"geiger" poems
Snuggy ****** of a curled up cat by
the fire
Furry faced, smiley headed, svelte
purveyor of the big meow
Purring away like a Geiger counter,
If you seek Nirvana then seek no
more, it's here
The Cat, she knows.
Mar 13, 2018
Mar 13, 2018 at 6:14 PM UTC
“Here’s your morning PSA,
Laced with saccharine and anaesthetic,
Unfortunately the missiles are on their way,
So leave the sick and try not to panic,
Ignore the hysteria, and those calling your name,
Avert your eyes as the world sets aflame,
We apologise for keeping this from you,
Secret for all of these years,
But please keep in mind, though we’ll aim for your rescue,
Death is the least of your fears
This will be our last transition,
I’m afraid the president must catch his flight,
You may wait to hear from us but until then,
Goodbye, goodluck and goodnight.”
We were the PVC plastic barbie dolls,
Waiting to be burned alive,
Unlucky enough to live,
We woke up to an absence of we,
No Nevada left to test in,
So I’m a model mannequin,
Melt me down,
Tick-Tick-Tick,
The light was white and empty,
Tick-Tick-Tick,
My madness steeped in silence
Tick-Tick-Tickety,
Geiger is telling me to run,
Tickety-Tickety-Tickety,
But it’s no use now,
I threw up on Monday,
Tuesday, I choke back fallout,
Ignore the bubbles when it hits my skin,
On Wednesday, my gums blink bright red,
Thursday I know I am all alone because the wind has ceased to blow,
And Friday I realise I am not,
They came with rubber masks,
Silicone,
Respirators and coils of filters,
We both had big black eyes,
But neither of us saw people reflected in them,
I counted three,
Alpha, Beta, Gamma,
One smiles by exhaling clean air,
Reaches out a hand across the barren wasteland,
Fingers tipped with lead and tells me:
“There’s a prize for the last standing.”
I am not ionised,
So I bruise every time they touch me,
These guides through plagues of acid rain,
The graveyard of monuments stripped bare by a world of rot,
My hair falls out as I breathe dead air,
I don’t remember what PSA stands for,
I don’t remember my name,
I bleed sand and the echo of a failed civilisation,
But with heavy breathing and a muffled voice,
Gas masks filtering what used to keep me alive,
I wonder if there is anything behind those masks at all,
I know there is nothing behind mine,
None of us are human anymore,
And we haven’t been for quite some time,
Together, we watch the sky rain black ash.
Jun 25, 2015
Jun 25, 2015 at 7:51 AM UTC
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.)
Keywords/Tags: mermaid, mermaids, child, children, childhood, Urals, Ural Mountains, soul, soulmate, radiation
Jan 17, 2023
Jan 17, 2023 at 2:08 AM UTC
A is for atom
Rotten to the core
Melting down
below the ground
just outside the door
Where presidents and statesman
continue to play
with hot core rods
in a box of sand
forgetting where they've buried them
From Kazakhstan to New York
they walk away and wipe their hands
Now all young boys like hot apple pie
but uranium cake is hotter
and those who've tasted such elation
will tell you that it's nearly sinful
the way the warmth slowly infil-
-trates you to the bone
Hear! Hear! A noble cheer
for the best warm dish
served in years...
Soviet meltdown in hot sause
There's a piece for brother and sister and you
There's a piece for mom and dad
who chatter in the parlour
like a geiger counter going mad
Now the nuclear family
eats plutonium pie
and triple scoop reactor splits
melt and drip
from every bodies spoon
Cheer noble! Good men! Cheer noble!
Please stand tall solicit applause
Cheer noble!!
You'll get your rewards
and your just deserts
with a noble cheer
CANDU!!!
Roosty
Feb 2, 2017
Feb 2, 2017 at 10:07 AM UTC
Liebes-Lied (“Love Song”)
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
How can I withhold my soul so that it doesn’t touch yours?
How can I lift mine gently to higher things, alone?
Oh, I would gladly find something lost in the dark
in that inert space that fails to resonate until you vibrate.
There everything that moves us, draws us together like a bow
enticing two taut strings to sing together with a simultaneous voice.
Whose instrument are we becoming together?
Whose, the hands that excite us?
Ah, sweet song!
Original text:
Liebes-Lied
Wie soll ich meine Seele halten, daß
sie nicht an deine rührt? Wie soll ich sie
hinheben über dich zu andern Dingen?
Ach gerne möcht ich sie bei irgendwas
Verlorenem im Dunkel unterbringen
an einer fremden stillen Stelle, die
nicht weiterschwingt, wenn deine Tiefen schwingen.
Doch alles, was uns anrührt, dich und mich,
nimmt uns zusammen wie ein Bogenstrich,
der aus zwei Saiten eine Stimme zieht.
Auf welches Instrument sind wir gespannt?
Und welcher Geiger hat uns in der Hand?
O süßes Lied.
Keywords/Tags: German, translation, Rainer Maria Rilke, love, song, music, soul, vibrate, vibration, dark, space, darkness, instrument, bow, strings, hands, voice
Feb 25, 2020
Feb 25, 2020 at 6:26 PM UTC
With the nickname glow worm
A jingle jangle jungle flunky
Experiment gone completely wrong
Radiation Monkey
Ran out of the backdoor
This monkey on the lamb
Glowing footprints across the floor
Running fast this lab rat
See him in the hills at night
Swinging wild amongst the trees
Don't get too close cause he might bite
Radiation Monkey
With the strength of 20 men
He started robbing grocery stores
They say he has the brightest grin
Banana smudges left on doors
Where they lift his fingerprints
Taping off of the crime scene
Geiger counters loudly tic
Radiation Monkey
A menace to society
This florescent ape that's escaped
A radiating personality
Waiting for you to make his day
Wanted posters all over town
Doubling up the bounty
They'll take him live or in the ground
Radiation Monkey
Lessons lived are lessons learned
Latch the windows, bolt the doors
Mistakes are made then hard earned
For stupidity there is no cure
In the lab behind those doors
Is where genius and crazy meet
They might lose a few but they'll make more
Radiation Monkey's
Jan 23, 2020
Jan 23, 2020 at 12:59 PM UTC
Here we are again, in the deathmask of the city spinning.
The circumcised sea with its crocodiles and scars.
Never is the onrush of blood so violent the falsehoods
of the sky that drip neon on our heads
from desiccated clouds so true
This is the wild:
To the clusterfucked and cloistered swimming
in their bowls of soup and the scuttled
shells synchronous in their bass pulse beeping
to the blackhats who don’t believe
their messiah will ever come because they hear
the trump of doom every second of every day
yet they still stomp in their flatbeds for joy
and the prismatic dead who drag themselves from
their gurneys to march through the alleys
like tuskless elephants shoving their fingers
into the sun’s fumarole determined
to disintegrate into a mist of Krylon and copper
where we carry our concrete world slung
over our shoulders and the ravenous
moon in its ellipse above beached night heaving,
eyes curling in their sockets like gunsmoke smoldering
hearts humming like taut snares beheaded fish
in front of us, beheaded bodies behind us
I drag mine along by the hair.
To the children and the panhandlers who greet
the lion like hello kitty
and the skittish magnetic few in their
lightning-spaded furrows
on the ecliptic chained but leaping ever farther
and higher like the wrecking ***** pendulum
and all the naked lost milling among the mummified
tenements, waving Geiger counters before them
as they wander the sweaty street holding their heads
high as they grind flesh against flesh
pulverizing themselves into rubble
measuring the toll of time by destruction
drinking in mercury and hard water and
shrapnel and gamma and fire and gold
to them I say:
turn your hourglass on its side turn
your hourglasses on their sides
then acknowledge me so I can die in peace.
Dec 15, 2011
Dec 15, 2011 at 4:35 PM UTC
You and I drowned in grass while beer cans collected rainwater on a hot night in autumn.
O my redhead girl
O my golden goddess take me far away
Hello hello hello anyone home???
Is anyone-
No thanks, not interested
I don't want what you're selling
The street is wet and the sky is branded
Brand me too
You already have, what's one more?
Just tell me what I owe you and I'll give it to you
Just tell me what I owe you so this'll be over
Hello hello is anyone-
Oh
So that's your game here
Take up your Geiger counter, go on
It won't tell you anything you don't know
So I'm a few screws loose
A few isotopes shy of a real person
My first honest relationship was with a girl with no face
O my springtime gal
You're no rose, you're just all thorns
Say I'm no good then
I'm just no good
Say I'm a washed up summer king
I double dog dare you
You and me walked through a stream filled with dreams blue and green and you took my hand
I called you the night I died
Sometimes I wish I'd gotten the dial tone
Mar 27, 2014
Mar 27, 2014 at 2:08 PM UTC
SCHRöDINGER'S SOCKS & THE REVENGE OF THE CAT
Schrödinger's cat
failed to see just what
all the fuss was
about?
It was all such
a reductive absurdum.
The cat couldn't understand
collapsing wave functions
decoherence
entanglement or whether
reality was really
quantum
to save its life.
It was aware of
one thing & one thing
only
. . .the diabolic device. . .
Cat in a metal box
with a Geiger counter
with a radioactive substance
blah blah de ****** blah
an atom decaying or something or
other &
releasing a hammer to smash
a phial of hydrocyanic acid.
Wot!
"I do not like thee Dr. Fell!"
thought the cat.
It was a very literary cat.
So all this palaver
about a cat( me? how! )
being both dead or alive or
neither dead or alive or
. . .wot!
So this is to be my great
to-be-or-not-to-be!
Welllll excuse me!
Say...doesn't the cat have his say?
So, I( clever cat that I am)
merely claw my way to the top &
disengage the device
by taking out the hammer.
So no cat was harmed
in the making of this
thought experiment.
It almost drove Schrödinger
out of his tiny little mind!
And he( hee hee )
never did discover
what ever
happened to his socks.
I forever stealing
one sock from a pair
from the open
washing machine.
Leaving him to ponder
just where socks go?
The other side of the Universe?
Oh come on Erwin...it's not
rocket science!
Now, to get back to
describing the behaviour of
a quantum entity.
"Mmmmm......mmmmmm?"
"Naw....I still don't get it!"
"Say ya couldn't see yer way
to giving me a scratch...could ya?"
"Up a bit....upabit....yeah...yeah
. . .there...just...there!"
Sep 1, 2016
Sep 1, 2016 at 1:16 PM UTC
kiss me with a mouthful of mango sorbet;
you taste like
home and feel like
winter.
my craven desires, and
innocence in the arch of your
neck: caveats concealed in
kisses; you have
misgivings and we have
lain here for years upon years
desiring little more than to be
swallowed up by our
sins and shadows.
I'll be honest, if your moral
halflife is longer than the
school year, then
what's the point?
your beta decay is
pathetic, you're impotent, the
radiation is too weak to be
of any harm;
set my geiger counter
abuzz, like my phone
begging for attention like
you should beg for mine, and I
Love It,
you know I
do, quand tu manges
Le Gateaux, such an
eager little **** seeking
absolution like I have anything other than
Absolut to offer you.
you drink with the
desperation of a desert-dehydrated
man, with the
fervor of a woman throwing herself,
time and again, at the
Glass Ceiling, further success
visible and attainable:
you always spoke to me like
you had a mouthful of
broken Faberge eggs, and to
close your mouth would be to
Invite Pain.
you were always averse to pain, though you
relished in inflicting it, and I
loved little more than to be
bruised and beaten and bloodied by your
ardent affections.
Jun 22, 2014
Jun 22, 2014 at 2:47 PM UTC
And he killed him. And he killed him. And he killed him.
"I'm going to **** you." And he killed him. Here is the Ada fruit.
Nelson Mandela, Nelson Mandela, from New York
to the United States. U = United States,
Russian and Black Cabinet. 'K' and music, weather,
window, Ethiopia, prophet, women, black women,
black children, mothers, mothers, mothers, mothers,
mothers, mothers, mothers, mothers, voices beautiful and bright,
eyes, forehead, hair color without hair.
The story of Tama and Rehumanum is not so difficult,
but it has improved in the landscape, music and child labor.
He was born in Latin and Latin America, symbol of Alma Gold.
Well, I can hear more words than you, I listen more than words.
The story is a mistake, it is an improvement. Aristotle has a very important relationship with robotics: Cicero, A lot of Friendships,
Alison Krauss Music, Songs, Dance, Women are part of Pharaoh's fantasies about the well-being of women in the religious community.
... Chrétien c. Chatroulette is a smoke.
Marcus, in bed, you talk one day, the dog is like a chair
and a tradition, a professional Spanish lawyer
and a Geiger from Zaragoza. This has three mysterious powers.
What are the three marriages now?
You have to leave Bing Bing for Bing
Light and Bing Bing. Stay in the mental
park. Six tracks were borrowed from
the six wildflowers in modern sportswear
and softball clothing. The principle of
rewards and poisonings in Bulgaria,
Bulgarian jewelery, jewelery, lifestyle.
Oct 20, 2018
Oct 20, 2018 at 11:49 PM UTC
in my basement i will keep them
hoards of plasma laden spawn
and at night i will sleep with them
until the radiation sickness takes me
i just wanted to be your doll
hey there baby doll gal doll princess
now i am made of iron and plasma
and the only doll i could be, well,
i thought and it made me feel sick.
geiger counter is up to 500, now
and i can feel my underknees burning
not the kind from a fire but
from a blistering heat
and i swear i could see a flash of light there.
remember the last words your father said to you
good bye love
he was never one for verbosity.
Jan 5, 2014
Jan 5, 2014 at 6:48 AM UTC
SCHRöDINGER'S SOCKS & THE REVENGE OF THE CAT
Schrödinger's cat
failed to see just what
all the fuss was
about?
It was all such
a reductive absurdum.
The cat couldn't understand
collapsing wave functions
decoherence
entanglement or whether
reality was really
quantum
to save its life.
It was aware of
one thing & one thing
only
. . .the diabolic device. . .
Cat in a metal box
with a Geiger counter
with a radioactive substance
blah blah de ****** blah
an atom decaying or something or
other &
releasing a hammer to smash
a phial of hydrocyanic acid.
Wot!
"I do not like thee Dr. Fell!"
thought the cat.
It was a very literary cat.
So all this palaver
about a cat( me? how! )
being both dead or alive or
neither dead or alive or
. . .wot!
So this is to be my great
to-be-or-not-to-be!
Welllll excuse me!
Say...doesn't the cat have his say?
So, I( clever cat that I am)
merely claw my way to the top &
disengage the device
by taking out the hammer.
So no cat was harmed
in the making of this
thought experiment.
It almost drove Schrödinger
out of his tiny little mind!
And he( hee hee )
never did discover
what ever
happened to his socks.
I forever stealing
one sock from a pair
from the open
washing machine.
Leaving him to ponder
just where socks go?
The other side of the Universe?
Oh come on Erwin...it's not
rocket science!
Now, to get back to
describing the behaviour of
a quantum entity.
"Mmmmm......mmmmmm?"
"Naw....I still don't get it!"
"Say ya couldn't see yer way
to giving me a scratch...could ya?"
"Up a bit....upabit....yeah...yeah
. . .there...just...there!"
Sep 4, 2019
Sep 4, 2019 at 4:24 AM UTC
in the vast wasteland
we seek shelter
from the storm
from radioactive shells
we fled
danger, danger, here they come
we were alone
but not lonely
we were anxious yet filled with excitement
our heart beats faster
than the ticking of the geiger counter
as we approach our sanctuary
and there, away from the fallout
we found solace
under the neon stars
as we run away
we drank one last pint
of our carbonated liquor
and we stayed, waiting
as society collapse
as the world crumble
we were calm, we were happy
because we were lost
but we are home
Oct 14, 2018
Oct 14, 2018 at 9:59 PM UTC
Thermometers say you are wrong
But you believe greedy businessmen
Seismographs say you were wrong
But you believe religious charlatans
Electrocardiograms say you're wrong
But you believe the words of bigots
Encephalograms tell you you're wrong
Geiger counters tell you you're wrong
Microscopes tell you you're wrong
Yet you believe the Big Oil propaganda
Telescopes tell you you're wrong
Yet you believe the lies of Big Pharma
It is such an unforgiving task to talk
And know there is nobody in there.
Inside your head, soul or heart;
It’s pathetic to know under your hair
There is the kind of sad mentality
That rejects reality if it disagrees
With something another fool has taught
And though you ought to learn reality
You keep looking for more crazies
To say things that match your philosophy
And that perpetrates the tragedy of today
Which may take decades to go away.
It did the last time.
Jun 19, 2017
Jun 19, 2017 at 5:49 AM UTC
“What we need now,” he said,
“Is new ideas.” They started to fall
like snowflakes on that late sharp
November evening when we first
saw the altered light, over the Alpine
lake surrounded by cities who’s
population, as discerned through
quick perusal of the census charts,
fluctuated with unprecedented
irregularity, reminding you of
Andolian snow-capped mountain peaks.
You followed bits of this, like normal,
But found a pattern did not emerge.
The orange was sharp, **** and
beautiful. Thousands were pulling
their Geiger counters out of closets
filled with unused sports equipment,
scarves, cleaning supplies, and brick-a-brac.
We pointed to tell-tail streaks left down
the hallway, but the planters never bloomed.
Jan 11, 2016
Jan 11, 2016 at 12:33 PM UTC
SCHRöDINGER'S SOCKS & THE REVENGE OF THE CAT
Schrödinger's cat
failed to see just what
all the fuss was
about?
It was all such
a reductive absurdum.
The cat couldn't understand
collapsing wave functions
decoherence
entanglement or whether
reality was really
quantum
to save its life.
It was aware of
one thing & one thing
only
. . .the diabolic device. . .
Cat in a metal box
with a Geiger counter
with a radioactive substance
blah blah de ****** blah
an atom decaying or something or
other &
releasing a hammer to smash
a phial of hydrocyanic acid.
Wot!
"I do not like thee Dr. Fell!"
thought the cat.
It was a very literary cat.
So all this palaver
about a cat( me? how! )
being both dead or alive or
neither dead or alive or
. . .wot!
So this is to be my great
to-be-or-not-to-be!
Welllll excuse me!
Say...doesn't the cat have his say?
So, I( clever cat that I am)
merely claw my way to the top &
disengage the device
by taking out the hammer.
So no cat was harmed
in the making of this
thought experiment.
It almost drove Schrödinger
out of his tiny little mind!
And he( hee hee )
never did discover
what ever
happened to his socks.
I forever stealing
one sock from a pair
from the open
washing machine.
Leaving him to ponder
just where socks go?
The other side of the Universe?
Oh come on Erwin...it's not
rocket science!
Now, to get back to
describing the behaviour of
a quantum entity.
"Mmmmm......mmmmmm?"
"Naw....I still don't get it!"
"Say ya couldn't see yer way
to giving me a scratch...could ya?"
"Up a bit....upabit....yeah...yeah
. . .there...just...there!"
Sep 5, 2017
Sep 5, 2017 at 1:19 PM UTC
distant trucks thunder, echoes
rolling to highways. rumble of an infinite snake
re-forms. bulb of early winter flicks a
chill dawn switch.
diet rest. roused by masculine weakness. mind a Geiger
lost to solace. months before, witness to birds searching for a
weathered nest returned to twigs. building new
shelter, stick by stick, between protected branches.
family of fledglings waits & squawks
for bugs & worms. engineer’s toil of wings, claws & beak,
gathering remnants from eucalypts, weaving
& melding a fragile & gradual shelter.
morning sheds light, more cars hum, the reptile
lengthens. blood streams through arteries to a vital *****
without heart, lungs gasp for breath. weary heads of
commuters magnetized to caffeine spill from stations.
roar of trucks, clatter of trains, buses hum and insecure
shouts through wireless devices to invisible nobodies.
green lights, red lights, chicken players. chaos of city stutters &
halts, stutters & halts.
sudden gust beats at coats and dresses, whips ‘round trousers.
leaves limbo as autumn strips summer from trunks. a new nest
hit by a violent burst tumbles, disintegrating to
fragments.
Apr 4, 2015
Apr 4, 2015 at 4:02 AM UTC
Riding upon an escalator of energies, I drift
inside landscapes of stars.
Inside place filled with limitless galaxies
and endless life forms.
My veil of forgetting is released
as so my human form
to celebrate my eternal flame
that burns aiding my sight.
Celestial bodies glisten,
vibrating with little voices
only a heart can hear.
Sweet music plays
trying to awaken a soul
deep within.
Heart radiates
becoming a geiger counter
a navigational tool
for my ships form to gracefully move.
Time exists not, for all is one and one is all
in the vacuum of space.
A place of Gods home, of my home
where I now know my essence is love.
May 17, 2017
May 17, 2017 at 8:56 AM UTC
SCHRöDINGER'S SOCKS & THE REVENGE OF THE CAT
Schrödinger's cat
failed to see just what
all the fuss was
about?
It was all such
a reductive absurdum.
The cat couldn't understand
collapsing wave functions
decoherence
entanglement or whether
reality was really
quantum
to save its life.
It was aware of
one thing & one thing
only
. . .the diabolic device. . .
Cat in a metal box
with a Geiger counter
with a radioactive substance
blah blah de ****** blah
an atom decaying or something or
other &
releasing a hammer to smash
a phial of hydrocyanic acid.
Wot!
"I do not like thee Dr. Fell!"
thought the cat.
It was a very literary cat.
So all this palaver
about a cat( me? how! )
being both dead or alive or
neither dead or alive or
. . .wot!
So this is to be my great
to-be-or-not-to-be!
Welllll excuse me!
Say...doesn't the cat have his say?
So, I( clever cat that I am)
merely claw my way to the top &
disengage the device
by taking out the hammer.
So no cat was harmed
in the making of this
thought experiment.
It almost drove Schrödinger
out of his tiny little mind!
And he( hee hee )
never did discover
what ever
happened to his socks.
I forever stealing
one sock from a pair
from the open
washing machine.
Leaving him to ponder
just where socks go?
The other side of the Universe?
Oh come on Erwin...it's not
rocket science!
Now, to get back to
describing the behaviour of
a quantum entity.
"Mmmmm......mmmmmm?"
"Naw....I still don't get it!"
"Say ya couldn't see yer way
to giving me a scratch...could ya?"
"Up a bit....upabit....yeah...yeah
. . .there...just...there!"
Sep 4, 2018
Sep 4, 2018 at 6:11 PM UTC
my body's an atomic wasteland
after the explosion that was you
my heart's just a geiger counter
counting the years since we blew
May 6, 2015
May 6, 2015 at 7:31 PM UTC