Under the gentle hug of a cherry blossom spring
She found herself while lost at sea.
Rain soaks through her precious skin
As the wooden raft rocks over violent waves.

‘Breathe…’ she murmurs to herself.
The cotton touch of grass wraps around her fingers.

Her mind snaps back to the terrible terrain.
Lost. Bewildered. Endangered.
Unsafe as those who hang from tall places,
as scared as those who beg to rich faces.

‘Breathe…’ she murmurs to herself.
The sun and moon exhale.
Their whispers kiss her lips.
Her body enveloped in natures tender care
While chemicals fight with angered cries.

The wooden planks break.
The sea removes her breath.
Drowning in the face of it all
While her lungs are filled with water.

‘Breathe…’ she murmurs to herself.
‘What’s wrong with here and now?’
A leaf falls down and greats her body.
Like a warm day,
She glows.

burpees forge burps
owls paint the ceiling
beavers **** your throat with
trinkets
and masked orange piths

what plagues you about death is not death itself
but the cracks in the glasses
and the insides of the duck soup
at The
Sea
View

here it comes

open and closed
mushrooming right out from the polestar of the lions’ lair
Krakatoa

a thousand potted minks let loose in a chicken den without a single
working
cash point

and from over the hill
all your ghosts connected

marching
louder
closer

banging
banging
banging

banging on their drums.

Stop dropping off fledglings
like I can just ignore
something that is not yet grown
and expected to start functioning
alone!

Last year,
you cocky redbreasts thought
that three could bob happily
in the construction site
and thankfully I found no bodies
or feather puffs

This year,
that cheeky blackbird
who happily stalks the lawn
(though moss pile is more accurate)
has dropped bright and happy chicks
in the pell-mell mix of my
****** horticulture

And don’t get me started on the pigeons!

The cats round here,
like everywhere
are at best loveable rogues
with claws on fingers
and toes that like to ****
for spits and giggles

In these times
I turn to nature to save me
but you crank my anxiety
like the ***** grinder’s
forbidden monkey

Gimme a break, please?

I walked in grey today
intent on letting the scale
of the problem spiral

I sat on an illicit log
and allowed the panic and sorrow in
to grip my throat
fold me inwards
and paint the worst case scenario

but the day wouldn’t let me sink,
my river companion lazily waved,
sinuous fish flowing through,
two green blurs of woodpeckers
tickled me to lift my head again

The crowning azure flash
of the kingfisher
shocked a grin,
unfolded
and I was back to the dizzying
ups and downs of everything

Now the oxygen is thin
and bodies lay in snow-capped caves
we'e weighted down by heavy lids
carrying today's rations
and yesterday's burden

one of your breaths is three of mine
sleeping as easy as seeing
in white-outs too far up
nowhere is warm anymore
and we're telling tales of altitude sickness
while coughing into our sleeves.

talking is bright and hurts my eyes

loud and a piercing white

the sound of water hitting a palm

a pen scratching out words



the touch of the world spinning on my finger

why aren't they all falling down?



the colors are all starting to fade

the walls are forcing themselves in



the pressure can't do anything

at least, that's what i tell myself

I'm all consumed
but I don't want to be.
I can't shut it up
but I can barely think
about anything besides this.
I think I kind of like it.

I kind of like the chaos in my head.
Even when I hate it.
If it wasn't there
I think I would miss it.
Maybe that proves that I'm confused,
or maybe I'm just bat ****.
Does anybody have a jacket?

Sweetie I look good in white,
but padded rooms still leave a bruise.
I promise you.
I don't belong inside your box,
but I can't bite through all these god ****** locks.
And why the hell are there so many?
Do you actually think I'm crazy?
I listened and I took your help,
but I can't get out all by myself.
So I need you
to take that rusted metal key
and open up the door for me.

Coronavirus Poems

These are poems and translations of mine that apply to the coronavirus pandemic ...



This World's Joy
(anonymous Middle English lyric)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Winter awakens all my care
as leafless trees grow bare.
For now my sighs are fraught
whenever it enters my thought:
regarding this world's joy,
how it all comes to naught.

Originally published by Better Than Starbucks



Fowles in the Frith
(anonymous Middle English lyric)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The birds in the wood,
the fishes in the flood ...
and I must go mad:
much sorrow I walk with,
for beasts of bone and blood.



Ech day me comëth tydinges thre
(anonymous Middle English lyric)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Each day I’m plagued by three doles,
These gargantuan weights on my soul:
First, that I must somehow EXIT this fen.
Second, that I cannot know WHEN.
And yet it’s the third that torments me so,
Because I don't know where the HELL I will go!



Update of "A Litany in Time of Plague"
by Michael R. Burch

THE PLAGUE has come again
To darken lives of men
and women, girls and boys;
Death proves their bodies toys
Too frail to even cry.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!

Tycoons, what use is wealth?
You cannot buy good health!
Physicians cannot heal
Themselves, to Death must kneel.
Nuns’ prayers mount to the sky.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!

Beauty’s brightest flower?
Devoured in an hour.
Kings, Queens and Presidents
Are fearful residents
Of manors boarded high.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!

We have no means to save
Our children from the grave.
Though cure-alls line our shelves,
We cannot save ourselves.
"Come, come!" the sad bells cry.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!



thanksgiving prayer of the parasites
by Michael R. Burch

GODD is great;
GODD is good;
let us thank HIM
for our food.

by HIS hand
we all are fed;
give us now
our daily dead.

ah-men!

(p.s.,
most gracious
& salacious
HEAVENLY LORD,
we thank YOU in advance for
meals galore
of loverly gore:
of precious
delicious
sumptuous
scrumptious
human flesh!)

Originally published by Setu



evol-u-shun
by michael r. burch

does GOD adore the Tyger
while it’s ripping ur lamb apart?

does GOD applaud the Plague
while it’s eating u à la carte?

does GOD admire ur brains
while ur claiming IT has a heart?

does GOD endorse the Bible
you blue-lighted at k-mart?

NOTE: In the segmented title “evol” is “love” spelled backwards. The title questions whether you/we have been shunned by a "God of Love" or by evolution. William Blake’s poem “The Tyger” questions the nature of a Creator who brings lambs and tigers into the same world.



faith(less)
by michael r. burch

for the “Chosen Few”

those who believed
and Those who misled
lie together at last
in the same narrow bed

and if god loved Them more
for Their strange lack of doubt,
he kept it well hidden
till he snuffed Them out.

Keywords/Tags: coronavirus, virus, plague, disease, illness, death, fear, panic, dismay, germs, microbes