How do I begin to pick up a pen?
How does a thought take me to Neverwhere?
They never can ever tell us the reality
of the realest questions
and, for some, it’s just fine.
The rest need more.
Something? Not a thing.
Someone? Quite plausibly.

Won’t let go the tap tapping
or drumming or the pokey poke.
It’s there. But, you keep your head in the game.
Cuz, ya know, what else is there around here?
Spiritual desert with no substantive food.
Like biting into a juicy hamburger
and tasting sawdust only.
Only if those ones
could just keep their blinders
in proper position,
proper place to look and stay
and march along on
in single file lives
to mark one existence onto the next.
Who though?
All for who?
Or, what?
Surely,
God needs no marching ants such as these?

They who can’t see
will surely deny the real world
you know is here
and call you a blind fool. Ha!
Jokes on jokes on yokes
of jellied stroke marks.
Get off my back and let me live
how I see. Not through your grimy,
filthy, streaked and yellowed seeing.
But with clear and pure eyes
you hadn’t touched yet.

What happens to those ones?
Where have they gone?
Looking, looking close and away
and all eyes sense
is dust mountains and cave dwellers
and absence of light.
Where are the true ones
filled with the light of the rising Sun?
Come home!
The place with the voice pointing out cracks
is singing a song so longing and sure
and cannot look away.
Not with COVID and all of this world
awakening to see what they -
the blind ones -
have done while the rest have been sleep.
Blinders melt in sunlight
and aren’t needed
by the light of the moon.
Here one finds the way by heart.
Here one sees for real
where we truly are. And then?
Ah! And then,
what else can one be except
free.

That stare so seen and felt, unfocused eyes upon a green belt or perhaps a dancing flame, first light of day, a cloud up high or a creature unto aim.
It speaks to the very soul, this line is known, no emotion of note from birth it’s owned as entangled carnation, its internal role, to hold fast in dorm, pure as bone.
Yet strongly serve and let it be heard, the notion of essence, traversed when alert, you are back, a spec, society bound, freely reminded, you are the world, lost and found.

And yet again I stare blankly at the screen
as the cursor blinks, waiting for my fingers
to speak my mind's thoughts. Perhaps within
the night's sluggish hours I will find the words.

A phrase—but of meagre stature and stance,
of small voice and weak impression. Alas,
I revert the page, blank once again, empty
and without. Time drags on without pity.

The words have evaded me for far too long.
I have searched in vain for what to say,
all attempts futile thus far, with wrong
turns and countless detours along the way.

Maybe my mind wishes not to express itself
without my knowing, or maybe these
monotonous nights have reduced my
poetic capability close to none.

Either way, an hour past midnight is never
the perfect time to write a poem of any sort.

Black robe, distant looming
A nod through senescence
Time is fleeting, passing
All, but of the essence

Thoughts made in retrospect
Of his dreams, velveteen
Maiden in his prospect,
Naïve, only nineteen

Callous thoughts in wiring
Pallid, his mind dare say,
"Future, what's in passing?"
Whispers, a foggy way

Creature, borne through figment
Like disease, latching free
Moments, striking, salient
Sordid thoughts, though dreary

Static, of radio noise
Moonlit drops of the dawn
Wavering, cracking voice
My mind, a soldier's pawn

What would you do?
When every word you utter fails you
What would you do?
When nothing in this world enthralls you
What would you do?
When you don't know how to let loose
What would you do?
When you don't know what to feel too
What would you do?
Are the same questions in your mind too?
Or if you have answers that I might woo
Could you share with me, give me some clues?
To the road, I should choose
And figure out what should I do

I could put a bullet 
In me now
I could hand a rope 
To end it and die 

I could jump off a bridge 
Stop living this lie 
I could take the pills 
Without saying goodbye 

I can’t stop bleeding 
Will it stop me before my time
I can’t win this clichèd fight 
Are my own thoughts even mine

I can’t slow the sinking 
Will water fill my lungs or wine
I can’t refuse poison, it it the end of the tunnel 
This light and shine

we stretch our arms to the sky-
only to be met with nothing,
a void we tend to hide-
maybe it's only
in our own eyes,
where the universe rests
and the galaxies surge-
where constellations gleam,
in the darkest of nights-
where the warmth of the sun
melts the ice-cold pain
on the inside

The liquid pain looks at me with my own face
What’s there to fight for when I’m just my own trace
My reflection shouts at me she begs me to differ
Asks me to stop but we don’t know each other

My blood paints a rose of the death on the floor
I’m dripping from sorrow don’t want this no more
The scent of the iron and silk of red water
Colour of love flows out as I suffer

I judged them too hard when I heard on the news
Thinking that sadness is just an excuse
I thought I would never betray family
But this darkness is bigger than reality

Contemplating if it’s worth it
Calling the line or just end it
Silver sharpness invites me to dance
Drawing on my skin it’s final sketch

Caveat Spender
by Michael R. Burch

It’s better not to speculate
"continually" on who is great.
Though relentless awe’s
a Célèbre Cause,
please reserve some time for the contemplation
of the perils of EXAGGERATION.

Stephen Spender in his best-known poem wrote: "I think continually of those who were truly great." This near-limerick suggests that Spender may have exaggerated the time he devoted to hero worship. Keywords/Tags: caveat, spender, truly, great, think, continually, hero, worship, exaggeration, contemplation, awe, fawn, fawning



Caveat
by Michael R. Burch

If only we were not so eloquent,
we might sing, and only sing, not to impress,
but only to enjoy, to be enjoyed.

We might inundate the earth with thankfulness
for light, although it dies, and make a song
of night descending on the earth like bliss,

with other lights beyond—not to be known—
but only to be welcomed and enjoyed,
before all worlds and stars are overthrown ...

as a lover’s hands embrace a sleeping face
and find it beautiful for emptiness
of all but joy. There is no thought to love

but love itself. How senseless to redress,
in darkness, such becoming nakedness . . .

Originally published by Clementine Unbound

Keywords/Tags: caveat, eloquent, eloquence, sing, enjoy, enjoyment, inundate, earth, thankfulness, praise, song, light, welcomed, enjoyed, enjoyment, bliss, joy, love