My brother and I explored a ravine
in our younger years. A wooded
labyrinth where the auburn
mist of fallen leaves
covered the floor
like a Burmese
tiger pit.

My brother
and I discovered
a lake, which became
a creek, which became
a swamp. I must've found
something exciting, because
I began sprinting homeward in a
juvenile fervor. Penetrating the
leafy shroud with my eager
feet. Unaware of traps
set subtly for those
tramping  through
the wilderness.

A nail,
I stepped
on a nail in my
recklessness. My
tennis shoe armor proved
futile against the steel weaponry.
Completely exposing my vulnerable
sole, the spiked interloper sank
its lone fang into me. The
pain shot through my
foot until ambulatory
abilities all but
vanished.

I didn't watch
where I was stepping
and landed on an inadvertent
weapon.
I should've
known the pollution of man
would stab me in my
outstretched hand.

A lesson was
learned about
paranoia and why
it exists. Even if I watch
where I'm going, polluters
will slit my wrists until the findings
of the swamp are forgotten in favor of scars.

what you see is not always what you get,
like a tiger scared by a house cat.
we sometimes forget
that appearances can be deceiving
just like we’re trained to master the act of concealing
the emotions that don’t serve our audience
in a zoo they all want
to see a tiger at its finest performance
no one knows the struggles of the tiger
since no eye sees behind the curtain where life seems to be a little harsher.

Reshaping my time
into that of a Tiger.
I feign at courage.

I had went to visit some friends
some acquaintances
these people i used to know
I was a ghost in my hometown,
where no one used my given name.
they brought me in through a screen door and
sat me down in the kitchen.
their voices were like underwater sounds
they told me to be still while he said hello.
I looked down a flight of basement stairs
where bathed in a blue light like Chopin’s  no. 19 in E minor
sat a tiger burning bright.
up the stairs it bounded forth in muted strides
to the floor it pinned me under protest
in cemetery stillness it said hello.
the kitchen was an autoclave
I never asked for help.

my hometown calls to me in my sleep
like an indian death wail on a buffalo robe
so my eyes sink back into the firmament.
bathing in the predawn light
my bones are an old horse I ride,
I score one for the body then I get onto a plane
then I score one for the body and I get onto a plane
then i score one for the body as it lays dying without complaint.
kneeling before the Holy Cross by the roadside
I take note of really just how much room there is on the bed beside me
strange bedfellows are I and the space I’ve been given.
there is a queen sized outer darkness within my twin sized
gestures of self control.
the dusk is day now and the moon is the sun
and my hometown calls to me like Jericho’s Trumpet
sounding from inside the Pale.

in my hometown I am a pilgrim
I saunter towards the seaboard
where the docks hold greek columns that soar into the air
like the elephant’s legs in Salvador Dali’s “The Temptation of St. Anthony”.
nostalgia burns my throat like acids and bases
and the columns lead up to nowhere and this place isn’t
how i remember it beyond the Pale.
limping with thin soles
dragging a dull hypothalamus like a dead mule chained to my ankle
we would sit and watch our forefathers stare at the static on the TV
from their arm chairs in the dark.
we would offer them coffee and ask how their day was and they
would tell us that sometimes they feel like a lone alley cat.
It’s like my buddy's roommate when I would go to visit; always alone inside his room.
sometimes I would see him around town and say hello and notice his face and
see that he was still alone inside his room.

well, I have skin in the game and I have a reputation
and i’m attached to my non-attachment.
sometimes a subtle brand of disgust creeps in to replace my avarice
and sometimes I starve to death holding a long handled spoon
seated at Caligula’s table.
sometimes i can’t tell their maidenhood from their madness
so i hoard one for the body.
sometimes i remember the way bees will talk to each other by dancing
and how old men will tell you they’re afraid to die.
Sometimes I hand a *** a 20 and weep as I watch him fold it
into an origami crane.

while I was in town I looked up my former landlord
I held a fondness for the times when they didn’t use my given name.
I wanted to see my old room and I had kept a raven back then and
he assured me it was still around.
the room was now and attic and was much bigger than I had held it
in my memory, vast almost.
I ask the dust as it was thick upon the floor boards and something
felt abandoned in the air.
the roof was in disrepair and one whole side was nearly completely gone.
tranquil ribbons of cirrus clouds stood in the sky through the roof like
a child’s drawing.
“Is it like you remember?”, he asked.
“Way over in the corner there was a couch my brother would sometimes sit in” I replied.
I asked after my raven and he pointed to the part of the roof that still was.
from the shadows came a bird song like an irish low whistle from above the Pale.
“That doesn’t sound like him”, I said (more to myself than to my host),
“that’s an owl or something.”

Roy Horn always favored big cats.
He put them in all of his acts.
But then Manticore,
who thought Roy was a bore,
said “Enough” and then Roy was just snacks.

Fact is stranger than fiction.
Quentin sits for days trying to think of a plot,
As dazed and twisted as his.
And should the Tiger King take Quentin under his wing,
I am sure that Quentin's mouth will be searching for teeth.
(but then again, don't you think Quentin is a tad bit
old?)
Benevolent monarch, with peasants made of fur.
Boldy he strays upon a kingdom never his.
And the peasants,
They have no choice
Have no voice,
Nothing but the strength to look the Tiger King's
Advisor in the eye
as they say
"Goodbye".

evol-u-shun
by michael r. burch

does GOD adore the Tyger
while it’s ripping ur lamb apart?

does GOD applaud the Plague
while it’s eating u à la carte?

does GOD admire ur brains
while ur praying IT has a heart?

does GOD endorse the Bible
you blue-lighted at k-mart?

NOTES: In the segmented title “evol” is “love” spelled backwards. The title questions whether you have been shunned by a "God of love" or evolution. William Blake’s famous poem “The Tyger” questions the nature of a Creator who brings lambs and tigers into the same world. Keywords/Tags: god, love, evolution, coronavirus, plague, tyger, tiger, lamb, predator, prey, brains, heart, bible, K-Mart, blue light special

evol-u-shun
by michael r. burch

does GOD adore the Tyger
while it’s ripping ur lamb apart?

does GOD applaud the Plague
while it’s eating u à la carte?

does GOD admire ur brains
while ur claiming IT has a heart?

does GOD endorse the Bible
you blue-lighted at k-mart?

NOTE: In the segmented title “evol” is “love” spelled backwards. The title questions whether you/we have been shunned by a "God of Love" or by evolution. William Blake’s poem “The Tyger” questions the nature of a Creator who brings lambs and tigers into the same world. Keywords/Tags: god, love, evolution, coronavirus, plague, tyger, tiger, lamb, predator, prey, brains, heart, bible, K-Mart, blue light special

How is it that
after all of this
I still find myself dreaming
that you would come back?

Perhaps if I looked
like your tamed beauty
you would have stayed
here with me.

Hiraeth creeps up on you
once more
and lulls you to sleep
with tears in your eyes.

And in your dreams
you are once again
in the land you loved
so dearly.

And you see me,
the ingénue who
you loved
more than anything

The faeries sing
their melodic tintinnabulation.
This inexplicable moment
has gifted the mute with voices

The rain has ended.
The storm has passed.
And the world is new,
coated with petrichor.

And I wonder
if you’ll join me,
and I wonder if you also think
that you and I are sempiternal.

With you and me
here in the woods,
would you agree
to one last dance?

I would hold on tight
and refuse to let you go.
I won’t ever let
that happen again.

But then you would inevitably wake
with that dainty beauty beside you,
with wrinkles on your fingers,
and with a wringing in your heart.

And when morning comes
you will arise from your tear-stained bed
and remind yourself
that you can never come back.

Do you regret leaving me?

But I would die happily
if I were able
to live that ineffable moment
with you.