Banished to wander the Earth
But rebelled to build a City
Babel was temporary, now COVID19
For worship of numbers makes Money, and Man, god.

Zero cubed has no more value than zero squared,
but has a more pleasant shape and is able to bear greater weight.

It always reminds me of a spell I learned as a teen
from the rag and bone horse who was never in a hurry
and was always happy to chat,
sharing his experience which came from many roads
and long hot summers in the '50s
when he was younger and less careful.

Zero, he told me, is a useful start
to many constructions and worth mastering
if you ever intend to move on to primes.
Primes are slippery, he explained, and require focus.

Zeros similarly require a focused mind, but are easier to build with.

So I spent the summer of '74 getting used
to the feel and the texture of various zeros,
then carefully moved on to zero squared.
By the September, just before school, I'd started playing with zeros cubed
with not a little success.

I picked them up again in the Christmas holidays and then,
almost by accident, I came across the spell:
zero times zero times zero divided by infinity.

It still makes me smile.

The following spring I discovered girls.
And for the next 6 years I put the zeros aside.

But I won't quickly forget Benjamin, 1974
and the smile of magic.

I am tired of being defined by numbers
How many likes you get on this,
How many followers do you have on that,
What is your weight?
Are you considered fat?
Numbers that rank me
Am I good in math?
No, sadly I have failed that class,
Along with every other class that year,
If I told you how many, you would laugh and jeer
But this is not a joke
No, it most certainly is not
I am tired of being defined by numbers
And always being asked how much

Why are they numbered
It feels like there's more to it
It's just what I like

Might never return
But does it really matter
I don't think it does

I do it for me
Maybe someone will notice
They might think it's cute

Laughter’s Cry
by Michael R. Burch

(dedicated to the victims and survivors of the coronavirus)

Because life is a mystery, we laugh
and do not know the half.

Because death is a mystery, we cry
when one is gone, our numbering thrown awry.

Keywords/Tags: coronavirus, victims, survivors, life, death, laughter, cry, mystery, numbers, numbering, tears, crying, weeping, compassion, sympathy, empathy, recovery

They wanted to go, but not today

But how many ways can you split the infinitive?

The wars upon the seashore harbor regrets of their own

Sanguine colors in the sand

They are reminders of blood filled horizons

Nonetheless, the tide that day offered only strangulation

Into the deep they went, never to return

In simpler times, they buried their dead at sea

Now they come to rest precisely where they fall

It's the new math: count on your fingers and toes the number of blows

But how many ways can you split infinity?

In Praise of Meter
by Michael R. Burch

The earth is full of rhythms so precise
the octave of the crystal can produce
a trillion oscillations, yet not lose
a second’s beat. The ear needs no device
to hear the unsprung rhythms of the couch
drown out the mouth’s; the lips can be debauched
by kisses, should the heart put back its watch
and find the pulse of love, and sing, devout.

If moons and tides in interlocking dance
obey their numbers, what’s been left to chance?
Should poets be more lax—their circumstance
as humble as it is?—or readers wince
to see their ragged numbers thin, to hear
the moans of drones drown out the Chanticleer?

Published by Poetry Porch/Sonnet Scroll, The Eclectic Muse, The Best of the Eclectic Muse 1989-2003, Famous Poets & Poems, Poetry Renewal Magazine, Mindful of Poetry, Sonnetto Poesia, Trinacria and Poetry Life & Times

Keywords/Tags: Rhythm, rhyme, meter, beat, music, octave, heart, pulse, watch, numbers

"The ineluctable approach of time has ensnared me into it's captivity."
Only if the Calendar shows the consequences instead of numbers,
Only if the actions of futurity are unconnected with the present,
Only if I could hold time,
I would have captured exquisite moments into my soul.
But raising above this dream, there is a ground reality.
The stale leaves, the eroded river bed & the wrinkles on the face aptly depicts the wrath of time which spares nothing.
So the best possible state is to flow with the time & Let's get submerged into it's essence.