I don't believe in bad omens.

A black cat crossing my path isn't a bringer of poor luck,
otherwise I'd trip down my stairs far more often,
or get whacked by a stealthy sheathed paw
with more dreadful precision when I ascend them.
It's just a game this cat plays,
as if they guard the upstairs to keep intruders out.
I live here, this is my house.
A flock of crows doesn't bring me to fear the day
as old warnings say
they're just dark birds gathering together.
On Autumn days I pretend
they're investigating their ******,
casting wild accusations with their raucous cries,
and the final judgement, no matter the distance,
reaches my ears with clarity
like a church bell tolling when its time to pray.
"Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!"
And what of breaking mirrors?
Mistakes happen, reflective material shatters.
If I let my mind run with that one time
I knocked a mirror over, well I'd
never let go of the damage I caused.
Pieces of an old reflection live within me
embedded in my skin like shrapnel from bombs
dropped on my head,
doesn't matter if I saw them coming.
I could only shelter; never dodge.

No... I don't believe in bad omens.

Guilty

I point
And three fingers
Pointing back at me

Memories
Not forgotten
Even though I plea

The knives,
They are calling
Yet I still don't bleed

No point in my destruction
Since I cannot feed them

Sharp blades
Evade
My self destruction

Afraid
To pay
For loss of function

Every
New day
Is a new problem

Cut me off
(Save me!)

I'm coming out
I'm caving in
Tell me do you like me now
Let me begin

By burning all the cradles
Uninstall the training wheels
Enstrangement's just a label
And I don't give feels

(I cut me off
I shut you out
I'm caving in
Do you like me now?

Not good enough
I've never been
Disconnection
I'm the alien)

I know death.
Incensed with all of it.
The weighty strain of darkness,
Eyes closed, stopped ears, stuffed nose.
I was petrified while the world stumbled,
My wordless mouth gapes like a maw
Needing stitches.
I lounge in a toga,
Motionless as alabaster.
I was born to die,
But not like this.

I was hatched upon this earth
A day before all time
I was made to toll the earth
For all of humankind
Watched all the centuries
Of horrid humankind
And now I seek satisfaction
To ease my wasted mind

The seventh born son of God
The glory to be mine
I was called but chosen not
Nor were the glory mine
Cast out of heaven
With a third the lot of man
Cast out of heaven
By my own dear father's hand

Nashville and Andromeda
by Michael R. Burch

I have come to sit and think in the darkness once again.
It is three a.m.; outside, the world sleeps . . .

How nakedly now and unadorned
the surrounding hills
expose themselves
to the lithographies of the detached moonlight—
******* daubed by the lanterns
of the ornamental barns,
firs ruffled like silks
casually discarded . . .

They lounge now—
indolent, languid, spread-eagled—
their wantonness a thing to admire,
like a lover’s ease idly tracing flesh . . .

They do not know haste,
lust, virtue, or any of the sanctimonious ecstasies of men,
yet they please
if only in the solemn meditations of their loveliness
by the ***** pen . . .

Perhaps there upon the surrounding hills,
another forsakes sleep
for the hour of introspection,
gabled in loneliness,
swathed in the pale light of Andromeda . . .

Seeing.
Yes, seeing,
but always ultimately unknowing
anything of the affairs of men.

Published by The Aurorean and The Centrifugal Eye

Keywords/Tags: Nashville, Andromeda, universe, cosmos, meditation, introspection, loneliness, alienation, pen, writing, night, darkness, sleep, moonlight, love, lover, affair, affairs, haste, lust, virtue, ecstasy, knowing, unknowing, aware, unaware, oblivious

I once believed myself alone
because the world did not know me.
I now know I am alone
because I know the world.

She is the shadow of her shadow;
A hard green tomato on an October vine;
Like last year's silver tree tinsel;
The inescapable smell of a house housing cats;
A smoker's car;
An arthritic leaf, twisting in early December;
The runny nose of someone's toddler;
An empty gurney in a hospice hallway;
Or the last dark spike impaling dawn.
Hanging on and hanging in.
Not knowing. Not going.
Still here.

The worst part is the lack
Of color
Vibrance…
And no amount of Giant Steps
Could avoid the emptiness.

I heard about a torture technique
Where the prisoner is placed in an
Empty white room
With only white light to see
And white rice to eat.
I think the alienation I feel
Is like a form of that.
Lifelike solitary confinement.