Kathy, lately
birds seem rarer.
Even in the lilacs
where the blackbird whistles,
boughs seem spent.
Foolish men who read their loss in nature’s
always wax too eloquent,
so, while I try to paint
a sense of desolation
in the brooks of heaven and streams of night
(wherever they may be),
I know it’s farce –
an enterprising manufacture making nothing laugh.

I should write nothing,
nothing makes more sense,
although, my darling,
when I mourn for you who travelled hence
(and left me, placing nothing in my arms)
my mind drifts out,
and like a fragment driven by the wind,
I have to write.
I have to wring these vague alarms.
I have to give to nothing something slight.

You are no longer smiling
In the garden stacked with afternoons,
Your skirt above your knees,
Gloating and scorning my wish for modesty,
While roses are sticking themselves to bees
And sun is setting on coffee spoons,
A lifted skirt, your knees.

My darling, now when you never smile
In that garden without a fair,
When those peculiar stretches of petals
Are memories better forgotten, being bare,
I can still see you walking across that lawn
And turning to me with dark, extravagant beauty
And your secret held into you like an impossible dawn.

Knowing you hated me then and hate me now,
Knowing you called me “Horror” for a reason, every day,
What point in writing an elegy
That mourns the spurious and grieves for the grey,
Dissolution of love, the continuity of deceit,
Light in the stocks
And modesty peeping out of your socks

If not to celebrate something more
Than everything you were or can ever have been,
Something more because you made me seem
More than myself and surrounded my heart
With so many somber and beautiful dreams
That life grew riotous
Springing the lids of tombs?

We sailed the sea

In a boat made of ivory,

And we sailed away

Till the thirty-third day.



On the thirty-third day,

We docked in a land;

Crafted by the hands

Of a million slaves.



It was sparkling out

In the night darkened sky,

As the people burned

All their candles away.



Into the sky, the smoke rose

So high to the stars,

And it warmed up the air,

And the jumper I’d worn,

Brushed the floor

As I carried it

Along through the streets.



‘No more ice,

Only water,

Only smoke,

Only steam,

No more frost to freeze

The fast running streams.

No more cold to tear

Your lungs at the seams’

This was seen as the reason

To why they were right,

Not wrong, to continue

To set more fires alight.



’It is good, it is good’ they sang.

They danced round the fire;

The warm got warmer as the fire drew higher.

'No more cold, no more cold.

It has melted away.

We’ll only have summer

For the rest of our days.

Under the orange tinted sky,

We’ll stay happily beneath it.

No more white, snow-filled clouds

That sprinkle around us

Like a shroud.

The smoke has melted the cold all away;

We’ll only have summer for the rest of our days.’

This is what the townsfolk did say.



On the forty-third day

A marching band played

For remembrance

Of the famous Chirp-Chirp birds.

It is thought that they’d flown

Far, far away.

As nobody had seen them

For quite a few days.



Because of the smog

and because of the heat,

They could no longer stay

And decided to fleet

From the suffocating air

And the ash filled, choking skies.

They left while they could,

Before all the flock died.



Now pennies are collected in effort to remind

Of the other kinds of birds that may fly away too;

If they all did that, there would be no bird stew.

So, the people pay their pennies to save the last few.



We had to sail away from this hot, smoky land,

On the forty-fifth day, we walked back to the sand,

Where our ivory boat was ******* at the dock,

And we laughed at the sight of the Chirp-chirp bird flock!



They were perched on the boat awaiting our return

To escape this land hidden safely in the stern.

Without having to fly they could relax,

And just lie back;

They wouldn’t even need to give their purple wings a flap.



We remarked how they were clever,

And we let them stay on board.

Then we planned the fate

Of the Chirp-Chirp bird hoard.



When we return, they will live in little, cramped busy zoos,

Or we may even make them into Chirp-Chirp bird stew.

By Arcassin Burnham


Don't tell me you can't be seen me.....
Cause I did nothing wrong to you,
Stop looking for some clarity.....
Nothing but a piece of residue,

On the ground,
May the lovers be one and found like the grey stone in the elders
Temple while clearly seeing your reflection,
I had no remorse for feeling any animosity,
for me to get away from the human race permanently,
Latching onto nothing that was never real.......
I was trying to bring you along for the ride but you gave on me
Simply for another's direction,
And in the end it was just pure cruelty,
I went into this new world with a cup of tea and broken dreams in
Smoke signals that never were really released,
I swear I told them all that Diamond Valley was real,

Don't tell me you can't be seen me.....
Cause I did nothing wrong to you,
Stop looking for some clarity.....
Nothing but a piece of residue,
I want you,
I could hear them calling for miles to pull me away,
we brand you,
There's no doubt in my mind my life's a mess but I stepped into
Heaven's Gates.

No more love,
No more love.

In the last night I lie awake
I won't question my life’s wake
I'll leave my heart's garden a few less weeds to rake.
I'll try to plant a few flowers,
Replace ones that died in my dark hours,
Sprinkle some seed and grow a few trees
Amidst the fresh wet grass dancing in early April’s breeze.

I hope the scene is serene providing shade from the sun
For my son.
I told that man he could have the world
He may not be in this world but I feel like he’ll be my world

Lately in my world I’ve been a bit otherworldly
On the moon pondering, are these thoughts just coming too early?
What if I have so many years still in me to live,
Filled with so much good will still left in me to give?

My prodigal son could come to fruition
Or a daughter, too smart, scholarships to axe the tuition
Someone a vivid image of all I wanted to be
A recurring dream of what my younger self said I would be.
It feels like I blacked out for several years without shame
I parted ways with so many people I couldn’t list names
And raised by certain people that I’d place claims
Of abandonment treating my childhood like a game
Or a waged war between battling armies
I swear to god my offspring would never feel this raceless apartheid
That it felt like sometimes, nothing seemed to be worse
Than growing up stuck wondering if your gifts are a curse.

I wish someday I either guide myself or my child
Into the warm light brought upon by hope and a smile
Cast upon them by my potential and graceful reconcile...

I’m one with my actions; past, present and future
Knowing regret is simply just a useless venture
So all I can do is be good for now and teach to be better later
While I try to shun the demons of my past that cater



What I insisted I would be—its never in doubt.
Either make a difference myself or bestow it on someone else
So they could end my journey if I fail,
Conduct my train of thoughts, turn them to actions that I derailed.

I’m stuck in accepted limbo unsure of what I can accomplish
Leo DiCaprio incepted spinning a thimble in anguish
To see if someday I’ll dive through a clouded finish line
Million feet up with my thoughts of how it worked out in due time


If I see or create the beautiful soul that I wanted to be
If I’ve given all I can to someone else to be a better me
There’s nothing left for me to give, nothing more you can take
In the last night I lie awake.