Orpheus
by Michael R. Burch

after William Blake

I.

Many a sun
and many a moon
I walked the earth
and whistled a tune.

I did not whistle
as I worked:
the whistle was my work.
I shirked

nothing I saw
and made a rhyme
to children at play
and hard time.

II.

Among the prisoners
I saw
the leaden manacles
of Law,

the heavy ball and chain,
the quirt.
And yet I whistled
at my work.

III.

Among the children’s
daisy faces
and in the women’s
frowsy laces,

I saw redemption,
and I smiled.
Satanic millers,
unbeguiled,

were swayed by neither girl,
nor child,
nor any God of Love.
Yet mild

I whistled at my work,
and Song
broke out,
ere long.

Keywords/Tags: Orpheus, singer, poet, William Blake, whistle, Satanic, mills, manacles, law, leaden, ball, chain, prison, song, freedom

Constables hay wain crossed
the Stour, wooden wheels creaking,
countryside colours clouded,
trees shrouded Flatford Mill.

Lowry's people were going to work,
guarded by furious chimneys,
darkness conductors, limbs aching.
Beneath the plumes short lives streamed,
inhabiting a rent collector's dreams.

Thin models for humanity
suffered Salford's acid rain
from satanic wage slave mills.

Around my white vinyl house
Is scattered an assortment of mills:
Motley brick bones
With salted ****** cement cartilage
And cracked, uninhabited eyes
Staring down apathy and progress.

Pillars that once asphyxiated the sky
With black and grey
Now sigh dust into the breeze;
The dust of men and machines
Long-silent and long-still.

Poisonous paint peels off of memories
As cancerous flakes lazily snow from the ceiling.
Snake skins of creeping ruddy corrosion climb pistons
And embrace wheels.

Vines strangle arteries and musty furniture.
Trees breach the foundation
And claw open the rotted eaves,
Eager to drink the sticky August heat.

A crow grips a window-frame
    Which has long outlived its purpose
And casts a numb eye over her domain.

A breath of moisture in the air:
A nor'easter approaches.

I can't help but call out, look at the flame!
see it blush the highway bridges, see it burn my family name,
it churns like a half-sarcastic love song on repeat
it dances on the steel mill, makes the blackest smoke taste sweet
it stokes my little leafless heart, gnaws the edges of my sleeves.

because that hot bright tongue is mine, it's mine
a winking message, a cryptic sign,
the mad plumage fluttering above a gridlock hide
a hundred hands snatching up from the skyline

and even when it's lost in the daylight or the rain
I still find it, send it kisses, call it by the family name.

Working at a golf course,
Can mostly be a bore,
Nothing much to do,
But admire the grass and the early morning sunlight,
The smell of rabbit ****
mixed with morning dew,
Time doesn't fly but it's something you get used to,
But at least,
The boring is a peaceful one.

We are kind of funny,
We come out of a hole breathing,
And go back to hole rotting,
              Fin.

West side house.
By: Hayden Mills.

When I was eight, seven, six,
The older boys and girls who lived in my area,
Had tight cliques,
Most of the boys Latino, Mexican,
White, black,
Listening to 2pac and wakaflaka,
"Let ya nutz hang" was the matto for some,
Brother vs. Brother one was ended with the sound of a gun,
One bullet made the heart go numb,
Now this doesn't mean any of us lived in the streets,
Yet a lot of kids my age claimed to be,
Most of us had a warm place and hot plate to eat,
No ghetto,
But the older boys in my area still dressed in black sagged geans,
Black shirts with the white one underneath,
Shaved heads or hats or bandanas,
A chain and a watch,
So the pretty girls would watch.