When Zuo Fen woke day was well advanced into the Horse hour. In her darkened room a frame of the brightest light pulsed around the shuttered window. A breeze of scents from her herb garden brought sage, motherwort and lovage to cleanse the confined air, what remained of his visit, those rare aromatic oils from a body freed from its robes. Turning her head into the pillow that odour of him embraced her once more as in the deepest and most prolonged kiss , when with no space to breathe passion displaces reason in the mind.
 
The goat cart had brought him silently to her court in the Tiger hour, as was his custom in these summer days when, tired of his women’s attention, he seeks her company. In the vestibule her maid leaves a bowl of fresh water scented with lemon juice, a towel, her late uncle’s comb, a salve for his hands. Without removing his shoes, an Emperor’s privilege, he enters her study pausing momentarily while Xi-Lu removes himself from the exalted presence, his long tail *****, his walk provocative, dismissive. Zuo Fen is at her desk, brush in hand she finishes a copy of  ‘A Rhapsody for my Lord’. She has submitted herself to enter yet again that persona of the young concubine taken from her family to serve that community from which there seems no escape.
 
I was born in a humble, isolated, thatched house,
And was never well-versed in writing.
I never saw the marvellous pictures of books,
Nor had I heard of the classics of ancient sages.
I am dim-witted, humble and ignorant,
But was mistakenly placed in the Purple Palace . . .
 
He loves to hear her read such words, to imagine this fragile girl, and see her life at court described in the poet’s elegant characters. Zuo Fen’s scrolls lie on his second desk. Touching them, as he does frequently, is to touch her, is to feel mystery of her long body with its disregard of the courtly customs of his many, many women; the soft hair on her legs, the deep forest guarding her hidden ***, her peasant feet, her long fingers with their scent of ink and herbs.
 
He kneels beside her, gradually opening his ringed hand wide on her gowned thigh, then closing, then opening. A habit: an affectation. His head is bent in an obeisance he has no need to make, only, as he desires her he does this, so she knows this is so. She is prepared, as always, to act the part, or be this self she has opened to him, in all innocence at first, then in quiet delight that this is so and no more.
 
‘A rhapsody for me perhaps?’
‘What does Liu Xie say? The rhapsody is a fork in the road . . .
‘ . . . a different line’, he interrupts and quotes,’ it describes people and objects. It pictures appearance with a brilliance akin to sculpture or painting.’
‘What is clogged and confined it invariably opens. It depicts the commonplace with unbounded charm.’
‘But the goal of the form is beauty well-ordered . . . . as you are, dearest poet.’
‘You spoilt the richness of Lui Xie’s ending . . .’
‘I would rather speak of your beauty than Xie’s talk of gardening.’
‘Weeding is not gardening my Lord.’
 
And with that he summons her to read her rhapsody whilst his hands part her gown . . .
 
Over the years since he took her maidenhead, brusquely, with the impatience of his station, and she, on their second encounter deflowered him in turn with her poem about the pleasure due to woman, they had become as one branch on the same tree. She sought to be, and was, his equal in the prowess of scholastic memory. She had honed such facility with the word: years of training from her father in the palace archives and later in the mind games invented by and played with her brother. Then, as she entered womanhood and feared oblivion in an arranged marriage, she invented the persona of the pale girl, a fiction, who, with great gentleness and poetry, guided the male reader into the secrets of a woman’s ****** pleasure and fulfilment. In disguise, and with her brother’s help, she had sought those outside concubinage - for whom the congress of the male and female is rarely negotiable. She listened and transcribed, then gradually drew the Emperor into a web of new experience to which he readily succumbed, and the like of which he could have hardly imagined. He wished to promote her to the first lady of his Purple Chamber. She declined, insisting he provide her with a court distant from his palace rooms, yet close to the Zu-lin gardens, a place of quiet, meditation and the study of astronomy.
 
But today, this hot summer’s day, she had reckoned to be her birthday. She expected due recognition for one whose days moved closer to that age when a birthday is traditionally and lavishly celebrated. Her maid Mei-Lim would have already prepared the egg dishes associated with this special day. Her brother Zuo-Si may have penned a celebratory ode, and later would visit her with his lute to caress his subtle words of invention.
 
Your green eyes reflect a world apart
Where into silence words are formed dew-like,
Glistening as the sun rises on this precious day.
As a stony spring washes over precious jade,
delicate fishes swim in its depths
dancing to your reflection on the cool surface.
No need of strings, or bamboo instruments
When mountains and waters give forth their pure notes . . .
 
Her lord had left on her desk his own Confucian-led offering, in brushstrokes of his time-stretched hand, but his own hand nevertheless, and then in salutation the flower-like character leh (joy)
 
‘Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart’.
 
Meanwhile Xi-Lu stirred on the coverlet reminding Zuo Fen that the day was advancing and he had received no attention or conversation. It was whispered abroad that this lady spoke with her cat whom each afternoon would accompany his mistress on a walk through the adjacent gardens. It was true, Zuo Fen had taught Xi-Lu to converse in the dialect of her late mother’s province, but that is another story.
 
Lying on her back, eyes firmly shut, Zuo Fen surveyed the past year, a year of her brother’s pilgrimage to the Tai Mountains, his subsequent disappearance at the onset of winter, her Lord’s anger then indulgence as he allowed her to seek Zuo Si’s whereabouts. She thought of her sojourn in Ryzoki, the village of stone, where she discovered the blind servant girl who had revealed not only her brother’s whereabouts but her undying love for this strange, ungainly, uncomfortably ugly man who, with the experience gained from his sister’s persistent research had finally learned to love and be loved in equal measure for his gentle and tender actions. And together, their triumph: in ‘summoning the recluse’, and not one alone but a community of five living harmoniously in caves of the limestone heights. Now returned they had worked in ever secret ways to serve their Emperor in his conflict against the war-lord Tang.
 
She now resolved to take a brief holiday from this espionage, her stroking of the Emperor’s mind and body, and those caring sisterly duties she so readily performed. She would remove herself and her maid to a forest cabin: to lie in the dry mottled grass of summer and listen to the rustle of leaves, the chatter of birds, the sounds of insects and the creak-crack of the forest in the summer heat. She would plan a new chapter in her work as a poet and writer: she would be the pale girl no longer but a woman of strength and confidence made beautiful by good fortune, wise management and a generosity of spirit. She needed to prepare herself for her Lord’s demise, when their joyful hours living the lives of Prince and Lady of Xiang, he with his stallion gathering galingales, she with her dreams of an underwater house, would no longer be. She would study the ways of the old. She would seek to learn how peace and serenity might overcome those afflictions of age and circumstance, and when it is said that love’s chemistry distils pure joy through the intense refinement of memory.

Too far away, oh love, I know,  
To save me from this haunted road,  
Whose lofty roses break and blow  
On a night-sky bent with a load  
  
Of lights: each solitary rose,          
Each arc-lamp golden does expose  
Ghost beyond ghost of a blossom, shows  
Night blenched with a thousand snows.  
  
Of hawthorn and of lilac trees,  
White lilac; shows discoloured night        
Dripping with all the golden lees  
Laburnum gives back to light.  
  
And shows the red of hawthorn set  
On high to the purple heaven of night,  
Like flags in blenched blood newly wet,        
Blood shed in the noiseless fight.  
  
Of life for love and love for life,  
Of hunger for a little food,  
Of kissing, lost for want of a wife  
Long ago, long ago wooed.
   .   .   .   .   .   .        
Too far away you are, my love,  
To steady my brain in this phantom show  
That passes the nightly road above  
And returns again below.  
  
The enormous cliff of horse-chestnut trees        
  Has poised on each of its ledges  
An ***** small girl looking down at me;  
White-night-gowned little chits I see,  
  And they peep at me over the edges  
Of the leaves as though they would leap, should I call        
  Them down to my arms;  
"But, child, you're too small for me, too small  
  Your little charms."  
  
White little sheaves of night-gowned maids,  
  Some other will thresh you out!          
And I see leaning from the shades  
A lilac like a lady there, who braids  
  Her white mantilla about  
Her face, and forward leans to catch the sight  
    Of a man's face,          
Gracefully sighing through the white  
    Flowery mantilla of lace.  
  
And another lilac in purple veiled  
  Discreetly, all recklessly calls  
In a low, shocking perfume, to know who has hailed  
Her forth from the night: my strength has failed  
  In her voice, my weak heart falls:  
Oh, and see the laburnum shimmering  
    Her draperies down,  
As if she would slip the gold, and glimmering        
    White, stand naked of gown.
   .   .   .   .   .   .  
The pageant of flowery trees above  
  The street pale-passionate goes,  
And back again down the pavement, Love  
  In a lesser pageant flows.          
  
Two and two are the folk that walk,  
  They pass in a half embrace  
Of linked bodies, and they talk  
  With dark face leaning to face.  
  
Come then, my love, come as you will          
  Along this haunted road,  
Be whom you will, my darling, I shall  
  Keep with you the troth I trowed.

Day of mist: day of tarnish

with hands
unserviceable, I wait
for the milk van

the one-eared cat
laps its gray paw

and the coal fire burns

outside, the little hedge leaves are
become quite yellow
a milk-film blurs
the empty bottles on the windowsill

no glory descends

two water drops poise
on the arched green
stem of my neighbor's rose bush

o bent bow of thorns

the cat unsheathes its claws
the world turns

today
today I will not
disenchant my twelve black-gowned examiners
or bunch my fist
in the wind's sneer.

O, the Horror! Halloween Poetry!

Halloween Poetry: Dark, Eerie, Haunting and Scary poems about Ghosts, Witches, Vampires, Werewolves, Reanimated Corpses and "Things that go Bump in the Night!"



Thin Kin
by Michael R. Burch

Skeleton!
Tell us what you lack...
the ability to love,
your flesh so slack?

Will we frighten you,
grown as pale & unsound,
when we also haunt
the unhallowed ground?



The Witch
by Michael R. Burch

her fingers draw into claws
she cackles through rotting teeth...
u ask "are there witches?"
… pshaw! …
(yet she has my belief)



Vampires
by Michael R. Burch

Vampires are such fragile creatures;
we dread the dark, but the light destroys them...
sunlight, or a stake, or a cross ― such common things.

Still, late at night, when the bat-like vampire sings,
we shrink from his voice.

Centuries have taught us:
in shadows danger lurks for those who stray,
and there the vampire bares his yellow fangs
and feels the ancient soul-tormenting pangs.
He has no choice.

We are his prey, plump and fragrant,
and if we pray to avoid him, he earnestly prays to find us...
prays to some despotic hooded God
whose benediction is the humid blood
he lusts to taste.



Styx
by Michael R. Burch

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

Charon, the ferrymen who carried the dead across the River Styx to their eternal destination, has been portrayed by artists and poets as a vampiric figure.



Revenge of the Halloween Monsters
by Michael R. Burch

The Halloween monsters, incensed,
keep howling, and may be UNFENCED!!!
They’re angry that children with treats
keep throwing their trash IN THE STREETS!!!

You can check it out on your computer:
Google says, “Please don’t be a POLLUTER!!!”
The Halloween monsters agree,
so if you’re a litterbug, FLEE!!!

Kids, if you’d like more treats this year
and don’t want to cower in FEAR,
please make all the mean monsters happy,
and they’ll hand out sweet treats like they’re sappy!

So if you eat treats on the drag
and don't want huge monsters to nag,
please put all loose trash in your BAG!!!

NOTE: If you recite the poem, get the kids to huddle up close, then yell the all-caps parts like you’re one of the unhappy monsters, and perhaps "goose" them as well. They'll get the message.



It's Halloween!
by Michael R. Burch

If evening falls
on graveyard walls
far softer than a sigh;

if shadows fly
moon-sickled skies,
while children toss their heads

uneasy in their beds,
beware the witch's eye!

If goblins loom
within the gloom
till playful pups grow terse;

if birds give up their verse
to comfort chicks they nurse,
while children dream weird dreams

of ugly, wiggly things,
beware the serpent's curse!

If spirits scream
in haunted dreams
while ancient sibyls rise

to plague nightmarish skies
one night without disguise,

while children toss about
uneasy, full of doubt,
beware the Devil's lies...

it's Halloween!



Ghost
by Michael R. Burch

White in the shadows
I see your face,
unbidden. Go, tell

Love it is commonplace;
tell Regret it is not so rare.

Our love is not here
though you smile,
full of sedulous grace.

Lost in darkness, I fear
the past is our resting place.



All Hallows Eve
by Michael R. Burch

What happened to the mysterious Tuatha De Danann, to the Ban Shee (from which we get the term “banshee”) and, eventually, to the Druids? One might assume that with the passing of Merlyn, Morgan le Fay and their ilk, the time of myths and magic ended. This poem is an epitaph of sorts.

In the ruins
of the dreams
and the schemes
of men;

when the moon
begets the tide
and the wide
sea sighs;

when a star
appears in heaven
and the raven
cries;

we will dance
and we will revel
in the devil’s
fen...

if nevermore again.



Pale Though Her Eyes
by Michael R. Burch

Pale though her eyes,
her lips are scarlet
from drinking of blood,
this child, this harlot

born of the night
and her heart, of darkness,
evil incarnate
to dance so reckless,

dreaming of blood,
her fangs ― white ― baring,

revealing her lust,
and her eyes, pale, staring...



Like Angels, Winged
by Michael R. Burch

Like angels ― winged,
shimmering, misunderstood ―
they flit beyond our understanding
being neither evil, nor good.

They are as they are...
and we are their lovers, their prey;
they seek us out when the moon is full
and dream of us by day.

Their eyes ― hypnotic, alluring ―
trap ours with their strange appeal
till like flame-drawn moths, we gather...
to see, to touch, to feel.

Held in their arms, enchanted,
we feel their lips, so old!,
till with their gorging kisses
we warm them, growing cold.



Solicitation
by Michael R. Burch

He comes to me out of the shadows, acknowledging
my presence with a tip of his hat, always the gentleman,
and his eyes are on mine like a snake’s on a bird’s ―
quizzical, mesmerizing.

He ***** his head as though something he heard intrigues him
(although I hear nothing) and he smiles, amusing himself at my expense;
his words are full of desire and loathing, and while I hear everything,
he says nothing I understand.

The moon shines ― maniacal, queer ― as he takes my hand whispering

Our time has come... And so we stroll together creaking docks
where the sea sends sickening things
scurrying under rocks and boards.

Moonlight washes his ashen face as he stares unseeing into my eyes.
He sighs, and the sound crawls slithering down my spine;
my blood seems to pause at his touch as he caresses my face.
He unfastens my dress till the white lace shows, and my neck is bared.

His teeth are long, yellow and hard, his face bearded and haggard.
A wolf howls in the distance. There are no wolves in New York. I gasp.
My blood is a trickle his wet tongue embraces. My heart races madly.
He likes it like that.



Sometimes the Dead
by Michael R. Burch

Sometimes we catch them out of the corners of our eyes ―
the pale dead.
After they have fled
the gourds of their bodies, like escaping fragrances they rise.

Once they have become a cloud’s mist, sometimes like the rain
they descend;
they appear, sometimes silver like laughter,
to gladden the hearts of men.

Sometimes like a pale gray fog, they drift
unencumbered, yet lumbrously,
as if over the sea
there was the lightest vapor even Atlas could not lift.

Sometimes they haunt our dreams like forgotten melodies
only half-remembered.
Though they lie dismembered
in black catacombs, sepulchers and dismal graves; although they have committed felonies,

yet they are us. Someday soon we will meet them in the graveyard dust
blood-engorged, but never sated
since Cain slew Abel.
But until we become them, let us steadfastly forget them, even as we know our children must...



Polish
by Michael R. Burch

Your fingers end in talons—
the ones you trim to hide
the predator inside.

Ten thousand creatures sacrificed;
but really, what’s the loss?
Apply a splash of gloss.

You picked the perfect color
to mirror nature’s law:
red, like tooth and claw.

Published by The HyperTexts



Siren Song
by Michael R. Burch

The Lorelei’s
soft cries
entreat mariners to save her...

How can they resist
her faint voice through the mist?

Soon she will savor
the flavor
of sweet human flesh.



How Long the Night (anonymous Old English Lyric)
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

It is pleasant, indeed, while the summer lasts
with the mild pheasants' song...
but now I feel the northern wind's blast ―
its severe weather strong.
Alas! Alas! This night seems so long!
And I, because of my momentous wrong
now grieve, mourn and fast.



The Wild Hunt
by Michael R. Burch

Near Devon, the hunters appear in the sky
with Artur and Bedwyr sounding the call;
and the others, laughing, go dashing by.
They only appear when the moon is full:

Valerin, the King of the Tangled Wood,
and Valynt, the goodly King of Wales,
Gawain and Owain and the hearty men
who live on in many minstrels’ tales.

They seek the white stag on a moonlit moor,
or Torc Triath, the fabled boar,
or Ysgithyrwyn, or Twrch Trwyth,
the other mighty boars of myth.

They appear, sometimes, on Halloween
to chase the moon across the green,
then fade into the shadowed hills
where memory alone prevails.



The Vampire's Spa Day Dream
by Michael R. Burch

O, to swim in vats of blood!
I wish I could, I wish I could!
O, 'twould be
so heavenly
to swim in lovely vats of blood!

The poem above was inspired by a Josh Parkinson depiction of Elizabeth Bathory up to her nostrils in the blood of her victims, with their skulls floating in the background.



Nevermore!
by Michael R. Burch

Nevermore! O, nevermore!
shall the haunts of the sea
― the swollen tide pools
and the dark, deserted shore ―
mark her passing again.

And the salivating sea
shall never kiss her lips
nor caress her ******* and hips,
as she dreamt it did before,
once, lost within the uproar.

The waves will never **** her,
nor take her at their leisure;
the sea gulls shall not have her,
nor could she give them pleasure...
She sleeps, forevermore!

She sleeps forevermore,
a ****** save to me
and her other lover,
who lurks now, safely smothered
by the restless, surging sea.

And, yes, they sleep together,
but never in that way...
For the sea has stripped and shorn
the one I once adored,
and washed her flesh away.

He does not stroke her honey hair,
for she is bald, bald to the bone!
And how it fills my heart with glee
to hear them sometimes cursing me
out of the depths of the demon sea...

their skeletal love ― impossibility!



Dark Gothic
by Michael R. Burch

Her fingers are filed into talons;
she smiles with carnivorous teeth...
You ask, “Are there vampires?”
― Get real! ―
(Yet she has my belief.)



Epitaph for a Palestinian Child
by Michael R. Burch

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


Athenian Epitaphs (Gravestone Inscriptions of the Ancient Greeks)

Mariner, do not ask whose tomb this may be,
but go with good fortune: I wish you a kinder sea.
― Michael R. Burch, after Plato


Does my soul abide in heaven, or hell?
Only the sea gulls in their high, lonely circuits may tell.
― Michael R. Burch, after Glaucus



Passerby,
tell the Spartans we lie
lifeless at Thermopylae:
dead at their word,
obedient to their command.
Have they heard?
Do they understand?
― Michael R. Burch, after Simonides



Completing the Pattern
by Michael R. Burch

Walk with me now, among the transfixed dead
who kept life’s compact and who thus endure
harsh sentence here―among pink-petaled beds
and manicured green lawns. The sky’s azure,
pale blue once like their eyes, will gleam blood-red
at last when sunset staggers to the door
of each white mausoleum, to inquire―
What use, O things of erstwhile loveliness?


Reclamation
by Michael R. Burch

after Robert Graves, with a nod to Mary Shelley

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

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

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

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

We are at peace
with each other; this is our venture―
swaying, the strings tautening, as tightropes
tauten, as love tightens, constricts
to the first note.

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

Need is reborn; love dies.



Deliver Us ...
by Michael R. Burch

The night is dark and scary―
under your bed, or upon it.

That blazing light might be a star ...
or maybe the Final Comet.

But two things are sure: your mother’s love
and your puppy’s kisses, doggonit!



the Horror
by Michael R. Burch

the Horror lurks inside our closets
the Horror hides beneath our beds
the Horror hisses ancient curses
the Horror whispers in our heads

the Horror tells us Death is coming
the Horror tells us there’s no hope
the Horror tells us “life” is futile
the Horror beckons, “there’s the Rope!”



Belfry
by Michael R. Burch

There are things we surrender
to the attic gloom:
they haunt us at night
with shrill, querulous voices.

There are choices we made
yet did not pursue,
behind windows we shuttered
then failed to remember.

There are canisters sealed
that we cannot reopen,
and others long broken
that nothing can heal.

There are things we conceal
that our anger dismembered,
gray leathery faces
the rafters reveal.



Duet
by Michael R. Burch

Oh, Wendy, by the firelight, how sad!
How worn and gray your auburn hair became!
You’re very silent, like an evening rain
that trembles on dark petals. Tears you’ve shed
for days we laughed together, glisten now;
your flesh became translucent; and your brow
knits, gathered loosely. By the well-made bed
three portraits hang with knowing eyes, beloved,
but mine is not among them. Time has proved
our hearts both strangely mortal. If I said
I loved you once, how is it that could change?
And yet I watch you fondly; love is strange . . .

Oh, Peter, by the firelight, how bright
my thought of you remains, and if I said
I loved you once, then took him to my bed,
I did it for the need of love, one night
when you were far away. My heart endured
transfigurement―in flaming ash inured
to heartbreak and the violence of sight:
I saw myself grow old and thin and frail
with thinning hair about me, like a veil . . .
And so I loved him for myself, despite
the love between us―our first startled kiss.
But then I loved him for his humanness.
And then we both grew old, and it was right . . .

Oh, Wendy, if I fly, I fly beyond
these human hearts, these cities walled and tiered
against the night, beyond this vale of tears,
for love, if it exists, dies with the years . . .

No, Peter, love is constant as the heart
that keeps till its last beat a measured pace
and sets the fixtures of its dreams in place
by beds at first well-used, at last well-made,
and counts each face a joy, each tear a grace . . .



Horror
by Michael R. Burch

What I ache to say is beyond saying―
no words for the horror
of not loving enough,
like a mummy half-wrapped in its moldering casements
holding a lily aloft.

No, there are no words for the horror
as a tormented wind howls through the teetering floes
and the cold freezes down to my clawed hairy toes ...

What use to me, now, if the stars appear?
As I moan
the moon finds me,
fangs goring the deer.



Strange Corps(e)
by Michael R. Burch

We are all dying, haunted by life―
dying, but the living will not let us go.
We are perishing zombies, haunted by the moonglow.

With what animation we, shuffling, return
nightly, to worry Love’s worm-eaten corpse,
till, living or dead, she is wholly ours.

We are the dying, enamored of “life”―
the palest of auras, the eeriest call.
We stagger to attention ... stumble ... fall.

We have only one thought―Love’s peculiar notion,
that our duty’s to “live,” though such “living” means
night’s horrific wild hungers, its stranger dreams.

We now “live” on the flesh of eroded dreams
and no longer recoil at the victims’ screams.



Love, ah! serene ghost
by Michael R. Burch

Love, ah! serene ghost,
haunts my retelling of her,
or stands atop despairing stairs
with such pale, severe eyes,
I become another pallid specter.

But what I feel
most profoundly is this:
the absolute lack of her kiss,
the absence of her wild,
unwarranted laughter.

So that,
like a candle deprived of oxygen,
I become mere wick and tallow again.
Here and hereafter ...
gone with her now, in the darkest of nights, the flame!

I lie, pallid vision of man―the same
wan ghost of her palpitations’ claim
on my heart
that I was before.

I love her beyond and despite even shame.



Eden
by Michael R. Burch

Then earth was heaven too, a perfect garden.
Apples burgeoned and shone―unplucked on sagging boughs.
What, then, would the children eat?
Fruit indecently sweet,
redolent as incense, with a tempting aroma ...



Outcasts
by Michael R. Burch

There was a rose, a prescient shade of crimson,
the very color of blood,
that bloomed in that garden.

The most dazzling of all the Earth’s flowers,
men have forgotten it now,
with their fanciful tales of apples and serpents.

Beasts with lips called the goreflower “Love.”

The scribes have the story all wrong: four were there,
four horrid dark creatures―chattering, bickering.
Aduhm placed one red petal in Ehve’s matted hair;

he was lost in her arms
till dawn sullen and golden
imperceptibly streaked the musk-fragrant air.

Two flared nostrils quivered, two eyes remained open.

Kahyn sought me that evening, his bloodless lips curled
in a grimacelike smile. Sunken-cheeked, he approached me
in the Caverns of Similitudes, eerie Barzakh.

“We are outcasts, my brother!, God quickly deserts us.”
As though his anguish conceived in insight’s first blush
might not pale next to mine in Sheol’s gray realm.

“Shining Creature!” he named me and called me divine
as he lavished damp kisses upon my bright scales.
“Help me find me one rare gift to put Love’s gift to shame.”

“There is a dark rose with a bittersweet fragrance
as pungent as cloves: only man knows its name.
Clinging and cloying, it destroys all it touches . . .”

“But red is Ehve’s preference; while Envy is green.”
He was downcast a moment, a moment, a moment . . .
“Ah, but red is the color of blood!”

Disagreeable child, far too clever for his own good.

Published in The Bible of Hell (anthology)



No One
by Michael R. Burch

No One hears the bells tonight;
they tell him something isn’t right.
But No One is not one to rush;
he lies in grasses greenly lush
as far away a startled thrush
flees from horned owls in sinking flight.

No One hears the cannon’s roar
and muses that its voice means war
comes knocking on men’s doors tonight.
He sleeps outside in awed delight
beneath the enigmatic stars
and shivers in their cooling light.

No One knows the world will end,
that he’ll be lonely, without friend
or foe to conquer. All will be
once more, celestial harmony.
He’ll miss men’s voices, now and then,
but worlds can be remade again.



Bikini
by Michael R. Burch

Undersea, by the shale and the coral forming,
by the shell’s pale rose and the pearl’s white eye,
through the sea’s green bed of lank seaweed worming
like tangled hair where cold currents rise . . .
something lurks where the riptides sigh,
something old and pale and wise.

Something old when the world was forming
now lifts its beak, its snail-blind eye,
and with tentacles about it squirming,
it feels the cloud above it rise
and shudders, settles with a sigh,
knowing man’s demise draws nigh.



Ceremony
by Michael R. Burch

Lost in the cavernous blue silence of spring,
heavy-lidded and drowsy with slumber, I see
the dark gnats leap; the black flies fling
their slow, engorged bulks into the air above me.

Shimmering hordes of blue-green bottleflies sing
their monotonous laments; as I listen, they near
with the strange droning hum of their murmurous wings.

Though you said you would leave me, I prop you up here
and brush back red ants from your fine, tangled hair,
whispering, “I do!” . . . as the gaunt vultures stare.



Contraire
by Michael R. Burch

Where there was nothing
but emptiness
and hollow chaos and despair,

I sought Her ...

finding only the darkness
and mournful silence
of the wind entangling her hair.

Yet her name was like prayer.

Now she is the vast
starry tinctures of emptiness
flickering everywhere

within me and about me.

Yes, she is the darkness,
and she is the silence
of twilight and the night air.

Yes, she is the chaos
and she is the madness
and they call her Contraire.



Dark Twin
by Michael R. Burch

You come to me
out of the sun―
my dark twin, unreal . . .

And you are always near
although I cannot touch you;
although I trample you, you cannot feel . . .

And we cannot be parted,
nor can we ever meet
except at the feet.



East End, 1888
by Michael R. Burch

Past darkened storefronts,
hunched and contorted, bent with need
through chilling rain, he walks alone
till down the glistening cobblestones
deliberate footsteps pause, resume.

He follows, by a pub confronts
a pasty face, an overbright smile,
lips intimating easy bliss,
a boisterous, over-eager tongue.

She barters what she has to sell;
her honeyed words seem cloying, stale―
pale, tainted things of sticky guile.



A rustle of her petticoats,
a flash of bulging milk-white breast
. . . the price is set: a crown. “A tip,
a shilling more is yours,” he quotes,
“to wash your privates.” She accepts.
Saliva glistens on his lips.



An alley. There, he lifts her gown,
in answer to her question, frowns,
says―“You can call me Jack, or Rip.”



East End, 1888 (II)
by Michael R. Burch

He slouched East
through a steady downpour,
a slovenly beast
befouling each puddle
with bright footprints of blood.

Outlined in a pub door,
lewdly, wantonly, she stood . . .
mocked and brazenly offered.

He took what he could
till she afforded no more.

Now a single bright copper
glints becrimsoned by the door
of the pub where he met her.

He holds to his breast the one part
of her body she was unable to *****,
grips her heart to his wildly stammering heart . . .
unable to forgive or forget her.

Originally published by Penny Dreadful



Evil, the Rat
by Michael R. Burch

Evil lives in a hole like a rat
and sleeps in its feces,
fearing the cat.

At night it furtively creeps
through the house
while the cat sleeps.

It eats old excrement and gnaws
on steaming dung
and it will pause

between odd bites to sniff through the ****,
twitching and trembling,
for a scent of the cat ...

Evil, the rat.



Temptation
by Michael R. Burch

Jesus was always misunderstood . . .
we have that, at least, in common.
And it’s true that I found him,
shriveled with hunger,
shivering in the desert,
skeletal, emaciate,
not an ounce of fat
to warm his bones
once the bright sun set.

And it’s true, I believe,
that I offered him something to eat―
a fig, perhaps, a pomegranate, or a peach.

Hardly the great “temptation”
of which I’m accused.

He was a likeable chap, really,
and we spent a pleasant hour
discussing God―
how hard He is to know,
and impossible to please.

I left him there, the pale supplicant,
all skin and bone, at the mouth of his cave,
imploring his “Master” on callused knees.

Published in The Bible of Hell (anthology)



Role Reversal
by Michael R. Burch

The fluted lips of statues
mock the bronze gaze
of the dying sun . . .

We are nonplused, they say,
smacking their wet lips,
jubilant . . .

We are always refreshed, always undying,
always young, forever unapologetic,
forever gay, smiling,

and though it seems man has made us,
on his last day, we will see him unmade―
we will watch him decay
as if he were clay,
and we had assumed his flesh,
hissing our disappointment.



Excelsior
by Michael R. Burch

I lift my eyes and laugh, Excelsior . . .
Why do you come, wan spirit, heaven-gowned,
complaining that I am no longer “pure?”

I threw myself before you, and you frowned,
so full of noble chastity, renowned
for leaving maidens maidens. In the dark

I sought love’s bright enchantment, but your lips
were stone; my fiery metal drew no spark
to light the cold dominions of your heart.

What realms were ours? What leasehold? And what claim
upon these territories, cold and dark,
do you seek now, pale phantom? Would you light

my heart in death and leave me ashen-white,
as you are white, extinguished by the Night?



Liar
by Michael R. Burch

Chiller than a winter day,
quieter than the murmur of the sea in her dreams,
eyes wilder than the crystal spray
of silver streams,
you fill my dying thoughts.

In moments drugged with sleep
I have heard your earnest voice
leaving me no choice
save heed your hushed demands
and meet you in the sands
of an ageless arctic world.

There I kiss your lifeless lips
as we quiver in the shoals
of a sea that endlessly rolls
to meet the shattered shore.

Wild waves weep, "Nevermore,"
as you bend to stroke my hair.

That land is harsh and drear,
and that sea is bleak and wild;
only your lips are mild
as you kiss my weary eyes,
whispering lovely lies
of what awaits us there
in a land so stark and bare,
beyond all hope . . . and care.

This is one of my early poems, written as a high school sophomore or junior.



The Watch
by Michael R. Burch

Moonlight spills down vacant sills,
illuminates an empty bed.
Dreams lie in crates. One hand creates
wan silver circles, left unread
by its companion—unmoved now
by anything that lies ahead.

I watch the minutes test the limits
of ornamental movement here,
where once another hand would hover.
Each circuit—incomplete. So dear,
so precious, so precise, the touch
of hands that wait, yet ask so much.

Originally published by The Lyric



Keywords/Tags: Halloween, dark, supernatural, skeleton, witch, ghost, vampire, monsters, ghoul, werewolf, goblins, occult, mrbhalloween, mrbhallow, mrbdark

Published as the collection "Halloween Poems"

Precious may the hard veil of widowhood be drawn back at least for the time you read this

Secret location of Oline Indain sacred ground marriage and burial ceremony  in proximity of Carmel Ca it is a natural place first and foremost but you can see the
Orderliness of man’s hand not much is disturbed it would be foolish to mess with perfection but the sea
Side flowers they stand five feet tall and at the top they plume into the most perfect white well these
Are laced around this half circle horse shoe a perfect concert pavilion and by placing them like military
Troops evenly across and then line after line one in front of the other what trembling glory when the sea
Breeze enters its like it says pardon you won’t mind look at this as it moves ever higher it like seeing the
White gowned saints in worship as they undulate and sway in unison by this great tender moist hand
From deep rich waters what bedevilment is on display that is the back and then across the white sand
Two hundred feet table top smooth this bed that soothes your feet to the point relaxation travels up the
Whole of your body this is a natural fixing of tension dispelling any thoughts of frowns and at both ends
You have identical cliffs that tower in the sky you find yourself in the center looking at one and then the
Other at nature’s perfect handy work I found its good you are standing and are cradled by a soft face of
Sand because as you peer at the lofty heights at times you can have dizziness over take you and you
Topple over know harm now you can set and study the plant life that flourishes as it shares its life with
The rocks especially the scrub bushes how they twist and give a bitter smile through knarled prickly
Shoots but how they amaze when they have such a small tenacious hold and as you find yourself finding
How much you admire them your mind and soul understands and feels how you know the feeling of
Their scraping that has removed some unwanted mire on the order of the barnacles that attach them
Selves to great ships and great fish with this cleaning of negative thought now free you turn to the
Climate of mood stirrings nowhere else can do it like the sea and the haven it provides you bank afire
Outside up against the cliff not in your sea side shack this is the time to muse and it is the time when
Guest come the whispered name of this cove is the cove of lost loves the waves break gently and rush
Over the beach when they approach the water mixes’ with the moon light a different white is mingled
The mystery of all that distance and the darkness it has pierced and then to come to this place in
Particular with the rhythm of eternal knowing that only the sea can know just beyond the breakwaters I
Know they are coming because it is always preceded by a great misty cloud then it appears a schooner
Fast and sleek several sails that draws your mind to them they are there festooned in glory tonight
Someone from home I can’t tell you how but their spirits come this is the breaking waters that have one
Purpose they draw to gather here to touch the broken hearts hear heaven speaks at lands end it
Matches their situation they come bound by tearful sorrow of loss and separation here they wear a
Garland of flowers they are unique and are only found here the moment they are placed on their head
As long as they wear them all memories of death is erased and the only knowledge they have is the
Flood stage of first love how it felt and what it meant Iva and terry has this surging through great
Coursing torrents the sea pulls from one side the land calls with familiar sights and sounds they swirl in
Love’s boundless waters they wear cloth like white terry cloth airy as the thoughts that holds them in
Richest peace you can look in the eyes of the one you love anyplace but when death has laid its heavy
Hand on a life then you need this secret place that is so powerful it can leave Iva at home and leave
Terry peacefully sleeping but here they can move with the eternal rhythms outside normal existence
Breathe taste the sea air it’s uncommon as we really are inland you are confined by a rigid reality come
Among glory first hand it will begin to break earths hold and you can soar and walk hand in hand with
The Acute loss that plagues you holds one another by the fire it is the soul and spirit that we truly love
Look to The sea be renewed on these shadowed calm waters the privacy of them are for you both the
Sea is Generous it provides abundantly now it flows with gentle tenderness it awakens souls that are
Adrift it gives a cherished refreshing to those who the Bain of death has burned with a fiery sorrow here
The sand is more than cool and wet your steps will include visions prepared before the earth cooled it
Will give new stronger perspective brush through the willow that hangs laden with the moisture of the
Sea within its shelter take notice of its spines bending divinely as they create a shelter of benevolence
May you Iva and Terry also find a brief reunited happiness in this sheltered cove in the midst of a golden
State where wonder is possible

--To W. A.


Was I a Samurai renowned,
Two-sworded, fierce, immense of bow?
A histrion angular and profound?
A priest? a porter?--Child, although
I have forgotten clean, I know
That in the shade of Fujisan,
What time the cherry-orchards blow,
I loved you once in old Japan.

As here you loiter, flowing-gowned
And hugely sashed, with pins a-row
Your quaint head as with flamelets crowned,
Demure, inviting--even so,
When merry maids in Miyako
To feel the sweet o' the year began,
And green gardens to overflow,
I loved you once in old Japan.

Clear shine the hills; the rice-fields round
Two cranes are circling; sleepy and slow,
A blue canal the lake's blue bound
Breaks at the bamboo bridge; and lo!
Touched with the sundown's spirit and glow,
I see you turn, with flirted fan,
Against the plum-tree's bloomy snow . . .
I loved you once in old Japan!

Envoy

Dear, 'twas a dozen lives ago;
But that I was a lucky man
The Toyokuni here will show:
I loved you--once--in old Japan.

'Dockery was junior to you,
Wasn't he?' said the Dean. 'His son's here now.'
Death-suited, visitant, I nod. 'And do
You keep in touch with-' Or remember how
Black-gowned, unbreakfasted, and still half-tight
We used to stand before that desk, to give
'Our version' of 'these incidents last night'?
I try the door of where I used to live:

Locked. The lawn spreads dazzlingly wide.
A known bell chimes. I catch my train, ignored.
Canal and clouds and colleges subside
Slowly from view. But Dockery, good Lord,
Anyone up today must have been born
In '43, when I was twenty-one.
If he was younger, did he get this son
At nineteen, twenty? Was he that withdrawn

High-collared public-schoolboy, sharing rooms
With Cartwright who was killed? Well, it just shows
How much . . . How little . . . Yawning, I suppose
I fell asleep, waking at the fumes
And furnace-glares of Sheffield, where I changed,
And ate an awful pie, and walked along
The platform to its end to see the ranged
Joining and parting lines reflect a strong

Unhindered moon. To have no son, no wife,
No house or land still seemed quite natural.
Only a numbness registered the shock
Of finding out how much had gone of life,
How widely from the others. Dockery, now:
Only nineteen, he must have taken stock
Of what he wanted, and been capable
Of . . . No, that's not the difference: rather, how

Convinced he was he should be added to!
Why did he think adding meant increase?
To me it was dilution. Where do these
Innate assumptions come from? Not from what
We think truest, or most want to do:
Those warp tight-shut, like doors. They're more a style
Our lives bring with them: habit for a while,
Suddenly they harden into all we've got

And how we got it; looked back on, they rear
Like sand-clouds, thick and close, embodying
For Dockery a son, for me nothing,
Nothing with all a son's harsh patronage.
Life is first boredom, then fear.
Whether or not we use it, it goes,
And leaves what something hidden from us chose,
And age, and then the only end of age.

“We are all actors in an idiots play A tale of sound and fury,
meaning naught. Yet who would care to be a wise man's pawn
Where every twist of fate is well deserved And where a single flaw
could ruin lives? Far better to be in a madman's mind At least for
those (and are we all not so?) Whom fate has smiled on more than
we deserve If life were fair, earth would be hell indeed.”

“Macbeth” William Shakespeare.


From out of the darkness I can see an ever increasing
glow. Intensifying with luminosity as it gets closer and closer.
The blinding eye of fate is upon me. I am thrown with
tremendous vigour. Into where? I have no idea! Surrounded now,
by the blackest of blacks. I can only liken it to a bubble in a pool
of crude that flows wherever the black tide takes me. All I have is
the familiar company of my own voice. A continual narration that
one could expect from a television documentary. The life and
death situ of Michael Simon Jones, filmed in black surround
vision. It reminds me of oh so many nights, when all I wanted to
do is sleep. My mind just wants to stay awake, spouting that
continuous torturous soundtrack into the early hours of the
morning.

Through the darkness a piercing light, coming to me and
then gone, to me then gone. Do I dream? Perhaps of the high
seas. I picture a large tower, It protrudes out of a vast nothing.
The only safe path to steer by is a beam of light, cast down upon
me, from up high. Its beam Revolves continually around, a never
sleeping sun. A light that prevents many flimsy craft, from
grounding onto the craggy rocks that are hidden in the darkness
of the stormy oceanic swells, that roar below.

Again the quiet is shattered, am I not to be allowed to
sleep.
It can only be a dream, for through my bleary eyes I see a figure
of a man, sporting a bright yellow helmet. He seems to be
holding a huge lobsters claw, it is chewing its way through shards
of steel that seem to imprison me. His mouth moving, but I hear
nothing. I half expect to see subtitles appear below him, like an
old Buster Keaton movie. Then he is gone and once more I drift
into that blackened void.

Now a shadowy figure appears. Bending over me his hands
are holding something over my face. I think I can feel myself
struggling against his advances. He is too strong, I can’t breathe,
is he is killing me?

What sort of nightmare is this? Flat on my back in the
darkness, I am gliding speedily along the ground. Intermittent
lights flash past my closed eyes. I recall the deep red on-off glow
of the light, diffused by the blood that rushes through my closed
lids. Can somebody turn the ******* light off, I’m trying to sleep.

Gaaaaa………… I am blinded by the worlds brightest
light! Where am I? The light subsides and I can see, but nothing
is clear. It is like looking through a frosty glass window. There is
movement below me and the bleeding blurs of colours finally
evolve into recognition. What is this? What’s going on down
there?

Rather, what the hell is going on up here? How did I get up here?
I am suspended in mid air. Look I can move my legs. Holy Mary
mother of God, I’m naked! Naked and floating around what looks
to be a hospital operating theatre. Hovering above several
gowned professionals in the toil of their labour.

A naked satellite orbiting above the planet NHS.

Now tell me if there is something wrong with this scenario, but
this is totally not normal is it? I just hope I don’t need to have a
****. I believe that there can only be two possible answers for my
predicament. First is that I am in fact having one totally out of
my head dream.

Second, that I am experiencing some sort of out of body
experience. If that is so, then I can only assume, that the person
lying on that operating table, somewhere under the mass of green
hat and gowns spread eagled on that table below, is me! If only
that fat doctor would move his head out of the way.
Bah! Only so another head can immediately take its place. I think
I now know how a ****** feels when he cant get a clear shot. Oh!
Hang on a second, the assassination can go ahead. I can see!
No that don’t help, I can’t tell who the guy is, he has a mask
covering most of his face and more tubes coming out of him than
a Scottish pipe band. Oh my God! Who else do you know with
that tattoo? I should of known that an indelible red cartoon of the
devil would not be the luckiest thing to have etched into my skin.
I wish now that I’d gone for the Sacred Heart. That might have
been the healthier option and may just of tipped the scales in my
favour. I can’t really see Saint Peter letting me through those
pearly gates with a picture of Beelzebub brandished for all and
sundry to see. Oh ****! That’s me okay, and from this position I
don’t look at all in a healthy state. Can a spirit or whatever I am,
throw up?

But how did I get here? I can’t remember anything that could of
led to this. I do remember going to bed last night, I had an early
night, don’t know why though cause I never get to sleep before
4am. Its a bit laughable I suppose, an Insomniac reading a book
called Insomnia. Perhaps a novel called sleeping tablet would be
more apt?

Unless of course…………… If I can’t remember anything since I
went to sleep then perhaps it’s because I’m still asleep and that
this is merely a dream. That makes more sense, doesn’t it? What’s
happening down there? Something doesn’t look right, things
seem very intense. If only I could make out what they were
saying, everything is silent.

“Hello! What is happening down there? Hello! Hello! Can you
hear me?”

They can’t hear me, no, of course they can’t but why can’t I hear
them? What if this is no dream? What if I am really dying on that
table down there? I can’t make out what they are doing to me but
it doesn’t look good.

There’s a lot of blood.

I wish I had taken more notice when ER was being aired on
television. The only thing I know for sure is, that is a scalpel the
surgeon is holding. The guy at the head of the table should be the
anaesthetist? the woman to the left whom looks like a nurse and
is passing the instruments, is a nurse. But the others I don’t have
a clue.

If only I could hear what they were saying. ****. This is a
nightmare, I can’t believe this. I can see them, why can’t they see
me? Oh please God let them hear me.

“I’m up here, listen to me you death ******* I’m up here.”

So close yet so far away. This can’t be real, this can’t be
happening, not to me. I’ve, never done anyone harm, I've worked
hard all my life. Always been a popular guy, never had a problem
mixing with people. What’s that the nurse is pushing around on
the trolley. I think its one of those crash box things. That’s it, a
defibrillator! *******! I don't think I'm breathing. Look at the
screen, I’ve seen enough movies to know that the green line
should not be one continuous solid.

Oh no, I’ve flat lined! I’m dead! Oh God no, not like this. Looks
like they are going to try and defib me. Here they go.

BAM!

Oh no, the line is still flat. They’re going at it again.

BAM!

****! Still nothing. What they doing now? No don’t stop!
What are they talking about? What have you got to discuss? Just
get on with it, this isn’t a ******* seminar. I’m dying down there.
Just crank that hunk of scrap iron up and send some volts through
me. God, I sound like ******* “Frankenstein,”

That’s it, he’s greasing up the connectors, here we go, here we
go.

_When I came back to the real world I had been in the land
of Coma-City for almost three months and for all of that time it
had been touch and go. It was later explained to me that I had
been involved in a RTA.

It had been surmised that due to my sleeping disorder I had fallen
asleep at the wheel of my car (A classic American 1950’s plated
Cadillac) and had veered into the oncoming traffic. Hitting at
least one vehicle and careering off road and down an
embankment. Finally coming to rest three parts of the way
through a brick built structure, this in turn supported a steel
constructed dome. Used as a point for ramblers trekking high
above Sheermont Cove and offering excellent views across the
horizon and out to sea. An ideal location in particular for budding
photographers to shoot the best possible images of Sheermont
Bay Lighthouse. The Caddie precariously balanced with its long
bonnet hanging over the edge of the cliff top.

In fact I believe that it was the domes heavy steel frame that
secured my fate. The brick walls now demolished beyond
recognition caused the now unsuspended dome to fall onto the
roof of my vehicle. Pinning it solidly to the spot, it crushed the
roof in on top of me, also saving me from plunging to the depths
below and almost certain death. I was trapped under the structure
for almost six hours. I remember very little of the ordeal as I
tripped in and out of consciousness. My rescuers had to cut me
out of the vehicle, with a tool commonly referred to as the Jaws
of Life and I was flown to hospital by air ambulance.

And here I am to tell the tale. But!

Did this metallic redeemer smile on me that fateful night? Saving
me from that almost certain death, on the rocks below Sheermont
Cove?

I think not.

The Dome. It saved my life I know this but the price I would
have to pay was far to high a toll. As I spend the rest of my days
drinking my food through the proverbial straw with only my own
mindful narration forever keeping me company.

I pray to die.

I said, “My youth is gone
Like a fire beaten out by the rain,
That will never sway and sing
Or play with the wind again.”

I said, “It is no great sorrow
That quenched my youth in me,
But only little sorrows
Beating ceaselessly.”

I thought my youth was gone,
But you returned—
Like a flame at the call of the wind
It leaped and burned;

Threw off its ashen cloak,
And gowned anew
Gave itself like a bride
Once more to you.

The warble frocks and debutantes,
Soprano trilling nightingales,
The extras dressed as elephants
And tenors with their penguin tails;
They mingle at the opera house
With canapés on silver trays;
Then dine on pigeon, goose and grouse,
To reminisce their finest plays;
When Romeo found Juliet
The crowds were on their feet for days,
When mighty Caesar’s end was met,
The press regaled with highest praise;
Such fine upstanding citizens,
So crisply draped, so brightly gowned;
The marvel of these denizens,
So rarely seen, so well renowned.

In my house there is a cupboard

Full of VHS tapes

One of them is a recording of a news broadcast

On it I stand

Hospital gowned and smiling

Clowns are there on the terrace where it was filmed

Painting our faces

They all smile

I smile

The other kids smile

None of us over 4 feet

But balding

Black eyed and missing toothed

A clown takes my hand and begins to paint

It is cold

The paint

And the Terrace

I tell her how I want to run away with her

She smiles

Maybe

On camera

You can see my back through the open gown

The bones make me look like a brontosaurus

I turn to the camera

Remembering I was told never to smile with the paint on

or it will crack

The circles under my eyes are gone

My lips are red

My cheeks are tan

I look normal

Off camera

mommies and daddies are crying

Off camera

the clowns are crying

On camera

There is a terrace full of dying children

In a hospital

And we all looked normal

My arms I wrap
Around my knees
And rest my chin
Atop them
The hood of my cotton coat
Keeps my braided hair dry
While it soaks up the
Cloud’s tears

A patch of African violets
Grow before my feet
Their small patch
Gowned with dew
The intense purple of the violet
It is deep
Grounding
And proud
It does not resemble a shy flower
Such as the sun daises that
Close their petals at night
Its color voice
Speaks outgoing adventure
And seeking mystery

The irises of my green eyes
Seem to make contact
With each violet’s center
Its face

My eye’s irises
The violets hidden eyes
We both count
Count the silent tick of the dark night
Swallowing all the shadows of tree and stone

Night’s clock ticking
So many branches
The patient drip drip sound
Of dew from the tips of the green
The torn departure of frost
Bitten leaves from their branch strongholds
The silent cackling of the demon’s moon
The slow formation
Of the stars overhead
Moving together to form their ancient constellations

All these things
Among a thousand others
Some unseen
Some unspoken
Some not yet known
Form nature’s circular
Clock of time nonexistent

V

Turning away from the temptation of town to walk in twilight viewing the warm lights from the ancient buildings those enclosures of chapel library refectory student rooms fellows’ chambers offices guarded by men in bowler hats whose occupants cross courtyard and cloister purposefully sometimes gowned (for the tourists perhaps) those cobbled passages the tall chimneys the gates and railings suddenly back in the busy streets bicycles everywhere tea necessary tea I catch the fatigue in your face time for apple strudel and jasmine infusion with a view of the chapel it took a hundred years and three Henrys to build.

VI

Choristers have a special way of walking in their robes swish they go as they make that 90 degree turn to enter the Choir the layclerks play this down but will forget themselves and swish the gown flies out Decani and Cantores go their separate ways to stand by their candles bow towards the altar the introit Oh Lord, I Lift My Heart to Thee by Orlando Gibbons a choir man in this very place 1596-8 knowing the echo well wrote accordingly hard not to tremble as the music floats to the stone vaulting a 170 feet above our heads

VII

Famous as a thespian kindergarten plays abound and tonight there’s six to see We enter an L shaped room with the stage at the right angle a sitting room with a green sofa a door to a bathroom a knitting basket on the coffee table four characters (and a bump) with two penguins (one disguised as another – real - hiding in the bathroom) there was even a piece of Battenberg cake on our seat to eat make of that what you will we did and laughed though not without the occasional poignant lump in the throat a tear in the eye

VIII

You sit with your back to a mirror so I practice smiling aware of the pleasure your bright face brings me constantly this warmth of your company the tilt of your head your cheeks’ glow the sweet cadences of your voice though tired food and wine revive It won’t be too late after the brisk walk back through the brightly lit streets forever letting our hands come apart then re-engage to manage the pavements and throngs of Friday evening so much today so much to take to bed my love your beauty nightdressed in white to my surprise and pleasure

I was a queen, and I have lost my crown;
A wife, and I have broken all my vows;
A lover, and I ruined him I loved:—
There is no other havoc left to do.
A little month ago I was a queen,
And mothers held their babies up to see
When I came riding out of Camelot.
The women smiled, and all the world smiled too.
And now, what woman’s eyes would smile on me?
I still am beautiful, and yet what child
Would think of me as some high, heaven-sent thing,
An angel, clad in gold and miniver?
The world would run from me, and yet am I
No different from the queen they used to love.
If water, flowing silver over stones,
Is forded, and beneath the horses’ feet
Grows turbid suddenly, it clears again,
And men will drink it with no thought of harm.
Yet I am branded for a single fault.

I was the flower amid a toiling world,
Where people smiled to see one happy thing,
And they were proud and glad to raise me high;
They only asked that I should be right fair,
A little kind, and gowned wondrously,
And surely it were little praise to me
If I had pleased them well throughout my life.

I was a queen, the daughter of a king.
The crown was never heavy on my head,
It was my right, and was a part of me.
The women thought me proud, the men were kind,
And bowed right gallantly to kiss my hand,
And watched me as I passed them calmly by,
Along the halls I shall not tread again.
What if, to-night, I should revisit them?
The warders at the gates, the kitchen-maids,
The very beggars would stand off from me,
And I, their queen, would climb the stairs alone,
Pass through the banquet-hall, a loathed thing,
And seek my chambers for a hiding-place,
And I should find them but a sepulchre,
The very rushes rotted on the floors,
The fire in ashes on the freezing hearth.
I was a queen, and he who loved me best
Made me a woman for a night and day,
And now I go unqueened forevermore.
A queen should never dream on summer eves,
When hovering spells are heavy in the dusk:—
I think no night was ever quite so still,
So smoothly lit with red along the west,
So deeply hushed with quiet through and through.
And strangely clear, and deeply dyed with light,
The trees stood straight against a paling sky,
With Venus burning lamp-like in the west.

I walked alone amid a thousand flowers,
That drooped their heads and drowsed beneath the dew,
And all my thoughts were quieted to sleep.
Behind me, on the walk, I heard a step—
I did not know my heart could tell his tread,
I did not know I loved him till that hour.
Within my breast I felt a wild, sick pain,
The garden reeled a little, I was weak,
And quick he came behind me, caught my arms,
That ached beneath his touch; and then I swayed,
My head fell backward and I saw his face.

All this grows bitter that was once so sweet,
And many mouths must drain the dregs of it.
But none will pity me, nor pity him
Whom Love so lashed, and with such cruel thongs.

Lately I've been
Thinking about this little girl
That was in the room next to mine
At the state rehab
Facility when I
Was 13
She was always
Crying
And being
Told to wash her face
Use her coping skills
She was 6
And her parents told
Her they were going
Out for
ice cream
Then they dropped her
Off
And she hasn't seen
Them in two weeks
So she's crying
And she's scared
And she's telling this
To a drugged up
Hospital gowned (they took all my clothes at check in)
Preteen
She's scared
I've got scars up
And down my arms

She's scared
And she's crying
And this isn't the ice cream parlor
Down the street
From her suburban home
And this isn't her bed
These aren't her friends
And I don't know why
But I promised her that everything would be ok
And that it was fine to be scared
         her parents were coming back

Everything would be fine
And perhaps there would be pudding
With sprinkles at lunch
Which is pretty close to ice cream.

I wrapped my pinky around
Hers
Half the size
And I promised her all of these things
None of which I really knew
To be true
A nurse came barreling down the hallway
And screamed at me
For interacting with a younger
Girl in a different program
Then they moved her to a different room

I never saw her again
Heard her cry
And I forgot about her
Little blotchy
Swollen face
Crying to me
Throughout the years

Then a few weeks ago
I remembered that you had promised to me
You would always be here
Which you couldn't possibly know
And I thought of the girl
And the ice cream
All of the promises I made

I wondered if I had lied
To her
And I wondered
Why we so often
Make promises
We aren't entirely sure
Will be kept?

When they say 'Winter Wonderland'
which winter and from what land?

Is it the one from the North?
where the temperatures are low
the snow is heavy and the icicles grow
The frost covered windows works to ensure
you'll stay inside with hot cocoa and a s'more
Where toys are unwrapped and then put away
to be used on a future warm spring day

Is it the wonder of the East?
Where the snow is light and wet
and the thermostat reads 'cold', and yet
bonfires in the fields and roasted marshmallows
and picking the last petal on a rose mallow
to be place on the wreath hung on the wall
made of remnants of memories of the last fall

Or could it be the wintery West?
Where the locals are wearin' sweaters
as they play in the chilled weather
where the stiff, cool breeze creates a shiver
across houses decorated in gold and silver
as people come to visit family and friends
and dream of staying till'  summer's end

Or maybe it's the wonderful South?
Warm and sunny all year round
where Santa stays when not suited and gowned
where the fires stay lit, but only for effect
outside, off of giant couches, families defect
and shaken snow-globes provide the only snow-filled day
So where, pray tell, does your winter wonderland lay?

the flower
has more moisture
than the Soil
and the earthTones
have less vivid tinctures
with solid Toil
a power. the truth. the sky.

a flower. new bloom
with its rancid clutter
around the vase, the pulled
and fallen, petals -
the drab droplettes of glad tidings
or sad-like bells
clanged with clamour
all gowned in glamour
touched by a hover or glide
in the stature of things
and the square rings
that yield a snoot, the way
a drop is sad with smell
the power. a flash. and smiles.

When the rain is cold and pelting
When the windstorm shreds the trees
Do you find your courage wanting?
Is there weakness in the knees?
Have you faced the dark intruder?
Have you stared that challenge down?
Have you summoned forth the fortitude,
To keep humiliation gowned?
Camouflaged the leaden spinelessness,
That dreaded empty space,
Where once there was a warrior
Who wore courage on his face.


Felt the thrashing of the current
As the waves come pounding in,
Inexorably it lacerates
And tears the fair white skin.
The brutality of bedrock,
The blackness of the night,
And the fear that runs like mercury
Through the torment and the fright.
The uselessness of effort,
The lassitude of limb,
It’s the cramping ague of gutlessness
That is consuming him.


Dissipating storm clouds
The skies begin to clear
And with it go emergencies
And with it goes the fear.
Residually it lingers
As a gnawing hollow blend
Of anxious blue inadequacies,
Of unsubstantiated end
To performance under duress,
Compared to that which is the norm,
It’s just a blinding lack of courage
Whilst in the torment of the storm.


Marshalg
Mangere Bridge
24 November 2008

The air is stayed
By the hum of voices
They whisper through the divides
Between each leaf and branch
As smooth and unnoticeable
As the green beetles slow crawl and watchful eye

Voices trickle down the transparent
Curving body of the forest’s streams
Every caress the waters
Give to the rocks
Whose slippery surfaces are gowned
With moss so green
Chew more and more away
The cold stone

The vibration of every tone
Shakes the dome topped dew
Droplets from the blades of grass
That in the night’s closed walls
Grow still
With no wind to blow
No sun light to warm them

Nature thrives through these voices
As these voices thrive through nature
Nature keeps counsel with all life
And dances arm in arm with death

Life
Death
Nature
They resemble tapestries
That hung on the walls
Of medieval halls
Tapestries of three intertwining serpents
Each devouring the other
Forming a cycle
Of continuous rebirth

The beetle chews the leaf
The bird swallows the beetle
The fox eats the bird

The leaf falls from the branch
The stream carries it down its rapids
The fish nip at it thinking it is an insect
And the bird catches the fish

Particles are born
Angelical masks are worn
Tragic ends in lives are torn
And everything is reborn

All that was lost opens opprtun
All that was lost opens opportunities for us to find ourselves; if at least for the first time ever
All that has been destroyed begs us to question why we came here
The grotesque nature we have allowed ourselves to fall in creates an endless state of amnesia so we forget about the time when we were once divine
The more we throw stones at each other the farther we are from marble halls
The more our women give into envy and jealousy, the more they are hindered to be the treasures of gold, diamonds and pearls - exuding ethereal beauty

The more we focus on material significance, the more our souls are left begging
The more we make rash decisions with an open mind, the more we are forced to live with those consequences
The choices you are making, the choices you have made, can you live with them for ten years to come or the rest of your life?
How rich are you to afford such a hefty debt?
But this is the rhyme, the rhythm that the kingdoms have sent
down to the material world...
A hefty heifer hole and a pole for prowl; oh goal
But what about our own goals
Are we cyborgs or are we souls?
Are we going to let the insecurities of one or a few compromise our own happiness?
Why are we so uneasy, we know only attacking the centredness of another
We are enemies of peace because we are not friends of love and yet we are quick to demand mercy

Such irresponsibility!
Not taking account for the things we've done
We are afraid of mirrors because we cannot face the demons we've gowned ourselves to inhabit
And yet we can proudly call ourselves princes and princesses
Or Kings and Queens
Leaders and representatives of State


But our objectives are the complete opposite
Our deeds are the complete opposite
Our thoughts and emotions tell a complete dark story

But if you can confess to yourself the things you've done wrong then you can confide them in another
If you can confess the things you aspire to be then you are ready to break out of your shell
Once again a pure chance for us to find ourselves; if at least for the first time ever
All that has been destroyed begs us to question why we came here
The grotesque nature we have allowed ourselves to fall in creates an endless state of amnesia so we forget about the time when we were once divine
The more we throw stones at each other the farther we are from marble halls
The more our women give into envy and jealousy the more they are hindered to be the treasures of gold, diamonds and pearls - exuding ethereal beauty

The more we focus on material significance, the more our souls are left begging
The more we make rash decisions with an ooen mind, the more we are forced to live with those consequences
The choices you are making, the choices you have made, can you live with them for ten years to come or the rest of your life?
How rich are you to afford such a hefty debt
But this is the rhyme, the rhythm that the kingdoms have sent
down to the material world...
A hefty heifer hole and a pole for prowl; oh goal
But what about our own goals
Are we cyborgs or are we souls?
Are we going to let the insecurities of or a few compromise our own happiness?
Why are we so uneasy, we know only attacking the centredness of another
We are enemies of peace beacuse we are not friends of love and yet we are wuick to run after mercy

Such irresponsibility
Not taking account of the things we've done
We are afraid of mirrors because we cannot face the demons we've gowned ourselves to inhabit
And yet we can proudly call ourselves princes and princesses
Or Kings and Queens
Leaders and representatives of state


But our objectives are the complete opposite
Our deeds are the complete opposite
Our thoughts and emotions tell a complete dark story

But if you can confess to yourself the things you've done wrong then you can confide them in another
If you can confess the things you aspire to be then you are ready to break out of your shell
Once again a pure soul.

Time binds us
tightly with red silken ribbons,
woeful reminders of
our naked mortality,
acting as string tied
round fingers to remember,
even if we want to erase minds
and forget our deadlines.

We are not gowned to our toes
in the golden gleam of forever,
one period upcoming
in our lives,
hopefully a fair distance
from present skies.

Our epilogues will be written
for us by fate
and death combined,
achieving a certainty
we have known since thigh-high.

~for Lori Jones McCaffery~

Lori Jones McCaffery commenting on
“a new time (poetry in the time of pandemic)”^
“Tender and brutal at the same time. Like the times.”*

                                                     ­          <>
your observation, a commission, opens an incision,
bleeding out a Noah flood vision:

                                                        ­        <>

when we begin, to compare and contrast the movable tender and the unstoppable brutal, the poetry must rise to equalize the pressure of unbalanced times, the tender, and the brutal in an uneasy peaceful coexistence, at the same time, same place
                                                           ­     
                              
                              
                            
The Brutal                                              The Tender
—————                                             —————
life in the epicenter, the greatest,       in the darkened bedroom,
noisiest city, now landscape               she awakens, her hand quick
painting quiet,                                      comes to rest on my chest,
one lives/writes/eyesights thru       the quality of motion+volume
pink mask + a minimum six              of heartbeats, is it loud enough,
feet of separation,                                steady on, no need to dial 911!
a citified tableau of macro wave       she unaware that I can hear
forces in crashing collision, upon     her loud, tender exhalation
your skin’s cells                                   celebrating surviving day#?

newspaper images of Death’s            many volunteer, food delivery,
ministers applauding the newly        though I am asymptomatic
arrived mobile morgues, for 100        my request tenderly, firmly
died yesterday,                                      denied, for I meet too many
their brutal death rattles                      of the vulnerable criteria,
overwhelmed  the super-surround.   instead, offering food to me,
sound silences of                                   to deliver to me, to deliver me,
brutal emptiness of millions of           tenderly I say, no thanks,
sacrificial                                             ­    my tour of duty, almost done
                              
                                all of us isolate lambs, in day jailed,
                                for we still breathing the maybe tainted,                
                                oxygen molecules of no safe surety      

a consummate perfection,                    the same, taming words I tell  
the holy quietus of                                 my son, young father,
those no longer breathing,                   tender me necessary tasks that
they now rest up above,                        require outside journeys, say I
hid in a white cumulus                         send me into the red hot areas
cloud cover, a noise suppressing         insert me into the front line,
sky coverlet, moving across a               militarized zones, he replies,
bright blue pure background,              ”you’re too old, part and
a train of funeral caissons,                     parcel of the most vulnerable,
brutal noisy hooves clacking             better-write-you tender-poems”

daily, hourly, the statistical alerts,         why so hard, to write tender
brief résumés delivered,                         so easy of the brutal, their
drumbeating, look now!                         curses so readily supplied,
are you up to date?                                  is tenderness short supplied?

catalog the debris, organized with brutal necessary efficacy, quantify, qualify the costs, include even the tender ineffable, countdown and graph the brutal calculus of the curve infection, and you, numbed, past the point of eyes capable of what once was tender droplet tearing

highlight the unknown faraway, the tender hope of a distant apex inflection, while plotting the second derivative, the rate of change of the rate of a brutal yet trending upward *****, the ascending all-inclusive stat, infected, the rate of change of decedents, downed, descending, giving in...gowned in hospital blue, for the funeral pyre

a city of lines, crosswalks, velvet ropes, unused, unemployed, social separators, no one about to need to separate, anymore, only the living and the dead, both staying indoors, so neither in attendance, at the empty funeral services, everybody is on the out list...

the now newly indistinguishable, the irresistible collision of two one-sides polarizing poles of no longer opposites, the tender and the brutal in a single embrace, but no, not kissing, embargoed, as we are stationed from above, far, high up on the watchtower observatory, observing the contrast dye that flies so fast on people denuded grand boulevards, down narrow hospital hallways, body-lined decorated, tales of millions of lives isolatized, and don’t forget the brutalizing discovery of scores of elderly, dying alone, withering in the dark, counted, lumped in to the category of statistically irrelevant, if dead, who cares, matters not now, in the afterworld no one asks how,
                        in a fashion both tenderly and brutal,
                        what was the actual cause?

held up in gutterwork masterpieces,
half a shard of torn and ragged paper edged on,
where once it bore, proud and in eager definition,
a reminder of little importance or,
a note of sweet insincerity or,
the last refuge of an eviscerated mind;
and, lost to entropic freedom,
no-body would care to ever even want to begin deciphering those smears.
not that they could, anyway.

the death of parking lot culture,
they say,
is all down to the skin on the teeth,
of a couple earthquake-gowned security wardens,
and the irresistible clamour
of city lights:
"just gotta get away, get outta this place" you say,
when you haven't slept
a real night
in three or so months, at last count, in the best-case,
whereas the real tragedy
is the drizzle,
that you're sure
will never,
ever,
cease to fall,
inside of you,
even though you keep telling yourself,
it's still just a lie.
it's all just a storytime fabrication.
it's all just waiting to fall apart.

and you're just hoping it's sometime soon.

Nature’s tongue speech
Echoes eclipsed messages
Those with meaning obscure
Only to be understood
By those with watchful ears and eyes of clarity

Seclusion within the draping ivy
Enclosed groves where
Orange butterflies sleep
On the hanging leaves
Or on the moss gowned boulders
Aquatic *******
Those emerge from the river’s surface

These settings of nature
Among countless others
Are cloisters offered
To humanity to give
Spacious thought and contemplation

Clarity is gifted to those
Whose minds are fogged with worry

Innovation given to those who feel lost
Along with answers to questions clogging the ego

Simplicity is nature’s
Sentinel watch
Bringing to full fall anything
Of complicated form

The bosun of all trivial thought
Is opened to a palace of abundant wonders
Once they witness nature’s smile

The bosoms of all trees send out
Vibrational waves of ancient breath
Breath that keeps all alive

The stars that are the
Watchful eyes of the sky
Shed tears for those
Happenings of sorrowful textures
And light for those happenings
Of a lover’s delight

Teachings ascend generations
In light year slowness
Reminding the new born youth
Of the songs that brought life to being

The fathomless oceans hold mysteries
Unimaginable and dangerous

Nature holds all in its arms
All but ego and corruption
These that exist only in the human mind

My snow laden arborvitae,
lithely bent,
green gowned--
hand you lend,
for me to kiss it,
whence--a suitor's snowfall
you elicit
and return tall,
as best dressed,
in winters ball.

do i
      (with under you
        r skirt
          i pluck you
           snarling
            little fairy
             my fingers
              nimbly gowned
               in your flesh
                and wetness
                 completely
                  slipperying
                   )
                        reckon swelling
                       eve falling lushly
                       her stink
                      on
                    U
                       string
                    fervently
                   pumped
                       into right
                    between your
              lips
suddenly
              !

o
                                         ,
little star
with fingers
  gowned nimble
    fickles numbly
     bickering the
night with
perhaps slamming
      bruises off white
         fast timidity
                                                   o,
           simply dusting
             forever lovely
               without mortal
                 err ere the dull
                   mother of budding
                     s
                       -tupid unheavy
                          light
                            what slashes
                              night briefly
                                impeding
                                 darkness flaky
                                  flaking breaking
                                 in summer
                                making
                   ­           sorry ladies
                            who sleeping
                           fairies dote
                          'pon slick
                        penultimate
                       spheres
                     where
                    heaven
                  whitely moors                                                            ­                                ,
               her softly
            and her
      deftly
marvelous                                       ­                                                   ..............­..........
   4ever                                                            ­                   ,
     and 4                                                                ­     '
                  ever                                         ­        .   "
                                ever                           ­  ,  '
                                         ever                . '
                                                   eVEr : '

Every touch is a devotion,
every soft phrase a prayer
to life, to continue living.

A nightingale, a dove
gowned in heavenly blue
a ministering survival chant.

Thank you
and double checks
are abundant.

They minister
consistent kindness
for they live
among the blasted.  

There is no sniping,
no rivalries,
just respect and support.

They are special.
They are there by choice.
They work double shifts  
or come in on short staff days.

The cancer center has regular hours
No Nights.  No weekends.
Burn out it is low.  Effort is high.

Their patients are a pretty grateful lot,
so their compassion comes easily
from the first tuck to the last.  

The nurse knows
some will sleep
and some will awake.

Everyone dies,
but today they
will  be spared,

for tomorrow
is nearly far off
in the rising sun light.