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Lost for words Jul 2010
"Boo"
The echo of you is in my mind
My gigantic, magnificient friend
Who society left behind...

What made you? Why did you?
How could you not know?
How much we all need you -
Did we not let it show?
Did you not see the love
In the smiles you grew?
If I could go back...
If you only knew.

That dark, lonely morning
You felt so alone
No one to rest with
No one to phone
The thought leaves me cold
And so angry with you
If I could go back...
If you only knew.

I see you at night,
Dancing and smoking
I know any day
You'll tell us you're joking
Back with a bang
In a nightclub queue
If I could go back, Olly,
If only you knew.
Michael R Burch Oct 2020
Poems about Flight, Flying, Flights of Fancy, Kites, Leaves, Butterflies, Birds and Bees



Flight
by Michael R. Burch

It is the nature of loveliness to vanish
as butterfly wings, batting against nothingness
seek transcendence...

Originally published by Hibiscus (India)



Southern Icarus
by Michael R. Burch

Windborne, lover of heights,
unspooled from the truck’s wildly lurching embrace,
you climb, skittish kite...

What do you know of the world’s despair,
gliding in vast... solitariness... there,
so that all that remains is to
fall?

Only a little longer the wind invests its sighs;
you
stall,
spread-eagled, as the canvas snaps
and *****
its white rebellious wings,
and all
the houses watch with baffled eyes.



The Wonder Boys
by Michael R. Burch

(for Leslie Mellichamp, the late editor of The Lyric,
who was a friend and mentor to many poets, and
a fine poet in his own right)

The stars were always there, too-bright cliches:
scintillant truths the jaded world outgrew
as baffled poets winged keyed kites—amazed,
in dream of shocks that suddenly came true...

but came almost as static—background noise,
a song out of the cosmos no one hears,
or cares to hear. The poets, starstruck boys,
lay tuned in to their kite strings, saucer-eared.

They thought to feel the lightning’s brilliant sparks
electrify their nerves, their brains; the smoke
of words poured from their overheated hearts.
The kite string, knotted, made a nifty rope...

You will not find them here; they blew away—
in tumbling flight beyond nights’ stars. They clung
by fingertips to satellites. They strayed
too far to remain mortal. Elfin, young,

their words are with us still. Devout and fey,
they wink at us whenever skies are gray.

Originally published by The Lyric



American Eagle, Grounded
by Michael R. Burch

Her predatory eye,
the single feral iris,
scans.

Her raptor beak,
all jagged sharp-edged ******,
juts.

Her hard talon,
clenched in pinched expectation,
waits.

Her clipped wings,
preened against reality,
tremble.

Published as “Tremble” by The Lyric, Verses Magazine, Romantics Quarterly, Journeys, The Raintown Review, Poetic Ponderings, Poem Kingdom, The Fabric of a Vision, NPAC—Net Poetry and Art Competition, Poet’s Haven, Listening To The Birth Of Crystals (Anthology), Poetry Renewal, Inspirational Stories, Poetry Life & Times, MahMag (Iranian/Farsi), The Eclectic Muse (Canada)



Album
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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



Springtime Prayer
by Michael R. Burch

They’ll have to grow like crazy,
the springtime baby geese,
if they’re to fly to balmier climes
when autumn dismembers the leaves...

And so I toss them loaves of bread,
then whisper an urgent prayer:
“Watch over these, my Angels,
if there’s anyone kind, up there.”

Originally published by The HyperTexts



Learning to Fly
by Michael R. Burch

We are learning to fly
every day...

learning to fly—
away, away...

O, love is not in the ephemeral flight,
but love, Love! is our destination—

graced land of eternal sunrise, radiant beyond night!
Let us bear one another up in our vast migration.



In the Whispering Night
by Michael R. Burch

for George King

In the whispering night, when the stars bend low
till the hills ignite to a shining flame,
when a shower of meteors streaks the sky
while the lilies sigh in their beds, for shame,
we must steal our souls, as they once were stolen,
and gather our vigor, and all our intent.
We must heave our bodies to some famished ocean
and laugh as they vanish, and never repent.
We must dance in the darkness as stars dance before us,
soar, Soar! through the night on a butterfly's breeze...
blown high, upward-yearning, twin spirits returning
to the heights of awareness from which we were seized.

Published by Songs of Innocence, Romantics Quarterly, The Chained Muse and Poetry Life & Times. This is a poem I wrote for my favorite college English teacher, George King, about poetic kinship, brotherhood and romantic flights of fancy.



For a Palestinian Child, with Butterflies
by Michael R. Burch

Where does the butterfly go
when lightning rails,
when thunder howls,
when hailstones scream,
when winter scowls,
when nights compound dark frosts with snow...
Where does the butterfly go?

Where does the rose hide its bloom
when night descends oblique and chill
beyond the capacity of moonlight to fill?
When the only relief's a banked fire's glow,
where does the butterfly go?

And where shall the spirit flee
when life is harsh, too harsh to face,
and hope is lost without a trace?
Oh, when the light of life runs low,
where does the butterfly go?

Published by Tucumcari Literary Review, Romantics Quarterly, Poetry Life & Times, Victorian Violet Press (where it was nominated for a “Best of the Net”), The Contributor (a Nashville homeless newspaper), Siasat (Pakistan), and set to music as a part of the song cycle “The Children of Gaza” which has been performed in various European venues by the Palestinian soprano Dima Bawab



Earthbound, a Vision of Crazy Horse
by Michael R. Burch

Tashunka Witko, a Lakota Sioux better known as Crazy Horse, had a vision of a red-tailed hawk at Sylvan Lake, South Dakota. In his vision he saw himself riding a spirit horse, flying through a storm, as the hawk flew above him, shrieking. When he awoke, a red-tailed hawk was perched near his horse.

Earthbound,
and yet I now fly
through the clouds that are aimlessly drifting...
so high
that no sound
echoing by
below where the mountains are lifting
the sky
can be heard.

Like a bird,
but not meek,
like a hawk from a distance regarding its prey,
I will shriek,
not a word,
but a screech,
and my terrible clamor will turn them to clay—
the sheep,
the earthbound.

Published by American Indian Pride and Boston Poetry Magazine



Sioux Vision Quest
by Crazy Horse, Oglala Lakota Sioux (circa 1840-1877)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A man must pursue his Vision
as the eagle explores
the sky's deepest blues.

Published by Better Than Starbucks and A Hundred Voices



in-flight convergence
by Michael R. Burch

serene, almost angelic,
the lights of the city ——— extend ———
over lumbering behemoths
shrilly screeching displeasure;
they say
that nothing is certain,
that nothing man dreams or ordains
long endures his command

here the streetlights that flicker
and those blazing steadfast
seem one: from a distance;
descend,
they abruptly
part ———— ways,
so that nothing is one
which at times does not suddenly blend
into garish insignificance
in the familiar alleyways,
in the white neon flash
and the billboards of Convenience

and man seems the afterthought of his own Brilliance
as we thunder down the enlightened runways.

Originally published by The Aurorean and subsequently nominated for the Pushcart Prize



Flight 93
by Michael R. Burch

I held the switch in trembling fingers, asked
why existence felt so small, so purposeless,
like a minnow wriggling feebly in my grasp...

vibrations of huge engines thrummed my arms
as, glistening with sweat, I nudged the switch
to OFF... I heard the klaxon's shrill alarms

like vultures’ shriekings... earthward, in a stall...
we floated... earthward... wings outstretched, aghast
like Icarus... as through the void we fell...

till nothing was so beautiful, so blue...
so vivid as that moment... and I held
an image of your face, and dreamed I flew

into your arms. The earth rushed up. I knew
such comfort, in that moment, loving you.



Flight
by Michael R. Burch

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

Robin, hawk or whippoorwill...
Should men care that you hunger still?
I do not wish to see your home.
I do not wonder where you roam.
But as you scale the sky's bright stairs,
I only wish that I were there.
I only wish that I were there.

Sparrow, lark or chickadee...
Your markings I disdain to see.
Where you fly concerns me not.
I scarcely give your flight a thought.
But as you wheel and arc and dive,
I, too, would feel so much alive.
I, too, would feel so much alive.

This is a poem I wrote in high school. I seem to remember the original poem being influenced by William Cullen Bryant's "To a Waterfowl."



Flying
by Michael R. Burch

I shall rise
and try the ****** wings of thought
ten thousand times
before I fly...

and then I'll sleep
and waste ten thousand nights
before I dream;

but when at last...
I soar the distant heights of undreamt skies
where never hawks nor eagles dared to go,
as I laugh among the meteors flashing by
somewhere beyond the bluest earth-bound seas...
if I'm not told
I’m just a man,
then I shall know
just what I am.

This is one of my early poems, written around age 16-17.



Stage Craft-y
by Michael R. Burch

There once was a dromedary
who befriended a crafty canary.
Budgie said, "You can’t sing,
but now, here’s the thing—
just think of the tunes you can carry!"



Clyde Lied!
by Michael R. Burch

There once was a mockingbird, Clyde,
who bragged of his prowess, but lied.
To his new wife he sighed,
"When again, gentle bride?"
"Nevermore!" bright-eyed Raven replied.



Less Heroic Couplets: ****** Most Fowl!
by Michael R. Burch

“****** most foul!”
cried the mouse to the owl.
“Friend, I’m no sinner;
you’re merely my dinner!”
the wise owl replied
as the tasty snack died.

Published by Lighten Up Online and in Potcake Chapbook #7.



Lance-Lot
by Michael R. Burch

Preposterous bird!
Inelegant! Absurd!
Until the great & mighty heron
brandishes his fearsome sword.



Kissin’ ’n’ buzzin’
by Michael R. Burch

Kissin’ ’n’ buzzin’ the bees rise
in a dizzy circle of two.
Oh, when I’m with you,
I feel like kissin’ ’n’ buzzin’ too.



Delicacy
by Michael R. Burch

for all good mothers

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



Lone Wild Goose
by Du Fu (712-770)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The abandoned goose refuses food and drink;
he cries querulously for his companions.
Who feels kinship for that strange wraith
as he vanishes eerily into the heavens?
You watch it as it disappears;
its plaintive calls cut through you.
The indignant crows ignore you both:
the bickering, bantering multitudes.



The Red Cockatoo
by Po Chu-I (772-846)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A marvelous gift from Annam—
a red cockatoo,
bright as peach blossom,
fluent in men's language.

So they did what they always do
to the erudite and eloquent:
they created a thick-barred cage
and shut it up.



The Migrant Songbird
Li Qingzhao aka Li Ching-chao (c. 1084-1155)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The migrant songbird on the nearby yew
brings tears to my eyes with her melodious trills;
this fresh downpour reminds me of similar spills:
another spring gone, and still no word from you...



Lines from Laolao Ting Pavilion
by Li Bai (701-762)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The spring breeze knows partings are bitter;
The willow twig knows it will never be green again.



The Day after the Rain
Lin Huiyin (1904-1955)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I love the day after the rain
and the meadow's green expanses!
My heart endlessly rises with wind,
gusts with wind...
away the new-mown grasses and the fallen leaves...
away the clouds like smoke...
vanishing like smoke...



Untitled Translations

Cupid, if you incinerate my soul, touché!
For like you she has wings and can fly away!
—Meleager, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

As autumn deepens,
a butterfly sips
chrysanthemum dew.
—Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Come, butterfly,
it’s late
and we’ve a long way to go!
—Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Up and at ’em! The sky goes bright!
Let’***** the road again,
Companion Butterfly!
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Ah butterfly,
what dreams do you ply
with your beautiful wings?
—Chiyo-ni, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Oh, dreamlike winter butterfly:
a puff of white snow
cresting mountains
—Kakio Tomizawa, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Dry leaf flung awry:
bright butterfly,
goodbye!
—Michael R. Burch, original haiku

Will we remain parted forever?
Here at your grave:
two flowerlike butterflies
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

a soaring kite flits
into the heart of the sun?
Butterfly & Chrysanthemum
—Michael R. Burch, original haiku

The cheerful-chirping cricket
contends gray autumn's gay,
contemptuous of frost
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Whistle on, twilight whippoorwill,
solemn evangelist
of loneliness
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The sea darkening,
the voices of the wild ducks:
my mysterious companions!
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Lightning
shatters the darkness—
the night heron's shriek
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

This snowy morning:
cries of the crow I despise
(ah, but so beautiful!)
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

A crow settles
on a leafless branch:
autumn nightfall.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Hush, cawing crows; what rackets you make!
Heaven's indignant messengers,
you remind me of wordsmiths!
—O no Yasumaro (circa 711), loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Higher than a skylark,
resting on the breast of heaven:
this mountain pass.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

An exciting struggle
with such a sad ending:
cormorant fishing.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Does my soul abide in heaven, or hell?
Only the sea gull
in his high, lonely circuits, may tell.
—Glaucus, translation by Michael R. Burch

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

A kite floats
at the same place in the sky
where yesterday it floated...
—Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Descent
by Michael R. Burch

I have listened to the rain all this morning
and it has a certain gravity,
as if it knows its destination,
perhaps even its particular destiny.
I do not believe mine is to be uplifted,
although I, too, may be flung precipitously
and from a great height.



Ultimate Sunset
by Michael R. Burch

for my father, Paul Ray Burch, Jr.

he now faces the Ultimate Sunset,
his body like the leaves that fray as they dry,
shedding their vital fluids (who knows why?)
till they’ve become even lighter than the covering sky,
ready to fly...



Free Fall
by Michael R. Burch

for my father, Paul Ray Burch, Jr.

I see the longing for departure gleam
in his still-keen eye,
and I understand his desire
to test this last wind, like those late autumn leaves
with nothing left to cling to...



Leaf Fall
by Michael R. Burch

Whatever winds encountered soon resolved
to swirling fragments, till chaotic heaps
of leaves lay pulsing by the backyard wall.
In lieu of rakes, our fingers sorted each
dry leaf into its place and built a high,
soft bastion against earth's gravitron—
a patchwork quilt, a trampoline, a bright
impediment to fling ourselves upon.
And nothing in our laughter as we fell
into those leaves was like the autumn's cry
of also falling. Nothing meant to die
could be so bright as we, so colorful—
clad in our plaids, oblivious to pain
we'd feel today, should we leaf-fall again.

Originally published by The Neovictorian/Cochlea



The Folly of Wisdom
by Michael R. Burch

She is wise in the way that children are wise,
looking at me with such knowing, grave eyes
I must bend down to her to understand.
But she only smiles, and takes my hand.
We are walking somewhere that her feet know to go,
so I smile, and I follow...
And the years are dark creatures concealed in bright leaves
that flutter above us, and what she believes—
I can almost remember—goes something like this:
the prince is a horned toad, awaiting her kiss.
She wiggles and giggles, and all will be well
if only we find him! The woodpecker’s knell
as he hammers the coffin of some dying tree
that once was a fortress to someone like me
rings wildly above us. Some things that we know
we are meant to forget. Life is a bloodletting, maple-syrup-slow.

Originally published by Romantics Quarterly



Kin
by Michael R. Burch

for Richard Moore

1.
Shrill gulls,
how like my thoughts
you, struggling, rise
to distant bliss—
the weightless blue of skies
that are not blue
in any atmosphere,
but closest here...

2.
You seek an air
so clear,
so rarified
the effort leaves you famished;
earthly tides
soon call you back—
one long, descending glide...

3.
Disgruntledly you ***** dirt shores for orts
you pull like mucous ropes
from shells’ bright forts...
You eye the teeming world
with nervous darts—
this way and that...
Contentious, shrewd, you scan—
the sky, in hope,
the earth, distrusting man.



Songstress
by Michael R. Burch

Within its starkwhite ribcage, how the heart
must flutter wildly, O, and always sing
against the pressing darkness: all it knows
until at last it feels the numbing sting
of death. Then life's brief vision swiftly passes,
imposing night on one who clearly saw.
Death held your bright heart tightly, till its maw–
envenomed, fanged–could swallow, whole, your Awe.
And yet it was not death so much as you
who sealed your doom; you could not help but sing
and not be silenced. Here, behold your tomb's
white alabaster cage: pale, wretched thing!
But you'll not be imprisoned here, wise wren!
Your words soar free; rise, sing, fly, live again.

A poet like Nadia Anjuman can be likened to a caged bird, deprived of flight, who somehow finds it within herself to sing of love and beauty.



Performing Art
by Michael R. Burch

Who teaches the wren
in its drab existence
to explode into song?
What parodies of irony
does the jay espouse
with its sharp-edged tongue?
What instinctual memories
lend stunning brightness
to the strange dreams
of the dull gray slug
—spinning its chrysalis,
gluing rough seams—
abiding in darkness
its transformation,
till, waving damp wings,
it applauds its performance?
I am done with irony.
Life itself sings.



Lean Harvests
by Michael R. Burch

for T.M.

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

Published by The Rotary Dial and Angle



My Forty-Ninth Year
by Michael R. Burch

My forty-ninth year
and the dew remembers
how brightly it glistened
encrusting September,...
one frozen September
when hawks ruled the sky
and death fell on wings
with a shrill, keening cry.

My forty-ninth year,
and still I recall
the weavings and windings
of childhood, of fall...
of fall enigmatic,
resplendent, yet sere,...
though vibrant the herald
of death drawing near.

My forty-ninth year
and now often I've thought on
the course of a lifetime,
the meaning of autumn,
the cycle of autumn
with winter to come,
of aging and death
and rebirth... on and on.

Originally published by Romantics Quarterly as “My Twenty-Ninth Year”



Myth
by Michael R. Burch

Here the recalcitrant wind
sighs with grievance and remorse
over fields of wayward gorse
and thistle-throttled lanes.
And she is the myth of the scythed wheat
hewn and sighing, complete,
waiting, lain in a low sheaf—
full of faith, full of grief.

Here the immaculate dawn
requires belief of the leafed earth
and she is the myth of the mown grain—
golden and humble in all its weary worth.



What Works
by Michael R. Burch

for David Gosselin

What works—
hewn stone;
the blush the iris shows the sun;
the lilac’s pale-remembered bloom.

The frenzied fly: mad-lively, gay,
as seconds tick his time away,
his sentence—one brief day in May,
a period. And then decay.

A frenzied rhyme’s mad tip-toed time,
a ballad’s languid as the sea,
seek, striving—immortality.

When gloss peels off, what works will shine.
When polish fades, what works will gleam.
When intellectual prattle pales,
the dying buzzing in the hive
of tedious incessant bees,
what works will soar and wheel and dive
and milk all honey, leap and thrive,
and teach the pallid poem to seethe.



Child of 9-11
by Michael R. Burch

a poem for Christina-Taylor Green, who
was born on September 11, 2001 and who
died at age nine, shot to death...

Child of 9-11, beloved,
I bring this lily, lay it down
here at your feet, and eiderdown,
and all soft things, for your gentle spirit.
I bring this psalm — I hope you hear it.

Much love I bring — I lay it down
here by your form, which is not you,
but what you left this shell-shocked world
to help us learn what we must do
to save another child like you.

Child of 9-11, I know
you are not here, but watch, afar
from distant stars, where angels rue
the evil things some mortals do.
I also watch; I also rue.

And so I make this pledge and vow:
though I may weep, I will not rest
nor will my pen fail heaven's test
till guns and wars and hate are banned
from every shore, from every land.

Child of 9-11, I grieve
your tender life, cut short... bereaved,
what can I do, but pledge my life
to saving lives like yours? Belief
in your sweet worth has led me here...
I give my all: my pen, this tear,
this lily and this eiderdown,
and all soft things my heart can bear;
I bring them to your final bier,
and leave them with my promise, here.

Originally published by The Flea



Desdemona
by Michael R. Burch

Though you possessed the moon and stars,
you are bound to fate and wed to chance.
Your lips deny they crave a kiss;
your feet deny they ache to dance.
Your heart imagines wild romance.

Though you cupped fire in your hands
and molded incandescent forms,
you are barren now, and—spent of flame—
the ashes that remain are borne
toward the sun upon a storm.

You, who demanded more, have less,
your heart within its cells of sighs
held fast by chains of misery,
confined till death for peddling lies—
imprisonment your sense denies.

You, who collected hearts like leaves
and pressed each once within your book,
forgot. None—winsome, bright or rare—
not one was worth a second look.
My heart, as others, you forsook.

But I, though I loved you from afar
through silent dawns, and gathered rue
from gardens where your footsteps left
cold paths among the asters, knew—
each moonless night the nettles grew
and strangled hope, where love dies too.

Published by Penny Dreadful, Carnelian, Romantics Quarterly, Grassroots Poetry and Poetry Life & Times



Transplant
by Michael R. Burch

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



Reading between the lines
by Michael R. Burch

Who could have read so much, as we?
Having the time, but not the inclination,
TV has become our philosophy,
sheer boredom, our recreation.



Rilke Translations

Archaic Torso of Apollo
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We cannot know the beheaded god
nor his eyes' forfeited visions. But still
the figure's trunk glows with the strange vitality
of a lamp lit from within, while his composed will
emanates dynamism. Otherwise
the firmly muscled abdomen could not beguile us,
nor the centering ***** make us smile
at the thought of their generative animus.
Otherwise the stone might seem deficient,
unworthy of the broad shoulders, of the groin
projecting procreation's triangular spearhead upwards,
unworthy of the living impulse blazing wildly within
like an inchoate star—demanding our belief.
You must change your life.



Herbsttag ("Autumn Day")
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Lord, it is time. Let the immense summer go.
Lay your long shadows over the sundials
and over the meadows, let the free winds blow.
Command the late fruits to fatten and shine;
O, grant them another Mediterranean hour!
Urge them to completion, and with power
convey final sweetness to the heavy wine.
Who has no house now, never will build one.
Who's alone now, shall continue alone;
he'll wake, read, write long letters to friends,
and pace the tree-lined pathways up and down,
restlessly, as autumn leaves drift and descend.

Originally published by Measure



The Panther
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

His weary vision's so overwhelmed by iron bars,
his exhausted eyes see only blank Oblivion.
His world is not our world. It has no stars.
No light. Ten thousand bars. Nothing beyond.
Lithe, swinging with a rhythmic easy stride,
he circles, his small orbit tightening,
an electron losing power. Paralyzed,
soon regal Will stands stunned, an abject thing.
Only at times the pupils' curtains rise
silently, and then an image enters,
descends through arrested shoulders, plunges, centers
somewhere within his empty heart, and dies.



Come, You
by Ranier Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This was Rilke's last poem, written ten days before his death. He died open-eyed in the arms of his doctor on December 29, 1926, in the Valmont Sanatorium, of leukemia and its complications. I had a friend who died of leukemia and he was burning up with fever in the end. I believe that is what Rilke was describing here: he was literally burning alive.

Come, you—the last one I acknowledge; return—
incurable pain searing this physical mesh.
As I burned in the spirit once, so now I burn
with you; meanwhile, you consume my flesh.
This wood that long resisted your embrace
now nourishes you; I surrender to your fury
as my gentleness mutates to hellish rage—
uncaged, wild, primal, mindless, outré.
Completely free, no longer future's pawn,
I clambered up this crazy pyre of pain,
certain I'd never return—my heart's reserves gone—
to become death's nameless victim, purged by flame.
Now all I ever was must be denied.
I left my memories of my past elsewhere.
That life—my former life—remains outside.
Inside, I'm lost. Nobody knows me here.



Love Song
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

How can I withhold my soul so that it doesn't touch yours?
How can I lift mine gently to higher things, alone?
Oh, I would gladly find something lost in the dark
in that inert space that fails to resonate until you vibrate.
There everything that moves us, draws us together like a bow
enticing two taut strings to sing together with a simultaneous voice.
Whose instrument are we becoming together?
Whose, the hands that excite us?
Ah, sweet song!



The Beggar's Song
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I live outside your gates,
exposed to the rain, exposed to the sun;
sometimes I'll cradle my right ear
in my right palm;
then when I speak my voice sounds strange,
alien...
I'm unsure whose voice I'm hearing:
mine or yours.
I implore a trifle;
the poets cry for more.
Sometimes I cover both eyes
and my face disappears;
there it lies heavy in my hands
looking peaceful, instead,
so that no one would ever think
I have no place to lay my head.



Ivy
by Michael R. Burch

“Van trepando en mi viejo dolor como las yedras.” — Pablo Neruda
“They climb on my old suffering like ivy.”

Ivy winds around these sagging structures
from the flagstones
to the eave heights,
and, clinging, holds intact
what cannot be saved of their loose entrails.
Through long, blustery nights of dripping condensation,
cured in the humidors of innumerable forgotten summers,
waxy, unguent,
palely, indifferently fragrant, it climbs,
pausing at last to see
the alien sparkle of dew
beading delicate sparrowgrass.
Coarse saw grass, thin skunk grass, clumped mildewed yellow gorse
grow all around, and here remorse, things past,
watch ivy climb and bend,
and, in the end, we ask
if grief is worth the gaps it leaps to mend.



Joy in the Morning
by Michael R. Burch

for my grandparents George Edwin Hurt and Christine Ena Hurt

There will be joy in the morning
for now this long twilight is over
and their separation has ended.
For fourteen years, he had not seen her
whom he first befriended,
then courted and married.
Let there be joy, and no mourning,
for now in his arms she is carried
over a threshold vastly sweeter.
He never lost her; she only tarried
until he was able to meet her.



Prodigal
by Michael R. Burch

This poem is dedicated to Kevin Longinotti, who died four days short of graduation from Vanderbilt University, the victim of a tornado that struck Nashville on April 16, 1998.

You have graduated now,
to a higher plane
and your heart’s tenacity
teaches us not to go gently
though death intrudes.

For eighteen days
—jarring interludes
of respite and pain—
with life only faintly clinging,
like a cashmere snow,
testing the capacity
of the blood banks
with the unstaunched flow
of your severed veins,
in the collapsing declivity,
in the sanguine haze
where Death broods,
you struggled defiantly.

A city mourns its adopted son,
flown to the highest ranks
while each heart complains
at the harsh validity
of God’s ways.

On ponderous wings
the white clouds move
with your captured breath,
though just days before
they spawned the maelstrom’s
hellish rift.

Throw off this mortal coil,
this envelope of flesh,
this brief sheath
of inarticulate grief
and transient joy.

Forget the winds
which test belief,
which bear the parchment leaf
down life’s last sun-lit path.

We applaud your spirit, O Prodigal,
O Valiant One,
in its percussive flight into the sun,
winging on the heart’s last madrigal.



Breakings
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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



The Quickening
by Michael R. Burch

I never meant to love you
when I held you in my arms
promising you sagely
wise, noncommittal charms.

And I never meant to need you
when I touched your tender lips
with kisses that intrigued my own—
such kisses I had never known,
nor a heartbeat in my fingertips!



It's Halloween!
by Michael R. Burch

If evening falls
on graveyard walls
far softer than a sigh;
if shadows fly
moon-sickled skies,
while children toss their heads
uneasy in their beds,
beware the witch's eye!

If goblins loom
within the gloom
till playful pups grow terse;
if birds give up their verse
to comfort chicks they nurse,
while children dream weird dreams
of ugly, wiggly things,
beware the serpent's curse!

If spirits scream
in haunted dreams
while ancient sibyls rise
to plague black nightmare skies
one night without disguise,
while children toss about
uneasy, full of doubt,
beware the devil's eyes...
it's Halloween!



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.



Describing You
by Michael R. Burch

How can I describe you?
The fragrance of morning rain
mingled with dew
reminds me of you;
the warmth of sunlight
stealing through a windowpane
brings you back to me again.

This is an early poem of mine, written as a teenager.



www.firesermon.com
by Michael R. Burch

your gods have become e-vegetation;
your saints—pale thumbnail icons; to enlarge
their images, right-click; it isn’t hard
to populate your web-site; not to mention
cool sound effects are nice; Sound Blaster cards
can liven up dull sermons, zing some fire;
your drives need added Zip; you must discard
your balky paternosters: ***!!! Desire!!!
these are the watchwords, catholic; you must
as Yahoo! did, employ a little lust
if you want great e-commerce; hire a bard
to spruce up ancient language, shed the dust
of centuries of sameness;
lameness *****;
your gods grew blurred; go 3D; scale; adjust.

Published by: Ironwood, Triplopia and Nisqually Delta Review



Her Grace Flows Freely
by Michael R. Burch

July 7, 2007

Her love is always chaste, and pure.
This I vow. This I aver.
If she shows me her grace, I will honor her.
This I vow. This I aver.
Her grace flows freely, like her hair.
This I vow. This I aver.
For her generousness, I would worship her.
This I vow. This I aver.
I will not **** her for what I bear
This I vow. This I aver.
like a most precious incense–desire for her,
This I vow. This I aver.
nor call her “*****” where I seek to repair.
This I vow. This I aver.
I will not wink, nor smirk, nor stare
This I vow. This I aver.
like a foolish child at the foot of a stair
This I vow. This I aver.
where I long to go, should another be there.
This I vow. This I aver.
I’ll rejoice in her freedom, and always dare
This I vow. This I aver.
the chance that she’ll flee me–my starling rare.
This I vow. This I aver.
And then, if she stays, without stays, I swear
This I vow. This I aver.
that I will joy in her grace beyond compare.
This I vow. This I aver.



Second Sight (II)
by Michael R. Burch

Newborns see best at a distance of 8 to 14 inches.
Wiser than we know, the newborn screams,
red-faced from breath, and wonders what life means
this close to death, amid the arctic glare
of warmthless lights above.
Beware! Beware!—
encrypted signals, codes? Or ciphers, noughts?
Interpretless, almost, as his own thoughts—
the brilliant lights, the brilliant lights exist.
Intruding faces ogle, gape, insist—
this madness, this soft-hissing breath, makes sense.
Why can he not float on, in dark suspense,
and dream of life? Why did they rip him out?
He frowns at them—small gnomish frowns, all doubt—
and with an ancient mien, O sorrowful!,
re-closes eyes that saw in darkness null
ecstatic sights, exceeding beautiful.



Incommunicado
by Michael R. Burch

All I need to know of life I learned
in the slap of a moment,
as my outward eye turned
toward a gauntlet of overhanging lights
which coldly burned, hissing—
"There is no way back!..."
As the ironic bright blood
trickled down my face,
I watched strange albino creatures twisting
my flesh into tight knots of separation
all the while tediously insisting—
“He's doing just fine!"



Letdown
by Michael R. Burch

Life has not lived up to its first bright vision—
the light overhead fluorescing, revealing
no blessing—bestowing its glaring assessments
impersonally (and no doubt carefully metered).
That first hard

SLAP

demanded my attention. Defiantly rigid,
I screamed at their backs as they, laughingly,

ripped

my mother’s pale flesh from my unripened shell,
snapped it in two like a pea pod, then dropped
it somewhere—in a dustbin or a furnace, perhaps.

And that was my clue

that some deadly, perplexing, unknowable task
lay, inexplicable, ahead in the white arctic maze
of unopenable doors, in the antiseptic gloom...



Recursion
by Michael R. Burch

In a dream I saw boys lying
under banners gaily flying
and I heard their mothers sighing
from some dark distant shore.

For I saw their sons essaying
into fields—gleeful, braying—
their bright armaments displaying;
such manly oaths they swore!

From their playfields, boys returning
full of honor’s white-hot burning
and desire’s restless yearning
sired new kids for the corps.

In a dream I saw boys dying
under banners gaily lying
and I heard their mothers crying
from some dark distant shore.



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



Life Sentence
by Michael R. Burch

... I swim, my Daddy’s princess, newly crowned,
toward a gurgly Maelstrom... if I drown
will Mommy stick the Toilet Plunger down
to **** me up?... She sits upon Her Throne,
Imperious (denying we were one),
and gazes down and whispers “precious son”...

... the Plunger worked; i’m two, and, if not blessed,
still Mommy got the Worst Stuff off Her Chest;
a Vacuum Pump, They say, will do the rest...

... i’m three; yay! whee! oh good! it’s time to play!
(oh no, I think there’s Others on the way;
i’d better pray)...

... i’m four; at night I hear the Banging Door;
She screams; sometimes there’s Puddles on the Floor;
She wants to **** us, or, She wants some More...

... it’s great to be alive if you are five (unless you’re me);
my Mommy says: “you’re WRONG! don’t disagree!
don’t make this HURT ME!”...

... i’m six; They say i’m tall, yet Time grows Short;
we have a thriving Family; Abort!;
a tadpole’s ripping Mommy’s Room apart...

... i’m seven; i’m in heaven; it feels strange;
I saw my life go gurgling down the Drain;
another Noah built a Mighty Ark;
God smiled, appeased, a Rainbow split the Dark;
... I saw Bright Colors also, when She slammed
my head against the Tub, and then I swam
toward the magic tunnel... last, I heard...
is that She feels Weird.



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.



America's Riches
by Michael R. Burch

Balboa's dream
was bitter folly—
no El Dorado near, nor far,
though seas beguiled
and rivers smiled
from beds of gold and silver ore.

Drake retreated
rich with plunder
as Incan fled Conquistador.
Aztecs died
when Spaniards lied,
then slew them for an ingot more.

The pilgrims came
and died or lived
in fealty to an oath they swore,
and bought with pain
the precious grain
that made them rich though they were poor.

Apache blood,
Comanche tears
were shed, and still they went to war;
they fought to be
unbowed and free—
such were Her riches, and still are.

Published by Poetic Reflections and Tucumcari Literary Review



Kindergarten
by Michael R. Burch

Will we be children as puzzled tomorrow—
our lessons still not learned?
Will we surrender over to sorrow?
How many times must our fingers be burned?
Will we be children sat in the corner,
paddled again and again?
How long must we linger, playing Jack Horner?
Will we ever learn, and when?
Will we be children wearing the dunce cap,
giggling and playing the fool,
re-learning our lessons forever and ever,
still failing the golden rule?



Photographs
by Michael R. Burch

Here are the effects of a life
and they might tell us a tale
(if only we had time to listen)
of how each imperiled tear would glisten,
remembered as brightness in her eyes,
and how each dawn’s dramatic skies
could never match such pale azure.

Like dreams of her, these ghosts endure
and they tell us a tale of impatient glory...
till a line appears—a trace of worry?—
or the wayward track of a wandering smile
which even now can charm, beguile?

We might find good cause to wonder
as we see her pause (to frown?, to ponder?):
what vexed her in her loveliness...
what weight, what crushing heaviness
turned her lustrous hair a frazzled gray,
and stole her youth before her day?

We might ask ourselves: did Time devour
the passion with the ravaged flower?
But here and there a smile will bloom
to light the leaden, shadowed gloom
that always seems to linger near...
And here we find a single tear:
it shimmers like translucent dew
and tells us Anguish touched her too,
and did not spare her for her hair
of copper, or her eyes' soft hue.

Published in Tucumcari Literary Review



Numbered
by Michael R. Burch

He desired an object to crave;
she came, and she altared his affection.
He asked her for something to save:
a memento for his collection.
But all that she had was her need;
what she needed, he knew not to give.
They compromised on a thing gone to seed
to complete the half lives they would live.
One in two, they were less than complete.
Two plus one, in their huge fractious home
left them two, the new one in the street,
then he, by himself, one, alone.
He awoke past his prime to new dawn
with superfluous dew all around,
in ten thousands bright beads on his lawn,
and he knew that, at last, he had found
a number of things he had missed:
things shining and bright, unencumbered
by their price, or their place on a list.
Then with joy and despair he remembered
and longed for the lips he had kissed
when his days were still evenly numbered.



Nucleotidings
by Michael R. Burch

“We will walk taller!” said Gupta,
sorta abrupta,
hand-in-hand with his mom,
eyeing the A-bomb.

“Who needs a mahatma
in the aftermath of NAFTA?
Now, that was a disaster,”
cried glib Punjab.

“After Y2k,
time will spin out of control anyway,”
flamed Vijay.

“My family is relatively heavy,
too big even for a pig-barn Chevy;
we need more space,”
spat What’s His Face.

“What does it matter,
dirge or mantra,”
sighed Serge.

“The world will wobble
in Hubble’s lens
till the tempest ends,”
wailed Mercedes.

“The world is going to hell in a bucket.
So **** it and get outta my face!
We own this place!
Me and my friends got more guns than ISIS,
so what’s the crisis?”
cried Bubba Billy Joe Bob Puckett.



All My Children
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I wrote this poem around age 15-16.



Kingdom Freedom
by Michael R. Burch

LORD, grant me a rare sweet spirit of forgiveness.
Let me have none of the lividness
of religious outrage.

LORD, let me not be over-worried
about the lack of “morality” around me.
Surround me,
not with law’s restrictive cage,
but with Your spirit, freer than the wind,
so that to breathe is to have freest life,
and not to fly to You, my only sin.



Birthday Poem to Myself
by Michael R. Burch

LORD, be no longer this Distant Presence,
Star-Afar, Righteous-Anonymous,
but come! Come live among us;
come dwell again,
happy child among men—
men rejoicing to have known you
in the familiar manger’s cool
sweet light scent of unburdened hay.
Teach us again to be light that way,
with a chorus of angelic songs lessoned above.
Be to us again that sweet birth of Love
in the only way men can truly understand.
Do not frown darkening down upon an unrighteous land
planning fierce Retributions we require, and deserve,
but remember the child you were; believe
in the child I was, alike to you in innocence
a little while, all sweetness, and helpless without pretense.
Let us be little children again, magical in your sight.
Grant me this boon! Is it not my birthright—
just to know you, as you truly were, and are?
Come, be my friend. Help me understand and regain Hope’s long-departed star!



Litany
by Michael R. Burch

Will you take me with all my blemishes?
I will take you with all your blemishes, and show you mine. We’ll **** wine from cardboard boxes till our teeth and lips shine red like greedily gorging foxes’. We’ll swill our fill, then have *** for hours till our neglected guts at last rebel. At two in the morning, we’ll eat cold Krystals as our blood detoxes, and we will be in love.

And that’s it?
That’s it.

And can I go out with my friends and drink until dawn?
You can go out with your friends and drink until dawn, come home lipstick-collared, pass out by the pool, or stay at the bar till the new moon sets, because we'll be in love, and in love there's no room for remorse or regret. There is no right, no wrong, and no mistrust, only limb-numbing ***, hot-pistoning lust.

And that’s all?
That’s all.

That’s great!
But wait...

Wait? Why? What’s wrong?
I want to have your children.

Children?
Well, perhaps just one.

And what will happen when we have children?
The most incredible things will happen—you’ll change, stop acting so strangely, start paying more attention to me, start paying your bills on time, grow up and get rid of your horrible friends, and never come home at a-quarter-to-three drunk from a night of swilling, smelling like a lovesick skunk, stop acting so lewdly, start working incessantly so that we can afford a new house which I will decorate lavishly and then grow tired of in a year or two or three, start growing a paunch so that no other woman would ever have you, stop acting so boorishly, start growing a beard because you’re too tired to shave, or too afraid, thinking you might slit your worthless wrinkled throat...



Mending Glass
by Michael R. Burch

In the cobwebbed house—
lost in shadows
by the jagged mirror,
in the intricate silver face
cracked ten thousand times,
silently he watches,
and in the twisted light
sometimes he catches there
a familiar glimpse of revealing lace,
white stockings and garters,
a pale face pressed indiscreetly near
with a predatory leer,
the sheer flash of nylon,
an embrace, or a sharp slap,
... a sudden lurch of terror.

He finds bright slivers
—the hard sharp brittle shards,
the silver jags of memory
starkly impressed there—
and mends his error.



Shadowselves
by Michael R. Burch

In our hearts, knowing
fewer days—and milder—beckon,
how are we, now, to measure
that flame by which we reckon
the time we have remaining?

We are shadows
spawned by a blue spurt of candlelight.
Darkly, we watch ourselves flicker.

Where shall we go when the flame burns less bright?
When chill night steals our vigor?

Why are we less than ourselves? We are shadows.

Where is the fire of youth? We grow cold.

Why does our future loom dark? We are old.

Why do we shiver?

In our hearts, seeing
fewer days—and briefer—breaking,
now, even more, we treasure
the brittle leaf-like aching
that tells us we are living.



Pressure
by Michael R. Burch

Pressure is the plug of ice in the frozen hose,
the hiss of water within vinyl rigidly green and shining,
straining to writhe.

Pressure is the kettle’s lid ceaselessly tapping its tired dance,
the hot eye staring, its frantic issuance
unavailing.

Pressure is the bellow’s surge, the hard forged
metal shedding white heat, the beat of the clawed hammer
on cold anvil.

Pressure is a day’s work compressed into minutes,
frantic minute vessels constricted, straining and hissing,
unable to writhe,

the fingers drumming and tapping their tired dance,
eyes staring, cold and reptilian,
hooded and blind.

Pressure is the spirit sighing—reflective,
restrictive compression—an endless drumming—
the bellows’ echo before dying.

The cold eye—unblinking, staring.
The hot eye—sinking, uncaring.



Open Portal
by Michael R. Burch

“You already have zero privacy—get over it.”
Scott McNealy, CEO of Sun Microsystems

While you’re at it—
don’t bother to wear clothes:
We all know what you’re concealing underneath.

Let the bathroom door swing open.
Let, O let Us peer in!
What you’re doing, We’ve determined, may be a sin!

When you visit your mother
and it’s time to brush your teeth,
it’s okay to openly spit.

And, while you’re at it,
go ahead—
take a long, noisy ****.

What the he|ll is your objection?
What on earth is all this fuss?
Just what is it, exactly, you would hide from US?



beMused
by Michael R. Burch

Perhaps at three
you'll come to tea,
to sip a cuppa here?

You'll just stop in
to drink dry gin?
I only have a beer.

To name the greats:
Pope, Dryden, mates?
The whole world knows their names.

Discuss the songs
of Emerson?
But these are children's games.

Give me rhythm
wild as Dylan!
Give me Bobbie Burns!

Give me Psalms,
or Hopkins’ poems,
Hart Crane’s, if he returns!

Or Langston railing!
Blake assailing!
Few others I desire.

Or go away,
yes, leave today:
your tepid poets tire.



The Century’s Wake
by Michael R. Burch

lines written at the close of the 20th century

Take me home. The party is over,
the century passed—no time for a lover.

And my heart grew heavy
as the fireworks hissed through the dark
over Central Park,
past high-towering spires to some backwoods levee,
hurtling banner-hung docks to the torchlit seas.
And my heart grew heavy;
I felt its disease—
its apathy,
wanting the bright, rhapsodic display
to last more than a single day.

If decay was its rite,
now it has learned to long
for something with more intensity,
more gaudy passion, more song—
like the huddled gay masses,
the wildly-cheering throng.

You ask me—
How can this be?

A little more flair,
or perhaps only a little more clarity.

I leave her tonight to the century’s wake;
she disappoints me.



Salve
by Michael R. Burch

for the victims and survivors of 9-11

The world is unsalvageable...
but as we lie here
in bed
stricken to the heart by love
despite war’s
flickering images,
sometimes we still touch,
laughing, amazed,
that our flesh
does not despair
of love
as we do,
that our bodies are wise
in ways we refuse
to comprehend,
still insisting we eat,
drink...
even multiply.

And so we touch...
touch, and only imagine
ourselves immune:
two among billions
in this night of wished-on stars,
caresses,
kisses,
and condolences.

We are not lovers of irony,
we
who imagine ourselves
beyond the redemption
of tears
because we have salvaged
so few
for ourselves...

and so we laugh
at our predicament,
fumbling for the ointment.



Stump
by Michael R. Burch

This used to be a poplar, oak or elm...
we forget the names of trees, but still its helm,
green-plumed, like some Greek warrior’s, nobly fringed,
with blossoms almond-white, but verdant-tinged,
this massive helm... this massive, nodding head
here contemplated life, and now is dead...

Perhaps it saw its future, furrow-browed,
and flung its limbs about, dejectedly.
Perhaps it only dreamed as, cloud by cloud,
the sun plod through the sky. Heroically,
perhaps it stood against the mindless plots
of concrete that replaced each flowered bed.
Perhaps it heard thick loggers draw odd lots
and could not flee, and so could only dread...

The last of all its kind? They left its stump
with timeworn strange inscriptions no one reads
(because a language lost is just a bump
impeding someone’s progress at mall speeds).

We leveled all such “speed bumps” long ago
just as our quainter cousins leveled trees.
Shall we, too, be consumed by what we know?
Once gods were merely warriors; august trees
were merely twigs, and man the least divine...
mere fables now, dust, compost, turpentine.



First Dance
by Michael R. Burch

for Sykes and Mary Harris

Beautiful ballerina—
so pert, pretty, poised and petite,
how lightly you dance for your waiting Beau
on those beautiful, elegant feet!

How palely he now awaits you, although
he’ll glow from the sparks when you meet!



Keep the Body Well
by Michael R. Burch

for William Sykes Harris III

Is the soul connected to the brain
by a slender silver thread,
so that when the thread is severed
we call the body “dead”
while the soul — released from fear and pain —
is finally able to rise
beyond earth’s binding gravity
to heaven’s welcoming skies?

If so — no need to quail at death,
but keep the body well,
for when the body suffers
the soul experiences hell.



On Looking into Curious George’s Mirrors
by Michael R. Burch

for Maya McManmon, granddaughter of the poet Jim McManmon

Maya was made in the image of God;
may the reflections she sees in those curious mirrors
always echo back Love.

Amen



Maya’s Beddy-Bye Poem
by Michael R. Burch

for Maya McManmon, granddaughter of the poet Jim McManmon

With a hatful of stars
and a stylish umbrella
and her hand in her Papa’s
(that remarkable fella!)
and with Winnie the Pooh
and Eeyore in tow,
may she dance in the rain
cheek-to-cheek, toe-to-toe
till each number’s rehearsed...
My, that last step’s a leap! —
the high flight into bed
when it’s past time to sleep!

Note: “Hatful of Stars” is a lovely song and image by Cyndi Lauper.



Chip Off the Block
by Michael R. Burch

for Jeremy

In the fusion of poetry and drama,
Shakespeare rules! Jeremy’s a ham: a
chip off the block, like his father and mother.
Part poet? Part ham? Better run for cover!
Now he’s Benedick — most comical of lovers!

NOTE: Jeremy’s father is a poet and his mother is an actress; hence the fusion, or confusion, as the case may be.



Whose Woods
by Michael R. Burch

Whose woods these are, I think I know.
**** Cheney’s in the White House, though.
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his chip mills overflow.

My sterile horse must think it queer
To stop without a ’skeeter near
Beside this softly glowing “lake”
Of six-limbed frogs gone nuclear.

He gives his hairless tail a shake;
I fear he’s made his last mistake—
He took a sip of water blue
(Blue-slicked with oil and HazMat waste).

Get out your wallets; ****’s not through—
Enron’s defunct, the bill comes due...
Which he will send to me, and you.
Which he will send to me, and you.



1-800-HOT-LINE
by Michael R. Burch

“I don’t believe in psychics,” he said, “so convince me.”

When you were a child, the earth was a joy,
the sun a bright plaything, the moon a lit toy.
Now life’s minor distractions irk, frazzle, annoy.
When the crooked finger beckons, scythe-talons destroy.

“You’ll have to do better than that, to convince me.”

As you grew older, bright things lost their meaning.
You invested your hours in commodities, leaning
to things easily fleeced, to the convenient gleaning.
I see a pittance of dirt—untended, demeaning.

“Everyone knows that!” he said, “so convince me.”

Your first and last wives traded in golden bands
for vacations from the abuses of your cruel hands.
Where unwatered blooms line an arid plot of land,
the two come together, waving fans.

“Everyone knows that. Convince me.”

As your father left you, you left those you brought
to the doorstep of life as an afterthought.
Two sons and a daughter tap shoes, undistraught.
Their tears are contrived, their condolences bought.

“Everyone knows that. CONVINCE me.”

A moment, an instant... a life flashes by,
a tunnel appears, but not to the sky.
There is brightness, such brightness it sears the eye.
When a life grows too dull, it seems better to die.

“I could have told you that!” he shrieked, “I think I’ll **** myself!”

Originally published by Penny Dreadful



Lines for My Ascension
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

and know that my Spirit,
unvanquished, broods,
and cares naught for graves,
prayers, coffins, or roods.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Keywords/Tags: flight, flying, fancy, kites, leaves, birds, bees, butterflies, wings, heights, fall, falling
-JCM- Nov 2018
Salted air
Blowing through chestnut hair
Sitting near on the pier
Glowing honey eyes
Reflecting the sun
Goosebumps on pale thighs
Inside of me silent cries
The need to keep you warm
The coldness drew in
You froze me out
A shadow of me remains on balboa

-JCM-
Craig Verlin Feb 2013
I've had the same view
here in the city
for awhile now
the banks of the schuylkill
the art museum
rocky balboa himself
its been 6 months
the same window
the same view
so many lights
always on
occasional cars
I can hardly see
last nights snow
littering the ground
7 stories downward
one hell of a fall
the glass is too thick
don't worry
no cleanup today
only me
watching the snow melt
and the cars pass
and the life
of everything
drudging slowly onwards
as it has for six months now
here on the banks
of the schuylkill
the tempo is all off
a terrible pace
in a terrible place
Kerouac did a year
up in New York
6 months more
then maybe I'm out
of here
on the road
to mexico
cheap liquor
and cheaper love
the heart beats
quicker there
stooped up in
some backwards
bordello
paying dime a dollar
for another round
then off to san francisco
where the beat stomps
and stutters under that
spotlight
or maybe the blood red mesas
of el paso
where the young broads
dark as honey
can taste just as sweet
but only just a while
its that thrill
you long to have
one more time
breaking a sweat in
the backyards
sneaking love
under fences
and desert floors
just to be anywhere else
where the beat is quicker
than here
I'm growing deaf to it
here in the doldrums
here in the city
of brotherly love
on the banks of the schuylkill
watching the same view
from the same window
as rocky balboa stands tall
moving faster than me in
that forever celebration
Randy Johnson Apr 2019
When Rocky Balboa returned from Russia, he'd been cheated out of his money, he didn't have a penny.
I was at his estate sale and I bought his Lamborghini.
But Rocky followed me home and said that he was ready to attack.
He said he'd break every bone in my body if I didn't give the car back.
Rocky was with his son and he was trying to prove that he was a tough guy.
I kicked him in the nuts and his son was shocked because Rocky started to cry.
Rocky's son thought his dad was as tough as a gorilla but he turned out to be a wimp.
He lost a lot of respect for his dad, now when he looks like him, he thinks of him as a chimp.
You may believe that Rocky is tough but he's not.
Rocky turned out not to be as tough as he thought.
Jeffrey Young Jun 2015
I left because…

I couldn’t take the beauty anymore
In absence of a soul to share it with:
The park more lovely than I’ve ever seen:
A delicate new moon
Against a veil of sultry clouds,
The blue becoming green
On buildings grander than belief –
A eucalyptus pining for the stars,
A bronze conquistador in dusky hue.

In absence of a thought of what to do
I had to leave,
And my heart burned
At that sad fact –
And yes,  I cursed myself for the courage that I lacked,
But I simply couldn’t take it anymore

Bewitched, beguiled and bothered was the theme
Of a play I left suspended entre-act;
The actors took the stage when I had gone
And played on love’s enchanted tangled weave;
But I dragged on home as one without a goal
A dream –
I left
For I couldn’t take it,
No not now,
Nevermore.

When beauty’s incarnation steals the stage;
When nature robs the breath within my heart,
The simple chore of breathing is just that:
A chore –
And I left:
Couldn’t take it anymore

I was bereft, beaten, broken and no longer
In that solitude no longed-for one can feel.
You might think that walk would only make me stronger,
But I cannot take such beauty anymore –
Yet it’s only with such loveliness I’ll heal.
San Diego, 2007
Devon Clarke Jan 2014
I can't tell
If I'm looking at
the New York City skyline
Or into your eyes,
Contemplating a bright future
With you and I;
I can already tell that
You're something along the lines
Of one of a kind.

But I was just another Philly boy.

Blessings don't nearly encompass
The satisfaction that sets in me
When your voice
Pierces my eardrums;
You keep my heart warm
In the face of any blizzard storm,

If my heart was a compass,
You'd be my true North.
If God charged you for beauty,
Then my darling, you'd be poor.
If love is a path, then baby,
You're opening all the doors,
and when I hear your voice,
My whole being is begging for more.

They have to make a sixth borough
Just for how big my heart grew
While you've decided upon me.
I've dreamt of your angel wings
Taking us over the Verrazano bridge
Countless times;
Time Square wishes its bright lights
Could one day rival your smile,
I'll race Rocky Balboa
To the top of the Art Museum steps
A million times over
To prove that I'll go any length
To hold your hand.

I was just a Philly boy..
But then I found my Queen of Queens.

I can now walk like a king, knowing
That your fingers are interlocked with mine.
I can love myself,
I can love my world,
I can love my faith,
But most importantly,
I can love you.

**Let's paint our towns red.
Ivan Brooks Sr Dec 2018
Nothing scares me anymore.
I have been hurt to the core,
Hated by so many people,
For the spoils of my hustle.

I have lived in darkness,
And experienced sadness,
Waddled in disappointments
Victimized by false statements.

I have seen evil humans
Been attacked by demons.
One thing that's certain,
I will never ever give in.

Like the wet monsoon rains
And old locomotive trains,
My lines are uniquely powerful.
And for this, I remain grateful.

In spite of my misfortunes,
My name's not on these gravestones.
Like the mighty balboa tree
I stand strong and free.

IB-Poetry ©
15/12/2018
#strong
Joseph Flores Jan 2018
Memories sweet ~
Salty dreams ~
Aqua-quixotic mind.
The last frontier ~
Summertime.

Girls Gone Crazy.
'In Surf I Trust.'
Bermudas.
Ray-Bans.
Beach or bust.

Abalone divers.
Seaside gusts.
Creamy skies ~
Blood-orange dusk.

Ocean perch.
Cliffside diving.
Crab claw, snap!
Child crying.

Nets ascending.
Fish school scatter.
Skipjacks dance.
Whale spray splatters.

Back bay blues ~
Cool to settle...
Boats return to quall.
Couples trek ~
Beyond the dunes.
Where love ~
Is known to fall.

Lights to glow ~
Dim to shining.
Rides and music ~
Boardwalk rising.
Dipped and Battered.
Fresh fish fryin'.

Flashing neon ~
Midway prattle.
"Step right up!"
Razzle-dazzle.
Ring a bottle.
Toss a dime.
"Winner, winner"
Every time!

At once and sudden.
Of my glimpse.
Soft-serve skin.
Perky sized.
Corduroy curls.
Topaz eyes.

Monokini ~
Thread bare brief.
Sheer to cover ~
Her coral reef.

Of my ask ~
To my surprise.
867-5309
Gently scribed.

Forelock flipped ~
Savory smile ~
Lips goodbye.
A kiss implied.

Boardwalk bevy  ~
Slow to nape.
Forth to wander ~
Eveningscape.
Foggy mist.
Lunar tide.
Surf and sand ~
All collide

Off the beaten ~
Of my stride.
Drunks and loafers '
On each side.

Sundowners.
Late night Croaker's.
Spent syringes.
Midnight tokers.

Spiny docks  ~
Cast slanted shadows.
Tiny shanty ~
On the shallows. 

Mild fire,
Silhouette.
Tiny dancers ~
Cheap wine fest ~
Marijuana pow-wow ~
Wasted luau ~

I've gots to go.

Back to camp.
Do-si-do.
Surfside fox-hole.
Jacques Cousteau

Sandy hollow ~
Tide in tow.
Pop tent clears ~
It's ebb and flow.

Underneath ~
A starshine drape ~
Edge of sleep.
Wide awake.
Unseen struggle.
No escape..

Dark abyss ~
Midnight still.
Blue Whale calf ~
Bloodlet trill.

Orcas make the ****



Eerie silence ~
Beyond the reef.
Mist and mizzle.
Much to sleep.
Roaring waves ~
Crash the beach.

Stretched a long ~
Sand and daft.
Dawn slowly cracks ~  
At the aft.

Pastel egg ~
In the sky.
Sunny side up ~
The morning rise.

Inspired sight ~
Dawn shine lends.
California coast ~
Never ends.

Sandy ribbons ~
Beach belt bends ~
Emerald coast ~
Santa Ana winds. ~

Wind swept sparkles ~
Main sails sway.
Catamarans ~
Balboa Bay.

Health nuts  ~
Spandex ~
Own the morn.
Cyclists. Runners.
Life reborn.

Bleach blond beatniks ~
Chap-Stick chicks.
Surfers paddle ~
Waves to pick.

Jack not nimble ~
Jack not quick.
Jack wipes-out!
Lickety-Split.

Quilt-patch slum ~
Checkered lots do fill.
A teenage infested ~
Squattersville.

Hawaiian Tropics
Silver Oxide
Pubescent hormones ~.
Flourish topside

Bohemian families ~
Converge on beach.
Along the Rocky jetty.
Mothers chase ~
Big straw hats ~
Rolling off the windy.


Lunchtime snack ~
Seagulls gather.
Gap-toothed kid.
Defends his platter.
Relentless gull wing ~
Pitter patter.


His dukes held up.
He stands to fight.
As the bird gawks aloud ~
He flees in startled flight.

Noontide high ~
Chaise lounge cozy ~
Calls my name.
On the dozy.

Sleeping. Headache.
Spittle drooling.
Sunburned.
I wake to wonder ~
Was I dreaming?

My summer daze!

Saw a paper ~
Tossed of mine.
As unfolded read:
867-5309

My summer days!
Rose Amberlyn Oct 2014
Poker faces on Balboa,
the rainbow as our chips.
An orange glow blows past us in the thick, salty air.
Golden blue sea water carrying itself our way,
in tall graceful strides.
A vulnerability shared.
Just for us.
And the only thing I can think is:

Can I keep you?
Zach Gomes Feb 2010
1
The blurred light of our life, a match strike, burns wild bright
friends laugh, sing, and blare swing: fast alive; rise then die
cheap bright wine, a red flying glass splash from your hand
the beat rocks the boombox; pop and lock, fitful hop
it twirls down and smacks ground to shrill sounds, red spills out
in doorframes, with cold drinks necks are craned, loudness shrinks
we peal back the silence with dance moves gone violent,
all join in and dance crazed: tables, chairs, sofas, stairs
we fling ourselves everywhere, and shout bliss and smoke air
I seize, spin you around—music rolls, celebrate.

2
In black quiet foot taps and twigs snap to this stride
and white foxes march past, watch the dance, trot on by
the still night’s our dance hall, the cracked bark its sparse wall
but sway, speckled love pair! Do the twist, jump and jive
on sharp leaves, on damp moss that’s soaked green, on mild ives
our waltz splashes stream’s glass; showers spray gleaming rain
you smile while you pluck limbs from pines’ sides to wave high
a leaf-dressed baton wand—forest song, dance along!

3
A sharp glare through broad panes; the sun’s rays hit Gate Nine
whose slant windows’ black frames light up our silhouettes
we glide boldly, steps rapping sole glee in pepped time
on lined chairs all stiff-backed; golden pairs stare perplexed
a young boy’s worn headset and pre-packaged stale bread
and smooth-gliding walkways, duty-free shopping spree
the rust-orange light scores them:  shocked faces glow, see
our haphazard mad dance past absurd potted plants
your dress flies, behind lies a dazed crowd, we glide down
the beiged boarding ramp, stamp joyous notes, thrash the floor
‘til shafts flood the torn corridor, splashing tan light
Across grey; the crowd cheers, disappears, sings our names.

4
We grasp hands and stride out towards young couples, real haut
all decked out in fine braid, a myriad masquerade
of lined pairs in tight squares and there’s music: waltz airs
which spark movement like truth bends the light, rend the night
with drum rolls and solos whose crass brass part echoes
the slow dips of grasped hips—roll and sway, pick up pace
the sweet rhythms wind lines across lines of blind hymns
champagne clatters, cries clap: shatter that! Rattatat!
I, drunk happy, toast strangers’ masked faces, change places
with laced ladies, sweep three eight-step Balboa sets
while chairs flip, the drapes rip, cymbals crash, windows smash
the dance burns the house down with loud sound, I look round
you’re not far, but right then—a sudden roar, masks, thrown, soar
above, cloud-like hang, hover—we meet and now dance
amid vivid waves of bright stares raining down, masks surround
our close dance, the mass sweeps along past the main doors
and outside, the cool rain pours in sheets, perfect sheets
Andrea Lee Bolt Dec 2020
I hear the leaves fall atop Spacebus

Wonder who else is dying.
Robin Carretti Apr 2018
We are the championships

Dipsy do's soft serve
Just curve your dog
enthusiasm

He wants another hug
what heroism

Doggy dog leash pull

The presidential Poll

The bark full of dogs

Back to the future

Dog Bow wow machine

feature


The collie matched the

checkerboard

Barking Dixie to the ward

Being hugged and dodged

The ball in his mouth

We were both doggy tailed

Help me "Honda Accord"

The Waffle bowl meets

his approval dog bowl

The Patriot "Super Bowl"

like the dog dupper

Who really needs to eat

Moms supper
Again what a pain
What remains Hollywood
Hotdogs barkery train

Mr. Snoop-dog big and long

All sporting dogs trampoline

jumping like the Alpha College

scout snapping Dorm dogpiling


Your heart was trapped inside

his bark

Those troops hit a stump

Presidential

Trumps?? Devil dogs hired
Boot camps

Sylvester Balboa bark scoop

Saint Bernard Knox

Smoochy poochy jet lag

What a watchdog and friend

This is dog La La land


Bagels and those cute beagles

Slurpee lips no cat naps

From there wags and whiskers

I was left with a Soda pop

Three Stooges and cops

Having a dachshund meltdown

Football tackle stampedes

smarty pants

in my dockers seeing

Those cocker spaniels


Elton Johns of Daniels

Why do the humans become

like suckers dogs are the true

pledge hustlers

The Twitter subject became a

Dog Litter

Those dogs bark's Dads with

soda pops do-wops

Feeling nutty professor

my socks in my dresser

The dogs become smarter
than their masters


Someone was barking up the

wrong tree


You're the one who became

the pain can't you see

Diggetty dog house pet ate all

the water bugs happily end

Making a mate four leg friend


Who needs the dog house

Or his bone in T steak teeth

The corndog Kitcat kibble
bailing him out


Basketball he dribbled

Double Taurus dog was named

Boris Karloff so territorial

The Gulf of Mexico became his

surf and turf dog editorial

This was the operation double dip

This pup was the panic button

Her bark his park whistling tea kettl


Flip the house throw
out the sitter

The dogs ruined all the carpet

But you were leashed to him

like a magnet you felt like

Down to your last paws



Golden finger bone fund

You bow to their paw feet

Going to the "Bow Wow"

colorful Parade


Dogs new flash

"Hot dogs devil dogs
Raid bark and purr

Way smarter than you Sir

He bounced to his biscuit

Like a Karaoke dog game

Barking so spot suited

You were watching the

sports game the dachshund

was in a cabbie City


The human or an animal

Snipping your sneakers

Housebreaking a dog to
just imagine
All the people John Lennon loved
his dogs just Imagine

Hey it wasn't anywhere near a

dream but so worth it

You reached for his paw

no place like home Dorothy
last straw surrender


But the rewards of having

a dachshund if you only knew

People that don't have dogs

Some of them would not

understand that's OK


Dog spelled backward God

and their paw's with not
one flaw

Now drink your soda pop

at the bus stop all dogs

American flags playing tag

But remember your dachshund loves

to be hugged opening up
your emails


So much compassion love like no

other competition


Those jumps and wagged tails

So loving and running to greet you

and lick you so much to tell you
Just love and think
This is a dog world they have real hearts lets start believing how much love we can give them
once captain
fore thorn
that soccer
made her
calling such
a crown
then in
Balboa as
she lately
resides a
homophobic and
Gold Pride
hence a
bride and
a southern
school maven  
in heaven.
Rachel Van Hollebeke The Buehldozer from Dla Mar, CA
KB Mar 2020
the windows have frosted over
shattering pinprick traffic lights
into stellar beams

teahouse tables pushed to the side
soft swing music floats overhead
we shed our coats and our inhibitions

clasped hands and an arm draped
softly on the small of my back
we stumble and laugh

snow falls in the night air
the room warms with music and joy
and we dance
A snapshot memory from the first snow, a night filled with music and friends.
V01D W1THN May 2015
Hey, i dreamed of you last night. i just never thought that the dream i had would be the only way for me to see you. um, i was wondering, if the stars ever lined up in the shape of your name, will you ever love me again. No, well um.... im sorry i guess, i tried my hardest and spent to my pockets were nothing but lint. All for someone who never seen me for me and forgave me for my sinful sins. i never thought you'd leave me for a guy i use to call a friend. but thats not all true. you know Rocky Balboa always said "The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows." And you know what he's right. because the one shine of light and one glimpse of color was when i was able to say " baby you are my world"
Lawrence Hall Jan 2017
For Rod McKuen

The gentle singer of our youth has died
The poet of empty Sunday afternoons
And solitary strolls through Balboa Park
Among lovers and Frisbee-chasing dogs

Of laughing with shipmates while cleaning rifles
Because we knew more than the armorer
About dreaming away from learning war
About pretty girls laughing in the sun

And a chansonnier in sweater, sneaks, and jeans:
The gentle singer of our youth has died
Mateuš Conrad Feb 2016
when i die, i'll relinquish so many riches...
that even king solomon would be envious.*

a reinterpretation of rené magritte -
man in a suit with an apple disguising him -
student with dreads and some
artsy fartsy clothes with a traffic cone
to disguise his face.

why do people cling to poetry?
its innocence - people loath poets who
rebel against poetic innocence,
they still want much technique
and little resolve - they want cute
rhyming, cute topic matters,
when the serious arts that allow
no strain provide prodigious outputs
that are later morphed into genius
(genius being prodigious output
in free-fall, spirit of gravity),
the poets concern themselves
about who's the most naive of them all:
poem poem on the page, who's the
most naive of them all?
you see, defining genius in poetry
is equated to the extent of emotional turmoil,
the less of it, the more ideal, technique prone
the output is... the more of it?
well... e.g.

yes, the english do not read philosophy,
they're too practical for that,
so practical in fact that their practicality
stems from creating problems,
rather than solving them,
they're the ones that say:
we care not for philosophical matters,
we care for practical matters,
we rather not abstract real matters
with unreal solutions,
but rather negate unreal matters
with bureaucratic solutions -
basically handing hot coal from
one person to another until the hot coal
becomes hot ****, and then thickens
and becomes un-fascinating for even the
congregation of flies.

but of course you know it stemmed back
from darwinism plaguing writing,
the necessary clear-cut plot, so everyone
knows what's going on... writing,
esp. fiction, is still just about drawing straight lines...
not circles, not squares... straight lines,
lucidity of some congestion of character intersection
with the narrator trapped in parallelism
of either allowing or obstructing tangents of
characters to involve the narrator into
being disguised.

but of course, you weren't the one punching
a brick wall when home office officers
came to take your father and mother,
handcuffed them and took them to the police station
while you were left in the room,
looking tearfully blank at a wall,
with one of the home office enforces coming
in and saying the words: 'you have a nice computer',
then turning around with... not an evil eye,
but a death eye stare... you were ~10 at the time,
shifted back to your fatherland to become
quasi autistic in silence...
only because your father provided an honest
hand for an honest profession,
while the niqab ***** multiplied in tax havens
of taxpayers' rented accommodation
in west london...

or as mickey mouse and donald would say:
make america déjà vu again... again again?
no, make america déjà vu:
rocky ***** balboa robocop sequel no. 17...
the imagination has to die at some point,
might as well be now.
Bobby forget Dec 2017
Superman on kryptonite,
Why because it makes me feel alright,
Like rocky Balboa going into a fight,
As a try to save the world I die,
No obvious signs I'm hurt alone I cry,
I fight to survive but don't care if I die,
If in the end no one cares why even try.
It's a new day today,
For the first time I feel better than okay,
An uphill battle still lies ahead,
Yet im smiling thanking god that I'm not dead,
Round 15 I'm still standing with a chance to win,
Anything is possible if you're willing to go the distance
Life hasn't been easy and Id all but given up which was freeing in a way because I wasn't afraid of death. I never gave up though thanks to a couple people who never stopped loving me and now I feel like anything is possible
Lawrence Hall May 2017
From 2015 - for Rod McKuen

The gentle singer of our youth has died
The poet of empty Sunday afternoons
And solitary strolls through Balboa Park
Among lovers and Frisbee-chasing dogs

Of laughing with shipmates while cleaning rifles
Because we knew more than the armorer
About dreaming away from learning war
About pretty girls laughing in the sun

And a chansonnier in sweater, sneaks, and jeans:
The gentle singer of our youth has died
Ryan Bates Dec 2014
Drink in your feelings.
They go down like thick and grainy cough syrup,
And come up like thin and boiling coffee,
Suffocating your breath like *****.
Let them choke in your mouth and nose,
Strangling your better judgement and your hopes for better thoughts.

Drown in your self pity

She doesn't love you: never did.
You can't say she's gone when she was never there.
How many times must you throw yourself into the middle of heartache, like a courageous fighter into the ring.
You aren't courageous, only stupid.
No Rocky Balboa are you, just a love sick boy full of too much hope.
Why Are you testing your good fate?
Is she worth it?

You may think so now, but you have far more life ahead of you.

If you haven't realized by now, she isn't good enough for you and never was.

You would give her the world if only you had the means, yet she wouldn't give you a second glance.

But yes, you have little past to state that you aren't hopeful. Maybe someday girls will like nice guys, and God willing you will love them too.

Now get off to bed, to school, to practice, to your home, to your dog, to whatever life takes you to. You need to live your life
With only 24 hours a day, there's no reason to be sad for too long
The Dybbuk Nov 2019
Dr. Seuss used to live in my city,
Where the trees are triumphant truphaloos.
Acid rain falls to make you more witty,
and the world shakes with the weight of your dues.
"Still, laugh along with everyone," you'll say,
And the ground will tremble beneath thy hooves
So with that turn to see the palm trees sway,
and chuckle when the sky above you moves.
Yes, Seuss' friends don't wander in the streets
they're far too busy strolling in the woods.
The smells of all Balboa take their seats,
So now, make the exchange, and drop the goods.
I see the world now through a dead man's eyes,
so now upon the world a new sun dies.
They say I can't
They say I will not
I am a bamboo tree that resist the howling wind breeze
I am a cactus that survives the hot desert degrees
Can't crack my soul that is hard as steel
All the hateful words trying to break my knees
I feed of hate and to reach the glory I need
You can't break a man who has been beaten down to the highest degree
Rocky Balboa once said that life is not sunshine and roses.
it will beat you down to your knees.
the strongest man will get up and fight to the end time.
I heard this quote more than once till it became a part of me.
The wave will drown anyone who stands in the way of my dreams.
Fight me if you can and i will get my glory even if it means my demise.
I own the elements of surviving failure in order to succeed.
This is me and this is who I am.
Never give up til the day I die.
I have a dead heart that doesn't pump or allow to breath.
Hate me world i will be waiting for the sting of the bees.
Ahavati Jun 2019
“All the great sadnesses, great temptations,
and great mistakes are almost always
the result of loneliness.”
-- José Saramago, Margaret Jull Costa

In the end we all become graves,
our differences united by the same
neglect of weeds and immense
necropolis whose swathed residents
observe from quiet encasements.

Beyond our mounds will spread
giant limbs of balboa, tapping
like trapped hangers behind closet
doors casting macabre shadows
across plastic flowers and dirt.

Visitors and memories are decimated
by time until all that remains
is a hovel of chiseled stone.
History becomes an illusion
of mystery, like that black dog,

there -- just beyond Aiken's bench,
sniffing out with such diligence you
would swear it was seeking the birth
certificate of God, until it ***** its leg
and ****** on the concrete instead.

~
Legend has it that Conrad Aiken wanted his tombstone in the form of a bench so poetry lovers could sit there and enjoy a drink or two.
Mark Bell Apr 2017
Spielberg had his scary jaws
Hitchcock filmed his crows
Lucas serialised Star Wars
As rocky balboa came to blows
Tarrentino pulped his fiction
Oscar Schindler built his ark
hammer house scared us shitlees
pet cemetry had left its mark
Di caprio sailed with his lover
Gone with the wind,was just a sham
Titanic would never  ever recover
633 squadron aimed to break a dam.
Eastwood never been unforgiven
et never did return back home
The long short and  tall of it
Private Ryan was never alone.
exorcist the omen, scary movies two
hills have eyes,spit on your grave
Elvis Presley's film Hawaii blue
Aliens predators,King Kong on a tower
Papillon catching  Hoffmans butterfly
As the triffids begin to flower,
****** and the ****** shower scene
the beauty and the beast
Snow White and Hannibal lector
Joining us for the annual feast
Having breakfast with Tiffany
Dancing on the African queen
Spartacus oh Spartacus with
Tom hanks brilliant mile green
John Wayne died at the Alamo
The film an all round total flop
Eddie Murphy made millions
as Beverly Hills finest cop.
Little shop of horrors
blues brothers darken pair of shades
My personal view is
Toy story was the best film ever made
Igorgoldkind Nov 2017
Igor Goldkind and John Kingsmill will perform TrypTych: The Third Act of Creation in its entirety  at tonight’s Art and Poetry event in Balboa Park around 7.30 pm

With authors Tomas Gayton, Jim Moreno, and Chris Vannoy. People’s Choice Poem Performance Awards follow featured readings and performances. DJ Gill Sotu will provide music and sound throughout the show. This interactive arts and culture experience will include beverages, snacks, and plenty of time to mingle. Bring a snack or beverage to share and get in free. Info: 619-957-3264.

  When:   Friday, November 10, 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
  Where:  San Diego Art Institute1439 El Prado,
San Diego, 92101

https://www.sandiegoreader.com/events/2017/nov/10/poetry-art-at-sdai-fri-sept-22-gayt/?et=219255#
Seth May 2016
My mouth is bleeding
And my knuckles hurt like hell

I am whispering under my breath
And punching the air

I touch my nose and flinch
That's gonna take awhile to heal

I've been waiting 3 years to see you
How does that make you feel

You should see the other guy
He got taken out by ambulance

I walked through those **** double doors
That place was called "Renegade 9"

You hit me straight in the nose
It sent a chill down my spine

There's blood running from my nose
I can feel it's warmth on my lips
I am dizzy

I didn't even know the guy but he looked like he could pack a good punch
So I started flirting with his girl

That got him real riled up
He was at least 150 pounds heavier than me

My head is pounding
My ears might bust
I think I should probably rest but my legs won't stop moving

I felt like Rocky Balboa
I felt like Muhammad Ali

I was the next world champion
Or the next accidental death at the bar down the street

I lived 50 miles away
I am walking home

I am smiling
I am running
This is my life
I am alive
Mateuš Conrad Oct 2020
something akin to ageing grunge -
it's somehow up there
where: ageing rocking (proper) will
never be -
it's an ongoing nostalgia:
but it's not even that...
pearl jam's vitalogy -
   well... it was never going to be
a nightclub dancefloor filler -
clearly it's not nirvana -
                     such mundane observations
that they have to be met
with a blank canvas:
that there's nothing archaic or...
forbidden - or even a Tironian
shorthand -
              well...
            but i assured myself:
no two thoughts are the same -
                but coming across
a feelz synchronicity -
   don't ask... watching caroline garcia
come back set down against
elise mertens -
          well first of all:
play on clay is so... so... slo-mo...
  compared to the other surfaces...
you can almost sense
that the tennis ball is picking up
clay dust and with each
hit in a rally: more force is needed:
the players also tend to hit the ball
higher so there's a higher bounce...
how often they can be duped
"thinking" they can get to
the second bounce and prevent it...
a game of 7 rectangles and...
a football team's worth of
line judges: plus the ball boys / girls...
tennis... the bigger picture...
god... that french aesthetic of a woman...
i briefly dated a french girl...
isa-bella - and she was that sort
of generic french: that someone
like caroline garcia does represent...
the big picture...
   equal rights blah blah...
women need to box... count how
many bones in a ribcage -
a sport for vengeful prostitutes -
or so i've heard from:
a million dollar baby...
                    well... at least now in sport
the audience size is pretty
much the same:
women's singles still attracted
a bigger crowd than any doubles...
beside equal rights:
true... women should play to
3 set best...
                  joke: whatever...
     women's tennis was almost more
entertaining to watch to begin
with: after all...
  there was never a raonic
or a... any of those: serve rapists
with no dialogue - precision ******
serve - cul de sac games:
which would never have allowed
for the creation of PONG...
just that routine of pacman -
                      anyways...
women's equality in sport...
the olympics are a fine example:
i don't need to see any discrimination
bias - it's just poetically different...
a bit like how women and men
approach love...
   but... football or rugby...
or boxing... it's not like they can't...
do what men do:
but... hell: maybe i should stash
my poems into a drawer and only
read them aloud to my family...
    or... hell! an anonymous audience!
- and don't we enjoy that
readership privacy where one can
remain anonymous -
after all... i don't know what i'd do
with all these... unnecessary comments...
beef: ego-tripping...
some new self-esteem purse?
well now with the "pandemic" -
little god of the underworld and sneeze!
finally! a proper experience of
omnipresence!
we have ourselves a tease of...
should the demiurge - should...
who the hell wants to watch women
play cricket, football... or box?
rock-climbing -
tennis -
                all the sports in the olympic
plethora... oh god: most certainly yes!
- i had to check who roland garros
was today...
apparently they named
the stadium after him...
and from naming the stadium...
they named the tournament...
odd... given that... well... it must be a french
thing... naming a tennis tournament
after an aviator -
who won 4 dog fights during
world war one...
           em... tennis and...
mind you... wimbledon and the only whites
policy when it comes to
clothing...
or how lewis hamilton was turned
away from the royal box because
he was not wearing the full anti-monty
of shirt, jacket and tie...
but white on green... fair enough...
clay is just itching for contrast
of colours... subtle hues of blue....
to contrast with: it's not orange...
    if it's going to be orange it's going
to be Ayer's rock... orange... at sunset...
but not even that...
then you can have all the bold colours...
i imagine that a deep mint
of t-shirt and shorts would be
so well balanced in contrasting...
eh... a canvas of blue...
from the US open or the Aussie open...
it's not the same:
old game new continents:
a historical claustrophobia -
me in my dead-end europe am dying
from a frenzy of moths and
books collecting dust:
i am a continent exemplified by...
hoarding...
         it's very painful to have
to edit history...
   after a while the whole idea spirals
out of control and:
either things are over-exemplified or...
relegated to: it's like they
didn't exist at all...
full-circle... europe is not a continent
of museums: it is... a museum per se...
even if i were to relegate
Estonia to: that place where
the northern elephant: the mammoth
was feasted upon extinct...
not so long ago... circa 10K years ago...
i'd still have to mind...
the Livonian order...
or when Estonia was somehow
part of the Polish-Lithuanian
commonwealth...
boor: the eastern bloc - it's harsh to be
"rudely" woken by
foreign capitalistic wild west of the east
circa the 1990s endeavours:
plastics galore...
the death of metallurgy in europe...
oh yes... this is history...
another example:
newcastle united vs. newport county...
the premier league vs. league 2...
i am dying to hear
of... a league 2 side with only
female representation...
not these arsenal leeches -
fan-girl sport...
   which it is... but it doesn't matter:
the crowds won't come
because: better than a liverpool
or a london derby in the premier league?
a premier league side...
playing a league 2 side!
you can't beat the thrill of...
the trials and trepidations of
underdogs! it's a ******* rocky balboa
type of classic!
and i still prefer all the arnold
schwarzenegger films to:
           there's are no adequate
words to write to... sound like...
an imitation of... a balboa pumpkin /
prune mash-up face at the end
of a movie... there isn't...
how tennis allowed itself to create...
a working environment where:
both the men's tennis and the women's
tennis is equally appealing...
i... simply... don't know...
for that matter: the olympics...
stress free... freed from that base
******* of the Sussexes:
constructive racism?
   what... like me going to Kenya and
not finding ol' albino christmas
anemic on billboard advertisement -
i've reached a narrow base...
to counter arguments...
some **** just don't stick...
   it's enough to live among europeans:
no! it has to be tinged with:
we woz the majority 'ere...
i guess: this is me ******* off
to africa then... how about we whizz
and woz and shvapz continentz?
- i am tired of toying around with
a greasy oyster:
i have fat for brains: literally -
alzheimer's is constructed by killer
proteins -
there are these minor wants in my language
that have to go beyond:
mere vocabulary -
  even if i'll assign a new word
to my palette it will not be enough
when someone starts choking
the words i already have...
i will pick up a physical book:
fully scented, paper...
and there will be no comment
section - hard to write a comment
on a piece of Dickens -
why we wasted our time of
Shakespeare - why is he the canon...
and not Dickens: i will never know...
mind you... i've reached a point
in the Pickwick Papers were...
there was a clarity of exhaustion:
to beef up the volume size...
to meet the demands of serialization...
all the authenticity is fizzling out...
Dickens calls a get together
with either Shelley or Stevenson...
or Wilde...
      roland garros is a tournament
named after naming of a stadium:
which was named after an aviator...
azure sport clothes are a deepening
focus staged against:
Ayers' rock sunset orange of clay...
from the feral lands of
the middle-east: which is...
north of anywhere that's Rhodes...
i don't like being told:
what words best punctuate my
thinking -
i'll pause on: black-beggar...
or... schwarzenegger -
     a mighty surname: then i'll stutter
more with sniggering like
a Motley... mutt 'n' all...
        it's not like the russian would
eventually give a ****...
sorry... the soviets...
   it's hard to fiddle around with
a people when... you have the prospects
of living in Siberia...
no one too keen on that
hot bagel of a "transition period"...
are theyz?
           stand me upright against
a wall and shoot!
           if i didn't have my youth
as bargain: i might be towing
some xenophobic lineage of a conservationist's              
revision...
    that they would never
treat a jihadi as a psychiatric mumble-jumble
ol' Joe made a haystack worth
of a crib...
      hell... i bet that if i decided
to live in Kenya... chances are...
on the beaches near Mombasa...
i'd be treated like a ******* Ferrero Rocher!
would i complain?
living in Kenya? what?! no winter!
no autumn! no spring!
this perpetual semi-what-already-is...
giggle of eternal summer?!
how i did find the native
kenyan girls... come night and moonlight...
greased in acrylic tinges
of quicksilver -
how their ivory teased me...
rapacious little i: impossible having
found a beauty to admire beyond
some geisha crumbling... *******
a lemon and still prancing...
correct me if i'm wrong...
let's racially... exfoliate...
i might have a tan come...
i might have green eyes: eyes of evil...
of envious third-parties...
i might be: fraction of legion...
- revisions for ms. amber...
     and she is... that liquid ***** that
once slightly smokey:
when refined...
came across a slurp of maple syrupe
and became mrs. borrowed-burgundy...
syrope syrup:
                    something... rrrrrrrr'ipe...
gluey - clearly i am using a language
that is phonetically biased:
one that write one way but speaks
another: letter-eaters
of the french and the english...
less the english although:
you'd have to see it first...
to make a distinction if prompted
by a sign in a newly ploughed field:
please keep off of field...
you seeing what i'm seeing?
it's not lazy... it's doubly accurate...
and this is among the essex
landowner class...
why bother? employing
a direct article... there's already
a spatial coordinate of a where:
when: i'm reading it...
i.e. passing the field...
                        of(f) -
               **** of wits:
otherwise: to ******* from
a designated standing ordeal
as mere ******...
**** a black girl so that you feel
her coccyx and you're left with
a pretty plum patch of hue in your
little scratch of eden -
that ***** pouch above your:
GRAND INQUISITOR PHA-LULLABY-LOOSE!
yeah... that little itch...
it's a real dodo-project this...
and... with no real desire
to pardon the soviets...
     coming from a former satellite state...
no russians were ever truly
involved:
to my my knot of standing
on a ledge of yawns...
   which is almost sad...
which is almost this horrid friction of
necessity that...
by all means:
to level the smart from the semi-auctioned
to those perfectly serene and
thereby sleeping...
if i will: i'll boast of complaints
that surround hightned efforts
of: friction contra fiction...

one of those scenarios...
in the cul de sac of pedantry -
or there's another word for that...
            but given this is no...
heated affair of: later: a conversation...
i much appreciate
a readership that focuses on
anonymity...
           it's not like i can buy
a book that might suddenly translate
itself with an attache of a comment
section...
i'm not a real die hard fan of
democracy -
i don't see a need to usher in praises
for something that claims i'm
still illiterate: i have count
stub: X - my voice is either a glitch...
or a blister.
Sometimes I fall
Sometimes I break
I never allow myself to stay down
I pick up my pieces and complete this puzzle
A lot in my future - bright ways, for me are at stake..

I might once wear a frown
I take in positive energies
I blow out the negative poisons...


Like Rocky Balboa
I never take my eyes of the light


I get back up
I stand back up, tall, and continue to fight


I give the relaunch of my positive and bright
future Human  endeavors

I tune my brain
Like musicians in the Grand Symphony
Orchestras playing a meaningful and cheerful musical drama
I make them proud
Both my father and mamma

For the words "can"and "Will" are fused within my psychic



I never stay at stages that are lower...Never!
In the ring of life
I arise and spit in challenge's faces
Not weakened by doubt
Or my Insecurities
I win Triumph's belt
I feel the wind of opportunities.
Fill my soul.

To better Mankind, Myself, my life, and the surrounding communities...

I am a part of a bigger and more beautiful
Brighter, lighter, and more profound army of Boxers..
In the ring of life
Nothing can stand in our way....
As we are here for reasons bigger than our egos could ever imagine...
United we are one..
Divided we fall..
As we form, together, as one all powerful and united force...
The Continuing and Progressing Earth and Spirit
Called "Evolution's Dragon."
Speed racer, coke chaser, sting ya with da, vivid laser,
Shock ya visor, spiritual adviser, learned game wiser,
Three kings, searching for the north, star, looking afar,
I par, from evil ways, these days, most folks in th grey's,
Black and white, mentality cant see pass the fakery,
Enemies, front street, guns and blood,for satan's keep,
Demons fleet, amongst the humans, how can God love us,
When I see so much ****** amongst us, hunger,
For graves, lives cant be saved, see ya thoughts,grazed,
Feel these sting rays, Gillespie blows, link w Satchmo,
Yo, you know the spots bout to blow, carnage hickory,
Savagery, played across the scenery, long forged victory,
My mind was brought, by paying, attention, to ambition,
Let off ammunition, at the invisible, commission, convicting,
All my past sins, along with fake friends, looking for bends,
In the game, fifteen seconds a fame, just to loose, my name,
Nah, I rather toast the flame, yo you know the name, shame,
Love to lay with guilt, pleasure, and pain, all the same game,
For many years, struggled tattoo tears, bleed our fear,
Picture the face, with no face, beat any case, lace up the place,
With the styles, of  Chase Manhattan, see the flows batting,
Above average, better yet, a thousand, island wildin,
Out every time, I lay out, excellence mic performance, golden,
Glaring, like a touch of honey, dripping of the comb,
Girls staring me, down, wave blue magic crown, sounds,
Sweet soulful, vinyl touch seventy, beautiful skins, heavenly,
Lifetime of crimes, but I still, love amongst the blinds,
Many signs, of angels, garlic shots for vampire spots,
Watch em fly away, duck when the words say, prey day,
Who stop.the predator, news editor, rumbling thunder,
Critics under, pressure guns lay the measure, stretcher,
Very skill, against my will, I ain't scared to die, from a ****,
War trained veteran, combat like david, not a Letterman,
Comprehend, a fews words, chipped in, luxury mind clippin,
Sippin, off the henny, rub a bottle, out pops, a genie,
In a bikini, looking ****, she tried to get next to me, see,
She just another succubus, waiting for me bust, dust,
Me at the fiery , crossroads I rather stay, with the spiritual glow,


Looking at the tears, after the laughter, see the disaster,
Laid amongst, the citizens, where am I again, living in sins,
Perdition, just the ending of the beginning, sending,
All my fakes, that wish me hell, see ya soul dwell, sing shells,
Shotguns looking lovely, ****, when she laying next to me,
Bringing prophecy, in the form of tragedy, ya majesty,
Take a blast at me, skip the gates, of the heavenly, beverly,
Been on the hills, watch the thrills, how many love, blood spills,
No chills, see them feeling rusty, to many folks dusty, musty,
Cuz they cant clean they thoughts, I stay casket sharp, harp,
The strings of Robert Johnson, gangsta blues, dejavu,
Beat down crews, give em a taste, of what texas, ****** do,
Yo miss the hearse, funeral my casket, caped these *******,
Thinking they mastered, I caster, the seeds, fill the needs,
Of the dying breeds, pride I swallow, I'll go out, like Apollo Creed,
Rocky Balboa, stamina swole, feel depths, of a soul glow,
Went to rich, from poor, mentality up my locality, in divinity,
No fake in me, I been real, since the birth of the hip hop,
Walked out my cradle, with the shanks, and a toasted bagel,
Excuse me, I'm talking about my guns, clips for ecstasy,
Love my girls ebony, thick fit, thighs looking Pepsi, crispy,
Once I I knock the flavors, forget all the, wannabe jocks,
I keep it lock, like a Senate, hard to survive, satan's pendant,
See me in it, to win it, flip my biscuit, music, for ya mellow soul,
Stroll with me, as we vibes, to old school, hallow destiny,
Saw jesus, before he hit thirty three, he advised me, to see,
The world, hate it much, but love the soul, daring touch, clutch,
Only what'sreal, shoot through cupid's heart, with these darts,
Tomorrows never promise, follow the wisdom, of Thomas,
Gospel, gangsta disciples, holding bibles, with rifles, rivals,
Cant match up, I'm draped up, king tut, with the snake, bezel,
Word to devils, that try to get on my level, no nah, check the maw,
Never spit, what I never saw, combat stats, sticking like tats,
And that's, where I draw the line, brace, melanin for sunshine,
One line, I take a snort, miss the courts, back at up the beach,
Near the miami airport, distort those who thought, they had the fort..
Word up
Mateuš Conrad Jan 2020
.i love how a bangladeshi smurf invented the term: camel jockey to allocate the term to arabs and egyptians... mind you... the first amry to defeat the mongol ****? mamluks, like the janissaries in the ottoman empire: most probably european slaves... copper on copper-titillating-chocolate / burnt cinnamon / star anise / bark of aged oak racism is funny to watch, sometimes... esp. when growing up... those bangladeshi smurfs (sorry, they are a little bit, tiny, i watched a couple today, walking past my house in their bangladeshi cricket team t-shirts... what? stating the obvious... 5ft4? but i also liked the egyptian's / arabs retort to: camel jockey... ha ha... bush-monkey! ha ha.

ugh... the dreaded draft, i'm running out of these, thank god...

what is it about, about the fact that my act
of writing does not translate into
a conversation...
   HAVE PEOPLE TRULY FORGOTTEN
THE CONCEPT OF CANVAS?!
**** me... i guess they have!
   once upon a time,
cindarella (post stamp,
and her collectors), snow white
   (postcard) and the frog prince
of writing voodoo to boot...
               now? insomniac messaging
services... the I.M.S.,
              direct, directed at what?
drool followed up by dooooooooooo'h...
****, easier teaching a gerbil to speak
shing qi cantonese: owe'h
          'ong kong...
                    when does an intrusion
onto a blank canvas become a flash mob
without keeping to a discretion
of d.m.?
                   face to face won't do
to these people... scuttling rats also hailed
black death: woe'zzin' me...
                scheisse! schnell! schnell!
capt'n just floated off on a magic
rug,
       we have to draw lots on
flying off on: that ****** bit of material
we scrub out boots on when being
entertained...
   should i take them off?
well... was i offered slippers?!
  no... so why would you...
                    is this Giza, or Oxford?
   all i have is a blank canvas...
                and people really want to attack
the ronin flag?
                       flag what?
                              defeat?
                     ­      *** sober me...
but hey hey... pop song videos are:
KOSHER...
                 see you back in Russia...
     getting the VISA...
                                  or the kebab
restaurant fire-bombed by the bomb...
        good luck and the oil...
plenty of trees in arabia...
         what ******* sell ******* will sell...
   am i to judge?
              no... not really...
i'm thinking about being
a Chernobyl post-scriptum in
the belly... how people managed to see
both autumn and spring in the same park,
rainbow nation, your guess,
   half the trees were decaying,
half in full bloom,
         unless you want me to attest
that as a lie: i hope you dream of my
great-maternal grandmother...
    maybe she will explain it better...
            but this saturated talk of ***
just turns me on thinking about
the upper-hand of the female
mantis, translated into man: divorce laws...
or as the common talk speaks...
       no...
      i heard why this:
you're stupid, this is stupid he's / she's stupid
zeitgeist is all about...
         and those rooted always seem to have
the most obvious solutions to
"complex" urban problems...
      hell...
     to some people this might as well be
tabloid toilet paper worth today
but dead gutter rodent black pearl
ship in the gutter the next day...
        poetry, really has to learn
so much from the journalistic attitude...
i still don't understand
why philosophers are relevant,
parasites of philosophy,
when poets are in a dire need
to compare themselves to poetry,
or rather to make a craft from
poetry-tabloids...
             whatever the classical school
teaches you, whatever contest
there was between poetry
and philosophy, whatever
the ancient philosophers claimed of
poets as being easy targets...
  ooh ooh, OLA!
          you just managed to see
a poet nibbling on journalism...
           whatever the year it was,
yesterday might as well have been
2000 b.c.,
         today might have been
           100 a.d.,
   tomorrow?
                ****... the 22nd century
of whatever year whatever date
or whatever designated climate of interests...
__________

so you run into a cul de sac like
a scuttling rat...
but... you buy your whiskey
at the local convenience store...

           back in the day...
when growing your hair long was merely
a symbol of: i listen to metal music,
*******...
           the time when that was the "thing"...
hell, Butlins... of all places...
i cross-dressed...
      a broad lent me her chanel
chic black mini-skirt little no.,
              and i did...
                        i didn't even have to shave
my legs for the gags...
       ***** or no *****...
             i had the flare and audacity
to pull off the stunt...
     now? long hair? a little bit of make-up
and you're: "trans"...
                     how about meta-******?
i mean there are three directions in
chemistry, in terms of attachment allocation,
closely associated with the beneze ring...
in the name of ortho-, and of the para-,
and of the meta-... oh... right...
**** and of trans-....
           clubbing in essex...
   i wouldn't leave the house
               without some eyeliner...
sometimes, then again,
most of the time...
            jews and russians:
      ripped jeans, eyeliner,
          ready for the edinburgh
club scene... being called ****** before
we even left the house...
    very, very encouraging people...
who probably never heard
of the cure...
                
so you're buying your **** at the conveninece
store... and there's this plump girl
checking you out...
    plump... sure...
every appreciate fine art?
   plump girls were all the rave in
the 17th century, and 18th...
              what's that other word?
ah... corpulent! so many nice terms to
use in synonymity with how
a black man might see a porky:
more cushion for some pushin'...
             d'uh...
                      
but there are some nights, like this one,
where... there's an electricity in the air...
it's warm, but it's also cool,
paradox... the wind is stirring...
  you can listen to the wind play a weird
sort of flute while brushing the trees,
nay... combing the trees...
rustling, just pristine agitation is fixating
a sharpness of the air...
someone of a transcendent evaluation
has sat on a throne...

                    akin to last "night" / dawn,
the internet is switched off...
but you still have a sharpnel narrative in
your head...
                    what to do? what to do?!
ah! ****, no paper...
    i never had a tattoo done on my body...
but i figured... might as well intrude
with some ink on my hand...

   again, if these trans-kids didn't bother
grammar? i wouldn't be playing the
"identity politics" game...
  me, of all people, immigrant 1st generation,
adopting a history not akin to my own...

mind you: you really need a steady / cool head,
drinking on an empty stomach -
and if what cabaret voltaire ever achieved...
with tristan tzara and later william burroughs
of cut-up technique fame:
          i too... who can really appreciate
calustrophobic and all the more predictable
narratives of YA novels?

                   a tarantula might as well have
bitten me, and now, i reflect the sepsis of
disorientating venom, the surge of chaos,
without any gratification of staging
    an uproar of grandeur! just, the basic reality.

- because, even citing the mamluks,
or the janissaries, like a belief in god...
                 to cite certain historical events...
is, and will be, deemed, juvenile...
ambitious... middle-aged man with a *******
train-set model...
or a lego project...
        it's all the same... the "out-dated"
cliff-face hanger...
                             it's either atheism
and the respectable citation of history...
   or it's god, and citing the existence of
mamluks and their victory over the mongols...
what is the respectable citation of history?
the aspect of history without any heroism,
the safety of a history that's purely
bureucratic...
      a "history" a person of the modern times
could possibly engage in / with...

   when the quill became mightier than
the sword, but also subsequently became
a spray-can for the outlet of deploying
graffiti... or scratching with a stone on
a stone face, reminders of the first forms of
writing: designated tattoos etched by stone
on stone...
                              krähekratzer
                     ­         ᚴᚱᚨᚺᛖᚴᚱᚨᛏᛉᛖᚱ
                                ⰍⰓ...
   (some words just sound better
in foreign languages...
violin: skrzypce)
                         ⰍⰓⰖⰍⰀ ⰄⰓⰀⰒⰀⰐⰉⰅ
               ⠅⠗⠁⠓⠑⠅⠗⠁⠞⠵⠑⠗

i'll go a step further... time to fiddle
around with some braille...
  although i do concede...
      if you were blind...
          you must have really tender finger-tips...
no point having played guitar...
play guitar? blind lemon jefferson style?
forget about a chance to read braille...
you need pampered fingertips,
able to tell the difference between
        oyster flesh and a woman ******...

krucze drapanie
hmm... devangari:
Ђ / Ⰼ - dj' -
                   त - how similar...
is that?! what the hell is wikipedia proposing,
with regards to, origins "unknown"...
indo-european?
the mongols just showed up from...
"nowhere"?
       Ђ | त                    eh?!
t'ah... elsewhere dj'...
                         otherwise idjota...
idiot...
                          elsewhere
                  id'ȷota...
              yo yo... no "j"ehovah's witnesses...
sure, no **** sherlock,
   i counter the anglophone origin story
rooting me back in h'africa...
             i take my origins in the land
of the 10 spices... india...
  land of the bangladeshi smurfs...
cinnamon, cardamom,
cumin, coriander,
                  i'll give you ten...
don't worry...
                     chilli...
              anise...
                           turmeric...
                           little mini-people scuttling
along like norse god mythologies
akin to the dwarfs...
   more cullinary skills...
less of the metallurgy...
   wizards at the end of stirring spoons!
fenugreek!
                 how many is that? 8...
i don't want to cite black cardamon
(since it's such a potent spice)...
                      mint! **** yeah, 9...
   hell... the cocktail... garam masala!
10!
            well... if the 'ebrews have their
10 commandments,
and i have my *******,
and am still able to *******
while dilating my **** donning
a *******...
   and i place my origin story in india...
rather than africa... then we're settled...
the bagladeshi smurfs can call
arabs and egyptians camel jockeys...

    i haven't finished though...
just like that one night in st. petersburg
with a ***** that, really needed to be ******
over a period of 7 hours...

    will i use more rudimentary language,
deviating from "slanderous" words?
will i?!
               so it's either "tourettes",
dyslexia, or a writer's contipation?
because, by now, "block":
truly implies... the already mentioned.

i never came from africa...
   india is my posit of origin...
and never mind the celebration
of the roman instrument of torture...
the crucifix... i found a better crux
of "all" beginning and of all "end"...
some "random" german...
            dasein:
i'm tired of bashing the germans...
bashed enough, bashed just enough...
bashed: enough!

   when citing credible historical events,
akin to a belief in god,
akin to premature depression and
dementia...
       all... huddling under the same
torch lit roof...
                  it, just, ****** me, off...
oh sure, sure,
most likely...
before some of us bypass the age old
editorial "compromises",
and write what the hell we want!
before that? heavy cencorship...
       just so... the "overlords"
can muster a "plan B"...
                     sure, all is certain!
but who is to address the "real" problems?
ol' Lizzie is going to be fine...
i'll still drink ms. amber...
realizing... ****... am i drinking mz. amber...
or is this watered down
dog's soap ****?!
                  you never know...
i might as well be drinking
prince *****'s shower water!
this whiskey is starting to taste of soap water...
i'm having it, i'm chewing on about
12 12"****** per day just to keep
the Venetians gagged...

   prop me up... ***** starter...
******* mongrels ******* smurfs!
blah blah blah!

             i already see "too many"
english idiosyncracies in the english language
to begin with!
   why would the transgender activists ever attack
grammar?

the current gilette fiasco?
just grow a beard, men, just grow a beard,
problem, solved.

                 want the vox-office senario?
eh? eh?

                 the gender discriminatory
               ontology of nouns...
              what? cite rocky balboa
contra ivan drago.... you... beta male...
*****?!
                     you attacked nouns,
by, enforcing the stature of pronouns...

i like to call it: the pronoun deragement
syndrome...

                     gott! mit uns!
                             Gustavus Adolphus...

how many, "differences",
are to be found, and bound,
to the english tongue?

                    θere (d'er / F),
          although (al'V'ough),
                          θey (V'ey)
                   ex-xenon
   (eks - zee / zer / z'enon),
and what is a chemuical compound...
                to θink...
is to not mind φilosoφy....
                                        
           ­               gender pronoun neuter?!
seriously?
             i thought that nouns were
gender discriminatory?!
  Paris! male!
  kundel! mongrel, male!
*****! female!
                  sroka! (magpie) female!
kruk! male!
                  dzik! male!
                       gawron! male!
              there are so man discriminating nouns...
in each and every language...
pronouns?
   low hanging fruits!
                              a-the-ism...
           do their own natives know...
the native spreschen?!
       the article rules?
the english nouns are not composed
via genders!
         who's to who in terms of "revising"
the retarted "revision"?!
sorry... but certain words just sound
better in a foreign tongue...

            sroka sounds much better
when "coinciding" with: magpie;
beside the point...
here's my hand,
on https://www.minds.com/mateuszkonrad.
JOY
I am learning a lot these days.
Or at least I'm trying.

I am trying to learn about bread and blood types and shale oil economics and Rocky Balboa.
The triangular fibrocartilage complex.
The Kennedy family.
Chinese billionaire real estate investment and the reign of Xi Jinping.
And, you know, other similarly interesting kinds of things.

But, most importantly,
I am trying to learn how to be happy.
Or, at the very least,
I am trying to learn how to try to be happy.

I am trying to learn what happiness really is.

If it's some strange ethereal something in plain view just behind some stranger still wall of glass that I haven't quite learned how phase my mind and body through
--or by what strength or courage or cowardice it might take to shatter and simply walk past.
Or if it's something else entirely...
A myth, intangible yet important.
A legend, absurd.
A god, disturbingly ambivalent.
Perhaps it is the warmth on my skin and the chill in the breeze on this first month of spring.
Perhaps it is the water and oxygen that flows through every living thing.
Perhaps it is that wall of glass itself.

I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know if happiness is real.
I don't know.
I don't even know what it is I'm actually trying to learn.
I don't know if I am learning what happiness really is or if I am learning that it truly doesn't matter either way.

I am learning a lot these days.
Or at least I'm trying.

I am learning that perhaps it is less salient to try to be to be happy
and perhaps instead I should just
simply be
happy.
Every so often we fall.
Sometimes our souls break.
Never to allow ourselves to " stay Knocked out and down."
Recover the pieces and complete this puzzle.
A lot in our time to come - some extremely intense ways, the future of Humanity remains at stake...

At one time, sorrow and doubt force us to wear a frown.
Taking in breaths created by positive energies.
Allowing a strong well enhaloed blow...

Inventing Powerful forces
Pushing out the negative poisons...


Like Rocky Balboa
Never to shift our eyes of the light.


Performing all of our hearts

We get back up.
Standing stronger,taller,and rising back up.

To pursue life's more noble fight.


Merely giving the relaunch of the positive and bright...Personal intentions
Human endeavors...


Like rare instruments
Tuning the emotional brain.
Like struggling musicians in this " Grand Symphony."
Our full Orchestra portraying a meaningful and cheerful "musical drama."
A musical composition that shall make them proud...


Our forefathers, fellow men, children, and women...

Also, our family.

Like our own Father's, Sisters, Brothers and Most Importantly, Our mammas...

For the words "can" and "Will" are fused within our psychic.



Staying in the deeper stages to remain defeated?

Never!
The ring of life is contacting our spirits.


Inevitably arise and spit contemptuously in overwhelming challenge's ghastly faces.
Not to become severely weakened by dreadful doubt
Or Insecurities
Obtaining Triumph's Championship Belt...
Experience the wind of opportunities.
Penetrating the soul!

Bettering Mankind, the self, personal life and the surrounding communities...

We constitute all parts of a bigger, quite powerful and defined attractive energy.


A force that has a light much Brighter, a wind indeed brisker...

lighter,,,, and more stronger,much proudly profound army of Boxers.
In this critical time that Goodness shall "Draft"

Into the " Ring of shattered life."


Nothing can stand in the way...
As we are in contrast, together, from within tragic destiny

We overwhelming lead here...

Only defined and merely written into "Future's Defenders of Justice"

Brutal war books

Tragic chapters meaningfully written throughout false messages and within truer Reasons,

More heroic narratives

Used ink scratched within these brittle pages

Tragic stories we conquered in Celebration.

Where our own Human egos

Weakiness within them which could ever imagine...

Nor can living minds scarcely comprehend...


" United as one. "
"Divided we inevitably fall..."
As we merely form, together, as one all-powerful and united force...
The Continuing and Progressing Children of the Earth and Spirits of Humanity
Tireless energies unwittingly unleashed in personal unity..."

We are an obscure legend Called "Evolution's Dragon"

— The End —