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). Keywords/Tags: Childhood, children, bed, bedtime, story, flashlight, kiss, goodnight, dreams, pleasures, lips, fantasy, illusion

Ordinary Love
by Michael R. Burch

Indescribable—our love—and still we say
with eyes averted, turning out the light,
“I love you,” in the ordinary way

and tug the coverlet where once we lay,
all suntanned limbs entangled, shivering, white ...
indescribably in love. Or so we say.

Your hair’s blonde thicket’s thinned and tangle-gray;
you turn your back; you murmur to the night,
“I love you,” in the ordinary way.

Beneath the sheets our hands and feet would stray ...
to warm ourselves. We do not touch, despite
a love so indescribable. We say

we’re older now, that “love” has had its day.
But that which love once countenanced, delight,
still makes you indescribable. I say,
“I love you,” in the ordinary way.

Published by The Lyric, Romantics Quarterly, Mandrake Poetry Review, Carnelian, Poem Kingdom, Net Poetry and Art Competition, Famous Poets and Poems, FreeXpression, PW Review, Poetic Voices, Poetry Renewal, Poetry Life & Times; also winner of the 2001 Algernon Charles Swinburne Poetry Award

Keywords/Tags: Villanelle, ordinary, commonplace, everyday, love, bed, sheets, warmth, comfort, delight, limbs, night, light, white, hair, back, hands, feet, romance, passion, desire, longing, ***, intimacy

Betwixt these sheets,
I lie, ablaze.
In this blanket maze,
I run, deathless.
Hidden in vulnerable darkness,
I protect, ardently.
On my stomach, lying low,
I regret, somberly so.

Your desperation
reeks
so much that you can
smell it in your bed
and you can hear it
in your head.
Sometimes you’d like to
fill it with
lead
so that you’ll really
be in your bed
where you can still
hear her voice
as it
echoes
in your head
like it did in the
valley.

When we are apart at night;
I find us behind the closed curtains of my eyelids;
Against the side of my skull where you have me pushed.
Back brushes bone  
As I lie on foreign sheets
My fingers lace the curls in your hair
As yours curl my throat and finger the lace
That slips from my skin to the floor.
Your are not between these four walls
and never have treaded the space that they hold
Yet still your scent sends sparks skittering
as they spill up and over these spinal slopes
Our mouths meet with welcome;
And tongues intertwine in time to touch
Teasing - my teeth find a grip upon your lips;
And pull, to lead, in my mind,
As we move to the bed of the brain.

Alone at night I am flushed hot;
By the infernal cells that conjure you here.
With your skin against mine;
Above and beneath me;
We move in time to the rythm of blood,
And waltz through valves from chamber-
To chamber as I am reminded;
The thought of you is the thread that should never be pulled;
But always is;
And I did and I do;
Call me your most impatient play-thing
As each neuron leads to the next
Forming circuits that race me to you.
Each image-sensation floods this vessel till I am sunk, weakly overcome,
By the mix of memories that meet and merge,
Warm like the tides soaked in sunlight.
I swear by the power of the moon:
With every wave I am pulled an inch closer to you.

Need to get out of bed
It's a chore
A fight in itself
But only
Cause you're scared
Don't worry
I'll help you out of bed
Each day
More taxing than the previous
I can't stand
The way it is either
But do we have many choices?
So just get up
Become entwined with my joy
Don't be scared
It'll be alright
Harsh times will soon get replaced
With days where
You want to get out of bed

And the biting turned to bleeding
the fist bumps into beatings
I am awake in my nightmare at 2.am.

Beast in the bed
back of the head
take from me while I’m asleep
use my body
piece of meat
Waking
Walking back to that bad dream
of all that time I spent sleeping with the beast.