Cleansings
by Michael R. Burch

Walk here among the walking specters. Learn
inhuman patience. Flesh can only cleave
to bone this tightly if their hearts believe
that God is good, and never mind the Urn.

A lentil and a bean might plump their skin
with mothers’ bounteous, soft-dimpled fat
(and call it “health”), might quickly build again
the muscles of dead menfolk. Dream, like that,

and call it courage. Cry, and be deceived,
and so endure. Or burn, made wholly pure.
One’s prayer is answered,
“god” thus unbelieved.

No holy pyre this—death’s hissing chamber.
Two thousand years ago—a starlit manger,
weird Herod’s cries for vengeance on the meek,
the children slaughtered. Fear, when angels speak,

the prophesies of man.
Do what you "can,"
not what you must, or should.
They call you “good,”

dead eyes devoid of tears; how shall they speak
except in blankness? Fear, then, how they weep.
Escape the gentle clutching stickfolk. Creep
away in shame to retch and flush away

your ***** from their ashes. Learn to pray.

Keywords/Tags: Holocaust, poem, ashes, crematorium, chimney, smoke, gas, chamber, Auschwitz, starvation, walking dead, mass graves, genocide, ethnic cleansing, racism, antisemitism, fascism, cruelty, brutality, inhumanity, horror

Sooner or later the fire that i love above you is gonna turn my heart into ashes.

the memories spread through my mind
much like a bush fire
they do not make me warm anymore
they burn me and make my skin peel
they torture me with lies and a forced “i love you”
it feels like i’ve called 911 hundreds of times
but nobody can help us
surrounded by fire and slowly melting
screaming each other’s names til our voices are hoarse from the smoke
the flames have devoured us
nothing is left but a pile of ash

Love
is the glowing flame,
and you melt
as it approaches

Listen,
be careful
with that flame,
or it’ll burn you
when that love
starts to sting

They’ll decide to leave you,
and you’ll remain with nothing,
but the fading ashes of that love  

You’ll lose the passing-by warmth
that once visited your frigid heart

So light up a cigarette,
and put out the ongoing fire
inside your chest with smoke

we rise from the nests of our joined ashes
again and again - lovers and friends
wondering if change is possible
when change is all that we are -
bodies of re-creation
built to be rebuilt
in dusty increments

Walking Ashes dance
At the tune of Time
On the fine Thread
To fall again
To the Ashes below

..KidDo.

blithely turning toward a closer ground she measured her body in the mirror's reflection for the inside capacity (adequate at any), of the ornate casket she had ordered to have intricately carved and lavishly inlaid.
she was in a fantastic space for a good-natured case of the ****-its. 
Dani was dying.
she was small in stature and large in awkward.
jotting the numbers down,
her eyes - just a bit of dust 
smiling through and reaching for 
the coin she tossed 
-her way out the door.
     god how she mystifies me.
in awe, slack-jawed and my face hurts from laughing with her.
it's like a hundred million tiny yellow butterflies were released at penelope's wedding to a sky of falling ashes from a small grass fire next county over. 
     that's what i feel like when she laughs. i am going to miss her when she goes-
i can't really wrap myself around a comprehensive strategy for creating a space within myself that will be without her. 
i have lost interest in trifling 
i spend my time at a job that's just a good reason to walk that far. 
     i come home with fresh fish and flowers and a couple of album finds from "the pig and the gator" record store.  
guy clarke, Willie's 
"redheaded stranger", and an early Romones e.p.
     Dani loved, i mean loves records. so do i. ****. loved. that sort of tears me up that i wrote that. 
     anyhow, we crack beers and eat fish and listen and talk and laugh and spend the rest of most nights trying to find my disappeared dog Luke Sidewalker. i miss him so incredibly deeply that my gut hurts so as to nearly stop me from breathing.
     i feel that i am so many people when i am with her.
     that's the mystic. she sort of leads me to where i am most comfortable in her presence. she showed me where.
that you could be in pieces and not get nervous about it. 
     i can't imagine tomorrow. and i can no longer remember yesterday,
but as the ******* ghost of this day;
i hold no real promise. 
this is it. 
     here she is; opening the door as she thumb flips her coin with something near to indifference. bloww.
she puts a smile on me like she's swinging a haymaker. 
"tails", she whispers. she is looking at me as if there is something worth looking at. 
she hands her coin to me.
tails. 
butterflies and ashes.

She was a Phoenix.
She blazed like a fire,
And rose from her ashes.
And when she rose,
The world fell at her knees.