Ballerina butterflies
flutter joyously
orbiting each other
in ruffled orange tutus

Tinkly, melodious
piano notes of
Swan Lake drift
from the ice cream van
parading down
our avenue

Pirouetting in the
steamy Florida air
they embrace briefly
giving a tiny imperceptible
kick of their
black slippered feet
before wafting in
myriad directions
wings far-flung....

Sheer happiness
lives in their dance
I watch with delight
resting on my
ebony walking cane
as they soon disappear
into a neighbor's
small mango grove

So close to You
No breath between us
exists

A shadow arcs
dark and empty
Illumined fiercely
By Your brilliance

A heart broken
and shattered
reflects Your face
In every jagged
fragment

I can never leave You
You can never leave me

Beloved
our fates are sealed
on the Scrolls
of Forever

I spread my floral rose
and green leaf sheet
on the emerald shore

Divine mother it's been
quite a while since
I visited You
Here I Am
Your little mermaid

The beach is practically empty
one lone fisherman
hoists his fishing pole
into the sea
flocks of seagulls
skirt close to his head
a sandpiper dips
his beak like a pole
Into the burgeoning
white billows

Good morning seagulls, pelicans
denizens of the sea
this morning I'm an ocean creature too!

Secret and senile condition,
It obeys that old self-righteous act of contrition,
Tentative and taciturn me,
Longing only for my fleeting thoughts to be free.

Obscure and opulent friend,
You remind me of life and a journey's end,
Wonderful and whimsical you,
You're the best I have known, the best shade of blue.

Unknown and unarmed us,
How could it be that we are walking thus?
Crippled and unstable we,
Blessed be the path that did heed our pace's plea.

The old dream fades
dew in the morning mist
my body and mind
fleeting stardust
dances with the
elements again

A lonesome echo
lingers for moment
In the spacious unfettered
canyons of my soul

Calling
I love you
I love you

And the radiant Being
within awakens

Wonderful morning
to dance with the Sea

My skin smells like the silver sea
There's phosphorescence in my eyes
  
Waves leap into my arms
swirl and turn me about
all the while whispering
happy talk in my ears

Garlands of seaweed decorate
the festive marine blue
and green shores

Glittering fragments
of sunlight dazzle
the senses

And I imagine
dolphins and mermaids
are having a ball too

Auschwitz Rose
by Michael R. Burch

There is a Rose at Auschwitz, in the briar,
a rose like Sharon’s, lovely as her name.
The world forgot her,
                                      and is not the same.
I still love her and enlist this sacred fire
to keep her memory exalted flame
unmolested by the thistles and the nettles.

On Auschwitz now the reddening sunset settles ...
They sleep alike—diminutive and tall,
the innocent, the “surgeons.”
                                                    S­leeping, all.

Red oxides of her blood, bright crimson petals,
if accidents of coloration, gall
my heart no less.
                              Amid thick weeds and muck
there lies a rose man’s crackling lightning struck:
the only Rose I ever longed to pluck.
Soon I’ll bed there and bid the world “Good Luck.”

Published by The Neovictorian/Cochlea, Black Medina, Voices Israel, Other Voices International, Verse Weekly, Poetry Renewal Magazine, Mindful of Poetry, The Eclectic Muse, Promosaik, Famous Poets & Poems, The Wandering Hermit, FreeXpression (Australia), Inspirational Stories, Poetry Life & Times, Sonnetto Poesia (Canada), Trinacria, Pennsylvania Review, Poems About, Litera (UK), Yahoo Buzz, Got Poetry, de Volksrant Blog (Holland)

Keywords/Tags: Holocaust, Auschwitz, rose, Sharon, name, forgotten, sacred, memory, flame, briar, thorns, reddening, sunset, thistles, nettles, innocent, innocents, surgeons, blood, crimson, petals, weeds, muck, lightning, blitzkrieg, strike, struck, attack, war, violence, ******, death, bed, grave, goodbye, farewell, good luck

My Beloved

I've loved You for Eternity
In the Temple of Thebes,
Courts of Cairo
standing on the red horizon
Your golden arms
embraced me
as You rose from Your
starry bed

Aten... Aten

My Soul still remembers
that darling blue boy
with peacock plumes
and heavenly doe eyes
playing hide and seek
over the rustic shamrock
green hills of Brindavin

Krishna... Krishna

My Beloved

Though You've donned
a thousand trillion forms
like a bright star falling
onto the earth
I'd know Your face, those eyes
anywhere

O My Dearest

there is no place
in heaven or on earth
that I'd rather be
than with You
Forever