#metrical
I tell myself there's no shame in silence.
After all, it's you sent me away.
Why do you appear now, crying
after me? Did you want me to stay?
Whisper in her ear and paint me
like a villain if you need.
You've got the harness, pull it out;
Keep her suckling at your ****
Does it warm your flesh and tickle you
to feel her shakes and cries?
When she knows your love's the only love,
Does that make you crack a silent smile?
Does your aging daughter's love fulfil
the gaps around your nest?
Does it make you feel the abundance
of nourishing love inside your breast?
Jul 31, 2020
Jul 31, 2020 at 11:24 AM UTC
Discrimination
by Michael R. Burch
for lovers of traditional poetry
The meter I had sought to find, perplexed,
was ripped from books of "verse" that read like prose.
I found it in sheet music, in long rows
of hologramic CDs, in sad wrecks
of long-forgotten volumes undisturbed
half-centuries by archivists, unscanned.
I read their fading numbers, frowned, perturbed—
why should such tattered artistry be banned?
I heard the sleigh bells’ jingles, vampish ads,
the supermodels’ babble, Seuss’s books
extolled in major movies, blurbs for abs...
A few poor thinnish journals crammed in nooks
are all I’ve found this late to sell to those
who’d classify free verse "expensive prose."
Published by The Chariton Review, The Eclectic Muse, Famous Poets and Poems, Poetry Life & Times and Trinacria (where it was nominated for the Pushcart Prize)
Keywords/Tags: Sonnet, rhythm, rhyme, meter, traditional poetry, metrical verse, poetry journals, literary journals, number, numbers, feet
Mar 16, 2020
Mar 16, 2020 at 10:27 PM UTC
And now I go back home,
I am empty in defeat,
The war we waged is lost,
I am bitter in retreat,
So let's just go on dreaming,
But say that we are friends,
The thing about beginnings is,
They always rise from ends.
Jan 22, 2020
Jan 22, 2020 at 6:53 PM UTC
It seems your face still makes me smile,
Despite the things that you have done,
I've endured your cuts, I've stood your trial,
And yet your face still makes me smile
When we first met, my heart was won,
And even though you drowned our son,
It seems your face still makes me smile,
Despite the things that you have done.
Jan 22, 2020
Jan 22, 2020 at 4:00 PM UTC
A careful cut, it is the stuff,
Of which our world is made,
Utility and art are fused,
The noblest of the trades,
A sturdy chair of solid wood,
Yet sturdier the heart,
Passion, vision, faithful work,
The noblest of the arts.
Nov 13, 2019
Nov 13, 2019 at 8:12 PM UTC
You are the bird in the cage,
Your tune is so thoughtfully sung,
It's wrong that a girl your age,
Should live by her mother's tongue,
You are the slave in the chain,
A chain which is woven with lies,
Her voice wields the power of shame,
And tangles the thoughts in your mind,
You are the girl in the keep,
Looking out, longing for life,
The path from your tower is steep,
The doorway is saddled with strife,
Would ever a prisoner see,
If prison were made to be kind,
That still she is living unfree,
Closed in when the world is outside.
Nov 7, 2019
Nov 7, 2019 at 3:26 PM UTC
I'm still glad to see your face,
Though you look better when you smile,
I'd love to stay with you, and trace,
Your gentle figure for a while,
But now the ocean's steady push,
Has split us off on different tacks,
Drifting off aloof, at odds
With everything that we had planned,
So let's no longer talk of rings,
Or the promise we unmade,
Plans are precious brittle things,
And love is easily mislaid,
Eagerness without content,
We allowed ourselves to get so bold,
We threw away our better sense,
Now bitter tides are taking hold,
I loved you like I never dared,
You had me captured and ensnared,
I gave my soul to you,
Had it clad in gold for you,
But let's no longer talk of lies,
Or the thing that you debased,
The future is a fragile thing,
I fear my life has been misplaced.
Nov 5, 2019
Nov 5, 2019 at 4:53 PM UTC
The snow is piling higher now
on the garden that was young
when pretty boys they gave me flowers
that I planted, one by one;
But the years flew by like summer birds
bound elsewhere, like the youth I knew -
now there's a pretty flower there
for every pretty boy I knew
when I was young. It doesn't matter now
that all the memories are buried
and none of them remember how
to save me from the one I married.
Winter scratches at the door with frosty fingers.
All the pretty boys are gone - but the snow it lingers.
Aug 7, 2018
Aug 7, 2018 at 8:38 PM UTC
Cupping candles on the open landscape,
marching to the heartbeat of the earth,
head hung low I hold the empty plate
that carries my last meal, the vanished mirth
I knew before the terrible black promise
of days that have been too long in the night.
I know I will not see the fabled summit.
A phosphorous reminder of the light,
Solemn-eyed the moon proclaims my doom,
my quiet song on this unhappy moor,
as I who move from chaos into gloom
light candles and bring darkness to the world.
If I could find within this grave omission
the fortitude of strength to stay the hand
that trembles with an urge to amputation
on the backdoor of tomorrow where I stand
How I would walk then as the need arises
and before the looming mountain make my plea
as far away the sun it blithely rises,
but I do not think that it will rise for me.
I do not think that it will rise for me.
Aug 7, 2018
Aug 7, 2018 at 8:09 PM UTC
Gone are the seas of daffodils.
Gone the sunny green, the plains.
Gone are the green gored hilly hills
And gone the blue sea's blurry stains.
Gone everything, the curtain drawn,
The dream of yesterday's fond fears
Abruptly brought to what's beyond
The final "triumph" of our years.
All is dark where once was hue
And wet with slime, the years' long trace,
The stones they bare mute witness to
The death of this burned rock in space
And though they did not see the fall
And though they can not voice our pain
They will never disregard at all
The sad, still wetness of the rain.
Aug 6, 2018
Aug 6, 2018 at 2:50 PM UTC
The condo's not the same now that she's gone.
The dolls and toys they, strewn across the floor,
Seem lifeless now. Their absent voices sound
On the walls that are quieter than before
But toys are quiet anyway. The dust
Of doors that slam won't echo in this pall
Nor the pitter patter of her little feet
Nor the cries of "Daddy! Daddy!" in the hall
That rang like joy of birds that have not yet
Grown wings enough to take into the skies.
The kitten that has grown does not forget
Her fairy voice nor the swift time that flies.
Every time I see her she grows tall.
While the world at large is spinning like a ball.
Aug 3, 2018
Aug 3, 2018 at 6:24 PM UTC
I only wish to see the artist play
a game that does not interfere with this.
A portrait of a mind that doesn’t stay
in line with what is taught to all our kids.
A nuclear weapon set to self destruct
a tiny tear in threadless high design
an addict who is honest to the rug
to which he whispers into every night.
I want to see the artist make a dent,
to smash the frame until it’s fine enough
to form into a line he might regret
and breathe it in until he can’t stand up.
How obvious the stakes become, at last
when every perfect piece is printed fast.
Apr 30, 2017
Apr 30, 2017 at 4:20 PM UTC
What putrefaction oozes up from hell
To poison aquifers of decency
And common sense? The crops of
reason smell And do not nourish the constituency.
What polar vortex drops from unknown heights To freeze the congregations of the heart?
The steeples topple, enmity ignites
And malice rips tranquility apart.
The times devolve. Security and peace, Once real estate on which a home could rise,
Shrugs off its immigrants, revokes its lease
And shows indifference to human cries.
A Lucifer of arrogant display
Has come to sweep benevolence away.
Apr 18, 2016
Apr 18, 2016 at 4:46 PM UTC