Milestones Toward Oblivion
by Michael R. Burch

A milestone here leans heavily
against a gaunt, golemic tree.
These words are chiseled thereupon:
"One mile and then Oblivion."

Swift larks that once swooped down to feed
on groping slugs, such insects breed
within their radiant flesh and bones ...
they did not heed the milestones.

Another marker lies ahead,
the only tombstone to the dead
whose eyeless sockets read thereon:
"Alas, behold Oblivion."

Once here the sun shone fierce and fair;
now night eternal shrouds the air
while winter, never-ending, moans
and drifts among the milestones.

This road is neither long nor wide . . .
men gleam in death on either side.
Not long ago, they pondered on
milestones toward Oblivion.

Keywords/Tags: oblivion, milestones, markers, tombstones, radiation, fallout, nukes, winter, path, destruction, Armageddon, Apocalypse, nuclear, a-bomb, atomic bomb, hydrogen bomb, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Bikini Atoll, Manhattan Project, Trump, planet, earth, war, violence, America, environment, holocaust

eyes closed
    entering oblivion
        this is the only
                    time
                      i
           ­       don't want
                          to
escape

Wanted to start with an honest take
On T.S. Eliot's fulmination towards criticisms
Regarding the debater, Mr. Grierson's
Point of view on metaphysical writings
In purview of genuine poetic dissertation and discussion
Presentation of the nuances of poems are intriguing
Wherewithal that there is a diligent approach taken
To study John Donne and Cowley
Marvell, one  of the social upheavilists
Of this time t'was real t'was true to naturalism
However, Goethe points out " in their unnaturalism they poised on naturalism"
There is a lot to say for Mr. Eliot's debate
Not too much for Mr. Grierson's review of some good old fashioned
Amorous verse, inasmuch it bewitches the languid sensuality

Often the purer and fairer opposite ***
Through genuine use of wit and impressive stoicism
A thoroughly metaphorical use of the term "stoic"
Can be attributed to the use of complex imagery
It would be interesting if one drew parallels
On the concepts of love and spirituality
It is expressed in reading that deals with rapid association of thought
English language canon and poetic implication are there, of course
Basically, what the poet is trying to say and the implicit understanding
Between a lover and a mistress
One could say it is a conversation or a nuanced conversation
Between the reader and poet
Such is the metaphysics of women and their love for genuine metaphor
It is often the velleity of the poet to write in such esoteric language
Therefore, one could understand the heterogeneous ideas potrayed
In each poetic verse of Donne's repertoire cannot be
Misconstrued as unnecessarily analytic
Almost like the dissection of a patient in surgery
The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts

At 17th year of life there’s one point
In everyone’s life when you feel lost …
Somewhat insecure and mature,
So this was the point of my life…

Completely lost…
In what I’m doing,
And what I want to do…

I wasn’t raised religious …
And yesterday I tried to pray …
But I didn’t know what to say…
The feeling of oblivion is right into me
Even when people around me keep saying
That they will remember me for their life…

Keep your trees, keep them for your heaven of ashen dusk
And night like the pale-faced deathmask of emperors,
No reason that the commoner to oblivion is hushed,
These old-wise woods and leaves, peopled without us.

Keep Macedonian dust lightly conquered over the breeze,
So that it shoots its tail like the centuries-sole comet,
The scorched earth left by Alexander’s mapmaker eyes,
Swung wide like his Sarissophoroi over Persian might.

Remember the lesser grove of his teacher Aristotle’s tribe,
They have only slipped their sandals off, to bare themselves
Of sound and the concourse of the foot’s impulse,
Caught the lithesome wind, to flow outside our hearing,
And muse as empire of air and loss and forgotten walks.

Keep your trees and the darkening sky through them
That remind me of the passing into the past.
Never is the poem from tongue of ***** or plow.

time forgot about me
so it went about its day
just like every other day

time forgot about me
so i showered in song
bathed in the rhythm of water

time forgot about me
so i fell into the chasm of a book
hooked onto the beauty of text

time forgot about me
so i sunk into a sea of soft oblivion
warm wool filled the spaces between my fingers

time forgets about me
and you
and even itself