US Verse, after Auden
by Michael R. Burch

“Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful.”

Verse has small value in our Unisphere,
nor is it fit for windy revelation.
It cannot legislate less taxing fears;
it cannot make us, several, a nation.
Enumerator of our sins and dreams,
it pens its cryptic numbers, and it sings,
a little quaintly, of the ways of love.
(It seems of little use for lesser things.)

Published by The Raintown Review, The Barefoot Muse and Poetry Life & Times

The Unisphere mentioned is a spherical stainless steel representation of the earth constructed for the 1964 New York World’s Fair. It was commissioned to celebrate the beginning of the space age and dedicated to "Man's Achievements on a Shrinking Globe in an Expanding Universe." The lines quoted in the epigraph are from W. H. Auden’s love poem “Lullaby.” Keywords/Tags: Auden, unisphere, lullaby, verse, revelation, cryptic, legislate, enumerator, sins, dreams, value, love, sings, quaint, quaintly, lesser, greater

Something lies beyond
The power of Love is unity
Fear thrives on division
Life online ... A virtual existence
An implementation of fear
Something unseen is at work
Is the beast on his way
Or perhaps already here
A blanket of darkness has covered the earth
An awkward silence hangs in the air
And fear has become tangible
The earth seems sad and tired
Then a division line shall be drawn
Across earth and sea
The time to separate sheep from goat has come
And what is hidden shall be exposed
Like an overripe fruit that has fallen from a tree
Burst open for all to see what was lurking inside

i’ve become star-flooded.
my mouth’s overrun with sunk stars,
stars studding my cupid’s bow hollows,
dripping onto my hands and the high pile carpet.
their waxy-hot gloss is scalding and sharp,
white rust still engulfing my tongue in unpolished
supernovas and sparks
sparking metal-doused cinder and oxygen darkness.
i’ve become star-glutted,
my star-clotted lungs are heavy,
stars twine through my breathing like the sweat of a
cigarette-blotted miasma,
eroding the chasms, the veins of my shivering fingertips stretching
tips reaching for stars, for star-bellied galaxies,  
fingertips stretching towards cavities, onyx skies flashing,
for stars with their clashing and golden-scorched glow,
for a star-buried secret
i lost long ago.

What would Santa Claus say,
I wonder,
about Jesus returning
to **** and plunder?

For he’ll likely return
on Christmas Day
to blow the bad
little boys away!

When He flashes like lightning
across the skies
and many a homosexual
dies,

when the harlots and heretics
are ripped asunder,
what will the Easter Bunny think,
I wonder?

“And I will **** her children with death; and all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according to your works.” (So much for grace according to Revelation 2:23, where Jesus, or someone speaking for him, vows to personally ****** children for their mother’s sins!)

Published by Lucid Rhythms, Poet’s Corner and translated into Czech by Vaclav ZJ Pinkava

Keywords/Tags: Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, Jesus Christ, Bible, Revelation, mass ******, serial ******, homosexuals, harlots, hookers, prostitutes, heretics, atheists, agnostics, nonbelievers, non-Christians

I’ve never felt so tranquil
while so numb.

It’s like leaving while
staying still, a calm
pulse in nothing,
music without a sound,
*** without a body.

It’s an erasure of strides
in snow and slush,
a dissolving act,
the cackle of a
wholesome child.

Pure and imperfect.

Today,
I am drifting downstream,
riding the cherry blossoms.

And I’m not stopping this time,
I’m not checking out,
waking up or falling asleep.

The stars will kiss me and I
will drink their light.

I am no longer afraid.

-
by Aleksander Mielnikow | Alek the Poet

then it came to me.
i was just sitting in class and it came to me.
i felt myself flying again.
i felt your weight off of me and i could breathe again.
i'm free from you.
i'm free.
i'm not yours,
i'm never yours.
i'm taking myself back from you.
it came to me,
the chains broke and i looked at you with nothing.
i feel nothing towards you.
i'm free.
i'm free from you.
goodbye.