#delving
Radiance
by Michael R. Burch
for Dylan Thomas
The poet delves earth’s detritus—hard toil—
for raw-edged nouns, barbed verbs, vowels’ lush bouquet;
each syllable his pen excretes—dense soil,
dark images impacted, rooted clay.
The poet sees the sea but feels its meaning—
the teeming brine, the mirrored oval flame
that leashes and excites its turgid surface ...
then squanders years imagining love’s the same.
Belatedly he turns to what lies broken—
the scarred and furrowed plot he fiercely sifts,
among death’s sicksweet dungs and composts seeking
one element that scorches and uplifts.
Keywords/Tags: poet, words, delving, farming, sea, moon, tides, love, metaphor, earth, roots, plot, radiance, pitchblende, uranium
Apr 9, 2020
Apr 9, 2020 at 4:41 AM UTC
Writing is like jumping into a deep mountain lake
to find some tiny piece of my soul
submerged and floating there
an immersive brooding wistful prayer
or a flight into the blue thin air.
It is a cinematic journey
recording the fruits of noticing
what is right in front of the eyes
and finding what is deeper
unseen underneath.
Writing is looking into an old man’s eyes
and discovering the person there
just as much a spiritual venture
digging toward his center
as a physical sensation.
It is a magical mystery tour
taking the visible threads
in hand and feeling my way
to the roots
or pausing and squeezing the fruit
for its juice.
It is fun
it is a morning run
or an evening rest
pain, joy, and dreams expressed.
Writing is moving, grooving, including
taking a moment in time
exploding it in rhythm and rhyme
finding in the ordinary the sublime.
Jul 13, 2019
Jul 13, 2019 at 12:11 PM UTC
***extending thought and delving into intent
(where the poems come from)***
*when I was younger, say five years ago,
the summer poems breezed by ripe for plucking,
airborne from the compost fat of
sun, water and soiled nature and its intersecting creatures
then winter poet soldiered on, past the easy season,
seeing rhymes-in-city-fireplaces snap cracking pops,
the wet dog smell of humans in overheated buses,
the seasonal wet sock torture that debated suicide alternately
and the early afternoon dark that closed doors,
a jailing of the populace; when by the glow of reruns,
we perform surgery upon ourselves and poems entitled
all sad words begin with a D get composed
now they don’t come that way
now, wait for you to ***** my eyes into seeing
what it’s that ails us all, what repeatedly fails us all,
and what makes living more than just mere presentable,
oh! your scrappy hints, chocolate covered mints and
oatmeal raisin clues
read now a word that exact interrupts*
soloduo
*and its timed arrival perfect, making my point too well,
the poems come from you and we transmigrate into a duo,
you are equally responsible for the fat places
in the messages and texts, in the storied themes
underlying all your writings, saying, see man, what the babies
can’t say outright or keep in the studio crevices artfully partially hidden,
the list so credibly lengthy, god sent B12 shots
of extra strong caffe inspiration
that’s why you co create the paintings we paint,
I, paint, you, hang them in the place where they can’t be missed,
in the exact spot when you walk in the door, or overhead,
in bed-overhead ceiling,
cursing that prayerful *********** you let slip
making you mark, verified your, Hancock signatory
in the lower corner
so many pins becoming dagger stories,
change is gonna come, and in every letter is the risk,
that what will be brought, what needing saying,
the penultimate penury,
when you can’t pay the bills with monthly unsocial insecurity
for what is for the best, or worse, reliving the worst twice more,
it cannot be helped in prevented, only reverted,
what you tell me is the what, of the wherefore
and where the poems come from
so you force me to live in every season,
“breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit,
and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.”
(Henry David Thoreau, Walden)*
and its inhabitants that inhabit my every seeing,
which is why I am, is
where you are...
1:33 pm April 6, 2019
Apr 6, 2019
Apr 6, 2019 at 2:06 PM UTC