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Cardboard-Jones May 2020
What if a mouse
Had the power of a human?
Would it do as a human does?
Or would it continue as a mouse?
What if a human
Had the power of a god?

We yearn for something greater,
Something that gives meaning
To our flesh and bone.
Answers to questions we desperately seek,
Only to find our ambition
Outweighs our ability.

We want something we don’t understand
With the hope that we will.
Should a man possess the power of a god,
That man will not be godly.
That man would still be a man,
But seen as a god to other men.
Who would teach that man to be a god
If no other man has been a god?

We shun the notion of a mouse
Being human,
Yet laugh at the challenge
Of being a god.
But what’s the difference?
Michael R Burch Apr 2020
War is Obsolete
by Michael R. Burch

War is obsolete;
even the strange machinery of dread
weeps for the child in the street
who cannot lift her head
to reprimand the Man
who failed to countermand
her soft defeat.

But war is obsolete;
even the cold robotic drone
that flies far overhead
has sense enough to moan
and shudder at her plight
(only men bereft of light
with hearts indurate stone
embrace war's arctic night).

For war is obsolete;
man's tribal gods, long dead,
have fled his awakening sight
while the true Sun, overhead,
has pity on her plight.
O sweet, precipitate Light! —
embrace her, reject the night
that leaves gentle changelings dead.

For each brute ancestor lies
with his totems and his "gods"
in the slavehold of premature night
that awaited him in his tomb;
while Love, the ancestral womb,
still longs to give birth to the Light.
Which child shall we ****** tonight,
or which Ares condemn to the gloom?

Keywords/Tags: war, children, violence, guns, war and peace, destiny,  god, gods, brute, brutality, ******
Bluebird Apr 2020
The Gods watch us
Pray to us

Our fragile bones
carry them
Our beliefs
make them

They worship us
for we are the golden blood
which runs moves through their veins

We will always be holy
The beutiful impermanent nature of being mortal
Michael R Burch Apr 2020
www.firesermon.com
by Michael R. Burch

your gods have become e-vegetation;
your saints—pale thumbnail icons; to enlarge
their images, right-click; it isn’t hard
to populate your web-site; not to mention

cool sound effects are nice; Sound Blaster cards
can liven up dull sermons, [zing some fire];
your drives need added Zip; you must discard
your balky paternosters: ***!!! Desire!!!

these are the watchwords, catholic; you must
as Yahoo! did, employ a little lust :)
if you want great e-commerce; hire a bard
to spruce up ancient language, shed the dust

of centuries of sameness;
                                            lameness *****;
your gods grew blurred; go 3D; scale; adjust.

Published by Ironwood, Triplopia and Nisqually Delta Review. This poem pokes fun at several stages of "religion," all tied into Eliot's "Fire Sermon," albeit elliptically. (1) The Celts believed that the health of the land was tied to the health of its king. The Fisher King's land was in peril because he had an infirmity (lameness, infertility, it really didn't matter in those days). One bad harvest and it was the king's fault for displeasing the gods. A religious icon (the Grail) could somehow rescue him. Strange logic! (2) The next stage brings us the saints, the Catholic church, etc. Millions are slaughtered, tortured and enslaved in the name of religion. Strange logic! (3) The next stage brings us to Darwin, modernism and "The Waste Land.” Religion is dead. God is dead. Man is a glorified fungus! Long live Darwin! We'll evolve into something better adapted to life on Earth, someday (if we don’t destroy it first). But what do we have now, except a hangover? Strange logic! (4) The current stage of religion is perhaps summed up by this e-mail: the only way religion can compete today is as a form of flashy entertainment. ***** a website before it's too late!  Keywords/Tags: god, gods, religion, saints, icons, images, imagery, update, scale, adjust
Poetic T Apr 2020
We were none the wiser, I shopped the stalls,
for bread, for father was treating us to a
                                                                ­­          luxury.

He'd been offered overtime, and we didn't have it
      very often. But he knew we were down, and hungry.

Feeling the earth move, the gods were either hungry,
                                       like our empty stomachs.
Or they were punishing us for not giving enough praise
                                             for there gestures of kindness..

We heard the rumbling of Vesuvius, like an empty belly
                                                       rumbling for worth.

Then we heard the screams, as the mountain spat its
anger towards us, we had no where to run.

To hide from the mountains anger was futile.
             We huddled together,

praying to our gods


for salvation..

But our plea's  were unheard,
   had we put our faith in the wrong god!!!


Hearing the dark snow fall like pebbles and then the
                      ash of concealment.

Suffocating in our prays, we huddled tighter than
             life's last breath... and then we
            were like statues
frozen in a moment of futility...

A once flourishing moment, buried in times
                   concealment.

We were found, shells of our former selves,
                  huddled in eternity a love.

Fossilised in a last moment,
           telling the future we died together,

a moment of love shown through the ages...
Last night the Dream Gods came again
And told me of their secrets.
From their collective palm
They offered a golden ingot of truth
Blowing it to me with the
Gentleness of the first sigh
And the mightiness
Of the storm to end all storms.
Suspended before me in endless darkness
The nugget silently called.
I opened my mouth to swallow gold
And in its utter stillness
Truth lingered on the tip of my tongue.
Laokos Apr 2020
"This is a collect call from: 'Darlene Ryder', at the Nielsen County Sheriff's Department, press '2' to accept charges and be connected."

beep

"hello? Bill?...you there?"
"**** Darlene, how many times we gotta ******' do this?!", he threw his voice at her through the phone like a fastball wrapped in firecrackers.
"I dint do nuthin' wrong! they jus got sumpn' against me s'all!"
"uh huh, the **** d'you do, huh?
"the ***** had it comin', I was jus tryin' to have a few 'n relax then she come 'n talk 'bout how I was lookn' atter funny but I watn't- I was jus mindin' my own talkin' to Charlie. So all's I need from you is to get yer lazy, belly-picken', beer-guzzlin' hole fer a face down here and unpinch this ******' mess!" and hung up the receiver on her end of prison.
      The guards shoot each other a look then raise their eyebrows.  They'll be recounting this over beers tonight beneath the monstrous glow of 47 90" TVs in between attempts at the waitress young enough to be their daughter.  They'll shovel in the wings of a total of 18 birds drowned in hot sauce and butter before the sports bar stops feeding them.  Then they'll all drive home drunk with hot breath and testosterone like molasses, ending their nightly routine with their ***** in their hands and their pants around their ankles drooling at tiny glowing screens.  
      Long live the American gods of New Olympus.
Michael R Burch Apr 2020
Breakings
by Michael R. Burch

I did it out of pity.
I did it out of love.
I did it not to break the heart of a tender, wounded dove.

But gods without compassion
ordained: "Frail things must break!"
Now what can I do for her shattered psyche’s sake?

I did it not to push.
I did it not to shove.
I did it to assist the flight of indiscriminate Love.

But gods, all mad as hatters,
who legislate in all such matters,
ordained that everything irreplaceable shatters.

Keywords/Tags: Love, compassion, pity, heart, break, tender, wounded, dove, gods, command, mad, hatters, legislate, sorrow, destruction
Nikkita Mar 2020
From ice to fire
To land from sea
The deepest desire
Stands carefree
Before the endless
Rides of night and day
Two siblings happy to say
They see him, sorrowful raven, mess
Not a haven in his mind
To appease the lost divine
Yet a stirred soul lies behind
This truth bound by a whine

In chase still alive
A little they smile
No haste given
No sadness forgiven
Left now with the empty sky
Of fully woven worlds
"With our dull ****** swords
We fight to try and lose high
But what of a stray ****
In a forest of boreal trees
Funeral only awaits my plead
To forever cease"
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