Even the sun-clouds this morning cannot manage such skirts.
Nor the woman in the ambulance
Whose red heart blooms through her coat so astoundingly ----

A gift, a love gift
Utterly unasked for
By a sky

Palely and flamily
Igniting its carbon monoxides, by eyes
Dulled to a halt under bowlers.

O my God, what am I
That these late mouths should cry open
In a forest of frost, in a dawn of cornflowers.

They are always with us, the thin people
Meager of dimension as the gray people

On a movie-screen.  They
Are unreal, we say:

It was only in a movie, it was only
In a war making evil headlines when we

Were small that they famished and
Grew so lean and would not round

Out their stalky limbs again though peace
Plumped the bellies of the mice

Under the meanest table.
It was during the long hunger-battle

They found their talent to persevere
In thinness, to come, later,

Into our bad dreams, their menace
Not guns, not abuses,

But a thin silence.
Wrapped in flea-ridded donkey skins,

Empty of complaint, forever
Drinking vinegar from tin cups: they wore

The insufferable nimbus of the lot-drawn
Scapegoat.  But so thin,

So weedy a race could not remain in dreams,
Could not remain outlandish victims

In the contracted country of the head
Any more than the old woman in her mud hut could

Keep from cutting fat meat
Out of the side of the generous moon when it

Set foot nightly in her yard
Until her knife had pared

The moon to a rind of little light.
Now the thin people do not obliterate

Themselves as the dawn
Grayness blues, reddens, and the outline

Of the world comes clear and fills with color.
They persist in the sunlit room: the wallpaper

Frieze of cabbage-roses and cornflowers pales
Under their thin-lipped smiles,

Their withering kingship.
How they prop each other up!

We own no wilderness rich and deep enough
For stronghold against their stiff

Battalions.  See, how the tree boles flatten
And lose their good browns

If the thin people simply stand in the forest,
Making the world go thin as a wasp's nest

And grayer; not even moving their bones.

(a conversational collaboration with Chris D Aechtner)


"remember the dream I had when we were 10?
(waves and waves of cornflowers everywhere)
about the boy and the closet?
(sunflowers, circle, glass house?....closet, yes)
cornflower blue
(the closet was cornflower blue?)
the light in that dream was cornflower blue
(the air, the atmospheric light?)
yes, especially in the closet

I had that dream for so long
I'll never forget
little boy blue and the kingfishers --
the blue and white china plates
with the bridge and the lovers; the two doves in the willow tree,
that made me look for japanese letters....horse.

the funny things we do as children

(you are writing a poem....)
catch the words, my love
(you already wrote a poem up there; bridge it together --
I dried cornflowers with dandelions in a blue and white book; but it wasn't a dream.
Well, in a way it was, because at the time, I was floating in the clouds)

he wore a blue and white striped top in my dream

and I remember him
when I look at the sky,
the clouds and the golden sun --

I caught the words!
(yes! did you string them all together?)*

not yet!"

****** 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!



Less Heroic Couplets: Marketing 101
by Michael R. Burch

Building her brand, she disrobes,
naked, except for her earlobes.



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

for Beth

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



Cover Girl
by Michael R. Burch

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

In this case the cover is a bed cover, where the enterprising young mistress is about to be covered herself.



First Base Freeze
by Michael R. Burch

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



Nun Fun Undone
by Michael R. Burch

for and after Richard Thomas Moore

Abbesses’
recesses
are not for excesses!



Less Heroic Couplets: *** Hex
by Michael R. Burch

for and after Richard Thomas Moore

Love’s full of cute paradoxes
(and highly acute poxes).

Published by ****** of Parnassus, Lighten Up Online and Poem Today



Retro
by Michael R. Burch

Now, once again,
love’s a redundant pleasure,
as we laugh
at my childish fumblings
through the acres of your dress,
past your wily-wired brassiere,
through your *******’ pink billows
of thrill-piqued frills ...
Till I lay once again—panting redfaced
at your gayest lack of resistance,
and, later, at your milktongued
mewlings in the dark ...
When you were virginal,
sweet as eucalyptus,
we did not understand
the miracle of repentance,
and I took for granted
your obsessive distance ...
But now I am happily unbuttoning
that chaste dress,
unhitching that firm-latched bra,
tugging at those parachute-like *******—
the ones you would have gladly forgotten
had I not bought them in this year’s size.

Originally published by Erosha



Poppy
by Michael R. Burch

“It is lonely to be born.” – Dannie Abse, “The Second Coming”

It is lonely to be born
between the intimate ears of corn . . .
the sunlit, flooded, shellshocked rows.

The scarecrow flutters, listens, knows . . .
Pale butterflies in staggering flight
ascend the gauntlet winds and light
before the scything harvester.

The winsome buds of cornflowers
prepare themselves to be airborne,
and it is lonely to be shorn,
decapitate, of eager life
so early in love’s blinding maze
of silks and tassels, goldened days
when life’s renewed, gone underground.

Sad confidante of worm and mound,
how little stands to be regained
of what is left.
A tiny cleft
now marks your birth, your reddening
among the amber waves. O, sing!

Another waits to be reborn
among bent thistle, down and thorn.
A hoofprint’s cleft, a ram’s curved horn
curled inward, turned against the heart,
a spoor like infamy. Depart.

You came too late, the signs are clear:
whose world this is, now watches, near.
There is no ****** for the heart.

Originally published by Borderless Journal



Virginal
by Michael R. Burch

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.



If Love Were Infinite
by Michael R. Burch

If love were infinite, how I would pity
our lives, which through long years’ exactitude
might seem a pleasant blur—one interlude
without prequel or sequel—wanly pretty,
the gentlest flame the heart might bring to bear
to tepid hearts too sure of love to flare.

If love were infinite, why would I linger
caressing your fine hair, lost in the thought
each auburn strand must shrivel with this finger,
and so in thrall to time be gently brought
to final realization: love, amazing,
must leave us ash for all our fiery blazing.

If flesh’s heat once led me straight to you,
love’s arrow’s burning mark must pierce me through.



Plastic Art or Night Stand
by Michael R. Burch

Disclaimer: This is a poem about artificial poetry, not love dolls! The victim is the Muse.

We never questioned why “love” seemed less real
the more we touched her, and forgot her face.
Absorbed in molestation’s sticky feel,
we failed to see her staring into space,
her doll-like features frozen in a smile.
She held us in her marionette’s embrace,
her plastic flesh grown wet and slick and vile.
We groaned to feel our urgent fingers trace
her undemanding body. All the while,
she lay and gaily bore her brief disgrace.
We loved her echoed passion’s squeaky air,
her tongueless kisses’ artificial taste,
the way she matched, then raised our reckless pace,
the heart that seemed to pound, but was not there.



She Was Very Pretty
by Michael R. Burch

She was very pretty, in the usual way
for perhaps a day;
and when the boys came out to play,
she winked and smiled, then ran away
till one unexpectedly caught her.

At sixteen, she had a daughter.
She was fairly pretty another day
in her squalid house, in her pallid way,
but the skies ahead loomed drably grey,
and the moonlight gleamed jaundiced on her cheeks.

She was almost pretty perhaps two weeks.
Then she was hardly pretty; her jaw was set.
With streaks of silver scattered in jet,
her hair became a solemn iron grey.
Her daughter winked, then ran away.

She was hardly pretty another day.
Then she was scarcely pretty; her skin was marred
by liver spots; her heart was scarred;
her child was grown; her life was done;
she faded away with the setting sun.
She was scarcely pretty, and not much fun.

Then she was sparsely pretty; her hair so thin;
but a light would sometimes steal within
to remind old, stoic gentlemen
of the rules, and how girls lose to win.



Cold Snap Coin Flip
by Michael R. Burch

Rise and shine,
The world is mine!
Let’s get ahead!

Or ...

Back to bed,
Old sleepyhead,
Dull and supine.



Song Cycle
by Michael R. Burch

Sing us a song of seasons—
of April’s and May’s gay greetings;
let Winter release her sting.
Sing us a song of Spring!

Nay, the future is looking glummer.
Sing us a song of Summer!

Too late, there’s a pall over all;
sing us a song of Fall!

Desist, since the icicles splinter;
sing us a song of Winter!

Sing us a song of seasons—
of April’s and May’s gay greetings;
let Winter release her sting.
Sing us a song of Spring!



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

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

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

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

*

Over(t) Simplification
by Michael R. Burch

“Keep it simple, stupid.”

A sonnet is not simple, but the rule
is simply this: let poems be beautiful,
or comforting, or horrifying. Move
the reader, and the world will not reprove
the idiosyncrasies of too few lines,
too many syllables, or offbeat beats.

It only matters that *she taps her feet
or that he frowns, or smiles, or grimaces,
or sits bemused—a child—as images
of worlds he’d lost come flooding back, and then ...
they’ll cheer the poet’s insubordinate pen.

A sonnet is not simple, but the rule
is simply this: let poems be beautiful.

I once found my heart in Catawaba
Where the blue cornflowers flourish between
Arabesque petals floating from the snowy dogwood trees
Encasing the air with the thick fragrance of innocence
You took from me beneath the dying maple tree.

The monotone cubicle in which you thrived
Wouldn't suffice for the rose petals lingering
Between your flushed lips drenched pale in the moonlight
Breathing "You are beautiful"
Smoking cigarettes with your mind.

That solid rock
on which pearly
mountains grew
seemed ageless.

Like shifting tots
on playgrounds
more than anything
thrilled to finally fill
the bitter silence
speak to me again
with church bell
hush.

Applaud with clapping
wings of butterflies, but
where have all the fireflies
gone?

Little lanterns barging in
like riots begging
the whiskey night,
like riverbanks in
Kentucky.

Better than the blue
plain cornflower hill
that thanked Heaven
for it's tender wet kiss.

It's raining,
it's raining again
sings the dawn.

The cornflowers
By Sam Karlsson

Your brown shadow falters
in the umber down feathers of summertime.

I catch tremulous thoughts of you for a second;
but they slip my grasp - lancing light.
The shards of memory suffuse
softly and then evaporate.

Once more your sylvan form appears to me,
twenty years ago in that green dress -  
cool cotton kissing honey skin
as we make moves in sunshine.

"Father, what is love?" interposes our son,
as, holding hands, we walk to meet you.

"She's a cruel mistress," I half joke,
furtively glancing at the half spent pavement
of my past and present, patting his brown head -
a blur of uncombed hair rising from unwashed uniform.

"But my teacher says that God is love!"
he exclaims, confused,
with bright soft eyes full of earnest enquiry.

"She's not wrong," I whisper,
in gentle deference
as we turn past the familiar
corner of our graveyard.

He catches my doting look as
an autumnal breeze washes over the
warm cellophane and rustles
the blue cornflowers.

Her dark pupils
were surrounded
by a raging silver flame
swallowed by a wave
of cerulean blue

It was as if each shade
swirled into one whirlpool
of exquisite beauty;

The soft petals
of a field of cornflowers,

The electric flash
of lightning during a storm,

The sparkling surface
of a star-stained river
rushing to join the sea
—
A sea that made it difficult to stay above the waves

The way Easter grass felt on bare feet
like sadness in its melancholy dampness,
so sweet.
Reminds me of the tears that refused to leave your eyes.
Spring, in my mind, much taken a backstreet.
The girls that came only with the sun,
gone with the songbirds, with the nothing and none.
Flowers of pale and humble, simple hues.
You, standing still against a backwards sky. Searching for blues on blues on blues.
That tree I’d climb until I could not find need to pluck a pear and fall to the ground
bones all split and worthless, blood gone brown.
By a certain height you start to feel so small,
wondering if to break would matter at all.
As long as May swept between our lips,
to your scream, whispering lies.
I fall in love with an empty man,
Watch him through the years,
the fall and the rise.
Now, in your eyes, stolen land;
even the cornflowers have died.

The lightest touch brisks my skin,
lost in halcyon amongst the wild marigolds
and cornflowers, I play with laughter.
Azure skies roll into my being
like a Shire horse I am caught
in trusting servitude.
The bladed grass slivers
a serpentine's story
florescent in camouflage.
As a reborn sprite
I commend myself.

Do steam trains go from Kings Cross to Scotland? Lydia asks. Her father sober smiles. Are you eloping with the Benny boy of yours? He says. Big eyes staring; blue  large marble like. Whats eloping? She asks, frowning. Running off to be married secretly, the daddy says. No, Benedict and I are only nine, so how would we be eloping? Practice run? No no, she says. Nibbles her buttered toast her mother gave. You be mindful, busy that place; crowds are there. He sips his tea. She nibbles more toast, staring at him. How are you getting there; too far to walk? Dont know; Benedictll know; he knows these things. Underground trains best, the daddy suggests. But how to get the money for fare? He asks; his eyes narrow on to her. Dont know, she says, looking at the tablecloth, patterned, birds. Has your Benny boy the money? Sober, good humoured, he smiles. Expect so, she says, doubtful. See your mother, ask her, he suggests, smiling, as if. Well, must be off, work calls, he says. Where are you today? She asks. Train driving to Bristol. Is that near Scotland? He smiles, shakes the head. No, Bristols west, Scotlands north; do you not know your geography? The daddy says. She shrugs. Sober he shakes the head. Well, Im off. See your mother about the fares. She nods; he goes taking a last sip of tea. She eats the buttered toast, cold, limp. She sits and gazes out the window. Sunny, warm looking. The birds on the grass; the bomb shelter still there. Wonders if the mother will. Money for fares. Knock at the front door. Her daddy answers. Opens up. Your Bennys here, Princess, he mocks. See you mind her, Benny boy, shes my precious, the daddy says out the door and away. Lydia goes to the door. Benny is standing there looking at her daddy walking through the Square. Her mother comes to the door wiping her hands on an apron, hair in rollers, cigarette hanging from her lip corner. Whats all this? her mother asks. Lydia looks at Benny. He gazes at the mother. Kings Cross, he says. Is he? The mother says. Train station, Benny adds unsmiling. So? We thought wed go there, Lydia says, shyly, looking at her mother. How do you think of getting there? Underground train, Daddy said. Did he? And did he offer the money? No, said to ask you. Did he? The mother pulls a face, stares at Lydia and Benny. Am I to pay his fare, too? She says, staring at Benny. No, Ive me own, he says, offering out a handful of coins. Just as well. If your daddyd not been sober youd got ****** all permission to go to the end of the road, her mother says, sharp, bee-sting words. Wait here, she says, goes off, puffing like a small, thin, locomotive. Benny stands on the red tiled step. Your dad was sober? She nods, smiles. Rubs hands together, thin, small hands. How are you? Fine, excited if we go, she says, eyeing him, taking in his quiff of hair and hazel eyes; the red and grey sleeveless jumper and white skirt, blue jeans. He looks beyond her; sees the dull brown paint on the walls; a smell of onions or cabbage. Looks past her head at the single light bulb with no light shade. Looks at her standing there nervous, shy. Brown sandals, grey socks, the often worn dress of blue flowers on white, a cardigan blue as cornflowers. They wait. Hows your mother? Ok, he replies. Your dad? Hes ok, he says. They hear her mother cursing along the passage. He says ask for this, but he never dips in his pocket I see, except for the beer and spirit, and o then it out by the handfuls. She opens her black purse. How much? Dont know. The mother eyes the boy. How much? Two bob should do. Two bob? Sure, shell give you change after, Benny says. Eye to eye. Thin line of the mothers mouth. Takes the money from her purse. Shoves in Lydias palm. Be careful. Mind the roads. Lydia looks at her mother, big eyes. Shyly nods. You, the mother points at the boy. Take care of her. Of course. Beware of strange men. I will. Stares at Benny. Hes my Ivanhoe, Lydia says. Is that so. Go then, before I change my mind. Thin lips. Large eyes, cigarette smoking. Take a coat. Lydia goes for her coat. Hows your mother? The mother asks, looks tired when I see her. Shes ok, gets tired, Benny says, looking past the mothers head for Lydia. Not surprised with you being her son. Benny smiles; she doesnt. He looks back into the Square. The baker goes by with his horse drawn bread wagon. Hemmy on the pram sheds with other kids. What you doing making the fecking coat? The mother says over her thin shoulder. Just coming, Lydia replies. Shes there coat in hand. The mother scans her. Mind you behave or youll feel my hand. Lydia nods, looks at Benny, back at the mother. Mind the trains; dont be an **** and fall on the track, the mother says, eyeing Benny, then Lydia. Shes safe with me, Benny says. Ill keep her with me at all times. Youd better. I will. Eye to eye stare. And eat something or youll faint. Ill get us something, the boy says. The mother sighs and walks back into the kitchen, a line of cigarette smoke following her. Ok? She nods. They go out the front door and Lydia closes it gently behind her, hoping the mother wont rush it open and change her mind. They run off across the Square and down the *****. Are we eloping? She asks. What? Us are we eloping? No, train watching. Why? The daddy says. Joking. Sober. Benny smiles, takes in her shy eyes. Whats eloping? He asks. Running off to marry, Daddy says. Too young. Practice run. Daddy said. Not today, Benny says, smiling, crossing a road. Looking both ways. Not now, not in our young days.

Sometimes I miss you in a way that it hurts
Sometimes I so need to hold you when you're not here
I pick up your pillow and hug it
Sometimes you're here holding my hand,
Your breath kissing my cheek
Sometimes I feel you in the room silently keeping me safe
Sometimes a message reaches my soul from yours that lifts my spirit
Sometimes I can't go on without you and yearn for your return
Sometimes love is a mistress
That takes you and throws you against the wall but never lets go
Sometimes my heart overflows with so much love
It drenches me
My body soaked and heavy with emotion, passion
And a longing for the brush of your lips on mine
Sometimes this life is a mass of lost thoughts
Competing with a reality of the day
Sometimes I wish I could lift you up in my arms
Take you to a field of buttercups, poppies and cornflowers
And just lie and stare at the sky with you in my arms
Sometimes,  sometimes,  sometimes

WOBBLE


My questions are no longer keen,
Small pebbles on the bottom line.
My senses bring flavors within,
They blow out my mind like a wine.

The river washes its ground bed
For many years going ahead.

I don'’t search, I don'’t wait, I don’t hope.

All tears left my memory stream,
A fire grows high from a dream.

The past is a white timeless night,
A blind moon forgetting to shine.
I still feel a cold flimsy light
So deep in this body still mine.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

OUR OLD HOUSE


Wandering most everywhere,
I passed once by that small creek,
Finding our old house there
Where I used to hide-and-seek.

I passed once by the small creek
Where wild grasses grew so tall,
And I looked over the wall.

Finding our old house there,
With gossamer nets as drapes
With my grandpa’'s sour grapes.

Where I used to hide and seek
All the trees were almost dried,
I looked back again and cried...


>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

INTUITION


Like a heart upon a stone,
Amber burning on a pyre,
Like the scent drilling to bone
On that painful, brilliant fire,

Like a walking on a wing,
Rustles waking up our ears,
Dreams forgotten every spring,
The beginning of all fears,

Like a truth in this time flight,
Finding in my palm foundation,
Which I held maybe too tight
To believe in its perfection.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

A PAIR


She liked white roses in a vase,
Visiting art shops after school,
He liked sci-fi, boxing, sport cars,
Swimming each Monday in the pool.

They met one day while it was raining,
Shopping for hats on the main street,
And both of them were just complaining,
Because the colors were not fit.

He needed black, she wanted blue.
They saw each other in the mirror.
She smiled at once without a clue,
For she was not a conqueror.

They were engaged after a year:
She wearing blue with a black glove,
Cornflowers for the atmosphere,
Both with straw hats, vowing their love.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

THE STORM


A heavy cloud’s silence is shattered
Through every lightning shrilly blast,
Painful memories are scattered
Like night’s haunting blues from the past.

This time flight of questions and fears
Trims yesterday hopes’ flimsy wings.
My last open smile disappears,
An omen among other things :

A dark moon burns under my eyes,
Coating in ashes a blunt knife.
Red stars hide behind summer skies
Long, tedious and dull feelings' strife.

And if I abandon my dreams
Refusing to taste bitter dew,
Ignited by lost love, like gleams,
Tears grow within torches of rue.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

THE SAME SONG


So many dreams in Venice blurred,
Stars showing gondolas their way.
With sparkless eyes, a lonesome bird
Mourns quietly his love gone stray.

A lonely girl with shaggy hair
Walks all alone in St. Mark's Square.
Her memories dance under vaults
Along a gondolier's sad waltz.

~

I'm not pretty enough for cornflowers.

Sentimental,
A touch of my soul with fingertips lurid,
Passionate, fiery, awake!
Stroke my soul with dying cornflowers,
Bachelors' buttons washed out!

Once moist and fresh,
Death by dehydration of suns heat destroyed!
Meadow was brightly biting harsh,
Piercing bright,
Once lightly fragrant ,
Hurling wishes at aqua acquaintance,
Share loves wishes and kisses with my soul,
As I sit I live and breathe,

So she will survive,
Burning with sun washed love,
She's alive!
Laced with crushed velvet, in royal blue,
Speckled scarlet tinged, stained,
Heart in tamponade,
Engulfed, crushed, warm blood soaked,
Drenched in loves' colourful array.

Fragility personified honestly,
Soft, warming, comforting,
Only for you!
By ladylivvi1

© 2013 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)

Secret agent.
Agent provocateur.
She's got herself a boyfriend now.
A human sacrifice to free.
Taken yet another lover.

Life chucked her on a rolling ball.
A downhill rat,she's running.
Cunning hits and crazy fits.
My God, that girl is stunning.

Thought she had it all and more.
Said cornflowers just ain't like like that, twiddling on the Bachelors Buttons.

Life chucked her on a rolling ball.
A down hill rat,she's running.
Cunning hits and crazy fits.
My God, that girl is stunning.

She makes no broken promises.
Stormy seas are for riding,
Forbidden to be free.
You who were perfection.
Crazy notion, love devotion.
Riding on a carousel.
For she's the lady Moriarty.
She's willing for the ****.
(c) Livvi

Cornflowers so blue
Lovely skies soft, powder blue
Blues within banished

I cannot be doing with this peering into the darkness
This wondering and dreaming is a little tiring, my darling -
As tired as the dusty cornflowers, once upon a time, beguiling.
Your heart - perched and sat - is being wasted, love pouring
Upon something that will be, nevermore.

Don’t know where
she said

standing by the back gate
which backed

onto the woods
with the evening creeping in

and she having snuck out
of her house without

her mother seeing
looked quite nervous

and kept looking back
over her shoulder

as if her mother
may have followed

can’t go to my place
she said

or mine you said
they’re always there

especially this time
of an evening

what about the hay barn?
You suggested

looking at her eyes
blue cornflowers

and that smile
that could have lit

fires in dark places
and she said

don’t want no hay stalks
touching my ***

and she laughed
and you wanted to capture

her laughter
and that smile

and her bright blue eyes
and your youth

and that thinking
you had forever

and the monopoly
on truth.

I have very sad eyes and white hands.
My child will be born happy.

Over the earthen bread the napkin of the sky will fall,
the baptism of my son among the men who, just like me, love
their land and their work, the joy of giving, the beauty of being human,
the tall firs’ grace, the murmuring waters, the living seed within the ground.
Upon the teardrops of ****** pain a song will fall,
that unseen song that was written on a starlit staff.

For us it’s raining too much, too often,
someone gathers all cornflowers and scatters them on our bed.
When I look into my child’s eyes I am smaller and smaller,
I am warmer and warmer and I have a house of my own
with fireplace and toys,
with simple windows that let the clear sky come in entirely
after my child wipes off the steam of his breath.

All those flowers between us and we stay together.
My child plays with my fingers without counting them.
For him they are more and more as he touches them.
Just like me, he was born happy.

dripping with candle
burns when
silent confession in grimace draws heart

in the bark of oak grown together in two
As with moss inaudible
insects

on the steps of cold
go and hear the old wood with knots
drink honey

You'll feel better
in addition to the field of cornflowers poppies bloom
and cheeks

and then

I love the country life,
in between the feral cats
and hawks.
Morning coffee March
I sip it with Irish crème and  smile.
Last night I fell
asleep inside her.
Safe and sound
and domesticated in her
tight wet walls.
We came together in
determined silence.
Family in the next
room.

I love the country life;
the ponds and streams and
sun soaked meadows.
The wild asparagus and
gooseberries.
In her arms my spirit rests.
My tired wings
find a nest better
than the barn swallows,
stronger than the eagles.
I'm a brook trout
swimming through
her veins.

I love the country life.
Coonhounds and cornflowers,
coyotes yipping and
bobcats tiptoeing up on
shocked field mice.
Last night, after we died
a little in each other's arms,
I gently rubbed her
cheek and kissed her
eyelids, nose, and lips.
I breathed in deep the
smell of lavender, ***, and
home, the safest
fragrance I know.

You can give them the world and show them how they shine,
you can read love and meaning into every line,
but if the author of the script doesn't see you together,
let cornflowers grow over it and you will be better

My elephant earring fell out of my ear
and onto some lonely floor in a place
that is not here or there.

But I know that when it
hit the ground, it cracked open, letting out particles of dust.
And in the dust there is a galaxy, full of
stars and planets, and dusty cracks.
Through the cracks there is an orange.
I peel back the skin and there is a lemon.
I peel back that skin and my grandmother is there
holding the leash of her dead golden retriever.
Inside of her there is a field of cornflowers and Queen Anne’s lace.
Beneath the field are quilts
made of every t-shirt I have ever owned.
Behind the stitching is a rejection letter.
I tear open the seal and in the envelope is a bottle of whiskey.
I open the bottle and take a swig,
but my mouth is filled with marbles.
I spit them out.
Each marble is covered in dust and as I wipe it off, I can see that each one is filled with stardust.

But inside one marble is my elephant earring,
lost,
somewhere in between here and there.

We’re going on a duck hunt; just granny and me!
We’re going on a duck hunt, let me tell you what we see.

We are going to the river, with a bag of stale bread.
Fighting off seagulls and pigeons as they hover above our heads.

We will pass by the riverbanks where grasses and trees grow tall.
Watching and listening to the river as it tumbles, rolls, and roars.

We will see flowers of different colours.  White daisies, yellow buttercups, blue cornflowers, covering the parklands in a dazzling display.
My Granny says seeing the kaleidoscope of colours makes her day!

We will pass by rabbits hopping about their homes of grassy mounds.
Every now and then pricking up their ears; listening to every sound.

We will pass by geese gathered in a gaggle.
Big bottomed geese walking with a waggle.

We will pass by swans gliding with their necks held high.
Several young cygnets tucked in and swimming by their mums side.

We will pass all these wonders of nature as we make our way to the ducks.
Listening for every quack and cluck.

We reach our goal with a bag of bread in-hand.
Throwing the bread to the ducks who say thank you with a “quack” and a “cluck.”
Before you know it, the swans are there too.  Then the seagulls and pigeons “shoosh, go away you!”

Ducks are the best of the lot you see.  They make me laugh; I think they are funny.
No particular reason but my granny says, “It is because I am only three.”

We’re going on a duck hunt; just granny and me!
We’re going on a duck hunt, to feed the ducks their tea.

My blood is red,
the sky is blue
what must I do
to escape you?

The tulips are red,
the cornflowers blue,
I need to admit
I no longer admire you.

Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 1/10/2019

Oh, how I miss the cornflowers and poppies,
lowlands, sands and dwarf pines,
rye bread and country girls
with the simplest of simple tastes.

I dream of such upbringing to later be able
to respect others without rejecting anyone,
and to always let them pull their cart of good fortune and misery,
being able to see not only our own right.

I'd like to believe that a neighbor always wishes you well,
that there's no between between the fields,
in order not to stain life with lies,
and that it is possible to never yell at anyone.

I miss the forest leaning in the wind,
the marigolds - children of wet meadows,
and those hard men who'd always stand up and fight
even without the chance of winning.

I miss shutters with a heart in the middle,
But most of all - white clouds.

Wieslaw Musialowski 12/4/2018