#dionysus
the storm rolls on
cows dance their hooves across the sand;
In the grey-dark shadow of thunder
you horns gleam silver as the crescent moon
Whisk me away before the wind.
With nothing gained for nothing to lose
It is not a man come save me
but a bull
Mar 19
Mar 19, 2026 at 10:11 AM UTC
The Irish used to believe
That they had to dance secretly.
I have danced for God;
I have met Dionysus—
Those inebriated nights
Drunk Dancing on My Driveway.
I learned belly-dance;
Taught myself a routine.
But nothing felt as great
As dancing for God.
I never hid it from Him;
I allowed myself to fall—
For I was seeking God,
And, boy, did it befall.
God didn’t want a dance.
He’d wanted me to be strong.
And go at the chance
To promise to love.
So, if this Dance is Love’s Embrace—
Then, boy, do I love God.
©2025Ellen Finn
Nov 16, 2025
Nov 16, 2025 at 4:42 PM UTC
Passing through mid-century
these jazz oneironauts reached Apollonian heights
while society drifted into Dionysian drunkenness
the merchants caught on too soon
The most beautiful parts of humanity
enamored to serve the ugliest:
The merchant class, the bourgeoisie
Buddha’s undeserving in charge
If only in past centuries
those noble princesses embraced
even more lowly patronages
all this potential today could be staved off
Saved from the drive to be commodified
People stopped buying jazz as it reached its height
No more smiles to appease the whites
Jazz for the few
the noble, the individual in the know
Until this too becomes the simulacrum
The Ornette Coleman on the bookshelf
to signify your snootiness
your refinement from wealth
Aging Dads in thousand dollar sweaters
kicking out their 22 year old kids
for being ****** addled hipsters
meanwhile Bird on Verve is nodding out
and Dad’s girlfriend pops a Percocet
to deal with all the stress
Jan 15, 2022
Jan 15, 2022 at 10:50 AM UTC
A toast to the two of us
Left behind, forgotten over time
Used as pawns of pleasure and tossed aside
Maps to hidden treasures abandoned after the journey
A toast to the two of us
On this day where we are one
Where I see you
And you see me
Ariadne
A toast to you,
For no particular reason
A toast to us,
For all that we can be
Let the stars commemorate this day
So for eternity we can see it
Carved into the sky
And no one will ever forget or use you again
A toast to us,
For all that we will be
Let my love be enough for you
To quell your tears and give you joy forever
To Hades and back, my dedication to you is eternal
Aug 27, 2021
Aug 27, 2021 at 12:56 AM UTC
Oh Dionysus.
How I miss you,
but your blood....gives me anxiety.
It makes people hate me, I can't stand to be
alone.
I can't say I don't miss dancing with you
But it's not much of a party with just the two of us.
No one else is willing to dance for long.
There was a time where you were,
my only friend
and you would smile and take me in your arms while
I sobbed and enjoyed the haze of your being.
I in turn, worshipped you. Even if research, candles and hymns, libations of your own blood and my perfume could hardly be enough.
It's all I have, my lord.
While I miss the roiling, twisting madness of your magnificence
I shouldn't be there.
I want to be, desperately
but I pick up a bottle and look at myself in disgust and shame.
It's not you, it's me.
This is far from a disillusionment of gods.
I will still dance, my lord, just perhaps not as closely as before.
Dec 2, 2020
Dec 2, 2020 at 10:41 PM UTC
a child stands before you
begging to devour your wit
praying to steal your eyes.
he is looking at you,
he who no longer has a body
no longer has a voice,
he who was made translucent,
he is looking
through you
and howls his white-hot heart:
'how does one live,
how can one love,
if one feels no anguish?
first, there lies death;
then, a massacre of void-kissed beliefs.
and then, only then, can there be life
which bears little importance.'
the sage muse of tragedy
holds in her forgiving palm
the secret of your
divine-poisoned sap,
she kisses your bones;
tied together by vine branches
born from the hands of fervid dionysus.
you hear her inside your skin:
'i know how weary your throat is
of singing (screaming) the same hymns.
dip them in terror, see them
drip with slaughter and doom
and ablaze cries and a
long-forgotten deity’s roar and —'
the last words die off
between your soiled fingers,
on the bloodstained ground.
Nov 15, 2020
Nov 15, 2020 at 11:36 PM UTC
Lovers kiss
fig-sweet and holy
tangled in ivy
fingers twined
in Titian hair
He loves the taste
of wine and blood
the madness
of drunken lust
of frenzied rage
of flesh and fruit
Lips full
and blushed crimson
slick with nectar
Words that spill from
his kiss-swollen mouth
rend and restore
burn against skin
Balm of Gilead
to the heart
Drink him, slowly
the thirst
is bottomless
Oct 21, 2020
Oct 21, 2020 at 5:41 AM UTC
Dionysus I pray to you
Give me a thousand gallons of wine
So that my soul will be intoxicated
With wine, I can forget
My soul will be released from it's prison
The burden it carries will be lifted
Dionysus I beg you
Drive me insane
My mind can not go on
Drown me in a sea of wine
Let me sink into the seafloor
My heart is too heavy
Sep 12, 2020
Sep 12, 2020 at 4:35 AM UTC
There’s no better time than now to celebrate
Even when it feels like the world is ending, rejoice
Rejoice for life, rejoice for living, never forget
That we will always be able to fill our cups
Our sorrows will always be replaced by happiness
We will always be here after the storm
Apr 9, 2020
Apr 9, 2020 at 7:01 PM UTC
To Flower
by Michael R. Burch
We are not long for this earth, I know—
you and I, all our petals incurled,
till a night of pale brilliance, moonflower aglow.
Is there love anywhere in this strange world?
The agave knows best when it’s time to die
and rages to life with such rapturous leaves
her name means Illustrious. Each hour more high,
she claws toward heaven, for, if she believes
in love at all, she has left it behind
to flower, to flower. When darkness falls
she wilts down to meet it, where something crawls:
beheaded, bewildered. And since love is blind,
she never adored it, nor watches it go.
Can we be as she is, moonflower aglow?
When Pentheus [“grief’] went into the mountains in the garb of the bacchae, his mother [Agave] and the other maenads, possessed by Dionysus, tore him apart (Euripides, Bacchae; Apollodorus 3.5.2; Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.511-733; Hyginus, Fabulae 184). The agave dies as soon as it blooms; the moonflower, or night-blooming cereus, is a desert plant of similar fate.
Published by The Neovictorian/Cochlea, Famous Poets and Poems, Poetry on Demand, Sonnetto Poesia (Canada). Keywords/Tags: Moonflower, cereus, agave, flower, Illustrious, Pentheus, grief, Dionysus, maenads, Euripides, Ovid, mrbch, mrbroses, mrbflow, mrbflower
Day, and Night
by Michael R. Burch
The moon exposes pockmarked scars of craters;
her visage, veiled by willows, palely looms.
And we who rise each day to grind a living,
dream each scented night of such perfumes
as drew us to the window, to the moonlight,
when all the earth was steeped in cobalt blue―
an eerie vase of achromatic flowers
bled silver by pale starlight, losing hue.
The night begins her waltz to waiting sunrise―
adagio, the music she now hears;
and we who in the sunlight slave for succor,
dreaming, seek communion with the spheres.
And all around the night is in crescendo,
and everywhere the stars’ bright legions form,
and here we hear the sweet incriminations
of lovers we had once to keep us warm.
And also here we find, like bled carnations,
red lips that whitened, kisses drawn to lies,
that touched us once with fierce incantations
and taught us love was prettier than wise.
Mayflies
by Michael R. Burch
These standing stones have stood the test of time
but who are you
and what are you
and why?
As brief as mist, as transient, as pale...
Inconsequential mayfly!
Perhaps the thought of love inspired hope?
Do midges love? Do stars bend down to see?
Do gods commend the kindnesses of ants
to aphids? Does one eel impress the sea?
Are mayflies missed by mountains? Do the stars
regret the glowworm’s stellar mimicry
the day it dies? Does not the world grind on
as if it’s no great matter, not to be?
Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose.
And yet somehow you’re everything to me.
Our English Rose
by Michael R. Burch
for my mother Christine Ena Burch
The rose is―
the ornament of the earth,
the glory of nature,
the archetype of the flowers,
the blush of the meadows,
a lightning flash of beauty.
NOTE: This is my translation/interpretation of a Sappho epigram.
First and Last
by Michael R. Burch
for Beth
You are the last arcane rose
of my aching,
my longing,
or the first yellowed leaves―
vagrant spirals of gold
forming huddled bright sheaves;
you are passion forsaking
dark skies, as though sunsets no winds might enclose.
And still in my arms
you are gentle and fragrant―
demesne of my vigor,
spent rigor,
lost power,
fallen musculature of youth,
leaves clinging and hanging,
nameless joys of my youth to this last lingering hour.
Fairest Diana
by Michael R. Burch
Fairest Diana, princess of dreams,
born to be loved and yet distant and lone,
why did you linger―so solemn, so lovely―
an orchid ablaze in a crevice of stone?
Was not your heart meant for tenderest passions?
Surely your lips―for wild kisses, not vows!
Why then did you languish, though lustrous, becoming
a pearl of enchantment cast before sows?
Fairest Diana, as fragile as lilac,
as willful as rainfall, as true as the rose;
how did a stanza of silver-bright verse
come to be bound in a book of dull prose?
Sweet Rose of Virtue
by William Dunbar 1460-1525
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Sweet rose of virtue and of gentleness,
delightful lily of youthful wantonness,
richest in bounty and in beauty clear
and in every virtue that is held most dear―
except only that you are merciless.
Into your garden, today, I followed you;
there I saw flowers of freshest hue,
both white and red, delightful to see,
and wholesome herbs, waving resplendently―
yet everywhere, no odor but rue.
I fear that March with his last arctic blast
has slain my fair rose of pallid and gentle cast,
whose piteous death does my heart such pain
that, if I could, I would compose her roots again―
so comforting her bowering leaves have been.
Lady’s Favor
by Michael R. Burch
May
spring
fling
her riotous petals
devil-
may-care
into the air,
ignoring the lethal
nettles
and may
May
cry gleeful-
ly Hooray!
as the abundance
settles,
till a sudden June
swoon
leaves us out of tune,
torn,
when the last rose is left
inconsolably bereft,
rudely shorn
of every device but her thorn.
Published by The Lyric, Poem Today, Deviant Art and Suravejiliz (Tokelau)
The Harvest of Roses
by Michael R. Burch
I have not come for the harvest of roses―
the poets' mad visions,
their railing at rhyme...
for I have discerned what their writing discloses:
weak words wanting meaning,
beat torsioning time.
Nor have I come for the reaping of gossamer―
images weak,
too forced not to fail;
gathered by poets who worship their luster,
they shimmer, impendent,
resplendently pale.
Originally published by The Raintown Review
The Toast
by Michael R. Burch
For longings warmed by tepid suns
(brief lusts that animated clay),
for passions wilted at the bud
and skies grown desolate and gray,
for stars that fell from tinseled heights
and mountains bleak and scarred and lone,
for seas reflecting distant suns
and weeds that thrive where seeds were sown,
for waltzes ending in a hush,
for rhymes that fade as pages close,
for flames' exhausted, drifting ash,
and petals falling from the rose,...
I raise my cup before I drink,
saluting ghosts of loves long dead,
and silently propose a toast―
to joys set free, and those I fled.
Roses for a Lover, Idealized
by Michael R. Burch
When you have become to me
as roses bloom, in memory,
exquisite, each sharp thorn forgot,
will I recall―yours made me bleed?
When winter makes me think of you,
whorls petrified in frozen dew,
bright promises blithe spring forgot,
will I recall your words―barbed, cruel?
I don't remember the exact age at which I wrote this poem, but it was around the time I realized that "love is not a bed of roses." I wrote it after breaking up with my first live-in girlfriend, in my early twenties. We did get back together, before a longer, final separation. The poem has been published by The Lyric, Trinacria, Better Than Starbucks, The Chained Muse and Glass Facets of Poetry. It has also been translated into Italian by Comasia Aquaro and published by La luce che non muore.
Escape!!
by Michael R. Burch
You are too beautiful,
too innocent,
too inherently lovely
to merely reflect the sun’s splendor...
too full of irresistible candor
to remain silent,
too delicately fawnlike
for a world so violent...
Come, my beautiful Bambi
and I will protect you...
but of course you have already been lured away
by the dew-laden roses...
Winter
by Michael R. Burch
The rose of love's bright promise
lies torn by her own thorn;
her scent was sweet
but at her feet
the pallid aphids mourn.
The lilac of devotion
has felt the winter ****
and shed her dress;
companionless,
she shivers―nude, forlorn.
Published by Songs of Innocence, The Aurorean, Contemporary Rhyme and The HyperTexts
Violets
by Michael R. Burch
Once, only once,
when the wind flicked your skirt
to an indiscreet height
and you laughed,
abruptly demure,
outblushing shocked violets:
suddenly,
I knew:
everything had changed
and as you braided your hair
into long bluish plaits
the shadows empurpled,
the dragonflies’
last darting feints
dissolving mid-air,
we watched the sun’s long glide
into evening,
knowing and unknowing.
O, how the illusions of love
await us in the commonplace
and rare
then haunt our small remainder of hours.
Originally published by Romantics Quarterly
Sunset
by Michael R. Burch
This poem is dedicated to my grandfather, George Edwin Hurt, who died April 4, 1998.
Between the prophecies of morning
and twilight’s revelations of wonder,
the sky is ripped asunder.
The moon lurks in the clouds,
waiting, as if to plunder
the dusk of its lilac iridescence,
and in the bright-tentacled sunset
we imagine a presence
full of the fury of lost innocence.
What we find within strange whorls of drifting flame,
brief patterns mauling winds deform and maim,
we recognize at once, but cannot name.
***** Nilly
by Michael R. Burch
for Tom Merrill
Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?
You made the stallion,
you made the filly,
and now they sleep
in the dark earth, stilly.
Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?
Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?
You forced them to run
all their days uphilly.
They ran till they dropped—
life’s a pickle, dilly.
Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?
Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?
They say I should worship you!
Oh, really!
They say I should pray
so you’ll not act illy.
Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?
What Would Santa Claus Say?
by Michael R. Burch
for Tom Merrill
What would Santa Claus say,
I wonder,
about Jesus returning
to **** and plunder?
For he’ll likely return
on Christmas Day
to blow the bad
little boys away!
When He flashes like lightning
across the skies
and many a homosexual
dies,
when the harlots and heretics
are ripped asunder,
what will the Easter Bunny think,
I wonder?
Published by Lucid Rhythms, Poet’s Corner and translated into Czech by Vaclav ZJ Pinkava
gimME that ol’ time religion!
by michael r. burch
for tom merrill
fiddle-dee-dum, fiddle-dee-dee,
jesus loves and understands ME!
safe in his grace, I’LL **** them to hell—
the strumpet, the harlot, the wild jezebel,
the alky, the druggie, all queers short and tall!
let them drink ashes and wormwood and gall,
’cause fiddle-dee-DUMB, fiddle-dee-WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEee . . .
jesus loves and understands
ME!
The Pain of Love
by Michael R. Burch
for Tom Merrill
The pain of love is this:
the parting after the kiss;
the train steaming from the station
whistling abnegation;
each interstate's bleak white bar
that vanishes under your car;
every hour and flower and friend
that cannot be saved in the end;
dear things of immeasurable cost...
now all irretrievably lost.
Note: The title "The Pain of Love" was suggested by an interview with Little Richard, then eighty years old, in Rolling Stone. He said that someone should create a song called "The Pain of Love." I have always found the departure platforms of railway stations and the vanishing broken white bars of highway dividing lines to be very depressing.
Lean Harvests (II)
by Michael R. Burch
for Tom Merrill
the trees are shedding their leaves again:
another summer is over.
the Christians are praising their Maker again,
but not the disconsolate plover:
i hear him berate
the fate
of his mate;
he claims God is no body's lover.
Published by The Rotary Dial and Angle
The Heimlich Limerick
by Michael R. Burch
for Tom Merrill
The sanest of poets once wrote:
"Friend, why be a sheep or a goat?
Why follow the leader
or be a blind ******* "
But almost no one took note.
The Donald Trumps the White House Roses
by Michael R. Burch
Roses are red,
Daffodils are yellow,
But not half as daffy
As that taffy-colored fellow.
Isolde's Song
by Michael R. Burch
According to legend, Isolde and Tristram/Tristan were lovers who died, were buried close to each other, then reunited in the form of plants growing out of their graves. A rose emerged from Isolde's grave, a vine from Tristram's, then the two became one. Tristram was the Celtic Orpheus, a minstrel whose songs set women and even nature a-flutter.
Through our long years of dreaming to be one
we grew toward an enigmatic light
that gently warmed our tendrils. Was it sun?
We had no eyes to tell; we loved despite
the lack of all sensation―all but one:
we felt the night's deep chill, the air so bright
at dawn we quivered limply, overcome.
To touch was all we knew, and how to bask.
We knew to touch; we grew to touch; we felt
spring's urgency, midsummer's heat, fall's lash,
wild winter's ice and thaw and fervent melt.
We felt returning light and could not ask
its meaning, or if something was withheld
more glorious. To touch seemed life's great task.
At last the petal of me learned: unfold
and you were there, surrounding me. We touched.
The curious golden pollens! Ah, we touched,
and learned to cling and, finally, to hold.
Originally published by The Raintown Review and nominated for the Pushcart Prize; since published by Ancient Heart Magazine (Australia), The Eclectic Muse (Canada), Boston Poetry Magazine, The Orchards Poetry Journal, Strange Road, On the Road with Judy, Complete Classics, FreeXpression (Australia), Better Than Starbucks, Fullosia Press, Glass Facets of Poetry, Sonnetto Poesia (Canada), The New Formalist and Trinacria
Will There Be Starlight
by Michael R. Burch
Will there be starlight
tonight
while she gathers
damask
and lilac
and sweet-scented heathers?
And will she find flowers,
or will she find thorns
guarding the petals
of roses unborn?
Will there be starlight
tonight
while she gathers
seashells
and mussels
and albatross feathers?
And will she find treasure
or will she find pain
at the end of this rainbow
of moonlight on rain?
Published by Grassroots Poetry, Poetry Webring, TALESetc, The Word (UK), Writ in Water, Jenion, Inspirational Stories, Famous Poets and Poems
She Gathered Lilacs
by Michael R. Burch
She gathered lilacs
and arrayed them in her hair;
tonight, she taught the wind to be free.
She kept her secrets
in a silver locket;
her companions were starlight and mystery.
She danced all night
to the beat of her heart;
with her tears she imbued the sea.
She hid her despair
in a crystal jar,
and never revealed it to me.
She kept her distance
as though it were armor;
gauntlet thorns guard her heart like the rose.
Love!―awaken, awaken
to see what you've taken
is still less than the due my heart owes!
Published by The Neovictorian/Cochlea, The Eclectic Muse (Canada), Shabestaneh (Iran), Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry, The Chained Muse, Inspirational Stories and Captivating Poetry (Anthology)
Auschwitz Rose
by Michael R. Burch
There is a Rose at Auschwitz, in the briar,
a rose like Sharon's, lovely as her name.
The world forgot her, and is not the same.
I still love her and extend this sacred fire
to keep her memory exalted flame
unmolested by the thistles and the nettles.
On Auschwitz now the reddening sunset settles!
They sleep alike―diminutive and tall,
the innocent, the "surgeons." Sleeping, all.
Red oxides of her blood, bright crimson petals,
if accidents of coloration, gall
my heart no less. Amid thick weeds and muck
there lies a rose man's crackling lightning struck:
the only Rose I ever longed to pluck.
Soon I'll bed there and bid the world "Good Luck."
Chloe
by Michael R. Burch
There were skies onyx at night... moons by day...
lakes pale as her eyes... breathless winds
********** tall elms;... she would say
that we loved, but I figured we’d sinned.
Soon impatiens too fiery to stay
sagged; the crocus bells drooped, golden-limned;
things of brightness, rinsed out, ran to gray...
all the light of that world softly dimmed.
Where our feet were inclined, we would stray;
there were paths where dead weeds stood untrimmed,
distant mountains that loomed in our way,
thunder booming down valleys dark-hymned.
What I found, I found lost in her face
while yielding all my virtue to her grace.
Mending
by Michael R. Burch
I am besieged with kindnesses;
sometimes I laugh,
delighted for a moment,
then resume
the more seemly occupation of my craft.
I do not taste the candies...
The perfume
of roses is uplifted
in a draft
that vanishes into the ceiling’s fans
which spin like old propellers
till the room
is full of ghostly bits of yarn...
My task
is not to knit,
but not to end too soon.
This poem is dedicated to the victims of 9-11 and their families and friends.
Let Me Give Her Diamonds
by Michael R. Burch
for Beth
Let me give her diamonds
for my heart's
sharp edges.
Let me give her roses
for my soul's
thorn.
Let me give her solace
for my words
of treason.
Let the flowering of love
outlast a winter
season.
Let me give her books
for all my lack
of reason.
Let me give her candles
for my lack
of fire.
Let me kindle incense,
for our hearts
require
the breath-fanned
flaming perfume
of desire.
To the boy Elis
by Georg Trakl
translation by Michael R. Burch
Elis, when the blackbird cries from the black forest,
it announces your downfall.
Your lips sip the rock-spring's blue coolness.
Your brow sweats blood
recalling ancient myths
and dark interpretations of birds' flight.
Yet you enter the night with soft footfalls;
the ripe purple grapes hang suspended
as you wave your arms more beautifully in the blueness.
A thornbush crackles;
where now are your moonlike eyes?
How long, oh Elis, have you been dead?
A monk dips waxed fingers
into your body's hyacinth;
Our silence is a black abyss
from which sometimes a docile animal emerges
slowly lowering its heavy lids.
A black dew drips from your temples:
the lost gold of vanished stars.
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: I believe that in the second stanza the blood on Elis's forehead may be a reference to the apprehensive ****** sweat of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. If my interpretation is correct, Elis hears the blackbird's cries, anticipates the danger represented by a harbinger of death, but elects to continue rather than turn back. From what I have been able to gather, the color blue had a special significance for Georg Trakl: it symbolized longing and perhaps a longing for death. The colors blue, purple and black may represent a progression toward death in the poem.
She Was Very Strange, and Beautiful
by Michael R. Burch
She was very strange, and beautiful,
like a violet mist enshrouding hills
before night falls
when the hoot owl calls
and the cricket trills
and the envapored moon hangs low and full.
She was very strange, in a pleasant way,
as the hummingbird
flies madly still,
so I drank my fill
of her every word.
What she knew of love, she demurred to say.
She was meant to leave, as the wind must blow,
as the sun must set,
as the rain must fall.
Though she gave her all,
I had nothing left . . .
yet I smiled, bereft, in her receding glow.
Originally published by The Neovictorian/Cochlea
Geode, a Resemblance
by Michael R. Burch
Take this geode with its rough exterior—
crude-skinned, brilliant-hearted ...
a diode of amethyst—wild, electric;
its sequined cavity—parted, revealing.
Find in its fire all brittle passion,
each jagged shard relentlessly aching.
Each spire inward—a fission startled;
in its shattered entrails—fractured light,
the heart ice breaking.
Published by Poet Lore, Poetry Magazine and the Net Poetry and Art Competition
Snapshots
by Michael R. Burch
Here I scrawl extravagant rainbows.
And there you go, skipping your way to school.
And here we are, drifting apart
like untethered balloons.
Here I am, creating "art,"
chanting in shadows,
pale as the crinoline moon,
ignoring your face.
There you go,
in diaphanous lace,
making another man’s heart swoon.
Suddenly, unthinkably, here he is,
taking my place.
Published by Tucumcari Literary Review, Romantics Quarterly, Centrifugal Eye, Poetry Webring, Poetry Life & Times and The Eclectic Muse
Memento Mori
by Michael R. Burch
I found among the elms
something like the sound of your voice,
something like the aftermath of love itself
after the lightning strikes,
when the startled wind shrieks . . .
a gored-out wound in wood,
love’s pale memento mori—
that white scar
in that first heart,
forever unhealed . . .
and a burled, thick knot incised
with six initials pledged
against all possible futures,
and penknife-notched below,
six edged, chipped words
that once cut deep and said . . .
WILL U B MINE
4 EVER?
. . . which now, so disconsolately answer . . .
—————-N-
—EVER.
Published as the collection "To Flower"
Mar 16, 2020
Mar 16, 2020 at 6:17 AM UTC
Sacrosanct sacrifices
collide in a mirrored image.
There’s a dual grace in the anguish
as the High Priestess tears
a beating heart out —
It lures a half-crazed
Apollonian hymn from you,
harmonized to the devil’s interval,
for my repertoire of Dionysian dance,
attuned to ballet’s feral ceremonies.
On the lunar stage of ecstasy,
we sedate and ******
But how far do you dare to rival the muses?
“As far as it takes, and then some more.”
You say to me, in consummate hunger.
Or are we just fools drunk on nectar
in a tug of never-ending war?
Sep 1, 2019
Sep 1, 2019 at 10:27 AM UTC
God knows no love like the kind you give me
When you are ravenous in your giving--
When you are hunger within hunger;
needing me to receive you as you give yourself to me.
We are Dionysus feeding himself.
And as you slide a grape into my mouth,
I feel your teeth pried open
as I slide one into yours.
Jun 11, 2019
Jun 11, 2019 at 4:07 PM UTC
I don't work for a tangible currency
I slave for digital binary
01101000 01100101 01101100 01110000
While I scribble poetry
Emptying my personal winery
Jun 14, 2018
Jun 14, 2018 at 10:25 AM UTC
Here is how we turn our youth / into a bachicc bath / of everything except our own blood /
taking all the things we should love / to make us good and right / if we could be like the sunrise that forgot the midday heat / but we turn them / jokes that don’t sound quite like sadness / no bitter overripe emotion / because it’s all about the fun / running through the asphodels /
next make promises to no one but yourself / the only promise made is / never written down / kept as guilty experiments / the promise of consistency / but none of us are made of substance / and breaking is our vice / because you have to slither in and out of the unbearable child / your mother doesn’t even know she has /
that’s the third thing / you turn everyone else around you / into sidebar players / who cannot see the stage / this way you won’t be quite so guilty about the sacrifice / that isn’t even what your gods ever wanted / all foul blooded and human taint /
there is no *** in the forest anymore / early adolescent memories created wild so barbaric / it’s thrown up three times and the taste / on teeth is so disgusting / it can’t help smiling like a victor still in the ring / so far past survival it could be a metaphor / for the humanity you’ve got to get rid of / this is how we forget our old selves / in the time between someone new / it’s gory / laughing to no tempo
Feb 19, 2018
Feb 19, 2018 at 7:52 PM UTC
The depictions of
the gods are headless.
The pillars have crumbled.
The spirit has atrophied
and the wonder has gone.
No longer for Dionysus,
a temple to Aion.
Profaned by order and rule,
rigidity takes the place of passion.
In the name of culture,
the wealthy get wealthier.
No longer for Dionysus,
a temple to Plutus.
Blind to what is before them,
passerby’s idolize themselves.
The ancient amphitheater;
a backdrop for plastic portraits.
No longer for Dionysus,
a temple to Narcissus.
Power shifts in the modern age.
Worship changes form.
Oct 26, 2017
Oct 26, 2017 at 3:58 PM UTC
Attack of the Gods
Maya... I asked For Sweet Companion
and You Showed Up with a Laugh
Apology
For Simply being Human
And I said Thank You
I so often Feel the Same..
You Laughed Again
Like a a Star Studded Poet
Who never Left Her Home
Knowing Where Love Was
So I asked.. Where?
And You Sat there
Peeling Potatoes
Sitting on a Kitchen Stool
Just Sat there
Peeling, Again, and Again
Peeling
Knives on Flesh
Oil Wells, Animal Skins, Plows
All in that Potato Peeler
Potatoes Flesh Its True
But It started to Bother Me
Why Cant You Use Your Words,
I asked...
Thats when I saw It
No Mouth To Kiss With
Like a Mr Potato Head
With a Part Missing
Not Nothin to Say
Just Couldn't Say It
That Told Me Everything
Turning,
I Snapped the Fingers of Love's Heart
And Claimed the Wind Harp
of Life's Soul
Her Words
The Instructions of a General
Her Sound
Clear Intention Played
A ire FORCE FIELD
fOUR the Earth
Even
"The Star Be With You"
"And Also With You"
Navy Seals would Understand
Harmonizing Plurality
Diamond Faceted
Impenetrable Barrier
Of Life
Earth Song
Symphony of Light
Jun 23, 2016
Jun 23, 2016 at 2:41 PM UTC
Distilled dreams drift dazedly.
Drumming dares defiantly!
Defeating deafened demons
Dec 16, 2015
Dec 16, 2015 at 10:42 AM UTC
dionysus,
i beg,
plague me with your drunken spirit,
free me of my heavy heart,
let me revel in your happiness,
i beg,
let me,
let me.
dionysus,
king of the party,
spirit of the drugs,
protector of the drinks,
make me high
higher
than ever before
take me to ecstasy
let me taste your amphetamines
let me feel and feel
until i can feel no more.
feelings are boring now,
and they only feel like a deep, brooding ghost
waiting to pounce on me
and weigh me down.
DIONYSUS,
how long will i scream your name?
how long will i be tormented by your silence?
come to me with your fun spirit of party,
plague me with the spirit of relaxation,
i want what you can give me.
release,
sweet release.
i want it all,
i want to dream of trees turning into lollipops
and hydrangeas looking like candyfloss.
i want to be far away,
so far away,
that i can never come back down.
but,
but,
only for a bit,
only until i feel better,
only until i am happy again.
can you do that for me dionysus?
can you?
because, you see,
i can't do without help,
i need help to do everything.
i need help to be happy,
and you have what i want.
it feels like i am chanting the same thing over and over
you are just like everyone,
you all never listen.
YOU NEVER LISTEN!
you just sit and watch.
watching me drown.
i am plummeting,
and the most all of you can do
is to record my downfall.
and dionysus you have my cure,
but you won't give it to me.
Nov 23, 2015
Nov 23, 2015 at 2:52 AM UTC
52 Weeks: Whitman
The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering.
I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.
The last scud of day holds back for me,
It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow’d wilds,
It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.
I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,
I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.
I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.
Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.
52 Weeks: Mullein
The Red-Tailed hawk swoops by and catches just a glimpse, he tilts his head Dionysian style mouth slightly agape.
I too am a wild thing, I too am untethered,
And I sound animalistic in the dining halls of the tamed.
The final missile thud holds me in a sweet caress,
My likeness rockets earthward … tried and true and tired and truer,
I am coaxed into existence once again.
I maintain my aetheric ties as I know this is the roadmap back to you,
It’s nice to be enmeshed in the living once again even though they drain,
To drain is to live, one gives eternity to be mortal - it’s the only thing that ever made sense.
I won’t depart, I dig in my heels,
And I turn my back on the organized.
I am of the earth because I understand my antecedents … my mother’s mother’s mother …
And because of this knowledge of ante’s I can set prece’s, hopefully precisely.
I hardly know who I am or what I mean (on a good day),
But I am good for you none the less,
As our tastes and sounds and smells and touches intermingle.
And always I wait patiently,
for me for you,
for us.
Sep 16, 2014
Sep 16, 2014 at 10:52 PM UTC