Mare Clausum
by Michael R. Burch

These are the narrows of my soul—
dark waters pierced by eerie, haunting screams.
And these uncharted islands bleakly home
wild nightmares and deep, strange, forbidding dreams.

Please don’t think to find pearls’ pale, unearthly glow
within its shoals, nor corals in its reefs.
For, though you seek to salvage Love, I know
that vessel lists, and night brings no relief.

Pause here, and look, and know that all is lost;
then turn, and go; let salt consume, and rust.
This sea is not for sailors, but the ******
who lingered long past morning, till they learned

why it is named:
Mare Clausum.

Originally published by Penny Dreadful. Keywords/Tags: mare, clausum, closed, sea, narrows, shoals, reefs, uncharted, islands, wreckage, shipwreck, damage, dark, tides, waters, surf, stranded, Robinson Crusoe

Closed every door by myself.
Struggling even to stand up.
Burning within, back facing the floor
barely breathing
barely alive.
one thing running through my mind,
What if I knew back then
what I know right now?
What I really was
and now I'm ****** up in between!

Now is no time for whining
no place to complain.
Your aggression, turn it to focus.
Its like the fuel,
burn it to race your raging engine!
Might've been failing
but never stop trying.
After all you've been through
Or all that could've been,
now you've come closer
to what you've been doing!

When I was eight,
I would press myself  
against the creaky floorboards
of my home  
and listen  
to their tired groans  
of protest from my weight  
atop them,  
as I ripped the caps
off Sharpies,
and let the ink  
spread across the plastic wrap
like a flare.  
I’d stick my confused
colorful Picassos
into an oven
and watch in awe
as the wrap  
would shrink  
and fold in on itself  
appearing smaller  
to the world.  
Now,
at twenty  
I no longer listen  
to the groans  
from my creaky  
childhood home,  
I listen–  
to the murmurs  
from the black  
cellophane wrapped  
shop windows and signs
of tired buildings  
tired of wearing  
faces, to great  
the masses  
of the world  
that don’t show.