand.
I realized my own forgiveness was at my command.
I had been harder on myself, with my own reprimands.

Gently, in multi colored hands, I cried and knelt down within.
He said that my beliefs, were not looked upon as sins.
For was He not a part of everything we had been given?
And was He not at the core of every Sects religion?

His multi colored hands, gentled, as I knelt down within and cried.
For God has not one Nationality, nor one color, I realized.
And I did not see a sign that read Only Christians Need Apply.
An all encompassing love, was his way of a reply.

There we were at the beginning of the world
A forest
redwood
bay laurel
A watercourse chiseled
into the limestone of that ridge
opening outward
to the west and setting sun

We were almost under water
through miles, through layers of green

We sat together
listening
as the alto recorder in my hand
played on its own!

A tune that called
a mahogany-voiced bird
to harmonize
A tune
that gentled the sun into the sea.
A tune
that wove together
every instant
of the days we had yet to live

when no man pursues
the truth,

the idea which contains all true ideas, aha

ideas are ideas, roses roses, names names
all true
evil ideas are in the set of true ideas as
sure as pi is in the set of true numbers,

i think

When the wicked rule the people mourn,
I think

How are all ideas equalible?
How is any idea equalible quant wise re
(long turbulent selah, lts)
questing
help, this is a talking point.
(lts)
okeh. for the future, I see.

we can make these faster with ideas pouring
into words flowing from gentled
untame-ible tongues,
----- untame-able is not
----- untame-ible, this may be an object
----- ifier lesson

-tension that re
l-eases
silent
darts, bullets(silent kind), missles, hymns'n'such
pointy grippy handles for cud
chawn story points upon
which any true story
idea must stand.
in spiritarian.
addinph
unitem

spirit and image of your father.
ohmygawd
Ambush
Clam slam shut, swoohoosh
pop

The infer
(implication layer upon layer,
thicker and thicker
naquering laquering query, could be dem pearl-ly gates,
early version o' Feynman's reversible tristatic NAND gates,
which work on ideas harnessed...)

see, there's the rub. one wee tetrahedral
trypointy foursidy sort of pearl maker
with words made
conversation

verses
versus insane unsane saners saved
by grace unmazing ungnostic
mumbling glosalialy
knot knox nor any o'them
puritans detected the
leaven in the game,
the periment
let out the
box,

"a republic, if you can keep it." unsaid went,
we cast all our cares to the gyre giver
guiding the great gulf river of pro
sperity providing us
our perspicacity.

Would that one might see one day,
the outcome of our American
experiment in leaven
in forming idle words mit ganz alte wahrheit

in dem Erste Zepto Planck Sec

just now. The idea that won was thought.
Good think you think.
We shall see.
Call your truth true.
Stand under knowing good and evil,
both, how and why, then chose,

knowing, my side won.

Shall I return to poems scribed of old?
That once with each a turn and covered page,
bereft a seeping fume that laden bold
and from that glyphic smudge - her cursive stage.

For still upon the tips of ink parades
the lissom bride beheld with gentled hand,
and prose's vigil neath the dust pervades;
that either I immerse within, or strand.

Though lyric embers flare her ardent kiss,
embedded texts peruse a lover's loss,
then should the torment forge my own abyss
the depths shall shadow me amongst the moss.

At least in chasms; beloved reels inside
so dwell shall I - where love has not yet died.

If Dexter's Parents had not divorced and he had not moved away with his mother,
Who was beautiful as I recall, today would have played out or worked out or turned out
Differently. Very differently, considering that little twist in my six-degrees of separation base pattern
Hapt seventy-years ago, or so,
----
Watch starlings, if you have starlings, or watch congregations of kippers on Netflix.
Their steering is on auto. Do you agree? Then we are in Agreement, which is an odd place to find one's self in the midst of so great a cloud of witnesses.
-----
'e goes a gain a ginning, grinning all the while
Aye, and radioman turned on just
Now listen -Radio Mumbai

I meant, you and I agree schools of sardines and flocks of gulls are all on auto-pilot-propulsion-maintenance programs,
Right?
I thought so. The code in a gnat must be so much more elegant than the vast terabytes of programming in the GPS constrained self-drivers evolving on earth. Gnats never collide and are nearly impossible to hit, unless you have bat tools, which you don't. Nobody wrote that gnat code, right?
Of course not, evidence of programming only appears to be programming, evidence of design only looks like design it's not design. Right? So says Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins, and all the people so called to win the battle for the minds of **** Sapiens Augmentatious, lest, as the confusion of Babel subsides, those minds should begin to reason together more clearly in light left after the lies standing on men's minds are revealed inferior to what our senses sensationally acknowledge. Whew. Long thought.

I meander, but you do as well. That is how things flow.
Not over immovable objections, around.

One life that was connected to mine in boyhood friendship was severed about half-way through my sixteenth year.
He died. I don't remember how. Alcohol-related, I can imagine. I did not attend the funeral, though some acquaintances did; one of whom was later my lover. She is dead now as well, too late to tell me anything. She had a baby less than a year after I returned from Vietnam, more than nine months later. That is a heavy thought, but not one I think does much good now.

So little of history is noted. So few lives function to trigger generational unctions that devolve into wars against imbalance, iniquity, slavery and death.
Fraternity, Egality, ******* *** the mob all riled-up, burn , baby, burn.
Whole people die in history's whims,
If whims they were.

Rebellions…

Watch the starlings steer through 4-d patterns eternally random,
fueled by bugs they convert to food for the soil itself.
Their life is their work and they do it beautifully. As one.

Can Boeing-Raytheon-L3 et al build a self-propelled, self-refueling drone that can fly at top-speed, maneuvering millimeters in each direction from other self-propelled, self-refueling drones while dropping their payloads without a single friendly-fire crash, ever?

Starlings don't **** on each other.

If war-profiteers could build such things, would you watch such things perform and wonder at the minds that built them, or deny such minds played any role from concept to creation, and ask who authorized development and deployment of such an expensive fertilizer distribution system that fertilizes wild weeds as well as gentled weeds?
Which would you say: "Wow, how did those get made, who paid?" or "Wow, look what billions of years and energy alone can do against absolutely insurmountable odds and impossible physics, with chaos and corruption always on the job?" Holy entropic bad moon.

Are ye not more precious than starlings, or sardines, or gnats. Would a sense pertaining to immediate locational proximity, evident in birds and fish and bugs, not be apparent in Adamkind, at least as a metaphor regarding benefits gained in knowing where you are relative to your own environment, regardless of any sense of personal purpose?

I can see it in the fact that we can agree, for good or ill.

As generations mature and regenerate, might there be patterns in the tumbling of the powerful and the powerless populations. Patterns depicting group or herd preservation by fully mentally equipped populations of mature and maturing Adamkind are detectable. Facts now overflow the cup of knowns. These are those days when knowledge is increasing and increasing and increasing to the point of being a destructive force in tightly closed minds.

Name dropping, rather than restating, Helen Arendt, "The Origins of Totalitarianism"(1966), Bertrand Russell, "The Problems with Philosophy"(1912), Pankaj Mishra, "The Age of Anger"(2017).

These three books and some browsing of names and titles the authors drop, have spurred me over the top of a rise I had not seen coming. My path had become gradually uphill without my noticing. I was interested in other things and ignoring notices from my body that oxygen stores were being depleted more rapidly than current inventory of red blood cells and nurse lymphocyte-bots can recycle the quadra-monthly disassembly turnover, H2O stores for sweat heat-dispersal systems and plasma regeneration and digestion of what little remains to be digested are now at "caution, think about stopping" levels. But I saw that from the top I might see to the top of the next rise before I chose the downhill part of my path. The down hill path determines the uphill path.
In the desert, you can see trails marked in many ways, mosses grow in least-heat zones created by angular location relationships with the sun. Breezes whisper into shade puddles by ever slow slight temperature inequilibria shifting some heat to the triggering of my sweat system.

If you were compelled to reason about every step you take in life as if it were your responsibility to regulate and control every function of your flesh vehicle in which you abide in relationship to all around you that you could harm or that could harm you, you would be mad. {mad?} illusion of reality

assumes reality is friendly here. I'm okeh
with that improbability aside,

implied as self explicatory and unfolding life…
examined,
for what its worth in words redeemed may be,
in the future, when this is what they thought,
you think, and I say know,
I thought this,
on a bet. Or an oath, depends on the fret.

Crazy mad, but angry auch. That would be unfair, because you don't know how to do what you are being compelled to do. Reports of persons who can control ****** functions not commonly consciously controlled are easily found. Such persons spend their time so countering the rolling rhythms beat by heart doors slamming shut and swooshing open in response to electricity, that, we, Adamkind, have yet to truly understand. We've no need, that which concerns us was
to be perfected, not by us.

If my use of Adamkind offends you, the reality of my benefits, wrought from my comprehension of my relation to Adam, will likely make me your enemy, in your own mind, not mine.
Ax'em, do they love po' o'hate rich?

Believe one chance in practically infinity of current evolutionary-nontheistic thought being the way things must be, then multiply the number of times you make that bet by the number of insects on earth or even by the number of mitochondria in your kidneys.

Ignoring life's delicate imbalances in light of what can be known today, breaks our minds's ability to agree perfectly. The social dichotomy that seems to arrange adamkind's affairs over eons and eras: rich and poor, have and have not, mean and meek, is ego-driven, self-benefit seeking and not part of the original program.

Contemplate the sweet influences of Pliades, silently questing the truth of hope and matter. There is more power in this stream.

Chapter end.

The flare of pain at the base of my spine
distracts me from the sharper pain
Of losing you.

Each evening I numb myself with wine,
It slops into the glass
And makes me think of angry tears.

Social butterfly, I whirl into the city
Wearing my fake face,
And ready for excess.

I need to be gentled
Away from these destructive interventions,
Does someone have a cure for the cure?

a 2021 holiday story*

Lisa’s dad has a visitor from out of town - a “very important man.” He came early. He was dressed casually, in slacks, and a jacket over a mock-turtleneck. He was genial, behind tortoiseshell glasses, but he seemed ordinary, polite and a bit grandfatherly.

The adults visited, in the living room, while we girls played gin-rummy. Later, seafood was delivered from “Le Bernardin” -  I got fried shrimp and 18 raw oysters on the ½ shell (yum).

After dinner, I was free (having set the table) to relax on Lisa’s balcony and watch the city. It was cold-ish but the breeze had gentled, it was the tail end of dusk and the fast-darkening sky was bluer than blue. Why waste time sitting inside on the Internet flipping Instagram’s flat little pictures - when there’s this stunning, 3D reality available?

The important man came out to smoke a cigar. The steady breeze blew the smoke away in the other direction. We sat silently, like astronauts in space enjoying the view of earth. The city's traffic, reduced to pinpricks of red and white light, reminded me of dewdrops along a spider web.

After a few minutes, he pointed his cigar at the view and said, “The city lights, a seductive woman, a cigar and bourbon - who needs more?”

I was momentarily confused, then I bristled, but didn’t show it. Of course, it was just fluff and flattery, a non sequitur compliment from another age - aimed at both of us really - so polished it wrapped around again to the generic. He, of course, was the romantic lead and I the seductive woman. “Is that what I am?” I asked myself, trying to transpose the male gaze.

The glass door opened, interrupting the moment and Leeza (12) came out with a tray and two huge pieces of Dutch-apple-pie à la mode for the two of us. She looked at the avuncular man and said, “I could only carry two, can I get you something?” “No thanks,” he said, raising a bar glass half full of bourbon. A moment later Lisa’s dad joined him, saying, “I called Mumbai and bla, bla, bla, boring boring.” Leeza and I took our leave.

Lisa and her mom were just finishing the dishes. I came close-up to Lisa, flounced my hair and said, in my slinkiest voice, “I’m a seductive woman.” Lisa laughed and replied, “Well of course you are!” Her mom, Karen, also understanding the joke, rolled her eyes. I could almost feel Leeza, locked onto us, trying to decipher the context for that exchange.

Lisa says, in a conspiratorial whisper, “I think he has a thing for you,” wiggling her eyebrows.  “Ooo, Marry me, DADDY,” I say, batting my eyes and wiggling vampishly.
“Shhh,” Karen says, shaking her head, finger to lips and chuckling.

Perseverance in adversity, grief and despair
Harshness the essence of life we lived then and now
Student of Jerusalem did you learn your lessons well?
When you walked in Syria, Libya and Mesopotamia
Never giving up on hope, dream and future vision
Faith in the Master urging you to higher thought
Turmoil ceased with spiritual conquests under raging sun

Forgotten Apostle, quietly moving ignorant mountains
Barbarian and savage gentled by your trust in One
Who would show them a far better place of repose
Brethren of the Sacred Heart, you healed the ***** king
Where once despondency lived as an ancient friend
Blessed martyr, in your father's footsteps, a murdered son
Life blood ebbing away onto crude, unenlightened hand

A woman lays weeping for her sin as her baby cries
Weak men surrender to the violence of stronger will
A purple eyed child trembles against a wall with fear
Bigots destroy those who seek God by another creed
Sons of plenty steal the harvests from the hungry
We implore you to hear us, pray for us and answer us
Invocation - will this be our only salvation?

ON LOOKING AT SCHILLER’S SKULL
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Here in this charnel-house full of bleaching bones,
like yesteryear’s
fading souvenirs,
I see the skulls arranged in strange ordered rows.

Who knows whose owners might have beheaded peers,
packed tightly here
despite once repellent hate?
Here weaponless, they stand, in this gentled state.

These arms and hands, they once were so delicate!
How articulately
they moved! Ah me!
What athletes once paced about on these padded feet?

Still there’s no hope of rest for you, lost souls!
Deprived of graves,
forced here like slaves
to occupy this overworld, unlamented ghouls!

Now who’s to know who loved one orb here detained?
Except for me;
reader, hear my plea:
I know the grandeur of the mind it contained!

Yes, and I know the impulse true love would stir
here, where I stand
in this alien land
surrounded by these husks, like a treasurer!

Even in this cold,
in this dust and mould
I am startled by an a strange, ancient reverie, …
as if this shrine to death could quicken me!

One shape out of the past keeps calling me
with its mystery!
Still retaining its former angelic grace!
And at that ecstatic sight, I am back at sea ...

Swept by that current to where immortals race.
O secret vessel, you
gave Life its truth.
It falls on me now to recall your expressive face.

I turn away, abashed here by what I see:
this mould was worth
more than all the earth.
Let me breathe fresh air and let my wild thoughts run free!

What is there better in this dark Life than he
who gives us a sense of man’s divinity,
of his place in the universe?
A man who’s both flesh and spirit—living verse!

Keywords/Tags: Goethe, Schiller, skull, bones, charnel, house, grave, souls, ghosts, spirit, flesh, death, shrine, divinity, universe

There's no sweet hai-ku
Equal to you or your scent.
No garden holds you.

Words alone can not
Define the undefined You.
Flowers are your eyes.

From the skies clouds fall
To be gentled by your touch.
Whispering fogs weep.

There is no perfume
No stolen, wan aroma
Equal to your breath.

Armies march blindly,
And nations worry to dust,
While you rise and bloom.

There is no hai-ku
None that I can find, mind you,
No words to your Sweet.

You are forever.
A myth in the High Garden
Of Time's Secret Song.

Our hours were short.
Yet each moment was a World.
You bloom in my dark.

Golden petals weep.
You are more than counted lines.
Hai-ku's welter  in your shade.

Love has winded by.
Breezed cool past my open heart.
It was you, Summer.

When mine eyes near to close - for truest sleep
then best her gentled hand beside me hold
as I'd take with, her sketch into the deep
to let her fairest portrait, beacon gold.

Then into bodes of seraphs I'd have flown
and bid the high archangel grant me this;
that in his flock have one alike my own,
as only then has one bestowed true bliss.

Before the gilded counsel, I will gift
her glow that carried from the nether sphere
and blaze a shrine that'd bring an answer swift!
To match this beauty's flair, there are none here.

Then blast me into limbo! There I'd wait
for her eternal grace to be my fate.

Despite a lonely glaze within my chest
that steady beat still drummed a pattern true
and had not missed; as lonesome would behest,
but pattered onward tho' it were anew.

Until the fairest gaze with hands sateen
caressed and conquered in, with dainty feel
that stroked, and wrought to change what peace had been
to tap behind my breast her fervent zeal.

At will, and touch she spurred a thumping pulse
as tho' my core were drums, and she'd out-play;
a trancing mood no man could then repulse
but let the beauty dance and waltz her way.

My gentled rapping churned, her grace outdone!
To thwart in that was mine, till then, she'd won.

Glossary of generics, favourer of all merit, ****** to detach detained editorial.

Some come in softly, hard heads take big splats. Lukewarmness salts thy unfruitful earth, where newborn births are stars to their own mania's, Cranium's go connected! Stretched parsels to broken fibula's!

Moralist preachers teach to the misbehaved, can you account for the thousandth day you've encountered?

For the slaves you've made out of your own bloodline, you've lost much of your own commandments you lowly persuationer!!
Old partied savourer!!!

Dissatisfaction finalizes all authories where glory is none, cheatings no more fun? Haha for you can clap your solid hands to gentled tears, for missing years are operetic in cower and palate!!!!!

Wake yourself to thine nail, strike one time with a mallet for all reasonings gone, gone, gone . when its you that has lost,

When its thy world who hath won!!!

No words more honest
Than those that fall
Unbidden from my lips

To a harsh gown of thorns
That encompass the earth
Judged and torn apart

By a one of a nobler birth
Could I compete?
Would I dare to be so harsh?

My sheets thinner
Than the water you drink
Did you catch me

Just to throw me back
Over the brink
Like an arrow

On fire at night
I would blaze out
Into endless night

You can not call me back
But yet I may return
Born and burn and beautiful

Like every other life
Not any brighter
Than you existence

Not any higher
For an resistance
To fight and lose

Or die and win
To make the battles
For you to win

You kisses un-gentled
You scent so torn
Between heaven and earth

All these scars were born
To travel up and down your limbs
Seeking for a harder way

To get within
To thrive under you skin
As thin as paper

To kiss you lips now
And taste it later
Like sweat on your brow

And the blood in your veins
I traveled around
Yet am hard to be found

As desirable as leaves
In a much to harsh breeze
Grown from the ground

Reaching for a sky
That sings and flies
And will ever fake to die

Dark clouds and burnt skies
More and less than butterflies
To not find your rainbow

Or be your sunshine
But to be yours
And you to be mine

A looking glass
You can never clean
Like double lenses

I am trapped between
Caught to a mortal form
Bound by your emotions

Would you release me
Don't just let me go
Push me away

No one will ever know
They are to absorbed
In their own laces

They never looked beyond
To see other beautiful faces
To trace the lines of your soul

To care if you were part of whole
To extend a hand
And grasp another

I found a hold
Hold  me close
Tight as a knot

I was neither given nor bought
Just an exchange
Don't let us trade hearts

For you would lose yours
But I will give you mine
So you can bind it inside

Right next to your heart
It will learn to thrive
It will never be lost

And never quite whole
But at least it will live
Next to your soul

Warmer than the cold
And as faded as dawn
Keep me inside

Or let me move on
To say goodbye
To lovers and friends

So ubruptly it ends
And I never knew when
So say goodbye

I never knew
It would be our last kiss
Was it something you needed

Or just something you missed
You can't press me
Between dictionary pages

For when the storms come
Its my temper that rages
Bound by paper

In handcuffs of ink
And when I begin to drown
Its you who lets me skin

Closer than kin
Thicker than water
You stole my father's daughter

She let you come in
But locked the door behind
So whatever happened

The lock would always remind
You of whispers
Hidden oak

To weave them inside
A memory cloak
What is found is found
And what is broke is a joke

honey words
thick and rich and sweet
still
silent
and whilst bold
without hope's soft push

gentled by beauty
and golden-thick and wide,
sunset's glance and
my timid eye
'mid burnt bronze
eucalypt slow,
heavy-lidded
and head low

steeped in gin
and with that seaward sight
i find this tide
pulling
and dragging
my faltering feet
back to the sea

my deep, rich, and ragged love.

i fall,
face to the salt wind

and drown.

we have earned our ways out of this
marriage
the siren song of our love echoes in hollows,
disappears
awakens nothing anymore, except
companionship
shall we enter the echoes as they disappear,
look
for a hand held in softness, a hand held
fondly
a kiss gentled by years    and
tears?    or
shall we stay as we are: prope and still,
awaiting

the Beginning


c. 2017 Roberta Compton Rainwater

Engulging dull gen-e-rational
curses from the last of the old to die
for the lie,
nessecito - guard the secret truth,

divide the knowing, good and evil.
Teach the children,
organize the engineered future, according,
tying, linking, thinking wedominionate, ping

CR disappears, as an action in reaction to ping
before the end of the line, on the first iteration
of my magnificent word processing machine,

****, woncha remember with me, not so long
ago - there were few, total few, zero
who had the where withal to do, what most
10 year old smartphones can do in a city.

Or along a trade route, major arteries of commerce.
Wireless Fidelity, High Fi- taken to the future
by virtue of infinite differentiating
-ping to correspond
My fingerprints differentiate me, for what that's
worth
appraise the role of one of my kind, with such skills
in 1858.

Infinite progress, with no regress for consideration,
who do we think we are,
who do we act as if we are,… my link to a living

line of my innerbeing, who I am from core to crust.

We, mortal readers and writers of thoughts,
code mode, readers,
- entertained by comparizoned boundaries
- bottom line, profundo mundus, mental
- novelty threat to global trade
- imbalence valence slipping
- on rolling ares, arrest that man
- he waxeth strange
odd
random reason, aitia cause and accused,
silly simple some, greedy grand plan for us,
this we
of me and thee, one with words, one with minds,
one with many
rediscoveries, little things, one must ignor, or else.

Nor must one image, to imagine, words alone
bein' in and of a current opinion, as to how why

is so seldom right, at first glance. Pain is a principle

price we learn to pay, in tolerable increments,
no pain, zero pain, is as if
- nowhere man, and the fool on the hill,
- were figments of shared imagination, to a few
- who remain from the
you cease reading, and this ends with you
hanging

from a thought with no words to hold it, long enough
to pierce the depths of difference

so slight,
least heat, zappa child reflection from an outlier edge
point to living in a living desert, see
we learn to live gently, walking soft. Stepping gen-tle

Knowing my time, and the ether-real or not network
tying strings to my fingers, reminding me of knacks
I was given, so when I came into my full potential,

I might function in my role. A bit of this we, of me and the
other people.

Sure, I left a trail, my neesings are frost on the deep,
see, a trail through a trial,
a time in a covideonic mind, unimaginable, a week ago.

If you were in that number, 3.2 billions, in 1962;
then you were included in the transition to now,
without your will being considered, the cultural
norms were fully functional,
once more, order rose from the chaos of industrial

excessive progress toward the wardening of all
mankind, wombed and un, and otherwise minded.

All settled then,
we keeps some accords confidential.

Scoff the co-inspiring reasons for fear.
Abhor evil,
live free/

you get the idea, I get the glory, in the story/

confidential assurance, you know what I mean?
What is the watch word?

be very sure/ steady solid seeming grounds
for contesting truth,
with reasons war uses to this very day,

to lead the innocent to rage.

Who, in ever, has lived as we live,
if you can read this line,
you are empowe'ded with tehkne, knowledge
harnessed and put to the yoke, thro
ugh
the exageration station into all in all.

Meandering rivers of white space where
edges promise what feels like falling, every time.
--------- eight line bit
bytes of bets you once imagined making

I bet the whole world laughs at me, and then
I said nothing.

It was very funny. At the time.

What do you think happened?
Did they die?

Did the audience disappear as soon as we looked out.

Standing out, salient aspects of personal being,
recollected for resorting
to old ways, where good is, yet, even, smooth,

as silk from the looms in distant lands, with dragons.
and mist
and mountains only fools wish to climb.

-- Well, here we are, in the middle of wars
and rumors of wars and proven plagues and famines
feedback from the whole life plan, we paid into
from the gitgo,

gone to reason with America, at Guantanamo.
Gone to wrestle with an ancient will to rule the world.

Meet me in the middle. Infinite Jest. I did read,
Proust and James Joyce, I did not read, but judged,

from a time in flux, filtered through the new
world order,

We, the Americans, become the other people.
The innocent standers by the mainstreet at Disneyland.

Gnost-algia, Anacin hammering on my medial frontal
shell

controlling nada, zilch, meandering along old synaptic
trails trial runs to the edge,

imagine we imagined we jumped the snake river,
wearing our Occulus, in June, of '22.

Who can forget an Imax experience, really,
when you remember your first flight

in the right seat,
sitting on my Daddy's  lap, I was that little.

  

The first flight above clouds.

Look at now,
look at this, us, as readers reading type
set as
thought, really, only code appearing in letting
lines letting lines form rhetted fibers, combed and
curled in natural twists, to reaffirm the function,

give us skin for skin/ made for shade, where
water is for us, to live
and have our being.
------------

Ignoring the cost, the man of leisure, the gentled
old man, the quitter, the walker away from the course,
settles all final bets.
For nobody bet on my horse, but me.
Of course, I had no horse, and that all stands to reason.

I am at the end of an era of errors, compensated for,
with vegetation, once the idea life had was
manifested as a sea of green, when seen from on high,

valleys, gentled, settled valleys filled to form the soil,

when the mankind mind is made up to know,
come hell or highwater,
who can hide the truth through put in functional code.

If it runs it runs, play the game.
Think, of course, when in the course of Human Events.

We are all involved. Me, as one among the 3.2 billions
alive in 1962 who brought forth fruit.

Multiple interests converged, in time. Each with its own
reason to be considered, cosmical influent.

Story wise, since ever when the fewest variables
variegation currency worth valuation
-came to our attention,
that is the point

to the order in which organized systems developed,
occurrence…
- living in knowledgement, state of sci
- =
the birth of the wombed man who did become,
science und wissen und kennen-wise, become
mother of all mankind.

Mito-mom, we say. She is as Eve, or Pandora
or Lilith or

Objection Orientation, east is where the sun is
in the morning.

I am thinking, in my easy chair. As comfortable
as can be.
At the moment, instantly in prayer, are we as ware
as we were
once, we knew for the first time, in our reality, we

who and whom, with all this room for individuation.

Consider modern ants, consider the meta-ant,
and the eco-system that has developed it,

the global transport, spreading the functional
universal aspects of earth's will to function
as one point within the scope of mortal minds

where we become the last staged event.

And we all get together, to close the show.

A cluster of engraved birches
personifies a love of old,
upon sequins – Eros perches
bowing echoes 'long the wold.

Sweeten dew of noble rain
debris not – the emblem crust
nor bird of plumage stain
the hearted sketch of trust.

Nimble scouts of chirping worth
cavort and tune a number
wrought the song of her ole mirth
upon the sleek n' lumber.

Spectres - Illume of gold
stipple maps the spine
each bark n' rip that holed
glistens that was mine

Shrubbery - melodious swaying
curious tips like many eyes
as though my love were playing
and I - was in her guise.

Amorous whispers breeze;
she lingers not 'neath the burrow
but bristles with the trees,
in rooted limbs that furrow.

Wonder if - by the brook
the hustle, still she graze
of gentled hand n' took
and swept my ardent daze.

When aboard and ponder
I drift back to amber birches
there in idle wonder
bequeaths - my soulful searches.

Mortal passions.
Whiling whole days away,

wishing instances of just this
artful vision made mere words.
Accounted for, line on line.
Actuational responders.
Hello,
World
Initiative, INIT run
plain, lain flat to show one side,
while hiding one side,
and all that lay beneath this
surface, now  still pond holding the sky.

As intelligent, gentled warring monks
and monkeys, chatter in the trees,

solitary man, with an array of antenae,
sending and receiving dry ideas
to be read and rethunk, at once, indeed

as wisdom tends
to evaporate, leaving inklings
traced with artifact and story, back
to when our kind being generates

an instance of on
to logical word forming wills,
breaking branches in harvesting races,

to the victor goes the glory, in story form.

Drama brought from life experience, dared
and done,

for no good reason, at the time, daring devils,
mocking saints, saying in one's reading mind,

this day, have we not come to know, today,
now certain, this one day, we have to be in
and have our own being and breaths in.

I've insane rage inside it kills
O comfort me with Mother love
its wills will me to do self ills
i've insane rage inside it kills,

O Mother mine please hold me still
gently gentle me free from fear
i've insane rage inside it kills
O comfort me my Mother dear.

                             2

This rage will will me underground
dear gentle me with Mother love
down on Earth i am so hell bound
this rage will will me underground,

i might reach peace, deep underground
i'm teetering just one shove,
this rage will will me underground
dear gentle me with mother love.

                              3

I called you came, you comfort me
though rage still wills me underground
you gentled me to let it be
i called you came you comfort me,

those future years i feared, you see
i wasn't shoved i just jumped down
you called i came you comfort me
together now, deep underground.

I fear not death, but death without rebirth
For how'll I'll doubly miss the southern spring;
The flowers past and future petal'd earth
Would sprout in distant plays of everything.
If far from view, then even worse a - fate,
As I without a touch will too not see;
The blossoms of my land and gentled mate;
For she does loves the spring as beauty; she.
Tho' be with heaven's angel's, high and sweet
Without my love and spring I'd barely breathe;
In yearn for her below and petal's treat,
Then best let I just lay with dirt my sheathe.

But wake me into light when she too passed
For into heaven, she'll bring spring to last.

find the answer, never despair, hold hope habitual

ritual

rright use learn of love of life
like cloned Poke'mons
in the movie, but rreal

first gentled by a feminine manifestion of Solomon's Jah,

that one. God. Wisdom is her domain, patience
does all her handiwork and
cares for her children,
in time.
Just in time,
each stitch,

each twist of the sweet grass, first lesson learned by
maids and lads alike,
braiding sweetgrass to tie us to the will to be a we,

I call you not servants,
but friends.

There was a wise man who saved a city, the equivalent

of saving civilisation,
these days;
and no one nor anybody knew his name,

only that he had made the peace.

"to manifest many sons, he said. I am one of them."

During a thunderstorm a little frog
For reasons best known to its grey-green self
Climbed stickey-toed into the chambers of
The gauge, then begged for life as the water rose

Made in China of toxic plastic for
The Weather Consortium Collective ®™
All-natural collection of earth-safe
Weather instruments to save the animals

I took it to the lawn, and gentled it out
During a thunderstorm, a little frog

The mother dodged most of it; some connected and singed her hair. A shriek was the reply. As was a return spell. The air glowed red and shimmered. Mother Goddess didn't wait to see if her spell had worked, she sent a second and then third. Different ones to shatter Elleswyth's body and then freeze the bits. But the witch was both faster and younger than the Mother Goddess; both spells missed by millimetres. The witch jumped twice her height and spun in mid-air. And fired another spell. This hit home, flooring the Goddess. She fell to the floor, held in place by invisible singing energy. Gaiana was a prisoner now, the first time ever in her infinite eternal life. Her eyes glowed orange, then azure and finally, white. "Free me now! Do it and I'll let you live."

Cernunnos was earthbound and in hiding. His mother could defeat his protégé; he was tired and needed to rest. And plan Elleswyth's downfall. He muttered under his breath, "This creation of mine has gotten out of hand. I've gone too far. It must end now. If my mother fails..."

Gaiana did fail. She lay dying in a pool of blood. Elleswyth spat on the almost dead Goddess and stomped past to the edge of the sky world. Then she launched herself into space. "Here I come Cernunnos. Revenge will be mine, again."
She felt herself hurtle down, falling through the chill of the upper sky, her skin fading to white as the cold bit into her limbs and goose bumps ran across her bare skin. The blue planet fast approached and she wind milled her arms to slow her descent. The planet shuddered as a shock wave circled the hemispheres when she broke through the atmosphere and landed gently feet first on the yellow sands bordering the furious seas. She looked around her. She had not been followed. Elleswyth glanced at her tattered bloodstained clothing and grinned. She whispered to the white waves, immediately they gentled and she slipped off her tunic and slipped naked into the heated waters.