In the garden stir the flowers
That whisper through the trees
A subtle hint of fragrance fading on the breeze
Ripples over pebbles
Gentle rushing of the stream
Is the smile in cool reflection
That of you or Angeline?
In the binding choking clinging ****
Which stops the waters flow
Do you find her auburn tresses
And that face as white as snow
Does she walk beside you?
Like she did so long ago
It was you that drowned her
So only you would know!

NO ONE can help or please EVERYONE
But ANYONE can help or please SOMEONE.

Eerie when it's three twenty-five
In the mornings of a nevermore
Fiendish powers dwelling inside
Awakened in a feverous implore
Darkness harkens souls to stay
When in an illuminating twilight
Subconscious turns ashen gray
Plants suffering a certain blight
Sleep had long not hypnotized
Nights, they pass in dry spells
No ravens come a tip tapping
Upon my mind's sly betrothal
Yet, the witching hour beckons
My brain has a way of knowing
Night, just half of it is passed
Rest half would be my undoing

Once upon a day of spring, while I thought, in the early morning,
Over many an empty and ignored notebook paper on my floor—
While I was writing, nothing shocking, there was a sudden knocking,
As of something frantically pounding, pounding at my chamber door.
“ ‘Tis the poet’s muse,” I uttered, “knocking at my chamber door—
I’ll let it in, nothing more.”

Ah, with sorrow I can recall how onto pages the words would fall,
And every phrase was brought to me from a tempest to the shore.
Eagerly I searched the sands;—digging for them with frenzied hands
I would find my poems, but I can—can never find them anymore—
For the wretched but beautiful language that was once my being’s core—
Beyond my reach, evermore.

And the symphony of a distant dirge filled me with a sudden urge,
Enthralled me—thrilled me with lavish courage felt certain times before;
So that now, in spite of what is real, I opened the door with zeal
And asked, “Muse, will I never heal? Am I destined to find empty shores?”
A buffoon was I, for nothing but a whisper far off from my door.
Quoth the whisper, “Evermore.”

“Be that word your leave, fake muse, you mirage!” I howled with grieve—
“Stay no longer in my presence, knock no longer on my door!”
But the whisper, the muse, remains still lurking outside causing me pain—
Incessant knocking, there’s no refrain—more papers strewn on the floor.
I plead with the muse, I beg it to take flight from my chamber door.
The muse just states, “Evermore.”

I couldn’t reciprocate what my heart has
been humming
— “I have been waiting for you my entire life”
For I am tired and at a discontent. Seeking solace
only from knowing that we are special and just apart,

But it catches on my throat like cotton,
And I know you’d be frightened.
As terrified as Poe to
when he trembles over the rapping,
rapping sound from the raven.
Murmuring: “darkness there and nothing more”

you still haunt my fears
and dreams

i've blocked out the sun
yet i can still hear you scream
across the lights

and i can still hear you

your presence burn
feed on the dried tears

prance on the memories
enslaved by the forgotten years

and i sit inside the
pages

cold and alone i yearn
learn about the melancholic
corners and spaces

trying to paint
ghosts and their faces

ash leaves behind no
scars and no traces

cold and alone i yearn
frolicking on ends
frozen forever and sedated

the wheels have spun
in arms of someone
and everything else has faded

but your presence
still burns

the flames igniting
the nights

across the skies
and seven seas

as far as the time
can see

you're everywhere
dancing

so naked so free

and i have an eternity
of nothing else to be

but be mesmerised
by that that i cannot see

haunted.

Nevermore!
by Michael R. Burch

(after Edgar Allan Poe)

Nevermore! O, nevermore!
shall the haunts of the sea
—the swollen tide pools
and the dark, deserted shore—
mark her passing again.

And the salivating sea
shall never kiss her lips
nor caress her ******* and hips,
as she dreamt it did before,
once, lost within the uproar.

The waves will never **** her,
nor take her at their leisure;
the sea gulls shall not claim her,
nor could she give them pleasure ...
She sleeps, forevermore!

She sleeps forevermore,
a ****** save to me
and her other lover,
who lurks now, safely covered
by the restless, surging sea.

And, yes, they sleep together,
but never in that way ...
For the sea has stripped and shorn
the one I once adored,
and washed her flesh away.

He does not stroke her honey hair,
for she is bald, bald to the bone!
And how it fills my heart with glee
to hear them sometimes cursing me
out of the depths of the demon sea . . .

their skeletal love—impossibility!

Keywords/Tags: Nevermore, Poe, horror, supernatural, dark, sea, shore, death, dead, ******, ghosts, night, surf, ******, ****, naked, ***, corpse, skeletal, skeleton, skeletons, demon?, demons, demonic, surreal