Wasp addendum
More than out of and
Quote the finality, well to avoid...
A sting that churched a brassy man

Wasp substantial
Adding the heed, of couth and comparison
Does a reach for time, understand arousal?
Quiet time searching for youth, that knows the question...

Wasp divine
Kiss and kindred, the tools of solemn tone?
Enchastened with a host, too cursory to be orders vision
We hear the spoil of the wind, become a new loan

Wasp merciful
Craving a thought, to tell a tale kept
By the unity we foresaw, a heard bliss still...
Was a chance meeting with a yearning fate, bereft?

Wasp earthen
Where souls intertwine, the taste of home
Is a careful wish, foreseen in the earning?
Or should might, take the time to intend guidance as done?

Wasp witnesses
The tow of commonness, in the voice of salutations
Memory served, the break of justice in a winds shade
Here to fore, timidity is a challenge, for a truer intuition...

These are poems about Ann Rutledge and her romantic relationship with Abraham Lincoln.

Winter Thoughts of Ann Rutledge
by Michael R. Burch

Winter was not easy,
nor would the spring return.
I knew you by your absence,
as men are wont to burn
with strange indwelling fire —
such longings you inspire!

But winter was not easy,
nor would the sun relent
from sculpting ****** images
and how could I repent?
I left quaint offerings in the snow,
more maiden than I care to know.



Ann Rutledge’s Irregular Quilt
by Michael R. Burch

based on “Lincoln the Unknown” by Dale Carnegie

I.
Her fingers “plied the needle” with “unusual swiftness and art”
till Abe knelt down beside her: then her demoralized heart
set Eros’s dart a-quiver; thus a crazy quilt emerged:
strange stitches all a-kilter, all patterns lost. (Her host
kept her vicarious laughter barely submerged.)

II.
Years later she’d show off the quilt with its uncertain stitches
as evidence love undermines men’s plans and women’s strictures
(and a plethora of scriptures.)

III.
But O the sacred tenderness Ann’s reckless stitch contains
and all the world’s felicities: rich cloth, for love’s fine gains,
for sweethearts’ tremulous fingers and their bright, uncertain vows
and all love’s blithe, erratic hopes (like now’s).

IV.
Years later on a pilgrimage, by tenderness obsessed,
Dale Carnegie, drawn to her grave, found weeds in her place of rest
and mowed them back, revealing the spot of the Railsplitter’s joy and grief
(and his hope and his disbelief).

V.
For such is the tenderness of love, and such are its disappointments.
Love is a book of rhapsodic poems. Love is an grab bag of ointments.
Love is the finger poised, the smile, the Question — perhaps the Answer?
Love is the pain of betrayal, the two left feet of the dancer.

VI.
There were ladies of ill repute in his past. Or so he thought. Was it true?
And yet he loved them, Ann (sweet Ann!), as tenderly as he loved you.

Ann Rutledge was Abraham Lincoln’s first love interest. Unfortunately, she was engaged to another man when they met, then died with typhoid fever at age 22. According to a friend, Isaac Cogdal, when asked if he had loved her, Lincoln replied: “It is true—true indeed I did. I loved the woman dearly and soundly: She was a handsome girl—would have made a good, loving wife… I did honestly and truly love the girl and think often, often of her now.”

Ann Rutledge’s grave marker in Petersburg, Illinois, contains a poem written by Edgar Lee Masters in which she is “Beloved of Abraham Lincoln, / Wedded to him, not through union, / But through separation.”

Ann Rutledge’s original grave at Old Concord, once neglected, has a fairly new marker provided by her family. One side of the maker, along with her name and dates, reads: “Where Lincoln Wept.” An account popularized by William Herndon in his biography is that Lincoln was so distraught by Ann’s death that he knelt and wept at her grave. On the reverse side of the marker is carved “I cannot bear to think of her out there alone in the storm. A. Lincoln.”

Herndon was Lincoln’s law partner and a friend. He also attended poetry readings with Lincoln, who wrote poems himself. Lincoln called Herndon "my man always above all other men on the globe."

Following Lincoln's assassination, Herndon began collecting accounts of Lincoln's life from people who knew him. Herndon wanted to write a faithful portrait of his friend, based on the hundreds of letters and interviews he had compiled, plus his own recollections. He was determined to present Lincoln as the man he actually was, not as a romanticized national hero and saint, and this meant revealing things other biographers would omit or elide, due to the puritanical conventions of that day. Such details included Lincoln’s suicidal depression and his contentious relationship with his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln. And Herndon maintained that Ann Rutledge was Lincoln’s only true love.

Keywords/Tags: Ann Rutledge, Abraham Lincoln, poem, poems, poetry, love, lover, mistress, paramour, romance, romantic, quilt, grave, Dale Carnegie, William Herndon

Le Balcon (“The Balcony”)
by Charles Baudelaire
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Paramour of memory, ultimate mistress,
source of all pleasure, my only desire;
how can I forget your ecstatic caresses,
the warmth of your ******* by the roaring fire,
paramour of memory, ultimate mistress?

Each night illumined by the burning coals
we lay together where the rose-fragrance clings—
how soft your *******, how tender your soul!
Ah, and we said imperishable things,
each night illumined by the burning coals.

How beautiful the sunsets these sultry days,
deep space so profound, beyond life’s brief floods ...
then, when I kissed you, my queen, in a daze,
I thought I breathed the bright bouquet of  your blood
as beautiful as sunsets these sultry days.

Night thickens around us like a wall;
in the deepening darkness our irises meet.
I drink your breath, ah! poisonous yet sweet!,
as with fraternal hands I massage your feet
while night thickens around us like a wall.

I have mastered the sweet but difficult art
of happiness here, with my head in your lap,
finding pure joy in your body, your heart;
because you’re the queen of my present and past
I have mastered love’s sweet but difficult art.

O vows! O perfumes! O infinite kisses!
Can these be reborn from a gulf we can’t sound
as suns reappear, as if heaven misses
their light when they sink into seas dark, profound?
O vows! O perfumes! O infinite kisses!



Invitation to the Voyage
by Charles Baudelaire
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My child, my sister,
Consider the rapture
Of living together!
To love at our leisure
Till the end of all pleasure,
Then in climes so alike you, to die!

The misty sunlight
Of these hazy skies
Charms my spirit:
So mysterious
Your treacherous eyes,
Shining through tears.

There, order and restraint redress
Opulence, voluptuousness.

Gleaming furniture
Burnished by the years
Would decorate our bedroom
Where the rarest flowers
Mingle their fragrances
With vague scents of amber.

The sumptuous ceilings,
The limpid mirrors,
The Oriental ornaments …
Everything would speak
To our secretive souls
In their own indigenous language.

There, order and restraint redress
Opulence, voluptuousness.

See, rocking on these channels:
The sleepy vessels
Whose vagabond dream
Is to satisfy
Your merest desire.

They come from the ends of the world:
These radiant suns
Illuminating fields,
Canals, the entire city,
In hyacinth and gold.
The world falls asleep
In their warming light.

There, order and restraint redress
Opulence, voluptuousness.



The Perfect Courtesan
by Michael R. Burch

after Baudelaire, for the courtesans

She received me into her cavities,
indulging my darkest depravities
with such trembling longing, I felt her need ...

Such was the dalliance to which we agreed—
she, my high rider;
I, her wild steed.

She surrendered her all and revealed to me—
the willing handmaiden, delighted to please,
the Perfect Courtesan of Ecstasy.



Les Bijoux (The Jewels)
by Charles Baudelaire
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My lover **** and knowing my heart's whims
Wore nothing more than a few bright-flashing gems;
Her art was saving men despite their sins—
She ruled like harem girls crowned with diadems!

She danced for me with a gay but mocking air,
My world of stone and metal sparking bright;
I discovered in her the rapture of everything fair—
Nay, an excess of joy where the spirit and flesh unite!

Naked she lay and offered herself to me,
Parting her legs and smiling receptively,
As gentle and yet profound as the rising sea—
Till her surging tide encountered my cliff, abruptly.

A tigress tamed, her eyes met mine, intent...
Intent on lust, content to purr and please!
Her breath, both languid and lascivious, lent
An odd charm to her metamorphoses.

Her limbs, her *****, her abdomen, her thighs,
Oiled alabaster, sinuous as a swan,
Writhed pale before my calm clairvoyant eyes;
Like clustered grapes her ******* and belly shone.

Skilled in more spells than evil imps can muster,
To break the peace which had possessed my heart,
She flashed her crystal rocks’ hypnotic luster
Till my quietude was shattered, blown apart.

Her waist awrithe, her ******* enormously
Out-******, and yet... and yet, somehow, still coy...
As if stout haunches of Antiope
Had been grafted to a boy...

The room grew dark, the lamp had flickered out.
Mute firelight, alone, lit each glowing stud;
Each time the fire sighed, as if in doubt,
It steeped her pale, rouged flesh in pools of blood.



Duellem (The Duel)  
by Charles Baudelaire
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Two combatants charged! Their fearsome swords
brightened the air with fiery sparks and blood.
Their clashing blades clinked odd serenades,
reminding us: youth's inspired by overloud love.
But now their blades lie broken, like our hearts!
Still, our savage teeth and talon-like fingernails
can do more damage than the deadliest sword
when lovers lash about with such natural flails.
In a deep ravine haunted by lynxes and panthers,
our heroes roll around in a cozy embrace,
leaving their blood to redden the colorless branches.
This abyss is pure hell; our friends occupy the place.
Come, let us roll likewise here, cruel Amazon,
let our hatred's ardor NEVER be over and done!

Keywords/Tags: Baudelaire, translation, French, balcony, paramour, memory, mistress, desire, caresses, fire, coals, rose, *******, night, breath, feet, lap, body, heart, vows, perfumes, kisses, gulf, suns, heaven, light, seas

The sweet cadence of your voice lulls me to sleep like a gentle lullaby.

Darling, dearest,
Come out of the dark,
And into my heart
The sun has set,
The crowds are gone,
No longer I ought to pretend
That you’re only just a friend

It's like my heart can't contain you.

It's like I've let go of what was needed to let go of

to let you in.

And it's beyond my expectations
like slipping my feet into the beach

and finding my toes
underneath soft, warm sand
warmed by the sun.

And for so long I've denied myself
happiness.

And for so long I've forced this picture that what I want

is better than what I truly need.

And I'm trying to understand why I had to give up one failed romantic relationship

in order to find another that is a hundred times better.

I realized that I had fallen

in love with my own poetry

I'd fallen in love with myself again and again and again

never truly allowing myself to fall
in love with anyone in reality
because my fantasies were so much better.

And then I met you

the beach, the sand, the cold lip of water lapping against my ankles
the submersion of water, salt, seaweed, and foam

your warm hand in my own
fingers latching

the beautiful sunrise
softly, strongly touching
a horizon stretching so many miles away but in one swift look

I saw balance. I saw joy. I saw the colors I've always loved and hoped to see one day.

It's like my heart can't contain you.

And the ocean is calling me home.

That giant expanse of glistening water reflecting the sun's willful welcome as a new day begins

so daunting so beautiful so overwhelming in its stark grandness

so familiar this feeling.

It's like I've known you for a very long time.

It's like I've found myself smiling with the waves now pressing against my gut

white sea foam dissolving quickly
tickling my torso
making me laugh
loud belly laughs
mouth stretched wide and daring
teeth showing
eyes crinkling
body shaking
legs trembling

The ocean of your love

is calling me home.

Am I ready to dive deeper?
Am I ready to submerge not just my torso but my head as well?
What if I can't breathe underwater?
What if I can't open my eyelids?

It's like my heart can't contain you.

But then I touch my neck

and find gills.

But then I touch my eyes

and find goggles.

And then I know

that I'm ready to dive.