Up ahead past frozen trees,
lies a timeless crystal valley,
while some still stand unfrozen here,
in rows of wooden alley,

I step in past behemoth guards,
who protect a prism palace,
as cleanest waters pure and clear,
rush down on earthly ballast,
a chance to sip of sacred wine,
inside a holy chalice,

Roots run deepest in this spot,
away from light,
below,
while tallest branches touch the sky,
all blanketed insnow,
as orchestra's of crystal chimes,
prepare another show,

When one should gaze upon it,
this ancient wooded sight,
as steam is rising steadily,
as daylight moves to night,
night draws down it's curtain,
as stars now shine a lovely light,

Your breath is taken with it,
& frozen there in time,
as daylight changes scenery,
angelic voices chime,
when telling of the beauty here,
I'd say this place sublime,

A wooded lucent heaven,
it's hard to put in words,
I close my eyes to dream again,
and listen to the birds,
and for every other lovely sound,
I hope my ears have heard,

My breath & I,
just cannot linger,
in beauty's frozen place,
where every branch is laden white,
on gaurded trees of ancient grace,
where all adorned with icicles,
& brilliant snowy patterned lace,

The atmosphere is full of vapor,
as the dew point has been hit,
condensing incandescent tears,
low flying clouds now sit,
so near the ground in steamy fog,
translucently still lit,

It captivates my every sense,
as frozen gates unlock,
I do my best to look away,
though all I do is gawk,
I peer inside to check the time,
...if any on the clock,

Sadly here,
not time for me,
inside this sleepy glen,
where birds & death,
they wait assured,
a thorny crown,
in safest den,
boreal a chickadee,
the livest a tiny wren,

Perhaps to come another day,
I stay inside past frozen gates,
I cannot know the how and when,
my thread of life is cut by Fates,
the three Keres I see in there,
it seems I can't manipulate,

I do not know the way to here,
amidst the wafting fog,
when all again will seem anew,
in Spring & newborn frog,
where lovely woodland creatures,
come out from mossy log,

I so wish I could stay here too,
where now the only sound,
is one of snowflakes softly falling,
upon this hallowed ground,
I do not know where I am going,
or where I'm finally bound,

Though I will try again in Spring,
to see my way back here,
I came here with a fear of death,
but left inside that fear,
as little Winter fairies whisper,
of hope into my ear,

I am grateful for today,
with new hope for tomorrow,
I'm walking out of here tonight,
relieved of all my earthly sorrow,
I walk ahead,
now unconcerned,
if no more time...
at all to borrow.

Cherie Nolan © 2016

Don't mistake me for some mere mortal man, despite the fact that is what I am.

These numbers all add up, and by "add up" I don't mean "make sense". I mean compile, compound, and condense.

You are every number you are assigned. Your weight, and your height, but you're still one of a kind.

Perhaps the start became askew, as now you have to appease a certain view.

Because maybe between, "I'm trying to lend a hand," and "I'm trying to understand,"

WE found "I'm trying to define." "To outline."

To segregate, to separate.

Maybe it's time we left all these numbers behind, out of mind, and then we'll start to find;

Infinity.

By a symbol it comfortably dwells, and it is free of numeric prison cells.

I will not be shackled in digits, but I cannot be the only one to fix it.

I will have trinities on my breast, and infinitys on my liver will rest.

I will have hearts stained on my kidneys,
And upon my stomach I will florescent trees.

And as all immaculate things must fall,
Down will come symbols, purity and all.

Our descendants will come to our same flawed fate, and symbols will cages create.

Children's children's children will awake, and words they will commemorate.

They will see through to when the pen was invigorated. When words were made and encased and plated.

They will see that though words can strip and tear and disintegrate, words will never fail to free and weld and amalgamate.

So do not mistake me for some mere mortal man despite the fact that is what I am.

Because as time has past on and numbers become ballast,
I will never forget words, the first and the last.

Time stops, stands still
As I await in darkness
Swallowing the pain, the pills
Waiting until I feel less

Feeling so lost and alone
Drowning everything out
I drink, disgusted, on my own
Too much after this drought

The pain, the fear, the hate
Tears streaming, too much to bear
Carrying this ballast, this weight
I damage myself so I disappear.

Rotations devolve into fragmented parcels of unwavering fractals that disrupt and distort the epitome of this reality as it descends into the oblivion that is night absent the light of day to shine a ray upon a soul fresh with spirit and aspirations held prisoner amongst its comrades in arms as it struggles to assert it's rightful place in the night sky that is in itself a contradiction to the polarity of the void and its life of never ending twinkles flashing and dancing like droplets of rain bouncing off a brightly lit ballast as they fall into the steady orbit of atomic homeostasis

1
O black golden cleanser
O ebony shrine ballast
Pry open mine eyes,
sharpen my senses like cutlery
& envelop me—
Is the day so young

another cup please, just to
Get me going

2
Heat
Not quite that of a fire
"but trust me, don't touch it"
Let the smoke stiffen
& soften become the
summation of particles & at once
lose all sense of being

I'll have a smoke now—
maybe I'll kick it a little later

In a lost paradise where the sea shrinks with feminine conscience, compassionate flashes are ratified in each groove and I calculate footage, this previous present attracts the magnanimous representation of the lightning emission of its speech representing itself where the queen judges the king Consummatum Est, with little difference from culinary art and its very dense genre. Here is the carious aspect of the bluish faskéloma or exasperating of the paws that move the occasional ones in sub-vibrations softening in the shiny mark of the sessile columns in consistency of its weak receptive propagation and masculine science, lacking what prospers with moist regulars of flashes that are cooling from their imbibition. With thousandths of his enchanted parasitizing and prior ego I wonder afterwards not far from a Para-Celestial and sacrilegious lore of Lochnith; Who, what and where would have been able to support such or such, rising on the beams and girders that make a whole for an inaccurate Menthe, going to the arcane of the seventh external love with clear magenta lights, on rounded ultraviolet reliefs, here is where everything lulls from the adverb Eleusis, seething with a consonant flight that suffocates in spite of a Pseudo Vernarthian, where it will go without any exception disrupting the courses of hesitation, leaving no more the divine portent and going back to the loaded Cibatus or barley in northwests that flatten ultra winter, mowed down to its glacial bluish water discharge in unequal thickening of fast secrets with thirds of vox with bordering called in pair of trios, and symbolic of a reborn flashed subsoil of a lifetime swollen in its low course and ministerial occultation that isolates itself on Patmos. The skies were beaten where nothing germinates from dreams waiting for thousands of those like me with acute senses of the Anthesterion, or of March taking me towards an enigma not posed even if it is not clarified yet not resigning from love or smelling in the singular uni-lunar desolate with venerable fulminations and inquinas of the branch of the bakchoi, which was whistled by an Aulós that was remade generic when restarting fasting from a day rebuked and repaid in the emaciated Cibatus. Such light grasses were polarizing prohijadas when recovering from resounding beginnings of the rhizomatous aromatic nuance, and from super life machined from the metallic oscillation of the fires and rites ruined in the aromatic arthrophagous of Lochnith, nauseating at night in flowing enigma and gramineous rictus, intermingling while he longed for the ritual and his graceful plumes in feasts that honored his Canephores transferring mead towards the bakchoi psychic adept revealing himself from the masculine to the feminine in aqueous positive bed and supra negative redemption, which was fading into sharp matter attended while the world was created that they would live with more than forty stratagems, seeing themselves praised before their eminent Truth. Myself…being its own tyranny…, which erects whoever classifies it sacramental, and notices the squalid lack of control of its barbarism flash when I still pursue the darkness of my purge that is falling even without finding where to do it, falling however from its end and of guilty thunderous glances..., what more public decree do I wish, for more rituals that you have close to you when feeling sharp minorities of its aftertaste although in double life and night your memory continues to spy on whoever denatures you from the paganism of Lochnith, more than a proselyte , plus that a lien conceived in dethroned galleys of homeland and fusca haze. Meanwhile, quantities of Omphalos from the ego micro center are distancing themselves from mine, my faded lost throne hallucinates lost knowing that it is a probable sculpted flash subject to the gleaning of the Cibatus in fraction of the cereal ritual, and of sanctified illumination with tableares that have to dwell all the times that they revive from the vivid purple red, and from the debtor clairvoyant mystery sky that is reviving in the revealed luminescence that throws it in ornate nickels and acidic rattles at midnight falling on a positive particle devoid of yours returning to mine, and preparing for the flashing praise that pigeonholes him from his crippled fallacious and previous theory suggested after favors by not being reconverted. Lochnith capitulate capitulation suffers from glare towards her beloved, placing his phalanges on circular and angular waves on the virtual milky river of Eleusis caressing her face and glare from her. “I, Lochnith, was on the cliff with my Canephor Aerse, near his Athenian paternal landlord, I was going to say goodbye to myself and carelessness, not being able to see myself in the reflection of the water separated from my ego, knowing that Aerse would not choose me, much less to my abandoned superior.

In Keri on the Island of Zakynthos, I synchronized the fall of Aeschylus in Leucas, which perhaps without my local would offend me by reputation and snoop on cliffside suicides that only see nascent effigies of the bakchoi as a potion for serials of life and cities of the incongruous dramatic space , where its tragedy and antithesis do not fit in the basket carried by my priestess Aerse. I am flying over the structures of the acropolis, not yielding as a deity who prophesies where there is no room for the world in which she and I can inhabit. Lochnith, jumped after her as she was falling down the frontispiece of the cape..., She watched him as he fell..., forbidding to skew him from his gestures and get close to her so as not to fall where the wind is more docile and free, intervening with pashkein inclination or entangling them of the vipers and rims of the heroic hair in a condition of evanescent reckless touch against her suitor, trapping her from the Omphalus that she had tied to her neck transferred from brilliant didactics before a puerile boxing of vicissitudes, and spring flower shops next to the flayed serpents of Persephone and Kashmar floating on the Lilies of Aerse. Prey to the escarpments and cliffs, she remained possessed among the sedimentary dolomites that emanated near her veins before plunging down the steep side in over cascading prayers for her, always knowing that he would love her on a singular base of enchantments while he looked smiling before fall yielded In the end, forty-one seconds she was thrown off the cliff..., Lochnith passes from one end to the other the Omphalus of her neck by a lofty plume ready for love, imagining herself in the midlands of a ruthless positive affection of the mysterious flashing Eleusino, and by the divided ***** that took them as they fell into a splendid world with serials and images of Aerse, tied to the prehensile sacrifice and the cold hand of Lochnith, together as they fell between their subconscious selves, becoming heaped and vivid as something plunged towards them fleetingly, knowing that he I was going to survive him.

Lochnith's gleam was northwest of Athens once lost in the scrupulousness of a pagan polis and cult that kept docked in the sands to find her on the cliffs of the acropolis, where they had lost each other after two thousand years since they Theodosius abolished by decree the rituals of Eleusis. With revulsion and unprecedented insight, Aerse remained a recluse with excessive eagerness to self-eliminate, possessing for both the due imagination that he had possessed of the devoid neckline of the omphallus causing the inclination of the avalanche and their bodies towards where they supposedly would land on the divine and Dionysian path which leads to the eschatological of Vernarth's Diokitis. Apparently they were leaving as a result of an immortal Vernarthian existential catastrophe or decline, at the same time of a rhythmic alkaloid hemlock with its Achene that carried them for any pretense by being triggered towards the meeting with Persephone without her or he knowing why to fester at Eleusinos as Lochnith and Aerse in a single concentric whole, and quantum beings of the octagonal by the straight or transversal line that slipped into the hypotenuse at the instant that they were conceived implicitly as they took him from relapses when he went towards Aerse, after winding up from his conclave Hypomorphic writing and Magna Mater Misterica. Under the established power of his ministerial, the redemption that went in adjoining the ins and outs was consigned to resurface from the subgenre, and from himself procreating exultation with the analogs of Vernarth that were prolonged in excremental purges and disagreements of the cult of what should be twisted in the ****** of the magnetic genre and of positive tendency that would be eternalized after the cessation of the active decrees by Theodosius. Eminently Aerse suffered on some semi-dead watery slabs next to Vernarth, she remained after the agreement to centralize what irradiated her humanly as semi-Itheoi from a reinforced gender that was cohesive in retrograde worship to achieve pre-flowering in all the springs of the world, where they could be seen together with Persephone in the finnis that was distanced ultra terrestrial towards a dowry of profusion and disproportionate wealth, not being categorized as a mystery rather as an unknown of a super method of rummaging in the lanterns where no reflection of Aerse could to be found by Lochnith after getting lost in the polychrome figures of the acrotera, lying in watery nitrosities on the escarpment of the cliff. Physiology will influence Eleusis with systematic naturalness for the active hydrogenated elements, and of such unknown prebiotics or phyto-estrogens where remnants of the great sepulcher of humanity are manifested, as it is found to rise from the true hecatomb of July with a hundred halters arranged with foreign beings towards the oasis of transition. The little will of the annals will multiply in millennia of obscurantism, taking him in transit to a more exciting late management by harassing the search for Aerse in a clear mystery already in the jaws of a clamoring night by the reefs of Demeter for those who know about Persephone! even being with the inventive fallacy of a addicted spirit in correlation to the rite and its lineage. Every night that he convalesces, he will look sleepless with the servile promise of divinity from a vision that fades from the winepress and the Boedromion party, moving from the born ****** position of a hierophant towards the mold that dies and that does not renew itself from Boedromia itself. The representation of Aerse was reflected with transfused majolica and Eleusinian threads when she was seen walking from the beginning floating remotely in the meadows of the knoll, from which the cyclical anagram of the lost cliff rises when it separates from its Adonis being able to expose them in mythological treachery and transcended from epic truth to be related to the treaty between Zeus, Hades and Demeter for the rescue of Persephone after being dented from the beginning of the arcana that sprouted from a distorted symptomatology. She aerse carried the flayed serpents even on her body as if she should look for them in an omnipotent volatile gray so that it would come out by itself and be unguarded by her gone eyes, witnessing secrets and resting in anarchy from where there is not and will not be. Archon or governor What a mesmerizing problem is improvised from second after third that provoke astonishment to see him in the course that he could not have of his cursed detection! Aerse was beginning as a curious Canephore, he came to meet his ephebes Lochnith after excessive self-inferred hypotheses by following him at her command detailing the Kykeon that paled her psychotropically from a discarded and mineral exhibition, of which she would be devoured by the numinous portent of the Mashiach with his Sunday appearance or concerning the numen manifested with the eternal powers in front of the hieratic presence of the man who looked at her paternally, with a crass profile like a Damian Hessian drawing them in, plotting in a colossal fascinating stealth. Here she wraps him up but does not approach him and falls, lost in love, such a Faustus dilemma, granting herself at the initiation of the portal of the twelve lunar months in Eleusis, with immutable years and origins where they will bounce to meet in childhood that made them known as Aerse and Lochnith . Here in the greatest trance of life, both would begin to overcome all the twists and turns of the gestated gloom that separated them due to the shaken annoyance and confusion still divergent in sediments of runoff and bark oscillations that emerged from the unevenness of the acropolis, until a meeting in the amazing light and divine libertarian of two tendernesses, and martyrdoms that purely push them back towards a new end of the muddy gleam in a found paradise where the sea unfolds by male consciousness and is ratified mercifully in each flash of the striated. They will meet again in similar attachments divided by the fluctuating one who unmasks the one who drives him away with his dominant ******, and ill-advised caudal space seducing the contiguous public and private astral bodies that have never been coarse or dissimilar in ablution or sacraments of gods the pagans, everywhere nor whatever its fragmented remains by the gullies and ravines of the Kêphisos. After the remnants in politics, the desolate serpents of Aerse flowed down the river, as a link section that declared itself from an initial that was an evident flash that enveloped them as a cardinal canon with bucolic politics in all the nearby regions. Athenians, after the vertiginous regressive parapsychology like an Eleusino flahsback or Anadromí sto Parelthón Eleusia, with the visualizations of Aerse and Lochnith when they follow each other through the learned induction of feedback that was arranged in the inclinations of both, refining their morphological bastimento for the purpose of instituting them as articulators of the evocation of the millennia. Prophecies were reported from the 8th century BC. with ends, and interprocesses of the eternal in the unknown mystery that began to be clarified with the reinvented personality of the amendment of Life and Expiration experienced with Lochnith of the month of Boedromia, fleeing from a federated Polis that would be unified to a substantial dimension and of sacred Eleusinian space with brand new warmongering for the culminations of being incorporated into the Hexagonal Primogeniture integrated in this way in the indissoluble ephemeris of foundation and hegemony of the Megaron or Opisthodomos of Patmos. This is thanks to the beaten serpents that were nesting the reanimates of the question with subterfuges that make the widths of inter-pairs prevail, which are consolidated as a reality of session and space, agreeing on the defeated parapsychological memory or future in the economy of two resignation blocks of the repealed Sacred Space, in consensus of the beams of the Vernarth Military Command forging from the beating sacralized ***** that cultly intensified from its mysterious nature and territorial domesticity to come from the attracted Agoras that were repositioning themselves with the metaphysical agents that they will be restored in the polis with the scope of furrowing in a civic action induced towards someone who virtually recognizes him in the purge of the exclaimed strangers. More ardent passion was added to receive them even being wary of further mutations vibrated with the Faskéloma, or exasperating that moves the tint of the occasional vibrations, similar to the tendencies of the Sacred Space of Gethsemane, with the disastrous passing of the aqueous levels of the Kêphisos, which it would mean the presumptive ordinal of unreal historical worlds. The parapsychology of space was absorbed with torched quadrilaterals that were hanging from the invoked meditation, they were lying on futile folders and anodyne Aerse molecules, which were still welcomed by the magical exposed extra-corporeal substances that were deduced as they were experiencing unprecedented transit preserved of the eccentric deconcentrated radio of the refurbished of the spectral chromatic. The precipitated mental field dared to invade boldly towards another unheard-of generator that dissipated between Aerse and Eurydice coming near the Coasts of Patmos, coming from hypothetical planes that flow for their definitive moderated unions. The static refluxes bounced in simultaneity of bilocation of the Eleusinian exordia that were exorbitating each other with the rollers that were uncrossing the corporeal margins that concelebrated the quantum crankshaft, and the fibrous distinction that was teleporting the rescue rituals unforeseen astrological

Lochnith says: “in the proximity of the mortuary reality there will be no hesitation outside of our body and geodesy of our lost zafral or of lives in transit sub or supra quantum, obsessing in the eyes of erudition and unknowns, while our contraption self-obstructs with our electromagnetic sensory interactions paraphrasing in the convoluted distance and residues of related-metaphysical electros that are reconverted into the appearance of a premonition” The ligation of the arteries of Cephisus carried the emanations of Lochnith to love him in a healing act suspended with beings devoid of physicality, on the way to specters and healings of a perverse, to repair his extra-corporeal suffering confined to those who condescend to the androecium and gynoecium as a unit of mental physical motor gender, at the instant of the exacerbated and ectoplasmic world regulated by means of the Vernarth regression that was going lowering your blood pressure, increasing your red blood cells side effect rivers intertwined with Eurydice and Aerse in the opening Othon, directed at Vernarth's outcomes that came in the bow of the super-aqueous ship with some fabrics from the ship's stowage directing the speculative and autonomous advance that was already dispersing in the waves. Dead cells of the right Lynothorax,  A savvy military mancomunal became syncretic with Lochnith, he was determined to continue reinstalling us in his white blood cells that rose when it was already dawn on the shores of independent Skalá, and in the circled cohorts of Phalanxes and Psiloi that accompanied him in minutes that seemed millennia, all succumbing to the physical dismay of the underlying necrosanct and telepathic prayer that took place at the dawn of parapsychology trances cysts of recovery that descended on them in pure novel regenerative membranes, persé of merciful acts that became thick in the flashes when freezing from the weightless rays of the ultraviolet, which was separating between Sóma and Gnómi or corporal opinion that was joining synthetic networks with indefinite emissaries and receptors, subsequent bodies of the Bachkoi chemist, already deficient for a compensatory universe and varieties that were taking shape in a disintegrated emotional quantum world. Each time the bodies were reinserting themselves into the full unknown and subjective material, the concrete material united in the network with each other as a single force was transforming into the greatest passion and sparkle among their own, reinstalling themselves in the Super Egos.

In the Latest Minute Dogmate according to the rictus mortis thesis, the globules would move like a big explosion interacting with everything, so starting everything from the beginning of nothing to the indivisible with optional digits of coincidence or inseparable digitized, such a phenomenon of meekness of aligning times were massified with the probability of finding them in the vestige of real anomalous presences that occurred millions of light years ago. Aerse replies: “My admiration, the sparkle has a measure of astral body in reason of the vigor that underlies reiterated expiation and measurable virtuosity in its perfection of semblance p and corporal providence, inquired of being transformed far from disaffection rather than a continuous healing . The smallest and most coherent in the fabulous Griffins will join my clairvoyant and component with the ballast of his final game, not reflective of another who can measure or predict him for an undivided being. But I am already here, and I am your infinite…, I no longer know of other bad illusions of trying to separate myself from this life of what Eleusis is, perhaps a cosmic coarse that is and was in all time that passes speculatively, for this flash that is reflects whether it pales visible or not, I hope it will be compact on our intertwined attachments”
As living organisms, various life methods will be postulated as an initiative in the announced Big Bang, for the profit of those who are real close and real logotypes of resonant neuroscience as a daring that will influence the progeny, for ****** volumes, exonerations of bearers experiences and evolutionary lives of the emitter outside of an ignored Parthenon, since the gender of the world is also associated with random ambiguities from anode to cathode, positive-negative towards a Hellenic parallelism of roots in life dressed with lasting vernacular inheritances. Much of Lochnith's electro-dermal conglomerate was in full congruence with retrograde Eleusian parapsychology propagating from Vernarth's Invisible Eclectic Portal, which was nebulously teleported down the Kêphisos River with saprophytic living organisms acknowledging it in indigenous originality. of the species of reborn Vernarth, and super regulation of the euphemism and mysterious underworld below their protocols.

Revelations of the mental-material, made reluctance and support of the estrangement of inviolate perceptions, precognitions, telepathies and premonition, which debuted in this intrepid adventure intuiting in perpetuity with the sensory corridors and interferences of a reality of body in an explosive world incontestable. Lochnith, was already in possession of a hypnotic mental reincarnation formula in the form of neuroscience vessels close to scarecrows of expiration, allocating the subsequent locks of an enlightened decency of the ethereal sleepy baggage and the oracular review. The more we experience the laws that explain his prodigies, the more our perspective of media and complete fiction will increase in something that begins to be typical of the laurel of a true slowed-down ******-kinetic process. Within the curvature and the dim light that remained in the Lochtian days, normality returned to them after this long epitome in the parapsychological biosphere, and the intriguing contemplation and even mischievous tenuity of idea that can die suddenly, after self-incubate in the intangible coexisting passage and medication rupture of lived art with alien morbid beings. For a character archetype, it is only known that reaping is consuming capital from the disruption of a non-profit loss and its incontrovertible paranormal, which is paranormal and parapsychological from the plane of posterity of life, which will be an act of peaceful coexistence in playful spirits, compensating for seclusion in the vaults of an involutionary dramatic past, if its material or monad (spiritual) is not dissected in the cosmic train of perception of unfolding, and of the concept of purging energy that goes out of its way in its seventh heaven. The hypnosis of death and purgation to whoever requires it in the convoy of their conscience continues to be a tiny unruly space that transports us physically, reverting to minimums that are neutralized in alien foundlings. From an aedicule depository to an empty body that is neither independent nor from the lord who claims it (V.g. aedicule of José de Arimatea). The impersonal voices that officiated at the ritual of Eleusis were heard far beyond those who could hear them merely with memorable spaced therapies, recording themselves in interspersed layers of sounds and imprecise electroacoustics in the serial of an alarming complex frequency of the regenerative stumble in an organism of Continuous movement. Everything spreads in bends of abstraction that revives those who promote the perfection of marigolds like buttercups that they wear in the clothing of the Canephores like Aerse, but soulful and latent ephemeral of the ethereal alchemical entitative of ignored molecules. Lochnith says: “My submission heals, it no longer maintains being far from who represents it and where it comes from, I know that its remains in me do not reason, clarifying more my journey towards the crown and vilifications of a nascent humanity that mourns me, and that does not recognizes by rebelling in my desires to attract him"
the sky closes in vermilion digression and you inquire that they should answer for the silence of confusion in the parapsychological aqueducts of Athens with Patmos. The organization of the Sacred Space starts with the bizarre totemic quantum by sacred paths, Megarons, fictitious hunting places, double surrounding lunar ring, curves of virtual walls, Propylaea to embrace the Vernarthian enigma and finally the Telesterion that received Vernarth with a naked torso that perched in front of Aerse and Lochnith, looking at them towards the futuristic survival with five digits in a quarter of the waning of his right hand containing the small coat of Betelgeuse and the Pleiades in inklings of the umpteenth apocalyptic Megaron of Patmos. Scrupulosity as an Electro-Eleusian placebo effect, went alone, dismissing itself in the singular of a Templar niche and towards a Megaró-Omega Telesterion for catechized who endowed themselves with super-resident halos and litters of priesthoods that fled in terror from the Aerse-Lochnith fusion, prior to each rudeness and their contours swearing eternal exaltation and idealism, to be reconverted into individuals saved and votive to love each other with third parties, escaping from small frames that still did not hold up from the ecumenical mess.

Twice or thrice had I loved thee,
Before I knew thy face or name,
So in a voice, so in a shapeless flame,
Angels affect us oft, and worship’d be;
Still when, to where thou wert, I came,
Some lovely glorious nothing I did see.
But since my soul, whose child love is,
Takes limbs of flesh, and else could nothing do,
More subtile than the parent is,
Love must not be, but take a body too,
And therefore what thou wert, and who,
I bid Love ask, and now
That it assume thy body, I allow,
And fix itself in thy lip, eye, and brow.

Whilst thus to ballast love, I thought,
And so more steadily to have gone,
With wares which would sink admiration,
I saw, I had love’s pinnace overfraught,
Ev’ry thy hair for love to work upon
Is much too much, some fitter must be sought;
For, nor in nothing, nor in things
Extreme, and scatt’ring bright, can love inhere;
Then as an Angel, face, and wings
Of air, not pure as it, yet pure doth wear,
So thy love may be my loves sphere;
Just such disparity
As is twixt Air and Angels’ purity,
‘Twixt women’s love, and men’s will ever be.

I'm sorry, I'm not like
You all.
Not in the way that I'm special, or set apart,
Just different, for some reason
A difficult different.

I'm sorry my conversations
Are ****, and
I can't find the right things to say. I wish I
Could talk about Narnia, and give
Up space forever.

I'm sorry I haven't always
Been here,
One of your core memebers; I'm just
"More comfortable" on my own
On the benches.

I'm sorry I'm trying to steal her,
Your youngest love;
If I could give up these dreams of being
My own, our own, our own something
Great, I would.

I'm sorry I can't be banal, with a
Simple job in a simple town,
Content with what I know and doing just
Enough to get by on these broken
Parts of mine.

I'm sorry I can't love TV and video
Games the way you do,
To know them and talk about them as
Your friend is something I may
Never know.

I'm sorry I can't be a bonus son
Like the other.
But I love what I do, and though it may seem
Useless it's mine, and I'll do it for
Me, for her, for us.

I know none of you don't mean it, I know
Somehow it's in my head -- but
It's an uphill battle, and you're
Throwing boulders.

God loafs around heaven,
without a shape
but He would like to smoke His cigar
or bite His fingernails
and so forth.

God owns heaven
but He craves the earth,
the earth with its little sleepy caves,
its bird resting at the kitchen window,
even its murders lined up like broken chairs,
even its writers digging into their souls
with jackhammers,
even its hucksters selling their animals
for gold,
even its babies sniffing for their music,
the farm house, white as a bone,
sitting in the lap of its corn,
even the statue holding up its widowed life,
but most of all He envies the bodies,
He who has no body.

The eyes, opening and shutting like keyholes
and never forgetting, recording by thousands,
the skull with its brains like eels--
the tablet of the world--
the bones and their joints
that build and break for any trick,
the genitals,
the ballast of the eternal,
and the heart, of course,
that swallows the tides
and spits them out cleansed.

He does not envy the soul so much.
He is all soul
but He would like to house it in a body
and come down
and give it a bath
now and then.

You said to me
Stand strong and firm
And by mast you would
Set sail.
Stay and sate
Our love would prevail
The rampant hunger
That swells
The tide
and draws
The moon
Baited and starved
Into the night

Yet here I am
Alone at sea
With only the breeze
For company.
A seagulls song
And the sound of calamity
Lapping and slapping
At my ego.



Like bounty
Lost And found
In darkness and depth
And heaving chests
With rusty locks
And ghosts
Stirred and stricken

I cry silent and taken by the deep
I am green with envy that you might want me.

I am left to the birds
Stark at my post
And sailing single
In this boat built for two
I need you
To want me
Navigate and steer
And plot the course
Of my flesh
Saline sweat and brackish
Brine.



I am not a ****
Cast upon shore
A ***** to the
Land-walker
No more.

I am ballast
And tempest
Uproar.

Downwind
I wait for your
Scent/
The descent
Of your body in mine.

I have time
And rhyme
And sailors song
To while the time
In which I long
And sailing alone
You will find me
Your boy lost at sea

At Flores in the Azores Sir Richard Grenville lay,
And a pinnace, like a fluttered bird, came flying from far away:
"Spanish ships of war at sea! we have sighted fifty-three!"
Then sware Lord Thomas Howard: "'Fore God I am no coward;
But I cannot meet them here, for my ships are out of gear,
And the half my men are sick. I must fly, but follow quick.
We are six ships of the line; can we fight with fifty-three?"

Then spake Sir Richard Grenville: "I know you are no coward;
You fly them for a moment to fight with them again.
But I've ninety men and more that are lying sick ashore.
I should count myself the coward if I left them, my Lord Howard,
To these Inquisition dogs and the devildoms of Spain."

So Lord Howard passed away with five ships of war that day,
Till he melted like a cloud in the silent summer heaven;
But Sir Richard bore in hand all his sick men from the land
Very carefully and slow,
Men of Bideford in Devon,
And we laid them on the ballast down below;
For we brought them all aboard,
And they blest him in their pain, that they were not left to Spain,
To the thumbscrew and the stake, for the glory of the Lord.

He had only a hundred ****** to work the ship and to fight,
And he sailed away from Flores till the Spaniard came in sight,
With his huge sea-castles heaving upon the weather bow.
"Shall we fight or shall we fly?
Good Sir Richard, tell us now,
For to fight is but to die!
There'll be little of us left by the time this sun be set."
And Sir Richard said again: "We be all good English men.
Let us bang these dogs of Seville, the children of the devil,
For I never turned my back upon Don or devil yet."

Sir Richard spoke and he laughed, and we roared a hurrah, and so
The little Revenge ran on sheer into the heart of the foe,
With her hundred fighters on deck, and her ninety sick below;
For half of their fleet to the right and half to the left were seen,
And the little Revenge ran on through the long sea-lane between.

Thousands of their soldiers looked down from their decks and laughed,
Thousands of their ****** made mock at the mad little craft
Running on and on, till delayed
By their mountain-like San Philip that, of fifteen hundred tons,
And up-shadowing high above us with her yawning tiers of guns,
Took the breath from our sails, and we stayed.

And while now the great San Philip hung above us like a cloud
Whence the thunderbolt will fall
Long and loud,
Four galleons drew away
From the Spanish fleet that day,
And two upon the larboard and two upon the starboard lay,
And the battle-thunder broke from them all.

But anon the great San Philip, she bethought herself and went
Having that within her womb that had left her ill content;
And the rest they came aboard us, and they fought us hand to hand,
For a dozen times they came with their pikes and musqueteers,
And a dozen times we shook 'em off as a dog that shakes his ears
When he leaps from the water to the land.

And the sun went down, and the stars came out far over the summer sea,
But never a moment ceased the fight of the one and the fifty-three.
Ship after ship, the whole night long, their high-built galleons came,
Ship after ship, the whole night long, with her battle-thunder and flame;
Ship after ship, the whole night long, drew back with her dead and her shame.
For some were sunk and many were shattered, and so could fight us no more -
God of battles, was ever a battle like this in the world before?

For he said "Fight on! fight on!"
Though his vessel was all but a wreck;
And it chanced that, when half of the short summer night was gone,
With a grisly wound to be dressed he had left the deck,
But a bullet struck him that was dressing it suddenly dead,
And himself he was wounded again in the side and the head,
And he said "Fight on! fight on!"

And the night went down, and the sun smiled out far over the summer sea,
And the Spanish fleet with broken sides lay round us all in a ring;
But they dared not touch us again, for they feared that we still could sting,
So they watched what the end would be.
And we had not fought them in vain,
But in perilous plight were we,
Seeing forty of our poor hundred were slain,
And half of the rest of us maimed for life
In the crash of the cannonades and the desperate strife;
And the sick men down in the hold were most of them stark and cold,
And the pikes were all broken or bent, and the powder was all of it spent;
And the masts and the rigging were lying over the side;
But Sir Richard cried in his English pride,
"We have fought such a fight for a day and a night
As may never be fought again!
We have won great glory, my men!
And a day less or more
At sea or ashore,
We die -does it matter when?
Sink me the ship, Master Gunner -sink her, split her in twain!
Fall into the hands of God, not into the hands of Spain!"

And the gunner said "Ay, ay," but the ****** made reply:
"We have children, we have wives,
And the Lord hath spared our lives.
We will make the Spaniard promise, if we yield, to let us go;
We shall live to fight again and to strike another blow."
And the lion there lay dying, and they yielded to the foe.

And the stately Spanish men to their flagship bore him then,
Where they laid him by the mast, old Sir Richard caught at last,
And they praised him to his face with their courtly foreign grace;
But he rose upon their decks, and he cried:
"I have fought for Queen and Faith like a valiant man and true;
I have only done my duty as a man is bound to do:
With a joyful spirit I Sir Richard Grenville die!"
And he fell upon their decks, and he died.

And they stared at the dead that had been so valiant and true,
And had holden the power and glory of Spain so cheap
That he dared her with one little ship and his English few;
Was he devil or man? He was devil for aught they knew,
But they sank his body with honour down into the deep,
And they manned the Revenge with a swarthier alien crew,
And away she sailed with her loss and longed for her own;
When a wind from the lands they had ruined awoke from sleep,
And the water began to heave and the weather to moan,
And or ever that evening ended a great gale blew,
And a wave like the wave that is raised by an earthquake grew,
Till it smote on their hulls and their sails and their masts and their flags,
And the whole sea plunged and fell on the shot-shattered navy of Spain,
And the little Revenge herself went down by the island crags
To be lost evermore in the main.

Moving horizons
seem to gorge the visuals,
alongside cumulus clouds that pre-shadows the destination,
on scraped knees even the shoreline dissipates with the impervious vista,
at times the night air feels insecurely ballast,
how can we be said
to be truly safe?
when the vestige Cities
mourn with the tiresomeness of the beaten track.

Perspective is a vexing beast,
With a million eyes, and none.
When nights were long, and wills were weak,
My Hope, My Songs, forever gone;

Perspective was blind, curled in my lap,
Abyss cradled my heart;
A sweet embrace, that makes no promise,
It offered only Dark.

A peace so deep,
Asleep like Death,
Ambition was amiss;
The struggle on,
The bleeding one,
A bitter, rending Kiss.

Something strange did happen then,
Forms gained focus, Children of Men,
From among the hoards,
Ignoring Billboards,
I saw love and loss in all Men's Eyes.

And then i knew my Rite was through,
For we all suffer the same;
Strength is found in Adversity's wake,
My will no longer lame.

I have attained an enlightenment that is not bound to me by the things i have accrued and paid for.
I have attained a Love for all Men that is no Ballast to be dropped, so that i may rise up.
I have made Stoic my Heart, and will not so easily be darkened again.

Feeding the Shards of my Soul,
To the Fire that is Life;
Piece by piece becoming whole,
To rise above my Strife.

It was there he lay thinkin' 'bout his day
the closing days of the year last,
'twas then he'd be a man, and have to sail under his own mast
but the winds stagnant as they be he'd nay sail out his own bay
sad as the sea, his heart heavy as the anchor weigh
like n' anchor on da' sea below he shows the rust of his past
he sits alone with his eyes lost; heavier than stones of ballast
wishin' for not soft winds, but torrents of a blistering storm night and day
N' 'bitious young lad, itchin' to go
But like the Anchor he'll stay, below the ladder's lowest rung
Unlike the Anchor he be, he strives to be a Sailor Free
Silly as it be the barnacles and rust be all there be, the angel's last song sung,
No runnin' away, no cargo to hide away in stow,
No words left to say, only a lump at the end of the Anchor's tongue.

z.m.

in some paradoxes, space happens when two people
               are close but not close enough.

after hours of demand, the presence occurs in many ways.
ubiquitous objects rend the veil of vicariousness.
             there will be a repetition of days in here,
an assertive swing of dialogues to make ends appear as though
    real and accurate.

in a brief candleflame of silence on a Vietnamese restaurant’s rooftop,
    there will be noxious space conscious of: we are waning.
the way words leap from fences of teeth and venetian hairs.
        air becomes a fat mound of fools in arcades and then in an instant,
  it feels as if there is no more space left to move in, so they wear
     each other’s skin and shed right after the ballast’s fall.

   when done explaining a dream, sleep goes to belabor a bell.
soundless beside them, stiff as a body dreaming for itself.
   in some paradoxes, what is imagined is most real.
  there is suspicion that this lacks sentimentality. it is as carnal
and as commonplace as a hint of touch from a closed-in expanse.

  that time at the market when you had your hands fretting
for shapes of perfect fruits, taking them in your careful hands
wary enough to not beat them senselessly to the pulp of their
   glazed figures – the prices start to inflate and you wonder why
  people still remained when at the first sign of difficulty
       you   start   your   furlough.

     and also sauntering with maimed pace, that of autumn’s slow
reprieve, making your way past decrepit buildings,
   you stop to take sunsets not because they’re marvelous,
   but because you easily forget – and accept that there are
   also    things  wet under   the rain  and not with tears.

when in another paradox, things point to their source
when doused with oblivion – starting to breathe on its own,
occupying space
          leafing through days when   something instantly said
    rushes back   searching   for   its  holder,
              to  be   given,   stolen,   or say,
                                     left   to  die   on its   own –

i was watching the television footage
of the calls for peace and unity
thinking of how far we’ve come but how lost people can be
before the sun glints off the marble steps and returns to the sea

some guys shot up a bunch of French cartoonists for showing the absurdity
of a middle age religious idol who insisted on martyrdom
because their father told them they’d get something good come kingdom come
and by another sad twist of irony made their victims martyrs too

i wonder why i feel the need to respond to what i hear
and if i’m too much of a news ******
taking in a steady stream of corporate malarkey
burning life away tuned out into the glare

i’m tired of trying to solve all of the problems in the world
i’d only like to sit and write today
and sit and sip my coffee in the sunshine
with no languages and nothing left to say

i was reading about government debt in the paper
and inequality, tensions overseas and Muslim ghettos
i don’t know all that much about it all, so i don’t know
but i let the words swirl around in my head then let it go

a European man decided he wanted more rocks and fruit
a century, or two, or three ago in his cold palace
so he strapped some trees together and set off to trade his ballast
for an empire of golden bodies in the sun

and for me it is the same as i sit here with my ball and chain
in the sunshine of the Americas in the modern age
soaking up stories, wasting time then turn the page
hold in another breath then let it out into the air

i’m tired of trying to solve all of the problems in the world
i think i might start making some instead
why not go out and light a torch and seize the day
a century of life or more or less and then you’re dead

i was thinking about going to see the warriors
i’d bring a camera and a notebook and an open mind
be love and ease the tensions of the ties that break and bind
disappear and skip off beyond the boundary line

i’d probably get captured and beheaded
but it would be fun to hang out for awhile
we could listen to good music and smoke cigarettes and smile
then walk out into the wilderness and look up at the moon

the militant awoke to a loudspeaker crackling
a voice in Arabic calling all to prayer
he dropped his rifle to his side and laid his body debonaire
southeast toward a warmer rising sun

i’m tired of trying to solve all of the problems in the world
i’d rather see them in another way
and lift a sword or pen and just start swinging
at the other strutting actors on the stage

i’ve been reading about the lifestyles of the ancients
how they built their homes from the soil
preserved the harvest from spoil
then scattered back into a grand decay

i was watching television
to see the call for peace and unity
and the victories of liberty
in the city on the Seine

i wrote a poem to free my thoughts
for our freedom and for those who died
so i can write and hold my pride
as a candle in the dark

i’m tired of trying to solve all of the problems in the world
to surrender my life to the master
who painted the sun and the stars and the earth
who drew my light in this image then shattered

**originally posted on my blog at https://sublimeobscenities.wordpress.com/ on January 12, 2015

Laughter at the pirate ship wreck
Incarcerated alibi.
Self-doubt and enemy envy.

Post neurosis mental chariot waiting patient set to test and task the palatial steel ballast.

Starting to startle itself awake according to twilight reporting recognized first and focused lazily to be remembered later for the first half percent.

Decent decline descending darkness ascending atoms attending arson. Gallant grey nose for cold weather bubbling wound **** streak pillow.
Plain sight eyes glazing reminiscent veteran folded over beer bottle drunk at home the unknown soldier.

Spirit spear piercing glowing nexus weightless flying high shadows vacant samurai clutch in an adjacent basement.
Bleeding bone fractured paper homes manufactured homeless jeering platelet picked and cast like a rune on your first born baby blanket.

Hallow, heated, grave displayed, and looped backwards.  

Happy fishing!

Now here you come again to fetch me from the sea,
Ballast in my bones, this girl was born to sink;
A cautionary tale, I slip between the wood,
Limbs whittled thin and feet stained with soot.

But never-mind the waif; she waxes so pale
Drunk on dejection, I ponder the veil
Leaden and listless, for the sirens will sing:
Amaranthine is the color I bleed for the sea.

So I’ll spit out my sorrows wherever they listen,
Pumped me with pills and said that they fixed it.
The darlings have died off; the dolls are all broken,
Just left is me, thin-skinned and soft spoken.

And I’d rather lick knives than chew on love’s gristle,
Like a dog on a chain, I’d run when you whistle.
Far from it now, yet lost in the maze:
Chasing ways out for the rest of my daze.

a lump of flint sits on the desk
a reminder

wall and houses are built
using flint in my home-born shire

before that
axes and arrow heads

this piece of flint washed up on the shore
ballast from a sunken ship

it contains a fossil
within its hardened grip

The breath made you glad
the believability of feeling closer
as a stone I could never sink
you would be the ballast, the anchor,
the celestial guide
the giver.

within the light of his own glass sphere
In the shadows we await her here
in this house of a crimson glow
we listen to the ghosts
and watch them grow
in the world outside as the sky swirls with snow
the demons bark as they hold the gate
The monsters rise to the call of the feast
But the flame rise up to slay the beast
The castle stands tall and the ballast is true
the king though is missing as are you
Who can find him within the tower?
The time is nigh!
For the clock strikes the hour
A darkness descends a hush has arisen
the castle is empty except for the prison
but within my world my own glass sphere
they cannot touch me cannot find me here.
Even were I to wait a thousand years
and if  the crystal princess were to cry a million tears
still my corps they would not find
Still the castle tall would stand
Still the crown would lie in my hand
But in this place of desolate skies
There is no room to give good byes
For I am I tyrant within this place
I’m am a monster with a human face
for in the dessert of shaken grains
you’ll find no tears for my remains

There’s been so much bad luck
Blowing in the gales of life,
The sails of my happiness are
Tattered and won’t hold the wind.
Life has long been such a heavy load
My little boat is listing
And it needs to be rebalanced.
I have stores of ballast, so
My little craft won’t sink.
My twisted fingers still can hold
A needle to mend the spinnaker.
The tiller isn’t broken and
The rudder still steers true.
I can see the distant shore
And the tide is lifting me.
Soon I will make landfall and be safe
ljm

This ghost
the bed of a thousand railroad lines
these bones
  a vvashing board
    to your vvorries
      that door; an open home
        to an empty land
vvage war; cage fair!
   red earth
     called upon
        a vvhirlvvind svvept past
          this vvay
            spirit come
               a thousand deaths
                 in the sand

I know the contours of your face
just like the streets of my hometown
          you'd squint your eyes
                 when laughing
     at the corner of Main and Dow.

Blacktooth Brewery
               on frigid Friday nights
frosted glasses, fogging breaths
and laughs caught up
               in tightening chests.
Kendrick Park can keep its towering trees
                                   and midnight charms
if I can keep your laughter with me
                       when I sail for newer shores

Something in familiar signs,
          buzzing blackened Bighorn skies,
keeps us just above the water line--
          afloat for one more night.

Sheridan Iron Works
Red, rigid lettering a raised, distant hand
Watch it wave from on the hill
above the Kendrick boardwalk,
soak December in our smiles
choking back our April cries.

Snake's head yawning
          from the I-90 exit
slithers down Coffeen and tails
          our icy footsteps
     Rattle. Rattle. Rattle.
Shake this town to its bones
with our Thurmond Street jokes
and our glowing Gould Street hearts.
I hope
          this is enough
          to buoy our ***** up
          against the weighty ballast
          of this tiny, yawning town.

Settlers of Catan
played on a windy Wednesday night
over another drowning round
of clinking Wagon Box pints.

The contours of your face,
icy streets of our hometown,
our squinting, gasping laughter
on the corner of Main and Dow.

Blacktooth Brewery.
               Frigid Friday nights.
Fogged up glasses. Frosting breaths
and laughing, clutching tightening chests.
               This freezing town
               will test your mettle.
               Settle up and bring your friends.

What of exactly is a friendship lost?
Over minute trifles so easily tossed?
Or one that disbands in the cataract of Time?
Something worth pain and blood? Which is absolute and wonderful?
And so, too, can it be asked,
To which man is authority given,
Of such astute austerity endowed,
The man to pass such judgment in good faith and conscience,
Is none other than the crowd.
But, irrelevancies, I totter!
The worst is to be discussed,
For far beyond the scope of reason,
Have these travesties been concussed.
For here, I give to you the corpse of this bond,
This once turgid child of innocence
So, perhaps, its unadulterated substance may quickly manifest
Yet, I pray, I hope, I wonder, its marred and tattered mien profess
The noxious tonic it did consume,
Of ancient spleen and venomous ardor,
To rend its former pulchritude, to hands of untouched fury placed,
It suffered the most insufferable fate to befall upon any beast:
To reanimate, to thrive, to live once more,
In the hands of a tyrant and aimlessly exist
Necrotic at its very core.
This beast, this creature of hated stock,
Was my burden, my cross, to bear,
One, I weep to recollect, of part and parcel of my own flock.
But, I did this, I bore this, along with many others,
In spite of righted timbers,
In spite of rationale,
In spite of my fiber and moral code, that kept us forcibly constrained
For the sake of you, authority
For the sake of tranquil minds
I stood obstinate at the lineaments, between those contrasting foes,
In the self-imposed, childish Purgatory,
Completely indisposed.
Between the shining, gleaming face of holiness, and precipice of spite
For manner of serenity and cowardice perpetual,
Confronted this creature, I did not,
For the sake of you, dear authority, for the sake of stable place.
Children we were, yes, but no less severe the gravity,
For the winnowing of unity, at the yoke of caprice, is to blame.
A real friendship will endure, endure through the boreal,
Endure through the malice, the vitriol,
Will breathe new and longing appetite for breadth, for universality,
Of which all parts must maintain accountability.
It must stand resolute no matter how formidable the ballast,
It must be calm, objective, and outlast the harrowing feelings change may accompany,
Will sacrifice and encourage wellbeing,
It must imbue recollection, a past so beautiful,
Be a comfort in the presence of shame and humility,
Its essence, a friend itself.
But I can no longer pay, at the cost of sanity,
I can no longer give what little remnant humanity to forge another bond,
One made of dead and long-forgotten parts,
I can not, I will not,
I am sick, I am weary for all of the injustices I have done
To watch as the seed of hatred continues to bloom,
The veil of falsehood walk without shame,
To see her stride of perverting intent, tainting the world with touch,
Is a miserable folly to me,
A crime which I let permit,
A coward I was to not stop this, to not lay this matter to rest,
No,
My beleaguered hands put this evil in the ground, and left it to the tides of fate,
It grew, beyond my capture, beyond my strength to control,
Into this horrid ****, this miserable plant,
Which, still!, it grows sans disannul
To take responsibility to this, on me, I cannot err
But, naturally, none to the plant, it seems,
And this is only fair.

We're all looking for that bigger high,
we're all looking for a match,
a retreat into a field of wine,
with a roof made out of thatch.

The gulls cry out across the quay,
a prayer naught but an angry mob;
they are searching for eternity,
they are doing it all for G-d.

The solider cries into his ballast sleep
in the analogue plains of war,
no poppy to **** the pain so steep,
no desire to ****, no more.

We're all looking for that higher love,
we're all looking for that 'it',
a life beyond land-mine and slaughter,
beyond false outrage and solemn submit.

Oh ferocious angels,
lionesque children of Eden
on narrow streets and polluted alleyways
whispering cruel things to each other,
you're radiant in your belligerence
and as my enemies you are virtuous.
Beside me in this carpeted rectangle room
a faint glow exhales
from the tall alpine ivory lamp illuminating
firefly wings of blossoms
alluringly exuberant in the afternoon sun-ray
diamond shine and shimmer.
Dusty tin roofs billow
firewood smoke in the thick violet shade fog over-top cabin potted
mountains and hills sprouting firs and rose bushes abounding.
Spectrum cast chandeliers echo staircases which
jot up and up arduous ruby landings,
hardwood floor cracked
and stacks of novels ballast the senescent hallways
of bookshops where poets works and journals diaries and memoirs blur
the serpentine walls with memories.
Angelic the soul which is too often contaminated with
avarice rebellious to concord living
harmonious midst dew grass and calm waters in residential lakes
empathy equanimity, far from Bodhisattva.
Few kinds of darkness transcendental
subduing other darkness to a weak shadow.
There's an importance to admiring the delirium of metropolitan roads on roads
this intricate unspoken connection to those who
rest by stoplights and crawling traffic metallic molten aura of
cars in July heat.
Paying attention to the open window of adjacent apartments
where Mr. Norris waters his tulips and shares this moment
modern meditations practiced
finding a balance in such an anxious
volatile world like this.
Oh ferocious angels, impetuous
forlorn seraphs,
sing! sing and soar!
Boundless is our ardor
and our passion.
Unenclosed is the lion
in it's bloom.

Poems about Icarus

These are poems about Icarus, flying and flights of fancy...



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.



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.



I AM!
by Michael R. Burch

I am not one of ten billion―I―
sunblackened Icarus, chary fly,
staring at God with a quizzical eye.

I am not one of ten billion, I.

I am not one life has left unsquashed―
scarred as Ulysses, goddess-debauched,
pale glowworm agleam with a tale of panache.

I am not one life has left unsquashed.

I am not one without spots of disease,
laugh lines and tan lines and thick-callused knees
from begging and praying and girls sighing "Please!"

I am not one without spots of disease.

I am not one of ten billion―I―
scion of Daedalus, blackwinged fly
staring at God with a sedulous eye.

I am not one of ten billion, I
AM!



Finally to Burn
(the Fall and Resurrection of Icarus)
by Michael R. Burch

Athena takes me
sometimes by the hand

and we go levitating
through strange Dreamlands

where Apollo sleeps
in his dark forgetting

and Passion seems
like a wise bloodletting

and all I remember
, upon awaking,

is: to Love sometimes
is like forsaking

one’s Being―to glide

heroically beyond thought,

forsaking the here
for the There and the Not.



O, finally to Burn,
gravity beyond escaping!

To plummet is Bliss
when the blisters breaking

rain down red scabs
on the earth’s mudpuddle...

Feathers and wax
and the watchers huddle...

Flocculent sheep,
O, and innocent lambs!,

I will rock me to sleep
on the waves’ iambs.



To sleep's sweet relief
from Love’s exhausting Dream,

for the Night has Wings
gentler than Moonbeams―

they will flit me to Life
like a huge-eyed Phoenix

fluttering off
to quarry the Sphinx.



Riddlemethis,
riddlemethat,

Rynosseross,
throw out the Welcome Mat.

Quixotic, I seek Love
amid the tarnished

rusted-out steel
when to live is varnish.

To Dream―that’s the thing!

Aye, that Genie I’ll rub,

soak by the candle,
aflame in the tub.



Riddlemethis,
riddlemethat,

Rynosseross,
throw out the Welcome Mat.

Somewhither, somewhither
aglitter and strange,

we must moult off all knowledge
or perish caged.

*

I am reconciled to Life
somewhere beyond thought―

I’ll Live the Elsewhere,
I’ll Dream of the Naught.

Methinks it no journey;
to tarry’s a waste,

so fatten the oxen;
make a nice baste.

I’m coming, Fool Tom,
we have Somewhere to Go,

though we injure noone,
ourselves wildaglow.

This odd poem invokes and merges with the anonymous medieval poem “Tom O’Bedlam’s Song” and W. H. Auden’s modernist poem “Musee des Beaux Arts,” which in turn refers to Pieter Breughel’s painting “The Fall of Icarus.” In the first stanza Icarus levitates with the help of Athena, the goddess or wisdom, through “strange dreamlands” while Apollo, the sun god, lies sleeping. In the second stanza, Apollo predictably wakes up and Icarus plummets to earth, or back to mundane reality, as in Breughel’s painting and Auden’s poem. In the third stanza the grounded Icarus can still fly, but only in flights of imagination through dreams of love. In the fourth and fifth stanzas Icarus joins Tom Rynosseross of the Bedlam poem in embracing madness by deserting “knowledge” and its cages (ivory towers, etc.). In the final stanza Icarus agrees with Tom that it is “no journey” to wherever they’re going together and also agrees with Tom that they will injure no one along the way, no matter how intensely they glow and radiate. The poem can be taken as a metaphor for the death and rebirth of Poetry, and perhaps as a prophecy that Poetry will rise, radiate and reattain its former glory...



Free Fall (II)
by Michael R. Burch

I have no earthly remembrance of you, as if
we were never of earth, but merely white clouds adrift,
swirling together through Himalayan serene altitudes―
no more man and woman than exhaled breath―unable to fall
back to solid existence, despite the air’s sparseness: all
our being borne up, because of our lightness,
toward the sun’s unendurable brightness...

But since I touched you, fire consumes each wing!

We who are unable to fly, stall
contemplating disaster. Despair like an anchor, like an iron ball,
heavier than ballast, sinks on its thick-looped chain
toward the earth, and soon thereafter there will be sufficient pain
to recall existence, to make the coming darkness everlasting.



Fledglings
by Michael R. Burch

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

still pinkly exposed, who have not yet learned
the first harsh lesson of survival: to devour
their weaker siblings in the high-leafed ferned
fortress and impregnable bower

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

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



The Higher Atmospheres
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

Oh, some will call the sun my doom, but Love
melts callow wax the higher atmospheres
leave brittle. I flew high: not high enough
to melt such frozen resins... thus, Her jeers.



Notes toward an Icarian philosophy of life...
by Michael R. Burch

If the mind’s and the heart’s quests were ever satisfied,
what would remain, as the goals of life?

If there was only light, with no occluding matter,
if there were only sunny mid-afternoons but no mysterious midnights,
what would become of the dreams of men?

What becomes of man’s vision, apart from terrestrial shadows?

And what of man’s character, formed
in the seething crucible of life and death,
hammered out on the anvil of Fate, by Will?

What becomes of man’s aims in the end,
when the hammer’s anthems at last are stilled?

If man should confront his terrible Creator,
capture him, hogtie him, hold his ***** feet to the fire,
roast him on the spit as yet another blasphemous heretic
whose faith is suspect, derelict...
torture a confession from him,
get him to admit, “I did it!...

what then?

Once man has taken revenge
on the Frankenstein who created him
and has justly crucified the One True Monster, the Creator...

what then?

Or, if revenge is not possible,
if the appearance of matter was merely a random accident,
or a group illusion (and thus a conspiracy, perhaps of dunces, us among them),
or if the Creator lies eternally beyond the reach of justice...

what then?

Perhaps there’s nothing left but for man to perfect his character,
to fly as high as his wings will take him toward unreachable suns,
to gamble everything on some unfathomable dream, like Icarus,
then fall to earth, to perish, undone...

or perhaps not, if the mystics are right
about the true nature of darkness and light.

Is there a source of knowledge beyond faith,
a revelation of heaven, of the Triumph of Love?

The Hebrew prophets seemed to think so,
and Paul, although he saw through a glass darkly,
and Julian of Norwich, who heard the voice of God say,
“All shall be well,
and all manner of things shall be well...”

Does hope spring eternal in the human breast,
or does it just blindly *****?



Icarus Bickerous
by Michael R. Burch

for the Religious Right

Like Icarus, waxen wings melting,
white tail-feathers fall, bystanders pelting.

They look up amazed
and seem rather dazed―

was it heaven’s or hell’s furious smelting

that fashioned such vulturish wings?
And why are they singed?―

the higher you “rise,” the more halting?



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



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)



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 (All-Star Tribute), 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



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, 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



Squall
by Michael R. Burch

There, in that sunny arbor,
in the aureate light
filtering through the waxy leaves
of a stunted banana tree,

I felt the sudden monsoon of your wrath,
the clattery implosions
and copper-bright bursts
of the bottoms of pots and pans.

I saw your swollen goddess’s belly
wobble and heave
in pregnant indignation,
turned tail, and ran.

Published by Chrysanthemum, Poetry Super Highway, Barbitos and Poetry Life & Times



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 that I believe I wrote as a high school sophomore. But it could have been written a bit later. 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. According to my notes, I may have revised the poem later, in 1978, but if so the changes were minor because the poem remains very close to the original.



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

NOTE: In an attempt to demonstrate that not all couplets are heroic, I have created a series of poems called “Less Heroic Couplets.” I believe even poets should abide by truth-in-advertising laws! ― MRB



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.

Du Fu (712-770) is also known as Tu Fu. The first poem is addressed to the poet's wife, who had fled war with their children. Ch'ang-an is an ironic pun because it means "Long-peace."



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.

Po Chu-I (772-846) is best known today for his ballads and satirical poems. Po Chu-I believed poetry should be accessible to commoners and is noted for his simple diction and natural style. His name has been rendered various ways in English: Po Chu-I, Po Chü-i, Bo Juyi and Bai Juyi.



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



Critical Mass
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.

"Gravity" and "particular destiny" are puns, since rain droplets are seeded by minute particles of dust adrift in the atmosphere and they fall due to gravity when they reach "critical mass." The title is also a pun, since the poem is skeptical about heaven-lauding Masses, etc.



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. But when the world finally robs her of both flight and song, what is left for her but to leave the world, thus bereaving the world of herself and her song?



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.



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.



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.



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.



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.



The Locker
by Michael R. Burch

All the dull hollow clamor has died
and what was contained,
removed,

reproved
adulation or sentiment,
left with the pungent darkness

as remembered as the sudden light.

Originally published by The Raintown Review



Keywords/Tags: Sports, locker, lockerroom, clamor, adulation, acclaim, applause, sentiment, darkness, light, retirement, athlete, team, trophy, award, acclamation


Keywords/Tags: Icarus, Daedalus, flight, fly, flying, wind, wings, sun, height, heights, fall, falling, ascent, descent, imagination, bird, birds, butterfly, butterflies, hawk, eagle, geese, plane, kite, kites, mrbfly, mrbflight, mrbicarus

Vernarth says: "ideal of our consciences, we will open the channels in Kímolos, before our subtle bodies, in which they will be opened to us, and how we parabolize, before this pretense of Saint John the Apostle, in the head of mediumship to reach the longitude wave to Hellenika. The interactive vibrational ones will go with the expression of deep reasoning, to pontificate the Mandylion with the Vas Auric, for the effect of the iconification of the idiomatic monologues, for such edges of  Saint Jude Thaddeus and Veronica, and for such an event facing alien forces before the Messiah, that they are like a coherent gadget before the intermittence variants. Channeling to the Cyclades, they will go from east to west wading the waters of the Aegean and Mediterranean, through the channel of the Universe-Duoverse, for inter-consciousness between the Hexagonal Primogeniture in Tsambika, and the triad of Etréstles, Kanti and the Archpriest in Hellenika , with high degrees of awareness of light and the conclaves between both homilies synchronous. Of great drowsiness before the Anemoi winds, they will go through near the voyages of the Trojan chthonic ships, and before the ominous chthonic divinities, for such deities in the Mediterranean substrate, identifying themselves more obviously with Anatolia, which from prehistory has continued to the site of Troy, in a cheesy plan to unite loyalists of Agamemnon, to defeat Hector, between farmland and agricultural revolutions and Akkadian worlds BC, in peripheral outposts, to influence the central regions of Greece and its maritime trade. Hydros influences, for the cycles of the solstice and nature, with those of life and survival after death that is at the center of the concerns that are not translated. In Crete, the supposed cult of great Gods was transformed during the II millennium BC. C. as new actors appear: various animals, plants, etcetera. Given consciousness, the light will be channeled, in the three courtyards of alabaster and between the cinnabar by bending the re-fertilization of the retro channels of the Cyclades, which go from Rhodes and Kímolos, for the discernment. Sometimes it is more gratifying to listen to what you want to hear and not to the real message, the egoic mind that does not come from serials of daunted egos ..., prays with signs of technological shamanism, intervening artificial intelligences, from egomaniacal administered consciences, being strident and iconoclastic for worlds of appearances and illusions. I Vernarth with our own Khaire…, in my mind I go towards the vessels that navigate the andurriales of the elusive identity, trapping it in the totemic animal stratum, in its tracking psychology, but seer of its present ego. Today I will use my Leonatus cap, to separate the anger from the large shadow that clouds my sadness, and from my own victimhood of reduced meekness, which spews violence, blaming it for a ruthless sort of depressive shame and exclusive of everyone's own fear for everything . I will blindfold my eyes against illnesses that will heal in three days, to straighten the ecstasy that grows thicker towards the guillotine, staying on Golgotha without Golgotha, I will create the framework of cinnabar for the pain of the skull, which trembles in my hands, until the Dream becomes vaporous with anger and harmless destruction before your egos, which throb rozagant towards the host entity and the scarified madness. Awakening my nuanced, subtle and anthropomorphic subconscious dreams, with sorrows that hurt my worst self-destructive amorousities before the new memorial, on the veil of Theoskepasti, with his science sheltering itself when yielding over the defeated springs and inaugurating new miraculous courses where I will surrender, full of sorry and more distant from the veil that does not act as a viewer.

Duo time, Duo space, in one I get excited, in the other I retro project, in unreal worlds of epistemic and channeled images ignoring them, in free astrolabe when decrypting my Duoverse, between the Tsambika templets, with the decoded and mutated annelids in trisomy , in ancient trees of plain doors of the Bern Olive Trees. We look at what gratifies and weaves together what weaves the positioning of the approaching stars of the universe, like leaves in psalms, worthy of all-powerful serials, in redoubled humors on the encompassing intraterrestrial chthonic tridents, in tricks of intuition, before skewing my sword Xifos, as an original replica of a night's dream in Tel Gomel, full of alerts that make me laugh chew it in the middle of my mouth on the jerky and the strains of the bear, towards the counterweight of the message of light and lag of the high astral as a bear less. Bustard and angelic breath in withdrawal and in dissolution ... unfinished planet ..., now if I see you channeled and incarnate! Diva emotion, here I analyze my audacity and courage towards being fed up with my omniscient prosopon, such an omniscient telepathic. My soul lies, and my emotion also, because in this way I will treasure the courage of panic, by surrounding myself with the fears of carrying the universe that is resting on the underside of my back at a cost "
Harassment of psychological channeling, against the horns and sights of a peaceful energy confrontation, will make them in Rhodes and Kimolos channel with the stark human finitude of life and finite and non-eternal existence, ad portal with their Aspis Koilé. Unconscious they will continue halfway with their bouquets of flowers for Walekiria, without ever really taking the time to tell her, what time of eternity will make them more crowded for her and her reliquary poem, from deflagration in flame, to insidious break of commitment of fear by telling him that if they revive, they will be others, but if Hetairoi extra Hellenic towards the light of the incarnate vermilion ..., and in a state of loop as "Being of Light". Oh phantom phenomenon that does not scare me ..., rather it disenchants, clinging to my skins that die in the unexpected female muses in Gaia, with my burning and hypertensive ballast, still frequent in me ... As conjecture and presence of Greca life ..., having to promote the matter and atmosphere involved where the valuations, should be tempered in the pressure regulators and the contribution of biodiversity, of the species for the insular life and its chemical balance in the Aegean. The theorem will state in the image of Vas Auric, as sounds of homeostasis, in classrooms, properties of the intervened annelids are consistent, capable of keeping them in a certain internal and stable condition, compensating for the changes in the noise of the intervened patios, towards an environment through the regulated exchange of matter and energy with the outside towards your (metabolism), trying a form of dynamic balance with the sparkling properties of Cinnabar. As a self-regulating biosphere in the conditions of the planet to make its environment of physicality (especially temperature and atmospheric chemistry) more noble with the species that make up life in the compass of two islands unmanned by beings from Gaia, rather as an entropy in magnitude physics for a thermodynamic system in equilibrium, inhabited by intra-dynamic beings that nobly associate, for adaptations of worlds that are not born. It segregates them towards a departure, measuring them in numbers with Gold in their population, from high numbers in states of zero, compatible with the laws of external physicality, for the purposes of watchful guardians, if Gaia's engine is turned on, before this psychic and spiritual combustion?

The laws of this system of closed circuits and channeling will tend to maximize entropy, expiring inhibitory reactions, for the traces of oxygen and nitrogen from the worms, making an express signal of the levitant carbon dioxide, to carry it from Tsambika, in a sigh of two converged energies of Leviathan and Saint John the Apostle, for the clouds in mole of carbonate dioxide, battling over the surviving necromancers and their conditions of activity and reproduction, maintaining these habitable conditions for many and many, in classes that did not enjoy of the life-death-life cycle. Greece, as it will now look like a turbo generator and appropriate laws underlining the extensive fibers concerned, a mole of molecules, in said of equality, of said hypothesis of Vernarth as sub-mythology, rather resting on the growing ivy  to its setbacks, and strangling the signs of satiety of life with properties of open skylights, and properties in tune, with the severe penalties that hurt, even the tolling of the bells and their pain as the millennia pass! Fear, insecurity and frustration will not fit because in the cavity with them, they will cut the abenuz Diospyros, with its stamens usually in sixteen plus its hypogines or inserts at the base of the corolla; like those of female flowers, being greenish or being converted into staminodia. Diospyros with ovaries generally tetralocular, or with eight locules due to false divisions, will make us channel inseminating demigods, under the staff of sub-mythology with Zephian of Horcondising, before the vibrational migrations begin in Hellenika. Just as in this pact with silence and meditation and burning toxic flames, under vulnerable high frequency insolation ..., waking up in Gaia like a sleeping fairy, and invested with extra light shaman, with degrees of synergy and with the simple science of blizzard ... , with low puffs of air of bread and cinnabar burning in the first hosts of hummus, as the homily began.