banker's lamp green light of envy because
she will never be his late office nights
work done beneath sheer illicit thoughts
of her and her blue dress become his flights
of fancy wrapped tightly around her waist
blinds half-drawn the city is invasive
automobile engines and cigarettes
smell of lost love, dust, marriage and regrets
their futures already both faint shadows
on the walls outside the halls are empty
the desk is wet with sweat nobody knows
so they are free how empty they will leave
for homes already broken bittersweet
lives caught on repeat caught on repeat

A dark room filled up
The shadows stretching
Like a full cup
In the darkest etching

The aroma of ink
The crumble of paper
The eyes that sink
The dusty vapor

The click of a pen
The bright desktop light
The typing again
The inscribing of graphite

Out of adolescence
turned into metal men
We sit if front of computers
Run programs
Run for promotions
Run from what made us human
The smiles of yesterday have no place on a machine
Cold steel cold heart cold being
The sun never shines inside
Whether that be the office or your mind
We are not what we were
We are not what we were wanted us to be
We are robots surrounded by robots
In a metal city so unforgiving

The concrete jungle
is a mixture of successes
and failed dreams,
And we have been sifting
through this place now
for years.

The lights are dazzling
but sometimes cold,
You're a kindred spirit--
warm, beautiful, and bold.

Please don't let
the concrete jungle
gobble up a flicker of you.
Burn through all the tribulations,
Burn bright,
Burn blue.

Premonition
by Michael R. Burch

Now the evening has come to a close and the party is over ...
we stand in the doorway and watch as they go—
each stranger, each acquaintance, each unembraceable lover.  

They walk to their cars and they laugh as they go,
though we know their bright laughter’s the wine ...
then they pause at the road where the dark asphalt flows
endlessly on toward Zion ...

and they kiss one another as though they were friends,
and they promise to meet again “soon” ...
but the rivers of Jordan roll on without end,
and the mockingbird calls to the moon ...

and the katydids climb up the cropped hanging vines,
and the crickets chirp on out of tune ...
and their shadows, defined by the cryptic starlight,
seem spirits torn loose from their tombs.

And I know their brief lives are just eddies in time,
that their words are unreadable runes
unlikely to stand in this waterlogged land
when their corpses lie ravaged and ruined ...

You take my clenched fist and you give it a kiss
as though it’s something to be loved,
and the tears fill your eyes, outshining the night
and all the stars ringed high above ...

and you whisper, "It's time that we went back inside;
if you'd like, we can sit and just talk for a while."
And the hope in your eyes burns too deep, so I lie
and I say, "Yes, I would," to your small, troubled smile.

I vividly remember writing this poem after an office party the year I co-oped with AT&T (at that time the largest company in the world, with a lot of office parties). This was after my sophomore year in college, making me around 20 years old. The poem is “true” except that I was not the host because the party was at the house of one of the managers. Nor was I dating anyone seriously at the time.

Keywords/Tags: premonition, foreboding, time, loss, death, office party, wine, laughter, shadows

In 2020 we are the motors of the mechanics we drive
in the bed
of other work days
as the bees fly less

and
the drive of somersaulting mad men, calmer
than a pool of iced days off
after the pool boy
cleans up
start screaming,

although it’s universal when you rise, and my limbs burst
through these elsewhere tossed things, and elsewhere bones
that have no succor in the middle of the sun’s dance, as if:

naïve butchers in the street are sleeping on the bus and
there is no answer from the ricochet dream apart from
keep your **** together
keep your **** together…

and the world is well travelled when you’re smoking beside a dog
and the obliterated silence of a room has a voice,

but the turnstiles open when the poem begins, ah!
the weekend again-this, envelope of random orchids that rustle
and
open,

in the haven of a ***** flat where we find the best corona jokes
new cities
these shaking palms
the way the world works better at 10 am
and the humour of a crazy snake, checking KPIs
again,

and when i wake
i will love this zero
hour
contract
more,

i will worship you and say
yes
yes
YES!

Down and down I go this aisle with cart Oh hi man how are you? I’m fine that’s ‘ight and you I’m good thx yeah for me there someth? Oh yeah this here and this one pink envelope? well that’s from you know oh yes that’s one well fine okay have a good day yeah bye and off I go again for me? Yeah this I do not like him I try to keep him off my sight and mind but smile nice shirt oh yeah? just ironed well bye-bye pretentious ***** and phony also this is **** I should of said that next time sure for sure ensure the screech is pleasant to lubricate forgot après this finished howdy-rowdy for me smth no pardon c’est fine go by there’s really nothing poor old creep for him man’ years he here and not one sheet that’s triste but oh again this cramp should aim for loo ma’am après vous those thighs in nylon wiggle-waggle just like Bloom I am that day today but winter tho’ though onward batches envelopes and stamps hiya my mate how miles per day come forth that’s heyyy that is the one I yeahyeahyeah dumbf nonono he’s just like I like you like me obnoxious clown to grab and off this floor should be enough to from this height his gray to smash to mash this one is fine to smash to mash oh yuck this almost got me shhhhh
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