#aubade
The dawn deserves to finish rise with the tide
On the Morning of the night O winds we ride
Release a speckled aubade parting in the way
Lovers do, as a world begins its ordinary day
Aube me in a dissolving kiss, intimate so real
Timeless in a clock dark the light in us to feel
Still the soft tenderness survive exposing sun
Done the fight, a Lark of loneliness, walk run
In a cold memory, warm us slip the bed away
Yet, today seems different, solitude in its gray
Starts to hold you longer your private unseen
Let me place it gently down, a word we glean
Carry this shift, a change that lingers in space
For us lines whispy gathers meaning in a face
May 14
May 14, 2026 at 7:57 AM UTC
Hungry thoughts pierce my soul
Reminding me of what I’m missing
The light passes over my eyes
Reminding me of what I’m not seeing
I stare helplessly at the curtains
They hold in as much light as they can
I brace myself for the changing of the clocks
I hold in as much light as I can
Sitting up in bed, covered in my mistakes
I look over at my latest blunder
Thinking of the excuses I will spew
I look over at my constant living
Last night’s love opens their eyes
I wait for their regret to pour through
They expect me to start the end
I wait for their excuses to follow
When I open my mouth, my hand follows
Tracing the light on their face
The body cannot lie about love
Tracing the truth with actions
My hand gets caught in my mistake
Trapping me at the edge
All remorse leaves their eyes and they are
Keeping me at dawn
Apr 20, 2020
Apr 20, 2020 at 12:28 AM UTC
Abide
by Michael R. Burch
after Philip Larkin's "Aubade"
It is hard to understand or accept mortality—
such an alien concept: not to be.
Perhaps unsettling enough to spawn religion,
or to scare mutant fish out of a primordial sea
boiling like goopy green tea in a kettle.
Perhaps a man should exhibit more mettle
than to admit such fear, denying Nirvana exists
simply because we are stuck here in such a fine fettle.
And so we abide . . .
even in life, staring out across that dark brink.
And if the thought of death makes your questioning heart sink,
it is best not to drink
(or, drinking, certainly not to think).
Originally published by Light. Keywords/Tags: Philip Larkin, Aubade, abide, death, mortality, religion, drink, drinking, drunk, alcohol, fettle, mettle, Nirvana
Mar 24, 2020
Mar 24, 2020 at 8:44 PM UTC
The goddess of the spent moon skulks to her feathery bed of fiery dawn.
Wrens through the uplands wend the fence weft with piecemeal straw.
Lips painted like pomegranate groves, dashed with fructifying sweets.
A kiss is a far-off and warm opening of lips like the sun into forest gleams.
Mar 2, 2020
Mar 2, 2020 at 5:44 PM UTC
The rooster's crow warns me that dawn has come
My sleepy eyes resist my need to rise
I blindly reach for her but she is gone
Then hear a sound that much to my surprise
Reveals she hasn't left but still is near
The sound then ever closer she appears!
One last embrace and kiss before she leaves
Declare undying love to last the years
Such declaration mitigates our fears
As varied shades of love each one perceives
Oct 19, 2019
Oct 19, 2019 at 9:55 AM UTC
Dying Sun
Warmth on my eyelids welcomes a new day
and you, create a reflection against my skin
pink carnations sit on the window sill
soaking up the sun, but desperately begging for water
I kiss you gently and grab the vase
my fingertips brush against you while the birds wish us good morning
I remember how much you loved the pink carnations when we got them
your soft, delicate hands so gently pouring water into the glass
the crinkles by your eyes because you were so happy
and because it was always too sunny by that window
you didn’t care though, sun made you smile
so even when the birds stop singing
or the carnations begin to die around you
I know that the sun will make you smile.
Feb 6, 2019
Feb 6, 2019 at 3:52 PM UTC
Caress me, melt in me
let me see the love in your eyes,
Brimming, ululating passion
radiating in delight.
These lips craving for the touch of mine
Like the falling star
waiting to touch the ground,
But in vain, our hopes are
Vanishing before our eyes
with the rising sun.
Once again we have to part;
Once again we have to die,
Till night comes
And breathe in us life
again.
Alas! Why this sun, why the morning?
Why this rein fall on innocent lovers?
Who want nothing but to lay in each others arm
Today, tomorrow, after morrow.
Go and love first!
then only then you’ll fathom
how sharp your rays are that slice
one soul in two, every dawn.
Still, your rays are not
Half as strong as our love
Stays fervid with every partition.
You, my love, the smile of my life,
Immure these tears inside eyes
Cheeks are mine not them to kiss.
Come in my arms, clasp me so tight,
Canoodle, smooch, implant equal kisses
a clock runs in a day; my sole sustenance.
If I do not return with the return of twilight
Then let loose tears, with them, me too.
And grant this fascist sun victory
over transient us,
But not our love,
We’ll kindle our love
by making dreams our home.
Oct 6, 2018
Oct 6, 2018 at 4:26 AM UTC
the distance between us felt further the moment i was in your arms. your words were as empty as the wine bottles on your mantle, your kisses were needles filled with lidocaine.
laying in your bed felt like laying in a coffin. i wasn't really there. you weren't really there, either. the streetlights illuminated these lies we told ourselves in a soft, yellow wash.
i remembered as your breathing slowed that you didn't know my last name. the exposed brick walls taunted me with the whispers of pasts until dawn. the sun rose patiently. you didn't say a word when you walked me to the door.
i've realized love does not exist within the confines of your bedroom. it might not even exist within the confines of your heart.
you told me you were afraid you could never love anyone again. i took that as a challenge like a bird to a glass door. smash, blood, regret.
Apr 22, 2017
Apr 22, 2017 at 9:17 PM UTC
the cracks in the shades
make stripes along my sheets
eternity and death
laying beside me
it's time for them to leave
but their promises
will never vacate
the indentation on my mattress
their breathing, their whispers of truth
that progression is happening
that the world is spinning
that I am dying
spending hours assuming
that their touch will render me
into anything but a funeral
pacing in a skull
when they leave, I
am sure they will never
return. for this figment of my
imagination, has ended me
Mar 23, 2017
Mar 23, 2017 at 3:48 PM UTC
Your hair is lava that springs from the earth
Your smile is the moon that glows ‘pon the hearth
And every vapor of your body reminds me of the sea
Teeming with life, electrifying!
O, how you walk with dalliance, perfect like a sunflower
that blooms every May
While your lips are cherries—of course ‘twould be sweet!
But if there’s one thing I most admire
Like music from a lire
It is your eyes
Which makes me want to cry.
Mar 18, 2017
Mar 18, 2017 at 7:52 AM UTC
Trill of beak into birch. Dawn spooks
the graveyard into silence. A heart
hardens at God’s withered finger reaching
but not reached for. I trim the hedges
and the whir of weed-eater disturbs
a nest of yellow jackets into tornado,
dust devil, of translucent wings and sting.
I walk among the dead three times a week.
I am learning their language. They relearn
the mundanity of white noise above
and quietly forget, quietly forgive.
This hill is the crest on a wave of coffins,
each one a boat through the world below.
Submerged in a bloodshot morning
I listen to a woodpecker in its throes
of building a home out of the depths of bark.
In the chill, the soft fog rolling, it pecks
and it knocks. The doors to these lives
long closed, I hush. I do not believe God
will visit these grounds to reclaim his clay:
I plant flowers in it between the plots,
each name engraved of marble a blank stare.
The flash of red flushes from budding branches
and I return to work. No one answers.
I relearn the dead’s language, their silence,
relearn every day how to repair stillness.
Apr 22, 2016
Apr 22, 2016 at 12:38 PM UTC
What it is,
tethered to your arms?
*** has gone.
*********** hurled itself
out the door and into the highway,
lured by the hitch hiker's course.
Your ****** shaft bears
no resemblance to a sheathed dagger
that once slayed
indiscriminant of ***** lips and vulvous tongues.
Hands that hailed eyes
shut to meaning, mouthed
delirious to more than ailments of corporal pleasures.
Flesh to flesh,
breath to skin,
sweat of your brow
dripped into the last sheets
soiled and saturated.
But what is it,
tethered to your arms still?
Transfigured
to what lingers beyond
a look and a touch,
strings the web to another bridled day.
Apr 11, 2016
Apr 11, 2016 at 1:48 AM UTC
I sink deeper into the atmosphere we were responsible for,
in silence my eyelids and I fight the sunlight’s slow and crescendoing intrusion,
wondering if she is still asleep
or if she realized by now that every time she makes the slightest fidget
away from the center of the bed
I bite her
right where her lower abs meet her hip flexor
on the outside
I wanted to have her learn I am consistent.
she didn’t have to give consent,
degenerates like me don’t care
if I want the cake and proceed to eat it before day break
then so be it.
Nuzzling now
her lips press their frozen presence into the space under my jaw
and a warm gust of her pushes my sideburns up
my chest jumps
lumps in my veins snowball and create
the feel of cherry bombs popping
at every nerve ending I had forgotten
it rings me.
how could I let her trick me into jostling my babe awake?
and all before the alarm.
I grow the wings of a vicious pelican, expanding my span
using my featherish lips to attack her out of cryostasis
she curls up, afraid of more laughter and pushes her tongue through the gap she made
between her bottom and top rows of teeth.
she glows better than the bringer of days
the sun must find me insane.
Sep 25, 2015
Sep 25, 2015 at 12:25 PM UTC
I stir in the soft glow, in the room, and traffic is a slight ocean's wave, in sound,
I put my hand upon my chest, this ceiling isn't mine, the fixture here is round?
When I roll over, you are there, face hidden by your hair,
Pillow grasped with hands still bunched, have a hunch
We loved last night under, the moonlight, cloud light , no light
If I remember anything, ... umm I must get dressed and take my things
I must leave without saying goodbye, or get the stare from sleepy eyes,
That could **** even me, with the air thick with thrill, from the eve before,
No, I must leave sleep and you, to walk the dog who is scratching at the door,
for sure before I leave, this early early morn.
Apr 6, 2015
Apr 6, 2015 at 8:27 PM UTC
Did you know
over 100,000 people
die every year by
careless drivers, slippery stairs,
not following printed directions,
lapses in common sense,
These are common errors we share.
Some of us get lucky,
we evade, we clutch the banister,
we start at step one,
We double check electrical wires,
& carry scissors blade down,
never running.
People die at work all the time,
on the Monday morning drive,
rear ended in traffic on a rainy
Thursday night.
The 9 to 5 can take you,
spirited away at the desk
during a 45 page monthly report,
you get to cell C83
on worksheet 8
and your heart explodes
from stress,
blood vessels burst in
your brain like black cats
on Halloween night
from strain,
All for a gold watch,
a 401 k,
so your wife can smile
and your children can
play in their backyard.
We do it for 48 hours we can
call our own.
5 days of Hell
for two days in Heaven
means the devils
get their dues
and the gods
give yours to you.
Oh, Weekend
Mourn,
How I love thee.
I wake up
when I wake up,
no alarms needed.
Sometimes I shower after
coffee, sometimes after
dinner.
Death leaves me alone
leaves me to my
streaming movies,
old books
and my poetry.
Oh, Weekend
Mourn
How I love thee
No worksheets.
No stress.
No Death.
Until Monday,
everything is fine,
until Death wakes me
with a whisper
"Get up,
It's almost time."
Oh, Weekend
Mourn
How I love thee.
Apr 6, 2015
Apr 6, 2015 at 3:39 PM UTC
Early ******* to blasphemy
and morning chorus on the solstice;
gentle white twilight
and the earth tumbling around,
asleep.
Mar 15, 2015
Mar 15, 2015 at 5:23 PM UTC
I want to be the bed covers
You wake to
That your restless limbs
Have smothered
That your emanating body
The fabric
You have tossed-and-turned in
8 hours hence
Imprinted with your scent
And the mouthwash
You gargle
To swoosh-and-splash
Along your tongue
To be in you
Like a liquid ache
Sloshing
Waking
I want to be the fork
You pick your eggs with
My metallic spine
In your slight fingers
Your demure hands
Scarred sustenance
Yolk sun
I want to be the comb
Tangled in your frizzy hair
Your wavy hair of smoke
And shadowed lakes
As soft as lint
Cascading
I want to be the cig
You light on the corner
To warm the brick morning
I want to hang on your quivering lips
Like an autumn leaf from a branch
I want you to inhale me
And let your body loose
Feel me utterly
Then exhale...
Let me evaporate
Into the nothingness
I was before
You
Feb 24, 2015
Feb 24, 2015 at 10:39 PM UTC
Yawn… Through the early morning stars.
The glimmer catches my smile as I exhale the night.
I sigh and release the long, dark hours,
And look up to watch the sky ignite.
The warmth ****** the chill on my cheeks,
And dries the dew on my drowsy lips.
I unravel my limbs and flatten my peaks,
Letting the Dawn kindle my flesh with golden drips.
The grass just waking up reaches beneath me.
The leaves whistle sweetly to the trees.
I take a breath of sunshine,
And feel the world around me buzzing.
Finally, I can say
“Good morning.”
Nov 4, 2014
Nov 4, 2014 at 11:21 PM UTC