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These are poems about poetry, poems about writing, poems about the process of composition... The Composition of Shadows by Michael R. Burch “I made it out of a mouthful of air.”—W. B. Yeats We breathe and so we write; the night hums softly its accompaniment. Pale phosphors burn; the page we turn leads onward, and we smile, content.      And what we mean we write to learn: the vowels of love, the consonants’ strange golden weight, each plosive’s shape— curved like the heart. Here, resonant,... sounds’ shadows mass beneath bright glass like singing voles curled in a maze of blank white space. We touch a face— long-frozen words trapped in a glaze that insulates our hearts. Nowhere can love be found. Just shrieking air. Less Heroic Couplets: Questionable Credentials by Michael R. Burch Poet? Critic? Dilettante? Do you know what’s good, or do you merely flaunt? Less Heroic Couplets: Dark Cloud, Silver Lining from “Love in the Time of the Coronavirus” by Michael R. Burch Every corona has a silver lining: I’m too far away to hear your whining, and despite my stormy demeanor, my hands have never been cleaner! A Passing Observation about Thinking Outside the Box by Michael R. Burch William Blake had no public, and yet he’s still read. His critics are dead. Distances (II) by Michael R. Burch There is a small cleanness about her, as if she has always just been washed, and there is a dull obedience to convention in her accommodating slenderness as she feints at her salad. She has never heard of Faust, or Frost, and she is unlikely to have been seen rummaging through bookstores for mementos of others more difficult to name. She might imagine “poetry” to be something in common between us, as we write, bridging the expanse between convention and something . . . something the world calls “art” for want of a better word. At night I scream at the conventions of both our worlds, at the distances between words and their objects: distances come lately between us, like a clean break. Published by Verse Libre, Triplopia and Lone Stars This Distance Between Us by Michael R. Burch This distance between us,     this vast gulf of remembrance     void of understanding, sets us apart. You are so far,     lost child,     weeping for consolation, once dear to my heart. Once near to my heart,     though seldom to touch,     now you are foreign, now you grow faint... like the wayward light of a vagabond star—     obscure, enigmatic.     Is the reveling gypsy becoming a saint? Now loneliness,     a broad expanse     —barren, forbidding— whispers my name. I, too, am a traveler     down this dark path,     unsure of the footing, cursing the rain. I, too, have felt pain,     pain and the ache of passion unfulfilled,     remorse, grief, and all the terrors of the night. And how very black     and how bleak my despair . . .     O, where are you, where are you shining tonight? East Devon Beacon by Michael R. Burch Evening darkens upon the moors, Forgiveness—a hairless thing skirting the headlamps, fugitive. Why have we come, traversing the long miles and extremities of solitude, worriedly crisscrossing the wrong maps with directions obtained from passing strangers? Why do we sit,  frantically retracing                                 love’s long-forgotten signal points with cramping, ink-stained fingers? Why the preemptive frowns, the litigious silences, when only yesterday we watched as, out of an autumn sky this vast, over an orchard or an onion field, wild Vs of distressed geese sped across the moon’s face, the sound of their panicked wings like our alarmed hearts pounding in unison? Happily Never After by Michael R. Burch Happily never after, we lived unmerrily (write it!—like disaster) in Our Kingdom by the See as the man from Porlock’s laughter drowned out love’s threnody. We ditched the red wheelbarrow in slovenly Tennessee, then made a picturebook of poems, a postcard for Tse-Tse, a list of resolutions we knew we couldn’t keep, and asylum decorations for the King in his dark sleep. We made it new so often, strange newness, wearing old, peeled off, and something rotten gleamed—dull yellow, not like gold— like carelessness, or cowardice, and redolent of *** We stumbled off, our awkwardness—new Keystone comedy. Huge cloudy symbols blocked the sun; onlookers strained to see. We said We were the only One. Our gaseous Melody had made us Joshuas, and so—the Bible, new-rewrit, with god removed, replaced by Show and Glyphics and Sanskrit, seemed marvelous to Us, although King Ezra said, “It’s S--t.” We spent unhappy hours in Our Kingdom of the Pea, drunk on such Awesome Power only Emperors can See. We were Imagists and Vorticists, Projectivists, a Dunce, Anarchists and Antarcticists and anti-Christs, and once We’d made the world Our oyster and stowed away the pearl of Our too-, too-polished wisdom, unanchored of the world, We sailed away to Lilliput, to Our Kingdom by the See and piped the rats to join Us, to live unmerrily hereever and hereafter, in Our Kingdom of the Pea, in the miniature ship Disaster in a jar in Tennessee. Performing Art by Michael R. Burch Who teaches the wren in its drab existence to explode into song? What parodies of irony does the jay espouse with its sharp-edged tongue? What instinctual memories lend stunning brightness to the strange dreams of the dull gray slug —spinning its chrysalis, gluing rough seams— abiding in darkness its transformation, till, waving damp wings, it applauds its performance? I am done with irony. Life itself sings. Less Heroic Couplets: Mini-Ode to Stamina by Michael R. Burch When you’ve given so much that I can’t bear your touch, then from a safe distance let me admire your persistence. Published by ***** of Parnassus Less Heroic Couplets: Sweet Tarts by Michael R. Burch Love, beautiful but fatal to many bewildered hearts, commands us to be faithful, then tempts us with sweets and tarts. Adrift by Michael R. Burch I helplessly loved you    although I was lost in the veils of your eyes,    grown blind to the cost    of my ignorant folly —your unreadable rune—    as leashed tides obey an indecipherable moon. Published by The New Stylus The Drawer of Mermaids by Michael R. Burch This poem is dedicated to Alina Karimova, who was born with severely deformed legs and five fingers missing. Alina loves to draw mermaids and believes her fingers will eventually grow out. Although I am only four years old, they say that I have an old soul. I must have been born long, long ago, here, where the eerie mountains glow at night, in the Urals. A madman named Geiger has cursed these slopes; now, shut in at night, the emphatic ticking fills us with dread. (Still, my momma hopes that I will soon walk with my new legs.) It’s not so much legs as the fingers I miss, drawing the mermaids under the ledges. (Observing, Papa will kiss me in all his distracted joy; but why does he cry?) And there is a boy who whispers my name. Then I am not lame; for I leap, and I follow. (G’amma brings a wiseman who says our infirmities are ours, not God’s, that someday a beautiful Child will return from the stars, and then my new fingers will grow if only I trust Him; and so I am preparing to meet Him, to go, should He care to receive me.) alien by michael r. burch there are mornings in england when, riddled with light, the Blueberries gleam at us— plump, sweet and fragrant. but i am so small... what do i know of the ways of the Daffodils? “beware of the Nettles!” we go laughing and singing, but somehow, i,... i know i am lost. i do not belong to this Earth or its Songs. and yet i am singing... the sun—so mild; my cheeks are like roses; my skin—so fair. i spent a long time there before i realized: They have no faces, no bodies, no voices. i was always alone. and yet i keep singing: the words will come if only i hear. I AM! by Michael R. Burch I am not one of ten billion—I— sunblackened Icarus, chary fly, staring at God with a quizzical eye. I am not one of ten billion, I. I am not one life has left unsquashed— scarred as Ulysses, goddess-debauched, pale glowworm agleam with a tale of panache. I am not one life has left unsquashed. I am not one without spots of disease, laugh lines and tan lines and thick-callused knees from begging and praying and girls sighing “Please!” I am not one without spots of disease. I am not one of ten billion—I— scion of Daedalus, blackwinged fly staring at God with a sedulous eye. I am not one of ten billion, I AM! Paradoxical Ode to Antinatalism by Michael R. Burch A stay on love  would end death’s hateful sway, someday. A stay on love  would thus be love, I say.  Be true to love and thus end death’s fell sway! Hymn for Fallen Soldiers by Michael R. Burch Sound the awesome cannons. Pin medals to each breast.  Attention, honor guard! Give them a hero’s rest. Recite their names to the heavens Till the stars acknowledge their kin. Then let the land they defended Gather them in again. When I learned there’s an American military organization, the DPAA (Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency), that is still finding and bringing home the bodies of soldiers who died serving their country in World War II, after blubbering like a baby, I managed to eke out this poem. How Could I Understand? by Michael R. Burch The intense heat and light of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bomb blasts left ghostly silhouettes of human beings imprinted in concrete, whose lives were erased in an instant. How could I understand that light might be painful? That sight might be crossed? How could I understand the cost of my ignorance, or the sun’s  inflorescence? Who was there to tell me that I, too, might be one of the Lost? The First Christmas by Michael R. Burch ’Twas in a land so long ago . . . the lambs lay blanketed in snow and little children everywhere sat and watched warm embers glow and dreamed (of what, we do not know). And THEN—a star appeared on high, The brightest man had ever seen! It made the children whisper low in puzzled awe (what did it mean?). It made the wooly lambkins cry. Not far away a new-born lay, warm-blanketed in straw and hay, a lowly manger for his crib. The cattle mooed, distraught and low, to see the child. They did not know it now was Christmas day! gimME that ol’ time religion! by michael r. burch fiddle-dee-dum, fiddle-dee-dee, jesus loves and understands ME! safe in his grace, I’LL **** them to hell— the strumpet, the harlot, the wild jezebel, the alky, the druggie, all queers short and tall! let them drink ashes and wormwood and gall, ’cause fiddle-dee-DUMB, fiddle-dee-WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEee . . . jesus loves and understands ME! Unapproved Absence, or, Slip Up by Michael R. Burch Christ, how 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. faith(less) by michael r. burch for the “Chosen Few” Those who believed and Those who misled lie together at last in the same narrow bed and if god loved Them more for Their strange lack of doubt, he kept it well hidden till he snuffed Them out. ah-men! Haunted by Michael R. Burch Now I am here     and thoughts of my past mistakes are my brethren.     I am withering and the sweetness of your memory is like a tear. Go, if you will,     for the ache in my heart is its hollowness     and the flaw in my soul is its shallowness; there is nothing to fill. Take what you can;     I have nothing left.     And when you are gone, I will be bereft, the husk of a man. Or stay here awhile.     My heart cannot bear the night, or these dreams.     Your face is a ghost, though paler, it seems when you smile. Published by Romantics Quarterly Duet (I) by Michael R. Burch Oh, Wendy, by the firelight, how sad,     how worn and gray your auburn hair became!     You’re very silent, like an evening rain that trembles on dark petals. Tears you’ve shed     for days we danced together, glisten now;     your flesh became translucent; and your brow knits, gathered loosely. By the well-made bed         three portraits hang with knowing eyes, beloved,     but mine is not among them. Time has proved our hearts both strangely mortal. If I said     I loved you once, how is it that could change?     And yet I watch you fondly; love is strange...      Oh, Peter, by the firelight, how bright     my thought of you remains, and if I said     I loved you once, then took him to my bed, I did it for the need of love, one night     when you were far away. My heart endured     transfigurement—in flaming ash inured to heartbreak and the violence of sight:     I saw myself grow old and thin and frail     with thinning hair about me, like a veil... And so I loved him for myself, despite     the love between us—our first startled kiss.     But then I loved him for his humanness. And then we both grew old, and it was right ... Oh, Wendy, if I fly, I fly beyond     these human hearts, these cities walled and tiered     against the night, beyond this vale of tears, for love, if it exists, dies with the years... No, Peter, love is constant as the heart     that keeps till its last beat a measured pace     and sets the fixtures of its dreams in place by beds at first well-used, at last well-made,     and counts each face a joy, each tear a grace... Duet (II) by Michael R. Burch If love is just an impulse meant to bring two tiny hearts together, skittering like hamsters from their Quonsets late at night in search of lust’s productive exercise... If love is the mutation of some gene made radiant—an accident of bliss played out by two small actors on a screen of silver mesh, who never even kiss... If love is evolution, nature’s way of sorting out its DNA in pairs, of matching, mating, sculpting flesh’s clay... why does my wrinkled hamster climb his stairs to set his wheel revolving, then descend and stagger off ... to make hers fly again? Published by Bewildering Stories and The HyperTexts Duet, Minor Key by Michael R. Burch Without the drama of cymbals or the fanfare and snares of drums, I present my case stripped of its fine veneer: Behold, thy instrument. Play, for the night is long. Published by Brief Poems At Tintagel by Michael R. Burch The legend of what happened on a stormy night at Tintagel is endlessly intriguing. Supposedly, Merlin transformed Uther Pendragon to look like Gorlois so that he could sleep with Ygraine, the lovely wife of the unlucky duke. While Uther was enjoying Ygraine’s ********** Gorlois was off getting himself killed. The question is: did Igraine suspect that her lover was not her husband? Regardless, Arthur was the child conceived out of this supernatural (?) encounter. That night, at Tintagel, there was darkness such as man had never seen . . . darkness and treachery, and the unholy thundering of the sea... In his arms, who can say how much she knew? And if he whispered her name . . . “Ygraine” . . . could she tell above the howling wind and rain? Could she tell, or did she care, by the length of his hair or the heat of his flesh, . . . that her faceless companion was Uther, the dragon, and Gorlois lay dead? Published by Songs of Innocence, Celtic Twilight, Fables, Fickle Muses and Poetry Life & Times we did not Dye in vain! by michael r. burch from “songs of the sea snails” though i’m just a slimy crawler,      my lineage is proud: my forebears gave their lives      (oh, let the trumps blare loud!) so purple-mantled Royals      might stand out in a crowd. i salute you, fellow loyals,      who labor without scruple as your incomes fall      while deficits quadruple to swaddle unjust Lords      in bright imperial purple! Originally published by The American Dissident Crunch by Michael R. Burch A cockroach could live nine months on the dried mucus you scrounge from your nose then fling like seedplants to the slowly greening floor... You claim to be the advanced life form, but, mon frere,  sometimes as you ****** encrusted kinks of hair from your Leviathan *** and muse softly on zits, icebergs snap off the Antarctic. You’re an evolutionary quandary, in need of a sacral ganglion to control your enlarged, contradictory hindquarters: surely the brain should migrate closer to its primary source of information,  in order to ensure the survival of the species. Cockroaches thrive on eyeboogers and feces; their exoskeletons expand and gleam like burnished armor in the presence of uranium. But your cranium                             is not nearly so adaptable. A Vain Word by Michael R. Burch Oleanders at dawn preen extravagant whorls as I read in leaves’ Sanskrit brief moments remaining till sunset implodes, till the moon strands grey pearls under moss-stubbled oaks, full of whispers, complaining to the darkening autumn, how swiftly life goes— as I fled before love ...                                      Now, through leaves trodden black, shivering, I wander as winter’s first throes of cool listless snow drench my cheeks, back and neck. I discerned in one season all eternities of grief, the specter of death sprawled out under the rose, the last consequence of faith in the flight of one leaf, the incontinence of age, as life’s bright torrent slows. O, where are you now?—I was timid, absurd. I would find comfort again in a vain word. Published by Chrysanthemum and Tucumcari Literary Review What Goes Around, Comes by Michael R. Burch This is a poem about loss so why do you toss your dark hair— unaccountably glowing? How can you be sure of my heart when it’s beyond my own knowing? Or is it love’s pheromones you trust, my eyes magnetized by your bust and the mysterious alchemies of lust? Now I am truly lost! Oasis by Michael R. Burch for Beth I want tears to form again in the shriveled glands of these eyes dried all these long years by too much heated knowing. I want tears to course down these parched cheeks, to star these cracked lips like an improbable dew in the heart of a desert. I want words to burble up like happiness, like the thought of love, like the overwhelming, shimmering thought of you to a nomad who has only known drought. Afterglow by Michael R. Burch for Beth The night is full of stars. Which still exist? Before time ends, perhaps one day we’ll know. For now I hold your fingers to my lips and feel their pulse ... warm, palpable and slow... once slow to match this reckless spark in me, this moon in ceaseless orbit I became, compelled by wilder gravity to flee night’s universe of suns, for one pale flame... for one pale flame that seemed to signify the Zodiac of all, the meaning of love’s wandering flight past Neptune. Now to lie in dawning recognition is enough... enough each night to bask in you, to know the face of love ... eyes closed ... its afterglow. Melting by Michael R. Burch for Beth Entirely, as spring consumes the snow, the thought of you consumes me: I am found in rivulets, dissolved to what I know of former winters’ passions. Underground, perhaps one slender icicle remains of what I was before, in some dark cave— a stalactite, long calcified, now drains to sodden pools whose milky liquid laves the colder rock, thus washing something clean that never saw the light, that never knew the crust could break above, that light could stream: so luminous,                      so bright,                                      so beautiful . . . I lie revealed, and so I stand transformed, and all because you smiled on me, and warmed. Published by Borderless Journal (Singapore) First Steps by Michael R. Burch for Caitlin Shea Murphy To her a year is like infinity, each day—an adventure never-ending.     She has no concept of time,     but already has begun the climb— from childhood to womanhood recklessly ascending. I would caution her, "No! Wait! There will be time enough another day . . .     time to learn the Truth     and to slowly shed your youth, but for now, sweet child, go carefully on your way!..." But her time is not a time for cautious words, nor a time for measured, careful understanding.     She is just certain     that, by grabbing the curtain, in a moment she will finally be standing! Little does she know that her first few steps will hurtle her on her way     through childhood to adolescence,     and then, finally, pubescence . . . while, just as swiftly, I’ll be going gray! briefling by michael r. burch manishatched,hopsintotheMix, cavorts,hassex(quick!,spawnanewBrood!); then,likeamayfly,he’ssuddenlygone: plantfood Here “briefling” is a diminutive of “brief” and also a pun on “brief fling.” pretty pickle by michael r. burch u’d blaspheme if u could because ur Gaud’s no good, but of course u cant: ur a lowly ant (or so u were told by a Hierophant). The wordplay of “ur Gaud” and “u cant” is intentional, as always. Ah! Sunflower by Michael R. Burch for and after William Blake O little yellow flower like a star ... how beautiful, how wonderful we are! Originally published by Borderless Journal (Singapore) All the More Human, for Eve Pandora by Michael R. Burch a lullaby for the first human Clone God provide the soul, and let her sleep be natural as ours, unplagued by dreams of being someone else, lost in the deep wild swells of grieving all that human means . . . and do not let her come to doubt herself— that she is as we are, so much alike in frailty, in the books that line the shelf that tell us who we are—a rickety ****         against the flood of doubt—that we are more than cells and chance, that love, perhaps, exists because of someone else who would endure such pain because some part of her persists in us, and calls us blesséd by her bed, become a saint at last, in whose frail arms we see ourselves—the gray won out of red, the ash of blonde—till love is safe from harm and all that human means is that we live in doubt, and die in doubt, and only love the more because together we must strive against an end we loathe and fear. What of?— we cannot say, imagining the Night as some weird darkened structure caving in to cold enormous pressure. Lacking sight, we lie unbreathing, thinking breath a sin . . . and that is to be human. You are us— true mortal, child of doubt, hopeful and curious. Springtime Prayer by Michael R. Burch They’ll have to grow like crazy, the springtime baby geese, if they’re to fly to balmier climes when autumn dismembers the leaves... And so I toss them loaves of bread, then whisper an urgent prayer: “Watch over these, my Angels, if there’s anyone kind, up there.” Originally published by Borderless Journal (Singapore) Altared Spots by Michael R. Burch The mother leopard buries her cub, then cries three nights for his bones to rise clad in new flesh, to celebrate the sunrise. Good mother leopard, pensive thought and fiercest love’s wild insurrection yield no certainty of a resurrection. Man’s tried them both, has added tears, chants, dances, drugs, séances, tombs’ white alabaster prayer-rooms, wombs where dead men’s frozen genes convene ... there is no answer—death is death. So bury your son, and save your breath. Or emulate earth’s “highest species”— write a few strange poems and odd treatises. Our English Rose by Michael R. Burch for Christine Ena Burch The rose is—         the ornament of the earth,  the glory of nature,  the archetype of the flowers,  the blush of the meadows,  a lightning flash of beauty. This is my translation of a Sappho epigram. chrysalis by michael r. burch these are the days of doom u seldom leave ur room u live in perpetual gloom yet also the days of hope how to cope? u pray and u ***** toward self illumination ... becoming an angel  (pure love) and yet You must love Your Self Attend Upon Them Still by Michael R. Burch for my grandparents George and Ena Hurt With gentleness and fine and tender will, attend upon them still; thou art the grass. Nor let men’s feet here muddy as they pass thy subtle undulations, nor depress for long the comforts of thy lovingness, nor let the fuse of time wink out amid the violets. They have their use— to wave, to grow, to gleam, to lighten their paths, to shine resplendent glories at their feet. Thou art the grass; make them complete. Talent by Michael R. Burch for Kevin Nicholas Roberts I liked the first passage of her poem—where it led (though not nearly enough to retract what I said.) Now the book propped up here flutters, scarcely half read.     It will keep.     Before sleep, let me read yours instead. There's something of love in the rhythms of night —in the throb of streets where the late workers drone, in the sounds that attend each day’s sad, squalid end— that reminds us: till death we are never alone. So we write from the hearts that will fail us anon,     words in red     truly bled though they cannot reveal     whence they came,     who they're for. And the tap at the door goes unanswered. We write, for there is nothing more     than a verse,     than a song, than this chant of the blessed:     If these words     be my sins, let me die unconfessed! Unconfessed, unrepentant; I rescind all my vows!     Write till sleep:     it’s the leap only Talent allows. Pool's Prince Charming by Michael R. Burch this poem is my tribute, written on the behalf of his fellow pool sharks, for the legendary Saint Louie Louie Roberts Louie, Louie, Prince of Pool, making all the ladies drool ... Take the “nuts”? I'd be a fool! Louie, Louie, Prince of Pool. Louie, Louie, pretty as Elvis, owner of (ahem) a similar pelvis ... Compared to you, the books will shelve us. Louie, Louie, pretty as Elvis. Louie, Louie, fearless gambler, ladies' man and constant rambler, but such a sweet, loquacious ambler. Louie, Louie, fearless gambler. Louie, Louie, angelic, chthonic, pool's charming hero, but tragic, Byronic, winning the Open drinking gin and tonic? Louie, Louie, angelic, chthonic. Ave Maria by Michael R. Burch Ave Maria, Maiden mild, Listen to my earnest prayer. Listen, O, and be beguiled. Ave Maria. Ave Maria, Maiden mild, Be Mother now to every child Beset by earth’s thorned briars wild. Ave Maria. Ave Maria, Maiden mild, Embrace us with your Love and Grace. Let us look upon your Face. Ave Maria. Ave Maria, Maiden mild, Attend now to our earnest call—  When will Love be All in All? Ave Maria. bachelorhoodwinked by michael r. burch u are charming & disarming, but mostly alarming since all my resolve dissolved! u are chic as a sheikh’s harem girl in the sheets but my castle’s no longer my own and my kingdom’s been overthrown! Published by Brief Poems Virginal by Michael R. Burch for Beth For an hour every wildflower beseeches her, "To thy breast, Elizabeth..." But she is mine; her lips divine and her ******* and hair are mine alone. Let the wildflowers moan. Published by Songs of Innocence BEAD BY BEAD by Michael R. Burch Bead by bead, I count my lovers’ moons... Moon by sad moon, I await my children. Soon... Belfry by Michael R. Burch There are things we surrender to the attic gloom: they haunt us at night with shrill, querulous voices. There are choices we made yet did not pursue, behind windows we shuttered then failed to remember. There are canisters sealed that we cannot reopen, and others long broken that nothing can heal. There are things we conceal that our anger dismembered, gray leathery faces the rafters reveal. Burn by Michael R. Burch for Trump Sunbathe, ozone baby, till your parched skin cracks in the white-hot flash of radiation. Incantation from your pale parched lips shall not avail; you made this hell. Now burn. Originally published by Setu Beast 666 by Michael R. Burch “... what rough beast ... slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?”—W. B. Yeats Brutality is a cross wooden, blood-stained, gas hissing, sibilant, lungs gilled, deveined, red flecks on a streaked glass pane, jeers jubilant, mocking. Brutality is shocking— tiny orifices torn, impaled with hard lust, the fetus unborn tossed in a dust- bin. The scarred skull shorn, nails bloodied, tortured, an old wound sutured over, never healed. Brutality, all its faces revealed, is legion: Death March, Trail of Tears, Inquisition . . . always the same. The Beast of the godless and of man’s “religion” slouching toward Jerusalem: horned, crowned, gibbering, drooling, insane. Bible libel (ii) by michael r. burch ur savior’s a cad —he’s as bad as his dad— i note per ur horrible Bible. demanding belief or he’ll bring u to grief? he’s worse than his horn-sprouting rival! was the man ever good before being made “god”? if so, half ur Bible is libel! Here "being made god" can be read two ways. Jesus was a man "made god" but he was equated with Jehovah, a mythical being also "made god." This is a follow-up poem to my childhood poem "Bible Libel." dark matter(s) by michael r. burch for and after William Blake the matter is dark, despairful, alarming: ur Creator is hardly prince charming! yes, ur “Great I Am” created blake’s lamb but He also created the tyger ... and what about trump and rod steiger?  Rod Steiger is best known for his portrayals of weirdos, oddballs, mobsters, bandits, serial killers, and fascists like Mussolini and Napoleon. Disconcerted by Michael R. Burch Meg, my sweet, fresh as a daisy, when I’m with you my heart beats like crazy & my future gets hazy... Less Heroic Couplets: Unsmiley Simile or Down Time by Michael R. Burch Quora is down! I frown: how long can the universe suffice without its ad-vice? absinthe sea by michael r. burch, circa age 18-19 i hold in my hand a goblet of absinthe the bitter green liqueur reflects the dying sunset over the sea and the darkling liquid froths up over the rim of my cup to splash into the free, churning waters of the sea i do not drink i do not drink the liqueur, for I sail on an absinthe sea that stretches out unendingly into the gathering night its waters are no less green and no less bitter, nor does the sun strike them with a kinder light they both harbor night, and neither shall shelter me neither shall shelter me from the anger of the wind or the cruelty of the sun for I sail in the goblet of some Great God who gazes out over a greater sea, and when my life is done, perhaps it will be because He lifted His goblet and sipped my sea. Am I by Michael R. Burch, circa age 14 Am I inconsequential; do I matter not at all? Am I just a snowflake, to sparkle, then to fall? Am I only chaff? Of what use am I? Am I just a feeble flame, to flicker, then to die? Am I inadvertent? For what reason am I here? Am I just a ripple in a pool that once was clear? Am I insignificant? Will time pass me by? Am I just a flower, to live one day, then die? Am I unimportant? Do I matter either way? Or am I just an echo— soon to fade away? The Endeavors of Lips by Michael R. Burch How sweet the endeavors of lips—to speak of the heights of those pleasures which left us weak in love’s strangely lit beds, where the cold springs creak: for there is no illusion like love ... Grown childlike, we wish for those storied days, for those bright sprays of flowers, those primrosed ways that curled to the towers of Yesterdays where She braided illusions of love ... “O, let down your hair!”—we might call and call, to the dark-slatted window, the moonlit wall ... but our love is a shadow; we watch it crawl like a spidery illusion. For love ... was never as real as that first kiss seemed when we read by the flashlight and dreamed. Published by Romantics Quarterly and The Eclectic Muse (Canada) Crescendo Against Heaven by Michael R. Burch As curiously formal as the rose, the imperious Word grows until it sheds red-gilded leaves:     then heaven grieves love’s tiny pool of crimson recrimination against God, its contention of the price of salvation. These industrious trees, endlessly losing and re-losing their leaves, finally unleashing themselves from earth, lashing themselves to bits, washing themselves free of all but the final ignominy of death, become at last: fast planks of our coffins, dumb. Together now, rude coffins, crosses, death-cursed but bright vermilion roses, bodies, stumps, tears, words: conspire together with a nearby spire to raise their Accusation Dire ... to scream, complain, to point out these and other Dark Anomalies. God always silent, ever afar, distant as Bethlehem’s retrograde star, we point out now, in resignation:                 You asked too much of man’s beleaguered nation, gave too much strength to his Enemy, as though to prove Your Self greater than He, at our expense, and so men die (whose accusations vex the sky) yet hope, somehow, that You are good... just, O greatest of Poets!, misunderstood. Published by The NeoVictorian/Cochlea, Poetry Life & Times and The Eclectic Muse (Canada) You Never Listened by Michael R. Burch You never listened,                             though each night the rain wove its patterns again and trembled and glistened . . . You were not watching, though each night the stars shone, brightening the tears in her eyes palely fetching . . . You paid love no notice, though she lay in my arms as the stars rose in swarms like a legion of poets, as the lightning recited its opus before us, and the hills boomed the chorus, all strangely delighted . . . Originally published by Contemporary Rhyme Break Time by Michael R. Burch for those who lost loved ones on 9-11 Intrude upon my grief; sit; take a spot of milk to cloud the blackness that you feel; add artificial sweeteners to conceal the bitter aftertaste of loss. You’ll heal if I do not. The coffee’s hot. You speak: of bundt cakes, polls, the price of eggs. You glance twice at your watch, cough, look at me askance. The TV drones oeuvres of high romance in syncopated lip-synch. Should I feel the underbelly of Love’s warm Ideal, its fuzzy-wuzzy tummy, and not reel toward some dark conclusion? Disappear to pale, dissolving atoms. Were you here? I brush you off: like saccharine, like a tear. Published by Sonnet Writers, Freshet and Sontey (Czechoslovakia) Dancer by Michael R. Burch You will never change; you range, investing passion in the night, waltzing through a blinding blue, immaculate and fabled light. Do not despair or wonder where the others of your race have fled. They left you here to gin and beer and won't return till you are bled of fantasy and piety, of brewing passion like champagne, of storming through without a clue, but finding answers fall like rain. They left. You laughed, but now you sigh for ages, stages slipping by. You pause; applause is all you hear. You dance, askance, as drunkards cheer. Bound by Michael R. Burch Now it is winter—the coldest night. And as the light of the streetlamp casts strange shadows to the ground, I have lost what I once found in your arms. Now it is winter—the coldest night. And as the light of distant Venus fails to penetrate dark panes, I have remade all my chains and am bound. Elegy for a little girl, lost by Michael R. Burch for my mother, Christine Ena Burch, who was always a little giggly girl at heart . . . qui laetificat juventutem meam . . . She was the joy of my youth, and now she is gone. . . . requiescat in pace . . . May she rest in peace. . . . amen . . . Amen. Originally published by Setu Because You Came to Me by Michael R. Burch for Beth Because you came to me with sweet compassion and kissed my furrowed brow and smoothed my hair, I do not love you after any fashion, but wildly, in despair. Because you came to me in my black torment and kissed me fiercely, blazing like the sun upon parched desert dunes, till in dawn’s foment they melt ... I am undone. Because I am undone, you have remade me as suns bring life, as brilliant rains endow the earth below with leaves, where you now shade me and bower me, somehow. Published by Setu Ambition by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18 Men speak of their “Ambition” and I smile to hear them say that within them burns such fire, such a longing to be great... For I laugh at their “Ambition” as their wistfulness amasses; I seek Her tongue’s indulgence and Her parted legs’ crevasses. Analogy by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18 Our embrace is like a forest lying blanketed in snow; you, the lily, are enchanted by each shiver trembling through; I, the snowfall, cling in earnest as I press so close to you. You dream that you now are sheltered; I dream that I may break through. Dance With Me by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18 Dance with me to the fiddles’ plaintive harmonies. Enchantingly, each highstrung string, each yearning key, each a thread within the threnody, bids us, "Waltz!" then sets us free to wander, dancing aimlessly. Let us kiss beneath the stars as we slowly meet ... we'll part laughing gaily as we go to measure love’s arpeggios. Yes, dance with me, enticingly; press your lips to mine, then flee. The night is young, the stars are wild; embrace me now, my sweet, beguiled, and dance with me. The curtains are drawn, the stage is set —patterned all in grey and jet— where couples in like darkness met —careless airy silhouettes—  to try love's timeless pirouettes. They, too, spun across the lawn to die in shadowy dark verdant. But dance with me. Sweet Merrilee, don't cry; I see the ironies of all the years within the moonlight on your tears, and every ****** has her fears ... So laugh with me unheedingly; love's gaiety is not for those who fail to heed the music's flow, but it is ours. Now fade away like summer rain, then pirouette ... the dance of stars that waltz among night's meteors must be the dance we dance tonight. Then come again— like a sultry wind. Your slender body as you sway belies the ripeness of your age, for a woman's body burns tonight beneath your gown of ****** white— a woman's ******* now rise and fall in answer to an ancient call, and a woman's hips—soft, yet full— now gently at your garments pull. So dance with me, sweet Merrilee ... the music bids us, "Waltz!" Don't flee! Let us kiss beneath the stars; love's passing pains will leave no scars as we whirl beneath false moons and heed the fiddle’s plaintive tunes ... Oh, Merrilee, the curtains are drawn, the stage is set, we, too, are stars beyond night's depths. So dance with me. Fairest Diana by Michael R. Burch Fairest Diana, princess of dreams, born to be loved and yet distant and lone, why did you linger—so solemn, so lovely— an orchid ablaze in a crevice of stone? Was not your heart meant for tenderest passions? Surely your lips—for wild kisses, not vows! Why then did you languish, though lustrous, becoming a pearl of enchantment cast before sows? Fairest Diana, fragile as lilac, as willful as rainfall, as true as the rose; how did a stanza of silver-bright verse come to be bound in a book of dull prose? Published by Tucumcari Literary Journal and Night Roses Late Frost by Michael R. Burch The matters of the world like sighs intrude; out of the darkness, windswept winter light too frail to solve the puzzle of night’s terror resolves the distant stars to salts: not white, but gray, dissolving in the frigid darkness. I stoke cooled flames and stand, perhaps revealed as equally as gray, a faded hardness too malleable with time to be annealed. Light sprinkles through dull flakes, devoid of color; which matters not. I did not think to find a star like Bethlehem’s. I turn my collar to trudge outside for cordwood. There, outlined within the doorway’s arch, I see the tree that holds its boughs aloft, as if to show they harbor neither love, nor enmity, but only stars: insignias I know— false ornaments that flash, overt and bright, but do not warm and do not really glow, and yet somehow bring comfort, soft delight: a rainbow glistens on new-fallen snow. I had Robert Frost in mind when I wrote this poem, thus the title. Frost was fond of the word “arch,” and it’s here because of that fondness. 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.) The second stanza is a punning reference to the Tailhook scandal, in which US Navy and Marine aviation officers were alleged to have sexually assaulted up to 83 women and seven men. Over(t) Simplification by Michael R. Burch “Keep it simple, stupid.” A sonnet is not simple, but the rule is simply this: let poems be beautiful, or comforting, or horrifying. Move the reader, and the world will not reprove the idiosyncrasies of too few lines, too many syllables, or offbeat beats. It only matters that she taps her feet or that he frowns, or smiles, or grimaces, or sits bemused—a child—as images of worlds he’d lost come flooding back, and then... they’ll cheer the poet’s insubordinate pen. A sonnet is not simple, but the rule is simply this: let poems be beautiful. Love, ah! serene ghost by Michael R. Burch Love, ah! serene ghost, haunts my retelling of her, or stands atop despairing stairs with such pale, severe eyes, I become another pallid specter. But what I feel most profoundly is this: the absolute lack of her kiss, the absence of her wild,  unwarranted laughter. So that, like a candle deprived of oxygen, I become mere wick and tallow again. Here and hereafter ... departed with her, in the darkest of nights, the flame! Here I lie, the pallid vision of man—the same wan ghost of her palpitations’ claim on my heart that I was before. I love her beyond and despite even shame. 1-800-HOT-LINE by Michael R. Burch “I don’t believe in psychics,” he said, “so convince me.” When you were a child, the earth was a joy, the sun a bright plaything, the moon a lit toy. Now life’s small distractions irk, frazzle, annoy. When the crooked finger beckons, scythe-talons destroy. “You’ll have to do better than that, to convince me.” As you grew older, bright things lost their meaning. You invested your hours in commodities, leaning to things easily fleeced, to the convenient gleaning. I see a pittance of dirt—untended, demeaning. “Everyone knows that!” he said, “so convince me.” Your first and last wives traded in golden bands to escape the abuses of your cruel hands. Where unwatered blooms line a small plot of land, the two come together, waving fans. “Everyone knows that. Convince me.” As your father left you, you left those you brought to the doorstep of life as an afterthought. Two sons and a daughter tap shoes, undistraught. Their tears are contrived, their condolences bought. “Everyone knows that. Convince me.” A moment, an instant ... a life flashes by, a tunnel appears, but not to the sky. There is brightness, such brightness it sears the eye. When a life grows too dull, it seems better to die. “I could have told you that,” he shrieked, “I think I’ll **** myself!” Originally published by Penny Dreadful Pilgrim Mountain by Michael R. Burch, circa age 16 I have come to Pilgrim Mountain to eat icicles and to bathe in the snow. Please don’t ask me why I have done this, for I do not know . . . but I had a vision of the end of time and I feared for my soul. On Pilgrim Mountain the rivers shriek as they rush toward the valleys, and the rocks creak and groan in their misery, for they recollect they’re prey to night and day, and ten thousand other fallacies. Sunlight shatters the stone, but midnight mends it again with darkness and a cooling flow. This is no place for men, and I know this, but I know that that which has been must somehow be again. Now here on Pilgrim Mountain I shall gouge my eyes with stone and tear out all my hair, and though I die alone, I shall not care . . . for the night will still roll on above my weary bones and these sun-split, shattered stones of late become their home here, on Pilgrim Mountain. The Evolution of Love by Michael R. Burch Love among the infinitesimal flotillas of amoebas is a dance of transient appendages, wild sails that gather in warm brine and then express one headstream as two small, divergent wakes. Minuscule voyage—love! Upon false feet, the pseudopods of uprightness, we creep toward self-immolation: two nee one. We cannot photosynthesize the sun, and so we love in darkness, till we come at last to understand: man’s spineless heart is alien to any land.                                  We part to single cells; we rise on buoyant tears, amoeba-light, to breathe new atmospheres ... and still we sink.                              The night is full of stars we cannot grasp, though all the World is ours.     Have we such cells within us, bent on love to ever-changingness, so that to part is not to be the same, or even one? Is love mere evolution, or a scream against the thought of separateness—a cry of strangled recognition? Love, or die, or love and die a little. Hopeful death! Come scale these cliffs, lie changing, share this breath. First and Last by Michael R. Burch for Beth, after Pablo Neruda You are the last arcane rose of my aching, my longing, or the first yellowed leaves’ vagrant spirals of gold forming huddled bright sheaves; you are passion forsaking dark skies, as though sunsets no winds might enclose. And still in my arms you are gentle and fragrant— demesne of my vigor, spent rigor, lost power, fallen musculature of youth, leaves clinging and hanging, nameless joys of my youth to this last lingering hour. Published by Tucumcari Literary Review and Poetry Life & Times Her Preference by Michael R. Burch Not for her the pale incandescence of dreams, the warm glow of imagination, the hushed whispers of possibility, or frail, blossoming hope. No, she prefers the anguish and screams of bitter condemnation, the hissing of hostility, damnation's rope. the Horror by Michael R. Burch the Horror lurks inside our closets the Horror hides beneath our beds the Horror hisses ancient curses the Horror whispers in our heads the Horror tells us Death is coming the Horror tells us there’s no hope the Horror tells us “life” is futile the Horror beckons, “there’s the Rope!” Man Retreats into Savagery by Michael R. Burch What I ache to say is beyond saying— no words for the horror                         of not loving enough, like a mummy half-wrapped in its moldering casements holding a lily aloft. No, there are no words for the horror as a cyclone howls between teetering floes and the cold freezes down to my clawed hairy toes... What use to me, now, if the stars appear? As I moan              the moon finds me,                                         fangs goring the deer.
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Sep 13, 2024
Sep 13, 2024 at 10:07 AM UTC
The Composition of Shadows
These are poems about poetry, poems about writing, poems about the process of composition... The Composition of Shadows by Michael R. Burch “I made it out of a mouthful of air.”—W. B. Yeats We breathe and so we write; the night hums softly its accompaniment. Pale phosphors burn; the page we turn leads onward, and we smile, content.      And what we mean we write to learn: the vowels of love, the consonants’ strange golden weight, each plosive’s shape— curved like the heart. Here, resonant,... sounds’ shadows mass beneath bright glass like singing voles curled in a maze of blank white space. We touch a face— long-frozen words trapped in a glaze that insulates our hearts. Nowhere can love be found. Just shrieking air. Less Heroic Couplets: Questionable Credentials by Michael R. Burch Poet? Critic? Dilettante? Do you know what’s good, or do you merely flaunt? Less Heroic Couplets: Dark Cloud, Silver Lining from “Love in the Time of the Coronavirus” by Michael R. Burch Every corona has a silver lining: I’m too far away to hear your whining, and despite my stormy demeanor, my hands have never been cleaner! A Passing Observation about Thinking Outside the Box by Michael R. Burch William Blake had no public, and yet he’s still read. His critics are dead. Distances (II) by Michael R. Burch There is a small cleanness about her, as if she has always just been washed, and there is a dull obedience to convention in her accommodating slenderness as she feints at her salad. She has never heard of Faust, or Frost, and she is unlikely to have been seen rummaging through bookstores for mementos of others more difficult to name. She might imagine “poetry” to be something in common between us, as we write, bridging the expanse between convention and something . . . something the world calls “art” for want of a better word. At night I scream at the conventions of both our worlds, at the distances between words and their objects: distances come lately between us, like a clean break. Published by Verse Libre, Triplopia and Lone Stars This Distance Between Us by Michael R. Burch This distance between us,     this vast gulf of remembrance     void of understanding, sets us apart. You are so far,     lost child,     weeping for consolation, once dear to my heart. Once near to my heart,     though seldom to touch,     now you are foreign, now you grow faint... like the wayward light of a vagabond star—     obscure, enigmatic.     Is the reveling gypsy becoming a saint? Now loneliness,     a broad expanse     —barren, forbidding— whispers my name. I, too, am a traveler     down this dark path,     unsure of the footing, cursing the rain. I, too, have felt pain,     pain and the ache of passion unfulfilled,     remorse, grief, and all the terrors of the night. And how very black     and how bleak my despair . . .     O, where are you, where are you shining tonight? East Devon Beacon by Michael R. Burch Evening darkens upon the moors, Forgiveness—a hairless thing skirting the headlamps, fugitive. Why have we come, traversing the long miles and extremities of solitude, worriedly crisscrossing the wrong maps with directions obtained from passing strangers? Why do we sit,  frantically retracing                                 love’s long-forgotten signal points with cramping, ink-stained fingers? Why the preemptive frowns, the litigious silences, when only yesterday we watched as, out of an autumn sky this vast, over an orchard or an onion field, wild Vs of distressed geese sped across the moon’s face, the sound of their panicked wings like our alarmed hearts pounding in unison? Happily Never After by Michael R. Burch Happily never after, we lived unmerrily (write it!—like disaster) in Our Kingdom by the See as the man from Porlock’s laughter drowned out love’s threnody. We ditched the red wheelbarrow in slovenly Tennessee, then made a picturebook of poems, a postcard for Tse-Tse, a list of resolutions we knew we couldn’t keep, and asylum decorations for the King in his dark sleep. We made it new so often, strange newness, wearing old, peeled off, and something rotten gleamed—dull yellow, not like gold— like carelessness, or cowardice, and redolent of *** We stumbled off, our awkwardness—new Keystone comedy. Huge cloudy symbols blocked the sun; onlookers strained to see. We said We were the only One. Our gaseous Melody had made us Joshuas, and so—the Bible, new-rewrit, with god removed, replaced by Show and Glyphics and Sanskrit, seemed marvelous to Us, although King Ezra said, “It’s S--t.” We spent unhappy hours in Our Kingdom of the Pea, drunk on such Awesome Power only Emperors can See. We were Imagists and Vorticists, Projectivists, a Dunce, Anarchists and Antarcticists and anti-Christs, and once We’d made the world Our oyster and stowed away the pearl of Our too-, too-polished wisdom, unanchored of the world, We sailed away to Lilliput, to Our Kingdom by the See and piped the rats to join Us, to live unmerrily hereever and hereafter, in Our Kingdom of the Pea, in the miniature ship Disaster in a jar in Tennessee. Performing Art by Michael R. Burch Who teaches the wren in its drab existence to explode into song? What parodies of irony does the jay espouse with its sharp-edged tongue? What instinctual memories lend stunning brightness to the strange dreams of the dull gray slug —spinning its chrysalis, gluing rough seams— abiding in darkness its transformation, till, waving damp wings, it applauds its performance? I am done with irony. Life itself sings. Less Heroic Couplets: Mini-Ode to Stamina by Michael R. Burch When you’ve given so much that I can’t bear your touch, then from a safe distance let me admire your persistence. Published by ***** of Parnassus Less Heroic Couplets: Sweet Tarts by Michael R. Burch Love, beautiful but fatal to many bewildered hearts, commands us to be faithful, then tempts us with sweets and tarts. Adrift by Michael R. Burch I helplessly loved you    although I was lost in the veils of your eyes,    grown blind to the cost    of my ignorant folly —your unreadable rune—    as leashed tides obey an indecipherable moon. Published by The New Stylus The Drawer of Mermaids by Michael R. Burch This poem is dedicated to Alina Karimova, who was born with severely deformed legs and five fingers missing. Alina loves to draw mermaids and believes her fingers will eventually grow out. Although I am only four years old, they say that I have an old soul. I must have been born long, long ago, here, where the eerie mountains glow at night, in the Urals. A madman named Geiger has cursed these slopes; now, shut in at night, the emphatic ticking fills us with dread. (Still, my momma hopes that I will soon walk with my new legs.) It’s not so much legs as the fingers I miss, drawing the mermaids under the ledges. (Observing, Papa will kiss me in all his distracted joy; but why does he cry?) And there is a boy who whispers my name. Then I am not lame; for I leap, and I follow. (G’amma brings a wiseman who says our infirmities are ours, not God’s, that someday a beautiful Child will return from the stars, and then my new fingers will grow if only I trust Him; and so I am preparing to meet Him, to go, should He care to receive me.) alien by michael r. burch there are mornings in england when, riddled with light, the Blueberries gleam at us— plump, sweet and fragrant. but i am so small... what do i know of the ways of the Daffodils? “beware of the Nettles!” we go laughing and singing, but somehow, i,... i know i am lost. i do not belong to this Earth or its Songs. and yet i am singing... the sun—so mild; my cheeks are like roses; my skin—so fair. i spent a long time there before i realized: They have no faces, no bodies, no voices. i was always alone. and yet i keep singing: the words will come if only i hear. I AM! by Michael R. Burch I am not one of ten billion—I— sunblackened Icarus, chary fly, staring at God with a quizzical eye. I am not one of ten billion, I. I am not one life has left unsquashed— scarred as Ulysses, goddess-debauched, pale glowworm agleam with a tale of panache. I am not one life has left unsquashed. I am not one without spots of disease, laugh lines and tan lines and thick-callused knees from begging and praying and girls sighing “Please!” I am not one without spots of disease. I am not one of ten billion—I— scion of Daedalus, blackwinged fly staring at God with a sedulous eye. I am not one of ten billion, I AM! Paradoxical Ode to Antinatalism by Michael R. Burch A stay on love  would end death’s hateful sway, someday. A stay on love  would thus be love, I say.  Be true to love and thus end death’s fell sway! Hymn for Fallen Soldiers by Michael R. Burch Sound the awesome cannons. Pin medals to each breast.  Attention, honor guard! Give them a hero’s rest. Recite their names to the heavens Till the stars acknowledge their kin. Then let the land they defended Gather them in again. When I learned there’s an American military organization, the DPAA (Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency), that is still finding and bringing home the bodies of soldiers who died serving their country in World War II, after blubbering like a baby, I managed to eke out this poem. How Could I Understand? by Michael R. Burch The intense heat and light of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bomb blasts left ghostly silhouettes of human beings imprinted in concrete, whose lives were erased in an instant. How could I understand that light might be painful? That sight might be crossed? How could I understand the cost of my ignorance, or the sun’s  inflorescence? Who was there to tell me that I, too, might be one of the Lost? The First Christmas by Michael R. Burch ’Twas in a land so long ago . . . the lambs lay blanketed in snow and little children everywhere sat and watched warm embers glow and dreamed (of what, we do not know). And THEN—a star appeared on high, The brightest man had ever seen! It made the children whisper low in puzzled awe (what did it mean?). It made the wooly lambkins cry. Not far away a new-born lay, warm-blanketed in straw and hay, a lowly manger for his crib. The cattle mooed, distraught and low, to see the child. They did not know it now was Christmas day! gimME that ol’ time religion! by michael r. burch fiddle-dee-dum, fiddle-dee-dee, jesus loves and understands ME! safe in his grace, I’LL **** them to hell— the strumpet, the harlot, the wild jezebel, the alky, the druggie, all queers short and tall! let them drink ashes and wormwood and gall, ’cause fiddle-dee-DUMB, fiddle-dee-WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEee . . . jesus loves and understands ME! Unapproved Absence, or, Slip Up by Michael R. Burch Christ, how 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. faith(less) by michael r. burch for the “Chosen Few” Those who believed and Those who misled lie together at last in the same narrow bed and if god loved Them more for Their strange lack of doubt, he kept it well hidden till he snuffed Them out. ah-men! Haunted by Michael R. Burch Now I am here     and thoughts of my past mistakes are my brethren.     I am withering and the sweetness of your memory is like a tear. Go, if you will,     for the ache in my heart is its hollowness     and the flaw in my soul is its shallowness; there is nothing to fill. Take what you can;     I have nothing left.     And when you are gone, I will be bereft, the husk of a man. Or stay here awhile.     My heart cannot bear the night, or these dreams.     Your face is a ghost, though paler, it seems when you smile. Published by Romantics Quarterly Duet (I) by Michael R. Burch Oh, Wendy, by the firelight, how sad,     how worn and gray your auburn hair became!     You’re very silent, like an evening rain that trembles on dark petals. Tears you’ve shed     for days we danced together, glisten now;     your flesh became translucent; and your brow knits, gathered loosely. By the well-made bed         three portraits hang with knowing eyes, beloved,     but mine is not among them. Time has proved our hearts both strangely mortal. If I said     I loved you once, how is it that could change?     And yet I watch you fondly; love is strange...      Oh, Peter, by the firelight, how bright     my thought of you remains, and if I said     I loved you once, then took him to my bed, I did it for the need of love, one night     when you were far away. My heart endured     transfigurement—in flaming ash inured to heartbreak and the violence of sight:     I saw myself grow old and thin and frail     with thinning hair about me, like a veil... And so I loved him for myself, despite     the love between us—our first startled kiss.     But then I loved him for his humanness. And then we both grew old, and it was right ... Oh, Wendy, if I fly, I fly beyond     these human hearts, these cities walled and tiered     against the night, beyond this vale of tears, for love, if it exists, dies with the years... No, Peter, love is constant as the heart     that keeps till its last beat a measured pace     and sets the fixtures of its dreams in place by beds at first well-used, at last well-made,     and counts each face a joy, each tear a grace... Duet (II) by Michael R. Burch If love is just an impulse meant to bring two tiny hearts together, skittering like hamsters from their Quonsets late at night in search of lust’s productive exercise... If love is the mutation of some gene made radiant—an accident of bliss played out by two small actors on a screen of silver mesh, who never even kiss... If love is evolution, nature’s way of sorting out its DNA in pairs, of matching, mating, sculpting flesh’s clay... why does my wrinkled hamster climb his stairs to set his wheel revolving, then descend and stagger off ... to make hers fly again? Published by Bewildering Stories and The HyperTexts Duet, Minor Key by Michael R. Burch Without the drama of cymbals or the fanfare and snares of drums, I present my case stripped of its fine veneer: Behold, thy instrument. Play, for the night is long. Published by Brief Poems At Tintagel by Michael R. Burch The legend of what happened on a stormy night at Tintagel is endlessly intriguing. Supposedly, Merlin transformed Uther Pendragon to look like Gorlois so that he could sleep with Ygraine, the lovely wife of the unlucky duke. While Uther was enjoying Ygraine’s ********** Gorlois was off getting himself killed. The question is: did Igraine suspect that her lover was not her husband? Regardless, Arthur was the child conceived out of this supernatural (?) encounter. That night, at Tintagel, there was darkness such as man had never seen . . . darkness and treachery, and the unholy thundering of the sea... In his arms, who can say how much she knew? And if he whispered her name . . . “Ygraine” . . . could she tell above the howling wind and rain? Could she tell, or did she care, by the length of his hair or the heat of his flesh, . . . that her faceless companion was Uther, the dragon, and Gorlois lay dead? Published by Songs of Innocence, Celtic Twilight, Fables, Fickle Muses and Poetry Life & Times we did not Dye in vain! by michael r. burch from “songs of the sea snails” though i’m just a slimy crawler,      my lineage is proud: my forebears gave their lives      (oh, let the trumps blare loud!) so purple-mantled Royals      might stand out in a crowd. i salute you, fellow loyals,      who labor without scruple as your incomes fall      while deficits quadruple to swaddle unjust Lords      in bright imperial purple! Originally published by The American Dissident Crunch by Michael R. Burch A cockroach could live nine months on the dried mucus you scrounge from your nose then fling like seedplants to the slowly greening floor... You claim to be the advanced life form, but, mon frere,  sometimes as you ****** encrusted kinks of hair from your Leviathan *** and muse softly on zits, icebergs snap off the Antarctic. You’re an evolutionary quandary, in need of a sacral ganglion to control your enlarged, contradictory hindquarters: surely the brain should migrate closer to its primary source of information,  in order to ensure the survival of the species. Cockroaches thrive on eyeboogers and feces; their exoskeletons expand and gleam like burnished armor in the presence of uranium. But your cranium                             is not nearly so adaptable. A Vain Word by Michael R. Burch Oleanders at dawn preen extravagant whorls as I read in leaves’ Sanskrit brief moments remaining till sunset implodes, till the moon strands grey pearls under moss-stubbled oaks, full of whispers, complaining to the darkening autumn, how swiftly life goes— as I fled before love ...                                      Now, through leaves trodden black, shivering, I wander as winter’s first throes of cool listless snow drench my cheeks, back and neck. I discerned in one season all eternities of grief, the specter of death sprawled out under the rose, the last consequence of faith in the flight of one leaf, the incontinence of age, as life’s bright torrent slows. O, where are you now?—I was timid, absurd. I would find comfort again in a vain word. Published by Chrysanthemum and Tucumcari Literary Review What Goes Around, Comes by Michael R. Burch This is a poem about loss so why do you toss your dark hair— unaccountably glowing? How can you be sure of my heart when it’s beyond my own knowing? Or is it love’s pheromones you trust, my eyes magnetized by your bust and the mysterious alchemies of lust? Now I am truly lost! Oasis by Michael R. Burch for Beth I want tears to form again in the shriveled glands of these eyes dried all these long years by too much heated knowing. I want tears to course down these parched cheeks, to star these cracked lips like an improbable dew in the heart of a desert. I want words to burble up like happiness, like the thought of love, like the overwhelming, shimmering thought of you to a nomad who has only known drought. Afterglow by Michael R. Burch for Beth The night is full of stars. Which still exist? Before time ends, perhaps one day we’ll know. For now I hold your fingers to my lips and feel their pulse ... warm, palpable and slow... once slow to match this reckless spark in me, this moon in ceaseless orbit I became, compelled by wilder gravity to flee night’s universe of suns, for one pale flame... for one pale flame that seemed to signify the Zodiac of all, the meaning of love’s wandering flight past Neptune. Now to lie in dawning recognition is enough... enough each night to bask in you, to know the face of love ... eyes closed ... its afterglow. Melting by Michael R. Burch for Beth Entirely, as spring consumes the snow, the thought of you consumes me: I am found in rivulets, dissolved to what I know of former winters’ passions. Underground, perhaps one slender icicle remains of what I was before, in some dark cave— a stalactite, long calcified, now drains to sodden pools whose milky liquid laves the colder rock, thus washing something clean that never saw the light, that never knew the crust could break above, that light could stream: so luminous,                      so bright,                                      so beautiful . . . I lie revealed, and so I stand transformed, and all because you smiled on me, and warmed. Published by Borderless Journal (Singapore) First Steps by Michael R. Burch for Caitlin Shea Murphy To her a year is like infinity, each day—an adventure never-ending.     She has no concept of time,     but already has begun the climb— from childhood to womanhood recklessly ascending. I would caution her, "No! Wait! There will be time enough another day . . .     time to learn the Truth     and to slowly shed your youth, but for now, sweet child, go carefully on your way!..." But her time is not a time for cautious words, nor a time for measured, careful understanding.     She is just certain     that, by grabbing the curtain, in a moment she will finally be standing! Little does she know that her first few steps will hurtle her on her way     through childhood to adolescence,     and then, finally, pubescence . . . while, just as swiftly, I’ll be going gray! briefling by michael r. burch manishatched,hopsintotheMix, cavorts,hassex(quick!,spawnanewBrood!); then,likeamayfly,he’ssuddenlygone: plantfood Here “briefling” is a diminutive of “brief” and also a pun on “brief fling.” pretty pickle by michael r. burch u’d blaspheme if u could because ur Gaud’s no good, but of course u cant: ur a lowly ant (or so u were told by a Hierophant). The wordplay of “ur Gaud” and “u cant” is intentional, as always. Ah! Sunflower by Michael R. Burch for and after William Blake O little yellow flower like a star ... how beautiful, how wonderful we are! Originally published by Borderless Journal (Singapore) All the More Human, for Eve Pandora by Michael R. Burch a lullaby for the first human Clone God provide the soul, and let her sleep be natural as ours, unplagued by dreams of being someone else, lost in the deep wild swells of grieving all that human means . . . and do not let her come to doubt herself— that she is as we are, so much alike in frailty, in the books that line the shelf that tell us who we are—a rickety ****         against the flood of doubt—that we are more than cells and chance, that love, perhaps, exists because of someone else who would endure such pain because some part of her persists in us, and calls us blesséd by her bed, become a saint at last, in whose frail arms we see ourselves—the gray won out of red, the ash of blonde—till love is safe from harm and all that human means is that we live in doubt, and die in doubt, and only love the more because together we must strive against an end we loathe and fear. What of?— we cannot say, imagining the Night as some weird darkened structure caving in to cold enormous pressure. Lacking sight, we lie unbreathing, thinking breath a sin . . . and that is to be human. You are us— true mortal, child of doubt, hopeful and curious. Springtime Prayer by Michael R. Burch They’ll have to grow like crazy, the springtime baby geese, if they’re to fly to balmier climes when autumn dismembers the leaves... And so I toss them loaves of bread, then whisper an urgent prayer: “Watch over these, my Angels, if there’s anyone kind, up there.” Originally published by Borderless Journal (Singapore) Altared Spots by Michael R. Burch The mother leopard buries her cub, then cries three nights for his bones to rise clad in new flesh, to celebrate the sunrise. Good mother leopard, pensive thought and fiercest love’s wild insurrection yield no certainty of a resurrection. Man’s tried them both, has added tears, chants, dances, drugs, séances, tombs’ white alabaster prayer-rooms, wombs where dead men’s frozen genes convene ... there is no answer—death is death. So bury your son, and save your breath. Or emulate earth’s “highest species”— write a few strange poems and odd treatises. Our English Rose by Michael R. Burch for Christine Ena Burch The rose is—         the ornament of the earth,  the glory of nature,  the archetype of the flowers,  the blush of the meadows,  a lightning flash of beauty. This is my translation of a Sappho epigram. chrysalis by michael r. burch these are the days of doom u seldom leave ur room u live in perpetual gloom yet also the days of hope how to cope? u pray and u ***** toward self illumination ... becoming an angel  (pure love) and yet You must love Your Self Attend Upon Them Still by Michael R. Burch for my grandparents George and Ena Hurt With gentleness and fine and tender will, attend upon them still; thou art the grass. Nor let men’s feet here muddy as they pass thy subtle undulations, nor depress for long the comforts of thy lovingness, nor let the fuse of time wink out amid the violets. They have their use— to wave, to grow, to gleam, to lighten their paths, to shine resplendent glories at their feet. Thou art the grass; make them complete. Talent by Michael R. Burch for Kevin Nicholas Roberts I liked the first passage of her poem—where it led (though not nearly enough to retract what I said.) Now the book propped up here flutters, scarcely half read.     It will keep.     Before sleep, let me read yours instead. There's something of love in the rhythms of night —in the throb of streets where the late workers drone, in the sounds that attend each day’s sad, squalid end— that reminds us: till death we are never alone. So we write from the hearts that will fail us anon,     words in red     truly bled though they cannot reveal     whence they came,     who they're for. And the tap at the door goes unanswered. We write, for there is nothing more     than a verse,     than a song, than this chant of the blessed:     If these words     be my sins, let me die unconfessed! Unconfessed, unrepentant; I rescind all my vows!     Write till sleep:     it’s the leap only Talent allows. Pool's Prince Charming by Michael R. Burch this poem is my tribute, written on the behalf of his fellow pool sharks, for the legendary Saint Louie Louie Roberts Louie, Louie, Prince of Pool, making all the ladies drool ... Take the “nuts”? I'd be a fool! Louie, Louie, Prince of Pool. Louie, Louie, pretty as Elvis, owner of (ahem) a similar pelvis ... Compared to you, the books will shelve us. Louie, Louie, pretty as Elvis. Louie, Louie, fearless gambler, ladies' man and constant rambler, but such a sweet, loquacious ambler. Louie, Louie, fearless gambler. Louie, Louie, angelic, chthonic, pool's charming hero, but tragic, Byronic, winning the Open drinking gin and tonic? Louie, Louie, angelic, chthonic. Ave Maria by Michael R. Burch Ave Maria, Maiden mild, Listen to my earnest prayer. Listen, O, and be beguiled. Ave Maria. Ave Maria, Maiden mild, Be Mother now to every child Beset by earth’s thorned briars wild. Ave Maria. Ave Maria, Maiden mild, Embrace us with your Love and Grace. Let us look upon your Face. Ave Maria. Ave Maria, Maiden mild, Attend now to our earnest call—  When will Love be All in All? Ave Maria. bachelorhoodwinked by michael r. burch u are charming & disarming, but mostly alarming since all my resolve dissolved! u are chic as a sheikh’s harem girl in the sheets but my castle’s no longer my own and my kingdom’s been overthrown! Published by Brief Poems Virginal by Michael R. Burch for Beth For an hour every wildflower beseeches her, "To thy breast, Elizabeth..." But she is mine; her lips divine and her ******* and hair are mine alone. Let the wildflowers moan. Published by Songs of Innocence BEAD BY BEAD by Michael R. Burch Bead by bead, I count my lovers’ moons... Moon by sad moon, I await my children. Soon... Belfry by Michael R. Burch There are things we surrender to the attic gloom: they haunt us at night with shrill, querulous voices. There are choices we made yet did not pursue, behind windows we shuttered then failed to remember. There are canisters sealed that we cannot reopen, and others long broken that nothing can heal. There are things we conceal that our anger dismembered, gray leathery faces the rafters reveal. Burn by Michael R. Burch for Trump Sunbathe, ozone baby, till your parched skin cracks in the white-hot flash of radiation. Incantation from your pale parched lips shall not avail; you made this hell. Now burn. Originally published by Setu Beast 666 by Michael R. Burch “... what rough beast ... slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?”—W. B. Yeats Brutality is a cross wooden, blood-stained, gas hissing, sibilant, lungs gilled, deveined, red flecks on a streaked glass pane, jeers jubilant, mocking. Brutality is shocking— tiny orifices torn, impaled with hard lust, the fetus unborn tossed in a dust- bin. The scarred skull shorn, nails bloodied, tortured, an old wound sutured over, never healed. Brutality, all its faces revealed, is legion: Death March, Trail of Tears, Inquisition . . . always the same. The Beast of the godless and of man’s “religion” slouching toward Jerusalem: horned, crowned, gibbering, drooling, insane. Bible libel (ii) by michael r. burch ur savior’s a cad —he’s as bad as his dad— i note per ur horrible Bible. demanding belief or he’ll bring u to grief? he’s worse than his horn-sprouting rival! was the man ever good before being made “god”? if so, half ur Bible is libel! Here "being made god" can be read two ways. Jesus was a man "made god" but he was equated with Jehovah, a mythical being also "made god." This is a follow-up poem to my childhood poem "Bible Libel." dark matter(s) by michael r. burch for and after William Blake the matter is dark, despairful, alarming: ur Creator is hardly prince charming! yes, ur “Great I Am” created blake’s lamb but He also created the tyger ... and what about trump and rod steiger?  Rod Steiger is best known for his portrayals of weirdos, oddballs, mobsters, bandits, serial killers, and fascists like Mussolini and Napoleon. Disconcerted by Michael R. Burch Meg, my sweet, fresh as a daisy, when I’m with you my heart beats like crazy & my future gets hazy... Less Heroic Couplets: Unsmiley Simile or Down Time by Michael R. Burch Quora is down! I frown: how long can the universe suffice without its ad-vice? absinthe sea by michael r. burch, circa age 18-19 i hold in my hand a goblet of absinthe the bitter green liqueur reflects the dying sunset over the sea and the darkling liquid froths up over the rim of my cup to splash into the free, churning waters of the sea i do not drink i do not drink the liqueur, for I sail on an absinthe sea that stretches out unendingly into the gathering night its waters are no less green and no less bitter, nor does the sun strike them with a kinder light they both harbor night, and neither shall shelter me neither shall shelter me from the anger of the wind or the cruelty of the sun for I sail in the goblet of some Great God who gazes out over a greater sea, and when my life is done, perhaps it will be because He lifted His goblet and sipped my sea. Am I by Michael R. Burch, circa age 14 Am I inconsequential; do I matter not at all? Am I just a snowflake, to sparkle, then to fall? Am I only chaff? Of what use am I? Am I just a feeble flame, to flicker, then to die? Am I inadvertent? For what reason am I here? Am I just a ripple in a pool that once was clear? Am I insignificant? Will time pass me by? Am I just a flower, to live one day, then die? Am I unimportant? Do I matter either way? Or am I just an echo— soon to fade away? The Endeavors of Lips by Michael R. Burch How sweet the endeavors of lips—to speak of the heights of those pleasures which left us weak in love’s strangely lit beds, where the cold springs creak: for there is no illusion like love ... Grown childlike, we wish for those storied days, for those bright sprays of flowers, those primrosed ways that curled to the towers of Yesterdays where She braided illusions of love ... “O, let down your hair!”—we might call and call, to the dark-slatted window, the moonlit wall ... but our love is a shadow; we watch it crawl like a spidery illusion. For love ... was never as real as that first kiss seemed when we read by the flashlight and dreamed. Published by Romantics Quarterly and The Eclectic Muse (Canada) Crescendo Against Heaven by Michael R. Burch As curiously formal as the rose, the imperious Word grows until it sheds red-gilded leaves:     then heaven grieves love’s tiny pool of crimson recrimination against God, its contention of the price of salvation. These industrious trees, endlessly losing and re-losing their leaves, finally unleashing themselves from earth, lashing themselves to bits, washing themselves free of all but the final ignominy of death, become at last: fast planks of our coffins, dumb. Together now, rude coffins, crosses, death-cursed but bright vermilion roses, bodies, stumps, tears, words: conspire together with a nearby spire to raise their Accusation Dire ... to scream, complain, to point out these and other Dark Anomalies. God always silent, ever afar, distant as Bethlehem’s retrograde star, we point out now, in resignation:                 You asked too much of man’s beleaguered nation, gave too much strength to his Enemy, as though to prove Your Self greater than He, at our expense, and so men die (whose accusations vex the sky) yet hope, somehow, that You are good... just, O greatest of Poets!, misunderstood. Published by The NeoVictorian/Cochlea, Poetry Life & Times and The Eclectic Muse (Canada) You Never Listened by Michael R. Burch You never listened,                             though each night the rain wove its patterns again and trembled and glistened . . . You were not watching, though each night the stars shone, brightening the tears in her eyes palely fetching . . . You paid love no notice, though she lay in my arms as the stars rose in swarms like a legion of poets, as the lightning recited its opus before us, and the hills boomed the chorus, all strangely delighted . . . Originally published by Contemporary Rhyme Break Time by Michael R. Burch for those who lost loved ones on 9-11 Intrude upon my grief; sit; take a spot of milk to cloud the blackness that you feel; add artificial sweeteners to conceal the bitter aftertaste of loss. You’ll heal if I do not. The coffee’s hot. You speak: of bundt cakes, polls, the price of eggs. You glance twice at your watch, cough, look at me askance. The TV drones oeuvres of high romance in syncopated lip-synch. Should I feel the underbelly of Love’s warm Ideal, its fuzzy-wuzzy tummy, and not reel toward some dark conclusion? Disappear to pale, dissolving atoms. Were you here? I brush you off: like saccharine, like a tear. Published by Sonnet Writers, Freshet and Sontey (Czechoslovakia) Dancer by Michael R. Burch You will never change; you range, investing passion in the night, waltzing through a blinding blue, immaculate and fabled light. Do not despair or wonder where the others of your race have fled. They left you here to gin and beer and won't return till you are bled of fantasy and piety, of brewing passion like champagne, of storming through without a clue, but finding answers fall like rain. They left. You laughed, but now you sigh for ages, stages slipping by. You pause; applause is all you hear. You dance, askance, as drunkards cheer. Bound by Michael R. Burch Now it is winter—the coldest night. And as the light of the streetlamp casts strange shadows to the ground, I have lost what I once found in your arms. Now it is winter—the coldest night. And as the light of distant Venus fails to penetrate dark panes, I have remade all my chains and am bound. Elegy for a little girl, lost by Michael R. Burch for my mother, Christine Ena Burch, who was always a little giggly girl at heart . . . qui laetificat juventutem meam . . . She was the joy of my youth, and now she is gone. . . . requiescat in pace . . . May she rest in peace. . . . amen . . . Amen. Originally published by Setu Because You Came to Me by Michael R. Burch for Beth Because you came to me with sweet compassion and kissed my furrowed brow and smoothed my hair, I do not love you after any fashion, but wildly, in despair. Because you came to me in my black torment and kissed me fiercely, blazing like the sun upon parched desert dunes, till in dawn’s foment they melt ... I am undone. Because I am undone, you have remade me as suns bring life, as brilliant rains endow the earth below with leaves, where you now shade me and bower me, somehow. Published by Setu Ambition by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18 Men speak of their “Ambition” and I smile to hear them say that within them burns such fire, such a longing to be great... For I laugh at their “Ambition” as their wistfulness amasses; I seek Her tongue’s indulgence and Her parted legs’ crevasses. Analogy by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18 Our embrace is like a forest lying blanketed in snow; you, the lily, are enchanted by each shiver trembling through; I, the snowfall, cling in earnest as I press so close to you. You dream that you now are sheltered; I dream that I may break through. Dance With Me by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18 Dance with me to the fiddles’ plaintive harmonies. Enchantingly, each highstrung string, each yearning key, each a thread within the threnody, bids us, "Waltz!" then sets us free to wander, dancing aimlessly. Let us kiss beneath the stars as we slowly meet ... we'll part laughing gaily as we go to measure love’s arpeggios. Yes, dance with me, enticingly; press your lips to mine, then flee. The night is young, the stars are wild; embrace me now, my sweet, beguiled, and dance with me. The curtains are drawn, the stage is set —patterned all in grey and jet— where couples in like darkness met —careless airy silhouettes—  to try love's timeless pirouettes. They, too, spun across the lawn to die in shadowy dark verdant. But dance with me. Sweet Merrilee, don't cry; I see the ironies of all the years within the moonlight on your tears, and every ****** has her fears ... So laugh with me unheedingly; love's gaiety is not for those who fail to heed the music's flow, but it is ours. Now fade away like summer rain, then pirouette ... the dance of stars that waltz among night's meteors must be the dance we dance tonight. Then come again— like a sultry wind. Your slender body as you sway belies the ripeness of your age, for a woman's body burns tonight beneath your gown of ****** white— a woman's ******* now rise and fall in answer to an ancient call, and a woman's hips—soft, yet full— now gently at your garments pull. So dance with me, sweet Merrilee ... the music bids us, "Waltz!" Don't flee! Let us kiss beneath the stars; love's passing pains will leave no scars as we whirl beneath false moons and heed the fiddle’s plaintive tunes ... Oh, Merrilee, the curtains are drawn, the stage is set, we, too, are stars beyond night's depths. So dance with me. Fairest Diana by Michael R. Burch Fairest Diana, princess of dreams, born to be loved and yet distant and lone, why did you linger—so solemn, so lovely— an orchid ablaze in a crevice of stone? Was not your heart meant for tenderest passions? Surely your lips—for wild kisses, not vows! Why then did you languish, though lustrous, becoming a pearl of enchantment cast before sows? Fairest Diana, fragile as lilac, as willful as rainfall, as true as the rose; how did a stanza of silver-bright verse come to be bound in a book of dull prose? Published by Tucumcari Literary Journal and Night Roses Late Frost by Michael R. Burch The matters of the world like sighs intrude; out of the darkness, windswept winter light too frail to solve the puzzle of night’s terror resolves the distant stars to salts: not white, but gray, dissolving in the frigid darkness. I stoke cooled flames and stand, perhaps revealed as equally as gray, a faded hardness too malleable with time to be annealed. Light sprinkles through dull flakes, devoid of color; which matters not. I did not think to find a star like Bethlehem’s. I turn my collar to trudge outside for cordwood. There, outlined within the doorway’s arch, I see the tree that holds its boughs aloft, as if to show they harbor neither love, nor enmity, but only stars: insignias I know— false ornaments that flash, overt and bright, but do not warm and do not really glow, and yet somehow bring comfort, soft delight: a rainbow glistens on new-fallen snow. I had Robert Frost in mind when I wrote this poem, thus the title. Frost was fond of the word “arch,” and it’s here because of that fondness. 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.) The second stanza is a punning reference to the Tailhook scandal, in which US Navy and Marine aviation officers were alleged to have sexually assaulted up to 83 women and seven men. Over(t) Simplification by Michael R. Burch “Keep it simple, stupid.” A sonnet is not simple, but the rule is simply this: let poems be beautiful, or comforting, or horrifying. Move the reader, and the world will not reprove the idiosyncrasies of too few lines, too many syllables, or offbeat beats. It only matters that she taps her feet or that he frowns, or smiles, or grimaces, or sits bemused—a child—as images of worlds he’d lost come flooding back, and then... they’ll cheer the poet’s insubordinate pen. A sonnet is not simple, but the rule is simply this: let poems be beautiful. Love, ah! serene ghost by Michael R. Burch Love, ah! serene ghost, haunts my retelling of her, or stands atop despairing stairs with such pale, severe eyes, I become another pallid specter. But what I feel most profoundly is this: the absolute lack of her kiss, the absence of her wild,  unwarranted laughter. So that, like a candle deprived of oxygen, I become mere wick and tallow again. Here and hereafter ... departed with her, in the darkest of nights, the flame! Here I lie, the pallid vision of man—the same wan ghost of her palpitations’ claim on my heart that I was before. I love her beyond and despite even shame. 1-800-HOT-LINE by Michael R. Burch “I don’t believe in psychics,” he said, “so convince me.” When you were a child, the earth was a joy, the sun a bright plaything, the moon a lit toy. Now life’s small distractions irk, frazzle, annoy. When the crooked finger beckons, scythe-talons destroy. “You’ll have to do better than that, to convince me.” As you grew older, bright things lost their meaning. You invested your hours in commodities, leaning to things easily fleeced, to the convenient gleaning. I see a pittance of dirt—untended, demeaning. “Everyone knows that!” he said, “so convince me.” Your first and last wives traded in golden bands to escape the abuses of your cruel hands. Where unwatered blooms line a small plot of land, the two come together, waving fans. “Everyone knows that. Convince me.” As your father left you, you left those you brought to the doorstep of life as an afterthought. Two sons and a daughter tap shoes, undistraught. Their tears are contrived, their condolences bought. “Everyone knows that. Convince me.” A moment, an instant ... a life flashes by, a tunnel appears, but not to the sky. There is brightness, such brightness it sears the eye. When a life grows too dull, it seems better to die. “I could have told you that,” he shrieked, “I think I’ll **** myself!” Originally published by Penny Dreadful Pilgrim Mountain by Michael R. Burch, circa age 16 I have come to Pilgrim Mountain to eat icicles and to bathe in the snow. Please don’t ask me why I have done this, for I do not know . . . but I had a vision of the end of time and I feared for my soul. On Pilgrim Mountain the rivers shriek as they rush toward the valleys, and the rocks creak and groan in their misery, for they recollect they’re prey to night and day, and ten thousand other fallacies. Sunlight shatters the stone, but midnight mends it again with darkness and a cooling flow. This is no place for men, and I know this, but I know that that which has been must somehow be again. Now here on Pilgrim Mountain I shall gouge my eyes with stone and tear out all my hair, and though I die alone, I shall not care . . . for the night will still roll on above my weary bones and these sun-split, shattered stones of late become their home here, on Pilgrim Mountain. The Evolution of Love by Michael R. Burch Love among the infinitesimal flotillas of amoebas is a dance of transient appendages, wild sails that gather in warm brine and then express one headstream as two small, divergent wakes. Minuscule voyage—love! Upon false feet, the pseudopods of uprightness, we creep toward self-immolation: two nee one. We cannot photosynthesize the sun, and so we love in darkness, till we come at last to understand: man’s spineless heart is alien to any land.                                  We part to single cells; we rise on buoyant tears, amoeba-light, to breathe new atmospheres ... and still we sink.                              The night is full of stars we cannot grasp, though all the World is ours.     Have we such cells within us, bent on love to ever-changingness, so that to part is not to be the same, or even one? Is love mere evolution, or a scream against the thought of separateness—a cry of strangled recognition? Love, or die, or love and die a little. Hopeful death! Come scale these cliffs, lie changing, share this breath. First and Last by Michael R. Burch for Beth, after Pablo Neruda You are the last arcane rose of my aching, my longing, or the first yellowed leaves’ vagrant spirals of gold forming huddled bright sheaves; you are passion forsaking dark skies, as though sunsets no winds might enclose. And still in my arms you are gentle and fragrant— demesne of my vigor, spent rigor, lost power, fallen musculature of youth, leaves clinging and hanging, nameless joys of my youth to this last lingering hour. Published by Tucumcari Literary Review and Poetry Life & Times Her Preference by Michael R. Burch Not for her the pale incandescence of dreams, the warm glow of imagination, the hushed whispers of possibility, or frail, blossoming hope. No, she prefers the anguish and screams of bitter condemnation, the hissing of hostility, damnation's rope. the Horror by Michael R. Burch the Horror lurks inside our closets the Horror hides beneath our beds the Horror hisses ancient curses the Horror whispers in our heads the Horror tells us Death is coming the Horror tells us there’s no hope the Horror tells us “life” is futile the Horror beckons, “there’s the Rope!” Man Retreats into Savagery by Michael R. Burch What I ache to say is beyond saying— no words for the horror                         of not loving enough, like a mummy half-wrapped in its moldering casements holding a lily aloft. No, there are no words for the horror as a cyclone howls between teetering floes and the cold freezes down to my clawed hairy toes... What use to me, now, if the stars appear? As I moan              the moon finds me,                                         fangs goring the deer.
These are poems about poetry, poems about writing, poems about the process of composition.
#composition#poetry#poems#writing#night#shadows#breath#art#irony#burch
Written by
michael-r-burch
62/M/Nashville, Tennessee
Sep 13, 2024
Sep 13, 2024 at 10:07 AM UTC
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