Break Time
by Michael R. Burch

for those who lost loved ones on 9-11

Intrude upon my grief; sit; take a spot
of milk to cloud the blackness that you feel;
add artificial sweeteners to conceal
the bitter aftertaste of loss. You’ll heal
if I do not. The coffee’s hot. You speak:
of bundt cakes, polls, the price of eggs. You glance
twice at your watch, cough, look at me askance.
The TV drones oeuvres of high romance
in syncopated lip-synch. Should I feel
the underbelly of Love’s warm Ideal,
its fuzzy-wuzzy tummy, and not reel
toward some dark conclusion? Disappear
to pale, dissolving atoms. Were you here?
I brush you off: like saccharine, like a tear.

Keywords/Tags: 911, victims, survivors, grief, loss, heal, healing, tear, tears, coffee, break, time, milk, artificial, sweeteners

Laughter’s Cry
by Michael R. Burch

(dedicated to the victims and survivors of the coronavirus)

Because life is a mystery, we laugh
and do not know the half.

Because death is a mystery, we cry
when one is gone, our numbering thrown awry.

Keywords/Tags: coronavirus, victims, survivors, life, death, laughter, cry, mystery, numbers, numbering, tears, crying, weeping, compassion, sympathy, empathy, recovery

Mending
by Michael R. Burch

I am besieged with kindnesses;
sometimes I laugh,
delighted for a moment,
then resume
the more seemly occupation of my craft.

I do not taste the candies;
the perfume
of roses is uplifted
in a draft
that vanishes into the ceiling’s fans

that spin like old propellers
till the room
is full of ghostly bits of yarn ...
My task
is not to knit,

but not to end too soon.

This is a poem for the survivors of 9–11 whose families lost loved ones in the terrorist attacks. Keywords: 911, survivors, victims, first, responders, passengers, firemen, police, heroes, terrorist, attacks, World Trade Center, Flight 93, Pentagon, White House

The sins of one man
Cannot be washed away
By old age or suffering
When his shadow
Has touched so many who
Will bear his mark for
The rest of their lives.
She says, "It is sad to see an old man in prison."
I tell her my sadness lays
On the banks of the river
Filled with the tears of his survivors.
Their pain cannot be abated by him
Contracting a virus.

Pfennig Postcard, Wrong Address
by Michael R. Burch

(for the victims and survivors of the Holocaust)

We saw their pictures:
tortured out of our imaginations
like golems.

We could not believe
in their frail extremities
or their gaunt faces,

pallid as our disbelief.
They are not
with us now ...

We have:
huddled them
into the backroomsofconscience,

consigned them
to the ovensofsilence,

buried them in the mass graves
of circumstancesbeyondourcontrol.

We have
so little left
of them

now
to remind us ...

It was my honor to work with survivors of the Holocaust as we translated their poems and prose accounts into English as a way of preserving them and making them available to larger audiences. Unfortunately, time waits for no one and the Holocaust survivors I worked with are no longer with us. But their words and testimonies remain, if we will only take the time to read and consider them. Keywords/Tags: Holocaust, victims, survivors, mass graves, pictures, images, tortured, frail, gaunt, skeletal, emaciated, thin, malnourished, golemic, horror, terror, inhumanity, madness, racism, antisemitism, slave labor, slavery, death camps, concentration camps, gas chambers, ethnic cleansing, genocide, memory, remembrance, memorial, tribute

Why does everyone tell
me to push on through?
That I'll make it?
That I am stronger than I think?

I know this.
I am a survivor.
But how long will that last
if I have no one to survive for?

They say the world is worth living,
but all the people who made it worth living
are gone.

So is it really?
There is pain, and death, and destruction
everywhere I look.
So who am I living for?

Those people?or myself?
I am not sure anymore

I am in this moment
I hear my breathing
I feel comfort
…...

I am in this moment
Old wounds daunt me
I am worrying about the future
All i know is uncertainty
…….

I am in this moment
I am enveloped in love
I am safe
…...

I am in this moment
I make my own choices
The past is no longer my burden
breathe
……
Let go.

This may be hard to hear and feels like i am stating a streotype comment
But for all those surviors of ****** abuse
I just want to let you know your not alone
I know everyday is a sturggle to get out of bed
Constent worrying and pain
And the questions that wont let go
You just want to end it all
You think its your fault and even if the world was telling you its not your sitting there thinking Oh my god please just shut up
I understand that but just know its okay not to be okay
And i know you feel ***** and you want to hurt yourself,blame yourself
And even if i tell you dont do it your letting the monster win
It makes no difference
So what i am going to say is hold on tight i know the journey is painful
But once you reach it will be raimbows
The nightmares the flashbacks  i know its painful
I know it hurts more then anything
But i promise you that as long as your safe
No hands will ever touch you again
I know its hard and cry all you want
But once your finshed be sure to know that you can do it again whenever you want
Your not a victim you Are a survivor


But the truth is i will never know your pain
Nobody can ever guess what you might me going through
All you know is what your going through
But empathy is somthing that only works to an extent....
This is what i go through...

It has long been time to say goodnight,
The hands of the clock caressing my face, lulling me into secluded silence.
But I can still smell your skin on me, feel the bite of the binds.
And so the cigarette still burns. On. And on. And on. And the tears still fall. On. And on. And on.
Agony is telling the same story over and over until you believe it. "I'm fine, I don't think about it anymore. I'm over it."
And then you see something. Or hear something. Or read the ******* newspaper. And your name is never under arrest.
Maybe you never hurt anyone again. Maybe you only took my voice.
Maybe the cigarette still burns so close to my fingers that I have scars. Maybe I still wait for sleep. Maybe you'll catch fire to that bed dropping a cigarette. Maybe the flames will take you.
Maybe I can wait for the next time the pain will hit. Maybe I can smoke another cigarette.

The brave ones wield their mettle,
yet again not settling for defeat.
Retreat is not a choice!
Though their voices shake; they speak their truth.
Strong and weak.
Age and Youth.