This morning I cut off around 4 months of hair in the bathroom mirror I have watched myself wash my hands in since I was old enough to remember.
I thought about what happened in those 4 months,
what happened in those years outside of having staring contests with my reflection
while trying to guess the scent of the hand soap my grandmother had filled her ceramic seashell dispenser with;
it was different every time,
but somehow
it always smelled the way the lavender in the backyard did that afternoon I found out they had shut off your ventilator.

I only know that now;
hair trimmings on the floor
waiting to be swept up and
dumped around the rose bushes
so the deer won't try to dine on them
before they've had a chance to bloom.

Something like that.

I'm not mad at you for what happened.
Only mad at myself about how
the last thing I told you was a
dad-lecture about looking sloppy ****** up in front of people.
Mad that I only said that ****
because it was ******* up my high
and was too spineless to just be honest about it.

I think I might cut a few more
inches off in the morning.

My bailiwick is perpetuating
mania back on itself,
the radius is shaped
like canopic jars carved in the likeness of mad gods of hells
I've missed on trips through the blackened aftermath imagined
ad hoc in afternoons which we were meant to scatter like ashes, like truth,  like flattery, like rats..

Ladders to illusory
for proof of the usefulness
the numinous has in obfuscating
my *******,
past lives,
fugue states,
immune to the mutagenic malaise of this routine rebuking of being aloof in the face of futures yet to be hewn from the quantum foam.

Empty bottles.
Ghosts given up too indifferent sky.
Empires toppled by nightfall.
There is no "why” to all of this,
just a primal drive off the tallest cliffs we can possibly find.

May it pull all your seams
tightly together so that today
you feel whole

May your eyes source the world
catalogue its pieces
so that in silence you fall gently
into its beauty
again, and again and again
Until you dissolve
into it’s charm

the line is long and only continues to get longer
there so many mouths to feed and this food bank
does it have enough ?
are there hymns for the hungry
like the ones the protester sing in Portland as they march tonight

Ascendant Transcendent
Ascendance Transcendence
by Michael R. Burch

Breaching the summit
I reach
the horizon’s last rays.

This is a poem about unexpectedly glimpsing the raw beauty of the universe, which comes like an unexpected blessing.



Sudden Shower
by Michael R. Burch

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



Imperfect Perfection
by Michael R. Burch

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



yet another iffy coronavirus haiku #1
by michael r. burch

plagued by the Plague
i plague the goldfish
with my verse



yet another iffy coronavirus haiku #2
by michael r. burch

sunflowers
hang their heads
embarrassed by their coronas

I wrote this poem after having a sunflower arrangement delivered to my mother, who is in an assisted living center and can't have visitors due to the coronavirus pandemic.



homework: yet another iffy coronavirus haiku #3
by michael r. burch

dim bulb overhead,
my silent companion:
still imitating the noonday sun?



Stormfront
by Michael R. Burch

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



Splintering

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



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.



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.



Childless
by Michael R. Burch

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



New World Order
by Michael R. Burch

The days of the dandelions dawn...
soon man will be gone:
lawn fertilizer.



Translations

I entered the world empty-handed
and leave it barefoot.
My coming and going?
Two uncomplicated events
that became entangled.
―Kozan Ichikyo (1283-1360), translation by Michael R. Burch

“Isn’t it time,”
the young bride asks,
“to light the lantern?”
―Ochi Etsujin (1656-1739), translation by Michael R. Burch

Brittle cicada shell,
little did I know
you were my life!
―Shuho (?-1767), translation by Michael R. Burch

Bury me beneath a wine barrel
in a bibber’s cellar:
with a little luck the keg will leak.
―Moriya Senan (?-1838), translation by Michael R. Burch

Learn to accept the inevitable:
the fall willow
knows when to abandon its leaves.
―Tanehiko (1782-1842), translation by Michael R. Burch

Darkness speaks―
a bat in flight
flits through a thicket.
―Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902), loose translation by Michael R. Burch

I’m tired,
so please be so kind as to swat the flies
softly.
―Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902), loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Keywords/Tags: haiku, Japanese, translation, transcendent, Oriental, imagery, metaphor, nature, coronavirus, plague, life, death, nature, ascension day, beauty, eyes, perfection, universe

Reflections
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

Keywords/Tags: reflection, mirror, image, anorexia, bulimia, cutting, reflections, self-image, self-worth, self-criticism, self-shaming, mrbref

to dance to the end
where the blue of the sea
blends into the sky
and to die.

if we knew that,
would we do that?
if
eternity is the superstore that
goes on and on forevermore
why does the music stop?

We mess things up
we get things wrong
but we all know the lyrics
of our favourite song.

Tuesday!
could be
one of those give it a go
there is nothing to lose days
and
if we knew that
would we do that?

Sunday mornings we would make breakfast together.
I always burned the bacon a little bit too much for your taste
Or overcooked the eggs
And sometimes we wouldn't eat at all
We'd stay in bed and sleep until one of us had to go

I'd wake up to small strips of light firing through your brightened blinds
And hear you singing somewhere near
And every morning you would sing
And it would wake me from my frozen trance with a warm smile
And sometimes even lull me back to sleep to much more soothing dreams

But one day you stopped singing
And your songs became more and more rare
Beaten into a gentle hum that could only be heard from the same room

And then you stopped humming
You'd get this quiet sadness in your eyes and while I'd try to help
Or alleviate it in anyway I could
It would linger like the ghost of a parent

I'll miss the morning tunes the most I think
But maybe I was right about one thing in all of this
Maybe things are better this way

But darling, do I miss the ******* music from your soul
And I hope one day
You find your song again
And someone
Or some situation
That makes you sing every morning
To greet the sun as warmly as it will you.