Rapid striking of Copper and Nickel,
Tantalizing both the ear and the heart,
What is it that this hypnotic tune,
That has both the momentum of a freight train and a falling feather,
is trying to tell us?

Realization drops like an anvil upon the egg of a quail

This siren song is calling westward,
O' Hark!
Offering both salvation and  damnation,
The Spirit of the West Herself calls,
Rattling one's teeth with her percussive thunder,
Blinding with the flashes of her lightning,
Strobe-like in both aspects,
Prostrate thyself,
For with every booming step she draws closer,
and the music grows louder.

Is that her steps now?
Or the thundering of your heart in your chest?

She whispers upon the howling winds,
Promising nothing that is in your control to change,
Only that her domain is a hard and still wild place.

It is everything you feel the desire in this moment,
An escape from this quicksand you have found yourself in,
Toward the unknown yet the sought after.

What shall happen next,
That is the chapter that we'd have to write,
For good or ill,
A sign or an omen.

Drive Forward!
With a thundering of your own,
With the ground shaking momentum of a thousand charging horses, I say!
Drive forward with a fury of your own making,
Let your purpose be just and true!

DRIVE!!!

...

And like she was never there,
The Spirit of the West disappears,
Her spectral like visage disappearing into the wall,
The vision broken,
Leaving you once again in the quiet and dimly lit room.

I did errands today
and I was confused

Something was wrong, astray
I mused

I settled into the evening quiet
And my disquieted soul shouted

"The flags were not at half staff"
As the West Wing staff and Cabinet was trimmed by half

Yesterday, Congress was sieged by riff-raff
45 egged them on

Congress counted the Electoral votes
but our troubles are not all gone

Today, I needed to see that flag half-mast
My grief begged for a symbol against the bombast

And yet the flag waved, full staff, as if nothing and no one mattered
And no one has said a word

Tides rise and fall, the moon up and down,
sun waking west and east,
Heaven and earth.
Aloof, not that the world is beneath me,
The heart yearn for freedom,
Therefore spirit became he.
Man yearn for the sky, but can only daze on earth.
Therefore, Sky became their heaven,
Beneath became their Earth,
and Man became... its witness.

On a sudden sobbing night
in west african harmattan,
Light wasn't smiling
in the thickness of naked darkness
but for a dying flame
sitting on a frail candle stick.
In the deep sea of life,
tiniest things spark hope
When beyond we see.

The gypsy hymns and railway trails
which you followed into the valley of your trials
Lady Luck brought you enough street child wisdom and thief given kindness
to turn the tracks around and the train whistle to wake me.
Desert saint of your weathered ways
with your thin wrists and moon gleaming lips
Hope to you was like a blinding sunrise, painful to acknowledge, yet sorely lacking without
Never could be without your Larkspur boquets and marigold wreaths
August heat heavy with the scent of cypress trees
Apollo of the dusty sea, flooded the cliffs with light like withering flames
born from boxcar visions and a desperate hunger for that windblown hallelujah we chased down the starlit trestles like missionaries. Summoned from our streetcar medallions, vagabond nymphs, rumbling through moth-eaten states and barren dusks, lazy moon gazing upon our dolorous times and wild days and all our rough and rowdy ways.
No need to heed the judgements of the stars.
With the arid land so wild and lonesome- we weave our own muse into the railway line- followed back to when you were my home, and the streets were the laurel crown of your vagrant fortune.

R.I.P.
by Michael R. Burch

When I am lain to rest
and my soul is no longer intact,
but dissolving, like a sunset
diminishing to the west ...

and when at last
before His throne my past
is put to test
and the demons and the Beast

await to feast
on any morsel downward cast,
while the vapors of impermanence
cling, smelling of damask ...

then let me go, and do not weep
if I am left to sleep,
to sleep and never dream, or dream, perhaps,
only a little longer and more deep.

Published by Romantics Quarterly and The Chained Muse. This is an early poem from my “Romantic Period” that was probably written in my late teens. Keywords/Tags: death, eternity, eternal rest, sunset, west, demons, beast, judgment, sleep, dream, nightfall, night, throne, vapor, vapors, impermanence

coyote calls make canyons quiver
stars sleep in ponderosa trees
dry your tears in the fire’s glow
wild is a pretty place to be

It was a cold winters night
Right outside the town of Bridgestone
The place was silent except for the old saloon
A new face appeared just the other day, he spent most nights in there
Some gazed at the fanciness of his clothes
Other scorned at the six shooter on his hip
I talked with him a little, he told me he was moving on with life, searching for something new and bright
He only planned to be here for a few nights, wasn't looking to pick a bone
So I gathered supplies, scurried a horse, and made sure he was gone by next afternoon
The next day is when the platoon came looking for him, I told them, the man was headed just south of Rabbit's Hair
Little did they know the man was traveling north to Letterman's Grove
Let this be a lesson kid, I may not have a story to tell, but this rusty old six shooter and gold is a most generous tip.