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Joseph C Ogbonna Apr 2021
Take me to the land of crystal rivers,
that glitter like a mirror for the gods.
Take me to the height for altruistic lords,
revered by the oppressed for being givers.
I dream of a world drowned in abundance
of joy infinite at its renaissance.
Where the warm rays of the tropical sun
soothe the pains of a bleeding wound by day.
Where nature entertains with so much fun,
like a funfair in the sweet month of may.
I smell the pleasant scent of flowers gay
pervading the plains of awe and wonder.
Where colourful fruits in season render
sweetness and nourishment at my behest.
Where the sun's showers of warmth dry each tear,
bringing to extinction, a world of fear
in this magnificent haven of rest.
I see a paradise for virgins fair,
devoid of blemish with their silky hair.
I see breath taking mountains clad in green,
where romantic love birds would find serene.
I see this world of beauty at its peak,
which all dreamers would relentlessly seek,
coming closer now to my possession
than any dream or imagination.
My realistic world of utopia
Max Neumann Feb 2021
isolation is a redly glowing wolf
it is too close to me, get away
how can i believe in myself?
the night swallows self-confidence

i am waiting for an angel sent by
the tall and wise heralds of my fate
they are riding the train of future
i don't know how to hop on, no clue

eden's sounds are distracting me
but in her eyes i can see where my train
is supposed to stop and to arrive
ancient existences are floodding her pupil

they stem from a place called nirvana
it is the deep core of a human being's soul
light suffuses their shape, goldly shining
they fight against the demons of our world

and as the years passing by, they become
our nostalgic memories and our sentiment
i want to be there for eden, protecting her
the red wolf will not come between us
ari Dec 2020
Welcome to eden
where fruit grows lush and ripening
Apples are everywhere
sweet sin and blooming night
Won't you follow me into the garden?
Sin is shining and burning and
Piercing into my skin without consequence except
The obvious one
Falling all around me in this heavenly nightmare
Welcome to eden
God is dead
And opening its flowers all around me
Is summer sadness
Where my soul is too big for my body
Buds and tainted polaroid pictures
Skateboarding and bleach tipped hair
Everything is destruction
Welcome to eden
Find or lose a person and make them your religion
Welcome to eden where
I was always Eve except now i’m the snake
Michael R Burch Dec 2020
Poems about Adam, Eve, Lucifer, Eden and the Fall



Eden
by Michael R. Burch

Then earth was heaven too, a perfect garden.
Apples burgeoned and shone―unplucked on sagging boughs.
What, then, would the children eat?
Fruit indecently sweet,
redolent as incense, with a tempting aroma...



Outcasts
by Michael R. Burch

There was a rose, a prescient shade of crimson,
the very color of blood,
that bloomed in that garden.

The most dazzling of all the Earth’s flowers,
men have forgotten it now,
with their fanciful tales of apples and serpents.

Beasts with lips called the goreflower “Love.”

The scribes have the story all wrong: four were there,
four horrid dark creatures―chattering, bickering.

Aduhm placed one red petal in Ehve’s matted hair;

he was lost in her arms
till dawn sullen and golden
imperceptibly streaked the musk-fragrant air.

Two flared nostrils quivered, two eyes remained open.

Kahyn sought me that evening, his bloodless lips curled
in a grimacelike smile. Sunken-cheeked, he approached me
in the Caverns of Similitudes, eerie Barzakh.

“We are outcasts, my brother!, God quickly deserts us.”
As though his anguish conceived in insight’s first blush
might not pale next to mine in Sheol’s gray realm.

“Shining Creature!” he named me and called me divine
as he lavished damp kisses upon my bright scales.
“Help me find me one rare gift to put Love’s gift to shame.”

“There is a dark rose with a bittersweet fragrance
as pungent as cloves: only man knows its name.
Clinging and cloying, it destroys all it touches...”

“But red is Ehve’s preference; while Envy is green.”
He was downcast a moment, a moment, a moment...
“Ah, but red is the color of blood!”

Disagreeable child, far too clever for his own good.

Published in The Bible of Hell (anthology)



Temptation
by Michael R. Burch

Jesus was always misunderstood...
we have that, at least, in common.

And it’s true that I found him,
shriveled with hunger,
shivering in the desert,
skeletal, emaciate,
not an ounce of fat
to warm his bones
once the bright sun set.

And it’s true, I believe,
that I offered him something to eat―
a fig, perhaps, a pomegranate, or a peach.

Hardly the great “temptation”
of which I’m accused.

He was a likeable chap, really,
and we spent a pleasant hour
discussing God―
how hard He is to know,
and impossible to please.

I left him there, the pale supplicant,
all skin and bone, at the mouth of his cave,
imploring his “Master” on callused knees.

Published in The Bible of Hell (anthology)



You!
by Michael R. Burch

For forty years You have not spoken to me;
I heard the dull hollow echo of silence
as though strange communion between us.

For forty years You would not open to me;
You remained closed, hard and tense,
like a clenched fist.

For forty years You have not broken me
with Your alien ways,
prevarications and distance.

Like a child dismissed,
I have watched You prey upon the hope in me,
knowing "mercy" is chance

and "heaven"―a list.

Published in The Bible of Hell (anthology)

Note: I call mercy “chance” and heaven a “list” because the bible says its “god” predestines some people to be “vessels of mercy” and others to be “vessels of destruction.” Thus mercy is reduced to the chance of birth and heaven is a precompiled list of the lucky chosen few. Of course there is no reason to believe in such a diabolical “god” or such an unjust “heaven”... but billions have, and do.



***** Nilly
by Michael R. Burch

for the Demiurge, aka Yahweh/Jehovah

Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?
You made the stallion,
you made the filly,
and now they sleep
in the dark earth, stilly.
Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?

Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?
You forced them to run
all their days uphilly.
They ran till they dropped―
life’s a pickle, dilly.
Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?

Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?
They say I should worship you!
Oh, really!
They say I should pray
so you’ll not act illy.
Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?



Adam Lay Ybounden
(anonymous Medieval English Lyric, circa early 15th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Adam lay bound, bound in a bond;
Four thousand winters, he thought, were not too long.
And all was for an apple, an apple that he took,
As clerics now find written in their book.
But had the apple not been taken, or had it never been,
We'd never have had our Lady, heaven's queen.
So blesséd be the time the apple was taken thus;
Therefore we sing, "God is gracious!"



No One
by Michael R. Burch

No One hears the bells tonight;
they tell him something isn’t right.
But No One is not one to rush;
he lies in grasses greenly lush
as far away a startled thrush
flees from horned owls in sinking flight.

No One hears the cannon’s roar
and muses that its voice means war
comes knocking on men’s doors tonight.
He sleeps outside in awed delight
beneath the enigmatic stars
and shivers in their cooling light.

No One knows the world will end,
that he’ll be lonely, without friend
or foe to conquer. All will be
once more, celestial harmony.
He’ll miss men’s voices, now and then,
but worlds can be remade again.



Bikini
by Michael R. Burch

Undersea, by the shale and the coral forming,
by the shell’s pale rose and the pearl’s white eye,
through the sea’s green bed of lank seaweed worming
like tangled hair where cold currents rise...
something lurks where the riptides sigh,
something old and pale and wise.

Something old when the world was forming
now lifts its beak, its snail-blind eye,
and with tentacles about it squirming,
it feels the cloud above it rise
and shudders, settles with a sigh,
knowing man’s demise draws nigh.



Ceremony
by Michael R. Burch

Lost in the cavernous blue silence of spring,
heavy-lidded and drowsy with slumber, I see
the dark gnats leap; the black flies fling
their slow, engorged bulks into the air above me.

Shimmering hordes of blue-green bottleflies sing
their monotonous laments; as I listen, they near
with the strange droning hum of their murmurous wings.
Though you said you would leave me, I prop you up here
and brush back red ants from your fine, tangled hair,
whispering, “I do!”... as the gaunt vultures stare.



Exile
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation by by Michael R. Burch

We have often heard of Adam's banishment from Eden,
but with far greater humiliation, I abandon your garden.



Where We Dwell
by Michael R. Burch

Night within me.
Never morning.
Stars uncounted.
Shadows forming.
Wind arising
where we dwell
reaches Heaven,
reeks of Hell.

Published in The Bible of Hell (anthology)



What Immense Silence
by Michael R. Burch

What immense silence
comforts those who kneel here
beneath these vaulted ceilings
cavernous and vast?

What luminescence stained
by patchwork panels of bright glass
illuminates drained faces
as the crouching gargoyles leer?

What brings them here―
pale, tearful congregations,
knowing all Hope is past,
faithfully, year upon year?

Or could they be right? Perhaps
Love is, implausibly, near
and I alone have not seen It...
But, if so, still, I must ask:

why is it God that they fear?

Published in The Bible of Hell



lust!
by michael r. burch

i was only a child
in a world dark and wild
seeking affection
in eyes mild

and in all my bright dreams
sweet love shimmered, beguiled ...

but the black-robed Priest
who called me the least
of all god’s creation
then spoke for the Beast:

He called my great passion a thing base, defiled!

He condemned me to hell,
the foul Ne’er-Do-Well,
for the sake of the copper
His Pig-Snout could smell
in the purse of my mother,
“the ***** jezebel.”

my sweet passions condemned
by degenerate men?
and she so devout
she exclaimed, “yay, aye-men!” ...

together we learned why Religion is hell.

Keywords/Tags: Adam, Eve, Eden, Lucifer, fall, sin, temptation, heaven, hell, salvation, God, Yahweh, Jehovah, Jesus, Cain, Abel
Amanda Kay Burke Dec 2020
Just entered the garden of eden
Fresh
Beautiful
And vibrant
Also unchallenging and eerily void of imperfection

Like spring buds innocent
Before petals wilt
Faced with disappointment in the seasons

Lips a deeper shade of scarlet than forbidden fruit itself
Sweeter than sinful apples dangling from the seductive tree

The measure incomparable

Anything outside this sanctuary irrelevant

Temptation beckoning soul with an invisible sultry finger

Indulgences vary
The magnetic pull remains the same

Why would a tree grow here if we were not meant to dine on it's tantalizing treasure?
It is a little ironic that I, being an atheist, would post a poem with this title
Lev Rosario Nov 2020
I saw a fallen Apple fruit
Beneath the shadow of the tree
It was all red and cool and fresh
And worms have yet to partake its flesh
Round the fruit's awaited grave
Nothing lies but cool earth; Save
The footprints that lead to and from
This Apple tree that stood alone
This vast expanse of fielded loam

Straightaway I knew the answer to this enigma
Adam rose from the dead and found that he was hungry
He saw the Apple tree, rattled the branches so the fruit would fall
And seeing the prints where the snake did crawl
Decided that he was not going to eat at all
He left; walked around in search of Eve
And his son Seth so that they can run around naked and not toil till sundown
and relieve themselves from the burden
Of being first and last in Eden
I wrote this like 5 or 6 years ago. Inspired by Jorge Luis Borges
Unnamed Oct 2020
I have seen god
In the gust of wind
Between your thighs.
When the air sings
In this barren land,
I see—Ah! Ah! Ah!

There is a balloon!
Such a whimsical
Wisp tied behind it.
A vibrant globe that is.
Colorful, bright, alluring, pure—
It flies high above,
In the face of a picturesque eden.

And as it rose,
And rose,
The sky’s color shifted
From a classic blue to a salvation red.
I saw the balloon simply pop—
Ah! Ah! Ah!

Rotten dream I dreamt,
Abhorrent moist cigar I saw,
Magnificent eden I lost
And wore nothing but a cloak
After bathing in crystal clear water.
For I have seen god in heaven.
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