#el
Él era tan divertido, tan ingenioso, tan atrevido.
Había en su forma de hablar cierta elegancia
un atrevimiento que jamás pedía permiso.
que no se aprendía: Se nacía con él.
En sus ojos se encendían un fuego cuando hablaba de sus sueños,
y yo, —en secreto— le envidiaba ese brillo.
Me gustaba —lo admito—
No lo niego.
Éramos distintos, casi opuestos,
y, sin embargo, en su mirada cabían todos los caminos.
No se parecía a ninguno de los chicos que conocí,
ni a mis amigos, ni a nadie.
Era más decidido, más valiente, más libre…
como un ave diminuta
que traza su propio rumbo en el cielo más vasto y que jamás se pregunta por el viento.
Y aunque el destino nos separó,
aún lo guardo en la memoria.
Fue él quien hizo brillar mis ojos cansados,
quien encendió mis mejillas pálidas,
quien regó de vida este pecho que creía hueco, sin corazón.
Despertó la fuerza dormida en mí,
dio belleza a mi rostro
y arrancó de mis labios
una risa clara, radiante, chispeante.
Su presencia despertó la fuerza oculta,
limpió mis pensamientos,
desanudó la tristeza adherida a mi rostro
y lo cubrió con la hermosura breve
de una sonrisa que todavía recuerdo.
Me salvó de la sumisión,
de esa timidez que me condenaba,
y tal vez incluso del arrepentimiento;
me rescató de la melancolía pesada
y del rencor silencioso hacia la vida que se pudría en silencio.
Ahora, si él me viera,
quizás sentiría pena
tal vez lamentaría que esa belleza fugaz que me regaló, nacida de sus propias manos
se marchitará tan pronto
con su partida;
que su luz, brillara en mí apenas un instante
tan breve, tan engañosamente, como una falsa eternidad.
Quizá le dolería
no haber tenido tiempo
de amar
o ser amado.
Porque hubo tanto
que pudo haber sido,
y ahora solo vive
en nuestra memoria.
J. Felix
Oct 30, 2025
Oct 30, 2025 at 1:58 AM UTC
El Dorado
by Michael R. Burch
It's a fine town, a fine town,
though its alleys recede into shadow;
it's a very fine town for those who are searching
for an El Dorado.
Because the lighting is poor and the streets are bare
and the welfare line is long,
there must be something of value somewhere
to keep us hanging on
to our El Dorado.
Though the children are skinny, their parents are fat
from years of gorging on bleached white bread,
yet neither will leave
because all believe
in the vague things that are said
of El Dorado.
The young men with the outlandish hairstyles
who saunter in and out of the turnstiles
with a song on their lips and an aimless shuffle,
scuffing their shoes, avoiding the bustle,
certainly feel no need to join the crowd
of those who work to earn their bread;
they must know that the rainbow's end
conceals a *** of gold
near El Dorado.
And the painted “actress” who roams the streets,
smiling at every man she meets,
must smile because, after years of running,
no man can match her in cruelty or cunning.
She must see the satire of “defeats”
and “triumphs” on the ambivalent streets
of El Dorado.
Yes, it's a fine town, a very fine town
for those who can leave when they tire
of chasing after rainbows and dreams
and living on nothing but fire.
But for those of us who cling to our dreams
and cannot let them go,
like the sad-eyed ladies who wander the streets
and the junkies high on snow,
the dream has become a reality
—the reality of hope
that grew too strong
not to linger on—
and so this is our home.
We chew the apple, spit it out,
then eat it "just once more."
For this is the big, big apple,
though it is rotten to the core,
and we are its worm
in the night when we squirm
in our El Dorado.
This is an early poem of mine. I believe I wrote the first version during my “Romantic phase” around age 16 or perhaps a bit later. It was definitely written in my teens because it appears in a poetry contest folder that I put together and submitted during my sophomore year in college. Keywords/Tags: El Dorado, big apple, worms, New York City, junkies, streetwalkers, hookers, prostitutes, actors, actresses, hustlers, conmen
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.
Keywords/Tags: Epic of Gilgamesh, epic, epical, orient occident, oriental, ancient, ancestors, ancestry, primal
Apr 3, 2020
Apr 3, 2020 at 5:15 AM UTC
THE POWER OF BELIEVE..
drowning he was
Falling he was..
Losing sanity he was..
Derailed he was..
Frustrated he was..
Confused he was.
Lost he was.
Deserted he was..
Buried he was...
And the slanderers rejoiced..
Thinketh they..
Never will he rise again...
Then he felt a paradigm shift..
A shift like none other..
A shift accompanied by everything benevolent...
It is, the slanderers whispered, a phantom bone disease..
Let they wander and dawdle for they are steeped in a quagmire of visibility lest a veil is upon all their sensory nerves, depriving them the beauty and the quintessence of the invisible...
But he is/has...
No more drowning, but drinks from the fountain of knowledge,
Spiced with milk and honey..
No more falling but floating in void..
No more losing sanity but unravelled the mystery of true sanity..
No more derailed but dandified...
No more frustrated but ferociously inspired..
No more confused but concentrated..
No more lost in darkness but guided by light..
No more deserted..
No more Buried but sprouted..
Now..
El magnifico... He is..
Mar 4, 2020
Mar 4, 2020 at 2:44 PM UTC
It was great
to be king
but I don't have the power
to stop the end
they undress me completely
and smear me with grease
with pipes, they blow dust gold
on me, they cover me
with years of envy
The procession leads me
to the throne on the raft
it is a ruthless play
Shining in the light
of my father, the sun
I float across the lake
to lurking eyes
on the other side
that would come to skin me
if I didn't have a wash
and hastily gave the sun
to the greedy water
Mar 2, 2019
Mar 2, 2019 at 3:44 AM UTC
a seven-seven-seven freighter lands down at a runway
as I watched it unleash its landing gear
touching the ground after a long airtime.
I waited in forlorn as I sat at a nearby Starbucks
with my mocha and several granola bars
that I’ve been eating since I started
to distrust the image
I see in front of the mirror.
you caught my eye; with badges cladding
your tight suit, and the way you fiddle
that hat of yours while looking sharp.
the café was empty; as was my heart, as I sit along
the table that spreads across the center
you came inside, alone, dazzling
but your eyes are saying
that you've come a long way from here.
I was drowning myself with thoughts
as I wait for someone whom I didn't know
I would miss this much
when suddenly a tray landed
near the vicinity of my rented
personal space; it was you
smiling, along with your thick brows
and tired, sad eyes, asking me
if I would mind sitting with you.
I said no.
your voice; raspy yet pleasant
as if you've fought in countless rallies
but still manages to fight on for
another day
as if it echoes your masculinity
yet wanting some company.
you offered me your bread in which
I gladly refused, then you take a hearty bite
while asking, "what are you doing here alone?"
two a.m. it was, when we started talking.
I can't hide the fact that it was
charming, the way you talk
as if you were listening to someone
endearing but in reality
I looked like a piece of **** sitting at Starbucks
drinking coffee at two a.m.
I told you I was waiting for someone
and you told me that someone is that lucky
to have me waiting.
I let a soft laugh because it was funny
funny to a point that I didn't even knew
why I was here in the first place.
you told me you fly planes.
that flying was your dream; but you never
thought that it was that tiring; that flying
was meant to be off that repetitive and tiresome
place called land, and touching the skies and
gliding along the horizon was the reason
for dreams.
but you told me you were a bit, wrong.
you told me that however eager you are
with reaching heights, you'll always come back
for land; that landing makes you humble
that landing makes you believe that the sky
is not the limit; that yourself is the key
and travelling is not always the way
in finding one's self.
then you told me I was beautiful
no matter how I call myself a piece of ****
sitting in Starbucks, with my mocha and
granola bars.
you told me that I have passion for love;
that you see sacrifice in me
as if you knew every inch, as if
I’m a ghost that you can see through.
"what are you looking for, in life?"
I asked, trying to comprehend you.
"someone who interests me, every day
someone who understands why I fly
and that not all the time I wanted to"
I gave you a heartfelt grin
you gave me a granola bar.
his phone rang. it was time for him to go.
"it was very nice meeting you. I hope I see you again"
I hope I’ll see me too, I guess.
Jan 10, 2019
Jan 10, 2019 at 12:34 AM UTC
"Siempre lo supe, y aun así fue muy cruel cuando ya no estabas y percatarme que en efecto; ya no eras la persona de la cual escribí en 10 tonos de amarillo y 100 cartas, tal vez nunca lo fuiste.
Pero para tu suerte (y mi desgracia) siempre serás eterno entre hojas de papiro y tinta purpura, te convertirás en algo inefable, y si tengo suerte, te marchitaras con el tiempo y solo serás el recuerdo de una sonrisa curveada atrás del humo de un cigarrillo a las 12 am.
Si tengo suerte, te quedaras en una repisa bajo mi nueva vida, pero no pienses por un segundo que no recordare el honor de haber conocido...el arte de ser tu"
Jun 29, 2018
Jun 29, 2018 at 3:16 AM UTC
I begin where you end
I end where you begin
Mitosis of hearts
Joined from the start
God is a rainbow
and the white light
We are him and her
Every shade
together white and pure
in dreams and memories
In happy thoughts we pray for
Love and light is in us all.
Jan 5, 2017
Jan 5, 2017 at 12:58 PM UTC
To all bone fragments of Galeria Del Osario
1.
I want to place you in the depths of forgetting.
Place you like a butterfly in a frame, looking alive but dead of course. Place you like how numbers are arranged from 1 to infinity (but who cares to count?) Place you like how chaos displaced darkness. Place you in the tip of a glacier knowing that the entire block will just disappear in a decade or two.
Like how climate tries to displace us. Our trace will soon be forgotten.
2.
Surely, the climate is too rigid between us; two beings who found separation in all degrees of telekinetic attractions. For two beings who found shelter in the anonymity of chance. Chance to meet. Chance to declare once and for all the unfolding of luck.
Did luck really unfold or it was just me who hoped?
3.
Time is the bare witness to all tragedies, say two lovers who never found the consolations of fate. Time is the curse of the flesh, the rotting wisdom of conscience.
Time flees. Time forgets. Time remembers.
4.
By all means, the world is too small. Sometimes we wage war to small dimensions seemingly large. Where are we by the time that the world collapses into a small room? Where are we when the room pretended to be small but the gap between us is a year, light years perhaps.
Nomads, we are not. We cannot call any cave a home.
After all, what sort of space would cater us?
5.
A massacre happened 43,000 years ago. No one cares to remember. Nine of them were killed by new comers. El Sidron witnessed the coldest crime. If only tears can shed their fate, can we cry for them?
Who cares to write their memories? Who cares to paint their thoughts? Who cares to count their broken bone fragments in the caves?
I want to place you in the depths of forgetting.
Oct 2, 2016
Oct 2, 2016 at 3:29 AM UTC
After all, poetry is a savage calling.
-Edel Garcellano
Let poetry be an interstice.
Say, an intervention to the gap of loneliness. Depressive. Let bitter medicines dissolve or, madness will make its ultimate call. Convulsive patterns of mental spasms. Schizophrenic impulse hitting the nerves.
What is known to be rational flees. Enough to learn from the burning of its wings and Youth.
Say, pulling a magic trick under the hat. You know you are being fooled but why enjoy such spectacle or, better enjoy than masking the truth.
Say, a glimpse through an interstice—from Whitman’s poetry.
An intervention to the rashness of day. An intercept to the chaos of the soul. A reminder that we are not assemblages forever desiring.
A poetry fumbling to the course, enough to welcome the rain of sad realizations.
“The task is heroic. Poetry is a minor matter” (E. Garcellano) – an intervention/interstice, the negotiator to the ultimate task of poetry.
We are savage gods. We feed on the detritus of truth, those are, lies.
Consider this poetry as an epitaph. To the disremembered victims of El Sidro. We dealt the cards of fate. We intervened to live. We pierced our stones to their hearts so cold.
Darwin’s prophesy always reminds us that in every epoch there are some interventions we cannot avoid. After all, we are his favorite animal.
We are gods feeding on loneliness. We are agnostic souls entangled in caves of shadows.
Say, are we forever trapped in the compulsive dimensions of ourselves? In love, for example.
To answer this question is the task of poetry.
Let poetry be an interstice.
Oct 1, 2016
Oct 1, 2016 at 7:46 AM UTC
For Marianne, a woman with an unusual heart
I know her, perhaps by a pinch of night air,
Because we share the same music, same voice that night in Guadalupe,
After a day of toils for hearts climbing upon ladders, unending stairs.
I know her, perhaps half of those golden strings,
Because we share the same air of jollity that day in Enchanted kingdom,
Gasping for air, breathing faintly, yet enthralled by the twists and turns of magic.
The heart most tried is the strongest, like the gold tested in fire,
I know her.
I know her, perhaps the fullness of the orange moon,
Because we share the same water under the canopy of azure skies, that brief reprieve the El Nido offers,
Sharing the same tongue of honesty we speak that night, I respect her.
I know her, perhaps more than she knows herself,
But that’s an unforgivable lie, indescribable it is to fathom a woman with an unusual heart,
Because hers, speaks of metaphors.
May 2, 2016
May 2, 2016 at 8:15 PM UTC
still i felt desolate
while singing miley's "the climb"
while laying on the pavement
with her watching the stars
while blurring the lights of el paso
behind my sights
because while i love who im with
im not in love
and i constantly wonder
what its like to be with someone
who loves you back
all the same.
Sep 28, 2015
Sep 28, 2015 at 12:57 AM UTC
Es el
El que tiene aquellos ojos que brillan como el sol reflejado en el mar
El que tiene aquella invaluable voz que podría volver loco a cualquiera
El que tiene aquella sonrisa tan llamativa como un faro en una noche oscura
El que ha sido capáz de hacerme sentir emociones que no puedo poner en palabras
El que pudo descifrar mi corazón aún sin haberse dado cuenta
Es el, el que me entristece pero me hace sentir lo mas feliz posible.
Es el, de quien yo me enamoré.
Sep 15, 2015
Sep 15, 2015 at 9:45 PM UTC
The moons riding tides
To be her waves
They sucketh me in
Sweet warm undertake..
Jun 23, 2015
Jun 23, 2015 at 10:34 AM UTC
By Simon & Garfunkel
I’d rather be a sparrow than a snail
Yes, I would
If I could
I surely would
I’d rather be a hammer than a nail
Yes, I would
If I only could
I surely would
Away, I’d rather sail away
Like a swan that’s here and gone
A man gets tied up to the ground
He gives the world its saddest sound
Its saddest sound
I’d rather be a forest than a street
Yes, I would
If I could
I surely would
I’d rather feel the earth beneath my feet
Yes, I would
If I only could
I surely would
Jan 25, 2015
Jan 25, 2015 at 12:26 AM UTC
en la hora de monet tus ojos me arrullan
mi cabeza despejada me da un sorbo de realidad
mientras tus ojos me acarician
en la hora de monet los ojos me duelen, pero veo mas claro que nunca
absorbo la luz, y los olores de las damas hermosas que se cruzan en mi camino, busco en sus ojos un rastro de los tuyos.
mientras el sueño me acorrala, otro dia de pesadillas y llamadas funestas
pero todo brilla aun en un cielo de monet, con tu hermosa mirada en el rabillo de mi ojo.
asi en la hora de monet, tus ojos brillan mas, y la soledad pesa menos quel corazon funesto de algun creep
en esta hora la cobardia del mundo pesa menos, todo es menos ******
tu actitud de pato feo contraste con tu belleza de cisne
en un cielo de monet, con la vista hermosa en mi cabeza, todo se aclara
la realidad ya no es funesta, en un dia claro la realidad me golpea
el pasado ya no pesa.
LA CALIDEZ PERDIDA EN LOS OJOS EQUIVOCADOS
ENTRE PERDIDA Y DESEO ME FUI DISOLVIENDO, COMO LA LUZ DEL ALBA FRENTE AL SOL DE LA TARDE QUE GANA FUERZA
EN UN CIELO OBSCURO, EL PASADO VOLVIO, ROMPIO EN DOS EL DESEO HERMOSO.
asi en un cielo de monet la realidad me golpea la cara, tus ofenzas y el desden borraron el deseo, que se deshizo como arena entre mis dedos.
EN UN CIELO OSCURO VOLVIO LA FARZA Y EL CAPRICHO, LO QUISIERON TODO, Y OTRA VEZ CON TRAMPAS BORRARON TODO RASTRO DE BELLEZA.
EN UN CIELO DE MONET EL DESEO SE VOLVIO UN PESAR, Y TU MUNDO FUNESTO SE VOLVIO A METER EN MI CAMINO.
PERO AHORA LA REALIDAD NO ME PESA, SE VUELVE HERMOSA.
EN UN CIELO DE MONET ENCONTRAR UNA MUJER HERMOSA DARLE PLACER Y DELEITES MIENTRAS EL MUNDO MIRA, Y LA CALLE RUGE, LA DROIT MIRA Y LADRA POR ALGUIEN QUE PERDIO POR DEFENDER BASURA .
BAJO LA BOVEDA ESTRELLADA , TODO BRILLA AHORA EN LIBERTAD , CAMINANDO ENTRE LA GENTE COMO UN LEON QUE CAMINA ENTRE CORDEROS OBSERVANDO A LOS OJOS , ESPERANDO A MI LEONA O MI TIGREZA.
Dec 21, 2014
Dec 21, 2014 at 10:12 PM UTC
Her poetry, dancing upon the shore,
Her soul in division from itself
Climbing, falling She knew not where,
Hiding amid the cargo of a steamship,
Her knee-cap broken, that girl I declare
A beautiful lofty thing, or a thing
Heroically lost, heroically found.
No matter what disaster occurred
She stood in desperate music wound,
Wound, wound, and she made in her triumph
Where the bales and the baskets lay
No common intelligible sound
But sang, 'O sea-starved, hungry sea.
Jun 13, 2014
Jun 13, 2014 at 7:04 PM UTC
He woke up early today while the sun was still young in the sky, he hadn't dreamed tonite, he was still opening his eyes and getting ready to give up the bed and get up when his eyes lost their focus, he wasn't sure if he had something in his eyes or if he was dreaming. He tried closing them for a couple of second but to no avail, he was completely out of focus, he looked around his bedroom and tried to see the outline of the objects around him, everything had a soft haze as in dreams were things are not physical, so he picked up the book that was on his night stand to try to see if this optical effect or illusion was also with objects closer to his eyes, the book's title was kafka's diaries, but it read as kafka's daisies, strange he thought, as soon as that thought of strangeness left his mind the title return to normal and he took a look at his hands, then around the room. It seems the hazinness left his eyes and everything seemed normal again as far as eyesight goes, since he always had 20/20 vision, so he got up, went to the kitchen. Turn the stove on for some tea, made himself an omelet and left for work. Kepre was a nomal twenty year old as far as human being go, he studied at the university of Buenos Aires and during the weekend worked at a local bookstore, today was saturday so he was on the way to work. He hadn't noticed yet or even felt that today everything would change for the better.
Muere después de nacer...
Jun 8, 2014
Jun 8, 2014 at 4:04 PM UTC