My Second Letter to Allen Ginsberg
Dear Allen,
Almost five years ago, I wrote you a letter, and in
That letter, I purged my drunkenly woeful cries
That seem so first-world now and naïve –
The things I grimed over with luxuries I didn’t
Realize that rubbed against my plump limbs
Like millions of felines poised at the
Tombs of pharaohs.

Oh, Allen, I’m so tired –
These politics, and poly ticks, so many ticks that
Annoy my tics. Allen! I smear your name so liberally
Against this paper like primer because the easiest way
To coerce someone into listening to you like
A mother
or predator
tugging or nibbling on your ear –
Swatches of velvet scalped from a ****’s coat
Are you and I talking to ourselves again?
Candid insanity : Smoky hesitance.

Dear Allen, I’m so tired –
Yes, I love wearing my ovaries on the outside like
Some Amazonian soapbox gem glistening from beneath
The iron boots of what the newspapers tell me while
I cough at them with the hurdled delicacies of alphabet soup.
Give vegetables a gender and call them onions, Allen.
Sullied scratch-hicks pinioned feet from slapping
Society’s last rung on the ladder.
Ignore the swerve of small-town eyes.
Scapulas, stirrups, pap smears, and cervical mucus – now do you know who we are?

That fingernail clipped too short, Allen. We’ve all got AIDs
And AIDs babies, haven’t you heard? Hemorrhaging from the political
****** and out – they haven’t reached the heart.  
Since when have old white men given a **** about some
13 year old’s birth control? I’m riding on the waves of the
Parachute game and I swear this abortion-issue is just a veil outside Tuskegee University
Being further shove over plaintive eyes, swollen and black.
Pay up and
shut up.

I still remember my first broken *****, Allen.
Can you tell me all about your first time?
The vasodilatation that made veins rub against skin,
Delirious brilliance : unfathomable electricity.
I made love during an LSD experience, Allen,
And I am not sorry. I see cosmic visions and
Manifest universal vibrations as if this entire world is
A dish reverberating with textiles and marbles, and
All are plundering the depths of the finished wine
Bottle roasting in the sink like Thanksgiving Turkey.
The patience is in the living. Time opens out to you.
The opening, between you and you, occupied,
zoned for an encounter,
given the histories of you and you—
And always, who is this you?
The start of you, each day,
a presence already—
Hey, you!

Ah, Allen, if you are not safe, then I am not safe.
And where is the safest place when that place
Must be someplace other than in the body?
Am I talking to myself again?
You are not sick, you are injured—
you ache for the rest of life.

Why is it that I have to explain to my students that
sometimes what I'm spouting is prescribed by a pedagogical pharmacy --
but all they want to know is "what do the symbols on the television mean?"
I am completely aghast against the ghosts of future goners --
I am legitimately licensed to speak, write, listen like some mothers --
I am constantly cajoling the complex creations blamed on burned-out educators --
I am following the flagrant, fired-up "*******"s tagging lockers --
Pay up and
shut up.

Yes, and it’s Hopeless. Allen.
Where did we get off leaping and bounding into
The dogpile for chump change jurisdiction, policing
The right and the left for inherent hypocrisies when
Poets are so frightful to turn that introspective judgment
Upon ourselves?
We didn’t see it coming and I heard the flies, Allen.
Mean crocodile tears. Flamingo mascara tracks
Up and down : up and down: bow – bow – bow – bow
Buoyant amongst the misguided ******* floating around
In the swirlpool of lackadaisical introspection.
What good is vague vocab within poetry?
Absolutely none.
Would you leave the porchlight on tonight?
Absolutely, baby.

Dear Allen, would you grow amongst the roots and dirt
At the knuckles of a slackjawed brush of Ever-Pondering Questions
Only to ask them time-and-time-and-time-and-time-again.
Or pinch your forehead with burrowed, furrowed concentration upon those
Feeble branches of progression towards something that recedes further
And further with as much promise as the loving hand
Attempts to guide a lover to the bed?

Allen, I wish to see this world feelingly through the vibrations of billions of bodies, rocking and sobbing, plotting and gnashing like the movement of a million snakes, like the curves collecting and riding the parachute-veil.

Ah, Allen! Say it ain’t so! Sanctified swerve town eyes.
And everything is melting while poets take the weather
Too personally
And all the Holden Caulfields of the world read all the
*******’s written on the walls and all the Invisible Men
Eat Yams and all the Zampanos are blind and blind
And blind and blind and blind and blind
Yet see as much as Gloucester, as much as Homer,
As much as Oedipus.

Oh, Allen, do you see this world feelingly
and wander around the desert?
Colored marbles vibrating on the curtailed parachute paradox.
Lamentation of a small town’s onion. Little do we know, Allen,
That what you cannot see, we cannot see, and we are bubbling
Over in the animal soup of the proud yet weary. I can see,
However, how the peeled back skulls of a million
Workboots and paystubs may never sully the burden
Of an existential angst in miniscule amounts.
Pay up and
shut up.  

My dearest Allen, there is always a question of how
The cigarettes became besmirched with wax to complement
What was once grass, and
What was once a garish night drenching doorknobs.
The night's yawn absorbs you as you lie down at the wrong angle
To the sun ready already to let go of your hand
As you stepped, quivering, on to
The shores of Lethe.

We all live our lives
Hidden behind the masks we switch out based on who we're around:
Fake smiles for friends and family;
Painful, quiet thoughtfulness for coworkers, employers, and educators;
Horrible secrets we keep from everyone we meet;
From everyone we love

And sometimes, these masks are gorgeous,
Like those you'd see at a masquerade.
Masks that mimic what's really there,
Yet hide it from sight as well.
And everyone who wears these masks
Will look and a mirror and think to themselves:
"Who am I? Why don't I recognize this person reflected back at me?"
It's the mask.

We wear the mask.
We hide behind it.
But when did the mask become us?
When did it become everything we are?
When did these masks start taking control?
Will we let this continue?

When does it stop?

Anthropos apteros for days
Walked whistling round and round the Maze,
Relying happily upon
His temperment for getting on.

The hundredth time he sighted, though,
A bush he left an hour ago,
He halted where four alleys crossed,
And recognized that he was lost.

"Where am I?" Metaphysics says
No question can be asked unless
It has an answer, so I can
Assume this maze has got a plan.

If theologians are correct,
A Plan implies an Architect:
A God-built maze would be, I'm sure,
The Universe in minature.

Are data from the world of Sense,
In that case, valid evidence?
What in the universe I know
Can give directions how to go?

All Mathematics would suggest
A steady straight line as the best,
But left and right alternately
Is consonant with History.

Aesthetics, though, believes all Art
Intends to gratify the heart:
Rejecting disciplines like these,
Must I, then, go which way I please?

Such reasoning is only true
If we accept the classic view,
Which we have no right to assert,
According to the Introvert.

His absolute pre-supposition
Is - Man creates his own condition:
This maze was not divinely built,
But is secreted by my guilt.

The centre that I cannot find
Is known to my unconscious Mind;
I have no reason to despair
Because I am already there.

My problem is how not to will;
They move most quickly who stand still;
I'm only lost until I see
I'm lost because I want to be.

If this should fail, perhaps I should,
As certain educators would,
Content myself with the conclusion;
In theory there is no solution.

All statements about what I feel,
Like I-am-lost, are quite unreal:
My knowledge ends where it began;
A hedge is taller than a man."

Anthropos apteros, perplexed
To know which turning to take next,
Looked up and wished he were a bird
To whom such doubts must seem absurd.

All conflicts are resolved via coercion, implied or applied,
of the dominant party over the denied (Niebuhr).
Not news at the 2nd St. jail. But the Constitution
provides for moderation, persuasion and elections
as way stations, stopgaps, safe havens before the decision's taken
to go to war. Civil war, daily low intensity warfare is unavoidable
      when
chambers of commerce and large corporations wrestle naked
and who are the 1% controlling 25% of the wealth, name names,
hold a french revolution over it. This space I write from's
safe, comfortable but what about a Taco Bell cashier with 4 kids x 3
      men
who came and went when they found how human her bleeding and
      complaining was, how voluble, not faked.

This obtains when you consider Niebuhr: "That the limitations of the human imagination, the easy subservience of reason to prejudice and passion, and the consequent persistence of irrational egoism, particularly in group behavior, make social conflict an inevitability in human history, probably to its very end." (emphasis mine)

                         respiratory tract infection, hunger pains

Popper drops by: "Their story that democracy is not to last forever is as true, and as little to the point, as the assertion that human reason is not to last forever, since only democracy provides an institutional framework that permits reform without violence, and so the use of reason in political matters. It is clear that this attitude must lead to a rejection of the applicability of science or of reason to the problems of social life - and ultimately to a doctrine of power, of ******* and submission."

                                           split lip, fever blister

Cynical nihilist Niebuhr: "Educators who emphasize the pliability of human nature, social and psychological scientists who dream of 'socializing' man and religious idealists who strive to increase the sense of moral responsibility, can serve a very useful function in society in humanizing individuals within an established social system and in purging the relations of individuals of as much egoism as possible. In dealing with the problems and necessities of radical social change they are almost invariably confusing in their counsels because they are not conscious of the limitations in human nature which finally frustrate their efforts. So persistent are the moralistic illusions about politics in the middle-class world, that any emphasis upon the second point will probably impress the average reader as unduly cynical. In America our contemporary culture is still pretty firmly enmeshed in the illusions and sentimentalities of the Age of Reason."

                                            terror, runny nose

An apoplectic Popper: "And being a typical historicist, he accepts the judgment of history as a moral one; for [Heraclitus] holds that the outcome of war is always just: 'War is the father and king of all things. It proves some to be gods and others to be mere men, turning these into slaves and the former into masters . . . One must know that war is universal, and that justice -- the lawsuit -- is strife, and that all things develop through strife and by necessity.'"

                                 lonely physics, national purpose

Poppa Popper proceeds: "Sweeping historical prophecies are entirely beyond the scope of scientific method. The future depends on ourselves, and we do not depend on any historical necessity. This prophetic wisdom is harmful, the metaphysics of history impede the application of the piecemeal methods of science to the problems of social reform. We may become the makers of our fate when we have ceased to pose as its prophets."

                                    fatal heart attack, fatty acids

Reinhold, while drinking orange juice: "Conflict is inevitable, and in this conflict power must be challenged by power. Since political conflict, at least in times when controversies have not reached the point of crisis, is carried on by the threat, rather than the actual use, of force, it is always easy for the casual or superficial observer to overestimate the moral and rational factors, and to remain oblivious to the covert types of coercion and force which are used in the conflict."

                                          alphabugs, antibiotics

Doc Wheeler runs the 2nd St. jail keeping the High School Dropout
      Prevention Program
breathing. The Sheriff's Dept. provides guards, a metal detector, one
      man with a gun (encased),
door buzzer (in out), sign in sheet, breakfast and lunch. None too
      clean, not too tidy.

Niebuhr goes nuts: "All social cooperation on a larger scale than the most intimate social group requires a measure of coercion. While no state can maintain its unity purely by coercion neither can it preserve itself without coercion. The inability of human beings to transcend their own interests sufficiently to envisage the interests of their fellow men as clearly as they do their own makes force an inevitable part of the process of social cohesion."

                                 3 hots and a cot, circle with a dot

Popper replies: "Instead of aiming and finding what a thing 'really' is, and defining its 'true nature,' science aims at describing how a thing behaves in various circumstances and especially whether there are any regularities in its behavior. It sees in our language, and especially in those of its rules which distinguish properly constructed sentences and inferences from a mere heap of words, the great instrument of scientific description, not as names of essences. To those philosophers who tell him that before having answered the 'what is' question he cannot hope to give an exact answer to any of the 'how' questions, the scientist will reply, if at all, by pointing out that he prefers that modest degree of exactness which he can achieve by his methods to the pretentious muddle which they have achieved by theirs."

            "when making an axe handle, the pattern is not far off"

Niebuhr nods: "The problem which society faces is clearly one of reducing force by increasing the factors which make for a moral and rational adjustment of life to life; of bringing such force as is still necessary under responsibility of the whole of society; of destroying the kind of power which cannot be made socially responsible; and of bringing forces of moral self-restraint to bear upon types of power which can never be brought completely under social control."

       Popper and Niebuhr were married yesterday at the 2nd St. jail
                      under the federal Freedom of Marriage Act

Sometimes I think of selling pictures of my feet online
Then
I immediately think of the state of my feet;
The state of me.
After conforming to your dress code of black dress shoes and shattered dreams For 11 long years.
For 11 long years
I sat in rows of grey white and black
Perfectly poised in the presence of our educators
Our guardians
Our wardens.
If we deigned to relax,
Laugh,
Breathe,
They would find more to give and give and give
Until we became nothing but frayed nerves
And therapy bills
That should be addressed to our parents
And then I think
I can’t sell pictures of my feet online,
How could I correctly value them
If I don’t correctly value myself?

I entered the display case
of people educators
subsidizing snobs
the multirich and companies

among tourists and inhabitants
who want to be seen
in the museum café and
with sophisticated pastry lard
the conversation with careless clauses

they quote from an authority
whom nobody has to understand
to get the intention
of the praised artists

The shop was crowded
Spotlights on show-pieces
fancy coffee table books
and chic presents
for the season and the next holidays

Especially the past
is on sale, postcards
of the attractions
and sights of the city

interchangeable
like the collections
which graduated stylists
cast in international moulds
to magnets for visitors

These are poems for the victims and survivors of the Nashville Covenant School shootings.



Nashville Covenant Call to Love
by Michael R. Burch

Our hearts are broken today
for our children's small bodies lie broken;
let us gather them up, as we may,
that the truth of our Love may be spoken;
then, when we have put them away
to nevermore dream, or be woken,
let us think of the living, and pray
for true Love, not some miserable token,
to command us, for strength to obey.



For a Nashville Covenant Child, with Butterflies
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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



Frail Envelope of Flesh
by Michael R. Burch

Frail envelope of flesh,
lying cold on the surgeon’s table
with anguished eyes
like your mother’s eyes
and a heartbeat weak, unstable ...

Frail crucible of dust,
brief flower come to this—
your tiny hand
in your mother’s hand
for a last bewildered kiss ...

Brief mayfly of a child,
to live nine artless years!
Now your mother’s lips
seal up your lips
from the Deluge of her tears ...


Epitaph for a Nashville Covenant Student
by Michael R. Burch

I lived as best I could, and then I died.
Be careful where you step: the grave is wide.



As springs’ budding blossoms emerge
the raptors glide mercilessly.
—Michael R. Burch

I wrote this haiku-like poem on 3-27-2023 after the Nashville Covenant school shooting massacre.



This poem is for mothers who lost children at Nashville Covenant and in other similar tragedies...

Childless
by Michael R. Burch

How can she bear her grief?
Mightier than Atlas, she shoulders the weight
Of one fallen star.



I Pray Tonight
by Michael R. Burch

for the Nashville Covenant survivors

I pray tonight
the starry light
might
surround you.

I pray
each day
that, come what may,
no dark thing confound you.

I pray ere the morrow
an end to your sorrow.
May angels' white chorales
sing, and astound you.



Nashville Covenant Call to Action
by Michael R. Burch

We see their small coffins
and our hearts break,
so we ask the NRA—
"Did you make a mistake?"

And we vow to save the next child
for sweet love's sake,
but also to protect ourselves
from such heartache.

The lives, safety and happiness of our children depend on our ability to persuade the NRA and its political lackeys to stop exalting money and political gain above the life, liberty and happiness of innocents. What is the cost of banning assault weapons, compared to the ultimate price innocents pay when they are used by madmen playing Rambo in classrooms and theaters? Ironically, just hours before the Sandy Hook massacre, in a weekly column that I wrote for the Nashville City Paper, I pointed out that right-wing politicians are not just demanding the "right" of citizens to bear loaded handguns into restaurants that serve alcohol and bars — a combustible mix. No, people who call themselves "conservative Christians" in collusion with the NRA and its gun lobby are demanding the right to carry assault weapons everywhere ... which "logically" means into universities, high schools, grade schools, kindergartens, pre-schools, Sunday schools and maternity wards. When I wrote this, I was speaking ironically — I thought — but then a few hours later the NRA and its political minions made me seem like a prophet.



Sandy Hook Shooting Gallery
by Michael R. Burch

If we live by the rule of the gun
what can a child do,
but run?

Sixteen of the students who died at Sandy Hook were six years old; the other four students were seven. I wrote the poem below for another child gunned down by a madman. While we cannot legislate sanity, we can be sane enough to legislate away the "right" of serial killers to purchase assault weapons so easily. We can defend many small victims from such carnage, if "we the people" have the wisdom and the will to defend them.



Child of 9-11
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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

Child of 9-11, I grieve
your tender life, cut short ... bereaved,
what can I do, but pledge my life
to saving lives like yours? Belief
in your sweet worth has led me here ...

I give my all: my pen, this tear,
this lily and this eiderdown,
and all soft things my heart can bear;
I bear them to your final bier,
and leave them with my promise, here.

The Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings left 27 students and educators dead, and question our nation's sanity and resolve to put children's lives above money and politics.



This haiku makes me think of the students and teachers of Sandy Hook, who were trapped in a war zone:

War
stood at the end of the hall
in the long shadows
—Watanabe Hakusen, translation by Michael R. Burch



Piercing the Shell
by Michael R. Burch

If we strip away all the accouterments of war,
perhaps we'll discover what the heart is for.

It seems to me that the NRA has declared a war — an open season — on our children, by insisting that assault weapons must be available to every Tom, **** and ***** Harry. But what will we, the people, say and do?


Whence Now?
by Michael R. Burch

Grown darkly accustomed to grief,
will we ever turn over a new leaf?



Something
by Michael R. Burch

Something inescapable is lost—
lost like a pale vapor curling up into shafts of moonlight,
vanishing in a gust of wind toward an expanse of stars
immeasurable and void.

Something uncapturable is gone—
gone with the spent leaves and illuminations of autumn,
scattered into a haze with the faint rustle of parched grass
and remembrance.

Something unforgettable is past—
blown from a glimmer into nothingness, or less,
and finality has swept into a corner where it lies
in dust and cobwebs and silence.

The three students shot and killed in the Nashville Covenant School massacre were all nine-year-olds. They were identified as Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney. Three adults were also killed in the shooting: Cynthia Peak, Mike Hill and Katherine Koonce. It is no longer good enough to talk about loving our children and praying for them to be safe. We have to protect them from mass murderers armed with assault weapons. The alleged serial killer, Audrey Hale, was reportedly armed with an AR-style rifle and an AR-style pistol. In more civilized nations citizens cannot legally purchase such military-grade weapons. The Nashville Covenant massacre marked the 19th shooting at an American school or university, so far in the first three months of 2023, according to CNN.

Keywords/Tags: Nashville, Nashville Covenant, Nashville Covenant Presbyterian School, school shooting, shootings, massacre, children, kids, students, child abuse, gun control, America, United States, USA, death, deaths, ******, serial ******, massacre, bereavement, class, classes

why do people always pain themselves to write as if they could ever be understood, when so few read them, and even a fewer number care to understand? and why do so many ably bodied ******* themselves with writing? why have they lost the taste for fresh air and instead chose a wheelchair that writing is?*

in legal terms - are you implying a play on synonyms or
just simply stating: d'uh, i don't know what
that means? ah, a limitation on the vocabulary,
an atypical symptom of lawyers - when socrates attacked
eloquence per se, he also defeated himself
by ensuring law abided by the law of highest eloquence,
and the rabble got diddly-squat, his attack on rhetoricians
lost the prowess of attracting debased educators
with himself the most debased educator:
and instead attracted lawyers... thus the law of the eloquent,
rather than the rubric of the least eloquent...
lost an eye for an eye, lost a mouth with it too...
i rather be fed eloquence and education
and coarseness to equally educate
than be fed a justice fed by eloquence alone,
because if this is to be the equilibrating case,
then serving justice will just be a case of speaking
in a satin tongue of readied rhetoric
as justice so called,
and when speaking in a coarse tongue
no justice will be made applicable...
i rather be educated by someone in a coarse tongue
than be brought to justice by someone in an eloquent tongue,
i rather not be educated by someone in an eloquent tongue /
i rather be brought to justice by someone in a coarse tongue
(the mob),
at least the coarse tongue is well equipped to
address the many who require educating,
unlike the eloquent tongue equipped to
address itself and itself alone, rather than addressing
the jury who blindly pass judgement, because
the lawyer's tongue is not in the mouth of the defendant
but in the lawyer's mirror of social strata of respectability
appearing so guiding, kindly tying a bow-tie of applause.

I saw him at the gates,
Wondered why he would forsake,
Time slows down and I'm running,
Running for my life.
He's climbing over,
Gun in hand.
God, oh why God have you forsaken us?

Bang Bang, down goes my friends,
Bang Bang, down goes the educators,
Bang Bang, down at my feet.

Is this where my life ends?
I'm just only seventeen,
Where will I go when I die?
He's coming for us all,
Ak-47 in his hands.
God, oh why God have you forsaken us?

Bang Bang, down goes my friends,
Bang Bang, down goes the educators,
Bang Bang, down at my feet.

He's at the door.
Am I no more?
I can't see my own two hands.
Tears on my face.
.
.
.
God?

Our educational system is not serving our disadvantaged communities.

Public schools are funded by their respective communities' income because the taxpayers are responsible for helping provide money for schools.

This means that areas with low income are receiving less funding.

Without this funding, the schools are unable to hire more educators resulting in larger class sizes. The educators are also left with less funding for educational resources such as text books and supplemental materials. Extra curricular activities get cut completely.

These schools in disenfranchised low income communities are performing worse across the board and because of this their funding is being cut drastically.

We need educatiomal reform.

since the first pop use of the phrase
window of opportunity
(was it Bush or Stargate SG-1?)
politicians big and small
corrupt and incorruptible
fallible and infallible
have all bombarded
the media – on radio, in their blogs
and personal sites
newspapers and journals and broadcasts
and through any speech
they get a chance to make
with that ready phrase:
window of opportunity

Oh, turn on the radio
as you drive maybe
and some glum Finance Minister whispers:
* …grab the window of opportunity…
read the papers and some plump Minister of Health says:
…we must grab this window of opportunity…

Oh, whole speeches in the English Language now
are bullet-ridden with that cliche
and of course the financial planners
and educators
and doctors and even unimaginative lovers
they have all jumped in
into this *window of opportunity
till I’m so irritated and angry now
that if I hear one more eminent personality say:
window of opportunity
Oh, the next time – just one more time –
if I hear anyone use that phrase
window of opportunity
I’m going to send in contract window cleaners
and they’ll grab the window-of-opportunity-user by the collar
and throw them out through the window
and clean the window after –
and I’ll assure you,
those contract window cleaners
will not miss that window of opportunity!

honest to god, with trans-gender i'm retro-******, and i know why the homosexuals were given all the pleasures of heterosexual coupling of social responsibility but not given the opinions, the homosexuals complained that the trans-gender movement dis-appreciated the appreciation of the male physique, god isn't beauty tyrannical, whether here on the anorexic catwalk? god isn't beauty tyrannical, the sea and the mountain, what beauty... but what tyranny!  so the laws favoured homosexuals, they were given freedoms akin to heterosexual relations, they were even given the new breed of *******, the surrogate mothers... what a poker game this has become! god almighty, i'm about to faint! well, you keep looking for genitalia, i'll just take a u-turn and talk to you about T R A N S E TH N I K U S - trans-ethnicity, trans-ethnic and retro-******, synonyms of heterosexual and bilingual non-respectively... and i got a helium balloon handy to mind the writing... chimp-chap and chipmunks - breeze! breezy! breezy! ooh yeah! tina turner gorged on tunas lodged with sardines canned!*

these days it should be called retro-******
rather than heterosexual... just to spice things up - via
in politics telling us to curb colonising the continent of
vocabulary, i.e.: hey foot in New England isn't exactly
Iowa!                                 get the ******* out!
teach them the english language
and censor them with political correctness -
even Stalin would find this approach funny -
'what?! no purges?! ha ha,
this is fantastic!' it's like the everyday
grey experience of failed
abortion and premature cancer
of existence just got a knee stuck
in its mouth - is that chew choke
or chow mein?! i doodle, don't know -
it might be a Caravaggio in the attic
or Anne Frank in the basement -
but given the populace it's still
a **** tourist trip - so take that
******* selfie with a selfie stick
and chomp a hamburger like
a turkey force-fed before thanksgiving.
no, i'm seriously retro-******...
i faked the *** and had a conversation,
neither worked - i mean it
worked faking it - but then the *** dried
and ******* took over
like i was re-experiencing puberty -
and she moaned that it was sick -
that one direction icon left the band
because he wasn't allowed to don a beard...
or smoke a joint...
               forget the 1960s Renaissance,
forget the Holocaust deniers,
come and meet the 1960s Anglo-Renaissance
deniers... **** didn't happen...
oompa loompa do'ba'de'do (insert H when required) -
prof. Kleks - kleksografia - kaczka dziwaczka -
             and other hits - well, mm, d'uh,
imagine trans-
                             (+)    -esse -
                      not gender related - but hence
the polak plumbers and other noose educators,
keenly the rus applaud -
                                               τρανσεθνικóς -
two golds and one silver at the european
championships of weight-lifters:

rank 1 / ****** 1 / clean & **** 2
name: tomasz ZIELINSKI (bernard)
body weight: 93.7kg
******: 176kg
clean & ****: 211kg
Σ: 387kg.
                                     ants laughing in the background:
'check out my exoskeleton!'
                          'boy! you and yo mush inside!'
   'keep the hard outside and the soft inside!'
                  'pecking the pecks of those naked monkeys...
               boy, i would!'
     'give 'em to the earthworms if they're not
               smart to be burned!'
     'goth macabre i too would endorse for a stable diet.'
  'mm, twice the body weight at the limit
    for them, and x5 for our ontological allowances.'
  'you know they call it a natural border of tribes,
      the franks to one side, the germans to the other,
               the rhine in between.'
   'well, d'uh, you ever much wood with rotten wood
           with termites?'
      'that's beside the point.'
                     'well, whatever it is,
          termites are... slogans for culture...
     their mounds rock hard from institutionalised
   saliva squirting -
                             what do we have?
       forest mounds the size of moles unearthing
          protected with twigs and our swarming bodies...
    we live underground - the termites became
     audacious.'
                 'oh stop it, i'm enjoying the joke
      that humans can only lift over twice their body weight
               while we can lift five times our weight.'

(I seldom publish anyone else's poetry, but this one is so exceptional on so many levels, I had to reproduce it here. Hillary Clinton reposted it, so why not me?)

“Education then, beyond all other devices of human origin,
Is a great equalizer of the conditions of men.” – Horace Mann, 1848.
At the time of his remarks I couldn’t read — couldn’t write.
Any attempt to do so, punishable by death.
For generations we have known of knowledge’s infinite power.
Yet somehow, we’ve never questioned the keeper of the keys —
The guardians of information.

Unfortunately, I’ve seen more dividing and conquering
In this order of operations — a heinous miscalculation of reality.
For some, the only difference between a classroom and a plantation is time.
How many times must we be made to feel like quotas —
Like tokens in coined phrases? —
“Diversity. Inclusion”
There are days I feel like one, like only —
A lonely blossom in a briar patch of broken promises.
But I’ve always been a thorn in the side of injustice.

Disruptive. Talkative. A distraction.
With a passion that transcends the confines of my consciousness —
Beyond your curriculum, beyond your standards.
I stand here, a manifestation of love and pain,
With veins pumping revolution.
I am the strange fruit that grew too ripe for the poplar tree.
I am a DREAM Act, Dream Deferred incarnate.
I am a movement – an amalgam of memories America would care to forget
My past, alone won’t allow me to sit still.
So my body, like the mind
Cannot be contained.

As educators, rather than raising your voices
Over the rustling of our chains,
Take them off. Un-cuff us.
Unencumbered by the lumbering weight
Of poverty and privilege,
Policy and ignorance.

I was in the 7th grade, when Ms. Parker told me,
“Donovan, we can put your excess energy to good use!”
And she introduced me to the sound of my own voice.
She gave me a stage. A platform.
She told me that our stories are ladders
That make it easier for us to touch the stars.
So climb and grab them.
Keep climbing. Grab them.
Spill your emotions in the big dipper and pour out your soul.
Light up the world with your luminous allure.

To educate requires Galileo-like patience.
Today, when I look my students in the eyes, all I see are constellations.
If you take the time to connect the dots,
You can plot the true shape of their genius —
Shining in their darkest hour.

I look each of my students in the eyes,
And see the same light that aligned Orion’s Belt
And the pyramids of Giza.
I see the same twinkle
That guided Harriet to freedom.
I see them. Beneath their masks and mischief,
Exists an authentic frustration;
An enslavement to your standardized assessments.

At the core, none of us were meant to be common.
We were born to be comets,
Darting across space and time —
Leaving our mark as we crash into everything.
A crater is a reminder that something amazing happened here —
An indelible impact that shook up the world.
Are we not astronomers — looking for the next shooting star?
I teach in hopes of turning content, into rocket ships —
Tribulations into telescopes,
So a child can see their potential from right where they stand.
An injustice is telling them they are stars
Without acknowledging night that surrounds them.
Injustice is telling them education is the key
While you continue to change the locks.

Education is no equalizer —
Rather, it is the sleep that precedes the American Dream.
So wake up — wake up! Lift your voices
Until you’ve patched every hole in a child’s broken sky.
Wake up every child so they know of their celestial potential.
I’ve been a Black hole in the classroom for far too long;
Absorbing everything, without allowing my light escape.
But those days are done. I belong among the stars.
And so do you. And so do they.
Together, we can inspire galaxies of greatness
For generations to come.
No, sky is not the limit. It is only the beginning.
Lift off.

Donovan Livingston
Harvard Commencement 2016

even hegel read jakob böhme                   (boo m'eh) -
to keep the democratic spirit - obviously the Kardashians don't
know a hairbrush from a toothbrush - but that hardly matters -
what matters is how Pearl Harbour turned into karaoke applause -
the idea of an american in europe: spaghetti slurping  -
even that considering the "special"
       relationship of anglophiles -
    anatomy of antagonism:
        spaghetti swindlers of talk -
slurping that tangle into an easily sold
global affair would never juice up the idea
to think about my neighbour as someone
i'd care to be;
          and as common with the postmortem
childhood educators, the curriculum of such
people always stated: learn otherwise -
       no wonder their screened the
personal vanities of Versailles in the 21st century
coming from the 18th and 17th century -
learn the truths concerning the genesis
of the 21st century in the 24th century at least...
i'm under the righteous impression:
most of the people i live with have
been savaged by science fiction,
and the slowness of science in itself
that they are tattooed with a care for now,
but never tomorrow... imagine living in a society
that pays its workers in month's wages than
in week's wages... can you imagine it?
the two re- debate: again quick (reflexive),
and the again slow (reflective) -
if i'm glorifying the latter than the former?
oh, that question... you have to reply with:
usury and why the libido of old men
equips young girls to the same libido,
and why young men are worthy of a war memorial
and the mud of trenches...
and why young men can't with enzyme-fervour
bind of the satiated young woman sexually
compete... and why so many say: **** it.
one *** spends its youth barraged by usury -
and all other hamster wheels,
the other *** parties with the cocksure crowd:
and then you expect a withstanding human bond?
ha ha.    forget it... hey lady, how's that old man
treating you? he's the pope, i know.
                         forged from the Martian
        ashen heat cooling: in how she thought
the two would meet and raise a family in the mythology
of Eden... when she got paid her student fees
by sugar daddies, and he got spit to extract feeding
handshakes - that only turned into jacking off
                                                                ­      gambles.    
  she now the happy soul fathomed as the bigoted
              entrenchment in this world: as forever
  and if only trying: then at least expecting war
to solidify the point.
                just the other day in Camden Market:
she's complaining about her libido with older men,
   he's complaining: your problem is that you go
for older men... oh ****, then all the problems of
natural correlative assertions, and children to
masquerade the real problems... and pop culture
and what's being gagged (apart from the gimp,
forever caged and clad in leather, and a mouth
that's really an ****) -           the children suffer
    from would otherwise been a beneficial anti-evolutionary
suggestion: that i was recipient of the outside environment,
rather than the inside environment of some benefiting
sir esquire toff -                 give me my tail and fur back!
   i don't care for gymnastics or vogue! give it back!
******! this ain't an improvement,
                 who heard of primeval predators building
guillotine scaffolds (although, i admit, that's humane) -
or ****** Mary being beheaded with a blunt blade -
or gas chambers... when i think of tigers i think of
humanity greater than man with his apple i7 phone -
i think of vampires... i find it hard to believe
we evolved from what was already perfect...
                   to improve what? we were always outsiders...
    narrators - then again, if i'm the sort of
"creationist" scumbag, then i can just say:
Chinese and Welsh dragons and dinosaurs...
   and to be honest: history is obsolete given the
two timescales of the big bang (what a ****** name
to start things off... heard a bang in a vacuum?) -
              and monkey -
                                             which is no wonder
why history died given the timescales, and why we
are overly saturated with journalism, the 24 hour reels
and nothing really happening in those 24 hour counting
                   mechanisms:
which is no surprise journalism resurrected a pseudo-dialectics,
   i.e. an opinions section - and there they are,
like third world dictators, unchallenged, journalistic
freedom is the last thing to fight for right now,
   not when journalists don't have any journalism to give,
  and invoke the need to be opinionated,
and in thus being the above said: unchallenged.
                 Colonel Falafel? sign me up!

She eats with bare hands;
A handful of garbage,
A mouthful of life. A day's
Survival and revival,

And healing  of a frail
Body failed by a society
Of affluence, by a faith
Preaching benevolence.

She is an anathema to the
Conscience shaped by a
Consciousness that defines
Being as having. Having

Her before our very eyes
Is itself a sin to our very
Selves, if not to a God who
Sees our humanity as frail

As this child's body.

                           "How is it, that every
                           Execution offends us more
                           Than a ******? It is the
                           Coldness of judges, the painful

                            Preparation that a child is
                            Here being used as a means to
                            Deter reality. For guilt is not
                            Being punished , even if there

                            Were guilt; guilt lies in the
                            Educators, the parents, the
                            Environment, in us, not in her
                            Innocence.**"

Desire moving with effort
Educating your mind to elevate your career
A classroom designed to help you preserver
It’s a positive approach
sharpering your knowledge like a defined broach
Terminology advancing into hands on
Gaining the formulations into experiences where you belong
Lectures into knowledge
A lesson brush up just like polish
Blackboard with the theories
The philosopher of past educators being history
Determination Striving University
The floor plan creating the actual reality
Thirst for education
Hungry to succeed
Analytical thinking in knowing how to proceed
Knowledge is always a need
It’s like a farm with a growing seed
It’s smaller words that start and bigger words being the mark
Staying focused in where you want your career to aim
Remember all your colleagues are looking for the same
Determination Striving U have given you the tools to pursue on you
The reason you chose D.S.U.
It knew it was a university that would help you to expand your mind and exams that would be due
Determination while you can
Striving on when
University being the establishment of you at the end.

Patience

never saw a baby that didn't
eventually
learn how to walk,
how to talk.

but I have seen, still do,
children who became adults,
but not grownups,
still ******* their thumbs.

don't blame the parents.
don't blame the child.
don't blame the idiotcreators,
pseudo-educators.

blame me.
always take the easiest course
when assigning blame.

Yet cherish them
tho oft they err,
have we not all,
stumbled and
extended hand
beseeching help?

let us learn
for they,
my blood
one and all,
and I call them
by one name,
each and every,
Mine.


------------------------
Hint: if you are thinking of taking your parents along for your ride, read this. Better yet, give it to them.

"And she taught me that my children
are not truly mine.
They don’t belong to me;
they’ve simply been entrusted to me.
They are a gift life gave to me,
but one that I must
one day give back to life.
They must grow up
and go away and
that is as it should be."
Charles M. Blow

I'm convinced my generation is nothing but a bunch of sheep...where are our future leaders? I don't want to keep living in a world where we are expected to go with the flow, to never stand out, and to adopt the same opinions as the masses or else be labeled a racist, a bigot, deplorable, or any other name in the book.

Another disheartening fact: my future children are going to be taught and influenced by educators who think safe spaces are good ideas, who think social justice warriors, celebrities, and clueless athletes fit the mold of a hero more than the disabled vets at the VA, and who find ridiculing people for their race, gender, ****** orientation, etc appalling, but having a religion and/or different political beliefs than them are grounds to be mocked...

God forbid someone says they don't buy into big pharma and their vaccines..."anti-vaxxers are the **** of the earth! All children need to be vaccinated!" But speak out against abortion, which kills more children than any disease we have vaccines for or not..."you're anti-women! How dare you tell a woman what she can do with her body! How archaic of you!"...save the children or **** them? Which one is it? Will the hypocrisy from my generation ever end?

I just threw out basic examples, but if you look at social media for 5 minutes and possess a brain I'm sure you'll see other instances of people with differing opinions being belittled by a group my peers. Another portion of them will blindly follow and agree without a leg to stand on. And an even smaller portion will actually stand up against the hate speech they themselves claim to despise.

Agree or disagree, this rant has been brought to you by a man who thinks for himself and doesn't really give a rat's *** if you agree or not.

well, if i found a self-administrative
anaesthetic for celestial tyrants that
are so glorified by historians over
the ages, and only dream darkness,
or dream ******* up that not even
Freud could stomach...
and i teach them how to take it to
do the opposite of what they did in life,
and leave them hungover and
slightly prone to despair, i'm sure we can
have a timetable of when they go cold
turkey, and turn into little budding Buddha...
adenosine and that acetyl thing...
or i got it completely wrong...
how else you going to keep frying
that chicken... obviously you'll have
to keep cutting corners somewhere...
obviously the little budding Buddha illuminations
everyone will resist... i mourned
the fact that a boy encouraged me to throw
a hamster off the stairs telling me: he's
wearing parachutes... i remember that
face... i remember the bloodied snout
of the hamster... makes me a Hindu then:
to have mourned the passing of a petted
animal makes you Hindu...
you can claim having converted the day
you mourned your pet cat passing...
honest to Brahman... like me an Ernest
tailing our conversation into
childless couples who don't want the
murk of a genetic Rōnin ruining
their happy abode even if nurture tries to
overcome nature... dog, man's second child
i inquired... i don't know if i was
elastic enough to call that poetic, but i added:
once you take to the trivialities
of having animals as your children
in a theatre of grievance, the little concern
the animals need, and the way that families
with children belittle the concern of people
with animals as animals making them Everest
summits... well... the joke is: the little
problems of animals dwarf the problems of life...
which is turn makes the childless couples
who have animals as incubator replacements
of pets look at child aplenty couples look a bit daft,
the equilibrium of dwarf and titan combine,
the childless couple incubates a resistance
against the titanic problems of life, or rather the world
with whether their children have autism aged 6...
well, if they don't have play-friends outside of school
where every child's imagination is on equal footing
and there are no educators present to
separate the sheaf from the staff, the wolf from the sheep...
sure... by the age of 8, a child will adamantly
become brutal in his or her individual...
the problem in england, as in America is that
children do not have outside-of-school play-friends
to relax with... it's either all school with social hierarchies,
or all familial bonding, or literally ******* it up
with Oedipus looming...
the funny bit? i remember childhood from 1990s Poland
like Ernest remembers it from, what, 1940?
HA HA HA HA... funny as ****... where's this
unconscious uncoupling then? licking the plates
like a dog starved for a month?
i love the English maxim: got to be cruel... to be kind.
no wait... he said his elder brothers
made their debut... that's the 19... 30s! god...
western Europe is Darwinism on amphetamines.
you can't get play-friends in school...
that's why we have the Cure and the Smiths song...
so much angst at the fact that no one bothered to
build close sky-rise communities...
trying to build them in the 1950s with a Colonial
past? crime... whatever else?
what with those on those estates saying:
my children too! in a semi-detached!
how they ***** Poland with Pope John II at the front...
what a bunch of scummy ratty wankers...
*******... bending the pirate ship's plank wankers...
i'd do them in Kentucky if i had my way...
apparently the recipe is out an all good for the
public eye to see... sometimes civilisation
makes you a natural cannibal by the mere thought of it...
you can't expect children in western society to
not fall suspect to some psychological malnutrition
when their only play-friends are in an institutional
environment, might as well put them in psychiatric
wards and tell them to play razor quickest to the wrist
wins! i do mean that from your neck arteries.
they don't have play-friends outside of institutions...
maybe it was the suburban labyrinths of identical
housing that mismanaged the chance interaction
of a group of children... but in 2 square miles
of where i live, i've seen more biodiversity than
i'd care to see in the Amazon rain forest.

The making of every man begins before the union of the cell of his mother with that of his father; one thing leading to another

This always lies on strings of varied decisions which needs to meet in one way or the other for destiny to balance on in order to get to her creating destination

Before mine, some ***** went down the drain with some pain; a sign of womanhood and fertility

Before mine, some sea of men only flowed in and out because there was none in the house to recieve any of those cells to grow and make it out alive
So they returned a waste

At all those times when pulses elevated beyond normal and hormones of the souls which brought about my existence went busily crisscrossing each other to get the job done,
Those fallen ones were expendable decoys sacrificed to achieve emotional satisfaction

It was so, many times but my time was not cos destiny had it all planned and that plan got my batch to come at the right time

Scientists say it's the fittest and quickest that makes it out as another human but my case was so different

On that day
In the council of those brothers and sisters
The floor was given to each of us to make a case on the reason to be the one to go out in flesh

We all had the opportunity and everyone made a case

Each one of them presented intellectually satisfying arguments backed by illustrations that made decision making a difficult one

Finally the platform was given me and the room was so quiet you could hear the even the humans outside at the time

"I don't have a thing I can say I'm going out there to do in particular", I said

"I'm representing you all"

"The educators, I will be there for you
The health enthusiasts ,your job will be done
The other humanitarians, am going out for you"

"The intellectuals, trust me
The musicians, your songs would be heard
The artists, I will be there to uncover your insights
The spiritual ones, the work is going to be done
The poet's  your works will definitely see the light of the days
The athletes and sports personalities, I will put in my best to represent you"

After everything, the applause said it all and the rest is history

Therefore when the going gets tough and giving up seem the easiest option, I remember I'm not here for myself
I'm a representative of a batch of brothers and sisters who never made it out alive

Though scientists say it was a race, mine wasn't

I didn't race, I was chosen

“Free at last, free at last”
And it feels so good, amazing actually.
No one to tell me what to do, no one to hold me back.
I’ll eat whatever the hell I want,
Come home whenever the hell I please,
Let my laundry stack up to the ceiling,
Make bad decisions, make good decisions, make just plain crazy *** decisions.

Freedom.
As powerful as crack *******
But now I start to crash.
The high is gone and I miss the safety, the security of being home.
When I left, I thought about the new experiences I would encounter,
But now I recall the old experiences left behind, shrouded in a hazy fog.

The confusing love, no… complex love.

              The nagging parents… no, caring parents.

                        The unbearable high school… no, the nurturing educators.

             The boring old town… no, the relaxing place I grew up in.

Maybe this new environment was not made for me.

“Change is good. Change creates opportunities.”
But what if I just want to be home.
You were right, Dorothy.
No, ruby red slippers do not go with your horrendous blue dress.

But yeah…
“There’s no place like home.”

In the grand tapestry of teaching, oh what an irony,
Heavy workloads and limited time, a teacher's reality.
The demands of planning and administrative tasks,
Leave little room for professional growth, an ironic mask.

Standardized assessments hold their prominent sway,
Personalized instruction often pushed astray.
In the pursuit of measurable student success,
Oh what an irony, tailored learning becomes less.

Creativity yearns to dance with the curriculum's frame,
But guidelines and standards can stifle its flame.
Balancing innovation and prescribed requirements,
Oh what an irony, creativity often expires.

Assessment-focused teaching takes center stage,
Holistic development may find itself in a cage.
The pressure to achieve desired outcomes so keen,
Oh what an irony, limiting the broader learning scene.

Teachers, pillars of education, yet often unrecognized,
Their impact immense, but acknowledgment minimized.
In the realm of recognition and fair compensation,
Oh what an irony, undervaluing their dedication.

Autonomy, a cherished gift for teachers to possess,
But administrative constraints can hinder their success.
Top-down decisions and rigid schedules in place,
Oh what an irony, limiting their teaching grace.

Work-life balance, a delicate tightrope to tread,
Nurturing students' well-being while their own is spread.
In the pursuit of equilibrium, an ironic juggle,
Teaching others to thrive, their own balance a struggle.

Outcomes become paramount, their value held high,
Yet the process of learning can sometimes pass by.
Prioritizing scores over growth and lifelong skills,
Oh what an irony, neglecting the learning thrills.

In the world of teaching, ironies abound,
Navigating the contradictions, often profound.
But amidst these challenges, educators endure,
Oh what an irony, their passion remains pure.

White walls surrounding
Crushing creativity without a sound
No one to push for diversity
In an environment where we're bound to be plain
Blandness depriving
Minds from thriving
Albino cells designed to keep one sane
Clearly violence is induced by paint
Maybe its designed to keep minds numb
To deny the opportunity of realizing what one can become
Instead creating the illusion your best isn't enough
Mirroring the image of our predicted fate to come
A classroom a prison all in its own  
Making it inevitable to settle into this world we were thrown
Into, some of us as soon as we were even born
Prejudging. Assuming
Before they even know our name
Relating crimes of poverty to an innocent face
Because That's the Way We Were Raised
Sentenced to fail
By the Judgement of society that says
We won't be anything because we were born into nothing
Somebody should should share the fact it's a choice to become something
Looking down on us, barely masking their disdain
The pity they feel marking their face like a stain
I will be something
Breaking free from the shackles that were latched on my feet
When the system started controlling how educators teach
Controlling my mind
Refusing to be a puppet of my circumstances
A dummy without views
Politely tell the system when you see them
I went above all their rules

My great Pillars supporting
This Life I lead - I read.
Entertainers, Educators -
They are not mutually exclusive!
Serious, amusing; Amusingly serious!
Relieving my burdens, wing-like.
You pilot, I'll navigate -
Your talented perfections,
As asymmetrical as possible,
And I'll bring to the table
A fire-brand to highlight
The why of your brilliance.
To me and those other
Gravity wells, unknowing,
But loving all the same - Thanks.
Even the Haters
Have their Lovers - Go figure!
I eight you, fell free to eat me.

♛   ♛   ♛

Martin Luther, righteous King,
made the Reformation sing.
Popes and peasants, out of key
turned it into misery.
German beer and Roman crimes
made for most uncivil times
much like our own. We must confess
rights and wrongs we yet possess...

Half a millennium later on
a Baptist pastor and his son
took this noble Saxon name
and furthered the Reformer's fame.
Some revisionists deny
St. Martin Luther's role, and try
to minimize theology
in civil rights chronology.
The second Luther of my song
inspired—but did not last as long.
Social Justice notwithstanding,
King's successors need re-branding.
Politicians steal his mantle,
cloak their lies in his example;
agitators claim his glory
pushing God out of the story;
educators sing his praises
but some people's conduct raises
doubts about that dream of King—
and hope... and change...  and everything.

(1/18/13)

gone are the mom and pop stores that i once knew
candy stores , malt shops,newspaper and magazine stands too.
life was so much simpler then, you knew your neighbors
and had a lot of friends.

schools were for learning, and where kids could go to play
now you don't see that on any given day.
teachers and adults were respected and a sense of pride in the air
" now a days no one seems to care".

they are trying to pass a stricter gun law
because of what happened at SANDY HOOK
but that won't happen, because we have too many POLITICAL crooks.

twenty little angels were taken away that day
and six adult educators who got in the gun mans way.
now i'm not against the second amendment
i think it's our given right , but when it comes
to "ASSAULT Weapons"
the public should start to fight.
the public don't need " assault weapons"
we must take them off the streets
these are weapons of mass destruction
being sold through "political corruption"
while children lay dead at our feet.
i think the publics "outrage" should be heard loud and clear
maybe then - it'll create political fear.

(C) L . RAMS

I guess I've been building up to this rant for awhile. It being too big to write on the fly and I thinking not everyone will share my world/life views, this is being prewritten before being posted. If I even do post it. Now, the purpose of this rant. There are those who say I don't do it enough. Others don't really know me well enough to find that I should. I've been toying around with a lot of life thoughts in my head. Some sounds like excuses for choices I've made and maybe they are. However, everyone has excuses even when they say they have none. Excuses for good and for bad. It varies from religious views to personal relationships. I lack the intelligence of higher learning, so I admit, I do not claim to know everything. I only know my point of view. And I've had it for awhile and it's the only thing I know for a surety about myself. This is written to neither offend or berate those around me. Instead, to give those a better idea of the person I am.

1- religious beliefs: just to get this out of the way first, I'm spiritual but not religious. It's an over used phrase. Not really agnostic because in a small way everyone is. No one knows what exists for a fact. They have their gathered experiences and ideals to come to the conclusion that's seems reasonable enough to guide their lives by. And even when they have those beliefs, no one follows to the letter of it. And that's ok. We are a world of imperfections. From what I've gathered from theology, through out my life, the main 2 things that everything has in common is to
              1-be a good person
              2- be a good person to others.

IF God fails to exist, then that means I am the master of my own life, experience, moral compass, actions towards myself and others. Brought up in a religious house, this was obviously called free will. And I've been painfully aware of it's reality since childhood. Not by my free will but of others. IF God fails to exist, then that means we either choose to live for ourselves or live in the service of others. And the conflict between selfishness and selflessness of those who do express religious beliefs always confused me. I've stopped questioning the place it has in my life because the things I question do not come with answers, only positive and negative influences that I have been taught throughout my life. I, myself, am selfish but I try to live selflessly in order to strive to be a good person in my mind. This brings about drama but joy as well. I see it as a way of being whole spiritually. Light and dark must coexist in order for all thoughts to take root into actions. Without light, anyone trapped in the dark will not be able to fathom joy, love, compassion....basically empathy. The dark holds only the opposite. Yet, without the dark, anyone living wholly in the light will seem too naive to trials and being able to truly understand how hard it is to find a glint of light in a pitch black situation. And, if no one is aware of themselves, they will most likely choose one or the other. Never both. I strive to encourage the light and face the dark. As a spiritual person, I'm grateful. I have moments where the trials of my own life and that of others tend to lead me down to the dark corners in my head but knowing the light I have a chance of weathering it the best way I can without being consumed by it. Those who have done this know it's never an easy feat. I believe that I must be all things in order to be whole. Good, bad, happy, sad...if I lack but one thing because I feel that it serves no purpose, then I feel I would have cheated being myself.

2- Love: like faith, this is simply an emotion of perception. No one idea of love is the same. And everyone holds love in different regards with different people. Some believe that once you find love in one person, that should be shared with that person alone. Monogamy, friendships, family. All creatures of a constructed idea that loyalty is the root of love. And as beautiful and trying that is, I cannot believe this is so. I believe love to be a necessary virus. That we are born with it to spread to those who need it. To those who crave it. To those who have yet used their own idea of love and desperately crave someone else to show them the description. Not just sexually but unconditionally. And this creates conflict of the soul. Especially when we force our minds and suppress our hearts to show that love on one singular facet. To love is to lose oneself completely in the possibility that it's vast and it's easy to get lost in. Moments of infidelity. Moments of torn emotional turmoil plays it's toll. Picking who to love and why you love them and what you would do for that person because you love them is insanity. But we all crave it. I believe that love is made to validate war or at least calm the tremors that it brings about. It's a chemical balance of things we've subjected ourselves to feel through habit and example. We create the brand of love that we give others and we seek that brand in hopes that other have the same or at least similar brand so we can feel the comfort of home with someone else. The feeling of safety, the feeling of rest, the feeling of realness, the feeling of acceptance, the feeling of truth, the feeling of comfort, the feeling of life and the feeling of fighting when love is deemed worthy of fighting for. This is my brand. I give it freely with the price that I will be questioned in where my love truly lies. It's scattered about freely like breadcrumbs. And if someone finds me at the end of that trail, I'll be ****** if I created that journey for them for nothing.

3- service/friendship/family: when I was younger, I though friends were the gold of my life. Irreplaceable and unable to be made the same twice. I use my friends to create the persona I've grown since youth. I am those who have love me and hated me. I am those who inspire me and depress me. I am those who fought for me and fought against me. If I feel that I'm flawed I search for others with these flaws. If I can help or even be the catalyst of my friends to overcome their flaws, then I have a shot of overcoming mine. My friends are proof that I'm not alone even in the moments where I wish I was. Even those I choose to be "unworthy" of my friendship, I cannot help but show them the courtesy of friendship. They are the reason why I stay alive in hopes that if I cannot help myself then there are those in need of me....hopefully. My family is, in a way, very tight knit. They are what molded my sense of dedication and perception that I bring into the outside world of society. They are the jokes I tell. They are the tears I've shed. They are the hugs I give. They are the noise I've screamed out of anger. They are the pillars in which I've stood on to weather the strains of being an individual. Wether the examples were good or bad, they were always the educators of my emotions. And there's a bitter sweetness that comes with that. The feeling that one must rise to an expectation and risk the crushing reality that, I alone, may not be able to rise to the challenge. It's hard to break away from those who raised you and create your own family in combined reasons with strangers around you. Or to create a family and come to find out they will only part ways from you after some time. To me, friends old and new, gone or present, they are always family. I could not have pieced myself together as the person I am today were it not for those who willingly gave pieces of themselves to me. And by me, they are loved.

4- Judgements: this one is always a sensitive one for me because I'm guilty of judgement. I've found myself many times giving the side glance at others and feeling like my thoughts are better than theirs. My theory is, if one has enough attention to pick out the flaws and cracks of people then they too possess the ability to pick out the gems in them as well. And it's difficult to do this when one is trapped in their own mind of "what's acceptable and what's abhorred. Homosexuality, deformities, drug addicts, mental illnesses, bad attitudes, poor management in a work force, dumb choices made by friends and family, someone who cuts you off in traffic, worldwide tales made by those who don't want the truth of matters to be revealed, politicians, other races, WHATEVER! We live in a time where life is taboo. Differences are mocked instead of celebrated due to our lack of living outside of ourselves and really put in the time to live in someone else's head. We justify our judgement by feeling so secure that we are always right and that other simply don't know any better. And deep down this makes us angry. Or to me, it does. And it should. We use are judgements as a safety net of our insecurities. We use them to feel that our lives are more significant than those we figure are wasting the time and air we greedily consume. We use it to feel pride in killing others in battle and deem it with a sense of patriotism or a mark of gaining hierarchy in are status but for what? Those who hide behind religious walls will or wealth or self serving thoughts will never know the joy of finding a stranger and making them a working cog in the life we're lucky to have. And it's sad that one must pursue past the nay sayers just to find that voice of reason that tells you, " you're imperfect but that's what I love about you."

Maybe it's the zen influences that I've recently encountered in my life or maybe these are thoughts that I've always had but due to stress and tragedy, I never was able to put this into words. Maybe fear that I know...by my words nothing will change according to my own perspective. However, if you made it this far into reading this, I'm grateful that you did. And I write with the intent, not to change how you think, yet, to make you think all the same. Life is too short and the human mind has too much potential to be wasted on a monotonous life that we believe will grant us happiness. There is so much more out there. And if you don't have the funds to travel or the friends that inspire you or the words that resonate within you, you have a mind that can sense life in all it's forms and all you need to do is use it. I love you guys

These are my best poems, according to Google. I let Google pick my best poems with the search:

The best poems of Michael R. Burch

The search returns 24 poems but by repeating the search a few times, I managed to come up with 35 poems...



Will There Be Starlight (#1)
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

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

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

Will there be starlight
tonight
while she gathers
seashells
and mussels
and albatross feathers?

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



I Pray Tonight (#2)
by Michael R. Burch

I pray tonight
the starry Light
might
surround you.

I pray
by day
that, come what may,
no dark thing confound you.

I pray ere the morrow
an end to your sorrow.
May angels' white chorales
sing, and astound you.



The Harvest of Roses (#3)
by Michael R. Burch

I have not come for the harvest of roses—
the poets' mad visions,
their railing at rhyme ...
for I have discerned what their writing discloses:
weak words wanting meaning,
beat torsioning time.

Nor have I come for the reaping of gossamer—
images weak,
too forced not to fail;
gathered by poets who worship their luster,
they shimmer, impendent,
resplendently pale.



Because Her Heart Is Tender (#4)
by Michael R. Burch

 for Beth

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

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

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

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

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



Caveat Spender (#5)
by Michael R. Burch

It’s better not to speculate
"continually" on who is great.
Though relentless awe’s
a Célèbre Cause,
please reserve some time for the contemplation
of the perils of EXAGGERATION.



Free Fall (#6)
by Michael R. Burch

These cloudless nights, the sky becomes a wheel
where suns revolve around an axle star ...
Look there, and choose. Decide which moon is yours.
Sink Lethe-ward, held only by a heel.

Advantage. Disadvantage. Who can tell?
To see is not to know, but you can feel
the tug sometimes—the gravity, the shell
as lustrous as damp pearl. You sink, you reel

toward some draining revelation. Air—
too thin to grasp, to breathe. Such pressure. Gasp.
The stars invert, electric, everywhere.
And so we fall, down-tumbling through night’s fissure ...

two beings pale, intent to fall forever
around each other—fumbling at love’s tether ...
now separate, now distant, now together.



In Praise of Meter (#7)
by Michael R. Burch

The earth is full of rhythms so precise
the octave of the crystal can produce
a trillion oscillations, yet not lose
a second's beat. The ear needs no device
to hear the unsprung rhythms of the couch
drown out the mouth's; the lips can be debauched
by kisses, should the heart put back its watch
and find the pulse of love, and sing, devout.

If moons and tides in interlocking dance
obey their numbers, what's been left to chance?
Should poets be more lax—their circumstance
as humble as it is?—or readers wince
to see their ragged numbers thin, to hear
the moans of drones drown out the Chanticleer?



Moments (#8)
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

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

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



Let Me Give Her Diamonds (#9)

for Beth

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

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

Let me give her solace
for my words
of treason.

Let the flowering of love
outlast a winter
season.

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

Let me give her candles
for my lack
of fire.

Let me kindle incense,
for our hearts
require

the breath-fanned
flaming perfume
of desire.



Step Into Starlight (#10)
by Michael R. Burch

Step into starlight,
lovely and wild,
lonely and longing,
a woman, a child . . .

Throw back drawn curtains,
enter the night,
dream of his kiss
as a comet ignites . . .

Then fall to your knees
in a wind-fumbled cloud
and shudder to hear
oak hocks groaning aloud.

Flee down the dark path
to where the snaking vine bends
and withers and writhes
as winter descends . . .

And learn that each season
ends one vanished day,
that each pregnant moon holds
no spent tides in its sway . . .

For, as suns seek horizons—
boys fall, men decline.
As the grape sags with its burden,
remember—the wine!



Wulf and Eadwacer (#11)
(Anonymous, circa 960-990 AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My clan's curs pursue him like crippled game.
They'll rip him apart if he approaches their pack.
We are so different.

Wulf's on one island; I'm on another.
His island's a fortress, fastened by fens.
Here bloodthirsty men howl for carnage.
They'll rip him apart if he approaches their pack.
We are so different.

My thoughts pursued Wulf like panting hounds.
Whenever it rained and I wept,
big, battle-strong arms embraced me.
It felt good, to a point, but the end was loathsome.

Wulf, oh, my Wulf! My desire for you
has made me sick; your seldom-comings
have left me famished, deprived of real meat.

Do you hear, Heaven-Watcher? A wolf has borne
our wretched whelp to the woods.
One can easily sever what never was one:
our song together.



A Surfeit of Light (#12)
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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



Abide (#13)
by Michael R. Burch

after Philip Larkin's "Aubade"

It is hard to understand or accept mortality—
such an alien concept: not to be.
Perhaps unsettling enough to spawn religion,
or to scare mutant fish out of a primordial sea

boiling like goopy green tea in a kettle.
Perhaps a man should exhibit more mettle
than to admit such fear, denying Nirvana exists
simply because we are stuck here in such a fine fettle.

And so we abide . . .
even in life, staring out across that dark brink.
And if the thought of death makes your questioning heart sink,
it is best not to drink
(or, drinking, certainly not to think).



Autumn Conundrum (#14)
by Michael R. Burch

It's not that every leaf must finally fall,
it's just that we can never catch them all.



Breakings (#15)
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 such great matters,
ordained that everything irreplaceable shatters.



don’t forget (#16)
by michael r. burch

for Beth

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



Enigma (#17)
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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



Epitaph for a Palestinian Child (#18)
by Michael R. Burch

I lived as best I could, and then I died.
Be careful where you step: the grave is wide.




Fahr an' Ice (#19)
by Michael R. Burch

From what I know of death, I'll side with those
who'd like to have a say in how it goes:
just make mine cool, cool rocks (twice drowned in likker),
and real fahr off, instead of quicker.



For All That I Remembered (#20)
by Michael R. Burch

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

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



in-flight convergence (#21)
by Michael R. Burch

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

here the streetlights that flicker
and those blazing steadfast
seem one:                from a distance;
                descend,
they abruptly
part              ways,

so that nothing is one
which at times does not suddenly blend
into garish insignificance
in the familiar alleyways,
in the white neon flash
and the billboards of Convenience

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



In the Whispering Night (#22)
by Michael R. Burch

for George King

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



In this Ordinary Swoon (#23)
by Michael R. Burch

In this ordinary swoon
as I pass from life to death,
I feel no heat from the cold, pale moon;
I feel no sympathy for breath.

Who I am and why I came,
I do not know; nor does it matter.
The end of every man’s the same
and every god’s as mad as a hatter.

I do not fear the letting go;
I only fear the clinging on
to hope when there’s no hope, although
I lift my face to the blazing sun

and feel the greater intensity
of the wilder inferno within me.



Leaf Fall (#24)
by Michael R. Burch

Whatever winds encountered soon resolved
to swirling fragments, till chaotic heaps
of leaves lay pulsing by the backyard wall.
In lieu of rakes, our fingers sorted each
dry leaf into its place and built a high,
soft bastion against earth's gravitron—
a patchwork quilt, a trampoline, a bright
impediment to fling ourselves upon.

And nothing in our laughter as we fell
into those leaves was like the autumn's cry
of also falling. Nothing meant to die
could be so bright as we, so colorful—
clad in our plaids, oblivious to pain
we'd feel today, should we leaf-fall again.



Once (#25)

for Beth

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

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

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

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



Ordinary Love (#26)
by Michael R. Burch

Indescribable—our love—and still we say
with eyes averted, turning out the light,
"I love you," in the ordinary way

and tug the coverlet where once we lay,
all suntanned limbs entangled, shivering, white ...
indescribably in love. Or so we say.

Your hair's blonde thicket now is tangle-gray;
you turn your back; you murmur to the night,
"I love you," in the ordinary way.

Beneath the sheets our hands and feet would stray
to warm ourselves. We do not touch despite
a love so indescribable. We say

we're older now, that "love" has had its day.
But that which Love once countenanced, delight,
still makes you indescribable. I say,
"I love you," in the ordinary way.



Piercing the Shell (#27)
by Michael R. Burch

If we strip away all the accouterments of war,
perhaps we'll discover what the heart is for.



Sweet Rose of Virtue (#28)
by William Dunbar
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Sweet rose of virtue and of gentleness,
delightful lily of youthful wantonness,
richest in bounty and in beauty clear
and in every virtue men hold most dear―
except only that you are merciless.

Into your garden, today, I followed you;
there I found flowers of freshest hue,
both white and red, delightful to see,
and wholesome herbs, waving resplendently―
yet nowhere one leaf nor petal of rue.

I fear that March with his last arctic blast
has slain my fair flower and left her downcast;
whose piteous death does my heart such pain
that I long to plant love's root again―
so comforting her bowering leaves have been.



The Divide (#29)
by Michael R. Burch

The sea was not salt the first tide ...
was man born to sorrow that first day
with the moon—a pale beacon across the Divide,
the brighter for longing, an object denied—
the tug at his heart's pink, bourgeoning clay?

The sea was not salt the first tide ...
but grew bitter, bitter—man's torrents supplied.
The bride of their longing—forever astray,
her shield a cold beacon across the Divide,
flashing pale signals: Decide. Decide.
Choose me, or His Brightness, I will not stay.

The sea was not salt the first tide ...
imploring her, ebbing: Abide, abide.

The silver fish flash there, the manatees gray.

The moon, a pale beacon across the Divide,
has taught us to seek Love's concealed side:
the dark face of longing, the poets say.

The sea was not salt the first tide ...
the moon a pale beacon across the Divide.



The Folly of Wisdom (#30)
by Michael R. Burch

She is wise in the way that children are wise,
looking at me with such knowing, grave eyes
I must bend down to her to understand.
But she only smiles, and takes my hand.

We are walking somewhere that her feet know to go,
so I smile, and I follow ...

And the years are dark creatures concealed in bright leaves
that flutter above us, and what she believes—
I can almost remember—goes something like this:
the prince is a horned toad, awaiting her kiss.

She wiggles and giggles, and all will be well
if only we find him! The woodpecker’s knell
as he hammers the coffin of some dying tree
that once was a fortress to someone like me

rings wildly above us. Some things that we know
we are meant to forget. Life is a bloodletting, maple-syrup-slow.



The Peripheries of Love (#31)
by Michael R. Burch

Through waning afternoons we glide
the watery peripheries of love.
A silence, a quietude falls.

Above us—the sagging pavilions of clouds.
Below us—rough pebbles slowly worn smooth
grate in the gentle turbulence
of yesterday’s forgotten rains.

Later, the moon like a ******
lifts her stricken white face
and the waters rise
toward some unfathomable shore.

We sway gently in the wake
of what stirs beneath us,
yet leaves us unmoved ...
curiously motionless,

as though twilight might blur
the effects of proximity and distance,
as though love might be near—

as near
as a single cupped tear of resilient dew
or a long-awaited face.



The Shrinking Season (#32)
by Michael R. Burch

With every wearying year
the weight of the winter grows
and while the schoolgirl outgrows
her clothes,
the widow disappears
in hers.



Be that Rock (#33)
by Michael R. Burch

for George Edwin Hurt Sr.

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

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

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

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



Crescendo Against Heaven (#34)
by Michael R. Burch

As curiously formal as the rose,
the imperious Word grows
until it 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.



Desdemona (#35)
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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

and strangled hope, where love dies too.



These are my personal picks of poems not selected by Google ...



Sunset
by Michael R. Burch

This poem is dedicated to my grandfather, George Edwin Hurt, who died April 4, 1998.

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

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

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

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



Fascination with Light
by Michael R. Burch

Desire glides in on calico wings,
a breath of a moth
seeking a companionable light,

where it hovers, unsure,
sullen, shy or demure,
in the margins of night,

a soft blur.

With a frantic dry rattle
of alien wings,
it rises and thrums one long breathless staccato

then flutters and drifts on in dark aimless flight.

And yet it returns
to the flame, its delight,
as long as it burns.



I began writing poetry around age eleven, mostly for personal amusement at first, then started to write with larger goals in mind around age thirteen or fourteen (I was very ambitious). This is one of my earliest poems, written in my teens ...

Styx
by Michael R. Burch

Black waters,
deep and dark and still . . .
all men have passed this way,
or will.



This is another early poem, written as a teenager, that made me feel like a "real poet" ...

Infinity
by Michael R. Burch

Have you tasted the bitterness of tears of despair?
Have you watched the sun sink through such pale, balmless air
that your heart sought its shell like a crab on a beach,
then scuttled inside to be safe, out of reach?

Might I lift you tonight from earth’s wreckage and damage
on these waves gently rising to pay the moon homage?
Or better, perhaps, let me say that I, too,
have dreamed of infinity . . . windswept and blue.



This is another early poem, and my first poem that didn't rhyme...

Something
by Michael R. Burch

―for the children of the Holocaust and the Nakba

Something inescapable is lost—
lost like a pale vapor curling up into shafts of moonlight,
vanishing in a gust of wind toward an expanse of stars
immeasurable and void.

Something uncapturable is gone—
gone with the spent leaves and illuminations of autumn,
scattered into a haze with the faint rustle of parched grass
and remembrance.

Something unforgettable is past—
blown from a glimmer into nothingness, or less,
which finality has swept into a corner ... where it lies
in dust and cobwebs and silence.



This is a very early poem of mine. I believe I wrote the first version around age 14 or 15 ...

Leave Taking
by Michael R. Burch

Brilliant leaves abandon battered limbs
to waltz upon ecstatic winds
until they die.

But the barren and embittered trees,
lament the frolic of the leaves
and curse the bleak November sky ...

Now, as I watch the leaves' high flight
before the fading autumn light,
I think that, perhaps, at last I may

have learned what it means to say—
goodbye.



First They Came for the Muslims
by Michael R. Burch

after Martin Niemöller

First they came for the Muslims
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Muslim.

Then they came for the homosexuals
and I did not speak out
because I was not a homosexual.

Then they came for the feminists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a feminist.

Now when will they come for me
because I was too busy and too apathetic
to defend my sisters and brothers?

"First They Came for the Muslims" has been adopted by Amnesty International for its Words That Burn anthology, a free online resource for students and educators. According to Google the poem has appeared on a staggering 691,000 web pages. That's a lot of cutting and pasting! It is indeed an honor to have one of my poems published by such an outstanding organization as Amnesty International, one of the world's finest. Not only is the cause good―a stated goal is to teach students about human rights through poetry―but so far the poetry published seems quite good to me. My poem appears beneath the famous Holocaust poem that inspired it, "First They Came" by Martin Niemöller. Here's a bit of background information: Words That Burn is an online poetry anthology and human rights educational resource for students and teachers created by Amnesty International in partnership with The Poetry Hour. Amnesty International is the world’s largest human rights organization, with seven million supporters. Its new webpage has been designed to "enable young people to explore human rights through poetry whilst developing their voice and skills as poets." This exemplary resource was inspired by the poetry anthology Words that Burn, curated by Josephine Hart of The Poetry Hour, which in turn was inspired by Thomas Gray's observation that "Poetry is thoughts that breathe and words that burn."

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We're a set of clothes with no bodies
Cause schools brainwashed
           loves trampled us
           six feet under with
           with our hearts and minds
           turned to dust
           parents lied and educators ****
           unable to teach us real-life skills
           like love is tough
           so we're still
Living for paychecks
            for those who feel like us,
A set of clothes with no bodies
Maybe we can remember we have souls  
            and not our remedial schools, undying loves, deceitful parents, and bi-weekly paychecks
Can take that away from us.

Yes you can hate me with those superficial eyes of yours,
Whose looks change each instant and make me look immature.

Yes you can call me unfocused and distracted,
To show that on every serious scenario...how childishly I've acted.

Yes you can not grant me what I deserve,
Screaming and yelling as if I'm getting on your nerves.

Yes you must not listen to me as your words are more precious,
And live and rejoice peacefully with a behaviour so malicious.

And yet I won't hate you back as you possess the knowledge so pure,
But yes you can always hate me with those superficial eyes of yours!