#contrition
Will I ever reach you
when there are tides surging and sweeping anything in between?
Have you seen something on these stair steps winding within?
Wild-eyed hope scurry into the woods of the night to heed the call,
wasted so many years growing up to find nothing beyond these walls.
I falter hearing blood and friends are in their ways broken, but all I do is listen and pretend to understand,
decipher encrypted messages of fate engraved in their calloused hands.
We are spent being rogue satellites looking for a sign of life,
fledgling wanderers cut by thorns through age made contrite.
When time plucks us out of the tree I’m hoping to pop up somewhere where the sun is free,
unlike this place where the end is only thing guaranteed.
And you and I laugh about it, a reprieve from crying out of sight,
so we hide behind comforting lies,
for the hurt is in the try.
It’s hard to own a face
in a confined and crowded space,
quietly we must go
and in time, leave without a trace.
Yet, though there are waves between us, let me know when you find a beacon guiding you back to the shore,
that unseen in the great unknown, there is much left unexplored.
Sep 13, 2024
Sep 13, 2024 at 9:43 PM UTC
I didn’t know you
until I ripped you
from your family
and tore their world apart.
It only took seconds.
You, average and easy to miss
yet shining still, still shining
in a blur of tracksuits and hoodies
makes it harder still to see you every time.
Would I give my life to not miss again.
An ‘accident’ they say
As I am bathed in their contempt.
You must not feel ‘guilty’ but they are liars;
They, whose pain is so much bigger than mine.
But I cannot hold the mourners’ hands
Still only grieve within
I didn’t know you
until I became consumed by you.
The dark deep hurt I am not allowed to release
no comfort in precedent or in faith
that teaches evil can be redeemed.
Only deep regret for no crime committed
The seconds it took to take our lives.
Nov 8, 2020
Nov 8, 2020 at 6:20 AM UTC
Regret
by Michael R. Burch
Regret,
a bitter
ache to bear . . .
once starlight
languished
in your hair . . .
a shining there
as brief
as rare.
Regret . . .
a pain
I chose to bear . . .
unleash
the torrent
of your hair . . .
and show me
once again―
how rare.
Published by The HyperTexts and The Chained Muse
White Goddess
by Michael R. Burch
White in the shadows
I see your face,
unbidden. Go, tell
Love it is commonplace;
tell Regret it is not so rare.
Our love is not here
though you smile,
full of sedulous grace.
Lost in darkness, I fear
the past is our resting place.
Published by Carnelian, The Chained Muse, A-Poem-A-Day and in a YouTube video by Aurora G. with the titles "Ghost, " "White Goddess" and "White in the Shadows."
The Stake
by Michael R. Burch
Love, the heart bets,
if not without regrets,
will still prove, in the end,
worth the light we expend
mining the dark
for an exquisite heart.
Originally published by The Lyric
If
by Michael R. Burch
If I regret
fire in the sunset
exploding on the horizon,
then let me regret loving you.
If I forget
even for a moment
that you are the only one,
then let me forget that the sky is blue.
If I should yearn
in a season of discontentment
for the vagabond light of a companionless moon,
let dawn remind me that you are my sun.
If I should burn―one moment less brightly,
one instant less true―
then with wild scorching kisses,
inflame me, inflame me, inflame me anew.
The Effects of Memory
by Michael R. Burch
A black ringlet
curls to lie
at the nape of her neck,
glistening with sweat
in the evaporate moonlight ...
This is what I remember
now that I cannot forget.
And tonight,
if I have forgotten her name,
I remember:
rigid wire and white lace
half-impressed in her flesh ...
our soft cries, like regret,
... the enameled white clips
of her bra strap
still inscribe dimpled marks
that my kisses erase ...
now that I have forgotten her face.
Published by Poetry Magazine, La luce che non muore (Italy), Kritya (India), The Eclectic Muse (Canada), Carnelian, Triplopia, Net Poetry and Art Competition, Strange Road, Inspirational Stories, and Centrifugal Eye
Villanelle: Because Her Heart Is Tender
by Michael R. Burch
for Beth
She scrawled soft words in soap: "Never Forget,"
Dove-white on her car's window, and the wren,
because her heart is tender, might regret
it called the sun to wake her. As I slept,
she heard lost names recounted, one by one.
She wrote in sidewalk chalk: "Never Forget,"
and kept her heart's own counsel. No rain swept
away those words, no tear leaves them undone.
Because her heart is tender with regret,
bruised by razed towers' glass and steel and stone
that shatter on and on and on and on,
she stitches in wet linen: "NEVER FORGET,"
and listens to her heart's emphatic song.
The wren might tilt its head and sing along
because its heart once understood regret
when fledglings fell beyond, beyond, beyond ...
its reach, and still the boot-heeled world strode on.
She writes in adamant: "NEVER FORGET"
because her heart is tender with regret.
Published by Neovictorian/Cochlea, The Villanelle, The Eclectic Muse, Nietzsche Twilight, Nutty Stories (South Africa), Poetry Renewal Magazine and Other Voices International
Lucifer, to the Enola Gay
by Michael R. Burch
Go then,
and give them my meaning
so that their teeming
streets
become my city.
Bring back a pretty
flower—
a chrysanthemum,
perhaps, to bloom
if but an hour,
within a certain room
of mine
where
the sun does not rise or fall,
and the moon,
although it is content to shine,
helps nothing at all.
There,
if I hear the wistful call
of their voices
regretting choices
made
or perhaps not made
in time,
I can look back upon it and recall,
in all
its pale forms sublime,
still
Death will never be holy again.
Published by Romantics Quarterly, Penny Dreadful and Poetry Life & Times
Absence
by Michael R. Burch
Christ, how I miss you!,
though your parting kiss is still warm on my lips.
Now the floor is not strewn with your stockings and slips
and the dishes are all stacked away.
You left me today ...
and each word left unspoken now whispers regrets.
Having Touched You
by Michael R. Burch
What I have lost
is not less
than what I have gained.
And for each moment passed
like the sun to the west,
another remained,
suspended in memory
like a flower in crystal
so that eternity
is but an hour, and fall
is no longer a season
but a state of mind.
I have no reason
to wait; the wind
does not pause for remembrance
or regret
because there is only fate and chance.
And so then, forget...
Forget we were utterly
happy a day.
That day was my lifetime.
Before that day I was empty
and the sky was grey.
You were the sunshine:
the sunshine that gave me life.
I took root and I grew.
Now the touch of death is like a terrible knife,
and yet I can bear it,
having touched you.
I wrote this poem as a teenager after watching "The Boy in the Plastic Bubble"
Circe
by Michael R. Burch
She spoke
and her words
were like a ringing echo dying
or like smoke
rising and drifting
while the earth below is spinning.
She awoke
with a cry
from a dream that had no ending,
without hope
or strength to rise,
into hopelessness descending.
And an ache
in her heart
toward that dream, retreating,
left a wake
of small waves
in circles never completing.
Originally published by Romantics Quarterly
Annual
by Michael R. Burch
Silence
steals upon a house
where one sits alone
in the shadow of the itinerant letterbox,
watching the disconnected telephone
collecting dust ...
hearing the desiccate whispers of voices’
dry flutters,—
moths’ wings
brittle as cellophane ...
Curled here,
reading the yellowing volumes of loss
by the front porch light
in the groaning swing . . .
through thin adhesive gloss
I caress your face.
Come!
by Michael R. Burch
Will you come to visit my grave, I wonder,
in the season of lightning, the season of thunder,
when I have lain so long in the indifferent earth
that I have no girth?
When my womb has conformed to the chastity
your anemic Messiah envisioned for me,
will you finally be pleased that my *** was thus rendered
unpalatable, disengendered?
And when those strange loathsome organs that troubled you so
have been eaten by worms, will the heavens still glow
with the approval of God that I ended a maid—
thanks to a *****
And will you come to visit my grave, I wonder,
in the season of lightning, the season of thunder?
Flight
by Michael R. Burch
Eagle, raven, blackbird, crow . . .
What you are I do not know.
Where you go I do not care.
I’m unconcerned whose meal you bear.
But as you mount the sunlit sky,
I only wish that I could fly.
I only wish that I could fly.
Robin, hawk or whippoorwill . . .
Should men care that you hunger still?
I do not wish to see your home.
I do not wonder where you roam.
But as you scale the sky's bright stairs,
I only wish that I were there.
I only wish that I were there.
Sparrow, lark or chickadee . . .
Your markings I disdain to see.
Where you fly concerns me not.
I scarcely give your flight a thought.
But as you wheel and arc and dive,
I, too, would feel so much alive.
I, too, would feel so much alive.
This is a poem that I believe I wrote as a high school sophomore.
Every Man Has a Dream
by Michael R. Burch
Every man has a dream that he cannot quite touch ...
a dream of contentment, of soft, starlit rain,
of a breeze in the evening that, rising again,
reminds him of something that cannot have been,
and he calls this dream love.
And each man has a dream that he fears to let live,
for he knows: to succumb is to throw away all.
So he curses, denies it and locks it within
the cells of his heart and he calls it a sin,
this madness, this love.
But each man in his living falls prey to his dreams,
and he struggles, but so he ensures that he falls,
and he finds in the end that he cannot deny
the joy that he feels or the tears that he cries
in the darkness of night for this light he calls love.
Sea Dreams
by Michael R. Burch
I.
In timeless days
I've crossed the waves
of seaways seldom seen.
By the last low light of evening
the breakers that careen
then dive back to the deep
have rocked my ship to sleep,
and so I've known the peace
of a soul at last at ease
there where Time's waters run
in concert with the sun.
With restless waves
I've watched the days’
slow movements, as they hum
their antediluvian songs.
Sometimes I've sung along,
my voice as soft and low
as the sea's, while evening slowed
to waver at the dim
mysterious moonlit rim
of dreams no man has known.
In thoughtless flight,
I've scaled the heights
and soared a scudding breeze
over endless arcing seas
of waves ten miles high.
I've sheared the sable skies
on wings as soft as sighs
and stormed the sun-pricked pitch
of sunset’s scarlet-stitched,
ebullient dark demise.
I've climbed the sun-cleft clouds
ten thousand leagues or more
above the windswept shores
of seas no man has sailed
— great seas as grand as hell's,
shores littered with the shells
of men's "immortal" souls —
and I've warred with dark sea-holes
whose open mouths implored
their depths to be explored.
And I've grown and grown and grown
till I thought myself the king
of every silver thing . . .
But sometimes late at night
when the sorrowing wavelets sing
sad songs of other times,
I taste the windborne rime
of a well-remembered day
on the whipping ocean spray,
and I bow my head to pray . . .
II.
It's been a long, hard day;
sometimes I think I work too hard.
Tonight I'd like to take a walk
down by the sea —
down by those salty waves
brined with the scent of Infinity,
down by that rocky shore,
down by those cliffs that I used to climb
when the wind was **** with a taste of lime
and every dream was a sailor's dream.
Then small waves broke light,
all frothy and white,
over the reefs in the ramblings of night,
and the pounding sea
—a mariner’s dream—
was bound to stir a boy's delight
to such a pitch
that he couldn't desist,
but was bound to splash through the surf in the light
of ten thousand stars, all shining so bright.
Christ, those nights were fine,
like a well-aged wine,
yet more scalding than fire
with the marrow’s desire.
Then desire was a fire
burning wildly within my bones,
fiercer by far than the frantic foam . . .
and every wish was a moan.
Oh, for those days to come again!
Oh, for a sea and sailing men!
Oh, for a little time!
It's almost nine
and I must be back home by ten,
and then . . . what then?
I have less than an hour to stroll this beach,
less than an hour old dreams to reach . . .
And then, what then?
Tonight I'd like to play old games—
games that I used to play
with the somber, sinking waves.
When their wraithlike fists would reach for me,
I'd dance between them gleefully,
mocking their witless craze
—their eager, unchecked craze—
to batter me to death
with spray as light as breath.
Oh, tonight I'd like to sing old songs—
songs of the haunting moon
drawing the tides away,
songs of those sultry days
when the sun beat down
till it cracked the ground
and the sea gulls screamed
in their agony
to touch the cooling clouds.
The distant cooling clouds.
Then the sun shone bright
with a different light
over different lands,
and I was always a pirate in flight.
Oh, tonight I'd like to dream old dreams,
if only for a while,
and walk perhaps a mile
along this windswept shore,
a mile, perhaps, or more,
remembering those days,
safe in the soothing spray
of the thousand sparkling streams
that rush into this sea.
I like to slumber in the caves
of a sailor's dark sea-dreams . . .
oh yes, I'd love to dream,
to dream
and dream
and dream.
“Sea Dreams” is one of my longer and more ambitious early poems, along with the full version of “Jessamyn’s Song.” To the best of my recollection, I wrote “Sea Dreams” around age 18, circa 1976-1977.
He Lived: Excerpts from “Gilgamesh”
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
I.
He who visited hell, his country’s foundation,
Was well-versed in mysteries’ unseemly dark places.
He deeply explored many underworld realms
Where he learned of the Deluge and why Death erases.
II.
He built the great ramparts of Uruk-the-Sheepfold
And of holy Eanna. Then weary, alone,
He recorded his thoughts in frail scratchings called “words”:
But words made immortal, once chiseled in stone.
III.
These walls he erected are ever-enduring:
Vast walls where the widows of dead warriors weep.
Stand by them. O, feel their immovable presence!
For no other walls are as strong as this keep’s.
IV.
Come, climb Uruk’s tower on a starless night—
Ascend its steep stairway to escape modern error.
Cross its ancient threshold. You are close to Ishtar,
The Goddess of Ecstasy and of Terror!
V.
Find the cedar box with its hinges of bronze;
Lift the lid of its secrets; remove its dark slate;
Read of the travails of our friend Gilgamesh—
Of his descent into hell and man’s terrible fate!
VI.
Surpassing all kings, heroic in stature,
Wild bull of the mountains, the Goddess his dam
—Bedding no other man; he was her sole rapture—
Who else can claim fame, as he thundered, “I am!”
Enkidu Enters the House of Dust
an original poem by Michael R. Burch
I entered the house of dust and grief.
Where the pale dead weep there is no relief,
for there night descends like a final leaf
to shiver forever, unstirred.
There is no hope left when the tree’s stripped bare,
for the leaf lies forever dormant there
and each man cloaks himself in strange darkness, where
all company’s unheard.
No light’s ever pierced that oppressive night
so men close their eyes on their neighbors’ plight
or stare into darkness, lacking sight ...
each a crippled, blind bat-bird.
Were these not once eagles, gallant men?
Who sits here—pale, wretched and cowering—then?
O, surely they shall, they must rise again,
gaining new wings? “Absurd!
For this is the House of Dust and Grief
where men made of clay, eat clay. Relief
to them’s to become a mere windless leaf,
lying forever unstirred.”
“Anu and Enlil, hear my plea!
Ereshkigal, they all must go free!
Beletseri, dread scribe of this Hell, hear me!”
But all my shrill cries, obscured
by vast eons of dust, at last fell mute
as I took my place in the ash and soot.
Reclamation
an original poem by Michael R. Burch
after Robert Graves, with a nod to Mary Shelley
I have come to the dark side of things
where the bat sings
its evasive radar
and Want is a crooked forefinger
attached to a gelatinous wing.
I have grown animate here, a stitched corpse
hooked to electrodes.
And night
moves upon me—progenitor of life
with its foul breath.
Blind eyes have their second sight
and still are deceived. Now my nature
is softly to moan
as Desire carries me
swooningly across her threshold.
Stone
is less infinite than her crone’s
gargantuan hooked nose, her driveling lips.
I eye her ecstatically—her dowager figure,
and there is something about her that my words transfigure
to a consuming emptiness.
We are at peace
with each other; this is our venture—
swaying, the strings tautening, as tightropes
tauten, as love tightens, constricts
to the first note.
Lyre of our hearts’ pits,
orchestration of nothing, adits
of emptiness! We have come to the last of our hopes,
sweet as congealed blood sweetens for flies.
Need is reborn; love dies.
Everlasting
by Michael R. Burch
Where the wind goes
when the storm dies,
there my spirit lives
though I close my eyes.
Do not weep for me;
I am never far.
Whisper my name
to the last star ...
then let me sleep,
think of me no more.
Still ...
By denying death
its terminal sting,
in my words I remain
everlasting.
Keywords/Tags: Epic of Gilgamesh, epic, epical, orient occident, oriental, ancient, ancestors, ancestry, primal
Sep 29, 2020
Sep 29, 2020 at 4:25 AM UTC
O Fear of the Lord! Wisdom’s beginning!
Humbler of the exalted! Exalter
Of the humbled! Thou, when none from sinning
Have refrained, cause Vanity to falter
In its stride, giving us David’s psalter
So that we might gain the ability
To tread well the path of humility!
O Fear of the Lord! Creation’s reverence
For her Creator! You make the poor one’s
Trembling dread a bridge to span the severance
Which disobedience made between sons
And their Father; He who all evil shuns
And yet with haste will pardon the contrite
Heart, for His mercy is His truest might!
O Fear of the Lord! Give us instruction!
By thy teaching all presumption destroy,
Lest our conceit become an obstruction -
Let not our hubris the Most High annoy!
Teach us how best this wisdom to employ:
“Know, O man, that thou wert formed from the dust;
And at thy end, return to it you must!”
Nov 20, 2017
Nov 20, 2017 at 9:15 AM UTC
During mass on Sunday mornings
we would recite the Act of Contrition,
a prayer to request forgiveness of sins.
In humble voices, we asked for absolution
from God and from each other,
before the priest blessed the eucharist.
Most of our sins were encouraged in a world on fire,
but we owned up to them every week.
Hatred of our brothers and sisters,
the best drugs and the juiciest hookers,
these were our only escapes
from the bosses, the bills, the tax collectors.
Sin was how we stopped the perpetual slide
into total madness,
and the Act of Contrition,
that was how we kept our sins
from eating us alive.
Jul 23, 2017
Jul 23, 2017 at 6:50 PM UTC
Just imagine that you're standing on a hill looking down
there before you is everything that you didn't own
no one wanted to see you and remembered your song
what you did, the way you conducted yourself was wrong
And yet - there is contrition born out of this condition
even tho the doubters would wish for an explanation
you can't give them one, you are what you've always been
which is a signature in different shades of green
You walked the colonnades and people began to stare
then the whispers: 'You see, isn't that him over there?'
It is no matter - everyone is changed now, mellow somehow
you have to live, try to give, not encounter a silly row
We may all be together again - the way I have returned
and then we'll see just how much we've all really learned
Apr 13, 2016
Apr 13, 2016 at 2:19 PM UTC