Prepare the battle kittens!  War
     Is coming down the lane!
The ammo Nerf is on the floor;
     The window feels the pane.

When lollipops and ****** bombs
     Fall from a summer sky,
A sandwich crust of soccer moms
     Will say goodBillybye.

Is that danger in the distance?
Or do my eyes deceive?

****.

Like dark clouds
gathering above mountains.
Like how the young see their futures.

(Though it's not like the world hasn't been ending
this entire time.

In billions of years the sun will explode.
In hundreds, our planet will be just dust and stone,
and the bones of industry.
And at my rate
I'll self-destruct by sixty years of age.

But) what is this thing that sticks and stings
and irks
like a mirage?

Not the flavor of fingers dipped in deliciousness.
Not the freshness of a newborn babe.
Not the scent of flowers.
Not feet in a hot bath.
Not fumbling a lovers face,
frolicking through foxglove fields,
flitting a fiery frevo,
finishing first.

No,
none of that.

It's not a thing,
but a feeling.

Fear
Fear
Fear

And it sticks and stings
and irks,
like a mirage.

-
by Aleksander Mielnikow | Alek the Poet

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

If only it is meant to happen

No persuasion will bring a hindrance.


Pain is subjective, sorrows are possessed

Light aches my eyes, in the dark I am depressed


Insomnia bothers me, maybe I should curse it.

I should not swallow the bitter, maybe just spit.



It wasn’t a matter of months, but my wishes took so long

Thoughts beyond west of the west but emotions don’t go so long


In spite of respite, desolate notions are still popping

Worst is to happen, nothing is for stopping.