Sometimes lying in my bed I close my eyes and imagine myself back there again
Back in my old childhood room, in my old childhood bed
I can see the green nightlight shining on the wall
See the dark outlines of the wardrobe and the dressing table
The moonlight coming in through the window
From the street below I hear a lone car passing
You can hear it coming, then arriving, then gradually fading away into the distance
Then the silence returns
I lie there in the quiet
Then suddenly…suddenly I find myself…I find myself rising
Like out of my body, rising up toward the ceiling
I can look back down and see my physical body still lying there on the bed
Then I turn and I fly right out the window
Suddenly I’m outside and I’m free
It’s dark now, a world devoid of colours, a world transformed, a World of shadows
With the big moon shining over the bay
The flowers in the front, their petals closed…drooping
Their all sleeping now, grown colourless in the pale moonlight
I fly over the shrubs and the flowers, fly over the wall and the front gate
The coast road it is so quiet now, not a sound of a car
Or sight of any soul out walking
It’s late…
So ghostly in the quiet, the outline of the other houses along the street
Just like faces sleeping
I fly over the road and over the sea wall, down the steps to the beach
All the sand and the little shells and stones
And the big rocks just standing there so still and so quiet
Almost like their watching me or waiting on me
As if…as if questioning
I look over at the big mountains of the headland in the far distance sloping down toward the sea
Their great big dark outlines dotted with little lights from all the isolated farms and villages
And there at the very end, the lighthouse, it’s red light winking back at me at intervals
All under a beautiful star laden sky
It’s wonderful, magical looking !  It reminds me of Christmas…the lights at Christmastime.

I fly over the big rocks and the rock pools
Wow! Look now, the sea!  The tide!! The tide is coming in
Like a huge…great army moving stealthily under cover of darkness
Stretching the whole way as far as you can see
Inching its way along, the water filling the little grooves in the sand
Wow!  Just looking at it, watching it, it’s awesome! It’s mesmerising!!
Soon it’ll be joining the rock pools
It’ll be like an army pouring into a city
The water level will rise slowly
And all the sea creatures will start to come out, the *****, the eels and the fish
It’ll all come alive.

So I fly over the silent standing rocks and the strand and the tide that’s coming in heading up toward the village
I pass an open stretch of beach with hardly any rocks
This is where the young families would come
The mothers with their little children to swim and play
But it’s so quiet now…so quiet and desolate…lonely looking
Now the children have all gone
Now there’s only the memory…the echo
Yea! Now there’s only the sound of the ghost children playing, splashing about
Their excited voices still ringing in the air…somewhere
Once as a child I walked these same beaches
I knew every rock
But strangely I can hardly remember myself now
That child I once was
I feel somehow that he left me…left me a long time ago
Old friend we knew each other once, why has your memory faded away from me
Have I changed so much
Do you not know me now or trust me
Am I too scary for you to look at or talk to
Have I sided too much with this world, a world that once used scare and pain you so
You and I, we have wandered far from our old toys
Were forced to play more different grown up games
Had to adopt many guises, wear many different masks
All those things I had to do and those different people I had to become
Just to survive here
Yea! This world it blew us onto many a strange shore,
And now, returning…like an old man from the sea
Weathered and half broken, still with little of any worth to show
Tell me…tell me you haven’t left me…left us
That you haven't abandoned us
Take us with you, we’d rather go with you than stay in this…this empty place
With you there was always wonder, there was always magic…every day
It was always more fun when you were around
…we miss you, where did you go Old Friend ?

I fly on, there’s the old swimming pool
All quiet now, hushed, silent, not a sound
So ghostly, no laughter, no splashing about, no shouts of delight
The night how it offers a contrast to the day
This ghostly world of stillness and of quiet
Of shadows and memories and lost things
And I like a ghost just wandering here
The daylight world remembered from afar as the dead might remember the living.

I fly on over the swimming pool
Now I see the village itself, the street lights and the lights from the pubs still open
A few people out walking along the seafront
Husbands and wives perhaps…young lovers
Y’know I can remember this beach thronged with sunbathers in the summertime
All the colour and the noises
I can…I can remember the wild days, the stormy seas lashing the shore
Remember the high winds buffeting the house at night
I can remember the high tides when the sea would come right up to the steps
Would swamp all the big rocks
All you could see was this huge massive blanket of just blue sea everywhere
And in the Winter time I can remember the snow on the rocks
The snow over everything, so white and clean and fresh, all fresh in the frosty air
And I remember the tranquil Summer evenings, the waves gently lapping up against the shore
Lulling you off to some sweet dream...or dreams faraway.

When I was young I didn’t know what this world was and why I was here
And now, I still don’t know, I’m none the wiser
But wherever I go, I know there’ll always be the sea…
It’s a part of me…these memories, these things I’ve seen
Wherever I find myself, in the heart of a grey city or out in the green countryside
There’ll always be that…that seaside village
Yea! There’ll always be the sea.
I grew up in a seaside village…a seaside village
One time long ago.

Been a long while since I was back in the city
  (at work)
Must be around two and a half years
The Old haunts... their all haunted now
Pubs I used to visit...frequent and frequently
  get a little bit drunk/tipsy in
I wonder am I still in there drinking still
I feel like if I went in I might see
  myself sitting in some corner there...

My favourite restaurant too where I used to
  eat
Every Friday afternoon with my    
  burger  black coffee and chips
Sitting in the window looking out at the
  world going by, the people passing
Glad to have made it through another week
Glad to have survived, glad to still be alive
I almost expect to see myself sitting there
  now.....

So many have gone, so many have left...
  retired, some even passed away
So many new younger faces around the place
I wonder "Am I too, on my way out"
Wherever I go all I hear are echoes of other
  times
See faces that remind me of someone else
It's like Life is moving relentlessly along
But I've been left behind some place.

I seen a face in the street that looked
  like myself when I was young
I just stood there and watched him disappear
  into the crowd
There's such an unreal ghostly feeling about
  the place
It's so strange coming back after being at
  home alone for so long.

At a funeral recently I met a lot of people I hadn't seen in ages
Like from a hundred years ago (so it seemed)
What got me was, some of them it looked like they'd hardly aged at all
They looked....they looked nearly exactly the same
Now Me! I'd changed... I'd aged a lot
The trials and tribulations of this life had taken their toll
I said to one of them "Y'know you're still as young looking as I remember you
Is there some kind of Dorian Gray thing going on here
You don't have some mysterious portrait hidden away up in the attic"
I went on "Y'know you could do a movie and you could play yourselves
And when you go up to the attic and unveil the picture
Me! I could play the part of The Portrait staring back at you
You'd recoil in horror O! It's my true self, it's... it's so decrepit, so terrible looking (LoL)".

Me! when I look in the mirror all I see is a ghost
The very distant memory of a once beautiful looking kid.

Sittin' listenin' to old songs I used listen to when I was much younger
Songs I haven't heard... haven't played in such a long time
The first sounds that ever excited me, thrilled me as a boy
How they bring me back, stir up in me old feelings and memories long past
For a moment I almost feel like I'm back there again
I swear... I swear I can almost see myself
And feel myself... what I felt back then
It's like I've just gone down a chute, a Time Tunnel
And coming out the other side
I find myself back there again with you
For a moment I can feel your colours, your presence
Can remember your world, what you were going through
Can see all the figures, the scenes and the players.

Just like the rings of a tree
The Body and Mind, they too, hold memory
And Songs, their the conduit for getting you there, the conduit in-between
We link together somehow
We meet within the emotion of the song.

It's like I'm looking through some ghostly mirror
At a younger version of myself
I can only gaze at you in wonder
I was so different a person then
So young and innocent... and unprepared, foolishly brave
So small in the face of so huge and dark and threatening a world
With little chance... little hope of succeeding
I watch you, you look pained and ill at ease,  playing your songs over and over
Trying to seek some solace there
Then you rise to leave
I think I know where you'd be going to,
And I want to call out to you "No! Don't go there. You don't have to go there,
There's another way, a better way, a better place
I know! I have all the answers now...well some of them anyway
There's better choices for you to make"
And it's like you hesitate at the door and turn
And look back towards me
We look at each other... across the years
I can almost see your face
I want to reach out and embrace you
But it's too late... the song is over
You've turned and you've gone.

When i close my eyes i think of you.
When your in my mind i cant' help but feel you.
Remembering the time we had our first kiss, knowing how warm it felt.
When i close my eyes, i think of the time your lips faded into mine, like a deep but yet subtle swarm so soft and genuine.
When your in my mind, i can't help but see you and your oceanic blue eyes and softly your kiss in my mind switches into yet another ghostly kiss i yearn to feel one more time because good bye kisses aren't enough when you're gone. All i can do is close my eyes and think of you.

Eerie when it's three twenty-five
In the mornings of a nevermore
Fiendish powers dwelling inside
Awakened in a feverous implore
Darkness harkens souls to stay
When in an illuminating twilight
Subconscious turns ashen gray
Plants suffering a certain blight
Sleep had long not hypnotized
Nights, they pass in dry spells
No ravens come a tip tapping
Upon my mind's sly betrothal
Yet, the witching hour beckons
My brain has a way of knowing
Night, just half of it is passed
Rest half would be my undoing

hymn to Apollo
by Michael R. Burch

something of sunshine attracted my i
as it lazed on the afternoon sky,
golden, splashed on the easel of god;
what, i thought,
could this elfin stuff be,
to, phantomlike, flit
through tall trees
on fall days, such as these?

and the breeze
whispered a dirge
to the vanishing light;
enchoired with the evening, it sang;
its voice enchantedly rang
chanting “Night!” . . .

till all the bright light
retired,
expired.

This poem appeared in my high school literary journal, the Lantern, so it was written by age 18, but probably around age 16 or 17. That was my "cummings" period. Keywords/Tags: sun, god, sunshine, Apollo, elfin, phantom, ghostly, magical, enchanted, bright, light, brilliant, sky, golden



Moon Lake
by Michael R. Burch

Starlit recorder of summer nights,
what magic spell bewitches you?
They say that all lovers love first in the dark...
Is it true?
Is it true?
Is it true?

Starry-eyed seer of all that appears
and all that has appeared—
What sights have you seen?
What dreams have you dreamed?
What rhetoric have you heard?

Is love an oration,
or is it a word?
Have you heard?
Have you heard?
Have you heard?

I believe I wrote this poem in my late teens, during my “Romantic Period.”



Tomb Lake
by Michael R. Burch

Go down to the valley
  where mockingbirds cry,
  alone, ever lonely . . .
  yes, go down to die.
And dream in your dying
  you never shall wake.
  Go down to the valley;
  go down to Tomb Lake.
Tomb Lake is a cauldron
  of souls such as yours —
  mad souls without meaning,
  frail souls without force.
Tomb Lake is a graveyard
  reserved for the dead.
  They lie in her shallows
  and sleep in her bed.

I believe this poem and "Moon Lake" were companion poems, written around my senior year in high school, in 1976. In addition to having similar titles, they had similar "staircase" indention styles. According to my notes, I modified "Moon Lake" two years later in 1978, at which time the poem was substantially finished. I then modified "Tomb Lake" in 1981, but must have forgotten about it, because I don't show that I ever submitted the poem for publication or did anything with it for more than 40 years. Keywords/Tags: Moon, Lake, Lakes, Water, Reflection, Reflections, Image, Imagery, Mirror, Magic, Magician, Seer, Prophet, Shaman, Spell, Spells, Enchantment, Sorcery, Bewitchment, Bewilderment, Incantation, Rhapsody, Love Talk, Love Potion