Happily Never After (the Second Curse of the ***** Toad)
by Michael R. Burch

He did not think of love of Her at all
frog-plangent nights, as moons engoldened roads
through crumbling stonewalled provinces, where toads
(nee princes) ruled in chinks and grew so small
at last to be invisible. He smiled
(the fables erred so curiously), and thought
bemusedly of being reconciled
to human flesh, because his heart was not
incapable of love, but, being cursed
a second time, could only love a toad’s . . .
and listened as inflated frogs rehearsed
cheekbulging tales of anguish from green moats . . .
and thought of her soft croak, her skin fine-warted,
his anemic flesh, and how true love was thwarted.

Originally published by Romantics Quarterly. Keywords/Tags: frog, *****, toad, prince, princess, curse, kiss, fable, true, love, magic, spell, croak, kingdom



Happily Never After
by Michael R. Burch

Happily never after, we lived unmerrily
(write it!—like disaster) in Our Kingdom by the See
as the man from Porlock’s laughter drowned out love’s threnody.

We ditched the red wheelbarrow in slovenly Tennessee
and made a picturebook of poems, a postcard for Tse-Tse,
a list of resolutions we knew we couldn’t keep,
and asylum decorations for the King in his dark sleep.

We made it new so often strange newness, wearing old,
peeled off, and something rotten gleamed dull yellow, not like gold:—
like carelessness, or cowardice, and redolent of ***.
We stumbled off, our awkwardness—new Keystone comedy.

Huge cloudy symbols blocked the sun; onlookers strained to see.
We said We were the only One. Our gaseous Melody
had made us Joshuas, and so—the Bible, new-rewrit,
with god removed, replaced by Show and Glyphics and Sanskrit,
seemed marvelous to Us, although King Ezra said, “It’s S—t.”

We spent unhappy hours in Our Kingdom of the Pea,
drunk on such Awesome Power only Emperors can See.
We were Imagists and Vorticists, Projectivists, a Dunce,
Anarchists and Antarcticists and anti-Christs, and once
We’d made the world Our oyster and stowed away the pearl
of Our too-, too-polished wisdom, unanchored of the world,
We sailed away to Lilliput, to Our Kingdom by the See
and piped the rats to join Us, to live unmerrily
hereever and hereafter, in Our Kingdom of the Pea,
in the miniature ship Disaster in a jar in Tennessee.


More Nonsense Verse by Michael R. Burch


There was an old man from Peru
who dreamed he was eating his shoe.
He awoke in the night
with a terrible fright
to discover his dream had come true.
—Variation on a classic limerick by Michael R. Burch


Although I prefer
onions
to bunions,
begging your pardon sir,
I still primarily defer
to legal ******.
—Michael R. Burch


Anti-Vegan Manifesto
by Michael R. Burch

Let us
avoid lettuce,
sincerely,
and also celery!


Ding **** ...
by Michael R. Burch

for Fliss

An impertinent bit of sunlight
defeated a goddess, NIGHT.
"Hooray!," cried the clover,
"Her reign is over!
But she certainly gave us a fright!"


The Flu Fly Flew
by Michael R. Burch

A fly with the flu foully flew
up my nose—thought I’d die—had to sue!
Was the small villain fined?
An abrupt judge declined
my case, since I’d “failed to achoo!”


The Humpback
by Michael R. Burch

The humpback is a gullet
equipped with snarky fins.
It has a winning smile:
and when it SMILES, it wins
as miles and miles of herring
excite its fearsome grins.
So beware, unwary whalers,
lest you drown, sans feet and shins!


Hell-Bound Hounds
by Michael R. Burch

We have five dogs and every one’s a sinner!
I swear it’s true—they’ll steal each other’s dinner!
They’ll **** before they’re married. That’s unlawful!
They’ll even ***** in public. Eek, so awful!

And when it’s time for treats (don’t gasp!), they’ll beg!
They have no pride! They’ll even **** your leg!
Our oldest Yorkie murdered dear, sweet Olive,
our helpless hamster! None will go to college

or work to pay their room and board, or vets!
When the Devil says, “*** here!” they all yip, “Let’s!”
And yet they’re sweet and loyal, so I doubt
the Lord will dump them in hell’s dark redoubt...

which means there’s hope for you, perhaps for me.
But as for cats? I say, “Best wait and see.”


Menu Venue
by Michael R. Burch

At the passing of the shark
the dolphins cried Hark!;
cute cuttlefish sighed, Gee
there will be a serener sea
to its utmost periphery!;
the dogfish barked,
so joyously!;
pink porpoises piped Whee!
excitedly,
delightedly.
But ...
Will there be as much glee
when there’s no you and me?


Kissin’ ’n’ buzzin’
by Michael R. Burch

Kissin’ ’n’ buzzin’
the bees rise
in a dizzy circle of two.
Oh, when I’m with you,
I feel like kissin’ ’n’ buzzin’ too.

Once upon a time there was a young lady, Who lived just out of the city,
During the day, Her neighbour’s would say,
“Gosh isn’t she polite!”, To which her parents would be proud they are right.
But during the night, She was considerably less “uptight"
She would give her parents a fright.
While she was at work, She would smile all day long even when the customer was a ****,
She was quick to make friends, And no one could call her pretend, They would all trust her to no end.
Once she gets home she would dash to her room, With a thunderous zoom,
To change into her brand new dress, She bumps into her father and tells him not to stress, She explains that’s she’s meeting with Meghan and Jess.
He looks back with an unconvinced smile, With a kiss on the cheek she says “I’ll be back in a while",
She walks to her friends house, With a knock at the door as quiet as a mouse,
Her friend bounds out at a considerable pace, The door tore a hole in her dress lace,
They scurry to the park, Before it goes dark,
As they all decide to meet the boys at the club, Filled with nerves as she’d only ever been to a pub,
But went with it all the same, For fear of appearing lame,
She was told that she would see Nate, A boy she thought was great,
She had plans to win him over before while she is there, And so she locks eyes and begins to stare,
She saunters over and they begin to chat, Nothing real just this and that,
He leans in to near, And whispers into her ear, He says “hey, we should get out of here"
She grins with glee, And nods to agree,
The pair headed across the floor, As they left through the door,
They began to walk down the street, And suddenly down an alley he started to retreat,
She expressed her dismay, She wasn’t going to play, Least of all not this way,
She began to edge further in, And then again a wall he had her pinned,
She told him that this wasn’t fun, He said “oh c’mon, I’ve only just begun",
She begins to regret leaving without a friend, Wishing this would end,
As the discomfort wouldn’t cease, He got his release,
As she sprinted back, Never straying from the beaten track,
With tears in her eyes, Now Nate she does despise,
She went straight to bed, With feelings of dread,
The moral of this tale, Will never go stale,
Never be quick to trust, You never know who is filled with lust,
This story may appal, But you must recall,
For many on this world, This tale had unfurled,
And now they carry it for life,
Teach sons of consent, To keep them decent,
And tell girls of the signs And how to draw the line.

There was once a little fox who was born lame. Its brothers liked to play and bite and grow, and none of these things did the little fox care to know.
In the light of a setting sun, they ran and skipped, playing with each other’s tails. The lame little fox, healthy of body, albeit smaller than its brothers, stood by and watched. Its mother approaches it.

She sits next to it, watching the others play.
“Your brothers are almost ready for the hunt.” She begins, and the little fox looks at her.
“You will not survive.” She tells it, sparing them both the discomfort of looking a son in the eye while bearing such news.
The little fox does not cry.
“Will I die at the jaw of an animal?” He asks.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
The mother does not answer.
The fox looks back at its brothers. He’s never liked playing with them much.
“If you hunt at my pace, will I slow you all down?”
“Yes. It will be your brothers who will die at the jaw of an animal then.”
The little fox looks on, and with a blink of its knowing little eye, understands.
“You are going to **** me.” it says.
“I must.”
“Then do not be kind to me in my taking. Lest I survive, run away, and come back a creature you will not recognize.“
The mother is calm, her response a knowing silence. The breeze is a sigh of fall. Winter soon approaching.
“**** me sooner rather than later.”

The little fox walks away (for they both know today is not his day) no doubt to take a nap in the family’s den.
If the little fox were to leave, thought the *****, it would leave tonight or tomorrow morning. She would strike then.

The foxes were all done with their play, and the mother sees them to their den.
“I will strike tonight” she thinks, decided. But when she arrives at the mouth of the den, among the chatter of the young babes was the fox’s absence, which could only be noticed by a loving mother’s gaze.

“Come, children.” Says the mother to her settling kits.
“Sleep now. We’ve God’s own wrath to prepare for.”

Wolf
shut up
wolf
shut up
wolf, and there was the six wolves
in the barn eating the buck
and they hear the boy cry
wolf
see,

And old Two Dog Dan,
he saw,
those wolves seeing that sweet
little boy
so
he kilt three
wolves for that boy not
knowing when to shut up,

and gave good reason men ought
know better then than to free
wolves raised in cages.

The Lemur is enthroned on the heights of an island
In a luxurious villa, complete with a sauna and a pool
The Dormouse holds, modestly, a small pharmacy
Where people can buy necklaces, gemstones and pretty threads.

Every Monday morning the lemur fixes
His hair with a delicate ivory comb
Asks about the stock market in overflow
Swallowing a pure white powder in a row

His orange eyes threaten to explode
So he sits down, eats lobster and sated,
He doesn’t have a care in the world as descends the evening
His paw resting on a black jade cane stolen from the dormouse

Monday morning, the lemur, operational
Goes fast, pick and pickaxe at the mine
Extracting, sweaty, some beautiful spinel specimens
Hoping that one day at the Lemurian’s he would dine

For a trifle, the latter bought him
His most beautiful crystals and this without paying taxes
He became the leader of the island thanks to his kinsmen
The exotic animals knew something was wrong…

His only friends were the rich and the bohos
Under the yoke of this monkey, the island was a hellhole
Their chef was addicted to coconut powder
Whoever dared to say it was put in irons

When finally, an evening he overdosed
Nobody buried him among his friends
The Dormouse humbly undertook to do so
At the hole where he dug, he found a stone

The moral of the fable, listen to it then,
Who shows compassion exists with reason
Do not judge too fast, because we're leaving too early
Nature often rewards us in her own way.

September 11, 2019
Nancy, translated on November 17, 2019

A fan came to me and said: "Emil, how do you get out of the bad comments unharmed?" To which I replied:

«Once upon a time there was a snake from Equatorial New Guinea, juggling a circus; One day, the owner fired her because "supposedly" she had bitten one of her interlocutors. The snake tried to defend itself by saying that it had not done so, however, it did not work out. A month later, the snake got a job at a magic and party products store; the owner of the circus where the snake worked, entered, and without realizing that the snake was working in that place, he asked for leeches and left the establishment. What nobody knows is that the owner bought leeches to put them under the seats of the spectators, and that they bite the spectators, and fire one by one of their employees from the circus just because, And so, entering new personnel because, consequently, they had "bad acts"».

Moral: If you know who you are, no matter the time or the noun, you will always know that those who speak badly about you, or want you evil, is because they have a mirage of themselves, and that you have, they would like to possess it.

This morning I awoke with a cluster of words resting in the palm of my hand, my fingers tracing their gentle form like the decades of a rosary. On the tip of my tongue a song, a story, a fable of experience, existence, and eternity lay dozing.

There I floated between my inner and outer worlds, an exquisite confluence of wakeful consciousness and drowsy carelessness, until daybreak shook the last of sleep from my tousled dreams and my verses disintegrated like dust into the ether. It was at that moment, when the cool breeze through the open window intervened and the thrum of traffic in the distance drew me out from beyond the covers, that I lost my poem.

I know it will return: as droplets of rain on window glass, or as threads of loose cotton on a frayed cushion cover, in the rhythm of a lazy Sunday afternoon, or in the sigh of the ocean’s flow. All of these are mesmerising in their effect, some intangibly soulful, others enticingly tactile. All are enough to quiet the chatter of the quotidian mind and allow the delicate operations of the creative imagination to reign.

Only then, will I attempt to commit my words to paper...and you shall read them here.

One regret
for all those farm pigs
wiggling their toes
one last time
on that ride
to the market
wiggling, wiggling
like there's no  tomorrow
taking in the waning hours
thoughts of their sow
and babies left behind
gasping the last breath of air
and life
the ride, the death march
the winding turns
the roar of a diesel engine
the small cracks in the crate
light filtering in
bringing tears to their eyes
the saddest eyes ever
and the final curtain
for somehow they know
the fattening
destiny's child
this piggy went to market
was a storybook fable
facing all around them
the others know, too
their hearts beating
down
when the truck stops
sorry
not for coffee this time …
collectively
squeals  abound
the crates perspiring, thrashing
the bounty of life
on the dinner table
the cruelty of such
for no cargo is overturned
as the hum of death
nears
sound of the blades
soon rises above the prayers
darkness kicks in
taking in the ecosystem
sadly
regretfully
as wiggling toes stop

Logan Robertson

9/02/2019