Stricken, sudden realization
My sense of worth so breakable, so frayed
Your approval, my salvation
Washes over me like a wave.
It's unfair to me, to you
Dependence on your word
Breath held, between us two
As though it's the last we've ever heard.
In and out, up and down
Never quite quick enough
Falling, tripping, to the ground
I never did like it rough.
Water's edge, beautiful and deadly
Peeking at my toes
I always knew you were too friendly
Now it's got me, now it knows.
Knows the tide of my heart
Ebbs and flows
Never could keep up
With those highs and lows.

you have the same effect on me,
that the full moon has on the ragin' tides

The collapsing tide lurks
with rogue waves
gathering energy,
swaying to the moon
until it returns to upend
the diligent castles
we’ve built of sand

What will the tide bring in?
What will it later reveal?
Like time,
        it won't keep waiting.
Like love,
        it can't help but heal.

She is brighter than dawn
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

There’s a light about her
like the moon through a mist:
a bright incandescence
with which she is blessed

and my heart to her light
like the tide now is pulled . . .
she is fair, O, and bright
like the moon silver-veiled.

There’s a fire within her
like the sun’s leaping forth
to lap up the darkness
of night from earth's hearth

and my eyes to her flame
like twin moths now are drawn
till my heart is consumed.
She is brighter than dawn.

Keywords/Tags: Love, Light, Dawn, Moon, Stars, Mist, Heart, Tide, Fair, Bright, Fire, Sun, Dark, Darkness, Night, Hearth, Earth, Flame, Moth, Moths, Meter, Rhyme, Traditional, Formal, Quatrains,

Your eyes are Moon in ****,
Making mine as the Sun,
So bright it colours our tide,
Almost like that jade of mine.

At night when you’re out of sight,
I pray the clouds to move aside,
Unveiling your pretty light,
You are my ode to abide.

Currents
by Michael R. Burch

How can I write and not be true
to the rhythm that wells within?
How can the ocean not be blue,
not buck with the clapboard slap of tide,
the clockwork shock of wave on rock,
the motion creation stirs within?

Originally published by The Lyric. Keywords/Tags: poet, poets, poetry, write, writing, rhythm, meter, motion, ocean, tide, wave, waves



Ah! Sunflower
by Michael R. Burch

after William Blake

O little yellow flower
like a star ...
how beautiful,
how wonderful
we are!