Glades and Creeks.

One day in a journey far far away,  the forest was speaking to a lone wanderer.
"I am quite the clean forest, am I not?." The forest whispered soothingly.
"Mmhm." Spoke the wanderer, passive by such an interjection.
"Of course. Thousands of forests have wilted and died under the hand of man. I remain lush and brimming to the birch with life."
"Where is my way out of here?" The wanderer asked, becoming quite needy at the thought of having to spend the night in that dung-infested greenhouse.

The forests name was Evergreen. Allot of forests were named Evergreen. This forest had just been sold cheaply to a large logging firm who would come and tear the ugly trees down. The proprietors of that sale was a tribe of Indians. The specific agent who devised and contracted the sale was named Nahiko. An Indian tribesmen who, like his ancestors could speak to the forest.

Indians were what Europeans called people from India and natives of America. Allot of Indians in America were killed for being Indian. When an Indian boy came of age, they would be thrown into a jungle and starve until they saw an animal spirit. This was probably prelude to eating said spirit animal while thanking it for helping him live on.

"I, Evergreen implore you to stay within my womb of plant and fauna."
"Hm." replied the wanderer. Not wanting to argue.
The wanderer took a seat beside a flowing creek on a rock. The creek lead up to waterfall, which in turn lead through a river that spanned for miles. The river did not speak as it was an extension of the forest, Evergreen. Down the creek was the old homes of the Indian tribe.
"Have you ever saved someone else?" The wanderer asked.
"My yes, of course. Everyone who is to enter without water or food is rescued by my charming animals! And luxurious streams. I am quite hospitable you see. There was a tribe who lived within me, they were by name called the Perchil tribe. But they had to leave for more. Hmph. As if anything up in that ****** town is worth more then me."

Further up the river, away from the forest was a town named "Milan". It was named after a kingdom of the same name in Italy. People in Milan spoke German. This was odd given Milan lay in south America, but not unusual given its history of being a port to German slave traders who came from a German colony called "Tanganyika" in Africa. The town was named Milan because the Germans wanted to appear more Italian. This desire was apparent in their most famous dishes "schnitzel Pizza" and "Pasta Salsiccia". Pasta Salsiccia was pasta in a sausage casing often served with tomato sauce and mashed potatoes.

Perchil was also a member of that Indian tribe. He was Nahiko's brother and had a family of his own. Perchil was born in Evergreen and educated in Milan. He had been fighting with Nahiko over the terms of sale of the forest. Nahiko had wanted to preserve the land of old tribe. Perchil was already drawing up plans to sell it to an oil foundry. Their land happened to be on top of a great oil reserve. That means allot of animals lived and died on that land millions or thousands of years ago. There body would dissolve into a black gooey liquid used to fuel heavy machinery. This machinery is used by logging firms to cut down not exclusively, forests named Evergreen.

The wanderer, feeling awkward asked. "So, you'd rather not want to be destroyed?"
"Oh, I am a forest and I do maintain a will of my own and wants. But I cannot rather things should be anything other than what they are. The world is a destructive place. It is disrespectful of its former home and ancestry. I know this. I have tried however, to ward off the workmen by scaring them with my animals. In the end I shall become a town or a shopping mall."
In 3 years time, the deed to "Evergreen plains, Milan" would be sold and used to build a shopping mall named aptly "Evergreen Mall". And the forests voice would be spoke out of loudspeakers, but in the form of either a pre-recorded message or announcement about a lost child. Nahiko and Perchil would be married in Evergreen Mall. Nahiko three times.

"Oh woe is me, I lament my lost brothers and sister forests who are no longer beaming and prideful of their enormous trees and crested riverbanks."
"Maybe they should have defended themselves better." The wanderer spoke, trying unsuccessfully to show concern.
"Well, I for one will never give up fighting the man!"
"Good for you." The wanderer then ate his lunch.

Three days from now, the forest would stop speaking to anyone who arrived within its borders and see the lone wanderer again. But this time, he would be protected by four glass windows inside a piece of machinery powered by black gooey liquid called a "harvester" which lifted up wood and cut it into easily transportable pieces.

"Do you, believe in god wanderer?" The forest asked, to strike up some conversation.
"I do believe in god. He's the reason I get up in the morning and assists me in supporting my family."
"I don't. I don't think I believe in god, wanderer. If he exists, how could he let something so beautiful as I and my brother and sister forests be turned into shopping malls and townships like Milan."
The evergreen forest had seen the name "Milan" as a city nearby on a poster which flew into the twig of its tree. The poster was now lying on smooth ground weighted down by a root, as so the forest can read it over and over again. The poster advertised Pasta Salsiccia at a local restaurant in Milan. It had appetizing pictures of Pizza with crumbed steak on it and Pasta filled Sausages.
"God once flooded the earth, destroying all forests and people for their misgivings. Maybe you misgave and people are your divine punishment."
The forest grew silent and whispered soft hymns of wind against the leaves and overgrown shrubbery.

The edge of the creek, where the wanderer sat on a rock had a hard sand that stretched out a few meters disappeared into the dirt. It was unusual to see a small bed of sand without any other visible placements of sand. The wanderer had been dumping it there, with permission from the forest so he could form a base to store his harvester. The forest did not know of the sands purpose, she thought it looked pretty.
"If I were god, the world would be nothing but forests!" Evergreen stated. The gentle words turning a harsher coarse crackling of branches.
"The world seems to be nothing but people right now. Maybe gods a man."
"Unlikely! If god was a man, he would certainly love forests enough to never cut them down."
"Hm." The wanderer was dissatisfied with this explanation, but didn't want to argue.

"Would you **** anyone who came into your forest, just to prove a point?" The wanderer asked, waiting pensively.
"Oh no, as I said. I cannot change what already is and certainly would not bloom the effort to try. Besides. I also know about those people and their weapons. When it comes to human beings, no matter how hard I fight they will always win. How they ever came to develop boom guns and ratatatat chainsaws I have no idea. If they came from my forest, people would certainly have never developed tools so cruel and menacing. But, I suppose Eden had her way for you. Even if it was, at the cost of all our kind."
"Yeah. No matter forest or person, people always win. I'll always be below some rich powerful man too." The wanderer felt melancholy for feeling unimportant. The forest felt the same melancholy for her life and the world.

Suddenly and finally, a noise came from the wanderers pants. He then picked out his phone, clicked it and took it to his ear. After two hours, the wanderer walked east and out of Evergreen forest. He visited her three days later in his noisy harvester. made to cut wood. He parked on his sand bed. The wanderer left his harvester and locked the door without a word. Evergreen forest was properly harvested of its trees in 3 years time. Never uttering a word or complaint. The painted marking on the harvester she saw everyday however, was her last thought as she disappeared. The word painted onto the door of the harvester, its operator. "Perchil."

"****** Errata" is a collection of poems about the ****** and how erotica sometimes gets us in trouble!

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

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



Less Heroic Couplets: Marketing 101
by Michael R. Burch

Building her brand, she disrobes,
naked, except for her earlobes.



Negligibles
by Michael R. Burch

Show me your most intimate items of apparel;
begin with the hem of your quicksilver slip ...



Warming Her Pearls
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Warming her pearls,
her ******* gleam like constellations.
Her belly is a bit rotund ...
she might have stepped out of a Rubens.



Cover Girl
by Michael R. Burch

Cunning
at sunning
and dunning,
the stunning
young woman’s in the running
to be found **** on the cover
of some patronizing lover.

In this case the cover is a bed cover, where the enterprising young mistress is about to be covered herself.



First Base Freeze
by Michael R. Burch

I find your love unappealing
(no, make that appalling)
because you prefer kissing
then stalling.



Nun Fun Undone
by Michael R. Burch

for and after Richard Thomas Moore

Abbesses’
recesses
are not for excesses!



Less Heroic Couplets: *** Hex
by Michael R. Burch

for and after Richard Thomas Moore

Love’s full of cute paradoxes
(and highly acute poxes).

Published by ****** of Parnassus, Lighten Up Online and Poem Today



Retro
by Michael R. Burch

Now, once again,
love’s a redundant pleasure,
as we laugh
at my childish fumblings
through the acres of your dress,
past your wily-wired brassiere,
through your *******’ pink billows
of thrill-piqued frills ...
Till I lay once again—panting redfaced
at your gayest lack of resistance,
and, later, at your milktongued
mewlings in the dark ...
When you were virginal,
sweet as eucalyptus,
we did not understand
the miracle of repentance,
and I took for granted
your obsessive distance ...
But now I am happily unbuttoning
that chaste dress,
unhitching that firm-latched bra,
tugging at those parachute-like *******—
the ones you would have gladly forgotten
had I not bought them in this year’s size.

Originally published by Erosha



Poppy
by Michael R. Burch

“It is lonely to be born.” – Dannie Abse, “The Second Coming”

It is lonely to be born
between the intimate ears of corn . . .
the sunlit, flooded, shellshocked rows.

The scarecrow flutters, listens, knows . . .
Pale butterflies in staggering flight
ascend the gauntlet winds and light
before the scything harvester.

The winsome buds of cornflowers
prepare themselves to be airborne,
and it is lonely to be shorn,
decapitate, of eager life
so early in love’s blinding maze
of silks and tassels, goldened days
when life’s renewed, gone underground.

Sad confidante of worm and mound,
how little stands to be regained
of what is left.
A tiny cleft
now marks your birth, your reddening
among the amber waves. O, sing!

Another waits to be reborn
among bent thistle, down and thorn.
A hoofprint’s cleft, a ram’s curved horn
curled inward, turned against the heart,
a spoor like infamy. Depart.

You came too late, the signs are clear:
whose world this is, now watches, near.
There is no ****** for the heart.

Originally published by Borderless Journal



Virginal
by Michael R. Burch

For an hour
every wildflower
beseeches her,
"To thy breast,
Elizabeth."

But she is mine;
her lips divine
and her ******* and hair
are mine alone.

Let the wildflowers moan.



If Love Were Infinite
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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



Plastic Art or Night Stand
by Michael R. Burch

Disclaimer: This is a poem about artificial poetry, not love dolls! The victim is the Muse.

We never questioned why “love” seemed less real
the more we touched her, and forgot her face.
Absorbed in molestation’s sticky feel,
we failed to see her staring into space,
her doll-like features frozen in a smile.
She held us in her marionette’s embrace,
her plastic flesh grown wet and slick and vile.
We groaned to feel our urgent fingers trace
her undemanding body. All the while,
she lay and gaily bore her brief disgrace.
We loved her echoed passion’s squeaky air,
her tongueless kisses’ artificial taste,
the way she matched, then raised our reckless pace,
the heart that seemed to pound, but was not there.



She Was Very Pretty
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

She was hardly pretty another day.
Then she was scarcely pretty; her skin was marred
by liver spots; her heart was scarred;
her child was grown; her life was done;
she faded away with the setting sun.
She was scarcely pretty, and not much fun.

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



Cold Snap Coin Flip
by Michael R. Burch

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

Or ...

Back to bed,
Old sleepyhead,
Dull and supine.



Song Cycle
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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



The Unregal Beagle vs. The Voracious Eagle
by Michael R. Burch

I’d rather see an eagle
than a beagle
because they’re so **** regal.

But when it’s time to wiggle
and to giggle,
I’d rather embrace an angel
than an evil.

And when it’s time to share the same small space,
I’d much rather have a beagle lick my face!

*

Over(t) Simplification
by Michael R. Burch

“Keep it simple, stupid.”

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

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

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

THE SINS of Kalamazoo are neither scarlet nor crimson.
  
The sins of Kalamazoo are a convict gray, a dishwater drab.
  
And the people who sin the sins of Kalamazoo are neither scarlet nor crimson.
  
They run to drabs and grays-and some of them sing they shall be washed whiter than snow-and some: We should worry.
  
Yes, Kalamazoo is a spot on the map
And the passenger trains stop there
And the factory smokestacks smoke
And the grocery stores are open Saturday nights
And the streets are free for citizens who vote
And inhabitants counted in the census.
Saturday night is the big night.
  Listen with your ears on a Saturday night in Kalamazoo
  And say to yourself: I hear America, I hear, what do I hear?
  
Main street there runs through the middle of the twon
And there is a ***** postoffice
And a ***** city hall
And a ***** railroad station
And the United States flag cries, cries the Stars and Stripes to the four winds on Lincoln's birthday and the Fourth of July.
  
Kalamazoo kisses a hand to something far off.
  
Kalamazoo calls to a long horizon, to a shivering silver angel, to a creeping mystic what-is-it.
  
"We're here because we're here," is the song of Kalamazoo.
  
"We don't know where we're going but we're on our way," are the words.
  
There are hound dogs of bronze on the public square, hound dogs looking far beyond the public square.
  
Sweethearts there in Kalamazoo
Go to the general delivery window of the postoffice
And speak their names and ask for letters
And ask again, "Are you sure there is nothing for me?
I wish you'd look again-there must be a letter for me."
  
And sweethearts go to the city hall
And tell their names and say,"We want a license."
And they go to an installment house and buy a bed on time and a clock
And the children grow up asking each other, "What can we do to **** time?"
They grow up and go to the railroad station and buy tickets for Texas, Pennsylvania, Alaska.
"Kalamazoo is all right," they say. "But I want to see the world."
And when they have looked the world over they come back saying it is all like Kalamazoo.
  
The trains come in from the east and hoot for the crossings,
And buzz away to the peach country and Chicago to the west
Or they come from the west and shoot on to the Battle Creek breakfast bazaars
And the speedbug heavens of Detroit.
  
"I hear America, I hear, what do I hear?"
Said a loafer lagging along on the sidewalks of Kalamazoo,
Lagging along and asking questions, reading signs.
  
Oh yes, there is a town named Kalamazoo,
A spot on the map where the trains hesitate.
I saw the sign of a five and ten cent store there
And the Standard Oil Company and the International Harvester
And a graveyard and a ball grounds
And a short order counter where a man can get a stack of wheats
And a pool hall where a rounder leered confidential like and said:
"Lookin' for a quiet game?"
  
The loafer lagged along and asked,
"Do you make guitars here?
Do you make boxes the singing wood winds ask to sleep in?
Do you rig up strings the singing wood winds sift over and sing low?"
The answer: "We manufacture musical instruments here."
  
Here I saw churches with steeples like hatpins,
Undertaking rooms with sample coffins in the show window
And signs everywhere satisfaction is guaranteed,
Shooting galleries where men **** imitation pigeons,
And there were doctors for the sick,
And lawyers for people waiting in jail,
And a dog catcher and a superintendent of streets,
And telephones, water-works, trolley cars,
And newspapers with a splatter of telegrams from sister cities of Kalamazoo the round world over.
  
And the loafer lagging along said:
Kalamazoo, you ain't in a class by yourself;
I seen you before in a lot of places.
If you are nuts America is nuts.
  And lagging along he said bitterly:
  Before I came to Kalamazoo I was silent.
  Now I am gabby, God help me, I am gabby.
  
Kalamazoo, both of us will do a fadeaway.
I will be carried out feet first
And time and the rain will chew you to dust
And the winds blow you away.
And an old, old mother will lay a green moss cover on my bones
And a green moss cover on the stones of your postoffice and city hall.
  
  Best of all
I have loved your kiddies playing run-sheep-run
And cutting their initials on the ball ground fence.
They knew every time I fooled them who was fooled and how.
  
  Best of all
I have loved the red gold smoke of your sunsets;
I have loved a moon with a ring around it
Floating over your public square;
I have loved the white dawn frost of early winter silver
And purple over your railroad tracks and lumber yards.
  
  The wishing heart of you I loved, Kalamazoo.
  I sang bye-lo, bye-lo to your dreams.
I sang bye-lo to your hopes and songs.
I wished to God there were hound dogs of bronze on your public square,
Hound dogs with bronze paws looking to a long horizon with a shivering silver angel, a creeping mystic what-is-it.

As I watch’d the ploughman ploughing,
Or the sower sowing in the fields—or the harvester harvesting,
I saw there too, O life and death, your analogies:
(Life, life is the tillage, and Death is the harvest according.)

When. Summer.s. evenings. fall. ,
And leaves. Of. Green turn to gold ,
and fires. In haths are stoked ,
and the sun gets lazy , .
Darkness steals its. Light .
Then  The churches are full ,
and each voice sings herolds. Winter and gusts. Of hale . ,
In hymns of thankfulness to God for a harvest .
Tins piled high for those in need are never to be forgotten .
A sermon on stones and seeds and chaff blown by the wind ,
Only then
The harvester will call .
Ring the bell
When in your beds ,
Or walking home
On rocky soil  don't. stay ,
For in  the spring we dance and forget we sow out seeds for  another day
For on stones like chaff ,
Lay seeds on rocks ,
and gravel get blown away .
by hale and gale ,
Wind and rain
Like time will pass.
And what was lost ,
Can never be gathered
When the harvester draws near.

The Harvester

On a patch of land not far from here
There are lit candles at night millions of them
A man I don't know his name
Walks around and snuffs out light, sometimes
He hesitate changes his mind the light he was going to
Extinguish flicks brighter
With his thumb and index finger is corned by this arduous
Work and he sits on a stone to rest as new light springs up
Behind him; his task is endless.
He walks to the part of the field were candle light have burnt
Out, if one still burns but has no wick he helps it out
Then it is morning and the field has golden grains

The Harvester

A long, overly dragged out, deep knock rattles the front door of Ambers new domain.
She knows in her gut who it is and instead of answering the door, would rather be forced to run naked through the street in pouring rain.
She goes and checks on her three-month-old son to make sure he is still asleep.
He is, however every time she looks at him, it causes her to want to weep.
He has his eyes, his nose, that ******* creep!
She struggles to sleep at night no matter how many she counts, the endless sheep.
Being away from that house hasn’t brought with it a sense of relief.
She has yet to find a proper hobby to use as a release,
to extradite from herself all the negative thoughts and energy built up from her previous reality.
She feels worn down and defeated, her self-esteem.
She feels ugly and fat, gone is her once perfect physique.
Her heart feels empty, her soul incomplete.
A healed psyche, deep inner peace are the goals she hopes to achieve,
but she’s felt that way since she was thirteen,
and back then the worst thing she had to live with was her nightmarish daydreams.

Another long, overly dragged out deep knock rattles the front door causing Amber to scream at the person causing the noise.
The person behind the door speaks, but the words are inaudible.
Amber walks up to the door and swings it open.
Standing in front of her is Erin, she thinks her eyes must be joking.
Erin is a few months pregnant herself, Amber can’t escape the feeling of hopeless.
She’s already changed addresses, but Erin has found her again through sheer devotion.

Amber goes to slam the door on Erin’s face but Erin places her hand on the door to stop it in its tracks.
Amber doesn’t want another confrontation, it will surly reach a horrible ******.
Erin is crazy and she wants nothing to do with her.
They will never be on friendly terms, that’s a fact she can assure.

“Amber, please talk to me.
All I want to do is spill my soul and set my conscious free.
I want to make things right between us and end this bad blood.
I don’t want you to feel like I got off easy while you were tortured by being beaten and dragged through the mud.
We don’t ever have to be best friends,
I just want to apologize and for you to listen so we can finally make amends.”

“I have a restraining order against you for a reason Erin.
I don’t want to talk to you or see you, I would rather fill out a hundred boring questionnaires and mail each one individually in.
I know your jealous of me for having Chris’s baby,
but trust me I wasn’t ready to become a proper lady.
I was a teenage girl when he abducted me and ***** me over and over again getting me pregnant.
I begged him to get me an abortion but he wouldn’t listen to that plea even for a second.
The child I’m now forced to raise reminds me of him every single day and I hate him for it!
I hate you as well because inside that unstable mind of yours, you are unfit
to become a mother!
You’re too young, just like me, it’s not too late for you to give up on it and eventually have another
after you meet someone in fall in love.
Who would you rather have a child with, a raven or a dove?”

“I’m sorry Chris put you in this position but that wasn’t my fault.
I was also abducted and a victim of his ****** assaults.”

“You enjoyed spending time with him!
You enjoyed his big **** inside of you!
Sure, he kept you ******* and used you as his personal ***** for a few days,
but you soon won his praise.
He allowed you to walk freely around his house, even when he wasn’t there!
I was ******* and drugged constantly, our situations don’t even compare.
Every day you could have walked out of the house and went to get help.
You did not, instead you cooked, cleaned and read his books.
You acted like his ******* wife!
You ****** him daily, slept next to him in his bed and he provided you with a decent life.
I have nothing more to say to you.
You are despicable and just thinking of you makes me want to chug brew after brew.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t leave to get us help and take down Chris, that is on me, I own that.
The truth is, I was terrified, terrified of what he would do if I tried to leave; I admit I’m no righteous diplomat.
I remained on my best behavior to stay on his good side so he would allow me the freedom to roam around his house.
It sure as hell beat being ******* in a tiny room that stunk worse than an outhouse.
I bartered with him every day to allow you some freedoms as well, but you had blown his trust so badly he always instantly refused to listen to me about it.
Believe me, we came out of the same boat, I’m not a ******* hypocrite.”

“You’re so full of ****!
I don’t believe a word you say, that’s something I just won’t permit.
I saw the way you looked at me.
Your eyes glared at me with contempt you ******* banshee!
You hated, hated, that I was carrying Chris’s baby and wanted me and my unborn child dead.
You wanted to be the only one he bred.
You loved him and wanted him all to yourself.
It’s time for us to now say our final farewell.”

“Ok, I admit that I did think I was in love with him.
I thought we would run off together and live our lives together as husband and wife under a false pseudonym.
However, I didn’t hate your nor did I want to harm you.
I really did advocate for you with Chris but he refused to believe anything I was telling him and couldn’t accept my words as being true.
I’m sorry for my actions and lack of actions in that house, I truly was scared and confused.
We are both his victims and both of us to him were nothing more than a hole to use.”

“Don’t lie to me, you still love him and you are angry that he fled the country without you.
You thought you were going to be by his side forever, attached to him like glue,
but he caught wind that the cops were coming to rescue us and ran before they did,
leaving you behind sleeping in his bed all alone.
He left you behind to raise that child all on your own.
I’m sorry I had to throw that stone
but it’s the truth and you need to hear it.
It’s best to abort that child right now and move on with your life.
Unlike me, you have the option of truly moving on from this ordeal.
Don’t worry, you will find another guy one day that makes you squeal
like his **** made you squeal every night.
With the right choices made, your future can become bright.”

“Chris would never leave me behind you *****!
He will return one day when it’s safe to do so and will reunite with me so we can live a life together that is rich,
satisfying and everlasting!
I won’t listen for another second to your negative forecasting.”

“I knew you weren’t over him Erin, so why are you really here?
Please answer quick because I’m ready for you to disappear.”

Erin, now frowning and filled with rage pushes Amber down hard to the floor.
She’s here for one reason, a reason involving gore.
She jumps on top of Amber and takes out a knife she has hidden in her boot.
This was her plan all along, take out her rival and her fruit.
She wants Chris’s baby and Chris’s love all to herself.
Some call it selfishness; she calls it determination.
Erin, now with knife in hand, stabs it into Amber’s stomach.
She smiles and begins humming
a song of victory over her rival as she cries out in pain.
She pulls the knife out as Amber yells out she’s ******* insane.
Erin gets off of Amber and begins walking deeper into the house.
“No, not my baby,” Amber cries out fearing the worst.

A few moments later, Erin returns to Amber with her son in her arms and her knife placed against his throat.
Erin begins laughing and starts to gloat.
She is moments away from eliminating the two people with ties to Chris.
Then it will be safe for him to return and plant on her a kiss,
before the run off together and live out their lives in bliss.

Erin asks Amber if there are any last words she would like to say to her son.
Amber, moaning in pain on the floor tells Erin this doesn’t need to be done.
Erin says it must be done as a knock on the front door interrupts proceedings.
Erin has no time for this, the child must begin bleeding.
Who dares interrupt her and Amber’s dealings?
Erin has a very bad feeling.

“Police open up!”
“That’s right *****, I called the police the second you knocked on my door.
It’s best to stop this charade and accept the punishment you have in store.
HELP!  I’VE BEEN STABBED AND THE INTRUDER IS TREATENING TO **** MY BABY!
SHE’S COMPLETELY ******* CRAZY!”

The front door breaks down as the police storm the house with guns drawn.
Erin stands in front of them holding the baby with the knife still pressed against his throat now showing off a massive frown.

“Put the knife down, set the child on the floor and put your hands above your head!”

Erin refuses to listen to the cops demands and begins to cut the babies throat.
If she can’t have Chris neither can Amber and the knife is the antidote.
A gun shot is heard as everything begins to move in slow motion.
Erin feels overwhelmed with emotion.

A bullet slowly exits a gun and begins moving through the air directly towards Erin.
Her knife slowly begins tearing into the flesh of the baby’s neck.
The baby lets out a loud scream as the pain created by the knife races through his body.
The bullet continues to move steadily through the air quickly approaching Erin,
who is frozen in place and unable to move.
With the knife now half way across the baby’s neck,
The bullet from the gun enters into Erin’s right eye,
tearing a hole into and through her brain,
and exits out the back of her head.
Erin drops the baby as her head is forced backwards.
She falls lifeless, backwards onto the hard floor dead.
Police rush to the aid of the baby who is still alive but badly injured.
Amber thanks the cops for the efforts as she looks up towards the heavens,
taking in her final breath as the loss of blood has become too much.
“Chris must pay for this,” is her final thought,
as the living world around her turns to black.

On the first day when I lost my mind to the cosmos.
I found myself in the body of a pig. With other happy fat hairy pigs around me.
Being naked felt natural. I did not feel the need to clothe myself.
I layed in the mud all day long, letting it harden on my skin; god did it feel good, like a spa treatment except I didn't need to pay a penny. I would come out of my mud hole during meal time, when food was dumped into the feeder. I did not care what it was, hell, it didn't smell that good, but I ate it all up anyway. It could have been **** for all I know. I was content with this simple life, until the farmer threw a rope around my neck, pulling me into a freaky looking house with sharp objects hanging from the ceiling.
He tied me to a pole, making me feel nice a comfortable, treating me like a family member, only then to shoot me by surprise. To him I was just a big fat sack of meat.

I awoke from my life as a pig and found myself sitting on a couch. I was drenched in sweat, mouth gaping like an open ******* from what I saw.
My friend tried to talk to me, but I did not understand nor know how to speak the language of humans anymore. All I could do was squeal and oink.
I stripped naked, got down on all fours and started rolling around in the garden's soil just outside my house.
I ate the flowers that stemmed out of the soil, as well as the weeds growing around them.
The neighbors reported me for public ******, so I was sent to a mental institute, where I was taught how to speak like a human again and act like one too.

I gained a new perspective that day.
I vowed to all the animals that I would never eat them again,
and begun my journey into only eating plant based foods.

Vegan food makes my poo hard!
It is so good for me!
This is the benefit of living a plant based life.
If only you wanted your poo to be hard too.

On the second day when I lost my mind to the cosmos.
I was a carrot, and I had a family of carrots.
We were all buried underground, we never saw eachother, but we felt eachother, they were all around me.
I didn't need to breathe, I didn't need to move, I just needed to sit there, absorbing the solar rays that shone upon my green leaves protruding from the earth's crust. All I saw was darkness, but all I felt was warmth. I spent a thousand happy years as a carrot, but that changed when the havesters came.
They plucked us from our homes, tore us from our families and siezed the children!
They then proceeded to chop us up into bite sized pieces and boiled us in sizziling hot water, causing our skins to peal. We would then be served to the hungry mouths of the harvester’s wife and children, crying out for mercy, but our pleas were not heard, for they only heard with their ears, not with their feelings, like us carrots.

I awoke and found myself sitting on the couch again. Suddenly I was choking. I put my hands around my neck. I had forgotten how to breathe. Spending a thousand years as a carrot would do that to you, because you don't need to breathe as a carrot. My friend rushed into the room, and showed me how to breathe again, showing me how to **** in and blow out, which I did.
I had also forgotten how to talk, and needed to go to school once again to learn, because apparently talking with feelings is not a language.

I gained a new perspective that day,
I pledged to all my carrot brethern that I would never eat another vegetable again.
From now on I would stave myself so I could return to the earth,
feeding all the plants and animals.
My body is their salvation.

By cutting that carrot you are cutting yourself.
By eating that pig you are eating yourself.
You may not look the same,
but what you all feel is the same.

---

To you this is ******, but to me this is salvation.
In order to survive, I must feed.
The life that is strongest feeds on the weakest to survive, it is how we stay alive.
Nobody says a snake is a murderer when it swallows up a mouse.
Nobody says a venus fly trap is a murderer when it devourers a fly.
So why am I labelled a murderer when I eat meat and plant life?
Life needs to eat life,
It is how we stay alive.
Life needs to eat life,
It is how we survive.

---

I passed through the knot in the infinite line of things. I passed through the biological mapping of the knot, escaping my limitations, becoming limitless.
It was here where I saw myself in the carrot and in the pig. I saw myself in everything, and I saw everything in myself.

Highlight tomorrow, rewrite the stars that trail across our eyes.

I blink at you, smile, and remove my disguise.

You’ve got so much light inside, illuminating me with your touch.

You brush your cheek across my chest, and the bright golden flood is almost too much.

I beg night to stay, I've enough sunrise hidden here in you.

You blink at me, smile, and say “I feel it too.”

Jack-o-Lanterns and Tennessee breezes
Sweet potato cobbler , Apple cider , frosted
scenery
Sweet memories 'neath the Pumpkin Moon
Whittling sugarcane to the sounds of pure Autumn
The Coyote yodel and the Barn Owl holler* ..

Above the earth and below the sun,
Exhaled from volcanoes long ago.

Stately as the ships of the Spanish Armada,
Sailing the horizon graceful and slow.

Bearer of ambrosia that innervates the earth,
Harvester of water and what the winds blow.

Ageless and formless, taking every shape
Suggestive to reason of what we do not know.

I know I didn't treat a lot you right
I'm a closed book with a big bad padlock on it
maybe you could say trust issues
but **** it I love you guys
no ****
(maybe a little)
because no matter where or how I have been
I have had some great people there for me
to keep me walking along that tight rope
without the fear of a body full of broken bones
We climbed hay bales in Drax
and ran away from the farmer in his combine harvester
we let everybody's tires down
and we went to the club and stayed until closing time
until after there were no taxis left
walking four miles home at four in the morning
we had a laugh mate
And to my Yankee friends
The rest of the world may hate you
but I don't
(much)
video games all night
ding **** ditch
homecoming and prom
and smoking cigarettes behind best buy
whole days spent on a couch laughing harder than we were high
the bowl we bought together
aptly named Willem Defoe
Marathon movie nights
post virginity loss high fives
telling me you were proud of me
for how I handled my parents' almost divorce
And I'm a cynical, ******* introvert
and at times I never want to see a human being ever again
but when that feeling fades
you guys are the first people I text

With Body pretzled up, skins converged to form
            branches of rivers, mouth slack and frozen to
            a permanent scowl of delirium and manners-gone,
            as many swears dripped from those dry, cracked lips.

One of my mothers – gumshoed from the alley’s way of family.
“Get gumption, girlie, because everybody is full of ****!”

I remember that lullaby, “A tiny turned-up nose, two lips just like a rose. She sits upon my knee, she means to the world to me.”

I spy the scar on my pinky finger from her cigarette.

Could the King be witness in the Room?
Were those buttons of hollow wood over her eyelids?

Wrung of cries – we didn’t see that coming,
though we heard the flies.
And Age’s stumbling rattle through the hallway.

Do you know who I am?
Do you remember me?
Should the window washer come another day?
This stubborn sovereignty over what is reality – the root beneath the porch, the fog on the windshield.

Loosen the grip on this natural plane,
            Please --

Woman of my Childhood, harvester of my manners.
            Stand until the grown-ups sit.
            Look away and bow your neck.
                        This was called the boxing match between Industry verses Inferiority.

Not child through birth – no –
            but life spawned by those
            strung-high fists.

There’s finality in this phone-call.
I heard it happened an hour ago.
            Treading grievances and grimaces, picking through a flowerbed only to stroke the weeds.
            Lifting boxes of Lead from reality to the Bridge of Dreams.
                        Frankly, I stole the gumption from your knotted mouth and
                        still cannot cry.

In a splinter of reason – I cast out the fundamental jibes of sacred hope.
            That promise held between dog and owner during business hours.
            Except there can be no homecoming.

The sickest liquor on the alleyway fence.

She kisses me with lips of apple cider as
she lets me lay beside her,
her cheeks are blossoms of the summer months where we have wandered through the orchards, laughing at the fallen fruit and she has built my memories in barns of hay and drifting streams,she lets me lay again
and all the pain there ever was ,is in the moments when we part,like lines that cross upon our palms,we wander once again in barns and she kisses me with apple cider lips,that
slowly **** me and this life slips softly turning into dreams.

I walked back via the perimeter road
to clear my head. It's a tough day
when a coworker has died.
I didn't know him well, but he always greeted me by name
and had a smile on his face, even when he was mad.

His friends told me today that was because he knew
someone was about to hear from him;
we all chuckled about that as we processed our loss.
Eight weeks ago, he was healthy but for a stomach ache.

"Cancer, stage 4," and he knew then it would soon be over.
He declined treatment; took care of business for his wife,
and with his Maker. Conversed with his friends,
settled matters for his adult children, and prepared for the end.

A stroke immobilized him Sunday, and Death claimed him Wednesday. We found out later his expectant grandson was born before J died. Small blessings in times such as this.
We all agreed today that in the mercy of Providence,
neither J nor his dear wife had to bear a lengthy illness.

But his friends will miss him--those he mentored, most of all.
"There'll be some long walks in the woods," one said,
as they come to grips with their grief, "as we remember this good man, and say farewell to Joel."

He will be missed, by colleague and inmate alike.
A man of good character like Joel is hard to find.

The storm– she will come,
Oh- by the roar of the drum,
The boom of the beat–
Now cometh defeat,
Four seals are now shattered,
The ground will be battered,
Come forth thy lost line,
Thou shall face His divine…
The sky opened to set them free–
The creature like thunder: “Come and See!”
Foremost in the lead–
Upon the White steed–
Arrow of the Bow,
All obstruction fall low,
Striking the weaker down–
The fire glistens about his crown,
Above all the rest,
Behold all victory; CONQUEST…
The bizarre of the steeds–
The color that bleeds–
A Fiery red that burns in the eyes,
As each soldier dies–
The civil war spark,
As if for a lark!
In the fight of the four,
The second is WAR…
Come and See! Come and See!
Now the count is to three,
The black horse doth ride,
The third horseman as guide,
The hand bears balance not gore–
The sole vocal of four;
“…And see thou hurt not the oil and the wine”
The third–oh the third–John! The third is FAMINE…
Oh the horror– the horror– the fire filled eyes!
All that follows in path now simply just dies,
The pale green beast is a savage- a monster- no heart,
The ending- the rebirth- the salvation doth start,
The fourth rider tears– ravaging all the land,
The unholy Reaper with scythe in it’s hand!
The harvester hath expelled mankind’s final breath–
With Hell at the rear– the fourth and final is DEATH…
The war now to heaven and Hell now to Earth,
The charcoals are black and red hot in the hearth,
Cast forth by the Lion of Judah- the Lamb of the Lord!
With all of existence- the Divine became bored,
The Harbingers of the Last Judgment- the servants divine,
The living creatures cometh to steal all hope from thine,
Cometh One then come Two from the mythical Seal,
Cometh Three then come Four from the seven rumored to be real…
CONQUEST– the archer- the first rider of pure WHITE,
Crown capped with unholy deception of light…
WAR– the swordsman- the second rider of fiery RED,
Blood and betrayal as thou mark thy brother dead…
FAMINE– the balance- the third rider of pitch BLACK,
Food and resources all man will soon lack…
DEATH– the reaper- the fourth rider of pale GREEN,
Hell guiding scythe ridding Earth of all souls unclean…
The horsemen they triumph in biblical tale–
Consider an alternate story and detail,
Think not of no hope in the book Revelation,
Rather- imagine the truth of a war of no rotation,
The power unbalanced to alter dimension,
A different battle scene with a similar intention…
– Written By:  Jacob Coffey –
***********
Just my take on a Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Hope you enjoyed it!
– Jacob Coffey

Sunset
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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

Published by Contemporary Rhyme, New Lyre, The Chained Muse, Age of Muses, Poetry Life & Times, ArtVilla, Motherbird and Word Bird



Spring Was Delayed
by Michael R. Burch

Winter came early:
the driving snows,
the delicate frosts
that crystallize

all we forget
or refuse to know,
all we regret
that makes us wise.

Spring was delayed:
the nubile rose,
the tentative sun,
the wind’s soft sighs,

all we omit
or refuse to show,
whatever we shield
behind guarded eyes.

Originally published by Borderless Journal



Defenses
by Michael R. Burch

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

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



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.



Vacuum
by Michael R. Burch

Over hushed quadrants
forever landlocked in snow,
time’s senseless winds blow ...

leaving odd relics of lives half-revealed,
if still mostly concealed ...
such are the things we are unable to know

that once intrigued us so.

Come then, let us quickly repent
of whatever truths we’d once determined to learn
but lost in these drifts at each unexpected turn.

There’s nothing left of us here; it’s time to go.



Less Heroic Couplets: Questionable Credentials
by Michael R. Burch

Poet? Critic? Dilettante?
Do you know what’s good, or do you merely flaunt?



Less Heroic Couplets: Less than Impressed
by Michael R. Burch

for T. M., regarding certain dispensers of lukewarm air

Their volume’s impressive, it’s true ...
but somehow it all seems “much ado.”



The Humpback
by Michael R. Burch

The humpback is a gullet
equipped with snarky fins.
It has a winning smile:
and when it Smiles, it wins
as miles and miles of herring
excite its fearsome grins.
So beware, unwary whalers,
lest you drown, sans feet and shins!

Published by Lighten Up Online



Don’t ever hug a lobster!
by Michael R. Burch

Don’t ever hug a lobster, if you meet one on the street!
If you hug a lobster to your breast, you’re apt to lose a ****!
If you hug a lobster lower down, it’ll snip away your privates!
If you hug a lobster higher up, it’ll leave your cheeks with wide vents!
So don’t ever hug a lobster, if you meet one on the street,
But run away and hope your frenzied feet are very fleet!



The Unregal Beagle vs. The Voracious Eagle
by Michael R. Burch

I’d rather see an eagle
than a beagle
because they’re so **** regal.

But when it’s time to wiggle
and to giggle,
I’d rather embrace an angel
than an evil.

And when it’s time to share the same small space,
I’d much rather have a beagle lick my face!



Resemblance
by Michael R. Burch

Take this geode with its rough exterior—
crude-skinned, brilliant-hearted ...

a diode of amethyst—wild, electric;
its sequined cavity—parted, revealing.

Find in its fire all brittle passion,
each jagged shard relentlessly aching.

Each spire inward—a fission startled;
in its shattered entrails—fractured light,

the heart ice breaking.



Less Heroic Couplets: Midnight Stairclimber
by Michael R. Burch

Procreation
is at first great sweaty recreation,
then—long, long after the *** dies—
the source of endless exercise.



Elemental
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

There is within her a welling forth
of love unfathomable.
She is not comfortable
with the thought of merely loving:
but she must give all.

At night, she heeds the storm's calamitous call;
nay, longs for it. Why?
O, if a man understood, he might get her.
But that never would do!
Beth, as you embrace the storm,

so I embrace elemental you.



What Immense Silence
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

why is it God that they fear?

Published in The Bible of Hell



Lay Down Your Arms
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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



Bittersight
by Michael R. Burch

for Abu al-Ala Al-Ma'arri

To be plagued with sight
in the Land of the Blind,
—to know birth is death
and that Death is kind—
is to be flogged like Eve
(stripped, sentenced and fined)
because evil is “good”
in some backwards mind.



Golden Rue
by Michael R. Burch

Love has the value
of gold, if it’s true;
if not, of rue.

“Golden Rue” is a pun on “golden rule” and the fact that rue (regret) is seldom seen as golden.



Why the Kid Gloves Came Off
by Michael R. Burch

for Lemuel Ibbotson

It's hard to be a man of taste
in such a waste:
hence the lambaste.



Siren Song
by Michael R. Burch

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

How can they resist
her seductive voice through the mist?

Soon she will savor
the flavor
of sweet human flesh.



Rounds
by Michael R. Burch

Solitude surrounds me
though nearby laughter sounds;
around me mingle men who think
to drink their demons down,
in rounds.

Now agony still hounds me
though elsewhere mirth abounds;
hidebound I stand and try to think,
not sink still further down,
spellbound.

Their ecstasy astounds me,
though drunkenness compounds
resounding laughter into joy;
alloy such glee with beer and see
bliss found.



Nothing Returns
by Michael R. Burch

A wave implodes,
impaled upon
impassive rocks . . .

this evening
the thunder of the sea
is a wild music filling my ear . . .

you are leaving
and the ungrieving
winds demur . . .

telling me
that nothing returns
as it was before,

here where you have left no mark
upon this dark
Heraclitean shore.



Musings at Giza
by Michael R. Burch

In deepening pools of shadows lies
the Sphinx, and men still fear his eyes.
Though centuries have passed, he waits.
Egyptians gather at the gates.

Great pyramids, the looted tombs
—how still and desolate their wombs!—
await sarcophagi of kings.
From eons past, a hammer rings.

Was Cleopatra's litter borne
along these streets now bleak, forlorn?
Did Pharaohs clad in purple ride
fierce stallions through a human tide?

Did Bocchoris here mete his law
from distant Kush to Saqqarah?
or Tutankhamen here once smile
upon the children of the Nile?

or Nefertiti ever rise
with wild abandon in her eyes
to gaze across this arid plain
and cry, “Great Isis, live again!”

Published by Golden Isis and The Eclectic Muse (Canada)



Leave Taking (I)
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

have learned what it means to say
goodbye.

Published by The Lyric, Borderless Journal (Singapore), Mindful of Poetry, Silver Stork Magazine, and There is Something in the Autumn (anthology)



Con Artistry
by Michael R. Burch

The trick of life is like the sleight of hand
of gamblers holding deuces by the glow
of veiled back rooms, or aces; soon we’ll know

who folds, who stands . . .

The trick of life is like the pool shark’s shot—
the wild massé across green velvet felt
that leaves the winner loser. No, it’s not

the rack, the hand that’s dealt . . .

The trick of life is knowing that the odds
are never in one’s favor, that to win
is only to delay the acts of gods

who’d ante death for sin . . .

and death for goodness, death for in-between.
The rules have never changed; the artist knows
the oldest con is life; the chips he blows

can’t be redeemed.



Self Reflection
by Michael R. Burch

for anyone struggling with self-image

She has a comely form
and a smile that brightens her dorm ...
but she’s grossly unthin
when seen from within;
soon a griefstricken campus will mourn.

Yet she’d never once criticize
a friend for the size of her thighs.
Do unto others—
sisters and brothers?
Yes, but also ourselves, likewise.



Ah! Sunflower
by Michael R. Burch

for and after William Blake

O little yellow flower
like a star ...
how beautiful,
how wonderful
we are!

Originally published by Borderless Journal (Singapore)



no foothold
by michael r. burch

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

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

as far as the i can see ...



brrExit
by Michael R. Burch

what would u give
to simply not exist—
for a painless exit?
he asked himself, uncertain.

then from behind
the hospital room curtain
a patient screamed—
"my life!"



fog
by michael r. burch

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



grave request
by michael r. burch

come to ur doom
in Tombstone;

the stars stark and chill
over Boot Hill

care nothing for ur desire;

                 still,

imagine they wish u no ill,
that u burn with the same antique fire;

for there’s nothing to life but the thrill
of living until u expire;

so come, spend ur last hardearned bill
on Tombstone.



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

for the Religious Right

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

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

Jesus will grok you? Ah, yes, I’m quite sure!
Your intentions were noble and ineluctably pure.
And what the hell does THE LORD care about Palestinians?
Certainly, Christians were right about serfs, slaves and Indians.
Scratch that. You’re one of the Devil’s minions.



thanksgiving prayer of the parasites
by michael r. burch

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

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

ah-men!

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



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 ...



This poem was recited by Carla Maria Gnappi to her English literature class in Italy, along with other poems of mine, during a study of the poetry of William Blake.

Orpheus
by Michael R. Burch

for and after William Blake

I.
Many a sun
and many a moon
I walked the earth
and whistled a tune.

I did not whistle
as I worked:
the whistle was my work.
I shirked

nothing I saw
and made a rhyme
to children at play
and hard time.

II.
Among the prisoners
I saw
the leaden manacles
of Law,

the heavy ball and chain,
the quirt.
And yet I whistled
at my work.

III.
Among the children’s
daisy faces
and in the women’s
frowsy laces,

I saw redemption,
and I smiled.
Satanic millers,
unbeguiled,

were swayed by neither girl,
nor child,
nor any God of Love.
Yet mild

I whistled at my work,
and Song
broke out,
ere long.



Les Bijoux (“The Jewels”)
by Charles Baudelaire
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My lover **** and knowing my heart's whims
Wore nothing more than a few bright-flashing gems;
Her art was saving men despite their sins—
She ruled like harem girls crowned with diadems!

She danced for me with a gay but mocking air,
My world of stone and metal sparking bright;
I discovered in her the rapture of everything fair—
Nay, an excess of joy where the spirit and flesh unite!

Naked she lay and offered herself to me,
Parting her legs and smiling receptively,
As gentle and yet profound as the rising sea—
Till her surging tide encountered my cliff, abruptly.

A tigress tamed, her eyes met mine, intent ...
Intent on lust, content to purr and please!
Her breath, both languid and lascivious, lent
An odd charm to her metamorphoses.

Her limbs, her *****, her abdomen, her thighs,
Oiled alabaster, sinuous as a swan,
Writhed pale before my calm clairvoyant eyes;
Like clustered grapes her ******* and belly shone.

Skilled in more spells than evil imps can muster,
To break the peace which had possessed my heart,
She flashed her crystal rocks’ hypnotic luster
Till my quietude was shattered, blown apart.

Her waist awrithe, her ******* enormously
Out-******, and yet ... and yet, somehow, still coy ...
As if stout haunches of Antiope
Had been grafted to a boy ...

The room grew dark, the lamp had flickered out,
Till firelight, alone, lit each glowing stud;
Each time the fire sighed, as if in doubt,
It steeped her pale, rouged flesh in pools of blood.

Published by Lush Stories, The ****** Salon and loovebook



BeMused
by Michael R. Burch

You will find in her hair
a fragrance more severe
than camphor.
You will find in her dress
no hint of a sweet
distractedness.
You will find in her eyes
horn-owlish and wise
no metaphors
of love, but only reflections
of books, books, books.

If you like Her looks,

meet me in the long rows,
between Poetry and Prose,
where we’ll win Her favor
with jousts, and savor
the wine of Her hair,
the shimmery wantonness
of Her rich-satined dress;
where we’ll press
our good deeds upon Her, save Her
from every distress,
for the lovingkindness
of Her matchless eyes
and all the suns of Her tongues.

We were young,
once,
unlearned and unwise . . .
but, O, to be young
when love comes disguised
with the whisper of silks
and idolatry,
and even the childish tongue claims
the intimacy of Poetry.



Resurrecting Passion
by Michael R. Burch

Last night, while dawn was far away
and rain streaked gray, tumescent skies,
as thunder boomed and lightning railed,
I conjured words, where passion failed ...

But, oh, that you were mine tonight,
sprawled in this bed, held in these arms,
your ******* pale baubles in my hands,
our bodies bent to old demands ...

Such passions we might resurrect,
if only time and distance waned
and brought us back together;
                                                       now
I pray these things might be, somehow.

But time has left us twisted, torn,
and we are more apart than miles.
How have you come to be so far—
as distant as an unseen star?

So that, while dawn is far away,
my thoughts might not return to you,
I feed your portrait to banked flames,
but as they feast, I burn for you.



Progress
by Michael R. Burch

There is no sense of urgency
at the local Burger King.

Birds and squirrels squabble outside
for the last scraps of autumn:
remnants of buns,
goopy pulps of dill pickles,
mucousy lettuce,
sesame seeds.

Inside, the workers all move
with the same très-glamorous lethargy,
conserving their energy, one assumes,
for more pressing endeavors: concerts and proms,
pep rallies, keg parties,
reruns of Jenny McCarthy on MTV.

The manager, as usual, is on the phone,
talking to her boyfriend.
She gently smiles,
brushing back wisps of insouciant hair,
ready for the cover of Glamour or Vogue.

Through her filmy white blouse
an indiscreet strap
suspends a lace cup
through which somehow the ****** still shows.
Progress, we guess, ...

and wait patiently in line,
hoping the Pokémons hold out.



Poppy
by Michael R. Burch

“It is lonely to be born.” – Dannie Abse, “The Second Coming”

It is lonely to be born
between the intimate ears of corn . . .
the sunlit, flooded, shellshocked rows.

The scarecrow flutters, listens, knows . . .

Pale butterflies in staggering flight
ascend the gauntlet winds and light
before the scything harvester.

The winsome buds of cornflowers
prepare themselves to be airborne,
and it is lonely to be shorn,
decapitate, of eager life
so early in love’s blinding maze
of silks and tassels, goldened days
when life’s renewed, gone underground.

Sad confidante of worm and mound,
how little stands to be regained
of what is left.
A tiny cleft
now marks your birth, your reddening
among the amber waves. O, sing!

Another waits to be reborn
among bent thistle, down and thorn.
A hoofprint’s cleft, a ram’s curved horn
curled inward, turned against the heart,
a spoor like infamy. Depart.
You came too late, the signs are clear:
whose world this is, now watches, near.
There is no ****** for the heart.

Originally published by Borderless Journal



Child of 9-11
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



Upon a Frozen Star
by Michael R. Burch

Oh, was it in this dark-Decembered world
we walked among the moonbeam-shadowed fields
and did not know ourselves for weight of snow
upon our laden parkas? White as sheets,
as spectral-white as ghosts, with clawlike hands
****** deep into our pockets, holding what
we thought were tickets home: what did we know
of anything that night? Were we deceived
by moonlight making shadows of gaunt trees
that loomed like fiends between us, by the songs
of owls like phantoms hooting: Who? Who? Who?

And if that night I looked and smiled at you
a little out of tenderness ... or kissed
the wet salt from your lips, or took your hand,
so cold inside your parka ... if I wished
upon a frozen star ... that I could give
you something of myself to keep you warm ...
yet something still not love ... if I embraced
the contours of your face with one stiff glove ...

How could I know the years would strip away
the soft flesh from your face, that time would flay
your heart of consolation, that my words
would break like ice between us, till the void
of words became eternal? Oh, my love,
I never knew. I never knew at all,
that anything so vast could curl so small.

“Upon a Frozen Star” was my first attempt at blank verse.



Of Civilization and Disenchantment
by Michael R. Burch

for Anais Vionet

Suddenly uncomfortable
to stay at my grandfather's house—
actually his third new wife's,
in her daughter's bedroom
—one interminable summer
with nothing to do,
all the meals served cold,
even beans and peas...

Lacking the words to describe
ah!, those pearl-luminous estuaries—
strange omens, incoherent nights.

Seeing the flares of the river barges
illuminating Memphis,
city of bluffs and dying splendors.

Drifting toward Alexandria,
Pharos, Rhakotis, Djoser's fertile delta,
lands at the beginning of a new time and "civilization."

Leaving behind sixty miles of unbroken cemetery,
Alexander's corpse floating seaward,
bobbing, milkwhite, in a jar of honey.

Memphis shall be waste and desolate,
without an inhabitant.
Or so the people dreamed, in chains.



An Obscenity Trial
by Michael R. Burch

The defendant was a poet held in many iron restraints
against whom several critics cited numerous complaints.
They accused him of trying to reach the "common crowd,"
and they said his poems incited recitals far too loud.

The prosecutor alleged himself most artful (and best-dressed);
it seems he’d never lost a case, nor really once been pressed.
He was known far and wide for intensely hating clarity;
twelve dilettantes at once declared the defendant another fatality.

The judge was an intellectual well-known for his great mind,
though not for being merciful, honest, sane or kind.
Clerics loved the "Hanging Judge" and the critics were his kin.
Bystanders said, "They'll crucify him!" The public was not let in.

The prosecutor began his case by spitting in the poet's face,
knowing the trial would be a farce.
"It is obscene," he screamed, "to expose the naked heart!"
The recorder (bewildered Society), well aware of his notoriety,
greeted this statement with applause.

"This man is no poet. Just look—his Hallmark shows it.
Why, see, he utilizes rhyme, symmetry and grammar! He speaks without a stammer!
His sense of rhythm is too fine!
He does not use recondite words or conjure ancient Latin verbs.
This man is an impostor!
I ask that his sentence be . . . the almost perceptible indignity
of removal from the Post-Modernistic roster!"

The jury left, in tears of joy, literally sequestered.

The defendant sighed in mild despair, "Might I not answer to my peers?"
But how His Honor giggled then,
seeing no poets were let in.

Later, the clashing symbols of their pronouncements drove him mad
and he admitted both rhyme and reason were bad.



Ann Rutledge’s Irregular Quilt

based on “Lincoln the Unknown” by Dale Carnegie

I.
Her fingers “plied the needle” with “unusual swiftness and art”
till Abe knelt down beside her: then her demoralized heart
set Eros’s dart a-quiver; thus a crazy quilt emerged:
strange stitches all a-kilter, all patterns lost.
                                                                ­      (Her host
kept her vicarious laughter barely submerged.)

II.
Years later she’d show off the quilt with its uncertain stitches
as evidence love undermines men’s plans and women’s strictures
(and a plethora of scriptures.)

III.

But O the sacred tenderness Ann’s reckless stitch contains
and all the world’s felicities: rich cloth, for love’s fine gains,
for sweethearts’ tremulous fingers and their bright, uncertain vows
and all love’s blithe, erratic hopes (like now’s).

IV.
Years later on a pilgrimage, by tenderness obsessed,
Dale Carnegie, drawn to her grave, found weeds in her place of rest
and mowed them back, revealing the spot of the Railsplitter’s joy and grief
(and his hope and his disbelief).

V.
For such is the tenderness of love, and such are its disappointments.
Love is a book of rhapsodic poems. Love is an grab bag of ointments.
Love is the finger poised, the smile, the Question — perhaps the Answer?
Love is the pain of betrayal, the two left feet of the dancer.

VI.
There were ladies of ill repute in his past. Or so he thought. Was it true?
And yet he loved them, Ann (sweet Ann!), as tenderly as he loved you.



The Celtic Cross at Île Grosse
by Michael R. Burch

“I actually visited the island and walked across those mass graves [of 30,000 Irish men, women and children], and I played a little tune on me whistle. I found it very peaceful, and there was relief there.” – Paddy Maloney of The Chieftains

There was relief there,
and release,
on Île Grosse
in the spreading gorse
and the cry of the wild geese . . .

There was relief there,
without remorse,
when the tin whistle lifted its voice
in a tune of artless grief,
piping achingly high and longingly of an island veiled in myth.

And the Celtic cross that stands here tells us, not of their grief,
but of their faith and belief—
like the last soft breath of evening lifting a fallen leaf.

When ravenous famine set all her demons loose,
driving men to the seas like lemmings,
they sought here the clemency of a better life, or death,
and their belief in God was their only wealth.

They were proud folk, with only their lives to owe,
who sought the liberation of this strange new land.
Now they lie here, ragged row on ragged row,
with only the shadows of their loved ones close at hand.

And each cross, their ancient burden and their glory,
reflects the death of sunlight on their story.

And their tale is sad—but, O, their faith was grand!



wild wild west-east-north-south-up-down
by michael r. burch

each day it resumes—the great struggle for survival.

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

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



I wrote this poem after discovering the poetry of e. e. cummings while reading poetry independently in high school. My “cummings period” started around 1974 at age 15-16. I believe this poem was the first of its genre. I seem to remember working on it my sophomore and junior years, making mostly minor revisions in 1975.

i (dedicated to u)

i.

i move within myself
i see beyond the sky
and fathom with full certainty:
this lifes a lethal lie

my teachers try to tell me
that they know more than i
(and well they may
but do they know
shrewd TIME is slipping by
and leaving us all to die?)

i shout within myself
i stand up to be seen
but only my eyes
watch as i rise
and i am left between
the nightmare of “REALITY”
and sleeps soothing scenes
and both are only dreams

i cry out to my “friends”
but none of them can hear
i weep in dark frustration
but they swim beyond my tears
i reach out to assist them
but they cannot find my hand
they all believe in “GOD”
yet all of them are ******

come, my self, come with me
move within your shell
cast aside such “enlightenment”
and let us leave this living hell

ii.

i watch the maidens play
their fickle games of love
and is this is what
life is of
then i have had enough

all my teachers tell me
to adjust to SOCIETY
yet none of them will venture
how (false) it came to be
this gaud, SOCIETY

i watch the maidens play
and though i want them much
i know the illusion of their purity
would shatter at my touch
leaving annihilated truth
to be pieced together to dispel
the lies that accompany youth

i watch the maidens play
and know that what i want
i cannot take because
then it would be gone

iii.

i watch the lovely maidens
i search their sightless eyes
i find that only darkness
lies behind each guise

i try to touch their feelings
but they have been replaced
by intelligence and manners
and tact and social grace

i want to make them love me
but they cannot love themselves
and though they seek love desperately
and care for little else
they stand little chance
of much more than romance
for a few days

i try to friend the men
but they have even less
for they want nothing more
than whatever seems “the best”
their hollow, burnt-out eyes
reveal their souls have flown
and all that loss has left
is a strange, sad fear of debt
and a love for things of gold

ive.

ive never seen a day break
but ive seen a life shatter
it was mine
and i suppose it still is:
all ten thousand pieces

id.

id like to put it together
(someONE please tell me how!)
for i am out of the glue
called u
that held my life together

i.e.

and i wish that u
and i were through
but whatever u do
dont say that we are!




Cycles
by Michael R. Burch

I see his eyes caress my daughter’s *******
through her thin cotton dress,
and how an indiscreet strap of her white bra
holds his bald fingers
in fumbling mammalian awe . . .

And I remember long cycles into the bruised dusk
of a distant park,
hot blushes,
wild, disembodied rushes of blood,
portentous intrusions of lips, tongues and fingers . . .

and now in him the memory of me lingers
like something thought rancid,
proved rotten.
I see Another again—hard, staring, and silent—
though long-ago forgotten . . .

And I remember conjectures of ***** lines,
brief flashes of white down bleacher stairs,
coarse patches of hair glimpsed in bathroom mirrors,
all the odd, questioning stares . . .

Yes, I remember it all now,
and I shoo them away,
willing them not to play too long or too hard
in the back yard—
with a long, ineffectual stare

that years from now, he may suddenly remember.



Sunset, at Laugharne
by Michael R. Burch

for Dylan Thomas

At Laugharne, in his thirty-fifth year,
he watched the starkeyed hawk career;
he felt the vested heron bless,

and larks and finches everywhere
sank with the sun, their missives west—
where faith is light; his nightjarred breast

watched passion dovetail to its rest.

*

He watched the gulls above green shires
flock shrieking, fleeing priested shores
with silver fishes stilled on spears.

He felt the pressing weight of years
in ways he never had before—
that gravity no brightness spares,

from sunken hills to unseen stars.
He saw his father’s face in waves
which gently lapped Wales’ gulled green bays.

He wrote as passion swelled to rage—
the dying light, the unturned page,
the unburned soul’s devoured sage.

*

The words he gathered clung together
till night—the jetted raven’s feather—
fell, fell . . . and all was as before . . .

till silence lapped Laugharne’s dark shore
diminished, where his footsteps shone
in pools of fading light—no more.



No One
by Michael R. Burch

No One hears the bells tonight;
they tell him something isn’t right.
But No One feels no need to rush:
he smiles from beds soft, green and lush
as far away a startled thrush
flees screeching 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.



These Hallowed Halls
by Michael R. Burch

a young Romantic Poet mourns the passing of an age . . .

A final stereo fades into silence
and now there is seldom a murmur
to trouble the slumber of these ancient halls.
I stand by a window where others have watched
the passage of time—alone, not untouched.
And I am as they were—unsure,
                                                    for the days
stretch out ahead, a bewildering maze.

Ah, faithless lover—that I had never touched your breast,
nor felt the stirrings of my heart,
which until that moment had peacefully slept.
For now I have known the exhilaration
of a heart having leapt from the pinnacle of Love,
                  and the result of each such infatuation ...
the long freefall to earth, as the moon glides above.

These Hallowed Halls
by Michael R. Burch

a young Romantic Poet mourns the passing of an age . . .

I.

A final stereo fades into silence
and now there is seldom a murmur
to trouble the slumber
of these ancient halls.

I stand by a window where others have watched
the passage of time—alone,
not untouched.

And I am as they were
...unsure...
for the days
stretch out ahead,
a bewildering maze.

II.

Ah, faithless lover—
that I had never touched your breast,
nor felt the stirrings of my heart,
which until that moment had peacefully slept.

For now I have known the exhilaration
of a heart having vaulted the Pinnacle of Love,
             and the result of each such infatuation ...
the long freefall to earth, as the moon glides above.

III.

A solitary clock chimes the hour
from far above the campus,
but my peers,
returning from their dances,
heed it not.

And so it is
that we fail to gauge Time’s speed
because He moves so unobtrusively
about His task.

Still, when at last
we reckon His mark upon our lives,
we may well be surprised
at His thoroughness.

IV.

Ungentle maiden—
when Time has etched His little lines
so carelessly across your brow,
perhaps I will love you less than now.

And when cruel Time has stolen
your youth, as He certainly shall in course,
perhaps you will wish you had taken me
along with my broken heart,
even as He will take you with yours.

V.

A measureless rhythm rules the night—
few have heard it,
but I have shared it,
and its secret is mine.

To put it into words
is as to extract the sweetness from honey
and must be done as gently
as a butterfly cleans its wings.

But when it is captured, it is gone again;
its usefulness is only
that it lulls to sleep.

VI.

So sleep, my love, to the cadence of night,
to the moans of the moonlit hills’
bass chorus of frogs, while the deep valleys fill
with the nightjar’s strange bullfrog-like trills.

But I will not sleep this night, nor any;
how can I—when my dreams
are always of your perfect face
ringed by soft whorls of fretted lace,
and a tear upon your pillowcase? / framed by your rumpled pillowcase?

VII.

If I had been born when knights roamed the earth
and mad kings ruled savage lands,
I might have turned to the ministry,
to the solitude of a monastery.

But there are no monks or hermits today—
theirs is a lost occupation
carried on, if at all,
merely for sake of tradition.

For today man abhors solitude—
he craves companions, song and drink,
seldom seeking a quiet moment,
to sit alone, by himself, to think.

VIII.

And so I cannot shut myself
off from the rest of the world,
to spend my days in philosophy
and my nights in tears of self-sympathy.

No, I must continue as best I can,
and learn to keep my thoughts away
from those glorious, uproarious moments of youth,
centuries past though lost but a day.

IX.

Yes, I must discipline myself
and adjust to these lackluster days
when men display no chivalry
and romance is the "old-fashioned" way.

X.

A single stereo flares into song
and the first faint light of morning
has pierced the sky's black awning
once again.

XI.

This is a sacred place,
for those who leave,
leave better than they came.

But those who stay, while they are here,
add, with their sleepless nights and tears,
quaint sprigs of ivy to the walls
of these Hallowed Halls.



At the Natchez Trace
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

I.
Solitude surrounds me
though nearby laughter sounds;
around me mingle men who think
to drink their demons down,
in rounds.

Beside me stands a woman,
a stanza in the song
that plays so low and fluting
and bids me sing along.

Beside me stands a woman
whose eyes reveal her soul,
whose cheeks are soft as eiderdown,
whose hips and ******* are full.

Beside me stands a woman
who scarcely knows my name;
but I would have her know my heart
if only I knew where to start.

II.
Not every man is as he seems;
not all are prone to poems and dreams.
Not every man would take the time
to meter out his heart in rhyme.
But I am not as other men—
my heart is sentenced to this pen.

III.
Men speak of their "ambition"
but they only know its name . . .
I never say the word aloud,
but I have felt the Flame.

IV.
Now, standing here, I do not dare
to let her know that I might care;
I never learned the lines to use;
I never worked the wolves' bold ruse.
But if she looks my way again,
perhaps I will, if only then.

V.
How can a man have come so far
in searching after every star,
and yet today,
though years away,
look back upon the winding way,
and see himself as he was then,
a child of eight or nine or ten,
and not know more?

VI.
My life is not empty; I have my desire . . .
I write in a moment that few men can know,
when my nerves are on fire
and my heart does not tire
though it pounds at my breast—
wrenching blow after blow.

VII.
And in all I attempted, I also succeeded;
few men have more talent to do what I do.
But in one respect, I stand now defeated;
In love I could never make magic come true.

VIII.
If I had been born to be handsome and charming,
then love might have come to me easily as well.
But if had that been, then would I have written?
If not, I'd remain; **** that demon to hell!

IX.
Beside me stands a woman,
but others look her way
and in their eyes are eagerness . . .
for passion and a wild caress?
But who am I to say?

Beside me stands a woman;
she conjures up the night
and wraps itself around her
till others flit about her
like moths drawn to firelight.

X.
And I, myself, am just as they,
wondering when the light might fade,
yet knowing should it not dim soon
that I might fall and be consumed.

XI.
I write from despair
in the silence of morning
for want of a prayer
and the need of the mourning.
And loneliness grips my heart like a vise;
my anguish is harsher and colder than ice.
But poetry can bring my heart healing
and deaden the pain, or lessen the feeling.
And so I must write till at last sleep has called me
and hope at that moment my pen has not failed me.

XII.
Beside me stands a woman,
a mystery to me.
I long to hold her in my arms;
I also long to flee.

Beside me stands a woman;
how many has she known
more handsome, charming,
chic, alarming?
I hope I never know.

Beside me stands a woman;
how many has she known
who ever wrote her such a poem?
I know not even one.



“Sea Dreams” is one of my longer and more ambitious early poems, along with the full version of “Jessamyn’s Song.” To the best of my recollection, I wrote “Sea Dreams” around age 18 in high school my senior year, then worked on in college. It appeared in my poetry contest notebook and thus was substantially complete by 1978.

Sea Dreams
by Michael R. Burch

I.
In timeless days
I've crossed the waves
of seaways seldom seen ...

By the last low light of evening
the breakers that careen
then dive back to the deep
have rocked my ship to sleep,
and so I've known the peace
of a soul at last at ease
there where Time's waters run
in concert with the sun.

With restless waves
I've watched the days’
slow movements, as they hum
their antediluvian songs.

Sometimes I've sung along,
my voice as soft and low
as the sea's, while evening slowed
to waver at the dim
mysterious moonlit rim
of dreams no man has known.

In thoughtless flight,
I've scaled the heights
and soared a scudding breeze
over endless arcing seas
of waves ten miles high.

I've sheared the sable skies
on wings as soft as sighs
and stormed the sun-pricked pitch
of sunset’s scarlet-stitched,
ebullient dark demise.

I've climbed the sun-cleft clouds
ten thousand leagues or more
above the windswept shores
of seas no vessel’s sailed
— great seas as grand as hell's,
shores littered with the shells
of men's "immortal" souls —
and I've warred with dark sea-holes
whose open mouths implored
their depths to be explored.

And I've grown and grown and grown
till I thought myself the king
of every silver thing . . .

But sometimes late at night
when the sorrowing wavelets sing
sad songs of other times,
I taste the windborne rime
of a well-remembered day
on the whipping ocean spray,
and I bow my head to pray . . .

II.
It's been a long, hard day;
sometimes I think I work too hard.
Tonight I'd like to take a walk
down by the sea —
down by those salty waves
brined with the scent of Infinity,
down by that rocky shore,
down by those cliffs I’d so often climb
when the wind was **** with the tang of lime
and every dream was a sailor's dream.

Then small waves broke light,
all frothy and white,
over the reefs in the ramblings of night,
and the pounding sea
—a mariner’s dream—
was bound to stir a boy's delight
to such a pitch
that he couldn't desist,
but was bound to splash through the surf in the light
of ten thousand stars, all shining so bright!

Christ, those nights were fine,
like a well-seasoned wine,
yet more scalding than fire
with the marrow’s desire.

Then desire was a fire
burning wildly within my bones,
fiercer by far than the frantic foam . . .
and every wish was a moan.
Oh, for those days to come again!
Oh, for a sea and sailing men!
Oh, for a little time!

It's almost nine
and I must be back home by ten,
and then . . . what then?
I have less than an hour to stroll this beach,
less than an hour old dreams to reach . . .
And then, what then?

Tonight I'd like to play old games—
games that I used to play
with the somber, sinking waves.

When their wraithlike fists would reach for me,
I'd dance between them gleefully,
mocking their witless craze
—their eager, unchecked craze—
to batter me to death
with spray as light as breath.

Oh, tonight I'd like to sing old songs—
songs of the haunting moon
drawing the tides away,
songs of those sultry days
when the sun beat down
till it cracked the ground
and the sea gulls screamed
in their agony
to touch the cooling clouds.

The distant cooling clouds.

Then the sun shone bright
with a different light
over sprightlier lands,
and I was always a pirate in flight.

Oh, tonight I'd like to dream old dreams,
if only for a while,
and walk perhaps a mile
along this windswept shore,
a mile, perhaps, or more,
remembering those days,
safe in the soothing spray
of the thousand sparkling streams
that tumble into this sea.
I like to slumber in the caves
of a sailor's dark sea-dreams . . .
oh yes, I'd love to dream,
to dream
and dream
and dream.

“Sea Dreams” is one of my longer and more ambitious early poems, along with the full version of “Jessamyn’s Song.” For years I thought I had written “Sea Dreams” around age 19 or 20. But then I remembered a conversation I had with a friend about the poem in my freshman dorm, so the poem must have been started by age 18 or earlier. Dating my early poems has been a bit tricky, because I keep having little flashbacks that help me date them more accurately, but often I can only say, “I know this poem was written by about such-and-such a date, because ...”



Alien Nation
by Michael R. Burch

for J. S. S., a Christian poet who believes in “hell”

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

And his words fall as bright and as chill
as ice crystals on Kilimanjaro —
far colder than Jesus’s words
over the “fortunate” sparrow.

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

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

Note: The coinage “grok” appears in Robert Heinlein’s classic sci-fi novel Stranger in a Strange Land. The novel’s protagonist, Valentine Michael Smith, was raised on Mars by enlightened Martians, and he often feels out of sorts on Earth, where he struggles to grok (understand deeply and profoundly) earthlings and their primitive, often inhuman, ways.

Keywords/Tags: These Hallowed Halls, ivy, college, university, school, class, classmates, students, study

I marked where lovely Venus and her court
  With song and dance and merry laugh went by;
  Weightless, their wingless feet seemed made to fly,
Bound from the ground and in mid air to sport.
Left far behind I heard the dolphins snort,
  Tracking their goddess with a wistful eye,
  Around whose head white doves rose, wheeling high
Or low, and cooed after their tender sort.
All this I saw in spring. Through summer heat
  I saw the lovely Queen of Love no more.
  But when flushed autumn through the woodlands went
I spied sweet Venus walk amid the wheat:
  Whom seeing, every harvester gave o'er
  His toil, and laughed and hoped and was content.

Lawrence Hall HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                   A Harvester of Praise

                              Cf. Shakespeare’s Sonnet 69

You taught us
Put not your trust in oozy flatterers
Who tell you only what you want to hear
And nothing about what you need to know
Adorning yourself with your own press releases

And as you taught us
Your thoughts, your words, your speech were ever strong
You stood upon the lessons you had learned
With wisdom and kindness you taught hard truth
And with truth found beauty in everything

But then you stopped
You were an artist and scholar in your younger days
But now you are only a harvester of praise

Think now: what is Darkness?
Is it when the sun falls?
No.yet, there is no light.
It is neither an object,or a being.
It's a mental thought,
The harvester of hope.

Darkness is a fly.
Joining you,but never leaving you alone.
You can let it in,
But never out,
You ignore it. Yet it's always on your mind.
Until you've had enough.
You are now a wasp.
The harvester of hope,
The consumer of lives.
It can hand you a knecklace of rope.
Or allows a drought,
In your veins. As if the liquid has left your body.
The dictator of lives.

Think now:
What do you feel?
As if an ocean has swallowed you whole?
Are you paralysed? In an ocean,
Of Darkness...

We used to play guns with sticks
and we all knew how to die convincingly
with playing cards in our spokes
we summit hills atop motorcycles
ratatatatatattt
we walked through woods
explorers and pioneers
waiting for dinner or supper or bedtime
when summer was another world entirely
and the stains on our clothes
told stories
and not worries
We would carve sticks into spears
with knives our mothers did not know we had
today we hunt pheasant
we never did catch one
but we made dens deep in the woods
and climbed trees until we didn’t know how to get down
the hay bales stacked four stories high
in the farmer’s field
was a jungle gym
and when the farmer chased us away
in his combine harvester
we were playing Jurassic Park
back when girls were silly, annoying little things
that none of us were quite sure why we liked
and fights were forgotten within the hour
we had better things to laugh at
a marble composition book filled with ****** raps
and graffiti designs
we would take stones and make them into entire planets
but before long
our shadows caught up with us
a stick was just a stick
a bike just a way to beat the heat
and we were all too aware
of the special effects

Cave Painting
Prof. Jeanine Kowalski, PhD, Anthropology:
“I write until very late in my parents’ farmhouse, in my old bedroom.
I am visiting at Thanksgiving, writing my research.  
I love my parents, to be here, my work.

“When I was seventeen, here, in my childhood bedroom,
Threatened with boredom, which my parents implied was the Prince of Darkness,
And to be fair I believed it myself, independently,
I did not honour the life and love commitment I made to a seventeen year old boy.
I gave up, temporarily, the love-courage of girls.

“The combine harvester working by floodlight in the field outside this room, is harvesting soybeans while I write.
The man who was that boy is driving the combine harvester at night, harvesting his parents’ crop, helping his parents.
He is driving back and forth by tractor floodlight and headlights and the headlights of the trucks aimed up the rows.

“I do not have to live without love or happiness or beloved children.
I am pretty, too. I got most of the gifts.
He has a wife and children and a life of his own.
If I was treacherous, I am, I am sure, forgiven, but still,
After even the fullest and truest justification, you must look at the thing itself,
Just the thing itself ….

“And to do that I would need the kind of love poetry which is hardest to find, the love poetry which is all we have left
Of the great art of cave painting, poetry not drawing its power from melancholy, but shining with wanting, with excitement and awe.
He had, of all the gifts, character.”

Paul Anthony Hutchinson
www.paulanthonyhutchinson.com
copyright Paul Anthony Hutchinson

The reaper's eyes were on her,
Yet she never bowed.
The reaper's ax chose her,
Yet she never soughed.

Death was finally in love,
With the girl he could never cow,
For she was something he could never have,
A girl with a skin too firm to swallow.

Why couldn't he touch the girl,.
The girl whose tears never fell,
The girl whose eyes are pearl,
The girl whose voice is a shim of bell?

Her secret wasn't a mystery,
She was too pure to be touched by maleficence.
The reaper desired her for her rarity,
But his hands burned at the touch of virtuousness.

Death chased her everyday,
In the hopes of taking her soul,
But  her soul was too far away,
Far away for him to hold.

The young maiden didn't even notice
The harvester at her tail.
She was too involved in lightness
For her to witness his veil.

The reaper's ax was rotting,
It was yearning blood,
Though who he was lusting,
Was nothing but an illusion set by god.

The girl was a mirage,
God's own penalty,
Towards the slayer,
That gave birth to misery.

He was parked up a hundred yards from her house
imagining Louisa
not too picky, judging from the run-down old houses
several were boarded up.
He was becoming quite absorbed with one of those.
A bad place. Soon to be notorious, a good house for a woman to be afraid in......
He had dug through all the Metal tapes in the vw.
Found Pride and Glory. Played Harvester of Pain over.
Till he was ready.
I'll show her hearts and love, god he was mad.
Hope Daisy gets to watch, wow that excited him.
The light came on early.
He waited until dusk, then walked around the back of her house.
Then in.
****.
****, she had a cat.
Old as well, would it starve?
Then he saw her in the chair.
Jesus! Older than the cat.
And smiling at him.
He drove away an hour later.
Felt like hell inside. Forgetful old ***** thought he was her home help.
So he made her a coffee, fed the cat.
Sanctimonious cow gave him money.
Her husbands photograph was on the wall faded brown like she was.
Died in the war, drowned practising for D-Day.
So he spared her, for that and for the sake of the cat.
He stole an old bottle of whisky on his way out.
No sobriety test on the road to hell.
Six hours later he kicked a teenage ******* to death.
Dressed like that, you can't have a mother or a mirror.
Left the old ladies money on her corpse,this one's for Her.

.note to self: to make the perfect hungarian goulash, for ever capsicum pepper used, use a romano (sweet) pepper... bay leaf, allspice... pristine pork... no need for chicken stock... decently sizzled lard trimmings (from the pork)... a generous amount of garlic to balance the onions... chilli... and... a 2 : 1 ratio of paprika to smoked paprika powder: cooked generously for an hour+ having poured water into the mixture and some tomato purée... a decent cut of carrot and root parsley... and then... only then: the chopped tomatoes... salt to taste... fresh parlsey on top; yes, served on a massive hash brown (raw potatoes, grated, egg, flour, salt), with a sidedish of coleslaw... come to think of it: no... why would you add nutmeg to the sauce?

                                              nicht ist mehr?
              nicht ist noch -

                       a cough of Ernst Bloch:
    and there i was thinking:
where does Franz Marc (blues horses)
                        and Kandinsky ever begin?
precursor to:
      postcard poetry -
        i'll watch me a painting and invent,
rather, succumb to: phenomenalism -
               what with the senses already dimmed,
blunted to b & w and bad deutzsche grammar?

walking through the mess of yesterday's town,
i couldn't but succumb to the allure
of a thought:

   a thought that resurfaced just about
when i finished my going-to-bed-routine:
smoked a cigarette,
did the no. 1 & the no. 2 &
    ****** off on the toilet,
             smoked another cigarette,
drank a glass of water with
     the prescription,
                     dressed myself in pajamas,
     closed the blinds,
   closed the window,
    put on the headphones -
      put on a horror movie soundtrack,
switched off the light,
       lay myself in bed:
   toiled in it for an hour...
hyper-excited by the prospect of
heading to central London
        to pick out a cabbage vinyl..
     ate a piece of chocolate in the dark,
followed by a decent gulp of water...
fell asleep...

  but prior: in between - the allure of
the thought:

       self-worth attached to certains
jobs...
         and... how else to expand on this?
i reckon i'll write as much a decent
verse in the morning with
a coffee: than i will ever
           (constipated) get out of a nightly
session with a bottle of amber-glug...

if only i was so desperate as to have
written some of this prior to
closing my eyes:
                                 exposing my eyes
to the insomnia glue
       of a brightly lit screen of
                            a brain-harvester...

comparison:
    no one would really care to think
of a street cleaner as important...
     well... for me:
                            if i could be a street
cleaner: i could have all the legs
   and recycling heavens' wheels of
fortune to: blah-blah this sort of
wordings...
                       walking yesterday
through town i noticed two of them...

clean streets...
    what could be more important than
clean streets?
           ***** streets for rats...
            
         but i could never...
never count a barista to be a barrister:
yet both could cite you
some sort of philosophy:
  one would cite you something from
jurisprudence,
   the other something from
       what pedants discuss in an opera
prior to the curtain fall...

yet with a barista?
   a strange hyper-inflated membrane
of self-worth:
  noticed in a supermarket cashier,
noticed in a ekspedientka (saleswoman)
  ekspedient (salesman)...
the more trivial the job becomes:
the more self-worth buds under
the surface: with no ulterior outlet beyond
the role...
   like this shawl of glass full of
water: having more water poured into it...

(god, this looked better in my head):

            how much self-worth permeates
from the face of a street-cleaner?
                zilch...
                    ah..­. but how much of "something"
permeates from you walking
down a clean street:
    indifferently -
                you'll hardly think yourself
as garbage: staring at the blank canvas
of pavement...
             yet the barista?
              it's as if he knows:
i've just put on a kettle, boiled some water,
squeezed some coffee...
   ergo? i have to "look" important!
the street cleaner?
    do i really have to "look" important?
i know this is important:
what? whatever the hell i'm doing.

or at least that's how the narrative goes...
in my little head on my little planet
of cycling upside-down apes...

the more trivial a job:
   the more self-worth needs to permeate
from the person given
a function, which, otherwise:
would conscript disdain...
        the camouflaged workforce...
self-evident:
   walking past a bank...
wait... weren't there 6 cubicles
here with cashiers?
                em... self-service?
imagine that!
           sooner or later
                there will be talk of
                             the                   self-:
not being a philosophical curiosity,
rather a study of the past,
or the reaching out attachment prosthetic
of revealing a dead someone
  a dead former profession...

                   crux hyphen:
                       i'm already part employed
as a supermarket cashier,
  i'm already a bank cashier...
               nothing new: auto-cue:
propagandist line, skewed news...
    
but there's still the blatant glare of
the staring match (and the missing E
starring - and the missing macron
on top of A in the latter) -

                  a láte(!) lātte -
rhythm (caffèlat) - cough-la-la-'t:
   hey, scribble here, scribble there,
you hear it in English all the time,
the ever pertinent question:
how do you say that?
  measure metres in inches
in: metric syllables no good...
   'ave to *** beck tou d' imperial...
yes: and because Dickens...
really really, wrote just any better
   schlang than anglo-saxon Idaho...

self-worth: volumptous in certain
instances in public:
   the same self-worth attached to...
would you really want
to have your shoes-polished
with your feet in the shoes?
i wouldn't...
                      trivial *******,
i know... but such is the beast of
self-worth disguising the trivial
nature of certain professions...
   where would be the Wall St. broker
without a shoe-shiner?
boy oh boy: on the same dirt road:
        shoeshine is that thick splodge
of canvas worth a twinkle 'ere,
           a twinkle o'      'er...

airy-fairy: bottom's up and
flaky in the visage of the pompous
boston alto horn of
              a Parisian kelner...
bulging mass: bloated larynx:
puff ****: the three piglets and
the asthmatic bad wolf...

quick... untangle me from this language!
i have a no-nonsense person
to speak to later:
and i can't be bound to
  this metaphor Dali allure;
literally a square is a square,
red is red,
     and escapism only in
              a prosaic paragraph;

this hardly compensates
even the bare scraps of what is
a work of ethic of...
                                                an ant.

Walking amongst the fog
I see nothing but my fears
Lungs choking on the smog
I have been lost in here for years

Seeing only shimmers of light
I'm struggling to find the way
I become colder and darker every night
Searching for the words to say

Unsure if I can make it all alone
Harvester of my own life and the seeds of death I have sown

It is the emotion that takes all of your skills and traits to maintain.

It is the way of life that sprouts beautiful flowers with roots locked in harmony

It is the positive open embrace or the nagative self destruction

It is why I fight for your hand. Why I long for your anticipated advent

It is the reason why I scratch the surface of insanity when you are in pain

It is holder of broken hearts...harvester of nostalgic dreams

It is keeper of infatuation...the essence of peace and chaos...

It is Love

I -

I am Death
and I am sorry.
Sorry that I robbed you
of your youth
your vigor and your
vitality.
I am sorry that I gave you days
and months and years of black
days and months and years
better spent under the sun
dancing in the rain
prancing in the snow.
I am sorry that I robbed you
of your very first love
your child, your sister
your mother or father
your one care in the world.
I am sorry that I took away
those things that were the
light of your life
the salt of your earth
whether those be tangible
or intangible.
I am sorry for all this and more.

- II -

But this is what I do.
This is the burden that Fate and
Destiny have placed upon my
shoulders.
This is the task that has been
assigned to me by the cosmos.
The universe needs a Reaper
a Soul-Harvester
a Life-Taker
and that’s me.
Death.
It is my unfortunate task to remind
you – man, woman and child
that you are not invincible.
I am an omnipresent reminder of
your own mortality
an ever-present red ribbon
tied around your finger.
Believe me when I tell you that
I enjoy it very little
and detest it very much.
That I should be the one who
coaxes your tears from your eyes
burns my soul – MY soul.
Yes,
I have one, too
however hardened it may be after
all these years.
That I should have to swoop in to
your homes, your hospital wards,
your cars, barge in on your meals,
your vacations, your special time
with loved ones
is, to me, awful, a sin.
Me stealing from you those years,
people and other things from you
is vagrancy, indecency, criminal.
Nothing less.

- III -

I, Death, am a vagabond.
A cold hearted *******. A demon borne
in the fiery pits of Hell.
I am cruel, calculating and ruthless
with impeccable timing, I know it.
I know it, and yet I have not the heart
to give up what I do.
It is the only thing I know.
But every day that I do it is a day
where my heart aches.
My heart aches
and it has for some time now.
It is a pain of which I shall never be
rid. I am sure of it.

Would you believe me if I told you
that I listen to your pleas?
Your moaning, your agonized begging,
your take-me-not-hers, your why-him-not-me’s
fall on ears.
Attentive ones
listening ones.
I promise you, I hear you, and I hold your
hearts in my hands.
But I just cannot give you what they seek.
It would be unfair.
Me letting your brother live and not
his would be unbalanced, unnatural
unseemly, unprofessional.
Mercy defeats the purpose of death.
Mercy defeats the purpose of me
and I hate it
but it is so
and that is that.

- IV -

I am Death.
I am black
I am dark
I am night.
I know your secrets, your darkest
ones.
I know what you desire to know.
When you shall die.
I know it.
You all shall die.
I know it.
You know it.
And that scares you.
You are all afraid of me.
Do not lie. I know it. It’s true.
You all think you are doomed.
You think you are doomed?
You are doomed to succumb
to death?
I am doomed to be death.
I am sorry
but I am Death.

It was summer's last days
along the trail
where the serpentine creek
murmurs and winds
beneath the limestone bridges.

Just beyond the bend
a weary stand of feed corn
awaits the harvester's blades.
An unexpected gust sets
the oaks and sycamores swaying
and a few desiccated leaves
skitter across the path -
harbingers of the impending fall.

In the brush along the trail,
newly morphed Monarchs
flit from purple thistles
to yellow star flowers like
a streak of airborne tigresses.
while honey bees,
cloaked in veils of pollen dust,
quench their thirst with
draughts of goldenrod nectar.

The autumnal equinox
looms just days ahead.
Shadows lengthen as summer sings
its final hymn to the setting sun.

Even when the fast windtoppled the old and looming tree outside,the one I used as shelter from the days of different sunlights,I noticed the strong double doors of the barn,where I kept the machinery,standing firmly closed--they were held with bolted hinges and metal strapsthat kept the splinters from happening.I was standing on the inside,staring out through the ***** windows,trying to figure out the difference between hurricane and breeze.And although the rafters above me were creaking, and I knewthey would soon collapse down and **** me, for now, they were betterthan the weather outside.And as long as the tractor has enough oil in its workings, its gas tank filledup and its tired inflated, as long as the harvester's blades are at their sharpestand the batteries are charged every weekend, I know that when I go outside,that when I do, the work's going be done...Yes, when I go outside, when I do, the work's going to be done...

She is the living embodiment of the cliché,
The song where the male sub-lead
Returns from some second shift, some third drink
To find she has gone, leaving some scrap-paper note,
Hastily scribbled and wholly incomplete,
Some variation upon Don’t try and find me,
And so she is suitably unfound herself,
As she has given great thought to her froms,
But rather short shrift to her tos,
Finding herself north of the Thruway,
Looking for somewhere to spend the night
(The twin motors of adrenaline and anxiety running on fumes)
Happening upon, as if almost by some beneficent magic,
A Travelodge bordered by an expanse of cornfield
(Long since gone to seed, the stalks bowed and spent,
Waiting for the patently overdue cob harvester)
And after she is checked in and somewhat unpacked
(The bored, bemused woman who slumps about the front desk
Mercifully sparing with the small talk)
The skies, which had been late-October slate blur-gray,
Slightly malevolent but only implicit in their threats,
Open up in a cold and unwelcome drizzle,
And, whys and wherefores being things for a later date,
She runs outside and begins dancing in the parking lot,
Unseen and unremarked upon,
And even though the rain is cold, soaking, grim in portent
(The forecast dourly noting the possibility of wet snow,
Nattering that accumulation is possible at higher elevations.)
She is seemingly unaware and unconcerned
As to the upshot of this drenching,
Any whispers of the two or three other occupants of the motel,
Any judgments passed upon her mad danse pour un,
As she has passed beyond any notion of admonition.

Among faded photographs piled up
in this grey-haired archive
your faces still shine like the smiling suns
that used to greet me - that little child
you called bunsô, the dawn’s speck
still in these brown eyes -
in the quiet and cold early mornings,
as I stared to the eastern skies
orange above the dearly missed Malarayat
of blues, and greens, and cones, and salakot
and as the last of the kabag bats
- guts filled with the insects of the night -
go home between our roof and ceiling,
the warmth of your call were tight hugs.

Your old picture comes alive -
like the first gulps of kapeng barako encouragements
that drained down the bullied throat of yesteryears
- the old radio broadcasts loudly the silenced tears
as the dozen hens were cackling the latest from the Beatles
and the lone rooster belts the Only You of the Platters
That time I tossed and threw far
the white grains of tattered notebooks to scatter
for the newly hatched chicks to patiently gather
Everything was an Amorsolo-replica, a summer
of joyful harvesting, harvest time, harvester . . .

Hope was the bottomless well beside the mango tree
The pig pens my palace, the chicken shed my tower of ivory
The rabbits are lords- and ladies-in-waiting
I was their prince in a kingdom that I made free
from hordes of aswang, tikbalang, kapre, dwende . . .
nothing to fear, really
but for the hairy caterpillars
hiding among the yellow confetti
of ******* trees, in the backyard
of distant day-dreaming days of dreams.

You made the noontime suns brightly lit
the roads and crossings the three little pigs
of my inner self have to trot,
for the distant future was a pack of cunning wolves
ready to devour all my mortal miscalculations,
infantile indecisions, and immature decisions,
and loud and strong they huffed, and puffed and blew
my self-esteem, whatever was left, beaten black and blue.
A hero plays mahjong, nothing really new,
as my teen life’s pages fell, no Redeemer ever knew
It was like tiles of dominoes - one after the other - on cue.

And yet at the siesta time of this human life,
your guiding photons allowed
this tired body with a ******* soul, yet beating heart
to rest, picking up each of the pieces
and the jigsaw of experiences
now make sense, a rainbow shows
as the skies emptied their jars
of tempting clouds like cotton candies
into a downpour of doubts, of tempests
of feelings of emptiness, of cyclones
of thoughts of worthlessness –
the suns were shining always
after all
behind the clouds
those clouds

In the sunsets of your lives
the rays still shone far beyond
the twilight time and in these humid tropics
your mem’ries are auroras in the darkest of my nights
even in my sleep, the dreams are video clips
always set inside that old Marauoy home
reminding me, there was that child in there, alone . . .

These days, the skies, the winds, remind me
of stormy days in the forgotten simplicity of Lipa,
you tied the windows as the gusts
threatened to grab them,
and then, the warm jackets and blankets
of your reassuring words, “we’ll be alright”
erased the traumas, blew away the fears.
reminding me, there was that child in there,
you dried his tears . . .

That child’s still here inside my decades-old heart,
like a prayerful devotee in an agnostic cathedral,
missing your hugs
longing for your cheers.

look at me, i was about to write something about my absentee patriotism, how i feel no affiliation to anything sold on the market stall of the flag and st. george’s mascot, i was given the shortest anthem to sing to ease the pressure, but i didn’t sing it, because i felt myself inclining via aesthetics towards the japanese one: ** chi ha chihuahua.*

that’s what happens to former nations that aspire to empire building,
the lingua franca dubius is english for good reason,
we’re looking at uniting europe, rebuilding it,
giving it stability for the japan v. south africa odds of 1000 - 1,
thousand years that is. we need a non-vehicular language,
we need a language of stoppages, clogged up toilets
with polish foot soldiers aiming their bayonet plungers at ****...
we need frequent stoppages for the accessible 24h news reel
telling us something new... like: sun just chuckled in clucks.
now the randomisation... it’s going to be horrid...
i walk the streets for a whiskey after a rugby match that ended
in violins and piano dirges,
by a chain shop i spot a group of children no older than 15,
girls in underwear and boys in hoods - started pimping early
for the muslim boys... or... a football fan thought rugby
was worth the telly and beer to get angry while loosing his national pride,
started making chandelier sparkles with his wife’s face
so his sons and daughters ran out, within the motto:
boys to the alleys girls to the perverts’ bedroom! go!
that was my first impression... secondly i like to forward the following
assumption - interaction of the northern men with the biblical
nations will not end well when the interaction happens
with one of the northern nations being crusaded on by the teutons...
but islamists terrorists i.s.i.l..... for god’s sake call bin laden by
his first name... well that interaction, it will never fair well...
as i tell you i tell you: three tiers of a brain haemorrhage...
the inherited type, the chemically forced type... of ****.... that’s two...
*** and ****** too...
the chemically induced one doesn't affect
one as much as a chemically forced one (it's not the entire d.n.a.
of anticipation when the amazonian one comes disguised
as a hallucinatory hope)  -
continue the plough, continue the harvester!
well the other side is said like this:
what’s the difference between a just man and a self-righteous man?
the self-righteous man takes the money after the damage was done,
the self-righteous man takes the money and limps,
no matter what money could have been given me i liked my brain just fine...
so now the just man, and justice serves a hollowed bell with the just man’s
arm as the bell’s uvula, ding ****!
coming from a man who’s culprit invited him to the mosque in regent’s park
and he gladly accepted aladdin’s challenge on the magic carpet of learning,
the same hurt party that played daddy-long-legs happy birthday
on the guitar with “gravel” at a house party for the unloved,
taking his mother like a lisp in whisper to the likeable respect -
yes, the just man will never become self-righteous...
and guess who gave him money? or the duracell battery for the brain
for compensation? god.
the man took it and now his actions look abiding with fake nostalgia
or like the drunkard with memory gaps, him with gaps of imagination
and fake nostalgia.
but more about nation rebuilding after empire building -
make sure the police force takes the oath of diogenes like
in maxim - ‘find me an honest man who knows his address and phonenumber
and we’ll have no trouble!’ that’s not really hipocrates, but it helps.
secondly or thirdly utmost? i forgot but with the next few words will
remember, ah yes, the p.s.:
socrates asked too many question and with that was the mechanic behind
ambiguity of meaning, words lost their original meaning
because they became so corrupted with application,
so he came in and was like - huh?
the remnants of the socratic method became archeologically resurrected to the fore
with the existentialists tetravoxancon notation, e.g. “virtue,” “ego,” “hope.”
socrates became too difficult, and for written philosophy without conversation
the narrative had to acquire a quasi-fluidity, or, like
on the german motorway, ausfahrt. hitchhiker inclusion moving forward some would say, freelance forward your own ambiguous narrative with the words provide as “ambiguous.”

Is it you--
are you the rain
that my children
dance in?
Are you the
harvester of long
grains and seeds
that the lone bird
feeds on?

To know you
is to know for an
eternity.
It is you,
the hand of death,
the whisperer of
rustling motions,
who knows of both
the grandest scope
and of who I am
in my smallest ways.

Harvester of words gathered in the
Trenches of life between
The dawns early fire
And the dusk of our gathering,
A reminiscent corridor that takes
A reader and places them in
The belly of your understanding,
Digestive reading.

And we become all things
All at once
To find a meaning to the wonderful
Chaos,
The stubbornness
Of the human condition
Gazing at broken things and finding
Light in the void of humanity.

You poet
Armed with a language unique
To the written word of your being,
The benevolent ruins of time
Assaulting the moments
Gazing into melancholic skies
Bringing them to read our hearts.
Bringer of wisdom from our own
Stupidity,
Spinning the compass to one another,
Bringing closer the faceless
Soul breathing in words,
Syllables like embers raining
On the angels watching us suffer,
We compact the understanding
Into a small requiem of experiences,
Ripping the face off of the world
And giving it our own touch:

I, you, We,
Poetry the birth of ruins
And dissolves into forever,
Poets, bringers of languages
Never spoken like dictation of spirits,
Time before time,
After and before collide
Birthing the momentous inkling.

Take it,
Its yours,
Poets living in the dream
Suffering the expense
Of the reality,
Constellation of our suffering....

Poets, living martyrs.

Holy water into wine. Beer from barley.
Walking on the roof of a brewery,
Contemplating how Jimmy Fallon's
Finger never really seems to heal.

Combine harvester headlights dance
On the living room walls
As I lean back on my white IKEA
Sofa, tracing long hairs and

Fingerprints of lovers gone,
Wondering why I chose such a
Revealing colour.
Suppose the transparency matches

That of my soul's lining.
Holy water into wine.
Fields of gold now liquid painkillers
Slurring the voices in my head that

Pick fights with my heart over
Insignificant issues.
I lip synch to the music of my
Neglected talents and the memories

Of inspiration attached.
Bullets like knuckles rapping, rapping
At my empty chamber
Door.

Every finger I ever broke
Was from typing or
Punching
Walls.

Sometimes I put on the mask of
Poet, and pretend to be writing  
For as long as it takes to fool
The empty pages.