leave kisses on my neck,
i want to feel loved

leave bruises on my wrists,
i want to feel, loved

keep me still, in a perfect place,
i want to feel loved

i’d do anything to keep that smile on your
face

Words of confusion
Clearly stood
In the path of understanding

Oh fires, light of fire that shines within me.
Show me my one true light.
Reveal my true darkness.
Burn your light within me.
Display that which hides inside my soul.
So that I may see the light within my dark.
So I shall see the darkness within my light.

these birds nest out of your ribs
like heart worn on your limbs

looking game
lock picking
scrapped

from compassion for birds.

US Verse, after Auden
by Michael R. Burch

“Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful.”

Verse has small value in our Unisphere,
nor is it fit for windy revelation.
It cannot legislate less taxing fears;
it cannot make us, several, a nation.
Enumerator of our sins and dreams,
it pens its cryptic numbers, and it sings,
a little quaintly, of the ways of love.
(It seems of little use for lesser things.)

Published by The Raintown Review, The Barefoot Muse and Poetry Life & Times

The Unisphere mentioned is a spherical stainless steel representation of the earth constructed for the 1964 New York World’s Fair. It was commissioned to celebrate the beginning of the space age and dedicated to "Man's Achievements on a Shrinking Globe in an Expanding Universe." The lines quoted in the epigraph are from W. H. Auden’s love poem “Lullaby.” Keywords/Tags: Auden, unisphere, lullaby, verse, revelation, cryptic, legislate, enumerator, sins, dreams, value, love, sings, quaint, quaintly, lesser, greater

Cryptic clues lead to the jewel
Free to exchange
Man will be paid
Arms stretch afar in this digital age

Informed design as heart crosses mind
Few and far between are inside of a dream
Where have we been