i wanted to write like josé olivarez,
to love, plain and simple, and to let
the light in, shamelessly, for all to see

but she wanted a t.s. eliot, maybe a surrealist
portrait, or a picasso to my pissarro, and a tiptoe
around the elephants, for a look into me, endlessly

as if always in search of some deeper, divine meaning,
we parted our ways, but now i no longer feel like me
i have lost my rhythm, though i have not stopped reading

i fall into ignorance; i am called out for perfunctories; so
other than a casual fear of forevers, i now also know: my love
tastes like cheap prose, and an atrophied fondness of writing

Besieged
by Michael R. Burch

Life—the disintegration of the flesh
before the fitful elevation of the soul
upon improbable wings?

Life—it is all we know,
the travail one bright season brings ...

Now the fruit hangs,
impendent, pregnant with death,
as the hurricane builds and flings
its white columns and banners of snow

and the rout begins.

Keywords/Tags: Life, flesh, disintegration, atrophy, soul, elevation, wings, winter, bright season, fruit, pregnant, snow, rout, tempest, blizzard

The Shrinking Season
by Michael R. Burch

With every wearying year
the weight of the winter grows
and while the schoolgirl outgrows
her clothes,
the widow disappears
in hers.

Originally published by Angle. Keywords/Tags: schoolgirl, outgrows, clothes, widow, disappears, winter, time, shrinking, season, atrophy, emaciation, bone, loss

I feel                                                             ­                ...alone
        i am                                                               ­       ...trapped
I feel                                                             ­                ...rage
        i am                                                               ­       ...obsessed
I feel                                                             ­                ...pedantic
        i am                                                               ­       ...hollow
I feel                                                             ­                ...yearning
                                 ...for life.

They strung me up.
Not by the neck,
that would be
too quick.

No.
They intended
a slow torture for me,
bound one foot,
bound my arms.

I heard a voice:
Escape is possible
if you want it.

And I was alone.

At first I struggled.
Swayed back and forth
from the wind, and the weather and the
pain,
to no avail.

But eventually,
I learnt to just

Stop.

If this was my life,
So be it.
I was not going to provide
a show of my misery
to any God.

I saved my energy,
learnt to live with seeing the world
pass me by,
learnt to see things
from a different perspective.

Torture?
This was nice,
relaxing even,
I could hardly feel the pain,
could block it out
almost entirely.

Perhaps this is what I wanted
all along -
an eternal break.

Fool that I was,
I failed to realize
the torture was not physical
but mental.

Slowly I grew bored
in contemplation,
in limbo,
in apathy,
in atrophy.

I remembered the voice:
escape is possible,
I remembered
everything I wanted to do
everything I still yearned to do.

All the beauty and the goodness
and the possibilities of Life
made me ache,
and I could not block it out.

Suddenly I saw:
this was not torture
but a test.

My time of suspension is up,
These are but ropes,
not chains.

I know the way out,
and I am not afraid.

There is work to be done.

Honey lets drink the nectar of downtrodden ancient gods
until your limbs fall to ruble
like the temple of their lost worshipers.
Hold loosely to my numb hand as we loose our minds
in the fog rolling through our heads.

Let's escape.

All the legions marching through our veins,
doomed to death and resurrection,
oh how familiar we will be with that destiny
having practiced so many times.
When that fate reaches our time,
and we melt once more,
busts of ink onto the page in blissful atrophy.