the rose that grew from concrete
fossilized in my dreams
gaslit to believe, you were my everything
each deep breath, every spring it crept
my dreams reveal all secrets kept
i saw you cheat, i saw your deceit
i expose your lies, i burned the fleet
nobody does wrong by me without repercussions
your lies were dozens on dozens, webbed my worries
my first and only until you tainted the holy

labyrinths of interwoven
                            time..

Cling on the dawn of morrow.
       unseen until the rigor of seasons.

I gaze out and splendor at the
     entanglement interlaced
before my eyes,

                            and smile.

Pity Clarity
by Michael R. Burch

Pity Clarity,
and, if you should find her,
release her from the tangled webs
of dusty verse that bind her.

And as for Brevity,
once the soul of wit—
she feels the gravity
of ironic chains and massive rhetoric.

And Poetry,
before you may adore her,
must first be freed
from those who for her loveliness would ***** her.

Published by Contemporary Rhyme (January 2005) and The Columbus Dispatch (Sunday, April 3, 2005). Keywords/Tags: Poetry, pity, clarity, obscure, webs, dusty, verse, brevity, gravity, irony, chains, manacles, massive, rhetoric, imprisoned, prisoner, jailed, *****, ******, *******

I keep it all in;
Let the spiders crawl
Throughout my skin,
And spin their webs
In my soul’s
Numerous holes.

suspended in the air
creations of your own kind of flight

wispy strands protect and feed you
the weary that are trapped by your game

crawling and weaving,
flightless yet flying,
ever graceful,

the spider and his web.

Sometimes I wake up
To seconds that float in oblivion
Before it all floods back in waves

Dreams sewed into webs of thread
Sunshine caught in shards of glass
Seashells echoed on ears' shores

But in a sanctuary of stars
Lies the peaceful silence of unborn stars

I just went to bed
left you on Read
I did it on purpose to mess with your head

Laid in gossamer sheets
tinged sickly red
with the blood of words
that went unsaid
hard to deny
who made the bed
who caught whom
in whose spinnerets

Distraught with rotting thoughts
locked in my own stocks
stalking twisted halls
the clocks have all stopped

Stuck in my head
kicking myself
with broken knees
and buckled legs
struggling to free myself
from myself

Entombed by one I never could deceive
darkness abounding when all that I need
is to catch the right light
and stop trying to fight
Oh, what a tangled web we weave