As I watch the sunrise
I feel my heart set

The early morning light makes sure I can never forget

The lies
Apologies
Broken promises
Shattered dreams

The love you give to me
Covers what's beneath the seams

I've seen your true colors
I won't fall for it anymore

I've risen past it all
And gone of to my own sunset

R.I.P.
by Michael R. Burch

When I am lain to rest
and my soul is no longer intact,
but dissolving, like a sunset
diminishing to the west ...

and when at last
before His throne my past
is put to test
and the demons and the Beast

await to feast
on any morsel downward cast,
while the vapors of impermanence
cling, smelling of damask ...

then let me go, and do not weep
if I am left to sleep,
to sleep and never dream, or dream, perhaps,
only a little longer and more deep.

Published by Romantics Quarterly and The Chained Muse. This is an early poem from my “Romantic Period” that was probably written in my late teens. Keywords/Tags: death, eternity, eternal rest, sunset, west, demons, beast, judgment, sleep, dream, nightfall, night, throne, vapor, vapors, impermanence

For whenever I see the sunset you cross my mind
Left after colouring my life

Too soon I couldn’t bid my goodbye
Too quick without explaining why

The ancient way across this world lies like sunset over black pearls,
The treetops are marble-made that the riffler of wind deforms,
To know all mother tongues from the quarry of rough stones,
To speak everything at once, Bride of Unbecoming,
The moldering walls of lips, the kiss of vacant streets
And the quiet, wet solitude bespoken by back roads,
The whispered origami of the Forum, paper gods in folds,
Smothered in the false pillows of their own repose,
The wolf’s beard dipped in the fresh pant of dewfall,
While lovers have placed on the stones of the Appian Way
Their perfect hearts like votive candles, cupping the flames,
Looking down the swift arrow of loneliness, Sagittarius its same
Heaven-glow and besprinkled guidepost of a starlit Sacred Way.
Mother of Rome, your powdered face has been made ashen by those
Unreturned home, your far-off travels lead only to the graves of sons.
The ancient way across this world lies like sunset over black pearls.

Watching the sunset
feels so peaceful
Watching the sunset
indeed's blissful
But no sunset
can be so beautiful
when i look at you