‘Like a graceful
yet mighty arrow
I saw you
shooting through the town
with the name “Adventure”
upon you.
I saw your coat fluttering
with wind’s madness,
irises of deeper colour
than the darkest tree’s bark,
nose drugged with the scent
of Poetry transcripted
and bare feet carrying with themselves
the heraldry of freedom
and a better world.
With books from faraway lands,
of wonders,
as a shield on your chest
from all that’s choked,
ideas unattainable to the Black Pit, thoughts
and dreams piercing
the surroundings’ façade
and the Village whirling into blur
from the speed of yours,
every time you’re the most beautiful feature
among the trash bins we live in.
Couldn’t take my eyes
and thoughts of you…’
Pero nadie se da cuenta,
nadie lo escupe por los dientes.
Ahogados por el tiempo
no me ven/sienten fluyendo entre ellos,
no ven la Esperanza
por debajo de sus parpados.
Como magia o viento vuelo,
espero hasta que alguien
me capture
con esta atención
en un jarrón
y me susurre
un amor así
como arriba.

if my true name you uncovered,
and called me out by same,
without spasm-ing,
first middle and the lost at-last

you, like me would wonder
what the heck my parentals
were imbibing
at such a joyous occasion, my
cursed naming ceremony

but thanks to them,
I’ll be buried with a full head
of fair thicker hair;
that’s why parents say:

“**** good thing you kids don’t get to pick your parents names!”

For All That I Remembered
by Michael R. Burch

For all that I remembered, I forgot
her name, her face, the reason that we loved ...
and yet I hold her close within my thought:
I feel the burnished weight of auburn hair
that fell across her face, the apricot
clean scent of her shampoo, the way she glowed
so palely in the moonlight, angel-wan.

The memory of her gathers like a flood
and bears me to that night, that only night,
when she and I were one, and if I could ...
I’d reach to her this time and, smiling, brush
the hair out of her eyes, and hold intact
each feature, each impression. Love is such
a threadbare sort of magic, it is gone
before we recognize it. I would crush

my lips to hers to hold their memory,
if not more tightly, less elusively.

Published by The Raintown Review, The Eclectic Muse, Kritya, Gostinaya (in a Russian translation by Yelena Dubrovin), Boston Poetry Magazine, Freshet, Jewish Letter (Russia), Poetry Life & Times, Sonnetto Poesia, Trinacria, The New Formalist, Pennsylvania Review. Keywords/Tags: Memory, remembrance, love, name, features, face, hair, eyes, lips, mrbmem, crush, impression, recognize, recognition, remember, remembered, forgot, forgotten, angel, wan, night, flood

They say don't go out walking
in the woods nearby
You'll reach a point where it's so dark
You can not see the sky
It doesn't matter much to me
And here's the reason why
I listen to the wind out there
It speaks to me on high

One wrong turn and you'll be lost
They tell me, still I go
I know where I'm heading
The wind it tells me so
I listen to the wind out there
It say's I'm glad you came
The wind and I are such old friends
The wind it calls my name

Elemental friendship
From another time
Silent Conversation
No words, just thoughts in rhyme

Snowy winter afternoons
out walking all alone
Making trails for no one else but me
I listen to the tree and how they groan
The wind it makes them talk some
Not one tree sounds the same
The wind and I are such old friends
The wind it calls my name

The darkness closes in so fast
The winter days are short
Walking on in silence
Like a library or court
The wind says night is coming
Go back from whence I came
The wind and I are such old friends
The wind it calls my name

Elemental friendship
From another time
Silent Conversation
No words, just thoughts in rhyme