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Helen Raymond Apr 2017
I know I’ve been away
For a little while
I’d like to tell myself to bring it back
But let me stay a little bit unconquerable
A little piece of me, a piece of you
All tangled up and hidden away
Quiet ascendance  
Finding what my former self had tangled up
In savage, bitter knots of
Doubt and fear
Unraveled now by the acceptance
Sweet ascendance
Leaving me naked now in my reflections
But the less I hide, the less you see
And the more I come to relish in that victory
harlon rivers Mar 2018
sword-shaped
wild iris leaves
pierce the meadow sod,
reaching outwards
from cold reclusive shelter
beneath native strawberry
carpeted  repose

juxtaposed  ―  smoke rises
to  the  sun
like the basal verdures
of fleeting winter's escape;
crawling up an invisible
spiral staircase seeking
the azure heavens
r e n a s c e n c e

a  nexus ―
stormy winter’s windfall
and,
  irony of a wooden match,
gathered winter tinder
inflamed,   sacrificed
to the heraldic spring skies
of the begetter;

just  like
the  wistful  soul
beheld a simple  man
that impatiently rests
on the threshold
   of a dream,..
unnoticed
by the billowing silence
of evanescent
winter exile:

daydreaming
a peaceful ascendance;
dissipating puffs of smoke
drifting  away
unto the ether,
weightless as light


harlon rivers ... spring 1st, 2018
thank you for reading
the past moments shared
M Harris Apr 2017
Elemental Metamorphosis & Transcendental Milestones,
Sempiternal Origamis Of Her Temperamental Clones,

Spiraling Perpetuities & Her Sacrosanct Fortitude,
Procreating Tipsy Ruptures In Her Permeating Solitude,

Perplexed Momentum & Her Outlandish Constellations,
Nuclear Decay Of Her Masked Radiations,

Verbal Shadows & Her Tranquil Ascendance,
Encasing Her Tears In Liquefied Transcendence,

Yearning Oddities & Entropic Oceans,
Vitalizing Inexorable Emotions Into Phosphorescent Potions,

An Hourglass Existence Of Her Fabricated Virility,
Dwelling In Quantum Ascents Of Ardent Agility,

Silver Ghosts Of Her Prismatic Abyss,
Convicting Glass Houses In Her Ecstatic Bliss,

Telepathic Shades & Hollow Palisades,
Detrimental Novelists On Uncharted Crusades,

Pernicious Scars In Her Profound Gaze,
Erupting Genesis Inside Her Dimensional Maze,

Perplexed Periphery & Digital Fictions,
Annexed By Her Hourglass Depictions,

Breakdown Sanity & Her Concealed Screams,
Lifelike Dewdrops In Her Visionary Dreams,

Satellite Searchlights & Love//Less Progenic Mutation,
Paralyzed Sunlight Sparking Genetic Alteration,

Monochromatic Streams & Cinematic Realms,
Static Screams Of Her Toxic Schemes.

- 05:43 AM -
Eslam Dabank Oct 2022
Nobility divine fills gaps of transcendence,
    Soars to and from the throne heavenly,
Exalts morals near the king of ascendance,
    Patrolling the good, and sons of the seventy.

A duty forgotten, replaced with dependence,
    On prayers rarely heard, and logic of a herd -
Divinity is far in absence; man in attendance,
    The book is a third, and teachings are blurred.

Andeliviuan corruption supposedly erased:
    The creation rotten of Sariel, wanders gaily.
The holy and fallen angel’s doing embraced,
    By the clay beings caressing evil like a frailly.

By God not, who from heaven him displaced.
    Yet, the legacy of the wrong stands humanly,
In Thailand, America, Palestine, and all graced -
     A grace of sinfulness celestial and worldly.  

Religion is the poor’s only ultimate truth,
     the rich’s side hustle, and the rulers’ tool;
It is the loss of power that defiles the sooth,
    The one the poor has not, but does the fool.

Robbers’ servants, bread crumbs consumers,
    Toothless **** dogs, emaciated lost tramps,
Little blind pawns, vultures’ puppets, tumours,
    And wrenches they are, the upper hand’s lambs.

If only Raguel’s judgements fall upon man,
    Raphael’s punishment beautifies this existence,
Gabriel’s wrath makes not all humans ane,
    And Michael saves us, the Sarahs, in assistance.

In the heart deepened with old repression,
   That mounts with plenitude of filtered feels,
Resides a universe yearning for expression,
    In a meat clay who feeds on calories of meals.

Man, in the genesis, in the light, in the dark,
    In prosperity, in turmoil, triumphed with vices;
vileness, abuse, wreckage is our sole mark,
    On this planet whose population is in slices.
Nick Strong Apr 2015
Well, what a week, full of revelation
Enough to stir this talk of revolution
Makes your hackles turn on end
Then send you round the bend
The southern gentry have found oil
Right beneath their derriere boil
Now most of us on this golden isle
Need not worry about this pile
Those who wear weekend country tweed,
Built their fortunes from housing greed
Have already decided
That it will be one sided
They’ll say it’s theirs, by rights
And if we argue, will read our last rites
The South will declare independence
In certainty of their full ascendance
Over the outer reaches of this nation
They pounded into servitude, by taxation
And if we have the nerve to debate, I’ll be bound
They’ll leave it horded in the ground,
Then blame the anti frackin’ hound
Now I may need a political re - education
In a 1984 establishment for rehabilitation
But I can see it coming a five-nation island
Southland, Wales, Scotland, N. Ireland,

And the Detritus
A tongue in cheek view of the discovery of oil in England
Michael R Burch Jul 2020
Ascendant Transcendent
Ascendance Transcendence
by Michael R. Burch

Breaching the summit
I reach
the horizon’s last rays.

This is a poem about unexpectedly glimpsing the raw beauty of the universe, which comes like an unexpected blessing.



Sudden Shower
by Michael R. Burch

The day’s eyes were blue
until you appeared
and they wept at your beauty.



Imperfect Perfection
by Michael R. Burch

You're too perfect for words―
a problem for a poet.



yet another iffy coronavirus haiku #1
by michael r. burch

plagued by the Plague
i plague the goldfish
with my verse



yet another iffy coronavirus haiku #2
by michael r. burch

sunflowers
hang their heads
embarrassed by their coronas

I wrote this poem after having a sunflower arrangement delivered to my mother, who is in an assisted living center and can't have visitors due to the coronavirus pandemic.



homework: yet another iffy coronavirus haiku #3
by michael r. burch

dim bulb overhead,
my silent companion:
still imitating the noonday sun?



Stormfront
by Michael R. Burch

Our distance is frightening:
a distance like the abyss between heaven and earth
interrupted by bizarre and terrible lightning.



Splintering

An unbending tree
breaks easily.
―Lao Tzu, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Autumn Conundrum
by Michael R. Burch

It's not that every leaf must finally fall,
it's just that we can never catch them all.



Laughter's Cry
by Michael R. Burch

Because life is a mystery, we laugh
and do not know the half.

Because death is a mystery, we cry
when one is gone, our numbering thrown awry.



Childless
by Michael R. Burch

How can she bear her grief?
Mightier than Atlas, she shoulders the weight
of one fallen star.



New World Order
by Michael R. Burch

The days of the dandelions dawn...
soon man will be gone:
lawn fertilizer.



Translations

I entered the world empty-handed
and leave it barefoot.
My coming and going?
Two uncomplicated events
that became entangled.
―Kozan Ichikyo (1283-1360), translation by Michael R. Burch

“Isn’t it time,”
the young bride asks,
“to light the lantern?”
―Ochi Etsujin (1656-1739), translation by Michael R. Burch

Brittle cicada shell,
little did I know
you were my life!
―Shuho (?-1767), translation by Michael R. Burch

Bury me beneath a wine barrel
in a bibber’s cellar:
with a little luck the keg will leak.
―Moriya Senan (?-1838), translation by Michael R. Burch

Learn to accept the inevitable:
the fall willow
knows when to abandon its leaves.
―Tanehiko (1782-1842), translation by Michael R. Burch

Darkness speaks―
a bat in flight
flits through a thicket.
―Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902), loose translation by Michael R. Burch

I’m tired,
so please be so kind as to swat the flies
softly.
―Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902), loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Keywords/Tags: haiku, Japanese, translation, transcendent, Oriental, imagery, metaphor, nature, coronavirus, plague, life, death, nature, ascension day, beauty, eyes, perfection, universe
Nash Sibanda Sep 2011
I believe we are of sound and worthy mind;
That we might cast our constant glare back,
Towards our own transgressions and
Pretensious claims to ascendance.
That we may reflect on our own fortune,
Alive and affluent, rich in life and
Experience ill afforded to our elders.
Perhaps then we might pretend,
If only for fleeting moments,
That we are as deserving as we commonly believe.
For we are nothing if not
The cynical generation, born into
A world so mature that we need be
Nothing but children within it.
We have no politics, no beliefs, no
Drive to propel us into an existence of
Grace and enlightenment. We scoff
At signs of sentiment, we laugh
At barefaced gesture and divulgence.
We indulge in ceaseless pleasures and
Live upon the surface of the shallows.
Yet we forfeit the beauty of feeling,
The release afforded by sublimity;
We are afraid of what is bigger than us,
And we respond with profane derision.
I tire of popularity competitions,
Of gossip and blunt innuendo, of
Social ladders and picking up.
I yearn, with nostalgia and music, for
A time foreign to this weary soul,
A time perhaps non-existent, when
Such games were not all there was.
I look at myself and my peers, and I worry that perhaps we are not as wonderful, as clever, as wise as we believe ourselves to be. And that if we were to realise this, it would surely crush us; for what else does my generation have if not its arrogance?
Michael R Burch Sep 2020
Original Haiku and Tanka
by Michael R. Burch

These are original haiku and tanka written by Michael R. Burch, along with haiku-like and tanka-like poems inspired by the forms but not necessarily abiding by all the rules.

Dark-bosomed clouds
pregnant with heavy thunder ...
the water breaks
―Michael R. Burch

The poem above is my favorite of my original haiku. I wrote it while working on translations of haiku by the Oriental masters. Here's another one I particularly like:

one pillow ...
our dreams
merge
―Michael R. Burch



The Original Sin: Rhyming Haiku!

Haiku
should never rhyme:
it’s a crime!
―Michael R. Burch

The herons stand,
sentry-like, at attention ...
rigid observers of some unknown command.
―Michael R. Burch

Late
fall;
all
the golden leaves turn black underfoot:
soot
―Michael R. Burch

A snake in the grass
lies, hissing
"Trespass!"
―Michael R. Burch

Honeysuckle
blesses my knuckle
with affectionate dew
―Michael R. Burch

My nose nuzzles
honeysuckle’s
sweet nothings
―Michael R. Burch

The day’s eyes were blue
until you appeared
and they wept at your beauty.
―Michael R. Burch

The moon in decline
like my lover’s heart
lies far beyond mine
―Michael R. Burch

My mother’s eyes
acknowledging my imperfection:
dejection
―Michael R. Burch

The sun sets
the moon fails to rise
we avoid each other’s eyes
―Michael R. Burch

There are more rhyming haiku later on this page ...



Iffy Coronavirus Haiku

yet another iffy coronavirus haiku #1
by michael r. burch

plagued by the Plague
i plague the goldfish
with my verse

yet another iffy coronavirus haiku #2
by michael r. burch

sunflowers
hang their heads
embarrassed by their coronas

I wrote the poem above after having a sunflower arrangement delivered to my mother, who is in an assisted living center and can’t have visitors due to the coronavirus pandemic. I have been informed the poem breaks haiku rules about personification, etc.

Homework (yet another iffy coronavirus haiku #3)
by michael r. burch

Dim bulb overhead,
my silent companion:
still imitating the noonday sun?

yet another iffy coronavirus haiku #4
by michael r. burch

Spring fling—
children string flowers
into their face masks

yet another iffy coronavirus haiku #5
by michael r. burch

the Thought counts:
our lips and fingers
insulated by plexiglass ...

yet another iffy coronavirus haiku #6
by michael r. burch

masks, masks
everywhere
and not a straw to drink ...

Dark Cloud, Silver Lining
by Michael R. Burch

Every corona has a silver lining:
I’m too far away to hear your whining,
and despite my stormy demeanor,
my hands have never been cleaner!

New World Order (last in a series and perhaps a species)
by Michael R. Burch

The days of the dandelions dawn ...
soon man will be gone:
fertilizer.



Untitled Haiku

Dark-bosomed clouds
pregnant with heavy thunder ...
the water breaks
―Michael R. Burch

one pillow ...
our dreams
merge
―Michael R. Burch

Crushed grapes
surrender such sweetness!
A mother’s compassion.
―Michael R. Burch

My footprints
so faint in the snow?
Ah yes, you lifted me.
―Michael R. Burch

An emu feather
still falling?
So quickly you rushed to my rescue.
―Michael R. Burch

The sun warms
a solitary stone.
Let us abandon no one.
―Michael R. Burch

The eagle sees farther
from its greater height—
our ancestors’ wisdom
―Michael R. Burch

The ability
to disagree agreeably—
civility.
―Michael R. Burch

She bathes in silver
..……. afloat ……..
on her reflections
—Michael R. Burch

Celebrate the New Year?
The cat is not impressed,
the dogs shiver.
—Michael R. Burch

NOTE: Cats are seldom impressed by human accomplishments, while the canine members of our family have always hated fireworks and other unexpected loud noises.



Variations on Fall

Farewells like
falling
leaves,
so many sad goodbyes.
―Michael R. Burch

Falling leaves
brittle hearts
whisper farewells
―Michael R. Burch

Autumn leaves
soft farewells
falling ...
falling ...
falling ...
―Michael R. Burch

Autumn leaves
Fall’s farewells
Whispered goodbyes
―Michael R. Burch



Variations on the Seasons
by Michael R. Burch

Mother earth
prepares her nurseries:
spring greening

The trees become
modest,
coy behind fans



Wobbly fawns
have become the fleetest athletes:
summer



Dry leaves
scuttle like *****:
autumn

*

The sky
shivers:
snowfall

each
translucent flake
lighter than eiderdown

the entire town entombed
but not in gloom,
bedazzled.



Variations on Night

Night,
ice and darkness
conspire against human warmth
―Michael R. Burch

Night and the Stars
conspire against me:
Immensity
―Michael R. Burch

in the ice-cold cathedral
prayer candles ablaze
flicker warmthlessly
―Michael R. Burch



Variations on the Arts
by Michael R. Burch

Paint peeling:
the novel's
novelty wears off ...

The autumn marigold's
former glory:
allegory.

Human arias?
The nightingale frowns, perplexed.
Tone deaf!

Where do cynics
finally retire?
Satire.

All the world’s
a stage
unless it’s a cage.

To write an epigram,
cram.
If you lack wit, scram.

Haiku
should never rhyme:
it’s a crime!

Video
dumped the **** tube
for YouTube.

Anyone
can rap:
just write rhythmic crap!



Variations on Lingerie
by Michael R. Burch

Were you just a delusion?
The black negligee you left
now merest illusion.

The clothesline
quivers,
ripe with unmentionables.

The clothesline quivers:
wind,
or ghosts?



Variations on Love and Wisdom
by Michael R. Burch

Wise old owls
stare myopically at the moon,
hooting as the hart escapes.

Myopic moon-haunted owls
hoot as the hart escapes

The myopic owl,
moon-intent, scowls;
my rabbit heart thunders ...
Peace, wise fowl!



Tanka

All the wild energies
of electric youth
captured in the monochromes
of an ancient photobooth
like zigzagging lightning.
―Michael R. Burch

The plums were sweet,
icy and delicious.
To eat them all
was perhaps malicious.
But I vastly prefer your kisses!
―Michael R. Burch

A child waving ...
The train groans slowly away ...
Loneliness ...
Somewhere in the distance gusts
scatter the stray unharvested hay ...
―Michael R. Burch

How vaguely I knew you
however I held you close ...
your heart’s muffled thunder,
your breath the wind―
rising and dying.
―Michael R. Burch



Miscellanea

sheer green stockings
queer green beer
St. Patrick's Day!
―Michael R. Burch

cicadas chirping everywhere
singing to beat the band―
surround sound
―Michael R. Burch

Regal, upright,
clad in royal purple:
Zinnia
―Michael R. Burch

Love is a surreal sweetness
in a world where trampled grapes
become wine.
―Michael R. Burch

although meant for market
a pail full of strawberries
invites indulgence
―Michael R. Burch

late November;
skeptics scoff
but the geese no longer migrate
―Michael R. Burch

as the butterfly hunts nectar
the generous iris
continues to bloom
―Michael R. Burch



Childless
by Michael R. Burch

How can she bear her grief?
Mightier than Atlas, she shoulders the weight
of one fallen star.



Ascendance Transcendence
by Michael R. Burch

Breaching the summit
I reach
the horizon’s last rays.



The Reason for the Rain
by Michael R. Burch

The day’s eyes were blue
until you appeared
and they wept at your beauty.



Imperfect Perfection
by Michael R. Burch

You're too perfect for words―
a problem for a poet.



Intimations
by Michael R. Burch

Show me your most intimate items of apparel;
begin with the hem of your quicksilver slip ...



Expert Advice
by Michael R. Burch

Your ******* are perfect for your lithe, slender body.
Please stop making false comparisons your hobby!



Autumn Conundrum
by Michael R. Burch

It's not that every leaf must finally fall,
it's just that we can never catch them all.



Laughter's Cry
by Michael R. Burch

Because life is a mystery, we laugh
and do not know the half.

Because death is a mystery, we cry
when one is gone, our numbering thrown awry.



The Reason for the Rain (II)
by Michael R. Burch

The sky was blue
until you appeared
and it wept at your beauty.



Here's a poem composed of haiku-like stanzas:

Dandelion
by Michael R. Burch

Lift up your head
dandelion,
hear spring roar!

How will you tidy your hair
this near
summer?

Leave to each still night
your lightest affliction,
dandruff.

Soon you will free yourself:
one shake
of your white mane.

Now there are worlds
into which you appear
and disappear

seemingly at will
but invariably blown
wildly, then still.

Gasp at the bright chill
glower
of winter.

Icicles splinter;
sleep still an hour,
till, resurrected in power,

you lift up your head,
dandelion.
Hear spring roar!



More Rhyming Haiku

Dry leaf flung awry:
bright butterfly,
goodbye!
―Michael R. Burch

brief leaf flung awry ~
bright butterfly, goodbye!
―Michael R. Burch

leaf flutters in flight ~
bright, O and endeavoring butterfly,
goodbye!
―Michael R. Burch

a soaring kite flits
into the heart of the sun?
Butterfly & Chrysanthemum
―Michael R. Burch

The girl with the pallid lips
lipsticks
into something less comfortable
―Michael R. Burch

I am a traveler
going nowhere,
but my how the gawking bystanders stare!
―Michael R. Burch



Keywords/Tags: Haiku, Tanka, coronavirus, nature, love, heart, family, mother, son, seasons, spring, summer, fall, winter, sun, moon, rhyme, rhymed, mrbhaiku
Valerie Gillis Feb 2012
Dig
Worry sets in when
I've no contribution
not already conceived
into sweeter fruition
   by someone more clever
   succinct and brunette
   the picture of an artist
   in suffering and debt
Hell, even when musing
on futility
the words lumber lacking
all fluidity
   Meters much marked
   Rhymes relentlessly schemed
   Capering for couplets
   as yet still undreamed
Why bother?  I wonder
Why scribble along
and much melancholy
for one hopeful song?
   Doubts in ascendance,
   my pen digs the earth
   to China if need be
   and the end of poem's worth.
Jayanta Sep 2016
Today takes a bath in rain
Feel it wash away my sins!
Toady takes a bath in rain
Feel it wash away my stains!
Today takes a bath in rain
Feel it wash away my ascendance!
Today takes a bath in rain
and rain  instill gaiety in me!
ConnectHook Apr 2018
Qui Transtulit Sustinet

There sat CONNECTICUT, a twit
blue nanny-state, and doomed to sit
on welfare-warrens of the ******
her social service on demand.
She withers on NEW ENGLAND‘s vine
a bygone has-been, and a sign
of democratic overkill
where her once-dear and verdant rill
now stagnant flows: polluted stream
a moribund New England dream.
The richest state with poorest heart:
the Northeast’s saddest story. Part
of history’s renowned revival,
now irrelevant. Survival
chains her children in dependence
keeping back the state’s ascendance.
Apostate Puritan, grown old—
for LIBERTY, no longer bold;
a slave to Man, where once God’s WORD
awakened greatness. Souls were stirred
in ENFIELD (of all strange places),
Christ beheld in radiant faces . . .
Edwards held their spellbound souls
like spiders over flaming coals,
in gratitude for Gospel grace
renewing thus both town and race.
But I digress. Connecticut
is what I came to speak about:
forgotten dull colonial matron
yoked in failure, plebe as patron
nostalgic for her Charter Oak
whose deadwood limbs went up in smoke
along with dark tobacco wrap
while the plantation took a nap.
Her social programs overgrowth
pose forest fire-risk. Under oath
her public servants signal virtue;
sign which really should alert you
to the democrat-machine’s
impending failure (ways and means).
Nutmeg-addled Tax-and-spenders,
dollar drunks on welfare benders
widen economic rifts;
force single moms toward double shifts
while Latin Kings hold court in prison
waiting out their royal season:
fiscally unsustainable—
yet totally explainable
(nutmeg is a drug for witches
spendthrift warlocks, bankrupt *******).
Oh HARTFORD, city of the dead
which dies at five, then home to bed,
insurance once assured your rise;
but now your ghosts haunt sadder skies.
Your life displaced, outsourced, out-dated;
so, it seems, your fall was fated.
Meanwhile, close to New York City,
fairer fields are growing pretty
long on corporate commutes.
Data-driven growth computes
as data-drivers flood the roads
and enter by Manhattan-loads
from golden coasts’ Atlantic shores
and posh patrician golden doors
to bite the apple of our time:
a number-cruncher built on crime.
New England’s puritannic granny
(data-driven tyrant ******)
seeks to harbor tropic isles
with blandly bureaucratic smiles.
Your poor dear heart cannot afford
to welcome every island lord
who looks to better his estate
and so decides to emigrate.
Displaced Jamaicans outta yard
compel the soft verse to get hard.
Boricua separatists, dispersed
show nationalities reversed
and dwell between two foreign lands
in Spanglish no one understands.
Such nutmeg gets the covens high
to soar the stormy Liberal sky.
It’s Yankee hubris: condescension
taxing plebes for such dissension.
Though you connect, there I would cut,
excising from New England’s gut
metastasizing social tumors:
clueless and obese consumers,
teenage moms, pajama-clad
whose nenes wait in vain for dad.
QUI TRANSTULIT SUSTINET—truth . . .
but that was was in our nation’s youth.
She’s gotten worse with passing years
confirming citizens’ worst fears;
showing her colors every vote
her monotone, a droning note
on which the blue-bloods hang their hue
when hope and change are overdue.
Her atheist zeal meets Yankee pride:
a most progressive broomstick ride;
oblivious to her Christian past,
an enemy of God at last.
Senryu and Haikai:
Basho-san, can you get me
another beer, please?
M Harris Feb 2017
Spectral & Whites,
She shoots liquid kryptonite,
Forming civil twilights,
Lighting up satellites,

Effusive she moves in crowds,
Vetting the loud,
Entombing in her vortex clouds,
Fiction stitched exclusive to her shroud,

Translucent transcendence,
Sinking in ascendance,
Obscured abundance,
Her celestial dependence,

Mutating sacraments,
Dissolving electrolytic laments,
Decaying she resents,
Her serene blood stains,
Choking reckless intents,

Torrential far cry,
Of her desecrated lullabies,
Edging serrated highs,
Triggering sulphur lies,

Profanity in her transmits,
Photonic duality she emits,

Fluttering in trance,
Her psychopathic stance,
Initiating empathetic dance,


Seductive incandescence,
Buffering her schizophrenic vehemence,
Veiling the era of repentance,
By unveiling spiritual severance,
And pseudo sacrosanct irreverence,

The future’s here,
Nuclear souvenir,

She past my prime,
When the evidence realigned,
Confiscating her downtime,
She committed my crime,


Make amends… We are designed to be outlived….

03:22AM
Aristotle’s arrhythmic articulations
Appeared too apologetic for Aphrodite's amusements
Aroused by antisocial media’s alacritous abundance
Amidst arteriosclerosis and amphibiously obeisant Ophiuchus
Asclepius' ascendance was almost an abortion
Arrested by Apollo’s amorous attempts at aphrodisia
Ambidextrous Artemis’ androgynous appointments
Awakened ancient antipathies accentuating allopathic artifacts
Altercations arose among ambitious acolytes and Athena’s anorexic acidoses
Awkward Adonis actively agonized by alarming aneurysms
Allowed Antigone’s ambivalent armistice an aperture of acceptance  
Appointing an ambiguously appealing additive to the Argonauts
An anaerobic Acropolis arose amidst auto-****** asphyxiations
As Amazonian armpit hair advocates approved artificial insemination
LJ May 2016
Awakened and upsized
Macaques enclosed in plastics
Blown like a fainted paper

A ladder presents in heights
As the stamina builds to rise
The climb to the sky scrapper

Should we run to the utmost
Drag each other to ascendance
Hunt our vulnerabilities and nurse them

My love carry our load to paradise
These road of ours to hold and touch
Heighten us so we light the city streets

Feel my pulse throbbing for you
As the sun scorch and the wind blows
Darling, I will wait for you day after day
These are poems about floods, being lost at sea, and other calamities...



After the Deluge
by Michael R. Burch

She was kinder than light
to an up-reaching flower
and sweeter than rain
to the bees in their bower
where anemones blush
at the affections they shower,
and love’s shocking power.

She shocked me to life,
but soon left me to wither.
I was listless without her,
nor could I be with her.
I fell under the spell
of her absence’s power.
in that calamitous hour.

Like blithe showers that fled
repealing spring’s sweetness;
like suns’ warming rays sped
away, with such fleetness ...
she has taken my heart—
alas, our completeness!
I now wilt in pale beams
of her occult remembrance.

I almost lost my wife Beth during the Great Nashville Flood when she took ill while out of town for a funeral and I was trapped as our house's hill became an island.



Adrift
by Michael R. Burch

I helplessly loved you
   although I was lost
in the veils of your eyes,
   grown blind to the cost
   of my ignorant folly
—your unreadable rune—
   as leashed tides obey
an indecipherable moon.



Mare Clausum
by Michael R. Burch

These are the narrows of my soul—
dark waters pierced by eerie, haunting screams.
And these uncharted islands bleakly home
wild nightmares and deep, strange, forbidding dreams.

Please don’t think to find pearls’ pale, unearthly glow
within its shoals, nor corals in its reefs.
For, though you seek to salvage Love, I know
that vessel lists, and night brings no relief.

Pause here, and look, and know that all is lost;
then turn, and go; let salt consume, and rust.
This sea is not for sailors, but the ******
who lingered long past morning, till they learned

why it is named:
Mare Clausum.



Sandy Hook Call to Love
by Michael R. Burch

Our hearts are broken today
for our children's small bodies lie broken;
let us gather them up, as we may,
that the truth of our Love may be spoken;
then, when we have put them away
to nevermore dream or be woken,
let us think of the living, and pray
for true Love, not some miserable token,
to command us, for strength to obey.



War is Obsolete
by Michael R. Burch

War is obsolete;
even the strange machinery of dread
weeps for the child in the street
who cannot lift her head
to reprimand the Man
who failed to countermand
her soft defeat.

But war is obsolete;
even the cold robotic drone
that flies far overhead
has sense enough to moan
and shudder at her plight
(only men bereft of Light
with hearts indurate stone
embrace war’s Siberian night).

For war is obsolete;
man’s tribal “gods,” long dead,
have fled his awakening sight
while the true Sun, overhead,
has pity on her plight.
O sweet, precipitate Light! —
embrace her, reject the night
that leaves gentle fledglings dead.

For each brute ancestor lies
with his totems and his “gods”
in the slavehold of premature night
that awaited him in his tomb;
while Love, the ancestral womb,
still longs to give birth to the Light.
So which child shall we ****** tonight,
or which Ares condemn to the gloom?



Momentum! Momentum!
by Michael R. Burch

for the neo-Cons

Crossing the Rubicon, we come!
Momentum! Momentum! Furious hooves!
The Gauls we have slaughtered, no man disapproves.
War’s hawks shrieking-strident, white doves stricken dumb.

Coo us no cooings of pale-breasted peace!
Momentum! Momentum! Imperious hooves!
The blood of barbarians brightens our greaves.
Pompey’s head in a basket? We slumber at ease.

****** us again, great Bellona, dark queen!
Momentum! Momentum! Curious hooves
Now pound out strange questions, but what can they mean
As the great stallions rear and their riders careen?

Published by Bewildering Stories

Bellona was the Roman goddess of war. The name "Bellona" derives from the Latin word for "war" (bellum), and is linguistically related to the English word "belligerent" (literally, "war-waging"). In earlier times she was called Duellona, that name being derived from a more ancient word for "battle" relating to our “duel.”



Nuclear Winter: Solo Restart
by Michael R. Burch

Out of the ashes
a flower emerges
and trembling bright sunshine
bathes its scorched stem,
but how will this flower
endure for an hour
the rigors of winter
eternal and grim
without men?



Transplant
by Michael R. Burch

You float, unearthly angel, clad in flesh
as strange to us who briefly knew your flame
as laughter to disease. And yet you laugh.
Behind your smile, the sun forfeits its claim
to earth, and floats forever now the same—
light captured at its moment of least height.

You laugh here always, welcoming the night,
and, just a photograph, still you can claim
bright rapture: like an angel, not of flesh—
but something more, made less. Your humanness
this moment of release becomes a name
and something else—a radiance, a strange
brief presence near our hearts. How can we stand
and chain you here to this nocturnal land
of burgeoning gray shadows? Fly, begone.
I give you back your soul, forfeit all claim
to radiance, and welcome grief’s dark night
that crushes all the laughter from us. Light
in someone Else’s hand, and sing at ease
some song of brightsome mirth through dawn-lit trees
to welcome morning’s sun. O daughter! these
are eyes too weak for laughter; for love’s sight,
I welcome darkness, overcome with light.



Remembering Not to Call
by Michael R. Burch

a villanelle permitting mourning, for my mother, Christine Ena Burch

The hardest thing of all,
after telling her everything,
is remembering not to call.

Now the phone hanging on the wall
will never announce her ring:
the hardest thing of all
for children, however tall.

And the hardest thing this spring
will be remembering not to call
the one who was everything.

That the songbirds will nevermore sing
is the hardest thing of all
for those who once listened, in thrall,
and welcomed the message they bring,
since they won’t remember to call.

And the hardest thing this fall
will be a number with no one to ring.

No, the hardest thing of all
is remembering not to call.



Enigma

for Beth

O, terrible angel,
bright lover and avenger,
full of whimsical light and vile anger;
wild stranger,
seeking the solace of night, or the danger;
pale foreigner,
alien to man, or savior.

Who are you,
seeking consolation and passion
in the same breath,
screaming for pleasure, bereft
of all articles of faith,
finding life
harsher than death?

Grieving angel,
giving more than taking,
how lucky the man
who has found in your love, this—our reclamation;
fallen wren,
you must strive to fly though your heart is shaken;
weary pilgrim,
you must not give up though your feet are aching;
lonely child,
lie here still in my arms; you must soon be waking.



Love is her Belief and her Commandment
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Love is her belief and her commandment;
in restless dreams at night, she dreams of Love;
and Love is her desire and her purpose;
and everywhere she goes, she sings of Love.

There is a tomb in Palestine: for others
the chance to stake their claims (the Chosen Ones),
but in her eyes, it’s Love’s most hallowed chancel
where Love was resurrected, where one comes
in wondering awe to dream of resurrection
to blissful realms, where Love reigns over all
with tenderness, with infinite affection.

While some may mock her faith, still others wonder
because they see the rare state of her soul,
and there are rumors: when she prays the heavens
illume more brightly, as if saints concur
who keep a constant vigil over her.

And once she prayed beside a dying woman:
the heavens opened and the angels came
in the form of long-departed friends and loved ones,
to comfort and encourage. I believe
not in her God, but always in her Love.



Sailing to My Grandfather
by Michael R. Burch

for George Edwin Hurt Sr.

This distance between us
—this vast sea
of remembrance—
is no hindrance,
no enemy.

I see you out of the shining mists
of memory.
Events and chance
and circumstance
are sands on the shore of your legacy.

I find you now in fits and bursts
of breezes time has blown to me,
while waves, immense,
now skirt and glance
against the bow unceasingly.

I feel the sea's salt spray—light fists,
her mists and vapors mocking me.
From ignorance
to reverence,
your words were sextant stars to me.

Bright stars are strewn in silver gusts
back, back toward infinity.
From innocence
to senescence,
now you are mine increasingly.

Note: Under the Sextant’s Stars is a painting by Bernini.



The Harvest of Roses
by Michael R. Burch

for Harvey Stanbrough

I have not come for the harvest of roses—
the poets' mad visions,
their railing at rhyme ...
for I have discerned what their writing discloses:
weak words wanting meaning,
beat torsioning time.

Nor have I come for the reaping of gossamer—
images weak,
too forced not to fail;
gathered by poets who worship their luster,
they shimmer, impendent,
resplendently pale.

Published by The Raintown Review, Mindful of Poetry and FireBug



Moon Lake
by Michael R. Burch

Starlit recorder of summer nights,
what magic spell bewitches you?
They say that all lovers love first in the dark . . .
Is it true?
Is it true?
Is it true?

Uncanny seer of all that appears
and all that has appeared . . .
what sights have you seen,
what dreams have you dreamed,
what rhetoric have you heard?

Is love an oration or is it a word?
Have you heard?
Have you heard?
Have you heard?



Heat Lightening
by Michael R. Burch

Each night beneath the elms, we never knew
which lights beyond dark hills might stall, advance,
then lurch into strange headbeams tilted up
like searchlights seeking contact in the distance . . .

. . . quiescent unions . . . thoughts of bliss, of hope . . .
long-dreamt appearances of wished-on stars . . .
like childhood’s long-occluded, nebulous
slow drift of half-formed visions . . . slip and bra . . .

Wan moonlight traced your features, perilous,
in danger of extinction, should your hair
fall softly on my eyes, or should a kiss
cause them to close, or should my fingers dare

to leave off childhood for some new design
of whiter lace, of flesh incarnadine.



Pale Though Her Eyes
by Michael R. Burch

Pale though her eyes,
her lips are scarlet
from drinking our blood,
this child, this harlot;

born of the night
and her heart, of darkness;
evil incarnate,
to dance so reckless;

dreaming of blood,
her fangs—white—baring;
revealing her lust,
and her eyes, pale, staring . . .



Vampires
by Michael R. Burch

Vampires are such fragile creatures;
we fear the dark, but the light destroys them . . .
sunlight, or a stake, or a cross—such common things.
Still, late at night, when the bat-like vampire sings,
we heed his voice.

Centuries have taught us:
in shadows danger lurks for those who stray,
and there the vampire bares his yellow fangs
and feels the ancient soul-tormenting pangs.
He has no choice.

We are his prey, plump and fragrant,
and if we pray to avoid him, he prays to find us,
prays to some despotic hooded God
whose benediction is the humid blood
he lusts to taste.



She is brighter than dawn
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

There’s a light about her
like the moon through a mist:
a bright incandescence
with which she is blessed

and my heart to her light
like the tide now is pulled . . .
she is fair, O, and bright
like the moon silver-veiled.

There’s a fire within her
like the sun’s leaping forth
to lap up the darkness
of night from earth's hearth

and my eyes to her flame
like the sphingid’s are drawn
till my heart is consumed.
She is brighter than dawn.

The sphingid gets its name from the legendary Sphinx and is commonly called the sphinx moth.



The Sky Was Turning Blue
by Michael R. Burch

for Vicky

Yesterday I saw you
as the snow flurries died,
spent winds becalmed.
When I saw your solemn face
alone in the crowd,
I felt my heart, so long embalmed,
begin to beat aloud.

Was it another winter,
another day like this?
Was it so long ago?
Where you the rose-cheeked girl
who slapped my face, then stole a kiss?
Was the sky this gray with snow,
my heart so all a-whirl?

How is it in one moment
it was twenty years ago,
lost worlds remade anew?
When your eyes met mine, I knew
you felt it too, as though
we heard the robin's song
and the sky was turning blue.



Tillage
by Michael R. Burch

What stirs within me
is no great welling
straining to flood forth,
but an emptiness
waiting to be filled.

I am not an orchard
ready to be harvested,
but a field
rough and barren
waiting to be tilled.



Shadows
by Michael R. Burch

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.



Distances (II)
by Michael R. Burch

There is a small cleanness about her,
as though she has always just been washed,
and there is a dull obedience to convention
in her accommodating slenderness
as she feints at her salad.

She has never heard of Faust, or Frost,
and she is unlikely to have been seen
rummaging through bookstores
for mementos of others
more difficult to name.

She might imagine “poetry”
to be something in common between us,
as we write, bridging the expanse
between convention and something . . .
something the world calls “art”
for want of a better word.

At night I scream
at the conventions of both our worlds,
at the distances between words
and their objects: distances
come lately between us,
like a clean break.



In My House
by Michael R. Burch

I was once the only caucasian in the software company I founded. I had two fine young black programmers working for me, and they both had keys to my house. This poem looks back to the dark days of slavery and the Civil War it produced.

When you were in my house
you were not free—
in chains bound.

Manifest Destiny?

I was wrong;
my plantation burned to the ground.
I was wrong.

This is my song,
this is my plea:
I was wrong.

When you are in my house,
now, I am not free.

I feel the song
hurling itself back at me.

We were wrong.
This is my history.

I feel my tongue
stilting accordingly.

We were wrong;
brother, forgive me.

Published by Black Medina



911 Carousel
by Michael R. Burch

“And what rough beast ... slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”—W. B. Yeats

They laugh and do not comprehend, nor ask
which way the wind is blowing, no, nor why
the reeling azure fixture of the sky
grows pale with ash, and whispers “Holocaust.”

They think to seize the ring, life’s tinfoil prize,
and, breathless with endeavor, shriek aloud.
The voice of terror thunders from a cloud
that darkens over children adult-wise,

far less inclined to error, when a step
in any wrong direction is to fall
a JDAM short of heaven. Decoys call,
their voices plangent, honking to be shot . . .

Here, childish dreams and nightmares whirl, collide,
as East and West, on slouching beasts, they ride.



R.I.P.
by Michael R. Burch

When I am lain to rest
and my soul is no longer intact,
but dissolving, like a sunset
diminishing to the west, ...

and when at last
before His throne my past
is put to test
and the demons and the Beast

await to feast
on any morsel downward cast,
while the vapors of impermanence
cling, smelling of damask ...

then let me go, and do not weep
if I am left to sleep,
to sleep and never dream, or dream, perhaps,
only a little longer and more deep.

Published by Romantics Quarterly and The Chained Muse. This is an early poem from my “Romantic Period” that was written in my late teens.



iou
by michael r. burch

i might have said it
but i didn’t

u might have noticed
but u wouldn’t

we might have been us
but we couldn’t

u might respond
but probably shouldn’t



Delicacy
by Michael R. Burch

for my mother, Christine Ena Burch, and all good mothers

Your love is as delicate
as a butterfly cleaning its wings,
as soft as the predicate
the hummingbird sings
to itself, gently murmuring—
“Fly!  Fly!  Fly!”
Your love is the string
soaring kites untie.



chrysalis
by michael r. burch

these are the days of doom
u seldom leave ur room
u live in perpetual gloom

yet also the days of hope
how to cope?
u pray and u *****

toward self illumination ...
becoming an angel
(pure love)

and yet You must love Your Self



Love Is Not Love
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Love is not love that never looked
within itself and questioned all,
curled up like a zygote in a ball,
throbbed, sobbed and shook.

(Or went on a binge at a nearby mall,
then would not cook.)

Love is not love that never winced,
then smiled, convinced
that soar’s the prerequisite of fall.

When all
its wounds and scars have been saline-rinsed,
where does Love find the wherewithal
to try again,
endeavor, when

all that it knows
is: O, because!



The One and Only
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

If anyone ever loved me,
     It was you.
If anyone ever cared
beyond mere things declared;
if anyone ever knew ...
     My darling, it was you.

If anyone ever touched
     my beating heart as it flew,
it was you,
and only you.



Hymn for Fallen Soldiers
by Michael R. Burch

Sound the awesome cannons.
Pin medals to each breast.
Attention, honor guard!
Give them a hero’s rest.

Recite their names to the heavens
Till the stars acknowledge their kin.
Then let the land they defended
Gather them in again.

When I learned there’s an American military organization, the DPAA (Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency), that is still finding and bringing home the bodies of soldiers who died serving their country in World War II, after blubbering like a baby, I managed to eke out this poem.



Hiroshima Child
by Nazim Hikmet
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I come to beg at every door,
but who can hear my phantom tread?
I knock and yet remain unseen,
for I am dead,
for I am dead.

I’m only seven, though I died
in Hiroshima so long ago.
I’m seven now, as I was then,
for how can phantom children grow?

White incandescence charred my hair;
my eyes grew dim, then I was blind;
my fragile bones became fine ash;
my ash was scattered by the wind.

Today I need no fruit, no rice;
I crave no sweets, nor even bread.
I beg for nothing for myself,
for I am dead,
for I am dead.

All that I beg of you is peace:
You fight today! You fight today!
Peace, so earth’s living children may
live and grow and laugh and play.



faith(less)
by michael r. burch

for the “Chosen Few”

Those who believed
and Those who misled
lie together at last
in the same narrow bed

and if god loved Them more
for Their strange lack of doubt,
he kept it well hidden
till he snuffed Them out.

ah-men!



hey pete!
by michael r. burch

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.

This is a poem I wrote around age 16-18, during my “cummings period.” Pete Rose was my favorite baseball player as a boy; this poem is not a slam at him, but rather ironic commentary on the term “superstar.”



Have I been too long at the fair?
by Michael R. Burch

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?



An Illusion
by Michael R. Burch

The sky was as hushed as the breath of a bee
and the world was bathed in shades of palest gold
when I awoke.

She came to me with the sound of falling leaves
and the scent of new-mown grass;
I held out my arms to her and she passed

into oblivion ...

This is one of my early poems, written around age 16 and published in my high school literary journal, the Lantern, and by Borderless Journal (Singapore).



Huntress
by Michael R. Burch

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.



Men at Sixty
by Michael R. Burch

after Donald Justice’s “Men at Forty”

Learn to gently close
doors to rooms
you can never re-enter.

Rest against the stair rail
as the solid steps
buck and buckle like ships’ decks.

Rediscover in mirrors
your father’s face
once warm with the mystery of lather,
now electrically plucked.



All the More Human, for Eve Pandora
by Michael R. Burch

a lullaby for the first human Clone

God provide the soul, and let her sleep
be natural as ours, unplagued by dreams
of being someone else, lost in the deep
wild swells of grieving all that human means . . .

and do not let her come to doubt herself—
that she is as we are, so much alike
in frailty, in the books that line the shelf
that tell us who we are—a rickety ****

against the flood of doubt—that we are more
than cells and chance, that love, perhaps, exists
because of someone else who would endure
such pain because some part of her persists

in us, and calls us blesséd by her bed,
become a saint at last, in whose frail arms
we see ourselves—the gray won out of red,
the ash of blonde—till love is safe from harm

and all that human means is that we live
in doubt, and die in doubt, and only love
the more because together we must strive
against an end we loathe and fear. What of?—

we cannot say, imagining the Night
as some weird darkened structure caving in
to cold enormous pressure. Lacking sight,
we lie unbreathing, thinking breath a sin . . .

and that is to be human. You are us—
true mortal, child of doubt, hopeful and curious.



Belfry
by Michael R. Burch

There are things we surrender
to the attic gloom:
they haunt us at night
with shrill, querulous voices.

There are choices we made
yet did not pursue,
behind windows we shuttered
then failed to remember.

There are canisters sealed
that we cannot reopen,
and others long broken
that nothing can heal.

There are things we conceal
that our anger dismembered,
gray leathery faces
the rafters reveal.



Resemblance
by Michael R. Burch

Take this geode with its rough exterior—
crude-skinned, brilliant-hearted ...

a diode of amethyst—wild, electric;
its sequined cavity—parted, revealing.

Find in its fire all brittle passion,
each jagged shard relentlessly aching.

Each spire inward—a fission startled;
in its shattered entrails—fractured light,

the heart ice breaking.

Published by Poet Lore, PoetryMagazine.com, Penumbra, Poet’s Haven and the Net Poetry and Art Competition



The Locker
by Michael R. Burch

All the dull hollow clamor has died
and what was contained,
removed,
reproved
adulation or sentiment,
left with the pungent darkness
as remembered as the sudden light.



Ironic Vacation
by Michael R. Burch

Salzburg.
Seeing Mozart’s baby grand piano.
Standing in the presence of sheer incalculable genius.
Grabbing my childish pen to write a poem
& challenge the Immortals.
Next stop, the catacombs!



Sun Poem
by Michael R. Burch

I have suffused myself in poetry
as a lizard basks, soaking up sun,
scales nakedly glinting; its glorious light
he understands—when it comes, it comes.

A flood of light leaches down to his bones,
his feral eye blinks—bold, curious, bright.

Now night and soon winter lie brooding, damp, chilling;
here shadows foretell the great darkness ahead.
Yet he stretches in rapture, his hot blood thrilling,
simple yet fierce on his hard stone bed,

his tongue flicking rhythms,
the sun—throbbing, spilling.



The Last Enchantment
by Michael R. Burch

Oh, Lancelot, my noble friend,
how time has thinned your ragged mane
and pinched your features; still you seem
though, much, much changed—somehow unchanged.

Your sword hand is, as ever, ready,
although the time for swords has passed.
Your eyes are fierce, and yet so steady
meeting mine ... you must not ask.

The time is not, nor ever shall be,
for Merlyn’s words were only words;
and now his last enchantment wanes,
and we must put aside our swords ...



Less Heroic Couplets: Unsmiley Simile, or, Down Time
by Michael R. Burch

Quora is down!
I frown:
how long can the universe suffice
without its ad-vice?



Fierce ancient skalds summoned verse from their guts;
today’s genteel poets prefer modern ruts.
—Michael R. Burch



Vice Grip
by Michael R. Burch

There’s no need to rant about Al-Qaeda and ISIS.
The cruelty of “civilization” suffices:
our ordinary vices.



Less Heroic Couplets: Fine Feathered Fiends I
by Michael R. Burch

Conformists of a feather
flock together.

Winner of the National Poetry Month Couplet Competition



Less Heroic Couplets: Fine Feathered Fiends II
by Michael R. Burch

Fascists of a feather
flock together.



Less Heroic Couplets: Shell Game
by Michael R. Burch

I saw a turtle squirtle!
Before you ask, “How fertile?”
The squirt came from its mouth.
Why do your thoughts fly south?



The Better Man: a Double Limerick
by Michael R. Burch

Dear Ed: I don’t understand why
you will publish this other guy—
when I’m brilliant, devoted,
one hell of a poet!
Yet you publish Anonymous. Fie!

Fie! A pox on your head if you favor
this poet who’s dubious, unsavor-
y, inconsistent in texts,
no address (I checked!):
since he’s plagiarized Unknown, I’ll wager!

“The Better Man” is a double limerick originally published by The Eclectic Muse



The Hippopotami
by Michael R. Burch

There’s no seeing eye to eye
with the awesomely huge Hippopotami:
on the bank, you’re much taller;
going under, you’re smaller
and assuredly destined to die!



Cover Girl
by Michael R. Burch

Cunning
at sunning
and dunning,
the stunning
young woman’s in the running
to be found **** on the cover
of some patronizing lover.



First Base Freeze
by Michael R. Burch

I find your love unappealing
(no, make that appalling)
because you prefer kissing
then stalling.



Less Heroic Couplets: Negotiables
by Michael R. Burch

Love should be more than the sum of its parts—
of its potions and pills and subterranean arts.



Less Heroic Couplets: Mini-Ode to Stamina
by Michael R. Burch

When you’ve given so much
that I can’t bear your touch,
then from a safe distance
let me admire your persistence.

Published by ***** of Parnassus



Unapproved Absence, or, Slip Up
by Michael R. Burch

Christ, how I miss you!,
though your parting kiss is still warm on my lips.

Now the floor is not strewn with your stockings and slips
and the dishes are all stacked away.

You left me today ...
and each word left unspoken now whispers regrets.



The Red State Reaction
by Michael R. Burch

Where the hell are they hidin’
Sleepy Joe Biden?

And how the hell can the bleep
Do so much, in his sleep?



Red State Reject
by Michael R. Burch

I once was a pessimist
but now I’m more optimistic
ever since I discovered my fears
were unsupported by any statistic.



pretty pickle
by michael r. burch

u’d blaspheme if u could
because ur Gaud’s no good,
but of course u cant:
ur a lowly ant
(or so u were told by a Hierophant).

The wordplay of “ur Gaud” and “u cant” is intentional, as always.



briefling
by michael r. burch

manishatched,hopsintotheMix,
cavorts,hassex(quick!,spawnan­ewBrood!);
then,likeamayfly,he’ssuddenlygone:
plantfood

Here “briefling” is a diminutive of “brief” and also a pun on “brief fling.”



Nonbeliever
by Michael R. Burch

She smiled a thin-lipped smile
(What do men know of love?)
then rolled her eyes toward heaven
(Or that Chauvinist above?).



A Child’s Christmas Prayer of Despair for a Hindu Saint
by Michael R. Burch

Santa Claus,
for Christmas, please,
don’t bring me toys, or games, or candy . . .
just . . . Santa, please,
I’m on my knees! . . .
please don’t let Jesus torture Gandhi!



Hymn to Apollo
by Michael R. Burch, age 16

something of sunshine attracted my i
as it lazed on the afternoon sky,
golden, splashed on the easel of god;
what, i thought,
could this airy stuff be,
to, phantomlike, flit
through tall trees
on fall days, such as these?

and the breeze
whispered a dirge
to the vanishing light;
enchoired with the evening, it sang;
its voice enchantedly rang
chanting "Night! "...

till all the bright light
retired,
expired.

I wrote this poem around age 15 or 16 and it was published in the Lantern, my high school literary journal, as “Something of Sunshine.”



Erin
by Michael R. Burch

All that’s left of Ireland is her hair—
bright carrot—and her milkmaid-pallid skin,
her brilliant air of cavalier despair,
her train of children—some conceived in sin,
the others to avoid it. For nowhere
is evidence of thought. Devout, pale, thin,
gay, nonchalant, all radiance. So fair!

How can men look upon her and not spin
like wobbly buoys churned by her skirt’s brisk air?
They buy. They ***** to pat her nyloned shin,
to share her elevated, pale Despair ...
to find at last two spirits ease no one’s.

All that’s left of Ireland is the Care,
her impish grin, green eyes like leprechauns’.

This is one of my most-rejected poems, but I have always liked it myself.



Aflutter
by Michael R. Burch

This rainbow is the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh.—Yahweh

You are gentle now, and in your failing hour
how like the child you were, you seem again,
and smile as sadly as the girl
                                              (age ten?)
who held the sparrow with the mangled wing
close to her heart.
                            It marveled at your power
but would not mend.
                                And so the world renews
old vows it seemed to make: false promises
spring whispers, as if nothing perishes
that does not resurrect to wilder hues
like rainbows’ eerie pacts we apprehend
but cannot fail to keep.
                                     Now in your eyes
I see the end of life that only dies
and does not care for bright, translucent lies.
Are tears so precious? These few, let us spend
together, as before, then lay to rest
these sparrows’ hearts aflutter at each breast.



Last Anthem
by Michael R. Burch

Where you have gone are the shadows falling . . .
does memory pale
like a fossil in shale
. . . do you not hear me calling?

Where you have gone do the shadows lengthen . . .
does memory wane
with the absence of pain
. . . is silence at last your anthem?



Lean Harvests (II)
by Michael R. Burch

for Tom Merrill

the trees are shedding their leaves again:
another summer is over.
the Christians are praising their Maker again,
but not the disconsolate plover:
     i hear him berate
     the fate
     of his mate;
he claims God is no body’s lover.



Sharon
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 15

apologies to Byron

I.

Flamingo-minted, pink, pink cheeks,
dark hair streaked with a lisp of dawnlight;
I have seen your shadow creep
through eerie webs spun out of twilight...

And I have longed to kiss your lips,
as sweet as the honeysuckle blooms,
and to hold your pale albescent body,
more curvaceous than the moon...

II.


Black-haired beauty, like the night,
stay with me till morning's light.
In shadows, Sharon, become love
until the sun lights our alcove.

Red, red lips reveal white stone:
whet my own, my passions hone.
My all in all I give to you,
in our tongues’ exchange of dew.

Now all I ever ask of you
is: do with me what now you do.

My love, my life, my only truth!

In shadows, Sharon, shed your gown;
let all night’s walls come tumbling down.

III.

Now I will love you long, Sharon,
as long as longing may be.

I wrote the first version of this poem around age 15.



Shock
by Michael R. Burch

It was early in the morning of the forming of my soul,
in the dawning of desire, with passion at first bloom,
with lightning splitting heaven to thunder's blasting roll
and a sense of welling fire and, perhaps, impending doom—

that I cried out through the tumult of the raging storm on high
for shelter from the chaos of the restless, driving rain . . .
and the voice I heard replying from a rift of bleeding sky
was mine, I'm sure, and, furthermore, was certainly insane.



Shadows
by Michael R. Burch

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.



Stewark Island (Ambiguity)

“Take your child, your only child, whom you love...”

Seas are like tears—
they are never far away.
I have fled them now these eighteen years,
but I am nearer them today
than I ever have been.

Oh, I never could bear
the warm, salty water
or the cool comfort here
in the shade of an altar
sweeter than sin ...

Sweeter than sin,
yet cleansing, like love;
still its feel to doomed skin
either too little or too much
of whatever it is.

Seas and tears
are like life—
ridiculous,
ambiguous.

I wrote "Stewark Island (Ambiguity)" around age 17-18 as a high school junior or senior.



stones
by michael r. burch

i.
far below me lies a village
with its houses hewn from stone
and though Everyman who lives there
bravely claims he’s not alone,
i can tell him, yes u are!
for u cannot touch the stars
no matter how u try;
nor can u tame the mountain,
nor appease the darkening sky.

ii.
and late at night
their flinty fires blazing cannot warm their stony hearts;
though each villager “believes” (in what?)
the terror-fear departs
them only at mid-day
for they fear what Others say
when their walls have shut them in.

iii.
and do they sin?
who am i to say?
most stones are shades of gray;
what does it matter, anyway?

iv.
oh, i think that living is not easy
and that dying is not hard ...
as the stars above wink, meaningless,
so they are;
so we all are.

v.
a legion without sound
in dusky darkness drawing down
to settle on the town,
the Night is like a stone —
hard and dark and rolling on,
hard and dark and rolling on.



With my daughter, by a waterfall
by Michael R. Burch

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, in 1977. I believe I wrote it the year before, around age 18.



Yesterday My Father Died
by Michael R. Burch

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 knew, 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 no 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 . . .

I wrote "Yesterday My Father Died" in high school, circa age 16.



What The Roses Don’t Say
by Michael R. Burch

Oblivious to love, the roses bloom
and never touch ... They gather calm and still
to watch the busy insects swarm their leaves ...

They sway, bemused ... till rain falls with a chill
stark premonition: ice! ... and then they twitch
in shock at every outrage ... Soon they’ll blush

a paler scarlet, humbled in their beds,
for they’ll be naked; worse, their leaves will droop,
their petals quickly wither ... Spindly thorns

are poor defense against the winter’s onslaught ...
No, they are roses. Men should be afraid.

This was my second attempt at blank verse, after “Once Upon a Frozen Star.”



The Monarch’s Rose or The Hedgerow Rose
by Michael R. Burch

I lead you here to pluck this florid rose
still tethered to its post, a dreary mass
propped up to stiff attention, winsome-thorned
(what hand was ever daunted less to touch
such flame, in blatant disregard of all
but atavistic beauty)? Does this rose
not symbolize our love? But as I place
its emblem to your breast, how can this poem,
long centuries deflowered, not debase
all art, if merely genuine, but not
“original”? Love, how can reused words
though frailer than all petals, bent by air
to lovelier contortions, still persist,
defying even gravity? For here
beat Monarch’s wings: they rise on emptiness!

This was my third attempt at blank verse.



Fairest Diana
by Michael R. Burch

Fairest Diana, princess of dreams,
born to be loved and yet distant and lone,
why did you linger—so solemn, so lovely—
an orchid ablaze in a crevice of stone?

Was not your heart meant for tenderest passions?
Surely your lips—for wild kisses, not vows!
Why then did you languish, though lustrous, becoming
a pearl of enchantment cast before sows?

Fairest Diana, fragile as lilac,
as willful as rainfall, as true as the rose;
how did a stanza of silver-bright verse
come to be bound in a book of dull prose?



Elemental
by Michael R. Burch

for and after Dylan Thomas

The poet delves earth’s detritus—hard toil—
for raw-edged nouns, barbed verbs, vowels’ lush bouquet;
each syllable his pen excretes—dense soil,
dark images impacted, rooted clay.

The poet sees the sea but feels its meaning—
the teeming brine, the mirrored oval flame
that leashes and excites its turgid surface ...
then squanders years imagining love’s the same.

Belatedly, he turns to what lies broken—
the scarred and furrowed plot he fiercely sifts,
among death’s sicksweet dungs and composts seeking
one element whose scorching flame uplifts.



gimME that ol’ time religion!
by michael r. burch

fiddle-dee-dum, fiddle-dee-dee,
jesus loves and understands ME!
safe in his grace, I’LL **** them to hell—
the strumpet, the harlot, the wild jezebel,
the alky, the druggie, all queers short and tall!
let them drink ashes and wormwood and gall,
’cause fiddle-dee-DUMB, fiddle-dee-WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEee . . .
jesus loves and understands
ME!



Happily Never After
by Michael R. Burch

Happily never after, we lived unmerrily
(write it!—like disaster) in Our Kingdom by the See
as the man from Porlock’s laughter drowned out love’s threnody.

We ditched the red wheelbarrow in slovenly Tennessee,
then made a picturebook of poems, a postcard for Tse-Tse,
a list of resolutions we knew we couldn’t keep,
and asylum decorations for the King in his dark sleep.

We made it new so often, strange newness, wearing old,
peeled off, and something rotten gleamed—dull yellow, not like gold—
like carelessness, or cowardice, and redolent of ***.
We stumbled off, our awkwardness—new Keystone comedy.

Huge cloudy symbols blocked the sun; onlookers strained to see.
We said We were the only One. Our gaseous Melody
had made us Joshuas, and so—the Bible, new-rewrit,
with god removed, replaced by Show and Glyphics and Sanskrit,
seemed marvelous to Us, although King Ezra said, “It’s S--t.”

We spent unhappy hours in Our Kingdom of the Pea,
drunk on such Awesome Power only Emperors can See.
We were Imagists and Vorticists, Projectivists, a Dunce,
Anarchists and Antarcticists and anti-Christs, and once
We’d made the world Our oyster and stowed away the pearl
of Our too-, too-polished wisdom, unanchored of the world,
We sailed away to Lilliput, to Our Kingdom by the See
and piped the rats to join Us, to live unmerrily
hereever and hereafter, in Our Kingdom of the Pea,
in the miniature ship Disaster in a jar in Tennessee.



Duet (I)
by Michael R. Burch

Oh, Wendy, by the firelight, how sad,
how worn and gray your auburn hair became!
You’re very silent, like an evening rain
that trembles on dark petals. Tears you’ve shed
for days we danced together, glisten now;
your flesh became translucent; and your brow
knits, gathered loosely. By the well-made bed
three portraits hang with knowing eyes, beloved,
but mine is not among them. Time has proved
our hearts both strangely mortal. If I said
I loved you once, how is it that could change?
And yet I watch you fondly; love is strange . . .

Oh, Peter, by the firelight, how bright
my thought of you remains, and if I said
I loved you once, then took him to my bed,
I did it for the need of love, one night
when you were far away. My heart endured
transfigurement—in flaming ash inured
to heartbreak and the violence of sight:
I saw myself grow old and thin and frail
with thinning hair about me, like a veil . . .
And so I loved him for myself, despite
the love between us—our first startled kiss.
But then I loved him for his humanness.
And then we both grew old, and it was right . . .

Oh, Wendy, if I fly, I fly beyond
these human hearts, these cities walled and tiered
against the night, beyond this vale of tears,
for love, if it exists, dies with the years . . .

No, Peter, love is constant as the heart
that keeps till its last beat a measured pace
and sets the fixtures of its dreams in place
by beds at first well-used, at last well-made,
and counts each face a joy, each tear a grace . . .



Duet (II)
by Michael R. Burch

If love is just an impulse meant to bring
two tiny hearts together, skittering
like hamsters from their Quonsets late at night
in search of lust’s productive exercise . . .

If love is the mutation of some gene
made radiant—an accident of bliss
played out by two small actors on a screen
of silver mesh, who never even kiss . . .

If love is evolution, nature’s way
of sorting out its DNA in pairs,
of matching, mating, sculpting flesh’s clay . . .
why does my wrinkled hamster climb his stairs

to set his wheel revolving, then descend
and stagger off . . . to make hers fly again?

Published by Bewildering Stories



Oasis
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

I want tears to form again
in the shriveled glands of these eyes
dried all these long years
by too much heated knowing.

I want tears to course down
these parched cheeks,
to star these cracked lips
like an improbable dew

in the heart of a desert.
I want words to burble up
like happiness, like the thought of love,
like the overwhelming, shimmering thought of you

to a nomad who
has only known drought.



Melting
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Entirely, as spring consumes the snow,
the thought of you consumes me: I am found
in rivulets, dissolved to what I know
of former winters’ passions. Underground,
perhaps one slender icicle remains
of what I was before, in some dark cave—
a stalactite, long calcified, now drains
to sodden pools whose milky liquid laves
the colder rock, thus washing something clean
that never saw the light, that never knew
the crust could break above, that light could stream:
so luminous,
                     so bright,
                                                      so beautiful . . .
I lie revealed, and so I stand transformed,
and all because you smiled on me, and warmed.

Published by Borderless Journal



All Afterglow
by Michael R. Burch

Something remarkable, perhaps ...
the color of her eyes ... though I forget
the color of her eyes ... perhaps her hair
the way it blew about ... I do not know
just what it was about her that has kept
her thought lodged deep in mine ... unmelted snow
that lasted till July would be less rare,
clasped in some frozen cavern where the wind
sculpts bright grotesqueries, ignoring springs’
and summers’ higher laws ... there thawing slow
and strange by strange degrees, one tick beyond
the freezing point which keeps all things the same
... till what remains is fragile and unlike
the world above, where melted snows and rains
form rivulets that, inundate with sun,
evaporate, and in life’s cyclic stream
remake the world again ... I do not know
that we can be remade—all afterglow.

Note: “inundate with snow” is not a typo.



Millay Has Her Way with a Vassar Professor
by Michael R. Burch

After a night of hard drinking and spreading her legs,
Millay hits the dorm, where the Vassar don begs:
“Please act more chastely, more discretely, more seemly!”
(His name, let’s assume, was, er ... Percival Queemly.)

“Expel me! Expel me!”—She flashes her eyes.
“Oh! Please! No! I couldn’t! That wouldn’t be wise,
for a great banished Shelley would tarnish my name ...
Eek! My game will be lame if I can’t milque your fame!”

“Continue to live here—carouse as you please!”
the beleaguered don sighs as he sags to his knees.
Millay grinds her crotch half an inch from his nose:
“I can live in your hellhole, strange man, I suppose ...
but the price is your firstborn, whom I’ll sacrifice to Moloch.”
(Which explains what became of pale Percy’s son, Enoch.)



Album
by Michael R. Burch

I caress them—trapped in brittle cellophane—
and I see how young they were, and how unwise;
and I remember their first flight—an old prop plane,
their blissful arc through alien blue skies ...

And I touch them here through leaves which—tattered, frayed—
are also wings, but wings that never flew:
like Nabokov’s wings—pinned, held. Here, time delayed,
their features never merged, remaining two ...

And Grief, which lurked unseen beyond the lens
or in shadows where It crept on furtive claws
as It scritched Its way into their hearts, depends
on sorrows such as theirs, and works Its jaws ...

and slavers for Its meat—those young, unwise,
who naively dare to dream, yet fail to see
how, lumbering sunward, Hope, ungainly, flies,
clutching to Her ruffled breast what must not be.



Musings at Giza
by Michael R. Burch

In deepening pools of shadows lies
the Sphinx, and men still fear his eyes.
Though centuries have passed, he waits.
Egyptians gather at the gates.

Great pyramids, the looted tombs
—how still and desolate their wombs!—
await sarcophagi of kings.
From eons past, a hammer rings.

Was Cleopatra's litter borne
along these streets now bleak, forlorn?
Did Pharaohs clad in purple ride
fierce stallions through a human tide?

Did Bocchoris here mete his law
from distant Kush to Saqqarah?
or Tutankhamen here once smile
upon the children of the Nile?

or Nefertiti ever rise
with wild abandon in her eyes
to gaze across this arid plain
and cry, “Great Isis, live again!”

Published by Golden Isis and The Eclectic Muse (Canada)



The People Loved What They Had Loved Before
by Michael R. Burch

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.



Bertolt Brecht Translations

These are my modern English translations of poems written in German by Bertolt Brecht. After the poems I have translations of epigrams and quotations by Bertolt Brecht.

The Burning of the Books
by Bertolt Brecht
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When the Regime
commanded the unlawful books to be burned,
teams of dull oxen hauled huge cartloads to the bonfires.

Then a banished writer, one of the best,
scanning the list of excommunicated texts,
became enraged: he'd been excluded!

He rushed to his desk, full of contemptuous wrath,
to write fiery letters to the incompetents in power —
Burn me! he wrote with his blazing pen —
Haven't I always reported the truth?
Now here you are, treating me like a liar!
Burn me!

Published by Poetry Super Highway, The Tory and Convivium



Parting
by Bertolt Brecht
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We embrace;
my fingers trace
rich cloth
while yours encounter only moth-
eaten fabric.

A quick hug:
you were invited to the gay soiree
while the minions of the 'law'
relentlessly pursue me.

We talk about the weather
and our friendship's eternal magic.
Anything else would be too bitter,
too tragic.



Radio Poem
by Bertolt Brecht
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You, little box, held tightly
to me
during my escape
so that your delicate tubes do not break;
carried from house to house, from ship to train,
so that my enemies may continue communicating with me
by land and by sea
and even in my bed, to my pain;
the last thing I hear at night, the first thing when I rise,
recounting their many conquests and my cares,
promise me not to go silent in a sudden
surprise.



The Mask of Evil
by Bertolt Brecht
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A Japanese woodcarving hangs on my wall —
the mask of an ancient demon, limned with golden lacquer.
Not unsympathetically, I observe
the forehead's bulging veins,
the strain
such malevolence requires.



Bertolt Brecht Epigrams and Quotations

These are my modern English translations of epigrams and quotations by Bertolt Brecht.

Everyone chases the way happiness feels,
unaware how it nips at their heels.
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The world of learning takes a crazy turn
when teachers are taught to discern!
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Unhappy, the land that lacks heroes.
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Hungry man, reach for the book:
it's a hook,
a harpoon.
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Because things are the way they are,
things can never stay as they were.
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

War is like love; true...
it finds a way through.
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

What happens to the hole
when the cheese is no longer whole?
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

It is easier to rob by setting up a bank
than by threatening the poor clerk.
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Do not fear death so much, or strife,
but rather fear the inadequate life.
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Keywords/Tags: Bertolt Brecht, translation, translations, German, modern English, epigram, epigrams, quote, quotes, quotations



Beast 666
by Michael R. Burch

“... what rough beast ... slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?”—W. B. Yeats

Brutality is a cross
wooden, blood-stained,
gas hissing, sibilant,
lungs gilled, deveined,
red flecks on a streaked glass pane,
jeers jubilant,
mocking.

Brutality is shocking—
tiny orifices torn,
impaled with hard lust,
the fetus unborn
tossed in a dust-
bin. The scarred skull shorn,
nails bloodied, tortured,
an old wound sutured
over, never healed.

Brutality, all its faces revealed,
is legion:
Death March, Trail of Tears, Inquisition . . .
always the same.
The Beast of the godless and of man’s “religion”
slouching toward Jerusalem:
horned, crowned, gibbering, drooling, insane.



Bible libel (ii)
by Michael R. Burch

ur savior’s a cad
—he’s as bad as his dad—
according to your horrible Bible.

demanding belief
or he’ll bring u to grief?
he’s worse than his horn-sprouting rival!

was the man ever good
before being made “god”?
if so, half your Bible is libel!



Disconcerted
by Michael R. Burch

Meg, my sweet,
fresh as a daisy,
when I’m with you
my heart beats like crazy
& my future gets hazy ...



Breakings
by Michael R. Burch

I did it out of pity.
I did it out of love.
I did it not to break the heart of a tender, wounded dove.

But gods without compassion
ordained: Frail things must break!
Now what can I do for her shattered psyche’s sake?

I did it not to push.
I did it not to shove.
I did it to assist the flight of indiscriminate Love.

But gods, all mad as hatters,
who legislate in such great matters,
ordained that everything irreplaceable shatters.



Altared Spots
by Michael R. Burch

The mother leopard buries her cub,
then cries three nights for his bones to rise
clad in new flesh, to celebrate the sunrise.

Good mother leopard, pensive thought
and fiercest love’s wild insurrection
yield no certainty of a resurrection.

Man’s tried them both, has added tears,
chants, dances, drugs, séances, tombs’
white alabaster prayer-rooms, wombs

where dead men’s frozen genes convene ...
there is no answer—death is death.
So bury your son, and save your breath.

Or emulate earth’s “highest species”—
write a few strange poems and odd treatises.



Having Touched You
by Michael R. Burch

What I have lost
is not less
than what I have gained.

And for each moment passed
like the sun to the west,
another remained

suspended in memory
like a flower
in crystal

so that eternity
is but an hour
and fall

is no longer a season
but a state
of mind.

I have no reason
to wait;
the wind

does not pause
for remembrance
or regret

because
there is only fate and chance.
And so then, forget . . .

Forget that we were very happy
for a day.
That day was my lifetime.

Before that day I was empty
and the sky was grey.
You were the sunshine,

the sunshine that gave me life.
I took root
and I grew.

Now the touch of death is like a terrible knife,
and yet I can bear it,
having touched you.



Children
by Michael R. Burch

There was a moment
suspended in time like a swelling drop of dew about to fall,
impendent, pregnant with possibility ...

when we might have made ...
anything,
anything we dreamed,
almost anything at all,
coalescing dreams into reality.

Oh, the love we might have fashioned
out of a fine mist and the nightly sparkle of the cosmos
and the rhythms of evening!

But we were young,
and what might have been is now a dark abyss of loss
and what is left is not worth saving.

But, oh, you were lovely,
child of the wild moonlight, attendant tides and doting stars,
and for a day,

what little we partook
of all that lay before us seemed so much,
and passion but a force
with which to play.



we did not Dye in vain!
by michael r. burch

from “songs of the sea snails”

though i’m just a slimy crawler,
     my lineage is proud:
my forebears gave their lives
     (oh, let the trumps blare loud!)
so purple-mantled Royals
     might stand out in a crowd.

i salute you, fellow loyals,
     who labor without scruple
as your incomes fall
     while deficits quadruple
to swaddle unjust Lords
     in bright imperial purple!

Originally published by The American Dissident

Notes: In ancient times the purple dye produced from the secretions of purpura mollusks (sea snails) was known as “Tyrian purple,” “royal purple” and “imperial purple.” It was greatly prized in antiquity, and was very expensive according to the historian Theopompus: “Purple for dyes fetched its weight in silver at Colophon.” Thus, purple-dyed fabrics became status symbols, and laws often prevented commoners from possessing them. The production of Tyrian purple was tightly controlled in Byzantium, where the imperial court restricted its use to the coloring of imperial silks. A child born to the reigning emperor was literally porphyrogenitos ("born to the purple") because the imperial birthing apartment was walled in porphyry, a purple-hued rock, and draped with purple silks. Royal babies were swaddled in purple; we know this because the iconodules, who disagreed with the emperor Constantine about the veneration of images, accused him of defecating on his imperial purple swaddling clothes!



Poets laud Justice’s
high principles.
Trump just gropes
her raw genitals.
—Michael R. Burch



Roll on, Red River
by Michael R. Burch

Roll on, Red River,
a cowboy has died.
Roll on; we lay him
down here at your side.
Carry him off
to the wild, raging sea...
     Roll on, Red River,
     and set his soul free.

Roll on, Red River,
roll on to the sea,
and sing him to sleep
as you roll up his dreams.
Sing him to sleep
with some old, lonesome song...
     Now roll on, Red River,
     and roll him along.

Roll on, Red River
and say a kind word
for an old surly cowhand
who died poor and hurt;
poor as a pauper
and hurt by his friends...
     Roll on, Red River,
     roll on to the end.

Roll on, Red River,
a cowboy has died.
Nobody loved him
and nobody cried.
A cowboy's not much,
but at least he's a man...
     So roll on, Red River,
     roll on and be ******.

I believe I wrote the original version of this poem around age 14-15.



Moore or Less
by Michael R. Burch

for Richard Moore

Less is more —
in a dress, I suppose,
and in intimate clothes
like crotchless hose.

But now Moore is less
due to death’s subtraction
and I must confess:
I hate such redaction!



u-turn: another way to look at religion
by michael r. burch

... u were born(e) orphaned from Ecstasy
into this lower realm: just one of the inching worms
dreaming of Beatification;
u’d love to make a u-turn back to Divinity,
but having misplaced ur chrysalis,
can only chant magical phrases,
like Circe luring ulysses back into the pigsty ...



no foothold
by michael r. burch

there is no hope;
therefore i became invulnerable to love.
now even god cannot move me:
nothing to push or shove,
no foothold.

so let me live out my remaining days in clarity,
mine being the only nativity,
my death the final crucifixion
and apocalypse,

as far as the i can see ...



The Tally
by Hafiz aka Hafez
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Lovers
don't reveal
all
their Secrets;
under the covers
they
may
count each other's Moles
(that reside
and hide
in the shy regions
by forbidden holes),
then keep the final tally
strictly
from Aunt Sally!



jasbryx
by michael r. burch

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

silently within Myself,
he shouts aloud and shuns the shelf
that others deem to be his place;
yet society is not disgraced,
nor are we,
for he is never heard
above the spoken word

o, i am not as others are —
pale things of ice, 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 —
he lives his life without a care;
and he is all he seems to be —
wild, rambunctious, fervent, free,
so unlike Me

I wrote "jasbryx" in high school, under the influence of e. e. cummings, around age 16.



The Red State Reaction
by Michael R. Burch

Where the hell are they hidin’
Sleepy Joe Biden?

And how the hell can the bleep
Do so much, in his sleep?



Red State Reject
by Michael R. Burch

I once was a pessimist
but now I’m more optimistic
ever since I discovered my fears
were unsupported by any statistic.



Late Frost
by Michael R. Burch

The matters of the world like sighs intrude;
out of the darkness, windswept winter light
too frail to solve the puzzle of night’s terror
resolves the distant stars to salts: not white,

but gray, dissolving in the frigid darkness.
I stoke cooled flames and stand, perhaps revealed
as equally as gray, a faded hardness
too malleable with time to be annealed.

Light sprinkles through dull flakes, devoid of color;
which matters not. I did not think to find
a star like Bethlehem’s. I turn my collar
to trudge outside for cordwood. There, outlined

within the doorway’s arch, I see the tree
that holds its boughs aloft, as if to show
they harbor neither love, nor enmity,
but only stars: insignias I know—

false ornaments that flash, overt and bright,
but do not warm and do not really glow,
and yet somehow bring comfort, soft delight:
a rainbow glistens on new-fallen snow.



Snap Shots
by Michael R. Burch

Our daughters must be celibate,
die virgins. We triangulate
their early paths to heaven (for
the martyrs they’ll soon conjugate).

We like to hook a little tail.
We hope there’s decent *** in jail.
Don’t fool with us; our bombs are smart!
(We’ll send the plans, ASAP, e-mail.)

The soul is all that matters; why
hoard gold if it offends the eye?
A pension plan? Don’t make us laugh!
We have your plan for sainthood. (Die.)

The second stanza is a punning reference to the Tailhook scandal, in which US Navy and Marine aviation officers were alleged to have sexually assaulted up to 83 women and seven men.



Excelsior
by Michael R. Burch

I lift my eyes and laugh, Excelsior . . .
Why do you come, wan spirit, heaven-gowned,
complaining that I am no longer “pure?”

I threw myself before you, and you frowned,
so full of noble chastity, renowned
for leaving maidens maidens. In the dark

I sought love’s bright enchantment, but your lips
were stone; my fiery metal drew no spark
to light the cold dominions of your heart.

What realms were ours? What leasehold? And what claim
upon these territories, cold and dark,
do you seek now, pale phantom? Would you light

my heart in death and leave me ashen-white,
as you are white, extinguished by the Night?



The Unregal Beagle vs. The Voracious Eagle
by Michael R. Burch

I’d rather see an eagle
than a beagle
because they’re so **** regal.

But when it’s time to wiggle
and to giggle,
I’d rather embrace an angel
than an evil.

Plus, when it’s time to share the same small space,
I’d much rather have a beagle lick my face!



Update of "A Litany in Time of Plague"
by Michael R. Burch

THE PLAGUE has come again
To darken lives of men
and women, girls and boys;
Death proves their bodies toys
Too frail to even cry.
I am sick, I must die.
    Lord, have mercy on us!

Tycoons, what use is wealth?
You cannot buy good health!
Physicians cannot heal
Themselves, to Death must kneel.
Nuns’ prayers mount to the sky.
I am sick, I must die.
    Lord, have mercy on us!

Beauty’s brightest flower?
Devoured in an hour.
Kings, Queens and Presidents
Are fearful residents
Of manors boarded high.
I am sick, I must die.
    Lord, have mercy on us!

We have no means to save
Our children from the grave.
Though cure-alls line our shelves,
We cannot save ourselves.
"Come, come!" the sad bells cry.
I am sick, I must die.
    Lord, have mercy on us!



Milestones Toward Oblivion
by Michael R. Burch

“A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”
—Ronald Reagan

A milestone here leans heavily
against a gaunt, golemic tree.
These words are chiseled thereupon:
"One mile and then Oblivion."

Swift larks that once swooped down to feed
on groping slugs, such insects breed
within their radiant flesh and bones ...
they did not heed the milestones.

Another marker lies ahead,
the only tombstone to the dead
whose eyeless sockets read thereon:
"Alas, behold Oblivion."

Once here the sun shone fierce and fair;
now night eternal shrouds the air
while winter, never-ending, moans
and drifts among the milestones.

This road is neither long nor wide ...
men gleam in death on either side.
Not long ago, they pondered on
milestones toward Oblivion.

Originally published by Borderless Journal (Singapore)



Mingled Air
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Ephemeral as breath, still words consume
the substance of our hearts; the very air
that fuels us is subsumed; sometimes the hair
that veils your eyes is lifted and the room

seems hackles-raised: a spring all tension wound
upon a word. At night I feel the care
evaporate—a vapor everywhere
more enervate than sighs: a mournful sound

grown blissful. In the silences between
I hear your heart, forget to breathe, and glow
somehow. And though the words subside, we know
the hearth light and the comfort embers gleam

upon our dreaming consciousness. We share
so much so common: sighs, breath, mingled air.



Doppelgänger
by Michael R. Burch

Here the only anguish
is the bedraggled vetch lying strangled in weeds,
the customary sorrows of the wild persimmons,
the whispered complaints of the stately willow trees
disentangling their fine lank hair,

and what is past.

I find you here, one of many things lost,
that, if we do not recover, will undoubtedly vanish forever ...
now only this unfortunate stone,
this pale, disintegrate mass,
this destiny, this unexpected shiver,

this name we share.



Role Reversal
by Michael R. Burch

The fluted lips of statues
mock the bronze gaze
of the dying sun . . .

We are nonplussed, they say,
smacking their wet lips,
jubilant . . .

We are always refreshed, always undying,
always young, forever unapologetic,
forever gay, smiling,

and though it seems man has made us,
on his last day, we will see him unmade—
we will watch him decay

as if he were clay,
and we had assumed his flesh,
hissing our disappointment.



Improve yourself by others' writings, attaining freely what they purchased at the expense of experience. — Socrates, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Celebrate the New Year?
The cat is not impressed,
the dogs shiver.
—Michael R. Burch



Relativity and the "Physics" of Love
by Albert Einstein
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Sit next to a pretty girl for an hour,
it seems like a minute.
Sit on a red-hot stove for a minute,
it seems like an hour.
That's relativity!

Oh, it should be possible
to explain the laws of physics
to a barmaid! . . .
but how could she ever,
in a million years,
explain love to an Einstein?

All these primary impulses,
not easily described in words,
are the springboards
of man's actions—because
any man who can drive safely
while kissing a pretty girl
is simply not giving the kiss
the attention it deserves!



Unaware it protects
the hilltop paddies,
the scarecrow seems useless to itself.
—Eihei Dogen Kigen, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Ebb-tide:
everything we stoop to collect
slips through our fingers ...
—Chiyo-ni, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Ascendance Transcendence
by Michael R. Burch

Breaching the summit
I reach
the horizon’s last rays.
—Michael R. Burch



Fledglings
by Michael R. Burch

With her small eyes, pale blue and unforgiving,
she taught me: December is not for those
unweaned of love, the chirping nestlings
who bicker for worms with dramatic throats

still pinkly exposed, ... who have yet to learn
the first harsh lesson of survival: to devour
their weaker siblings in the high-leafed ferned
fortress and impregnable bower

from which men must fly like improbable dreams
to become poets. They have yet to grasp that,
before they can soar starward like fanciful archaic machines,
they must first assimilate the latest technology, ... or

lose all in the sudden realization of gravity,
following Icarus’s sun-unwinged, singed trajectory.



The Higher Atmospheres
by Michael R. Burch

Whatever we became climbed on the thought
of Love itself; we floated on plumed wings
ten thousand miles above the breasted earth
that vexed us to such Distance; now all things
seem small and pale, a girdle’s handsbreadth girth ...

I break upon the rocks; I break; I fling
my human form about; I writhe; I writhe.
Invention is not Mastery, nor wings
Salvation. Here the Vulture cruelly chides
and plunges at my eyes, and coos and sings ...

Oh, some will call the sun my doom, since Love
melts callow wax the higher atmospheres
made brittle. I flew high, just high enough
to melt such frozen resins ... thus, Her jeers.



Ode to Postmodernism, or, Bury Me at St. Edmonds!
by Michael R. Burch

“Bury St. Edmonds—Amid the squirrels, pigeons, flowers and manicured lawns of Abbey Gardens, one can plug a modem into a park bench and check e-mail, download files or surf the Web, absolutely free.”—Tennessean News Service. (The bench was erected free of charge by the British division of MSN, after a local bureaucrat wrote a contest-winning ode of sorts to MSN.)

Our post-modernist-equipped park bench will let
you browse the World Wide Web, the Internet,
commune with nature, interact with hackers,
design a virus, feed brown bitterns crackers.

Discretely-wired phone lines lead to plugs—
four ports we swept last night for nasty bugs,
so your privacy’s assured (a *******’s fine)
while invited friends can scan the party line:

for Internet alerts on new positions,
the randier exploits of politicians,
exotic birds on web cams (DO NOT FEED!).
The cybersex is great, it’s guaranteed

to leave you breathless—flushed, free of disease
and malware viruses. Enjoy the trees,
the birds, the bench—this product of Our pen.
We won in with an ode to MSN.



Excerpts from the Journal of Dorian Gray
by Michael R. Burch

It was not so much dream, as error;
I lay and felt the creeping terror
of what I had become take hold . . .

The moon watched, silent, palest gold;
the picture by the mantle watched;
the clock upon the mantle talked,
in halting voice, of minute things . . .

Twelve strokes like lashes and their stings
scored anthems to my loneliness,
but I have dreamed of what is best,
and I have promised to be good . . .

Dismembered limbs in vats of wood,
foul acids, and a strangled cry!
I did not care, I watched him die . . .

Each lovely rose has thorns we miss;
they ***** our lips, should we once kiss
their mangled limbs, or think to clasp
their violent beauty. Dream, aghast,
the flower of my loveliness,
this ageless face (for who could guess?),
and I will kiss you when I rise . . .

The patterns of our lives comprise
strange portraits. Mine, I fear,
proved dear indeed . . . Adieu!
The knife’s for you.



Flight
by Michael R. Burch

Eagle, raven, blackbird, crow . . .
What you are I do not know.
Where you go I do not care.
I’m unconcerned whose meal you bear.
But as you mount the sun-splashed sky,
I only wish that I could fly.
I only wish that I could fly.

Robin, hawk or whippoorwill . . .
Should men care if 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.

I don’t remember exactly when this poem was written. I believe it was around 1974-1975, which would have made me 16 or 17 at the time. I do remember not being happy with the original version of the poem, and I revised it more than once over the years, including recently at age 61! The original poem was influenced by William Cullen Bryant’s “To a Waterfowl.”



The Princess and the Pauper
by Michael R. Burch

for Norman Kraeft in memory of his beloved wife June

Here was a woman bright, intent on life,
who did not flinch from Death, but caught his eye
and drew him, powerless, into her spell
of wanting her himself, so much the lie
that she was meant for him—obscene illusion!—
made him seem a monarch throned like God on high,
when he was less than nothing; when to die
meant many stultifying, pained embraces.

She shed her gown, undid the tangled laces
that tied her to the earth: then she was his.
Now all her erstwhile beauty he defaces
and yet she grows in hallowed loveliness—
her ghost beyond perfection—for to die
was to ascend. Now he begs, penniless.



Professor Poets
by Michael R. Burch

Professor poets remind me of drones
chasing the Classical queen's aging bones.
With bottle-thick glasses they still see to write —
droning on, endlessly buzzing all night.
And still in our classrooms their tomes are decreed ...
Perhaps they're too busy with buzzing to breed?



Deliver Us ...
by Michael R. Burch

for my mother, Christine Ena Burch

The night is dark and scary—
under your bed, or upon it.

That blazing light might be a star ...
or maybe the Final Comet.

But two things are sure: your mother’s love
and your puppy’s kisses, doggonit!



The Song of Roland
by Michael R. Burch

“for spring in retreat”

Rain down,
strange murmurous water...
no, summer is not yet nigh.

Cease your complaining,
for May is,
calling December a lie,
still rocking the high white sky.

Sleep now,
summer hours...
too soon your time shall come.

Softly straining,
the raining
spring begs, "Let me run
one more hour beneath the sun,
for soon I shall be gone."

Lie down,
weary Roland,
for summer is not yet nigh.

Remember a pyre
of stars blazing higher
upon night’s immense dark sky
unsettling as her eyes,
unregretful, as you died...

Lie down,
weary Roland,
for summer is not yet nigh.



Poet to poet
by Michael R. Burch

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)



Editor's Notes
by Michael R. Burch

Eat, drink and be merry
(tomorrow, be contrary).

(***** and complain
in bad refrain,
but please—not till I'm on the plane!)

Write no poem before its time
(in your case, this means never).
Linger over every word
(by which, I mean forever).

By all means, read your verse aloud.
I'm sure you'll be a star
(and just as distant, when I'm gone);
your poems are beauteous (afar).



Amending Walls
by Michael R. Burch

“Do as dad did, from hating queers to praying.”
Robert Frost, one fears, was undoubtedly right.
They can’t go beyond their father’s saying.

They’re building walls, the intolerant and the straying.
They’re building walls again, to shut in night.
“Do as dad did, from hating queers to praying.”

“Stabbed in the back!” Thus cry the ones betraying,
who turn their sullen backs on the Lord of Light.
They can’t go beyond their father’s saying.

Screaming curses, froth-mouthed, vile and baying,
having no care for their frailest victim’s plight.
“Do as dad did, from hating queers to praying.”

The oddest of heroes, fraying while still braying,
embracing hatred, it seems, with great delight,
they can’t go beyond their father’s saying.

Raging at children, brutes intent on slaying.
Robert Frost, one fears, was undoubtedly right.
“Do as dad did, from hating queers to praying.”
They can’t go beyond their father’s saying.



My Epitaph
by Michael R. Burch

Do not weep for me, when I am gone.
I lived, and ate my fill, and gorged on life.
You will not find beneath this glossy stone
the man who sowed and reaped and gathered days
like flowers, undismayed they would not keep.
Go lightly then, and leave me to my sleep.



Everlasting
by Michael R. Burch

Where the wind goes
when the storm dies,
there my spirit lives
though I close my eyes.

Do not weep for me;
I am never far.
Whisper my name
to the last star ...

then let me sleep,
think of me no more.

Still ...
By denying death
its terminal sting,
in my words I remain
everlasting.



Lines for My Ascension
by Michael R. Burch

I.

If I should die,
there will come a Doom,
and the sky will darken
to the deepest Gloom.

But if my body
should not be found,
never think of me
in the cold ground.

II.

If I should die,
let no mortal say,
“Here was a man,
with feet of clay,

or a timid sparrow
God’s hand let fall.”
But watch the sky darken
to an eerie pall

and know that my Spirit,
unvanquished, broods,
and scoffs at these churchyards
littered with roods.

And if my body
should not be found,
never think of me
in the cold ground.

III.

If I should die,
let no man adore
his incompetent Maker:
Zeus, Yahweh, or Thor.

Think of Me as the One
who never died—
the unvanquished Immortal
with the unriven side.

And if my body
should not be found,
never think of me
in the cold ground.

IV.

And if I should “die,”
though the clouds grow dark
as fierce lightnings rend
this bleak asteroid, stark ...

If you look above,
you will see a bright Sign—
the sun with the moon
in its arms, Divine.

So divine, if you can,
my bright meaning, and know—
my Spirit is mine.
I will go where I go.

And if my body
should not be found,
never think of me
in the cold ground.
Evan Stephens Apr 2019
I drank deep
of the
pink heads.

I let the
whiteness
of the petal
shake my
face from
the day.

The wind
came cold
from the
basin,
sweeping
my hair
into
dusk
shapes.

The jealous
magnolia
branch,
heavy with
wax,
was drunk
with ascendance.

In all of this
I felt the
wildness
crawling
in me.

It longed
for you.
When I drank
deep of
the pink
heads -
I thought
only of
your name.
We knew T-Rex from its tiny claws
Its hungry mouth, its toothy jaws.
But how can we assess T-****
When all our data’s from a stump
And weekly polls that flinch and jump?

The answer’s lying deep below
Perhaps with Edgar Allen Poe
Whose poetry is dark and slow.

A creature walking o’er the earth
In privilege stretching back to birth
That claims ascendance overall
And loves to brag and boast and brawl
And sometimes recoils, sometimes howls
(One sometimes wonders at its bowels—
When watching active ****** scowls.)

T-**** is marching to consume
What’s going on in the newsroom
And feeds on minor predators,
(Ignoring its own creditors).
It likes to crouch and dance and pose
While speaking in a broken prose
And often wrinkling up its nose
At anything that might oppose
Or even worse, that might expose,
Its streak of show-and-tell sideshows.

Alas when sizing up T-****
One hits a show-and-tell speed bump
That’s not about its topmost clump
Or its eternal ****** frump.
We know, somehow, we’re each a chump
In thinking that there was an ump
Who’d put things on the ump and ump
And so we lazed, and scrimped and scrumped
Instead of what we’d need to do—
To find what’s cleanly new and true,
And redirect our Waterloo
Away from its own cancerous lump
And toward a far less spurious zoo.
In other words, to dump T-****!
Some brothers step on other siblings to survive
Morals fall to dirt like the raindrops from the skys
Unseen and left unfelt they sit and rot with hate and vengeance
Longing for the day they gain revenge with their ascendance
Peace is never felt when family leaves family in pieces
Strongest of the strong crippled as money is their weakness
What if someone stepped on the faces of those you eat with
Would you draw your blade?
Would you slice away until their soul is slain and caved?
Would you jump for joy as a mother has lost their child?
Returning home with blood on your body from actions vile..

Not a good look
Staring at the clouds
Demons in the shade
Evade in smokey shroud
I see them all the time
They don't attack out loud
Their tactics soaked in grime
They make their brothers proud
The speed is not sublime
He could've saw it coming
Too focused on his needs
Blades soaked in blood
Brothers possessed by greed..
NuurSeraph May 2014
I'm not always smoothly gliding along
At times the Tempest catches my wings in it's Turbulence
I'm accommodating to these warring winds giving in to flip, flop, spin, drop until a pocket opens up to relieve me.

I'll plan for descent when I feel to weary for the sky's macabre mood
To find a perch protected with plentiful foliage, embrace the day on level ground calling out to find another near who would like to share my company.

We could look upon the Earthen grounds, take interest in the World around, listening to all the sounds, add our Voice to the Symphony if so inclined to join in.

My Call has gone unanswered as of yet, my Thoughts have wandered off to other things, wait the day, take a rest, for when the hour comes to find the Sky has calmed~My Wings will shake away the dust of stillness, rising in the calm resistance of Air and Wing, working perfectly together, gracefully assisting my Flight's Ascendance.
A day in the life of a bird on a day to rough to fly the Skies.
Creating dysfunctional remembrance
Hitherto unknown, marking ascendance,
Jeopardize a lifelong lust,
Miscellaneous, all but dust,
The thoughts envisioned in my marrow,
I see you walking in dreams so shallow,
I speak to you in low frequency words,
Unsurprisingly, I am unheard,
Not your fault, no twisted contention,
I just but wish a self reinvention,
Remaining the same, self pride became,
footholds of faults, my held horses lame,
ambisinister doubts of recompense
Broken grout, life’s lost pretense,
No meaning present or ever held,
The roses of bloodletting never smelled,
The darkest dreary dreadful days
Lay waste, with which I wilt away,
Cryptic omnipresence arisen in me,
Please help me find shores of Galilee,
As abysmal as I love to remain,
I do admire occasional refrain,
Red lips upon mine, a cold, dead kiss,
Please I beg, just spare me this,
Necrotic appendages, body failing me,
Last whispers are sand grinding seas,
No depth, no fathom, nothing at all,
A muse’s voice begins to call,
What must I suffer willingly
To see what I see as it should be,
What extent of path be trod,
Before I may lay down to rot,
Wherefore are all aphorisms,
All but gone, save cynicism,
I poke and **** til festers bleed,
I blind my eyes til I can’t see,
What ******* mess have I made of me,
What height must I plummet before I’m free?
Eve Estelle Feb 2016
Doors of old mahogany creak as they swing upon their hinges,
Granting entrance into an extravagant library now devoid of life, dusty, and bleak.
Shelves tower and line the walls, brimming with books, new and antique,
Titles familiar, forgotten, and from days of yore,
A lonely, forsaken trove of lore.

But though these tomes now lie abandoned,
Power still hums in the cracks of this place;
From atop the room's stone spiral staircase,
Soft sounds drift down from the floor above.

Ascendance reveals a circular room,
Much like below, but here books fly -
The fallen volumes that spot the ground
Hover, float and flap leather-bound pages;
A broom sweeps of its own accord,
And the faintest tune of music plays..
If I am not,
then what am I?
what kind of guy?
what man?

Perception,
only takes me to
what man I could be
and what I am not.

I can trot out the old line
that
time gives me no time to be me
but
you can see the excuse,
see me hanging loose,
and well you know,
that it's just a ruse that I use.
I confuse
the answer I
look for, with beer
in the wine store.

What man am I, that I
cannot stay dry?

Dependence,
my star in the
ascendance,
but my future was told,
when
men older than me said,
one day I'd get old,
they were right.

I look now in the somehow and ask
why am I here?
and if I am not
then
what has this man got but
tomorrow, to bury his head in a day
filled with sorrow.
what kind of man is that?
December, a vision,
A most wise decision,
I believe a derision
Left us all alone,
Nothing between us,
No one could have seen us,
This event completes us
And leads us along,
My mind was so clouded
And as we were shrouded,
The rest left confounded
And sent to atone,
To seek willing penance,
To break their dependence
To find our ascendance
An encompassing throne,
I seek, we yet make it,
Deciding to break it,
Knowing not what’s at stake yet,
We sought a true home.
But finding revulsion
Furthered compulsion
Our hearts’ errosion
A broken gramaphone.
No memory corrected,
No statue erected
We became infected
With our words in tone,
I looked o'er shoulder,
No longer could hold her,
Or either composure,
Left a haunting moan.
Seeing not corrected,
My soul now indebted,
Forever inspected,
Silencing a groan,
I walked as if courted,
My love, I aborted,
To see you contorted,
My dear, so distorted,
I find self remorseless
Morbid, forsworn it,
Disgusting discourses,
All else but abhor it,
It seems so alluring,
Though mildly incurring,
All but securing
A life worth enduring,
I’d say it was the last thing that I said in this world,
But that’s just a paradox, and a lie beyond that.
John Lopes Oct 2017
The sky descends into horizon

This eve souls pass through the
membrane of ticking time
thin as a needle
kneeded through
ancient quilt sewn by

Archimedes

        Plato

            Blake

        Oratio

    Isis

those colossi greasing universe’s eternal
clock, to that recital played
unseen beyond vision
impalpable to senses
not yet sharpened by ascendance
MST Mar 2014
Why do we choose to live life by others rules,
following everything we were taught in schools,
being herded through life like a pack of mules,
it is as if we have grown to accept our dependence.
On T.V. shows about children we don't know,
to the latest celebrity caught with a nose full of blow,
we don't realize our minds being molded like dough,
as shadows prohibit our ascendance.
But we can fight this evil that has entered our brains,
and relinquish ourselves from societies chains,
let the blood run free as it does in your veins,
and no longer live your life as if in attendance.
Your elegance ,grace and excellence
My love, takes me to eternal height
My heart and soul go to ascendance
Beauty is the real source of delight

My love your beauty chains in trance
My heartbeat mingles in light stream
Let my sweetheart take me this chance
Love is nothing but just like a dream

Your beauty has changed my way of life
Now I am no more on the deserted land
Your beauty has cut my life with a knife
The moment has chained us hand in hand

Col Muhammad Khalid Khan
Copyright 2016 Golden Glow
Dennis Willis May 2023
Let man's dark things go
already
these turgid ways
made on some *****
of some hill
so salty and red
this ascendance
my ascendance
now leaving dents
in the firmament
of tops no bottoms
no sides no guard
rails
so push me off
or I will you
again and again
if hills could laugh
at dead clowns
it would be
the only sound
Sim Apr 2019
two lovers intoxicated with pride and vengeance
venomous blood spilled in our battle for ascendance.
taurus Jun 2018
Along the shore
I walked
under the inky sky
waves crashed around me
A  sound of thousand hands
clapping at once
over and over.

And the whoosh
of the spreading sea
cool on my feet
washing away
the footprints of my past
in the wet sand.

Must have walked long
feel tired now.
Distant thoughts
and memories
spindle away
gossamer threads
fading from sight.

I see now a shimmer
yes, a beacon of hope.
Trudge on in the gathering light
With a promise to
rest a while, renew my strength
at the end of it.

The shadows dance and give way
I see in its ascendance
A sunlit path.
I open  my eyes and feel the warmth
of the rising sun on my face
through the window.
And the birds sing on a spring morning.
Another day has begun.
Michael Marchese Sep 2018
Surrender your claims
Or give in to the thirst
Then relinquish your bearings
For I was here first
And I’ve parted the skies
With a dauntless ascendance
And opened third eyes
With enlightened resplendence
In ages now gone
And unknown to us all
I gave rise to each new breed
Of species to fall
One by one
To the one
I so foolishly gifted
With intellect
Then how the paradigm shifted
We make the gods
Vincent Singer Jul 2018
With the proceedings completed,
What remained was recollecting:

1, A Vigil

Where the mourners aligned themselves to weep or stare
Into the casket, amazed by the skills of the mortician,

“She looks at peace,” they said to us, calmly brushing her cool
Head before walking back to their seat, thinking about when they



Last saw our mom alive, something her
Friend Rhonda remembered vividly,

Barley able to walk from the diabetic neuropathy, Rhonda worked her way
Over to the couch where my sister and I sat, leaning heavy on her right
Crutch to outstretch her left hand:

“If I close my eyes, I can still see Kitty thumbing the tab of her Coke can at my dining table.
We were going back and forth about our New Years plans. She was a good woman, your mother, and a great friend to me. She will be missed by so many. I’m sorry.”

She was sweating and had swollen eyes, we smiled and
Nodded and squeezed her hand back, we said thank you and
Took the first opportunity to run downstairs,

Sarah McLachlan’s version of “In the Arms Of An Angel” played as
Theme music to the eulogies. One given by our dad, who reminded
Everyone that our mom worked nights at the hospital. He said by his
Count, she had probably held over 10,000 babies before she was sick,
10,002 if you included my sister and me. The thought lingered,
The silence persisted, and the song played again,

Now the background to a tribute given by our mother’s parents, who remembered
Raising a daughter that bought a motorcycle and decided to visit
Them on it as often as she could, no matter how much they disapproved, she was
A rebel but they loved her, they said they had six babies go to God
Before she came into the world, in the arms of an angel was the chorus of the song,
And they believed this is where their daughter was now,

In the parlor basement I overheard these snippets in between
The fizzy sounds of Coca-Cola being poured into my cup,

2, A Funeral

Everyone together in mass, listening to
“On Eagle’s Wings,” sung by the choir,

Everyone smelling the Holy Smoke being wafted
By the priest as he approaches the casket, now
Positioned below the altar and colored by the
Dappled light of the sun piercing through
The stained glass,

In sermon he says to double-down on worship, and rejoice
That Kathryn will soon be in the halls of Heaven, a sorrowful
Blessing, a product of the paschal mystery,

“It was her time,” he said,

Everyone prayed the Apostles’ Creed and the priest
Asked for us to focus on the part about ascendance
And everlasting life, how we will see her again when

It’s “our” time,

I focused on the part about descending into hell and
A three-day resurrection, I wondered if there was
Any way my mom could be stuck in purgatory,

Leaving me without her in that other world,

With my family and I in the center pews, we were
Surrounded by stares, everyone consoling from their
Various positions in the church, friends I played
Recess football with were now looking up at their
Parents crying for us,

Instead of meeting their eyes, I gazed straightaway at
The six-foot crucifix looming above my mother,
Sullen and skinny, pale and bleeding,

I wondered if it had ever fallen from its place,
And if so, whose job is it to remount our savior?

As the pallbearers lifted mom from below the
Altar and headed toward the door, my dad noticed
Me crying and said to not wipe the snot on my sleeve,
So I sniffed it up and proceed to leave with the congregation.

3, A Burial

In a five-car procession, all my family drove
From our house to the cemetery after a breakfast
Of sliced and sugared grapefruit, in memoriam  
Of her favorite way to start the morning,

Her casket was already on the lowering device
When we arrived, the wind was strong, pulling
The grass in between the headstones from left
To right,

I decided to wander around the
Other plots, spelling out the names
Of the dead and feeling in awe about
The fact that I’m standing over someone
That was buried in the 1910s,
I started to hear the bagpipes play “Amazing Grace”
When over my left shoulder I noticed my dad calling me
To throw a fistful of dirt as the grinding gears brought her
Casket down.
Michael Marchese Sep 2017
If only you knew
Of the power within
The command you could have
Over minds of these men

So simply seduced
By desire's corruption
Since Eden induced
The temptation eruption

And from Rhea's womb
Came your fury and scorn
And from Sita's ascendance
Your freedom was born

To be Mother of Dragons
Hippolyta's gown
Cleopatra adorned
In a lion king's crown

And not all of us breeders
Are of the same kind
There are some of us left
Who still think you divine
“As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.”
-Carl Jung
Mateuš Conrad Aug 2022
well, it was going to be a beautiful day, and it is a beautiful day, scorched grass patches, humidity to match that of Thailand... welcome to the Hot Age... well there was the Ice Age, no? there was Moses poetically summarising pre-history with: Noah was very real... more real than Britney Spears... history more real than insomniac journalism, fake history omni-present god replacing medium of writing ******* after ******* after more: swinging *******... but there's a plus side to this heat: angry-thinking... Freud can *******... what dream-interpretation? i have no dreams: and if i have dreams they're so already abstract that i don't need some coke-head to figure them out for me... i sometimes dream in sounds... maybe i should have been the next ******* Mozart! no! i don't have repressed-memories... i don't have repressive-memories: i have OPPRESSIVE-memories... i remember nuggets of gold from the time i was 4 years old... i guess i better leave some notes as i write and come back to them:

- sceptics vs. cynics Ezra Pound Taoist me vs. sceptics  (passion),
source of inspiration for this type of writing? Gombrowicz's Kronos...


i take out an imaginary leash and put it around my tongue:
hey presto! i'm walking a dog...
usually i walk a bottle of cider in the labyrinth
of outer-London suburbia...
i'm glad to be be 30 minutes away from Liverpool St.
by bus and train and 30 minutes' worth of walking
uphill to the biggest collection of...
well... "collection": an avenue of Wellingtonias...
Giant Redwoods (prehistoric pillars) -
        'which is one of only two plantations in the country'...
looks like i'm becoming a local boy...
i think i'm coupled with a gravity that's linear...
i'm less a falling body attached to some molten
iron core of the earth...
when again: what's up? what's down?
what's east and what's north outside the realm
of the winds, in the great divide between nature
and physics in the pupil of yawn-and-death-eating space?
no need to romance the man... someone's toilet paper
is already in pretend-mode of flapping...
so many myths of the moon died with:
one small step... another leap for... man and kangaroo...
i adore the laziness of sloths, turtles,
pandas... and koalas...
but then again: i don't think a lion is the king
of the natural world... i think the bear is...
that bulge of an omnivore... i like Russian thinking
when it comes to choosing emblems...
i like bears... i have this memory of being in the Danzig
zoo... walking into a bear enclosure...
mommy bear was watching... my mother was watching...
i walked up to a bear...
a baby bear, i was a baby too...
he started to nibble on my cardigan...
he must have bitten off about two buttons...
i ran back crying to my mum: he ate two of my buttons!
now i know: why i don't dream...
my memory faculty stretches far beyond what
most people have...
i think that's a welcome curiosity to have...
by the dictates of psychology:
you either remember... or? you dream...
i don't dream... i remember...
i can take you back to the first flashes
of brilliance aged 4... i can take you back to:
aged 5 or 6... when me and the two Kowalski brothers
first tasted coffee: granulated: instant...
obviously: we just became bored of sugary drinks...
that was a ******* gateway drug... back then...
why don't i dream? or why do i dream in
ciphers?
               ah... the memory bank...
i didn't allow pedagogy completely ruin me...
no wonder i treat the current job as a... hobby...
it truly is... crowd safety management is a hobby...
i like organising people:
one woman under my supervision already said:
you're the sort of person one would walk into
a fire for...
        i'm *******: gagging on these compliments...
i don't even think i'm deserving them:
if i am? so be it... if i'm not:
i can sniff a liar pretty quickly...
liars / lies don't walk on stilts...
       they re ******* midgets...
                         i sometimes like seeing myself in full element:
it will be: the most trivial thing that will
set me off...
   my nickname(s) in high-school?
Goldilocks (because i had long hair done into
a French braid from time to time)
Hulk: when i showed my truer face and...
   "that guy with the weird fruit"...
i did eat a lot of passion fruits, pomegranates,
Sharon(s)... etc. etc.
hmm... i'm pretty sure i wasn't supposed to work
the 20th at Fulham...
guess i'm just forever freely available these days...
people can just put me up for any shift without
me complaining:
no wife, no kids... ms. amber and Sophia...
fair enough... mind you: i like the commute...
and seeing the Thames is rather refreshing...
the weirdest river known to man...
mind you: it is an island river...
what ******* river as concept of river of flow
has TIDE written all over it?!
rivers flow... rivers shouldn't behave like seas!
how does that work?
the membrane "event horizon" of the Thames...
and... the north sea?!
huh?!

i sometimes hate London...
back in Edinburgh i used to wake up with a geographical
clarity...
the Firth of Forth helped a lot...
i knew where east was... i knew where north was...
and west and the south...
in London? even if i cycle toward that old Serpent
and Father Thames: i still don't ******* know:
i look across the river: oh right... that's north...
no! that's south you dim-whit!
ugh... i once saw London from an aerial perspective:
flying from Barcelona to Edinburgh...
so we were passing this massive lit-BLOB...
what the **** is this? i thought...
then i noticed Canary Wharf blinking... oh... right...
London!

oh mate... iT IS M'AH... MASSIVE!
it must have taken us abut five minutes to fly over that
giant sponge of civilisation... well:
paying due compliments... but it was HUGE!
it's worth seeing once: during the night...
but only once...
the rest of the time?

i must have mentioned it prior:
bicycle tyre problems...
Chadwell Heath the point of call...
the Halford's corporation couldn't **** me
a pigeon out of a penguin's *******
because: their mechanic was away until the end of
August: Bicycle King instead: done by Friday...
in the meantime i went for a pint of Guinness...

weird... you smile at a guy talking about women
on some other table... you're not weird...
you're just making an approach...
casual conversation *******...
hey presto... you acknowledge each other's presence...
and the chat takes off...
work, music, the weather... you name it...
whatever comes to mind...
it was so refreshing... it almost felt like being
soldiers on the western front: in the trenches...
breaking ***** and marking banter
on our crippled souls...
we probably had loving mothers...
but our experiences with women were:
let's just say cats and dogs loved us more...
we could actually joke with these creatures...

i said i brought a leash for my tongue...
i didn't say i brought the muzzle...
my tongue my dog
mea lingua mea canis!
              paro dictata:
i set the rules!
                                 n'est ce pas?!

there's nothing necessary to inquire for feeble men:
beside... what is necessary for what it
feeble per se...

now: for a sample of Gombrowicz's Kronos
note-taking, extravaganza!

chadwell heath pub promenade
bbq amazing...
missing: doing a refill, smoking a cigarette.
ginger brat: shivers:
      Ovid, book III, opening...
three unusual muses...
reading: music... ****** lyricism...

- and if i dream? strange... i only seem to dream of:
dentes: teeth!
there was this myth concerning my maternal
great-grandfather... how he had pristine
teeth... he used to eat sugar cubes like
a horse might eat apples...
he was the one who dumped a whole load of coffee
beans into the river: Kamienna...
the Stone River...
NN...an oddity in the ****** tongue...
you utter the double N with  stutter...
n'ah n'ah...
                   there ought to be a letter for this
example... oddity...
it can't just be a double N...

                       that's not for me to discover
or apply... but he basically dumped sacks of coffee
beans into the river... long before anyone
in the Slavic lands... on the periphery of civilisation
knew what coffee was used for...
Francis was his name...
he's my earliest memory...
maybe that's why i have dream inhibitions...
my long surviving memory is of him:
as shadow...
playing the piano...
putting me next to a toy piano
and the pair of us playing...

i have grown into a horrid man...
i'm currently listening to:
the Davy Jones' theme from pirates of
the Caribbean... and...
it's not that i'm afraid of death
or falling asleep: i just think the two
are a proper waste of time...
if i can remember living from the age of four:
why would i require a need to dream?
my memory has bypassed all that erosion
from pedagogic investments into creating
a workforce...
i don't need escapism via dreams...
i have my memory for that!

one crescendo two crescendo three!
four crescendo five crescendo six!

America spews forward *******...
i'm not ally to this current agenda... you know what
i think? i think the Russians are doing
a ****** marvelous "thing" in Ukraine...
much better than Americans in either Iraq
or Afghanistan.... much better:
less a proxy war: more a practical war:
a chess-war... a war of: consequences!

ha ha... the meme that somehow the Africans are
Orcs... the warring types...
the Mongols weren't?
oh sure sure... the English etymological roots
of Slav = Slav(e)... sure... sure...
this is my pet peeve!
my iris and sclera disappear whenever i see someone
make that statement...
i go: ha ha! BONKERS!
what African people ever conquered whatever
part of the world except their own people
which they sold into slavery?!
see! BONKERS!
i go... absolutely ******* gloriously MAD!

i've ben given absolutely:
diagnosed: mad... let me abuse the terminology / diagnosis
a little! because?! ha ha! i'm exempt from
standard prosecution! i can always succumb
to the insanity plea!
i have back-up memorandum queues...
these normal people are just: these normal people...
boorish and above all boring as ****-goes-on-holiday...

i know why i don't dream...
photographs are useless...
me taking a a photograph when i was at most lowest,
fattest? when i took the photograph:
i looked rather thin...
but? when someone else took a photograph
of me sitting in front of a Christmas dinner:
a ******* porky pie...
i don't know how cameras work:
obscurity of the eye of the beholder...
fused with the technicality of the added
technological specimen... hmm...
curiously more curious...

           i know why i don't dream: i have a very poignant
memory in my brain:
the memory of my great-grandfather as a shadow...
here: i place my focus for entering Tartarus...
beyond the already familiar depths of Hades...
i need more! i need to go deeper...
i don't dream because i have a memory of my
great-grandfather as a shadow!
darkness abounds!

                abundo tenebris!
umbra *** umbra venio hic...
(shadow with shadow come here):
i see no need for Sabbaths or for witches...
i need shadows and shadows of shadows...
and thoughts as splinters and trees as fire and ash...
i need! HORROR!
   i need the current people to live their lives
as passively as must be met:
while i quietly pass... pass as the angel of death passed
as the final plague that befell Egypt!
listen! listen! ever so... quietly!
i need them lullabied... oblivious to the SUFLER:
speaking cues to the actors on stage!
LET, ME, PASS!

                some ******* idiot will get in my way?
i will... sacrifice a lamb: and salvage a wasp!

- it was at work at the Wembley Stadium that i first
spotted a doe (female deer) embodied by a woman,
it's so rare to find that LOOK: deer in headlights...
frightened stiff about to be taken for grass by a lawnmower...
mature woman... i'm guessing in her 40s...
all the sort of details a boy would expect from
a ****... seriously... curves, *******, ***...
although: scared eyes, perhaps even scarred eyes...
i kept glancing under my sunglasses,
she kept glancing: irritated somewhat: irritated-fearful,
as if she met destiny and it wasn't what she
was expecting...
            what a beautifully bountiful specimen of
fetishes i've been fed over the years in the medium
of *******...
sure, it's summer now, and all the young and fertile
women are walking around the streets like
its a nudist beach in the French Riviera...
oh man: such under-developed bodies...
bodies that are yet to experience the crunch of ***...

i try to think about how pedophiles think...
then i get the picture...
scrambled eggs... i like they almost burnt...
i hate well-done overcooked beef in the form of a stake...
i need it rare or medium, **** it... even blue will do...
eggs? i can't have them underdone...
i know people who like runny scrambled eggs...
you can eat undercooked beef and pork:
but undercooked chicken? it's slimy...
it's like eating slugs... plus the salmonella...
plus... it feels like raw sea-food...
that's how i look at women who have not arrived
at any ****** potential...
it's ******* ****-ugly... builder-Bob's hairy *** crack
when his blue jeans droop...

young women are like undercooked chicken...
mature women are like rare beef...
BLOOD... JUICE... NO ORANGES...
     it's filth it's suckling it's the monstrosity of coming
to her **** after she just spent a year or so
feeding some rugrat with her *******...
it's macabre, it's... nature...
it's ******* a woman like that thinking:
ooh oops... when will she turn into a Mantis?!
it's like having a bicycle accident... falling head first
over the handlebars and leaving permanent
"tattoos" on your forehead... getting up and exclaiming...
i just saw Francis Bacon paint a **** while ****!
ffff-ucking spectacular! i don't need to ingest
any lysergic acid... i'm good with the head-traumas...
disorientating at first: but orientating after...

more life, more blood, more grime more filth!
more more! MORE!
mind you, is that 'e" at the end of more really necessary?
you don't really say: aMorÉ... do you?
it's not more vs. moor... ooh... i just thirst for fiddly
bits in language... and English?
it's the devil's playground... if Poland is god's
equivalent...
you know... it took **** Germany AND Soviet
Russia to subdue Poland... longer...
than it took **** Germany to subdue France...

oh to hell with the current exported trend of culture
from H'america: white apologetics...
i don't share your history: i've been woken up
from a trinity-partition... i'm not apologising
for ****!
   i think i'd look great in an SS-mensch uniform...
i like black from time to time...
i have thoughts of Karl Lagerfeld's style...
just pretend you're donning fur...
the cat isn't clothed... you're right: #metoo!
i'll done and adore the colours of the hearth...
i'll burn bright in auburn...
in browns and in greens...
    i'll become a... ******* talking tree!

enough!
         too many idiots are running this ****-show...
grammar lessons from people with an IQ of 60...
i'm checking out!
  bye bye...
  inflated overbearing baron-demons of want...
how easily they allowed me to dehumanise them...
i look at black flies and think: ooh!
just the right sort of tickle!
   people have created people like me...

how i can simply have casual *** with prostitutes
without using a ****** and not worry
about any STGs...
sexually transmitted diseases...
i probably drank enough milk in my youth...
broken bones? nope...
but outgrowths of bone? yep...
that's true... i have one on my shin...
hardly a ballerina in me bewildered by a tutu...
i don't break bones:
i leave outgrowths...

hmm... time for a new meditation...
the serpents can be left alone...
two serpents in a pickling jar? a DNA helix...
or... dragons?! fire...
the great meteor when the moon failed
to protect the earth... fire breathing
giant lizards... dinosaurs...
that, meditation: is over...
time to turn to insects... hmm... flies...
wasps...
i like that... the way wasps are born:
pure Darwinism:
insect and parasite combined...
                the larva is shoved into an unsuspecting
body of a worm...
the larva is born and starts...
eating the worm from the inside: out...
imitation cuckoo bird...
sort of the same principle...

                 has Darwinism been truly applied?
has it?! has it?! i call an obstacle i find in man
either: THING... or the OTHER...
ha ha... pronouns... ha ha... ah ha ha... pronouns...
yeah: these people have one:
IT...
                 i'm just a theological mercenary...
either the descent of god or the ascendance of the devil:
the wind blows in all four geographical vectors...
as a ****** they could have sold me Protestantism,
Catholicism, Communism... ******... blah blah...
this... woke little **** of: thank you: but i rather sleep,
is... supposed to what?! make me quake in my boots!
hold hold... let me just twinkle my toes...
do i have... socks on my feet? wait wait...
mmm... furry-toes... yeah: i have socks on...

being the massive fan of both the Red Hot Chilli Pappers
and William Burroughs:
hell only knows where these idle hands will
travel...
i love my bedroom in the night with no lights
on... insatiable: the drummer-instinct in me...
i can't help grooving to EASILY
and AROUND THE WORLD...
hands joined to the torso...
hands attached to hands... no saucepans...
**** it... thighs knees and the head will simply do...
i need to chase after my heartbeat...
out-chase it...

but in the darkness by the silver milk of the moon's
rays... my naked body impressed against the backdrop
of constellations...
Azog the Pale Orc and his Warg Matriarch...
well... mine is ginger and he's no matriarch...
he's a castrated ginger Maine ****...
yes... let's get carried away...
                because the comparison of Africans as Orcs
is a disrespected for me...
the English knowledge of etymology
of Slav = Slav(e) is also slightly off...

just like Billy Joel sang while sifting through sand
to find bones and rocks:
just like the post-Soviets in Ukraine
and H'americans in Iraq and Afghanistan...
what African people conquered any "polite" plot
of land outside of Africa? who?! the "Orcs"?
who are the slaves?
who's anyone, mind you?

Shaolin monk style questing:
i abhor the sceptics... i have this inherent hatred for
the sceptics like Ezra Pound abhorred the Taoists...
i can't: stand their... adamant... pride...
their neglect of being humbled...
how do you learn the concept of humbling?
by being humbled...
and how do you counter the concept of humbling?
upon being humbled:
you transcend and do not: humble...
whenever i was made a makeshift supervisor...
i didn't humble people...
i was caretaker...
because just don't get the whole idea...
they have partial clues regarding the idea of
the function...
today i caught a green-bell fly with my index and
thumb... i took a photograph of my "adventure":
as you do...
because it wasn't me stretching easily melting cheese...
so i guess that's a plus...

i hate scepticism...
you ******* don't know the basic principles of
1 + 1 = 2... CAUSALITY...
seriously? the fire that erupted in that tiny village
of Wennigton was like...
CAUSE + EFFECT = CAUSALIY...
so... i blow up a balloon up with my breath?
carbon dioxide... the balloon will sink...
i inflate it with helium, what? the balloon rises...

what's the impact i have by cycling to where
i need to go? no impact...
well... some extra traffic...
i might overheat my rubber, no?
but in terms of fuel? yes... carbohydrates
in my body... i need to peddle...
what am i burning? my own momentum...
i'm not burning any dinosaur fuel or gas...
i'm mobile... more mobile that people
who overuse their mobile phones...
there was a point: once upon a time:
for telephones to be left stationary...

  i abhor the sceptics: they're like the worst bad joke bad
jokers...
the canine cynics i can understand:
i can understand their cynicism:
fear the dog that fears its owner...
we're currently the dogs in fear of their own
fate: our owner...

i have oppressive memories...
that's why i don't dream... what interpretation
could Freud give:
and all that pedagogic erosioin fron learning
"skills": what skills? that would envision me
as having traction in the workforce?
zilch! nada! nothing! i just think of those poor
people who have recurrent dreams...
poor *******: how can you become so *******
as to have recurrent dreams?
70cl of whiskey won't help?
waking up at 8am the next day...
anxious out of both brain and freeze won't help?
not sure whether vomiting or taking a ****
will ease your burden, that confusion
won't help?!
**** me...
                   **** it... jump off a cliff...
paying close attention to the sunset...
maybe that might help...
                  i can't help you luvvy dubby... teddy...
please don't try to hug me...
i've seen how that works in the workforce...
one bubbly gal... all purple hai with
a hiding twitch in her hair...
   hugs me...
i just misheard a word she uttered...
she said darling: i thought she said daddy...
every since it has become a *******
schtick!
                 ugh... it's like... my ******* *******
tuching glue...
would i like erecticle dysfunction? yes please...
so i'm greeting this big girl with a hug...
the one i'm more interested in...
she's ginger: i have a ginger-fetish...
i think of her as: MOUSE...
anyway...

      let's get the party people pout and get them
the **** out of the way...
i will not describe to them that i have...
an inkling into right-wing politics...
i'm a fascistic nut...
   blah blah...
                    i get the purple-haired frogs out
of the way... by? hugging them...
i get onto the mouse... ooh... the dynamic changes...
i can't hug her...
the purple haired lesbian-fatso wants hugs:
i give her hugs...
but the mouse is special...
she's ginger...
             i love gingers...

i address her with a hand... extended...
she's not a man... therefore? she doesn't perform a handshake...
she.... hmm...
i'm a daddy... about to give my daughter
an ice-cream cone...
  she grips my fingers in the wrong way
that hands out to meet upon greeting...
she grips my fingers... on the wrong side...
i feel: oddly... left-handed...

i thank god and the democracy of satans
for the simple fact that:
none of these people will ever care to wonder
where i spend some of my nights...
ha ha...
oh please... ***** please...
i spend them with prostitutes...
you think i'm that quick to quiver?!
seriously?
i love a game of cards more than i enjoy a game
of chess: after all: it's one game after another...

games... games...
i used to be a big gamer in my early teenage-hood...
i couldn't be separated from my PS1 console
during the weekend...
i begged for a PS2... didn't get one...
i guess gaming caught up to me...

the gaming experience coupled with the internet...
ah... mind-mining...
teaming up... war robot games...
my thrill has finally come...
war robots... mech arena...
better still... the agenda of credit...
me? it's free, isn't it? well then...
but you manage to spot the people who invest
money in something:
they're usually skill-less: not exactly team-players...
esp. when it come to a game that
focuses on two objectives...
winning or losing is just a byproduct...
(a) gaining authority over control points
(b) destroying all the opposite side's mechs...
time frame? 10 minutes in war robots...
5 minutes in mech arena...
plenty of time to contemplate taking a ****...
mind you: either i dilate my ****
and ease out a **** by jerking off to a pair of ****
or i play an interactive game...
on the throne of thrones...
i could be wearing a crown of: dust...
and it would still matter... whether the plumbing works:
or doesn't...

i seriously had to wait for gaming to catch up with
my desired DIET of gaming...
i had to wait for the internet to evolve...
i required an arena... a lottery of... value...
competent players versus incompetent players...
players willing to hone in on their skills for free...
and players... lazy enough to invest money
that is otherwise unnecessarily invested in a game...

i'm coming back to gaming...
i can du soku... ****... su doku  by myself...
what need for crossword puzzles when you're already
a crossword puzzle of bilingualism?
sure... i have polyglot interests...
the concept of RENDAKU springs to mind...
as expressed in ORIGAMI:
                        g = k.... TOE-MAY-TOES...
T'OH-M'AH-TOES...
  
        hey! the people of the never-setting sun!
you're not much different, n'est ce pas?!
but there's a more obvious RENDAKU...
theta phi V...
alTHough... THought... and...
             PH = TH = F...
    but "F" = V... via TH...
                   the Fe? or the V'eh in THE point?!
i'll bring this tower of Babel to crumble before
my toes and then, and then:
i'll kneel among the rubble!
too much of Hell's ambitions have been sung by men
for Hell to simply: wallow in Heaven's tyranny
of absence!
                    we're here...
whoever we are: it doesn't matter...
                       one variant attired to another...
we're mechanisations to counter the absence of human
spirit...
we're the *****-slapping crew...
i pray to god that i'm not alone in my ambitions...
not that i pray...

this posting will have to wait...
i have a shift at Wembley tomorrow...
Coldplay... it's not like i hate them: i just don't love them...
it will be a dross...
but this posting will have to wait... i might have
to stop over at the brothel to ease my brain from
having ownership of a head...
i'll think about it...
depends on... a number of factors...

for the time being... mosquitos... caught... donning
donning boxing gloves... by the *******...
or... flies... catching them by the legs...
with naked fingers...
ooh... i love those pristine *******...
the green-bells... fertile *******...
they **** more maggots than they eat...
black flies are priests...
i like the tickling sensation insects leave
on a naked body... esp. when they don't deposit any
embryos... of their own...
**** me: wasps and my eye...
i would: most probably: punch myself to death if that
ever happened...
ergo? there's a god...
ergo? simple people make life pristine all the more
difficult...
no one has problems with competent people...
no one... idiots make this world worse
than the best it already is...
the ******* god of norms...
"calculations"... exhibits A and exhibits B...
i'm getting tired of this Atlas pause...
i'm waiting for Darwinism-proper kicks in...
when the dimension of agony-scrutiny and: RE-ALITY
cometh...

no one is going to dictate my useage of
the English language beside an authentic English-man!
no one!
no one... oh... but i'm siding with the Russians...
no one sided with the Iraqis when Iraq
was invaded... no one sided with the Afghans
when Afghanistan was invaded...
**** the Ukrainians: i'm not siding with them...
Cossacks undermined the Polish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth... sold it to the Ottoman barbers...
**** them...
i'm on the side of the Russians...
which makes listening to western journalistic
narratives a miracle of escapism...
i began, to, stop, reading, pointless, books:
already, pointless, to, begin, reading! ******* bravo!
extend the concept of starvation!

no no... now we're talking more... we need more...
there's only one guilt trip associated with hell...
gluttony: the gluttony of death...
there are never enough dead people!
hmm! ******* weird!
why aren't there enough dead people?!

can't you *******, just, die?!
    sure: i'm equally man...
by no summary i am no exception...
perhaps... i'm some variation of an exception
akin to: i bite an apple: i... "taste" water...
wait a minute: you can't "taste" water...
since... water is tasteless...
how pow! either the apple is imaginary
or my taste of the apple is imaginary:
or my ability to taste is imaginary...
or... well... there was no apple to begin with...

ha ha... by now all of philosophy is not a question
but an answer: i just don't care...
and? i just don't care...
it's a must of: there's too much...
and there's too little...
      it's clearly beyond any prior concern
of GOOD and EVIL...
there's just too much... and there's too little...
there are new-rule absolutes...

only a dutious scarab of a servant might acknowledge
this conundrum...
we have moved beyond the gravity of language
concerning a good and an evil...
there? is either too little...
or there's too much! for the time being: problem solved:
i.e. problem staged: therefore: not solved!
hell yawns! more of these i.q. deficient mongrels!

yes, i abhor the sceptics with a similar passion
that Socrates ascribed the sophists,
with equal passion Ezra Pound ascribed his passionate
hatred for the the Taoits...
i ascribe equal measure to the sceptics...
i can bark dog with the cynics...
i like cynicism... i abhor scepticism:
they're so ridiculous ridiculous...
to them? the casausality bound to the physics is
non-existent...

mind you... i don't know what i'm doing with this
poo'em...
i have already broken several instances
of keeping up to the up-keep of
エンソー...

                  **** me... even the Japanese use diacritical
markers, the English are forever adamant
in not using any... even though there's an example
of レンダク (rendaku) in almost every word that arrives
at the "suspicion) of THETA contra PHI...
TH = D in there's a point...
TH = F in there's thinking invoked...
THE= V: THE point...

it has taken me too many takes to complete this piece
with too many interludes of
either staring at my shadow or blinking at the sun...
i will need to abandon this poem at some point...
not that it's unfinished:
it's only that i require a readership of squaters
to venture in its dynamic...
new "things" happened... i need to write about them...
too much happened today for me to want
to perfect this:
i already wasted about half an hour looking
for my headphones...
father... i know i placed them in some easily
re-find location... what did he do?
he stashed my headphones in a drawer with
his shoes and shoelaces...
   apparently too inconvenient...
a lunatic walking around the house with a searchlight
trying to find them...
                no, this poem is becoming silly...
Cedric McClester Oct 2018
By: Cedric McClester

Pardon me,
For being abrupt
The Saudi Crown Prince
Is so corrupt
That he ordered a reporter
Be chopped-up
In his embassy in Turkey
Which he covered-up

Muhammad bin Salman
Is a piece of work
But he knows how,
And whose chain to ****
The President supports him
Because he gets a perk
And corruption for both of them
Is a common quirk

Such is the arrogance
That the Prince displayed
Because he thinks the world
Will swallow his Kool Aid
He’s gonna have to lie in
The bed he’s made
And pray his ascendance to the thrown
Can be saved

The Saudis need to be
Taught a strong lesson
But this will blow over
Jared Kushner’s guessing
Because MSB and him
Think adolescent
And both of them
Have their elder’s blessing





Cedric McClester, Copyright © 2018.  All rights reserved.
Been making, (sans
     daily) regular appearance
in the news oval
     hate gambling arrogance
vis a vis spewing,
     shouting, and scathing rabidly
     foaming explosive clap
     trap in ascendance,

asserting how incredibly
     tremendous collusion between
     CIA, FBI and media
(must warrants revocation,
hence heroic intervention,
     and emergency dis
     Pence sing balance
     of security fabled

     clearances Aesop - Asap)
     hounds engaged "brilliance"
in (community) chance
of making an very
     usual fool of himself,
     viz the "FAKE"
     trumpeting dapper Don
     expostulating the latest ploy,

     raging against the machine
     i.e. entire popular culture
     will get their comeuppance
being so freely outspoken,
     a disgraceful unconstitutional defiance
which oh press
     sieve act of deviance
spluttered, thus an extreme

     measure to clamp down
     on all news outlets,
     and immediate disappearance
all the while poor
     Melania stoically, objectionably
     and lamentably stands
     right alongside him,
     (nonetheless nonverbally

2.
     metaphorically exhibiting
     vitriolic livid rage)
     as he rancorously spouts
     (ala VERY) convincing impression
     of la va reenactment qua,
Krakatoa volcanic disturbance
lambasting utter disgraceful disservice
(foxy Dis Putin

     commercial stations construe, conspire,
     conjure egregious collusion
     outlets asper dominance
a pugilistic ringside fan loathsomely
     (re: scowling non verbally),
     wherein pejorative spectators whether
     (moral less minority, and/or
     majority whips lashing) weather being

     subsequently splashed by
     LXXII spittle aged
     perspiring ogre) with exuberance
(like some voodoo freelance
sing hexed indigo gurl goo goo doll,
a villainous venal mummified
     rattle trap declaring forbiddance
from this moment forward grievance

fomented by via triple threat
     to American democracy
     sans, intransigence, insouciance, ignorance,
thus taking recourse upon the heads
     of "stupid" journalists forcing hand
toward "losers" who spread lies,
     hence president signs issuance
analogous to lance

sing (via strong trumpeting arm),
     a yuge bigly boil saying believe me
     (meaning him - ***** in chief)
asseverating the congressional,
     global, and orbital
     bulwark acting with noncompliance
necessitating entire military
     industrial complex arsenal

     heavily reinforced (at
     the expense of every social,
     governmental, environmental, etc cetera
     to manage unruly populace
     with mandatory diktat decreeing obeisance
with non dodging demagoguery
     huff ford ding auto-da-fé fiat ordinance
this platform to guarantee overdominance,

when November 2020 election
     for forty sixth president
     takes place with poignance!
(in praise of immortality)

Modesty an understatement,
when eyes chance
to look askew at looking glass,
mine reflection caught at a glance,
an old man's piercing dart

mirrors my blinkered acquaintance
faint recognition communicates
immediate tacit admittance
boyish good looks faded
with morning glory of youth
as senescence didst advance.

Similar to the strikingly handsome
Dorian Gray, this mortal
strictly shares penchant to affiance
a pact with father time, and

devoutly pledge allegiance
to remain forever unaffected
with ill fated biological alliance
even if mandate to pay

with my soul as sole allowance
to stave off the ravages of old age
maintaining glowing ambience
of boyish good looks, or...die...
twill be to late for an ambulance

to rush lifeless body
forthwith to hospital emergency,
an immediate appearance
of rigor mortis, a dead give away.

Cumbersome degradation of
corporeal essence breeds arrogance
born of desperation,
where chronological ascendance
robs cherished commodity,

thus pained angst
to suffer aging accidentally evinced
looking askance
hints of unavoidable assistance
when wracked by incontinence,
thus rendering incumbent orderly attendance,

hence awareness awakened to singular
choice as avoidance,
where vigilance espies silent auction
as decrepitude ousts clutching buoyance
quickly fading steamrolling capacitance
to cling (by the merest thread)

fat or slim chance
against depredations of...
inevitable circumstance trumpeting
"NON FAKE" absent cognizance,
sans horribly wizened wrinkled countenance!

— The End —