Candlelight douses the dust in amber.
Wallpaper peeling, gathered at your feet.
In your left hand rests a picture of her.
In your right, your cowardly retreat.

Hemp fibers laced gently around your arm.
Cautiously you unwind this man-made snake.
Tossed to a beam in this forgotten farm,
you've found the home of your final mistake.

Stepping on stage, the warmth ensnares your neck.
Tied taut, the noose calls you as an old friend.
You cry now, lost within this dreary wreck.
You pray to dead gods. You have found the end.

Your feet meet air. With a gasp you are gone.
A life wasted, another soul withdrawn.

The pretty birds perching,
          I stared chalky .

I was just a pendant waiting
                             to be worn.

But I just sway here loosely,
          gravity is paused till
I intend to collapse into
                           breathless

Nothingness..

But the birds are my friends,
           perching here keeping
me company, I feed them...

Not of wanting,
                                but of necessity.

                                     I stare blankly,
I've nothing left to give..

But the flock, they keep me company..

First and Last
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

You are the last arcane rose
of my aching,
my longing,
or the first yellowed leaves’
vagrant spirals of gold
forming huddled bright sheaves.
You are passion forsaking
dark skies, as though sunsets no winds might enclose.

And still in my arms
you are gentle and fragrant—
demesne of my vigor,
spent rigor,
lost power,
fallen musculature of youth,
leaves clinging and hanging,
nameless joys of my youth to this last lingering hour.

Published by Tucumcari Literary Review and Poetry Life & Times.
Keywords/Tags: rose, love, ache, desire, longing, passion, autumn, leaves, clinging, hanging, sunset, lost, youth, joy, joys, yellowed, golden, first, last, final

A rope swings gently in the wind
hanging from an elevated stage
an audience mills below the steps

From a gleaming metal bared window
a young women in plain clothes watches
she sits proper and straight before her fate

They come at dawn clacking with her chains
she holds her head high down the hall
as tears stream down her petite face

The steps are high as they hoist her up
ringing the rope around her fragile neck
the roughness is a promise of darkness

In the crowd she sees her children mourning
Not yet dead she smile at them sadly
and mouths “I’ll always love you”

There is an ominous thump from below
and she struggles in the air hands grasping
too light for the rope to snap her neck

Hours and hours later the crowd gone
she breathes her last breath alone
hanging for something she didn’t do

I can't stand
            them
            you
            me.
They took away
the ground
I was
standing on.
                                 What am I
                                  supposed to
                                  rest on?

Counting
Saving
Stashing.

How many will work?

Or! Maybe I can
disassemble
my Pencil Sharpener.

Or better yet,

Knit a long,
Skinny,
Scarf.

Where to hang it though?

Perhaps I could take a
Too Hot
Bath,

And sit till it's cold.

Maybe...
Weigh myself,
Until I'm satisfied

That'd do it too.

The cicada husk of the crescent moon sheds in cyclides light,
Molted whispers of life, spread like perfume behind the ear,
Or like silver earrings unadorned and scattered around the night-lit table.
Here too, the garden gown of Babylon lies heaped in soiled ruin,
Beaten down to sand at the foot of the bed of the Tigris and Euphrates.
  
Though the dunes are its aerial, root-bound springs,
Though the underground nymphs tend with cicala wings,
And underspurt of incessant summer song to lure
The resurrection rose of Jericho to bud once more,
In desert-faith for the hanging garden of a full moon.