We live in a society where the truth is an insult.
And lies are what were raised on.
Never understanding the true meaning of things.
But only learning from what being feed.
Looking up to puppets the puppeteers bring.
Wanting to do the same thing.
Now a days kids only wana do certain things.
Like play games and make them **** videos.
What ever happened to the I wana be the president.
Oh yea thats lame, you'll never make it kid.
All these lives lost over someone not thinking straight.
All the mass shooting by white folk but it's the Mexicans and blacks they blame.
Let's build a wall about this tall.
Keep the infections and the diseases away.
The most infectious diseases is the one on the screen.
This is how theyre feeding it to the public thinking that they know everything.

The One and Only
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

If anyone ever loved me,
     It was you.
If anyone ever cared
beyond mere things declared;
if anyone ever knew ...
     My darling, it was you.

If anyone ever touched
     my beating heart as it flew,
it was you,
and only you.

Keywords/Tags: Love, one, only, unique, heart, touched, beating, knowing, understanding, darling

The Folly of Wisdom
by Michael R. Burch

She is wise in the way that children are wise,
looking at me with such knowing, grave eyes
I must bend down to her to understand.
But she only smiles, and takes my hand.

We are walking somewhere that her feet know to go,
so I smile, and I follow ...

And the years are dark creatures concealed in bright leaves
that flutter above us, and what she believes—
I can almost remember—goes something like this:
the prince is a horned toad, awaiting her kiss.

She wiggles and giggles, and all will be well
if only we find him! The woodpecker’s knell
as he hammers the coffin of some dying tree
that once was a fortress to someone like me

rings wildly above us. Some things that we know
we are meant to forget. Life is a bloodletting, maple-syrup-slow.

Published by Romantics Quarterly, Boston Poetry Magazine, Famous Poets and Poems, Litera, Poetry Life & Times and Freshet

Keywords/Tags: Stoops, folly, wisdom, children, wise, know, knowing, understand, understanding, life, death, grave, years, dark, leaves, trees, prince, toad, kiss, fairytale, coffin, fortress, bloodletting, maple, syrup

Does the moon know?
That people seek it for support,
For hope and companionship?

Does it know that to us,
It's much more than just a ball of
Rock floating in darkness?
It has existed for billions of years,
Orbiting us ever loyally
Always the faithful servant dragged around by gravity
And yet it does not know
That the people who trampled on its skin
Blemishing its once-spotless soil,
The people who pierced its flesh with a flag
Of arrogance,
Vanity
And conceit,
Look to it for guidance in their selfish,
Mediocre lives.

But now imagine if it did know.

If it had feelings like the ones we pride ourselves in having - or not having.
Would it look to us for assurance too?
Feeling proud that it can reach such a deep level of 'understanding'?

Would it love our mysterious glow, created not by
The Sun, but by our artificial light and rivers of blood?
Would it feel pressure, always having to help us?

Or would it soak up our love
Delighting in our mostly undivided attention
Secretly knowing that even though it is..
Small,
Uninhabitable,
Lonely,
It will live longer than us
And the technology that was never meant to be in the Universe's gift that is Earth in the first place?