Poems about Icarus

These are poems about Icarus, flying and flights of fancy...



Southern Icarus
by Michael R. Burch

Windborne, lover of heights,
unspooled from the truck’s wildly lurching embrace,
you climb, skittish kite...

What do you know of the world’s despair,
gliding in vast... solitariness... there,
so that all that remains is to
fall?

Only a little longer the wind invests its sighs;
you
stall,
spread-eagled, as the canvas snaps

and *****
its white rebellious wings,
and all

the houses watch with baffled eyes.



Flight 93
by Michael R. Burch

I held the switch in trembling fingers, asked
why existence felt so small, so purposeless,
like a minnow wriggling feebly in my grasp...

vibrations of huge engines thrummed my arms
as, glistening with sweat, I nudged the switch
to OFF... I heard the klaxon's shrill alarms

like vultures’ shriekings... earthward, in a stall...
we floated... earthward... wings outstretched, aghast
like Icarus... as through the void we fell...

till nothing was so beautiful, so blue...
so vivid as that moment... and I held
an image of your face, and dreamed I flew

into your arms. The earth rushed up. I knew
such comfort, in that moment, loving you.



I AM!
by Michael R. Burch

I am not one of ten billion―I―
sunblackened Icarus, chary fly,
staring at God with a quizzical eye.

I am not one of ten billion, I.

I am not one life has left unsquashed―
scarred as Ulysses, goddess-debauched,
pale glowworm agleam with a tale of panache.

I am not one life has left unsquashed.

I am not one without spots of disease,
laugh lines and tan lines and thick-callused knees
from begging and praying and girls sighing "Please!"

I am not one without spots of disease.

I am not one of ten billion―I―
scion of Daedalus, blackwinged fly
staring at God with a sedulous eye.

I am not one of ten billion, I
AM!



Finally to Burn
(the Fall and Resurrection of Icarus)
by Michael R. Burch

Athena takes me
sometimes by the hand

and we go levitating
through strange Dreamlands

where Apollo sleeps
in his dark forgetting

and Passion seems
like a wise bloodletting

and all I remember
, upon awaking,

is: to Love sometimes
is like forsaking

one’s Being―to glide

heroically beyond thought,

forsaking the here
for the There and the Not.



O, finally to Burn,
gravity beyond escaping!

To plummet is Bliss
when the blisters breaking

rain down red scabs
on the earth’s mudpuddle...

Feathers and wax
and the watchers huddle...

Flocculent sheep,
O, and innocent lambs!,

I will rock me to sleep
on the waves’ iambs.



To sleep's sweet relief
from Love’s exhausting Dream,

for the Night has Wings
gentler than Moonbeams―

they will flit me to Life
like a huge-eyed Phoenix

fluttering off
to quarry the Sphinx.



Riddlemethis,
riddlemethat,

Rynosseross,
throw out the Welcome Mat.

Quixotic, I seek Love
amid the tarnished

rusted-out steel
when to live is varnish.

To Dream―that’s the thing!

Aye, that Genie I’ll rub,

soak by the candle,
aflame in the tub.



Riddlemethis,
riddlemethat,

Rynosseross,
throw out the Welcome Mat.

Somewhither, somewhither
aglitter and strange,

we must moult off all knowledge
or perish caged.

*

I am reconciled to Life
somewhere beyond thought―

I’ll Live the Elsewhere,
I’ll Dream of the Naught.

Methinks it no journey;
to tarry’s a waste,

so fatten the oxen;
make a nice baste.

I’m coming, Fool Tom,
we have Somewhere to Go,

though we injure noone,
ourselves wildaglow.

This odd poem invokes and merges with the anonymous medieval poem “Tom O’Bedlam’s Song” and W. H. Auden’s modernist poem “Musee des Beaux Arts,” which in turn refers to Pieter Breughel’s painting “The Fall of Icarus.” In the first stanza Icarus levitates with the help of Athena, the goddess or wisdom, through “strange dreamlands” while Apollo, the sun god, lies sleeping. In the second stanza, Apollo predictably wakes up and Icarus plummets to earth, or back to mundane reality, as in Breughel’s painting and Auden’s poem. In the third stanza the grounded Icarus can still fly, but only in flights of imagination through dreams of love. In the fourth and fifth stanzas Icarus joins Tom Rynosseross of the Bedlam poem in embracing madness by deserting “knowledge” and its cages (ivory towers, etc.). In the final stanza Icarus agrees with Tom that it is “no journey” to wherever they’re going together and also agrees with Tom that they will injure no one along the way, no matter how intensely they glow and radiate. The poem can be taken as a metaphor for the death and rebirth of Poetry, and perhaps as a prophecy that Poetry will rise, radiate and reattain its former glory...



Free Fall (II)
by Michael R. Burch

I have no earthly remembrance of you, as if
we were never of earth, but merely white clouds adrift,
swirling together through Himalayan serene altitudes―
no more man and woman than exhaled breath―unable to fall
back to solid existence, despite the air’s sparseness: all
our being borne up, because of our lightness,
toward the sun’s unendurable brightness...

But since I touched you, fire consumes each wing!

We who are unable to fly, stall
contemplating disaster. Despair like an anchor, like an iron ball,
heavier than ballast, sinks on its thick-looped chain
toward the earth, and soon thereafter there will be sufficient pain
to recall existence, to make the coming darkness everlasting.



Fledglings
by Michael R. Burch

With her small eyes, pale and unforgiving,
she taught me―December is not for those
unweaned of love, the chirping nestlings
who bicker for worms with dramatic throats

still pinkly exposed, who have not yet learned
the first harsh lesson of survival: to devour
their weaker siblings in the high-leafed ferned
fortress and impregnable bower

from which men must fly like improbable dreams
to become poets. They have yet to learn that,
before they can soar starward, like fanciful archaic machines,
they must first assimilate the latest technology, or

lose all in the sudden realization of gravity,
following Icarus’s, sun-unwinged, singed trajectory.



The Higher Atmospheres
by Michael R. Burch

Whatever we became climbed on the thought
of Love itself; we floated on plumed wings
ten thousand miles above the breasted earth
that had vexed us to such Distance; now all things
seem small and pale, a girdle’s handsbreadth girth...

I break upon the rocks; I break; I fling
my human form about; I writhe; I writhe.
Invention is not Mastery, nor wings
Salvation. Here the Vulture cruelly chides
and plunges at my eyes, and coos and sings...

Oh, some will call the sun my doom, but Love
melts callow wax the higher atmospheres
leave brittle. I flew high: not high enough
to melt such frozen resins... thus, Her jeers.



Notes toward an Icarian philosophy of life...
by Michael R. Burch

If the mind’s and the heart’s quests were ever satisfied,
what would remain, as the goals of life?

If there was only light, with no occluding matter,
if there were only sunny mid-afternoons but no mysterious midnights,
what would become of the dreams of men?

What becomes of man’s vision, apart from terrestrial shadows?

And what of man’s character, formed
in the seething crucible of life and death,
hammered out on the anvil of Fate, by Will?

What becomes of man’s aims in the end,
when the hammer’s anthems at last are stilled?

If man should confront his terrible Creator,
capture him, hogtie him, hold his ***** feet to the fire,
roast him on the spit as yet another blasphemous heretic
whose faith is suspect, derelict...
torture a confession from him,
get him to admit, “I did it!...

what then?

Once man has taken revenge
on the Frankenstein who created him
and has justly crucified the One True Monster, the Creator...

what then?

Or, if revenge is not possible,
if the appearance of matter was merely a random accident,
or a group illusion (and thus a conspiracy, perhaps of dunces, us among them),
or if the Creator lies eternally beyond the reach of justice...

what then?

Perhaps there’s nothing left but for man to perfect his character,
to fly as high as his wings will take him toward unreachable suns,
to gamble everything on some unfathomable dream, like Icarus,
then fall to earth, to perish, undone...

or perhaps not, if the mystics are right
about the true nature of darkness and light.

Is there a source of knowledge beyond faith,
a revelation of heaven, of the Triumph of Love?

The Hebrew prophets seemed to think so,
and Paul, although he saw through a glass darkly,
and Julian of Norwich, who heard the voice of God say,
“All shall be well,
and all manner of things shall be well...”

Does hope spring eternal in the human breast,
or does it just blindly *****?



Icarus Bickerous
by Michael R. Burch

for the Religious Right

Like Icarus, waxen wings melting,
white tail-feathers fall, bystanders pelting.

They look up amazed
and seem rather dazed―

was it heaven’s or hell’s furious smelting

that fashioned such vulturish wings?
And why are they singed?―

the higher you “rise,” the more halting?



Earthbound, a Vision of Crazy Horse
by Michael R. Burch

Tashunka Witko, a Lakota Sioux better known as Crazy Horse, had a vision of a red-tailed hawk at Sylvan Lake, South Dakota. In his vision he saw himself riding a spirit horse, flying through a storm, as the hawk flew above him, shrieking. When he awoke, a red-tailed hawk was perched near his horse.

Earthbound,
and yet I now fly
through the clouds that are aimlessly drifting...
so high
that no sound
echoing by
below where the mountains are lifting
the sky
can be heard.

Like a bird,
but not meek,
like a hawk from a distance regarding its prey,
I will shriek,
not a word,
but a screech,
and my terrible clamor will turn them to clay―
the sheep,
the earthbound.

Published by American Indian Pride and Boston Poetry Magazine



Flight
by Michael R. Burch

It is the nature of loveliness to vanish
as butterfly wings, batting against nothingness
seek transcendence...

Originally published by Hibiscus (India)



The Wonder Boys
by Michael R. Burch

(for Leslie Mellichamp, the late editor of The Lyric,
who was a friend and mentor to many poets, and
a fine poet in his own right)

The stars were always there, too-bright cliches:
scintillant truths the jaded world outgrew
as baffled poets winged keyed kites―amazed,
in dream of shocks that suddenly came true...

but came almost as static―background noise,
a song out of the cosmos no one hears,
or cares to hear. The poets, starstruck boys,
lay tuned in to their kite strings, saucer-eared.

They thought to feel the lightning’s brilliant sparks
electrify their nerves, their brains; the smoke
of words poured from their overheated hearts.
The kite string, knotted, made a nifty rope...

You will not find them here; they blew away―
in tumbling flight beyond nights’ stars. They clung
by fingertips to satellites. They strayed
too far to remain mortal. Elfin, young,

their words are with us still. Devout and fey,
they wink at us whenever skies are gray.

Originally published by The Lyric



American Eagle, Grounded
by Michael R. Burch

Her predatory eye,
the single feral iris,
scans.

Her raptor beak,
all jagged sharp-edged ******,
juts.

Her hard talon,
clenched in pinched expectation,
waits.

Her clipped wings,
preened against reality,
tremble.

Published as “Tremble” by The Lyric, Verses Magazine, Romantics Quarterly, Journeys, The Raintown Review, Poetic Ponderings, Poem Kingdom (All-Star Tribute), The Fabric of a Vision, NPAC―Net Poetry and Art Competition, Poet’s Haven, Listening To The Birth Of Crystals(Anthology), Poetry Renewal, Inspirational Stories, Poetry Life & Times, MahMag (Iranian/Farsi), The Eclectic Muse (Canada)



Album
by Michael R. Burch

I caress them―trapped in brittle cellophane―
and I see how young they were, and how unwise;
and I remember their first flight―an old prop plane,
their blissful arc through alien blue skies...

And I touch them here through leaves which―tattered, frayed―
are also wings, but wings that never flew:
like insects’ wings―pinned, held. Here, time delayed,
their features never merged, remaining two...

And Grief, which lurked unseen beyond the lens
or in shadows where It crept on furtive claws
as It scritched Its way into their hearts, depends
on sorrows such as theirs, and works Its jaws...

and slavers for Its meat―those young, unwise,
who naively dare to dream, yet fail to see
how, lumbering sunward, Hope, ungainly, flies,
clutching to Her ruffled breast what must not be.



Springtime Prayer
by Michael R. Burch

They’ll have to grow like crazy,
the springtime baby geese,
if they’re to fly to balmier climes
when autumn dismembers the leaves...

And so I toss them loaves of bread,
then whisper an urgent prayer:
“Watch over these, my Angels,
if there’s anyone kind, up there.”

Originally published by The HyperTexts



Learning to Fly
by Michael R. Burch

We are learning to fly
every day...

learning to fly―
away, away...

O, love is not in the ephemeral flight,
but love, Love! is our destination―

graced land of eternal sunrise, radiant beyond night!
Let us bear one another up in our vast migration.



In the Whispering Night
by Michael R. Burch

for George King

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

Published by Songs of Innocence, Romantics Quarterly, The Chained Muse and Poetry Life & Times. This is a poem I wrote for my favorite college English teacher, George King, about poetic kinship, brotherhood and romantic flights of fancy.



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

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

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

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

Published by Tucumcari Literary Review, Romantics Quarterly, Poetry Life & Times, Victorian Violet Press (where it was nominated for a “Best of the Net”), The Contributor (a Nashville homeless newspaper), Siasat (Pakistan), and set to music as a part of the song cycle “The Children of Gaza” which has been performed in various European venues by the Palestinian soprano Dima Bawab



Sioux Vision Quest
by Crazy Horse, Oglala Lakota Sioux (circa 1840-1877)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A man must pursue his Vision
as the eagle explores
the sky's deepest blues.

Published by Better Than Starbucks, A Hundred Voices



in-flight convergence
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

Originally published by The Aurorean and subsequently nominated for the Pushcart Prize



Squall
by Michael R. Burch

There, in that sunny arbor,
in the aureate light
filtering through the waxy leaves
of a stunted banana tree,

I felt the sudden monsoon of your wrath,
the clattery implosions
and copper-bright bursts
of the bottoms of pots and pans.

I saw your swollen goddess’s belly
wobble and heave
in pregnant indignation,
turned tail, and ran.

Published by Chrysanthemum, Poetry Super Highway, Barbitos and Poetry Life & Times



Flight
by Michael R. Burch

Eagle, raven, blackbird, crow...
What you are I do not know.
Where you go I do not care.
I’m unconcerned whose meal you bear.
But as you mount the sunlit sky,
I only wish that I could fly.
I only wish that I could fly.

Robin, hawk or whippoorwill...
Should men care that you hunger still?
I do not wish to see your home.
I do not wonder where you roam.
But as you scale the sky's bright stairs,
I only wish that I were there.
I only wish that I were there.

Sparrow, lark or chickadee...
Your markings I disdain to see.
Where you fly concerns me not.
I scarcely give your flight a thought.
But as you wheel and arc and dive,
I, too, would feel so much alive.
I, too, would feel so much alive.

This is a poem that I believe I wrote as a high school sophomore. But it could have been written a bit later. I seem to remember the original poem being influenced by William Cullen Bryant's "To a Waterfowl."



Flying
by Michael R. Burch

I shall rise
and try the ****** wings of thought
ten thousand times
before I fly...

and then I'll sleep
and waste ten thousand nights
before I dream;
but when at last...

I soar the distant heights of undreamt skies
where never hawks nor eagles dared to go,
as I laugh among the meteors flashing by
somewhere beyond the bluest earth-bound seas...

if I'm not told
I’m just a man,
then I shall know
just what I am.

This is one of my early poems, written around age 16-17. According to my notes, I may have revised the poem later, in 1978, but if so the changes were minor because the poem remains very close to the original.



Stage Craft-y
by Michael R. Burch

There once was a dromedary
who befriended a crafty canary.
Budgie said, "You can’t sing,
but now, here’s the thing―
just think of the tunes you can carry!"



Clyde Lied!
by Michael R. Burch

There once was a mockingbird, Clyde,
who bragged of his prowess, but lied.
To his new wife he sighed,
"When again, gentle bride?"
"Nevermore!" bright-eyed Raven replied.



Less Heroic Couplets: ****** Most Fowl!
by Michael R. Burch

“****** most foul!”
cried the mouse to the owl.

“Friend, I’m no sinner;
you’re merely my dinner!”
the wise owl replied
as the tasty snack died.

Published by Lighten Up Online and in Potcake Chapbook #7

NOTE: In an attempt to demonstrate that not all couplets are heroic, I have created a series of poems called “Less Heroic Couplets.” I believe even poets should abide by truth-in-advertising laws! ― MRB



Lance-Lot
by Michael R. Burch

Preposterous bird!
Inelegant! Absurd!

Until the great & mighty heron
brandishes his fearsome sword.



Kissin’ ’n’ buzzin’
by Michael R. Burch

Kissin’ ’n’ buzzin’ the bees rise
in a dizzy circle of two.
Oh, when I’m with you,
I feel like kissin’ ’n’ buzzin’ too.



Delicacy
by Michael R. Burch

for all good mothers

Your love is as delicate
as a butterfly cleaning its wings,
as soft as the predicate
the hummingbird sings
to itself, gently murmuring―
“Fly! Fly! Fly!”
Your love is the string
soaring kites untie.



Lone Wild Goose
by Du Fu (712-770)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The abandoned goose refuses food and drink;
he cries querulously for his companions.

Who feels kinship for that strange wraith
as he vanishes eerily into the heavens?

You watch it as it disappears;
its plaintive calls cut through you.

The indignant crows ignore you both:
the bickering, bantering multitudes.

Du Fu (712-770) is also known as Tu Fu. The first poem is addressed to the poet's wife, who had fled war with their children. Ch'ang-an is an ironic pun because it means "Long-peace."



The Red Cockatoo
by Po Chu-I (772-846)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A marvelous gift from Annam―
a red cockatoo,
bright as peach blossom,
fluent in men's language.

So they did what they always do
to the erudite and eloquent:
they created a thick-barred cage
and shut it up.

Po Chu-I (772-846) is best known today for his ballads and satirical poems. Po Chu-I believed poetry should be accessible to commoners and is noted for his simple diction and natural style. His name has been rendered various ways in English: Po Chu-I, Po Chü-i, Bo Juyi and Bai Juyi.



The Migrant Songbird
Li Qingzhao aka Li Ching-chao (c. 1084-1155)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The migrant songbird on the nearby yew
brings tears to my eyes with her melodious trills;
this fresh downpour reminds me of similar spills:
another spring gone, and still no word from you...



Lines from Laolao Ting Pavilion
by Li Bai (701-762)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The spring breeze knows partings are bitter;
The willow twig knows it will never be green again.



The Day after the Rain
Lin Huiyin (1904-1955)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I love the day after the rain
and the meadow's green expanses!
My heart endlessly rises with wind,
gusts with wind...
away the new-mown grasses and the fallen leaves...
away the clouds like smoke...
vanishing like smoke...



Untitled Translations

Cupid, if you incinerate my soul, touché!
For like you she has wings and can fly away!
―Meleager, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

As autumn deepens,
a butterfly sips
chrysanthemum dew.
―Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Come, butterfly,
it’s late
and we’ve a long way to go!
―Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Up and at ’em! The sky goes bright!
Let’***** the road again,
Companion Butterfly!
―Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Ah butterfly,
what dreams do you ply
with your beautiful wings?
―Chiyo-ni, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Oh, dreamlike winter butterfly:
a puff of white snow
cresting mountains
―Kakio Tomizawa, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Dry leaf flung awry:
bright butterfly,
goodbye!
―Michael R. Burch, original haiku

Will we remain parted forever?
Here at your grave:
two flowerlike butterflies
―Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

a soaring kite flits
into the heart of the sun?
Butterfly & Chrysanthemum
―Michael R. Burch, original haiku

The cheerful-chirping cricket
contends gray autumn's gay,
contemptuous of frost
―Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Whistle on, twilight whippoorwill,
solemn evangelist
of loneliness
―Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The sea darkening,
the voices of the wild ducks:
my mysterious companions!
―Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Lightning
shatters the darkness―
the night heron's shriek
―Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

This snowy morning:
cries of the crow I despise
(ah, but so beautiful!)
―Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

A crow settles
on a leafless branch:
autumn nightfall.
―Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Hush, cawing crows; what rackets you make!
Heaven's indignant messengers,
you remind me of wordsmiths!
―O no Yasumaro (circa 711), loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Higher than a skylark,
resting on the breast of heaven:
this mountain pass.
―Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

An exciting struggle
with such a sad ending:
cormorant fishing.
―Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Does my soul abide in heaven, or hell?
Only the sea gull
in his high, lonely circuits, may tell.
―Glaucus, translation by Michael R. Burch

The eagle sees farther
from its greater height―
our ancestors’ wisdom
―Michael R. Burch, original haiku

A kite floats
at the same place in the sky
where yesterday it floated...
―Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Critical Mass
by Michael R. Burch

I have listened to the rain all this morning
and it has a certain gravity,
as if it knows its destination,
perhaps even its particular destiny.
I do not believe mine is to be uplifted,
although I, too, may be flung precipitously
and from a great height.

"Gravity" and "particular destiny" are puns, since rain droplets are seeded by minute particles of dust adrift in the atmosphere and they fall due to gravity when they reach "critical mass." The title is also a pun, since the poem is skeptical about heaven-lauding Masses, etc.



Ultimate Sunset
by Michael R. Burch

for my father, Paul Ray Burch, Jr.

he now faces the Ultimate Sunset,
his body like the leaves that fray as they dry,
shedding their vital fluids (who knows why?)
till they’ve become even lighter than the covering sky,
ready to fly...



Free Fall
by Michael R. Burch

for my father, Paul Ray Burch, Jr.

I see the longing for departure gleam
in his still-keen eye,
and I understand his desire
to test this last wind, like those late autumn leaves
with nothing left to cling to...



Leaf Fall
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

Originally published by The Neovictorian/Cochlea



The Folly of Wisdom
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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

Originally published by Romantics Quarterly



Kin
by Michael R. Burch

for Richard Moore

1.
Shrill gulls,
how like my thoughts
you, struggling, rise
to distant bliss―
the weightless blue of skies
that are not blue
in any atmosphere,
but closest here...

2.
You seek an air
so clear,
so rarified
the effort leaves you famished;
earthly tides
soon call you back―
one long, descending glide...

3.
Disgruntledly you ***** dirt shores for orts
you pull like mucous ropes
from shells’ bright forts...
You eye the teeming world
with nervous darts―
this way and that...

Contentious, shrewd, you scan―
the sky, in hope,
the earth, distrusting man.



Songstress
by Michael R. Burch

Within its starkwhite ribcage, how the heart
must flutter wildly, O, and always sing
against the pressing darkness: all it knows
until at last it feels the numbing sting
of death. Then life's brief vision swiftly passes,
imposing night on one who clearly saw.
Death held your bright heart tightly, till its maw―
envenomed, fanged―could swallow, whole, your Awe.
And yet it was not death so much as you
who sealed your doom; you could not help but sing
and not be silenced. Here, behold your tomb's
white alabaster cage: pale, wretched thing!
But you'll not be imprisoned here, wise wren!
Your words soar free; rise, sing, fly, live again.

A poet like Nadia Anjuman can be likened to a caged bird, deprived of flight, who somehow finds it within herself to sing of love and beauty. But when the world finally robs her of both flight and song, what is left for her but to leave the world, thus bereaving the world of herself and her song?



Performing Art
by Michael R. Burch

Who teaches the wren
in its drab existence
to explode into song?

What parodies of irony
does the jay espouse
with its sharp-edged tongue?

What instinctual memories
lend stunning brightness
to the strange dreams

of the dull gray slug
―spinning its chrysalis,
gluing rough seams―

abiding in darkness
its transformation,
till, waving damp wings,

it applauds its performance?
I am done with irony.
Life itself sings.



Lean Harvests
by Michael R. Burch

for T.M.

the trees are shedding their leaves again:
another summer is over.
the Christians are praising their Maker again,
but not the disconsolate plover:
i hear him berate
the fate
of his mate;
he claims God is no body’s lover.

Published by The Rotary Dial and Angle



My Forty-Ninth Year
by Michael R. Burch

My forty-ninth year
and the dew remembers
how brightly it glistened
encrusting September,...
one frozen September
when hawks ruled the sky
and death fell on wings
with a shrill, keening cry.

My forty-ninth year,
and still I recall
the weavings and windings
of childhood, of fall...
of fall enigmatic,
resplendent, yet sere,...
though vibrant the herald
of death drawing near.

My forty-ninth year
and now often I've thought on
the course of a lifetime,
the meaning of autumn,
the cycle of autumn
with winter to come,
of aging and death
and rebirth... on and on.

Originally published by Romantics Quarterly as “My Twenty-Ninth Year”



Myth
by Michael R. Burch

Here the recalcitrant wind
sighs with grievance and remorse
over fields of wayward gorse
and thistle-throttled lanes.

And she is the myth of the scythed wheat
hewn and sighing, complete,
waiting, lain in a low sheaf―
full of faith, full of grief.

Here the immaculate dawn
requires belief of the leafed earth
and she is the myth of the mown grain―
golden and humble in all its weary worth.



What Works
by Michael R. Burch

for David Gosselin

What works―
hewn stone;
the blush the iris shows the sun;
the lilac’s pale-remembered bloom.

The frenzied fly: mad-lively, gay,
as seconds tick his time away,
his sentence―one brief day in May,
a period. And then decay.

A frenzied rhyme’s mad tip-toed time,
a ballad’s languid as the sea,
seek, striving―immortality.

When gloss peels off, what works will shine.
When polish fades, what works will gleam.
When intellectual prattle pales,
the dying buzzing in the hive
of tedious incessant bees,
what works will soar and wheel and dive
and milk all honey, leap and thrive,

and teach the pallid poem to seethe.



Desdemona
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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

and strangled hope, where love dies too.

Published by Penny Dreadful, Carnelian, Romantics Quarterly, Grassroots Poetry and Poetry Life & Times



Transplant
by Michael R. Burch

You float, unearthly angel, clad in flesh
as strange to us who briefly knew your flame
as laughter to disease. And yet you laugh.
Behind your smile, the sun forfeits its claim
to earth, and floats forever now the same―
light captured at its moment of least height.

You laugh here always, welcoming the night,
and, just a photograph, still you can claim
bright rapture: like an angel, not of flesh―
but something more, made less. Your humanness
this moment of release becomes a name
and something else―a radiance, a strange
brief presence near our hearts. How can we stand
and chain you here to this nocturnal land
of burgeoning gray shadows? Fly, begone.
I give you back your soul, forfeit all claim
to radiance, and welcome grief’s dark night
that crushes all the laughter from us. Light
in someone Else’s hand, and sing at ease
some song of brightsome mirth through dawn-lit trees
to welcome morning’s sun. O daughter! these
are eyes too weak for laughter; for love’s sight,
I welcome darkness, overcome with light.



Prodigal
by Michael R. Burch

This poem is dedicated to Kevin Longinotti, who died four days short of graduation from Vanderbilt University, the victim of a tornado that struck Nashville on April 16, 1998.

You have graduated now,
to a higher plane
and your heart’s tenacity
teaches us not to go gently
though death intrudes.

For eighteen days
―jarring interludes
of respite and pain―
with life only faintly clinging,
like a cashmere snow,
testing the capacity
of the blood banks
with the unstaunched flow
of your severed veins,
in the collapsing declivity,
in the sanguine haze
where Death broods,
you struggled defiantly.

A city mourns its adopted son,
flown to the highest ranks
while each heart complains
at the harsh validity
of God’s ways.

On ponderous wings
the white clouds move
with your captured breath,
though just days before
they spawned the maelstrom’s
hellish rift.

Throw off this mortal coil,
this envelope of flesh,
this brief sheath
of inarticulate grief
and transient joy.

Forget the winds
which test belief,
which bear the parchment leaf
down life’s last sun-lit path.

We applaud your spirit, O Prodigal,
O Valiant One,
in its percussive flight into the sun,
winging on the heart’s last madrigal.



Breakings
by Michael R. Burch

I did it out of pity.
I did it out of love.
I did it not to break the heart of a tender, wounded dove.

But gods without compassion
ordained: Frail things must break!
Now what can I do for her shattered psyche’s sake?

I did it not to push.
I did it not to shove.
I did it to assist the flight of indiscriminate Love.

But gods, all mad as hatters,
who legislate in all such matters,
ordained that everything irreplaceable shatters.



An Illusion
by Michael R. Burch

The sky was as hushed as the breath of a bee
and the world was bathed in shades of palest gold
when I awoke.

She came to me with the sound of falling leaves
and the scent of new-mown grass;
I held out my arms to her and she passed

into oblivion...

This is one of my early poems, written around age 16 and published in my high school literary journal, The Lantern.



Lines for My Ascension
by Michael R. Burch

I.

If I should die,
there will come a Doom,
and the sky will darken
to the deepest Gloom.

But if my body
should not be found,
never think of me
in the cold ground.

II.

If I should die,
let no mortal say,
“Here was a man,
with feet of clay,

or a timid sparrow
God’s hand let fall.”
But watch the sky darken
to an eerie pall

and know that my Spirit,
unvanquished, broods,
and cares naught for graves,
prayers, coffins, or roods.

And if my body
should not be found,
never think of me
in the cold ground.

III.

If I should die,
let no man adore
his incompetent Maker:
Zeus, Jehovah, or Thor.

Think of Me as One
who never died―
the unvanquished Immortal
with the unriven side.

And if my body
should not be found,
never think of me
in the cold ground.

IV.

And if I should “die,”
though the clouds grow dark
as fierce lightnings rend
this bleak asteroid, stark...

If you look above,
you will see a bright Sign―
the sun with the moon
in its arms, Divine.

So divine, if you can,
my bright meaning, and know―
my Spirit is mine.
I will go where I go.

And if my body
should not be found,
never think of me
in the cold ground.



The Locker
by Michael R. Burch

All the dull hollow clamor has died
and what was contained,
removed,

reproved
adulation or sentiment,
left with the pungent darkness

as remembered as the sudden light.

Originally published by The Raintown Review



Keywords/Tags: Sports, locker, lockerroom, clamor, adulation, acclaim, applause, sentiment, darkness, light, retirement, athlete, team, trophy, award, acclamation


Keywords/Tags: Icarus, Daedalus, flight, fly, flying, wind, wings, sun, height, heights, fall, falling, ascent, descent, imagination, bird, birds, butterfly, butterflies, hawk, eagle, geese, plane, kite, kites, mrbfly, mrbflight, mrbicarus

TO: icarus
i don’t feel anything when i look at you anymore
TO: icarus
but, sometimes, i miss your freckles like crazy
TO: icarus**
okay so maybe i lied
TO: icarus
i keep trying not to
i keep failing
TO: icarus
but i guess it’s just that
you are like no one i’ve met
TO: icarus
and it’s dumb to call you my first love
when you didn’t even love me back,
but… man, you were my first love
TO: icarus
i love(d) you so bad.
TO: icarus
and if i see you on the sidewalk,
i cross the street because i’m so afraid of brushing by you
and falling all over again
TO: icarus
i don’t think i’d be strong to crawl back out this time
TO: icarus
how dumb i was to think i’d be enough for icarus
TO: icarus
i loved icarus and he dragged me into the sun with him
TO: icarus
i loved icarus and he let me drown in the ocean,
grasping for the feathers of his wings
TO: icarus
you made me want to understand gods,
but i only knew about monsters
TO: icarus
god, you didn’t deserve the immortality
that i gave you
TO: icarus
you didn't deserve a single thing
TO: icarus
so if i’m ever the kind of poet they write biographies about
and whose work high schoolers are forced to analyze,
some underpaid english teacher
is going to have to talk about you
as the mysterious and slightly vilified figure
prevalent in my work
TO: icarus
you're in between every line

There, she lies on the altar
Almost held the sun she—
almost in her hands
Opened up, a rose-bud chaste
petal by petal by blood, with
a sting, oh, so sweet and sweet, as
sunset reborn a bee; she was
gold and silver and black at once.

Almost held the sun she—
and no wax wings used
Oh, Icarus, loved you did a wild sky,
— yourself a light-licked doom  
as your father cried,
Your father cried for you.
A veil, as purity, as tear-coated eyes, she wore
as wings of wasps
as beetles she giggled—

Icarus, flew that you,
—and with tongue-tied elation too
Icarus,
she rambled on for hours long.
A letter she held in spring kissed of hands
—I will wed you to the sun,
her father had sworn.
The sun—and oh a sun he was,
child of the sea, some sword in honey
dipped; now her awaiting.
And blushed she did herself a dawn,
a fall's first bronze, a flicker's
childish song—

The altar, on the altar.
Almost held the sun she—
Swallowed a mayhem for the father's sin.
Icarus, tell me of the plummet.
Tell me of the greens you saw,
of blues, of whites,
of the whirling world—

Men tread around around her
their leather-hard soles all ready
to crush lost skulls an empty moor.

Twirling,
the dust, like may have, her hair
before the wedding day
Strands and strands, gently styled—
Of rays of stars, blurry through clouds,
of boughs, of wings of swans.

Spears, swords,
rubbed and rubbed to mirrors,
to lakes' lifeless serenity.
Armours, and ships laden with life, with
sails, the fluttering doves;
As the winds dance once more—
as harbours vacated, as waves torn apart for the horde, as move they on— on too the sun— as
She still lies.

Icarus, Icarus, was it the ocean
that cupped its palms, or did the soil cave in
as down into the dark's slick throat you slid?
Surely, was soft
the sea's well-loved mouth,
Surely soft or true

She lies on the altar
a trinket glossy
on a hoof, a ****** in the bell,
how does one say—
the valley of lilies, she grew it inside.
Spilled out on the stones, they are fed
to the flies.
Almost held the sun she—
Icarus, must you know

You did not sleep a wretched silence
within the womb of war.
No crescent blades you drank
down a leaking throat—
She lies on the altar,
Vanquished for moon
— for metal upon bone
for blood, for blood, for blood.

A father’s green promise—
Seasoned to rust before the king
a wilt, a quiet; a plucking, a rustle, a quiet once more as the shore is cleaned—
a speck of brown among
a thousand more
beneath the feet of the sky.

Icarus, on the altar she lies—
as insects swarm about
a ripened land far, far away—
Icarus, Icarus,
on the altar

Icarus washes up on Miami Beach over the spring break of 2k16 and finds a world where the gods roam the streets,
where his wax wings burned themselves into trenches of scars down his back,
where we warn our children of the dangers of flying too high,
but forget the part about the riptides waiting if you fly too low.

He asks Siri how far away the sun is,
finds Apollo in the red rocks of New Mexico
off I-40 just outside of Albuquerque,
alone and basking in the heat.
The ice caps are melting.

The sun still hurts to touch,
burning Icarus's hands and leaving fingerprints in the feathers of his melted wings,
but Apollo is much kinder now,
soothing the skin cancer with freckles and soft touches.
It no longer feels like a damning.

This is what happens to the children of tragedies:
they flinch too much,
they fall too hard,
they're fragile as glass but immune to everything the world can throw at them.
Icarus flinches at the sound of the oceans.
He knows the wrath of Poseidon.

Icarus rises from the dead with his irises washed white
and his rips etched with Hades's name:
he should have been a child of Persephone,
spring in his hands and flowers in his hair.
He should have spent his days sprawled in the sun's caress.
He should have been infinite.

Icarus flinches too much.
That's what everyone keeps telling him.
He flinches too much at every lifted voice and crashing wave and
he flinches too much when he feels sunshine on his face.
Icarus is sorry for flinching too much.
Icarus is trying not to flinch too much.
Icarus is sorry that it's taking so long to just get over his trauma and stop flinching so much--
sorry.

He doesn't know what to do now that he's touched the sun
and this time it didn't burn.
He wanted it to burn.
He wants to burn.
He wants to feel his bones breaking all over again because
that's the only time he doesn't feel like he needs to be in control.
Why is he chasing things that hurt?
Why does he feel
like he deserves to hurt?
He deserves to crash.

He finally touched the sun.
Icarus feels empty, and
he's still flinching.

Oh, Icarus
Primary example of the human folly.
The wings and feathers destroyed by the heat of a sun you thought you could bear.

Oh, Icarus
You are a foolish one.
Excessive ambition never makes it to see the light of day.
You had too much hope in yourself.
Your pride took you away.

Oh, Icarus
The words of Daedalus fell upon death ears.
Failure to heed to a warning was your demise.

Oh, Icarus
Wings so mighty and beautiful.
What I would do to fly so high.
To soar above the clouds and meet the beautiful rays.

Oh, Icarus
Fly back to the sun.
Melt your wax and ruin your feathers, once more.

Oh, Icarus
We need someone brave enough to fly close to the sun.
Plummet into the ocean again after , if you must.
Every human here is lily-livered.

The heart is deceiving
Mine told me

"Fly into the sun on your wings of wax

Over the ocean and watch it dance

Before it fades away forever"

Now maimed by the sun that I tried to follow

This ocean's so wide, how'd I fall to the shallows?

But I will rise
Up again
From these broken wings

If your soul of wax
Can take my heart of glass
And mend every piece

Fall fall Icarus fall fall Icarus fall
Into this ocean we call love
Fall fall Icarus fall fall Icarus fall
Your wings have given up

If am drowning
Then love must be an ocean

If love is an ocean
Then I must be Icarus

If I am Icarus
Then I must be drowning

maybe the reason i always call myself icarus
is that the only person who never saw this coming
was me.
maybe the reason i always call myself icarus
is because my mother shook and cried as she
strapped wax wings on me and said,
“do not look at the stars”
because she knew childish wonder
would only **** me.
maybe the reason i always call myself icarus
is that i wish i had been that light, i wish i had
been able to see those stars and really
touch them.
maybe the reason i always call myself icarus
is because i’m a ******* tragedy but nobody
seems to realize it except me.
no one ever felt the fall quite like
me.
maybe the reason i always call myself icarus
is because the only person i’ve ever disappointed
is myself, my own ambition, my own dreams.
maybe the reason i always call myself icarus
is because i always feel like i’m
falling.

I magine Icarus
C reatively carving his dream
A **** the soft features and
R idges as strong as his beliefs, lays
U nderneath an innocent soul
S tranded in a fantasy.
            Icarus
Flying towards the heavens
Embellishing the sky with pearl like wings
Caressing Icarus, soaring passionately.
His own hero in his eyes.
            Icarus
Glances up, suddenly hypnotized
By the gleaming sphere of light.
The innocent splash-
Tasting the bitter, revolting sea.
Swallowed whole without notice
With the sound of silence as
Icarus now soars freely with the angels.

I have always been fascinated by mythology. I remember seeing my older sisters with a greek mythology book, and wishing I could be in high school so I can know it already. I was interested in the mythical creatures, in the gods and goddesses, in the battles, and just like everyone, I was interested in the love stories. I wanted to learn it with passion for I heard it was the inspiration of almost all the modern literature that I love. I could still remember feeling excited to be in class and discuss it. And now that I have reached high school, and I also reached my dream of studying greek mythology and not only that, because I reached it with you. We learned about the titans, the gods and goddesses, the olympians, the monsters, the stories. We were both engrossed and captivated by it, that mythology was the only thing we ever talked about. We even related it to real life, we related people to the characters. Whenever we see a person we know, we would think of the character that best resembles them, and we will start calling them their characters that we decided them to be. We called our friend Athena, we called your cousin Apollo, we even called someone the Minotaur. And that’s what our teacher told us, that not because it’s fantasy that immediately means it cannot happen in real life. The stories there, are reality, the only difference is, they added magic into them. We loved greek mythology so much that we related it to everything. However I realised something, we related it to everything except to ourselves. So I asked you, “Who are we?”. You told me, “Baby, we’re no one there, for we will make our own mythology. We will make the greatest one, so beautiful that it would surpass the best literature of all time.” Your favourite one was Plato’s quote, you would never shut up telling me the story that “humans were originally created with four arms, four legs and a head with two faces. Fearing their power, Zeus split them into two separate parts, condemning them to spend their lives in search of their other halves.” And you would always tell me, that you wished to tell Zeus you found yours already. I expected myself to love the romance most, for myself to have the love stories as my favourite. But instead, I loved the opposite,  I loved the tragedies.


I don’t know why, but I found myself loving the tragic stories. I found myself loving the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. The ultimate tragic love story, in which Orpheus would have brought Eurydice back to life if only he had done what Hades said. Orpheus went to the underworld to ask Hades to bring back Eurydice, but Hades had one condition, he should not look back while his wife was still in the dark, for that would undo everything he hoped for. He should wait for Eurydice to get into the light before he looked at her. But then, Orpheus couldn’t control himself, he looked at Eurydice and hugged her, then suddenly Eurydice was drawn back to the underworld.


And who would ever forget Pyramus and Thisbe? The star crossed lovers who had families who hated each other and whispered sweet nothings through a crack in the wall that separates their houses. And they decided to run away, but when Thisbe showed up under the mulberry tree, a ****** jawed lioness was there. So Thisbe ran, and just when Pyramus arrived, he saw the lioness ripping apart Thisbe’s shawl. Thinking that Thisbe died, Pyramus stabbed himself. And when Thisbe returned and figured out what happened, she stabbed herself too. To this day, the formerly white berries of the mulberry tree are stained red with the blood of these tragic lovers.


Here comes my favourite story of all, the myth of Icarus. Icarus and his father attempted to escape from Crete by means of wings that his father constructed from feathers and wax. Daedalus cautioned him that flying too near the sun would cause the wax to melt. And because of hubris, Icarus ignored his father’s instructions and flew too close to the sun. Then the wax in his wings melted and he fell into the sea.


When I was reading the stories, epiphany suddenly hit me. Perhaps the reason why I loved tragedies so much because we’re turning into one. I finally got the answer to my question when I asked you who we are. Maybe we are Orpheus and Eurydice, we loved each other too much that we would do everything just to be together. But we ignored all the warnings, we thought love was the only thing that really mattered. We never got to control our feelings and we forgot everything, because of that, we were separated from each other. Or we could also be Pyramus and Thisbe, we are the perfect definition of lovers who almost made it, who almost achieved happiness, who almost became the greatest lovers of all time but then we never became one, we became tragic ones. And darling, perhaps Icarus resembles us the most. We are both Icarus, our wings, are ourselves,  and love, is the sun. Everybody told us not to get too near the sun, for the wax in our wings will melt, we will lose our wings because we are too close to the thing that could save and destroy us both. And just like Icarus, we disobeyed the rules.  We flew too close to the sun, look at us now.

As we were walking out of each other’s lives, I realised something. We were not meant to create the greatest story of all time that it would top the best literature. We were never making our own mythology, because we were just bound to become another tragedy. Another tragedy that people will love, and I still don’t know why, but people tend to see something beautiful in it. And maybe, just maybe, people will also see something beautiful in our tragic story. But just like Orpheus and Eurydice, Pyramus and Thisbe, Icarus; one thing is for sure, my love. We will achieve a thing we both wanted,  **we will never be forgotten.

The embrace of the Sun doth make Icarus’ wings melt.
Drip drop, pit pat.
Forgotten dreams, fallen wings
Fading into nothingness as the two embrace
Broken hearts, torn feathers
The tale of the star-crossed

Icarus, bundle of joy
Overflowing with innocence
Soaring through the air
And with him
Freedom and happiness
And the ability to lie

Sun stood. Prideful, strong, bright.
Lonely.
She yearned for another
With whom she could share
Her light and warmth
Her darkness and coldness.

He desired nothing more than the company of another
She desired nothing more than the company of another

So Icarus said to the Sun
Let me stay, I won’t leave you
This place is right where I need to be
And though Sun knew
The embrace of Sun, will make Icarus’ wings melt
But she kept silent, and nodded.

The two were happy for a long while
-Drip drop, pit pat-
so very happy together
-Drip drop, pit pat-
never wanting to let go
-Drip drop, pit pat-

Drip drop, pit pat
Drip
Drop
Pit
Pat
Drip

Waxy tears coating his disappearing surface
Waxy tears lining her marooned surface

The embrace of the Sun doth make Icarus melt.
Drip drop, pit pat.
Forgotten dreams, fallen wings
She faded into nothingness as he melted away
Broken hearts, torn feathers
Never seeing the light of day

Never seeing, the light of day.

My dear Icarus,
Have you brought tales of gold for me?
You-- the master of self,
The one who held his own thread and shears.
Don't share of how hard you beat your wings
But how the air beat against your brow.
Don't echo your father's faded cries
But sing the songs of the Aegean sea--
Sing them only for me!

My sweet Icarus,
Is the world as grand as the travelers say?
Are crumbling maps and hand-spun tales nothing to compare?
I've read of Sicily, where your father rests his mourning head.
I've traced its rivers as they curved against my torn papyrus.
Sicily, the land of Aetna.
Oh, to watch the land shake at the beckoning of her call
(Oh, to fly free of these labyrinth walls)!

My darling Icarus,
Tell me-- is life better above the blanket of Grecian blue?
Is it better than what the Fates designed?
Is it better than what I hold today
(please, let it be more than today)?

My beloved Icarus,
Will you give me your wings--
The mingling of feather, wax, and dreams.
Will you give me your wings and
Your will to yearn higher and higher

So that I too can reach the city of gold.

It wasnt long before the baluster flapped somewhere in the distance and Icarus knew how old he had been on the day of his birth. For whatever reason, the snow capped cappuccinos he had willfully destroyed in a heated debate on fiscal policy had him beginning again. Why was there always a beginning where there was an end? Fur traders used to circumnavigate the Hudson's Bay of his humanity when he was young, sharing drinks and fire water whiskey like it was all an H2O ready for the soul search. Sadly, many ended up in Hitlers concentration camps weeks after the **** invasion of Poland, about a month or so before the fall of the Roman Empire. Beginning with a last breath, Icarus strode off the plank with a new-found confidence unnatural in his niceties of long past. It was as if 1 minute and 35 seconds was enough to dish a clamouring populace onto the dinner table before the fat step-father gleefully orders
everyone to 'dig in, everyone!'

Cancelling everyone's appointment with Dr. Pardon meant the gaining of a key participatory certificate in El Dorado, and the gold lingering in dusty sun-beams was sifted for the taking. Some got rich, the rest got miserable. The rest used to imagine the gold, staring at ivory towers and lottery tickets, apple cores lording over old public servant applications near the city hall drain pipes as the modern world collapsed into a flash-mob image of Ronald Reagan.

Icarus was a sliver of duskish light flittering a top distant windowsills, all cupped in an intentional light because happiness was as possible as sadness. Not that considering either would make you either.

Icarus slept as his wings incinerated at the first glimpse of the solar system. He now believed every single proverb the old ***** slumbers had whispered their children as they woke to find themselves adults.

In the beginning he found the beginning beginning again. It made him feel however you wish. Both were just as possible. Both were just as much a jazz configuration as a smooth and easy guitar rift.

Ahha!

I wish they clipped
the wings off Icarus's back
before he took flight.

It would have been easier that way.

He could have stayed flightless,
some sort of meatsack
with little wax stumps
growing out of his back,
not unlike those of trees.

The story of Icarus
was not made to scare us
away from flying
too close to the sun.

The story of Icarus
was made to scare us
from flying at all.

Icarus will learn
To not fly too close to the sun
Only when the beads of sweat
Are mixing with the melted wax
Dripping down his youthful back
Icarus will learn
To not fly higher than he should
Only when his fragile wings
His hopes and dreams have failed him
And he is falling from the sky
Icarus will learn
Of this I'm sure
But he'll only learn
When it's way to late
And the mistakes he made
Can't be fixed
Icarus will learn
But it won't matter

Southern Icarus
by Michael R. Burch

Windborne, lover of heights,
unspooled from the truck’s wildly lurching embrace
you climb, skittish kite ...

What do you know of the world’s despair,
gliding in vast solitariness there
so that all that remains is to
                                              fall?

Only a little longer the wind invests its sighs;
you stall
spread-eagled as the canvas snaps

and ***** its white rebellious wings,
and all
the houses watch with baffled eyes.

Originally published by Poetry Porch. Keywords/Tags: Icarus, flight, flying, hang-gliding, kite, glider, wind, canvas, South, southern, truck, unspooled



Note: The following poem unites Icarus with Tom O'Bedlam in a final, magical quest ...

Finally to Burn
(the Fall and Resurrection of Icarus)
by Michael R. Burch

I.
Athena takes me
sometimes by the hand

and we go levitating
through strange Dreamlands

where Apollo sleeps
in his dark forgetting

and Passion seems
like a wise bloodletting

and all I remember
—upon awaking—

is: to Love sometimes
is like forsaking

one’s Being—to glide
heroically beyond thought,

forsaking the here
for the There and the Not.

II.
O, finally to Burn,
gravity beyond escaping!

To plummet is Bliss
when the blisters breaking

rain down red scabs
on the earth’s mudpuddle...

Feathers and wax
and the watchers huddle...

Flocculent sheep,
O, and innocent lambs!

I will rock me to sleep
on the waves’ iambs.

III.
To Sleep, that is Bliss
in Love’s recursive Dream,

for the Night has Wings
pallid as moonbeams—

they will flit me to Life,
like a huge-eyed Phoenix

fluttering off
to quarry the Sphinx.

IV.
Riddlemethis,
riddlemethat,

Rynosseross,
throw out the Welcome Mat.

Quixotic, I seek Love
amid the tarnished

rusted-out steel
when to live is varnish.

To Dream—that’s the thing!
Aye, that Genie I’ll rub,

soak by the candle,
aflame in the tub.

V.
Riddlemethis,
riddlemethat,

Rynosseross,
throw out the Welcome Mat.

Somewhither, somewhither
aglitter and strange,

we must moult off all knowledge
or perish caged.

VI.
I am reconciled to Life
somewhere beyond thought—

I’ll Live in the There,
I’ll Dream of the Naught.

Methinks it no journey;
to tarry’s a waste,

so fatten the oxen;
make a nice baste.

I’m coming, Fool Tom,
we have Somewhere to Go,

though we injure noone,
ourselves wildaglow.

dear icarus,

i've watched you toil your youth away
all because you have been growing your wings of freedom
to be freed from the life you are locked in

with your calloused hands,
you have put on your wings of feathers and wax,
you are ready to fly across oceans
and escape from this labyrinth
of loneliness and fatigue

but icarus, remember those wings may break
you're shining boyishly, you're coming close to all those stars like stage lights
after aching and fading in the dark
you are seeing the sun for the first time
and it is all you want
but even the brightest and prettiest of lights can burn you out

icarus, come back safely
remember the world beneath you
and the love that the earth
has given you all these years
fly back down here
and i will do all i can to keep you safe.
before the ocean of wreckage pulls you into its depths
and it is too late

When Icarus falls
Who can say that
He does not turn his own back
To the fact that
The ploughman’s family
Are shrivelled on a diet
Of failing crops
And that the only two
Imperturbable components
To the serenity of his fallen world
Are the sun and the sea
That wash blue and gold
Over the evidence
Who can say that
Icarus is not so consumed
With the boiling wax upon his shoulders
And the screams in his throat
That he has casually
Failed to realise
That the ploughman on the cliff
Has just as far to fall

the Hebrews call the Greek myth of Icarus
by name: Lucifer - i know man is prone to plagiarism,
esp. in the religious realm, the easier the plagiarism
the easier the governing of men -
for indeed the Hebrews claimed
Icarus prior to the Greeks, the former with Lucifer
and the latter with Icarus -
but how i loathe peasants claiming
medicinal endeavours
of knowing only the spotlight cursors
to curate and environmental care of origin
of such negated ease,
they have no knowledge and no power,
their interests in the subject matter
would never encourage them
to run a marathon for accumulating funds
for a cancer charity -
one word answer? *****! they're basically
*****! should have engaged in a family
life before you blamed me m.d.!
take your regressive anger and shove it
up your little bee magnet **** to take
a **** like extracting honey - now i'm ******,
but look where i'm writing it: on a colour
of defeat - militant heaven of the archangel Michael
sword in hand and Satan defeated waggling a
tongue - isn't that importune to speak of
the current times with the defence of a freedom
of speech subdued by a fear of insult
demanding? monotheism did as much good
as it shouldn't have - and did as much evil
as it should have - and did, crafting the strict
labouring of judaism's orthodoxy -
so for each niqab there came the madness of
a jewish girl's care for wig - translated into
christianity as the donning of wigs in the 18th century,
and the 17th - bypass the concerns of
monotheists and you came across cuisine
freedoms of mandarin, and the colour backlash
sprinkling to a billionth birth, a land
where the homeless have a mother kamadhenu -
and celebrate Holi for chance of extracted mundane
hue of man polarised with fluorescent ivy
and x-rayed orange... or that's how the thing was said.

Apollo watched as Icarus fell into Poseidon's waves,
some say they even saw Apollo kiss Icarus's wings
with his sun-soaked lips before he fell.
A boy fell in love with the sun not knowing
how bad it burns.

~

Don't fall for the golden boy,
He looks so sweet but tastes like fire.

~

He had the breath of a thousand stars in
his lungs;
But you can't reach the sun at the bottom
of the sea.

I wonder if Icarus knew how close to the sun he came before his undoing fell upon him.
Was he so captivated by the beauty of the sun that he could not change his ways?
Trapped by the freedom his wings gave him, like a moth to a flame was he destined to burn?

I wonder if he failed only because his wings were formed from feathers and wax.
Was his freedom formed from illusions and wax?
Would the outcome have been different if his wings were not faux?

I wonder if the sea tried to save him.
Did the waves try to extinguish his flames and cool his melting wax?
Did the ocean ensure his fate by trying to help?

I wonder if it was hubris that was his downfall.
Was it his pride that catalyzed his failure?
Was it simply an account of failed ambitions?

I wonder if it could have been different.
Was he foreordained to fail?
Would the sea have swallowed him had he not flown too close to the sun?

I wonder if he was ever free at all.
Did the sun capture him the second his wings freed him from the ground?
Did Icarus know how close “too close” was?

I went fishing with two witches
Out in my new boat
There was me, the witches
Two black cats, and a little pygmy goat

We sat out on the water
The small odd group and me
And in the first few hours
Not one fish did we see

The witches looked on skyward
Grabbed hands to cast a spell
They said that this worked wonders
And then they both did yell

Icarus, thickarus, giraffes and wild dogs
Lizards, and giant gnu
Bippity, Boppity, snakes and we wish
An airborne callipoe stew

Suddenly the water around the boat
Started to steam, and then it did boil
The sun disappeared, the sky went all black
And the clouds went the colour of oil

The witches both gathered the nets on the boat
As the fish came on up from the deep
They were out of the water and up in the air
And through this the goat went to sleep

Icarus, thickarus, giraffes and wild dogs
Lizards, and giant gnu
Bippity, Boppity, snakes and we wish
An airborne callipoe stew

Fish were around us, high in the air
The witches waved nets as if mad
The cats didn't move nor did the goat
It was the best catch that I'd ever had

After a while the sky turned to blue
The witches sat back with a look
We'd netted hundred of fish from the lake
Now, they would have to be cooked

Icarus, thickarus, giraffes and wild dogs
Lizards, and giant gnu
Bippity, Boppity, snakes and we wish
An airborne callipoe stew

I took the boat in, and docked on the shore
With our fish all strung up just for show
Everyone there asked what bait did we use?
I just smiled, for they weren't set to know

I go fishing with witches at least once a week
My freezer is full and then some
Their spell is amazing, it works every time
They say it loud, and fish come

Icarus, thickarus, giraffes and wild dogs
Lizards, and giant gnu
Bippity, Boppity, snakes and we wish
An airborne callipoe stew

I think what Icarus forgot
Was that the sun was never his to touch,
Blinding and beautiful as it was.
Yet he reached anyway--
Doesn’t that remind you of something?

i swear
i tried to catch the sun,
collided with icarus
on the way
he said, “hey,
where are you going?”
and fell
before i could tell him.

i said
“icarus,
there is a terrible
beauty to this world.“
i said
“icarus,
i want it all
to burn.”

and he burned,
crashed into the waves,
his flames flickered
and died.

i swear
i tried to catch the sun
before he did
but he stole it in his wings,
betrayed the sky
for a light
brighter than his own,
he was a shooting star
that i couldn’t swallow.

i said
“hey,
where are you going?”
he told me to make a wish
and fell.

i swear
i tried to catch the sun,
collided with him
on the way.

i said
“icarus,
my world is beautiful,
but terrible.”
i said,
“icarus,
i want it all
to burn.”

our wings melted,
and as the sky rained wax,
we burned.

i have been burning my whole life.
encased in immaculate flames,
flying too close to the sun
on these fragile wax wings.

— an image of icarus

Blazing brightly in the night miles below on
Crete. Icarus plummeted. And puzzled.
The Phoenix shattered ablaze and battred

The phoenix Glances to the night sky.
As a bird of prey whizzes by.

Struck to ground.
Thundering sound.

Phoenix pauses beats his wings.
Flaming feathers burn and drift.

Rises slowly from the ashes.
Icarus crumbles in broken waxen wings.


Youthful tragedy. Never to rise.
No reclamation.

Silent hubris.
The dirge preceeds.
Then quietly

Receeds.

Icarus’ sister exists only in living stone,
the watchful daughter of the craftsman
in the middle of his own labyrinth,
once his prized creation, placed in
the prime line of his drafts, design, eye
of his genius, now a relic existing
in a dusty nowhere cobweb corner
stained with Minotaur blood,
watching her fleshy father
falteringly stitch wax, feathers, twigs
to a frame that could not
take the water and sun of every day birds,
not even the weight of a son’s pride
who complacently raveled and unraveled
his father’s clew, half hearing  cautions,  
his mind flapping beyond the planets.

She cried over how Daedalus could
dote over such mortal error
while she exists in perfect neglect,
cried a tear turned prayer that
mixed with the dust, the murderous
blood crusting the rusty teeth of Perdix’s saw,
knowing hence  that men **** their best dreams,
fear the successful  flight of  their ideas, and  
that her faith, trust now forever lived with the gods.

Hephaestus heard her and bellowed her mind,
taught her to seek inspiration in the rejected
metal slivers that littered the workshop
like the sand of Naxos where Theseus
left Ariadne in her abandoned dreams.

In the cry of that other lost daughter
she heard the sound of ascent,
saw father and son in erratic flight
and followed to the top of the labyrinth
to watch two glints align in descent
and one splash into the sea.

Graced with the knowledge
that forbearers would
name the waters below for this fool,
she deposited Icarus in their father’s arms,
and flew away on brass wings of her own design,
wingtips skipping waves, seeking the sun.

icarus—
curiosity is a fire,
roaring inside your ribcage.
you wonder, and you want,
and the tips of your fingers
stretch themselves
towards the sun—
warm, then hot,
then scorching,
and finally, you plummet.
icarus—
they call you a tragedy,
but tell me,
did your blood not run
liquid gold,
in that moment
the sun’s heat
embraced you?
didn’t the touch
of pure, pure opulence
leave stardust
and embers
embedded in
your skin,
a heavenly dust
adorning your burns?
icarus—
in the sky, as you
dive towards earth,
you glimmer
like glory.
icarus—
charred angel,
did you not feel divine
in the seconds before
you fell?
icarus—
wasn’t the warmth
worth what followed?

There, high aloft the flaming sky
    Ablaze with the sun's intense heat
A boy, calmly, gaily did fly
    The world a globe beneath his feet
The sky an eye of molten blue
    The fields green blooming in gold
Of wheat and grains, the ploughman drew
    Whilst calm ocean waves did unfold

And crashed against the mighty shore
    Studded with rocks, and moist and cool
Where sat upon the golden floor
    The fisherman near the dull pool
Trying throughout the weary day
    Catch any fish, a meal to serve
His cursed stomach which growled fray
    And twined in locks each of his nerve

And on that pool, a fearsome ship
    With azure flags, a dreary mast
Most quietly, quickly did skip
    The tremulous ocean waves, past
Stealing the food the fisherman
    Yearned to catch but never did he
And Icarus flew higher than
    His father had told him to be

Out of his thrill, his bliss, his joy
    He tried to claim the sun, the skies
Only his tries made him the boy
    To fall into his dark demise
And as he rose, he rose most high
    He lost his wings, like bright the oars
Once pedaling throughout the sky
    Melted away, he lost his course

And suddenly his feathers flew
    Like pollen in the midst of spring
And down into the profound blue
    He went on fast and tumbling
His cries for pleas were never heard
    Ne'er spoken from his withered throat
And down just like an injured bird
    He tumbled and drowned near the boat

What marvelous a sight as seen
    A boy tumbling from out the sky
Ne'er the ploughman plowing the green
    Did see him, he was left to die
Tumbling further beneath the brine
    As Daedalus flew high around
“O, gods, where is the son of mine,
    There is no sign, there is no sound

Of his warm breath, his lively beat
    That chimed away in gaiety
Where did he go, did his end meet
    O, what have you have done to me!”
And so he flew around, away
    Fisher saw nix, the boat passed by
And life continued day by day
    As Icarus was left to die

icarus lays in his bed now,
an advanced placement scholar with distinction, high honors,
(his name embossed in pearly white letters on posterboard like a movie star)
drunker than he's ever been,
waiting to pass out under the gentle caress of the full moon.

who would have thought
the boy destined to scrape the sky on golden wings
would be passed out on his bedspread like a delinquent?
(it's the quiet ones you gotta watch out for,
the ones who retreat to their silent cave to descend into a fuzz of various intoxications.)
meanwhile, the dean of admissions preaches abstinence
from liquor, grass, and hazy nights.
after all, the true, distinguished, scholarly scholars
would never partake in such acts.

icarus dry heaves into his pillow,
knowing he'll regret going into his advanced calculus test
with the mother of all hangovers.

The old woman ran a leathery hand through her cropped hair.
"Yes, you may weep for the fields of green, as they were gorgeous yet thought to be boring."
She rocked back and forth and her wrinkled face contorted into a smile for the first time in the conversation.
"You may always cry for the tulip fields as they were devastatingly beautiful yet loathed."
And yet, as soon as her face had lit up like a thousand suns, it was once again devoid of expression.
"But, nonetheless, reserve your pity for those that loved he or she that burned out,
for every lover of Icarus knows that it is better to be hated than to go unnoticed."