#coffins
We walked on clouds
just to fall asleep in loveless coffins
Imagining a new world
While suffering in the present
Dreaming of the future
Just to escape our daily nightmares
Hiding our deep scars
just to face our reality that when it’s all said and done we will all end up in loveless coffins
Oct 29, 2025
Oct 29, 2025 at 11:54 AM UTC
Crescendo Against Heaven
by Michael R. Burch
This is a poem about a crisis of faith that occurred after the death of the wife of a fellow poet.
As curiously formal as the rose,
the imperious Word grows
until it sheds red-gilded leaves:
then heaven grieves
love’s tiny pool of crimson recrimination
against God, its contention
of the price of salvation.
These industrious trees,
endlessly losing and re-losing their leaves,
finally unleashing themselves from earth, lashing
themselves to bits, washing
themselves free
of all but the final ignominy
of death, become
at last: fast planks of our coffins, dumb.
Together now, rude coffins, crosses,
death-cursed but bright vermilion roses,
bodies, stumps, tears, words: conspire
together with a nearby spire
to raise their Accusation Dire ...
to scream, complain, to point out these
and other Dark Anomalies.
God always silent, ever afar,
distant as Bethlehem’s retrograde star,
we point out now, in resignation:
You asked too much of man’s beleaguered nation,
gave too much strength to his Enemy,
as though to prove Your Self greater than He,
at our expense, and so men die
(whose accusations vex the sky)
yet hope, somehow, that You are good ...
just, O greatest of Poets!, misunderstood.
Published by The NeoVictorian/Cochlea, Poetry Life & Times and The Eclectic Muse (Canada). Keywords/Tags: crescendo, heaven, salvation, price, cost, hymn, funeral, grave, graves, coffins, cross, crosses, cemetery, graveyard, church, spire, God, distant, silent, misunderstood
Mar 22, 2020
Mar 22, 2020 at 1:02 AM UTC
Like a shadow fleeting across the
Moon's face
so your eyes darken
in return
And like a red rose petal
settling across dark waters' surface
the stillness is broken
within me
And I remember it through flashes
flowers fall and spill
from lips I once had
of the blood that would come
from the rose stems'
You watching in horror
as the curse sets in
death like a blanket of darkness
to forever wrap my broken shell
I'm buried in a case of glass
and mahogany, the cushions light colored
and soft
everyday I hear you above me
It's the only way to tell
time
in my eternal slumber of body
but my spirit wakes to your voice
when you leave
I'm gone once more
drifting in the nothingness
of my mistakes
Feb 5, 2019
Feb 5, 2019 at 2:17 AM UTC
I see the rabbits feeding on the grass
My heart is filled with joy
Their life is precious
I see the vultures feeding on the rabbits
My heart is filled with joy
Their life is precious
That's what I never understood about coffins
Life is about expanding your prison cell as much as you can
There's no requirement to be contained once it's over
Our nutriance to the Earth
Is our nutrients into Earth
All creatures that die on this planet
Become a part of it
The Debt they paid to the future
The Debt that is always collected on
We travel nonchalantly on their corpses
Wishing they could appreciate
That each and every one of them
Was one step closer to sentience
This planet's passion project
Could the first single-celled organism
Comprehend my humiliation?
When the first creature walked on land
Was it anticipating my shame?
Did it sprout wings
To give me nightmares of dying in an airplane?
Did ancient Neanderthals dance around a fire
To reenact my adolescence?
Could mystic voodoo shaman
Cure my lack of agency?
Or did lost American tribesmen
Prophesize the complexities of my love?
I can feel all these ************* looking up at me from the ground
And it's just me
As I accidentally burn my notebook with a cigarette
May 29, 2017
May 29, 2017 at 12:01 AM UTC
Dad didn't want a coffin.
"Cremate my last remains,"
And so we did.
Cool and dry,
His ashes, urned,
Lie beneath the sod
And prairie sky
Waiting some clarion call,
Some trill of hope,
Bright, re-constitutional,
Faith-affirming.
Mother's wishes rise before us:
No crematory,
No embalmer.
Just her blanket,
Just a hole
Dug beside our Dad.
The law would let her wish be true,
But her children won't.
We're searching coffin plans.
Reverently grim,
Lovingly deferential,
Dutifully rebellious,
Solemn this journey be.
Pine boards to honor her thrift
But smooth and tight,
Rope handles, fitted lid,
Perhaps a little trim,
Perhaps a sheaf of wheat carved
For the old farmer she was.
We'll bury her,
Wrapped in her blanket,
Tucked securely in pine
Beside my father's ashes.
Like a grain of wheat she'll lie
Silent in her final say
Inside our final say
Waiting Resurrection Day.
Aug 5, 2018
Aug 5, 2018 at 6:11 PM UTC
I've been falling from the skies
And I see no grounds, where I can just strike,
Where my blood will smear all over.
Nah! No poem or any story is it!
Just an image of my thoughts!
How beautifully am i messed!
How my flaws are haunting me!
I see nightmares, in which I've seen my death
They, taking me in a coffin, walking so fast!
I see myself crying, hailing as loud as possible
They ain't listening to me!
Then I open my eyes and see I'm still alive
But look! I am dead inside!
Now no one is carrying me!
No coffins, no crowds, but a lone me!
I cry, I hail, they hear and laugh!
I see a darkness all around,
I see some ascaping souls,
Laughter of them tears my heart!
I see moments stuck,
I see the fierce sounds arising from somewhere!
Why this restlessness my friend? Why?
Now come, emerge from this darkness
For my quests are unfinished without you!
Jul 30, 2018
Jul 30, 2018 at 4:30 AM UTC
was
me
the mirrors confession
resulting in shards
in
my
back
blood trinkles
as i walked away
remember me
cry the shards
they began to cry
very hard
oh my shards
break from me these chains
what comfort have i in thee
blind me folded from corners
what arms
of
disbelieve
songs sung through the factors
the blood
of
my
love
what is this blanket of affection
have your clothes all been laundered clean
repeat me
repeat after me
never to return
have we left
answer me
circling
them
take
me
as
i
am
this mere image
an mortal-less man
he had
an
candle
but he
could never
blow it
was
he
that dead poet
?
...
..
.
Feb 9, 2018
Feb 9, 2018 at 12:05 PM UTC
I see these places that will remain
as strange as they are to me today.
I see these little people scattered on the streets.
I see them locked away in a world not their own.
This lonely expanse on this never ending piece of earth.
And I see these toy like cars and trucks.
Somehow they don’t belong together.
I try to guess (,to think)
what it feels like to live in such small world
and not on this huge earth.
I guess they don’t know what I see from here.
That life had a dead end.
And at that end
either
we can choose to be in tinier coffins
or
we can be a part of never ending sky
and this ever nourishing earth.
Feb 8, 2017
Feb 8, 2017 at 3:52 AM UTC
The raging flame,
That leaves behind havoc,
The deceased have all the prayers from us,
People that expired were a lot,
The forest summoned the firefighters,
Asking them to help the people in need.
The flames could be diminished,
But the gas cylinder caused destruction,
So many bodies,
So many coffins,
So many people crying for justice.
This was not but an accident,
An evil man was behind this,
It was a game,
To make these innocent people pay !
Sep 2, 2015
Sep 2, 2015 at 6:53 AM UTC
There are those who
despise tight spaces
who hate confinement
at least in their own basement
There's some truth
I concur
I need room
not some gloomy tomb
still there are some
who are confined
by the dust below
and the clouds above
they desire
the width of the equator
and claim
the height to the stars
but in the end
with all man as a subject
with majestic skyscrapers
and treasuries filled to the brim
their death creates borders
implodes skyscrapers
and loots the coffers
alas, as they started
in incubators
they remain claustrophobic
in coffins
the world is not enough
because we are not enough
Apr 9, 2015
Apr 9, 2015 at 2:57 PM UTC