There is no prize to perfection,
No crown for its endless direction.
Only the stillness, cold and mute,
Of a dream that halts in its pursuit.

The edge of longing, sharp and thin,
Cuts deeper than the goal within.
For what is gained when all is won,
If the chase extinguishes the sun?

Perfection lies in things undone,
In breaths that falter, threads unspun.
For life is richer, raw, unplanned,
A fleeting touch, a trembling hand.

There is no need for flawless art,
But space to mend the human heart.
No prize awaits, no grand pursuit—
Only life’s quiet, imperfect truth.

.i'm in luck, they're selling it at under 11 quid right now,
stock dry - gone in an instant - laphroaig like -
but not as smoky - but smoked scotch it it
at £10.34 - oh the little joys of having little money to spend -
you end up less picky and less hoarder and
the junk yard.

na głowe sypano mi, tak popiół:
     popiół! a obiecano mi *****!
           popiół! a obiecano mi *****!
                 popiół! a obiecano mi *****!
                  (not my words... lao che's dym)...

me, beer, cigarette, outer-suburbia -
police whizz past, silent with flare
or screaming toddler and Odysseus' 20 sirens
with wax in the ears of oaring company
akin to Ajax'ς vitality -
along the way, my neighbour (who's mother
killed my cat.. listen, i know he had
heart problems, he was on aspirin -
but kidneys, even if complicated are not
real problem, felines take longer to ****
than do the no. 2, pigeons don't have kidneys -
they're always of an **** diet of diarrhoea;
write like Aristotle sometimes,
forget the facts, be wrong, get it wrong,
never put a glass cup into the waterfall of
poetic cascades - get it wrong, be wrong -
get to know yourself - it's not that dumb
to be predictable in yourself -
if you allow self-predictability you will
see certain social events as being pointless -
you'll see friends and "friends" -
self-predictability is a verb, compounded -
i already know i'll make references to grammar
and it being missing in philosophy -
no, not coherence and appropriate arrangement -
i mean undoing the box of thing-in-itself
and the subsequent tennis with a brick wall,
to surprise yourself when something is unearthed,
a little piece of the puzzle - simulating awe,
the genesis of all that's to come, even awe from a yawn
and boredom... it's here somewhere... i'll karate
catch it with chop sticks.... (looking around)...
i don't know, might be a moth or a fly...

Antichrist: or a summary of Antisemitism - a variant of,
or at least a concentration - mainly confiscated
by Christianity - prime complaint:
a democracy of Anointed One (Messiahs) -
obviously a manifested justifiable practice of Antisemitism -
the throng of Golgotha intelligence quotient -
Jew v. Jew, and one convert from the delusional
4 x 4 (in the name of the father, and of the son, and of the holy
                                         spirit... hold on!
                                    i make four gestures... and make a fifth
                 with Romeo and Juliet talking -
St. Matthew-Luke-Mark-and-John... penta penta pent-up
pentagon - evidently there's a pentagrammaton somewhere:
ah! i b l i s.                       Surat no. via Rumi - 7:143 - veils and
the one - reward in heaven - more veils, gardens veils,
grapes in heaven veils - stomach a veil - hunger a veil -
rewards in heaven also veils - the poem?
praise be Jesus - and Jason and the Argonauts - and whoever
wanted a strawberry flavoured pastiche to lick tears off -
love's apocalypse, love's glory -
         well bloodhound eyes say it all - droop drool -
droop & drool... Jack & Jill... went up the hill, and passed
the Grimm Bro. baton to Hanzel und Gretyl in the 100m x4
relay of Disney Limps - then rabbinical literature to sober up -
Albotini's Sulam HaAliyah (Ladder of Ascent, formerly Jacob's
ladder - to be: Ladder of Skip-rope; Oxford, hello! yes,
can you please consider un-hyphenating what is desirably
a compound worthy word in the practice of German?          )?
is a bracket necessary anywhere and i missed it?
Antichrist - or a very strange form of antisemitism -
be like a Jew, congregate applauding in the right corner: Jesus -
in the blue corner: Crux Golgothia.
export from Portugal - the said book -
key principle (kefitzah) jumping or skipping (dilug) -
and this being applied to the one practice of mystic Judaism -
the ****** gematria; hishtavut (stoicism) -

me - is it still 20 quid for an eighth?
Sim (my neighbour) - yeah, but these days
                                       they sort of cheat,
                                       you'd get an eighth nibbled on,
                                       twenty for a tenth?!
me - ******, well, we can't expect it to not happen,
         we had coin debasement - clippings of silver
         keratin with Siliqua, third stage and
         all encoded authority is gone: Thomas and Anne
         till death and nail clippings be fraud unison in
         the depart (or when narration extinguishes
         a character, the character is worth nothing -
         the narrator wakes up - all the characters run
         like phantom-hares into nonexistence -
         phantom! thin air!
politeness said: only one **** at the wacky wee ö wee
(umlaut O / double oh, 007 - 00'7 - double u... oh!
                                 i get it!                             Jamie Oliver!)
DEI.GRA.REG.FID.DEF.
   "   (-tia) (-ina)(-ei)(-ensor) -
all that would have been clipped - authority of visage -
the courtesan only knew the mint in silver
and the mint in the flesh - hence clipping of coin
to erase the authority from the holy authority of words -
in the beginning - but once dei.gra.reg.fid.def.jpeg /
                                   dei.gra.red.fid.def.gif.

that ****** moth is here somewhere! there it is! catch it!
                                                             ­   catch it!
SLAM!          and the job is done )                                      ).
i really waiting a bus stop pretending to wait for a bus
toking on a joint - joint is mix tobacco and wee wee
and spliff is pure? i forgot the slang - haven't been
addicted to it in years.
Sim - yeah, that's how it is. work in central london -
         have to get up early in the morning.
         corporate finance - no that's a commercial firm,
         corporate finance - McDonald's, etc.
me - oh cool waiting for  ghost bus - never get paranoid
         then?
(police cars whizz by)
Sim - n'ah, a perfectly decent area, got stopped once,
          three years ago.
and the price goes to the laziest narrator in history - absolutely
no engagement with characters - it's too real, everyone's
lying - this is the second time i spoke to my neighbour properly
in the past.. ooh 2002... 14 YEARS - it's not even funny -
no amount of marijuana will make you feel comfortable -
you can mate and make Kingston handshakes and what not -
this is purity of absurdity and western isolation,
we went against the maxim: no man is an island on purpose,
not by chance like Robinson Crusoe -
at least Crusoe had a talking Friday - we have a ghost
of Michael Faraday on Friday - ******* disco blink blink -
poet... or alt.: the narrator complex - inhibitions toward
character craft and pseudo-schizoid symptom -
believing in ghosts is easy, fiction writers and their ghosts
and abortions, hardly a way to escape from that -
poetry: rebellious narration - just anything with narration,
modern fiction is read like a chess match between deep blue
and Kasparov - or Pavlov v. Jezebel playing gynaecologist.

blank.... blank... wait for the atoms trilled R to make
their toady presence felt -
the more pricier the whiskey the more pristine water,
i.e. you get drunk more easily -
anyone that smokes marijuana and thinks
they're clever are stupid; how many people are out there that are
stupid! - resounding hearsay-hooray!
drugs, ******, crack, blow, marijuana, ****, ***,
  cannabis, dope, ******, mary-jane, 13, M - herb shake -
Humphrey saying to Bogart - that joint. as said in Saudi
Arabic - a Ferrari G.T.I. and MeKubalim HaMitbodedim
                  )
                                  -chism - schism - sky - ski -
                                  cha cha, cha cha - kilo or 100th -
                                  1000 thd. - hundredth a thousandth -
                                  - where then the acute,
                                  timber from Czechs -
                                  kebab from Mesopotamia -
                                  and the Trojan horse to boot -
                                 chatter - chopper whopper -
                                 astoikism - not chew off
                                 curve into cherish but
                                 cravat chew in -
                                 Slavic mining zed - czarna
                                 ciasność - blackened claustrophobia.
a Buddhist clap
                   immersion -
left handed the right hand claps against air
                  )             )              )               )            ) ) )            )
a night at the Opera, right handed the left hand claps against air
(                       (        (            (               (          ( ( (            (
scimitar Luna - so they said, would like an audience with the
further unmentioned mention -
you're mates with neighbours who over 14 years you only
spoke to the count of thumb and index on occasion -
and thus necessarily high -
i was going to write something really important before
i finalised this draft... but i forgot what it was...
got almighty this whiskey is good...
i'm smoking salmon and pickling reindeer hooves and antennas;
a bit like practising Chinese miracle medicine with
whale blubber and Mongolian nostril hairs.

it's not about loving your enemies -
this love sinister must be invoked as: making your
enemies bearable.

i'm sure i had something concerning poetry and narration -
ah! it was... poetic compensation -
a.d.h.d. narration - attention deficit hyperactive disorder -
true - all psychiatric terms are metaphors -
at least outside the psychiatric realm -
poetry as a.d.h.d. meaning: shrapnel narration -
a custard pie of missing characters -
poetry: i.e.: the inability to believe in ghosts
or write characters - claustrophobic or agoraphobic narration?
a mix of both - poetry - the inability to conjure
Ouija fancies - poetry, the over-specialised gift for
narration, but an inability to invent characters -
poetry, the truth of the narrative, and the truth of un-invented
characters, poetry: the ability to narrate, coupled
with the inability to create characters -
fiction and the dumb narrator - poetry and the exquisite
narrator - fiction and the exciting characters -
poetry and the God - our focus is based on that vector,
or bias to that vector - fiction and the Oscars -
narrator and director - when to change from first person
to third person - again Burroughs was right -
images 50 years ahead of writing - a bit obvious,
nothing spectacular with that phrase -
lightning and the sons of thunder: 12 of them -
made the tetragrammaton less spoken and swear words
fucken-uppen censored so the crucifix and **** could
collide - a fine fine excuse - the Boeing 747 first
and later the quasi-sonic broom shoo' 'mm -
poetry as fiction disguised when fiction was given
a seance with pure narratives - splinter group:
philosophy's juggling with pronouns esp. the plural deviation
from first person as if to proper punctuation -
psychiatry and the theory of pronoun usage -
poetry and the pronoun rōnin (macron = umlaut -
count to two, or prolong - reasonable man / **** sapiens, pre-noun pro-adjective / adjective attache-noun, noun counter-noun es duo-adjective, Kellogg's sunrise cockle-doodle-dip-in-tartan-chess) -
only poetry mediates the parallel vectors of prose-fiction and philosophy - it consolidates the use of pronouns, art of poetry alone -
pure narration we're talking about,
the narrator and characters of its fancy,
philosopher and dialectical placebos (character equivalence)
with self-conscious moments, mono-pro-noun - alone i name -
the sacred squash wall of lecturing an invisible audience -
rummaging epitaphs in a graveyard along with birth dates
and live by dates - yes, that sacred we philosophers use -
an entire theatre was summoned to continue in appearing
sensible when writing without fictive apparitions -
enabling a fluidity in pronoun use, without sensible letter
writing, as in dear sir,
                                       me in reverse, thank you.

I’ve got plenty of ghosts I promised her. I leave them wherever I go.

At the house on 711 Ellen St there is the ghost of a dog named Hessa and a dog named Mac. They don’t play together, but they pant heavy, waiting my return.

There is the ghost of a cat named Charles. He chases a raccoon out of a busted window that my mother fell through.

There is the ghost of my mother pacing the living room, contemplating suicide.

When ghosts die, they become useful fire, burning as long as necessary, and then blowing out forever.

There is the Ghost of Louie, helping me fix my car. There are the ghosts of our tall cans crushed to the curb. There is the ghost of their fullness. Little drops that are left sit in the rim of the mouth.

Every moment makes a ghost. Every time you move something from stillness, there is a ghost for it.

When I come to see you, I will leave behind the ghost of laughter, the ghost of my warmth growing colder. Miss it if you want to.

There is the ghost or your taste in my mouth. Certain foods bring it back to life. I let the Bud Light sit on my tongue. I almost tasted it. Something is missing.

There is the ghost of your smell. It tricks me into craning my neck, eyes searching for you. There is the ghost of your smile which haunts me when the ghost of your smell tricks me into thinking you’re there.

There is the ghost of my cool breath dying on your neck, then dying again. The fire it becomes extinguishes quickly.

Behind your couch there is the ghost of a cricket. He has stolen a harmonica and plays only the high notes. Tell his family that he misses them.

There are the ghosts of apples that I skinned when I learned to make pies in high-school. I have made many apple pie ghosts since then. I will bring one to you. It will be a slow ghost. The steam rising from the middle is its spirit returning home.

Home is your chest. Breathe the ghost of my pie, the ghost of my cologne, the ghost of my eyes wet with poetry I have just read.

There is the ghost of poetry as it mixes with my breath and exits my chest. Let it die and die again. Let it haunt your heart, your belly, the back of your neck like a gentle hand.

I make graveyards. I make ghosts. I leave them behind wherever I go. I miss some of them. There is the ghost of my irregular heartbeat, when I feel the ghosts that I miss pass by. I breath slowly trying to feel them, but too soon they are gone.

Ghosts don’t stay long. I can stay long. Make ghosts in the meantime.

When I come to see you, I will leave you with ghosts.

He thought he saw an Elephant,
That practised on a fife:
He looked again, and found it was
A letter from his wife.
'At length I realise,' he said,
The bitterness of Life!'

He thought he saw a Buffalo
Upon the chimney-piece:
He looked again, and found it was
His Sister's Husband's Niece.
'Unless you leave this house,' he said,
"I'll send for the Police!'

He thought he saw a Rattlesnake
That questioned him in Greek:
He looked again, and found it was
The Middle of Next Week.
'The one thing I regret,' he said,
'Is that it cannot speak!'

He thought he saw a Banker's Clerk
Descending from the bus:
He looked again, and found it was
A Hippopotamus.
'If this should stay to dine,' he said,
'There won't be much for us!'

He thought he saw a Kangaroo
That worked a coffee-mill:
He looked again, and found it was
A Vegetable-Pill.
'Were I to swallow this,' he said,
'I should be very ill!'

He thought he saw a Coach-and-Four
That stood beside his bed:
He looked again, and found it was
A Bear without a Head.
'Poor thing,' he said, 'poor silly thing!
It's waiting to be fed!'

He thought he saw an Albatross
That fluttered round the lamp:
He looked again, and found it was
A Penny-Postage Stamp.
'You'd best be getting home,' he said:
'The nights are very damp!'

He thought he saw a Garden-Door
That opened with a key:
He looked again, and found it was
A Double Rule of Three:
'And all its mystery,' he said,
'Is clear as day to me!'

He thought he saw a Argument
That proved he was the Pope:
He looked again, and found it was
A Bar of Mottled Soap.
'A fact so dread,' he faintly said,
'Extinguishes all hope!'

Because everyone’s little light extinguishes.
Some fade, some disappear without warning, some glow brighter and brighter until they explode.
But at some point, we all pass on. We all leave.
It is a curious reminder of the entropy of life – and death -
When someone chooses to extinguish their own light.

It was a truth I had stated before
No one in this world is unique enough to not be replaceable

When no thought has been original for 50 years
History repeats itself on a daily basis
And life has the same rhythm every single day

How could you think, for even one second, that you’re special?

Friends come and go.
Loves burn out one after another
Trust wilts and faith slowly extinguishes

Your touch suddenly feels cold.
And her eyes suddenly look empty
When they used to be warm.

Your hands burn for her, and I?
I turn to ice next to you

The rock on my chest freezes
Grows heavier too
Icicles form that prevent the next person
to come even half as close as you
As you could have
As you would have
As you should have


I hope you keep my gift as a rememberance of me
Of what you used to have
And maybe even could have had.
That you’ll one day look upon it and think

****
That was special
I could have had it

But you won’t. You won’t even care
You will have replaced me with someone else
Someone better
Someone smarter and prettier and easier to see through

And you’ll never look back
Cause after all
Which one of us is not replaceable?

A white abstract silence falls heavily like phosphorous snow… odd and oblique with nervous intensity of random limitations… sensitive and fragile in its unremitting generosity…A fluency of motion of imaginary realisation in silent turbulence descends in tenebrous shadows of illusion detonating the unconscious… the symmetry and exactitude of silence beyond all compass…. an intricate camouflage… meticulous and consistent.

Disinherited it tries to sanctify the air….. a silence in where stars evaporate vibrational loud and inquisitive…. freezing time by the velocity of its inner momentum of silent adrenalin.

Concealing its true identity isolating me in unknown realisation of what is to occur.. It resonates with constant tension waiting for unpredictability’s of indispensible voices that don’t speak….. This is a realisation of the imagination…. a vibrant insensibility…. density of unravelled thoughts that vaporise within me causing a vibration that fractures the equation of time and space in the burning crucible of my mind.

Intractable proportions of silent thought…. hovering… a constant mirage of irrational calculations….. This silence forces all the tears of consequence to fall upon my face with no avail…..Then in this thunderous silence see graffiti on white walls…abstract and meaningless….Like primitive lives…those with meaning yet possess no meaning… an ungovernable democracy of fruitless endeavour… of non factual fastidiousness… a glimpse of life and its fallacy.

Yet the words were spoken and written… by whom… And for why.. Now the silence punctuates and instructs…. phosphorous extinguishes itself and hides behind another truth…..The noise of the world cascades in torrents deafening… attempting to defeat… subordinate the senses in atavistic cruelty… Prowling searching for the silence… but it has gone…. disappeared in the imagination of my inner self…. an abstraction I call me….. But I know where the silence has gone….

I WILL BE THE MATCH TO YOUR FIRE//

I SHALL BE THE HEAT THAT EMITS

ABOVE AND ALL AROUND YOUR FLAME//

I SHALL MOVE AND SWAY

UNCONTROLLABLY LIKE A MUSE

THAT OBEYS THEIR MASTER//

I SHALL SWEAR MY HEAT TO PROTECT YOU

TO KEEP YOUR ICHOR FROM FREEZING

TO KEEP YOUR SOUL SNUG, ALWAYSS//

I SHALL BE INDESTRUCTIBLE

and i only ask of you

to not ponder on why...

i am so threatening

I WILL BE THE MATCH TO YOUR FIRE//

and i only ask of you ..

to not ever be the reason

my flame extinguishes.

A sadness overcome by
A simple thought of a bright light.
The slight imagination of an illuminated orb
How much i’ve missed a smile.

A remembrance of what used to be clenches my muscles
until my heart commands my body to stop what I’m doing and breathe.
Sometimes, too much of a good thing can be dangerous.
Being alone with my thoughts on a good day can sometimes be worse than my thoughts when I’m sad.

Tears of joy turn to glass bullets as both are a beautiful thing but still painful,
the glass bullets shatter into my brain and cause my to spiral downwards,
into a locked vault of memories of gut laughter and family game night.
the light to the game closet has long since burnt out,
hasn’t been touched in years.

I remember a time when family game night was a chore for us,
now I would do anything to have that again.
the four of us laughing our ***** off until bedtime,
mom saying “Jon, let them stay up a little longer.”
It kills me now that we don’t have that.

I miss the times where we would pile in the car and go to my sister’s piano recitals.
I hated them when I was younger, I thought they were boring.
listening to a few kids pluck away on a grand piano for hours on end just wasn’t exciting.
But if you listen carefully,
you hear that now,
I am plucking away at a piano. Motivation from something that I dreaded.
I loved listening to her play,
my sister.
Absolutely brilliant.
Brilliant and bring like the light in the game closet but like I said all lights burn out and stop working but all you do is wish that you can flip the switch and the room illuminates with the sound of a perfectly performed tune.

After every time she finished a piece, I swear my dad would say,
“you know, you can tune a piano, but you can’t tuna fish.”
After a while, it got old. But ever since I haven’t heard it.
His mouth stay closed like the game closet door and his tongue stay dormant like the burnt out light in the closet

Is it true that the mercury in the light bulbs can burn skin?
Burnt out and never to work again but mercury can still burn through your palm and seep into your veins and make your blood cells dormant and burnt out.
Or possibly just your mind.

Pianos to burnt out light bulbs and tears to glass bullets,
an alliance is formed.
A piano extinguishes tears, but glass bullets shatter the bulb.

What My Heart Knows

There are many questions but my heart knows...
While I was walking I stopped for a while
And thought of the things I don’t have in life
But I suddenly realized I have you and I feel complete

There are many questions but my heart knows...
Sometimes the love we are looking for
Is right in front of us-
Too close for the eyes to see
Only close enough for the heart to feel

There are many questions but my heart knows...
True love doesn’t have happy endings
Because if it’s true love
It would be never ending

There are many questions but my heart knows...
Love has its time, seasons and own reasons!
You can’t ask it to stay
You can only embrace it as it comes
And be glad, for a moment in your life it was yours

There are many questions but my heart knows
The tears shed over the heartbreak are the words left unsaid
And the deeds left undone
For absences does love like wind fuels a flame
It extinguishes the weak and feeds a blaze

There are many questions but my heart knows
The difficulty is not dying for love,
But finding a love worth dying for.
Much harder...
Finding that love worth living for

There are many questions but my heart knows
You can close your eyes to the things you don’t want to see
You can block your ears to the things you don’t want to hear,
But never could you close your heart to the things you feel

There are many questions but my heart knows
Never say goodbye when you still want to try
Never give up when you still feel you can take it
Never say you don’t love a person if you can’t let go

There are many questions but my heart says
Don’t ask the sun to keep shining on you,
It can’t, the clouds exist
Don’t ask the leaves not to fall
It can’t, the wind exists
Don’t ask me to stop loving you
I can’t, you exist...

                                                      -Vas Bismark

Atop my ragged head doth sit
A candle - planted firm - alit.
Wax drips down upon my face;
I've long forgotten how it tastes.
It serves it's purpose in my room;
Eschewing demons spewing doom.

When I'm at home it shines so bright,
But when I exit -  day or night -
A breeze extinguishes the light.

People see me and I shudder,
Try to speak but only stutter.
Why can't my candle just stay lit?
If only for a little bit?
You know I got an app for that?
Oh Yeah?
*No, get a ******* hat

I wandered in on a world of dead rock. I laid with it. Smelt the essence together with carbon and metallic lifelessness.
To create a place of pretty. A sadness overcame.
I came to feeling. To knowing. Sentient.

A rootless contusion never ending.
A bottomless chasm of void.
The pit follows deeper and deeper it travels,
To the hollows of sorrow contempt I’m born.

I grow to feet from the ground where I lay,
As my body draped the floor sprawling and loose.
Upon these legs I rise, and so rise my eyes.
The hollow void I have lingers yawing in my stomach. Ulcerating my mucosal cavern.

What I see
Before me
On this road
On this desert of the necropolis:

Metropolis mass grave,
A mausoleum for civilization,
Möbius of war.
The reflective glint in my eye was of no mans eyes at all.
The death of hope.

Sea of sky scraping spires.
The dead hollow bones left after a city extinguishes.
Millions of towers with red glowing eyes, where blue life used to flourish, now twinkle in and out of this plane.
These giants graze, on the concrete and sway...with the wind.
Colossus of marble, petrified forever in granite with the internal flora that haunted their bowels.
They now have no agenda...city percolates to extinction.
They will forever amble with no purpose.

Once they housed the hearts and minds of microbes that built them.
The builders of hero worship.
They died in the 20's.
Left are the shells of a dream and a forest of buildings.
New York died circa 1900.
United States crumbles: 1776

september 2016
four-and-a-half months of almost nothing besides the comforting grey fleece of yours that I ashamedly clung onto, foolishly thinking that would freeze everything between us that once was.
now I can't help but feel stupid when I look back that I missed the signs I was just playing your next victim.
**** it, it just felt nice to have someone who cared and you barely had to put any effort in but it was enough to keep me radiating with happiness.
and now I am sure that it is merely the idea of you that haunts me almost five months later, because the presence of present you sure as hell isn't the same version of the you that's stuck in my head.
you know that I wanted you and to do you good at that, but of course you had to push me away because who has time to care let alone be cared about?
ha, caring
not a thing about how it used to be makes sense in the now, but I know I'm just wasting my thoughts away thinking about that.
you're still playing this game though and I wish you would stop.
I'm playing this game back but we both know I don't stand a chance.
a simple "What are you doing" and "Come over?" and BAM, I'm all yours.
except, just this last time something was real different that I don't think I'm going to be able to shake.
ran around for an hour in the rain trying to meet up with you as I still didn't want to let you down despite all of your *******.
when my teeth- chattering, soaked from head-to toe self finally made it to you and laid beside you in bed, it felt just like old times for a split second or two.
it was then that I reminded you that I still had your hoodie.
you barely remembered that I still had it and acted as though you couldn't even remember why you let me borrow it in the first place.

december 2016**
**** it, another 3 months came and went and i never built up the nerve to throw your hoodie back at you and walk out of your life.
every time i went to do so you crept back in as though you had missed me, i knew better that you hadn't but i wanted so badly to believe it.
i don't understand why i can't shake the good times we've shared in the past and why i just can't seem to move on.
back in september i couldn't even sleep next to you because i barely recognized the version of you lying next to me. guilt consumed my entire being and i had to get up and leave your embrace. lying alone in my own bed had never seemed more appealing in my life. with that thought, i left your side at 5 am that crisp September morning and ran across town to my apartment and vowed to never put myself in that predicament again. that predicament, of course, being your faux caring embrace, your toxic kisses, and your complete naivety. i like to tell myself that you are just naive to how much hurt you have truly caused me, because otherwise some of what you have done (if intentional) should be a **** crime. it ***** feeling as though i am not enough for you, i don't know why i care but that's all i've wanted to be. as the weather got colder, i got weaker. although i promised to give you up, i still wanted you near me. after a few too many drinks, i seem to continue to become a mere thought in your mind. stupid me, i seem to always get this confused as you actually giving a flying **** about me. if i said that i want more than anything to leave you in the past, i'd unfortunately be lying to myself. i know this needs to be done, but all i can hope for now is that sooner rather than later- the flicker of hope that i still have extinguishes itself.

to be continued.........

The ember extinguishes,
Imposing darkness.
The pyre's carcinogen
ushers him to move on.

The fragrance teleports him:
Childhood bonfires,
Burning cities,
The end of civilization.

Burn it all down!
So much is lost.
From the fires of rebellion,
regression into tribes.

Among the ashes,
he finds a charred Bible
and quickly hides it.
Demoniacal wailing nearby.

He hurries to his bivouac,
hidden in a cliffside crevasse.
He devours the legible words,
diligently memorizing fragments.

A far off explosion reverberates;
pinned up book pages quake.
He mumbles “***** and Gomorrah
… to ashes … the ungodly.”

Feebly he undresses:
jacket with phoenix insignia,
tattered baseball cap,
and military boots.

His eyes, deeply sunken,
craving to espy hope.
His quivering emaciated frame
lowers unto a cot.

Laying his hoary head to pillow,
Phrases, memories, and regrets
accompany him to the celestial gates;
the ember extinguishes.

You wear a symbol of your religion
And I wear one of mine

But what is yours?
A representation of the torture of your Saviour
Some saviour he was
He couldn’t even save himself.

And what is mine?
Mine is variform
The woman, the moon in all her phases:
Maiden, mother, crone;
Waxing, full, waning;
Gentle and innocent, beautiful and wise,
Severe and ancient, a luminescent She.

Or is it a five-pointed star
Whose meaning is so great, runs so deep
That each point represents something
Many things:
Earth, water, fire, air, spirit

The dark of night, the glint of a blade
The roar of a fire, or perhaps an ocean
The life that rises inside me as I sit
Patiently, for I need not wait
For some saviour to revisit the world
In the guise of a man.

My salvation, my life, my soul is all around me
All I need do is not kneel
Is not pray, is not confess through a grid
To a faceless, nameless monk
Not spell out empty sayings with beads
Or contemplate the haloed face of a woman
Whose head must always be covered
To show her modesty
Her purity
Her virginity.

My god can be a temptress, or a man in the midst
Of a waterfall of pleasure
A cascade of love
For in that there is no shame.

Or she can be a ******, giddy and naive,
Or the young boy who watches her closely,
Blushing when she passes
On the road
For in that there is no shame.

She can be a mother juggling children,
Or one of those children,
Or the light of a single candle flame
For in that there is no shame.

But what she cannot be
She cannot be repressed, or tamed, or halted
(though she can be gentle)
She cannot senselessly abandon those who need her
(though she can harm if she must)

She cannot stand by and do nothing
As innocents are pillaged
Nor can she throw a grubby blanket
Over the heartless slaughter of black and white lambs.

She cannot rip at the seams of despair
Tearing them further still
Proclaiming all the time that despair
Is the only way to the great virtues.
She cannot do that
She cannot be that.

She will not be the one who extinguishes the flame
For in that there is shame.
In that there is shame.

You,
Sit alone in your room
Head in hands in the gloom,
Your
Caring gone
And the will to live on,  
CEASED...
It's time to leave.

You tried to believe
Yes, you tried to believe,
In Love,
But,
Now you feel deceived.

For a long time it's been
This way
For you -
No rays of sunlight in your life!
Any joy is marred
By the sorrow in your heart
And,
No solace could  be sought anywhere.
But,
You tried to believe
Yes, you tried too believe,
In Love,
But,
Now
You feel deceived...

You, didn't want it this way -
To hate life!
Loose faith!
Feel
Betrayed!
You
Are
One
Of the many, many more
Who struggle hard to live each day
That
Comes their way.

Finally...

You,
Repose serene
In
Your room
On a unmade bed.

Outside,
LIFE
Carries on
As
Still
Lies
Your pallid form
Devoid
Of motion,
Thought
And pain...
Yes,
YOU
Tried to believe
Yes,
Tried to believe
BUT
LOVE
No more
Could you you see...

So,
YOU
Chose to leave.

Black holes are only temporary
says Stephen Hawking in reverse
and the deathly grip of gravity
is released before finality
extinguishes identity
from the Universe

He must have found that memory
can survive a voodoo curse
and bring back sanity to
a world of unreality
before some tragedy
takes you away
from us

Sitting on the shelf
Watching its wick burn
How it seems to dance
A shadow imitating form
Wind blowing against it
Flames taking the oxygen
Down to nothing
As it extinguishes itself

I was a train wreck
And he was a sinking ship.
I had already crashed,
and I was already burning
But he still had time,
he was only a little damp.

Its so obvious to everyone
Looking in that all he
has to do is swim to shore.
But he's so sad that
he thinks his only option
is to drown.

I told him that he doesn't
have to sink,
just like I didn't have to crash.
But he told me to stop talking
and to go start fire to someone else,

But at night while
we talk on the phone
I pull him from the tides
and he extinguishes my flames.
I tell him this is how family works
but in the morning he jumps right
back into the water
and lights a match to my heart.

I've shouldered heartache, shouldered pain
And I have taken all the blame
For through my weakness of volition,
I've relinquished all ambition
To be more than just a vacant gazer,
Like one who claims their soul is braver,
Yet capitulates before the saber.

And man excels in lies and treason,
Extinguishes the age of reason
For if all men are free to think,
Then surely the Leviathan must sink
And with it take down all degrees of
malfeasance is stormy seas,
And from the ashes birth and rise,
a phoenix silhouettes the skies
Who pirouettes and sparks with glee,
Arching towards the bourgeoise

And whenceforth now but down below
This sinking pit you surely know
Cannot be held, cannot be kept
Our Natures toil their final breath
And with the fall of all from grace,
The wolves oh long ago they raced
For all there is a time to rise
Our ignorance lay in our eyes
Through history I again recite,
That dawn doth fade before the night

I don't have to drive my car
To go to the online bar
So I can acquire a date
With my potential mate
But once I entered the seedy site
I experienced an unexpected plight
Everybody in the place
Had a silly dog face
It seemed like a furry paradise
I couldn't believe my feral eyes
They try to make me see through a filter
In order to purposely throw me off kilter
Covering up their eyes, nose, and cheeks
There's a smell of deception that reeks
Their lies
Draw flies
I sniff them out with my canine nose
As my willingness to be alone grows
Because everyone is a liar
Which extinguishes my fire
So I filter them from my life
In order to avoid strife
Yet I keep hopefully searching for love
Symbolized by, but not literally, a dove
I want to view the world through rose-filtered glasses
But I desperately look around only to see dogs' *****

the room is saturated with the sounds and smells of post-coitus:
          heavy breathing, a gasp for air, still audible past the music turned up to
          mask those initial, irrepressible moans.
                    humidity, hanging moisture created by two bodies in vigorous
                    motion.
                              sweat, still slick, still dripping down thighs, *******, still
                              pooling in those wonderful crevasses the body creates, now
                              extinguishes, with the bend of a limb or turn of a neck.
                                        the sharp and penetrating undertone of saliva.
                                                  that unmistakable stink of *** that is not one
                                                  thing, but two things, and many things, mixed,
                                                  merged into one heady, oppressive, still
                                                  intoxicating cloud.
          movement, and a window is opened.
                    the moisture and floating heat are whisked out into the cool night.
                              sweat droplets maneuver between suddenly formed goose
                              bumps, then are gone, evaporated.
                                        breathing is lower; heat, inescapable earlier, is now
                                        eagerly sought through blanket and body, two forms
                                        disappeared together in warmth, in slow sleep.

Jealousy is calling Mrs. Brightside to a dark moon.
Werewolf howls: some lost girl, lonely,
Wanting only to be loved.

Let me scream for she is lost.  ‘Cause
never found outside, in cold, damp rooms;
Body tossing,
Sweat staining the sheets,
Soaking the pillows

She cries...
Just to be heard,
Just so she might breathe.

Cry for Her...
Lost Innocence.
Purity forgotten can never be expressed,
Only bottled up,
Distilled,
Filled to the brim to be poured out then thrown
To the ocean-
Awaiting time may bring beach glass,
Smoothed rough and shattered softened-
In hopes of sparkling some distant shore.

But to belie Her: these empty vessels;
Silhouettes among a crowd of unfamiliar faces
Identically backlit by the sun-Vivid Death-
Setting,
Turned westward,
Watching an amber light’s slow fade-
Crimson turqouise violet splendor-
To black.

Let me scream for You.
Let me scream,
For you are lost.
Let me scream for your lost cause;
I will scream forever,

     And forever
           let me pray for you in silence
And speak soft down whispers into the depth of vacant ears
Well-known strangers wandering empty streets,
Lighting sidewalks and store windows as they pass
-Sometimes-
Waking cold sweat screaming through darkness;
Tears for Bright Dreams-
Now only Lost Causes.

And the day begins to break.
The lights go out.-
She cries, “Go out”-
Extinguishes.

My freedom’s lost.
My innocence wanes.
She cries.
Ransoms collected.
I lay silent…
She cries.
Screaming,
She cries.
Silently
I cry,
And you begin to fade away.

In the peace
and solitude of the room
I want to write one last poem
the candle searches diligently for fuel
soon I see the last glimpse of it's light

Just one more glass then
one last drink on this day
which slowly slides to her end
and morning light
may greet us tomorrow

The candle extinguishes
I am alone
and in the light of the moon
it is dark and quiet on the street
the poem is written
and it's time
to go to bed.

Holding my head high is no easy task.
Come clear my mind, its all i ask.
Heartache and heartbreak from the same mistake.
The feeling invades my body and tears my soul.
Seems like nothing will heal.
Not until I rise myself out from this hole.
The more and more I strive,
I begin to wonder: will I make it out alive?
My body still remains here, but my soul has already left.


People are dying. Dying to speak their mind.
People are living. Living for a waste of time.
Theres no reason to be here,
lets pack up and leave dear.


My heart feels like a downpour of rain.
but its alright, cause I like the rain.
When Texas is burning, open the floodgates.


Release your mind into the sea.
Patience is maturity,
and love extinguishes the fire.
The fire that rages wars in my head.
Tonight I will pray,
and tomorrow I shall embrace the day.


People are dying. Dying to speak their mind.
People are living. Living for a waste of time.
Theres no reason to be here,
lets pack up and leave dear.


My body still remains here, but my soul has already left.
Whatever the time, look at the sky

You say that the wind has escaped its path
That stars are no longer minding us
The sun shines when we set, and sets when we shine
That the moon is no longer scattering its smiles on our faces
And that the river has forgotten its sleeping habits under our feet
The trees are no longer protecting us from freezing cold of heart and hell of death
And the sky is no longer blue
The ravens have invaded it  and ravaged by ashes
The sea has provoked its whales and sharks;
And it has no longer produced its fortified pearls
The meadows have burned their herbs
The flowers have suspended their buds on the ropes of gallows
The nightingales have their throats cut and they are no longer singing
You say that the day has put out its braziers and turned to be as same as night


But you, my lady, might have gone deeper into the darkness of the night
I have learned the murdering of distances and invented a new alphabet for the heart
You live in letter  F and I live in letter  Z
So, we endow things with their meanings
The sea regains its calm and drives out  its whales and sharks
And retains oysters , pearls and coral
Birds are  singing back by the rhythm of an eternal melody
It set out in our starting and does not end in our termination

You say that Adam had not mastered the language of the heart
And he had taken divining at the altar of the body
And Eve did not learn how to tame the sun,
Or make fun of the language of the moon
She repeated her mistakes as the fools.



But you, my lady, create other nature of human beings
Adam is Adam, and Eve is Eve, clay, salt, and water
Before the first seduction they were not as the full moon
Even if they had been as such,
Adam would not have been and Eve as well
They were angels?!
Perhaps!
But they do not deserve the full moon
Because the one who deserves it, who is putting water and fire in one hand
Neither water extinguishes fire nor does fire devour water
But he runs water and fire whenever he wants.

The Life of a Work of Art

The life of a work of art
Begins with an idea,
Just like any mother conceives the idea
Of new life inside her swelling tummy.
Conception; the piece is put together in one’s mind
Detail by detail, until it is formed enough to meet its body; a canvas.
Through rough pencil outlines,
The art is born
From the first touch of pencil to canvas.
The soul and body of the art become welded together.
But, life has begun since the moment of conception.
The piece is fragile and easily destructible;
A newborn.
It must be touched gently, as its lines grow darker and thicker
And the picture begins to change.
An infant, the general outlines are visible.
As a toddler, the artwork is growing from a skeletal sketch
To a generally-shaded drawing.
A child, the piece is maturing quickly.
Paint brush strokes define basic colors and shapes.
A pubescent teen, the art is nearly finished.
Matted, it becomes a young adult.
Signed, framed, and mounted,
The photo is an adult.
It remains on its mount ‘til the paint cracks and yellows
And deceases after a natural disaster
Extinguishes the life of a work of art.

There's this girl
She's like a candle
trying her best to lit her day
trying her best to warm the smiles
But she just had enough
The fire extinguishes
by the tears from her eyes
pools of sadness,sorrows,grievance
that she kept for years
that she always fears.

Repeating every song she hears
along with memories and tears
they penetrate her heart
left scars,forever.

It can't be cured by laughter
It can't be cured by cheers
It can't be cured by dollars
It can't be cured by herself
she needs years to fix it back
Worthless she feels,worth it they said.

It's hard for her to explain
even harder for them to understand
she doesn't wants friends
she isolates from them
but they're too kind to be left
so she continues the game.

She tries to see how long she can stands
how long she can survives
with faking smiles and laughs
This is too much.
She swallows everything
judgmental words suicide thoughts
for the sake to gain something
then she realizes the game was
nothing.

Nobody said it was easy
Nobody said it was fun
feels like the tears
make her awoken from the
reality that will never be pleased.


a.b

I remember my moms cups of coffee as a child.
A hazelnut aroma rising out of her travel mug --
a gift she got as an underpaid teacher who had to get her boost on-the-go
--filling the car like steam from a hot shower fills a bathroom.
I remember that smell ironically always headed to school.

I remember the first time I was offered a sip of coffee.
Not nearly as sweet as it smelled.
Bitter liquid that terminated taste buds like water extinguishes flame as it billowed across the tongue and  down the hatch.
I remember that taste vowing never to have to again.

I remember when my sister started working at a "coffee shop".
The one that competes with itself across street-ways,
and still has lines filled with downward looking drones despite being in Paris.
I wouldn't even eat the pastries she brought home
knowing the aroma entwined around them long enough for osmosis.

And sitting now, in the office of my retail store at 23,
Staring into my travel mug,
which looks like an above ground pool version of the black lagoon,
These are the memories that come to mind
as caffeine blocks adenosine from their receptors in my brain.

With my face comfortably buried into the cushion of the sofa, my body lay fast asleep.  My dream gets interrupted by a startling crash.  Eyes shot open and I quickly scan the room.  I didn’t see anything that seemed to be broken.  I could feel my head swell with confusion while I lay motionless on the sofa.  I stuff my face back into the cushion and carefully listen, hoping to not hear anything.  After a few seconds, I hear the kitchen door slowly squeak open.  I didn’t want to believe my ears so I lift my head to look over toward the door.  My eyes find a little girl in the doorway.  She stood for a while gazing into my eyes while I stare right back at her.  Something about her is extraordinarily intimidating.  Eventually she starts wandering over to me with silent footsteps and she plants her feet to position herself in front of me.  Again with the staring, I sit up and choke on my words.  Then I notice that she’s hiding something from me.  She’s holding something behind her back.  In confusion, I **** my head sideways mostly because I want to try and get a glance at what it is. Though, her intense stare stops me from peeking around her.  She has it.  She tucks something away in her arms, but I can’t comprehend any of it.  I don’t see anything, but she acts like she’s got something.  
"What is it?" I ask.
Her hands come around from behind her and she holds up her hands as if she’s grasping something heavy.  A box?  Her fingers tremble and they're strictly holding on real securely.  The spaces between her hands and fingers are empty, but her imagination tells me that she actually has something to show me.  I cannot see it.  How can I not see it?  Something is there.  I can see it in her eyes.  In her eyes is a reflection.  Her eyes show that she’s holding out a box right out in front of me.  I look back down at her hands.  Still empty.  My eyes jump back up into hers.  The box is nicely wrapped with colored paper and a pretty bow.  I hesitantly reach out with sweaty palms and anxiously put forth an effort to lay hands on what she might be holding.  Carefully, my hands maneuver between her hands.  Not feeling a thing.  With my hands remaining in search, I glance back to her eyes.  I watch my hands go right through the box.  I am appalled with the image I set focus on.  How is this happening?  What does she expect me to do?  Take the present?
Suddenly I feel something behind me, a cold nudge.  I spontaneously react by turning my head to scan the deserted room that lie just over my shoulder.  I spot a mirror.  I see myself on the couch with the little girl standing in front of me offering me the present.  I then turn to look at her, but she’s gone.  I gasp with disgust; I stare deeply into the mirror, but see only my reflection.  There’s something definitely wrong.  My eyes look confused.  I walk over to get a better look.  With a concentrated stare, I study my own eyes.  The trance is broken by the blink of my refection.  I stare but my reflection blinks.  A simple blink transforms the eyes, eyes that are not familiar to me at all.  Bloodshot and mean, the eyes of a demon.  The demon blinks again, but I know I’m holding my eyes open.  This is not my reflection.  It can’t possibly be.  My heart aches with danger, however I cannot take my eyes away.  My thoughts are drifting in many different directions, except I know I should maintain focus.  I feel my hand move up to touch the mirror.  The demon violently reaches out faster than I could wince.  I swirl around on the ***** of my feet to try and escape her grasp but she seizes the back of my shirt in her fingers.  The fingers pull me back and I can’t get away.  The little girl reappears by my feet.  I yell out to her for help but this time her eyes are bloodshot along with the demon’s.  She pushes the imaginary present into my chest with a force that I wasn’t expecting.  My breath escapes me and the box is too heavy.  The demon manages to slip her whole arm around my head reveling my neck way out in the open.  She extracts a blade and holds the cold metal against my throat.  I can feel myself drip with sweat and I can’t move a muscle.  Everything inside me is too tense to move.  The heavy box won’t release from my grip.  I try to let go, but it weighs my arms down.  Shaking with emotions that swarm around in my stomach like angry rabid hornets, I feel a lump form in my throat.  I read messages from my surroundings, I know that something terrible is about to happen.  Control is not something in my reach; I can’t do anything to help myself.  I try to scream, but the lump in my throat extinguishes all sound I try to project.  
With one full swift motion of the demon’s hand, my neck is sliced wide open.  Everything goes dark.  My eyes shut tightly as my knees hug the floor.  My face then faces the floor and I can see what I mess I’ve become.  No more breath, no more light, no more life, is this the end?  Does this pain tell the truth?  I wouldn’t say that, but what can I say?
I aim with all my effort for one more final deep breath.  I suddenly open my eyes and **** in air to fill my lungs.  I look around and I am on the couch with no harm at all.  My hands are free to run around my neck in search for blood.  I don’t feel any pain or open wound.  I sigh in relief and calmly lay back down.  Before I try and go back to sleep, I see the girl standing at the door.

Righteous
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

Published in Writer’s Gazette and Tucumcari Literary Review.
Keywords/Tags: love, lovers, night, stars, twilight, moon, spectral, ancient, scripture, arms, hair, revel, ardent, passion, passionate, desire, lust, ***, lovers



Only Let Me Love You
by Michael R. Burch

after Rabindranath Tagore's "Come as You Are"

Only let me love you, and the pain
of living will be easier to bear.
Only let me love you. Nay, refrain
from pinning up your hair!

Only let me love you. Stay, remain.
A face so lovely never needs repair!
Only let me love you to the strains
of Rabindranath on a soft sitar.

Only let me love you, while the rain
makes music: gentle, eloquent, sincere.
Only let me love you. Don’t complain
you need more time to make yourself more fair!

Only let me love you. Stay, remain.
No need for rouge or lipstick! Only share
your tender body swiftly ...



Homeless Us
by Michael R. Burch

The coldest night I ever knew
the wind out of the arctic blew
long frigid blasts; and I was you.

We huddled close then: yes, we two.
For I had lost your house, to rue
such bitter weather, being you.

Our empty tin cup sang the Blues,
clanged—hollow, empty. Carols (few)
were sung to me, for being you.

For homeless us, all men eschew.
They beat us, roust us, jail us too.
It isn’t easy, being you.

Published by Street Smart, First Universalist Church of Denver, Mind Freedom Switzerland and on 20+ web pages supporting the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities



Minor Key Duet
by Michael R. Burch

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

Play, for the night is long.

Originally published by Brief Poems



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

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



If Love Were Infinite
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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



The Drawer of Mermaids
by Michael R. Burch

This poem is dedicated to Alina Karimova, who was born with severely deformed legs and five fingers missing. Alina loves to draw mermaids and believes her fingers will eventually grow out.

Although I am only four years old,
they say that I have an old soul.
I must have been born long, long ago,
here, where the eerie mountains glow
at night, in the Urals.

A madman named Geiger has cursed these slopes;
now, shut in at night, the emphatic ticking
fills us with dread.
(Still, my momma hopes
that I will soon walk with my new legs.)

It’s not so much legs as the fingers I miss,
drawing the mermaids under the ledges.
(Observing, Papa will kiss me
in all his distracted joy;
but why does he cry?)

And there is a boy
who whispers my name.
Then I am not lame;
for I leap, and I follow.
(G’amma brings a wiseman who says

our infirmities are ours, not God’s,
that someday a beautiful Child
will return from the stars,
and then my new fingers will grow
if only I trust Him; and so

I am preparing to meet Him, to go,
should He care to receive me.)



Almost
by Michael R. Burch

We had—almost—an affair.
You almost ran your fingers through my hair.
I almost kissed the almonds of your toes.
We almost loved,
                            that’s always how love goes.

You almost contemplated using Nair
and adding henna highlights to your hair,
while I considered plucking you a Rose.
We almost loved,
                            that’s always how love goes.

I almost found the words to say, “I care.”
We almost kissed, and yet you didn’t dare.
I heard coarse stubble grate against your hose.
We almost loved,
                            that’s always how love goes.

You almost called me suave and debonair
(perhaps because my chest is pale and bare?).
I almost bought you edible underclothes.
We almost loved,
                            that’s always how love goes.

I almost asked you where you kept your lair
and if by chance I might ****** you there.
You almost tweezed the redwoods from my nose.
We almost loved,
                            that’s always how love goes.

We almost danced like Rogers and Astaire
on gliding feet; we almost waltzed on air ...
until I mashed your plain, unpolished toes.
We almost loved,
                            that’s always how love goes.

I almost was strange Sonny to your Cher.
We almost sat in love’s electric chair
to be enlightninged, till our hearts unfroze.
We almost loved,
                            that’s always how love goes.



Options Underwater: The Song of the First Amphibian
by Michael R. Burch

               “Evolution’s a Fishy Business!”

1.
Breathing underwater through antiquated gills,
I’m running out of options. I need to find fresh Air,
to seek some higher Purpose. No porpoise, I despair
to swim among anemones’ pink frills.

2.
My fins will make fine flippers, if only I can walk,
a little out of kilter, safe to the nearest rock’s
sweet, unmolested shelter. Each eye must grow a stalk,
to take in this green land on which it gawks.

3.
No predators have made it here, so I need not adapt.
Sun-sluggish, full, lethargic—I’ll take such nice long naps!
The highest form of life, that’s me! (Quite apt
to lie here chortling, calling fishes saps.)

4.
I woke to find life teeming all around—
mammals, insects, reptiles, loathsome birds.
And now I cringe at every sight and sound.
The water’s looking good! I look Absurd.

5.
The moral of my story’s this: don’t leap
wherever grass is greener. Backwards creep.
And never burn your bridges, till you’re sure
leapfrogging friends secures your Sinecure.

Originally published by Lighten Up Online



Egbert the Adorable Octopus

Egbert the Octopus
is so **** cute
& smarter than u
(the point is moot)
’cause he doesn’t pollute
when he commutes,
only, perhaps,
when he (ahem) “poots”!
—michael r. burch

I have also seen the diminutive Einstein’s name rendered as Eggbert the Octopus. Check him out on YouTube!



A Possible Explanation for the Madness of March Hares
by Michael R. Burch

March hares,
beware!
Spring’s a tease, a flirt!

This is yet another late freeze alert.
Better comfort your babies;
the weather has rabies.



Cold Snap Coin Flip
by Michael R. Burch

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

Or ...

Back to bed,
Old sleepyhead,
Dull and supine.



Monarch
by Michael R. Burch

I had a little caterpillar,
it wove a cocoon for its villa.
When I blinked an eye
what did I espy?
It flew off, a regal butterfly!



Moonflower
by Michael R. Burch

after Robert Hayden

Marveling,
we at last beheld the achieved flower—
both awed and repelled by its alienness,
its moonlit petals,
its cloying fragrance,
its transcendence,
its shimmering and wavering intimations of mortality ...



Ebb Tide
by Michael R. Burch
after Goethe

Ebb tide.
The sea is wide.
In the depths
dark things abide.

Hush, pale child.
Never fear.
None as dark
as men, my dear.

Ebb tide.
The sea is wide.
In the depths
dark creatures glide.

Hush, now father.
Never fear.
Men are nothing
where you are.



How could I understand?
by Michael R. Burch

for the victims of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bomb blasts

How could I understand
that light
might
be painful?

That sight
might
be crossed?

How could I understand
the cost
of my ignorance,
or the sun’s
inflorescence?

Who was there to tell me
that I, too,
might be one of the
Lost?



I was so drunk my lips got lost requesting a kiss.—Rumi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



She Was Very Pretty
by Michael R. Burch

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

At sixteen, she had a daughter.

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

She was almost pretty perhaps two weeks.

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

She was hardly pretty another day.

Then she was scarcely pretty; her skin was marred
by liver spots; her heart was scarred;
her child was grown; her life was done;
she faded away with the setting sun.

She was scarcely pretty, and not much fun.

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



Song Cycle
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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



Over(t) Simplification
by Michael R. Burch

“Keep it simple, stupid.”

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

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

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



The Less-Than-Divine Results of My Prayers to be Saved from Televangelists
by Michael R. Burch

I’m old,
no longer bold,
just cold,
and (truth be told),
been bought and sold,
rolled
by the wolves and the lambs in the fold.

Who’s to be told
by this worn-out scold?
The complaint department is always on hold.



These are poems written for my grandfathers and grandmothers.

Sunset
by Michael R. Burch

for my grandfather, George Edwin Hurt Sr., the day he departed this life

Between the prophesies 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.



Salat Days
by Michael R. Burch

Dedicated to the memory of my grandfather, Paul Ray Burch, Sr.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Years later I found the proper name—"pokeweed"—while perusing a dictionary.

Surprised, I asked why anyone would eat a ****.

I still can hear his laconic reply...
"Well, chile, s'm'times them times wus hard."

Keywords/Tags: Great Depression, greatness, courage, resolve, resourcefulness, hero, heroes, South, Deep South, southern, poke salad, poke salat, pokeweed, free verse



All Things Galore
by Michael R. Burch

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

Grandfather,
now in your gray presence
you are
somehow more near

and remind me that,
once, upon a star,

you taught me
wish
that ululate soft phrase,
that hopeful phrase!

and everywhere above, each hopeful star

gleamed down

and seemed to speak of times before
when you clasped my small glad hand
in your wise paw
and taught me heaven, omen, meteor . . .



Dawn
by Michael R. Burch

for my grandmothers Lillian Lee and Christine Ena Hurt

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



Mother's Day Haiku
by Michael R. Burch

for my grandmothers Lillian Lee and Christine Ena Hurt

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

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

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

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



The Rose
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

This poem above is my translation of a Sappho epigram.



Mother’s Smile
by Michael R. Burch

for my wife, Beth, my mother and my grandmothers

There never was a fonder smile
than mother’s smile, no softer touch
than mother’s touch. So sleep awhile
and know she loves you more than “much.”

So more than “much,” much more than “all.”
Though tender words, these do not speak
of love at all, nor how we fall
and mother’s there, nor how we reach
from nightmares in the ticking night
and she is there to hold us tight.

There never was a stronger back
than father’s back, that held our weight
and lifted us, when we were small,
and bore us till we reached the gate,
then held our hands that first bright mile
till we could run, and did, and flew.
But, oh, a mother’s tender smile
will leap and follow after you!



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

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

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

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



Sailing to My Grandfather
by Michael R. Burch

for my grandfather, George Edwin Hurt Sr.

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

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

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

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

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

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



Attend Upon Them Still
by Michael R. Burch

for my grandparents George and Ena Hurt

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

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

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

to wave, to grow, to gleam, to lighten their paths,
to shine sweet, transient glories at their feet.

Thou art the grass;
make them complete.



Be that Rock
by Michael R. Burch

for 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.

I wrote the poem above for my grandfather when I was around 18.



Joy in the Morning
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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

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



Come Spring
by Michael R. Burch

for the Religious Right

Come spring we return, innocent and hopeful, to the ******,
beseeching Her to bestow
Her blessings upon us.

Pitiable sinners, we bow before Her,
nay, grovel,
as She looms above us, aglow
in Her Purity.

We know
all will change in an instant; therefore
in the morning we will call her,
an untouched maiden no more,
“*****.”

The so-called Religious Right prizes virginity in women and damns them for doing what men do. I have long been a fan of women like Tallulah Bankhead, Marilyn Monroe and Mae West, who decided what’s good for the gander is equally good for the goose.



HOMELESS POETRY

These are poem about the homeless and poems for the homeless.



Epitaph for a Homeless Child
by Michael R. Burch

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



Homeless Us
by Michael R. Burch

The coldest night I ever knew
the wind out of the arctic blew
long frigid blasts; and I was you.

We huddled close then: yes, we two.
For I had lost your house, to rue
such bitter weather, being you.

Our empty tin cup sang the Blues,
clanged—hollow, empty. Carols (few)
were sung to me, for being you.

For homeless us, all men eschew.
They beat us, roust us, jail us too.
It isn’t easy, being you.

Published by Street Smart, First Universalist Church of Denver, Mind Freedom Switzerland and on 20+ web pages supporting the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities



Frail Envelope of Flesh
by Michael R. Burch

for homeless mothers and their children

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 two artless years!
Now your mother’s lips
seal up your lips
from the Deluge of her tears ...



For a Homeless Child, with Butterflies
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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



Neglect
by Michael R. Burch

What good are tears?
Will they spare the dying their anguish?
What use, our concern
to a child sick of living, waiting to perish?

What good, the warm benevolence of tears
without action?
What help, the eloquence of prayers,
or a pleasant benediction?

Before this day is over,
how many more will die
with bellies swollen, emaciate limbs,
and eyes too parched to cry?

I fear for our souls
as I hear the faint lament
of theirs departing ...
mournful, and distant.

How pitiful our “effort,”
yet how fatal its effect.
If they died, then surely we killed them,
if only with neglect.



PETRARCH

Sonnet XIV
by Petrarch
translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Lust, gluttony and idleness conspire
to banish every virtue from mankind,
replaced by evil in his treacherous mind,
thus robbing man of his Promethean fire,
till his nature, overcome by dark desire,
extinguishes the light pure heaven refined.
Thus the very light of heaven has lost its power
while man gropes through strange darkness, unable to find
relief for his troubled mind, always inclined
to lesser dreams than Helicon’s bright shower!
Who seeks the laurel? Who the myrtle? Bind
poor Philosophy in chains, to learn contrition
then join the servile crowd, so base conditioned?
Not so, true gentle soul! Keep your ambition!

Sonnet VI
by Petrarch
translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I once beheld such high, celestial graces
as otherwise on earth remain unknown,
whose presences might earthly grief atone,
but from their blinding light we turn our faces.
I saw how tears had left disconsolate traces
within bright eyes no noonday sun outshone.
I heard soft lips, with ululating moans,
mouth words to jar great mountains from their traces.
Love, wisdom, honor, courage, tenderness, truth
made every verse they voiced more high, more dear,
than ever fell before on mortal ear.
Even heaven seemed astonished, not aloof,
as the budding leaves on every bough approved,
so sweetly swelled the radiant atmosphere!



The Inconstant Cosmologist
by Michael R. Burch

An incestuous physicist, Bright,
made whoopee much faster than light.
She orgasmed one day
in her relative way,
but came on the previous night!



Pale Ophelias
by Michael R. Burch

Ever in danger of a lethal tryst,
with a comical father crying, “Desist!”
We’re all pale Ophelias in the mist.

“Children, be careful!” our mothers insist,
and yet we plow forward, in search of bliss,
ever in danger of a lethal tryst.

“Remember Eve’s apple,” some inner voice hissed,
which of course we ignored, the prudish miss!
We’re all pale Ophelias in the mist.

Such a sweet temptation!, and who can resist
the enticements of such a delectable dish,
whatever the dangers of a lethal tryst?

“Stay away, Cupid!” With a balled-up fist,
we lecture the stars when things go amiss.
We’re all pale Ophelias in the mist.

Lovers are criminals & need to be frisked!
We’re up to the task, like lobsters in bisque.
Ever in danger of a lethal tryst,
We’re all pale Ophelias in the mist.



Asleep at the Wheel
by Michael R. Burch

Florida will not be woke.
DeSantis made it clear.
The world may well go up in smoke,
but Ron will snore, no fear.

For Florida will not be woke.
Conservatives will snooze
with blinders shutting out all light
and any factual news.



When I visited Byron's residence at Newstead Abbey, there were peacocks running around the grounds, which I thought appropriate.

Byron
was not a shy one,
as peacocks run.
—Michael R. Burch



That country ***** bewitches your heart?
Hell, her most beguiling art’s
hiking her dress
to ****** you with her ankles' nakedness!
Sappho, fragment 57, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



My religion consists of your body's curves and crevasses.—attributed to Sappho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



I discovered the Goddess in your body's curves and crevasses.—attributed to Sappho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



How Could I Understand?
by Michael R. Burch

The intense heat and light of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bomb blasts left ghostly silhouettes of human beings imprinted in concrete, whose lives were erased in an instant.

How could I understand
that light
might
be painful?

That sight
might
be crossed?

How could I understand
the cost
of my ignorance,
or the sun’s
inflorescence?

Who was there to tell me
that I, too,
might be one of the
Lost?



EGBERT THE OCTOPUS

Egbert the Octopus can be viewed here, in all his high-IQ’d-ness and adorability:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V32yeA9yUuk

Eggbert the Octopus
is so **** cute
& smarter than u
(the point is moot)
’cause he doesn’t pollute
when he commutes,
only, perhaps,
when he (ahem) “poots”!
—michael r. burch

I have also seen the diminutive Einstein’s name rendered as Eggbert the Octopus.



Driedel!
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18

“Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing.” – Revelation 5:12

On Erble's fiery mountain
she lifts her eyes to greet
the avalanche of lava
as it cascades through the peaks.

Her eyes are fiery systems
burning with wonder,
all-seeing yet unseeing;
her voice is like thunder!

Soft as a thrummingbird she speaks;
she whispers to the dawn
of Erble's final awakening,
and the Void gives voice to song.

Driedel!  Driedel!  Driedel!
****** of the heights,
shed your gown of alasty
and come to meet Dark Night!

Her cheeks like alabaster,
her tentacles aflame,
she leaps to greet her Lover
and screams his godly name!

Her throat is black and violet,
her teeth are plated sjurl.
The fire licks her features
and laps her smoking curls.

A palatable offering!
The work is done; the deed
has been executed
exactly as decreed.

Driedel!  Driedel!  Driedel!
Go to meet your Lord,
and through your new alliance,
keep your people pure.

Driedel!



Daredevilry
by Michael R. Burch

Trees
full of possibilities
whisper of ancient mysteries—
mysteries of birth, of life and death.
Each leaf—illuminated, light as breath—
gives up clinging to the old verities,
embraces its frailties,
skydives …



Overshadowed
by Rahat Indori
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The brilliance of stars goes unnoticed
since the moon overshadows them every night.



So Be It
by Rahat Indori
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

If we’re opposed, so be it; there’s more to life.
There’s more to the skies than mere smoke.
When a fire breaks out, many wounds abound;
it’s not just my home in flames.
Yes, it’s true that many enemies also abound,
but they don’t control life with their fists.
What comes out of my mouth, are my words alone;
they don’t speak for me, do they?
Today’s rulers will not be tomorrow’s;
We’re all tenants here, not owners.
Everyone's blood irrigates Earth’s soil;
India is no one’s paternal possession.



Speak
by Faiz Ahmad Faiz
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Speak, while your lips are still free.
Speak, while your tongue remains yours.
Speak, while you’re still standing upright.
Speak, while your spirit has force.

See how, in the bright-sparking forge,
cunning flames set dull ingots aglow
as the padlocks release their clenched grip
on the severed chains hissing below.

Speak, in this last brief hour,
before the bold tongue lies dead.
Speak, while the truth can be spoken.
Say what must yet be said.



The Fog and the Shadows
adapted from a novel by Perhat Tursun
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

“I began to realize the fog was similar to the shadows.”

I began to realize that, just as the exact shape of darkness is a shadow,
even so the exact shape of fog is disappearance
and the exact shape of a human being is also disappearance.
At this moment it seemed my body was vanishing into the human form’s final state.
After I arrived here,
it was as if the danger of getting lost
and the desire to lose myself
were merging strangely inside me.
While everything in that distant, gargantuan city where I spent my five college years felt strange to me; and even though the skyscrapers, highways, ditches and canals were built according to a single standard and shape, so that it wasn’t easy to differentiate them, still I never had the feeling of being lost. Everyone there felt like one person and they were all folded into each other. It was as if their faces, voices and figures had been gathered together like a shaman’s jumbled-up hair.
Even the men and women seemed identical.
You could only tell them apart by stripping off their clothes and examining them.
The men’s faces were beardless like women’s and their skin was very delicate and unadorned.
I was always surprised that they could tell each other apart.
Later I realized it wasn’t just me: many others were also confused.
For instance, when we went to watch the campus’s only TV in a corridor of a building where the seniors stayed when they came to improve their knowledge. Those elderly Uyghurs always argued about whether someone who had done something unusual in an earlier episode was the same person they were seeing now. They would argue from the beginning of the show to the end. Other people, who couldn’t stand such endless nonsense, would leave the TV to us and stalk off.
Then, when the classes began, we couldn’t tell the teachers apart.
Gradually we became able to tell the men from the women
and eventually we able to recognize individuals.
But other people remained identical for us.
The most surprising thing for me was that the natives couldn’t differentiate us either.
For instance, two police came looking for someone who had broken windows during a fight at a restaurant and had then run away.
They ordered us line up, then asked the restaurant owner to identify the culprit.
He couldn’t tell us apart even though he inspected us very carefully.
He said we all looked so much alike that it was impossible to tell us apart.
Sighing heavily, he left.



I was so drunk my lips got lost requesting a kiss.—Rumi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Road to Recovery
by Michael R. Burch

It’s time to get up and at ’em
and out of this rut that I’m sat in,
and shat in.



The childless woman,
how tenderly she caresses
homeless dolls ...
—Hattori Ransetsu, loose translation by Michael R. Burch



Clinging
to the plum tree:
one blossom's worth of warmth
—Hattori Ransetsu, loose translation by Michael R. Burch



Oh, fallen camellias,
if I were you,
I'd leap into the torrent!
—Takaha Shugyo, loose translation by Michael R. Burch



What would Mother Teresa do?
Do it too!
—Michael R. Burch



Kabir Das (1398-1518), also known as Sant Kabir Saheb, but often called simply Kabir, was an Indian mystic, saint and poet who wrote poems in Sadhukkadi, a vernacular dialect of the Hindi Belt of medieval North India. Sadhukkadi was a mix of Hindi languages (Hindustani, Haryanvi, Braj Bhasha, Awadhi, Marwari) along with Bhojpuri and Punjabi.

The world grows weary reading scripture’s tomes
but a leaf of love enlightens us.
—Kabir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Without looking into our hearts,
how can we find Paradise?
—Kabir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

How long will you live by eating someone else’s leftovers?
Find your own way, don’t live on regurgitated words!
—Kabir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Keep the slanderer near you, build him a hut near your house.
For, when you lack soap and water, he will scour you clean.
—Kabir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A true wife desires only her husband;
a starving lion will not eat grass.
—Kabir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Certainly, saints, the world’s insane:
If I tell the truth they attack me,
if I lie they believe me.
—Kabir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When you were born, you wept while the world rejoiced.
Live your life so that when you die, the world weeps while you rejoice.
—Kabir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The one who enlightens the world remains unseen,
just as we cannot perceive our own eyes.
—Kabir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

No medicine rivals Love:
one drop transforms you whole being to pure gold.
—Kabir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Either grant me death or reveal yourself:
this separation has become unbearable.
—Kabir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

They called the doctor to investigate Kabir’s illness;
the doctor checks my pulse to diagnose my disease.
But no doctor can understand what ails me.
It cuts too deep.
—Kabir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I neither have faith in my heart, nor do I know anything about Love.
And what do I know of Love’s etiquettes?
How will I ever live with my Beloved?
—Kabir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My Beloved calls me with such intense love,
but I am sinful and gone astray.
The Beloved is pure but the bride is soiled.
How dare she touch his feet?
—Kabir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Kabir kept searching and searching until he was completely lost.
The drop dissolves in the ocean; now nothing can be discovered.
—Kabir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Whatever you need to do tomorrow, do today,
for time evaporates and vanishes like a mist.
Thus work undone remains undone forever.
—Kabir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Autumn Lament
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 14

Alas, the earth is green no more;
her colors fade and die,
and all her trampled marigolds
lament the graying sky.

And now the summer sheds her coat
of buttercups, and so is bared
to winter’s palest furies
who laugh aloud and do not care
as they await their hour.

Where are the showers of April?
Where are the flowers of May?
And where are the sprites of summer
who frolicked through fields ablaze?

Where are the lovely maidens
who browned beneath the sun?
And where are the leaves and the flowers
that died worn and haggard although they were young?

Alas, the moss grows brown and stiff
and tumbles from the trees
that shiver in an icy mist,
limbs shivering in the breeze.

And now the frost has come and cast
itself upon the grass
as the surly snow grows bold
and prepares at last
to pounce upon the land.

Where are the sheep and the cattle
that grazed beneath tall, stately trees?
And where are the fragile butterflies
that frolicked on the breeze?
And where are the rollicking robins
that once soared, so wild and free?
Oh, where can they all be?

Alas, the land has lost its warmth;
its rocky teeth chatter
and a thousand dying butterflies
soon’ll dodge the snowflakes as they splatter
flush against the flowers.

Where are those warm, happy hours?
Where are the snappy jays?
And where are the brilliant blossoms
that once set the meadows ablaze?

Where are the fruitful orchards?
Where, now, all the squirrels and the hares?
How has our summer wonderland
become so completely bare
in such a short time?

Alas, the earth is green no more;
the sun no longer shines;
and all the grapes ungathered
hang rotting on their vines.

And now the winter wind grows cold
and comes out of the North
to freeze the flowers as they stand
and bend toward the South.

And now the autumn becomes bald,
is shorn of all its life,
as the stiletto wind hones in
to slice the skin like a paring knife,
carving away all warmth.

Alas, the children laugh no more,
but shiver in their beds
or’ll walk to school through blinding snow
with caps to keep their heads
safe from the cruel cold.

Oh, where are the showers of April
and where are the flowers of May?
And where are the sprites of summer
who frolicked through fields ablaze?

Where are the lovely maidens
who browned beneath the sun?
And where are the leaves and the flowers
that died worn and haggard although they were young?

This is one of the earliest poems that I can remember writing. The original use of “’neath” is an indication of its antiquity. Unfortunately, I don’t remember when I wrote the first version, but I will guess around 1972 at age 14.




Keywords/Tags: homeless poetry, homeless poems, homelessness, street life, child, children, mom, mother, mothers, America, neglect, starving, dying, perishing, famine, illness, disease, tears, anguish, concern, prayers, inaction, death, charity, love, compassion, kindness, altruism