#pentameter
What phantoms pester on this gilded ark
where fleeting visions mock the creeping age!
The unrelenting tide of years doth press,
as we, like bark upon the stormy sea,
are tossed and torn. Can we but find release?
Can we escape this breathless, hurried chase?
Or shall we, at our own unfettered will,
pace out the sands of life, serene and slow?
May 6
May 6, 2026 at 12:47 AM UTC
When the gravity of the moment stops
time.
When the probability of the end
falls
straight through the middle and we are centered
firmly
in the present. A Wait so great, there's no
Entropy.
The firmament stilled against its center.
Gravitational
A-Constant against our emergent mass.
Intrinsic vibrational force,
the center and the edge. Entanglement
edge and center, overlap, and collapsed,
fulminating
the wholeness where the radius tunnels
into and around and expounding the
infinity of existence inside of us.
Mar 16, 2025
Mar 16, 2025 at 3:42 PM UTC
He is to me what kings are to their knight,
Who grants me trials that shape and make me strong.
He is the dawn that banishes the night,
Who gives me truth when all the world feels wrong.
He is a compass when I lose my way,
A steady hand when storms begin to rise.
His words are stars that help me not to stray,
A spark of fire beneath the cloudy skies.
He is to me the book the wise revere,
Each page a path to knowledge deep and wide.
He speaks, and thoughts long buried reappear,
A tide of wonder I no more can hide.
In every lesson, he bestows me grace—
A guide, a torch, the sun upon my face.
Apr 17, 2025
Apr 17, 2025 at 4:15 AM UTC
𝐀 𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐨𝐨𝐧 𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧;
𝐀𝐛𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐨𝐧𝐞,
𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐟𝐮𝐥 𝐛𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐦.
𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐝𝐞𝐯𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐮𝐬 𝐬𝐞𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐭...
𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐢𝐭 𝐛𝐞 𝐬𝐨 𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟 ?
𝐒𝐮𝐜𝐡 𝐢𝐬 𝐇𝐞𝐫 𝐠𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐡𝐮𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐭𝐨𝐨;
𝐀𝐬 𝐒𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐥𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐬, 𝐬𝐨 𝐚 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐣𝐨𝐢𝐜𝐞𝐬.
𝐌𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐲, 𝐦𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐲, 𝐨𝐡 𝐦𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐲...
𝐒𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐮𝐧𝐮𝐬𝐮𝐚𝐥 𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐭;
𝐑𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐠𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐝𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐲𝐞𝐭,
𝐀𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐇𝐞𝐫 𝐟𝐥𝐚𝐰𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐞!
𝐇𝐚𝐬 𝐒𝐡𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐨𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐬𝐞𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐞𝐝 𝐇𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡?
𝐎𝐫, 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐈 𝐛𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐈 𝐚𝐦 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐮𝐭 ?!?
𝐓𝐡𝐲 𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧, 𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐬 𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐞.
- 𝗔. 𝗥𝗼𝘀𝗲
Dec 16, 2024
Dec 16, 2024 at 1:19 PM UTC
His hands encompass: pulling me from dirt
my terracotta wetness coats his palms
infusing nails and joints with ochre clay.
A ball of damp adobe, thunk, I’m thrown,
the wheel begins its spin, his fingers grasp
irregular alluvium, I'm smoothed
as digits delve into my focal point
their pressure firmly moulding, shaping me
into a vase, a *** a water jug
to be what his imagination holds.
Dec 10, 2024
Dec 10, 2024 at 1:34 PM UTC
(An exercise to write a sonnet in iambic pentameter)
With heavy heart, I offer my remorse,
for I'm too tired to dance this weary eve.
The echoes of my workday's tireless chores
linger, leaving naught but fatigue's relief.
Oh, believe me, I hate to disappoint,
for the music tempts me to sway and dance.
But the hours I've toiled, each task and each point,
have drained me to a tired nudnik, perchance.
My spirit, once bright, now longs for respite,
to find solace in rest and heal my self.
Though my love for dance burns hot like cordite,
exhaustion demands I stay on the shelf.
Forgive me, my friend, tonight I must rest,
but once refreshed, we’ll fete and dance with zest.
Jun 27, 2023
Jun 27, 2023 at 9:41 PM UTC
Sonnet 118
“Your weak Achilles your Achilles is”:
The physiotherapist’s dry wit. I wince.
I emphasise I stretched, and all that ****
She brooks not my entreaties. “How long since
you pranged it?” Several weeks. I hobble first
thing, until it warms up. Ok to run
on normally within a month. But worse
this time. The Sybil cackles. “Time? Time’s done
this. Time.” Mad scrawl on oak leaves. “Pharmacist.
For non-steroidals. Go now. Sacrifice.
And write such elegiac as thou list
unto Apollo, for his benefice.”
I hurry home, and from my parched well’s drought
this strangulated pizzle dribbles out.
..........
Sonnet 120
The bridge crosses the brook, from which bald tyres
and trolleys long ago displaced the nymphs.
Grim lane of bail hostels and rusty wire;
the twilight may as yet afford a glimpse
of gnomish junkies ferreting damp leaves.
Time, like the Frome’s slime, slithers sourly by,
its minutes measured out in drunk’s dry heave
until the next burst vein or artery
shall dye the beige a fetching ketchup. Now
edge past the knot of slightly threatening men;
it’s all with nature of a piece. The Tao.
Sacred and ******* then. Now, again,
night falls. The pavement drinkers swear and spit,
and Cabot Parking’s exit ramp is lit.
..........
Sonnet 131
For mead of night just superseded I
keep this day to my chamber, and here dwell
with all my secretary close. ‘Tis dry,
and sap exudeth eke from outer shell;
evaporations of élan vital.
For which, repentant, ’tis my stern resolve
to ingest an astringency: a phall
or sour grapes, whatever it involves.
The heartburn of defeat and, on the tongue
the ashen taste of petty victory,
the biting gall that’s from each douceur wrung:
’tis bitter harvest. Yet it harvest be,
for in foulness exquisite flowers bloom,
and profane wit illuminates the gloom.
May 12, 2021
May 12, 2021 at 6:35 AM UTC
"So how much will the rental be?", he hollers.
"A thrifty fee of fifty three green dollars."
May 6, 2021
May 6, 2021 at 3:49 PM UTC
The world's small eyes bare down like heavy gold,
On whomsoever seeks their glazed dim gaze.
Mar 31, 2021
Mar 31, 2021 at 12:31 AM UTC
I itch my neck, my chest. The skin is raw -
a caustic burn, not flame but chemical.
I feel his gaze press on my breast, his jaw
is tight, he finds this guilt desirable.
I want to scratch a pattern on his back
in runes. A pictogram, occult, obscene.
An animal ensnared, its leg entrapped,
through blood-slicked fur and bone, will gnaw it clean.
He says: “You are no songbird in a cage.
And I’m a man, respectable, with wife
at home. And yet, your racing pulse - you rage
a storm in me, a spirit rose to life”.
This spirit, rose to life when first we met,
won’t die without a sacrifice of sweat.
Nov 1, 2020
Nov 1, 2020 at 2:47 PM UTC
Sonnets I-IX
For this collection I have used the original definition of "sonnet" as a "little song" rather than sticking to rigid formulas.
Archaischer Torso Apollos (“Archaic Torso of Apollo”)
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
We cannot know the beheaded god
nor his eyes' forfeited visions. But still
the figure's trunk glows with the strange vitality
of a lamp lit from within, while his composed will
emanates dynamism. Otherwise
the firmly muscled abdomen could not beguile us,
nor the centering ***** make us smile
at the thought of their generative animus.
Otherwise the stone might seem deficient,
unworthy of the broad shoulders, of the groin
projecting procreation's triangular spearhead upwards,
unworthy of the living impulse blazing wildly within
like an inchoate star―demanding our belief.
You must change your life.
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: This is a poem about a major resolution: changing the very nature of one's life. While it is only my personal interpretation of the poem above, I believe Rilke was saying to himself: "I must change my life." Why? Perhaps because he wanted to be a real artist, and when confronted with real, dynamic, living and breathing art of Rodin, he realized that he had to inject similar vitality, energy and muscularity into his poetry. Michelangelo said that he saw the angel in a block of marble, then freed it. Perhaps Rilke had to find the dynamic image of Apollo, the God of Poetry, in his materials, which were paper, ink and his imagination.―Michael R. Burch
Komm, Du (“Come, You”)
by Ranier Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
This was Rilke’s last poem, written ten days before his death. He died open-eyed in the arms of his doctor on December 29, 1926, in the Valmont Sanatorium, of leukemia and its complications. I had a friend who died of leukemia and he was burning up with fever in the end. I believe that is what Rilke was describing here: he was literally burning alive.
Come, you―the last one I acknowledge; return―
incurable pain searing this physical mesh.
As I burned in the spirit once, so now I burn
with you; meanwhile, you consume my flesh.
This wood that long resisted your embrace
now nourishes you; I surrender to your fury
as my gentleness mutates to hellish rage―
uncaged, wild, primal, mindless, outré.
Completely free, no longer future’s pawn,
I clambered up this crazy pyre of pain,
certain I’d never return―my heart’s reserves gone―
to become death’s nameless victim, purged by flame.
Now all I ever was must be denied.
I left my memories of my past elsewhere.
That life―my former life―remains outside.
Inside, I’m lost. Nobody knows me here.
Der Panther ("The Panther")
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
His weary vision's so overwhelmed by iron bars,
his exhausted eyes see only blank Oblivion.
His world is not our world. It has no stars.
No light. Ten thousand bars. Nothing beyond.
Lithe, swinging with a rhythmic easy stride,
he circles, his small orbit tightening,
an electron losing power. Paralyzed,
soon regal Will stands stunned, an abject thing.
Only at times the pupils' curtains rise
silently, and then an image enters,
descends through arrested shoulders, plunges, centers
somewhere within his empty heart, and dies.
Liebes-Lied (“Love Song”)
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
How can I withhold my soul so that it doesn’t touch yours?
How can I lift mine gently to higher things, alone?
Oh, I would gladly find something lost in the dark
in that inert space that fails to resonate until you vibrate.
There everything that moves us, draws us together like a bow
enticing two taut strings to sing together with a simultaneous voice.
Whose instrument are we becoming together?
Whose, the hands that excite us?
Ah, sweet song!
Herbsttag ("Autumn Day")
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation by Michael R. Burch
Lord, it is time. Let the immense summer go.
Lay your long shadows over the sundials
and over the meadows, let the free winds blow.
Command the late fruits to fatten and shine;
O, grant them another Mediterranean hour!
Urge them to completion, and with power
convey final sweetness to the heavy wine.
Who has no house now, never will build one.
Who's alone now, shall continue alone;
he'll wake, read, write long letters to friends,
and pace the tree-lined pathways up and down,
restlessly, as autumn leaves drift and descend.
Das Lied des Bettlers ("The Beggar's Song")
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation by Michael R. Burch
I live outside your gates,
exposed to the rain, exposed to the sun;
sometimes I’ll cradle my right ear
in my right palm;
then when I speak my voice sounds strange,
alien...
I'm unsure whose voice I’m hearing:
mine or yours.
I implore a trifle;
the poets cry for more.
Sometimes I cover both eyes
and my face disappears;
there it lies heavy in my hands
looking peaceful, instead,
so that no one would ever think
I have no place to lay my head.
A Vain Word
by Michael R. Burch
Oleanders at dawn preen extravagant whorls
as I read in leaves’ Sanskrit brief moments remaining
till sunset implodes, till the moon strands grey pearls
under moss-stubbled oaks, full of whispers, complaining
to the minions of autumn, how swiftly life goes
as I fled before love ... Now, through leaves trodden black,
shivering, I wander as winter’s first throes
of cool listless snow drench my cheeks, back and neck.
I discerned in one season all eternities of grief,
the specter of death sprawled out under the rose,
the last consequence of faith in the flight of one leaf,
the incontinence of age, as life’s bright torrent slows.
O, where are you now?―I was timid, absurd.
I would find comfort again in a vain word.
Published by Chrysanthemum and Tucumcari Literary Review
Chloe
by Michael R. Burch
There were skies onyx at night ... moons by day ...
lakes pale as her eyes ... breathless winds
********** tall elms; ... she would say
that we loved, but I figured we’d sinned.
Soon impatiens too fiery to stay
sagged; the crocus bells drooped, golden-limned;
things of brightness, rinsed out, ran to gray ...
all the light of that world softly dimmed.
Where our feet were inclined, we would stray;
there were paths where dead weeds stood untrimmed,
distant mountains that loomed in our way,
thunder booming down valleys dark-hymned.
What I found, I found lost in her face
while yielding all my virtue to her grace.
Originally published by Romantics Quarterly as “A Dying Fall”
Oasis
by Michael R. Burch
I want tears to form again
in the shriveled glands of these eyes
dried all these long years
by too much heated knowing.
I want tears to course down
these parched cheeks,
to star these cracked lips
like an improbable dew
in the heart of a desert.
I want words to burble up
like happiness, like the thought of love,
like the overwhelming, shimmering thought of you
to a nomad who
has only known drought.
Melting
by Michael R. Burch
Entirely, as spring consumes the snow,
the thought of you consumes me: I am found
in rivulets, dissolved to what I know
of former winters’ passions. Underground,
perhaps one slender icicle remains
of what I was before, in some dark cave―
a stalactite, long calcified, now drains
to sodden pools, whose milky liquid laves
the colder rock, thus washing something clean
that never saw the light, that never knew
the crust could break above, that light could stream:
so luminous, so bright, so beautiful ...
I lie revealed, and so I stand transformed,
and all because you smiled on me, and warmed.
Afterglow
by Michael R. Burch
The night is full of stars. Which still exist?
Before time ends, perhaps one day we’ll know.
For now I hold your fingers to my lips
and feel their pulse ... warm, palpable and slow ...
once slow to match this reckless spark in me,
this moon in ceaseless orbit I became,
compelled by wilder gravity to flee
night’s universe of suns, for one pale flame ...
for one pale flame that seemed to signify
the Zodiac of all, the meaning of
love’s wandering flight past Neptune. Now to lie
in dawning recognition is enough ...
enough each night to bask in you, to know
the face of love ... eyes closed ... its afterglow.
All Afterglow
by Michael R. Burch
Something remarkable, perhaps ...
the color of her eyes ... though I forget
the color of her eyes ... perhaps her hair
the way it blew about ... I do not know
just what it was about her that has kept
her thought lodged deep in mine ... unmelted snow
that lasted till July would be less rare,
clasped in some frozen cavern where the wind
sculpts bright grotesqueries, ignoring springs’
and summers’ higher laws ... there thawing slow
and strange by strange degrees, one tick beyond
the freezing point which keeps all things the same
... till what remains is fragile and unlike
the world above, where melted snows and rains
form rivulets that, inundate with sun,
evaporate, and in life’s cyclic stream
remake the world again ... I do not know
that we can be remade―all afterglow.
how many Nights
by michael r. burch
how many Nights we laughed to see the sun
go down
because the Night was made for reckless fun.
...Your golden crown,
Your skin so soft, so smooth, and lightly downed...
how many nights i wept glad tears to hold
You tight against the years.
...Your eyes so bold,
Your hair spun gold,
and all the pleasures Your soft flesh foretold...
how many Nights i did not dare to dream
You were so real...
now all that i have left here is to feel
in dreams surreal
Time is the Nightmare God before whom men kneel.
and how few Nights, i reckoned, in the end,
we were allowed to gather, less to spend.
These Hallowed Halls
by Michael R. Burch
a young Romantic Poet mourns the passing of an age . . .
A final stereo fades into silence
and now there is seldom a murmur
to trouble the slumber of these ancient halls.
I stand by a window where others have watched
the passage of time alone, not untouched,
and I am as they were―unsure, for the days
stretch out ahead, a bewildering maze.
Ah, faithless lover―that I had never touched your breast,
nor felt the stirrings of my heart,
which until that moment had peacefully slept.
For now I have known the exhilaration
of a heart that has leapt every pinnacle of Love,
and the result of all such infatuations―
the long freefall to earth, as the moon glides above.
Come!
by Michael R. Burch
Will you come to visit my grave, I wonder,
in the season of lightning, the season of thunder,
when I have lain so long in the indifferent earth
that I have no girth?
When my womb has conformed to the chastity
your anemic Messiah envisioned for me,
will you finally be pleased that my *** was thus rendered
unpalatable, disengendered?
And when those strange loathsome organs that troubled you so
have been eaten by worms, will the heavens still glow
with the approval of God that I ended a maid―
thanks to a *****
And will you come to visit my grave, I wonder,
in the season of lightning, the season of thunder?
To the Post-Modern Muse, Floundering
by Michael R. Burch
The anachronism in your poetry
is that it lacks a future history.
The line that rings, the forward-sounding bell,
tolls death for you, for drowning victims tell
of insignificance, of eerie shoals,
of voices underwater. Lichen grows
to mute the lips of those men paid no heed,
and though you cling by fingertips, and bleed,
there is no lifeline now, for what has slipped
lies far beyond your grasp. Iron fittings, stripped,
have left the hull unsound, bright cargo lost.
The argosy of all your toil is rust.
The anchor that you flung did not take hold
in any harbor where repair is sold.
Originally published by Ironwood
Wonderland
by Michael R. Burch
We stood, kids of the Lamb, to put to test
the beatific anthems of the blessed,
the sentence of the martyr, and the pen’s
sincere religion. Magnified, the lens
shot back absurd reflections of each face―
a carnival-like mirror. In the space
between the silver backing and the glass,
we caught a glimpse of Joan, a frumpy lass
who never brushed her hair or teeth, and failed
to pass on GO, and frequently was jailed
for awe’s beliefs. Like Alice, she grew wee
to fit the door, then couldn’t lift the key.
We failed the test, and so the jury’s hung.
In Oz, “The Witch is Dead” ranks number one.
Keywords/Tags: sonnet, rhyme, meter, iambic pentameter, Rilke, life, death, belief, translation, spirit, fever, mrbson
Sep 11, 2020
Sep 11, 2020 at 4:32 AM UTC
Beyond the bounds of vast and stormy seas
Surrounded by the tides of shifting sands
There showered in the moonlight gently sleeps
A gem concealed within uncharted lands
Though none could claim its beauty for their own
I, fool, had thought it simply must be mine
Could not resist the tantalising stone
So smitten by its mesmerising shine
Beneath its shell a gently warming core
With power to fulfil a dreamer's dream
An ordinary man, and nothing more
Yet to my awe, the jewel's tender heart
Forgave the fool who craved the treasured gleam
Decided to become my morning star
Jun 14, 2020
Jun 14, 2020 at 6:36 PM UTC
Years slip by on deft and silent footsteps,
And as in times of laughter among friends,
So too in times of quiet retrospect
Does the song of your sweet voice resonate
Outward, starting from the depths of my heart,
Then reaching the lofty sanctum of thought
Shaken are the stalwart walls of reason,
Rationality stems emotion's tide,
And pangs of nostalgia overwhelming,
Reminders of your presence, lay behind
S.R.
Mar 31, 2020
Mar 31, 2020 at 4:19 PM UTC
Dear A, you are the love of my life.
Darling, my shining light in the darkness.
O hear me, leave me not alone in this.
I plea, beg upon my very knees now.
Life had been unkind to me until you came in.
Please, I am only human, forgive me.
Together we laugh, we smile - we love.
Mi amor, what can I do to fix this?
Tell me; I shall do what you wish of me.
We can overcome this, can we not, Love?
I love you too much to lose you, my love.
- Jay M
February 18th, 2020
Feb 25, 2020
Feb 25, 2020 at 1:41 PM UTC
stop apologizing
when you want to say "get bent"
stop worrying
about ruining his career
when he makes your world a living hell
stop confining yourself
to four line stanzas and iambic pentameter
**** writing for anyone else
when it is your soul that needs soothing
may your words overflow the lines that have been drawn for you
stop hanging on
to the person you once though existed
detach yourself from the veiled existence
and run the other way.
you shine too bright to let anyone dim your light
Sep 17, 2019
Sep 17, 2019 at 11:15 AM UTC
The jogger stops a while to catch his breath,
a sweaty grimace painted on his face.
Perhaps in half-light it appears a grin
to others - actually he feels like death.
With averageness as his only sin,
he thinks, how apt to go in such a place.
Her memory is blank beyond this place.
She draws a rasping, thin and ragged breath,
inhaling scents of forced carnal sin.
The caked make-up is falling off her face
but all her thoughts these nights have been of death;
a cigarette will reapply her grin.
The old man looks around and gives a grin
at all his children gathered in his place.
For months he has been waiting for his death,
his lungs to finally run out of breath.
The ghost of life still lingers on his face,
a long, benign existence free of sin.
Bejewelled silky hands still slick with sin
support, neck-like, a head which wears a grin
that looks like it's been stolen off the face
of mannequins and plastered into place.
Her role in hastening his final breath
still haunts her. So it shall unto her death.
This industry is headed towards death.
They think intelligence is just a sin
and try to cut him off at every breath.
He finally allows himself a grin.
With this he'll put them in their proper place
and wipe that smug expression from their face.
The kiss of malnutrition on her face,
a souvenir from those merengues with death,
lies testament to horrors in this place.
Though poverty may be a fatal sin,
she bears the burden with a toothless grin
and croons her lullaby under her breath.
Behold my face! They all know I am Death.
But truth is, there is sin in any place;
I'll grin the same before I stop your breath.
Jul 27, 2019
Jul 27, 2019 at 11:57 AM UTC
Torrential rain turned the river to rage in July,
the bottom a swirling attack of mud and anger.
The water flooding the valley awoke the men.
To be unwashed no more they watch the water.
Destroy destroy destroy the works of men.
As tides drew back behold! Rise again.
To be inspired, insisting to dream
Return to home, yet past cannot be again,
and thus the men employ the ground up high
delay not here, for waters may again arise.
Inscribe the stone, beginning's need nothing
more than... belonging. Summer ahead now soft.
From immortality two roads spring like sleep
tomorrow is not today, arise fair sun.
Jul 3, 2019
Jul 3, 2019 at 12:05 PM UTC
Better jealous, better hated, better
Dismissed than be allotted false praise and joy.
A man is his own pride, his own defeat
He ought to know his place and worth; his price.
Besmirched with equal fault, with equal blame
Not one may stand pristine nor pure, alike
The worst we deem in those disdained at heart.
I flinch when I recall the days before
I saw in each a flicker of contempt
As if it could no longer be concealed.
An honest life is all I want to lead;
No pittance due, no pity earned, no worth;
To hate myself and be hated by them.
May 18, 2019
May 18, 2019 at 1:20 PM UTC
Fungal thought, catch it
But don't hold it in,
It's meant to be felt,
Rather than cotton,
Cushioned against real.
See alien fruit,
Jabber on the wok,
Sizzle the life blood
Come take yourself home,
The place before birth.
Jan 29, 2019
Jan 29, 2019 at 10:58 AM UTC
I've always feared the little things,
Because they're what stole my heart.
At first they'd sprout it's tender wings;
Then tear them and off, and me; apart.
So, I learned to hide my fragile self,
Behind walls that no-one could breach.
My broken parts on the top of a shelf,
In a box, that no soul could reach.
But then, you reached a lone hand out;
Butterflies broke through my ribs.
Ten-thousand words that I longed to shout,
Rooted themselves on my lips.
The little things will always scare me,
That much may always stay true.
But you,
You crazy,
You utterly absurd
You punch-something beautiful ******
There's no better feeling than being terrified by you.
Dec 21, 2018
Dec 21, 2018 at 1:41 PM UTC
Solitary creature in the Wilderness
Scared of even those of your own Kind
Staying out of reach of those too Curious
Singing out at night your haunting Cry
Is there some great secret that you Know about
Try to keep the mystery you Must
Deep and sacred knowledge you would Show about
If only there were someone you could Trust
Can I tame them? Should I try?
Do they know the reason why
I Felt as though my heart could break
All for a common rose's sake
when Someone seems Unique in all the World to me
the Reason is the Time spent making Ties
for Only with the Heart can one the Truth perceive
Essential things are Hidden from the Eyes
Have they tamed me? Did they try?
Have they shown me the reason why
I Felt as though my heart could break
All for a common rose's sake
I Looked for wisdom but I found a Friend instead
Companionship I know was meant to Be
but Even so, all good things must soon Reach an End
my Dearest friend I will no longer See
They have tamed me, them have I
and Now I know the reason why
I Felt as though my heart would break
For Naught,
but my very own special Rose's sake
-for the Fox
Nov 3, 2018
Nov 3, 2018 at 3:57 AM UTC
at war with limes, I am a lemon head
at war with limes, I want lemons instead
strange thoughts of fruits are spinning in my head
I cannot sleep, I cannot go to bed
tomorrow will be bitter, filled with dread
Jul 6, 2018
Jul 6, 2018 at 1:37 AM UTC
I am big on iambic pentameter
About that I could never lie, since
I pass every poetic parameter
And earned my poetic license
Jun 20, 2018
Jun 20, 2018 at 8:56 PM UTC