Tunneling thoughts like rain
Craning through light clouds
Unsuspecting victims.

The fear
The tears
The temper tantrums;
                                           A kind of rebuttal

That won't let our feet find land
We adjourned to rehearse,
but our efforts were null and void

Only to appease with flames
that licked our shriveled bodies

D r
       i    p
                 p  i  n
                             g  
                                              Kerosene

Tainted like ink                  Spilled on
Reams of paper
ruined like Christmas
A house warmed by          Open flames

fallen candles                     Adorning
A naked kitchen                 My limp body,

Splayed beneath the oven      
                                               As
darkness indulges,             It
consumes
The smoke,                          Fills                
                                               Each crevice
                                               In your mind

Can you ever fight it
Burn your way back
To blissful ignorance.

Imperfect Sonnet
by Michael R. Burch

A word before the light is doused: the night
is something wriggling through an unclean mind,
as rats creep through a tenement. And loss
is written cheaply with the moon’s cracked gloss
like lipstick through the infinite, to show
love’s pale yet sordid imprint on us. Go.

We have not learned love yet, except to cleave.
I saw the moon rise once ... but to believe ...
was of another century ... and now ...
I have the urge to love, but not the strength.

Despair, once stretched out to its utmost length,
lies couched in squalor, watching as the screen
reveals “love’s” damaged images: its dreams ...
and ******* limply, screams and screams.

Originally published by Sonnet Scroll

Keywords/Tags: tenement, rats, unclean, cheap, sordid, despair, squalor, TV, screen, sonnet, limp, limply, screams

A pungent petrichor,
The kind to remind you of why you are here.
I was told it is a sign of rebirth.
Deeply lodged axe wounds burrow into the ground below,
And sedimentary formations climb into the open wounds.

You get told to lie deadly still if the bear is large,
And create thunderous uproar if you have a bulkier countenance.
Survival of the fittest, huh?
If lightning is nature taking *** shots at something smaller than it,
I fear to high heaven what it’s hiding from when the skies are clear and I’m relishing in a light of false protection.

shine storm shadow heave sordid sky
beat your diamond rain and milk sweet
delirious black blue moaned symphony
drive woman drive rough skin delicate
run spring drunk light panting velvet
watch you play your sea on raw bed
live rust sun mad rose-tinted like moon
over lake
you have chocolate drool ache
mother I never did like those sad
arms all dressed in red and furious
but see no wild woman feels less
sit or go but let what is be is
eat one picture a day, smear languid
love with finger
flick you kind wand kazzoo away
and please whisper smooth scream
through apparatus from forest
lather you life white bubble like
snow
use all ugly love as fertilizer then cry
bitterly and pour frantic sleep into
lazy garden moss soft as a pillow
upon sacrilegious world thought
swim water through silken sheets
and rock it fluff puppy
you are an enormous exquisite honey ship
lick it fresh juice sweet cream
rip your winter above want
and rave on brave pilgrim
rave on

Tightly wound,
Strung around her fingers
Tense like your muscles
When she climbs atop you

Tongue-tied and transfixed,
Tender kisses and cracking whips
The ground shakes beneath you
As your life begins to slip

She’s hollow and wicked,
But conniving and fair
In her clutch you falter
Smiling while gasping for air