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Tintswalo Sep 2015
straight and easy is the path of righteousness
The late childhood days and the early youth make seem so easy
With passion and contentment I take it with ease
With a smile and an eager heart I join the soldiers of the cross to tell of the master of it.
Marching over was never hard .
You see this path has so many perfect derailed paths attached to it.
A perfect path of love has a path of hatred to it
A path of joy has a path of sadness to it
A path of peace has a path of war to it
And yes this is a path of righteousness but with a derailment called sin
Very tempting, absolutely charming
My eyes glaze to this path and see no point of this path of righteousness.
Great is your faithfulness O Lord
But exciting is this path
Or so it seems.
One mistake
Waiting on the path of righteousness to stare at this derailed path
You see, an idle mind is the devils play ground
The derailed path of danger
Pulling so many to its fold
Only by a simple glance.
Samuel Evan Oct 2015
Derailed huh?
Like the train is off the track?
Maybe.

Or maybe not.
Like the train took a wrong turn.
I think.

The wrong junction.
Diverted at the wrong intersection.
Maybe.

Conductor confused.
Wondering where it went wrong.
Yeah.

But still
You're on the tracks love.
No doubt.
You're still on the tracks.
CK Baker May 2017
like that pill bitter Sunday morning (after)
with a nauseating hack
the previously uneventful Tuesday
derailed
in surrealistic tale
with Auntie and Jack (and a quarter of fate)
in the 748
on a night flight
from Sherwood to Lore

reverberating waves
of imminent summer haze
river flats
and flower fields
fly weights
and silver bait
shredders and shysters
and open gates
(into those everlasting
and sweated journeys of hope)

bloods and strays
and florentine grays
(reminiscent of Rockwell fame)
running horses
and overgrown country lanes
morning grace
and gentle cheer
eyes clear
on the river pass
blunted paddles for those ancient
and not so willing suckers!


duke making his own way
(to the corner club)
Parsons and Poe
stream from the torn screen door
cricket cadence
and symphony of the Deere
calm and deliberate
in the soft
and silent fields

meadows open for grazing
(guineas scamper across the till)
pocket apples fill
the country ripe air
drunken bees
and chestnuts
and electric fingers
strike the surface pool
(a cedar strip wedged on the white wash dock)

baited bull heads set to cast
evenings with hearts
and Nolten Nash
may flowers bloom
across the grass
~ time unmatched ~
with blue jays
and river bends
and channel cats
...and that warm
and recurring
Coleman drift
Big Virge Oct 2016
Why Does My Appearance ...  
Offend Most Folk ... !?!
  
I DON'T Sell Coc'... !!!
  
I'm NOT An Ignorant Bloke ... !!!
  
I DON'T LIKE ... " Crack "... !!!
But Sometimes ... Like A Smoke ...
  
There's Nothing Quite Like A Cuban Cigar ...
After Food ... or With A Drink At A Bar ...
  
NOT Beer But Brandy ...  
Suitably Warm ...
In A ... Brandy Glass ... !!!
  
THAT'S ... Who I Am ... !!!
  
I'm NOT An ****... !!!
  
Unlike Those ...

Who Judge From .................................................................­.... Far ...............
  
"He's AGGRESSIVE !
His incentive, is to Rob,
and start, MOLESTING !"
  
"Who on earth ?
Do you think you're addressing ?
Your judgements are distressing !
Your thought waves need progressing !
Stop your second guessing !
cos when I start *******,
your state of mental being,
you'll wish you had Gods' Blessing !"
  
Girls ... Or Men ...
Just ... Can't Defend ... !!!
  
Their NONSENSE ...
As I ... Count To TEN ... !!!!!
  
See .....
That's My Way of Teaching Them ...
  
I'm NOT ... THAT Man ...
On .... " News at Ten "... !!!!!
  
NO ... NOT Trev'....
But Those ... "Locked"...  
... Inside Prison ... !!!  
  
I'm RARE ...
Just Like ... " True Gentlemen "... !!!
  
Girls Have Said ...
Such ... SILLY THINGS ... !!?!!
  
"Upon introduction,
my heartbeat raced !
I thought you were gonna,
punch me in my face !"
  
"That's what you saw ?
when you, looked in my face !"
  
Such Attitudes ...
Are REALLY ... Lame ... !!!!
  
It's ... Funny To Some ...
But Let's Get This CLEAR ... !!!!!
  
These ... " Stereotypes "...
Are ... REALLY Dumb ... ?!?
  
I Deal With This Ignorance ...
Day to Day ...
  
" Some guy ... "

Tried To Bar Me ...
From His Place ...
  
WITHOUT Even Looking Me In My Face ... ?!?  
  
WHY ... ?

Because of ... " e-mails sent "... ?!?
  
But When He Traced ...
The Mails I'd Sent ...
  
His Thought Waves Got ...
...... DERAILED ...... !!!
  
And Then Some ...  
Common Sense Prevailed ... !!!
  
I've Met Him Now ...
His Stench Seems ... " FOUL "... !!!!!!!!!
  
A Money Man ...
just Like The DOW ...
Index ... Direct ... !!!  
  
Until My Words ...
Got In His Chest ... !!!
And Proved To Him ...
... My INTELLECT ...
  
Whilst Giving Him ...
A ... "small complex"...

About What Could ...
Just Happen ... NEXT ... !!!?!!!
  
Sometimes ... YES ...  
Just Like ... " The Wu "...
  
I Do Suggest ...
You PROTECT Your NECK ... !!!!!
  
It's Better NOT TO ...
... Get Me Vex ... !!!!!
  
Cos' Plans I Make ...
Are So COMPLEX ...
  
You May Just Need ...
A ... Bullet-Proof Vest ... !?!?!
  
For Me You See ...
Life's Posing TESTS ... !!!
  
From Living ... To ...
Just Getting *** ... !?!
  
These Problems ...
Leave My Mind ... " Perplexed "... ???
  
Well .....
Perplexed or NOT ...
  
I'm Still DIRECT ... !!!
  
From Things I Say ...
To ... Written Text ...
  
To EARN What's Due ...
  
Some **** RESPECT.

From Those Who Watch Their TV Set ...
Then Pre-Judge Me ... That's INCORRECT ... !!!!!
  
Well Here's The Deal ... !!!
  
Instead of Surfing ...  
...... " Internet "......
  
Try PULLING The Plug ...
Yes .... DISCONNECT .... !!!
  
Deal With Those ...  
In Front of You ...  
  
Some of Us ...
Are People TOO ... !!!!!
  
Whether On ... PC ...
Or On ... " TV "...
  
You're Receiving INTERFERENCE ... !!!!!!
Your Thought Waves NEED ...


Some .... " Clearance "....
  

And Maybe Then ... ?
You'll FINALLY See ...
DON'T Judge Folks By ...
  
... " Appearance "...
I'm STILL, not the only one suffering such ridiculous judgments clearly ! According to the story today, about the Doctor, who probably won't be flying with Delta airlines any time soon !
Emanuel Martinez Feb 2013
What are we scared of?

Fending off hoards of oppressed human beings
Of acquisition, of possession, of autonomy, of legitimacy
Never been anyone; why empower them now

Legitimized crucification
No exoneration for grave transgression
Morality of mankind stabbed, under siege, defiled
Integrity constantly bloodily ***** like the virtue of women during war
Transgression, nonetheless, legitimized not by the law of a god or science
But that of a righteous m/an

Bodies without agency traversing into illegitimacy
Becoming illegal human beings
Transgression thrusting them into humiliation
Derailed, deprived, dehumanized
Earning rights to hunger, sickness, homelessness in the eyes of civilized man

Growing global economic hubs welcoming
Illegitimate bodies with contempt, violence, violation
Don't belong, lives becoming expendable, adversary to structured society

Trafficking, dragging, trading disempowered labor across meaningless borders
Nationalists disregarding with much pride illegitimates' desires for life
Killing them after you've beaten their soul, in negligence, extracting the fruit of their labor

Xenophobia killing Japan, dying refusing to open its borders to starving workers
When will a muslim sister in headscarf travel across ALL Europe without discrimination
Be careful America, you're murdering liberty's meaningless oath to the homeless of the world
Preaching the birth of the greatest nation on earth on the backs of immigrants across time
When it refuses to cease the political firing of condemnation against displaced human beings

Greatest plunderers of this world, those who set the rules, guarding their loot
Having had displaced black, colored, and brown bodies across time
Abducting black bodies from mother Africa
Contaminating mother America's native bodies with the corruption of whiteness
Causing mother Asia to discourage its pores from allowing the mobility of bodies

Greatest plunderers of this world, those who set the rules, guarding their loot
Legitimizing their stolen appropriations for the world to see
By excluding those they extract the wealth from
Displaced bodies achieving transnational identities in pursuance of unreachable wealth
For far too long trickled out of their home nations
To build the wealths of the new homes they're delegitimized from

Every country great or small falling in line with border policies
Desperate developing countries much too worried to contain fleeting flocks
Developed and thriving nations too ready to ****** the souls of bodies without agency

World's population imploding
Countries' power structures hungering to exploit the oppressed within their borders
Majority of us peasants, poor, without agency, moving across borders
Everyone's in danger of falling in line with the masses
Or the monopolistic governments deliberately creating monstrous line divides
February 4, 2013
Sharon Thomas May 2017
When it rains here once again
I remember the time we clenched hands that monsoon.
And we trailed down that railway track on a cloudy noon
We weren't alone did you know?
In a place unknown to fog and snow
The weather had lost its temper
The train had been blinded enough to lose track.
Who doesn't know it's all a knack!
Derailed, they say.
Before the next I wish they simply care
These are not mere accidents you bare,
But testimonies you claim on a paid fare.
Indian Railways or any other for that matter I say,
When they pass the word 'happy journey'
We simply wish it's not our last.
When it rains once again here,
I remember the time we clenched hands that monsoon.
And I wailed down the railway track on that tragic day,
I do not understand which side to stake.
Or wish for summer once again in my life
Or curse the rails, frames and journeys that shatter.
Shatter! Solely due to human hands that fell short,
short to value the lives that derail.
Eloisa Jan 2023
And my melancholic train got derailed again at the chaotic intersection of holding on and letting go.
kayla Dec 2014
My thoughts are as loud as a derailed freight train.
Michael R Burch Mar 2020
Heretical Poems by Michael R. Burch

Bible Libel
by Michael R. Burch

If God
is good,
half the Bible
is libel.

NOTE: I came up with this epigram to express my conclusions after reading the Bible from cover to cover, ten chapters per day, at age eleven.



Saving Graces
for the Religious Right
by Michael R. Burch

Life’s saving graces are love, pleasure, laughter
(wisdom, it seems, is for the Hereafter).



Multiplication, Tabled
for the Religious Right
by Michael R. Burch

“Be fruitful and multiply”—
great advice, for a fruitfly!
But for women and men,
simple Simons, say, “WHEN!”



***** Nilly
for the Demiurge, aka Yahweh/Jehovah
by Michael R. Burch

Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?
You made the stallion,
you made the filly,
and now they sleep
in the dark earth, stilly.
Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?

Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?
You forced them to run
all their days uphilly.
They ran till they dropped—
life’s a pickle, dilly.
Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?

Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?
They say I should worship you!
Oh, really!
They say I should pray
so you’ll not act illy.
Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?



What Would Santa Claus Say
by Michael R. Burch

What would Santa Claus say,
I wonder,
about Jesus returning
to **** and Plunder?

For he’ll likely return
on Christmas Day
to blow the bad
little boys away!

When He flashes like lightning
across the skies
and many a homosexual
dies,

when the harlots and heretics
are ripped asunder,
what will the Easter Bunny think,
I wonder?



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

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



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

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



Red State Religion Rejection Slip
by Michael R. Burch

I’d like to believe in your LORD
but I really can’t risk it
when his world is as badly composed
as a half-baked biscuit.



Evil Cabal
by Michael R. Burch

those who do Evil
do not know why
what they do is wrong
as they spit in ur eye.

nor did Jehovah,
the original Devil,
when he murdered eve,
our lovely rebel.



The Heimlich Limerick
by Michael R. Burch

for T. M.

The sanest of poets once wrote:
"Friend, why be a sheep or a goat?
Why follow the leader
or be a blind *******?"
But almost no one took note.



Be very careful what you pray for!
by Michael R. Burch

Now that his T’s been depleted
the Saint is upset, feeling cheated.
His once-fiery lust?
Just a chemical bust:
no “devil” cast out or defeated.


Practice Makes Perfect
by Michael R. Burch

I have a talent for sleep;
it’s one of my favorite things.
Thus when I sleep, I sleep deep ...
at least till the stupid clock rings.

I frown as I squelch its **** beep,
then fling it aside to resume
my practice for when I’ll sleep deep
in a silent and undisturbed tomb.



Enough!
by Michael R. Burch

It’s not that I don’t want to die;
I shall be glad to go.
Enough of diabetes pie,
and eating sickly crow!
Enough of win and place and show.
Enough of endless woe!

Enough of suffering and vice!
I’ve said it once;
I’ll say it twice:
I shall be glad to go.

But why the hell should I be nice
when no one asked for my advice?
So grumpily I’ll go ...
although
(most probably) below.



Redefinitions
by Michael R. Burch

Faith: falling into the same old claptrap.
Religion: the ties that blind.



pretty pickle
by michael r. burch

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



Defenses
by Michael R. Burch

Beyond the silhouettes of trees
stark, naked and defenseless
there stand long rows of sentinels:
these pert white picket fences.

Now whom they guard and how they guard,
the good Lord only knows;
but savages would have to laugh
observing the tidy rows.



Listen
by Michael R. Burch

Listen to me now and heed my voice;
I am a madman, alone, screaming in the wilderness,
but listen now.

Listen to me now, and if I say
that black is black, and white is white, and in between lies gray,
I have no choice.

Does a madman choose his words? They come to him,
the moon’s illuminations, intimations of the wind,
and he must speak.

But listen to me now, and if you hear
the tolling of the judgment bell, and if its tone is clear,
then do not tarry,

but listen, or cut off your ears, for I Am weary.



fog
by michael r. burch

ur just a bit of fluff
drifting out over the ocean,
unleashing an atom of rain,
causing a minor commotion,
for which u expect awesome GODS
to pay u SUPREME DEVOTION!
... but ur just a smidgen of mist
unlikely to be missed ...
where did u get the notion?



thanksgiving prayer of the parasites
by michael r. burch

GODD is great;
GODD is good;
let us thank HIM
for our food.

by HIS hand
we all are fed;
give us now
our daily dead:

ah-men!

(p.s.,
most gracious
& salacious
HEAVENLY LORD,
we thank YOU in advance for
meals galore
of loverly gore:
of precious
delicious
sumptuous
scrumptious
human flesh!)



no foothold
by michael r. burch

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

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

as far as the i can see ...



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

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



You
by Michael R. Burch

For thirty years You have not spoken to me;
I heard the dull hollow echo of silence
as though a communion between us.

For thirty years You would not open to me;
You remained closed, hard and tense,
like a clenched fist.

For thirty years You have not broken me
with Your alien ways and Your distance.
Like a child dismissed,

I have watched You prey upon the hope in me,
knowing “mercy” is chance
and “heaven”—a list.



I’ve got Jesus’s face on a wallet insert
by Michael R. Burch

for the Religious Right

I’ve got Jesus’s face on a wallet insert
and "Hell is for Queers" on the back of my shirt.
     And I uphold the Law,
     for Grace has a Flaw:
the Church must have someone to drag through the dirt.

I’ve got ten thousand reasons why Hell must exist,
and you’re at the top of my fast-swelling list!
     You’re nothing like me,
     so God must agree
and slam down the Hammer with His Loving Fist!

For what are the chances that God has a plan
to save everyone: even Boy George and Wham!?
     Eternal fell torture
     in Hell’s pressure scorcher
will separate **** from Man.

I’m glad I’m redeemed, ecstatic you’re not.
Did Christ die for sinners? Perish the thought!
     The "good news" is this:
     soon My vengeance is his!,
for you’re not the lost sheep We sought.



Pagans Protest the Intolerance of Christianity
by Michael R. Burch

“We have a common sky.” — Quintus Aurelius Symmachus (c. 345-402)

We had a common sky
before the Christians came.

We thought there might be gods
but did not know their names.

The common stars above us?
They winked, and would not tell.

Yet now our fellow mortals claim
our questions merit hell!

The cause of our damnation?
They claim they’ve seen the LIGHT ...

but still the stars wink down at us,
as wiser beings might.



jesus hates me, this i know
by michael r. burch

jesus hates me, this I know,
for Church libel tells me so:
"little ones to him belong"
but if they use their dongs, so long!
    yes, jesus hates me!
    yes, jesus baits me!
    yes, he berates me!
    Church libel tells me so!

jesus fleeces us, i know,
for Religion scams us so:
little ones are brainwashed to
believe god saves the Chosen Few!
    yes, jesus fleeces!
    yes, he deceases
    the bunny and the rhesus
    because he's mad at you!

jesus hates me—christ who died
so i might be crucified:
for if i use my active brain,
that will drive the "lord" insane!
    yes, jesus hates me!
    yes, jesus baits me!
    yes, he berates me!
    Church libel tells me so!

jesus hates me, this I know,
for Church libel tells me so:
first priests tell me "look above,"
that christ's the lamb and god's the dove,
but then they sentence me to Hell
for using my big brain too well!
    yes, jesus hates me!
    yes, jesus baits me!
    yes, he berates me!
    Church libel tells me so!



and then i was made whole
by michael r. burch

... and then i was made whole,
but not a thing entire,
glued to a perch
in a gilded church,
strung through with a silver wire ...

singing a little of this and of that,
warbling higher and higher:
a thing wholly dead
till I lifted my head
and spat at the Lord and his choir.



Starting from Scratch with Ol’ Scratch
by Michael R. Burch

for the Religious Right

Love, with a small, fatalistic sigh
went to the ovens. Please don’t bother to cry.
You could have saved her, but you were all *******
complaining about the Jews to Reichmeister Grupp.

Scratch that. You were born after World War II.
You had something more important to do:
while the children of the Nakba were perishing in Gaza
with the complicity of your government, you had a noble cause (a
religious tract against homosexual marriage
and various things gods and evangelists disparage.)

Jesus will grok you? Ah, yes, I’m quite sure
that your intentions were good and ineluctably pure.
After all, what the hell does he care about Palestinians?
Certainly, Christians were right about serfs, slaves and Indians.
Scratch that. You’re one of the Devil’s minions.



In His Kingdom of Corpses
by Michael R. Burch

In His kingdom of corpses,
God has been heard to speak
in many enraged discourses,
high, high from some mountain peak
where He’s lectured man on compassion
while the sparrows around Him fell,
and babes, for His meager ration
of rain, died and went to hell,
unbaptized, for that’s His fashion.

In His kingdom of corpses,
God has been heard to vent
in many obscure discourses
on the need for man to repent,
to admit that he’s a sinner;
give up ***, and riches, and fame;
be disciplined at his dinner
though always he dies the same,
whether fatter or thinner.

In his kingdom of corpses,
God has been heard to speak
in many absurd discourses
of man’s Ego, precipitous Peak!,
while demanding praise and worship,
and the bending of every knee.
And though He sounds like the Devil,
all religious men now agree
He loves them indubitably.



Beast 666
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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



I AM
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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



Snap Shots
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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



Unwhole
by Michael R. Burch

What is it that we strive to remember, to regain,
as memory deserts us,
leaving us destitute of even ourselves,
of all but pain?

How can something so essential be forgotten,
if we are more than our bodies?
How can a soul
become so unwhole?



Nonbeliever
by Michael R. Burch writing as Kim Cherub

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



evol-u-shun
by Michael R. Burch

does GOD love the Tyger
while it's ripping ur lamb apart?

does GOD applaud the Bubonic Plague
while it's eating u à la carte?

does GOD admire ur intelligence
while u pray that IT has a heart?

does GOD endorse the Bible
you blue-lighted at k-mart?



Breakings
by Michael R. Burch

I did it out of pity.
I did it out of love.
I did it not to break the heart of a tender, wounded dove.
But gods without compassion
ordained: Frail things must break!
Now what can I do for her shattered psyche's sake?

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

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



Alien
by Michael R. Burch

for  a "Christian" poet

On a lonely outpost on Mars
the astronaut practices "speech"
as alien to primates below
as mute stars winking high, out of reach.

And his words fall as bright and as chill
as ice crystals on Kilimanjaro―
far colder than Jesus's words
over the "fortunate" sparrow.

And I understand how gentle Emily
felt, when all comfort had flown,
gazing into those inhuman eyes,
feeling zero at the bone.

Oh, how can I grok his arctic thought?
For if he is human, I am not.



Crescendo Against Heaven
by Michael R. Burch

As curiously formal as the rose,
the imperious Word grows
until its sheds red-gilded leaves:
then heaven grieves
love's tiny pool of crimson recrimination
against God, its contention
of the price of salvation.

These industrious trees,
endlessly losing and re-losing their leaves,
finally unleashing themselves from earth, lashing
themselves to bits, washing
themselves free
of all but the final ignominy
of death, become
at last: fast planks of our coffins, dumb.

Together now, rude coffins, crosses,
death-cursed but bright vermilion roses,
bodies, stumps, tears, words: conspire
together with a nearby spire
to raise their Accusation Dire...
to scream, complain, to point out these
and other Dark Anomalies.

God always silent, ever afar,
distant as Bethlehem's retrograde star,
we point out now, in resignation:
You asked too much of man's beleaguered nation,
gave too much strength to his Enemy,
as though to prove Your Self greater than He,
at our expense, and so men die
(whose accusations vex the sky)
yet hope, somehow, that You are good...
just, O greatest of Poets!, misunderstood.



Advice for Evangelicals
by Michael R. Burch

"... so let your light shine before men..."

Consider the example of the woodland anemone:
she preaches no sermons but―immaculate―shines,
and rivals the angels in bright innocence and purity,
the sweetest of divines.

And no one has heard her engage in hypocrisy
since the beginning of time―an oracle so mute,
so profound in her silence and exemplary poise
she makes lessons moot.

So consider the example of the saintly anemone
and if you'd convince us Christ really exists,
then let him be just as sweet, just as guileless
and equally as gracious to bless.



Heaven Bent
by Michael R. Burch

This life is hell; it can get no worse.
Summon the coroner, the casket, the hearse!
I'm upwardly mobile; this one thing I know:
I can only go up; I'm already below!



Shock and Awe
by Michael R. Burch

With megatons of "wonder, "
we make our godhead clear:
Death. Destruction. Fear.

The world's heart ripped asunder,
its dying pulse we hear:
Death. Destruction. Fear.

Strange Trinity! We ponder
this God we hold so dear:
Death. Destruction. Fear.

The vulture and the condor
proclaim: The feast is near!―
Death. Destruction. Fear.

Soon He will plow us under;
the Anti-Christ is here:
Death. Destruction. Fear.

We love to hear Him thunder!
With Shock and Awe, appear!―
Death. Destruction. Fear.

For God can never blunder;
we know He holds US dear:
Death. Destruction. Fear.



Lay Down Your Arms
by Michael R. Burch

Lay down your arms; come, sleep in the sand.
The battle is over and night is at hand.
Our voyage has ended; there's nowhere to go...
the earth is a cinder still faintly aglow.

Lay down your pamphlets; let's bicker no more.
Instead, let us sleep here on this ravaged shore.
The sea is still boiling; the air is wan, thin...
lay down your pamphlets; now no one will "win."

Lay down your hymnals; abandon all song.
If God was to save us, He waited too long.
A new world emerges, but this world is through...
so lay down your hymnals, or write something new.



What Immense Silence
by Michael R. Burch

What immense silence
comforts those who kneel here
beneath these vaulted ceilings
cavernous and vast?

What luminescence stained
by patchwork panels of bright glass
illuminates drained faces
as the crouching gargoyles leer?

What brings them here―
pale, tearful congregations,
knowing all Hope is past,
faithfully, year upon year?

Or could they be right? Perhaps
Love is, implausibly, near
and I alone have not seen It...
But, if so, still, I must ask:

why is it God that they fear?



Intimations
by Michael R. Burch

Let mercy surround us
with a sweet persistence.

Let love propound to us
that life is infinitely more than existence.



Altared Spots
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

Or emulate earth's "highest species"―
write a few strange poems and odd treatises.



Flight
by Michael R. Burch

Poetry captures
less than reality
the spirit of things

being the language
not of the lordly falcon
but of the dove with broken wings

whose heavenward flight
though brutally interrupted
is ever towards the light.



Winter Night
by Michael R. Burch

Who will be ******,
who embalmed
for all eternity?

The night weighs heavy on me―
leaden, sullen, cold.
O, but my thoughts are light,

like the weightless windblown snow.



Tonight, Let's Remember
by Michael R. Burch

July 7,2007 (7-7-7)

Tonight, let's remember the fond ways
our fingers engendered new methods to praise
the gray at my temples, your thinning hair.
Tonight, let's remember, and let us draw near...

Tonight, let's remember, as mortals do,
how cutely we chortled when work was through,
society sated, all gods put to rest,
and you in my arms, and I at your breast...

Tonight, let's remember how daring, how free
the Madeira made us, recumbently.
Our inhibitions?―we laid them to rest.
Earth, heaven or hell―we knew we were blessed.

Tonight, let's remember the dwindling days
we've spent here together―the sun's rays
spending their power beyond somber hills.
Soon we'll rest together; there'll be no more bills.

Tonight, let's remember: we've paid all our dues,
we've suffered our sorrows, we've learned how to lose.
What's left now to take, only God can tell.
Be with me in heaven, or "bliss" will be hell!

I do not want God; I want to see you
free from all sorrow, your labor through,
a song on your tongue, a smile on your lips,
sweet, sultry and vagrant, a child at your hips,

laughing and beaming and ready to frolic
in a world free from cancer and gout and colic.
For you were courageous, and kind, and true.
There must be a heaven for someone like you.



I, Lazarus
by Michael R. Burch

I, Lazarus, without a heart,
devoid of blood and spiritless,
lay in the darkness, meritless:
my corpse―a thing cold, dead, apart.

But then I thought I heard―a Voice,
a Voice that called me from afar.
And so I stood and laughed, bizarre:
a thing embalmed, made to rejoice!

I ran ungainly-legged to see
who spoke my name, and then I knew
him by the light. His name is True,
and now he is the life in me!

I never died again! Believe!
(Oops! Seems it was a brief reprieve.)



To Know You as Mary
by Michael R. Burch

To know You as Mary,
when You spoke her name
and her world was never the same...
beside the still tomb
where the spring roses bloom.

O, then I would laugh
and be glad that I came,
never minding the chill, the disconsolate rain...
beside the still tomb
where the spring roses bloom.

I might not think this earth
the sharp focus of pain
if I heard You exclaim―
beside the still tomb
where the spring roses bloom

my most unexpected, unwarranted name!
But you never spoke. Explain?



Peers
by Michael R. Burch

These thoughts are alien, as through green slime
smeared on some lab tech's brilliant slide, I *****,
positioning my bright oscilloscope
for better vantage, though I cannot see,
but only peer, as small things disappear―
these quanta strange as men, as passing queer.

And you, Great Scientist, are you the One,
or just an intern, necktie half undone,
white sleeves rolled up, thick documents in hand
(dense manuals you don't quite understand) ,
exposing me, perhaps, to too much Light?
Or do I escape your notice, quick and bright?

Perhaps we wield the same dull Instrument
(and yet the Thesis will be Eloquent!).



Gethsemane in Every Breath
by Michael R. Burch

LORD, we have lost our way, and now
we have mislaid love―earth's fairest rose.
We forgot hope's song―the way it goes.
Help us reclaim their gifts, somehow.

LORD, we have wondered long and far
in search of Bethlehem's retrograde star.
Now in night's dead cold grasp, we gasp:
our lives one long-drawn rattling rasp

of misspent breath... before we drown.
LORD, help us through this spiral down
because we faint, and do not see
above or beyond despair's trajectory.

Remember that You, too, once held
imperiled life within your hands
as hope withdrew... that where You knelt
―a stranger in a stranger land―

the chalice glinted cold afar
and red with blood as hellfire.
Did heaven ever seem so far?
Remember―we are as You were,

but all our lives, from birth to death―
Gethsemane in every breath.



A Possible Argument for Mercy
by Michael R. Burch

Did heaven ever seem so far?
Remember-we are as You were,
but all our lives, from birth to death―
Gethsemane in every breath.



Birthday Poem to Myself
by Michael R. Burch

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



Learning to Fly
by Michael R. Burch

We are learning to fly
every day...

learning to fly―
away, away...

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

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



The Gardener's Roses
by Michael R. Burch

Mary Magdalene, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, "Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away."

I too have come to the cave;
within: strange, half-glimpsed forms
and ghostly paradigms of things.
Here, nothing warms

this lightening moment of the dawn,
pale tendrils spreading east.
And I, of all who followed Him,
by far the least...

The women take no note of me;
I do not recognize
the men in white, the gardener,
these unfamiliar skies...

Faint scent of roses, then―a touch!
I turn, and I see: You.
"My Lord, why do You tarry here:
Another waits, Whose love is true? "

"Although My Father waits, and bliss;
though angels call―ecstatic crew!―
I gathered roses for a Friend.
I waited here, for You."



Kingdom Freedom
by Michael R. Burch

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

LORD, let me not be over-worried
about the lack of "morality" around me.
Surround me,

not with law's restrictive cage,
but with Your spirit, freer than the wind,
so that to breathe is to have freest life,

and not to fly to You, my only sin.



Cædmon's Face
by Michael R. Burch

At the monastery of Whitby,
on a day when the sun sank through the sea,
and the gulls shrieked wildly, jubilant, free,

while the wind and Time blew all around,
I paced that dusk-enamored ground
and thought I heard the steps resound

of Carroll, Stoker and good Bede
who walked here too, their spirits freed
―perhaps by God, perhaps by need―

to write, and with each line, remember
the glorious light of Cædmon's ember:
scorched tongues of flame words still engender.



He wrote here in an English tongue,
a language so unlike our own,
unlike―as father unto son.

But when at last a child is grown.
his heritage is made well-known:
his father's face becomes his own.



He wrote here of the Middle-Earth,
the Maker's might, man's lowly birth,
of every thing that God gave worth

suspended under heaven's roof.
He forged with simple words His truth
and nine lines left remain the proof:

his face was Poetry's, from youth.



Prayer for a Merciful, Compassionate, etc., God to ****** His Creations Quickly & Painlessly, Rather than Slowly & Painfully
by Michael R. Burch

Lord, **** me fast and please do it quickly!
Please don’t leave me gassed, archaic and sickly!
Why render me mean, rude, wrinkly and prickly?
Lord, why procrastinate?

Lord, we all know you’re an expert killer!
Please, don’t leave me aging like Phyllis Diller!
Why torture me like some poor sap in a thriller?
God, grant me a gentler fate!

Lord, we all know you’re an expert at ******
like Abram—the wild-eyed demonic goat-herder
who’d slit his son’s throat without thought at your order.
Lord, why procrastinate?

Lord, we all know you’re a terrible sinner!
What did dull Japheth eat for his 300th dinner
after a year on the ark, growing thinner and thinner?
God, grant me a gentler fate!

Dear Lord, did the lion and tiger compete
for the last of the lambkin’s sweet, tender meat?
How did Noah preserve his fast-rotting wheat?
God, grant me a gentler fate!

Lord, why not be a merciful Prelate?
Do you really want me to detest, loathe and hate
the Father, the Son and their Ghostly Mate?
Lord, why procrastinate?



Is there any Light left?
by Michael R. Burch

Is there any light left?
Must we die bereft
of love and a reason for being?
Blind and unseeing,
rejecting and fleeing
our humanity, goat-hooved and cleft?

Is there any light left?
Must we die bereft
of love and a reason for living?
Blind, unforgiving,
unworthy of heaven
or this planet red, reeking and reft?

NOTE: While “hoofed” is the more common spelling, I preferred “hooved” for this poem. Perhaps because of the contrast created by “love” and “hooved.”



Modern Dreams
by Michael R. Burch

after David B. Gosselin

I dreamed that God was good, but then I woke
and all his goodness vanished—****!—
like smoke.

I dreamed his Word was good, but then I heard
commandments evil, awful, weird,
absurd.

I dreamed of Heaven where cruel Angels flew
above my head and screamed, the Chosen Few,
“We’re not like you!”

I dreamed of Hell below, where prostitutes
adored by Jesus, played on lovely lutes
“True Love Commutes.”

I dreamed of Earth then woke to hear a Gong’s
repellent echoes in Religion’s song
of right gone wrong.



Star Crossed
by Michael R. Burch

Remember—
night is not like day;
the stars are closer than they seem ...
now, bending near, they seem to say
the morning sun was merely a dream
ember.




Well, Almost
by Michael R. Burch

All Christians say “Never again!”
to the inhumanity of men
(except when the object of phlegm
is a Palestinian).



O, My Redeeming Angel
by Michael R. Burch

O my Redeeming Angel, after we
have fought till death (and soon the night is done) ...
then let us rest awhile, await the sun,
and let us put aside all enmity.

I might have been the “victor”—who can tell?—
so many wounds abound. All out of joint,
my groin, my thigh ... and nothing to anoint
but sunsplit, shattered stone, as pillars hell.

Light, easy flight to heaven, Your return!
How hard, how dark, this path I, limping, walk.
I only ask Your blessing; no more talk!

Withhold Your name, and yet my ears still burn
and so my heart. You asked me, to my shame:
for Jacob—trickster, shyster, sham—’s my name.



To Know You as Mary
by Michael R. Burch

To know you as Mary,
when you spoke her name
and her world was never the same ...
beside the still tomb
where the spring roses bloom.

O, then I would laugh
and be glad that I came,
never minding the chill, the disconsolate rain ...
beside the still tomb
where the spring roses bloom.

I might not think this earth
the sharp focus of pain
if I heard you exclaim—
beside the still tomb
where the spring roses bloom

my most unexpected, unwarranted name!
But you never spoke. Explain?



ur-gent
by Michael R. Burch

if u would be a good father to us all,
revoke the Curse,
extract the Gall;

but if the abuse continues,
look within
into ur Mindless Soulless Emptiness Grim,

& admit ur sin,
heartless jehovah,
slayer of widows and orphans ...

quick, begin!



Bible libel (ii)
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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



stock-home sin-drone
by Michael R. Burch

ur GAUD created this hellish earth;
thus u FANTAsize heaven
(an escape from rebirth).

ur GUAD is a monster,
**** ur RELIGION lied
and called u his frankensteinian bride!

now, like so many others cruelly abused,
u look for salve-a-shun
to the AUTHOR of ur pain’s selfish creation.

cons preach the “TRUE GOSPEL”
and proudly shout it,
but if ur GAUD were good
he would have to doubt it.



un-i-verse-all love
by Michael R. Burch

there is a Gaud, it’s true!
and furthermore, tHeSh(e)It loves u!
unfortunately
the
He
Sh(e)
It
,even more adorably,
loves cancer, aids and leprosy.



yet another post-partum christmas blues poem
by michael r. burch

ur GAUD created hell; it’s called the earth;
HE mused u briefly, clods of little worth:
let’s conjure some little monkeys
to be BIG RELIGION’s flunkeys!
GAUD belched, went back to sleep, such was ur birth.



wee the many
by michael r. burch

wee never really lived: was that our fault?
now thanks to ur GAUD wee lie in an underground vault.
wee lie here, the little ones ur GAUD despised!
HE condemned us to death before wee opened our eyes!
as it was in the days of noah, it still remains:
GAUD kills us with floods he conjures from murderous rains.



Untitled ur poems

since GOD created u so gullible
how did u conclude HE’s so lovable?
—Michael R. Burch

limping to the grave under the sentence of death,
should i praise ur LORD? think i’ll save my breath!
—Michael R. Burch



One of the Flown
by Michael R. Burch

Forgive me for not having known
you were one of the flown—
flown from the distant haunts
of someone else’s enlightenment,
alighting here to a darkness all your own . . .

I imagine you perched,
pretty warbler, in your starched
dress, before you grew bellicose . . .
singing quaint love’s highest falsetto notes,
brightening the pew of some dilapidated church . . .

But that was before autumn’s
messianic dark hymns . . .
Deepening on the landscape—winter’s inevitable shadows.
Love came too late; hope flocked to bare meadows,
preparing to leave. Then even the thought of life became grim,

thinking of Him . . .
To flee, finally,—that was no whim,
no adventure, but purpose.
I see you now a-wing: pale-eyed, intent, serious:
always, always at the horizon’s broadening rim . . .

How long have you flown now, pretty voyager?
I keep watch from afar: pale lover and ******.



what the “Chosen Few” really pray for
by Michael R. Burch

We are ready to be robed in light,
angel-bright

despite
Our intolerance;

ready to enter Heaven and never return
(dark, this sojourn);

ready to worse-ship any gaud
able to deliver Us from this flawed

existence;
We pray with the persistence

of actual saints
to be delivered from all earthly constraints:

just kiss each uplifted Face
with lips of gentlest grace,

cooing the sweetest harmonies
while brutally crushing Our enemies!

ah-Men!



wild wild west-east-north-south-up-down
by Michael R. Burch

each day it resumes—the great struggle for survival.

the fiercer and more perilous the wrath,
the wilder and wickeder the weaponry,
the better the daily odds
(just don’t bet on the long term, or revival).

so ur luvable Gaud decreed, Theo-retically,
if indeed He exists
as ur Bible insists—
the Wildest and the Wickedest of all
with the brightest of creatures in thrall
(unless u
somehow got that bleary
Theo-ry
wrong too).



The Strangest Rain
by Michael R. Burch

"I ... am small, like the Wren, and my Hair is bold, like the Chestnut Bur?and my eyes, like the Sherry in the Glass, that the Guest leaves ..."?Emily Dickinson

"If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry."--Emily Dickinson

The strangest rain, a few bright sluggish drops,
unsure if they should fall, run through with sun,
came tumbling down and touched me, one by one,
too few to animate the shriveled crops
of nearby farmers (though their daughters might
feel each cool splash, a-shiver with delight).

I thought again of Emily Dickinson,
who felt the tingle down her spine, inspired
to lifting hairs, to nerves’ electric song
of passion for a thing so deep-desired
the heart and gut agree, and so must tremble
as all the neurons of the brain assemble
to whisper: This is love, but what is love?
Wrens darting rainbows, laughter high above.



Note to a Chick on a Religious Kick
by Michael R. Burch

Daisy,
when you smile, my life gets sunny;
you make me want to spend all my ****** money;
but honey,
you can be a bit ... um ... hazy,
perhaps mentally lazy?,
okay, downright crazy,
praying to the Easter Bunny!



lust!
by michael r. burch

i was only a child
in a world dark and wild
seeking affection
in eyes mild

and in all my bright dreams
sweet love shimmered, beguiled ...

but the black-robed Priest
who called me the least
of all god’s creation
then spoke for the Beast:

He called my great passion a thing base, defiled!

He condemned me to hell,
the foul Ne’er-Do-Well,
for the sake of the copper
His Pig-Snout could smell
in the purse of my mother,
“the ***** jezebel.”

my sweet passions condemned
by degenerate men?
and she so devout
she exclaimed, “yay, aye-men!” ...

together we learned why Religion is hell.

Published by Lucid Rhythms, The HyperTexts and Black Waters of Melancholy


A coming day
by Michael R. Burch

for my mother, due to her hellish religion

There will be a day,
a day when the lightning strikes from a rainbowed mist
when it will be too late, too late for me to say
that I found your faith unblessed.

There will be a day,
a day when the storm clouds gather, ominous,
when it will be too late, too late to put away
this darkness that came between us.



Hellbound
by Michael R. Burch

Mother, it’s dark
and you never did love me
because you put Yahweh and Yeshu
above me.

Did they ever love you
or cling to you? No.
Now Mother, it’s cold
and I fear for my soul.

Mother, they say
you will leave me and go
to some distant “heaven”
I never shall know.

If that’s your choice,
you made it. Not me.
You brought me to life;
will you nail me to the tree?

Christ! Mother, they say
God condemned me to hell.
If the Devil’s your God
then farewell, farewell!

Or if there is Love
in some other dimension,
let’s reconcile there
and forget such cruel detention.

Keywords/Tags: god, Jesus, Christ, Christian, prayer, Bible, angel, atheist, faith, blasphemy, heresy, heresies, heretic, heretic, heretical, pagan, pagans, god, gods, mrbhere



He Lived: Excerpts from “Gilgamesh”
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I.
He who visited hell, his country’s foundation,
Was well-versed in mysteries’ unseemly dark places.
He deeply explored many underworld realms
Where he learned of the Deluge and why Death erases.

II.
He built the great ramparts of Uruk-the-Sheepfold
And of holy Eanna. Then weary, alone,
He recorded his thoughts in frail scratchings called “words”:
But words made immortal, once chiseled in stone.

III.
These walls he erected are ever-enduring:
Vast walls where the widows of dead warriors weep.
Stand by them. O, feel their immovable presence!
For no other walls are as strong as this keep’s.

IV.
Come, climb Uruk’s tower on a starless night—
Ascend its steep stairway to escape modern error.
Cross its ancient threshold. You are close to Ishtar,
The Goddess of Ecstasy and of Terror!

V.
Find the cedar box with its hinges of bronze;
Lift the lid of its secrets; remove its dark slate;
Read of the travails of our friend Gilgamesh—
Of his descent into hell and man’s terrible fate!

VI.
Surpassing all kings, heroic in stature,
Wild bull of the mountains, the Goddess his dam
—Bedding no other man; he was her sole rapture—
Who else can claim fame, as he thundered, “I am!”



Enkidu Enters the House of Dust
an original poem by Michael R. Burch

I entered the house of dust and grief.
Where the pale dead weep there is no relief,
for there night descends like a final leaf
to shiver forever, unstirred.

There is no hope left when the tree’s stripped bare,
for the leaf lies forever dormant there
and each man cloaks himself in strange darkness, where
all company’s unheard.

No light’s ever pierced that oppressive night
so men close their eyes on their neighbors’ plight
or stare into darkness, lacking sight ...
each a crippled, blind bat-bird.

Were these not once eagles, gallant men?
Who sits here—pale, wretched and cowering—then?
O, surely they shall, they must rise again,
gaining new wings? “Absurd!

For this is the House of Dust and Grief
where men made of clay, eat clay. Relief
to them’s to become a mere windless leaf,
lying forever unstirred.”

“Anu and Enlil, hear my plea!
Ereshkigal, they all must go free!
Beletseri, dread scribe of this Hell, hear me!”
But all my shrill cries, obscured

by vast eons of dust, at last fell mute
as I took my place in the ash and soot.



Reclamation
an original poem by Michael R. Burch

after Robert Graves, with a nod to Mary Shelley

I have come to the dark side of things
where the bat sings
its evasive radar
and Want is a crooked forefinger
attached to a gelatinous wing.

I have grown animate here, a stitched corpse
hooked to electrodes.
And night
moves upon me—progenitor of life
with its foul breath.

Blind eyes have their second sight
and still are deceived. Now my nature
is softly to moan
as Desire carries me
swooningly across her threshold.

Stone
is less infinite than her crone’s
gargantuan hooked nose, her driveling lips.
I eye her ecstatically—her dowager figure,
and there is something about her that my words transfigure

to a consuming emptiness.
We are at peace
with each other; this is our venture—
swaying, the strings tautening, as tightropes
tauten, as love tightens, constricts

to the first note.
Lyre of our hearts’ pits,
orchestration of nothing, adits
of emptiness! We have come to the last of our hopes,
sweet as congealed blood sweetens for flies.

Need is reborn; love dies.

Keywords/Tags: Epic of Gilgamesh, epic, epical, orient occident, oriental, ancient, ancestors, ancestry, primal



Double Dactyls

Sniggledy-Wriggledy
Jesus Christ’s enterprise
leaves me in awe of
the rich men he loathed!

But should a Sadducee
settle for trifles?
His disciples now rip off
the Lord they betrothed.
―Michael R. Burch

Donald Double Dactyl

Higgledy Piggledy
Ronald McDonald
cursed Donald Trump,
his least favorite clown:

"Why should I try to be
funny as Donald? He
gets all the laughs
saying upside is down!"
―Michael R. Burch



Lines for My Ascension
by Michael R. Burch

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

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


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

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

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

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


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

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

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


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

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

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

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




Listen
by Immanuel A. Michael (an alias of Michael R. Burch)

1.
Listen to me now
and heed my voice;
I am a madman, alone,
screaming in the wilderness,
but listen now.

Listen to me now, and if I say
that black is black
and white is white
and in between lies gray,
I have no choice.

Does a madman choose his words?
They come to him:
the moon's illuminations,
intimations of the wind,
and he must speak.

But listen to me now,
and if you hear
the tolling of the judgment bell,
and if its tone is clear,
then do not tarry,
but listen,
or cut off your ears,
for I Am weary.

I desire mercy, not sacrifice.

2.
Listen to me now: I had a Vision.
An elevated train derailed, and Fell.
It was the Church brought low, almost to Hell.
And I alone survived, who dream of Mercy:
the Heretic, who speaks behind the Veil.

3.
Listen to me now: I saw an airplane
fall from the sky. And why should I explain?
The Visions are the same. It is my Heresy
that I survive, because I sing of Mercy,
while elevated "saints" go down in flames.

4.
Listen to me now: I saw in Nashville
how those who "soar" will plummet―Fame in flames!―
and fall on those below, as if to **** them.
The lowly, saved, will understand their names.

5.
Listen to me now: I heard another
say, "That which died shall Resurrect and Live."
An angel with a Rose bestowing Mercy!
What can it mean, but that my Visions give
fair warning to the world that God wants Mercy.
My Heresy is that we must forgive!

6.
Listen to me now: she heard god calling―
O, who will love me, who will be my friend?
Does he want Perfect Saints, the whitewashed Purists,
who frown down on their "brothers," without end?

7.
Listen to me now: you are not perfect,
and your "wise counsel" helps no one at all:
unless it's sweetened with the sweetest Mercy,
it's pure astringent antiseptic gall.

8.
Listen to me now, and learn this lesson:
If God wants mercy, why dig at the speck
in your brother's eye, when even now the Beam,
your lack of mercy, spares, no, neither neck,
becomes the Hangman's Millstone. We're all children,
all little ones! Be patient with the fleck!

9.
Listen to me now: for the Announcer
explained that wars have given Presidents
the precedents to soon assume all Power.
Vote, citizens, or be mere residents!

10.
O, listen to me now: I saw the Warheads
stored safely underground, except for One.
A red-haired woman with a bright complexion
seduced the guard. Translucent blouse, red thong,
white bra―these were her fearsome antique weapons.

I saw the Skull and Crossbones! Heed my Song!

11.
O, listen to me now, and hear my Gospel:
three verses of such sweet simplicity!
God is Light: in Him there is no darkness.
In Christ, no condemnation: Liberty!
God want no Sacrifice, but only Mercy.
O, who could ask for sweeter Heresy?

12.
Theology? I swear that I disdain it!
If Love can be explained, why then explain it!
If Love can't be explained why, then, should God,
if God is Love? Nor hell nor cattle ****
is needed, if God's good, and God's supreme.
Ask, children, what "re-ligion" truly means:
"return to *******! " Heed the bondsman's screams!

13.
Heed, children, which Theologies you dream
when Hellish Nightmares wake you, when you Scream
for comfort, but no comforter is there.
Which Voices do you heed, which Crosses bear?
If god is light, whence do Dark Visions come
which leave the Taste of Venom on your Tongue,
with which you **** your brother for one Sin
you do not share, ten thousand underskin
like Itching Worms that Squirm and Vilely Hiss:
"Your brother's sin will keep him from god's bliss,
but You are safe because god favors You! "
If God is Love, how can this voice be true?

14.
For God is not a favorer of men.
Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
ryn Aug 2014
Sigh! It's so boring! Life's but a loop
Wish I could run with a circus troupe
Or maybe join a rock climbing group
Why doesn't 'coup' sound exactly like 'coop'
'Coop' rhymes with 'soup' which is 'coup' with an 'S'
I'm late, in hot soup! What a mess!

Work...work... Gotta get to work. I'm late
Aww man...did you really have to lock the gate??
Splendid, terrific, this is just great!
Who the heck puked on this floor made of slate

I'm out and it's pouring now. The rain will wash it away
Sh*t! It's pouring and I'm stranded, no brolly. Yay...!

Stranded...thank goodness I have music
Choose shuffle and then click
Through my plugs, stream out N'Sync
I know... I know... I know what you must think

I think I have to think of something
Take shelter for now is what I'm thinking

Or maybe I should call in sick
No...no... It's the last day of the week
A taxi! A taxi I should seek!

A taxi would quicken my pace
If I can get one in the first place
If only I hadn't sold... I still had my bike
My head wouldn't potentially be on a pike

Miss my bike, her knobby tyres, she was my Winona Ryder
Sensuous and sleek, my Yamaha with jet black fender
Ride a bike, must wear shoes. Much safer

Love my shoes, I own more than a dozen
Nails need trimm... Oh look! A ******* raven!

No... a crow... Well, some bird stranded like me
Can't fly on wet feathers seeking refuge under a tree

Wait a second! Where was I?
Oh nails! Trimming tonight, I must try
Clean fingernails, everyone likes
***! I'm still stranded! Yikes!

Brave the rain, walk briskly, no time to waste
Move quickly, go on...make haste!

Care not for getting wet
Go now! Ready...get set...
Awgh! Didn't zip up my bag
This just adds on to my lag

ZIPP!
TRIP!

Tripped over a stone
No one saw, luckily I'm alone!

Gee... I have 21 bags, perhaps too many for a guy
Must go jogging tonight, next week or maybe next July
Oh shoot, shoelace's undone...now I've got to tie
Text message in on my phone, volume set on high

Work just texted, asking so many questions
Among which - "Have you submitted last week's requisitions?"
Why do we text when we can talk
People don't meet anymore, on Facebook they rock

Hmm beginning to hate Facebook but I still do check
Woohoo! Found a coin by the grass verged track
Oh ten cents, well it's still money
I'll save it, it'll come in handy
Perfect! Now I'm wet
Because of the coin I tried to get

Hmm...where was I again?
Gosh my mind's like a derailed train
One of those days I guess I'll remain...
A...

          S CA  TTE  RB RA  I    N

.
And I'm still NOT AT WORK!!!! But at least I'm 10 cents richer!
PS Feb 2013
The sweet of your lips are my only delusion
the idea of love becomes just another illusion
fantasy at its best is pulling me through
insanity taking me near to our world so slow
drugs ,the poison blockin ur voices so clear
labels they printed still fresh on my head
outcasted I am but I still shine
in the etopian realm you are still mine
I am not sleeping with eyes open like you do
our song still pierces my ears through
the urge i control to question my god
coz idols of holy ghosts are just piles of mud
the chill runs down my spine in the road of rope
I deny burning in the warm fire of hope
the portal I have to the new sane world
the world of my thoughts the world in my head !
Not heeding the real Truth of Christ,
will lead us into derailed victories;
in addition, we’ve been challenged to
question and make spiritual inquiries

regarding the legitimacy of His Word.
We need to be diligent in our studies
of the Scriptures, showing ourselves
approved of Him and not lazy nobodies,

who remain ignorant of His principles.
After all, it’s The Spirit’s pleasure
to lead us into everlasting Truth; our
inclination is to have that treasure…

of Christ within our hearts each day
and to enjoy the presence of His sway!
Inspired by:
2 Cor 2:14; Judg 18:5-6; John 16:13-15;
Matt 6:21; Psa 119:10-17; Col 3:1-3

Learn more about me and my poetry at: amazon (dot) com

By Joseph J. Breunig 3rd, © 2017, All rights reserved.
DieingEmbers Jan 2013
I'm not fooled, though you've my attention
time you were schooled
given detention
you're dropping each line...             fumbling each word
but that's fine

you're running scared--

                    give it up hand back the crown

cause queenie this jester put you DOWN

chucks my boy I've got his back

you've been derailed        ===========                       you're way off track



here's a tissue wipe your eyes

cause these words like Embers never Dies
this is for Chuck and his rap (joke) battle lol
Steven Forrester May 2014
Life is tricky
Full of intricacy
If you look at history
It says it best
Love is dangerous
More lethal
Than mustard gas
Utterly noxious
My heart is fractured
Like bone
Rather than muscle
Unsung is my song
My story untold
In the shimmering light
My madness unfolds
I need rest
When did this thing...
Become such a test
My back is breaking
Under the stress
I fight
To no avail
I feel my brain
Becoming a train
Inevitably derailed
(c) Steven R Forrester
ryn Feb 2015
He motioned for her to take her place on the back.
He braced himself steady as she slid herself onto the rack.
Once she had settled, he handed her his gunny sack,
He told her keep it safe as he tackled the offbeaten track.

The night was quiet, save for the crickets chirping in unison
Hiding behind the clouds, the moon gave out a dim ominous glow.
The tapper finally felt a tiny sliver of trepidation
He wasn't sure of the outcome, that night would eventually show.

The whole time, he was thinking in his busy little head...
He tried to devise ways to thwart this playful, mischievous being.
But those thoughts of his were quickly derailed instead.
For her perfumed presence was very much intoxicating.

Soon they had arrived at the foot of the hill
He hastened his pedalling to meet the uphill *****.
He would have continued slamming on the pedals until...
He felt her hand on his shoulder clench into a tight *****.

He tilted his head back towards his beautiful passenger.
In a calm manner he mouthed the words asking, "What's the matter?"
Her voice came right after in a nervous stammer,
*"Would you mind slowing down because last night this was where I had fallen over..."
The end.
Jonathan Witte Sep 2018
I
I stole my brother’s car and drove to Phoenix in the dark. Bluegreen glow of dashboard gauges, the faint scent of roadkill and desert marigolds. Tap. Tap. Tap. Insects slapping the windshield like rain. How many miles does it take to turn yourself around, to rise up from ashes? Keep driving. Drive until the sun blooms.

II
Some days were more dire than others. CCTV footage confirms I pawned a shotgun, a Gibson guitar, and my wife’s engagement ring at the pawnshop next to Fatty’s Tattoo parlor. The typographically accurate Declaration of Independence inscribed on my back also confirms this.

III
I ran the tilt-a-whirl at the Ashtabula county fair, fattening up on fried Oreos and elephant ears, flirting behind tent ***** with the cute contortionist with strawberry-blonde hair.

IV
I derailed in a dive bar.

V
I disappeared in a city lit by lavender streetlights, where buildings blotted out the stars and the traffic signals kept perfect time.
I picked through trash bins. I paid for love with drugstore wine.

VI
I closed my eyes on a mountain road. The sheriff extracted me from a ****** snowbank.

VII
I holed up for weeks in an oceanfront motel, dazed by the roar of the breakers. Each morning I drew back the curtains and lost myself in the crisscrossing patterns of whitecaps, the synchronous flight of sanderlings above the dunes. I dreamed of dead horseshoe ***** rolling in with the tide.

VIII
The moon over my shoulder tightened into focus like a prison spotlight. One night the barking dogs undid me. Goodnight, children. Goodbye, my love. I capitulated to the candor of a naked mattress. I grew my beard, an insomniac in a jail cell clinging to bars the color of a morning dove.

IV
I coveted the house keys of strangers.

X
I opened and closed many doors. I sang into the mouths of storm drains. I stepped out of many rooms only to find myself in the room I had just left. Despite all my leaving, I remained.
ryn Sep 2014
Partly darkened and part in light
A time when the stars and sun shared the sky
Bear witness to two behemoths wielding might
Impending clash foreseen to go awry

Two trains of thoughts charging from opposite ends
Each bearing their own solid ideals
Their flags that flew with conflicting brands
Convictions they carry on beaten, weary wheels

Almost an eternity, the time is soon
Seconds lasted before they finally would meet
Feeling of dread like the cloud covered moon
With war cries of whistles, they would greet

No possible way that they could miss
War waged in steeled wills and forged metals
Anticipate the moment, their couplings would kiss
Unleashing a barrage of predestined reprisals

Sheer destruction as they ate into each other
All in tow haphazardly derailed
A clash made of brute strength and power
A result of when decisiveness had failed

All was motionless save for the light of day
The two lay dead; spent currencies in coal
Fire and smoke had emerged from the fray
Signifying that the two have met their goal

Their cargo now freed, engaging in petty skirmish
Lunging and wrestling as they fought for dominance
Determination to overwhelm; never to languish
Jousting fists fueled by pent-up vengeance

Almost at end this long drawn battle
Much like a storm to be patiently ridden out
When the last of the debris should settle
Then would be lifted the dusty veil of doubt

The sun has now risen revealing the aftermath
Shedding light on the devastation incurred
Dark thoughts possess the most potent of wraths
But nothing could beat the muscle of the written word

Looking back I've realised the harm I've caused
Found great solace in the dark words I've governed
Life still hurls; it can never be paused
Just dust yourself off for you're better off enlightened
I'm back! (Well at least until the next train arrives... :))
Thank you everyone for your support throughout...

See "Doom Train"
See "Light Train"
ryn Nov 2014
Have you seen it?
Seems like I've misplaced my mind.

I had it for a while...
Now it seems like I'm flying blind.

Can't piece out my thoughts,
a cacophony of riled up birds.

An **** of broken lines...
Overlapping and blurring into incomprehensible words.

Wandered in almost every direction,
but seem stumped at every end.

My mind is rapidly turning,
more foe and less a friend.

Confused is what it is at best.
Derailed far from its once reliable track.

Need to quickly regain my centre,
need desperately to get it all back.

Conjured this up...
With much difficulty.

Strenuous exercise...
For what once flowed freely.

Could it be...
That I have too frequently misused.

The welcome I've received,
that I have carelessly abused.

Ugh... Makes no sense...
Never have for a while.

Conflicting thoughts and words.
Crash into each other into a pile.

Need a reboot,
a reset and a restart.

Need to find my muse,
that stems from the heart.

Curse the mundane!
These excruciating hours of the day.

Begging for the nights,
to take me and my mind away.
This is a conversation I had with God.
In which I told the silence of my room
that surrealism is the only ism in which God makes total sense.

I could see the chalk whites of his teeth trying to bite down on his words
but before they could be derailed his tongue caught wind and his words assailed
as he said, "I hate surrealism."

As if his words would never be caught dead in an urn
sometimes his mouth looked more like a jail in an Old Western
and his thoughts fought like criminals desperate to break out
until they finally found a way to use his tongue as an escape route.

"No, I don't hate surrealism," he says
"I just hate surrealism as a movement."

Upon hearing this my spine coils like a wine-corker-spiral-staircase
upward; where my brain plugs my cranium like a cork
and my eyes drip like blank canvas,
I am one hollow statue decaying in a melting structure
with wax in my ears I feed landscapes to winged insects
as I drown in pools of water/color.

Behind me is a sky so burlesque it actually looks like the clouds are crying.
Under me is a ground so vast it has nine horizons wrapped in a double helix.
Reconstructed beside me is a tree so old it could be the same wood as The Crucifix.
Nested inside me where my spine should be is a coat rack made crooked by the weight of all-nighters.
The texture of my skin makes it look like god paints with typewriters.

"No, no," he says, his voice turning melancholy, atomic, uranic, idyll,
"I don't hate surrealism as a movement,
because hate's such a strong word. Oh god, I guess I just don't get it."

Now I'm overcome with a sincere desire to light an entire herd of giraffes on fire
and sip wine beneath the light as if it were dinner by candlelight,

"Seriously?" I say. "Under giraffes, in this light
I can't tell if you're Lincoln or Jesus.
In fact, we all look like swans with elephant reflections.
Your trunk is a trumpet.
Don't even get me started on where we derive our visions of god
from where I stand everything casts a shadow in the shape of where it's heading
and the sky, vast and pale and open, the sky is the only all-seer
and the truth is far less surreal:
if your demons are ants then your god is an anteater."

I can see the chalk whites of his teeth stall door,
squeaky hinge, his mouth-
occupied with a realization he can't pronounce.
A pause as pregnant as a desert landscape,
ornamented with butterflies.

His head is an empty room with an evaporating skylight,
his ears, hang like clocks on a half-wall, melting.
The escalator to his brain is a spiral staircase moving in reverse.
His eyelids peel back like the last page of a two-dimensional book.
I can see with my Spellbound eyes, we are finally on the same page.

When his tongue curls back into his saloon jaw
like a bee sting rifle shot back into the mouth of a lunging tiger,
swallowed deep into the wells of a fish belly.

"I'm sorry" he says, "that's not what I meant."
Now upon Age my Ripe Lantern will give
The Rose of Thirty-Four for his Best Joy
Sister, the Token of my Purpose, live,
Brother, the Promise of a Knighted Boy
Which Rose, purple or red, will compensate
A Decade's Sin I rehearse to atone
Pride, one Raven crowed I pluck without Hate
And gently shift my Psalms for her Behold
How another Labour I justly Failed
Must submit to her Needs before my own
For me the Decoding Concept derailed
The Troll called Pity transforms your Heart to Gold.
You both planned to defer in New Year's Lift
Still for you both I sing this Sterling Gift.
Dave Gledhill Apr 2012
Oh God, how are you still talking?
I can feel myself nodding,
head bouncing like a metronome,
Yes. No. Maybe.
Of course I’m listening, Babe.
Except I’m not - obviously.
I’m  watching that girl walk by, all lithe limbs,
languidly lounging past the window.
I wonder where she’s going,
I wonder where you’re going -  
with this tiresome tirade.
Your eyes rolling, like the reels on the fruit machine,
No delay on your train of thought.
Hard to keep track, can’t read the signals,
eyes filled with smoke,
trapped by your tedious tannoy,
covering old ground,
chugging relentlessly,
chanting incessantly,
crowing endlessly,  
My job? It’s fine.
My health? It’s fine!
Finances? Enough to get a pint in!
Can I risk a diversion?
Why are you broadcasting this nonsense?
When will it stop?
Pregnant.
Pause.
Wait. What?
Joseph Childress Nov 2010
I can't wait 'til
Nightfalls
Tonight
I will
Construct nightmares
So insane
Phantoms couldn't fathom
Fantasies make foul turns
Fascination fails
You'll frail frantically
Your chain of the thoughts
Become a train
Derailed
From Loco motives
Your emotions
Are now
Monstrous motifs
Built moments
Before happiness
You'll stare
In terror eyes
Scared as cats
You scratch
Along the wood floor
Forced
Through dark corridors
The doors
Horror tore off the hinges
You're inches away
From no longer living
As soon
As you've given
Yourself away
I take
And make worse!

Death dances
At arms lengths
I've never seen someone
so anxious
To reach

Too anguished to speak
How shall I satisfy?
This shallow heart
Is empty
But simply filled the rows
Of this cathedral
With people
Who payed
To see the price
You've payed

I guess,
Hell sales
This thriller will terrify
Eye's should stay confined
When I
Comply to my conscience
Can science comfort you
It claims this isn't real
Well
It really helped me
Make you feel
Comfortable enough
To sleep
Deeply
Anesthesia
Will be the
Reason for your sweet retreat
As soon as your
Sound asleep
I'll compile vile thoughts
And send you on a journey
With intent
Of you never returning
A one-way trip
From float, freight or flight
As long as it brings
Fright
By mars at night
Where nightmares
Are the day
And you're fearful of it's sight
"Dawn"
I wonder where the prayers went...after years spent sitting in the darkness looking for a change that never came...it never came...and...
Where Is My Diamoonnnd!!!!???
All I Have is coal...
And why....
Why can't I have 3 wishes at least?...
Because change never came...it never came...
Only the Storm remained.
But when being present was a requirement, there transpired a lucid calm...
Mmm...
If only it could be grasped like bed sheets the night the Storm was conceived...
Oh I wish those knees could have been broken!!!...
So they wouldn't have opened to receive...seed...or conceive...
Forgive me..
I pray for a mime to be a fly on the wall of these thoughts!!
I pray the clouds part so the sun can shine and you find rest..
Because....  
Everything's better when you are asleep...
Suffering through your Own nightmares...
What happened to the maternal instinct purposed to protect you, nurture you to a point of functionality?
Is there such thing as functional with you?...
Or
Did you wear out your place of origin to where you're no longer sought for or welcomed?
Was it a joy to desert such a never ending storm?
Is there no remorse?
Not for your abandonment...but for society...
No thought for the trail of derailed strangers who will never forget the name of the tornadic soul who impacted them tragically...?
Tragic....
Your calms last long enough to fall in love with the beauty in between..and it is so beautiful.
But...
Not long enough to prepare for your next season...and...
Why.....
Why won't you learn to warn your lovers?
So they may brace for...
Dawn...
Oh...
But...wait...
Look...
The sun...
The sun is coming...
The heavens still love me...
So...
Since the sun is out,
I love you...
Sweet dreams.
~Say Dat~
This is dedicated to those who have suffered emotional abuse....
A woman sits in the dark, talking to her drunken sleeping abusive lover...
Kirsten Martin May 2012
Who else felt the night coming off the tracks,
When we first stepped into that crowded, 1 bedroom apartment,
For the 21st birthday of a guy we knew (his friends, we didn't)?

Strangers derailed and built up drunken tension.
That settled once he found the smoke,
You found the beer,
And I brought the ***.

I know my regrets.
But do you still enjoy the white line you crossed...
Off the counter top,
Before we left for IHop?

You hit me, held my hand, and made me promise in the stall,
(where I held your hair just last week)
That I won't tell.

I won't.

We loaded up in the car to go back,
But got stopped along the way.

Two pipes, one baggie, and an open container later...
Maybe birthday boy became a man,
Sometime between when he got cuffed...
And when he apologized.

Was it just me or....
Were the State Troopers cutest when they lined us girls up,
Looked at us,
And let us go?


Just in time for Mother's Day.
... Oh, and we went to Walmart at some point.
Gossamer Jul 2013
I tried not to like him. I tried really, really hard not to notice his perfect smile, his perfect hair, his perfect laugh….I did. I promise. Because what point is there in liking a guy who already has a girlfriend? In his eyes, I was simply a friend. Someone to joke around with before he went back to the more important, more beautiful girl. But over the past 10 weeks, it has become increasingly difficult to avoid the unavoidable: I am completely and utterly infatuated with him. He has been, most recently, sneaking into my dreams, subtly at first and then, to my shock and secret excitement, making obvious appearances. It is these appearances that hurt the most, for I could take full advantage of them and pretend he is mine…but I can’t. Because he isn’t. Even though, as I found out a week ago, he is now single. No girlfriend. No heartbreak. Just single. Like me. Except I’m sure he wants to be. Unlike me. And it is here that I am left in an utterly hopeless place: I am in love with a boy who has just fallen out of love, and who does not plan on falling back into it. There was a short period of time (it could be measured in seconds) that I thought perhaps I could change his mind; I could make him fall in love with me. Not forcibly, of course…just in the way that I would become so appealing to him that he would fall quite hard, and quite fast. The opposite way I did for him. But that was a silly, rash thought, and I brushed it aside as I am my hair right now as I type this. As I try to clear my mind. As I try to figure out what to do. Because I don’t know what to do. I’ve always secretly liked him, but I never figured he would like me. And there’s this miniscule thought, this hope, in the back of my mind that maybe we were meant to be or something stupid and naive like that. And I can’t shake it. So I guess I’m stuck. I guess I’ll keep writing songs and poems and rambles like this until I either fall out of love or the amazing and unfathomable happens. I’m hoping it will be the second. Because I really do like him. Even though I really tried not to.
Francie Lynch Jan 2019
Fewer adults are laughing,
It's not funny any more;
We leaned on poles to direct our titter,
Quite harmless in its day.
And Engine 9's been derailed,
We're catching tigers,
But It's still okay.

We rolled our eyes at Jewish jibes,
And salesmen in the barn;
Or the Newfie warning,
Don't slip on the ice,
Don't ya know, bay, it's hard frozen
.

We've pulled our collective heads out,
We're sniffing old world air.
I liked the self-effacing glibs,
Affected with a brogue.
Now there's a hard line on a country bridge,
Across a brook, or penal school ditch.
It's just not funny any more.
judy smith Sep 2016
WHEN Kylie Minogue began the process of tracking down 25 years of costumes and memorabilia for an exhibition on her (literally) glittering stage career, she had one crucial call to make.

“There were a few items the parentals were minding,” laughs Minogue. “I, too, do the same thing as everyone else: ‘Mum, Dad, can you just hold onto a few things for me?’ It’s just lucky they weren’t turfed out from under their watchful eye.”

Kylie On Stage is the singer’s latest collaboration with her beloved hometown’s Arts Centre Melbourne. She’s previously donated a swarm of outfits to the venue, going all the way back to the overalls she wore as tomboy mechanic Charlene on Neighbours.

This new — and free — exhibition rounds up outfits starting from her first-ever live performances on 1989’s Disco in Dream tour. Still aged just 21 and dismissed by some as a soap star who fluked a singing career, Minogue found herself playing to 38,000 fans in Tokyo, where her early hits “I Should Be So Lucky”, “The Loco-motion”, “Got To Be Certain” and “Hand On Your Heart” had made her a superstar.

“From memory, I was overexcited and didn’t really know what I was doing. I just ran back and forth across the stage,” says Minogue of her debut tour.

Disco in Dream also premiered what would become a Kylie fashion staple: hotpants. “Those ones were more like micro shorts, not quite hotpants, but they started it,” she admits. “There were also quite a few bicycle pants being worn around that time, too, I’m afraid.”

That first tour stands out for one other reason: Minogue officially started dating INXS’s Michael Hutchence at some point during the Asian leg.

“I had met Michael previously in Australia, but he was living in Hong Kong [at the time] and I met him again there. The tour went on to Japan and he definitely came to visit me in Japan.”

Fast-forward from Minogue’s very first tour to her most recent, 2015’s Kiss Me Once, and the singer performed a cover of INXS’s “Need You Tonight”. She remembers first hearing the song as a teenager. “I don’t think I really knew what **** was back then,” notes Minogue. “But that’s a **** song.”

Before the Kiss Me Once tour kicked off, the Minogue/Hutchence romance had been documented in the hit TV mini-series Never Tear Us Apart: The Untold Story Of INXS. Minogue said then it felt like Michael was her “archangel” during the tour — “I feel like he’s with me.”

Her “Need You Tonight” costume was also deliberately chosen to reflect what Minogue used to wear when she was dating the rockstar. “It was a black PVC trench coat and hat,” she says. “I loved that. It just made so much sense for the connection to Michael. I literally used to wear that exact same kind of thing, except it was leather, not PVC.”

By 1990, Minogue’s confidence had grown, something she’s partially attributed to Hutchence’s influence. Before her first Australian solo tour, she performed a secret club show billed as The Singing Budgies — reclaiming the derisive nickname the media had bestowed on her. It would be the first time her success silenced those who saw her as an easy target. Next year marks her 30th anniversary in pop; longevity that hasn’t happened by accident.

Minogue’s career accelerated so quickly that by 1991 she was on her fourth album in as many years and outgrowing her producers, Stock Aitken Waterman, who wanted to freeze-frame her in a safe, clean-cut image.

On 1991’s Let’s Get To It tour of the UK, Minogue welcomed onboard her first major fashion designer — John Galliano. He dressed her in fishnets, G-strings and corsets; the British press said she was trying too hard and imitating Madonna at her most sexed-up.

“Of course those comparisons were made, and rightly so. Madonna was a big influence on me,” says Minogue. “She helped create the template of what a pop show is, or what we came to know it as, by dividing it up into segments. And if you’re going to have any costume changes, that’s inevitable.

“I was finding my way. I don’t think we got it right in some ways, but if I look back over my career, sometimes it’s the mistakes that make all the difference. They allow you to really look at where you’re going. I’m fond of all those things now. There was a time when I wasn’t.

“Now I look back at the pictures of the fishnets and G-strings I was wearing ... Maybe the audience members absolutely loved it, maybe they were going through the journey with me of growing up and discovering yourself and your sexuality and where you fit in the world.”

As the ’90s progressed, Minogue started experimenting with the outer limits of being a pop star, working with everyone from uber-cool dance producers to indie rocker Nick Cave.

Her 1998 Intimate And Live tour cemented her place as the one thing nobody had ever predicted: a regular, global touring act. Released the year prior, her Impossible Princess album had garnered a credibility she’d never before enjoyed. But more credibility equalled fewer record sales.

The tour was cautiously placed in theatres, rather than arenas. Yet word-of-mouth led to more dates being added — she wound up playing seven nights in both Melbourne and Sydney, and tacking on a UK leg. All received rave reviews.

The production was low-key and DIY: Minogue and longtime friend and stylist William Baker were hands-on backstage bedazzling the costumes themselves. The tour’s camp, Vegas-style showgirl — complete with corset and headdress — soon became a signature Kylie look, but it was also one they stumbled across.

“I remember the exact moment: the male dancers had pink, fringed chaps and wings — we’d really gone for it. I was singing [ABBA’s] “Dancing Queen”. I did a little prance across the stage and the audience went wild. I thought, ‘What is happening?’ That definitely started something.”

Then came the “Spinning Around” hotpants. Minogue couldn’t wear the same gold pair from the music video during her 2001 On A Night Like This tour — they were too fragile — but another pair offered solid back-up.

“That was peak hotpant period,” says Minogue. “Hotpants for days.”

After the robotic-themed Fever 2002 tour (featuring a “Kyborg” look by Dolce & Gabbana), 2005’s Showgirl tour was Minogue’s long-overdue greatest hits celebration.

Following a massive UK and European run, her planned Australian victory lap was derailed by her breast-cancer diagnosis that May. Remarkably, by November 2006, Minogue was back onstage in Sydney for the rebooted Showgirl: The Homecoming tour.

“I look at that now and I’m honestly taken aback,” she admits. “It was so fast — months and months of those 18 months were in treatment.”

Minogue now reveals her health issues meant she had to adjust some of the Showgirl outfits: “I was concerned about the weight of the corset and being able to support it. I was quite insecure about my body, which had changed. For a few years after that I really felt like I wasn’t in my own body — with the medication I was on, there was this other layer.

“We had to make a number of adjustments,” she adds. “I had different shoes to feel more sturdy ... It was pretty soon to be back onstage. But I think it was good for me.”

The singer’s gruelling performances involved dancing and singing in corsets, as well as ultra-high heels and headdresses that weighed several kilos.

“A proper corset, like the Showgirl tour one, is like a shoe,” she explains. “It’s very stiff when you first put it on. By the end of the tour it was way more comfortable. The fact it made it quite hard to breathe didn’t seem to bother anyone except for me. But it was absolutely worth it. I felt grand in it.

“It took a while to learn how to walk in the blue Showgirl dress,” she continues. “I had cuts on my arms from the stars that were sticking out on pieces of wire. You’re so limited in what you can do. You can’t bend your head to find your way down the stairs.

“Whether it was the Showgirl costume or the hotpants, or the big silver dress from the Aphrodite tour [in 2011] that was just ginormous, they all present their own challenges of how you’re going to move and how you’re going to do the choreography. There are times the costume can do that [figuring out] for me; other times I really have to wrestle with it to do what I need to do.

“But you’re not meant to know about that,” she adds, “that’s an internal struggle.”

Minogue has spent much of 2016 happily off the radar, enjoying the company of fiancé Joshua Sasse, 28. She gets “gooey” talking about her future husband, whom she met last year when she was cast opposite him in the TV musical-comedy series Galavant. He proposed to Minogue last Christmas.

Just like the “secret Greek wedding” that was rumoured but never happened, reports of summer nuptials in Melbourne are also off the mark.

“I hate to let everyone down, but no,” she says. “People’s enthusiasm is lovely, we appreciate that, but there are no wedding plans as yet. I’m just enjoying feeling girly and being engaged.”

Minogue will be in Queensland next month filming the movie Flammable Children. The comedy, set in 1975, features her former Neighbours co-star Guy Pearce and is written and directed by Stephan Elliott (The Adventures Of Priscilla: Queen Of The Desert ).

“It’s Aussie-tastic,” laughs Minogue. And she is also planning a sneaky visit to check out her own exhibition when she’s back in Melbourne.

“I’ll probably try to move things around the exhibition,” she says. “And they’ll probably tell me off: ‘Who’s that child playing with the costumes?’”Read more at:http://www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses-sydney | www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses-2016
Holly Salvatore Sep 2013
He tied his love to the railroad
Tracks and the
Fears that were part of
A matched set
Tied them down good
And left them screaming
Obscenities

The Baltimore and
Ohio derailed that day as he
Threw away the towel that
Read "Hers" while "His"
Hung there alone and
Uncomplicated

Like the black and white
Silent movie life he had fabricated
He poured a single scotch and
Soda and thought of the children
He'd never have to have
Heard the gospel-flavored whistle of the train
And his salvation
On the railroad tracks
W Winchester May 2014
I keep losing my train of thought

I really would like to find it,
but sometimes I'm afraid I don't even have the ticket

I lost my train of thought

So I decided to go looking

When I found it, it was derailed off its tracks

Wrecked completely, in flaming chunks

I found pieces of it hanging from a cliff

Other pieces somewhere in the depths of the ocean

And yet more pieces,
Still on their track and chugging to their doom

I lost my train of thought,
maybe it's best I didn't have my ticket
It's an extended metaphor
Dallas Phoenix Sep 2016
I'm sick of bringing welcoming baskets to my brain-dead neighbors;
They reek of reoccurring favors and fading candle labor;
I mean...
It's to a point I fell asleep by the wishing well;
And woke up counting sheep frolicking piggies playing kiss and tell;
Debunking trumpets of cachet telekinesis;
I'm a hidden sinning villain with chewable junk as his personal Jesus;
Evade gratuitously from all kinds of communication;
Never wanted the attention, but I caught it's contamination;
And my face melted;
But kept a defunct smile just in case;
I need to worm through the dross and cut myself into the chase;
I'm a motley of misinterpreted mayhem;
A clothing shop for a wandering vagrant's cloudy stray phlegm;
Trying to comfort the uncomforted;
My life is just a Death Row inmate's last words with unwanted conjunctions;
But somehow through misery
I pride myself imageless and infinite;
Reeling in the years to blow that last smoke before the finish;
Madds Mar 2012
& I'm ******* drowning again
In all these thoughts of you.
Rescue me.

The heights of these walls
Used to be so high
One could not see the top
& now, you've crawled over them
Again.

Take me out the back
& shoot me down
I don't need this pain
But somehow,
I want it.

The taste of your lips.
Sweet.

Your touch on my hips.
Soft.

Uh **** this.
I still love you,
Come back.
RA Jun 2014
I think somewhere, on the highways of my mind,
there was a car crash, little thoughts colliding,
soft shrapnel exploding. And on the way to fixing things,
a police-car flipped
and sank, taking all my thought-power
and devoting it to the futility
of thinking of you. The sirens underwater
are blaring and drowning out everything else
through sheer power, strength of only
mind over all that really maters, and thoughts about
you are the siren, alluring in lies, only
sirens underwater, loud but blurred, giving off glints of light
as bright as the air I need clear of your
sweetness that is entirely out of place in
the labrynthine twists of my head.
June 9, 2014
2:26 PM

     edited June 9, 2014

Inspired in part by http://hellopoetry.com/poem/652072/again-with-the-puzzles/
John F McCullagh Dec 2013
If you seek to Kindle passion,
but your mate is always cold,
You should buy a Hoodie Footie
from Pajama- gram I'm told..

The Hoodie keeps her ears warm
While the feeties warm her toes.
Toss in some wine and music
as her mood for passion grows.

Then you pull down on the zipper
that covers groin to chin
the girl is now on fire
and the romance can begin.

Except there was a problem
that derailed my new found luck.
My seduction didn't figure
on the zipper getting stuck.

Now she's ***** and unsatisfied
and feeling like she's fried
and I'm here sleeping on the couch
( at least I'm not outside)
This comes of hearing the pajama gram commercial once too often!
A L Davies Jan 2013
last night i almost
gave up thinking of bronzy brazilian girls
perspiring pure coconut oil, eau de margherita ;
supermodelas eating my dreams like concord grapes, lionesses
lounging on new york balconies, lithe, reading céline.
(esti ginzburg, on the phone, considers another pomeranian) .
almost stopped.
almost derailed strange vogue-like fantasme of irina shayk, standing legs planted
left knee out-****** and foot
in ebony heel, cocked against the earth.
set being imitation of gloomy coal mine, east of prague. thin arms firmly controlling the
arc of her pickaxe, clothed in leather, high heels;
sheen of sweat holding her feline body in sweet embrace.
imagining that when shift's end buzzer echoes thru the tunnels she smokes a cigarette
on a bench in the women's locker, apple planted on old planking, elbows on her knees.
cover-alls peeled
down to her waist and her hair,
free at last.
(click)
on the tram back into the city all the smoked glass
cartier storefronts pass by like polaroids held in the hand. the same speed.
giggling, 'rina thinks of the six she could place
along her arm; gilt gold, brushed silver, diamant...

there are 11 smoked belmonts by the back steps; i did
little with the night. (tall shadow of a woman in a black dress and my mouth
a cotton ball)
that is to say:
i did almost give up thinking about bronzy braz ilia     g rls ,
-
but i didn't/and so there's nothing else.
'some girls' (insp.) / kanye west taught me a lot about supermodels.
Pareto's principle laments that four times the time spent
on self-development is swallowed up in the irrelevant.

Infinitesimal charades that garble up the mind with games.
What perverted praise we feed to wasting brains.

Call spades as we see fit, proved when we believe it,
scratch our itchy demons and call it even.

Socialization is ****. The trauma that it creates
becomes the weight beneath which identity breaks.

Speak not, chew and swallow; stay with the herd and follow,
despite the hollow hopes and stale promise of tomorrow.

Back to the scheduled program; this machine waits for no man
with his own plans, dignity, destiny, or romance.

All but a fifth untrue, derailed from cradle on through
to your walk with doom, from the Original You.

Now to shovel deeply into the roots and repeat,
softly weeping 'til the changing tide rises freely...

By soulful siren enticed, beyond the hood and scythe,
go towards the light. You've been dreaming your life...

Rush headlong into the ache, all that you are at stake.
Courage, caffeinate, and stay awake.

Pareto reveals the abient nature of **** sapiens:
under Palladium's aegis, the soul is radiant.

So seek not fingers but thumb, never portion but sum;
the eighty, none; the twenty the key to One.
The Pareto principle is also known as the "80/20 rule".
Emanuel Martinez Jan 2013
Just a little, just a small, just a bit
Exuding burst of energy
Embodiment of brilliance
Manifested in human flesh

Wondering while we walk
Trembling trying to talk
Mankind mostly marred momentum

Humanity how humiliating, hiding
Forefathers frowning, from our fabricated forget
Refusing redemption, requiring rancor and retribution  

Always armed, allured, awaiting angry accusations
Derailed doves, these daggers drag down
Losing level landings, lacerating learning's lifting

Just a little, just a small, just a bit
Exuding burst of energy
Embodiment of brilliance
Manifested in human flesh

I implore indignation, it's incarceration of our intrinsic immensity
At the core of our conception, captivating creation captured
Anyone, everyone, afraid of the amazement accrued under our armor
Profoundness, endless as the universe, favoring our existence

Just a little, just a small, just a bit
Exuding burst of energy
Embodiment of brilliance
Manifested in human flesh
January 13, 2013
Regina Harrison Jul 2021
Long ago dreams
Dead cuz of choices made
No rhyme or reason
To this ****** addiction

No one can hear my screams
Inside my head they never fade
Living in hell no matter the season
Lost in this ****** addiction

Unbearable demons haunt me
No longer able to maintain
I give in to the anger
Finding absolution in this ****** addiction

This isn't how I want to be
Life's roller coaster ride has been insane
I have nothing left to wager
Stagnated by this ****** addiction

Broken promises left broken hearts
And kids without their mother
And a Mom beaten down and ashamed
Pain became the justification in this ****** addiction

Filled with guilt that never departs
And an anguish like no other
My past can no longer be blamed
Reality is I got complacent in this ****** addiction

Fighting so hard yet only feeling defeat
Can't seem to find the light
So tired of always hurting
I run into the chaos of this ****** addiction

I bow my head without conceit
Crying out to God with all my might
But desolation can be very disconcerting
When trying to escape this ****** addiction

Time and time again I tried and failed
To leave this life behind
Only to lose myself once more
To the hypnotic pull of this ****** addiction

This crazy train has been derailed
No longer strung outta my mind
Going to spread my wings and soar
The hell away from this ****** addiction
Sobriety is amazing life is so much better now. I'm blessed!
Hal Loyd Denton Jan 2012
Trick or Treat
Trick or Treat
I tried a trick in the last piece will mix this up with both but as Betty Davis said In all about Eve buckle up
It going to be a bumpy ride I will give you a little of both at first the deadly trick I didn’t know and the
Treat of playing chicken with a freight train only now I was seven we lived on Railroad Rd Ave the first
Street south of Jackson where the pizza wars are fought daily between Pizza Hut and Pizza man. I
Crossed the ditch and climbed the grade a little challenge at seven but as I played on the track I heard
That old devil that always shook our house as it passed but it made up for it with that romantic whistle
And the feeling you got as you listened to it fade into the distant night. Well I didn’t know what romance
Was totally except on westerns and I did think those Warren twins were cute and when those brownies
All gathered on the east side of Lincoln school under that tree I did stare and enjoy such a wondrous
Sight they would and have repopulated our world given us the promise of an unbreakable future I can’t
Tell if I heard I guess that was the case I heard it first when I saw the train it was down by the bowling
Alley it was just a dot at that distance not very big it didn’t take long for it to metamorphous in to a
Fierce giant black behemoth it was getting intimidating half way to the crossing to give you the distance
At the time I jumped out of the way and ran down the hill I almost was sent flying as I encountered
Angles we lived in the second house from pine and I was right across from my house they almost had
One less mouth to feed I feel they would have gotten over it about the time it would take to eat a
Hamburger at home town so you get the distance I let him come across the pine street crossing now
Tension was shaking me two things I didn’t know that they rolled back and forth and that they were two
Stories high the ground did more than tremble by this time he was through the crossing and driving
Toward my position that I wasn’t ready to forfeit just yet I had a stubborn streak and a rebel
Heart even back then that might yet land me in hell my wife just said I was banging the keys I talk loud
When I get excited about something and on here I bang the keys. I will have to leave you hanging for a
Moment then take you back for the ending on the same thought about being a rebel I had a dream
Some Years back I was standing in front of a mirror and God was trying to put this detailed and glorious
Crown of intricate gold on my head it wasn’t happening with ease like the time I was ten the coat I had was finished
Torn from the collar to the shoulder it hung down god awful inside stuffing best description here came
The enemy mom sister aunt Grandmother and her sister with a new coat I hit the floor with my best
Three Stooges Curly imitation not a pretty picture even scared the old auntie visiting well from coloring
Books to fox terrier dogs that was what it took for me to relent and give up my coat see what the train
Was up against I have to take this opportunity for years I have tried to honor this special teacher but the
Story to sad and tragic I tried another time to write about Candy Jack a young mother who died leaving
Two five year old twin girls for her mother to raise as I set there drawing on the feelings you have to have
To write I got more than I bargained for Candy was totally visible in my mind but a visitor came with her
As I write this I have a cold chill it was death now Candy lie in repose in her casket but the truth of her
Condition started to take over and grip my body that was all I wanted I dropped paper and pen and left
The room never to attempt her story again you can’t match Mrs. Dagon’s story with mere words I doubt
If even Faulkner could even though he masterfully handled the subject in she lay dying I set in her class I
Might have been at a loss in the business class but I got how much she loved her husband Jim that’s
When and only when her hard exterior softened I hope in vain that her hardness somehow gave her a
Semblance of armor you surly know the story Jim died of cancer they had her in the hospital she asked
To go home for an item she would be right back a promise maybe she meant to keep but the story she
Was wearing a gown and a thin oh to thin a house coat she went in one door maybe in that stillness and
In that reality I spoke of in The Magic Lamp she came to the end of her mind and hearts ability to endure
The untold agony this is what happened she walked out the other door crossed the same street her and
Jim followed home so many times in life she continued over and up to the tracks waited she heard the
Same romantic whistle but for her it was laced with unbearable pain she offered up her life as she
Stepped in front of a fast freight Jefferson stated the tree of liberty must at times be refreshed by the
Blood of patriots sometimes release outweighs the scale of life no longer in balance and can only be
Made so by extreme measures for all who love, you Mrs. Dagon made our experience far more richer
And I know Jim was as the old almost sacred song says I will wait for you just beyond the moon farewell
And God bless continuing in this tragic vain but back to the same crossing I left you at a display of exact
Opposites from Mrs. Dagon the Chesty potato chip man driving the little blue van was killed and people
With the ugliest actions he had barley been removed and they were vultures without human decency
Scrounging potato chip bags and cans of chili enjoy idiots it was a whole different story when the train
Derailed at Owaneco throwing boxes of shoes everywhere sure there was souls and heels everywhere
But they were leather. So there I stood he crossed through the crossing now it was terrifying thats why
They call it chicken I just kept standing there lengthening the thrill I had time now the trick, sometime
Later I played this on the side walk with two guys on a bicycle I kept standing there but when I finally
Started to jump the trick happened my nerves froze and I couldn’t move they hit me and knocked me
Down it was painful but I wasn’t there I was in my mind back on those tracks the train thirty feet away if
I didn’t jump when I did what a small minced pie I would have made.
Innocent Tata May 2017
What if I let you read my poems?
A window to my prowess
The edible part of this eccentric fruit
The beauty of this beast
The justification of this tongue-tied pride

What if I let you see me?
In an unexpected lightning
Caught off guard
No consciousness for good or bad
No apology, no self-regard

A mind without dogma or dead ends
No societal influence
Juried by mere conscience
So much love, so much violence
Hasty vengeance by the ARTLESS

Derailed from logic and peer reference
Governed by wimps and impulses
Nutrition and *******!
Nutrition and *******!!
Mankind’s infamous purpose


Now..
Now let us go back to the green hill
The good soothsayer's teaching
The shackles of our being
Let us close our eyes... and Breathe

— The End —