To what kind of cosmos do I belong
And what pattern or value does it hold?
Among the nebulae and nova, strung upon the heavenly horizon
I see wonders and fearful conflicts arise and diminish
All the glory of light shatters the blank abyss
And stars I cannot behold are promised to be
Somewhere I may never tread
What kind of universe am I afloat within?
Does it know, or think, or care?
And what future has it in store for me
For sun and this pretty world?
Can it be a death, a memorial of glory dying?
Is it stretched to breaking point, and yearning to return to nothing?
Will it take me with it, on it's final journey?
As grey clouds mass gently above my brow
And drops caress my world with indifference
I wonder, about all things
And those that came before
Who gazed at skies and loved our moon
Who marveled at our star, yet feared it's wrath
And I ask myself
What difference does it make
Whether we were meant to be
Or whether we are not a thought?
Is this vastness a universe of despair
Where hope is vain and cruel
And unbridled power chooses planets and peoples?
Is this place so cold
Where there is no plan, no thought, no intention?
Are these hollow glories as cold as the barren planets
As empty as the lunar seas?
For if all is collide and collapse
And all patterns and platitudes meaningless and random
Then the greatest echo of the cosmos is sadness
Until all is no more
And time is spent and gone
Is it true?
Shall I weep for men, for earth, for stars?
What stays these tears?
It is the impossible, the unanswerable
The chorus of question and the fathom of joy
If this was meant to be
If light gives birth to life
And the universe gives birth to music
What more is to come?
There can be only one answer
Despair and destruction
Or design and deliverance
What do the stars tell me?
They whisper
A secret
They point the way

Sometimes stars explode
and leave behind the most
beautiful nebulae in the universe-
but that is one in a billion.
Somehow you create a nebula
with every touch,
and every word.
So what does that make you?

Nashville and Andromeda
by Michael R. Burch

I have come to sit and think in the darkness once again.
It is three a.m.; outside, the world sleeps . . .

How nakedly now and unadorned
the surrounding hills
expose themselves
to the lithographies of the detached moonlight—
******* daubed by the lanterns
of the ornamental barns,
firs ruffled like silks
casually discarded . . .

They lounge now—
indolent, languid, spread-eagled—
their wantonness a thing to admire,
like a lover’s ease idly tracing flesh . . .

They do not know haste,
lust, virtue, or any of the sanctimonious ecstasies of men,
yet they please
if only in the solemn meditations of their loveliness
by the ***** pen . . .

Perhaps there upon the surrounding hills,
another forsakes sleep
for the hour of introspection,
gabled in loneliness,
swathed in the pale light of Andromeda . . .

Seeing.
Yes, seeing,
but always ultimately unknowing
anything of the affairs of men.

Published by The Aurorean and The Centrifugal Eye

Keywords/Tags: Nashville, Andromeda, universe, cosmos, meditation, introspection, loneliness, alienation, pen, writing, night, darkness, sleep, moonlight, love, lover, affair, affairs, haste, lust, virtue, ecstasy, knowing, unknowing, aware, unaware, oblivious

We wake up on being called.
When you open your eyes in the morning,
listen to the voice inside.
The first thing that comes to you is
the sense of ‘I am’.
Isn’t it true?
It was consciousness’ voice
waking you up to a new creation.

Chocolate eyes,
two distant planets
that hold a mystery more mystifying
than the furthest reaches of our galaxy.
My heart longs to
make the voyage
and make a home in your orbit,
but for now,
home is out of reach.

My fair lady,
when you are ready
to fly to the moon,
I promise
to never let you
out of my
orbit.

Dear diary;
last night I met the moon.
She forgot how to shine in
the darkest of nights.
We grew close-
a bittersweet bond
since one of us
was fading
away.

I see every galaxy
shining through your eyes
and every star
burning in
your smile.

We are all one in the same
The stars are from which we came
The elements that comprise us and so much more
Were fused inside the depths of an inner core
To that state we’ll return one day
When the sun engulfs us in a fiery fate