by now, the moon knows that my chest is just a burial ground for this thousandfold of sighs — in their hands, all different ways of my undoing, and i am a breath away from one. you see, some nights are for the softest, gentlest moments of lunacy. some nights, for waging wars and succumbing into these sighs, barely held by the petals tightening around my throat. by now, the moon knows that i had once been a battlefield and it's a pity — growing poems on such an unholy ground, only to fall apart like aster leaves and ancient city walls.

darling, it's getting dark, and this is starting to look less like poetry — and more like spoils of war from inside my head.

my nose now runs seasonallyfrom sigh droplets

every new season celebrated by the constant continuation
of its running from, running to ?, or as I joke,  
from  September to September inclusive

but something new, my eyes now watery, a permanente daily irregularity, the imaginary laundry lady whines consistently, as she cannot always locate, prior to machine insertion, for all my secret hiding places of the always everywhere ***** tissues!

“too many pockets, too many tissues,” she underbreath mumbles,
but secretly I observe her similarly daubing~dabbing of the eyes,
in this time of constant sorrow, no one immunized, the sigh droplets
pass through any mask and gown, and then become full time residents

wry thinking, “let he or she who is without stone, cast the first tissue”
but we are all ****** all the time, heavy heaving, eyes tearing and
noses running

it don’t take much, the continuous reportage batters me and turning
away from my electronics impossible, they now hard wired inside the maniac-brainiac, wifi’d, from every side, even a actual glance outside at the desert of our dehumanized streetscapes always amazes

we no longer worry that every sniffle or tear
is a warning sign of  a more serious ailment;
no, we understand too well this is a sad spirit inside,
it’s symptoms unleashed but un-lethal, the antibody
to a weariness that has no name, only tissues that

cannot cure nor disinfect

Instruction
by Michael R. Burch

Toss this poem aside
to the filigreed and the prettified tide
of sunset.

Strike my name,
and still it is all the same.
The onset

of night is in the despairing skies;
each hut shuts its bright bewildered eyes.
The wind sighs

and my heart sighs with her—
my only companion, O Lovely Drifter!
Still, men are not wise.

The moon appears; the arms of the wind lift her,
pooling the light of her silver portent,
while men, impatient,

are beings of hurried and harried despair.
Now willows entangle their fragrant hair.
Men sleep.

Cornsilk tassels the moonbright air.
Deep is the sea; the stars are fair.
I reap.

Originally published by Romantics Quarterly.

Keywords/Tags: instruction, sunset, night, skies, wind, sighs, moon, silver, portent, sea, stars

The Tender Weight of Her Sighs
by Michael R. Burch

The tender weight of her sighs
lies heavily upon my heart;
apart from her, full of doubt,
without her presence to revolve around,
found wanting direction or course,
cursed with the thought of her grief,
believing true love is a myth,
with hope as elusive as tears,
hers and mine, unable to lie,
I sigh ...

NOTE: This poem has an unusual rhyme scheme, with the last word of each line rhyming with the first word of the next line. The final line is a “closing couplet” in which both words rhyme with the last word of the preceding line. I believe I invented this ***** form and will dub it the "End-First Curtal Sonnet." Keywords/Tags: curtal, sonnet, *****, form, tender, weight, sighs, heart, doubt, presence, gravity, orbit

Once
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Once when her kisses were fire incarnate
and left in their imprint bright lipstick, and flame,
when her breath rose and fell over smoldering dunes,
leaving me listlessly sighing her name . . .

Once when her ******* were as pale, as beguiling,
as wan rivers of sand shedding heat like a mist,
when her words would at times softly, mildly rebuke me
all the while as her lips did more wildly insist . . .

Once when the thought of her echoed and whispered
through vast wastelands of need like a Bedouin chant,
I ached for the touch of her lips with such longing
that I vowed all my former vows to recant . . .

Once, only once, something bloomed, of a desiccate seed—
this implausible blossom her wild rains of kisses decreed.

Published by The Lyric, Writer’s Journal, Grassroots Poetry, Tucumcari Literary Journal, Unlikely Stories, Poetry Life & Times. Keywords/Tags: kisses, fire, incarnate, lipstick, dunes, *******, heat, lips, breath, sighs, passion, desire, lust, ***, bachelorhood, recanted