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I streamed down the hill this afternoon— It was quick; it was fast. It held a power I knew, so vivid, It bore my boldness, thought to be last. I jumped, I jogged, The roads were my domain. The wind grew still when I decided to lay in. I had been soft, I had become slow, My body—stiff, my heartbeat—firm. My bones were no longer the same. Eons past had I been this free. My feet were that of Hermes, My steps rhymed with the breeze. As I climbed the hill above, My breath was lost below the summit. My climb seemed to be for naught. Here I lay past all my life, Chiming through this last breath of boldness. What a time it had been— To be bold enough to run down that hill.
0
Jan 13
Jan 13, 2026 at 8:09 AM UTC
nishan-niraula
Movement
I streamed down the hill this afternoon— It was quick; it was fast. It held a power I knew, so vivid, It bore my boldness, thought to be last. I jumped, I jogged, The roads were my domain. The wind grew still when I decided to lay in. I had been soft, I had become slow, My body—stiff, my heartbeat—firm. My bones were no longer the same. Eons past had I been this free. My feet were that of Hermes, My steps rhymed with the breeze. As I climbed the hill above, My breath was lost below the summit. My climb seemed to be for naught. Here I lay past all my life, Chiming through this last breath of boldness. What a time it had been— To be bold enough to run down that hill.
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20
As they were documenting the height they are about to fall from, I dropped my camera. Some secrets are better left buried. The sea was once everything i needed. The ornamental, the accidental. The absolute is. Night rolls in to stand watch a film in which i play everyone, a scene that refuses to end. end. Staring at the monster who looks enough like me to be me. me.
0
Sep 29, 2025
Sep 29, 2025 at 10:48 AM UTC
EvelynYiningChen
ornamENtal, acciDental
As they were documenting the height they are about to fall from, I dropped my camera. Some secrets are better left buried. The sea was once everything i needed. The ornamental, the accidental. The absolute is. Night rolls in to stand watch a film in which i play everyone, a scene that refuses to end. end. Staring at the monster who looks enough like me to be me. me.
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16
Adolf ****** Was a lot littler Than most Aryan brothers And their mothers.
0
Sep 17, 2024
Sep 17, 2024 at 1:42 AM UTC
MetaVerse
Aryan Nation
Adolf ****** Was a lot littler Than most Aryan brothers And their mothers.
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4
They used to call me  "ethereal"  but I never imagine the way it feels like, until the time came I told you, you were ethereal You were heavenly yet detrimental as it is only meant to be whispered in the heights and distance.
0
Jun 20, 2022
Jun 20, 2022 at 9:34 AM UTC
saintplush
Ethereal
They used to call me  "ethereal"  but I never imagine the way it feels like, until the time came I told you, you were ethereal You were heavenly yet detrimental as it is only meant to be whispered in the heights and distance.
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6
Never forget the root that fed you, for no matter the height you attain remember the earth beneath your feet.. No matter your height, you forget what you grew from... you'll easily fall and no one will hear it.
0
Dec 12, 2020
Dec 12, 2020 at 2:07 PM UTC
poetic-t
What We Grew From
Never forget the root that fed you, for no matter the height you attain remember the earth beneath your feet.. No matter your height, you forget what you grew from... you'll easily fall and no one will hear it.
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7
Poems about Icarus These are poems about Icarus, flying and flights of fancy... Southern Icarus by Michael R. Burch Windborne, lover of heights, unspooled from the truck’s wildly lurching embrace, you climb, skittish kite... What do you know of the world’s despair, gliding in vast... solitariness... there, so that all that remains is to fall? Only a little longer the wind invests its sighs; you stall, spread-eagled, as the canvas snaps and ***** its white rebellious wings, and all the houses watch with baffled eyes. Flight 93 by Michael R. Burch I held the switch in trembling fingers, asked why existence felt so small, so purposeless, like a minnow wriggling feebly in my grasp... vibrations of huge engines thrummed my arms as, glistening with sweat, I nudged the switch to OFF... I heard the klaxon's shrill alarms like vultures’ shriekings... earthward, in a stall... we floated... earthward... wings outstretched, aghast like Icarus... as through the void we fell... till nothing was so beautiful, so blue... so vivid as that moment... and I held an image of your face, and dreamed I flew into your arms. The earth rushed up. I knew such comfort, in that moment, loving you. I AM! by Michael R. Burch I am not one of ten billion―I― sunblackened Icarus, chary fly, staring at God with a quizzical eye. I am not one of ten billion, I. I am not one life has left unsquashed― scarred as Ulysses, goddess-debauched, pale glowworm agleam with a tale of panache. I am not one life has left unsquashed. I am not one without spots of disease, laugh lines and tan lines and thick-callused knees from begging and praying and girls sighing "Please!" I am not one without spots of disease. I am not one of ten billion―I― scion of Daedalus, blackwinged fly staring at God with a sedulous eye. I am not one of ten billion, I AM! Finally to Burn (the Fall and Resurrection of Icarus) by Michael R. Burch Athena takes me sometimes by the hand and we go levitating through strange Dreamlands where Apollo sleeps in his dark forgetting and Passion seems like a wise bloodletting and all I remember , upon awaking, is: to Love sometimes is like forsaking one’s Being―to glide heroically beyond thought, forsaking the here for the There and the Not. * O, finally to Burn, gravity beyond escaping! To plummet is Bliss when the blisters breaking rain down red scabs on the earth’s mudpuddle... Feathers and wax and the watchers huddle... Flocculent sheep, O, and innocent lambs!, I will rock me to sleep on the waves’ iambs. * To sleep's sweet relief from Love’s exhausting Dream, for the Night has Wings gentler than Moonbeams― they will flit me to Life like a huge-eyed Phoenix fluttering off to quarry the Sphinx. * Riddlemethis, riddlemethat, Rynosseross, throw out the Welcome Mat. Quixotic, I seek Love amid the tarnished rusted-out steel when to live is varnish. To Dream―that’s the thing! Aye, that Genie I’ll rub, soak by the candle, aflame in the tub. * Riddlemethis, riddlemethat, Rynosseross, throw out the Welcome Mat. Somewhither, somewhither aglitter and strange, we must moult off all knowledge or perish caged. * I am reconciled to Life somewhere beyond thought― I’ll Live the Elsewhere, I’ll Dream of the Naught. Methinks it no journey; to tarry’s a waste, so fatten the oxen; make a nice baste. I’m coming, Fool Tom, we have Somewhere to Go, though we injure noone, ourselves wildaglow. This odd poem invokes and merges with the anonymous medieval poem “Tom O’Bedlam’s Song” and W. H. Auden’s modernist poem “Musee des Beaux Arts,” which in turn refers to Pieter Breughel’s painting “The Fall of Icarus.” In the first stanza Icarus levitates with the help of Athena, the goddess or wisdom, through “strange dreamlands” while Apollo, the sun god, lies sleeping. In the second stanza, Apollo predictably wakes up and Icarus plummets to earth, or back to mundane reality, as in Breughel’s painting and Auden’s poem. In the third stanza the grounded Icarus can still fly, but only in flights of imagination through dreams of love. In the fourth and fifth stanzas Icarus joins Tom Rynosseross of the Bedlam poem in embracing madness by deserting “knowledge” and its cages (ivory towers, etc.). In the final stanza Icarus agrees with Tom that it is “no journey” to wherever they’re going together and also agrees with Tom that they will injure no one along the way, no matter how intensely they glow and radiate. The poem can be taken as a metaphor for the death and rebirth of Poetry, and perhaps as a prophecy that Poetry will rise, radiate and reattain its former glory... Free Fall (II) by Michael R. Burch I have no earthly remembrance of you, as if we were never of earth, but merely white clouds adrift, swirling together through Himalayan serene altitudes― no more man and woman than exhaled breath―unable to fall back to solid existence, despite the air’s sparseness: all our being borne up, because of our lightness, toward the sun’s unendurable brightness... But since I touched you, fire consumes each wing! We who are unable to fly, stall contemplating disaster. Despair like an anchor, like an iron ball, heavier than ballast, sinks on its thick-looped chain toward the earth, and soon thereafter there will be sufficient pain to recall existence, to make the coming darkness everlasting. Fledglings by Michael R. Burch With her small eyes, pale and unforgiving, she taught me―December is not for those unweaned of love, the chirping nestlings who bicker for worms with dramatic throats still pinkly exposed, who have not yet learned the first harsh lesson of survival: to devour their weaker siblings in the high-leafed ferned fortress and impregnable bower from which men must fly like improbable dreams to become poets. They have yet to learn that, before they can soar starward, like fanciful archaic machines, they must first assimilate the latest technology, or lose all in the sudden realization of gravity, following Icarus’s, sun-unwinged, singed trajectory. The Higher Atmospheres by Michael R. Burch Whatever we became climbed on the thought of Love itself; we floated on plumed wings ten thousand miles above the breasted earth that had vexed us to such Distance; now all things seem small and pale, a girdle’s handsbreadth girth... I break upon the rocks; I break; I fling my human form about; I writhe; I writhe. Invention is not Mastery, nor wings Salvation. Here the Vulture cruelly chides and plunges at my eyes, and coos and sings... Oh, some will call the sun my doom, but Love melts callow wax the higher atmospheres leave brittle. I flew high: not high enough to melt such frozen resins... thus, Her jeers. Notes toward an Icarian philosophy of life... by Michael R. Burch If the mind’s and the heart’s quests were ever satisfied, what would remain, as the goals of life? If there was only light, with no occluding matter, if there were only sunny mid-afternoons but no mysterious midnights, what would become of the dreams of men? What becomes of man’s vision, apart from terrestrial shadows? And what of man’s character, formed in the seething crucible of life and death, hammered out on the anvil of Fate, by Will? What becomes of man’s aims in the end, when the hammer’s anthems at last are stilled? If man should confront his terrible Creator, capture him, hogtie him, hold his ***** feet to the fire, roast him on the spit as yet another blasphemous heretic whose faith is suspect, derelict... torture a confession from him, get him to admit, “I did it!... what then? Once man has taken revenge on the Frankenstein who created him and has justly crucified the One True Monster, the Creator... what then? Or, if revenge is not possible, if the appearance of matter was merely a random accident, or a group illusion (and thus a conspiracy, perhaps of dunces, us among them), or if the Creator lies eternally beyond the reach of justice... what then? Perhaps there’s nothing left but for man to perfect his character, to fly as high as his wings will take him toward unreachable suns, to gamble everything on some unfathomable dream, like Icarus, then fall to earth, to perish, undone... or perhaps not, if the mystics are right about the true nature of darkness and light. Is there a source of knowledge beyond faith, a revelation of heaven, of the Triumph of Love? The Hebrew prophets seemed to think so, and Paul, although he saw through a glass darkly, and Julian of Norwich, who heard the voice of God say, “All shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well...” Does hope spring eternal in the human breast, or does it just blindly ***** Icarus Bickerous by Michael R. Burch for the Religious Right Like Icarus, waxen wings melting, white tail-feathers fall, bystanders pelting. They look up amazed and seem rather dazed― was it heaven’s or hell’s furious smelting that fashioned such vulturish wings? And why are they singed?― the higher you “rise,” the more halting? Earthbound, a Vision of Crazy Horse by Michael R. Burch Tashunka Witko, a Lakota Sioux better known as Crazy Horse, had a vision of a red-tailed hawk at Sylvan Lake, South Dakota. In his vision he saw himself riding a spirit horse, flying through a storm, as the hawk flew above him, shrieking. When he awoke, a red-tailed hawk was perched near his horse. Earthbound, and yet I now fly through the clouds that are aimlessly drifting... so high that no sound echoing by below where the mountains are lifting the sky can be heard. Like a bird, but not meek, like a hawk from a distance regarding its prey, I will shriek, not a word, but a screech, and my terrible clamor will turn them to clay― the sheep, the earthbound. Published by American Indian Pride and Boston Poetry Magazine Flight by Michael R. Burch It is the nature of loveliness to vanish as butterfly wings, batting against nothingness seek transcendence... Originally published by Hibiscus (India) The Wonder Boys by Michael R. Burch (for Leslie Mellichamp, the late editor of The Lyric, who was a friend and mentor to many poets, and a fine poet in his own right) The stars were always there, too-bright cliches: scintillant truths the jaded world outgrew as baffled poets winged keyed kites―amazed, in dream of shocks that suddenly came true... but came almost as static―background noise, a song out of the cosmos no one hears, or cares to hear. The poets, starstruck boys, lay tuned in to their kite strings, saucer-eared. They thought to feel the lightning’s brilliant sparks electrify their nerves, their brains; the smoke of words poured from their overheated hearts. The kite string, knotted, made a nifty rope... You will not find them here; they blew away― in tumbling flight beyond nights’ stars. They clung by fingertips to satellites. They strayed too far to remain mortal. Elfin, young, their words are with us still. Devout and fey, they wink at us whenever skies are gray. Originally published by The Lyric American Eagle, Grounded by Michael R. Burch Her predatory eye, the single feral iris, scans. Her raptor beak, all jagged sharp-edged ****** juts. Her hard talon, clenched in pinched expectation, waits. Her clipped wings, preened against reality, tremble. Published as “Tremble” by The Lyric, Verses Magazine, Romantics Quarterly, Journeys, The Raintown Review, Poetic Ponderings, Poem Kingdom (All-Star Tribute), The Fabric of a Vision, NPAC―Net Poetry and Art Competition, Poet’s Haven, Listening To The Birth Of Crystals(Anthology), Poetry Renewal, Inspirational Stories, Poetry Life & Times, MahMag (Iranian/Farsi), The Eclectic Muse (Canada) Album by Michael R. Burch I caress them―trapped in brittle cellophane― and I see how young they were, and how unwise; and I remember their first flight―an old prop plane, their blissful arc through alien blue skies... And I touch them here through leaves which―tattered, frayed― are also wings, but wings that never flew: like insects’ wings―pinned, held. Here, time delayed, their features never merged, remaining two... And Grief, which lurked unseen beyond the lens or in shadows where It crept on furtive claws as It scritched Its way into their hearts, depends on sorrows such as theirs, and works Its jaws... and slavers for Its meat―those young, unwise, who naively dare to dream, yet fail to see how, lumbering sunward, Hope, ungainly, flies, clutching to Her ruffled breast what must not be. Springtime Prayer by Michael R. Burch They’ll have to grow like crazy, the springtime baby geese, if they’re to fly to balmier climes when autumn dismembers the leaves... And so I toss them loaves of bread, then whisper an urgent prayer: “Watch over these, my Angels, if there’s anyone kind, up there.” Originally published by The HyperTexts Learning to Fly by Michael R. Burch We are learning to fly every day... learning to fly― away, away... O, love is not in the ephemeral flight, but love, Love! is our destination― graced land of eternal sunrise, radiant beyond night! Let us bear one another up in our vast migration. In the Whispering Night by Michael R. Burch for George King In the whispering night, when the stars bend low till the hills ignite to a shining flame, when a shower of meteors streaks the sky while the lilies sigh in their beds, for shame, we must steal our souls, as they once were stolen, and gather our vigor, and all our intent. We must heave our bodies to some famished ocean and laugh as they vanish, and never repent. We must dance in the darkness as stars dance before us, soar, Soar! through the night on a butterfly's breeze... blown high, upward-yearning, twin spirits returning to the heights of awareness from which we were seized. Published by Songs of Innocence, Romantics Quarterly, The Chained Muse and Poetry Life & Times. This is a poem I wrote for my favorite college English teacher, George King, about poetic kinship, brotherhood and romantic flights of fancy. For a Palestinian Child, with Butterflies by Michael R. Burch Where does the butterfly go when lightning rails, when thunder howls, when hailstones scream, when winter scowls, when nights compound dark frosts with snow... Where does the butterfly go? Where does the rose hide its bloom when night descends oblique and chill beyond the capacity of moonlight to fill? When the only relief's a banked fire's glow, where does the butterfly go? And where shall the spirit flee when life is harsh, too harsh to face, and hope is lost without a trace? Oh, when the light of life runs low, where does the butterfly go? Published by Tucumcari Literary Review, Romantics Quarterly, Poetry Life & Times, Victorian Violet Press (where it was nominated for a “Best of the Net”), The Contributor (a Nashville homeless newspaper), Siasat (Pakistan), and set to music as a part of the song cycle “The Children of Gaza” which has been performed in various European venues by the Palestinian soprano Dima Bawab Sioux Vision Quest by Crazy Horse, Oglala Lakota Sioux (circa 1840-1877) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch A man must pursue his Vision as the eagle explores the sky's deepest blues. Published by Better Than Starbucks, A Hundred Voices in-flight convergence by Michael R. Burch serene, almost angelic, the lights of the city ―― extend ―― over lumbering behemoths shrilly screeching displeasure; they say that nothing is certain, that nothing man dreams or ordains long endures his command here the streetlights that flicker and those blazing steadfast seem one: from a distance; descend, they abruptly part ―――――― ways, so that nothing is one which at times does not suddenly blend into garish insignificance in the familiar alleyways, in the white neon flash and the billboards of Convenience and man seems the afterthought of his own Brilliance as we thunder down the enlightened runways. Originally published by The Aurorean and subsequently nominated for the Pushcart Prize Squall by Michael R. Burch There, in that sunny arbor, in the aureate light filtering through the waxy leaves of a stunted banana tree, I felt the sudden monsoon of your wrath, the clattery implosions and copper-bright bursts of the bottoms of pots and pans. I saw your swollen goddess’s belly wobble and heave in pregnant indignation, turned tail, and ran. Published by Chrysanthemum, Poetry Super Highway, Barbitos and Poetry Life & Times 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. But it could have been written a bit later. I seem to remember the original poem being influenced by William Cullen Bryant's "To a Waterfowl." Flying by Michael R. Burch I shall rise and try the ****** wings of thought ten thousand times before I fly... and then I'll sleep and waste ten thousand nights before I dream; but when at last... I soar the distant heights of undreamt skies where never hawks nor eagles dared to go, as I laugh among the meteors flashing by somewhere beyond the bluest earth-bound seas... if I'm not told I’m just a man, then I shall know just what I am. This is one of my early poems, written around age 16-17. According to my notes, I may have revised the poem later, in 1978, but if so the changes were minor because the poem remains very close to the original. Stage Craft-y by Michael R. Burch There once was a dromedary who befriended a crafty canary. Budgie said, "You can’t sing, but now, here’s the thing― just think of the tunes you can carry!" Clyde Lied! by Michael R. Burch There once was a mockingbird, Clyde, who bragged of his prowess, but lied. To his new wife he sighed, "When again, gentle bride?" "Nevermore!" bright-eyed Raven replied. Less Heroic Couplets: ****** Most Fowl! by Michael R. Burch ****** most foul!” cried the mouse to the owl. “Friend, I’m no sinner; you’re merely my dinner!” the wise owl replied as the tasty snack died. Published by Lighten Up Online and in Potcake Chapbook #7 NOTE: In an attempt to demonstrate that not all couplets are heroic, I have created a series of poems called “Less Heroic Couplets.” I believe even poets should abide by truth-in-advertising laws! ― MRB Lance-Lot by Michael R. Burch Preposterous bird! Inelegant! Absurd! Until the great & mighty heron brandishes his fearsome sword. Kissin’ ’n’ buzzin’ by Michael R. Burch Kissin’ ’n’ buzzin’ the bees rise in a dizzy circle of two. Oh, when I’m with you, I feel like kissin’ ’n’ buzzin’ too. Delicacy by Michael R. Burch for all good mothers Your love is as delicate as a butterfly cleaning its wings, as soft as the predicate the hummingbird sings to itself, gently murmuring― “Fly! Fly! Fly!” Your love is the string soaring kites untie. Lone Wild Goose by Du Fu (712-770) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch The abandoned goose refuses food and drink; he cries querulously for his companions. Who feels kinship for that strange wraith as he vanishes eerily into the heavens? You watch it as it disappears; its plaintive calls cut through you. The indignant crows ignore you both: the bickering, bantering multitudes. Du Fu (712-770) is also known as Tu Fu. The first poem is addressed to the poet's wife, who had fled war with their children. Ch'ang-an is an ironic pun because it means "Long-peace." The Red Cockatoo by Po Chu-I (772-846) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch A marvelous gift from Annam― a red cockatoo, bright as peach blossom, fluent in men's language. So they did what they always do to the erudite and eloquent: they created a thick-barred cage and shut it up. Po Chu-I (772-846) is best known today for his ballads and satirical poems. Po Chu-I believed poetry should be accessible to commoners and is noted for his simple diction and natural style. His name has been rendered various ways in English: Po Chu-I, Po Chü-i, Bo Juyi and Bai Juyi. The Migrant Songbird Li Qingzhao aka Li Ching-chao (c. 1084-1155) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch The migrant songbird on the nearby yew brings tears to my eyes with her melodious trills; this fresh downpour reminds me of similar spills: another spring gone, and still no word from you... Lines from Laolao Ting Pavilion by Li Bai (701-762) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch The spring breeze knows partings are bitter; The willow twig knows it will never be green again. The Day after the Rain Lin Huiyin (1904-1955) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I love the day after the rain and the meadow's green expanses! My heart endlessly rises with wind, gusts with wind... away the new-mown grasses and the fallen leaves... away the clouds like smoke... vanishing like smoke... Untitled Translations Cupid, if you incinerate my soul, touché! For like you she has wings and can fly away! ―Meleager, loose translation by Michael R. Burch As autumn deepens, a butterfly sips chrysanthemum dew. ―Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Come, butterfly, it’s late and we’ve a long way to go! ―Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Up and at ’em! The sky goes bright! Let’s hit the road again, Companion Butterfly! ―Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Ah butterfly, what dreams do you ply with your beautiful wings? ―Chiyo-ni, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Oh, dreamlike winter butterfly: a puff of white snow cresting mountains ―Kakio Tomizawa, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Dry leaf flung awry: bright butterfly, goodbye! ―Michael R. Burch, original haiku Will we remain parted forever? Here at your grave: two flowerlike butterflies ―Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch a soaring kite flits into the heart of the sun? Butterfly & Chrysanthemum ―Michael R. Burch, original haiku The cheerful-chirping cricket contends gray autumn's gay, contemptuous of frost ―Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Whistle on, twilight whippoorwill, solemn evangelist of loneliness ―Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The sea darkening, the voices of the wild ducks: my mysterious companions! ―Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Lightning shatters the darkness― the night heron's shriek ―Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch This snowy morning: cries of the crow I despise (ah, but so beautiful!) ―Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch A crow settles on a leafless branch: autumn nightfall. ―Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Hush, cawing crows; what rackets you make! Heaven's indignant messengers, you remind me of wordsmiths! ―O no Yasumaro (circa 711), loose translation by Michael R. Burch Higher than a skylark, resting on the breast of heaven: this mountain pass. ―Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch An exciting struggle with such a sad ending: cormorant fishing. ―Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Does my soul abide in heaven, or hell? Only the sea gull in his high, lonely circuits, may tell. ―Glaucus, translation by Michael R. Burch The eagle sees farther from its greater height― our ancestors’ wisdom ―Michael R. Burch, original haiku A kite floats at the same place in the sky where yesterday it floated... ―Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Critical Mass by Michael R. Burch I have listened to the rain all this morning and it has a certain gravity, as if it knows its destination, perhaps even its particular destiny. I do not believe mine is to be uplifted, although I, too, may be flung precipitously and from a great height. "Gravity" and "particular destiny" are puns, since rain droplets are seeded by minute particles of dust adrift in the atmosphere and they fall due to gravity when they reach "critical mass." The title is also a pun, since the poem is skeptical about heaven-lauding Masses, etc. Ultimate Sunset by Michael R. Burch for my father, Paul Ray Burch, Jr. he now faces the Ultimate Sunset, his body like the leaves that fray as they dry, shedding their vital fluids (who knows why?) till they’ve become even lighter than the covering sky, ready to fly... Free Fall by Michael R. Burch for my father, Paul Ray Burch, Jr. I see the longing for departure gleam in his still-keen eye, and I understand his desire to test this last wind, like those late autumn leaves with nothing left to cling to... Leaf Fall by Michael R. Burch Whatever winds encountered soon resolved to swirling fragments, till chaotic heaps of leaves lay pulsing by the backyard wall. In lieu of rakes, our fingers sorted each dry leaf into its place and built a high, soft bastion against earth's gravitron― a patchwork quilt, a trampoline, a bright impediment to fling ourselves upon. And nothing in our laughter as we fell into those leaves was like the autumn's cry of also falling. Nothing meant to die could be so bright as we, so colorful― clad in our plaids, oblivious to pain we'd feel today, should we leaf-fall again. Originally published by The Neovictorian/Cochlea The Folly of Wisdom by Michael R. Burch She is wise in the way that children are wise, looking at me with such knowing, grave eyes I must bend down to her to understand. But she only smiles, and takes my hand. We are walking somewhere that her feet know to go, so I smile, and I follow... And the years are dark creatures concealed in bright leaves that flutter above us, and what she believes― I can almost remember―goes something like this: the prince is a horned toad, awaiting her kiss. She wiggles and giggles, and all will be well if only we find him! The woodpecker’s knell as he hammers the coffin of some dying tree that once was a fortress to someone like me rings wildly above us. Some things that we know we are meant to forget. Life is a bloodletting, maple-syrup-slow. Originally published by Romantics Quarterly Kin by Michael R. Burch for Richard Moore 1. Shrill gulls, how like my thoughts you, struggling, rise to distant bliss― the weightless blue of skies that are not blue in any atmosphere, but closest here... 2. You seek an air so clear, so rarified the effort leaves you famished; earthly tides soon call you back― one long, descending glide... 3. Disgruntledly you ***** dirt shores for orts you pull like mucous ropes from shells’ bright forts... You eye the teeming world with nervous darts― this way and that... Contentious, shrewd, you scan― the sky, in hope, the earth, distrusting man. Songstress by Michael R. Burch Within its starkwhite ribcage, how the heart must flutter wildly, O, and always sing against the pressing darkness: all it knows until at last it feels the numbing sting of death. Then life's brief vision swiftly passes, imposing night on one who clearly saw. Death held your bright heart tightly, till its maw― envenomed, fanged―could swallow, whole, your Awe. And yet it was not death so much as you who sealed your doom; you could not help but sing and not be silenced. Here, behold your tomb's white alabaster cage: pale, wretched thing! But you'll not be imprisoned here, wise wren! Your words soar free; rise, sing, fly, live again. A poet like Nadia Anjuman can be likened to a caged bird, deprived of flight, who somehow finds it within herself to sing of love and beauty. But when the world finally robs her of both flight and song, what is left for her but to leave the world, thus bereaving the world of herself and her song? Performing Art by Michael R. Burch Who teaches the wren in its drab existence to explode into song? What parodies of irony does the jay espouse with its sharp-edged tongue? What instinctual memories lend stunning brightness to the strange dreams of the dull gray slug ―spinning its chrysalis, gluing rough seams― abiding in darkness its transformation, till, waving damp wings, it applauds its performance? I am done with irony. Life itself sings. Lean Harvests by Michael R. Burch for T.M. 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 My Forty-Ninth Year by Michael R. Burch My forty-ninth year and the dew remembers how brightly it glistened encrusting September,... one frozen September when hawks ruled the sky and death fell on wings with a shrill, keening cry. My forty-ninth year, and still I recall the weavings and windings of childhood, of fall... of fall enigmatic, resplendent, yet sere,... though vibrant the herald of death drawing near. My forty-ninth year and now often I've thought on the course of a lifetime, the meaning of autumn, the cycle of autumn with winter to come, of aging and death and rebirth... on and on. Originally published by Romantics Quarterly as “My Twenty-Ninth Year” Myth by Michael R. Burch Here the recalcitrant wind sighs with grievance and remorse over fields of wayward gorse and thistle-throttled lanes. And she is the myth of the scythed wheat hewn and sighing, complete, waiting, lain in a low sheaf― full of faith, full of grief. Here the immaculate dawn requires belief of the leafed earth and she is the myth of the mown grain― golden and humble in all its weary worth. What Works by Michael R. Burch for David Gosselin What works― hewn stone; the blush the iris shows the sun; the lilac’s pale-remembered bloom. The frenzied fly: mad-lively, gay, as seconds tick his time away, his sentence―one brief day in May, a period. And then decay. A frenzied rhyme’s mad tip-toed time, a ballad’s languid as the sea, seek, striving―immortality. When gloss peels off, what works will shine. When polish fades, what works will gleam. When intellectual prattle pales, the dying buzzing in the hive of tedious incessant bees, what works will soar and wheel and dive and milk all honey, leap and thrive, and teach the pallid poem to seethe. Desdemona by Michael R. Burch Though you possessed the moon and stars, you are bound to fate and wed to chance. Your lips deny they crave a kiss; your feet deny they ache to dance. Your heart imagines wild romance. Though you cupped fire in your hands and molded incandescent forms, you are barren now, and―spent of flame― the ashes that remain are borne toward the sun upon a storm. You, who demanded more, have less, your heart within its cells of sighs held fast by chains of misery, confined till death for peddling lies― imprisonment your sense denies. You, who collected hearts like leaves and pressed each once within your book, forgot. None―winsome, bright or rare― not one was worth a second look. My heart, as others, you forsook. But I, though I loved you from afar through silent dawns, and gathered rue from gardens where your footsteps left cold paths among the asters, knew― each moonless night the nettles grew and strangled hope, where love dies too. Published by Penny Dreadful, Carnelian, Romantics Quarterly, Grassroots Poetry and Poetry Life & Times Transplant by Michael R. Burch You float, unearthly angel, clad in flesh as strange to us who briefly knew your flame as laughter to disease. And yet you laugh. Behind your smile, the sun forfeits its claim to earth, and floats forever now the same― light captured at its moment of least height. You laugh here always, welcoming the night, and, just a photograph, still you can claim bright rapture: like an angel, not of flesh― but something more, made less. Your humanness this moment of release becomes a name and something else―a radiance, a strange brief presence near our hearts. How can we stand and chain you here to this nocturnal land of burgeoning gray shadows? Fly, begone. I give you back your soul, forfeit all claim to radiance, and welcome grief’s dark night that crushes all the laughter from us. Light in someone Else’s hand, and sing at ease some song of brightsome mirth through dawn-lit trees to welcome morning’s sun. O daughter! these are eyes too weak for laughter; for love’s sight, I welcome darkness, overcome with light. Prodigal by Michael R. Burch This poem is dedicated to Kevin Longinotti, who died four days short of graduation from Vanderbilt University, the victim of a tornado that struck Nashville on April 16, 1998. You have graduated now, to a higher plane and your heart’s tenacity teaches us not to go gently though death intrudes. For eighteen days ―jarring interludes of respite and pain― with life only faintly clinging, like a cashmere snow, testing the capacity of the blood banks with the unstaunched flow of your severed veins, in the collapsing declivity, in the sanguine haze where Death broods, you struggled defiantly. A city mourns its adopted son, flown to the highest ranks while each heart complains at the harsh validity of God’s ways. On ponderous wings the white clouds move with your captured breath, though just days before they spawned the maelstrom’s hellish rift. Throw off this mortal coil, this envelope of flesh, this brief sheath of inarticulate grief and transient joy. Forget the winds which test belief, which bear the parchment leaf down life’s last sun-lit path. We applaud your spirit, O Prodigal, O Valiant One, in its percussive flight into the sun, winging on the heart’s last madrigal. Breakings by Michael R. Burch I did it out of pity. I did it out of love. I did it not to break the heart of a tender, wounded dove. But gods without compassion ordained: Frail things must break! Now what can I do for her shattered psyche’s sake? I did it not to push. I did it not to shove. I did it to assist the flight of indiscriminate Love. But gods, all mad as hatters, who legislate in all such matters, ordained that everything irreplaceable shatters. An Illusion by Michael R. Burch The sky was as hushed as the breath of a bee and the world was bathed in shades of palest gold when I awoke. She came to me with the sound of falling leaves and the scent of new-mown grass; I held out my arms to her and she passed into oblivion... This is one of my early poems, written around age 16 and published in my high school literary journal, The Lantern. Lines for My Ascension by Michael R. Burch I. If I should die, there will come a Doom, and the sky will darken to the deepest Gloom. But if my body should not be found, never think of me in the cold ground. II. If I should die, let no mortal say, “Here was a man, with feet of clay, or a timid sparrow God’s hand let fall.” But watch the sky darken to an eerie pall and know that my Spirit, unvanquished, broods, and cares naught for graves, prayers, coffins, or roods. And if my body should not be found, never think of me in the cold ground. III. If I should die, let no man adore his incompetent Maker: Zeus, Jehovah, or Thor. Think of Me as One who never died― the unvanquished Immortal with the unriven side. And if my body should not be found, never think of me in the cold ground. IV. And if I should “die,” though the clouds grow dark as fierce lightnings rend this bleak asteroid, stark... If you look above, you will see a bright Sign― the sun with the moon in its arms, Divine. So divine, if you can, my bright meaning, and know― my Spirit is mine. I will go where I go. And if my body should not be found, never think of me in the cold ground. The Locker by Michael R. Burch All the dull hollow clamor has died and what was contained, removed, reproved adulation or sentiment, left with the pungent darkness as remembered as the sudden light. Originally published by The Raintown Review Keywords/Tags: Sports, locker, lockerroom, clamor, adulation, acclaim, applause, sentiment, darkness, light, retirement, athlete, team, trophy, award, acclamation Keywords/Tags: Icarus, Daedalus, flight, fly, flying, wind, wings, sun, height, heights, fall, falling, ascent, descent, imagination, bird, birds, butterfly, butterflies, hawk, eagle, geese, plane, kite, kites, mrbfly, mrbflight, mrbicarus
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Nov 12, 2020
Nov 12, 2020 at 2:56 AM UTC
michael-r-burch
Poems about Icarus
Poems about Icarus These are poems about Icarus, flying and flights of fancy... Southern Icarus by Michael R. Burch Windborne, lover of heights, unspooled from the truck’s wildly lurching embrace, you climb, skittish kite... What do you know of the world’s despair, gliding in vast... solitariness... there, so that all that remains is to fall? Only a little longer the wind invests its sighs; you stall, spread-eagled, as the canvas snaps and ***** its white rebellious wings, and all the houses watch with baffled eyes. Flight 93 by Michael R. Burch I held the switch in trembling fingers, asked why existence felt so small, so purposeless, like a minnow wriggling feebly in my grasp... vibrations of huge engines thrummed my arms as, glistening with sweat, I nudged the switch to OFF... I heard the klaxon's shrill alarms like vultures’ shriekings... earthward, in a stall... we floated... earthward... wings outstretched, aghast like Icarus... as through the void we fell... till nothing was so beautiful, so blue... so vivid as that moment... and I held an image of your face, and dreamed I flew into your arms. The earth rushed up. I knew such comfort, in that moment, loving you. I AM! by Michael R. Burch I am not one of ten billion―I― sunblackened Icarus, chary fly, staring at God with a quizzical eye. I am not one of ten billion, I. I am not one life has left unsquashed― scarred as Ulysses, goddess-debauched, pale glowworm agleam with a tale of panache. I am not one life has left unsquashed. I am not one without spots of disease, laugh lines and tan lines and thick-callused knees from begging and praying and girls sighing "Please!" I am not one without spots of disease. I am not one of ten billion―I― scion of Daedalus, blackwinged fly staring at God with a sedulous eye. I am not one of ten billion, I AM! Finally to Burn (the Fall and Resurrection of Icarus) by Michael R. Burch Athena takes me sometimes by the hand and we go levitating through strange Dreamlands where Apollo sleeps in his dark forgetting and Passion seems like a wise bloodletting and all I remember , upon awaking, is: to Love sometimes is like forsaking one’s Being―to glide heroically beyond thought, forsaking the here for the There and the Not. * O, finally to Burn, gravity beyond escaping! To plummet is Bliss when the blisters breaking rain down red scabs on the earth’s mudpuddle... Feathers and wax and the watchers huddle... Flocculent sheep, O, and innocent lambs!, I will rock me to sleep on the waves’ iambs. * To sleep's sweet relief from Love’s exhausting Dream, for the Night has Wings gentler than Moonbeams― they will flit me to Life like a huge-eyed Phoenix fluttering off to quarry the Sphinx. * Riddlemethis, riddlemethat, Rynosseross, throw out the Welcome Mat. Quixotic, I seek Love amid the tarnished rusted-out steel when to live is varnish. To Dream―that’s the thing! Aye, that Genie I’ll rub, soak by the candle, aflame in the tub. * Riddlemethis, riddlemethat, Rynosseross, throw out the Welcome Mat. Somewhither, somewhither aglitter and strange, we must moult off all knowledge or perish caged. * I am reconciled to Life somewhere beyond thought― I’ll Live the Elsewhere, I’ll Dream of the Naught. Methinks it no journey; to tarry’s a waste, so fatten the oxen; make a nice baste. I’m coming, Fool Tom, we have Somewhere to Go, though we injure noone, ourselves wildaglow. This odd poem invokes and merges with the anonymous medieval poem “Tom O’Bedlam’s Song” and W. H. Auden’s modernist poem “Musee des Beaux Arts,” which in turn refers to Pieter Breughel’s painting “The Fall of Icarus.” In the first stanza Icarus levitates with the help of Athena, the goddess or wisdom, through “strange dreamlands” while Apollo, the sun god, lies sleeping. In the second stanza, Apollo predictably wakes up and Icarus plummets to earth, or back to mundane reality, as in Breughel’s painting and Auden’s poem. In the third stanza the grounded Icarus can still fly, but only in flights of imagination through dreams of love. In the fourth and fifth stanzas Icarus joins Tom Rynosseross of the Bedlam poem in embracing madness by deserting “knowledge” and its cages (ivory towers, etc.). In the final stanza Icarus agrees with Tom that it is “no journey” to wherever they’re going together and also agrees with Tom that they will injure no one along the way, no matter how intensely they glow and radiate. The poem can be taken as a metaphor for the death and rebirth of Poetry, and perhaps as a prophecy that Poetry will rise, radiate and reattain its former glory... Free Fall (II) by Michael R. Burch I have no earthly remembrance of you, as if we were never of earth, but merely white clouds adrift, swirling together through Himalayan serene altitudes― no more man and woman than exhaled breath―unable to fall back to solid existence, despite the air’s sparseness: all our being borne up, because of our lightness, toward the sun’s unendurable brightness... But since I touched you, fire consumes each wing! We who are unable to fly, stall contemplating disaster. Despair like an anchor, like an iron ball, heavier than ballast, sinks on its thick-looped chain toward the earth, and soon thereafter there will be sufficient pain to recall existence, to make the coming darkness everlasting. Fledglings by Michael R. Burch With her small eyes, pale and unforgiving, she taught me―December is not for those unweaned of love, the chirping nestlings who bicker for worms with dramatic throats still pinkly exposed, who have not yet learned the first harsh lesson of survival: to devour their weaker siblings in the high-leafed ferned fortress and impregnable bower from which men must fly like improbable dreams to become poets. They have yet to learn that, before they can soar starward, like fanciful archaic machines, they must first assimilate the latest technology, or lose all in the sudden realization of gravity, following Icarus’s, sun-unwinged, singed trajectory. The Higher Atmospheres by Michael R. Burch Whatever we became climbed on the thought of Love itself; we floated on plumed wings ten thousand miles above the breasted earth that had vexed us to such Distance; now all things seem small and pale, a girdle’s handsbreadth girth... I break upon the rocks; I break; I fling my human form about; I writhe; I writhe. Invention is not Mastery, nor wings Salvation. Here the Vulture cruelly chides and plunges at my eyes, and coos and sings... Oh, some will call the sun my doom, but Love melts callow wax the higher atmospheres leave brittle. I flew high: not high enough to melt such frozen resins... thus, Her jeers. Notes toward an Icarian philosophy of life... by Michael R. Burch If the mind’s and the heart’s quests were ever satisfied, what would remain, as the goals of life? If there was only light, with no occluding matter, if there were only sunny mid-afternoons but no mysterious midnights, what would become of the dreams of men? What becomes of man’s vision, apart from terrestrial shadows? And what of man’s character, formed in the seething crucible of life and death, hammered out on the anvil of Fate, by Will? What becomes of man’s aims in the end, when the hammer’s anthems at last are stilled? If man should confront his terrible Creator, capture him, hogtie him, hold his ***** feet to the fire, roast him on the spit as yet another blasphemous heretic whose faith is suspect, derelict... torture a confession from him, get him to admit, “I did it!... what then? Once man has taken revenge on the Frankenstein who created him and has justly crucified the One True Monster, the Creator... what then? Or, if revenge is not possible, if the appearance of matter was merely a random accident, or a group illusion (and thus a conspiracy, perhaps of dunces, us among them), or if the Creator lies eternally beyond the reach of justice... what then? Perhaps there’s nothing left but for man to perfect his character, to fly as high as his wings will take him toward unreachable suns, to gamble everything on some unfathomable dream, like Icarus, then fall to earth, to perish, undone... or perhaps not, if the mystics are right about the true nature of darkness and light. Is there a source of knowledge beyond faith, a revelation of heaven, of the Triumph of Love? The Hebrew prophets seemed to think so, and Paul, although he saw through a glass darkly, and Julian of Norwich, who heard the voice of God say, “All shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well...” Does hope spring eternal in the human breast, or does it just blindly ***** Icarus Bickerous by Michael R. Burch for the Religious Right Like Icarus, waxen wings melting, white tail-feathers fall, bystanders pelting. They look up amazed and seem rather dazed― was it heaven’s or hell’s furious smelting that fashioned such vulturish wings? And why are they singed?― the higher you “rise,” the more halting? Earthbound, a Vision of Crazy Horse by Michael R. Burch Tashunka Witko, a Lakota Sioux better known as Crazy Horse, had a vision of a red-tailed hawk at Sylvan Lake, South Dakota. In his vision he saw himself riding a spirit horse, flying through a storm, as the hawk flew above him, shrieking. When he awoke, a red-tailed hawk was perched near his horse. Earthbound, and yet I now fly through the clouds that are aimlessly drifting... so high that no sound echoing by below where the mountains are lifting the sky can be heard. Like a bird, but not meek, like a hawk from a distance regarding its prey, I will shriek, not a word, but a screech, and my terrible clamor will turn them to clay― the sheep, the earthbound. Published by American Indian Pride and Boston Poetry Magazine Flight by Michael R. Burch It is the nature of loveliness to vanish as butterfly wings, batting against nothingness seek transcendence... Originally published by Hibiscus (India) The Wonder Boys by Michael R. Burch (for Leslie Mellichamp, the late editor of The Lyric, who was a friend and mentor to many poets, and a fine poet in his own right) The stars were always there, too-bright cliches: scintillant truths the jaded world outgrew as baffled poets winged keyed kites―amazed, in dream of shocks that suddenly came true... but came almost as static―background noise, a song out of the cosmos no one hears, or cares to hear. The poets, starstruck boys, lay tuned in to their kite strings, saucer-eared. They thought to feel the lightning’s brilliant sparks electrify their nerves, their brains; the smoke of words poured from their overheated hearts. The kite string, knotted, made a nifty rope... You will not find them here; they blew away― in tumbling flight beyond nights’ stars. They clung by fingertips to satellites. They strayed too far to remain mortal. Elfin, young, their words are with us still. Devout and fey, they wink at us whenever skies are gray. Originally published by The Lyric American Eagle, Grounded by Michael R. Burch Her predatory eye, the single feral iris, scans. Her raptor beak, all jagged sharp-edged ****** juts. Her hard talon, clenched in pinched expectation, waits. Her clipped wings, preened against reality, tremble. Published as “Tremble” by The Lyric, Verses Magazine, Romantics Quarterly, Journeys, The Raintown Review, Poetic Ponderings, Poem Kingdom (All-Star Tribute), The Fabric of a Vision, NPAC―Net Poetry and Art Competition, Poet’s Haven, Listening To The Birth Of Crystals(Anthology), Poetry Renewal, Inspirational Stories, Poetry Life & Times, MahMag (Iranian/Farsi), The Eclectic Muse (Canada) Album by Michael R. Burch I caress them―trapped in brittle cellophane― and I see how young they were, and how unwise; and I remember their first flight―an old prop plane, their blissful arc through alien blue skies... And I touch them here through leaves which―tattered, frayed― are also wings, but wings that never flew: like insects’ wings―pinned, held. Here, time delayed, their features never merged, remaining two... And Grief, which lurked unseen beyond the lens or in shadows where It crept on furtive claws as It scritched Its way into their hearts, depends on sorrows such as theirs, and works Its jaws... and slavers for Its meat―those young, unwise, who naively dare to dream, yet fail to see how, lumbering sunward, Hope, ungainly, flies, clutching to Her ruffled breast what must not be. Springtime Prayer by Michael R. Burch They’ll have to grow like crazy, the springtime baby geese, if they’re to fly to balmier climes when autumn dismembers the leaves... And so I toss them loaves of bread, then whisper an urgent prayer: “Watch over these, my Angels, if there’s anyone kind, up there.” Originally published by The HyperTexts Learning to Fly by Michael R. Burch We are learning to fly every day... learning to fly― away, away... O, love is not in the ephemeral flight, but love, Love! is our destination― graced land of eternal sunrise, radiant beyond night! Let us bear one another up in our vast migration. In the Whispering Night by Michael R. Burch for George King In the whispering night, when the stars bend low till the hills ignite to a shining flame, when a shower of meteors streaks the sky while the lilies sigh in their beds, for shame, we must steal our souls, as they once were stolen, and gather our vigor, and all our intent. We must heave our bodies to some famished ocean and laugh as they vanish, and never repent. We must dance in the darkness as stars dance before us, soar, Soar! through the night on a butterfly's breeze... blown high, upward-yearning, twin spirits returning to the heights of awareness from which we were seized. Published by Songs of Innocence, Romantics Quarterly, The Chained Muse and Poetry Life & Times. This is a poem I wrote for my favorite college English teacher, George King, about poetic kinship, brotherhood and romantic flights of fancy. For a Palestinian Child, with Butterflies by Michael R. Burch Where does the butterfly go when lightning rails, when thunder howls, when hailstones scream, when winter scowls, when nights compound dark frosts with snow... Where does the butterfly go? Where does the rose hide its bloom when night descends oblique and chill beyond the capacity of moonlight to fill? When the only relief's a banked fire's glow, where does the butterfly go? And where shall the spirit flee when life is harsh, too harsh to face, and hope is lost without a trace? Oh, when the light of life runs low, where does the butterfly go? Published by Tucumcari Literary Review, Romantics Quarterly, Poetry Life & Times, Victorian Violet Press (where it was nominated for a “Best of the Net”), The Contributor (a Nashville homeless newspaper), Siasat (Pakistan), and set to music as a part of the song cycle “The Children of Gaza” which has been performed in various European venues by the Palestinian soprano Dima Bawab Sioux Vision Quest by Crazy Horse, Oglala Lakota Sioux (circa 1840-1877) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch A man must pursue his Vision as the eagle explores the sky's deepest blues. Published by Better Than Starbucks, A Hundred Voices in-flight convergence by Michael R. Burch serene, almost angelic, the lights of the city ―― extend ―― over lumbering behemoths shrilly screeching displeasure; they say that nothing is certain, that nothing man dreams or ordains long endures his command here the streetlights that flicker and those blazing steadfast seem one: from a distance; descend, they abruptly part ―――――― ways, so that nothing is one which at times does not suddenly blend into garish insignificance in the familiar alleyways, in the white neon flash and the billboards of Convenience and man seems the afterthought of his own Brilliance as we thunder down the enlightened runways. Originally published by The Aurorean and subsequently nominated for the Pushcart Prize Squall by Michael R. Burch There, in that sunny arbor, in the aureate light filtering through the waxy leaves of a stunted banana tree, I felt the sudden monsoon of your wrath, the clattery implosions and copper-bright bursts of the bottoms of pots and pans. I saw your swollen goddess’s belly wobble and heave in pregnant indignation, turned tail, and ran. Published by Chrysanthemum, Poetry Super Highway, Barbitos and Poetry Life & Times 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. But it could have been written a bit later. I seem to remember the original poem being influenced by William Cullen Bryant's "To a Waterfowl." Flying by Michael R. Burch I shall rise and try the ****** wings of thought ten thousand times before I fly... and then I'll sleep and waste ten thousand nights before I dream; but when at last... I soar the distant heights of undreamt skies where never hawks nor eagles dared to go, as I laugh among the meteors flashing by somewhere beyond the bluest earth-bound seas... if I'm not told I’m just a man, then I shall know just what I am. This is one of my early poems, written around age 16-17. According to my notes, I may have revised the poem later, in 1978, but if so the changes were minor because the poem remains very close to the original. Stage Craft-y by Michael R. Burch There once was a dromedary who befriended a crafty canary. Budgie said, "You can’t sing, but now, here’s the thing― just think of the tunes you can carry!" Clyde Lied! by Michael R. Burch There once was a mockingbird, Clyde, who bragged of his prowess, but lied. To his new wife he sighed, "When again, gentle bride?" "Nevermore!" bright-eyed Raven replied. Less Heroic Couplets: ****** Most Fowl! by Michael R. Burch ****** most foul!” cried the mouse to the owl. “Friend, I’m no sinner; you’re merely my dinner!” the wise owl replied as the tasty snack died. Published by Lighten Up Online and in Potcake Chapbook #7 NOTE: In an attempt to demonstrate that not all couplets are heroic, I have created a series of poems called “Less Heroic Couplets.” I believe even poets should abide by truth-in-advertising laws! ― MRB Lance-Lot by Michael R. Burch Preposterous bird! Inelegant! Absurd! Until the great & mighty heron brandishes his fearsome sword. Kissin’ ’n’ buzzin’ by Michael R. Burch Kissin’ ’n’ buzzin’ the bees rise in a dizzy circle of two. Oh, when I’m with you, I feel like kissin’ ’n’ buzzin’ too. Delicacy by Michael R. Burch for all good mothers Your love is as delicate as a butterfly cleaning its wings, as soft as the predicate the hummingbird sings to itself, gently murmuring― “Fly! Fly! Fly!” Your love is the string soaring kites untie. Lone Wild Goose by Du Fu (712-770) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch The abandoned goose refuses food and drink; he cries querulously for his companions. Who feels kinship for that strange wraith as he vanishes eerily into the heavens? You watch it as it disappears; its plaintive calls cut through you. The indignant crows ignore you both: the bickering, bantering multitudes. Du Fu (712-770) is also known as Tu Fu. The first poem is addressed to the poet's wife, who had fled war with their children. Ch'ang-an is an ironic pun because it means "Long-peace." The Red Cockatoo by Po Chu-I (772-846) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch A marvelous gift from Annam― a red cockatoo, bright as peach blossom, fluent in men's language. So they did what they always do to the erudite and eloquent: they created a thick-barred cage and shut it up. Po Chu-I (772-846) is best known today for his ballads and satirical poems. Po Chu-I believed poetry should be accessible to commoners and is noted for his simple diction and natural style. His name has been rendered various ways in English: Po Chu-I, Po Chü-i, Bo Juyi and Bai Juyi. The Migrant Songbird Li Qingzhao aka Li Ching-chao (c. 1084-1155) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch The migrant songbird on the nearby yew brings tears to my eyes with her melodious trills; this fresh downpour reminds me of similar spills: another spring gone, and still no word from you... Lines from Laolao Ting Pavilion by Li Bai (701-762) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch The spring breeze knows partings are bitter; The willow twig knows it will never be green again. The Day after the Rain Lin Huiyin (1904-1955) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I love the day after the rain and the meadow's green expanses! My heart endlessly rises with wind, gusts with wind... away the new-mown grasses and the fallen leaves... away the clouds like smoke... vanishing like smoke... Untitled Translations Cupid, if you incinerate my soul, touché! For like you she has wings and can fly away! ―Meleager, loose translation by Michael R. Burch As autumn deepens, a butterfly sips chrysanthemum dew. ―Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Come, butterfly, it’s late and we’ve a long way to go! ―Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Up and at ’em! The sky goes bright! Let’s hit the road again, Companion Butterfly! ―Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Ah butterfly, what dreams do you ply with your beautiful wings? ―Chiyo-ni, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Oh, dreamlike winter butterfly: a puff of white snow cresting mountains ―Kakio Tomizawa, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Dry leaf flung awry: bright butterfly, goodbye! ―Michael R. Burch, original haiku Will we remain parted forever? Here at your grave: two flowerlike butterflies ―Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch a soaring kite flits into the heart of the sun? Butterfly & Chrysanthemum ―Michael R. Burch, original haiku The cheerful-chirping cricket contends gray autumn's gay, contemptuous of frost ―Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Whistle on, twilight whippoorwill, solemn evangelist of loneliness ―Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The sea darkening, the voices of the wild ducks: my mysterious companions! ―Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Lightning shatters the darkness― the night heron's shriek ―Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch This snowy morning: cries of the crow I despise (ah, but so beautiful!) ―Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch A crow settles on a leafless branch: autumn nightfall. ―Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Hush, cawing crows; what rackets you make! Heaven's indignant messengers, you remind me of wordsmiths! ―O no Yasumaro (circa 711), loose translation by Michael R. Burch Higher than a skylark, resting on the breast of heaven: this mountain pass. ―Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch An exciting struggle with such a sad ending: cormorant fishing. ―Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Does my soul abide in heaven, or hell? Only the sea gull in his high, lonely circuits, may tell. ―Glaucus, translation by Michael R. Burch The eagle sees farther from its greater height― our ancestors’ wisdom ―Michael R. Burch, original haiku A kite floats at the same place in the sky where yesterday it floated... ―Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Critical Mass by Michael R. Burch I have listened to the rain all this morning and it has a certain gravity, as if it knows its destination, perhaps even its particular destiny. I do not believe mine is to be uplifted, although I, too, may be flung precipitously and from a great height. "Gravity" and "particular destiny" are puns, since rain droplets are seeded by minute particles of dust adrift in the atmosphere and they fall due to gravity when they reach "critical mass." The title is also a pun, since the poem is skeptical about heaven-lauding Masses, etc. Ultimate Sunset by Michael R. Burch for my father, Paul Ray Burch, Jr. he now faces the Ultimate Sunset, his body like the leaves that fray as they dry, shedding their vital fluids (who knows why?) till they’ve become even lighter than the covering sky, ready to fly... Free Fall by Michael R. Burch for my father, Paul Ray Burch, Jr. I see the longing for departure gleam in his still-keen eye, and I understand his desire to test this last wind, like those late autumn leaves with nothing left to cling to... Leaf Fall by Michael R. Burch Whatever winds encountered soon resolved to swirling fragments, till chaotic heaps of leaves lay pulsing by the backyard wall. In lieu of rakes, our fingers sorted each dry leaf into its place and built a high, soft bastion against earth's gravitron― a patchwork quilt, a trampoline, a bright impediment to fling ourselves upon. And nothing in our laughter as we fell into those leaves was like the autumn's cry of also falling. Nothing meant to die could be so bright as we, so colorful― clad in our plaids, oblivious to pain we'd feel today, should we leaf-fall again. Originally published by The Neovictorian/Cochlea The Folly of Wisdom by Michael R. Burch She is wise in the way that children are wise, looking at me with such knowing, grave eyes I must bend down to her to understand. But she only smiles, and takes my hand. We are walking somewhere that her feet know to go, so I smile, and I follow... And the years are dark creatures concealed in bright leaves that flutter above us, and what she believes― I can almost remember―goes something like this: the prince is a horned toad, awaiting her kiss. She wiggles and giggles, and all will be well if only we find him! The woodpecker’s knell as he hammers the coffin of some dying tree that once was a fortress to someone like me rings wildly above us. Some things that we know we are meant to forget. Life is a bloodletting, maple-syrup-slow. Originally published by Romantics Quarterly Kin by Michael R. Burch for Richard Moore 1. Shrill gulls, how like my thoughts you, struggling, rise to distant bliss― the weightless blue of skies that are not blue in any atmosphere, but closest here... 2. You seek an air so clear, so rarified the effort leaves you famished; earthly tides soon call you back― one long, descending glide... 3. Disgruntledly you ***** dirt shores for orts you pull like mucous ropes from shells’ bright forts... You eye the teeming world with nervous darts― this way and that... Contentious, shrewd, you scan― the sky, in hope, the earth, distrusting man. Songstress by Michael R. Burch Within its starkwhite ribcage, how the heart must flutter wildly, O, and always sing against the pressing darkness: all it knows until at last it feels the numbing sting of death. Then life's brief vision swiftly passes, imposing night on one who clearly saw. Death held your bright heart tightly, till its maw― envenomed, fanged―could swallow, whole, your Awe. And yet it was not death so much as you who sealed your doom; you could not help but sing and not be silenced. Here, behold your tomb's white alabaster cage: pale, wretched thing! But you'll not be imprisoned here, wise wren! Your words soar free; rise, sing, fly, live again. A poet like Nadia Anjuman can be likened to a caged bird, deprived of flight, who somehow finds it within herself to sing of love and beauty. But when the world finally robs her of both flight and song, what is left for her but to leave the world, thus bereaving the world of herself and her song? Performing Art by Michael R. Burch Who teaches the wren in its drab existence to explode into song? What parodies of irony does the jay espouse with its sharp-edged tongue? What instinctual memories lend stunning brightness to the strange dreams of the dull gray slug ―spinning its chrysalis, gluing rough seams― abiding in darkness its transformation, till, waving damp wings, it applauds its performance? I am done with irony. Life itself sings. Lean Harvests by Michael R. Burch for T.M. 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 My Forty-Ninth Year by Michael R. Burch My forty-ninth year and the dew remembers how brightly it glistened encrusting September,... one frozen September when hawks ruled the sky and death fell on wings with a shrill, keening cry. My forty-ninth year, and still I recall the weavings and windings of childhood, of fall... of fall enigmatic, resplendent, yet sere,... though vibrant the herald of death drawing near. My forty-ninth year and now often I've thought on the course of a lifetime, the meaning of autumn, the cycle of autumn with winter to come, of aging and death and rebirth... on and on. Originally published by Romantics Quarterly as “My Twenty-Ninth Year” Myth by Michael R. Burch Here the recalcitrant wind sighs with grievance and remorse over fields of wayward gorse and thistle-throttled lanes. And she is the myth of the scythed wheat hewn and sighing, complete, waiting, lain in a low sheaf― full of faith, full of grief. Here the immaculate dawn requires belief of the leafed earth and she is the myth of the mown grain― golden and humble in all its weary worth. What Works by Michael R. Burch for David Gosselin What works― hewn stone; the blush the iris shows the sun; the lilac’s pale-remembered bloom. The frenzied fly: mad-lively, gay, as seconds tick his time away, his sentence―one brief day in May, a period. And then decay. A frenzied rhyme’s mad tip-toed time, a ballad’s languid as the sea, seek, striving―immortality. When gloss peels off, what works will shine. When polish fades, what works will gleam. When intellectual prattle pales, the dying buzzing in the hive of tedious incessant bees, what works will soar and wheel and dive and milk all honey, leap and thrive, and teach the pallid poem to seethe. Desdemona by Michael R. Burch Though you possessed the moon and stars, you are bound to fate and wed to chance. Your lips deny they crave a kiss; your feet deny they ache to dance. Your heart imagines wild romance. Though you cupped fire in your hands and molded incandescent forms, you are barren now, and―spent of flame― the ashes that remain are borne toward the sun upon a storm. You, who demanded more, have less, your heart within its cells of sighs held fast by chains of misery, confined till death for peddling lies― imprisonment your sense denies. You, who collected hearts like leaves and pressed each once within your book, forgot. None―winsome, bright or rare― not one was worth a second look. My heart, as others, you forsook. But I, though I loved you from afar through silent dawns, and gathered rue from gardens where your footsteps left cold paths among the asters, knew― each moonless night the nettles grew and strangled hope, where love dies too. Published by Penny Dreadful, Carnelian, Romantics Quarterly, Grassroots Poetry and Poetry Life & Times Transplant by Michael R. Burch You float, unearthly angel, clad in flesh as strange to us who briefly knew your flame as laughter to disease. And yet you laugh. Behind your smile, the sun forfeits its claim to earth, and floats forever now the same― light captured at its moment of least height. You laugh here always, welcoming the night, and, just a photograph, still you can claim bright rapture: like an angel, not of flesh― but something more, made less. Your humanness this moment of release becomes a name and something else―a radiance, a strange brief presence near our hearts. How can we stand and chain you here to this nocturnal land of burgeoning gray shadows? Fly, begone. I give you back your soul, forfeit all claim to radiance, and welcome grief’s dark night that crushes all the laughter from us. Light in someone Else’s hand, and sing at ease some song of brightsome mirth through dawn-lit trees to welcome morning’s sun. O daughter! these are eyes too weak for laughter; for love’s sight, I welcome darkness, overcome with light. Prodigal by Michael R. Burch This poem is dedicated to Kevin Longinotti, who died four days short of graduation from Vanderbilt University, the victim of a tornado that struck Nashville on April 16, 1998. You have graduated now, to a higher plane and your heart’s tenacity teaches us not to go gently though death intrudes. For eighteen days ―jarring interludes of respite and pain― with life only faintly clinging, like a cashmere snow, testing the capacity of the blood banks with the unstaunched flow of your severed veins, in the collapsing declivity, in the sanguine haze where Death broods, you struggled defiantly. A city mourns its adopted son, flown to the highest ranks while each heart complains at the harsh validity of God’s ways. On ponderous wings the white clouds move with your captured breath, though just days before they spawned the maelstrom’s hellish rift. Throw off this mortal coil, this envelope of flesh, this brief sheath of inarticulate grief and transient joy. Forget the winds which test belief, which bear the parchment leaf down life’s last sun-lit path. We applaud your spirit, O Prodigal, O Valiant One, in its percussive flight into the sun, winging on the heart’s last madrigal. Breakings by Michael R. Burch I did it out of pity. I did it out of love. I did it not to break the heart of a tender, wounded dove. But gods without compassion ordained: Frail things must break! Now what can I do for her shattered psyche’s sake? I did it not to push. I did it not to shove. I did it to assist the flight of indiscriminate Love. But gods, all mad as hatters, who legislate in all such matters, ordained that everything irreplaceable shatters. An Illusion by Michael R. Burch The sky was as hushed as the breath of a bee and the world was bathed in shades of palest gold when I awoke. She came to me with the sound of falling leaves and the scent of new-mown grass; I held out my arms to her and she passed into oblivion... This is one of my early poems, written around age 16 and published in my high school literary journal, The Lantern. Lines for My Ascension by Michael R. Burch I. If I should die, there will come a Doom, and the sky will darken to the deepest Gloom. But if my body should not be found, never think of me in the cold ground. II. If I should die, let no mortal say, “Here was a man, with feet of clay, or a timid sparrow God’s hand let fall.” But watch the sky darken to an eerie pall and know that my Spirit, unvanquished, broods, and cares naught for graves, prayers, coffins, or roods. And if my body should not be found, never think of me in the cold ground. III. If I should die, let no man adore his incompetent Maker: Zeus, Jehovah, or Thor. Think of Me as One who never died― the unvanquished Immortal with the unriven side. And if my body should not be found, never think of me in the cold ground. IV. And if I should “die,” though the clouds grow dark as fierce lightnings rend this bleak asteroid, stark... If you look above, you will see a bright Sign― the sun with the moon in its arms, Divine. So divine, if you can, my bright meaning, and know― my Spirit is mine. I will go where I go. And if my body should not be found, never think of me in the cold ground. The Locker by Michael R. Burch All the dull hollow clamor has died and what was contained, removed, reproved adulation or sentiment, left with the pungent darkness as remembered as the sudden light. Originally published by The Raintown Review Keywords/Tags: Sports, locker, lockerroom, clamor, adulation, acclaim, applause, sentiment, darkness, light, retirement, athlete, team, trophy, award, acclamation Keywords/Tags: Icarus, Daedalus, flight, fly, flying, wind, wings, sun, height, heights, fall, falling, ascent, descent, imagination, bird, birds, butterfly, butterflies, hawk, eagle, geese, plane, kite, kites, mrbfly, mrbflight, mrbicarus
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1039
I've been sitting on the top of the ladder looking at the world from the high I can reach every once in a while someone glances my way I look back straight in the eye till they look away. There is peace which I can attain here no one looks down on me even if they want to But there is nothing straight up to my height Everything is placed below my sight.
0
Nov 6, 2020
Nov 6, 2020 at 4:28 AM UTC
nylee
ladders
I've been sitting on the top of the ladder looking at the world from the high I can reach every once in a while someone glances my way I look back straight in the eye till they look away. There is peace which I can attain here no one looks down on me even if they want to But there is nothing straight up to my height Everything is placed below my sight.
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8
Light walks into my life, Like a shining stone at some height. It show the path and made it bright. Whenever I find myself in dark, it came to show right sight. My strength is in me, it taught and made me strong to fight.
0
Jul 5, 2020
Jul 5, 2020 at 3:42 AM UTC
MissPoetic
Some Light..!!
Light walks into my life, Like a shining stone at some height. It show the path and made it bright. Whenever I find myself in dark, it came to show right sight. My strength is in me, it taught and made me strong to fight.
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5
Hovering where here On the edge of a mountain Holding steady fast A tired high, a subtle cliff A calling fall which rings out
0
Apr 30, 2020
Apr 30, 2020 at 5:40 AM UTC
colmistoirm
Edges (A Tanka)
Hovering where here On the edge of a mountain Holding steady fast A tired high, a subtle cliff A calling fall which rings out
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5
Stark trees on the hill line intertwine with the sky Their branches be parted bent by the wind Sourced from a height Droplets dance Ripples spit Wet doesn't quit No gold in sight at ten degrees Given what is seen only green grey and white
0
Feb 19, 2020
Feb 19, 2020 at 4:51 PM UTC
PoeticTetra
View from a room
Stark trees on the hill line intertwine with the sky Their branches be parted bent by the wind Sourced from a height Droplets dance Ripples spit Wet doesn't quit No gold in sight at ten degrees Given what is seen only green grey and white
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12
_Did you decide who I was before or after you spoke to me? Did you decide to speak to me - or not - because of how I was dressed, what I looked like, my job, my education, my choice of beverage, my height, my accent, or my scintillating conversation with your plus one about the benefits of suburban parking spaces? And who are you? Do you know? Are you sure? Did you dress yourself or did your date choose that sweater for you? Did you grow that ironic beard for her? Are you happy in your work, or just pretend to be to keep the peace? Did you miss taking up that scholarship because your family moved out of state? Did someone ask you to hold their glass while they whipped to the loo? Do you slouch to compensate for those years of dance lessons which make you look too...straight? Are you trying to hide that southern twang? Do you talk ******* when conversing with strangers and tend to come across as a complete ***** I thought so, go figure!_
0
Nov 9, 2019
Nov 9, 2019 at 3:30 PM UTC
annh
First Impressions
_Did you decide who I was before or after you spoke to me? Did you decide to speak to me - or not - because of how I was dressed, what I looked like, my job, my education, my choice of beverage, my height, my accent, or my scintillating conversation with your plus one about the benefits of suburban parking spaces? And who are you? Do you know? Are you sure? Did you dress yourself or did your date choose that sweater for you? Did you grow that ironic beard for her? Are you happy in your work, or just pretend to be to keep the peace? Did you miss taking up that scholarship because your family moved out of state? Did someone ask you to hold their glass while they whipped to the loo? Do you slouch to compensate for those years of dance lessons which make you look too...straight? Are you trying to hide that southern twang? Do you talk ******* when conversing with strangers and tend to come across as a complete ***** I thought so, go figure!_
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5
It is not the fear of heights It is the fear that from them we will f a l l
0
Nov 7, 2019
Nov 7, 2019 at 4:55 PM UTC
awildsquirrel
Acrophobia
It is not the fear of heights It is the fear that from them we will f a l l
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7
Feet Lies, Head Flies.
0
Jun 10, 2019
Jun 10, 2019 at 9:02 AM UTC
farhan
Gravity
Feet Lies, Head Flies.
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2
Oh you, my lovely dandy, it's not easy to understand you. You're on the top - Superior in everything, above everyone.
0
May 16, 2019
May 16, 2019 at 6:17 AM UTC
MissL
Thought #4
Oh you, my lovely dandy, it's not easy to understand you. You're on the top - Superior in everything, above everyone.
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8
Black,Brown,yellow or white, Tall or short,what's in a height, Thin, fat or obese, What's to do with size, From zero to XXL, Beautiful,ugly or normal, What the hell! It's Your life, Live it without strife. Savour its flavours, Reach out for experiences, newer and richer, Be a Rockstar. Soon before you die, Your life before you will flash by, Make sure,your ending is your best goodbye. 24/2/2019.
0
Feb 24, 2019
Feb 24, 2019 at 3:42 PM UTC
salmabanu-hatim
It's Your Life
Black,Brown,yellow or white, Tall or short,what's in a height, Thin, fat or obese, What's to do with size, From zero to XXL, Beautiful,ugly or normal, What the hell! It's Your life, Live it without strife. Savour its flavours, Reach out for experiences, newer and richer, Be a Rockstar. Soon before you die, Your life before you will flash by, Make sure,your ending is your best goodbye. 24/2/2019.
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16
When we where young,            we would climb trees. And now where older and             we never climb anything. We reached so far beyond our grasp.                But then we grew wiser, beyond our years.                But then we fell in days,             we gained the wisdom that trees grow and we shouldn't. But this is where the acorn fell,           never growing to there potential. All acorns grow and fall a length. I could climb higher than my height,         never letting others say that I shouldn't. Climb higher than the length of your growth.. Always climb higher,               as we may fall...               But we will always climb higher                            than when we fell before.
0
Dec 16, 2018
Dec 16, 2018 at 4:12 PM UTC
poetic-t
We Would Climb Trees
When we where young,            we would climb trees. And now where older and             we never climb anything. We reached so far beyond our grasp.                But then we grew wiser, beyond our years.                But then we fell in days,             we gained the wisdom that trees grow and we shouldn't. But this is where the acorn fell,           never growing to there potential. All acorns grow and fall a length. I could climb higher than my height,         never letting others say that I shouldn't. Climb higher than the length of your growth.. Always climb higher,               as we may fall...               But we will always climb higher                            than when we fell before.
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20
That Singular Lego Piece, When I was younger and life was just walls... That where just falling down around me, I found something. A single piece of Lego. And on it scratched into it where three words... Always build higher. Where my life had been even at such a young age. I thought the only thing walls were, where ones that crumbled. But after that moment, when all I fell upon where pebbles of lost moments. That could have built higher but crumbled, like so many. That one brick, built me higher than any singular instant. And to this day, I have never looked at another lower, or higher than myself. For ever brick is built on the strength of another taking the weight of the one below it. And without that strength below, we couldn't build ourselves to the height we are today. Everyday I wear that brick around my neck. Not to weigh me down, but to realise, that below every brick is another holding us up with there strength, and without them we would crumble.
0
Dec 16, 2018
Dec 16, 2018 at 6:10 AM UTC
poetic-t
That Singular Lego Piece
That Singular Lego Piece, When I was younger and life was just walls... That where just falling down around me, I found something. A single piece of Lego. And on it scratched into it where three words... Always build higher. Where my life had been even at such a young age. I thought the only thing walls were, where ones that crumbled. But after that moment, when all I fell upon where pebbles of lost moments. That could have built higher but crumbled, like so many. That one brick, built me higher than any singular instant. And to this day, I have never looked at another lower, or higher than myself. For ever brick is built on the strength of another taking the weight of the one below it. And without that strength below, we couldn't build ourselves to the height we are today. Everyday I wear that brick around my neck. Not to weigh me down, but to realise, that below every brick is another holding us up with there strength, and without them we would crumble.
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38
You may walk in the same storm with another, Under the same sky feeling the same rain but that doesn't mean you've endured their pain. Before you assume that you're above them, Consider the lightening when it does strike... that it doesn't consider one's mere stature or height. ~Author Ven J. Arnold (SacredInkedBlood) copyright 2018 Ven Jencie Clifton Arnold
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Nov 27, 2018
Nov 27, 2018 at 7:52 AM UTC
SacredInkedBlood
"When lightening strikes" via me ©11/18
You may walk in the same storm with another, Under the same sky feeling the same rain but that doesn't mean you've endured their pain. Before you assume that you're above them, Consider the lightening when it does strike... that it doesn't consider one's mere stature or height. ~Author Ven J. Arnold (SacredInkedBlood) copyright 2018 Ven Jencie Clifton Arnold
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6
I’m short Not super But like average The shortest Of average ... It’s still short
0
Jul 5, 2018
Jul 5, 2018 at 4:51 PM UTC
CynicalStrawberry
Short
I’m short Not super But like average The shortest Of average ... It’s still short
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7
index finger of left hand (likened to Michelangelo meticulously chiseling away at marble block), this poe whit attempts to coax (zealously tap into his latent indivisible quo shunt, sans self imposed quotidian literary endeavor slow lee witnessing, an emergent reasonably satisfactory, though hooping unbeknownst readers (perchance even a scribe from Yugo Slav via) will only resort to lard out positive unsolicited feedback, yet this scrivener well aware bluntness evokes fulfillment loud and clear inflating jowly machismo thru ether narcissist quintessential rabid glare unpretentious vain warbling yakking zither plucking boastful demonstrably fatuous haughtily immodest luminaire dismissively smug, sans literary endeavor aye share thus, tis one objective when attempting to corral rampant thoughts, (that charge hither and yon, to and fro) at pace of greased lightening tear chasing hash-tagged elusive Smokey and the Bandit imp posse sub bull back to the future of 1977 year temporarily abandoning awoke motive, i.e. initial challenge, viz going for broke to sweat blood and tears digging deep within noggin, or choke myself if merely draw blanks versus (beginners blind luck), and evoke accolades accidentally tapping into creative (qua literary) mother lode joining belle lettres authored folk, whose metier comprises compendium of alphabetized words receiving surprising windfall asper pig in a poke, novel idea after nostrils emit smoke the amazing dragon within (sol fully bellows) finding me to feign taking a smoke aware fame and fortune, where a written best seller brings renown can essentially only be verbalized as a pipe dream from this clown, who best **** sitter living hard scrapple (scrabble playing) hand to mouth shuffling along (the littered boulevard of rejection slips) wearing out one after another of me buster brown shoes, perhaps posthumously gleaning raving reviews, where famous names amidst cadre (espousing wife fours smiting social injustices extant loose zing potential harmonic convergence, whether gentiles or Jews throughout all foursquare corners of the world wide web an economic eclectic diaspora, where underbelly of civilization pay heaviest ****** dues!
0
May 3, 2018
May 3, 2018 at 4:01 PM UTC
matthew-scott-harris2p
divine heathen lurches philosophical
index finger of left hand (likened to Michelangelo meticulously chiseling away at marble block), this poe whit attempts to coax (zealously tap into his latent indivisible quo shunt, sans self imposed quotidian literary endeavor slow lee witnessing, an emergent reasonably satisfactory, though hooping unbeknownst readers (perchance even a scribe from Yugo Slav via) will only resort to lard out positive unsolicited feedback, yet this scrivener well aware bluntness evokes fulfillment loud and clear inflating jowly machismo thru ether narcissist quintessential rabid glare unpretentious vain warbling yakking zither plucking boastful demonstrably fatuous haughtily immodest luminaire dismissively smug, sans literary endeavor aye share thus, tis one objective when attempting to corral rampant thoughts, (that charge hither and yon, to and fro) at pace of greased lightening tear chasing hash-tagged elusive Smokey and the Bandit imp posse sub bull back to the future of 1977 year temporarily abandoning awoke motive, i.e. initial challenge, viz going for broke to sweat blood and tears digging deep within noggin, or choke myself if merely draw blanks versus (beginners blind luck), and evoke accolades accidentally tapping into creative (qua literary) mother lode joining belle lettres authored folk, whose metier comprises compendium of alphabetized words receiving surprising windfall asper pig in a poke, novel idea after nostrils emit smoke the amazing dragon within (sol fully bellows) finding me to feign taking a smoke aware fame and fortune, where a written best seller brings renown can essentially only be verbalized as a pipe dream from this clown, who best **** sitter living hard scrapple (scrabble playing) hand to mouth shuffling along (the littered boulevard of rejection slips) wearing out one after another of me buster brown shoes, perhaps posthumously gleaning raving reviews, where famous names amidst cadre (espousing wife fours smiting social injustices extant loose zing potential harmonic convergence, whether gentiles or Jews throughout all foursquare corners of the world wide web an economic eclectic diaspora, where underbelly of civilization pay heaviest ****** dues!
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75
Nobility knows no ends Just as moonlight know no bounds Besides the will of shadows Which stretches out beneath And lies in the most familiar heights Drawn out upon the ground
0
Apr 1, 2018
Apr 1, 2018 at 1:00 AM UTC
colmistoirm
Shadows Length
Nobility knows no ends Just as moonlight know no bounds Besides the will of shadows Which stretches out beneath And lies in the most familiar heights Drawn out upon the ground
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6
I can feel your presence looming over me. I look over my right shoulder, gazing at your deltoid muscle. You embrace me with those strong arms And shock me with your cold, drenched skin. I trace these long scars on your left forearm. And face you. Deep dimples trap your mischievous smile. A droplet of water drips from the ends of your hair onto my forehead. You grab onto my waist and press me against you. I am on my toes. You now have my attention.
0
Mar 31, 2018
Mar 31, 2018 at 4:05 PM UTC
MycatTerry
Height difference
I can feel your presence looming over me. I look over my right shoulder, gazing at your deltoid muscle. You embrace me with those strong arms And shock me with your cold, drenched skin. I trace these long scars on your left forearm. And face you. Deep dimples trap your mischievous smile. A droplet of water drips from the ends of your hair onto my forehead. You grab onto my waist and press me against you. I am on my toes. You now have my attention.
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11
Average hair Average weight Average height Average eyes Not special, no, not quite. I am that kid who tries but isnt noticed I work hard until I can't keep going But faliure always finds me Like a mindless machine I fall back Back where I started Average It's funny how I pray to be ill to for once be different than them Even though it could **** me. I starve and I pray, But is it really okay? To live this way? Trapped in my mind Laughing? At me probably. Finally I am satisfied with the mirror then temptation breaks me And I'm back where I started Average. I dyed my hair pink All I get is glares. I want to be special but not like this Even if it means I won't be happy I'll do anything to no longer be Average Too tall to be cute Too short to model I've gotten no where at all, The more I try the more I fail. I will always be Average Average hair Average height Average weight I want to not be able to remember the last time I ate. They think I hate them bit it's myself I despise This smile is my disguise I just want to be Special.
0
Mar 27, 2018
Mar 27, 2018 at 6:34 PM UTC
Gullibledreamer
Average
Average hair Average weight Average height Average eyes Not special, no, not quite. I am that kid who tries but isnt noticed I work hard until I can't keep going But faliure always finds me Like a mindless machine I fall back Back where I started Average It's funny how I pray to be ill to for once be different than them Even though it could **** me. I starve and I pray, But is it really okay? To live this way? Trapped in my mind Laughing? At me probably. Finally I am satisfied with the mirror then temptation breaks me And I'm back where I started Average. I dyed my hair pink All I get is glares. I want to be special but not like this Even if it means I won't be happy I'll do anything to no longer be Average Too tall to be cute Too short to model I've gotten no where at all, The more I try the more I fail. I will always be Average Average hair Average height Average weight I want to not be able to remember the last time I ate. They think I hate them bit it's myself I despise This smile is my disguise I just want to be Special.
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45
please lemme know and honestly profess if profusion of words create a lingual Loch Ness (when hens canst come home to roost especially, encountering the following conglomeration in matthew scott harris patois). He readily admits writing inventive attempts usually ten tubby a literary mess, thus finding innocent cyber cruisers Angle fishing for Saxony fundamental fluidity courtesy of Freudian stream of consciousness, gabbling gibberish, muck not done on purpose and certainly less to impress. Gnome hatter intent toward cogency, fancy ingenuity, levity, the inevitable resultant wrought gobbledygook fascination for Lingua Franca feeble endeavor splutters, splinters, and splatters Asia Yukon guess. Paramour status analogous with twenty six letters, sans En gull Lush Mother tongue confluence finds me submerged (as an Arctic Monkey) swimmingly enervated via ****** laced sentiments perhaps finds bravely daring soul madly hollering, gesticulating floundering, (in close proximity to Davey Jones's locker) to avoid drowning at sea perchance comprehending passionate influence. Upon espying a signature poem of mine forces one pre ponder ring lurking predilection tib hush anonymous re: dears (dares) adventuresome mettle taking him/her to the brainy (briny) deep brink Icon fess this (NON FAKE) pretense, why aye metaphorically express (via medium of ordinary Anglophile alphabetic wanton soup, or figurative egg drop bub bling broth (el) doth brew) pronouns Sibyl affectation affliction sans plethora, where each ladle full adrip with richly flavor Verdana Font lee and sincerely textured vocabulary. Pluperfect mortals beings undoubtedly feel (blindsided, how this hunger stricken author suffers said sesquipedalian syndrome particularly expectorating flashy hoping tum bark on successful literary quest) hyper aware aspiring paperback writers wannabe might stoop to conquer, cheat, cadge vis a vis plagiarize plethora amidst storied plentiful English droppings. Rather than succumb pretense feigning paucity temptation to bask exultantly, professed glorious unrequited love announcing required sworn vow, (el lye ding) avowed consonant covenant.
0
Feb 23, 2018
Feb 23, 2018 at 8:25 PM UTC
matthew-scott-harris2p
COWL LIX AGED LANGUAGE LOVER
please lemme know and honestly profess if profusion of words create a lingual Loch Ness (when hens canst come home to roost especially, encountering the following conglomeration in matthew scott harris patois). He readily admits writing inventive attempts usually ten tubby a literary mess, thus finding innocent cyber cruisers Angle fishing for Saxony fundamental fluidity courtesy of Freudian stream of consciousness, gabbling gibberish, muck not done on purpose and certainly less to impress. Gnome hatter intent toward cogency, fancy ingenuity, levity, the inevitable resultant wrought gobbledygook fascination for Lingua Franca feeble endeavor splutters, splinters, and splatters Asia Yukon guess. Paramour status analogous with twenty six letters, sans En gull Lush Mother tongue confluence finds me submerged (as an Arctic Monkey) swimmingly enervated via ****** laced sentiments perhaps finds bravely daring soul madly hollering, gesticulating floundering, (in close proximity to Davey Jones's locker) to avoid drowning at sea perchance comprehending passionate influence. Upon espying a signature poem of mine forces one pre ponder ring lurking predilection tib hush anonymous re: dears (dares) adventuresome mettle taking him/her to the brainy (briny) deep brink Icon fess this (NON FAKE) pretense, why aye metaphorically express (via medium of ordinary Anglophile alphabetic wanton soup, or figurative egg drop bub bling broth (el) doth brew) pronouns Sibyl affectation affliction sans plethora, where each ladle full adrip with richly flavor Verdana Font lee and sincerely textured vocabulary. Pluperfect mortals beings undoubtedly feel (blindsided, how this hunger stricken author suffers said sesquipedalian syndrome particularly expectorating flashy hoping tum bark on successful literary quest) hyper aware aspiring paperback writers wannabe might stoop to conquer, cheat, cadge vis a vis plagiarize plethora amidst storied plentiful English droppings. Rather than succumb pretense feigning paucity temptation to bask exultantly, professed glorious unrequited love announcing required sworn vow, (el lye ding) avowed consonant covenant.
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63