Full contact Poetry
The ultimate fight
Death match supreme
The truth within sight
Pulling no punches
The ink bleeding free
The wound beyond mortal
A Fait Accompli

(Villanova Pennsylvania: September, 2016)

The Making of a Poet
by Michael R. Burch

I have a nice resume:

Michael R. Burch is one of the world's most-published poets, with over 11,500 publications (including poems that have gone viral but not self-published poems). Burch's poems have been published by hundreds of literary journals, taught in high schools and colleges, translated into 22 languages, incorporated into three plays and four operas, and set to music, from swamp blues to classical, 74 times by 33 composers. Burch is also a longtime editor, publisher and translator of Jewish Holocaust poetry as well as poems about the Trail of Tears, Hiroshima, Ukraine, the Nakba and school shootings.

But how did it all begin?

I like to think it started with an early poem quite appropriately titled "Poetry" and written to the Muse of lyric poetry, Erato.

While I don’t consider “Poetry” to be my best poem—I wrote the first version in my teens—it’s a poem that holds special meaning for me. I consider it my Ars Poetica. Here’s how I came to write “Poetry” as a teenager ...

When I was eleven years old, my father, a staff sergeant in the US Air Force, was stationed in Wiesbaden, Germany. We were forced to live off-base for two years, in a tiny German village where there were no other American children to play with, and no English radio or TV stations. To avoid complete boredom, I began going to the base library, checking out eight books at a time (the limit), reading them in a few days, then continually repeating the process. I quickly exhausted the library’s children’s fare and began devouring adult novels along with a plethora of books about history, science and nature.

In the fifth grade, I tested at the reading level of a college sophomore and was put in a reading group of one. I was an incredibly fast reader: I flew through books like crazy. I was reading Austen, Dickens, Hardy, et al, while my classmates were reading … whatever one normally reads in grade school. My grades shot through the roof and from that day forward I was always the top scholar in my age group, wherever I went.

But being bright and well-read does not invariably lead to happiness. I was tall, scrawny, introverted and socially awkward. I had trouble making friends. I began to dabble in poetry around age thirteen, but then we were finally granted base housing and for two years I was able to focus on things like marbles, quarters, comic books, baseball, basketball and football. And, from an incomprehensible distance, girls.

When I was fifteen my father retired from the Air Force and we moved back to his hometown of Nashville. While my parents were looking for a house, we lived with my grandfather and his third wife. They didn’t have air-conditioning and didn’t seem to believe in hot food—even the peas and beans were served cold!—so I was sweaty, hungry, lonely, friendless and miserable. It was at this point that I began to write poetry seriously. I’m not sure why. Perhaps because my options were so limited and the world seemed so impossibly grim and unfair.

Writing poetry helped me cope with my loneliness and depression. I had feelings of deep alienation and inadequacy, but suddenly I had found something I could do better than anyone around me. (Perhaps because no one else was doing it at all?)

However, I was a perfectionist and poetry can be very tough on perfectionists. I remember becoming incredibly frustrated and angry with myself. Why wasn’t I writing poetry like Shelley and Keats at age fifteen? I destroyed all my early poems in a fit of pique. Fortunately, I was able to reproduce most of the better poems from memory, but two in particular were lost forever and still haunt me.

Heir on Fire
by Michael R. Burch

I wanted to be Shelley’s heir,
Just fourteen years old, and consumed by desire.
Why wouldn’t my Muse play fair?

I went to work—pale, laden with care:
why wouldn’t the words do as I aspired,
when I wanted to Keats’s heir?

My "verse" seemed neither here nor there.
How the hell did Sappho tune her lyre?
And why wouldn’t my Muse play fair?

The journals laughed at my childish fare.
Had I bitten off more than eagles dare
when I wanted to be Byron’s heir?

My words lacked Rimbaud’s savoir faire.
My prospects were looking quite dire!
Why wouldn’t my Muse play fair?

At fifteen I committed my poems to the fire,
calling each goddess a liar.
I just wanted to be Shakespeare’s heir.
Why wouldn’t my Muse play fair?

In the tenth grade, at age sixteen, I had a major breakthrough. My English teacher gave us a poetry assignment. We were instructed to create a poetry booklet with five chapters of our choosing. I still have my booklet, a treasured memento, banged out on a Corona typewriter with cursive script, which gave it a sort of elegance, a cachet. My chosen chapters were: Rock Songs, English Poems, Animal Poems, Biblical Poems, and ta-da, My Poems! Audaciously, alongside the poems of Shakespeare, Burns and Tennyson, I would self-publish my fledgling work!

My teacher wrote “This poem is beautiful” beside one my earliest compositions, “Playmates.” Her comment was like rocket fuel to my stellar aspirations. Surely I was next Keats, the next Shelley! Surely immediate and incontrovertible success was now fait accompli, guaranteed!

Of course I had no idea what I was getting into. How many fifteen-year-old poets can compete with the immortal bards? I was in for some very tough sledding because I had good taste in poetry and could tell the difference between merely adequate verse and the real thing. I continued to find poetry vexing. Why the hell wouldn’t it cooperate and anoint me its next Shakespeare, pronto?

Then I had another breakthrough. I remember it vividly. I working at a McDonald’s at age seventeen, salting away money for college because my parents had informed me they didn’t have enough money to pay my tuition. Fortunately, I was able to earn a full academic scholarship, but I still needed to make money for clothes, dating (hah!), etc. I was sitting in the McDonald’s break room when I wrote a poem, “Reckoning” (later re-titled “Observance”), that sorta made me catch my breath. Did I really write that? For the first time, I felt like a “real poet.” This was the best of my early poems to be completed.

Observance
by Michael R. Burch

Here the hills are old, and rolling
casually in their old age;
on the horizon youthful mountains
bathe themselves in windblown fountains . . .

By dying leaves and falling raindrops,
I have traced time's starts and stops,
and I have known the years to pass
almost unnoticed, whispering through treetops . . .

For here the valleys fill with sunlight
to the brim, then empty again,
and it seems that only I notice
how the years flood out, and in . . .

Another early poem, “Infinity,” written around age eighteen, again made me feel like a real poet.



Infinity
by Michael R. Burch

Have you tasted the bitterness of tears of despair?
Have you watched the sun sink through such pale, balmless air
that your soul sought its shell like a crab on a beach,
then scuttled inside to be safe, out of reach?

Might I lift you tonight from earth’s wreckage and damage
on these waves gently rising to pay the moon homage?
Or better, perhaps, let me say that I, too,
have dreamed of infinity . . . windswept and blue.

Now, two “real poems” in two years may not seem like a big deal to non-poets. But they were very big deals to me. I would go off to college feeling that I was, really, a real poet, with two real poems under my belt. I felt like someone, at last. I had, at least, potential.

But I was in for another rude shock. Being a good reader of poetry—good enough to know when my own poems were falling far short of the mark—I was absolutely floored when I learned that impostors were controlling Poetry’s fate! These impostors were claiming that meter and rhyme were passé, that honest human sentiment was something to be ridiculed and dismissed, that poetry should be nothing more than concrete imagery, etc.

At first I was devastated, but then I quickly became enraged. I knew the difference between good poetry and bad. I could feel it in my flesh, in my bones. Who were these impostors to say that bad poetry was good, and good was bad? How dare they? I was incensed! I loved Poetry. I saw her as my savior because she had rescued me from depression and feelings of inadequacy. So I made a poetic pledge to help save my Savior from the impostors. "Poetry" was another early poem, written at age 18...



Poetry
by Michael R. Burch

Poetry, I found you where at last they chained and bound you;
with devices all around you to torture and confound you,
I found you—shivering, bare.

They had shorn your raven hair and taken both your eyes
which, once cerulean as Gogh’s skies, had leapt with dawn to wild surmise
of what was waiting there.

Your back was bent with untold care; there savage brands had left cruel scars
as though the wounds of countless wars; your bones were broken with the force
with which they’d lashed your flesh so fair.

You once were loveliest of all. So many nights you held in thrall
a scrawny lad who heard your call from where dawn’s milling showers fall—
pale meteors through sapphire air.

I learned the eagerness of youth to temper for a lover’s touch;
I felt you, tremulant, reprove each time I fumbled over-much.
Your merest word became my prayer.

You took me gently by the hand and led my steps from boy to man;
now I look back, remember when—you shone, and cannot understand
why here, tonight, you bear their brand.

I will take and cradle you in my arms, remindful of the gentle charms
you showed me once, of yore;
and I will lead you from your cell tonight—back into that incandescent light
which flows out of the core of a sun whose robes you wore.
And I will wash your feet with tears for all those blissful years . . .
my love, whom I adore.

Originally published by The Lyric

I consider "Poetry" to be my Ars Poetica. However, the poem has been misinterpreted as the poet claiming to be Poetry's  sole "savior." The poet never claims to be a savior or hero, but more like a member of a rescue operation. The poem says that when Poetry is finally freed, in some unspecified way, the poet will be there to take her hand and watch her glory be re-revealed to the world. The poet expresses love for Poetry, and gratitude, but never claims to have done anything heroic himself. This is a poem of love, compassion and reverence. Poetry is the Messiah, not the poet. The poet washes her feet with his tears, like Mary Magdalene.



These are other early poems of mine...



EARLY POEMS: HIGH SCHOOL AND COLLEGE, PART I

These are juvenilia (early poems) of Michael R. Burch, written in high school and college…



Bound
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 14-15

Now it is winter—the coldest night.
And as the light of the streetlamp casts strange shadows to the ground,
I have lost what I once found
in your arms.

Now it is winter—the coldest night.
And as the light of distant Venus fails to penetrate dark panes,
I have remade all my chains
and am bound.

This poem appeared in my high school journal, the Lantern, in 1976. It was originally titled "Why Did I Go?"



Am I
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 14-15

Am I inconsequential;
do I matter not at all?
Am I just a snowflake,
to sparkle, then to fall?

Am I only chaff?
Of what use am I?
Am I just a feeble flame,
to flicker, then to die?

Am I inadvertent?
For what reason am I here?
Am I just a ripple
in a pool that once was clear?

Am I insignificant?
Will time pass me by?
Am I just a flower,
to live one day, then die?

Am I unimportant?
Do I matter either way?
Or am I just an echo—
soon to fade away?

“Am I” is one of my very early poems; if I remember correctly, it was written the same day as “Time,” the poem below. The refrain “Am I” is an inversion of the biblical “I Am” supposedly given to Moses as the name of God. I was around 14 or 15 when I wrote the two poems.



Time
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 14-15

Time,
where have you gone?
What turned out so short,
had seemed like so long.

Time,
where have you flown?
What seemed like mere days
were years come and gone.

Time,
see what you've done:
for now I am old,
when once I was young.

Time,
do you even know why
your days, minutes, seconds
preternaturally fly?

"Time" is a companion piece to "Am I." It appeared in my high school sophomore project notebook "Poems" along with "Playmates."



Stars
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 22

Though night has come,
I'm not alone,
for stars appear
—fierce, faint and far—
to dance until they disappear.

They reappear
as clouds roll by
in stormy billows
past bent willows;
sometimes they almost seem to sigh.

And time rolls on,
on past the willows,
on past the stormclouds as they billow,
on to the stars
so faint and far . . .

on to the stars
so faint and far.



The Communion of Sighs
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18

There was a moment
without the sound of trumpets or a shining light,
but with only silence and darkness and a cool mist
felt more than seen.
I was eighteen,
my heart pounding wildly within me like a fist.
Expectation hung like a cry in the night,
and your eyes shone like the corona of a comet.

There was an instant . . .
without words, but with a deeper communion,
as clothing first, then inhibitions fell;
liquidly our lips met
—feverish, wet—
forgotten, the tales of heaven and hell,
in the immediacy of our fumbling union . . .
when the rest of the world became distant.

Then the only light was the moon on the rise,
and the only sound, the communion of sighs.

aaa


Liquid Assets
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 19

And so I have loved you, and so I have lost,
accrued disappointment, ledgered its cost,
debited wisdom, credited pain …
My assets remaining are liquid again.

I wrote this poem in college after my younger sister decided to major in accounting. In fact, the poem was originally titled “Accounting.” At another point I titled it “Liquidity Crisis.”



absinthe sea
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18-19

i hold in my hand a goblet of absinthe
the bitter green liqueur
reflects the dying sunset over the sea
and the darkling liquid froths
up over the rim of my cup
to splash into the free,
churning waters of the sea
i do not drink
i do not drink the liqueur,
for I sail on an absinthe sea
that stretches out unendingly
into the gathering night
its waters are no less green
and no less bitter,
nor does the sun strike them with a kinder light
they both harbor night,
and neither shall shelter me
neither shall shelter me
from the anger of the wind
or the cruelty of the sun
for I sail in the goblet of some Great God
who gazes out over a greater sea,
and when my life is done,
perhaps it will be because
He lifted His goblet and sipped my sea.

I seem to remember writing this poem in college, just because I liked the sound of the word “absinthe.”



Ambition
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18-19

Men speak of their “ambition”
and I smile to hear them say
that within them burns such fire,
such a longing to be great ...

But I laugh at their “Ambition”
as their wistfulness amasses;
I seek Her tongue’s indulgence
and Her parted legs’ crevasses.

I was very ambitious about my poetry, even as a teenager.



as Time walked by
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 16

yesterday i dreamed of us again,
when
the air, like honey,
trickled through cushioning grasses,
softly flowing, pouring itself upon the masses
of dreaming flowers ...

then the sly, impish Hours
were tentative, coy and shy
while the sky
swirled all its colors together,
giving pleasure to the appreciative eye
as Time walked by.

sunbright, your smile
could fill the darkest night
with brilliant light
or thrill the dullest day
with ecstasy
so long as Time did not impede our way;
until It did,
It did.

for soon the summer hid
her sunny smile ...
the honeyed breaths of wind
became cold,
biting to the bone
as Time sped on,
fled from us
to be gone
Forevermore.

this morning i awakened to the thought
that you were near
with honey hair and happy smile
lying sweetly by my side,
but then i remembered—you were gone,
that u’d been toppled long ago
like an orchid felled by snow
as the bloom called “us” sank slowly down to die
and Time roared by.



Gentry
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18

The men shined their shoes
and the ladies chose their clothes;
the rifle stocks were varnished
till they were untarnished
by a speck of dust.

The men trimmed their beards;
the ladies rouged their lips;
the horses were groomed
until the time loomed
for them to ride.

The men mounted their horses,
the ladies did the same;
then in search of game they went,
a pleasant time they spent,
and killed the fox.

"Gentry” was published in my college literary journal, Homespun,  along with "Smoke" and four other poems of mine. I have never been a fan of hunting, fishing, or inflicting pain on other creatures.



Of You
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 16

There is little to write of in my life,
and little to write off, as so many do ...
so I will write of you.

You are the sunshine after the rain,
the rainbow in between;
you are the joy that follows fierce pain;
you are the best that I've seen
in my life.

You are the peace that follows long strife;
you are tranquility.
You are an oasis in a dry land
and
you are the one for me!

You are my love; you are my life; you are my all in all.
Your hand is the hand that holds me aloft ...
without you I would fall.

This was the first poem of mine that appeared in my high school journal, the Lantern, and thus it was my first poem to appear on a printed page. A fond memory.

bbb


Burn, Ovid
by Michael R. Burch

“Burn Ovid”—Austin Clarke

Sunday School,
Faith Free Will Baptist, 1973:
I sat imaging watery folds
of pale silk encircling her waist.
Explicit *** was the day’s “hot” topic
(how breathlessly I imagined hers)
as she taught us the perils of lust
fraught with inhibition.

I found her unaccountably beautiful,
rolling implausible nouns off the edge of her tongue:
adultery, fornication, *******, ******.
Acts made suddenly plausible by the faint blush
of her unrouged cheeks,
by her pale lips
accented only by a slight quiver,
a trepidation.

What did those lustrous folds foretell
of our uncommon desire?
Why did she cross and uncross her legs
lovely and long in their taupe sheaths?
Why did her ******* rise pointedly,
as if indicating a direction?

“Come unto me,
(unto me),”
together, we sang,
cheek to breast,
lips on lips,
devout, afire,
my hands
up her skirt,
her pants at her knees:
all night long,
all night long,
in the heavenly choir.

This poem is set at Faith Christian Academy, which I attended for a year during the ninth grade, in 1972-1973. While the poem definitely had its genesis there, I believe I revised it more than once and didn't finish it till 2001, nearly 28 years later, according to my notes on the poem. The next poem, "*** 101," was also written about my experiences at FCA that year.



*** 101
by Michael R. Burch

That day the late spring heat
steamed through the windows of a Crayola-yellow schoolbus
crawling its way up the backwards slopes
of Nowheresville, North Carolina ...
Where we sat exhausted
from the day’s skulldrudgery
and the unexpected waves of muggy,
summer-like humidity ...

Giggly first graders sat two abreast
behind senior high students
sprouting their first sparse beards,
their implausible bosoms, their stranger affections ...

The most unlikely coupling—
Lambert, 18, the only college prospect
on the varsity basketball team,
the proverbial talldarkhandsome
swashbuckling cocksman, grinning ...

Beside him, Wanda, 13,
bespectacled, in her primproper attire
and pigtails, staring up at him,
fawneyed, disbelieving ...

And as the bus filled with the improbable musk of her,
as she twitched impaled on his finger
like a dead frog jarred to life by electrodes,
I knew ...

that love is a forlorn enterprise,
that I would never understand it.



Paradise
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 15

There’s a sparkling stream
And clear blue lake
A home to ******,
Duck and drake

Where the waters flow
And the winds are soft
And the sky is full
Of birds aloft

Where the long grass waves
In the gentle breeze
And the setting sun
Is a pure cerise

Where the gentle deer
Though timid and shy
Are not afraid
As we pass them by

Where the morning dew
Sparkles in the grass
And the lake’s as clear
As a looking glass

Where the trees grow straight
And tall and green
Where the air is pure
And fresh and clean

Where the bluebird trills
Her merry song
As robins and skylarks
Sing along

A place where nature
Is at her best
A place of solitude
Of quiet and rest

This is one of my very earliest poems, written as a song. It was “published” in a high school assignment poetry notebook.



All My Children
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 14-16

It is May now, gentle May,
and the sun shines pleasantly
upon the blousy flowers
of this backyard cemet'ry,
upon my children as they sleep.

Oh, there is Hank in the daisies now,
with a mound of earth for a pillow;
his face as hard as his monument,
but his voice as soft as the wind through the willows.

And there is Meg beside the spring
that sings her endless sleep.
Though it’s often said of stiller waters,
sometimes quicksilver streams run deep.

And there is Frankie, little Frankie,
tucked in safe at last,
a child who weakened and died too soon,
but whose heart was always steadfast.

And there is Mary by the bushes
where she hid so well,
her face as dark as their berries,
yet her eyes far darker still.

And Andy ... there is Andy,
sleeping in the clover,
a child who never saw the sun
so soon his life was over.

And Em'ly, oh my Em'ly ...
the prettiest of all ...
now she's put aside her dreams
of lovers dark and tall
for dreams dreamed not at all.

It is May now, merry May
and the sun shines pleasantly
upon these ardent gardens,
on the graves of all my children ...
But they never did depart;
they still live within my heart.



Dance With Me
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18

Dance with me
to the fiddles’ plaintive harmonies.

Enchantingly,
each highstrung string,
each yearning key,
each a thread within the threnody,
whispers "Waltz!"
then sets us free
to wander, dancing aimlessly.

Let us kiss
beneath the stars
as we slowly meet ...
we'll part
laughing gaily as we go
to measure love’s arpeggios.

Yes, dance with me,
enticingly;
press your lips to mine,
then flee.

The night is young,
the stars are wild;
embrace me now,
my sweet, beguiled,
and dance with me.

The curtains are drawn,
the stage is set
—patterned all in grey and jet—
where couples in such darkness met
—careless airy silhouettes—
to try love's timeless pirouettes.

They, too, spun across the lawn
to die in shadowy dark verdant.

But dance with me.
Sweet Merrilee,
don't cry, I see
the ironies of all the years
within the moonlight on your tears,
and every ****** has her fears ...

So laugh with me
unheedingly;
love's gaiety is not for those
who fail to heed the music's flow,
but it is ours.

Now fade away
like summer rain,
then pirouette ...
the dance of stars
that waltz among night's meteors
must be the dance we dance tonight.

Then come again—
like winter wind.

Your slender body as you sway
belies the ripeness of your age,
for a woman's body burns tonight
beneath your gown of ****** white—
a woman's ******* now rise and fall
in answer to an ancient call,
and a woman's hips—soft, yet full—
now gently at your garments pull.

So dance with me,
sweet Merrilee ...
the music bids us,
"Waltz!"
Don't flee.

Let us kiss
beneath the stars.
Love's passing pains will leave no scars
as we whirl beneath false moons
and heed the fiddle’s plaintive tunes ...

Oh, Merrilee,
the curtains are drawn,
the stage is set,
we, too, are stars beyond night's depths.
So dance with me.

I distinctly remember writing this poem my freshman year in college.


Dance With Me (II)
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18-19

While the music plays
remembrance strays
toward a grander time ...
Let's dance.

Shadows rising, mute and grey,
obscure those fervent yesterdays
of youth and gay romance,
but time is slipping by, and now
those days just don't seem real, somehow ...
Why don't we dance?

This music is a memory,
for it's of another time ...
a slower, stranger time.

We danced—remember how we danced?—
uncaring, merry, wild and free.
Remember how you danced with me?
Cheek to cheek and breast to breast,
your ******* hard against my chest,
we danced
and danced
and danced.

We cannot dance that way again,
for the years have borne away the flame
and left us only ashes,
but think of all those dances,
and dance with me.

I believe I wrote this poem around the same time as the original “Dance With Me,” this time from the perspective of the same lovers many years later.


Impotent
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 19-21

Tonight my pen
is barren
of passion, spent of poetry.

I hear your name
upon the rain
and yet it cannot comfort me.

I feel the pain
of dreams that wane,
of poems that falter, losing force.

I write again
words without end,
but I cannot control their course ...

Tonight my pen
is sullen
and wants no more of poetry.

I hear your voice
as if a choice,
but how can I respond, or flee?

I feel a flame
I cannot name
that sends me searching for a word,

but there is none
not over-done,
unless it's one I never heard.



Lullaby
by Michael R. Burch, age 21

Frail bit of elfin magic
with eyes of brightest blue,
sleep now lines your lashes,
the sandman beckons you …
please don't fight—
it's all right.

My newborn son, cease sighing,
softly, slowly close your eyes,
purse your tiny lips
and kiss the crisp, cool night
a warm goodbye.

Fierce yet gentle fragment,
the better part of me,
why don't you dream a dream
deep as eternity,
until sunrise?

Frail bit of elfin magic
with eyes of brightest blue,
sleep now lines your lashes,
the sandman beckons you …
please don't fight —
it's all right.



Say You Love Me
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 20

Joy and anguish surge within my soul;
contesting there, they cannot be controlled,
for grinding yearnings grip me like a vise.
Stars are burning;
it's almost morning.

Dreams of dreams of dreams that I have dreamed
dance before me, forming formless scenes;
and now, at last, the feeling grows
as stars, declining,
bow to morning.

And you are music echoing through dreams,
rising from some far-off lyric spring;
oh, somewhere in the night I hear you sing.
Stars on fire
form a choir.

Now dawn's fierce brightness burns within your eyes;
you laugh at me as dancing embers die.
You touch me so and still I don't know why ...
But say you love me.
Say you love me.


With my daughter, by a waterfall
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18

By a fountain that slowly shed
its rainbows of water, I led
my youngest daughter.

And the rhythm of the waves
that casually lazed
made her sleepy as I rocked her.

By that fountain I finally felt
fulfillment of which I had dreamt
feeling May’s warm breezes pelt
petals upon me.

And I held her close in the crook of my arm
as she slept, breathing harmony.

By a river that brazenly rolled,
my daughter and I strolled
toward the setting sun,
and the cadence of the cold,
chattering waters that flowed
reminded us both of an ancient song,
so we sang it together as we walked along
—unsure of the words, but sure of our love—
as a waterfall sighed and the sun died above.

This poem was published by my college literary journal, Homespun 1976-1977.


Sea Dreams
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18

I.
In timeless days
I've crossed the waves
of seaways seldom seen.
By the last low light of evening
the breakers that careen
then dive back to the deep
have rocked my ship to sleep,
and so I've known the peace
of a soul at last at ease
there where Time's waters run
in concert with the sun.

With restless waves
I've watched the days’
slow movements, as they hum
their antediluvian songs.
Sometimes I've sung along,
my voice as soft and low
as the sea's, while evening slowed
to waver at the dim
mysterious moonlit rim
of dreams no man has known.

In thoughtless flight,
I've scaled the heights
and soared a scudding breeze
over endless arcing seas
of waves ten miles high.

I've sheared the sable skies
on wings as soft as sighs
and stormed the sun-pricked pitch
of sunset’s scarlet-stitched,
ebullient dark demise.

I've climbed the sun-cleft clouds
ten thousand leagues or more
above the windswept shores
of seas no man has sailed
—great seas as grand as hell's,
shores littered with the shells
of men's "immortal" souls—
and I've warred with dark sea-holes
whose open mouths implored
their depths to be explored.

And I've grown and grown and grown
till I thought myself the king
of every silver thing ...
But sometimes late at night
when the sorrowing wavelets sing
sad songs of other times,
I taste the windborne rime
of a well-remembered day
on the whipping ocean spray,
and I bow my head to pray ...

II.
It's been a long, hard day;
sometimes I think I work too hard.
Tonight I'd like to take a walk
down by the sea—
down by those salty waves
brined with the scent of Infinity,
down by that rocky shore,
down by those cliffs I'd so often climb
when the wind was **** with the tang of lime
and every dream was a sailor's dream.

Then small waves broke light,
all frothy and white,
over the reefs in the ramblings of night,
and the pounding sea
—a mariner’s dream—
was bound to stir a boy's delight
to such a pitch
that he couldn't desist,
but was bound to splash through the surf in the light
of ten thousand stars, all shining so bright.

Christ, those nights were fine,
like a well-aged wine,
yet more scalding than fire
with the marrow’s desire.
Then desire was a fire
burning wildly within my bones,
fiercer by far than the frantic foam ...
and every wish was a moan.

Oh, for those days to come again!
Oh, for a sea and sailing men!
Oh, for a little time!

It's almost nine
and I must be back home by ten,
and then ... what then?
I have less than an hour to stroll this beach,
less than an hour old dreams to reach ...
And then, what then?

Tonight I'd like to play old games—
games that I used to play
with the somber, sinking waves.

When their wraithlike fists would reach for me,
I'd dance between them gleefully,
mocking their witless craze
—their eager, unchecked craze—
to batter me to death
with spray as light as breath.

Oh, tonight I'd like to sing old songs—
songs of the haunting moon
drawing the tides away,
songs of those sultry days
when the sun beat down
till it cracked the ground
and the sea gulls screamed
in their agony
to touch the cooling clouds.

The distant cooling clouds!

Then the sun shone bright
with a different light
over different lands,
and I was always a pirate in flight.

Oh, tonight I'd like to dream old dreams,
if only for a while,
and walk perhaps a mile
along this windswept shore,
a mile, perhaps, or more,
remembering those days,
safe in the soothing spray
of the thousand sparkling streams
that rush into this sea.

I like to slumber in the caves
of a sailor's dark sea-dreams ...
oh yes, I'd love to dream,
to dream
and dream
and dream.

“Sea Dreams” was one of my more ambitious early poems. The next poem, "Son," is a companion piece to “Sea Dreams” that was written around the same time.



Son
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18

An island is bathed in blues and greens
as a weary sun settles to rest,
and the memories singing
through the back of my mind
lull me to sleep as the tide flows in.

Here where the hours pass almost unnoticed,
my heart and my home will be till I die,
but where you are is where my thoughts go
when the tide is high.

[etc., in the handwritten version, the father laments abandoning his son]

So there where the skylarks sing to the sun
as the rain sprinkles lightly around,
understand if you can
the mind of a man
whose conscience so long ago drowned.



The People Loved What They Had Loved Before
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 21

We did not worship at the shrine of tears;
we knew not to believe, not to confess.
And so, ahemming victors, to false cheers,
we wrote off love, we gave a stern address
to things that we disapproved of, things of yore.
And the people loved what they had loved before.

We did not build stone monuments to stand
six hundred years and grow more strong and arch
like bridges from the people to the Land
beyond their reach. Instead, we played a march,
pale Neros, sparking flames from door to door.
And the people loved what they had loved before.

We could not pipe of cheer, or even woe.
We played a minor air of Ire (in E).
The sheep chose to ignore us, even though,
long destitute, we plied our songs for free.
We wrote, rewrote and warbled one same score.
And the people loved what they had loved before.

At last outlandish wailing, we confess,
ensued, because no listeners were left.
We built a shrine to tears: our goddess less
divine than man, and, like us, long bereft.
We stooped to love too late, too Learned to *****.
And the people loved what they had loved before.



Have I been too long at the fair?
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 15

Have I been too long at the fair?
The summer has faded,
the leaves have turned brown;
the Ferris wheel teeters ...
not up, yet not down.
Have I been too long at the fair?

This is one of my very earliest poems, written around age 15 when we were living with my grandfather in his house on Chilton Street, within walking distance of the Nashville fairgrounds. “Have I been too long at the fair?” was published in my high school literary journal, the Lantern.



hey pete
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18

for Pete Rose

hey pete,
it's baseball season
and the sun ascends the sky,
encouraging a schoolboy's dreams
of winter whizzing by;

go out, go out and catch it,
put it in a jar,
set it on a shelf
and then you'll be a Superstar.

When I was a boy, Pete Rose was my favorite baseball player; this poem is not a slam at him, but rather an ironic jab at the term "superstar."



Earthbound
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 19

Tashunka Witko, 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 floating and crazily-dancing spirit horse 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.



Huntress
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 20

after Baudelaire

Lynx-eyed, cat-like and cruel, you creep
across a crevice dropping deep
into a dark and doomed domain.
Your claws are sheathed. You smile, insane.
Rain falls upon your path, and pain
pours down. Your paws are pierced. You pause
and heed the oft-lamented laws
which bid you not begin again
till night returns. You wail like wind,
the sighing of a soul for sin,
and give up hunting for a heart.
Till sunset falls again, depart,
though hate and hunger urge you—"On!"
Heed, hearts, your hope—the break of dawn.


Flying
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 15-16

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 "I Am" poems, written around age 15-16.



Love Unfolded Like a Flower
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 19-20

for Christy

Love unfolded
like a flower;
Pale petals pinked and blushed to see the sky.

I came to know you
and to trust you
in moments lost to springtime slipping by.

Then love burst outward,
leaping skyward,
and untamed blossoms danced against the wind.

All I wanted
was to hold you;
though passion tempted once, we never sinned.

Now love's gay petals
fade and wither,
and winter beckons, whispering a lie.

We were friends,
but friendships end …
yes, friendships end and even roses die.



Cameo
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 19

Breathe upon me the breath of life;
gaze upon me with sardonyx eyes.
Here, where times flies
in the absence of light,
all ecstasies are intimations of night.

Hold me tonight in the spell I have cast;
promise what cannot be given.
Show me the stairway to heaven.
Jacob's-ladder grows all around us;
Jacob's ladder was fashioned of onyx.

So breathe upon me the breath of life;
gaze upon me with sardonic eyes …
and, if in the morning I am not wise,
at least then I'll know if this dream we call life
was worth the surmise.

Published by Borderless Journal (Singapore)



Analogy
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 19

Our embrace is like a forest
lying blanketed in snow;
you, the lily, are enchanted
by each shiver trembling through;
I, the snowfall, cling in earnest
as I press so close to you.
You dream that you now are sheltered;
I dream that I may break through.

Published by Borderless Journal (Singapore)


Flight
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 16

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 sun-splashed 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.



Freedom
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 19-20

Freedom is not so much an idea as a feeling
of open roads,
of the hobo's call,
of autumn leaves in brisk breeze reeling
before a demon violently stealing
all vestiges of the beauty of fall,
preparing to burden bare tree limbs with the heaviness of her icy loads.

And freedom is not so much a letting go as a seizing
of forbidden pleasure,
of ***** sport,
of all that is delightful and pleasing,
each taken totally within its season
and exploited to the fullness of its worth
though it last but a moment and repeat itself never.

Oh, freedom is not so much irresponsibility as a desire
to accept all the credit and all the blame
for one's deeds,
to achieve success or failure on one's own, to require
either or both as a consequence of an inner fire,
not to shirk one's duty, but to see
one's duty become himself—himself to tame.



Childhood's End
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 20-22

How well I remember
those fiery Septembers:
dry leaves, dying embers of summers aflame,
lay trampled before me
and fluttered, imploring
the bright, dancing rain to descend once again.

Now often I've thought on
the meaning of autumn,
how the rainbows' enchantments defeated dark clouds
while robins repeated
ancient songs sagely heeded
so wisely when winters before they'd flown south.

And still, in remembrance,
I've conjured a semblance
of childhood and how the world seemed to me then;
but early this morning,
when, rising and yawning,
I found a gray hair … it was all beyond my ken.


Easter, in Jerusalem
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 16

The streets are hushed from fervent song,
for strange lights fill the sky tonight.
A slow mist creeps
up and down the streets
and a star has vanished that once burned bright.

Oh Bethlehem, Bethlehem,
who tends your flocks tonight?
"Feed my sheep,"
"Feed my sheep,"
a Shepherd calls
through the markets and the cattle stalls,
but a fiery sentinel has passed from sight.

Golgotha shudders uneasily,
then wearily settles to sleep again,
and I wonder how they dream
who beat him till he screamed,
"Father, forgive them!"

Ah Nazareth, Nazareth,
now sunken deep into dark sleep,
do you heed His plea
as demons flee,
"Feed my sheep,"
"Feed my sheep."

The temple trembles violently,
a veil lies ripped in two,
and a good man lies
on a mountainside
whose heart was shattered too.

Galilee, oh Galilee,
do your waters pulse and froth?
"Feed my sheep,"
"Feed my sheep,"
the waters creep
to form a starlit cross.

“Easter, in Jerusalem” was published in my college literary journal, Homespun.



Gone
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 14

Tonight, it is dark
and the stars do not shine.

A man who is gone
was a good friend of mine.

We were friends.

And the sky was the strangest shade of orange on gold
when I awoke to find him gone ...

"Gone" is actually gone, destroyed in a moment of frustration along with other poems I have not been able to recreate from memory. At some point between age 14 and 15, I destroyed all the poems I had written, out of frustration. I was able to recreate some of the poems from memory, but not all.



Canticle: an Aubade
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 15-16

Misty morning sunlight hails the dawning of new day;
dreams drift into drowsiness before they fade away.
Dew drops on the green grass speak of splendor in the sun;
the silence lauds a songstress and the skillful song she's sung.
Among the weeping willows the mist clings to the leaves;
and, laughing in the early light among the lemon trees,
there goes a brace of bees!

Dancing in the depthless blue like small, bright bits of steel,
the butterflies flock to the west and wander through dawn's fields.
Above the thoughtless traffic of the world, intent on play,
a flock of mallard geese in v's dash onward as they race.
And dozing in the daylight lies a new-born collie pup,
drinking in bright sunlight through small eyes still tightly shut.

And high above the meadows, blazing through the warming air,
a shaft of brilliant sunshine has started something there …
it looks like summer.

I distinctly remember writing this poem in Ms. Davenport's class at Maplewood High School. It's not a great poem, but the music is pretty good for a beginner.



Eternity beckons ...
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18

Eternity beckons ...
the wine becomes fire in my veins.

You are a petal,
unfolding,
cajoling.
I am your sun.

I will shine with the fierceness of my desire;
touched, you will burst into flame.

I will shine and again shine and again shine.
I will shine. I will shine.

You will burn and again burn and again burn.
You will burn. You will burn.

We will extinguish ourselves in our ecstasy;
We will sigh like the wind.

We will ebb into darkness, our love become ashes . . .
never speaking of sin.

Never speaking of sin.



Every Man Has a Dream
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 23

lines composed at Elliston Square

Every man has a dream that he cannot quite touch ...
a dream of contentment, of soft, starlit rain,
of a breeze in the evening that, rising again,
reminds him of something that cannot have been,
and he calls this dream love.

And each man has a dream that he fears to let live,
for he knows: to succumb is to throw away all.
So he curses, denies it and locks it within
the cells of his heart and he calls it a sin,
this madness, this love.

But each man in his living falls prey to his dreams,
and he struggles, but so he ensures that he falls,
and he finds in the end that he cannot deny
the joy that he feels or the tears that he cries
in the darkness of night for this light he calls love.



Every time I think of leaving …
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18

Every time I think of leaving …
I see my mother's eyes
staring at me in despair,
and I feel the old scar
throbbing again.

Then I think of the father
that I never knew;
I remember how,
as a child,
I could never understand
not having a father.

And when the tears start falling,
running slowly down my cheeks,
I think of our two sons
and all their many dreams—
dreams no better than dust
the day that I leave.

And when my hands start shaking,
when my eyes will not adjust,
when I know there's no tomorrow
for the two of us,
then I think of our young daughter
who prays, eyes tightly shut,
not to lose her mother or father …
and I know that I can't leave.

Every time I think of going,
I close my eyes and see
the days we spent together
when love was all we dreamed,
and I wish that I could find
(how I wish that I could find!)
a reason to believe.



Go down to the ***-down
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 21

Go down
to the ***-down.

Pause in the pungent,
moonless night,
watching the partners as they dance;
go down ...
don’t you know ...
it's your only chance?

Go down
to the ***-down.

Go down
to the ***-down,
and whirl as you dance
through a dream of wine,
through a world once your world,
through a world without time,
through a world rich and rhythmic,
through a world full of rhyme.

O, go down
to the ***-down.

Go down.
As they slow down,
the couples will whirl
to a reel of romance,
for the music has called them,
and so they must dance.
Go down, don't you know
that this is your chance?

Go down
to the ***-down.



Sappho’s Lullaby
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 21

for Jeremy

Hushed yet melodic, the hills and the valleys
sleep unaware of the nightingale's call
while the dew-laden lilies lie
listening,
glistening ...
this is their night, the first night of fall.

Son, tonight, a woman awaits you;
she is more vibrant, more lovely than spring.
She'll meet you in moonlight,
soft and warm,
all alone ...
then you'll know why the nightingale sings.

Just yesterday the stars were afire;
then how desire flashed through my veins!
But now I am older;
night has come,
I’m alone ...
for you I will sing as the nightingale sings.



Belfast's Streets
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 14

Belfast's streets are strangely silent,
deserted for a while,
and only shadows wander
her alleys, slick and vile
with children's darkening blood.

Her sidewalks sigh and her cobblestones
clack in misery
beneath my booted feet,
longing to be free
from their legacy of blood,
and yet there's no relief,
for it seems that there's no God.

Her sirens scream and her PAs plead
and her shops and churches sob,
but the city throbs
—her heart the mobs
that are also her disease—
and still there's no relief,
for it seems there is no God.

I listen to a radio
and men who seem to feel
that only "right" is real.
"We can't give in
to men like them,
for we have an ideal
and God is on our side!"
one angrily replies,
but the sidewalks seem to chide,
clicking like snapped teeth.
And if God is on our side,
then where is God's relief?
And if there is a God,
then why is there no love
and why is there no peace?

"Sweet innocence! this land was wild
and better wild again
than torn apart beneath the feet
of ‘educated' men!"
The other screams in rage and hate,
and a war's begun that will not end
till the show goes off at ten.

Now a little girl is singing,
walking t'ward me 'cross the street,
her voice so high and sweet
it hangs upon the air,
and her eyes are Irish eyes,
and her hair is Irish hair,
all red and wild and fair,
and she wears a Catholic cross,
but she doesn't really care.

She's singing to a puppy
and hugging him between
the verses of her hymn.

Now here's a little love
and here's a little peace,
and maybe here's our Maker,
present though unseen,
on Belfast's dreary streets.

This is one of my earliest poems, as indicated by the occasional use of archaisms.



Hills
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 17

For many years I have fought
the rocks and the sand and the weeds,
the frost and the floods and the trees
of these hills
to build myself a home.

Now it seems I will fight no longer,
but it’s a hard thing
for an old warrior to give up.

Here in these hills let them lay down my bones
where the sun settles wearily to rest,
and let my spirit dream in its endless sleep
that someday it also shall rise
to kiss the morning clouds.

This wall of stone that I built
of rock hewn by my own hands
shall not stand long
through the passage of time,
and when it lies in cakes of dust
and its particles kiss my bones,
then the battle that these hills and I fought
will finally have been won.

But mother Gaia will not shun
her wayward son for long;
she will take me and cradle me in her mud,
cover me with a blanket of snow,
then sing me to sleep with a nightingale’s song.

Now the night grows cold within me;
no more summers shall I see …
but, nevertheless, when June comes,
my spirit shall wander the paths through the trees
that lead to these hills,
these ******, lovely hills,
and then I shall be free.



All the young sailors
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 20

All the young sailors
follow the sea,
leaving their lovers
to live and be free,
to brave violent tempests,
to ride out wild storms,
to dream of new lovers
seductive and warm,
to drink until sunset
then stretch out at dawn
in the dew of emotions
they don't understand,
to follow the sunlight,
to flee from the rain,
to live out their longings
though often in pain,
to dream of the children
they never shall see
while bucking the waves
of an unending sea
till, racked by harsh coughing,
his lungs almost gone,
straining to catch one last glimpse of the sun,
the last of the sailors finally succumbs,
for all the young sailors
die young.


Hush, my darling
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 19

Hush, my darling; all your tears
will never bring again
that which Time has taken.

And though you’re so ****** lovely
that a god might wish to make you his,
Time cares not for loveliness;
he takes what he will take.

Sleep now darling, don’t awaken
till the dream is over.
Dream of fields of clover
dancing in an autumn wind.

Lie down at my side
and let sleep's soothing tide
carry you into an ocean deep.

Be silent, world; let her sleep.
Do not disturb a child
upon her journey mild
into the realm of dreams.

Sleep, carry her to that sweet state
where little girls need not know Fate
dismembers the dreams of men.



Amora’s Complaint
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 19

Will you walk with me tonight?
for the moon hangs low and travelers seldom
disturb the silence of this ghostly kingdom.
We shall not be seen
if we linger by this stream
that shimmers in the starlight.

Will you talk to me awhile?
For sounds don’t carry very far;
the interminable silence is barely marred
by the labored breathing
of the "giant" who lies sleeping
in caverns fetid and vile,
and I crave your immaculate smile.

So close to death, the final sleep,
he hastens as he lies.
Silence louder than his sighs
drifts on the languid air
toward his musty lair,
and all life that it finds, it keeps.

And though he sleeps,
in dreams content,
mistaking bile for dew,
he knows not what is true.

His eyes are worse than blind men's eyes,
for the images they “see” disguise
how swift and sure is death's descent.

His ears hear songs that are not sung;
his nostrils scent a faint perfume
permeating midnight's gloom,
when all the while his rotting flesh
heralds worms to view his death.
He festers, having long been stung.

O, once he was as you are now—
full of passion, wild and free,
majestic, formed most perfectly.

But tonight, hideously deformed,
he himself becomes a worm;
though he doesn't see that he's changed, somehow.

Why, he still calls me his “dearest friend,”
although I cannot bear to near
that stinking, dying sufferer!

He asks me why I stray so far
from the "comfort" of his arms ...
Tonight, I said, "This is the end."

O, he swore to not let me depart,
but when he couldn't even rise
to chase me as I leapt the skies,
I think he almost understood.
He frowned. His skin, like rotting wood,
seemed to come apart. He almost touched my heart.

But such a vile and leprous being
I cannot have to be my love.
So while the stars shine high above
and you and I are here alone,
help me undress; unzip my gown.
Come, sate my Desire this perfect evening.


Blue Cowboy
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 15

He slumps against the pommel,
a lonely, heartsick boy—
his horse his sole companion,
his gun his only toy
—and bitterly regretting
he ever came so far,
forsaking all home's comforts
to sleep beneath the stars,
he sighs.

He thinks about the lover
who awaits his kiss no more
till a tear anoints his lashes,
lit by uncaring stars.

He reaches to his aching breast,
withdraws a golden lock,
and kisses it in silence
as empty as his thoughts
while the wind sighs.

Blue cowboy, ride that lonesome ridge
between the earth and distant stars.
Do not fall; the scorpions
would leap to feast upon your heart.

Blue cowboy, sift the burnt-out sand
for a drop of water warm and brown.
Dream of streams like silver seams
even as you gulp it down.

Blue cowboy, sing defiant songs
to hide the weakness in your soul.
Blue cowboy, ride that lonesome ridge
and wish that you were going home
as the stars sigh.


Cowpoke
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 15

Sleep, old man...
your day has long since passed.
The endless plains,
cool midnight rains
and changeless ragged cows
alone remain
of what once was.

You cannot know
just how the Change
will **** the windswept plains
that you so loved...
and so sleep now,
O yes, sleep now...
before you see just how
the Change will come.

Sleep, old man...
your dreams are not our dreams.
The Rio Grande,
stark silver sands
and every obscure brand
of steed and cow
are sure to pass away
as you do now.

I believe “Cowpoke” was written around the same time as “Blue Cowboy,” perhaps on the same day.



If Not For Love
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18

The little child who cries,
brushing sleep from startled eyes,
might not have awakened from her dreams
to fill the night with plaintive screams
if not for love.

The little collie pup
who tore the sofa up
and pleads here in a mournful crouch,
might not have ripped apart the couch
if not for love.

And the little flower ***
that broke and littered the rug with sod
might not have been dropped if a child had not tried
to place it at her mother's bedside—
if not for love.



Ecstasy
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18

A soft breeze stirs the sun-drenched grass
that parts, reforms, and then is still.
Sunshine, cascading from above,
sipped by the flowers to their fill,
then bursts out in the rosy reds,
the violet blues and buttercup yellows,
bolder, more eager, given fresh birth,
somehow transformed within frail petals
into an ecstasy of colors
broadcast across the receptive land,
which now wears a cloak like Joseph’s,
nature’s brand.



EARLY POEMS: HIGH SCHOOL AND COLLEGE, PART II

i (dedicated to u)
by michael r. burch

i.
i move within myself
i see beyond the sky
and fathom with full certainty:
this lifes a lethal lie
my teachers try to tell me
that they know more than i
(and well they may
but do they know
shrewd TIME is slipping by
and leaving us all to die?)

i shout within myself
i stand up to be seen
but only my eyes
watch as i rise
and i am left between
the nightmare of “REALITY”
and sleeps soothing scenes
and both are only dreams

i cry out to my “friends”
but none of them can hear
i weep in dark frustration
but they swim beyond my tears
i reach out to assist them
but they cannot find my hand
they all believe in “GOD”
yet all of them are ******

come, my self, come with me
move within your shell
cast aside ur “enlightenment”
and let us leave this living hell

ii.
i watch the maidens play
their fickle games of love
and if this is what
life is of
then i have had enough

all my teachers tell me
to con-form to SOCIETY
yet none of them will venture
how (false) it came to be
this gaud, SOCIETY

i watch the maidens play
and though i want them much
i know the illusion of their purity
would shatter at my touch
leaving annihilated truth
to be pieced together to dispel
the lies that accompany youth

i watch the maidens play
and know that what i want
i cannot take because
then it would be gone

iii.
i watch the lovely maidens
i search their sightless eyes
i find that only darkness
lies behind each guise

i try to touch their feelings
but they have been replaced
by intelligence and manners
and tact and social grace

i want to make them love me
but they cannot love themselves
and though they seek love desperately
and care for little else
they stand little chance
of much more than romance
for a few days

i try to friend the men
but they have even less
for they want nothing more
than whatever seems “the best”

their hollow, burnt-out eyes
reveal: their souls have flown
and all that loss has left
is a strange, sad fear of debt
and a love for things of gold

iv.
ive never seen a day break
but ive seen a life shatter
it was mine
and i suppose it still is:
all ten thousand pieces

id.
id like to put it together
(someONE please tell me how!)
for i am out of the glue
called u
that held my life together

i.e.
and i wish that u
and i were thru
but whatever u do
dont say that we are!

I wrote “i (dedicated to u)” after discovering the poetry of e. e. cummings while reading independently in high school.



Ode to the Sun
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18

Day is done ...
on, swift sun.

Follow still your silent course.
Follow your unyielding course.

On, swift sun.

Leave no trace of where you've been;
give no hint of what you've seen.
But, ever as you onward flee,
touch me, O sun,
touch me.

Now day is done ...
on, swift sun.

Go touch my love about her face
and warm her now for my embrace,
for though she sleeps so far away,
where she is not, I shall not stay.
Go tell her now I, too, shall come.

Go on, swift sun,
go on.



Perspective
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 20-22

Childhood is a summer sky —
the clouds are always passing by.
Old age is a winter storm —
the clouds are always coming on.


Recursion
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 20-22

Love is a dream the pale dreamer imagines;
the more he imagines, the less he can see;
the less he can see, the more he imagines,
for dreams lead to blindness, and blindness
—to dreams.


Sanctuary at Dawn
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18

I have walked these thirteen miles
just to stand outside your door.
The rain has dogged my footsteps
for thirteen miles, for thirty years,
through the monsoon seasons ...
and now my tears
have all been washed away.

Through thirteen miles of rain I slogged,
I stumbled and I climbed
rainslickened slopes
that led me home
to the hope that I might find
a life I lived before.

The door is wet; my cheeks are wet,
but not with rain or tears ...
as I knock I sweat
and the raining seems
the rhythm of the years.

Now you stand outlined in the doorway
—a man as large as I left—
and with bated breath
I take a step
into the accusing light.

Your eyes are grayer
than I remembered;
your hair is grayer, too.
As the red rust runs
down the dripping drains,
our voices exclaim—
"My father!"
"My son!"



Pilgrim Mountain
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 16-18

I have come to Pilgrim Mountain
to eat icicles and to bathe in the snow.
Do not ask me why I have done this,
for I do not know …
but I had a vision of the end of time
and I feared for my soul.

On Pilgrim Mountain the rivers shriek
as they rush toward the valleys, and the rocks
creak and groan in their misery,
for they comprehend they're prey to
night and day,
and ten thousand other fallacies.

Sunlight shatters the stone,
but midnight mends it again
with darkness and a cooling flow.
This is no place for men,
and I know this, but I know
that that which has been must somehow be again.

Now here on Pilgrim Mountain
I shall gouge my eyes with stone
and tear out all my hair;
and though I die alone,
I shall not care …

for the night will still roll on
above my weary bones
and these sun-split, shattered stones
of late become their home
here, on Pilgrim Mountain.

Published by Borderless Journal (Singapore)


Playmates
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 13-14

WHEN you were my playmate and I was yours,
we spent endless hours with simple toys,
and the sorrows and cares of our indentured days
were uncomprehended ... far, far away ...
for the temptations and trials we had yet to face
were lost in the shadows of an unventured maze.

Then simple pleasures were easy to find
and if they cost us a little, we didn't mind;
for even a penny in a pocket back then
was one penny too many, a penny to spend.

Then feelings were feelings and love was just love,
not a strange, complex mystery to be understood;
while "sin" and "damnation" meant little to us,
since forbidden cookies were our only lusts!

Then we never worried about what we had,
and we were both sure—what was good, what was bad.
And we sometimes quarreled, but we didn't hate;
we seldom gave thought to the uncertainties of fate.

Hell, we seldom thought about the next day,
when tomorrow seemed hidden—adventures away.
Though sometimes we dreamed of adventures past,
and wondered, at times, why things couldn't last.

Still, we never worried about getting by,
and we didn't know that we were to die ...
when we spent endless hours with simple toys,
and I was your playmate, and we were boys.

"Playmates" was originally published by The Lyric.

This is probably the poem that "made" me, because my high school English teacher, Anne Meyers, called it "beautiful" and I took that to mean I was surely the Second Coming of Percy Bysshe Shelley! In any case, "Happiness" was my first longish poem and "Playmates" was the second, at least as far as I can remember.



The Sandman’s Song
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18

I sing white water,
birds on the bough,
bunnies and redwoods
to sleep … to sleep …

I sing, “Wild forests,
green meadows, blue seas,
drink deep …
drink deep … drink deep …”

I whisper, “Bright robins,
please, be wise,
and wily weasels, close your eyes …
fierce eyes …”

I bid all the rivers, “Come, seek your beds!”
I bid all the children, “Off, sleepyheads!”
then softly shutter their eyes …
eyes … eyes.

I lullaby, lullaby down the plains,
echo through mountains
and moonlit hills …
hills … hills …

I murmur, “Oh, mothers,
please don’t rise;
shadows and stars,
be still … be still … be still.”

And the world sleeps.

Published by Borderless Journal



Martin Luther King Jr. was a poet in his famous "I Have A Dream" poem-sermon-speech. I recognized this as a boy in a poem I wrote in which an older Poet (with a capital "P") speaks to a younger poet (with a lower-case "p") who echoes his thoughts.

Poet to poet
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 16-18

I have a dream
…pebbles in a sparkling sand…
of wondrous things.

I see children
…variations of the same man…
playing together.

Black and yellow, red and white,
…stone and flesh, a host of colors…
together at last.

I see a time
…each small child another's cousin…
when freedom shall ring.

I hear a song
…sweeter than the sea sings…
of many voices.

I hear a jubilation
…respect and love are the gifts we must bring…
shaking the land.

I have a message,
…sea shells echo, the melody rings…
the message of God.

I have a dream
…all pebbles are merely smooth fragments of stone…
of many things.

I live in hope
…all children are merely small fragments of One…
that this dream shall come true.

I have a dream!
…but when you're gone, won't the dream have to end?…
Oh, no, not as long as you dream my dream too!

Here, hold out your hand, let's make it come true.
…i can feel it begin…
Lovers and dreamers are poets too.
…poets are lovers and dreamers too…

Published by Borderless Journal (Singapore)



Rachel Lindsey
by Michael R. Burch, age 22-26

Rachel Lindsey lives in fear
of a love she'll never know,
and she dreams of it in tears,
but she will not let it grow,
so she's building up a fortress
that will keep her feelings in.
It will have walls wide as China’s,
and higher still, and then
she'll build herself a tower
that will rise above those walls.
There she'll watch her love for hours
as he tries to climb, but falls.
And she'll sigh each time he falls,
and she'll gasp each time he makes
a little headway up her fortress,
but she need not fear—she's safe.
She wants desperately to love him,
but she will not pay love's price;
though she dreams about surrender,
she's been living out a lie.
She's no damsel in a tower;
she's a woman growing old.
She can't spare another hour
to be distant, cruel and cold.
And she knows this, but she knows
that love's a gamble: few can win.
And she cannot bear to see her heart
spin Fortune’s wheel again.
So she'll watch him as he walks,
at last, dejectedly away,
and she'll call and she will call,
but she’ll never, never say
the only words to make him stay.
She'll never say, "I love you."



Oh, my fair lady
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18

Oh, my fair lady, where have you gone …
Over the mountains to follow the sun?
Off to the northlands to follow the snow?
Tell me, sweet lover; I'll go, oh I'll go!



Morning
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 14

It was morning
and the bright dew drenched the grasses
like tears the trembling lashes of my lover;
another day had come.

And everywhere the flowers
were turning to the sun,
just as the night before
I had turned to the one
for whom my heart yearned.

“Morning” was published in my high school literary journal.



In the Twilight of Her Tears
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 19

In the twilight of her tears
I saw the shadows of the years
that had taken with them all our joys and cares …

There in an ebbing tide’s spent green
I saw the flotsam of lost dreams
wash out into a sea of wild despair …

In the scars that marred her eyes
I saw the cataracts of lies
that had shattered all the visions we had shared …

As from a ravaged iris, tears
seemed to flood the spindrift years
with sorrows that the sea itself despaired …



impressions of a desert
by michael r. burch, circa age 16

a barren
wasteland

nothing grows

from the sky
molten gold
heats, congeals
oases vanish
or waver
,unreal,
even scorpions
languish

somber
mountains
shift and merge

dustbowl seas
at the verge
of the horizon
stretch, converge
the sky is poison
sand storms
surge

lizards
whining
curse the sky
squinting fire
from burnt eyes

slipping, squirming
rattlesnakes
quench awful
yearning
for moisture
and hate

a flower
every thousand miles
rustles
crinkles
worn and dry



As the Flame Flowers
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18-20

As the flame flowers, a flower, aflame,
arches leaves skyward, aching for rain,
but it only encounters wild anguish and pain
as the flame sputters sparks that ignite at its stem.

Yet how this frail flower aflame at the stem
reaches through night, through the staggering pain,
for a sliver of silver that sparkles like rain,
as it flutters in fear of the flowering flame.

Mesmerized by a distant crescent-shaped gem
which glistens like water though drier than sand,
the flower extends itself, trembles, and then
dies as scorched leaves burst aflame in the wind.

The flower aflame yet entranced by the moon is, of course, a metaphor for destructive love and its passions.


Ashes
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18-19

A fire is dying;
ashes remain …
ashes and anguish,
ashes and pain.

A fire is fading
though once it burned bright …
ashes once embers
are ashes tonight.

“Ashes” is a companion poem to “As the Flame Flowers,” written the same day, I believe.


still
by michael r. burch, circa age 21

ur eyes are bluer than midnight
—bluer, darker, more magic still—
and ur lips are sweeter than honey
—sweeter, warmer, more thrilling still—
ur touch is gentler than raindrops
—gentler, kinder, more nurturing still—
yet UR more elusive than moonlight
never once known and not still.



In dreams like these
by Michael R. Burch, age 26

In dreams like these, vexed seas engage
and, gasping, grapple—wave to wave—
while, farther off, dark storm clouds rise …
I seek affection in your eyes
and long for laughter on your lips.
I trace your cheeks with fingertips
that yearn to show you how I feel,
yet tremble that this seems so real.

In dreams like these faint stars, enraged,
decline to warm the anguished waves
while, further off, a storm ensues …
Melissa, oh my love, I use
my poetry to keep you near
when you are more than miles away
and dreams to drive away despair;
return to me, and this time, stay.

I wrote this poem during a troubled time in my first live-in relationship.



In fantasies
by Michael R. Burch, age 26

In fantasies I see you smile
a wistful smile, as though to please;
you touch my heart … I yearn and ache.
I wish that you were here with me.
In fantasies I dream of times
when you and I were all alone;
anxiety seemed distant then,
much closer now that you have gone.
In fantasies I have you now,
I kiss your lips and hold you near,
and all the world is brilliant light
commingling both joy and fear …
Return again; let dawn appear.

“In fantasies” was written the same day as “In dreams like these.”



jasbryx
by michael r. burch, circa age 16

hidden deep inside of Me
is someone else, and he is free;
he laughs aloud, yet never is heard;
he flits about, as free as a bird,
so unlike Me

silently within MySelf,
he shouts aloud and shuns the shelf
s'm'OTHERS deem to be his place;
yet SOCIETY is not disgraced,
for he is never heard
above the spoken word

"o, i am not as others are —
inhuman things devoid of fire,
for i am all i seem to be —
innocent, childlike, frolicsome, free —
and i raise no ire!"

no, he is not as others are —
keeping up with the JONESES, raising the BAR;
living his life like a lark free of CARE:
never brushing his TEETH, never parting his HAIR,
and he's no ONE's sire!

yes, he is all he seems to be —
wild, rambunctious, innocent, free,
so unlike Me

I wrote “Jasbryx” in high school, under the influence of e. e. cummings, around age 16.



The love we shared
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 20-24

The love we shared was lukewarm wine;
we drank until the cup ran dry
and then we filled it once again …
fierce passions bubbled at the brim.

And when the bottle, too, ran dry,
we stomped our hearts to brew champagne;
pale liquid love flew forth like rain …
we thought to drink worth all the pain.

And, O, the ecstasies we knew
as long as wine gleamed in the cup,
but when our spirits were consumed,
leaving not a single drop,
we tasted bitter dregs at last
and learned that love was not enough.


Lying
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 22

Lying here beside you, I cannot meet your eyes,
and yet, somehow, I still can see the tears
welling up and glistening, blue,
a part of me, a part of you . . .
a part of all we've been throughout the years.

Now the night is dark and fading into darkness deeper still,
and your body shakes beside me as you weep,
but what am I to say to you—
a pleasing lie, the painful truth?
I close my eyes and wish that I could sleep.



My grandfather's hills
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 19

My grandfather lies at the foot of an oak
far from the beaten path,
and never before has a spirit so free
lain fettered in sleep.

But though he lies and walks no more,
I see his eyes in the setting of the sun
and I hear his voice when the sap runs,
for these are an old man's hills.

Don't tell me the government "owns" them,
for the government didn't live them
and breathe them and roam them—
only he did.

Don't tell me the government "regulates" them,
when seventy years
of his sweat and his blood and his tears
flow through the waters of these hills
to nourish the trees …

No, these
are an old man's hills.

No one knew them as he did—
every hole where the woodchucks hid,
every nest where the blue jays lived—
and nobody loved them
as much as he loved them.

Only he cared when the flood waters killed
the tiny buds and the blades of grass
that grew beyond the fields.

And only he cared when the last bear died,
caught killing livestock.

"The oldest bear ever lived,"
he'd brag, "and the smartest."

Though we'd often hear it trip and crash
against the trash cans.

These are an old man's hills,
and they will never be the same
without his loving hand
gently transplanting shrubs and trees
that surely would have died
in the rocky, shopworn land.

Yes, these are an old man's hills,
and his eyes were the blue of the autumn skies
he knew so well even after he went blind.

"There's a few wispy clouds to the west today,
fadin' away, ain't they, boy?"
he'd ask me, and of course he was right.

"Sure are, 'pa," I'd reply,
and a smile would crease his face
and a warmth would pour out of his soul,
for he loved his hills.

Don't say that someday
the wind and the rain
will weather away
his mark from the land—
the well that he dug
and the wall that he built
and the fields that he planted
with his two callused hands.

A memory cannot wither away
when it’s reborn in the songs of the raucous jays
and heard within the laughing waters
of the sea's silver daughters.

An old man lives within these hills, although he walks no more;
I have often heard his voice within the winter's stormy snore;
and I’ve seen his eyes flash sometimes in the bluest summer sky;
and I’ve heard his silent laughter in my newborn baby's cry.

Published by Borderless Journal (Singapore)

I believe "My Grandfather's Hills" and "Twelve-Thirty" were written on the same day, or very close to each other.


Twelve-Thirty
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 19

How cold the nights become so quickly;
now a small fire does little to quench
the winter's thirst for warmth.

Sometimes it seems that all my life
has been an endless winter:
the longer it grew, the more of me it demanded …
and time goes slowly when a man's strength
is not enough to meet his needs.

Tonight I feel an old man
creeping into my bones,
willing to die and sleep and never dream,
and I accept him,
not because I wish to lie and live a life of peaceful ease
until I die,
but because I am too weak and too weary
to wish it otherwise …
and a man is so very close to the edge
when he lacks the strength to wish.

Long ago, when I was young,
I would run and fall and cry
and not give up.

But now it is twelve-thirty,
the darkest hour of the night,
and I am at the darkest point
that I have ever known in life.

So even as the frigid winds
pass silently across the hills,
I feel my spirit sigh within
and steal into its cell.

No longer does it venture forth
to dare new feats and find its fate,
but it lies asleep throughout the night
and does not awake except to eat
a little more of my life away.

Published by Borderless Journal (Singapore)



Clown
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 15-16

My “friends” often remind me
that I am a sluggard, a fool.
They say that I resemble a clown
and I suppose it is true
that I do.

There’s no need to mince words,
for I know how ugly I am.
And though I always tell myself
that I don’t give a ****,
I do.

How can I say that which I must
—“Embrace me. Shelter me. Be mine”—
when my appearance always
bothers me as much
as it does?

And yet with you I’m sure that I
could live my life and never mind;
just the touch of your lips in the night
could fill my troubled mind
with trust.

Just your presence at my side
could give me all the strength I need;
and your understanding touch
could help my broken heart to heal
a little each day.

But what’s the use? This cannot be
although I wish it so.
My love, you’re far too beautiful
for me to ever have or know
for even a day.

So when you send me upon my way
—a tragic, foolish clown—
you don’t have to struggle to kiss me goodbye.
Don’t give me the runaround.
Just please don’t put me down.


Laughter from Another Room
by Michael R. Burch, circa 18-19

Laughter from another room
mocks the anguish that I feel;
as I sit alone and brood,
only you and I are real.

Only you and I are real.
Only you and I exist.
Only burns that blister heal.
Only dreams denied persist.

Only dreams denied persist.
Only hope that lingers dies.
Only love that lessens lives.
Only lovers ever cry.

Only lovers ever cry.
Only sinners ever pray.
Only saints are crucified.
The crucified are always saints.

The crucified are always saints.
The maddest men control the world.
The dumb man knows what he would say;
the poet never finds the words.

The poet never finds the words.
The minstrel never hits the notes.
The minister would love to curse.
The warrior never knows his foe.

The warrior never knows his foe.
The scholar never learns the truth.
The actors never see the show.
The hangman longs to feel the noose.

The hangman longs to feel the noose.
The artist longs to feel the flame.
The proudest men are not aloof;
the guiltiest are not to blame.

The guiltiest are not to blame.
The merriest are prone to brood.
If we go outside, it rains.
If we stay inside, it floods.

If we stay inside, it floods.
If we dare to love, we fear.
Blind men never see the sun;
other men observe through tears.

Other men observe through tears
the passage of these days of doom;
now I listen and I hear
laughter from another room.

Laughter from another room
mocks the anguish that I feel.
As I sit alone and brood,
only you and I are real.



Leaden-eyed lovers
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 17

Leaden-eyed lovers, sung to sleep
by your own breathing,
don't your hear the silence despairing,
and the wind deceiving?

Have you never wondered
if there’s more to life
than a dream of love
and a fear of time?

And what if tonight you have had each other
wildly, totally, as only in love?
What if tomorrow you shall have no others—
is once ever enough?
Is anything ever enough?

Can you save enough love to last till tomorrow?
Can you make enough memories to last when you've aged?
And when you've grown old and are weary of burning,
how then will you rage,
ranging, busy seeking a continual change?

You will never rest easy
as long as you fear
the dull encroachment of the coming years.

You will never learn the meaning of love
if you imagine it fading with a gray hair.

Leaden-eyed lovers, dreams so incurious
are bound to mislead.
Open your eyes, look to each other,
pay time no heed.

Offer each other the promise of tomorrow
and perhaps you may see.


Liar
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 17

Chiller than a winter day,
quieter than the murmur of the sea in her dreams,
eyes softer than the diaphanous spray
of mist-shrouded streams,
you fill my dying thoughts.

In moments drugged with sleep
I have heard your earnest voice
leaving me no choice
save heed your hushed demands
and meet you in the sands
of an ageless arctic world.

There I kiss your lifeless lips
as we quiver in the shoals
of a sea that, endless, rolls
to meet the shattered shore.

Wild waves weep, "Nevermore,"
as you bend to stroke my hair.

That land is harsh and drear,
and that sea is bleak and wild;
only your lips are mild
as you kiss my weary eyes,
whispering lovely lies
of what awaits us there
in a land so stark and bare,
beyond all hope . . . and care.



Lincoln
by Michael R. Burch, age 20

A little child lies sleeping where the wind cannot touch him,
while a flicker from an unseen star, though very, very dim,
now and them creeps through the blinds to gently touch his eyes.
If only he would open them, their forces might comprise!
But still the storm is raging, and still sleep’s bonds hold firm;
although he tosses in his dreams, in bed he merely squirms.
And though sometimes he notices a warmth that wells within,
he cannot understand conflicting omens on the wind.
And still a single pelican he sometimes sees at dawn,
flashing through the heavens; as soon as it is gone,
he hears a strange, vague melody, a strain upon the wind
that never echoes long enough for him to comprehend.

I attended kindergarten and first grade in Lincoln, Nebraska. The pelican refers to my birth in Orlando, Florida. The use of “comprise” is intentional, as in “come together to create something larger.”


Damp Days
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 16-18

These are damp days,
and the earth is slick and vile
with the smell of month-old mud.

And yet it seldom rains;
a never-ending drizzle
drenches spring's bright buds
till they droop as though in death.

Now Time
drags out His endless hours
as though to bore to tears
His fretting, edgy servants
through the sheer length of His days
and slow passage of His years.

Damp days are His domain.

Irritation
grinds the ravaged nerves
and grips tight the gorging brain
which fills itself, through sense,
with vast morasses of clumped clay
while the temples throb in pain
at the thought of more damp days.



Embryo
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 16-17

You sail on an ocean of crystalline water
somewhere far beyond where the Hebrides part,
listening for the whispers and murmurs
of a life-giving heart.

Then you glide through the eerie, impregnable darkness
somewhere far beyond the harsh brightness of birth,
listening for a monotonous tremor
that, half-forgotten,
you now remember.

You rest on the surface of silver-tongued waters
somewhere far beyond a life that is lost,
listening to a voice gently calling
you to the coast.

Then you dive through the depths’ strange, unfathomable darkness,
caught somewhere between the beginning and end,
listening for a sound through the stillness,
with a stubborn willfulness,
wondering when.

You laze on a surface of shimmering clearness,
trapped somewhere between fiery sunset and night,
listening for a trumpet to sound
its message bright.

Then you plummet through the unsolvable darkness,
somewhere far beyond any star, moon or sun,
listening for the sound of the laughter
of the gay daughters
of Poseidon.

You bask in the brilliance of cascading raindrops,
somewhere within reach of a life you once lived,
listening for the peal of a trumpet
and a shiver of the sea and the wind.

Then you drop through the depths of an alien ocean,
sluggishly moving through its gravity,
somewhere between the dead and the living,
the dark and the livid,
the end and eternity.

So sail on your ocean of crystal-clear water,
or ride on the crest of a bright tidal wave;
tomorrow, perhaps, the trumpet will call you
back from the grave.

Or crawl through the depths of the pulsating darkness
with the thud of a heartbeat strong in your ears,
and do not worry that you might not awaken;
for your time is not measured in years,
but in changes.

I wrote “Embryo” around the time I wrote “The snowman sleeps under the Sea.”



The snowman sleeps under the sea
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 17

Beware while bright sunlight, in ardor,
caresses and kisses one arc of the earth,
for others are trapped in the dungeons of night—
crazed victims of an insane demon's mirth.
Beware while the children are playing
under a sun brightly blazing,
for soon they, too, will be paying
for the time they once thought free …
for an ice-capped mountain is swaying
and a snowman sleeps under the sea.
Beware, though life's moments are fleeting,
for, fleet though they may be,
a moment in Hades, I have heard,
can stretch into an eternity.
Beware of the clouds whitely lazing
under a sun brightly blazing,
for soon dark Night will be freed,
her black canopy raising.
Now an ice-caped summit is waving
and an iceman sleeps under the sea.
Beware the snowman, cold as death,
with winter terror on his breath;
if he should touch you, flee, my friend,
or into hell’s cold depths descend.

I believe “The snowman sleeps under the sea” was inspired by the title of the Eugene O’Neill play “The Iceman Cometh” and the biblical idea of hell as bleak, cold “outer darkness.”




M'lady
by Michael R. Burch, age 20

Your nose is freckled like an imp's
and tilts as though to see
what's going on around it.
And you never really sit;
you wriggle, squirm and bounce
as though you were a child …
Well, I think perhaps you are,
but the car is pulling up,
M'lady.

You're never dignified,
yet no matter what I say,
you still will toss your head
and blazing curls, rebellious red,
as though you were a queen
surrounded by her slaves …
Now may I have your hand,
M'lady.

Your eyes are full of mischief,
of a childish sort, no doubt,
and I know what plots you’re thinking
because your eyes keep sinking,
refusing to meet mine.
Don't say it's “just the wine”!
Now may I have this dance,
M'lady.

I'd ask you to behave,
but I know you never shall,
for, like a child, you're stubborn,
refusing to be governed
by any save yourself.
Still, you know I wouldn't change you, even if I could …
Though I'm almost sure I should,
M'lady.

But please pull down your dress!



Man
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 16

Man levels woodlands to the ground and thinks that makes him "strong."
He lives until he's eighty and he thinks his life is "long."
He flings a tin can to the moon and thinks that makes him "wise."
He thinks he's mastered "logic," yet falls for shysters' lies.
Earth's mountains rise and fall and rise without the aid of man,
and who's lived longer than the sea: what is its lifespan?
Ten thousand meteors reach the moon, yet all they are is dust.
As for the truth, what is it? We've barely scraped the crust.
Man studies anthropology and thinks he's mastered "life."
He fights his wars with capguns and thinks he knows of strife.
He rules the land and braves the sea; he thinks he's over all;
but compared to infant galaxies, he's not old enough to crawl.
For the universe is ageless, and man knows no life but ours;
and what weight hold wars when compared with the gravity of stars?
And can man rule the elements? How can he take on airs,
having only managed one small step on an infinite set of stairs?
Man writes his faulty philosophies, his poetries and songs;
he thinks he's all-important, that his Bibles can't be wrong.
He tells himself he's "thoughtful," that he's "rational" and "wise."
He thinks he'll build an empire that stretches beyond the skies.
He puts himself above the stars; he's sentient, stalwart, brave.
He thinks he'll tame the universe, yet he remains its slave.
More energy than he can use flows each second from the sun.
More space than he imagines lies from here to the next one.
Yes, he speaks in terms of "light-years" but he cannot pass their bar.
He'll be born and die a billion times in one heartbeat of a star.
He's going to conquer time itself! Can he tell me what time is?
Can he imagine his conceit, or the vanity that's his?
The universe is boundless; it knows no end, nor time.
It sings in crackling energy, supernovas are its rhyme.
And the universe can form a sun, but man can't make a tree.
And when we've used up everything, then what will there be?
"Man" appeared in my high school journal the Lantern in 1976.


Born to Run
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 17-18

And so you have gone …
gone though you knew how I needed you,
gone though I begged you to stay.
Still, it's better this way—
for neither of us could say goodbye.
Not while harsh summer still steamed heaven's skies,
not while love's embers still flared in the night,
stirred by the winds of the feelings we shared,
not while we were both running scared,
and not even now.
Still, it's better, somehow,
that you left me this way …
I don't think we two could have lasted
even another day.
Oh, sometimes it seems
love was only a dream,
a dream we could never let live,
though we'd have sworn that we had
the first time we met
secretly, sinfully, nervous and wet
with that August night’s heat
under the old covered bridge.
We were always half-lame,
hungry, tired and afraid,
running from this or from that,
our only possessions my pipe and your hat …
my pipe and your hat and the old, ugly cat
who tagged along so many miles,
eying us with a warped, wicked smile
till we drove it away …
And "those were the days."
Yes, those were the days
and those were the nights …
That hot August night I first took you,
bedding you in the damp grass,
your ******* liquid fire in my harsh grasp,
your lips wet and warm;
I had never been with a woman before,
nor you with a man,
and when we had finished neither could stand.
Now I think of those days,
running half-crazed,
living on love and an old frying pan
empty as often as not.
And the cheap, sickening ***
that we bought when we could
never did either of us any good
though we though that it did.
Remember that night when we hid
sixteen hours in the back of a barn
after stealing a car?
It wouldn't even run.
We were the ones who were running …
running, always running, never slowing down,
without thought to direction …
spinning around and around.
Well, you've stopped spinning now;
I wonder if I have.
How many years did we wander?
From sixty-two till seventy-five?
We must have been the last hippies alive! …
I wonder where the others all went.
They must have grown tired of running
and tired of wondering why —
I know you did.
Well, I'm tired of spinning, too,
but I've never learned to stand still.
It's easier to run, though it's hard to refill
on the move.
Well, I guess that I'll be moving on,
hitching a ride and following the sun.
Perhaps you'll regain a life that seemed gone
along with the wind and the snow and the rain;
perhaps the old life can lived once again;
I hope you're not wrong …
I'm sure you're not wrong.
But I've got to move on
and follow this road till its winding is done …
'Cause I think that I was born to run.

I remember writing “Born to Run” after Bruce Springsteen appeared on the cover of TIME in 1975.



Chains
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18-21

Roses bloom within your eyes,
bright with laughter, rich with love,
echoing the morning's light,
full of promise, full of life.
And how I long to kiss your eyes,
to taste the salt of love's sweet tears,
to feel the fullness of the years,
to know that you were always near.
How often in the dark of night,
when heaven was a dream we shared,
our eyes would meet and then ignite
into twin flames of fervent light.
And now that time has healed the scars
of wounds we suffered seeking peace,
our chained eyes meet to find release
and, bonded, we are truly free.


Be Strong
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18-20

Don't imagine the future will be brighter
when this world is as it is;
don't keep an account of the sorrow
and the pain and the loneliness
you suffer today, hoping tomorrow
will repay you for all you have lost;
don't expect happiness in repayment,
and never complain at its cost,
but seize it while it is with you
and hold it as long as you can;
then, when it is gone, do not mourn it,
though it may never touch you again.
For happiness crumbles to softness;
a man must be hardened by pain.
The ruggedest trees grow in deserts;
only lilies and daisies crave rain.
So dance while the moment is with you,
as desert flowers dance in the sun,
then crawl to the dunes when the wind dies
and the blossom-strewn showers are gone.
Sing while the cords of your heart
snap in the blistering sun;
thank God for the bleak accompaniment
they give you as they, snapping, strum
the bitter song of the dying young.
Rejoice! Rejoice! and, right or wrong,
at least you'll know that you are strong.


Gentle
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 20

Flowers bend before the wind,
then straighten out to stand again
fair and proud beneath the sun,
catching bright honey as it runs
slowly down the edges
of the sky, then through the hedges,
and, as the daisies shake themselves,
spreading sunlight through the dell,
you take my hand and kiss it,
whispering, "Be gentle."
Clouds pass slowly before the sun,
bowing, then rising and passing on;
and as they cool us with their shadows,
refreshing all the sun-drenched meadows,
the butterflies rejoice, rejoin
their brethren and dance once again,
splendid and holy in the sun.
You kiss my lips and take me
gently in your arms,
and I rejoice in this
most unexpected warmth.
"Be gentle, love, be gentle,"
you whisper from your place
of imprisonment and safety,
clasped in my embrace.
"Yes, I will be gentle,"
is my only reply
as I draw you nearer
and hold you dearer
than the mountains hold the sky,
gently kissing your eyes.



I hold you
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 20

I hold you in the darkness, and the night that seemed so long
when I was young and restless—so restless, strong and young—
seems fleeting when I'm with you, yet endless when I'm not,
and I think, "Soon she'll be leaving," and I tremble at the thought.
Then the walls close in around me and my fears begin to grow
and the tears course down my cheeks and then, like rivers melting snow,
they form the lines that Time did not, and there, upon my face,
I feel the wrinkles sagging, dragging me to Death's embrace.
But the moonlight sparkles on your lips, and you whisper, "I won't go,"
and my wrinkles disappear, as do those rivers, into snow,
and the firelight crackles in your hair that burns a darker red,
and you kiss me as you lead me gently back toward our bed.


Ghosts of the Shawnee
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 21

I sleep in moodless blue of starry skies,
lost to a dream of many ancient things;
death's rivers seek to drench me as they rise,
but I stand above them, watching through the night,
for a maiden more mysterious than spring.
As I dream in deepest blue of brooding seas,
a flow past flooding washes down the night.
O, I sip the bitter nectar of Shawnee
and wonder at the blazing northern light
that flares as though some day it might ignite.
Then shadows steeped in starlight call my name
and I know, somehow, that she at last has come.
There I rise to meet her as she enters in
with eyes aflame and hair as black as sin,
and I kiss her though I long to turn and run.


I held a heart in my outstretched hand
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 19

I held a heart in my outstretched hand;
it was ****** and red and raw.
I ripped it and tore it;
I gnashed it and gnawed it;
I gored it with fingers like claws,
but it never missed a beat
of the heartfelt song it sang.
There my bruised heart wept in my open palm
and the gore dripped down my wrist;
I reviled it,
defiled it;
I gave it a twist
and wrung it dry of blood;
still it beat with a hearty thud,
and its movement was warm with love.
But I flung it into the ditch and walked
angrily, cruelly away …
There it lay in the dust
with a ****** crust
caking the crimson stain
that my claw-like fingers had made,
and its flesh was grey with death.
Oh, I cannot say why,
but I turned and I cried,
and I lifted it once again,
holding it to my cheek,
where it began to beat,
but to a tiny, tragic measure
devoid of trust or pleasure.
Then it kissed my fingers and sighed,
begging forgiveness even as it died.
Now that was many years ago,
and I am wiser, for I know
that a heart can last out any pain,
but cannot bear to be alone.
And my lifeless heart is wiser too,
having seen the way a careless man
can take his being into his hands
and crush it into a worthless ooze.



I saw the sun rising
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 16

I saw ten billion stars shine with the brilliance of but one,
and I thought, "What strange, satanic deed has some foul demon done,
to steal the luster from the stars, to dim the autumn sky?"
But as I mused upon the moment, deep within your eyes,
I saw a hint of morning within moonlit blue residing,
I noticed glints of blazing dawn within blue depths deriding,
I caught a glimpse of coming days, still, secret and surprising,
within the silent seas that flowed, stark silver and enticing;
yes, looking in your eyes, my love, amid a flash of lightning,
I saw the darkness going down . . . I saw the sun rising.



It's just another Monday
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 25

Now it's a sad, sad, sad, sad day …
for all the stars have faded away,
but all the people turn and they say,
"It's just another Monday."
"It's just another Monday."



“Jack” was inspired by the plight of a schoolmate who had a rare disorder that made it dangerous for him to exercise. However, the details of the poem are imagined; we didn’t grow up together and weren’t close friends.

Jack
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 17

I remember playing in the mud
Septembers long ago
when you and I were young
with dreams of things to come
and hopes for feet of snow.
And at eight years old the days were long
—long enough to last—
and when it snowed
the smiles would show
behind each pane of glass.
At ten years old, the fights were few,
the future—far away,
and when the snow showed on the streets
there was always time to play . . .
almost always time to play.
And when you smiled your eyes were green,
but when you cried they seemed ice blue;
do you remember how we cried
as little boys will do—
trying hard not to, because we wanted to be "cool"?
At twelve years old, the world was warm
and hate had never crossed our minds,
and in twelve short years we had not learned
to hear the fearsome breath of Time
behind.
So, while the others all looked back,
you and I would look ahead.
It's such a shame that the world turned out
to be what everyone said
it would.
And junior high was like a dream—
the girls were mesmerized by you,
sighing, smiling bright and sweet,
as we passed them on the street
on our way to school.
And we did well; we never tried
to make straight "A's,"
but always did.
And just for kicks, when we saw cops,
we ran away and hid.
We seldom quarreled, never fought,
for in our way,
we loved each other;
and had the choice been ours to make,
you would have been my elder brother.
But as it was, it always is—
one's life is lost
before it's lived.
And when our mothers called our names,
we ran away and hid.
At fifteen we were back-court stars,
freshman starters on the team;
and every time we drove and scored
the cheerleaders would scream
our names.
You played tennis; I played golf;
you debated; I ran track;
and whenever grades came out,
you and I would lead the pack.
I guess that we just had the knack.
Whatever happened to us, Jack?



Olivia
by Michael R. Burch

for Olivia Newton-John

Turn your eyes toward me
though in truth you do not see,
and pass once again before me
though you are distant as the sea.

And smile once again, smile for me,
though you do not know my name …
and pass once again before me,
and fade, and yet remain.

Remain, for my heart still holds you
—soft chords in a dying song!— *
Stay, for your image still lingers
though it will not linger long.

And smile, for my heart is breaking
though you do not know my name.
Laugh, for your image is fading
though I wish it to remain.

But die, for I cannot have you,
though I want you, this fell night;
darken, and fade and be silent
though your voice and aspect are light.

Yet frown, for you cannot touch me
though I have touched you now;
then go, for you have not met me,
and never, never shall.

Phantasmagoria
by Michael R. Burch, age 18

The night was a wrinkled pachyderm;
grey-skinned and monstrous, it covered the earth
till the sun, like a copper-mouthed serpent,
swallowed it slowly, giving dawn birth.
Behold the kaleidoscopic
changing of nighttime to day;
the sun, like a ravenous viper,
has frightened the pale moon away.



Intricate Melody
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18

Late in the sunlight silence,
a shower of silver over the sea
waltzed through the waves like a sad melody …

She had eyes
like September,
flaming amber,
searing autumn sunshine.
She sang, "Love,
I don't remember,
was I yours,
or were you mine?"

And then in an stunning sunset,
a flare of wildfire striking the trees
rekindled the flames of an old memory …

She had dreams
like silver forests
full of fancy
dancing in the shadows.
She sighed, "Love
was working for us,
now it's gone,
I wonder how."

But off the arcing evening,
a frail trace of sunset recharging the breeze
whispered the words of an old mystery …

Though she sleeps
in silver forests
set in mountains
towering to the heavens,
still her heart
beats to the chorus
of one love,
love for one man.

“Intricate Melody” was inspired by “Unchained Melody” as covered by Bobby Hatfield of the Righteous Brothers in 1965.



Marie
by Michael R. Burch, age 17

Play your harp for me, Marie;
merrily let it sing.
Marry me and we will be
happily together then.
Marry me and we will be
as happy as the jay;
and I shall give you everything
if only you will play
for me today.
Play your harp for me, Marie;
make merry while we may!
Melt my heart and move my soul;
you shall, if you'll but play.
O, play with me and we will be
together for some time,
and if you'll sing me songs as sweet
as grapes when they combine,
then I will sing you mine …
Marie, let’s play!


oh, say that you are mine
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18

your lips are sweeter than apricot brandy;
your breath invites with a pleasant warmth;
you sweep through the darkest corridors of my soul—
a waltzing maiden born of a dream;
you brush the frailest fibre of my hopes
and i sink to my knees—
a quivering beggar.
your eyes are bluer than aquamarine
set ablaze by the sun;
your lips as inviting as cool streams
to a wanderer of desert lands;
i sleep in your hand,
safe in the warmth of your tender palm,
lost in the fragrance of your soft skin.
WE make love as deep as purple pine forests,
your laughter richer and sweeter than honey
poured in a pitcher of peaches and cream,
your malice more elusive than the memory of a dream,
your cheeks tenderer than eiderdown
and cooler than snow-fed streams;
you touch my lips with the lightest of kisses
and my soul sings.

Natashe
by Michael R. Burch, age 21

I sleep through moodless blue of unstarred skies …
dark waves weave patterns; wild sequestered seas
grow huge and heavy, foddered by the breeze
that blows them down.
I drink Natashe;
naval frigates freeze
in agony across the frigid seas
of death's domain.
She brings me pain,
and, comfortless, I toss
like one who has slept too long
on a slab-hard bed.
O, I stir myself
and groggily I groan
just as Natashe said
I surely would.
God, these dreams are no good;
I'd much rather live.
Why did you leave?
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 17
Your touch was the warmth of a summer day,
the revivingness of showers in May,
the festivity of the coming of fall,
the sparkle of winter's icicled walls,
the splendor of sunset,
the furor of dawn,
as soft as a feather,
as clear as a pond
enchantingly blue.
Your laughter was lilac and lemon and low;
your tears were dimensions of sorrow untold;
your kiss was enchanting—slow dancing and wine;
your love was a lyric in search of a rhyme;
your eyes were green islands;
your curls formed a sea
of dark, dancing ringlets …
Love, why did you leave?



Happiness
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 13-14

A friend of mine had lost his wife.
He said, “Her death has wrecked my life;
now all that I have left is sorrow!
How can I bear to face tomorrow?”
And he told me, “Happiness is like a bubble:
what’s fine now will soon be trouble.
Today you may be sailing high,
soaring magically through the sky.
But soon you’ll plummet back to earth,
and you’ll find your problems only worse
on the sad, sad day your bubble bursts.”

But once an (alleged) wise man told me,
“This is how it was meant to be:
for, as the sun and rain make all things grow,
so all men need *both happiness and sorrow.”

And he told me, “Happiness is the warm sunshine;
when it appears, the world seems fine.
But when pain’s chilling rains appear,
warmth soon dissolves; the world grows drear.
Yet soon the sun will shine again
to drive away the dismal rain!”

How then I sang, how I exclaimed:
“Oh, happiness is like a bubble!
Double, double, toil and trouble!
Bright roses bloom amid the rubble!
When shall I get my manly stubble,
or will I be forever gullible?
If present joys cause future pain,
does anyone care if I abstain?”

"Happiness" is the first longish poem I remember writing, around age 13-14, and I consider it my first real poem.



EARLY POEMS: HIGH SCHOOL AND COLLEGE, PART III


Sarjann
by Michael R. Burch , circa age 16-17

What did I ever do
to make you hate me so?
I was only nine years old,
lonely and afraid,
a small stranger in a large land.
Why did you abuse me
and taunt me?
Even now, so many years later,
the question still haunts me:
what did I ever do?
Why did you despise me and reject me,
pushing and shoving me around
when there was no one to protect me?
Why did you draw a line
in the bone-dry autumn dust,
daring me to cross it?
Did you want to see me cry?
Well, if you did, you did.

… oh, leave me alone,
for the sky opens wide
in a land of no rain,
and who are you
to bring me such pain? …

This is one of the few "true poems" I've written, in the sense of being about the "real me." I had a bad experience with an older girl named Sarjann (or something like that), who used to taunt me and push me around at a bus stop in Roseville, California (the "large land" of "no rain" where I was a "small stranger" because I only lived there for a few months). I believe this poem was written around age 16-17, but could have been started earlier.



Shadows
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18

Alone again as evening falls,
I join gaunt shadows and we crawl
up and down my room's dark walls.

Up and down and up and down,
against starlight—strange, mirthless clowns—
we merge, emerge, submerge … then drown.

We drown in shadows starker still,
shadows of the somber hills,
shadows of sad selves we spill,

tumbling, to the ground below.
There, caked in grimy, clinging snow,
we flutter feebly, moaning low

for days dreamed once an age ago
when we weren't shadows, but were men …
when we were men, or almost so.

“Shadows” appeared in my college literary journal, Homespun.



Snapdragons: A Pleasant Fable with a Very Happy Ending
by Michael R. Burch, age 21

We threaded snapdragons
through her dark hair
and drank berry wine
straight from the vine.

We were too young
for love (or strong drink)
but her lips were warm
and her eyes so charmed,
that I robbed a Brinks
and bought her minks.




The Road Always Taken
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 19

We have come to the time of the parting of ways;
now love, we must linger no longer, amazed
at the fleetness with which we have squandered our days.

We have come to the time of the closing of scrolls;
beyond us, indecipherable Eternity rolls …
and I fear for our souls.

We have come to the point of no fork, no return;
above us, a few cooling stars dimly burn …
And yet I still yearn.



Tonight how I miss you
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 22

Tonight how I miss you, as never before,
though morning is only a moment away.
Oh, I know I should sleep, but I lie here, distraught,
as you flit through my mind—such a wild, haunting thought.

And love is a dream that I lately imagined—
a dream, yet so real I can touch it at times.
But how to explain? I can hardly envision
myself without you, like a farce without mimes.

Deep, deep in my soul lurks a creature of fire,
dormant, not living unless you are near;
now, because you are gone, he grows dim, and in dire
need of your presence, he wavers, I fear …
How he and I wish, how we wish you were here.



The Insurrection of Sighs
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 22

She was my Shilo, my Gethsemane;
on a green ***** of moss she nestled my head
and breathed upon my insensate lips
the fierce benedictions of her ecstatic sighs …

But the veiled allegations of her disconsolate tears!

Years I abided the eclectic assaults of her flesh …
She loved me the most when I was most sorely pressed;
she undressed with delight for her ministrations
when all I needed was a moment’s rest …

She anointed my lips with strange dews at her perilous breast;
the insurrection of sighs left me fallen, distressed, at her elegant heel.
I felt the hard iron, the cold steel, in her words and I knew:
the terrible arrow showed through my conscripted flesh.

The sun in retreat left its barb in a maelstrom of light.
Love’s last peal of surrender went sinking and dying—unheard.



Yesterday My Father Died
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 16

Rice Krispies and bananas,
milk and orange juice,
newspapers stiff with frozen dew …
Yesterday my father died
and the feelings that I tried to hide
he'll never know, unless
he saw through my disguise.

Alarm clocks and radios,
crumpled sheets and pillows,
housecoats and tattered, too-small slippers …
Why did I never say I cared?
Why were few secrets ever shared?
For now there's nothing left of him
except the clothes he used to wear.

Dimmed lights and smoky murmurs,
a brief "Goodnight!" and fitful slumber,
yesterday's forgotten dreams …
Why did my father have to go,
knowing that I loved him so?
Or did he know? Because, it seems,
I never told him so.

The last words he spoke to me,
his laughter in the night,
mementos jammed in cluttered cabinets …



What is this "love?"
by Michael R. Burch, age 18

What is this "love" that drives men to such lengths
as to betray their hearts and turn away
from all resolve that once had granted strength
and courage to them in life's harshest days?
What is this "love" that causes men to shun
the friends and family they once held so dear?
What causes them to spurn the brilliant sun,
to seek some gloomy cloister’s bitter tears?
What is this "love" that urges men to yield
their hearts' most cherished hopes and will’s restraint?
What causes them to throw down reason’s shields,
to spill their blood, till sense at last grows faint?
This is the weakness in us, one and all—
the love of love, the will to kneel, the hope, perhaps, to fall.

“What is this ‘love’" was one of my earliest sonnets.



You'll never know
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 15

You'll never know
just how I need you,
though you ought to know
after all this time;
you'll never see
how much I want you,
though your touch can tempt
these words to rhyme.

For storm clouds grow
till stars flee, hidden;
bright lightning rails
against mankind;
wild waves reach out
toward scorched comets;
but you do not see.
You must be blind.

Sundown
by Michael R. Burch, age 21

Sunset’s shadows touch your eyes
She’d rather have the truth than lies.
wherein I find no alibis.
And that seems strange … I wonder why.

Now you and I have come this far,
She seems so lovely and so calm.
but further off, no guiding star.
And yet I know that she is scarred.

But without stars how can we see
What’s best for her is best for me.
ourselves, or where our paths fork free?
And yet I loved her so sincerely!

I think that we should end it here
How can love end without a tear?
and I can see that you agree.
What’s best for her is best for me.



Sunrise
by Michael R. Burch, age 17

I ran toward a meadow
that shimmered, all ablaze,
and laughed to feel the buttercups
my skin so softly graze.
My soul was full of passion,
my eyes were full of light,
as sunrise crept
into the depths
of heart that had harbored only night.
I leapt to catch a butterfly,
then let it go again,
and its glorious flight
into the light
caused me to clutch my pen
and dash back to my darkling room
to let the sunrise in,
but not through open shutters,–
through poems and psalms and hymns.

Here “darkling” is a rare word that appears in more than one masterpiece of poetry.



Spring dream time
by Michael R. Burch, age 19

There are no dreams of springtime tomorrow
left to my heart now that winter has come,
nor passion to shine like a sun in ascendance
to fierce incandescence; my spirit is numb.

How shall I write when the words hold no meaning?
How shall I feel, when all feeling is gone?
How shall I seek what has never had presence
or gather an essence I never have known?

How to recapture what I once believed in,
lost to strange seasons of riotous sun?
How to rekindle the heart's effervescence,
the spirit's resplendence, when springtime has flown?

How will I write what has never been written?
How can this ink leap from pen into poem?
How can I believe what I know has no feasance,
reducing the distance from fancied to known?

Are there no others who dream not to lessen,
not to wilt before winter, not to weaken—not some
who **** to hellfire this winter of demons,
imagining seasons of springtime to come?



Tell me what i am
by michael r. burch, circa age 14-16

Tell me what i am,
for i have often wondered why i live.
Do u know?
Please, tell me so ...
drive away this darkness from within.

For my heart is black with sin
and i have often wondered why i am;
and my thoughts are lacking light,
though i have often sought what was right.

Now it is night;
please drive away this darkness from without,
for i doubt that i will see
the coming of the day
without ur help.

This heartfelt little poem appeared in my high school journal.


You didn't have time
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 17

You didn't have time to love me,
always hurrying here and hurrying there;
you didn't have time to love me,
and you didn't have time to care.

You were playing a reel like a fiddle half-strung:
too busy for love, "too old" to be young …
Well, you didn't have time, and now you have none.
You didn't have time, and now you have none.

You didn't have time to take time
and you didn't have time to try.
Every time I asked you why, you said,
"Because, my love; that's why." And then

you didn't have time at all, my love.
You didn't have time at all.

You were wheeling and diving in search of a sun
that had blinded your eyes and left you undone.
Well, you didn't have time, and now you have none.
You didn't have time, and now you have none.


You have become the morning light
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18-19

You have become the morning light
that floods from heaven, fair upon
the dewed expanses of each lawn …
I lift my face, for you are dawn.

And in the warmth that, fanned to flame,
I feel against my naked flesh,
I find the fierceness of desire—
the passions of each wild caress.

Now how I long to make you mine
in such a moment, as your *******
burn like fire in my hands,
forming flame from drunkenness.

And if in ardor for the sun
or for your touch or for the wine,
my lips should crush yours in a kiss
so harsh and heated, tears combine

with sweat and anguish till beads form—
salt beads of passion on your brow,
then lover, we will burn with dawn,
for in your eyes the sun shines now.



When I was in my heyday
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 22

When I was in my heyday,
I howled to see the moon;
the wail of a wolf,
shrill, rising … then gruff
echoed through night, such an impassioned tune!

When I was in my heyday,
hearts fluttered at my feet;
I gathered them in
like blossoms the wind
had slaughtered and flung, but their fragrance was sweet.

When I was in my heyday,
I cursed the cage of stars
that blocked me from rising
above them and flying
in rapture, uncaptured, beyond their bright bars.

When I was in my heyday,
my dreams were a dazzling mist
that baffled my vision
and veiled farthest heaven,
but what did I care? I clenched fire in my fist!



The Swing
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18

I.
There was a Swing
tied to a tall elm
that reached out over the river.
There, I used to send you flying
out into the autumn air
till you began to shiver,
then I’d gather you in again,
hugging you to keep you warm.

How I loved the scent of your hair
and the flush of your cheeks!
I’d dream of you for weeks
when you were at Vassar and I was at Mayer.

Then, come the summer,
how I loved to see your knee-length skirt
billowing about you,
revealing your legs,
aloed and darkly lovely,
and to feel your ample hips
—so soft, so full, so warm—
when I touched them,
“accidentally,” of course,
while swinging you.
You always knew,
I’m sure of that now.
And you never let me go too far.
But your kisses were warm.
Oh, I remember—your kisses were warm!

II.
I’d often dream of ******* you,
and once, just once,
when I was helping you down from the Swing,
I touched your breast, and you paused.
Hurriedly, I unbuttoned your blouse as you stood
breathless, and with good cause,
after riding the Swing as wild as I swung you.

Your bra was Immaculate White,
your ******* warm and firm
beneath the thin material.
You said nothing until I flipped
your skirt up, then slipped
my fingers inside the waistband
of your matchless cotton *******
to feel your hips,
so full and so inviting,
and then your nether lips.

At which you said,
“That’s enough,” gently,
and it was.

III.
Now I think of those days
and I wonder
why I ever let you go.
I remember one dark hour
when, standing in the snow,
you told me to take you
or to let you go.

I was a fool.
Proud, and a fool.

All you asked was for us to be married
after we finished school.
But I was a fool.

IV.
But I always loved you—
my wild risk taker!
My sweet gentle ******* of elms,
my lovely heartbreaker.

V.
Now you’re a dancer,
and a fine one, I’m told.
I saw you, once, in men’s magazine.
You hair was still maple
with highlights of gold,
your eyes just as green.
But somehow you didn’t quite seem
the wild sweet rambunctious angel of my dreams
who’d defy men’s eyes
and the edicts of heaven
simply to Swing.



The Latter Days: an Update
by Michael R. Burch, age 22

1.
Little Richard grew up. Now
the world is not the same, somehow.
And Elvis Presley passed away—
an idol but with feet of clay.
The Beatles left have shorn their locks;
John Lennon died and Heaven rocks,
though Yoko Ono still remains.
(The earth is full of passing pains.)

2.
The wall is being built, we hear,
although the reason’s far from clear.
But there’s one thing we know for sure:
there’s never money for the poor.
There are, however, trillions for
the one percent, and waging war.
’Cause Tweety has an “awesome” plan:
kiss Putin’s *** and nuke Iran!

3.
The Hebrew prophets long ago
warned of a Trump of Doom, and so
we wonder if this “little horn”
may be the Beast who earned their scorn.
But surely not! Trump claims to be
our Savior, true Divinity!
So please relax, admire his rod,
and trust this Orange Demigod!
I wrote the first stanza at age 22 in 1980, then updated the rest of the poem after Trump became president in 2016.



there is peace where i am going
by michael r. burch, circa age 15

lines written after watching a TV documentary about Woodstock

there is peace where i am going,
for i hasten to a land
that has never known the motion
of one windborne grain of sand;
that has never felt a tidal wave
nor seen a thunderstorm;
a land whose endless seasons
in their sameness are one.
there i will lay my burdens down
and feel their weight no more,
untouched beneath the unstirred sands
of a neverchanging shore,
where Time lies motionless in pools
of lost experience
and those who sleep, sleep unaware
of the future, past and present
(and where Love itself lies dormant,
unmoved by a silver crescent).
and when i lie asleep there,
with Death's footprints at my feet,
not a thing shall touch me,
save bland sand, lain like a sheet
to wrap me for my rest there
and to bind me, lest i dream,
mere clay again,
of strange domains
where cruel birth drew such harrowing screams.
yes, there is peace where i am going,
for i am bound to be
embalmed within the chill embrace
of this dim, unchanging sea …
before too long; i sense it now,
and wait, expectantly,
to feel the listless touch
of Immortality.

This poem was written circa 1973, around age 15, after I watched a TV documentary about Woodstock. I think I probably owe the last two lines to Emily Dickinson. I believe "those who sleep the sleep of Death" was written around the same time and under the same influence.


those who sleep the sleep of Death
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 15

those who sleep the sleep of Death
sleep to wake no more …
they lie upon a brackish shore
where Time's tides lash the rugged rocks
with waves that whip like ragged locks
of long, unkempt white hair
against the storm-filled air,
but nothing can disturb them there.
those who dream the dream of Death
fail to see how Time
pulses through the slime
of earth’s dark fulsome loam,
rank, rotting flesh and filthy foam …
for, standing far off from the shore,
She readies to attack once more
those She had but killed before.
those whom Death awakens
awaken to a sleep
that is far more deep
than any they had known before;
for there upon that ravaged shore,
they do not see how Time now drives
to destroy the fragile lives
of those who still survive.



The Song of the Wanderers
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18

Through many miles of space we have flown;
no life but ours have we known.
No other race have we seen in the stars,
nor under any sun that has shone.
None in the shadows, none in the sun,
none in the rainbows that brighten dark skies,
none in the valleys, none in the hills,
none in the rapids that ripple and rise.
Our quest is near ending; the stars have been searched;
we alone wander this vast universe.
For every green planet, every blue sky
we have encountered is barren of life.
We are alone, unless below
a creature exists somewhere in the snow.

The planet beneath us lies shackled by night.
The stars deck its mountains in garments of light.
Close to us, its moon hovers ghostly in flight.
Somewhere below us, perhaps there is life.

Come, let us seek life, before we return
to that fair planet for which our hearts yearn.

Here snow descends as the wind whistles down
from dark frozen northlands where glaciers abound.
See, on the far shoreline, pale mists compound.
Notice, companions,
how the sun, like a fiery stallion,
rears upon the eastern rim
of a mountain range haggard, weathered and grim.
A pity, perhaps, that at last it grows dim.

But there's no life here, and so we must leave
this desolate planet alone to its grief.

No, wait just a moment! What can this be …
concealed by dense fog here, surrounded by sea,
some type of vessel, storm-tossed, to and fro?
Yes, I believe, I'm sure that it's so!
Here near this shoreline, half-buried in snow,
lies a wrecked vessel
dripping salt water and seaweed tresses.

Make haste; let us hurry,
the sea in its fury
is dashing it upon the rocks!
It may well be that at last
we will see some relic of another race's past.

What's this? It's no vessel, no ship of the seas.
It's fashioned of stone and could not use the breeze.
It has no engine, no portals, no helm,
and yet it resembles … some demon from hell.

It must be a statue, with horns on its head,
long, flowing hair and a torch in its hand.
Broken and shattered, cast off by the sea,
tonight it erodes in this frozen dark sand.

No, come, let us leave, it was fashioned by wind,
molded by water and wasted therein.
Come, let us leave it, to hasten back home;
too long have we wandered, thus, lost and alone.

The Liberty calls us; we cannot delay.
Let us return now, and be underway.

Through many miles of space we have flown.
No other life have we known.
And now that we know that we are alone,
we search for our ancient home.
Somewhere ahead she awaits our return,
decked in bright garments of green;
for eons of time we have not seen her face,
and yet she has haunted our dreams.

Somewhere ahead lies the planet we left
when we set out the depths of deep space to explore,
and now how we long to dash through her streams
and sleep on her bright, sandy shores.

The last cold, dark planet lies dying behind us;
no others are left to be searched.
The Liberty soon her last descent shall make
when we relocate Mother Earth!



The spinster waltz
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 21

The spinster waltz is playing
in sad strains from other rooms,
but here, where love beams, reigning,
wedding bells greet brides and grooms.
O, the bachelors are a-waltzing,
but the married do not mind,
for they whirl with one another
to a far more hectic time.
And as they feel the music
seek to slow their breakneck thoughts,
they murmur of the things they've gained,
regretting what they've lost.



The offering
by Michael R. Burch, age 21

Tonight, if you will taste the tempting wine
and come to sit beside me, I will say
the words that you have thought that you might hear,
the words that I have feared that I might say.
And if you sit beside me with the goblet in your hand
and offer me a sip to give me strength,
then I will match your offer with an offer of my own,
and, offering, so offer back that strength.
And if I say, "I love you," don't laugh as though I jest,
for a jester I am not, as you can see.
And if I offer anything, I'll offer you myself —
the man I am and not the man you see.
For though you see successes and a man of many dreams,
I see a pauper throwing dreams away;
yes, once I dreamt of many things, but then I saw your face, and since
I dream no more, and dreams can fade away.
So if I offer you this ring of burnished gold that burns and sings,
please take it for the thought and not the gold.
And if I offer you my life, please understand, my love, don't sigh
and tell me that you do not care for gold.
I'm offering my love, my life, my joys, my cares, my fears, my nights,
the dreams that I have dreamt and dream no more,
I'm offering my soul, not gold … I'm offering my thoughts, my hopes …
I'm offering myself and nothing more.
And if this offer seems enough; if you can be content with love
and cherish one who loves you as I do,
then promise that I'll be your dreams, your hopes, your joys, your cares, all things
that you could ever want or want to do.
But if you cannot promise so, then let us say goodbye and go;
I cannot love you less than I do now,
but I would rather bear this pain and never, ever love again
than burn in hope and fear as I do now.



There Must Be Love
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 21

O, take me to
earth’s tallest mountain
and hurl me out
into the dark;
though I may fall
ten thousand miles,
still I’ll not say
this life is all.
I’ll shout, There’s more!
There must be more!
There must be Love.

Then take me to
faith’s highest fancy
and show me all
there is to see;
though all the world
bow prone before me,
still I’ll not say
this world is all.
I’ll pray, There’s more.
There must be more.
There must be Love.

Then lay me down
beside dark waters
where dying trees
shed lifeless leaves,
and though I shiver
with the knowledge
of my death,
I shall not grieve.
And when you say,
There must be more …
then I shall say,
There is … believe!

I’ll take your hand,
and we’ll believe.



This is how I love you
Michael R. Burch, circa age 18

Just to hold you as you sleep with your head against my shoulder,
just to kiss your sweet lips and to know that you are mine,
fills my heart with a sense of perfect completeness
of a light and airy sweetness,
like the scent of chilled white wine.
For the love with which I love you is a pure and sacred thing,
like the first touch of morning, when she bends to kiss her flowers;
for then the dancing daisies and the gleaming marigolds
reach out to receive her, each in turn, throughout dawn’s hours.
And the light with which she touches them
becomes their life; each stalk and stem
are born of her who gives herself
unselfishly. And to her spell
the flowers bend, full willingly,
with sometimes a hushed and fervent plea,
"Touch me, O sun, touch me!"



The Rose
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18

Oh Rose, thou art sick!”—William Blake

Where life begins the seeds of death
are likewise planted, but with faith
the rose's roots combat the weeds’
to seek the nourishment it needs.
Yet in its heart an insect breeds.
Where dreams take form the flower grows,
as do the weeds, and still the rose
is gay and lovely, though her thorns
are sharp! The casual touch she scorns …
yet insects eat her leaves in swarms.
When passion fails the rose grown old,
no longer are her petals bold—
in flaming glory bright-arrayed.
In weeds of death at last is laid
the rose by insects first betrayed.



Say You Love Me
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 22-25

Joy and anguish surge within my soul;
contesting there, they cannot be controlled;
now grinding yearnings grip me like a vise.
Stars are burning;
it's almost morning.
Dreams of dreams of dreams that I have dreamed
parade before me, forming formless scenes;
and now, at last, the feeling grows
as stars, declining,
bow to morning.
For you are music in my undreamt dreams,
rising from some far-off lyric spring;
oh, somewhere in the night I hear you sing.
Stars on fire
form a choir.
Now dawn's fierce brightness burns within your eyes;
you laugh at me as dancing starlets die.
You touch me so and still I don't know why . . .
But say you love me.
Say you love me.


Sheila
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 16

When they spoke your name,
"Sheila,"
I imagined a flowing mane
of reddish-orange hair
tinged with fire
and blazing eyes of emerald green
spangled with desire.
When I saw you first,
Sheila,
I felt an overwhelming thirst
for the taste of your lips
dry my lips and parch my tongue …
and, much worse,
I stuttered and stammered and lisped
in your presence.
But when I kissed you long,
Sheila,
I felt the morning come
with temperamental sun
to drive away the night
with reddish-orange light
and distant-sounding drums.
Now I will love you long,
as long as longing is,
Sheila.



The breathing low and the stars alight
by Michael R. Burch, age 19

Silently I'll steal away
into dank jungles pocked with night.
I'll give no thought to the coming day;
the breathing low and the stars alight
alone shall mark my passage through
in search of plateaus of delight.
Through valleys filled with shrieks of fright
I may pass; through vales of woe
I may move with footsteps light.
Who knows what trials I’ll undergo
at the hands of demon Night
before that fiend I overthrow?
And yet at last the ebb and flow
of time and tide will draw me tight
within Death’s grasp; then I shall know
the freedom of life's last respite,
safe from dread nightmares and despite
the breathing low and the black disquiet.



Parting
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 16-17

I was his friend, and he was mine; I knew him just a while.
We laughed and talked and sang a song; he went on with a smile.
He roams this land in search of life, intent on being "free."
I stay at home and write my poems and work on my degree.
I hope to be a writer soon, and dream of wild acclaim.
He doesn't know what he will do; he only knows he loves the wind and rain.
I didn't say goodbye to him; I know he'll understand.
I'll never write a word to him; I don't know that I can.
I knew he couldn't stay, and so … I didn't even ask.
We both knew that he had to go; I tried to ease his task.
We both know life's a winding road, with potholes every mile,
and if we hit a detour, well, it only brings vague sadness to our smiles.
One day he's bound to stop somewhere; perhaps he'll take a wife,
but for now he has to travel on, to seek a more "natural" life.
He knows such a life's elusive, but still he has to try,
just as I must write my poems although none please my eye.
For poetry, like life itself, is something most men rue;
still, we meet disappointments with a smile, and smile until the time that they are through.
He left me as I left a friend so many years ago;
I promised I would call him, but I never did; you know,
it's not that I didn't love him; it's just that gone is gone.
It makes no sense to prolong the end; you cannot stop the sun.
And I hope to find a lover soon, and I hope she'll love me too;
but perhaps I'll find disappointment; I know that it's a rare girl who is true.
I've been to many foreign lands, but now my feet are fast,
still, I hope to travel once again when my college days are past.
Our paths are very different, but we both do what we can,
and though we don't know what it means, we try to "act like men."
We were friends, and nothing more; what more is there to be?
We were friends for just a while … he went on to be "free."



Rose
by Michael R. Burch, age 18

Morning’s buds cling fervently
to the tiny drops of dew
that nourish them sacrificially,
as nature bids them to.
And how each petal cherishes
the tiny silver gems
that satisfy its thirst
and caress its slender stem.

All life comes of sacrifice,
which makes it doubly sweet;
for two lives sacrificed form one
and thus become complete.

Daisies plait the valleys
that give their strength to yield
such a tender host among
the steamy summer fields.

And how the flowers love the earth
that freely gives its life,
kissing and caressing it
throughout the hours of night.

So kiss me and caress me, love,
for you are my fair Rose.
And hold me through the depths of night
and the heights of our repose.

A bee entreats a flower:
a tiny drop is given.
A slender stalk caresses
and gains a speck of pollen.

All beings are dependent
on others being too.
And love cannot exist
except when shared by two.

So kiss me and caress me, love,
for you are my fair Rose.
And hold me through the depths of night
and the heights of our repose.



Spartacus
by Michael R. Burch, age 20

Take the fire
from her eyes
to light the darkening skies
exquisite shades
of blue and jade.

Place an orchid
in her hair
and tell her that you care,
because you do,
you surely do.

Sleep beside her
this last night;
a clover bed, deep green and white,
shall cushion you as leaves sing
sad elegies to fleeting spring.

Sleep beside her
in the dew,
both heartbeats fierce and true,
and praise the gods who give
such hearts, because you live.
Not many do.



So little time
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 14

There is so little time left to summer,
to run through the fields or to swim in the ponds …
to be young.
There is so little time left till autumn shall come.
There is so little time left for me to be free …
so little time, just *so, so little time.

If I were handsome and brawny and brave,
a love I would make and the time I would save.
If I were happy — not hamstrung, but free —
surely there would be one for me …
Perhaps there'd be one.

There is so little left of the sunshine
although there's much left of the rain …
there is so little left in my life not of strife and of pain.

I seem to remember writing this poem around age 14, in 1972. It was published in my high school journal, the Lantern, in 1976.



Valley of Stars
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 19

On a haunted moor, awash in starlight,
when all the world lay hushed and still,
while a ghostly orb, traversing the heavens,
bathed every ridge of every hill
in a shower of silver, I happened to spy
a shadow creeping against the sky.
And suddenly the shadow beckoned
with a fair white hand, then called my name!
Out of the haunting mists of midnight,
through webs of ethereal light she came—
the maiden I had wildly wanted,
that had long my heart enchanted.
It seemed to me that the stars shone brighter
as she slipped into my arms,
for they burned within the halo
of her flaxen hair and warmed
the air about us, so that I melted
into the haven of her arms' shelter.
Her fragrance of lilacs enraptured me;
her sparkling eyes beguiled me.
And when my lips found hers that night,
nothing could have defiled me,
or have dragged me down … we began to rise
through the mists and vapors of a spinning sky.
We rose for hours, or so it seemed,
through galaxies of pearl and blue.
She kissed my lips and made me feel
that all I've heard of love is true.
And now, although we're lost,
I never wonder where we are,
for my love and I
wander paths of the sky,
lost in a valley of stars.


We Dance and Dream
by Michael R. Burch, age 25

All the nights we danced it seemed
the stars above were dancing too,
and all the dreams we dared to dream
it seemed were old dreams dreamed anew.
But now no hallowed lovers’ lies
pass our lips or glaze our eyes;
and now no even wilder dreams
cause our lips, with anguished screams,
to pierce the peacefulness of night.
We dance and dream, bereft of light,
content to merely glide…



We kept the dream alive
by Michael R. Burch, age 18

Youthful reflections on the Vietnam War and the “Domino Theory”

So that our nation should not “fall,”
we sacrificed our lives;
we choked back fears
and blinked back tears.
Our skin broke out in hives.
We kept the dream alive.
We counted freedom
and honor worth saving;
a flag waving
against the sky
filled us with pride,
then led us to die.
But was it a lie?
What of the torch?
What of its flame?
We kept it lit through wind and rain.
It brought us woe and bitter pain.
And yet we bore it though it seemed
the vaguest semblance of a dream.
And all around the jungle screamed,
“This is no place for you to die;
the flag you fight for is a lie;
the torch you bear burns bitter flame;
the dream you cherish has no name
but darkest shame …”
We lost our lives,
but to what gain?



Will you walk with me
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18

Will you walk with me a mile down this lane?
for there is something I must say to you.
And, as my feelings cry to be explained,
this silence is a lie, bereft of truth.
As does the bird that sings, I so must tell
the feelings that my heart cannot keep in,
for it must be a sin to speechless dwell
when love entreats the trembling tongue to sing.
And thus I cannot watch you silently,
although I cringe to think that I must speak—
my lisping lips then tremble shamelessly,
my heart grows numb even as my knees go weak—
but now the time has come to not delay,
so listen closely to the words I say …

If I could only hold you through the night,
then wake to find you near me, each new day,
my life would be so full of sheer delight
that I would never notice should you stray.
If I could only kiss your wanton lips
and do so without fear of God's revenge,
then I would even kneel to kiss your whip,
and I would gladly bend to your demands.
For I not only love your loving moods,
fierce kisses and caresses and wild eyes,
but darling, I still love you when you brood.
I love you though you rail at me and lie.
For love is not a passion that should fade;
it burns!—the heat of sunlight on a cage.

This was one of my first sonnets, or "sonnet attempts," written around age 18 as a college freshman in 1976.



Where have all the flowers gone?
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18-19

Where have all the flowers gone
that once shone in your hair
when the sunlight touched them there?
Now summer's fields are dark and bare.
And what of all your lovely curls
that caught the sunlight till a halo
ringed their masses, golden-yellow?
Into ash-grey their fire has mellowed…
Where have all the starlings gone
whose voices blended with your own
in such a wild, emphatic song?
From winter's grasp those birds have flown.
And what of your own voice, my dear?
Those splendid notes I hear no more
which once from your sweet throat did pour.
For now your throat is parched and sore.
Oh, where have all the feelings gone?
We once could name them all—
emotions great and longings small . . .
But now we heed them not at all.
And what of our desire, my love,
which we once wildly bore
and felt at each soul's core?
That passion now is calm, demure.
For time has take all of this
and the little left leaves much to miss.



Were Love to Die
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 24

Were love to die without pained sighs,
without heartaches and brimming eyes,
then tell me—what would love be worth
if, dying, as in being birthed,
it were no more than other words?

Were love to die without a lie,
without attempts to keep it nigh,
then tell me—what would love have been
if, fleeing as in entering,
it was not holy, nor a sin?

Were love to cause no grief, or pain,
and come, then go, what would remain?
And tell me—what would love have left
if, being lost, as being kept,
it did not bless and curse our fate?



Won't you
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 21

Won't you lie in my arms in the clutches of wine
as dark petals, unfolding, whisper back to the vine?
Won't you dream of that day, as I bring you again
to an anguish, a heartache that throbs without end?
Won't you dream of a day when the ocean grew wild,
raging before us—green cauldron of bile!—
while the passions we shared were stirred by a wind
that later that evening sang softly of sin?
Won't you rise in your yearning and touch me again?
Won't you kiss me and curse me just as you did then?
Won't you hate me and hold me and scold me and say
that you'll never leave me, that this time you'll stay?
O, tonight be my lifeline, re-cresting love’s waves …
won't you rage in my arms as you did in those days?
Won't you be half as gentle as you are rough,
then spare me, care for me, saying, "This is enough!"
Won't you lie in my arms with a lie on your lips
and say to me, "Darling, there's nothing like this!"
Won't you tell me, please tell me, O, what is the harm,
as I lie here tonight with your child in my arms?



The lamp of freedom
by Michael R. Burch, age 16

When the lamp lies shattered,
its bowl can be remade,
but should its light be scattered,
light cannot be regained.
Hold high the lamp of freedom;
let a man be no man's slave.


Staying Free
by Michael R. Burch, age 19

Others dwell in darkness,
raging through the night,
slaves to fearsome demons,
though children of the light,
where, caught up in emotions
they fail to understand,
they flock to laud the Mocker
who kneads them in his hand.
And all the revelations
bright choirs of angels sing,
they never seem to notice
as their shackles clang and ring.
They know naught of freedom,
nor wish to—for, born slaves
into dull lives of servitude,
their chains they dearly crave.
But let them live their captive lives;
whatever they may be,
for I am bound to be a man
as long as I stay free.



What Is Love If It’s Not Forever?
by Michael R. Burch, age 17

My love, are you trying to tell me
that you no longer love me?
After all these years of sacrifice
and hope and joy and compromise,
are you saying that we are through?
You always called me a romanticist,
a fantasist, a dreamer,
while labeling yourself a realist,
a fatalist, a schemer …
but I thought that, perhaps,
a spark of romance
existed also in you.
And yet it seems that now,
incredibly, you wish to leave me,
and all that was said and done,
unselfishly, in the name of love,
must be written off as a total waste.
You often hinted at a dark side
to your inner nature,
while despairing of my “innocent,
unassuming character,”
but I had always hoped that
you would never act
in such haste.
For what is love if it’s not forever?
Can such an ethereal thing
exist beatifically for a moment
and then be gone … like spring?
Yes, what is love if it’s not forever?
Is it caresses and laughter and words sweet and clever,
intrigue and romance, sorrow and pain,
whirligig dances, sunshine and rain,
such as we had? Or is it more—
a volcanic struggle deep at heart’s core;
a wave of sweet sadness sweeping the shore
of one’s emotions; a rampaging ocean
of fantastical supposition;
a ******, gut-wrenching war
fought within oneself
—such as I often felt,
but which you admit now that you never have?
[etc., see handwritten version]
To prove you independence by leaving me
is a quaint paradox, but unresolvable.
So return to me, tell him goodbye,
and let us tend to mysteries more solvable.
For what is love if it’s not forever?
Perhaps we already know,
for we cannot live without one another:
like the sunshine and summer,
one cannot leave unless both will go.


When love is just a memory
by Michael R. Burch, age 25

When love is just a memory
of August nights’ enflaming wine;
when youth is just a dream,
a scene from some forgotten time;
when passion is a word for thought
and nights are spent with friends;
when we are old, and cannot “love,”
how will you love me then?
Are you so young and so naive
that "love" means this to you—
a fiery act, a frantic pact,
a whispered word or two?
O, darling, neither acts nor pacts
could ever bind our hearts;
only love might bond them,
but then neither would be yours.
And though we burn as one today,
what ember does not die?
Fire cleanses, but I fear
only tears can sanctify.
Yes, you may burn, and burn for me,
but can you shed a tear
to think that you and I might cool
somewhere within the coming years?
For love and hate are ill-defined,
and where they meet, we cannot tell,
but lust and love are unrelated,
however closely they may dwell.
And though I long for you tonight,
such hellish passion I prefer
to the hell of loving you
with heat untempered by the years.



Rag Doll
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 17

On an angry sea a rag doll is tossed
back and forth between cruel waves
that have marred her easy beauty
and ripped away her clothes.
And her arms, once smoothly tanned,
are gashed and torn and peeling
as she dances to the waters’
rockings and reelings.

She’s a rag doll now,
a toy of the sea,
and never before
has she been so free,
or so uneasy.

She’s slammed by the hammering waves,
the flesh shorn away from her bones,
and her silent lips must long to scream,
and her corpse must long to find its home.

For she’s a rag doll now,
at the mercy of all
the sea’s relentless power,
cruelly being ravaged
with every passing hour.

Her eyes are gone; her lips are swollen
shut to the pounding waves
whose waters reached out to fill her mouth
with puddles of agony.

Her limbs are limp; her skull is crushed;
her hair hangs like seaweed
in trailing tendrils draped across
a never-ending sea.

For she’s a rag doll now,
a worn-out toy
with which the waves will play
ten thousand thoughtless games
until her bed is made.

#MRBPOEMS #MRBPOETRY #MRBEARLY #MRBJUVENILIA #MRBJUV

Let’s pretend its kismet
I’m not opposed to that
We can meet in the piazza
Have ourselves a chat
You’ll know me by my red dress
That I have chosen for this day
And the trio serenading us
Will see our voice in sway
You may order coffee
A latte for me please
Maybe we can break some bread
Fon due our talk with cheese
Pigeons on the cobblestones
Will flap their wings in pray
Lovers smile a knowing
As we hand in hand our day
You may bring your camera
To mark this fait accompli
And I’ll scribble in my notebook
My Je t’aime, mon chéri…

Liberté Egalité Fraternité,  
le vrai Triptyque Républicain

En hommage à nos ancêtres qui surent être ambitieux et fonder un triptyque toujours primordial, jamais accompli ni vraiment réalisé.

LIBERTE !

Frêle comme doigts d’enfants,
Plus précieuse qu’un diamant,
Ton seul parfum nous enivre
Et comme, un bon vin, nous grise.
Tu es hymne à la vie
Qui fait lever des envies.
Tu suscite des passions,
Libère des émotions.
Tu fus conquise de haute lutte
Par nos ancêtres en tumulte.
Ils nous donnèrent pour mission

D’en multiplier les brandons.
A trop de Peuples, elle fait défaut.
Elle ne supporte aucun bâillon
Car si l’être vit bien de pain,
Il veut aussi choisir son chemin.
Si tous les pouvoirs la craignent,
Ma, si belle, tu charmes et envoute,
Mets les tyrans en déroute,
Sœur de Marianne la belle.

*
EGALITE !

Elle fut la devise d’Athènes,
Et révérée par les Romains.
Elle naquit en 89, avec la liberté du Peuple,
Est fille de Révolution.
Elle abolit les distinctions
Séparant les êtres sans raison.
Ouvre la voie à tous talents
Sans s’encombrer de parchemins.
C’est un alcool enivrant
Que l’égalité des droits.
C’est aussi une promesse
De secourir celui qui choit.
Si l’égalité fait tant peur,
C’est que son regard de lynx

Perce les supercheries
Et voit les hommes tels qu’ils sont.

FRATERNITE !

Elle coule, coule comme le miel,
Nectar de la ruche humaine.
Elle sait embellir nos vies,
Et faire reculer la grisaille,
Du calcul, froid et égoïste.
Dans la devise Républicaine
Elle tient la baguette de l’orchestre.
Comme un peintre inspiré, elle met,
Sur la toile, vive et vermillon.
Elle nous incite à l’humanisme.
Elle est petite fille de 89, fille de quarante –huit
Mais sut renaître en 68.
Elle est crainte par les puissants,
Qui n’ont jamais connu qu’argent,
C’est pourtant une essence rare.
Dans les temps durs, elle se cache,
Mais vient ouvrir la porte
Au Résistant pourchassé. Elle n’hésite pas aujourd’hui
À secourir un «sans papier»
Sa sœur est générosité.
Elle est la valeur suprême,
Qui rend possible le «vivre ensemble»
Et permet même au solitaire
De faire battre un cœur solidaire.
La fraternité reste la vraie conquête de l’humain.

Paul d’Aubin (Paul Arrighi) à Toulouse; France.

Sister Pius can still sense the taste of coffee on her tongue from breakfast with the slice of brown bread with a thin spread of butter as she turns over the page of the book on contemplation written by some unknown Carthusian nun the words momentarily failing to reach her the message left on the page the thought of the next meal already making her mouth moisten and the smell of fresh made coffee tempting her nose bringing to mind the first time she had come to the convent as a guest and young girl full of enthusiasm for the idea of being a nun much to her parent’s disquiet especially her mother who had wanted and been looking forward to grandchildren even though Eve as she was then had never been interested in boys or that side of things but her mother had said that would come she would find Mr Right and that side of things would come naturally implying Sister Pius muses now that being a nun was unnatural against nature and only the oddities in the world would want to be shut away from the world and men and their families and the prospect of marrying and having children and there had been the rows and the tempers frayed and the words said in haste and even on the day she entered her mother had not come around to the idea even if her father had accepted the fait accompli rather grudgingly and in all the years she had been in the convent her parents had not written once not a word just the one visit her father made looking at her as they spoke as if she had grown another head or caught a dreadful disease and had said her mother couldn’t bring herself to visit the place her daughter had died in and those words hurt the way her father had just come out with them the place her daughter had died in and yet she had her secrets too the things she had never told her parents especially her mother never mentioned once that her Uncle Randolph her mother’s brother had molested her one summer while she was staying with him and Aunt Grace while her parents were off on some tour of Europe and as she places her hand on the page of the book in front of her she can still feel his hands on her still sense his breath on her that smell of beer and tobacco and the roughness of his unshaven face as she leaned over her and as the memory returns again she closes the book with a small slam and the echo of it fills the room disturbs a paper on the table in front of her and the memory still fresh the deeds done so imbedded deeply that she doesn’t think it will ever go that it will ever leave and she had not said a word about that summer to anyone not even her mother not even to make a point about what men could do even those who were supposed to be close to you and yet she never did never said one word about him and the things he had done and taking a deep sigh she gets up from the chair and walks to the window looking down on the cloister garth and the mulberry tree that is now full of fruit and can see birds in the branches and a nun walking along the cloister ready to pull the bell for the office of Prime and even now she dislikes the smell of apples the smell of them cooking or the smell of apples being stored because apples she associates with him and the place he took her and the things he did and it was apples she could smell as he touched her and interfered with her and the scent of apples in the air as he leaned over her and looking down again into the cloister the nun has gone and the early morning sun is coming over the cloister wall and the bell is being tolled for Prime and making the sign of the cross she pushes the memory of him and his deeds and that summer back into the depths of her mind closes the door on it in the room in her brain’s memory cells and looking up at the Crucified on the wall above her bed with the features of the Christ battered by time and its hands she nods her head and looks away taking in her mind the image of Him and perhaps a sense of peace and the fact that she is a bride after all a bride of Christ married to one who would not ****** or hurt or say cruel words or betray and where no smell of apples will spoil her day.

À Armand Silvestre


Un cachot. Une femme à genoux, en prière.

Une tête de mort est gisante par terre,

Et parle, d'un ton aigre et douloureux aussi.

D'une lampe au plafond tombe un rayon transi.


« Dame Reine. - Encor toi, Satan ! - Madame Reine.

- « Ô Seigneur, faites mon oreille assez sereine

« Pour ouïr sans l'écouter ce que dit le Malin ! »

- « Ah ! ce fut un vaillant et galant châtelain

« Que votre époux ! Toujours en guerre ou bien en fête,

« (Hélas ! j'en puis parler puisque je suis sa tête.)

« Il vous aima, mais moins encore qu'il n'eût dû.

« Que de vertu gâtée et que de temps perdu

« En vains tournois, en cours d'amour **** de sa dame

Qui belle et jeune prit un amant, la pauvre âme ! » -

- « Ô Seigneur, écartez ce calice de moi ! » -

- « Comme ils s'aimèrent ! Ils s'étaient juré leur foi

De s'épouser sitôt que serait mort le maître,

Et le tuèrent dans son sommeil d'un coup traître. »

- « Seigneur, vous le savez, dès le crime accompli,

J'eus horreur, et prenant ce jeune homme en oubli,

Vins au roi, dévoilant l'attentat effroyable,

Et pour mieux déjouer la malice du diable,

J'obtins qu'on m'apportât en ma juste prison

La tête de l'époux occis en trahison :

Par ainsi le remords, devant ce triste reste,

Me met toujours aux yeux mon action funeste,

Et la ferveur de mon repentir s'en accroît,

Ô Jésus ! Mais voici : le Malin qui se voit

Dupe et qui voudrait bien ressaisir sa conquête

S'en vient-il pas loger dans cette pauvre tête

Et me tenir de faux propos insidieux ?

Ô Seigneur, tendez-moi vos secours précieux ! »

- « Ce n'est pas le démon, ma Reine, c'est moi-même,

Votre époux, qui vous parle en ce moment suprême,

Votre époux qui, damné (car j'étais en mourant

En état de péché mortel), vers vous se rend,

Ô Reine, et qui, pauvre âme errante, prend la tête

Qui fut la sienne aux jours vivants pour interprète

Effroyable de son amour épouvanté. »

- « Ô blasphème hideux, mensonge détesté !

Monsieur Jésus, mon maître adorable, exorcise

Ce chef horrible et le vide de la hantise

Diabolique qui n'en fait qu'un instrument

Où souffle Belzébuth fallacieusement

Comme dans une flûte on joue un air perfide ! »

- « Ô douleur, une erreur lamentable te guide,

Reine, je ne suis pas Satan, je suis Henry ! » -

- « Oyez, Seigneur, il prend la voix de mon mari !

À mon secours, les Saints, à l'aide, Notre Dame ! » -

- « Je suis Henry, du moins, Reine, je suis son âme

Qui, par sa volonté, plus forte que l'enfer,

Ayant su transgresser toute porte de fer

Et de flamme, et braver leur impure cohorte,

Hélas ! vient pour te dire avec cette voix morte

Qu'il est d'autres amours encor que ceux d'ici,

Tout immatériels et sans autre souci

Qu'eux-mêmes, des amours d'âmes et de pensées.

Ah, que leur fait le Ciel ou l'enfer. Enlacées,

Les âmes, elles n'ont qu'elles-mêmes pour but !

L'enfer pour elles c'est que leur amour mourût,

Et leur amour de son essence est immortelle !

Hélas ! moi, je ne puis te suivre aux cieux, cruelle

Et seule peine en ma damnation. Mais toi,

Damne-toi ! Nous serons heureux à deux, la loi

Des âmes, je te dis, c'est l'alme indifférence

Pour la félicité comme pour la souffrance

Si l'amour partagé leur fait d'intimes cieux.

Viens afin que l'enfer jaloux, voie, envieux,

Deux damnés ajouter, comme on double un délice,

Tous les feux de l'amour à tous ceux du supplice,

Et se sourire en un baiser perpétuel ! »

« - Âme de mon époux, tu sais qu'il est réel

Le repentir qui fait qu'en ce moment j'espère

En la miséricorde ineffable du Père

Et du Fils et du Saint-Esprit ! Depuis un mois

Que j'expie, attendant la mort que je te dois,

En ce cachot trop doux encor, nue et par terre,

Le crime monstrueux et l'infâme adultère

N'ai-je pas, repassant ma vie en sanglotant,

Ô mon Henry, pleuré des siècles cet instant

Où j'ai pu méconnaître en toi celui qu'on aime ?

Va, j'ai revu, superbe et doux, toujours le même,

Ton regard qui parlait délicieusement

Et j'entends, et c'est là mon plus dur châtiment,

Ta noble voix, et je me souviens des caresses !

Or si tu m'as absoute et si tu t'intéresses

À mon salut, du haut des cieux, ô cher souci,

Manifeste-toi, parle, et démens celui-ci

Qui blasphème et ***** d'affreuses hérésies ! » -

- « Je te dis que je suis damné ! Tu t'extasies

En terreurs vaines, ô ma Reine. Je te dis

Qu'il te faut rebrousser chemin du Paradis,

Vain séjour du bonheur banal et solitaire

Pour l'amour avec moi ! Les amours de la terre

Ont, tu le sais, de ces instants chastes et lents :

L'âme veille, les sens se taisent somnolents,

Le cœur qui se repose et le sang qui s'affaisse

Font dans tout l'être comme une douce faiblesse.

Plus de désirs fiévreux, plus d'élans énervants,

On est des frères et des sœurs et des enfants,

On pleure d'une intime et profonde allégresse,

On est les cieux, on est la terre, enfin on cesse

De vivre et de sentir pour s'aimer au delà,

Et c'est l'éternité que je t'offre, prends-la !

Au milieu des tourments nous serons dans la joie,

Et le Diable aura beau meurtrir sa double proie,

Nous rirons, et plaindrons ce Satan sans amour.

Non, les Anges n'auront dans leur morne séjour

Rien de pareil à ces délices inouïes ! » -


La Comtesse est debout, paumes épanouies.

Elle fait le grand cri des amours surhumains,

Puis se penche et saisit avec ses pâles mains

La tête qui, merveille ! a l'aspect de sourire.

Un fantôme de vie et de chair semble luire

Sur le hideux objet qui rayonne à présent

Dans un nimbe languissamment phosphorescent.

Un halo clair, semblable à des cheveux d'aurore

Tremble au sommet et semble au vent flotter encore

Parmi le chant des cors à travers la forêt.

Les noirs orbites ont des éclairs, on dirait

De grands regards de flamme et noirs. Le trou farouche

Au rire affreux, qui fut, Comte Henry, votre bouche

Se transfigure rouge aux deux arcs palpitants

De lèvres qu'auréole un duvet de vingt ans,

Et qui pour un baiser se tendent savoureuses...

Et la Comtesse à la façon des amoureuses

Tient la tête terrible amplement, une main

Derrière et l'autre sur le front, pâle, en chemin

D'aller vers le baiser spectral, l'âme tendue,

Hoquetant, dilatant sa prunelle perdue

Au fond de ce regard vague qu'elle a devant...

Soudain elle recule, et d'un geste rêvant

(Ô femmes, vous avez ces allures de faire !)

Elle laisse tomber la tête qui profère

Une plainte, et, roulant, sonne creux et longtemps :

- « Mon Dieu, mon Dieu, pitié ! Mes péchés pénitents

Lèvent leurs pauvres bras vers ta bénévolence,

Ô ne les souffre pas criant en vain ! Ô lance

L'éclair de ton pardon qui tuera ce corps vil !

Vois que mon âme est faible en ce dolent exil

Et ne la laisse pas au Mauvais qui la guette !

Ô que je meure ! »

Avec le bruit d'un corps qu'on jette,

La Comtesse à l'instant tombe morte, et voici :

Son âme en blanc linceul, par l'espace éclairci

D'une douce clarté d'or blond qui flue et vibre

Monte au plafond ouvert désormais à l'air libre

Et d'une ascension lente va vers les cieux.


. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .


La tête est là, dardant en l'air ses sombres yeux

Et sautèle dans des attitudes étranges :

Telle dans les Assomptions des têtes d'anges,

Et la bouche ***** un gémissement long,

Et des orbites vont coulant des pleurs de plomb.

It was January 4th 1778, and once again the General had not slept well. He rose before dawn and as was his practice, he wandered down to the southern banks of the Schuylkill River.  Valley Forge had been particularly cold since New Year’s Day, and he was awaiting any word about new supplies being smuggled out from the friends his Army still had in Philadelphia.

The Congress had recently been moved and sheltered in York which was about seventy miles due West of his current position in Valley Forge.  The British had taken Philadelphia and were rumored to be encamped in the heart of the city.  Many residents had fled the Capitol just before the British arrived.  Fresh off their success at the Battle of Brandywine, they did not receive the warm welcome that they were expecting when they entered the city.  According to European standards, when you capture the capitol city of your enemy, the war is then over.  The problem with Philadelphia however was that this was not Europe — and Washington was no ordinary General.

Standing alone by the river’s bank, the General thought he saw something move in the tall grass to his right.  His first instinct was to draw his cap and ball pistol, but for a reason unexplained, he did not.  He called out in the direction of the movement, but no sound was heard.  As he turned to walk back to his tent, he saw a branch move and heard the same sound again.  Slowly, a figure about six feet tall emerged from the river brush.  As he walked slowly toward where the General now stood, it was clear this was no combatant, either Colonial or British — this was an Indian.

He walked directly up to the now still Washington and extended his hand.  He said his name was Tamani, and he and his people were living on three of the islands located in the middle of the Schuylkill River about two miles East of where they were now. The Lenape were a branch of the Delaware Tribe that had originally migrated South from Labrador.  They had populated almost all of southeastern Pennsylvania and especially those lands that bordered the Delaware River.  

The British had inflicted tremendous cruelty on the Lenape during their march toward Philadelphia and had driven the entire tribe from almost all of their ancestral lands.  The Colonists had been much kinder and had in fact been interacting peacefully with the Lenape back to the time of William Penn.

Tamani spoke very good English, and General Washington knew how to ‘sign.’  Sign was the universal language spoken by almost all of the indian tribes and was conveyed with a complex series of hand gestures.  After Tamani saw that the General could understand his words, he discontinued his ‘signing.’  Tamani told the great American leader that his people had been driven from their native lands along the banks of the Delaware and were now in hiding inside the treeline of three remote islands just a short distance down the Schuylkill.  

They would leave and go ashore every night to hunt pheasant and deer but always be back before dawn so the British scouts would not discover them.  Tamani was bitter and angry about what the British had done to his people, and he was also upset that the British had commandeered many of the Colonists homes in the city. The displaced were now living in rustic shacks along the banks of both the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers, and many of these Colonists were his friends.

General Washington asked Tamani if he had seen any British troops in the last several days.  Tamani said he had not and in fact had not seen any Red Coats any further west than Gladwyne or Conshohocken.   Washington asked Tamani how he could know this for sure.  Tamani said that he and his two sons knew of all British troop movements because there was a secret path on the other side of the river that ran all the way from Valley Forge to the falls at Gray’s Ferry.  Gray’s Ferry is where the British had a built a bridge that floats (Ferry) across the river this past winter, and it was their primary way to cross into the city from all directions South.

Washington was more than intrigued.  He asked Tamani how many members of his tribe knew about this secret trail.  Tamani said just he and his two sons.  Tamani had two sons and a daughter by his wife Wasonomi, but only the two boys had been down the 17-mile trail that paralleled the river on the far bank.  He also said that the trail could not be seen from the water because it was so heavily covered with native Sassafras and Poplars.

The dense brush made the northern bank impossible to see from either a boat or when viewed from a quarter mile away on the southern shore.  By keeping this trail a secret — Washington thought to himself — even the Indians knew that loose words sometimes trump the loudest canon.

Washington told Tamani that the only information he had received was from the few brave horse mounted scouts that had tried to infiltrate the city at night. They would then flee before morning with whatever local knowledge the remaining loyalists to the revolution could provide.  Lately, he had been losing more men than had been returning.  

Tamani told the General that by using the trail, he could pass totally unseen into the city on any night and return along the same route without the British noticing.  From where the trail ended at Grays Ferry, he and his oldest son had climbed the tall poplars and watched British troop movement both in and around the city.  The General now extended his own hand to Tamani and said: I need you to do something for me.

I need you to take me along this path and show me what you have seen. Tamani stood frozen for a moment as if he didn’t believe his own ears.  Here was the Great General of the American Army, the greatest general that he had ever heard of, wanting to make the 17-mile trip to Philadelphia virtually alone and unprotected by his troops.  Washington also told Tamani that he could tell no one of his plan.  

To ensure this, General Washington took the plume from his Tricorn Hat and presented it with great ceremony to Tamani.  He said: Tamani,  you and I are now brothers, and we must keep between us what only brothers know.  Tamani sensed the importance of the moment and handed Washington a small pouch from the breechcloth he was wearing.  Inside was the Totem of his family’s ancestry.  It was a small stone with a Turtle inscribed on one side and a spear on the other.  The General took the stone in both of his hands and placed it over his heart.  Both men agreed to meet again along the river’s bank at dawn of the second day.

For most of two days, Washington thought about his narrow escape at Brandywine and how these British had menaced him all along the Delaware River to this isolated field so far from where he wanted to be.  He had heard from one of his own scouts that there was British dissension within some of Howe’s troops, but he wanted to see firsthand what he might be facing.  At daybreak on the second day, he walked to the riverbank again.  This time he again saw no life or activity only a small fox with her yearling kits heading down the steep bank to drink.  

After twenty minutes, the General turned to walk away when he heard a whistle coming from the same bush as before.  He approached cautiously and there stood Tamani, but he was not alone.  He had two young men with him that looked to be about a year apart in age.   These are my two Sons, Miquon and Yaqueekhon, Tamani said, as he pointed downriver.  It is just the three of us who know the way along the river that leads to where your enemy sleeps.  Washington greeted both young braves by touching them on both shoulders and then turned to Tamani and said:.  I would like to take the path to the British, and I would like to take it tonight.

Tamani said that he and his two sons would be ready and waiting and that they could leave as soon as the sun was down.  Washington said he would like to leave earlier than that and that he would meet them where the river turns when it is the deer’s time to drink.  During the winter months that would roughly be 4:00 in the afternoon.   With that, the three native men turned away and disappeared into the trees.

Tonight, Washington would alert his men that he would be working and then sleeping at the Isaac Potts House, (better known as Washington’s Headquarters), instead of in his field tent which was his usual practice. He needed to be alone so he could slip away unnoticed along Valley Creek to where the Schuylkill turned and where he would then meet his three new friends.

The General had been spending most of his nights with his troops sleeping in his field tent high atop Mount Joy.  It was here that he was provided with the best views to the east toward Philadelphia.  He had felt guilty about sleeping in the big stone headquarters with the comfortable bed and fireplace for warmth when so many of his men froze.  Tonight though, there would be no sleep and no guarantee of what the morning might bring.  

With all the risk and challenge set before him, he approached it like every battle he had fought up until now.  This would be a fight for information and one that just possibly might allow him to formulate a timetable and a plan for his next attack.  He lit the candle in his bedroom window — as was his practice — and locked the door from the outside.  He then slipped out the side door of the big stone house and headed for the bank. It was now 3:45 in the afternoon and already starting to get dark.

As the General arrived at the bend in the river he saw two canoes pulled up on the bank and covered with branches of pine.  Standing off in the trees, about fifty feet from the two craft, were Tamani and his two sons.  Tamani greeted Washington as his brother.  He explained that they would take the two small boats downriver for what the whites called five miles, and then cross to the other side to begin their walk.

Washington was in a canoe with the older of Tamani’s two sons Miquon.  They paddled quietly for over an hour until Tamani ‘signed’ back something that Miquon quickly understood. From where they were now, on the right (south) side of the river, he signaled for them to head directly across the Schuylkill to the bank on the far side.  This was what the Delaware Tribe had always referred to as Conshohocken.  

As they reached the far bank, Tamani’s two sons quickly hid the canoes in the underbrush.  As Washington started to walk toward Tamani, Miquon took a satchel out of the first canoe and handed it to the General.  For your feet, said Miquon.  Washington opened the satchel and found a large pair of Indian leggings with Moccasins attached at the bottom.  These will help you to walk faster, said Tamani, as Washington sat on a log, removed his boots, and strapped them on.  In two more minutes, the four men were walking east on the hidden trail just ten feet from the north bank of the Schuylkill River.  They had 12 miles still to go, and the surrounding countryside and river were now almost totally covered in darkness.

I say almost, because there were a few flickering lights from lanterns on the far southern bank.  The four men listened for sounds, but heard nothing, as the lights faded and then disappeared as they progressed downstream.  Miquon told his father that they needed to get to the British War Dance before the moon had passed overhead (roughly midnight), and his father grunted in agreement.  Washington wondered what this British War Dance could possibly be but figured that he would wait for a more appropriate time to ask that question.

For two hours, the four men walked in silence.  The only sounds that any of them heard were the breathing of the man in front and the ripples from the approaching current.  The occasional perch that jumped in the dark while hunting for food kept them alert and vigilant as they continued to visually scan the far bank. The going was slow in many places, but at least the terrain was flat and well worn down.  Someone used this path on a regular basis, and the General couldn’t help but wonder not only who that might be but when they had last used it.

Tamani stopped by a large clump of rocks at the river’s edge and reached behind the smallest of the boulders.  He pulled out a well-worn leather satchel and laid it on the ground in front of the other three men.  Miquon reached inside and handed a small ball which was lightly colored to the General.  Pinole, Miquon said as he placed it within Washington’s open hand. Pinole, you eat, Miquon said again.  Tamani looked at the slightly perplexed General and said, Pinole, it’s ground corn meal and good for energy, you eat!  With that, the General took a bite and was surprised that the taste was better than he had expected.  

They lingered for no longer than five minutes on the trail and were again quickly on their way.  Washington marveled at the speed and efficiency of his Indian guides and again thought to himself: "The Indian Nations would have been very hard to beat if they could ever have come together as one force.  We could learn much from them."

The moon was almost directly overhead when Tamani raised his right arm directing the others behind him to stop.  There were lights up ahead and voices could now be heard in the distance.  Tamani told the General: One more mile to ferry crossing.  With that they proceeded at a much slower pace while increasing the distance between each man.  Tamani and Miquon had made this trip many times, but this was the first time that Yaqueekhon had been this far.  For Washington, the feeling of being back in his beloved Capitol, coupled with his hatred of the British, had his senses at a high level.  He felt an acute awareness overtake him beyond that of any previous experience.

Looking across the river toward ‘Grays Ferry’ reminded Washington of the many times he had played along the Rappahannock River in Virginia as a boy.  He moved to ‘Ferry Farm’ in Virginia when he was still young and when his father Augustine had become the Managing Partner of the Accokeek Iron Furnace.  Those days along the Rappahannock were some of the happiest of his life, and he secretly longed for a time when he could mindlessly wander a river’s banks once again — but not tonight!

Miquon now pointed to a tall clump of trees directly ahead.  They were right along the river’s edge and there were large branches that protruded out as much as twenty feet over the water.  Tamani said: We climb.

From this location, the four men climbed two different trees to a height of over forty feet.  Once situated near the top they secured their packs, looked off toward the North, and waited.  From this position they could clearly see Market Street and all of the comings and goings in the center of town.  Washington noticed one thing that gave him pause … he didn’t see any British soldiers.  Tamani told the General in a hushed tone that almost all of the soldiers were in German’s Town (Germantown) with only a small detachment left in the center of the city for sentry duty and to watch.

Why Germantown Washington asked?  This had been the site of our last battle, and he was surprised more troops had not been positioned in the center of town to protect the Capitol.  Too much food and drink, Tamani said.  It took Washington a minute to process the words from before. The British War Dance.  The Indians also had a sense for satire and irony.

                               The British Had Been Celebrating

Is it possible, the General wondered, that the British could still be celebrating their last victory at the Battle of Germantown, and could they have let the King’s military protocol really slip that far? Washington knew that General Howe was under extreme criticism for his handling of the war so far, and there were rumors that he might now be headed back to England to defend himself before parliament.

                                    When The Cat’s Away …

Washington’s impression of what he was now facing immediately changed.  He believed he was now charged with defeating a British force that had tired and lost faith in the outcome of the war.  In their minds, if capturing the new American Capitol had not turned the tide, and men were willing to freeze and starve in an isolated woods rather than surrender, then this cause was almost certainly lost. In that mood they decided to party and celebrate in a fait accompli.

                           A Revolutionary ‘Fait Accompli

For three more hours, they observed Philadelphia in its vulnerable and seemingly de-militarized state.  Many of the houses were empty as the residents had left when the outcome of the Battle of Brandywine was made known.  Washington closed his eyes, and he could see Mr. Franklin walking down Market Street and talking with each person that he passed.  He then saw a vision from deep inside of himself showing that this scene would be recreated soon.  The British couldn’t last in the demoralized state that they were now in. He knew now that it was more important than ever, for he and his men, to make it through the rest of the long cold winter, and into the Spring campaign of 1778.

Washington signaled to Tamani that it was time to go.  Before he left, he asked if he could borrow the Chief’s knife.  After climbing down the big poplar, he walked around to the side of the tree that was facing Philadelphia and inscribed these immortal words  — WASHINGTON WAS HERE!

All the way back along the trail, Washington was a different man than before.  If he had ever had any doubts about the outcome of the war, they were now vanished from his mind.  He asked Tamani and his two sons if they would continue to monitor the trail for him on a weekly basis.  They said that they would,and would he please keep their secret about being encamped on the three islands in the middle of the Schuylkill River.  They also pledged their help as scouts, in the coming spring campaign, against what was left of the British.

Washington pledged both his secrecy and loyalty to the Lenape Tribe and continued to meet with Tamani along the banks of Valley Creek until the winter had finally ended.  The constant updating of information that Washington had originally seen with his own eyes allowed him to formulate a plan that would drive the British from the America’s forever.  He was forever grateful to the Lenape people, and together they kept a secret that has remained unknown to this very day.

With all the rumors of where he slept, or where he ate, there is one untold rumor that among Native People remains true.  Along a dark frozen riverbank, in the company of real Americans, the Father of Our Country stalked the enemy. And in doing so …

                                            He walked !



Kurt Philip Behm

"Aren't you going to write something today martin?"
-No shut up-
"You really ought to you know."
-Why? I don't have to write something every day. Anyway, who are you?-
"I'm your muse."
-Well it's your job then. Come on, 'a'muse me ha ha.  I'm waiting. Cough up or shut up.-

"Don't you think you're being slightly unreasonable? As your muse I can give you an idea but you have to run with it. I don't present it as a fait accompli do I?   So now, how about a limerick?"
-Go on then-
"What do you mean go on then? What's on your mind today?  The sea, the stars, the sky, outer space?"
-Just you at the moment muse.  Ok, just listen to this then leave me alone.-

                   My useless excuse for a muse
                   Is hardly the one I would choose
                   He isn't much cop
                   He argues a lot
                   And when asked to perform will refuse

"Mmm...not your best but...I knew there was something in there waiting to come out. Just needed a little **** didn't it?
-Mess off muse, or I'll give you a little ****.-
"Bye, see you tomorrow. Perhaps you'll be in a better mood."
-*******-

Depuis qu'Adam, ce cruel homme,
A perdu son fameux jardin,
Où sa femme, autour d'une pomme,
Gambadait sans vertugadin,
Je ne crois pas que sur la terre
Il soit un lieu d'arbres planté
Plus célébré, plus visité,
Mieux fait, plus joli, mieux hanté,
Mieux exercé dans l'art de plaire,
Plus examiné, plus vanté,
Plus décrit, plus lu, plus chanté,
Que l'ennuyeux parc de Versailles.
Ô dieux ! ô bergers ! ô rocailles !
Vieux Satyres, Termes grognons,
Vieux petits ifs en rangs d'oignons,
Ô bassins, quinconces, charmilles !
Boulingrins pleins de majesté,
Où les dimanches, tout l'été,
Bâillent tant d'honnêtes familles !
Fantômes d'empereurs romains,
Pâles nymphes inanimées
Qui tendez aux passants les mains,
Par des jets d'eau tout enrhumées !
Tourniquets d'aimables buissons,
Bosquets tondus où les fauvettes
Cherchent en pleurant leurs chansons,
Où les dieux font tant de façons
Pour vivre à sec dans leurs cuvettes !
Ô marronniers ! n'ayez pas peur ;
Que votre feuillage immobile,
Me sachant versificateur,
N'en demeure pas moins tranquille.
Non, j'en jure par Apollon
Et par tout le sacré vallon,
Par vous, Naïades ébréchées,
Sur trois cailloux si mal couchées,
Par vous, vieux maîtres de ballets,
Faunes dansant sur la verdure,
Par toi-même, auguste palais,
Qu'on n'habite plus qu'en peinture,
Par Neptune, sa fourche au poing,
Non, je ne vous décrirai point.
Je sais trop ce qui vous chagrine ;
De Phoebus je vois les effets :
Ce sont les vers qu'on vous a faits
Qui vous donnent si triste mine.
Tant de sonnets, de madrigaux,
Tant de ballades, de rondeaux,
Où l'on célébrait vos merveilles,
Vous ont assourdi les oreilles,
Et l'on voit bien que vous dormez
Pour avoir été trop rimés.

En ces lieux où l'ennui repose,
Par respect aussi j'ai dormi.
Ce n'était, je crois, qu'à demi :
Je rêvais à quelque autre chose.
Mais vous souvient-il, mon ami,
De ces marches de marbre rose,
En allant à la pièce d'eau
Du côté de l'Orangerie,
À gauche, en sortant du château ?
C'était par là, je le parie,
Que venait le roi sans pareil,
Le soir, au coucher du soleil,
Voir dans la forêt, en silence,
Le jour s'enfuir et se cacher
(Si toutefois en sa présence
Le soleil osait se coucher).
Que ces trois marches sont jolies !
Combien ce marbre est noble et doux !
Maudit soit du ciel, disions-nous,
Le pied qui les aurait salies !
N'est-il pas vrai ? Souvenez-vous.
- Avec quel charme est nuancée
Cette dalle à moitié cassée !
Voyez-vous ces veines d'azur,
Légères, fines et polies,
Courant, sous les roses pâlies,
Dans la blancheur d'un marbre pur ?
Tel, dans le sein robuste et dur
De la Diane chasseresse,
Devait courir un sang divin ;
Telle, et plus froide, est une main
Qui me menait naguère en laisse.
N'allez pas, du reste, oublier
Que ces marches dont j'ai mémoire
Ne sont pas dans cet escalier
Toujours désert et plein de gloire,
Où ce roi, qui n'attendait pas,
Attendit un jour, pas à pas,
Condé, lassé par la victoire.
Elles sont près d'un vase blanc,
Proprement fait et fort galant.
Est-il moderne ? est-il antique ?
D'autres que moi savent cela ;
Mais j'aime assez à le voir là,
Étant sûr qu'il n'est point gothique.
C'est un bon vase, un bon voisin ;
Je le crois volontiers cousin
De mes marches couleur de rose ;
Il les abrite avec fierté.
Ô mon Dieu ! dans si peu de chose
Que de grâce et que de beauté !

Dites-nous, marches gracieuses,
Les rois, les princes, les prélats,
Et les marquis à grands fracas,
Et les belles ambitieuses,
Dont vous avez compté les pas ;
Celles-là surtout, j'imagine,
En vous touchant ne pesaient pas.
Lorsque le velours ou l'hermine
Frôlaient vos contours délicats,
Laquelle était la plus légère ?
Est-ce la reine Montespan ?
Est-ce Hortense avec un roman,
Maintenon avec son bréviaire,
Ou Fontange avec son ruban ?
Beau marbre, as-tu vu la Vallière ?
De Parabère ou de Sabran
Laquelle savait mieux te plaire ?
Entre Sabran et Parabère
Le Régent même, après souper,
Chavirait jusqu'à s'y tromper.
As-tu vu le puissant Voltaire,
Ce grand frondeur des préjugés,
Avocat des gens mal jugés,
Du Christ ce terrible adversaire,
Bedeau du temple de Cythère,
Présentant à la Pompadour
Sa vieille eau bénite de cour ?
As-tu vu, comme à l'ermitage,
La rondelette Dubarry
Courir, en buvant du laitage,
Pieds nus, sur le gazon fleuri ?
Marches qui savez notre histoire,
Aux jours pompeux de votre gloire,
Quel heureux monde en ces bosquets !
Que de grands seigneurs, de laquais,
Que de duchesses, de caillettes,
De talons rouges, de paillettes,
Que de soupirs et de caquets,
Que de plumets et de calottes,
De falbalas et de culottes,
Que de poudre sous ces berceaux,
Que de gens, sans compter les sots !
Règne auguste de la perruque,
Le bourgeois qui te méconnaît
Mérite sur sa plate nuque
D'avoir un éternel bonnet.
Et toi, siècle à l'humeur badine,
Siècle tout couvert d'amidon,
Ceux qui méprisent ta farine
Sont en horreur à Cupidon !...
Est-ce ton avis, marbre rose ?
Malgré moi, pourtant, je suppose
Que le hasard qui t'a mis là
Ne t'avait pas fait pour cela.
Aux pays où le soleil brille,
Près d'un temple grec ou latin,
Les beaux pieds d'une jeune fille,
Sentant la bruyère et le thym,
En te frappant de leurs sandales,
Auraient mieux réjoui tes dalles
Qu'une pantoufle de satin.
Est-ce d'ailleurs pour cet usage
Que la nature avait formé
Ton bloc jadis vierge et sauvage
Que le génie eût animé ?
Lorsque la pioche et la truelle
T'ont scellé dans ce parc boueux,
En t'y plantant malgré les dieux,
Mansard insultait Praxitèle.
Oui, si tes flancs devaient s'ouvrir,
Il fallait en faire sortir
Quelque divinité nouvelle.
Quand sur toi leur scie a grincé,
Les tailleurs de pierre ont blessé
Quelque Vénus dormant encore,
Et la pourpre qui te colore
Te vient du sang qu'elle a versé.

Est-il donc vrai que toute chose
Puisse être ainsi foulée aux pieds,
Le rocher où l'aigle se pose,
Comme la feuille de la rose
Qui tombe et meurt dans nos sentiers ?
Est-ce que la commune mère,
Une fois son oeuvre accompli,
Au hasard livre la matière,
Comme la pensée à l'oubli ?
Est-ce que la tourmente amère
Jette la perle au lapidaire
Pour qu'il l'écrase sans façon ?
Est-ce que l'absurde vulgaire
Peut tout déshonorer sur terre
Au gré d'un cuistre ou d'un maçon ?

fate whispers in winds
hopes fail in fait accompli
whispers fade to blank

Madame, croyez-moi ; bien qu'une autre patrie

Vous ait ravie à ceux qui vous ont tant chérie,

Allez, consolez-vous, ne pleurez point ainsi ;

Votre corps est là-bas, mais votre âme est ici :

C'est la moindre moitié que l'exil nous a prise ;

La tige s'est rompue au souffle de la brise ;

Mais l'ouragan jaloux, qui ternit sa splendeur,

Jeta la fleur au vent et nous laissa l'odeur.

A moins, à moins pourtant que dans cette retraite

Vous n'ayez apporté quelque peine secrète.

Et que là, comme ici, quelque ennui voyageur

Se cramponne à votre âme, inflexible et rongeur :

Car bien souvent, un mot, un geste involontaire.

Des maux que vous souffrez a trahi le mystère,

Et j'ai vu sous ces pleurs et cet abattement

La blessure d'un cœur qui saigne longuement.

Vous avez épuisé tout ce que la nature

A permis de bonheur à l'humble créature,

Et votre pauvre cœur, lentement consumé,

S'est fait vieux en un jour, pour avoir trop aimé :

Vous seule, n'est-ce pas, vous êtes demeurée

Fidèle à cet amour que deux avaient juré.

Et seule, jusqu'au bout, avez pieusement

Accompli votre part de ce double serment.

Consolez-vous encor ; car vous avez. Madame,

Achevé saintement votre rôle de femme ;

Vous avez ici-bas rempli la mission

Faite à l'être créé par la création.

Aimer, et puis souffrir, voilà toute la vie :

Dieu vous donna longtemps des jours dignes d'envie

Aujourd'hui, c'est la loi. vous payez chèrement

Par des larmes sans fin ce bonheur d'un moment.

Certes, tant de chagrins, et tant de nuits passées

A couver tristement de lugubres pensées.

Tant et de si longs pleurs n'ont pas si bien éteint

Les éclairs de vos yeux et pâli votre teint.

Que mainte ambition ne se fût contentée,

Madame, de la part qui vous en est restée.

Et que plus d'un encor n'y laissât sa raison.

Ainsi qu'aux églantiers l'agneau fait sa toison.

Mais votre âme est plus haute, et ne s'arrange guère

Des consolations d'un bonheur si vulgaire ;

Madame, ce n'est point un vase où, tour à tour,

Chacun puisse étancher la soif de son amour ;

Mais Dieu la fit semblable à la coupe choisie,

Dans les plus purs cristaux des rochers de l'Asie,

Où l'on verse au sultan le Chypre et le Xérès,

Qui ne sert qu'une fois, et qui se brise après.

Gardez-la donc toujours cette triste pensée

D'un amour méconnu et d'une âme froissée :

Que le prêtre debout, sur l'autel aboli,

Reste fidèle au Dieu dont il était rempli ;

Que le temple désert, aux vitraux de l'enceinte

Garde un dernier rayon de l'auréole sainte.

Et que l'encensoir d'or ne cesse d'exhaler

Le parfum d'un encens qui cessa de brûler !

Il n'est si triste nuit qu'au crêpe de son voile

Dieu ne fasse parfois luire une blanche étoile,

Et le ciel mit au fond des amours malheureux

Certains bonheurs cachés qu'il a gardés pour eux.

Supportez donc vos maux, car plus d'un les envie ;

Car, moi qui parle, au prix du repos de ma vie.

Au prix de tout mon sang. Madame, je voudrais

Les éprouver un jour, quitte à mourir après.

They think it's me
and
it could very well be.

I say,
let them think as they will
and
I'm sure that they will,
but
it's not what I think.

'Could do better',
written in a letter
when people used
to write such things.

Change for necessity
and
I wonder
what does that alter for me?

Is it that
what
will be will be
is our fate?

Here's a sigh to those who love me,
And a smile to those who hate ;
And whatever sky's above me,
Here's a heart for every fate.
BYRON.


Amis ! c'est donc Rouen, la ville aux vieilles rues,
Aux vieilles tours, débris des races disparues,
La ville aux cent clochers carillonnant dans l'air,
Le Rouen des châteaux, des hôtels, des bastilles,
Dont le front hérissé de flèches et d'aiguilles
Déchire incessamment les brumes de la mer ;

C'est Rouen qui vous a ! Rouen qui vous enlève !
Je ne m'en plaindrai pas. J'ai souvent fait ce rêve
D'aller voir Saint-Ouen à moitié démoli,
Et tout m'a retenu, la famille, l'étude,
Mille soins, et surtout la vague inquiétude
Qui fait que l'homme craint son désir accompli.

J'ai différé. La vie à différer se passe.
De projets en projets et d'espace en espace
Le fol esprit de l'homme en tout temps s'envola.
Un jour enfin, lassés du songe qui nous leurre,
Nous disons : " Il est temps. Exécutons! c'est l'heure. "
Alors nous retournons les yeux : la mort est là !

Ainsi de mes projets. Quand vous verrai-je, Espagne,
Et Venise et son golfe, et Rome et sa campagne,
Toi, Sicile que ronge un volcan souterrain,
Grèce qu'on connaît trop, Sardaigne qu'on ignore,
Cités de l'aquilon, du couchant, de l'aurore,
Pyramides du Nil, cathédrales du Rhin !

Qui sait ? Jamais peut-être. Et quand m'abriterai-je
Près de la mer, ou bien sous un mont blanc de neige,
Dans quelque vieux donjon, tout plein d'un vieux héros,
Où le soleil, dorant les tourelles du faîte,
N'enverra sur mon front que des rayons de fête
Teints de pourpre et d'azur au prisme des vitraux ?

Jamais non plus, sans doute. En attendant, vaine ombre,
Oublié dans l'espace et perdu dans le nombre,
Je vis. J'ai trois enfants en cercle à mon foyer ;
Et lorsque la sagesse entr'ouvre un peu ma porte,
Elle me crie : Ami ! sois content. Que t'importe
Cette tente d'un jour qu'il faut sitôt ployer !

Et puis, dans mon esprit, des choses que j'espère
Je me fais cent récits, comme à son fils un père.
Ce que je voudrais voir je le rêve si beau !
Je vois en moi des tours, des Romes, des Cordoues,
Qui jettent mille feux, muse, quand tu secoues
Sous leurs sombres piliers ton magique flambeau !

Ce sont des Alhambras, de hautes cathédrales,
Des Babels, dans la nue enfonçant leurs spirales,
De noirs Escurials, mystérieux séjour,
Des villes d'autrefois, peintes et dentelées,
Où chantent jour et nuit mille cloches ailées,
Joyeuses d'habiter dans des clochers à jour !

Et je rêve ! Et jamais villes impériales  
N'éclipseront ce rêve aux splendeurs idéales.
Gardons l'illusion ; elle fuit assez tôt.
Chaque homme, dans son coeur, crée à sa fantaisie
Tout un monde enchanté d'art et de poésie.
C'est notre Chanaan que nous voyons d'en haut.

Restons où nous voyons. Pourquoi vouloir descendre,
Et toucher ce qu'on rêve, et marcher dans la cendre ?
Que ferons-nous après ? où descendre ? où courir ?
Plus de but à chercher ! plus d'espoir qui séduise !
De la terre donnée à la terre promise
Nul retour ; et Moïse a bien fait de mourir !

Restons **** des objets dont la vue est charmée.
L'arc-en-ciel est vapeur, le nuage est fumée.
L'idéal tombe en poudre au toucher du réel.
L'âme en songes de gloire ou d'amour se consume.
Comme un enfant qui souffle en un flocon d'écume,
Chaque homme enfle une bulle où se reflète un ciel !

Frêle bulle d'azur, au roseau suspendue,
Qui tremble au moindre choc et vacille éperdue !
Voilà tous nos projets, nos plaisirs, notre bruit !
Folle création qu'un zéphyr inquiète !
Sphère aux mille couleurs, d'une goutte d'eau faite !
Monde qu'un souffle crée et qu'un souffle détruit !

Le saurons-nous jamais ? Qui percera nos voiles,
Noirs firmaments, semés de nuages d'étoiles ?
Mer, qui peut dans ton lit descendre et regarder ?
Où donc est la science ? Où donc est l'origine ?
Cherchez au fond des mers cette perle divine,
Et, l'océan connu, l'âme reste à sonder !

Que faire et que penser ? Nier, douter, ou croire ?
Carrefour ténébreux ! triple route! nuit noire !
Le plus sage s'assied sous l'arbre du chemin,
Disant tout bas : J'irai, Seigneur, où tu m'envoies.
Il espère, et, de ****, dans les trois sombres voies,
Il écoute, pensif, marcher le genre humain !

Mai 1830.

I pulled all this right out of ur ***:

u've obviously go more brains
up ur *** than I do in my head

w/o ur *** I'd have no head
no brain no face to disgrace

w/ ur atomic traces of genius &
light fields open to being waves;
a wave is the completion of the
cycle of creation & destruction
of a field; a field is the wave's
own internal displacement from
the larger surrounding field;
w/in the wave is an independent
chronology accelerated relative
to but not separated from the
velocity of the field; there is
nothing beyond the field; if it
does not expand it collapses but
it can only be expanded by forces
from w/in a particular wave
w/ enough independent velocity
to overtake the wave itself &
break through to the field around
it & continue on past its limits

SoB

Standing for nothing….
  falling for everything

Time becomes your master
  each moment—zero sum

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2018)

Jihad Donald Trump Style
The glory of America, now heats up
with agitation poised to strike on the brink
sans legislation incites humiliation,
which goads desecration as fete accompli *****
in armor of Democratic rubric, constituting capitalistic
ethic, generic iconoclastic, and jingoistic logic,
nor budging an inch when mandating masses swallow his drink
what huff huck – this belligerent, dominant and
fervent hell raiser doth bungle in the jungle
decreeing tacit Mar shall law fast as a shutterfly eyewink
as his cosmic crotch grab doth put Venus under his sway
with his Mercury hill temperament
pitches the orbit of planet Earth tubby comb out of balance
infected by hiz anti Ju pit er damnations, excoriations, fulminations
Huzzah sing how **** derriere didst Sat urn simultaneously
crushing crucible as an Uranus
indiscriminately plop ping two hundred fifty pounds off flesh
dub ling down snapchatting and humming his favorite Neptune
that dost affect Pluto hoc crass sea
repeating a self coined motto – I yam all mighty, therefore no fink
simply commandeering the reins of control,
a one man military intelligence groupthink
hut triad and true dyed in the wool rip pug in ant guise zing rogue
rejoicing tuff fool, governing and hoodwink
Fake king the die hard fans of dictatorial, linkedin and monarchist ink
cube bus thriving on wielding indomitable aggression
practiced in the Art of the Deal incorporating an unanticipated jink
iron fist rule reigning down vis a vis
pro pens heave lee and prop hen city
flashing hiz seal of approval, which scribbled signature
doth not smooth monkey serve hay puzzling kink
boot his frenzy to bulldoze catastrophic, formulaic, and illogic
spells these United States of America twill become hell
in a hand basket worth repeating with nary a trace of the grit of link
kin, the sixteenth president
(whose ruggedly pioneering frontier existence)
found him steady and strong, plus soft hearted as pelt o’ mink
the epitomy of this forty fifth elected commander in mischief.

The black hole opens up
I have drunk from that cup many times before.
The fait accompli
doesn't worry me.
I have stood and I shall stand alone.
Man does not need a home
he needs a heart.
I parted from that years ago
I would like to know
why that still pains me so.

I cannot see
the darkness holds me tight but in spite of that
or because of that
I would like to be
liked by someone similar to me.

Not the same but not the opposite
don't want to attract
the false positive.
Is that negative?
Do I give a ****?
Give me a bit of advice
tell me that life's just a slice of the pie
walk on by if you must
shake the dust from your shoes
win or lose
it's the same
dark is the name
the black hole is the game
and I
lose.

September now,
and the year outpaces me
I race it but can't catch my breath
and coming up,fast from behind,riding a bicycle though he's blind is death,with fingers cold as ice,
and you thought sweating wasn't nice,let me sweat,
let me get a bit more time to end this race.
Death, please turn and face the other way beat me to the finish line another day
and death just nods,
two sodding dogs which lag some where in the rear,bark to let me know the end is near,
I howl they growl, a sound that no one should ever hear.

September now,
and how I've loved the months before,been up and down and loved them even more.
September Autumn song,
so long I won't hear you again
won't see leaves fall or feel the rain for I am chained to destiny,her and me, a fait accompli,the ally,she cracks the whip and I comply.

September now,how I wish it wasn't so.

Nos chemins se sont croisé et décroisé
A distance
Nous étions pèlerins de jeux antédiluviens.
Nous nous sommes envoûté de mots
Et de rêves d'ombres et de chair
Et seuls nos mots peuvent désensorceler
Nos sangs et nos dieux archaïques.
Nos mots sont des onguents, des potions magiques
Des philtres et des pommades
Dotés de pouvoirs incomparables.
Ce sont des déictiques et embrayeurs
Ils accomplissent par la seule force du Verbe.
Instantanément.

Nos mots sont des poudres miracles dont nous baptisons nos envies
Et ils sécrètent leurs propres antidotes.

Il ne nous restait plus qu'à les mettre en scène,
Titiller nos mamelons lubriques,
Mordiller le creux de nos nuques et aisselles,
En dansant la danse des dugongs ou des pangolins
Mais chacun a sa propre lecture
Son propre phrasé
Et le déhanchement des Muses Dugongs
N'est en rien celui du Poète Pangolin.
Rendez-vous posthume, donc.
Aujourd'hui j'attendais ma muse
Sans trop me faire d'illusions
Comme chaque matin de mes jours
Je lui ai préparé son café et ses billets doux
Mais ma muse boude depuis quatre jours et quart
Ma source d'eaux charnelles s'est desséchée
Ma muse n'est plus ma muse
Pas même un filet de muse chez le poissonnier ou le boucher
Ma muse ne fait plus mumuse
Ma muse tarie ne frissonne plus
Ne viendra pas jouer mon ombre
Ne jouira plus de mes délires d'orphie.
C’est un fait accompli, mûri, implacable
Et je me rends aux évidences.
Mais l'oiseau est têtu et bande encore de joie
Sur l'élan magistral qu'elle lui a impulsé :
Je mordille, je griffe, je câline,
Je bois, je lèche, je grignote,
La distance qui nous lie désormais
Lentement comme une corde raide
Un pacte d'amour courtois
Inébranlable,
Irremplaçable .

Mon ami, ma plus belle amitié, ma meilleure,

- Les morts sont morts, douce leur soit l'éternité !

Laisse-moi te le dire en toute vérité,

Tu vins au temps marqué, tu parus à ton heure ;


Tu parus sur ma vie et tu vins dans mon cœur

Au jour climatérique où, noir vaisseau qui sombre,

J'allais noyer ma chair sous la débauche sombre.

Ma chair dolente, et mon esprit jadis vainqueur,


Et mon âme naguère et jadis toute blanche !

Mais tu vins, tu parus, tu vins comme un voleur,

- Tel Christ viendra - Voleur qui m'a pris mon malheur !

Tu parus sur ma mer non pas comme une planche


De salut, mais le Salut même ! Ta vertu

Première, la gaieté, c'est elle-même, franche

Comme l'or, comme un bel oiseau sur une brandie

Qui s'envole dans un brillant turlututu.


Emportant sur son aile électrique les ires

Et les affres et les tentations encor ;

Ton bon sens, - tel après du fifre c'est du cor, -

Vient paisiblement mettre fin aux délires,


N'étant point, ô que non ! le prud'homisme affreux,

Mais l'équilibre, mais la vision artiste,

Sûre et sincère et qui persiste et qui résiste

A l'argumentateur plat comme un songe creux ;


Et ta bonté, conforme à ta jeunesse, est verte,

Mais elle va mûrir délicieusement !

Elle met dans tout moi le renouveau charmant

D'une sève éveillée et d'une âme entr'ouverte.


Elle étend, sous mes pieds, un gazon souple et frais

Où ces marcheurs saignants reprennent du courage,

Caressés par des fleurs au *** parfum sauvage,

Lavés de la rosée et s'attardant exprès.


Elle met sur ma tête, aux tempêtes calmées.

Un ciel profond et clair où passe le vent pur

Et vif, éparpillant les notes dans l'azur

D'oiseaux volant et s'éveillant sous les ramées.


Elle verse à mes yeux, qui ne pleureront plus,

Un paisible sommeil dans la nuit transparente

Que de rêves légers bénissent, troupe errante

De souvenirs et d'espoirs révolus.


Avec des tours naïfs et des besoins d'enfance,

Elle veut être fière et rêve de pouvoir

Être rude un petit sans pouvoir que vouloir

Tant le bon mouvement sur l'autre prend d'avance.


J'use d'elle et parfois d'elle j'abuserais

Par égoïsme un peu bien surérogatoire,

Tort d'ailleurs pardonnable en toute humaine histoire

Mais non dans celle-ci, de crainte des regrets.


De mon côté, c'est vrai qu'à travers mes caprices,

Mes nerfs et tout le train de mon tempérament.

Je t'estime et je t'estime, ô si fidèlement,

Trouvant dans ces devoirs mes plus chères délices.


Déployant tout le peu que j'ai de paternel

Plus encor que de fraternel, malgré l'extrême

Fraternité, tu sais, qu'est notre amitié même,

Exultant sur ce presque amour presque charnel !


Presque charnel à force de sollicitude

Paternelle vraiment et maternelle aussi.

Presque un amour à cause, ô toi de l'insouci

De vivre sinon pour cette sollicitude.


Vaste, impétueux donc, et de prime-saut, mais

Non sans prudence en raison de l'expérience

Très douloureuse qui m'apprit toute nuance.

Du jour lointain, quand la première fois j'aimais :


Ce presque amour est saint ; il bénit d'innocence

Mon reste d'une vie en somme toute au mal,

Et c'est comme les eaux d'un torrent baptismal

Sur des péchés qu'en vain l'Enfer déçu recense.


Aussi, précieux toi plus cher que tous les moi

Que je fus et serai si doit durer ma vie,

Soyons tout l'un pour l'autre en dépit de l'envie,

Soyons tout l'un à l'autre en toute bonne foi.


Allons, d'un bel élan qui demeure exemplaire

Et fasse autour le monde étonné chastement,

Réjouissons les cieux d'un spectacle charmant

Et du siècle et du sort défions la colère.


Nous avons le bonheur ainsi qu'il est permis.

Toi de qui la pensée est toute dans la mienne,

Il n'est, dans la légende actuelle et l'ancienne

Rien de plus noble et de plus beau que deux amis,


Déployant à l'envi les splendeurs de leurs âmes,

Le Sacrifice et l'Indulgence jusqu'au sang,

La Charité qui porte un monde dans son flanc

Et toutes les pudeurs comme de douces flammes !


Soyons tout l'un à l'autre enfin ! et l'un pour l'autre

En dépit des jaloux, et de nos vains soupçons,

A nous, et cette foi pour de bon, renonçons

Au vil respect humain où la foule se vautre,


Afin qu'enfin ce Jésus-Christ qui nous créa

Nous fasse grâce et fasse grâce au monde immonde

D'autour de nous alors unis, - paix sans seconde ! -

Définitivement, et dicte: Alléluia.


« Qu'ils entrent dans ma joie et goûtent mes louanges ;

Car ils ont accompli leur tâche comme dû,

Et leur cri d'espérance, il me fut entendu,

Et voilà pourquoi les anges et les archanges


S'écarteront de devant Moi pour avoir admis,

Purifiés de tous péchés inévitables

Et des traverses quelquefois épouvantables,

Ce couple infiniment bénissable d'Amis. »

Ainsi les plus abjects, les plus vils, les plus minces
Vont régner ! ce n'était pas assez des vrais princes
Qui de leur sceptre d'or insultent le ciel bleu,
Et sont rois et méchants par la grâce de Dieu !
Quoi ! tel gueux qui, pourvu d'un titre en bonne forme,
À pour toute splendeur sa bâtardise énorme,
Tel enfant du hasard, rebut des échafauds,
Dont le nom fut un vol et la naissance un faux,
Tel bohème pétri de ruse et d'arrogance,
Tel intrus entrera dans le sang de Bragance,
Dans la maison d'Autriche ou dans la maison d'Est,
Grâce à la fiction légale is pater est,
Criera : je suis Bourbon, ou : je suis Bonaparte,
Mettra cyniquement ses deux poings sur la carte,
Et dira : c'est à moi ! je suis le grand vainqueur !
Sans que les braves gens, sans que les gens de coeur
Rendent à Curtius ce monarque de cire !
Et, quand je dis : faquin ! l'écho répondra : sire !
Quoi ! ce royal croquant, ce maraud couronné,
Qui, d'un boulet de quatre à la cheville orné,
Devrait dans un ponton pourrir à fond de cale,
Cette altesse en ruolz, ce prince en chrysocale,
Se fait devant la France, horrible, ensanglanté,
Donner de l'empereur et de la majesté,
Il trousse sa moustache en croc et la caresse,
Sans que sous les soufflets sa face disparaisse,
Sans que, d'un coup de pied l'arrachant à Saint-Cloud,
On le jette au ruisseau, dût-on salir l'égout !

- Paix ! disent cent crétins. C'est fini. Chose faite.
Le Trois pour cent est Dieu, Mandrin est son prophète.
Il règne. Nous avons voté ! Vox populi. -
Oui, je comprends, l'opprobre est un fait accompli.
Mais qui donc a voté ? Mais qui donc tenait l'urne ?
Mais qui donc a vu clair dans ce scrutin nocturne ?
Où donc était la loi dans ce tour effronté ?
Où donc la nation ? Où donc la liberté ?
Ils ont voté !

Troupeau que la peur mène paître
Entre le sacristain et le garde champêtre
Vous qui, pleins de terreur. voyez, pour vous manger,
Pour manger vos maisons, vos bois, votre verger,
Vos meules de luzerne et vos pommes à cidre,
S'ouvrir tous les matins les mâchoires d'une hydre
Braves gens, qui croyez en vos foins, et mettez
De la religion dans vos propriétés ;
Âmes que l'argent touche et que l'or fait dévotes
Maires narquois, traînant vos paysans aux votes ;
Marguilliers aux regards vitreux ; curés camus
Hurlant à vos lutrins : Dæmonem laudamus ;
Sots, qui vous courroucez comme flambe une bûche ;
Marchands dont la balance incorrecte trébuche ;
Vieux bonshommes crochus, hiboux hommes d'état,
Qui déclarez, devant la fraude et l'attentat,
La tribune fatale et la presse funeste ;
Fats, qui, tout effrayés de l'esprit, cette peste,
Criez, quoique à l'abri de la contagion ;
Voltairiens, viveurs, fervente légion,
Saints gaillards, qui jetez dans la même gamelle
Dieu, l'orgie et la messe, et prenez pêle-mêle
La défense du ciel et la taille à Goton ;
Bons dos, qui vous courbez, adorant le bâton ;
Contemplateurs béats des gibets de l'Autriche
Gens de bourse effarés, qui trichez et qu'on triche ;
Invalides, lions transformés en toutous ;
Niais, pour qui cet homme est un sauveur ; vous tous
Qui vous ébahissez, bestiaux de Panurge,
Aux miracles que fait Cartouche thaumaturge ;
Noircisseurs de papier timbré, planteurs de choux,
Est-ce que vous croyez que la France, c'est vous,
Que vous êtes le peuple, et que jamais vous eûtes
Le droit de nous donner un maître, ô tas de brutes ?

Ce droit, sachez-le bien, chiens du berger Maupas,
Et la France et le peuple eux-mêmes ne l'ont pas.
L'altière Vérité jamais ne tombe en cendre.
La Liberté n'est pas une guenille à vendre,
Jetée au tas, pendue au clou chez un fripier.
Quand un peuple se laisse au piège estropier,
Le droit sacré, toujours à soi-même fidèle,
Dans chaque citoyen trouve une citadelle ;
On s'illustre en bravant un lâche conquérant,
Et le moindre du peuple en devient le plus grand.
Donc, trouvez du bonheur, ô plates créatures,
À vivre dans la fange et dans les pourritures,
Adorez ce fumier sous ce dais de brocart,
L'honnête homme recule et s'accoude à l'écart.
Dans la chute d'autrui je ne veux pas descendre.
L'honneur n'abdique point. Nul n'a droit de me prendre
Ma liberté, mon bien, mon ciel bleu, mon amour.
Tout l'univers aveugle est sans droit sur le jour.
Fût-on cent millions d'esclaves, je suis libre.
Ainsi parle Caton. Sur la Seine ou le Tibre,
Personne n'est tombé tant qu'un seul est debout.
Le vieux sang des aïeux qui s'indigne et qui bout,
La vertu, la fierté, la justice, l'histoire,
Toute une nation avec toute sa gloire
Vit dans le dernier front qui ne veut pas plier.
Pour soutenir le temple il suffit d'un pilier ;
Un français, c'est la France ; un romain contient Rome,
Et ce qui brise un peuple avorte aux pieds d'un homme.

Jersey, le 4 mai 1853.

Employing deception
because the work must be done
we continue to point the
emasculate gun

pop.

and the way becomes clear
freer and
in here where the liars abound
I go to ground.

Nothing like asexuality to
bother me
and
there is no and, right hand,
left hand, no and left and
fait accompli
and
all deceived me
I perceive this to be true..

Actually this is *******,
like those things in a boat
do we use
****** to row with?

see what I did there?
pulled **** out of thin air
and I'm aware of it.

I miss her
always will
but
drop a pill
and sleep

it'll be alright in the morning.

The kiss without the passion
That's how it felt to me
The lightest touch
The smallest peck
A feathers breath indeed

The fire without the rage
Passion was the key
A kiss without the passion
A real... fait accompli

A touch that had no loving
No hold or guarantee
No eyes to see
Just blackness
No life for you or me

Her look that looked
right past me
Blinded out to sea
The touch that missed the feeling
Life in misery

Notre être, à l’incipit, apparaît minuscule
Puis se développe notre histoire jusqu’à son crépuscule
Une existence imaginée comme un cycle par quelques têtus
Constituée d’un début, d’une suite d’intrigues, et d’une fin, avant de nous voir repus

La partie la plus longue est communément appelée la vie
Selon le contexte certaines dérangent et d’autres donnent envie
Certaines sont accompagnées de louanges et d’autres de mépris
D’échecs qui démangent, et de réussites anodines qu’on oublie

Est-il raisonnable de se comparer et de se sentir misérable ?
Alors qu’en creusant un peu on trouverait facilement quelque chose de louable
Quelque chose que l’on a accompli pour aider une personne
Peu importe la teneur de l’effort, l’essentiel est que l’on donne
De sa personne, de son temps, de son pécule
Apportant ainsi un instant de joie, un sourire, en somme rien de ridicule
A quelqu’un dans le besoin, en détresse, ou se sentant inutile
Tel une montre suisse à laquelle il manquerait une pile
En oubliant que nous faisons tous partie d’un seul et même écosystème
Que la mort du phytoplancton* entraînerait l’extinction de la race humaine
Dans une époque où il semblerait que la réussite se mesure à la hauteur de ce qui est ou peut être consommé,
J’estime que nous sommes tous importants et avons tous une valeur
Inestimable, tout en étant palpable et faisant preuve de splendeur
Et qui ne se restreint pas seulement à quelques possessions futiles et prochainement démodées
Pauvreté et richesse se retrouvent souvent en cohabitation
Quelques âmes en peine et perdues rêvent de jouir un jour de la possibilité de posséder un avion
Alors qu’il est possible de voler et de voyager rien qu’avec de l’imagination
Que courir, c’est voler entre deux foulées, voler par intermittence
Que penser c’est voyager et contempler des pensées, sans avoir besoin de prendre des vacances
Il est possible de créer et d’exister via la culture d’une passion
Permettant la naissance d’un bien commun
Un bien immatériel ou non, portant un amour inconsidéré en son sein
Non par hasard mais par dessein.

« Au milieu des choses », on se retrouve parachuté
Dans un monde, une société qu’il est pénible de changer
Mais l’histoire française nous a montré
Qu’en nous y mettant tous ensemble rien ne pourra nous résister.

Bob Wilke
excelled at the close up
kind of magic -
that pick a card sort of thing -
great at parties,
when the chatter
is lacking
and the astonished
were a bit off-plumb
and didn't notice he ain't
practiced much.

Now Roy Dennison,
on the other hand,
would pull a maggot
from your nose
if he knew you were lying -
a fait accompli kind of thing.
He always said doves were too big,
too flighty, rabbits nibble his pockets,
and Roy, just too ******
lazy to feed 'em proper.

Emma McFadden,
oh - now
she
had
the apparatus -
that steampunk clinking thing
with exposed gears,
whirling barber poles,
horns that puked blue smoke
and methane, chain,
sawblades and springs,
flywheels and pulleys -
all the things necessary
to rip a body apart
and leave the choking crowd
gasping for more,
always wondering.

Some say they spotted her,
one or two times with a shovel
under that old scraggly sycamore
behind Dennison's place.
That may be the case or
just a bunch of flap, I don't know.
I ain't going back there, though
I do have some ideas
on the supply side
of Roy's maggots.

What a show.
Man oh man, those were the days.
What a show.