My biggest critic,
The one who constantly,
Tells me I can’t do anything,
Ironically,
My biggest critic,
Is me.

Out of curiosity,
Does it ever seem to you,
Like you judge yourself,
More than anyone else would ever do?
Or is it just me?

There’s a shadow man,
Hidden in my mind,
I can’t make out his face,
And I wish that he would go away.
He whispers cruel things,
To keep my anxious head turning,
With meaningless observation,
Leading to condemnation,
Against myself.

“What makes you think you deserve to be heard?
What makes your words better than anyone who’s come before?
Do you believe people care about what they read?
You’re just farming for sympathy!”
I can’t ignore his cries or his lies.
Why, does he despise me so?
Isn’t your mind supposed to be your greatest asset,
And your friend,
Not one who prays that you fail,
And wishes your dreams end?

They say,
“Be yourself,”
Without understanding,
The whole weight of what that means.
Acceptance is a hard road,
Especially when it’s your pain and insecurities.
The shadow man takes me to the mirror,
Tells me,
“Look in the mirror and tell me what you see!”
I refuse and look down,
Making eye contact with the ground,
Because the last thing I want to see,
Is the mess staring back at me.
You see,
To truly be yourself,
You have to look your darkness in the eyes,
Admit your flaws,
And that you are who you despise.
Then,
And only then,
Can you ever hope the shadow man to spare you from his game.
Yet, I remain,
Too afraid,
To look in the mirror,
And stare in my eyes,
Realizing the fighting,
And calamity in my mind.

The shadow man shouts,
And belittles.
What else is he to do?
Chastisement,
How his lies sound so real.
When he whispers in my ear.
“You have no gifts,
You’re just a boy,
Who people pity,
That’s how you’ve got this far.
Don’t deny it or try to fight it,
We both know it to be true,
After all,
I am you,
And who knows us better than us?
I’m the demons,
The ones you hide behind your eyes.
You should talk less,
Hide your face,
No one needs to see that.
Close your eyes,
Stop your cries,
And accept that this is fate.
You aren’t sad!
You’re dramatic!
Quit whining!
Grow a spine!
What would people say about you if this was your last day alive…?”

I freeze,
I don’t know what to say.
He laughs.
Why does he laugh at me?
I cover my ears,
And try to think.
I have thoughts in my head,
But at that moment,
They all escape,
Leaving my mind blank.
I have no response,
Forced to endure his taunts.
Little bits of paper,
Pepper and pelt my face,
As a ruler,
Taps methodically on my head.
How much can one realistically take,
Before they break?
The Joker said,
“All it takes is one bad day…”

I lay in my bed at night,
The time,
3:45,
School will be here before you know it,
Another day,
In the legal form of a circus.
To my dismay,
The shadow man,
Shows his face,
Walks over to my bedside,
And whispers in my ear.
“Today’s your favorite day,
Monday,
The beginning of the chaos,
It’s hilarious!
Just a little food for thought,
Two full years remain,
Till your life changes,
Forever,
No going back,
As you watch time pass in front of your eyes.
Disgraceful,
You don’t have a plan,
No devotion to even start!
Where will you end up,
When things begin to fall apart?
You know time’s fading faster,
Yet, you’re standing still,
And it’s all because of your weak will.
You’ll go to school,
And wish you could disappear,
Just keep looking down,
It’s gotten us this far.
And if they talk to you,
Don’t say much,
Keep them all at arm’s length.
Who needs meaningful connections?
That’s for saps!”
I want to deny him,
And tell him that he’s wrong,
But he’s kept me safe this long.
In my bubble,
Floating overhead,
Watching people live their lives,
And have a good time.

How the shadow man loves to remind me,
Of when I should’ve talked more or less,
Smiled and finessed my way,
Through the conversation,
As graceful as a dying horse.
“Why do people talk to you?
Why do they waste their time on you?”
He whispers.

I’d like to say I’m a good person,
But the shadow man,
Would say something else,
And remind me of my former friend,
The one I couldn’t help.

Sometimes it feels like,
I’m just here,
Living to live,
Surviving to survive.
Without a purpose,
Without drive.
Like a fire,
Sometimes passion dies,
And waiting for it to rekindle,
Is agonizing.
Like writing a long story,
And waiting for ideas.

One day,
I’ll look in the mirror,
And tell the shadow man what he wants to hear.
That I’m selfish,
Broken,
Hurt,
And that I take it out on others sometimes.
That I’m tired,
Irritable,
And perhaps more individual than most.
That there are parts of me I hate,
And parts of me I hold dear,
Like that inner child,
That never disappears.
That sweet somber innocence,
Of times long gone,
Snapping me back to reality,
On days when it can get to be too much.
I’ll look at the shadow man,
And stare into his eyes,
And see my own.
There’s no getting rid of him,
We pilot this ship together,
And the only way we’re making it through the flight,
Is if we work together.
I’ll hug him close,
And shake his hand,
Because at the end of the day,
While my mind is my biggest critic,
It’s also my closest friend…

On the one hand-
A scream- a shout: MAKE MONEY

On the other one-
Why? What for? Who asks this?

It isn't this simple, it
Really is that simple.

I would to nothing more do,
Than fill pages with thought, lyrics and

Amuse me, amuse you.
Yes, it is true.

I am filled here-
With the space to see how to make-

Yet, neither you nor i,
Truly, do wish to- see-

What it is we could amount
To be-

Leave it aside, brush it now.
What more is to be said,

About the blind poetry-
The blind poetry of-

Edgar Alan Poe is dead. Seriously, I read it.
He died in October 1849 - or did he?
Do we really know?

Poe wrote about death a lot,
he teased with it, it was his favorite tool.
He kept death close and twisted it like a knife.

His profession was the macabre, the shadow,
the summoned dread and the gruesome aftermath.

He was a writer and a critic - what’s more dreadful than a critic?

They say he died from “unknown causes”
- how absolutely perfect.

Don't offer the fuel it needs
to set you on fire

Come Down
by Michael R. Burch

for Harold Bloom and the Ivory Towerists

Come down, O, come down
from your high mountain tower.
How coldly the wind blows,
how late this chill hour ...

and I cannot wait
for a meteor shower
to show you the time
must be now, or not ever.

Come down, O, come down
from the high mountain heather
blown to the lees
as fierce northern gales sever.

Come down, or your heart
will grow cold as the weather
when winter devours
and spring returns never.

NOTE: I dedicated this poem to Harold Bloom after reading his introduction to the Best American Poetry anthology he edited. Bloom seemed intent on claiming poetry as the province of the uber-reader (i.e., himself), but I remember reading poems by Blake, Burns, cummings, Dickinson, Frost, Housman, Eliot, Pound, Shakespeare, Whitman, Yeats, et al, and grokking them as a boy, without any “advanced” instruction from anyone. Keywords/Tags: Harold Bloom, literary, critic, criticism, elitist, elitism, ivory, tower, heights, mountain, winter, cold, frigid



Rant: The Elite
by Michael R. Burch

When I heard Harold Bloom unsurprisingly say:
Poetry is necessarily difficult. It is our elitist art ...
I felt a small suspicious thrill. After all, sweetheart,
isn’t this who we are? Aren’t we obviously better,
and certainly fairer and taller, than they are?

Though once I found Ezra Pound
perhaps a smidgen too profound,
perhaps a bit over-fond of Benito
and the advantages of fascism
to be taken ad finem, like high tea
with a pure white spot of intellectualism
and an artificial sweetener, calorie-free.

I know! I know! Politics has nothing to do with art
And it tempts us so to be elite, to stand apart ...
but somehow the word just doesn’t ring true,
echoing effetely away—the distance from me to you.

Of course, politics has nothing to do with art,
but sometimes art has everything to do with becoming elite,
with climbing the cultural ladder, with being able to meet
someone more Exalted than you, who can demonstrate how to ****
so that everyone below claims one’s odor is sweet.
You had to be there! We were falling apart
with gratitude! We saw him! We wept at his feet!
Though someone will always be far, far above you, clouding your air,
gazing down at you with a look of wondering despair.

moustached monoku critic channels Seinfeld - no haiku for you