As alone I walk these emptied streets
the only rhythms heart and feet
I all around am sure I see
myself amidst the trees.
But no it cannot be, says me,
I am no scarecrowed bag of bones
whose clothes hang slack
and innards seep with leaves.
I am a man, methinks I say,
a human living breathing man
with no such predilections wrought
for suicidal sentiment.
It cannot is not mustn’t be me,
that body hanging limp in-tree,
that bullet ridden slumping form,
that sorry teenage lover-boy.

Lately I have had a feeling of a sense of deep foreboding in the air,
every time I stop to pause, to think, I can feel it just lurking there.

An all pervasive feeling that all things are not as they should be,
and I get an anxious sensation that it's effects are not just on me.

Colours of nature seem all faded and the air seems different too,
the sky is somehow much more ominous and appears a paler blue.

Even the birds I see upon their wing seem more skittish everyday,
and I wonder if they feel it too, does a dark fear halt their play?

I sense a tension in the natural order of these once normal things,
and my heart and mind are fearful of what message this all brings.

Like some silent siren wailing or invisible flashing hazard light,
my mind is filled with deepest dread and senses things aren't right.

Far too much time caught up thinking upon the portents that I see,
with each terrifying thought I pray for all, to hope that its just me.

Whatever happened to the happiness,
from all those early childhood days.
Where laughter. joy and sunshine,
filled all of imaginations endless plays?

What became of the joyous music,
giving beat and harmony to the world.
When dream and hope could exist,
and all possibilities could be unfurled?

When did all this darkness fall,
to lay shadow so dark upon the lands,
as a dense foreboding that has been
summoned by greeds unsated demands?

When did dream and hope become,
just mere folly and wasted thought.
What happened to the morals and the ethics,
that as kids we valued and were taught?

When and where did all this go,
for everywhere I look such is just not there.
All has been replaced by a selfish world
of greed, hatred and down-trodden despair.

I know that in the course of time,
I am meant to see an old man's view.
But what worth and value of a world,
where hate and lies are sold as true?

Death and hatred fill this world,
in every rank corner that I see,
and in silent, desperate fear I wonder,
why we stood-by and let it come to be?

an unfamiliar feeling
that feels awfully right
an ephemeral state
a shimmering light

i've met this stranger before
the nomadic apparition
standing by the door
with a whimsical disposition

why are you here?
i question the ghost
for it mysteriously visits
its skeptical host

i think, for the time being
you're here – let's celebrate
might as well bask
in the absence of pain

yet wrought with nervous thought
i cannot withhold my worry
i cannot subdue
the anxious query

how long will you stay?
i want to question the ghost
but before i manage
it's vanished
from its skeptical host

Is that danger in the distance?
Or do my eyes deceive?

****.

Like dark clouds
gathering above mountains.
Like how the young see their futures.

(Though it's not like the world hasn't been ending
this entire time.

In billions of years the sun will explode.
In hundreds, our planet will be just dust and stone,
and the bones of industry.
And at my rate
I'll self-destruct by sixty years of age.

But) what is this thing that sticks and stings
and irks
like a mirage?

Not the flavor of fingers dipped in deliciousness.
Not the freshness of a newborn babe.
Not the scent of flowers.
Not feet in a hot bath.
Not fumbling a lovers face,
frolicking through foxglove fields,
flitting a fiery frevo,
finishing first.

No,
none of that.

It's not a thing,
but a feeling.

Fear
Fear
Fear

And it sticks and stings
and irks,
like a mirage.

-
by Aleksander Mielnikow | Alek the Poet

Premonition
by Michael R. Burch

Now the evening has come to a close and the party is over ...
we stand in the doorway and watch as they go—
each stranger, each acquaintance, each unembraceable lover.  

They walk to their cars and they laugh as they go,
though we know their bright laughter’s the wine ...
then they pause at the road where the dark asphalt flows
endlessly on toward Zion ...

and they kiss one another as though they were friends,
and they promise to meet again “soon” ...
but the rivers of Jordan roll on without end,
and the mockingbird calls to the moon ...

and the katydids climb up the cropped hanging vines,
and the crickets chirp on out of tune ...
and their shadows, defined by the cryptic starlight,
seem spirits torn loose from their tombs.

And I know their brief lives are just eddies in time,
that their words are unreadable runes
unlikely to stand in this waterlogged land
when their corpses lie ravaged and ruined ...

You take my clenched fist and you give it a kiss
as though it’s something to be loved,
and the tears fill your eyes, outshining the night
and all the stars ringed high above ...

and you whisper, "It's time that we went back inside;
if you'd like, we can sit and just talk for a while."
And the hope in your eyes burns too deep, so I lie
and I say, "Yes, I would," to your small, troubled smile.

I vividly remember writing this poem after an office party the year I co-oped with AT&T (at that time the largest company in the world, with a lot of office parties). This was after my sophomore year in college, making me around 20 years old. The poem is “true” except that I was not the host because the party was at the house of one of the managers. Nor was I dating anyone seriously at the time.

Keywords/Tags: premonition, foreboding, time, loss, death, office party, wine, laughter, shadows

The rain keeps falling
As dry as a drought.

                       “ Rain drops heavier than water,
                           When it’s laden with doubt. “
He said,
                       “ The ground simply can’t hold it
                                     … So it must go without. “

               ” You’ve never known water to stain,
                  But you’ve never felt this kind of rain.
                  It’s thicker than your skin.
                  It stains your clothes and what’s within.
                  It sounds like hammers as it pounds -
                 And yet, the ground won’t let it in.

          So it flows like a river that only gets bigger;
          It runs like a force that knows no remorse.
                     Despite endless efforts to stop it -
                     It still runs like a faucet…
                                        With nowhere to drain. "

But if the ground holds no plants, is the water so vital?
Is the rain’s sole purpose this lifeless recital?
The ground stays so strong.
It holds fast, like pure stone
But can one stay so long when one’s so alone?
When one is forced to move,
               Will the ground or the rain?
And when the first one has gone,
               Will the other remain?


For now, they coexist,
Each facing a challenge it can’t resist -
Both unstoppable and immovable,
                              They hopelessly persist.
As complements, they combine
                        With the product of a flood.
But the water that’s collecting
                        Has the consistency of blood.

There’s a heart behind this water.
It pulses, instead of flowing.
So you turn to the only man you know,
             for parting words with danger growing.
And he says, as you leave:

               “ I wish you luck where you are going.
                   My son, you’ve only seen the rain . . .
                    . . . The winds are not yet blowing.