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Nat Lipstadt Jun 2013
Weather Advisory: A long one*

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Be not fooled,
by the evening-tide,
be not deceived
by the quietude,
tis not a reprieve
of day before dark.

Be guarded,
for the easy transformation,
a tranquil shedding
of the day's husk,
into the faded light of dusk,
just one of nature's machinations
to delay the inevitable.

Evening-tide,
a colored compilation
of a few mischievous hours,
when sunlight is invaded by
streaks of pink, azure and gold,    
just before the
palette is plunged
into a stainless steel can
of gothic black,
skyied glory rendered into
common house paint.

Evening-tide,
an alleged easy calm
surfeits some souls,
supposed easy passage from  
the day's contusions to
a relaxation from humankind's regulations and rules,
but not for me.

Evening-tide,
when appetites unsated, simmer,
the in between hours when
humans transform themselves,
from day laborers to creatures
desiring, aroused, hungry  
for night time pleasures,
searching with false courage for
boundary lines to sever.

Evening-tide,
it was at evening-tide that
David espied, desired and
stole Bathsheba for his own,
with a King's arrogance
rent a kingdom,
murdered for profit,
birthed an Heir,
a prince, who wrote,
by evening-tide:

I have seen all the works
that are done under the sun; and,
behold, all is vanity
and vexation of spirit.


Evening-tide,
fear closes my throat,
confusion reappears,
a low grade flu infects
deemed persistent, incurable,
revisits, medicine resistant,
my insights, my speech,
to blind and bind  

Am I Gloucester,
blinded, but faculties
possessing vision,
the future to clarify?

No, no, it is to a king,
Lear,
to whom I am
son and cousin,
kith and kin

Sunset visions of
ultimate demise
ours eyes behold,
but plainly put,
at Evening-tide,
our dementia -
a precursor,
a periodic but hostile guest
in the hostel of our memories,
cracks and fractures us,
spirit first, body second.  

We are bound helpless
by a knotted tongue,
slow dying malingerer,
inside a head of ill repute,
unable to locate our knowing,
and every word selected,
a battle galactic, oft lost

Evening-tide,
I am cold,
and the issued command
is bring an umbrella
to warm and cover.  
What an old fool am I,
tis not blanket or a
Bathsheba I seek,
but at Evening-tide,
Babel's nefarious treasury of words
unlocked, for tis closed,                    
the gatekeepers,
drunk and absent,
drunk on absinthe,
and creme de mentia
and I have no key

Evening-tide, prithee,
I beg of thee,
consideration please,
check this hideous amusement,
that makes this
King's speech confused,
odor of smokeless cordite ignited
where the synapses have burnt,
injured, beyond repair
injured, by mine own aging.  

Reverse the diagnosis
of the panel of wordsmiths:
Alas, weep and be comforted...

Evening-tide,
a reverie of colored tears,
downward sloping,
arrive to tingle my tongue,
warming comfort for an *****
willing but unable,
a wounded soldier,
a veteran of poetry,
now prone and pained
beyond repair,
beyond healing,
immunized to the
heat and solder,
drugs and salves,
that heretofore
might have closed
the cracks of rack and ruin

Evening-tide,
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses and
all the king's men couldn't
put Humpty together again^

Evening-tide,
my hair, the color of old age.
Irony, my skin yet smooth,
unwrinkled, not in need of the
toxins that are employed
to fill crevasses on
the outer banks of age of comedy

Alas, the toxins natural from within
have seeped from their
latent resting place and have
contaminated the groundwater
that lubricated my mind,  
from siege engines poured,
a contamination of
mine own making.  
After a life long battle,
my Jericho walls have fallen.

Lear and I faint recall the love
of our beloved Cordelia,
but try as we might
her name escapes our grasp,
******* by bite of aging's asp.

We grow drunk by night
on a drink not of choice,
unhappy fury,
the residue within
the imprisoned poison
of our polluted tears,
that come only after our
misspoken and misshapen
guttural croaks
of our Eveningtide prayers
are both
unintelligible and unrequited
Written 6/01/11, after seeing Derek Jacobi as King Lear. This poem is about my fears of dementia which people close to me suffer from, sadly.  Now, I struggle to recall names and places. Poetry, not so much because I get to pick and choose words at my own speed. But someday, who knows....the time between day and night, is a metaphor for a beautiful slow, slipping away but
be not deceived
by the quietude,
tis not a reprieve
of day before dark.


^ this rhyme, purportedly a child's view of siege engines that could not break the walled of the City of Gloucester (how ironic!)  in 1643

An abbreviated version of this poem goes like this:
Nat went to see King Lear,
Then went down to the beach
To watch the sun set, the evening arrive,
They both reminded him, of his fear
That someday he'll probably sunset like Lear
And end the play, the eve, mad, his mind deceived,
De-worded, defanged, his poetry retired, but not relieved
Michael R Burch Dec 2020
LOVE POEMS by Michael R. Burch

These are love poems written by Michael R. Burch: original poems and translations about passion, desire, lust, ***, dating, making out, relationships and marriage. On an amusing note, my steamy Baudelaire translations have become popular with the pros ― **** stars and escort services!



Sappho, fragment 42
translation by Michael R. Burch

Eros harrows my heart:
wild winds whipping desolate mountains
uprooting oaks.



Preposterous Eros
by Michael R. Burch

“Preposterous Eros” – Patricia Falanga

Preposterous Eros shot me in
the buttocks, with a Devilish grin,
spent all my money in a rush
then left my heart effete pink mush.



Sappho, fragment 155
translation by Michael R. Burch

A short revealing frock?
It's just my luck
your lips were made to mock!



Sappho, fragment 22
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

That enticing girl's clinging dresses
leave me trembling, overcome by happiness,
as once, when I saw the Goddess in my prayers
eclipsing Cyprus.



Negligibles
by Michael R. Burch

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



Warming Her Pearls
by Michael R. Burch

Warming her pearls,
her ******* gleam like constellations.
Her belly is a bit rotund ...
she might have stepped out of a Rubens.



She bathes in silver
by Michael R. Burch

She bathes in silver,
afloat
on her reflections ...



****** Errata
by Michael R. Burch

I didn’t mean to love you; if I did,
it came unbid-
en,
and should’ve remained hid-
den!



Are You the Thief
by Michael R. Burch

When I touch you now,
O sweet lover,
full of fire,
melting like ice
in my embrace,

when I part the delicate white lace,
baring pale flesh,
and your face
is so close
that I breathe your breath
and your hair surrounds me like a wreath ...

tell me now,
O sweet, sweet lover,
in good faith:
are you the thief
who has stolen my heart?



The Effects of Memory
by Michael R. Burch

A black ringlet
curls to lie
at the nape of her neck,
glistening with sweat
in the evaporate moonlight ...
This is what I remember

now that I cannot forget.

And tonight,
if I have forgotten her name,
I remember:
rigid wire and white lace
half-impressed in her flesh ...

our soft cries, like regret,

... the enameled white clips
of her bra strap
still inscribe dimpled marks
that my kisses erase ...
now that I have forgotten her face.



Moments
by Michael R. Burch

There were moments full of promise,
like the petal-scented rainfall of early spring,
when to hold you in my arms
and to kiss your willing lips
seemed everything.

There are moments strangely empty
full of pale unearthly twilight
―how the cold stars stare!―
when to be without you is a dark enchantment
the night and I share.



The Communion of Sighs
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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



Righteous
by Michael R. Burch

Come to me tonight
in the twilight, O, and the full moon rising,
spectral and ancient, will mutter a prayer.

Gather your hair
and pin it up, knowing
that I will release it a moment anon.

We are not one,
nor is there a scripture
to sanctify nights you might spend in my arms,

but the swarms
of stars revolving above us
revel tonight, the most ardent of lovers.



For All that I Remembered
by Michael R. Burch

For all that I remembered, I forgot
her name, her face, the reason that we loved ...
and yet I hold her close within my thought.
I feel the burnished weight of auburn hair
that fell across her face, the apricot
clean scent of her shampoo, the way she glowed
so palely in the moonlight, angel-wan.

The memory of her gathers like a flood
and bears me to that night, that only night,
when she and I were one, and if I could ...
I'd reach to her this time and, smiling, brush
the hair out of her eyes, and hold intact
each feature, each impression. Love is such
a threadbare sort of magic, it is gone
before we recognize it. I would crush
my lips to hers to hold their memory,
if not more tightly, less elusively.



Le Balcon (The Balcony)
by Charles Baudelaire
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Paramour of memory, ultimate mistress,
source of all pleasure, my only desire;
how can I forget your ecstatic caresses,
the warmth of your ******* by the roaring fire,
paramour of memory, ultimate mistress?

Each night illumined by the burning coals
we lay together where the rose-fragrance clings―
how soft your *******, how tender your soul!
Ah, and we said imperishable things,
each night illumined by the burning coals.

How beautiful the sunsets these sultry days,
deep space so profound, beyond life’s brief floods ...
then, when I kissed you, my queen, in a daze,
I thought I breathed the bouquet of your blood
as beautiful as sunsets these sultry days.

Night thickens around us like a wall;
in the deepening darkness our irises meet.
I drink your breath, ah! poisonous yet sweet!,
as with fraternal hands I massage your feet
while night thickens around us like a wall.

I have mastered the sweet but difficult art
of happiness here, with my head in your lap,
finding pure joy in your body, your heart;
because you’re the queen of my present and past
I have mastered love’s sweet but difficult art.

O vows! O perfumes! O infinite kisses!
Can these be reborn from a gulf we can’t sound
as suns reappear, as if heaven misses
their light when they sink into seas dark, profound?
O vows! O perfumes! O infinite kisses!

My translation of Le Balcon has become popular with **** sites, escort services and dating sites. The pros seem to like it!



Les Bijoux (The Jewels)
by Charles Baudelaire
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

My lover **** and knowing my heart's whims
Wore nothing more than a few bright-flashing gems;
Her art was saving men despite their sins―
She ruled like harem girls crowned with diadems!

She danced for me with a gay but mocking air,
My world of stone and metal sparking bright;
I discovered in her the rapture of everything fair―
Nay, an excess of joy where the spirit and flesh unite!

Naked she lay and offered herself to me,
Parting her legs and smiling receptively,
As gentle and yet profound as the rising sea―
Till her surging tide encountered my cliff, abruptly.

A tigress tamed, her eyes met mine, intent ...
Intent on lust, content to purr and please!
Her breath, both languid and lascivious, lent
An odd charm to her metamorphoses.

Her limbs, her *****, her abdomen, her thighs,
Oiled alabaster, sinuous as a swan,
Writhed pale before my calm clairvoyant eyes;
Like clustered grapes her ******* and belly shone.

Skilled in more spells than evil imps can muster,
To break the peace which had possessed my heart,
She flashed her crystal rocks’ hypnotic luster
Till my quietude was shattered, blown apart.

Her waist awrithe, her ******* enormously
Out-******, and yet ... and yet, somehow, still coy ...
As if stout haunches of Antiope
Had been grafted to a boy ...

The room grew dark, the lamp had flickered out.
Mute firelight, alone, lit each glowing stud;
Each time the fire sighed, as if in doubt,
It steeped her pale, rouged flesh in pools of blood.



The Perfect Courtesan
by Michael R. Burch

after Baudelaire, for the courtesans

She received me into her cavities,
indulging my darkest depravities
with such trembling longing, I felt her need ...

Such was the dalliance to which we agreed—
she, my high rider;
I, her wild steed.

She surrendered her all and revealed to me—
the willing handmaiden, delighted to please,
the Perfect Courtesan of Ecstasy.



Invitation to the Voyage
by Charles Baudelaire
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My child, my sister,
Consider the rapture
Of living together!
To love at our leisure
Till the end of all pleasure,
Then in climes so alike you, to die!

The misty sunlight
Of these hazy skies
Charms my spirit:
So mysterious
Your treacherous eyes,
Shining through tears.

There, order and restraint redress
Opulence, voluptuousness.

Gleaming furniture
Burnished by the years
Would decorate our bedroom
Where the rarest flowers
Mingle their fragrances
With vague scents of amber.

The sumptuous ceilings,
The limpid mirrors,
The Oriental ornaments …
Everything would speak
To our secretive souls
In their own indigenous language.

There, order and restraint redress
Opulence, voluptuousness.

See, rocking on these channels:
The sleepy vessels
Whose vagabond dream
Is to satisfy
Your merest desire.

They come from the ends of the world:
These radiant suns
Illuminating fields,
Canals, the entire city,
In hyacinth and gold.
The world falls asleep
In their warming light.

There, order and restraint redress
Opulence, voluptuousness.



What Goes Around, Comes
by Michael R. Burch

This is a poem about loss
so why do you toss your dark hair―
unaccountably glowing?

How can you be sure of my heart
when it’s beyond my own knowing?

Or is it love’s pheromones you trust,
my eyes magnetized by your bust
and the mysterious alchemies of lust?

Now I am truly lost!



Passionate One
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Love of my life,
light of my morning―
arise, brightly dawning,
for you are my sun.

Give me of heaven
both manna and leaven―
desirous Presence,
Passionate One.

Manna is "heavenly bread" and leaven is what we use to make earthly bread rise. So this poem is saying that one's lover offers the best of heaven and earth.



Second Sight
by Michael R. Burch

I never touched you―
that was my mistake.

Deep within,
I still feel the ache.

Can an unformed thing
eternally break?

Now, from a great distance,
I see you again

not as you are now,
but as you were then―

eternally present
and Sovereign.



After the Deluge
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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



Love Has a Southern Flavor
by Michael R. Burch

Love has a Southern flavor: honeydew,
ripe cantaloupe, the honeysuckle’s spout
we tilt to basking faces to breathe out
the ordinary, and inhale perfume ...

Love’s Dixieland-rambunctious: tangled vines,
wild clematis, the gold-brocaded leaves
that will not keep their order in the trees,
unmentionables that peek from dancing lines ...

Love cannot be contained, like Southern nights:
the constellations’ dying mysteries,
the fireflies that hum to light, each tree’s
resplendent autumn cape, a genteel sight ...

Love also is as wild, as sprawling-sweet,
as decadent as the wet leaves at our feet.



Violets
by Michael R. Burch

Once, only once,
when the wind flicked your skirt
to an indiscrete height

and you laughed,
abruptly demure,
outblushing shocked violets:

suddenly,
I knew:
everything had changed

and as you braided your hair
into long bluish plaits
the shadows empurpled,

the dragonflies’
last darting feints
dissolving mid-air,

we watched the sun’s long glide
into evening,
knowing and unknowing.

O, how the illusions of love
await us in the commonplace
and rare

then haunt our small remainder of hours.



Smoke
by Michael R. Burch

The hazy, smoke-filled skies of summer I remember well;
farewell was on my mind, and the thoughts that I can't tell
rang bells within (the din was in) my mind, and I can't say
if what we had was good or bad, or where it is today.
The endless days of summer's haze I still recall today;
she spoke and smoky skies stood still as summer slipped away ...



How Long the Night
(anonymous Old English Lyric, circa early 13th century AD)
translation by Michael R. Burch

It is pleasant, indeed, while the summer lasts
with the mild pheasants' song ...
but now I feel the northern wind's blast―
its severe weather strong.
Alas! Alas! This night seems so long!
And I, because of my momentous wrong
now grieve, mourn and fast.



Shattered
by Vera Pavlova
translation by Michael R. Burch

I shattered your heart;
now I limp through the shards
barefoot.



Snapshots
by Michael R. Burch

Here I scrawl extravagant rainbows.
And there you go, skipping your way to school.
And here we are, drifting apart
like untethered balloons.

Here I am, creating "art,"
chanting in shadows,
pale as the crinoline moon,
ignoring your face.

There you go,
in diaphanous lace,
making another man’s heart swoon.
Suddenly, unthinkably, here he is,

taking my place.



The Darker Nights
by Michael R. Burch

Nights when I held you,
nights when I saw
the gentlest of spirits,
yet, deeper, a flaw ...

Nights when we settled
and yet never gelled.
Nights when you promised
what you later withheld ...



Moon Poem
by Michael R. Burch
after Linda Gregg

I climb the mountain
to inquire of the moon ...
the advantages of loftiness, absence, distance.
Is it true that it feels no pain,
or will she contradict me?

Originally published by Borderless Journal (Singapore)

The apparent contradiction of it/she is intentional, since the speaker doesn’t know if the moon is an inanimate object or can feel pain.



Because You Came to Me
by Michael R. Burch

Because you came to me with sweet compassion
and kissed my furrowed brow and smoothed my hair,
I do not love you after any fashion,
but wildly, in despair.

Because you came to me in my black torment
and kissed me fiercely, blazing like the sun
upon parched desert dunes, till in dawn’s foment
they melt, I am undone.

Because I am undone, you have remade me
as suns bring life, as brilliant rains endow
the earth below with leaves, where you now shade me
and bower me, somehow.



Stay With Me Tonight
by Michael R. Burch

Stay with me tonight;
be gentle with me as the leaves are gentle
falling to the earth.
And whisper, O my love,
how that every bright thing, though scattered afar,
retains yet its worth.

Stay with me tonight;
be as a petal long-awaited blooming in my hand.
Lift your face to mine
and touch me with your lips
till I feel the warm benevolence of your breath’s
heady fragrance like wine.

That which we had
when pale and waning as the dying moon at dawn,
outshone the sun.
And so lead me back tonight
through bright waterfalls of light
to where we shine as one.



Insurrection
by Michael R. Burch

She has become as the night―listening
for rumors of dawn―while the dew, glistening,

reminds me of her, and the wind, whistling,
lashes my cheeks with its soft chastening.

She has become as the lights―flickering
in the distance―till memories old and troubling

rise up again and demand remembering ...
like peasants rebelling against a mad king.



Medusa
by Michael R. Burch

Friends, beware
of her iniquitous hair―
long, ravenblack & melancholy.

Many suitors drowned there―
lost, unaware
of the length & extent of their folly.



Daredevil
by Michael R. Burch

There are days that I believe
(and nights that I deny)
love is not mutilation.

Daredevil, dry your eyes.

There are tightropes leaps bereave―
taut wires strumming high
brief songs, infatuations.

Daredevil, dry your eyes.

There were cannon shots’ soirees,
hearts barricaded, wise . . .
and then . . . annihilation.

Daredevil, dry your eyes.

There were nights our hearts conceived
dawns’ indiscriminate sighs.
To dream was our consolation.

Daredevil, dry your eyes.

There were acrobatic leaves
that tumbled down to lie
at our feet, bright trepidations.

Daredevil, dry your eyes.

There were hearts carved into trees―
tall stakes where you and I
left childhood’s salt libations . . .

Daredevil, dry your eyes.

Where once you scraped your knees;
love later bruised your thighs.
Death numbs all, our sedation.

Daredevil, dry your eyes.



Mingled Air
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

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

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

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

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



Elemental
by Michael R. Burch

There is within her a welling forth
of love unfathomable.
She is not comfortable
with the thought of merely loving:
but she must give all.

At night, she heeds the storm's calamitous call;
nay, longs for it. Why?
O, if a man understood, he might understand her.
But that never would do!
Darling, as you embrace the storm,

so I embrace elemental you.



Duet, Minor Key
by Michael R. Burch

Without the drama of cymbals
or the fanfare and snares of drums,
I present my case
stripped of its fine veneer:
Behold, thy instrument.

Play, for the night is long.



honeybee
by Michael R. Burch

love was a little treble thing―
prone to sing
and (sometimes) to sting



don’t forget ...
by Michael R. Burch

don’t forget to remember
that Space is curved
(like your Heart)
and that even Light is bent
by your Gravity.

The opening lines were inspired by a famous love poem by e. e. cummings. I have dedicated this poem to my wife Beth, but you're welcome to dedicate it to the light-bending person of your choice, as long as you credit me as the author.



Sudden Shower
by Michael R. Burch

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



She Was Very Strange, and Beautiful
by Michael R. Burch

She was very strange, and beautiful,
like a violet mist enshrouding hills
before night falls
when the hoot owl calls
and the cricket trills
and the envapored moon hangs low and full.

She was very strange, in a pleasant way,
as the hummingbird
flies madly still,
so I drank my fill
of her every word.
What she knew of love, she demurred to say.

She was meant to leave, as the wind must blow,
as the sun must set,
as the rain must fall.
Though she gave her all,
I had nothing left . . .
yet I smiled, bereft, in her receding glow.



Isolde's Song
by Michael R. Burch

Through our long years of dreaming to be one
we grew toward an enigmatic light
that gently warmed our tendrils. Was it sun?
We had no eyes to tell; we loved despite
the lack of all sensation―all but one:
we felt the night's deep chill, the air so bright
at dawn we quivered limply, overcome.

To touch was all we knew, and how to bask.
We knew to touch; we grew to touch; we felt
spring's urgency, midsummer's heat, fall's lash,
wild winter's ice and thaw and fervent melt.
We felt returning light and could not ask
its meaning, or if something was withheld
more glorious. To touch seemed life's great task.

At last the petal of me learned: unfold.
And you were there, surrounding me. We touched.
The curious golden pollens! Ah, we touched,
and learned to cling and, finally, to hold.



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.



Heat Lightening
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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



Redolence
by Michael R. Burch

Now darkness ponds upon the violet hills;
cicadas sing; the tall elms gently sway;
and night bends near, a deepening shade of gray;
the bass concerto of a bullfrog fills
what silence there once was; globed searchlights play.

Green hanging ferns adorn dark window sills,
all drooping fronds, awaiting morning’s flares;
mosquitoes whine; the lissome moth again
flits like a veiled oud-dancer, and endures
the fumblings of night’s enervate gray rain.

And now the pact of night is made complete;
the air is fresh and cool, washed of the grime
of the city’s ashen breath; and, for a time,
the fragrance of her clings, obscure and sweet.



A Surfeit of Light
by Michael R. Burch

There was always a surfeit of light in your presence.
You stood distinctly apart, not of the humdrum world―
a chariot of gold in a procession of plywood.

We were all pioneers of the modern expedient race,
raising the ante: Home Depot to Lowe’s.
Yours was an antique grace―Thrace’s or Mesopotamia’s.

We were never quite sure of your silver allure,
of your trillium-and-platinum diadem,
of your utter lack of flatware-like utility.

You told us that night―your wound would not scar.
The black moment passed, then you were no more.
The darker the sky, how much brighter the Star!

The day of your funeral, I ripped out the crown mold.
You were this fool’s gold.



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.



Unfoldings
by Michael R. Burch

for Vicki

Time unfolds ...
Your lips were roses.
... petals open, shyly clustering ...
I had dreams
of other seasons.
... ten thousand colors quiver, blossoming.

Night and day ...
Dreams burned within me.
... flowers part themselves, and then they close ...
You were lovely;
I was lonely.
... a ****** yields herself, but no one knows.

Now time goes on ...
I have not seen you.
... within ringed whorls, secrets are exchanged ...
A fire rages;
no one sees it.
... a blossom spreads its flutes to catch the rain.

Seasons flow ...
A dream is dying.
... within parched clusters, life is taking form ...
You were honest;
I was angry.
... petals fling themselves before the storm.

Time is slowing ...
I am older.
... blossoms wither, closing one last time ...
I'd love to see you
and to touch you.
... a flower crumbles, crinkling, worn and dry.

Time contracts ...
I cannot touch you.
... a solitary flower cries for warmth ...
Life goes on as
dreams lose meaning.
... the seeds are scattered, lost within a storm.



Chloe
by Michael R. Burch

There were skies onyx at night ... moons by day ...
lakes pale as her eyes ... breathless winds
******* tall elms; ... she would say
that we loved, but I figured we’d sinned.

Soon impatiens too fiery to stay
sagged; the crocus bells drooped, golden-limned;
things of brightness, rinsed out, ran to gray ...
all the light of that world softly dimmed.

Where our feet were inclined, we would stray;
there were paths where dead weeds stood untrimmed,
distant mountains that loomed in our way,
thunder booming down valleys dark-hymned.

What I found, I found lost in her face
while yielding all my virtue to her grace.



If You Come to San Miguel
by Michael R. Burch

If you come to San Miguel
before the orchids fall,
we might stroll through lengthening shadows
those deserted streets
where love first bloomed ...

You might buy the same cheap musk
from that mud-spattered stall
where with furtive eyes the vendor
watched his fragrant wares
perfume your ******* ...

Where lean men mend tattered nets,
disgruntled sea gulls chide;
we might find that cafetucho
where through grimy panes
sunset implodes ...

Where tall cranes spin canvassed loads,
the strange anhingas glide.
Green brine laps splintered moorings,
rusted iron chains grind,
weighed and anchored in the past,

held fast by luminescent tides ...
Should you come to San Miguel?
Let love decide.



Vacuum
by Michael R. Burch

Over hushed quadrants
forever landlocked in snow,
time’s senseless winds blow ...

leaving odd relics of lives half-revealed,
if still mostly concealed ...
such are the things we are unable to know

that once intrigued us so.

Come then, let us quickly repent
of whatever truths we’d once determined to learn:
for whatever is left, we are unable to discern.

There’s nothing left of us here; it’s time to go.



The Sky Was Turning Blue
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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



Roses for a Lover, Idealized
by Michael R. Burch

When you have become to me
as roses bloom, in memory,
exquisite, each sharp thorn forgot,
will I recall―yours made me bleed?

When winter makes me think of you―
whorls petrified in frozen dew,
bright promises blithe spring forsook,
will I recall your words―barbed, cruel?



Nothing Returns
by Michael R. Burch

A wave implodes,
impaled upon
impassive rocks . . .

this evening
the thunder of the sea
is a wild music filling my ear . . .

you are leaving
and the ungrieving
winds demur:

telling me
that nothing returns
as it was before,

here where you have left no mark
upon this dark
Heraclitean shore.



First and Last
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

You are the last arcane rose
of my aching,
my longing,
or the first yellowed leaves―
vagrant spirals of gold
forming huddled bright sheaves;
you are passion forsaking
dark skies, as though sunsets no winds might enclose.

And still in my arms
you are gentle and fragrant―
demesne of my vigor,
spent rigor,
lost power,
fallen musculature of youth,
leaves clinging and hanging,
nameless joys of my youth to this last lingering hour.



Your Pull
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

You were like sunshine and rain―
begetting rainbows,
full of contradictions, like the intervals
between light and shadow.

That within you which I most opposed
drew me closer still,
as a magnet exerts its unyielding pull
on insensate steel.



Love Is Not Love
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

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

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

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

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

all that it knows
is: O, because!



The Stake
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Love, the heart bets,
if not without regrets,
will still prove, in the end,
worth the light we expend
mining the dark
for an exquisite heart.



The One True Poem
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Love was not meaningless ...
nor your embrace, nor your kiss.

And though every god proved a phantom,
still you were divine to your last dying atom ...

So that when you are gone
and, yea, not a word remains of this poem,

even so,
We were One.



The Poem of Poems
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

This is my Poem of Poems, for you.
Every word ineluctably true:
I love you.



Enigma
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

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

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

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

"O Terrible Angel" is the title of my second collection of love poems for my wife Beth, who is more formally known as Elizabeth Steed Harris Burch.



She Gathered Lilacs
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

She gathered lilacs
and arrayed them in her hair;
tonight, she taught the wind to be free.

She kept her secrets
in a silver locket;
her companions were starlight and mystery.

She danced all night
to the beat of her heart;
with her tears she imbued the sea.

She hid her despair
in a crystal jar,
and never revealed it to me.

She kept her distance
as though it were armor;
gauntlet thorns guard her heart like the rose.

Love! -Awaken, awaken
to see what you've taken
is still less than the due my heart owes!



Once
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Once when her kisses were fire incarnate
and left in their imprint bright lipstick, and flame;
when her breath rose and fell over smoldering dunes,
leaving me listlessly sighing her name...

Once when her ******* were as pale, as beguiling,
as wan rivers of sand shedding heat like a mist,
when her words would at times softly, mildly rebuke me
all the while as her lips did more wildly insist...

Once when the thought of her echoed and whispered
through vast wastelands of need like a Bedouin chant,
I ached for the touch of her lips with such longing
that I vowed all my former vows to recant...

Once, only once, something bloomed, of a desiccate seed:
this implausible blossom her wild rains of kisses decreed.



At Once
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Though she was fair,
though she sent me the epistle of her love at once
and inscribed therein love's antique prayer,
I did not love her at once.

Though she would dare
pain's pale, clinging shadows, to approach me at once,
the dark, haggard keeper of the lair,
I did not love her at once.

Though she would share
the all of her being, to heal me at once,
yet more than her touch I was unable to bear.
I did not love her at once.

And yet she would care,
and pour out her essence...
and yet -there was more!
I awoke from long darkness

and yet -she was there.
I loved her the longer;
I loved her the more
because I did not love her at once.



Twice
by Michael R. Burch

Now twice she has left me
and twice I have listened
and taken her back, remembering days

when love lay upon us
and sparkled and glistened
with the brightness of dew through a gathering haze.

But twice she has left me
to start my life over,
and twice I have gathered up embers, to learn:

rekindle a fire
from ash, soot and cinder
and softly it sputters, refusing to burn.



Will there be Starlight
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Will there be starlight
tonight
while she gathers
damask
and lilac
and sweet-scented heathers?

And will she find flowers,
or will she find thorns
guarding the petals
of roses unborn?

Oh, will there be moonlight
tonight
while she gathers
seashells
and mussels
and albatross feathers?

And will she find treasure
or will she find pain
at the end of this rainbow
of moonlight on rain?



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

for Beth

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.



The Quickening
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

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

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



Let Me Give Her Diamonds
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Let me give her diamonds
for my heart's
sharp edges.

Let me give her roses
for my soul's
thorn.

Let me give her solace
for my words
of treason.

Let the flowering of love
outlast a winter
season.

Let me give her books
for all my lack
of reason.

Let me give her candles
for my lack
of fire.

Let me kindle incense,
for our hearts
require

the breath-fanned
flaming perfume
of desire.



If I Falter
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

If I regret
fire in the sunset
exploding on the horizon,
then let me regret loving you.

If I forget
for even a moment
that you are the only one,
then let me forget that the sky is blue.

If I should yearn
in a season of discontentment
for the vagabond light of a companionless moon,
let dawn remind me that you are my sun.

If I should burn -one moment less brightly,
one moment less true -
then with wild scorching kisses,
inflame me, inflame me, inflame me anew.



Because Her Heart Is Tender
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

She scrawled soft words in soap: "Never Forget, "
Dove-white on her car's window, and the wren,
because her heart is tender, might regret
it called the sun to wake her. As I slept,
she heard lost names recounted, one by one.

She wrote in sidewalk chalk: "Never Forget, "
and kept her heart's own counsel. No rain swept
away those words, no tear leaves them undone.

Because her heart is tender with regret,
bruised by razed towers' glass and steel and stone
that shatter on and on and on and on,
she stitches in damp linen: "NEVER FORGET, "
and listens to her heart's emphatic song.

The wren might tilt its head and sing along
because its heart once understood regret
when fledglings fell beyond, beyond, beyond...
its reach, and still the boot-heeled world strode on.

She writes in adamant: "NEVER FORGET"
because her heart is tender with regret.



She Spoke
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

She spoke
and her words
were like a ringing echo dying
or like smoke
rising and drifting
while the earth below is spinning.

She awoke
with a cry
from a dream that had no ending,
without hope
or strength to rise,
into hopelessness descending.

And an ache
in her heart
toward that dream, retreating,
left a wake
of small waves
in circles never completing.



Virginal
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

For an hour
every wildflower
beseeches her,
"To thy breast,
Elizabeth! "

But she is mine;
her lips divine
and her ******* and hair
are mine alone.
Let the wildflowers moan.



the last defense of Love
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

... if all the parables of Love
fell mute, and every sermon too,
and every hymn and votive psalm
proved insufficient to the task
of proving Love might yet be true
in such a cruel, uncaring world...
the last defense of Love, my Love,
the gods might offer, would be You.



Your Gift
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Counsel, console.
This is your gift.

Calm, kiss and encourage.

Tenderly lift
each world-wounded heart
from its near-fatal dart.

Mend every rift.

Bid pain, "Depart! "
Help friends' healing to start.
Keep every reason to grieve
for your own untaught heart.



Rehearsal Reversal
by Michael R. Burch

The wonder of a first kiss
is:
the next will be better,
if less memorable...

and what’s unforgettable’s
this:
that, somehow,
although you just met her,

in the exchange of eclectic eyes
love came, an electric surmise,
with the smell of cordite hair
on a warm wool sweater

more than amply bosomed.
Use
any excess static to light
the fuse.

Fumble-fingered, her bra strap’s cinch
refuses to budge an inch
in either direction.
Who’s

ever prepared to be so stymied?
Smile,
lean back, drag, “relax” awhile
from practice imperfect. I’ll

leave you two jaybirds alone.
Yes, tomorrow she’ll
answer the phone,
show up for your first real date:

late, breathless, and braless!
(WAIT —
before you celebrate:
still celibate).



Reverse Strip
by Michael R. Burch

She cupped her ******* in cotton, wire-cinched,
pulled a pale taupe sheath across red-gilded toes,
across sun-auburned thighs, to midriff, rose,
paraded nimbly to her dresser, pinched
a winsome pair of *******—white with hearts—
between thumb and forefinger, just to show
how well she knew my taste. Then, bowing low,
she stepped into them (here, the music starts,
a vampish tune), slow-wriggled them waist-high.
She used her thumbs to snap elastic to
its proper place. She chose a slip—sky blue—
then shrugged it on, and patted down each thigh.

She then sat down and smiled (there’d be no dress),
uncrossed her legs, shrugged free one talcumed breast...



Dawn Flight
by Michael R. Burch

for Martin Mc Carthy

What is it about love
that defies explanation?—

the weightlessness of being,
the long elliptic climb

into darkness
amid the world’s constant uproar,

the sea’s black waves crashing
incessantly like thunder beneath us,

the long triumphant soar
into thinning contrails of nothingness,

like meteors through ether,
seeing the earth’s dark curve

outlined,
spinning softly beneath us...

gliding, suspended at last,
over the earth pliant and motionless...

feeling, suddenly, the vast
onrush

and illumination.



Of Transience
by Michael R. Burch

How many nights her vulnerability
leaned close and softly pressed its cheek to mine,
held fast by tiny buckled straps impressed
on shoulders white as swans’ white eglantine...

And many were the marks which left their trace,
then soon were gone. The thinnest finest veil
of ashen hair revealed her *******, betrayed
all that I wanted most, but still would fail

to keep me there till morning. For her sighs,
I kissed her lips in wonder; we became
one with the distant thunder. Love is wise
when it comes in flashes, streaking moonlit rain,

but leaves no mark—as transient, as bright
as the searing imprint lightning pens at night.



*******
by Michael R. Burch

It was not for the feast of docile eyes
she shed her latex jeans, her vinyl blouse;
it was not for the catcalls that her thighs,
black-gartered, parted slightly, to arouse
limp dreams, limp organs as onlookers cheered,
revealing paunches belts could not belay.
She shunned their touch, as lepers to be feared,
swerved half-way through her dance, then waltzed away.

But something in her eyes—a mystery
as old as lust, half-veiled by raven hair—
bespoke this certain knowledge: love is free,
but *** must have its fee, transport its fare.
They pay for what they want, and in return
she teaches them what men will never learn.



At the Natchez Trace
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

I.
Solitude surrounds me
though nearby laughter sounds;
around me mingle men who think
to drink their demons down,
in rounds.

Beside me stands a woman,
a stanza in the song
that plays so low and fluting
and bids me sing along.

Beside me stands a woman
whose eyes reveal her soul,
whose cheeks are soft as eiderdown,
whose hips and ******* are full.

Beside me stands a woman
who scarcely knows my name;
but I would have her know my heart
if only I knew where to start.

II.
Not every man is as he seems;
not all are prone to poems and dreams.
Not every man would take the time
to meter out his heart in rhyme.
But I am not as other men—
my heart is sentenced to this pen.

III.
Men speak of their "ambition"
but they only know its name . . .
I never say the word aloud,
but I have felt the Flame.

IV.
Now, standing here, I do not dare
to let her know that I might care;
I never learned the lines to use;
I never worked the wolves' bold ruse.
But if she looks my way again,
perhaps I will, if only then.

V.
How can a man have come so far
in searching after every star,
and yet today,
though years away,
look back upon the winding way,
and see himself as he was then,
a child of eight or nine or ten,
and not know more?

VI.
My life is not empty; I have my desire . . .
I write in a moment that few man can know,
when my nerves are on fire
and my heart does not tire
though it pounds at my breast—
wrenching blow after blow.

VII.
And in all I attempted, I also succeeded;
few men have more talent to do what I do.
But in one respect, I stand now defeated;
In love I could never make magic come true.

VIII.
If I had been born to be handsome and charming,
then love might have come to me easily as well.
But if had that been, then would I have written?
If not, I'd remain; **** that demon to hell!

IX.
Beside me stands a woman,
but others look her way
and in their eyes are eagerness . . .
for passion and a wild caress?
But who am I to say?

Beside me stands a woman;
she conjures up the night
and wraps itself around her
till others flit about her
like moths drawn to firelight.

X.
And I, myself, am just as they,
wondering when the light might fade,
yet knowing should it not dim soon
that I might fall and be consumed.

XI.
I write from despair
in the silence of morning
for want of a prayer
and the need of the mourning.
And loneliness grips my heart like a vise;
my anguish is harsher and colder than ice.
But poetry can bring my heart healing
and deaden the pain, or lessen the feeling.
And so I must write till at last sleep has called me
and hope at that moment my pen has not failed me.

XII.
Beside me stands a woman,
a mystery to me.
I long to hold her in my arms;
I also long to flee.

Beside me stands a woman;
how many has she known
more handsome, charming,
chic, alarming?
I hope I never know.

Beside me stands a woman;
how many has she known
who ever wrote her such a poem?
I know not even one.



BeMused
by Michael R. Burch

You will find in her hair
a fragrance more severe
than camphor.
You will find in her dress
no hint of a sweet
distractedness.
You will find in her eyes
horn-owlish and wise
no metaphors
of love, but only reflections
of books, books, books.

If you like Her looks …

meet me in the long rows,
between Poetry and Prose,
where we’ll win Her favor
with jousts, and savor
the wine of Her hair,
the shimmery wantonness
of Her rich-satined dress;
where we’ll press
our good deeds upon Her, save Her
from every distress,
for the lovingkindness
of Her matchless eyes
and all the suns of Her tongues.

We were young,
once,
unlearned and unwise . . .
but, O, to be young
when love comes disguised
with the whisper of silks
and idolatry,
and even the childish tongue claims
the intimacy of Poetry.



There’s a Stirring and Awakening in the World
by Michael R. Burch

There’s a stirring and awakening in the world,
and even so my spirit stirs within,
imagining some Power beckoning—
the Force which through the stamen gently whirrs,
unlocking tumblers deftly, even mine.

The grape grows wild-entangled on the vine,
and here, close by, the honeysuckle shines.
And of such life, at last there comes there comes the Wine.

And so it is with spirits’ fruitful yield—
the growth comes first, Green Vagrance, then the Bloom.

The world somehow must give the spirit room
to blossom, till its light shines—wild, revealed.

And then at last the earth receives its store
of blessings, as glad hearts cry—More! More! More!

Originally published by Borderless Journal



POEMS ABOUT POOL SHARKS

These are poems about pool sharks, gamblers, con artists and other sharks. I used to hustle pool on bar tables around Nashville, where I ran into many colorful characters, and a few unsavory ones, before I hung up my cue for good.

Shark
by Michael R. Burch

They are all unknowable,
these rough pale men—
haunting dim pool rooms like shadows,
propped up on bar stools like scarecrows,
nodding and sagging in the fraying light . . .

I am not of them,
as I glide among them—
eliding the amorphous camaraderie
they are as unlikely to spell as to feel,
camouflaged in my own pale dichotomy . . .

That there are women who love them defies belief—
with their missing teeth,
their hair in thin shocks
where here and there a gap of scalp gleams like bizarre chrome,
their smell rank as wet sawdust or mildewed laundry . . .

And yet—
and yet there is someone who loves me:
She sits by the telephone
in the lengthening shadows
and pregnant grief . . .

They appreciate skill at pool, not words.
They frown at massés,
at the cue ball’s contortions across green felt.
They hand me their hard-earned money with reluctant smiles.
A heart might melt at the thought of their children lying in squalor . . .
At night I dream of them in bed, toothless, kissing.
With me, it’s harder to say what is missing . . .



Fair Game
by Michael R. Burch

At the Tennessee State Fair,
the largest stuffed animals hang tilt-a-whirl over the pool tables
with mocking button eyes,
knowing the playing field is unlevel,
that the rails slant, ever so slightly, north or south,
so that gravity is always on their side,
conspiring to save their plush, extravagant hides
year after year.

“Come hither, come hither . . .”
they whisper; they leer
in collusion with the carnival barkers,
like a bevy of improbably-clad hookers
setting a “fair” price.
“Only five dollars a game, and it’s so much Fun!
And it’s not really gambling. Skill is involved!
You can make us come: really, you can.
Here are your *****. Just smack them around.”

But there’s a trick, and it usually works.
If you break softly so that no ball reaches a rail,
you can pick them off: One. Two. Three. Four.
Causing a small commotion,
a stir of whispering, like fear,
among the hippos and ostriches.



Con Artistry
by Michael R. Burch

The trick of life is like the sleight of hand
of gamblers holding deuces by the glow
of veiled back rooms, or aces; soon we’ll know
who folds, who stands . . .

The trick of life is like the pool shark’s shot—
the wild massé across green velvet felt
that leaves the winner loser. No, it’s not
the rack, the hand that’s dealt . . .

The trick of life is knowing that the odds
are never in one’s favor, that to win
is only to delay the acts of gods
who’d ante death for sin . . .

and death for goodness, death for in-between.
The rules have never changed; the artist knows
the oldest con is life; the chips he blows
can’t be redeemed.



Pool's Prince Charming
by Michael R. Burch

this is my tribute poem, written on the behalf of his fellow pool sharks, for the legendary Saint Louie Louie Roberts

Louie, Louie, Prince of Pool,
making all the ladies drool ...
Take the “nuts”? I'd be a fool!
Louie, Louie, Prince of Pool.

Louie, Louie, pretty as Elvis,
owner of (ahem) a similar pelvis ...
Compared to you, the books will shelve us.
Louie, Louie, pretty as Elvis.

Louie, Louie, fearless gambler,
ladies' man and constant rambler,
but such a sweet, loquacious ambler!
Louie, Louie, fearless gambler.

Louie, Louie, angelic, chthonic,
pool's charming hero, but tragic, Byronic,
winning the Open drinking gin and tonic?
Louie, Louie, angelic, chthonic.

I used poetic license about what Louie Roberts was or wasn't drinking at the 1981 U. S. Open Nine-Ball Championship. Was Louie drinking hard liquor as he came charging back through the losers' bracket to win the whole shebang? Or was he pretending to drink for gamesmanship or some other reason? I honestly don't know. As for the word “chthonic,” it’s pronounced “thonic” and means “subterranean” or “of the underworld.” And the pool world can be very dark indeed, as Louie’s tragic demise suggests. But everyone who knew Louie seemed to like him, if not love him dearly, and many sharks have spoken of Louie in glowing terms, as a bringer of light to that underworld.



My wife and I were having a drink at a neighborhood bar which has a pool table. A “money” game was about to start; a spectator got up to whisper something to a friend of ours who was about to play someone we hadn’t seen before. We couldn’t hear what was said. Then the newcomer broke—with such force that his stick flew straight up in the air and shattered the light dangling overhead. There was a moment of stunned silence, then our friend turned around and remarked: “He really does shoot the lights out, doesn’t he?” — Michael R. Burch



Rounds
by Michael R. Burch

Solitude surrounds me
though nearby laughter sounds;
around me mingle men who think
to drink their demons down,
in rounds.

Now agony still hounds me
though elsewhere mirth abounds;
hidebound I stand and try to think,
not sink still further down,
spellbound.

Their ecstasy astounds me,
though drunkenness compounds
resounding laughter into joy;
alloy such glee with beer and see
bliss found.

Originally published by Borderless Journal



Poems about Fathers and Grandfathers



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...



Sanctuary at Dawn
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

Your eyes are grayer
than I remembered;
your hair is grayer, too.
As the red rust runs
down the dripping drains,
our voices exclaim―

'My father! '
'My son! '



Sunset
by Michael R. Burch

for my Grandfather, George Edwin Hurt Sr.

Between the prophecies of morning
and twilight's revelations of wonder,
the sky is ripped asunder.

The moon lurks in the clouds,
waiting, as if to plunder
the dusk of its lilac iridescence,

and in the bright-tentacled sunset
we imagine a presence
full of the fury of lost innocence.

What we find within strange whorls of drifting flame,
brief patterns mauling winds deform and maim,
we recognize at once, but cannot name.



Sailing to My Grandfather
by Michael R. Burch

for my Grandfather, George Edwin Hurt Sr.

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

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

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

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

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

Note: Under the Sextant's Stars is a painting by Benini.



Salat Days
by Michael R. Burch

for my grandfather, Paul Ray Burch, Sr.

I remember how my grandfather used to pick poke salat...
though first, usually, he'd stretch back in the front porch swing,
dangling his long thin legs, watching the sweat bees drone,
talking about poke salat―
how easy it was to find if you knew where to look for it...
standing in dew-damp clumps by the side of a road, shockingly green,
straddling fence posts, overflowing small ditches,
crowding out the less-hardy nettles.

'Nobody knows that it's there, lad, or that it's fit tuh eat
with some bacon drippin's or lard.'

'Don't eat the berries. You see―the berry's no good.
And you'd hav'ta wash the leaves a good long time.'

'I'd boil it twice, less'n I wus in a hurry.
Lawd, it's tough to eat, chile, if you boil it jest wonst.'

He seldom was hurried; I can see him still...
silently mowing his yard at eighty-eight,
stooped, but with a tall man's angular gray grace.

Sometimes he'd pause to watch me running across the yard,
trampling his beans,
dislodging the shoots of his tomato plants.

He never grew flowers; I never laughed at his jokes about The Depression.

Years later I found the proper name―'pokeweed'―while perusing a dictionary.

Surprised, I asked why anyone would eat a ****.
I still can hear his laconic reply...

'Well, chile, s'm'times them times wus hard.'



All Things Galore
by Michael R. Burch

for my grandfathers George Edwin Hurt Sr. and Paul Ray Burch, Sr.

Grandfather,
now in your gray presence
you are

somehow more near

and remind me that,
once, upon a star,
you taught me

wish

that ululate soft phrase,
that hopeful phrase!

and everywhere above, each hopeful star
gleamed down
and seemed to speak of times before
when you clasped my small glad hand
in your wise paw

and taught me heaven, omen, meteor...



Attend Upon Them Still
by Michael R. Burch

for my grandparents George and Ena Hurt

With gentleness and fine and tender will,
attend upon them still;
thou art the grass.

Nor let men's feet here muddy as they pass
thy subtle undulations, nor depress
for long the comforts of thy lovingness,

nor let the fuse
of time wink out amid the violets.
They have their use―

to wave, to grow, to gleam, to lighten their paths,
to shine sweet, transient glories at their feet.
Thou art the grass;

make them complete.



Be that Rock
by Michael R. Burch

for my grandfather George Edwin Hurt Sr.

When I was a child
I never considered man's impermanence,
for you were a mountain of adamant stone:
a man steadfast, immense,
and your words rang.

And when you were gone,
I still heard your voice, which never betrayed,
'Be strong and of a good courage,
neither be afraid...'
as the angels sang.

And, O! , I believed
for your words were my truth, and I tried to be brave
though the years slipped away
with so little to save
of that talk.

Now I'm a man―
a man... and yet Grandpa... I'm still the same child
who sat at your feet
and learned as you smiled.
Be that rock.



Of Civilization and Disenchantment
by Michael R. Burch

for Anais Vionet

Suddenly uncomfortable
to stay at my grandfather's house―
actually his third new wife's,
in her daughter's bedroom
―one interminable summer
with nothing to do,
all the meals served cold,
even beans and peas...

Lacking the words to describe
ah! , those pearl-luminous estuaries―
strange omens, incoherent nights.

Seeing the flares of the river barges
illuminating Memphis,
city of bluffs and dying splendors.

Drifting toward Alexandria,
Pharos, Rhakotis, Djoser's fertile delta,
lands at the beginning of a new time and 'civilization.'

Leaving behind sixty miles of unbroken cemetery,
Alexander's corpse floating seaward,
bobbing, milkwhite, in a jar of honey.

Memphis shall be waste and desolate,
without an inhabitant.

Or so the people dreamed, in chains.



Keep Up
by Michael R. Burch

Keep Up!
Daddy, I'm walking as fast as I can;
I'll move much faster when I'm a man...

Time unwinds
as the heart reels,
as cares and loss and grief plummet,
as faith unfailing ascends the summit
and heartache wheels
like a leaf in the wind.

Like a rickety cart wheel
time revolves through the yellow dust,
its creakiness revoking trust,
its years emblazoned in cold hard steel.

Keep Up!
Son, I'm walking as fast as I can;
take it easy on an old man.



My Touchstone
by Michael R. Burch

for my grandfather George Edwin Hurt Sr.

A man is known
by the life he lives
and those he leaves,

by each heart touched,
which, left behind,
forever grieves.



Joy in the Morning
by Michael R. Burch

for my grandparents George Edwin Hurt Sr. and Christine Ena Hurt

There will be joy in the morning
for now this long twilight is over
and their separation has ended.

For fourteen years, he had not seen her
whom he first befriended,
then courted and married.

Let there be joy, and no mourning,
for now in his arms she is carried
over a threshold vastly sweeter.

He never lost her; she only tarried
until he was able to meet her.

Keywords/Tags: George Edwin Hurt Christine Ena Spouse reunited heaven joy together forever



Poems about Mothers and Grandmothers



Dawn
by Michael R. Burch

for my grandmothers Lillian Lee and Christine Ena Hurt

Bring your peculiar strength
to the strange nightmarish fray:
wrap up your cherished ones
in the golden light of day.



Mother's Day Haiku
by Michael R. Burch

for my grandmothers Lillian Lee and Christine Ena Hurt

Crushed grapes
surrender such sweetness:
a mother’s compassion.

My footprints
so faint in the snow?
Ah yes, you lifted me.

An emu feather ...
still falling?
So quickly you rushed to my rescue.

The eagle sees farther
from its greater height:
our mothers' wisdom.



The Rose
by Michael R. Burch

for my grandmother, Lillian Lee, who used to grow the most beautiful roses

The rose is—
the ornament of the earth,
the glory of nature,
the archetype of the flowers,
the blush of the meadows,
a lightning flash of beauty.

This poem above is my translation of a Sappho epigram.



The Greatest of These ...
by Michael R. Burch

for my mother, Christine Ena Burch, and the grandmother of my son Jeremy

The hands that held me tremble.
The arms that lifted
fall.
Angelic flesh, now parchment,
is held together with gauze.

But her undimmed eyes still embrace me;
there infinity can be found.
I can almost believe such infinite love
will still reach me, underground.



Arisen
by Michael R. Burch

for my mother, Christine Ena Burch

Mother, I love you!
Mother, delightful,
articulate, insightful!

Angels in training,
watching over, would hover,
learning to love
from the Master: a Mother.

You learned all there was
for this planet to teach,
then extended your wings
to Love’s ultimate reach ...

And now you have soared
beyond eagles and condors
into distant elevations
only Phoenixes can conquer.

Amen

Published as the collection "Love Poems by Michael R. Burch"

Keywords/Tags: love, Eros, ******, erotica, passion, desire, lust, ***, dating, marriage, romance, romantic, romanticism
spysgrandson Nov 2015
my cousin liked to have breakfast
at an open air café, with his fiancée, on Fridays
the owner knew she loved French breads, having
been schooled at the Sorbonne  

the bakery made them at his behest    
he would tell his staff to keep one for her
and to bring a bag when served;
she always saved half for later  

rush hour was madder than usual  
that night, until the bombs blasted
and brought the synovial silence that comes
in the wake of wondering, what
has happened?    

the sirens screamed soon enough
and my cousin smelled the smoke  
cordite, yes, but burnt baklava,
Maamoul as well  

his fiancée came to him that night  
watched and waited to hear if anyone they knew  
was lost, their hands clasped tight, breaths shallow,
in the languid hush after the city slowed
to its mournful rest  

the sun rose, the skies clear, crisp, to their surprise,
and they went to the café, where the owner apologized
for the wicked, wicked world, and for not having baguettes
after the bakery died
I must thank a friend at Facebook for posting an image of a candle for Beirut--the horrific events in Paris last night overshadowed the loss of 43 the night before in Beirut--a bakery was one of the two places bombed--I wrote of the Paris incident while it was unfolding--this one belatedly
spysgrandson Oct 2012
Aunt Gracie took me there
for a philly and five cent cee-gar
old enough to fight,
old enough to puff on that stogie
she said
(and not much more)
I spun my stool like I was on a carnival ride
(had only one beer with Uncle Lon, but your first beer is the best)
and Gracie looked at me
like I was still the kid
who broke her basement window
with a bad pitch
when I was ten
yeah, I was, still that boy
seven years later
in that glass box of light
humming in the concrete night
big round Gracie smilin’ at me,
looking like she was gonna cry
she had signed those papers
lied with that pen
making me old enough to be a killer
and smoke that cigar, I suppose
the couple eating eggs and bacon
asked if I was shipping out
six AM, yes sir
the woman smiled like Gracie
the man nodded his head, said
**** a *** for me
sure thing, sure thing
me thinking killing one of them
would let me live,
forever,
forever, and wouldn’t be any different
from playin’ God with bee-bees and birds
which I had done a time or two
with my Daisy
cook put my philly in front of me
his eyes locked on the counter
like someone condemned
to never hold his head up high
and trapped in that diner
forever,
forever feeding
me and other nighthawks
who come to this place
the last space of light
in the hungry night
thanks for the sandwich, I said
he said that’s free
but the man eatin’ eggs
said it’s on me
cook didn’t look at the man
went to cleaning some pan
was then I noticed he limped
bad
I asked how he got hurt
he kept his eyes on his sink
said, it was a long time
before this night
were you born that way?
nobody born this way son
Gracie’s elbow nudged mine
but sixteen and full of all
of one beer, I was gonna keep askin’
how--
it was a long time
before this night
I know, but how--
guess you’ll know
soon enough
we were
clawing our way
from a French trench
filled with gas and gasps
of boys with your face
too dead to cry, too dead to scream
when those machine gunners cut loose
what I got was some good luck
and one of those big rounds
in my knee
Gracie’s elbow moved away
she put her hand on my leg
(my hand was on my philly, limp and still)
you got shot by the Krauts in the Great War?
he didn’t say anymore
and I didn’t eat my meal
 
Gracie was good to me,
I know she wrote all the time
but we didn’t always get our mail
on those big ships, many men
would leave their suppers on the floor
in all that stink of seasick
they taught me to play cards
told me jokes, gave me smokes
Lucky Strikes
we were going to some place
with a funny sounding name
Ee-wa Gee-ma, Ee-wa Gee-ma
at night, when I would look
at the black bottom of the bunk above me
I would see
someplace green, Ee-wa, sunny, Gee-ma
someplace with curling trees
and birds for my daisy to shoot at
other nights, in that dark,
in that stale stink of tobacco and puke
I would see the humming light
of the diner that night, wishing
I had eaten that philly sandwich
and smoked that cigar
(which I left by the plate)
I would think of Gracie
and how she begged me
to confess my sins
(to the recruiting sergeant)
to come back
safe, whole, she said
(but I didn’t know what whole meant)
after that, I heard only the voices of men
some barking orders and commands
others whimpering,
whispering
in the same dark
ship of steel
 
 
when I saw the grey rocks
and flak-filled sky, and heard
the swoosh of surf
and the thunder
of our ships’ guns
and some rat-tat-tat
from the invisible holes
I knew I knew,
nothing yet of hell
 
Happy, we called him
was dead
all nineteen years of him
on that **** hole of beach
his guts strewn across the sand
(his life story I guess)
making their peace with *****
and the red and black blood
of other boys and men
who played cards
and flipped open their Zippos
to light my smokes
told me jokes
and laced their boots with me
that very morning
 
by the time
the ramp fell
I spotted Happy
my stinging eyes stuck
to his shredded belly
we, all of us, fell forward
into the shallow Pacific
ran, with all our gear clanging
to dunes high enough to hide
to hide,
but only long enough
to catch our breath
and smell cordite, fear-sweat,
and burned flesh
we did not take time to gag
over the dunes we went
told to make it to a rock
some twenty of us
to a rock no bigger than Lon’s ‘36 coupe
by the time we hid behind the rock
only eight of us hunched there
the others were where?
didn’t know, didn’t care
I had my piece of rock
rounds kept poppin’ off
the other side
from all those invisible holes
filled with slant eyed demons
my ears were ringing
when I heard the corporal say
start putting fire on that hole
what hole, what hole, what hole
the words were stuck somewhere
deep inside, not in my throat
but they were there
trying to ask him where
what hole? what hole
(I thought for a moment about Gracie and coming back whole?)
the corporal, OK, I forgot his **** name
he wasn’t in my platoon
he said put some fire on that hole
one more time
but then when he got up to shoot his M-1
something made his helmet fly off
and most of him went to the ground
the part that didn’t go out the back of his head
Tommy grabbed my arm
(Tommy taught me that four of a kind beats a full house)
and said something
and said it again
over there, over there
OVER THERE
when I looked where he was looking
I saw them, one with a tan helmet,
the other with a shiny black head of hair
Tommy was trying to point his M-1
at those **** who were firing
their 92 machine gun
at those boys on the beach
I pointed my M-1 at them too
but my hands were shaking too bad to aim
Tommy aimed I think
and we both kept shootin’ at those ****
who finally just looked like they went to sleep
but they never woke up
but neither did the other six boys
who were hiding behind that rock with us
because as soon as Tommy and me
started shootin’ at those ****,
they turned that 92 at us
but all those boys were in front of us
pressed so tight against that stingy rock
they couldn’t breathe
or move
even enough
to get their M-1 carbines
turned
in the right direction
so when those **** turned that 92
on the bunch of us
Tommy and I were in the right place
behind six poor boys
who couldn’t move
and got their young bodies
peppered with every round
that come from the hot barrel
of that *** 92 machine gun
once those two *** boys were asleep
I felt something warm on my arm
it was blood from Hector’s face
but Hector didn’t have a face left
part of it was on my sleeve
I think
but I didn’t look
Hector was in my squad
and he wore a Saint Christopher
to keep him safe
Hector didn’t lose all his head
like I heard Saint Christopher did
but most of it
and if that pendant
and all his mama’s prayers
didn’t keep him safe
I guess nothing could
 
I don’t remember when
I was able to sleep
through a whole night
without wakin’ up
thinking about
Hector, the corporal
and the other five boys
who died right there
behind the rock
there were a million other rocks
where boys
“went to sleep”
only they didn’t wake up
feeling Hector’s warm blood
on their arms
shivering
before it even got cold,
dry, and black
 
Gracie told me
the diner closed
she didn’t know why
but now
when I can’t sleep
and walk the pavement
in the middle of the city night
I go to that dark corner cafe
looking for the buzzing light
I want my cigar I did not smoke
and once again hear the words
the limping man spoke
I don’t have any more questions
he won’t want to answer
but if I did
they might be stuck
down inside
not in my throat
but deeper
where things churn
but don’t ever get seen or heard
I do wonder
if those other boys
at the rock,
and those other rocks,
all those other rocks
are taking these lonely late night walks
or if they had talked
with a limping man
who fed them for free
who thought he was lucky
and spoke words
no young eager bird killers
could yet understand
Nighthawks refers to a 1942 Edward Hopper painting of a corner diner and was the inspiration for the first and last stanzas
Nat Lipstadt Jun 2014
written two years ago and a bit, but suits still....

Weather Advisory: A long poem pouring ahead

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Be not fooled,
by the evening-tide,
be not deceived
by the quietude,
tis not a reprieve
of day before dark.

Be guarded,
for the easy transformation,
a tranquil shedding
of the day's husk,
into the faded light of dusk,
just one of nature's machinations
to delay the inevitable.

Evening-tide,
a colored compilation
of a few mischievous hours,
when sunlight is invaded by
streaks of pink, azure and gold,    
just before the
palette is plunged
into a stainless steel can
of gothic black,
skyied glory rendered into
common house paint.

Evening-tide,
an alleged easy calm
surfeits some souls,
supposed easy passage from  
the day's contusions to
a relaxation from humankind's regulations and rules,
but not for me.

Evening-tide,
when appetites unsated, simmer,
the in between hours when
humans transform themselves,
from day laborers to creatures
desiring, aroused, hungry  
for night time pleasures,
searching with false courage for
boundary lines to sever.

Evening-tide,
it was at evening-tide that
David espied, desired and
stole Bathsheba for his own,
with a King's arrogance
rent a kingdom,
murdered for profit,
birthed an Heir,
a prince, who wrote,
by evening-tide:

I have seen all the works
that are done under the sun; and,
behold, all is vanity
and vexation of spirit.

Evening-tide,
fear closes my throat,
confusion reappears,
a low grade flu infects
deemed persistent, incurable,
revisits, medicine resistant,
my insights, my speech,
to blind and bind  

Am I Gloucester,
blinded, but faculties
possessing vision,
the future to clarify?

No, no, it is to a king,
Lear,
to whom I am
son and cousin,
kith and kin

Sunset visions of
ultimate demise
ours eyes behold,
but plainly put,
at Evening-tide,
our dementia -
a precursor,
a periodic but hostile guest
in the hostel of our memories,
cracks and fractures us,
spirit first, body second.  

We are bound helpless
by a knotted tongue,
slow dying malingerer,
inside a head of ill repute,
unable to locate our knowing,
and every word selected,
a battle galactic, oft lost

Evening-tide,
I am cold,
and the issued command
is bring an umbrella
to warm and cover.  
What an old fool am I,
tis not blanket or a
Bathsheba I seek,
but at Evening-tide,
Babel's nefarious treasury of words
unlocked, for tis closed,                    
the gatekeepers,
drunk and absent,
drunk on absinthe,
and creme de mentia
and I have no key

Evening-tide, prithee,
I beg of thee,
consideration please,
check this hideous amusement,
that makes this
King's speech confused,
odor of smokeless cordite ignited
where the synapses have burnt,
injured, beyond repair
injured, by mine own aging.  

Reverse the diagnosis
of the panel of wordsmiths:
Alas, weep and be comforted...

Evening-tide,
a reverie of colored tears,
downward sloping,
arrive to tingle my tongue,
warming comfort for an *****
willing but unable,
a wounded soldier,
a veteran of poetry,
now prone and pained
beyond repair,
beyond healing,
immunized to the
heat and solder,
drugs and salves,
that heretofore
might have closed
the cracks of rack and ruin

Evening-tide,
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses and
all the king's men couldn't
put Humpty together again^

Evening-tide,
my hair, the color of old age.
Irony, my skin yet smooth,
unwrinkled, not in need of the
toxins that are employed
to fill crevasses on
the outer banks of age of comedy

Alas, the toxins natural from within
have seeped from their
latent resting place and have
contaminated the groundwater
that lubricated my mind,  
from siege engines poured,
a contamination of
mine own making.  
After a life long battle,
my Jericho walls have fallen.

Lear and I faint recall the love
of our beloved Cordelia,
but try as we might
her name escapes our grasp,
******* by bite of aging's asp.

We grow drunk by night
on a drink not of choice,
unhappy fury,
the residue within
the imprisoned poison
of our polluted tears,
that come only after our
misspoken and misshapen
guttural croaks
of our Eveningtide prayers
are both
unintelligible and unrequited
Written 6/01/11, after seeing Derek Jacobi as King Lear. This poem is about my fears of dementia which people close to me suffer from, sadly.  Now, I struggle to recall names and places. Poetry, not so much because I get to pick and choose words at my own speed. But someday, who knows....the time between day and night, is a metaphor for a beautiful slow, slipping away but be not deceived, by the quietude, tis not a reprieveof day before dark.

^ this rhyme, purportedly a child's view of siege engines that could not break the walled of the City of Gloucester (how ironic!)  in 1643

An abbreviated version of this poem goes like this:
Nat went to see King Lear,
Then went down to the beach
To watch the sun set, the evening arrive,
They both reminded him, of his fear
That someday he'll probably sunset like Lear
And end the play, the eve, mad, his mind deceived,
De-worded, defanged, his poetry retired, but not relieved
Danny Hefer Jul 2014
It is said that the man,
                                      not the gun,
                                                          kills.­
With a gun in your hand,
                                         you're no man,
                                                            ­    but a child.
                                          A child
                                                      who kills.
Regrets, they come in waves and break around his feet
And he begins to wonder who he might have been
Had roads diverged in different woods and fields
Not yellow or yet any colour still unseen
But clearer now by day than windless nights
Still nearer than the objects of his dreams

It'd rained late into the evening, and when the lights were shaded
Around the pool outside and with the windows shuttered
He'd thrown on loose clothes, flicked open an umbrella
While high outside the stars the lightning flashes muttered
Pulled open doors that led to the veranda
And moved outside once more with all his thoughts unuttered

The smoke, from fires on Java lies heavy on his senses
An omen of the time of year and of the past condition
He shrugs, ***** in the acidic nighttime odors
Reviving lives not lived but revealing his admission
That time beyond the present that mirrors every movement
Within, without, and yet again, the flicker of suspicion.

The pistol in his pocket, illegal not unloaded
A symbol of his state of mind and by  his sole discretion
He kneels beside the water, deep-set and in the shadows
Lips forming wordlessly around the last confession
Images of where and what and who and why and whether
A portent of that final action, sensing and impression

The smoke from fires on Java lies heavy on the water
The reek of cordite mixing with the smell of burning grasses
Indignant birds protest the crack of one small set expulsion
The echo round the swimming pool reverberates and passes
Nothing more and nothing less and time and space and matter
Slick red upon the treacherous tiles, the shattered bloodied glasses.
To those who asked: in spring, the farmers on the Indonesian islands of Java & Sumatra set fire to their fields to clear them for planting. Illegal but widely done. When the wind is in the right direction, the smoke drifts over the Java sea and covers the island of Singapore in a toxic mist which lasts for days. Suicides in the region increase during these depressing times, whatever the underlying causes...
Jude kyrie Jul 2018
AS THE BOMBS FELL A CHILD IS BORN.
A TRUE STORY
BY JUDE KYRIE

The night I was born the air was filled with the acrid odors of cordite and fire. Even the charred blossoms of the out of place cherry tree in the dark inner city gadens lost their sweet fragrance,
It was 1942 the war raged on like the four horsemen wanted it too.
Bombers of the Luftwaffe decided to obliterate our home at that moment.
Manchester was on fire and my first breaths were made of its deadly acrid smoke.
Inside the small row house beneath its humble living quarters we were sheltered under the cellar stairs.
My heavily pregnant mother and three older sisters clung to each other tightly as the roar of hate and violence crescendoed above the small house.
Somehow even in the darkened days of hopeless war I had been conceived in defiance of all the  hate a small flickering candle of love burning brightly in the darkness.
Missing from the house were my six older brothers who were away fighting in distant lands in the royal marines.
Also missing , my father who had served his country in the first world war. Now he walked in the darkened blackout of a Manchester on fire.
His job to watch for injured people he was  now too old to serve in any other way.
The bomb whistled as It fell from the sky its whining harbinger of death and destruction a precursor to its death knell of explosion a few moments later.
A cat oblivious to war and destruction watched the scene from beneath a stoop. The fires from the detonated TNT reflected in its wide green eyes.
The sound of our best friend the very air that we breathe to live being compressed into a weapon that would try to destroy us.
the blast wall of compression hit the structure of our house causing the supporting walls to fall inward and slowly to bury us alive in our cellar refuge,

My father at that very moment stood in front of the old catholic church of which he was a member with nine children as proof and soon to be ten.
The nave was on fire even gods house was not spared this night.

Father O'Brien appeared at the door of his beloved church in his arms in a long white smock was his altar boy he did not move nor would he ever again.
Tears flowed down the face of the old Irish priest. God has forsaken us Frank he cried to my father.

And together they walked in the mayhem of war.
As they reached our street my father saw his house destroyed and
His heart sank the priest last lament ringing in his ears.
A crowd of neighbours were pulling at the rubble. Mixed with plaster bricks a broken dish, a picture, a *** now so dented almost unrecognizable.
For hours they pulled and worked to reach the cellar.then finally they got there.
Under the cellar steps inside the gloom of blackened night we were all there covered in dirt and grime. Yet alive in defiance of the grim reaper increased by one more,
my mother held me to her breast to nurture her new child her seventh son.

My father wept as we were lifted out one by one.
He held me close to his heart covering me with his coat.
My mother kissed him and said
Oh Frank we have lost everything.
He touched her hair softly and said.
That's not true Mary love,
I just found everything I ever wanted.

across the yard a cat sat watching the fires in its eyes extinguished
and the scene of a happy reunion reflected in its place with the promise of happier times to come.
A true piece of my family history
jude
Nevermore Jul 2014
I would have loved to teach you
Chinese chess
And Muay Thai
Or even Brazilian Jiujitsu
Staining the mats
With sweat and stolen caresses
A serious session
That just might transition
From full guard
To full-on French kissing.

We could have watched Oldboy again
Together this time,
Or Glengarry Glen Ross,
My favorite movie.
And you could have shown me
A film major's favorite movies.

We could have tried the tacos
In Chupacabra,
The salmon sashimi in Sugi
(Their fresh sea urchin is the bomb, by the way).
I could even have cooked for you.
My vichyssoise isn't bad.
And you do love potatoes more than your own family.

Kayaking in the south,
Roadtripping all the way north,
Visited the stone houses and the honest folk
Of the northernmost islands.

Held contests
To see who could drink who under the table.
Your weakness is beer,
Mine is soju.
Could have seen who could hold whiskey better. 

I was dead serious too
When I said I was serious
About taking you
To the West Indies and North Africa
For that pilgrimage of yours.

I was prepared to hear what you had to say
About the things you see
The spirits calling to you
The dead dancing like wisps at dusk
Demons chasing you;
Skeptic or not,
I never would have minded you waking me up at 4 AM
To tell me about your latest vision.

Run cigarette companies out of business
Introduced you to my friends and my family
Listened to you sing and
Allowed awe to seize me again and again
Written a hundred poems in praise
And read your requital ones.

Kissed under the stars,
Talked in the dark
On the sand
Until 3 AM,
Exchanging yawns and hugs,
Bumming smokes off of each other
And greeting the sunrise
With a bottle of local moonshine
Bought from the fisherfolk.

Taken you shooting
9mm, .45, even 12 gauge.
Entwine my arms around you
Whisper in your ear
Inhale the cordite in the air and the smell of your skin
Teaching you shot placement
That you're pulling the trigger wrong
And hold your breath a bit and don't flinch.

Played Skyrim and CoD all night long
Yelled ******* at each other
While kicking *** on Tekken
And swapping spit in between rounds.

Made friends with your beagle
And discussed a life together
A dog, a cat, maybe no kids.
Just one, if ever.
Argued over names for the kid.

We had a real connection, too,
But, oh well,
How was I supposed to know
That you were just looking for cheap thrills
For transient pleasure
That the 'connection' was probably just one-way?
Maybe I'm just stupid.

I'll just have to find someone else
To do these things with.
Someone better, smarter, funnier,
But none of your legion of issues
The truckloads of your problems.

Have a nice day.
Harkaran May 2014
Over there a young boy falls
And over here a woman weeps
When bugle and clarion call
Not mothers, but army keeps
Children of the country then
In unsullied discipline when
Bugle and clarion cry for war
So father, son and brother fall
The awaiting woman's despair
Smell death and cordite in air
Fall flailing to the sister's woe
Fall weak with strong sorrow
To the old wife's fresh sadness
Fight, hero and fall with madness
eatmorewords Dec 2012
The snipers rifle hung from the parapet
still warm, cordite drifted from
the business end.

It resembled a cigarette,
dangling in the groove of an
ashtray which was given to you
as a souvenir from a place
you had no desire to go.

And you had no desire to go there
as you had read stories of donkey
cruelty and the militias’ refusal to
accept Greenwich as the
centre of time.

Their struggle against the meridian
has been well documented in film and
prose.

Stories and rumours filtered in
from the hinterland, carried home in
economy flights from different time zones
arriving at the terminal, milling around the
carousel.

****** victim 4 lay in a forensic
scene, white tapped surrounded by
duty free bags, and the secret dossiers
exposing the militias plans drifted, blood
stained in the breeze.
I am the past and I am the present. I am the digger of graves and the conveyance to them.
I am the string; connected to the puppets that wield my blows.

I am the thing they call, “Havoc” I am the Blue Monkey.

The key to my cage, that which sets me free is your disinterest, your apathy and hate. My freedom to roam unabated is your ignorance, and retribution’s ****** slate.  Man’s violence upon himself is my ignorant inspiration, and I revel in the thought of his de-creation.

I can be found in city and town, in far flung reaches around the world. I can be seen in newscast scenes, I can be found in the eyes of a starving child. My name is celebrated in ball ammo flight, and the pungent aroma of smoke and cordite.

I am the flame set to irreverent crosses; lighting the sky with racist delights, I am the tailor of white sheeted banners so bias. I am the unjustified 13 knots of retribution, fashioned on the hangman’s noose.

I am the thing they call “Havoc” I am the Blue Monkey.

Complacency is my friend, Revenge, my *****. Blood letting my delight, to even senseless scores. My hands are soiled with the lives of many, and I have been given freedoms in place of your outrage. Look around in farm and town, in village and city streets, my presence is everywhere…

Keep sleeping; keep sleeping,
For when you awake, I shall have to go.

I am the vehement articulations of opinion and rhetoric, and in spite of your diatribes,
It is they that give me wing. I am the developer of future battlefields. I was the architect of the Auschwitz oven, the builder of the Berlin wall. I was the sharpened blade of Tutsi, Hutu cleansings. I am the mix master of Jim Jones’s cool aide. I am confusion; I am disassociation, alienation and empty pride.

I am the thing they call “Havoc” I am The Blue Monkey.

You will find me in back alley shooting dens, on skid row’s bleeding pavement.
You will find me in lonely fields and dark forests, within the graves of the murdered unknown. You will see my reflection in broken mirrors, for I celebrate their fall,
And I will revel in the screams of your unheard call.
They call me destruction; I am your neutron bomb. I am the wings of the Enola Gay at thirty thousand feet, reaching out to touch you. With nuclear, holocaust treats.
I am dynamite, TNT, I am the thought imposed in political superiority. I am the IED
On the path of Man’s sacred journey.  I am travail and tribulation.

I am the thing they call “Havoc” I am the Blue Monkey.

I am the summation of all your perceived wrongs, and yet you tarry about,
Clanging self-righteous gongs,
You see, but you are blind, you listen but do not hear. Instead you wallow in the pits of self loathing and determinate fear. And in that fear, it becomes quite clear that indeed your hearts are closed, for to open them wide would cause your heart to collide with the awful truth about me.

Yes, keep sleeping; and sleep well,
For when you awake, I shall have to go.

For I am the thing they call “Havoc” I am the Blue Monkey…
douglas chesa Feb 2012
When I flare my nostrils
I sneeze cordite?
When I pout my big lips
Does hot magma erupt?
When my gored orbs roll
Behold liquid blitz come
to judgment?

Fingered nerves claw
At the fragile fabric of sanity
Kamikaze dreams make horrendous
Enterprise at vanishing sunbeam
Clamourous amorous wishes
Purr vapours of invisible kisses
With the gods of fantasy
Clawing up the dark wall of hope
Plastered with ancient ivy of determination
To live and kiss another day
And weave another gooey dream
Or to live another flirtation
With a phantom lover?

Stainless steel roses
For my garden (please!)
For roses are painted red
By blood from wounded dreams
And dust puffed from rusting trust
Because life has been unfaithful
Snogging and ******* with another
LOVER! In my bed.

I have nourished mine love tree
With tears from swollen eyes of hope
And ***** from fat bladder of determination
Red blood from amputated limbs
Of self-sacrifice and selflessness
I have tried.

Undress your mind and jump into bed
My mind often has balled fists against a woe
Than has it kissed many a *****
Blasted Judas! you are the foe
You took away her innocence
There is no red stain on the white linen
Only red lipstick on my pillow
And chewing gum in my hair...
My mind still swoons
To be deflowered
Undress my mind.

   -dougwa-
Swanswart Aug 2016
I bought myself a gun today.
I’ll give you a moment to process the mental paper work.
Is he serious?
Is this guy for real?
Is this a metaphor? Is it loaded?  

Are these questions
you might ask?
Isn’t this supposed to be a poem?

I said I bought myself a gun today.
Do you feel better?
Safer?
Do I
seem more dangerous?
Are my words more weighted now--
with violence?
with virility?
with *******?
Are you looking at my crotch
for an extra bulge?
How do you feel
about me now
knowing that I’m packing?

I bought myself a gun today,
And just like that
I’m a gangsta upholding the second amendment.
I’m a citizen of the constitution
holding up my right
to bear arms,
and raise my hand in a fist--
a fist, that’s gripped in tension
a fist that’s an extension
           of man and invention
           and I really should mention
          I can blow your ******* head off
          without the slightest intention.

I bought myself a gun today,
Are you scared:
that I don’t know how to use it?
That it might want to use me?
That I might become
overwrought with emotions,
and respond to an argument
“Arnold” style with, an,
   “I’ll be back?”--
that I might settle things
once and for all
with my noisy neighbor
in a language he might finally understand?
Are you scared?

I bought myself a gun today.
Does that make you worry?
You know what the statistics say,
That I have a better chance of shooting
myself,
than some intruder,
or mugger, or ******
or therapist even.
Are you worried about my self-destruction?
that I might I might accidentally
have an
accident?
Or, maybe, you may think,
that it might be on purpose?
that I might be singing
the, “Barrel-in-the-mouth blues?”--
not just fantasizing
about ‘em,
but singing ‘em with a with my mouth wide open,
and feeling them for real for real:
feeling the cold steel ‘cross
my tongue,
choking
on the taste of cordite,
really singing, “I can’t breathe,”
and how much
this ***** and having
the means to put and end to it all--
Are you worried about that?
If you are
then don’t,
‘cause I’m not thinking about that at all.

I bought myself a gun today.
Wouldn’t it be great
if we all could say:

I bought myself a gun today.
Joe Wilson Dec 2014
And the days were spent in wonder
at all the horrors He’d seen
He sent unholy flooding and chaos
To wash the planet clean.

To see if change was ever made
He waited then two thousand years
But horror still was all around
And what He saw proved all His fears.

Can man not recognise his fate
can he not see when he is wrong
can man not see of His design
that words like peace and love mean strong.

The fiery pits that destroy our Earth
aren't in the depths of Hell
they’ll be the fire and cordite
of that last exploding shell!!

©Joe Wilson – Self-made Armageddon… 2014
Del Maximo May 2010
October 11, 1944
mission Mt. Cauala
deep in the Appennines
veils of midnight
curtains of torrential rain
her rivers rise to block our way
the Vezza roaring like thunder
brilliant, blinding lightning baffling
stealing all sense of proportion
torn up roads like chasms tripping
dropped equipment lost in mud
visibility at absolute zero
feeling forward for each step
the man in front of you disappears in darkness
as each man to the rear gets lost
this blackness of night had not been foreseen
lightning flashes strobe the mountains above
thunder explodes like artillery fire
completely soaked soldiers stumble around
some find an abandoned shack
shelter near the Sera
rest until daybreak

as we enter Seravezza
our regimental commander cautions
the entire town under enemy eyes
scoping our every move
enemy machine guns sweep streets
heavy artillery regularly rakes buildings
some of our men already wounded
reconnaissance and plan of attack
Company I right, L center, K left
by 2310 the last man slips
into Sera’s icy waters
then climbs necessity’s ladders
built to negotiate the steep Rocky Ridge
jagged, knife-like edges rip clothing and tear flesh
as men try to find footing in blackness
chaos in the ranks
platoons and squads scattering
leaders have no way of knowing
if men are turning back
getting spattered by enemy machine guns
or losing their footing and lives
to the rocks below
calling out to each other
pinpoints our positions to enemy ears
drawing more accurate fire
by 0730 we are all atop the mountain
the German counter attack begins the day
fanatically, despite our heavy fire
they keep coming from three directions
expected flank from 1st Battalion does not arrive
still, German mortar fire and grenades
cannot dislodge our men
despite dwindling ammunition
we hold our position
BAR’s, Silver Stars and concussion grenades

a dozen volunteer for ammunition supply detail
as we approach the hill
a machine gun rakes our position
manned by two, our fire takes out one
the other carries him away
onward to hill’s base
progress paused by tremendous barrage
we crouch for a time before continuing
half way up we’re met
with more mortars and machine guns
shrapnel flying hot
burning into clothes and skin
the smell of gunpowder and cordite
burning into memory
our ammunition mission fails
forcing return to base of hill
with men from rifle companies following
at 1600 our own heavy artillery barrage falls short
striking entrenched remnants of companies K and L
this friendly fire is too much for tired men to take
they withdraw at opportunity’s first chance

darkness falls
soldiers roaming aimlessly
battle’s horror in shocked eyes
efforts made to gather wounded
seventy casualties in just one day
scores with battle shock and fatigue
but numbers never quantify
suffering, broken spirit and loss of life
trained men and officers killed
unhappy AWOLs and disciplinaries
find themselves as front line replacements
inexperienced men growling greatly
morale tanks

The battle of Seravezza crushed 3rd Battalion
despite several efforts
we were never able to take control
the Germans repelled every attack
soldiers were angered by impossible tasks
seemingly sent on suicide situations
we knew they knew where we were
we knew we were to face heavy bombardment
we knew we were without sufficient firepower or manpower
command knew we were out gunned
in the end
the Germans controlled the mountain
© May 27, 2010

adapted with permission from the book:
Black Warriors:  The Buffalo Soldiers of WWII
Memoirs of the Only ***** Infantry Division to Fight in Europe
by Ivan J. Houston, with Gordon Cohn
martin challis Jun 2014
While i was learning to savour the new taste of cashew and walnut in the autumn of that year
you were learning to eat the bones of your neighbours' dog as you fled from an earth gone moist
the leaves of war were torn from the jungle as a cavalry of shrapnel burnt away the air
you were learning to hold your breath while i was doing the same in a suburban swimming pool

when the dust of your family filled the lids of your eyes
being left to see for yourself held quite a different meaning
while your skin seared from the heat of warfire
i was feeling the warmth of a shopping centre in winter

when you went without feet, a landmine exploding your underneath world underneath
i sprained an ankle at basketball
the words of an american god spat forth from an automatic weapon
and you saw the tongues of the lamb inviting you to feast in a foreign language

and while i drew in crayon on the kindergarten wall
you were drawn in the crosshairs just before the smell of cordite
Used as a lyric by Elixir
Joe Wilson Mar 2014
They marched off with no idea of the forthcoming horrors
For thousands and thousands there would be no tomorrows
They were summoned, no choice, they just had to go
The fodder that falls when the big weapons bellow.

Men who yesterday were working out on the farm
Sent to **** other men who’d done them no harm
Young men who’d answered the clarion call
Went to The Somme, to die, and to fall.

The nightmare of trenches, the cries in the night
The black lines through letters home to cover-up the plight
The new men conscripted who died the same day
Who fell from the bullets before their first pay.

The young soldier killed at the point of a knife
The sad telegram to his new pregnant wife
The horror for one man as he killed another
Standing next to a stranger he now calls a brother.

The smell of the cordite that lingers everywhere
Accompanies the stench in this deathly nightmare
The noise that so deafens, that damages ears
Fearing cowardice charges young men hide their fears.

Men started this obscenity in quiet comfortable rooms
They don’t do the dying nor end up in war tombs
They’ll take all the glory any victories afford
That belongs to those buried beneath foreign green sward.

©JRW2014
Part of a series of WW1 poems I'm writing currently
Anais Vionet Jun 2023
(An exercise to write a sonnet in iambic pentameter)

With heavy heart, I offer my remorse,
for I'm too tired to dance this weary eve.
The echoes of my workday's tireless chores
linger, leaving naught but fatigue's relief.

Oh, believe me, I hate to disappoint,
for the music tempts me to sway and dance.
But the hours I've toiled, each task and each point,
have drained me to a tired nudnik, perchance.

My spirit, once bright, now longs for respite,
to find solace in rest and heal my self.
Though my love for dance burns hot like cordite,
exhaustion demands I stay on the shelf.

Forgive me, my friend, tonight I must rest,
but once refreshed, we’ll fete and dance with zest.
BLT Marriam Webster word of the day challenge: Nudnik a boring person
Joe Cole Sep 2014
At an early age I was trained to ****
To enjoy the moment enjoy the thrill
When the 7.62 found the mark
And ripped apart another's life
Getting high on cordite smoke
Turning the moment into another joke
Dipping fingers in the blood
That from my victim on the ground had spread
To glorify in his death
Then deprive another of his breath
With another one through his lungs
Wow killing can be so much fun
Do I care that their families weep
No they were just a bunch of creeps
And I'll **** some more if I get the chance
Then walk away without a backwards glance

BUT

No it never was like that
Because you become enmired in the crap
You **** yourself and your stomach heaves
From the stench of blood and ****
Carried on the breeze
No thrills no fun no stupid jokes
Just ****** pants and sweat and trembling limbs
No glory in the site of blood
Turning sandy ground into puddled mud
The stink of gunsmoke in your throat
It could have been me
Not the other bloke
No, its not like it's shown in the films
Jonathan Witte Nov 2016
Some nights it
is alarmingly
imperceptible:
an exoskeleton ascends
on iron rivets and steel;
unseen scaffolding tapers
to a steady pulsing point
of phosphorescence—
a mechanical heart
circulating red light
into leaden clouds.

Some nights the air thickens
with cordite, grief, and snow.

Tonight with winter here
we can see the tower’s
beacon blinking through
a tangled scrim of trees
half a mile across town,
and yet even with our
bodies squeezed together
like radio dials in the dark
we are unable to tune it in—
the signal that would calibrate
our estranged transistor hearts.
Geno Cattouse May 2013
Wickering destruction thundering from the summit
First a death rain then deafening sound.
                                                    Rumble­ and boom.
                                                    Cordite­ flowers bloom and twinkle in
                                                    The srarless night.
Whistle me home my friend though my face unseen.
Lock and load my friend .
Then whistle me swiftly home.

                                                     Mother stands in the doorway worlds apart. She ponders the sudden chill.

                                                      FIR­E. Pull the lanyard wire and whistle me home.away.

Soaring. Sireen.screaming thunder
True and deadly.
Ground zero stands the hero.

Drop the sight
Gunny,crank her down.
Lock and load Gunny
Fire and whistle me home.
For the veterans all who served and the ones who paid any price
In conflict.
Joe Wilson Nov 2014
They said they couldn’t **** another
a man a soldier might call a brother
but clearing death from sodden trenches
repairing trucks with rusty wrenches.
These men did their bit too.

Many a shot mowed these men down
in trenches filled with awful sound
they fell and died, their blood as red
and in the end were still as dead.
These men did their bit too.

Some men can’t fight no matter what
so other work was what they got
and midst the cordite battle smell
they picked dead comrades as they fell.
These men did their bit too.

Four long years the battles raged
by Armistice young men had aged
so many young men had sadly died
pacifist stretcher men by their side.
These men did their bit too.

Pacifists choose simply not to ****
Clearing bodies became their great skill
patching up wounded and moving them back
under the vilest of mortar attack.
These men did their bit too.

Soldiers died that we might live
reconcile now and forgive
peaceful men did also die
honour them too where they do lie.
These men did their bit too.



©Joe Wilson – They also served… 2014
Busbar Dancer Feb 2016
Neither table nor tide has turned.
The worm sits still.
Perhaps autumn will wane forever.
Fate has an ace up her sleeve, I'm sure,
since she's a cheating *****
who won't show her cards
even on the big blinds.
On these long, cold nights
the breath of the devil
Smells like coal-fired power and retail transactions.
Click here for free expedited shipping
if you're willing to breath the diesel fumes
pouring out of the Wilcox Tunnel
like cordite discharge from a gun barrel.
**** it.
I still love ice cold Coca Cola Classic
with its pretty can as red as
the blood of Christ.
Marshal Gebbie Sep 2011
The Captains and the Kings depart
Conflict’s flag descends the mast,
Skirmishes of battle stilled
Recriminations put to past.

A pageantry is in the air
Banners snap to stiff sea breeze,
White dust stirs as multitudes
Retreat in legions to the seas.

War retreats to motes of peace
Lost and honoured are deceased,
Weary troops are homeward bound
With mortal sins repealed by priest.

A stillness on the fields of mud
Skyward points artillery’s snout,
Cordite’s stink conceals the blood
Of legends made in battle’s route.

A stillness in the ringing ears
As corporals wend their weary way
To embarkation’s khaki fleet
Which wallows short in ocean sway.

A weariness of bone and limb
Bloodshot eyes glaze over now
Trudging to Creation’s Hymn
Juxtaposed by war... somehow?

Whitecaps on the ocean spray
The Captains and the Kings depart,
Repatriation’s cloak descends
To wrap war’s futile, cold, black heart.


Marshalg
Victoria Park Tunnel
9 September 2011
Geno Cattouse Nov 2013
Freddy krueger?
Kreuger?. Kept a leuger as backup. Sharp edged steel ?
Made him feel the essence of perdition.
But high speed projectiles made him smile just like burning cordite did.

So freddy hid. His piece in his back pocket. Wrapped around it was a chain and locket ,wrapped around a crucificx. For absolutions sake.

What made freddy tick.?
A temporal trick.
Wrong place right time.
Tick..... tick.... tick.
Joe Wilson Sep 2014
I've never killed in my long life
neither enemy soldier, politician, nor wife
This feat that causes me no surprise
Is what we call living in its normal guise.

I would never be so naïve as to say
The pen is always the only way
But it seems to me that war only proved
Who will remain, and who is removed.

And all this killing that leaves nations bereft
With the vile bitter cordite smell that is left
Widows lose husbands, fathers lose sons
Babies are dying from the barrels of guns.

To save nations weapons of course must be used
But there are so many people who are being abused
And when one discusses what is now simply absurd
There is nothing that is mightier than the word.

©Joe Wilson - The word is STOP...2014


"War does not determine who is right - only who is left".
Bertrand Russell
Mike Essig Dec 2015
He had only been home from the war for six days when she knocked on his door. He had been contemplating suicide. Sworn to secrecy by law and strange spooks with dead eyes, he couldn't tell her that. Whatever wounds he had suffered were his to bear alone and would be for many years. Still, his world was so turned upside down by the madness he had just escaped that her unexpected arrival seemed appropriate.

San Francisco, 1972; not the halcyon hippie days, but the lull shortly thereafter. It was a good place to be, safe and cheap. Much better than upland Laos with its piles of dead ***** and terrifying firefights. His apartment at Geary and Van Ness cost $275 dollars a month and felt like a sanctuary.

And there she stood, even more beautiful at nineteen than she had been at fifteen when they first made love on the grass in their hometown cemetery beside the Civil War memorial near the pile of cannon *****. You don't turn down a vision.

Come in, he said, and she didn't so much enter as flutter back into his scarred life. Her traveling companion, a nondescript hippie wannabee, stood beside her. She dismissed him with a wave of her hand and he disappeared.

That night, they made love like tigers. All the unspent lust accrued in battle erupted out of him and flowed into her. He wasn't gentle or considerate or skillful. When they ******, he smelled cordite, heard choppers beating and saw bloated corpses. It was like another deadly encounter in the bush, ferocious and abrupt. What she made of it, he couldn't tell, but she was more than game.

He had orders for Germany, but that was weeks away. They spent those weeks mostly in bed, as only the very young can manage, doing it every way they knew or could imagine. That tornado of desire took the edge off his rage and sense of betrayal. It may have saved his life.

Later, when he flew away, she stood and waved, astonishingly lovely in a miniskirt, her long chestnut hair flowing. She had no idea what she had done.

Things changed. It was decades before they really talked again. By then not even her name was the same, if she even really had one. Although their lives had long diverged, the connection remained, name or not. When he saw her, after all that time, all those bodies, all those endless miles, she was exactly the same girl who had knocked on his door those thirty-six years gone and he knew in that instant that nothing true ever really dies.
- mce
rp
Geno Cattouse Apr 2013
A casual thing so slight and airy
     Splintered hearts ground to fine powder.
           Hard leather heel ,headless on the pivot.

Next casualty in the reticle
grist for the mill
cordite in the breeze.

Shadows on the wall
rendered by the blast.

A  casual thing so like a fairytale
   Wintered in the north , now the thawing out.
          Cast with ease behind her, no crying if you please.
John F McCullagh Feb 2013
Taps

The smell of cordite fades
as the day declines to dusk.
the reek of iron rises
From brave men who'll soon be dust.

A solitary bugler,
Plays a mournful song;
Serenades the fallen
Two short notes, then one long.

The sinking Sun is fiery red,
Like Mars, the god of war.
The honored dead?
Not one of them
Recalls what they died for.
Mike Essig Feb 2017
Only the dead
       know the end of war.*

Sit abruptly upright
into shivering darkness.
Nothingness shimmers
before your eyes.
A whiff of cordite.
Echoes of screams.
Distinct feel of falling.
War holds on tight,
even in dreams.
Blessed absence of details,
although the stink
of fear remains.
Remember when you are.
Try to go back to sleep.
The past has passed.
The future will keep.
There is the smell of cordite
a whiff of midnight in the air,
I stir two sugars in my tea
glad that's it's not me,
outside smoking bullets.
Mike Essig Sep 2015
He smells like his life:

weary smells of
whiskey and leather,
the dead stink of
too many cigarettes,
the mingled perfumes
of many lovely women,
the dark, sticky
whiff of lust and ***,
the acrid stench of
cordite and ******,
the copper reek of blood,
the honest sweat of work,
with just a hint of ink
and **** thrown in.

This effluvium may not
be sweetly attractive
or call to butterflies
and hummingbirds,

but it is the aroma
of a life lived alive.

   ~mce
A challenge.
Gun sight and cordite
hot dang,
boom bang
pistols at dawn, all
echoes from before
I was born.

In the Wild West untamed
well named,
staking claims
California
meeting dames,
sarsaparilla,
only one of them
will **** ya.

Gun sight and boot hill,
Tombstone
where they ****
bad men
and
preachers.
Joe Cole May 2015
and those brave boys and girls who still serve*

It was for you that we gave so much
We who by the terror of war were touched
To the ones who made the final sacrifice
The ones left shattered in body and mind
For us the pain is less with passing years
But the memories remain
Not all did feel the bullets bite
Nor smell the acrid cordite smoke
But all who served are heros still
For they to were there when the country called
Your right to stand free and have your say
Was the reason they served , for your today
Many now lie in unmarked graves
Because the bomb and mortar leave few remains
Now we who are left must lead the way
In ensuring those gone are not forgot
For those we'll raise the standards high
As we remember them
Under freedoms sky
Taliesin Jan 2019
Smell of cordite, soft
resolution, half whispered:
Slow ash on the wind
Took a break from posting since the solstice, hopefully this should see me back on track
Mike Essig Apr 2015
The sky was appropriately the color of gun metal. The smell of cordite clung like rancid perfume. He inhaled. It wasn't much to look at. Not so much a field as a clearing. A patch of nothing blasted onto the hilltop by the exhalation of a few 500 pound bombs. The earth was loose; plowed by mortars and cultivated by machine guns. A place men would have to cross under fire without cover; a place where men would be harvested. Not completely, though. It had been awhile. Some vegetation had encroached. Here and there it smoldered. The jungle never slept. Like the enemy, it kept coming back. There were lumps strewn about at random. Large lumps, the bodies of the dead. Smaller lumps, pieces of them. Dragon's teeth, clumsily sown. At first light the grunts had gone out and executed the wounded, laughing as they blew their brains out. He didn't blame them. Mercy was absurd in war; only death was logical. The bodies would be left to caution the enemy. It wouldn't help, though. They would return. Like the jungle. Until it was theirs for good. The first result would be stench; the second, compost. When the jungle finally returned, where the lumps were would be just a little greener. That a man's death might produce so little. He took it all in one last time. So this is what a battlefield looks like. *******.
  - mce
MRQUIPTY Oct 2016
flaming torches in scattered line held high
crowd shouted back behind a safety line
celebrants, ministers officiate in stripes


dressed darkly to intimidate memories of war
red suited stranger rides along devil's tails
splitting ****** for laffs and noise spitting
arc light ahead of spent charred bullet case



screams evoked. stifles laughter as the smoke
evokes the War in mud so here : sticks are rifles.
over amplified comes over as cod eulogy flashes
the ears while sincerity plays out the church gate

we stand flickering eyed



"Feed the World ..."

murders silence

saviours hurry

"Turn it off, Harry"



Peace after a slowed to halt drum
Torches squared parafin trickle
air with smokey wax and uncertain
light that makes black to meet
the dark


poppies burn by the church gate


plans broken into an atrocious
conflict of split fuses sputtering
orange stars into painted skulls


burning splints takes cordite's place
making the air like thick magasines
filled with dum-dum bullets. homages
to horror waiting for the drum .


march.

the parade moves starkly on

cowboys

then

pearls

and

Devils tail.
Nigdaw Jul 2019
Gun
hammer click
whip crack
cordite burn

God
the power to take
or spare life
in the palm of a hand
lay down the law
terrorise
oppress
destroy

no returns
no time to apologise
a decision made in haste
regretted for life

— The End —