Hearthside
by Michael R. Burch

“When you are old and grey and full of sleep...” ― W. B. Yeats

For all that we professed of love, we knew
this night would come, that we would bend alone
to tend wan fires’ dimming bars―the moan
of wind cruel as the Trumpet, gelid dew
an eerie presence on encrusted logs
we hoard like jewels, embrittled so ourselves.

The books that line these close, familiar shelves
loom down like dreary chaperones. Wild dogs,
too old for mates, cringe furtive in the park,
as, toothless now, I frame this parchment kiss.

I do not know the words for easy bliss
and so my shriveled fingers clutch this stark,
long-unenamored pen and will it: Move.
I loved you more than words, so let words prove.

This sonnet is written from the perspective of the great Irish poet William Butler Yeats in his loose translation or interpretation of the Pierre de Ronsard sonnet “When You Are Old.” The aging Yeats thinks of his Muse and the love of his life, the fiery Irish revolutionary Maude Gonne. As he seeks to warm himself by a fire conjured from ice-encrusted logs, he imagines her doing the same. Although Yeats had insisted that he wasn’t happy without Gonne, she said otherwise: “Oh yes, you are, because you make beautiful poetry out of what you call your unhappiness and are happy in that. Marriage would be such a dull affair. Poets should never marry. The world should thank me for not marrying you!” Keywords/Tags: Yeats, Gonne, sonnet, Irish, Ireland, mature, love, night, fire, bars, books, shelves, chaperones, dogs, mates, parchment, kiss, bliss, fingers, pen, will, move, words, prove

Pointy nose, freckled bridge
Fair creme skin, speckled lips
Dark green eyes under dotted lids
Flaming hair weaves around your neck
and polka shoulders

Warm emotion sits in your cheeks
Stubborn chaos to your teeth
Roaring throat behind bowed lips
Willpower in raw fingertips
palms so rough from housework

Sturdy arms and steady legs
Robust frame to birthing hips
Heart of fire in its thick-walled cage
beats for me so strong and brave.

Tall,
         Towering,
                         Terrorizing.

Sometimes blue - oppressing, coercing dreams.
Or red - threatening, cautioning tales.
Often amber - dubious, ambiguous notions.
Or grey - obscured, absent, oblivion.

Never green - calling, coaxing, purpose,
Peace of heart, peace of mind,
A piece of Something that feels like Mine,

instead -

"I know an agent, who knows your man, who has a machine to do the job in no time."

… I'll book a flight then

This time,
I’ll sail on a freighter cabin,
Back,
Have a B&B waiting
In a familiar town,
In County Cavan.

I’ll visit with my Uncle,
Drink ***-boiled water
From tea-ringed mugs.
I’ll pour out questions,
Wear an extra layer
To stay the chill,
With my muddy wellies
On his cement floor,
In his soot-walled room,
Behind the  sky-blue, wood rot door;
With the road encroaching,
As never before.
A light dangles from the end of a cord,
The tap is just outside the door,
A four burner propane stove
Provides heat to boil and cook.
The Immaculate Heart
Is missing from where it once was,
In the nook, on the wall.

The thistle encrusted lane
Leads up a hill, from behind,
To a natural well,
Where animals watered and grazed.
Beyond, hedgerows of bramble,
With walls of stone,
Delineate the fields;
Seven in all, they called their own.
But seven can’t stay home.
The youngest,
The unchosen one,
Lives there now on his own.

There' s no cold ash
In the open hearth,
Where generations
Died and birthed.
Despite the depth of the walls,
The rusted roof and lifeless stalls,
The whitewash too
Will bleed to earth,
Onto the tumulus of dirt.

... then, I will book a flight

land of hills and fog,
moss covered forest and a
cottage in the dark



Please, oh please, lamenting weep,
please, don’t take my baby from me.
Within the woods and through the trees,
on the hills, I’m on my knees.
Please don’t take my baby from me.


Frigid sweat runs down her forehead
and she whimpers from her shivering chest.
Tried my best to sing her to sleep
but there is blood in these lullabies.

Her coughs are like shattered glass from her throat,
and her painful wails in these walls echo.
And though I wish this was all a dream,
I heard from the woods the old rallying cry.

I lie on the bed and clutch my child
and pray her soul keeps clear of the wild.
I bridle my tears so her armour’s not weak,
though in my heart it’s becoming a lie.

Please, I beg you, don’t take her away,
she was only just born the other day.
Let her step on the stones, let her be free,
let her remain, keep her alive.


Please, oh please, lamenting weep,
please, don’t take my baby from me.
Within the woods and through the trees,
on the hills, I’m on my knees.
Please don’t take my baby from me.


-
by Aleksander Mielnikow | Alek the Poet

Stop thinking.
The thought of you is poison to my Love.
my real Love.
You are but a thought - a what if lingering on the tip of my tongue,
there is no use wasting thoughts on what if’s.
Nothing good will come of it
Nothing good will come of us - there is no us.

Stop thinking
You are a virus, a fading voice, a fading joke, a fading laugh
that’s all we had.
Nothing more - but not nothing,
unspoken, unheard.
Yet, I saw It in your eyes
and I saw It reflecting in mine.
Stop thinking.

shards scatter outwards like stars,
spiralling away from the centre of your universe

finding rest in soft, pink flesh,
wriggling close to the
warm cavern in my chest.

brilliant blinding light
shimmers beneath the surface;

short, sharp, shocked
intake of breath:

"****."

You don't wear black face.
You'd never do such.
You don't wear white face;
Do you Kabuki?
Mime, non? Mime, oui?
But every March,
Millions of others,
Attired in green,
Some painted like Celtic warriors,
Affect terrible brogues,
And get sotted, some must disgracefully.
That's what the Irish do, think they?
I won't wear a yarmulke on Yom Kippur,
Not a burka on Eid al-Adha,
Or lead the parade
Up Fifth Avenue.
Slainte

How to write ones final words? How find the will to carry on?
When I know this ship and all - all of this - will soon be gone.
Yet perhaps, if not my bones, at least my memories will be found
Amid the wreckage of a land where none but swaying palms abound.
So may the finder of this bottle bring these words I duly pen
To the family of the sailor - Kieran Dacey Boylan -
Though my body lies in rest beneath the roiling of the sea -
Know my soul forever soars above the verdant Irish lea.