Our home is burning.
Moths and lilies are breaking the woodwork.
They are fluttering closer to our fumbling feet.
Your grandmother’s wallpaper has never looked so beautiful.

I used to spend my nights in the silence between the sofa cushions,
Trying to organize the history of anarchism,
Wondering why the persimmons had been bitter to us,
And why you could not distinguish stones from bread.

On the day God decided to forsake virgins,
I went off to the market, closing the door behind me softly.
Our foundation disappeared behind me.
Somewhere, I believe, you are still dancing.

The Deflowering
excerpt from a Mayan love poem
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Remove your clothes;
let down your hair;
become as naked as the day you were born—
virgins!

Native American translation originally published by The HyperTexts

Virgins define their shelves,
Are they left on the shelves?
No, virgins are doing for themselves!

...whence?  I know, I know, you've the florist's packet of preservative mixt for your cut flowrs don't you?  Good luck.  



(sonnet #MMMMMMMDCCCXXV)


Lo, tulip capes so thickly clustered they'll
Ne'er blossom, like sardines is it from hence?
Wait greenly by the back stoop for a sense
Of April in the wings.  And jonquils' hale
Green tendrils wait likewise for that detail
I guess, as maids whose innocent suspense
We fail to notice, full of vain pretense'
Auld lies as if such might at last avail.
Girls have been known as flowrs, since oh, in tour
God's Scriptures told us that, I spose.  Aye, do
Men ink laments of this or that as twere
It's thus:  "...her virgins, pure, deflowrd--" they knew.
These latter days we are taught lies, (in poor
'Scuse know by instinct) and cut flowrs down too.

29Mar19a

Clumsy fingertips
Tremble in the dark.
Quivering, our lips
Kiss each birthmark.
Each firmly grips,
Passion's bright spark.
Night's youthful slips,
Memories deep mark.

With the outset of your child
to a brisk, cold wind unfettered.
How do you stare starving virgins
in the face as they float untethered.

Lies are a currency, counterfeit only to etiquette,
and emotion, and love. We lie,
locked eye within eye, in ways
to boost pride.

When vainglory preaches to you from a
styrofoam podium.
How do you recollect your bargains
Made in dead of night,
blanket to your neck.
Lies can sate those fever dreams
crept upon you from *****.

Does love mean love if it is said with force?
Faint heart never won fair lady.
Without Victorian hysteria;
Our corsets are not so tight
We lack the need for chaise longue
May we lack the need for, indeed nor,
the lie?

abet
or
crime
thinking
smoke
drink
no
drag
dancing
away into the li

It was only a legend, my dears,
A normal town, living in fear,
There were fat feral urban virgins here,
Hell bent on their pleasures, cheers!
"Down with boys' daks, get here!"
A whole town living in fear,
Was it all an urban myth, my dears?
Urban virgins strolling the streets,
Battleships waiting for boys to meet,
Immaculate conception, each miss,
Having divine parthogenesis,
Yes, real fat funster chicks,
It was all about *******,
For each little Horatio,
Or was it a fantasy of bliss,
From an  urban ****** miss?
Did urban virgins wander away?
Normal town, not a normal day,
A normal town, living in fear...
It was an urban legend, my dears.