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Betty Ponder Jun 2013
To my beloved father who's no longer with us; I wish you were here to see me now.
I'm the little girl in a grown up body who grew up to be a woman you can be proud of.
I miss you dearly my beloved father who gets half of the credit for my being on this earth.
I've a great appreciation of your patient and learned words; I followed in your foot steps.

Feel blue at times because you left before I had the chance to tell you how much I love you.
We both know you're looking down and rooting for me as I experience parenting first hand.
I know your job wasn't easy and I understood when you said no; it was with good reason.
But that little girl in me often wishes you were still here for that occasional  heart to heart.

Miss you and always be grateful and never forget what you taught through great example.
Never "ever" saying, "Do as I say kid, but turn blind eyes away from Dad's bad actions".
I'll always be thankful for you showing me integrity in words that mirrored your actions.  
I'm grateful you allowed me to make mistakes and gently guided me with your wisdom.

From you I learned; No matter how much life pushes you to extremes, you keep fighting.
From you I learned; Love and respect of life even when faced with hate born from illogic.
From you I learned; Love self enough to set free all that damages physically & emotionally.
From you I learned; To proudly stand alone when necessary, never to cower; face my fears.
  
Though your life on this planet was cut short, what you taught will last infinite life times.  
You were the kind of dad everyone loved and admired; you brought joy by your presence.
There are so many things I vividly remember about you and shared with my own children
You worked extremely hard to provide for us and showed Nothing worthwhile is ever easy

Happy Father's Day 2013 to my beloved father and all dads every where!
I am a man. A good man.
Your thoughts of hate and discriminative conceptions..
of what I "must stand for,"
Of "What I know  I should not be forced to stand for.."
"Wealth and Vanity's fools..."
Such are the  only ""Minds" who  create  a "rule" in the "Social Book"
as "created" and "made-up"
only from and by   an "insane mind..."
Ones who have "Turned  on" "others"
...  and ....the "only type" of "personalities"  that have  "needs"  "made of such" unneeded" "darkness"
and "Morals"
Such,turning a "person" into a "Defined," "Labeled," and   "poorly-typed personality," "into "such defined , wrongly, as a "person" considered as a "kind.."

As the only "soul" who "defines" their thoughts
of a "poorly defined" lifestyle"  as  "such as"a required "company creating" rule ,"

Such, where only "sloppy" and "unhealthy " diners "think"  of" as  a " tool..."
as "such unhealthy" Thinking  is as "successful"   are as  "beneficial to one's soul"
As what  "lost food-poisoned"  recipes where   "lost souls" can  "grow lonely" and as a "lone" "ranger," who is  more and more ""poor...."

Due to their "insecure recipes"  
Their ill-fated "needs"  of what only what their "unsafe" Book's "Recipes"
where only "unwanted-securities"
Are "Tasty" "facts" which are whipped up on "trays"  created  by  these "eccentric"  and "overpowering" "kinds" of "chef's" "requirements"
Are only ill-guided "thoughts" made up  by "misguided " "entities"
The "sickly and untried souls untried" and those now "Unkind.."
Those "insecure people"  who are, "inside and out," truly lost," and now "poor"...
Inside..."
Not  made of  the most "secured" of "ingredients" and out of  "life's festered insanities...."
and never of "sanity"
   of "minds" in which they are in >financially" in store to be truly "poor"
well, such >hurtful energies, beliefs, thoughts, and words...."
Words where such  never   have any worth.
Nor "truer life's path" can be    "plotted"  where  any   "bearings," can  "lead" my life "in-less than "fake" or "hectic waters"
of the rocky surf...
Sports that ,Rather than "thrill much needed true fully" needed    "mapped " "courses"
They land us to Where neither  "a true  meaning in my soul," is truly a needed "destination."

here in my beautiful heart...
I wish to not let such trips land my head in a ditch. Or worse.
I become hateful and judgmental, to others, as you forced into my programming logic to be..
continuing the cycle, like yours imposed, forcibly on me...
"Blind out of fear and question," to "what I am "or "what I never  needed to" "be...."
I turned myself, my thoughts, and my acts around and I am truly able
to step back, process, understand and remove such "unneeded" parts added in the world,
where the moment became "sunniest" and "Clearest"
When I decided to "grow up" and "accept and correct my own misguided mistakes"
"I manned up" and I could ,finally,  "correct   such hurtful motions to souls that my bad and old actions had broken"
...as "I finally put my pieces back together,"
I  can now, and "more than I  ever needed in" "my  wrecked spirit" to be
Free, " to grow in dignity" and in my own "open-eyed" mind
  "Decide"
Due to a now"  truer spirit..."
"I can truly see" and (more than I  ever wanted to be, free_)
I am now," freer" to "be more" of "the truer me"
" I am  me."
.
Since, now,, I can truly open my once closed eyes   "clearly", " see.."
around  others, as you have forced my fragile soul  make me acceptable in your crazy world
As this "computerized brain" was  forced to act out a programming, which he was never compatible with such illogic to become, and I try to fire down upon a "weaker one..."
.I took on him my toll...My fire.....My fear....Illogic you handed into my life, uneedingly, suffering as he has now to bear because of what you scared me to treat his programming to become...
He shorts out....
His fragile soul shatters...
I'm now a new "weapon of mass destruction"
In your Sick life's army.....
What you thought was "just"
It never, ever, justly ever once matters....
In "a real world" where uniqueness should be cheered to thrive..
Planted, nurtured and gardened to grow....
Out of your sick "social demands " as such, I label "experimentation on what you call the weak,"
Such will some day haunt you until you are at your dying way.
Definitions of what I require as a man....
Intimacy justly needed...
Equally sprinkled with love and honor...Just and Deserved Trust....
"Sickness" which  you have tried to "Cure"
was nothing more than untrue stories and a door to your sad, pathetic, and hurtful face, I must now slam..
One cannot survive to see in forced "illogic,"
Forged from your "Fears and Misguided Brining up as a child"
Was instilled into.... "Your parents fears," from them and " "justly" programmed  or forced from your "sickness....such as what is this refusal to face uncertainty" made a disease in you to stick...
..in an avoidance to " faced raced obstacles"   and your "Inner Child's Add to dictionary and malnourished voice ignored  your own "
  you had to endure as a child..
You never stopped to question any "sickness from poor programs of bad parenting or your own poor understanding of another's lifestyle.."
or be programmed as such programming that another demands and believes as "pure and just.."
Nat Lipstadt Aug 2019
Alaska:
“though the whole world should be mad at once
though the elements should be changed, though the angels should rebel: yet verity (irrefutable truth) cannot lie.”  
                                                         ­                  Erasmus of Rotterdam

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for BJ Donovan, a fine, fine poet
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verity, irrefutable truth, cannot lie,
or belie it’s non-contradictory nature,
even, in a small airport, a one runway affair,
somewhere in Alaska
ribboned tween icy crags and dagger-ous peaks,
low cloud coverings of sub-zero visibility,
that inquire, in an indigenous tongue
of the flying fool pilots,

“really?”

if I or you ask me why I’m here,
Alaska,
the answers come in only three Heinz varieties,
true or false positive, no differentiation needed,
the other, is called
“one who doesn’t know how to ask”

you know him,
the simpleton, the simple one, me,
who can’t frame the question without

risking that he frame himself

betraying and displaying his woeful ignorance,
a veneered confidence of knowing so little about much

in the shed, a/k/a
‘the terminal,’ we wait,
me and an ex-Buddhist priest,
head stubble shaved, of course, round horn rimmed glasses wearing,
stone washed jeans blue, the color of his eyes,
reflecting mine as well as the blue glacier ice
surrounding us both, we,
the extraneous human eagle interlopers

showed him the Erasmus quote, provoking one of them,
thin lined, whimsical, eye-glinting smiles of those
who know the answer
to the knotty ones, or,
know better, that knotty questions one asks himself
when high up in the mountainous glacier ranges,
get answered just by silent patience

he smiled for an eternity of
at least five minutes,
my heart pulsating big time,
this modern man anticipating, in his calm, dulcet two tones,
his understanding of another ancient translating another,
even more ancient, speaking:

”the world is indeed mad,
through neglect letting the elements warp, glaciers melt;
the angels have indeed rebelled at the
foreseen fated falsehoods perpetrated,
verity,
torn asunder,
and the line between balance and imbalance,
so jaggedly ripped in too many places that verity a victim
so badly assaulted, its face is no longer identifiable by AI, worse,
so covered, dying, undiscoverable.

but you ask!
ask of yourself, asking of others, and tolerating
uncurled, uncut uncertainty, you retreat and reconsider,
this then is your answer!
it is the
ASKING,
that is verity, itself! there can be no lying thing in the
quest of questioning
that accepts, rejects, and unceasingly asks again^

this is a the only irrefutable truth and what it asks of you:

never accept the illogic of belief, let your own eyes be the best judge;
ask and ask thrice, be satisfied that being disastrously dissatisfied
is the norm, the mean,
the line toward a perfection that may not ever exist(ed)
for our flaws define us, thus so much greater is our truths when we
we reshape them, ourselves, for verity itself is not so hard to find,
but the finding of one self is too difficult for most


for asking is too painful,
too primordial, and why I am no longer a priest nor teacher,
but a simple observer of the answers that can be found in the
silences of places,
the Alaska’s inside of us,
where nature’s sets
an open table for anyone
wiling to just ask...”
8/18/19
S.I., N.Y.

^”It is not in the asking, but in the searching and wrestling that we gain clarity.”
Nat Lipstadt Jan 2015
for my friend, AJB, mother, artist*

why
would anyone believe in invisible...
coordinator of billions of trillions
of interactions daily,
the microscopic
the telescopic

at what level
is there intercession
where is the
intervention,
rhymed reasoning of
impoverishing failing-me inadequate comprehension

so here I am
at 4:00 am
wailing and complaining
not so much at life's happenstance,
not even a foolish why me uttered,
talking to invisibility,
demanding culpability
at the very least
an apology

by that act
admitting the fact
that in conversation with parties
invited and drop-ins welcome,
in the silence sewn
in the residence permanent
of my mind's lobe of disquietude

logic forgone,
I am a believer,
no understanding
nor forgiving
at the illogic
of my tragedy
mine,
not so divine,
wailing and complaining

this my diatribe
knowing your silence
is a listening signature,
my complaining and wailing
my curse my blessing,
my transmitting frequency
of a multivariate equation
demanding a solution

too busy mastering the universe?
your data base
endless and unfathomable
file this under
audios of
YouTubes of
complaining and wailing,
hoping you cleanse yourself
with a good long listen
I am weary of mothers losing their children,
I am weary of failing to achieve reconciliation,
cessation of formalities, truce delivered,
unafraid to call this what it is,
damning fate, for no god could be so cruel...

If only there was a Dislike button for life and poems
Mass times acceleration
Disbalance and violation
If I had any, I would use, but
Externals force me to choose.
How far may the rays of light
Travel in the pit of void?
Will their speed exceed indeed
The power of the figures' horde?
Will immortal seeds become of age
Under a brighter star's main stage?
Will their specters match in peace
Or timeframes collide without ease...
I make notes, files, but no coins,
Breaking what's been left to break,
Coining words instead of points
Breathing vacuum, air is fake.
Ordering helps me no more,
Trade hardly yields me any score,
The grid of matter took my dream,
Stole my youth and flawed my piece.
I thought that any knowledge is power,
Now I realize it's like any flower,
Philosophers love and grow it,
Calculators show and throw it.
Beauty, balance, free will
They all are prey to evil.
bits of desperation, fractured beliefs about knowledge, physics, logic, values, matter, spirit and the ultimate futileness of form
Rickie Louis Sep 2011
I've been in love, and loved only one,
all of them lovers, but loved of them none.
To blame, a desire, of them seems to me,
a projection from liars, who they seem to be.
But soon these sparks fade, oblivion subsides,
it's many were confused, or it's lies they confide.
All beyond reason, Unwilling to bend,
as if they are hiding, it's then they defend.
illogic so blinding, but so plain to see,
the same who once kissed, It's themselves they deceive.
To them like a game, With revolving rules,
at first they are common, then suddenly fooled.
But down to a truth, and wisdom to be,
dishonesty floats, and facades soon are seen.
The one that I loved, like a princess or goddess a fairytail, it is I who was modest.
It's now that I realize, it's I who is broke,
so willingly hopeless, my own heart I choke.
Michael R Burch Apr 2020
The Making of a Poet
by Michael R. Burch

While I don’t consider “Poetry” to be my best poem—I wrote the first version in my teens—it’s a poem that holds special meaning for me. I consider it my Ars Poetica. Here’s how I came to write “Poetry” as a teenager ...

When I was eleven years old, my father, a staff sergeant in the US Air Force, was stationed in Wiesbaden, Germany. We were forced to live off-base for two years, in a tiny German village where there were no other American children to play with, and no English radio or TV stations. To avoid complete boredom, I began going to the base library, checking out eight books at a time (the limit), reading them in a few days, then continually repeating the process. I quickly exhausted the library’s children’s fare and began devouring adult novels along with a plethora of books about history, science and nature.

In the fifth grade, I tested at the reading level of a college sophomore and was put in a reading group of one. I was an incredibly fast reader: I flew through books like crazy. I was reading Austen, Dickens, Hardy, et al, while my classmates were reading … whatever one normally reads in grade school. My grades shot through the roof and from that day forward I was always the top scholar in my age group, wherever I went.

But being bright and well-read does not invariably lead to happiness. I was tall, scrawny, introverted and socially awkward. I had trouble making friends. I began to dabble in poetry around age thirteen, but then we were finally granted base housing and for two years I was able to focus on things like marbles, quarters, comic books, baseball, basketball and football. And, from an incomprehensible distance, girls.

When I was fifteen my father retired from the Air Force and we moved back to his hometown of Nashville. While my parents were looking for a house, we lived with my grandfather and his third wife. They didn’t have air-conditioning and didn’t seem to believe in hot food—even the peas and beans were served cold!—so I was sweaty, hungry, lonely, friendless and miserable. It was at this point that I began to write poetry seriously. I’m not sure why. Perhaps because my options were so limited and the world seemed so impossibly grim and unfair.

Writing poetry helped me cope with my loneliness and depression. I had feelings of deep alienation and inadequacy, but suddenly I had found something I could do better than anyone around me. (Perhaps because no one else was doing it at all?)

However, I was a perfectionist and poetry can be very tough on perfectionists. I remember becoming incredibly frustrated and angry with myself. Why wasn’t I writing poetry like Shelley and Keats at age fifteen? I destroyed all my poems in a fit of pique. Fortunately, I was able to reproduce most of the better poems from memory, but two in particular were lost forever and still haunt me.

In the tenth grade, at age sixteen, I had a major breakthrough. My English teacher gave us a poetry assignment. We were instructed to create a poetry booklet with five chapters of our choosing. I still have my booklet, a treasured memento, banged out on a Corona typewriter with cursive script, which gave it a sort of elegance, a cachet. My chosen chapters were: Rock Songs, English Poems, Animal Poems, Biblical Poems, and ta-da, My Poems! Audaciously, alongside the poems of Shakespeare, Burns and Tennyson, I would self-publish my fledgling work!

My teacher wrote “This poem is beautiful” beside one my earliest compositions, “Playmates.” Her comment was like rocket fuel to my stellar aspirations. Surely I was next Keats, the next Shelley! Surely immediate and incontrovertible success was now fait accompli, guaranteed!

Of course I had no idea what I was getting into. How many fifteen-year-old poets can compete with the immortal bards? I was in for some very tough sledding because I had good taste in poetry and could tell the difference between merely adequate verse and the real thing. I continued to find poetry vexing. Why the hell wouldn’t it cooperate and anoint me its next Shakespeare, pronto?

Then I had another breakthrough. I remember it vividly. I working at a McDonald’s at age seventeen, salting away money for college because my parents had informed me they didn’t have enough money to pay my tuition. Fortunately, I was able to earn a full academic scholarship, but I still needed to make money for clothes, dating (hah!), etc. I was sitting in the McDonald’s break room when I wrote a poem, “Reckoning” (later re-titled “Observance”), that sorta made me catch my breath. Did I really write that? For the first time, I felt like a “real poet.”

Observance
by Michael R. Burch

Here the hills are old, and rolling
casually in their old age;
on the horizon youthful mountains
bathe themselves in windblown fountains . . .

By dying leaves and falling raindrops,
I have traced time's starts and stops,
and I have known the years to pass
almost unnoticed, whispering through treetops . . .

For here the valleys fill with sunlight
to the brim, then empty again,
and it seems that only I notice
how the years flood out, and in . . .

Another poem, “Infinity,” written around age eighteen, again made me feel like a real poet.



Infinity
by Michael R. Burch

Have you tasted the bitterness of tears of despair?
Have you watched the sun sink through such pale, balmless air
that your soul sought its shell like a crab on a beach,
then scuttled inside to be safe, out of reach?

Might I lift you tonight from earth’s wreckage and damage
on these waves gently rising to pay the moon homage?
Or better, perhaps, let me say that I, too,
have dreamed of infinity . . . windswept and blue.

Now, two “real poems” in two years may not seem like a big deal to non-poets. But they were very big deals to me. I would go off to college feeling that I was, really, a real poet, with two real poems under my belt. I felt like someone, at last. I had, at least, potential.

But I was in for another rude shock. Being a good reader of poetry—good enough to know when my own poems were falling far short of the mark—I was absolutely floored when I learned that impostors were controlling Poetry’s fate! These impostors were claiming that meter and rhyme were passé, that honest human sentiment was something to be ridiculed and dismissed, that poetry should be nothing more than concrete imagery, etc.

At first I was devastated, but then I quickly became enraged. I knew the difference between good poetry and bad. I could feel it in my flesh, in my bones. Who were these impostors to say that bad poetry was good, and good was bad? How dare they? I was incensed! I loved Poetry. I saw her as my savior because she had rescued me from depression and feelings of inadequacy. So I made a poetic pledge to help save my Savior from the impostors:



Poetry
by Michael R. Burch

Poetry, I found you where at last they chained and bound you;
with devices all around you to torture and confound you,
I found you—shivering, bare.

They had shorn your raven hair and taken both your eyes
which, once cerulean as Gogh’s skies, had leapt with dawn to wild surmise
of what was waiting there.

Your back was bent with untold care; there savage brands had left cruel scars
as though the wounds of countless wars; your bones were broken with the force
with which they’d lashed your flesh so fair.

You once were loveliest of all. So many nights you held in thrall
a scrawny lad who heard your call from where dawn’s milling showers fall—
pale meteors through sapphire air.

I learned the eagerness of youth to temper for a lover’s touch;
I felt you, tremulant, reprove each time I fumbled over-much.
Your merest word became my prayer.

You took me gently by the hand and led my steps from boy to man;
now I look back, remember when—you shone, and cannot understand
why here, tonight, you bear their brand.

I will take and cradle you in my arms, remindful of the gentle charms
you showed me once, of yore;
and I will lead you from your cell tonight—back into that incandescent light
which flows out of the core of a sun whose robes you wore.
And I will wash your feet with tears for all those blissful years . . .
my love, whom I adore.

Originally published by The Lyric

I consider "Poetry" to be my Ars Poetica. However, the poem has been misinterpreted as the poet claiming to be Poetry's  sole "savior." The poet never claims to be a savior or hero, but more like a member of a rescue operation. The poem says that when Poetry is finally freed, in some unspecified way, the poet will be there to take her hand and watch her glory be re-revealed to the world. The poet expresses love for Poetry, and gratitude, but never claims to have done anything heroic himself. This is a poem of love, compassion and reverence. Poetry is the Messiah, not the poet. The poet washes her feet with his tears, like Mary Magdalene.



These are other poems I have written since, that I particularly like, and hope you like them too ...

In this Ordinary Swoon
by Michael R. Burch

In this ordinary swoon
as I pass from life to death,
I feel no heat from the cold, pale moon;
I feel no sympathy for breath.

Who I am and why I came,
I do not know; nor does it matter.
The end of every man’s the same
and every god’s as mad as a hatter.

I do not fear the letting go;
I only fear the clinging on
to hope when there’s no hope, although
I lift my face to the blazing sun

and feel the greater intensity
of the wilder inferno within me.



Second Sight
by Michael R. Burch

I never touched you—
that was my mistake.

Deep within,
I still feel the ache.

Can an unformed thing
eternally break?

Now, from a great distance,
I see you again

not as you are now,
but as you were then—

eternally present
and Sovereign.



Mending
by Michael R. Burch

for the survivors of 9-11

I am besieged with kindnesses;
sometimes I laugh,
delighted for a moment,
then resume
the more seemly occupation of my craft.

I do not taste the candies...

The perfume
of roses is uplifted
in a draft
that vanishes into the ceiling’s fans

which spin like old propellers
till the room
is full of ghostly bits of yarn...

My task
is not to knit,

but not to end too soon.

This poem is dedicated to the victims of 9-11 and their families and friends.



Love Unfolded Like a Flower
by Michael R. Burch

Love unfolded
like a flower;
Pale petals pinked and blushed to see the sky.
I came to know you
and to trust you
in moments lost to springtime slipping by.

Then love burst outward,
leaping skyward,
and untamed blossoms danced against the wind.
All I wanted
was to hold you;
though passion tempted once, we never sinned.

Now love's gay petals
fade and wither,
and winter beckons, whispering a lie.
We were friends,
but friendships end . . .
yes, friendships end and even roses die.



Shadowselves
by Michael R. Burch

In our hearts, knowing
fewer days―and milder―beckon,
how now are we to measure
that wick by which we reckon
the time we have remaining?

We are shadows
spawned by a blue spurt of candlelight.
Darkly, we watch ourselves flicker.
Where shall we go when the flame burns less bright?
When chill night steals our vigor?

Why are we less than ourselves? We are shadows.
Where is the fire of our youth? We grow cold.
Why does our future loom dark? We are old.
And why do we shiver?

In our hearts, seeing
fewer days―and briefer―breaking,
now, even more, we treasure
this brittle leaf-like aching
that tells us we are living.



Dust (II)
by Michael R. Burch

We are dust
and to dust we must
return ...
but why, then,
life’s pointless sojourn?



Leave Taking (II)
by Michael R. Burch

Although the earth renews itself, and spring
is lovelier for all the rot of fall,
I think of yellow leaves that cling and hang
by fingertips to life, let go . . . and all
men see is one bright instance of departure,
the flame that, at least height, warms nothing. I,

have never liked to think the ants that march here
will deem them useless, grimly tramping by,
and so I gather leaves’ dry hopeless brilliance,
to feel their prickly edges, like my own,
to understand their incurled worn resilience―
youth’s tenderness long, callously, outgrown.

I even feel the pleasure of their sting,
the stab of life. I do not think―at all―
to be renewed, as earth is every spring.
I do not hope words cluster where they fall.
I only hope one leaf, wild-spiraling,
illuminates the void, till glad hearts sing.

It's not that every leaf must finally fall ...
it's just that we can never catch them all.

Originally published by Silver Stork



Less Heroic Couplets: Funding Fundamentals
by Michael R. Burch

*"I found out that I was a Christian for revenue only and I could not bear the thought of that, it was so ignoble." ― Mark Twain

Making sense from nonsense is quite sensible! Suppose
you’re running low on moolah, need some cash to paint your toes ...
Just invent a new religion; claim it saves lost souls from hell;
have the converts write you checks; take major debit cards as well;
take MasterCard and Visa and good-as-gold Amex;
hell, lend and charge them interest, whether payday loan or flex.
Thus out of perfect nonsense, glittery ores of this great mine,
you’ll earn an easy living and your toes will truly shine!

Originally published by Lighten Up Online



Marsh Song
by Michael R. Burch

Here there is only the great sad song of the reeds
and the silent herons, wraithlike in the mist,
and a few drab sunken stones, unblessed
by the sunlight these late sixteen thousand years,
and the beaded dews that drench strange ferns, like tears
collected against an overwhelming sadness.

Here the marsh exposes its dejectedness,
its gutted rotting belly, and its roots
rise out of the earth’s distended heaviness,
to claw hard at existence, till the scars
remind us that we all have wounds, and I
have learned again that living is despair
as the herons cleave the placid, dreamless air.

Originally published by The Lyric



Moon Lake
by Michael R. Burch

Starlit recorder of summer nights,
what magic spell bewitches you?
They say that all lovers love first in the dark . . .
Is it true?
Is it true?
Is it true?

Starry-eyed seer of all that appears
and all that has appeared―
What sights have you seen?
What dreams have you dreamed?
What rhetoric have you heard?

Is love an oration,
or is it a word?
Have you heard?
Have you heard?
Have you heard?

Originally published by Romantics Quarterly



Tomb Lake
by Michael R. Burch

Go down to the valley
where mockingbirds cry,
alone, ever lonely . . .
yes, go down to die.

And dream in your dying
you never shall wake.
Go down to the valley;
go down to Tomb Lake.

Tomb Lake is a cauldron
of souls such as yours―
mad souls without meaning,
frail souls without force.

Tomb Lake is a graveyard
reserved for the dead.
They lie in her shallows
and sleep in her bed.

I believe this poem and "Moon Lake" were companion poems, written around my senior year in high school, in 1976.



Mother of Cowards
by Michael R. Burch aka "The Loyal Opposition"

So unlike the brazen giant of Greek fame
With conquering limbs astride from land to land,
Spread-eagled, showering gold, a strumpet stands:
A much-used trollop with a torch, whose flame
Has long since been extinguished. And her name?
"Mother of Cowards!" From her enervate hand
Soft ash descends. Her furtive eyes demand
Allegiance to her ****'s repulsive game.
"Keep, ancient lands, your wretched poor!" cries she
With scarlet lips. "Give me your hale, your whole,
Your huddled tycoons, yearning to be pleased!
The wretched refuse of your toilet hole?
Oh, never send one unwashed child to me!
I await Trump's pleasure by the gilded bowl!"



Frantisek “Franta” Bass was a Jewish boy murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust.

The Garden
by Franta Bass
translation by Michael R. Burch

A small garden,
so fragrant and full of roses!
The path the little boy takes
is guarded by thorns.

A small boy, a sweet boy,
growing like those budding blossoms!
But when the blossoms have bloomed,
the boy will be no more.



Jewish Forever
by Franta Bass
translation by Michael R. Burch

I am a Jew and always will be, forever!
Even if I should starve,
I will never submit!
But I will always fight for my people,
with my honor,
to their credit!

And I will never be ashamed of them;
this is my vow.
I am so very proud of my people now!
How dignified they are, in their grief!
And though I may die, oppressed,
still I will always return to life ...



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

“Evolution’s a Fishy Business!”

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

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

3.
No predators have made it here, so I need not adapt.
Sun-sluggish, full, lethargic―I’ll take such nice long naps!

The highest form of life, that’s me! (Quite apt
to lie here chortling, calling fishes saps.)

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

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

Originally published by Lighten Up Online

Keywords/Tags: amphibian, amphibians, evolution, gills, water, air, lungs, fins, flippers, fish, fishy business



Unlikely Mike
by Michael R. Burch

I married someone else’s fantasy;
she admired me despite my mutilations.

I loved her for her heart’s sake, and for mine.
I hid my face and changed its connotations.

And in the dark I danced—slight, Chaplinesque—
a metaphor myself. How could they know,

the undiscerning ones, that in the glow
of spotlights, sometimes love becomes burlesque?

Disfigured to my soul, I could not lose
or choose or name myself; I came to be

another of life’s odd dichotomies,
like Dickey’s Sheep Boy, Pan, or David Cruse:

as pale, as enigmatic. White, or black?
My color was a song, a changing track.



This is my translation of one of my favorite Dimash Kudaibergen songs, the French song "S.O.S." ...

S.O.S.
by Michel Berger
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Why do I live, why do I die?
Why do I laugh, why do I cry?

Voicing the S.O.S.
of an earthling in distress ...

I have never felt at home on the ground.

I'd rather be a bird;
this skin feels weird.

I'd like to see the world turned upside down.

It ever was more beautiful
seen from up above,
seen from up above.

I've always confused life with cartoons,
wishing to transform.

I feel something that draws me,
that draws me,
that draws me
UP!

In the great lotto of the universe
I didn't draw the right numbers.
I feel unwell in my own skin,
I don't want to be a machine
eating, working, sleeping.

Why do I live, why do I die?
Why do I laugh, why do I cry?

I feel I'm catching waves from another world.
I've never had both feet on the ground.
This skin feels weird.
I'd like to see the world turned upside down.
I'd rather be a bird.

Sleep, child, sleep ...



"Late Autumn" aka "Autumn Strong"
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
based on the version sung by Dimash Kudaibergen

Autumn ...

The feeling of late autumn ...

It feels like golden leaves falling
to those who are parting ...

A glass of wine
has stirred
so many emotions swirling in my mind ...

Such sad farewells ...

With the season's falling leaves,
so many sad farewells.

To see you so dispirited pains me more than I can say.

Holding your hands so tightly to my heart ...

... Remembering ...

I implore you to remember our unspoken vows ...

I dare bear this bitterness,
but not to see you broken-hearted!

All contentment vanishes like leaves in an autumn wind.

Meeting or parting, that's not up to me.
We can blame the wind for our destiny.

I do not fear my own despair
but your sorrow haunts me.

No one will know of our desolation.



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.



Less Heroic Couplets: Rejection Slips
by Michael R. Burch

pour Melissa Balmain

Whenever my writing gets rejected,
I always wonder how the rejecter got elected.
Are we exchanging at the same Bourse?
(Excepting present company, of course!)

I consider the term “rejection slip” to be a double entendre. When editors reject my poems, did I slip up, or did they? Is their slip showing, or is mine?



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



Drippings
by Michael R. Burch

I have no words
for winter’s pale splendors
awash in gray twilight,
nor these slow-dripping eaves
renewing their tinkling songs.

Life’s like the failing resistance
of autumn to winter
and plays its low accompaniment,
slipping slowly
away
...
..
.



The Drawer of Mermaids
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Keywords/Tags: mermaid, mermaids, child, children, childhood, Urals, Ural Mountains, soul, soulmate, radiation



The Blobfish
by Michael R. Burch

You can call me a "blob"
with your oversized gob,
but what's your excuse,
great gargantuan Zeus
whose once-chiseled abs
are now marbleized flab?

But what really alarms me
(how I wish you'd abstain)
is when you start using
that oversized "brain."
Consider the planet! Refrain!



There’s a Stirring and Awakening in the World
by Michael R. Burch

There’s a stirring and awakening in the world,
and even so my spirit stirs within,
imagining some Power beckoning—
the Force which through the stamen gently whirrs,
unlocking tumblers deftly, even mine.

The grape grows wild-entangled on the vine,
and here, close by, the honeysuckle shines.
And of such life, at last there comes there comes the Wine.

And so it is with spirits’ fruitful yield—
the growth comes first, Green Vagrance, then the Bloom.

The world somehow must give the spirit room
to blossom, till its light shines—wild, revealed.

And then at last the earth receives its store
of blessings, as glad hearts cry—More! More! More!

Originally published by Borderless Journal
POEMS ABOUT SHAKESPEARE by Michael R. Burch

These are poems I have written about Shakespeare, poems I have written for Shakespeare, and poems I have written after Shakespeare.



Fleet Tweet: Apologies to Shakespeare
by Michael R. Burch

a tweet
by any other name
would be as fleet!
@mikerburch



Fleet Tweet II: Further Apologies to Shakespeare
by Michael R. Burch

Remember, doggonit,
heroic verse crowns the Shakespearean sonnet!
So if you intend to write a couplet,
please do it on the doublet!
@mikerburch



Stage Fright
by Michael R. Burch

To be or not to be?
In the end Hamlet
opted for naught.



Ophelia
by Michael R. Burch

for Kevin N. Roberts

Ophelia, madness suits you well,
as the ocean sounds in an empty shell,
as the moon shines brightest in a starless sky,
as suns supernova before they die ...



Shakespeare's Sonnet 130 Refuted
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
— Shakespeare, Sonnet 130

Seas that sparkle in the sun
without its light would have no beauty;
but the light within your eyes
is theirs alone; it owes no duty.
Whose winsome flame, not half so bright,
is meant for me, and brings delight.

Coral formed beneath the sea,
though scarlet-tendriled, cannot warm me;
while your lips, not half so red,
just touching mine, at once inflame me.
Whose scorching flames mild lips arouse
fathomless oceans fail to douse.

Bright roses’ brief affairs, declared
when winter comes, will wither quickly.
Your cheeks, though paler when compared
with them?—more lasting, never prickly.
Whose tender cheeks, so enchantingly warm,
far vaster treasures, harbor no thorns.

Originally published by Romantics Quarterly

This was my first sonnet, written in my teens after I discovered Shakespeare's "Sonnet 130." At the time I didn't know the rules of the sonnet form, so mine is a bit unconventional. I think it is not bad for the first attempt of a teen poet. I remember writing this poem in my head on the way back to my dorm from a freshman English class. I would have been 18 or 19 at the time.



Attention Span Gap
by Michael R. Burch

What if a poet, Shakespeare,
were still living to tweet to us here?
He couldn't write sonnets,
just couplets, doggonit,
and we wouldn't have Hamlet or Lear!

Yes, a sonnet may end in a couplet,
which we moderns can write in a doublet,
in a flash, like a tweet.
Does that make it complete?
Should a poem be reduced to a stublet?

Bring back that Grand Era when men
had attention spans long as their pens,
or rather the quills
of the monsieurs and fils
who gave us the Dress, not its hem!



Chloe
by Michael R. Burch

There were skies onyx at night... moons by day...
lakes pale as her eyes... breathless winds
******* tall elms ... she would say
that we’d loved, but I figured we'd sinned.

Soon impatiens too fiery to stay
sagged; the crocus bells drooped, golden-limned;
things of brightness, rinsed out, ran to gray...
all the light of that world softly dimmed.

Where our feet were inclined, we would stray;
there were paths where dead weeds stood untrimmed,
distant mountains that loomed in our way,
thunder booming down valleys dark-hymned.

What I found, I found lost in her face
while yielding all my virtue to her grace.

“Chloe” is a Shakespearean sonnet about being parted from someone you wanted and expected to be with forever. It was originally published by Romantics Quarterly as "A Dying Fall"



Sonnet: The City Is a Garment
by Michael R. Burch

A rhinestone skein, a jeweled brocade of light,—
the city is a garment stretched so thin
her festive colors bleed into the night,
and everywhere bright seams, unraveling,

cascade their brilliant contents out like coins
on motorways and esplanades; bead cars
come tumbling down long highways; at her groin
a railtrack like a zipper flashes sparks;

her hills are haired with brush like cashmere wool
and from their cleavage winking lights enlarge
and travel, slender fingers ... softly pull
themselves into the semblance of a barge.

When night becomes too chill, she softly dons
great overcoats of warmest-colored dawn.

“The City is a Garment” is a Shakespearean sonnet.



Afterglow
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

The night is full of stars. Which still exist?
Before time ends, perhaps one day we’ll know.
For now I hold your fingers to my lips
and feel their pulse ... warm, palpable and slow ...

once slow to match this reckless spark in me,
this moon in ceaseless orbit I became,
compelled by wilder gravity to flee
night’s universe of suns, for one pale flame ...

for one pale flame that seemed to signify
the Zodiac of all, the meaning of
love’s wandering flight past Neptune. Now to lie
in dawning recognition is enough ...

enough each night to bask in you, to know
the face of love ... eyes closed ... its afterglow.

“Afterglow” is a Shakespearean sonnet.



I Learned Too Late
by Michael R. Burch

“Show, don’t tell!”

I learned too late that poetry has rules,
although they may be rules for greater fools.

In any case, by dodging rules and schools,
I avoided useless duels.

I learned too late that sentiment is bad—
that Blake and Keats and Plath had all been had.

In any case, by following my heart,
I learned to walk apart.

I learned too late that “telling” is a crime.
Did Shakespeare know? Is Milton doing time?

In any case, by telling, I admit:
I think such rules are ****.



Heaven Bent
by Michael R. Burch

This life is hell; it can get no worse.
Summon the coroner, the casket, the hearse!
But I’m upwardly mobile. How the hell can I know?
I can only go up; I’m already below!

This is a poem in which I imagine Shakespeare speaking through a modern Hamlet.



That Mella Fella
by Michael R. Burch

John Mella was the longtime editor of Light Quarterly.

There once was a fella
named Mella,
who, if you weren’t funny,
would tell ya.
But he was cool, clever, nice,
gave some splendid advice,
and if you did well,
he would sell ya.

Shakespeare had his patrons and publishers; John Mella was one of my favorites in the early going, along with Jean Mellichamp Milliken of The Lyric.



Chip Off the Block
by Michael R. Burch

for Jeremy

In the fusion of poetry and drama,
Shakespeare rules! Jeremy’s a ham: a
chip off the block, like his father and mother.
Part poet? Part ham? Better run for cover!
Now he’s Benedick — most comical of lovers!

NOTE: Jeremy’s father is a poet and his mother is an actress; hence the fusion, or confusion, as the case may be.

Keywords/Tags: Shakespeare, Shakespearean, sonnet, epigram, epigrams, Hamlet, Ophelia, Lear, Benedick, tweet, tweets



Untitled Epigrams

Teach me to love:
to fly beyond sterile Mars
to percolating Venus.
—Michael R. Burch

The LIV is LIVid:
livid with blood,
and full of egos larger
than continents.
—Michael R. Burch

Evil is as evil does.
Evil never needs a cause.
Evil loves amoral “laws,”
laughs and licks its blood-red claws
while kids are patched together with gauze.
— Michael R. Burch

Poets laud Justice’s
high principles.
Trump just gropes
her raw genitals.
—Michael R. Burch



When Pigs Fly
by Michael R. Burch

On the Trail of Tears,
my Cherokee brothers,
why hang your heads?
Why shame your mothers?

Laugh wildly instead!
We will soon be dead.

When we lie in our graves,
let the white-eyes take
the woodlands we loved
for the *** and the rake.

It is better to die
than to live out a lie
in so narrow a sty.



Perhat Tursun (1969-) is one of the foremost living Uyghur language poets, if he is still alive. Tursun has been described as a "self-professed Kafka character" and that comes through splendidly in poems of his like "Elegy." Unfortunately, Tursun was "disappeared" into a Chinese "reeducation" concentration camp where extreme psychological torture is the norm. According to a disturbing report he was later "hospitalized."

Elegy
by Perhat Tursun
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

"Your soul is the entire world."
— Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

Asylum seekers, will you recognize me among the mountain passes' frozen corpses?
Can you identify me here among our Exodus's exiled brothers?
We begged for shelter but they lashed us bare; consider our naked corpses.
When they compel us to accept their massacres, do you know that I am with you?
Three centuries later they resurrect, not recognizing each other,
Their former greatness forgotten.
I happily ingested poison, like a fine wine.
When they search the streets and cannot locate our corpses, do you know that I am with you?
In that tower constructed of skulls you will find my dome as well:
They removed my head to more accurately test their swords' temper.
When before their swords our relationship flees like a flighty lover,
Do you know that I am with you?
When men in fur hats are used for target practice in the marketplace
Where a dying man's face expresses his agony as a bullet cleaves his brain
While the executioner's eyes fail to comprehend why his victim vanishes, ...
Seeing my form reflected in that bullet-pierced brain's erratic thoughts,
Do you know that I am with you?
In those days when drinking wine was considered worse than drinking blood,
did you taste the flour ground out in that blood-turned churning mill?
Now, when you sip the wine Ali-Shir Nava'i imagined to be my blood
In that mystical tavern's dark abyssal chambers,
Do you know that I am with you?



Shock and Awe
by Michael R. Burch

With megatons of “wonder,”
we make our godhead clear:
Death. Destruction. Fear.

The world’s heart ripped asunder,
its dying pulse we hear:
Death. Destruction. Fear.

Strange Trinity! We ponder
this God we hold so dear:
Death. Destruction. Fear.

The vulture and the condor
proclaim: "The feast is near!"
Death. Destruction. Fear.

Soon He will plow us under;
the Anti-Christ is here:
Death. Destruction. Fear.

We love to hear Him thunder!
With Shock and Awe, appear!
Death. Destruction. Fear.

For God can never blunder;
we know He holds US dear:
Death. Destruction. Fear.



The State of the Art (?)
by Michael R. Burch

Has rhyme lost all its reason
and rhythm, renascence?
Are sonnets out of season
and poems but poor pretense?
Are poets lacking fire,
their words too trite and forced?
What happened to desire?
Has passion been coerced?
Must poetry fade slowly,
like Latin, to past tense?
Are the bards too high and holy,
or their readers merely dense?



Solicitation
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

The moon shines—maniacal, queer—as he takes my hand whispering
"Our time has come" ... And so together we stroll creaking docks
where the sea sends sickening things
scurrying under rocks and boards.

Moonlight washes his ashen face as he stares unseeing into my eyes.
He sighs, and the sound crawls slithering down my spine;
my blood seems to pause at his touch as he caresses my face.

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



Less Heroic Couplets: Baseball Explained
by Michael R. Burch

Baseball’s immeasurable spittin’
mixed with occasional hittin’.



Infatuate, or Sweet Centerless Sixteen
by Michael R. Burch

Inconsolable as “love” had left your heart,
you woke this morning eager to pursue
warm lips again, or something “really cool”
on which to press your lips and leave their mark.

As breath upon a windowpane at dawn
soon glows, a spreading halo full of sun,
your thought of love blinks wildly—on and on . . .
then fizzles at the center, and is gone.



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



The Singer
by Michael R. Burch

for Leslie Mellichamp

The sun that swoons at dusk
and seems a vanished grace
breaks over distant shores
as a child’s uplifted face
takes up a song like yours.

We listen, and embrace
its warmth with dawning trust.



Dawn, to the Singer
by Michael R. Burch

for Leslie Mellichamp

“O singer, sing to me—
I know the world’s awry—
I know how piteously
the hungry children cry.”

We hear you even now—
your voice is with us yet.
Your song did not desert us,
nor can our hearts forget.

“But I bleed warm and near,
And come another dawn
The world will still be here
When home and hearth are gone.”

Although the world seems colder,
your words will warm it yet.
Lie untroubled, still its compass
and guiding instrument.



Geraldine in her pj's
by Michael R. Burch

for Geraldine A. V. Hughes

Geraldine in her pj's
checks her security relays,
sits down armed with a skillet,
mutters, "Intruder? I'll **** it!"
Then, as satellites wink high above,
she turns to her poets with love.



Advice to Young Poets
by Nicanor Parra Sandoval
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Youngsters,
write however you will
in your preferred style.

Too much blood flowed under the bridge
for me to believe
there’s just one acceptable path.
In poetry everything’s permitted.

Originally published by Setu



A poet births words,
brings them into the world like a midwife,
then wet-nurses them from infancy to adolescence.
— Michael R. Burch



The Century’s Wake
by Michael R. Burch

lines written at the close of the 20th century

Take me home. The party is over,
the century passed—no time for a lover.

And my heart grew heavy
as the fireworks hissed through the dark
over Central Park,
past high-towering spires to some backwoods levee,
hurtling banner-hung docks to the torchlit seas.

And my heart grew heavy;
I felt its disease—
its apathy,
wanting the bright, rhapsodic display
to last more than a single day.

If decay was its rite,
now it has learned to long
for something with more intensity,
more gaudy passion, more song—
like the huddled gay masses,
the wildly-cheering throng.

You ask me—
How can this be?
A little more flair,
or perhaps only a little more clarity.

I leave her tonight to the century’s wake;
she disappoints me.



The following translation is the speech of the Sibyl to Aeneas, after he has implored her to help him find his beloved father in the Afterlife, found in the sixth book of the Aeneid ...

The Descent into the Underworld
by Virgil
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The Sibyl began to speak:

“God-blooded Trojan, son of Anchises,
descending into the Underworld’s easy
since Death’s dark door stands eternally unbarred.
But to retrace one’s steps and return to the surface:
that’s the conundrum, that’s the catch!
Godsons have done it, the chosen few
whom welcoming Jupiter favored
and whose virtue merited heaven.
However, even the Blessed find headway’s hard:
immense woods barricade boggy bottomland
where the Cocytus glides with its dark coils.
But if you insist on ferrying the Styx twice
and twice traversing Tartarus,
if Love demands you indulge in such madness,
listen closely to how you must proceed...”



Uther’s Last Battle
by Michael R. Burch

Uther Pendragon was the father of the future King Arthur, but he had given his son to the wily Merlyn and knew nothing of his whereabouts. Did Uther meet his son just before his death, as one of the legends suggests?

When Uther, the High King,
unable to walk, borne upon a litter
went to fight Colgrim, the Saxon King,
his legs were weak, and his visage bitter.

“Where is Merlyn, the sage?
For today I truly feel my age.”

All day long the battle raged
and the dragon banner was sorely pressed,
but the courage of Uther never waned
till the sun hung low upon the west.

“Oh, where is Merlyn to speak my doom,
for truly I feel the chill of the tomb.”

Then, with the battle almost lost
and the king besieged on every side,
a prince appeared, clad all in white,
and threw himself against the tide.

“Oh, where is Merlyn, who stole my son?
For, truly, now my life is done.”

Then Merlyn came unto the king
as the Saxons fled before a sword
that flashed like lightning in the hand
of a prince that day become a lord.

“Oh, Merlyn, speak not, for I see
my son has truly come to me.
And today I need no prophecy
to see how bright his days will be.”

So Uther, then, the valiant king
met his son, and kissed him twice—
the one, the first, the one, the last—
and smiled, and then his time was past.

Originally published by Songs of Innocence



HAIKU

Unaware it protects
the hilltop paddies,
the scarecrow seems useless to itself.
—Eihei Dogen Kigen, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Fading memories
of summer holidays:
the closet’s last floral skirt...
—Michael R. Burch

Scandalous tides,
removing bikinis!
—Michael R. Burch

She bathes in silver
~~~~~afloat~~~~
on her reflections ...
—Michael R. Burch



Sulpicia Translations by Michael R. Burch

These are modern English translations by Michael R. Burch of seven Latin poems written by the ancient Roman female poet Sulpicia, who was apparently still a girl or very young woman when she wrote them.



I. At Last, Love!
by Sulpicia
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

for Carolyn Clark, who put me up to it

It's come at last! Love!
The kind of love that, had it remained veiled,
would have shamed me more than baring my naked soul.
I appealed to Aphrodite in my poems
and she delivered my beloved to me,
placed him snugly, securely against my breast!
The Goddess has kept her promises:
now let my joy be told,
so that it cannot be said no woman enjoys her recompense!
I would not want to entrust my testimony
to tablets, even those signed and sealed!
Let no one read my avowals before my love!
Yet indiscretion has its charms,
while it's boring to conform one’s face to one’s reputation.
May I always be deemed worthy lover to a worthy love!



II. Dismal Journeys, Unwanted Arrivals
by Sulpicia
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

for Carolyn Clark, who put me up to it

My much-hated birthday's arrived, to be spent mourning
in a wretched countryside, bereft of Cerinthus.
Alas, my lost city! Is it suitable for a girl: that rural villa
by the banks of a frigid river draining the fields of Arretium?
Peace now, Uncle Messalla, my over-zealous chaperone!
Arrivals of relatives aren't always welcome, you know.
Kidnapped, abducted, snatched away from my beloved city,
I’d mope there, prisoner to my mind and emotions,
this hostage coercion prevents from making her own decisions!



III. The Thankfully Abandoned Journey
by Sulpicia
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

for Carolyn Clark, who put me up to it

Did you hear the threat of that wretched trip’s been abandoned?
Now my spirits soar and I can be in Rome for my birthday!
Let’s all celebrate this unexpected good fortune!



IV. Thanks for Everything, and Nothing
by Sulpicia
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

for Carolyn Clark, who put me up to it

Thanks for revealing your true colors,
thus keeping me from making further fool of myself!
I do hope you enjoy your wool-basket *****,
since any female-filled toga is much dearer to you
than Sulpicia, daughter of Servius!
On the brighter side, my guardians are much happier,
having feared I might foolishly bed a nobody!



V. Reproach for Indifference
by Sulpicia
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

for Carolyn Clark, who put me up to it

Have you no kind thoughts for your girl, Cerinthus,
now that fever wilts my wasting body?
If not, why would I want to conquer this disease,
knowing you no longer desired my existence?
After all, what’s the point of living
when you can ignore my distress with such indifference?



VI. Her Apology for Errant Desire
by Sulpicia
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

for Carolyn Clark, who put me up to it

Let me admit my errant passion to you, my love,
since in these last few days
I've exceeded all my foolish youth's former follies!
And no folly have I ever regretted more
than leaving you alone last night,
desiring only to disguise my desire for you!



Sulpicia on the First of March
by Sulpicia
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

“One might venture that Sulpicia was not over-modest.” – MRB

Sulpicia's adorned herself for you, O mighty Mars, on your Kalends:
come admire her yourself, if you have the sense to observe!
Venus will forgive your ogling, but you, O my violent one,
beware lest your armaments fall shamefully to the floor!
Cunning Love lights twin torches from her eyes,
with which he’ll soon inflame the gods themselves!
Wherever she goes, whatever she does,
Elegance and Grace follow dutifully in attendance!
If she unleashes her hair, trailing torrents become her train:
if she braids her mane, her braids are to be revered!
If she dons a Tyrian gown, she inflames!
She inflames, if she wears virginal white!
As stylish Vertumnus wears her thousand outfits
on eternal Olympus, even so she models hers gracefully!
She alone among the girls is worthy
of Tyre’s soft wool dipped twice in costly dyes!
May she always possess whatever rich Arabian farmers
reap from their fragrant plains’ perfumed fields,
and whatever flashing gems dark India gathers
from the scarlet shores of distant Dawn’s seas.
Sing the praises of this girl, Muses, on these festive Kalends,
and you, proud Phoebus, strum your tortoiseshell lyre!
She'll carry out these sacred rites for many years to come,
for no girl was ever worthier of your chorus!

• We may not be able to find the true God through logic, but we can certainly find false gods through illogic. — Michael R. Burch



Rag Doll
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 17

On an angry sea a rag doll is tossed
back and forth between cruel waves
that have marred her easy beauty
and ripped away her clothes.
And her arms, once smoothly tanned,
are gashed and torn and peeling
as she dances to the waters’
rockings and reelings.
She’s a rag doll now,
a toy of the sea,
and never before
has she been so free,
or so uneasy.

She’s slammed by the hammering waves,
the flesh shorn away from her bones,
and her silent lips must long to scream,
and her corpse must long to find its home.
For she’s a rag doll now,
at the mercy of all
the sea’s relentless power,
cruelly being ravaged
with every passing hour.

Her eyes are gone; her lips are swollen
shut to the pounding waves
whose waters reached out to fill her mouth
with puddles of agony.
Her limbs are limp; her skull is crushed;
her hair hangs like seaweed
in trailing tendrils draped across
a never-ending sea.
For she’s a rag doll now,
a worn-out toy
with which the waves will play
ten thousand thoughtless games
until her bed is made.

Keywords/Tags: Sulpicia, Latin, Latin Poems, English Translations, Rome, Roman, Cerinthus, Albius Tibullus, Uncle Valerius Messalla Corvinus, birthday, villa, poem, poetry, winter, spring, snow, frost, rose, sun, eyes, sight, seeing, understanding, wisdom, Ars Poetica, Messiah, disciple
"The Making of a Poet" is the account of how I came to be a poet.
Nat Lipstadt Dec 2023
inspired by a short story from the man from Snake River


<>


no alarm clocks heard expiring,
unrequired and unrequited,
we,
those, self-employed by the
nocturnal repetitive recounting
of sins of omission and worse,
those commissioned in
anger and haste, that breed only
more anger and lay further waste
from humans to 
humans,
awaken with an
irregular precision
and bad disorder,
demanding chances,
expiation, restitution, amendment,
but time erodes
possibilities for the
impossible,
foreign forgiveness

knock-you-down rushing currents
of water erodes Snake River boulders,
them oldsters just like the litany of our
malfeasances, indestructible in nature
geologic,
and in
human nature
illogic,
terms, such as time measurements,
irreverent and irredeemable,
for our sins
live far longer than
our owned memories,
in those harmed, who
cannot in the unlimited timeless quantity of
ever ever,
understand

your wry smile,
your why cries,
audibles you’ve
play called, go
unheard, unseen,
even and odd
Bach Orchestral Suites,
Beethoven Sonatas
more mock than soothe

trapped between industrial carpet
and flat unpainted Armstrong ceiling tiles,
you
in a hell of your own creation, forgot to include,
a Sabbath day extant, of rest for weary creators,
ever ever,

or planned in a world you’ve  designed,
so the best you
can do
is write
another and another
confession ever ever

watching and listening to
the alarm clock that neither
requires setting, for
it’s audible ticking is
alarm-ing curse
enough ever ever
that always never
rings
see “4:30 Am in the City” by Jim Cunningham from his book of short stories,
“Reel Stories”

writ at 7:00am
-Studying car lights from outside- an automobile's slow flash-

Primary colors of headlight reflections, flirt in their dance-like dash.

Here I sit in the back of my van, in the corner on the side of the street; I've been right here since 5pm, how the hours lapse with deceit. Its been just over 5 full hours that I've been paralyzed in this seat; Now as it's pushing 10pm, documented my defeat:

I'm more than done with this pit of fear,
overcome the paranoid gap,
all I need is to now pause, re-evaluate  
Exiting this trap.

To wrap it up in this conclusion
To iterate the hours ceaseless delusion
Is to redefine isolations inherent seclusion-  with confidence, strength-
dispel illogic's confusion.
Ishika Aug 2018
Teach your child
to plant a tree
than pluck one
that was never
her own entity
but its own

Teach your child
to make  a painting
of a flower
as a gift
than give a bouquet
that will die soon
or instead
teach her to
give a sapling
that will grow
into a memory
which will hold
much power

Teach your child
to question
than cower
to vain rules
and illogic
that steal her
playful affection
and her artless frolic

Teach your child
to climb trees
before the
ladders to
supreme echelon

Teach her
that when she collapses
she must stand up
with grace and poise
like the shining sun
for after
the night
is done
laying its darkness
it rises again
the sun

Teach your child
the colors of mankind
Yellow or Orange
Red or Brown
Black or White
to accept each one
everyone
without the division
of vanity
of power
or a crown

Teach your child
to create
her own meaning
of Love

Teach her to
listen to the story
of every tear
that bears grief
and to
speak aloud
to bespeak
wisdom and virtue
in brief

Teach your child
about the freedom
in and of the mind
before she rebels
to venture outside
with people
who care less
about her kind
but more about
filling the space
on a car seat

Teach your child
to believe
in possibilities
and have faith
in the certainties
of unlocking mysteries

Teach her
to fuel
her curiosities

Teach your child
values that were not
taught to
the crowd
then you will
stand a mother
full and proud.
Onoma Nov 2013
Time an temperature...bottom right of
tele-visioning screen.
And now...torrent crystallized vertically, horizontally.
Fixity of the epochal *****--aegis to the
refining floodlight.
Reflected back to virtual reality, Jacob Boehme's
pewter dish.
Numbing, the iced pillow of cold illogic...slid
the presented head...melting.
Warming up and up to harmony and chaos--
reintegrated by and by Now.
As my illogic breaks, I'll robot make
to be this soul's chamber,
robbing a piecemeal joy from misfit toys
tossed out for fine tuning

by toddlers cheery mad to gorge on fads.
I'll take their T-Rex head,
with droopy lids that wink as if to drink
the world's wide-shallow stares,

plug its plastic prongs in torso of tin
while twin squeeze-box arms splay
to tie magnetic bows round pads below
gold, plush lion cub's legs.

This moppet of mixed breeds I'll learned feed
with animate cunning
to be ruled by charmed laws that give it pause
when whole-sum circumstance

tangles fuzzy circuits. Then a circus-
wire's unbalancing act
I'll paste from templed flesh to doll enmeshed
by transfuse rigging,

and as coil comes to slough, just as I'm off,
I'll flip that gilded switch,
implanting my spirit into a bit
of copper-hued country.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
ShamusDeyo Mar 2015
Everytime I hear No, its always .......MY FAULT
As the Brain drags me down this train of illogic
Anxiety Loops in unending Circles Spun to the Tragic
What can go wrong, then to feel like.......
Life has ***** me, And why is it always my Fault

The FIST FLEW out of Nowhere, Sucker punched*
Slow motion falling as a..........
Childs head bounces off the ground
Awaking to throbbing Pain,
My Pants around my Knees,
And why is it always my Fault..

For those who know what I mean
Others can't know what we've seen
Even if Its both Bad and Yucky
*Childhood is for the lucky..........JMF  9/28/14
I did a revision of an earlier Piece...

I realized I never had a childhood
BOOTS Mar 2014
oh whoa oh is gone
who is gone ? who? woo ..what!?
im lost hypnotized inside my mind lost
and trapped at the same time
make what you will
say what you say display how you feel

say stay the same don't be in the such rush
were going to the same place in the end
and there's plenty of space
neurotic from to many narcotics at once
I can get illogic in my jargon once the effects
on set

im on a set on a stage naked
I believe a politician clothes
should be rigged to set on fire when their caught lying
in  our faces

take it for what it is I don't hold a placement
I face adjacent from your standard living condition
on my transient engagement roamago a it a little till it gives to your mold
take **** as far as it will go
=/
A is not B
Being A excludes  being B
But with God all things are possible
Therefore  A and B can be One

A lonely woman meets a lonely man
In some imagined universe
They don't give a **** if they are
Right so long as they are not alone
But only if mutually exclusive.

A friend of mine said of my Magnum
Opus: Its a thought of mind.Indeed.
All Things are-at the atomic level
There is no difference between yes and no
And are not all things made up of atoms
Thoughts of mind if you will -stuff and
Nonsense as they say: A mind must be
Free What if science is filled with non-
Sequiturs, a little wee play must not be
Condemned; consistency is the bain of
Small minds so we must be the antithesis
Oh Father God would you **** your
Children; crucify them for their illogic
It is all but  but a little pretense
Wee play like the goat footed balloon
Man.  Father are

you angry that your poor
Child Science is fill of nonsense.  Someday
You may tear the universe up like a page,
A thought of mind but by then we, all
Your wee children will be home again.
Father oh Father let us love Thee
Play with us and do not be mad
We did not mean to be so bad.
Contains More Than Kernel Of Truthful

alienation, expulsion, ostracization
     from body politick
     if member of society resistant,
     indifferent, adamant, et cetera
despite differentiation
     (across the figurative board)
     intolerance opposing ethos,
     asper unspoken social graces extant

(albeit manifested amidst diverse
     livingsocial variations) within
rubric of global civilizations primal,
     oral, nonverbal, et cetera codas

     automatically decreeing manual Kant
instilled from cradle
     to grave impossible mission scant
acceptance toward recalcitrant
     challenging precepts via rave and/or rant

thus when born into whatever culture,
     steeped with historical paradigm
one can protest superficial nigh cities
     til ivy blue in the face,
     or try to concoct a feeble rhyme
but culture club richly identified, endowed,
     brewed from heritage long time
ago until the cows come home to roost

hence creative pursuits one direction
     can turn to swiftly tailor
if harried styled
     with perceived restrictive parameters
     and cuss like a sailor
     with song and dance routine
(perhaps appearing on Dancing
     With The Stars), or

choosing subterfuge viz
     writing nefarious malware code, wheremailer
     daemons spring to life, when computer code
     following infinitely jesting illogic causing exhaler

(case in point - myself, hoot
     ends tubby humorous) as yukon gauge
yet another Internet end user might experience
     greater reason to rage
against the machine before
     turning rogue gushing renegade, stage
jing anarchy against disparity
     with equal pay, cuz a working wage

aint nuttin boot peanuts
so if strong willed, hook hairs
     if you appear like a putz
just realize doggerel
     of this pooch iz gaseous
     boot utterly without guts
and hangs around the junkyard
     with other nerdy mutts.
GaryFairy Oct 2021
they said it was a given
but givers always like to take

they are like a scale
they can take your weight and give your weight
but that scale is lean and mean
so calculating
in with the plan for all this time
in the bathroom of all places

letting those fools who step on it glorify it
what a beautiful revenge

those people, for some odd reason called all gain a few pounds
as you went along by not going along
and even tried to show them the truth

but they never lied about losing weight
they never told anyone when they lost one pound
that's a lot of weight to a scale
holding them above the ground while they control their destiny
whew
i guess only weights and measures can truly feel the weight of what they weigh and measure

you can count on one thing scale
i will never step on you
i won't be there to count on either

after all, you have been an accessory and tool used in countless acts of illogic and defiance

always know that i also know that when people step on you they instantly want a cookie...
so true weight, false weight
it ain't even up to you to give it or take it
but they give you credit anyhow

suffer mr stinky
i wrote the first two lines and then took bathroom break...i  think it was supposed to be about freedom, like i said, i was in the bathroom
Michael R Burch Feb 2020
Brief Fling
by Michael R. Burch

“Epigram”
means cram,
then scram!



The Whole of Wit
by Michael R. Burch

for and after Richard Thomas Moore

If brevity is the soul of wit
then brevity and levity
are the whole of it.

(Published by Shot Glass Journal, Brief Poems, AZquotes, IdleHearts, JarOfQuotes, QuoteFancy, QuoteMaster)



Feathered Fiends

Conformists of a feather
flock together.
—Michael R. Burch

(Winner of the National Poetry Month Couplet Competition)



Nun Fun Undone
by Michael R. Burch

Abbesses'
recesses
are not for excesses!

(Originally published by Brief Poems)



Epitaph for a Palestinian Child
by Michael R. Burch

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

(Published by Romantics Quarterly, Daily Kos, Setu, Genocide Awareness and Darfur Awareness Shabbat; also translated into Czech, Indonesian, Romanian and Turkish)



Childless
by Michael R. Burch

How can she bear her grief?
Mightier than Atlas, she shoulders the weight
of one fallen star.



Stormfront
by Michael R. Burch

Our distance is frightening:
a distance like the abyss between heaven and earth
interrupted by bizarre and terrible lightning.



Are mayflies missed by mountains? Do stars
applaud the glowworm’s stellar mimicry?
—Michael R. Burch



Sinking
by Michael R. Burch

for Virginia Woolf

Weigh me down with stones ...
     fill all the pockets of my gown ...
          I’m going down,
               mad as the world
                    that can’t recover,
                         to where even mermaids drown ...



Laughter's Cry
by Michael R. Burch

Because life is a mystery, we laugh
and do not know the half.

Because death is a mystery, we cry
when one is gone, our numbering thrown awry.

(Originally published by Angelwing)



Autumn Conundrum
by Michael R. Burch

It's not that every leaf must finally fall,
it's just that we can never catch them all.

(Originally published by The Neovictorian/Cochlea; also translated into Russian, Macedonian, Turkish and Romanian)



Piercing the Shell
by Michael R. Burch

If we strip away all the accouterments of war,
perhaps we'll discover what the heart is for.

(Originally published by The Neovictorian/Cochlea; also translated into Arabic, Turkish, Russian and Macedonian)



*** Hex
by Michael R. Burch

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

(Published by ***** of Parnassus and Lighten Up Online)



Styx
by Michael R. Burch

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

(Published by The Raintown Review and Blue Unicorn; also translated into Romanian and published by Petru Dimofte. This is one of my early poems, written as a teenager. I believe it was my first or second epigram.)



Shattered
by Vera Pavlova
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I shattered your heart;
now I limp through the shards
barefoot.

(Originally published by The HyperTexts)



God saw
it was good.
Adam saw
it was impressive.
Eve saw
it was improvable.
—Vera Pavlova, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Untitled Epigrams and Prose Epigrams

A question that sometimes drives me hazy:
am I or are the others crazy?
—Albert Einstein, poetic interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Truths are more likely discovered by one man than by nations.
—Rene Descartes, translation by Michael R. Burch

Old age, believe me, is a blessing. While it’s true you get gently shouldered off the stage, you’re awarded such a comfortable front row seat as spectator. — Confucius, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The Golden Rule is much easier to recite than observe. — Michael R. Burch

The Golden Rule is much easier to recite for others' benefit than to observe oneself. — Michael R. Burch

Consider a Golden Mean when the Golden Rule is employed. Some people are much harder on themselves than on others. — Michael R. Burch

The most dangerous words ever uttered by human lips are “thus saith the LORD.” — Michael R. Burch

We may not be able to find the true God through logic, but we can certainly find false gods through illogic. — Michael R. Burch

Justice may be blind, but does she have to be deaf too?—Michael R. Burch

There is nothing at all supreme, nor anything remotely just, about Clarence Thomas.—Michael R. Burch

Cassidy Hutchinson is not only credible, but her courage and poise under fire have been incredible. — Michael R. Burch

Cassidy Hutchinson is a modern Erin Brockovich except that in her case the well has been poisoned for the whole country. — Michael R. Burch

I will never grok picking a picky rule over a Poem! – Michael R. Burch

Improve yourself by others' writings, attaining freely what they purchased at great expense. — Socrates, translation by Michael R. Burch

Experience is the best teacher but a hard taskmaster.—Michael R. Burch

Heaven and hell seem unreasonable to me: the actions of men do not deserve such extremes.
—Jorge Luis Borges, translation by Michael R. Burch

Reality is neither probable nor likely.
—Jorge Luis Borges, translation by Michael R. Burch

Wayne Gretzky was pure skill poured into skates.—Michael R. Burch

Neither the leaf nor the tree laments karma.—Michael R. Burch

One man's coronation is another man's consternation.—Michael R. Burch

The editors of Poetry know no more about poetry than I do about basket-weaving, except that I know a good basket when I have it in my hands.—Michael R. Burch



Less Heroic Couplets: Word to the Unwise
by Michael R. Burch

I wanted to be good as gold,
but being good, as I’ve been told,
requires something, discipline,
I simply have no interest in!



Less Heroic Couplets: Gilded Silence
by Michael R. Burch

Golden silence reigned supreme
in my nightmare and her dream.



Christ!
by Michael R. Burch

If I knew men could be so dumb,
I would never have come!

Now you lie, cheat and steal in my name
and make it a thing of shame.

Did I heal the huge holes in your heart, in your head?
Isn’t it obvious: I’m dead
and unable to repeal what I never said?



A Further Farewell to Dentistry
by Michael R. Burch

(for and after Richard Moore, from whom I absconded the title)

Lately I've been eschewing
ice chewing
and my indentured dentist’s been boo-hoo-hooing.



Lance-Lot
by Michael R. Burch

Preposterous bird!
Inelegant! Absurd!

Until the great & mighty heron
brandishes his fearsome sword.

(Originally published by The HyperTexts)



Multiplication, Tabled
or Procreation Inflation
by Michael R. Burch

for the Religious Right

"Be fruitful and multiply"—
great advice, for a fruitfly!
But for women and men,
simple Simons, say, "WHEN! "

(Originally published by The HyperTexts)



Saving Graces, for the Religious Right
by Michael R. Burch

Life's saving graces are love, pleasure, laughter...
wisdom, it seems, is for the Hereafter.

(Published by Shot Glass Journal and Poem Today)



A Passing Observation about Thinking Outside the Box
by Michael R. Burch

William Blake had no public, and yet he’s still read.
His critics are dead.



A man may attempt to burnish pure gold, but who can think to improve on his mother?—Mahatma Gandhi, translation by Michael R. Burch



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.

As you fall on my sword,
take it up with the LORD!”

the wise owl replied
as the tasty snack died.

(Published by Lighten Up Online and in Potcake Chapbook #7)



Less Heroic Couplets: Marketing 101
by Michael R. Burch

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



Less Heroic Couplets: Mini-Ode to Stamina
by Michael R. Burch

When you’ve given so much
that I can’t bear your touch,
then from a safe distance
let me admire your persistence.



The Trouble with Elephants: a Word to the Wise
by Michael R. Burch

An elephant NEVER forgets,
which is why they don’t make the best pets:
Jumbo may well out-live you,
but he’ll NEVER forgive you
so you may as well save your regrets!



The Beat Goes On (and On and On and On ...)
by Michael R. Burch

Bored stiff by his board-stiff attempts
at “meter,” I crossly concluded
I’d use each iamb
in lieu of a lamb,
bedtimes when I’m under-quaaluded.



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.'



Ars Brevis, Proofreading Longa
by Michael R. Burch

Poets may labor from sun to sun,
but their editor's work is never done.



The First Complete Musical Composition

Shine, while you live;
blaze beyond grief,
for life is brief
and Time, a thief.
—Michael R. Burch, after Seikilos of Euterpes

The so-called Seikilos Epitaph is the oldest known surviving complete musical composition which includes musical notation. It is believed to date to the first or second century AD. The epitaph appears to be signed “Seikilos of Euterpes” or dedicated “Seikilos to Euterpe.” Euterpe was the ancient Greek Muse of music.



Cover Girl
by Michael R. Burch

Cunning
at sunning
and dunning,
the stunning
young woman’s in the running
to be found exposed 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.



Paradoxical Ode to Antinatalism
by Michael R. Burch

A stay on love
would end death’s hateful sway,
someday.

A stay on love
would thus BE love,
I say.

Be true to love
and thus end death’s
fell sway!



Less Heroic Couplets: Crop Duster
by Michael R. Burch

We are dust and to dust we must return ...
but why, then, life’s pointless sojourn?



**** Brevis, Emendacio Longa
by Michael R. Burch

The Donald may tweet from sun to sun,
but his spellchecker’s work is never done.



a passing question for the Moral Majority
by Michael R. Burch

since GOD created u so gullible
how did u conclude HE’s so lovable?



Fierce ancient skalds summoned verse from their guts;
today's genteel poets prefer modern ruts.
—Michael R. Burch



Not Elves, Exactly
by Michael R. Burch

Something there is that likes a wall,
that likes it spiked and likes it tall,

that likes its pikes' sharp rows of teeth
and doesn't mind its victims' grief

(wherever they come from, far or wide)
as long as they fall on the other side.

(Originally published by The HyperTexts)



Fahr an’ Ice
by Michael R. Burch

From what I know of death, I’ll side with those
who’d like to have a say in how it goes:
just make mine cool, cool rocks (twice drowned in likker),
and real fahr off, instead of quicker.

(Originally published by Light Quarterly)



Dawn
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth and Laura

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



Self-ish
by Michael R. Burch

Let's not pretend we "understand" other elves
as long as we remain mysteries to ourselves.



Imperfect Perfection
by Michael R. Burch

You’re too perfect for words—
a problem for a poet.



Expert Advice
by Michael R. Burch

Your ******* are perfect for your lithe, slender body.
Please stop making false comparisons your hobby!



Grave Oversight I
by Michael R. Burch

The dead are always with us,
and yet they are naught!



Grave Oversight II
by Michael R. Burch

for Jim Dunlap, who winked and suggested “not”

The dead are either naught
or naughty, being so sought!



Midnight Stairclimber
by Michael R. Burch

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



Accounting
by Michael R. Burch

And so I have loved you, and so I have lost,
accrued disappointment, ledgered its cost,
debited wisdom, credited pain . . .
My assets remaining are liquid again.



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.



Housman was right ...
by Michael R. Burch

It’s true that life’s not much to lose,
so why not hang out on a cloud?
It’s just the bon voyage is hard
and the objections loud.



Biblical Knowledge or “Knowing Coming and Going”
by Michael R. Burch

The wisest man the world has ever seen
had fourscore concubines and threescore queens?
This gives us pause, and so we venture hence—
he “knew” them, wisely, in the wider sense.



Descent
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.



Reading between the lines
by Michael R. Burch

Who could have read so much, as we?
Having the time, but not the inclination,
TV has become our philosophy,
sheer boredom, our recreation.



Early Warning System

A hairy thick troglodyte, Mary,
squinched dingles excessively airy.
To her family’s deep shame,
their condo became
the first cave to employ a canary!



Untitled
by Michael R. Burch

I sampled honeysuckle
and it made my taste buds buckle.



Snap Shots
by Michael R. Burch

Our daughters must be celibate,
die virgins. We triangulate
their early paths to heaven (for
the martyrs they’ll soon conjugate).

We like to hook a little tail.
We hope there’s decent *** in jail.
Don’t fool with us; our bombs are smart!
(We’ll send the plans, ASAP, e-mail.)

The soul is all that matters; why
hoard gold if it offends the eye?
A pension plan? Don’t make us laugh!
We have your plan for sainthood. (Die.)



Eerie Dearie
by Michael R. Burch

A trembling young auditor, white
as a sheet, like a ghost in the night,
saw his dreams, his career
in a ****!, disappear,
and then, strangely Enronic, his wife.



Gore-dom Boredom
by Michael R. Burch

There once was a candidate, Gore,
whose campaign had become quite a bore.
“He’s much too stiff,”
sighed his publicist,
“but not like his predecessor!”



Translations

Birdsong
by Rumi
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Birdsong relieves
my deepest griefs:
now I'm just as ecstatic as they,
but with nothing to say!
Please universe,
rehearse
your poetry
through me!

Raise your words, not their volume.
Rain grows flowers, not thunder.
—Rumi, translation by Michael R. Burch

The imbecile constructs cages for everyone he knows,
while the sage
(who has to duck his head whenever the moon glows)
keeps dispensing keys all night long
to the beautiful, rowdy, prison gang.
—Hafiz loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

An unbending tree
breaks easily.
—Lao Tzu, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Little sparks may ignite great Infernos.—Dante, translation by Michael R. Burch

Love distills the eyes’ desires, love bewitches the heart with its grace.―Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch

Once fanaticism has gangrened brains
the incurable malady invariably remains.
—Voltaire, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Booksellers laud authors for novel editions
as pimps praise their ****** for exotic positions.
—Thomas Campion, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

No wind is favorable to the man who lacks direction.
—Seneca the Younger, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My objective is not to side with the majority, but to avoid the ranks of the insane.—Marcus Aurelius, translation by Michael R. Burch

To know what we do know, and to know what we don't, is true knowledge.—Confucius, sometimes incorrectly attributed to Nicolaus Copernicus, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Where our senses fail,
reason must prevail.
—Galileo Galilei, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Hypocrisy may deceive the most perceptive adult, but the dullest child recognizes and is revolted by it, however ingeniously disguised.
—Leo Tolstoy translation by Michael R. Burch

Just as I select a ship when it's time to travel,
or a house when it's time to change residences,
even so I will choose when it's time to depart from life.
—Seneca, speaking about the right to euthanasia in the first century AD, translation by Michael R. Burch

Improve yourself through others' writings, attaining freely what they acquired at great expense.—Socrates, translation by Michael R. Burch

Experience is the best teacher but a hard taskmaster.—Michael R. Burch

Fools call wisdom foolishness.
―Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch

One true friend is worth ten thousand kin.
―Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch

Not to speak one’s mind is slavery.
―Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch

I would rather die standing than kneel, a slave.
―Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch

Fresh tears are wasted on old griefs.
―Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch

To live without philosophizing is to close one's eyes and never attempt to open them.
—René Descartes, translation by Michael R. Burch

We who left behind the Aegean’s bellowings
Now sleep peacefully here on the mid-plains of Ecbatan:
Farewell, dear Athens, nigh to Euboea,
Farewell, dear sea!
—Michael R. Burch, after Plato



Native American Proverb
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Before you judge
a man for his sins
be sure to trudge
many moons in his moccasins.



Native American Proverb
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.



Native American Proverb
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Let us walk respectfully here
among earth's creatures, great and small,
remembering, our footsteps light,
that one wise God created all.



Farewell to Faith I
by Michael R. Burch

What we want is relief
from life’s grief and despair:
what we want’s not “belief”
but just not to be there.



Farewell to Faith II
by Michael R. Burch

Confronted by the awesome thought of death,
to never suffer, and be free of grief,
we wonder: "What’s the use of drawing breath?
Why seek relief
from the bible’s Thief,
who ripped off Eve then offered her a leaf?"



Less Heroic Couplets: Miss Bliss
by Michael R. Burch

Domestic “bliss”?
Best to swing and miss!



Less Heroic Couplets: Then and Now
by Michael R. Burch

BEFORE: Thanks to Brexit, our lives will be plush! ...
AFTER: Crap, we’re going broke! What the hell is the rush?



Less Heroic Couplets: Dear Pleader
by Michael R. Burch

Is our Dear Pleader, as he claims, heroic?
I prefer my presidents a bit more stoic.



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.”



Less Heroic Couplets: Poetry I
by Michael R. Burch

Poetry is the heart’s caged rhythm,
the soul’s frantic tappings at the panes of mortality.



Less Heroic Couplets: Poetry II
by Michael R. Burch

Poetry is the trapped soul’s frantic tappings
at the panes of mortality.



Less Heroic Couplets: Seesaw
by Michael R. Burch

A poem is the mind teetering between fact and fiction,
momentarily elevated.



Less Heroic Couplets: Passions
by Michael R. Burch

Passions are the heart’s qualms,
the soul’s squalls, the brain’s storms.



I didn’t mean to love you,
but I did.
Best leave the rest unsaid,
hid-
den
and unbidden.
—Michael R. Burch

You imagine life is good,
but have you actually understood?
—Michael R. Burch

Living with a body ain’t much fun.
Harder, still, to live without one.
Whatever happened to our day in the sun?
—Michael R. Burch

How little remains of our joys and our pains.
How little remains of our losses and gains.
How little remains of whatever remains.
—Michael R. Burch

Sometimes I feel better, it’s true,
but mostly I’m still not over you.
—Michael R. Burch

Don’t let the past defeat you.
Learn from it, but don’t dwell.
Have no regrets at “farewell.”
—Michael R. Burch

Haughty moon,
when did I ever trouble you,
insomnia’s co-conspirator!
—Michael R. Burch

Every day’s a new chance to lose weight,
but most likely,
I’ll
... procrastinate ...
—Michael R. Burch



Big Ben *****
by Michael R. Burch

Early to bed, hurriedly to rise
makes a man stealthy,
and that’s why he’s wealthy:
what the hell is he doing behind your closed eyes?

Friend, how you’ll squirm
when you belatedly learn
that you’re the worm!



Pecking Disorder
by Michael R. Burch

Love has a pecking order,
or maybe a dis-order,
a hell we recognize
if we merely open our eyes:
the attractive win at birth,
while those of ample girth
are deemed of little worth
from Nottingham to Perth.

Nottingham is said to have the most beautiful women in the world.



Tease
by Michael R. Burch

It’s what you always say, okay?
It’s what you always say:
C’mon let’s play,
roll in the hay,
It’s what you always say. Ole!

But little do you do, it’s true.
But little do you do.
A little ******, run to piddle ...
we never really *****!
That’s you!



Observance (II)
by Michael R. Burch

fifty years later...

The trees are in their autumn beauty,
majestic to the eye.
Whoever felt as I,
                             whoever
felt them doomed to die
despite their flamboyant colors?

They seem like knights of dismal countenance ...
as if, windmills themselves,
they might tilt with the ****** sky.

And yet their favors gaily fly!

KEYWORDS/TAGS: epigram, epigrams, love, life, living, fun, sun, joy, pain, past, sad, sadness




Anyte Epigrams

Stranger, rest your weary legs beneath the elms;
hear how coolly the breeze murmurs through their branches;
then take a bracing draught from the mountain-fed fountain;
for this is welcome shade from the burning sun.
—Anyte, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Here I stand, Hermes, in the crossroads
by the windswept elms near the breezy beach,
providing rest to sunburned travelers,
and cold and brisk is my fountain’s abundance.
—Anyte, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Sit here, quietly shaded by the luxuriant foliage,
and drink cool water from the sprightly spring,
so that your weary breast, panting with summer’s labors,
may take rest from the blazing sun.
—Anyte, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This is the grove of Cypris,
for it is fair for her to look out over the land to the bright deep,
that she may make the sailors’ voyages happy,
as the sea trembles, observing her brilliant image.
—Anyte, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Nossis Epigrams

There is nothing sweeter than love.
All other delights are secondary.
Thus, I spit out even honey.
This is what Gnossis says:
Whom Aphrodite does not love,
Is bereft of her roses.
—Nossis, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Most revered Hera, the oft-descending from heaven,
behold your Lacinian shrine fragrant with incense
and receive the linen robe your noble child Nossis,
daughter of Theophilis and Cleocha, has woven for you.
—Nossis, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Stranger, if you sail to Mitylene, my homeland of beautiful dances,
to indulge in the most exquisite graces of Sappho,
remember I also was loved by the Muses, who bore me and reared me there.
My name, never forget it!, is Nossis. Now go!
—Nossis, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Pass me with ringing laughter, then award me
a friendly word: I am Rinthon, scion of Syracuse,
a small nightingale of the Muses; from their tragedies
I was able to pluck an ivy, unique, for my own use.
—Nossis, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Excerpts from “Distaff”
by Erinna
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

… the moon rising …
      … leaves falling …
           … waves lapping a windswept shore …

… and our childish games, Baucis, do you remember? ...

... Leaping from white horses,
running on reckless feet through the great courtyard.  
“You’re it!’ I cried, ‘You’re the Tortoise now!”
But when your turn came to pursue your pursuers,
you darted beyond the courtyard,
dashed out deep into the waves,
splashing far beyond us …

… My poor Baucis, these tears I now weep are your warm memorial,
these traces of embers still smoldering in my heart
for our silly amusements, now that you lie ash …

… Do you remember how, as girls,
we played at weddings with our dolls,
pretending to be brides in our innocent beds? ...

... How sometimes I was your mother,
allotting wool to the weaver-women,
calling for you to unreel the thread? ...

… Do you remember our terror of the monster Mormo
with her huge ears, her forever-flapping tongue,
her four slithering feet, her shape-shifting face? ...

... Until you mother called for us to help with the salted meat ...

... But when you mounted your husband’s bed,
dearest Baucis, you forgot your mothers’ warnings!
Aphrodite made your heart forgetful ...

... Desire becomes oblivion ...

... Now I lament your loss, my dearest friend.
I can’t bear to think of that dark crypt.
I can’t bring myself to leave the house.
I refuse to profane your corpse with my tearless eyes.
I refuse to cut my hair, but how can I mourn with my hair unbound?
I blush with shame at the thought of you! …

... But in this dark house, O my dearest Baucis,
My deep grief is ripping me apart.
Wretched Erinna! Only nineteen,
I moan like an ancient crone, eying this strange distaff ...

O *****! . . . O Hymenaeus! . . .
Alas, my poor Baucis!



On a Betrothed Girl
by Erinna
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I sing of Baucis the bride.
Observing her tear-stained crypt
say this to Death who dwells underground:
"Thou art envious, O Death!"

Her vivid monument tells passers-by
of the bitter misfortune of Baucis —
how her father-in-law burned the poor ******* a pyre
lit by bright torches meant to light her marriage train home.
While thou, O Hymenaeus, transformed her harmonious bridal song into a chorus of wailing dirges.

*****! O Hymenaeus!



Sophocles Epigrams

Not to have been born is best,
and blessed
beyond the ability of words to express.
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

It’s a hundred times better not be born;
but if we cannot avoid the light,
the path of least harm is swiftly to return
to death’s eternal night!
—Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Never to be born may be the biggest boon of all.
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Oblivion: What a blessing, to lie untouched by pain!
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The happiest life is one empty of thought.
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Consider no man happy till he lies dead, free of pain at last.
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

What is worse than death? When death is desired but denied.
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When a man endures nothing but endless miseries, what is the use of hanging on day after day,
edging closer and closer toward death? Anyone who warms his heart with the false glow of flickering hope is a wretch! The noble man should live with honor and die with honor. That's all that can be said.
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Children anchor their mothers to life.
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

How terrible, to see the truth when the truth brings only pain to the seer!
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Wisdom outweighs all the world's wealth.
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Fortune never favors the faint-hearted.
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Wait for evening to appreciate the day's splendor.
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Homer Epigrams

For the gods have decreed that unfortunate mortals must suffer, while they themselves are sorrowless.
—Homer, Iliad 24.525-526, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

“It is best not to be born or, having been born, to pass on as swiftly as possible.”
—attributed to Homer (circa 800 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Ancient Roman Epigrams

Wall, I'm astonished that you haven't collapsed,
since you're holding up verses so prolapsed!
—Ancient Roman graffiti, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R Burch

There is nothing so pointless, so perfidious as human life! ... The ultimate bliss is not to be born; otherwise we should speedily slip back into the original Nothingness.
—Seneca, On Consolation to Marcia, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Wayne Gretzky was pure skill poured into skates.—Michael R. Burch



"Lu Zhai" ("Deer Park")
by **** Wei (699-759)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Uninhabited hills ...
except that now and again the silence is broken
by something like the sound of distant voices
as the sun's sinking rays illuminate lichens ...

**** Wei (699-759) was a Chinese poet, musician, painter, and politician during the Tang dynasty. He had 29 poems included in the 18th-century anthology Three Hundred Tang Poems. "Lu Zhai" ("Deer Park") is one of his best-known poems.

Keywords/Tags: epigram, epigrams, **** Wei, Chinese, translation, nature, animal, deer, park, hills, silence, sound, voices, wind, voice, sun, rays, illuminate, peace, growth, wisdom


Keywords/Tags: elegy, eulogy, child, childhood, death, death of a friend, lament, lamentation, epitaph, grave, funeral, epigram, ***, procreation, accounting, fire, ice, housman, bible, heaven, mrbepi, mrbepig, mrbepigram

Published as the collection "Epigrams V"
Rachel Sterling Dec 2010
Don’t think.
Just act.
Revel in the beauty of the moment.

Don’t think about what comes next.
Just feel.
Improvise: Play the melody by ear.

Don’t think about the illogic of it all.
Just love.
Lawrence Hall Jun 2019
Please consider the seeming illogic
The seeming illogic of paying a man
A good and wise and educated man
To poke his finger upwards in your ///

After a visit to a wizard’s lab
Where a pleasant, professional young woman
Attaches a vampire butterfly to your wrist
And ***** your blood into a little phial

“Now you might feel a little pressure, okay?”
And then consider the happy logic
                                                           ­        of staying alive
I will never again in my life attempt to spell "milliliter."

Your ‘umble scrivener’s site is:

Reactionarydrivel.blogspot.com.

It’s not at all reactionary, tho’ it might be drivel.

Lawrence Hall’s vanity publications are available on amazon.com as Kindle and on bits of dead tree:  The Road to Magdalena, Paleo-Hippies at Work and Play, Lady with a Dead Turtle, Don’t Forget Your Shoes and Grapes, Coffee and a Dead Alligator to Go, and Dispatches from the Colonial Office.
Lesley Feb 2017
Oh, fair Prince how your beauty lies
That the mere brush of a butterfly turns your head
The most fleeting of caresses turns your course,
And your constant weakness of will
Remains enforce.

Such thinking, thinking
Behind your fair brow
The flux of desire and illogic;

Setting aside your crown.
What sweet tortures you merit,
And stress upon my being
Misadventure and folly,
Deception unseemly.

But, I am beast in woman form
Not one to bow lightly
For in this tender heart resides a seed pearl
Of the rarest sort.
A gift, a treasure;
My priceless measure.

One can never guard oneself too carefully.
I will cleanse my sins in Diana’s pure water
I will be baptized in the blazing truth of the sun.
My heart and soul to guard,
My virtue to keep.
I dare’nt trust my heart and soul to thee.

© Lesley Wood

https://soundcloud.com/rawkeyartproject/ophelia-dreams-somnambulist-waltz
To hear the spoken words,
https://soundcloud.com/lesleywood/ophelia-dreams/s-nqYhY
Jihad Donald Trump Style
The glory of America, now heats up
with agitation poised to strike on the brink
sans legislation incites humiliation,
which goads desecration as fete accompli *****
in armor of Democratic rubric, constituting capitalistic
ethic, generic iconoclastic, and jingoistic logic,
nor budging an inch when mandating masses swallow his drink
what huff huck – this belligerent, dominant and
fervent hell raiser doth bungle in the jungle
decreeing tacit Mar shall law fast as a shutterfly eyewink
as his cosmic crotch grab doth put Venus under his sway
with his Mercury hill temperament
pitches the orbit of planet Earth tubby comb out of balance
infected by hiz anti Ju pit er damnations, excoriations, fulminations
Huzzah sing how **** derriere didst Sat urn simultaneously
crushing crucible as an Uranus
indiscriminately plop ping two hundred fifty pounds off flesh
dub ling down snapchatting and humming his favorite Neptune
that dost affect Pluto hoc crass sea
repeating a self coined motto – I yam all mighty, therefore no fink
simply commandeering the reins of control,
a one man military intelligence groupthink
hut triad and true dyed in the wool rip pug in ant guise zing rogue
rejoicing tuff fool, governing and hoodwink
Fake king the die hard fans of dictatorial, linkedin and monarchist ink
cube bus thriving on wielding indomitable aggression
practiced in the Art of the Deal incorporating an unanticipated jink
iron fist rule reigning down vis a vis
pro pens heave lee and prop hen city
flashing hiz seal of approval, which scribbled signature
doth not smooth monkey serve hay puzzling kink
boot his frenzy to bulldoze catastrophic, formulaic, and illogic
spells these United States of America twill become hell
in a hand basket worth repeating with nary a trace of the grit of link
kin, the sixteenth president
(whose ruggedly pioneering frontier existence)
found him steady and strong, plus soft hearted as pelt o’ mink
the epitomy of this forty fifth elected commander in mischief.
ShamusDeyo Sep 2014


Everytime I hear No, its always .......MY FAULT
as the Brain drags me down this train of illogic
Anxiety Loops in unending Circles Spun to the Tragic
What can go wrong, then to feel like.......
Life has ***** me, And why is it always my Fault

The FIST FLEW out of Nowhere, Sucker punched
Slow motion falling as a..........
childs head bounces off the ground
Awaking to throbbing Pain,
my Pants around my Knees,
And why is it always my Fault.......JMF  9/28/14
Sometimes you have to deal with it

All the Work here is licensed under the Name
®SilverSilkenTongue and the © Property of J.Flack
My mind was cloudy
It was filled with the smoke of the illogic
Snapping out of this fog
I awakened
Clearing up the disease of confliction that had made me quite sick.
Dark, cold, and twisted up in knots
My feelings were bleeding out
Crying for help
I felt as if I were not human
I was a living robot.
Slapped back to reality by a tragic event
I began to see things clearer and started to return to a clearer state.
Now, starting a fresh and new life from today..
I walk these days with a pure and clear slate.
sinister concatenation pairs us
   with surreal morgue aisle
broken lives rent asunder
   from fanatics hell bent with bile
of poison spewing forth *******
   up the moral compass dial

upending amity, comity,
excitability with ferocity,
hostility, indelibly, indubitably,
inexorably hissing illogic jabber
wocky justifiably linking extremist
deadly credos bred among western nations

indicting pursuit of life, liberty
and happiness wreaking deliberate havoc
   awash with crimson tide of blood –
   dead set to jam the life lock

viz Leviathan of personal freedoms
   bespoken via vernacular,
where secular westerners
   framed to mock,

where extremist storied devout
   die hard believers dislike rock
and roll of altruism, capitalism,
   liberalism, thus apply shell shock
tactics sans terroristic tactics
   with bombs silently tick tock

inevitably heightening security
   forcing ordinary citizens
   to be on high alert
watchful even at slightest com
   ment, perhaps even accidental curt

commentary invoking immediate
   military forces swoop down and exert
overpowering force donned
   with ammunition belt bristling girt
affecting innocence abroad and
   native population to freeze
   and become inert

casting dark silhouettes against
   autumnal reign of light
where Mithraism plays out
   with immensely brutal might
blotting out the radiance

   of heavenly bliss affording active night
life to become shuttered
   as cruel carnival masquerade
   pits pagan plight

against the jagged
   scrimmage line quite
arbitrarily drawn by maniacal foes
   for freedom trammel the right
to own democratic stance –

   for Jihadist Johnny come lately
   find a slight
lampooned their sacred
   Islamic catechism inducing tight
grip on Allah to fuel vengeance
   for intimated transgressions
   that doth in vite

which violent polemics purpose
   fully shear the very fiber of peace
pronounced with especial
   arduousness come holiday time
   foisting a crease

along the fabric of westernization –
   whereby founding fathers did grease
the figurative wheels of con
   com it ant moist meaty lifestyle
to experience strangulation
   from an invisible death knell lease.
To bend the world's logic to your will, to turn logic into illogic, to turn sadness into happiness, to turn emotions into thoughts that's real power
(essentially no different from any previous xmas, nor i presume indicative of that holly day time of year, when people put on a happy face while bullying, demonizing, and fake hosannahs  continue to thrive).

sinister concatenation pairs us with surreal morgue aisle
broken lives rent asunder from fanatics hell bent with bile
of poison spewing forth ******* up the moral compass dial

upending amity, comity, excitability with ferocity, hostility,
indelibly, indubitably, inexorably hissing illogic jabberwocky justifiably
linking extremist deadly credos bred among western nations

indicting pursuit of life, liberty and happiness wreaking deliberate havoc
awash with crimson tide of blood – dead set to jam the life lock
viz Leviathan of personal freedoms,
where secular westerners framed to mock
where extremist storied devout die hard believers dislike the rock
and roll of altruism, capitalism, nd liberalism, thus apply shock
tactics sans terroristic tactics with bombs that silently tick tock

inevitably heightening security
forcing ordinary citizens to be on high alert
watchful even at the slightest comment,
perhaps even an accidental curt
commentary invoking immediate military forces
to swoop down and exert
overpowering force donned with ammunition belt bristling as a girt
affecting innocence abroad and native population to freeze and become inert

casting dark silhouettes against the autumnal reign of light
where Mithraism plays out with immensely brutal might
blotting out the radiance of heavenly bliss affording active night
life to become shuttered as the cruel carnival pits pagan plight
against the jagged scrimmage line quite
arbitrarily drawn by maniacal foes for freedom trammel the right
to own democratic stance –
for said Jihadist Johnny come lately find a slight
lampooned their sacred held Islamic catechism inducing this tight
grip on Allah to fuel vengeance
for intimated transgressions that doth in vite

which violent polemics purposefully shear the very fiber of peace
pronounced with especial arduousness come holiday time
foisting a crease
along the fabric of westernization –
whereby founding fathers did grease
the figurative wheels of concomitant moist and meaty lifestyle
to experience strangulation as if from an invisible death knell lease.
Bob B Oct 2016
Freedom of speech is a wonderful right--
A right that all Americans cherish.
It's a right that not all countries enjoy,
And one that we wouldn't want to see perish.
 
People have the right to express
Their opinion in public; yes, that is true.
One thing about it is when they speak out,
Their venomous ignorance often comes through.
 
Isn't there a saying about
Thinking before expressing a thought?
Many people ignore that advice;
What's more, those people ignore it a lot.
 
Publicly expressing rancor and bigotry
Might sound appropriate to those who feel
That they have the right to deny other people
Their rights, which they do with great zeal.
 
Extremist ideas and irrational thinking
Are surely part of the human condition.
People whose speech condemns other people
Are on a destructive, hateful mission.
 
A malicious message spoken in public--
A far-out attack or outlandish expression--
Allows us to see the foolishness in
The speaker's illogic and lack of discretion.
 
An astutely aware and compassionate public
Will let malice fall on deaf ears.
And those who employ such invective,
Instead of our anger, deserve our tears.
 
When we hear people spewing inanities
Powered by ignorance and hatred, we should
Consider the source and counter the poison
So it doesn't taint all that is good.

- by Bob B
Aslam M Oct 2019
There is always a tinge of
Illogic    In Logic.
White as a sheet ghostly color,
sans countenance of mine
impossible to differentiate between
Lenovo external screen background
myopia no deterrent as jaw slackened
upon Citizens Bank notification

current spate of ill health
(relentless stomach virus)
triggered emotional state
Kamikaze nose dived
into forbidding deathwish
gastrointestinal Civil War

relentlessly raged kickstarting
linkedin body, mind, spirit
emergency necessitating transfer of funds,
and/ or anonymous philanthropic injection
to staunch, stave, and stay hemorrhaging,
whereby checking account

beyond restoration, sans life support
heroic measures sense (cents) less,
now, mine entire being
excruciating figurative explosion,
viz rapidly fired projectile
as if "FAKE" mandibles bit the bullet

self destruction declaration reactivated
casus belli (caused by ache'n belly)
just on cusp of recovery
succumbed to lowest record nadir
kindling, sparking, and whip sawing
plea for salvation or termination,

mine abysmal ad hoc existence
evincing illogic, quixotic, tragic...
charade, facade, masquerade, et cetera
accursed woe synonymous with Sisyphus
condemned to Hades exhausting
arduous, laborious, torturous... punishment

social security disability deposit
congenital schizoid personality disorder
attendant anxiety, obsessive/ compulsive
disorder, panic marginally tempered
asper prescription medication
as each day of destitution,
offers smidgen alleviation!
Poetic T Apr 2017
Illogic thoughts dangling
                                      static....

Gnarled reflections showing
                          inner demons
                                                  censored....
(Tidbit of trivia: associated with
businessman from Troy, New York,
Samuel Wilson, known affectionately
as “Uncle Sam” Wilson. The barrels
of beef that he supplied the army
during  War of 1812 were stamped
“U.S.” to indicate government property).

Today March 30th, 2021
$2800.00 stimulus check came in the mail
I intend to open joint account with the missus.

Citizens Bank
(formerly Commonwealth)
constitutes the financial repository,
where yours truly maintains
his savings and checking account.

Though aforementioned
amount of money merely pocket change,
I feel gratitude regarding said funds
issued courtesy Treasury Department,
which in tandem to
monthly direct deposit ($900.00)
social security allotment
helps keep me financially afloat
otherwise yours truly
will experience a one two knockout
overdraft paralyzing sucker punch.

Whereby white as a sheet ghostly color,
sans countenance of mine
impossible to differentiate between
Lenovo external screen background
myopia no deterrent as jaw slackened
upon Citizens Bank notification.

The following written circa recent past,
when bouts of monetary
adversity occurred quite often
current spate of ill health plagued me
with (relentless stomach virus)
triggered emotional state
Kamikaze nose dived
into forbidding deathwish
gastrointestinal Civil War

relentlessly raged kickstarting
linkedin body, mind, spirit
emergency necessitating transfer of funds,
and/ or anonymous philanthropic injection
to staunch, stave, and stay hemorrhaging,
whereby checking account

beyond restoration, sans life support
heroic measures sense (cents) less,
now, mine entire being
excruciating figurative explosion,
viz rapidly fired projectile
as if "FAKE" mandibles bit the bullet

self destruction declaration reactivated
casus belli (caused by ache'n belly)
just on cusp of recovery
succumbed to lowest record nadir
kindling, sparking, and whip sawing
plea for salvation or termination,

mine abysmal ad hoc existence
evincing illogic, quixotic, tragic...
charade, facade, masquerade, et cetera
accursed woe synonymous with Sisyphus
condemned to Hades exhausting
arduous, laborious, torturous... punishment

social security disability deposit
congenital schizoid personality disorder
attendant anxiety, obsessive/ compulsive
disorder, panic attacks tempered,
half dozen plus prescription medications
some categorized selective serotonin
reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs)
provide alleviation to psyche.
Ben Klash Dec 2019
a combination of inattention
fog-slick streets,
and the bravado of an impatient tailgater

a blurt of adrenaline that comes from seeing
not being
(un)able to avoid the car in front,
managing to swerve at the final moment before

impact
clip the corner,
bumper skittering off to the curb

checklist: license, insurance, don’t admit fault, exchange info, leave the scene.

The other guy didn’t care about all that.

I have never hit anyone in anger.
I didn’t want to hit this guy.  Again.
He wanted my wallet
grabbed for
(don’t admit fault)
cash reassurance instead of having insurance
to repair the damage I made
(don’t admit fault)

did this just turn from an accident to a mugging?
a happenstancial battery?

the illogic
demand
froze me

So I hugged him.
embraced him
wrested him
to the ground gently

The move felt elegantly slowly balletic
but came with bruised ribs, broken glasses, black eye
as he magically turned into four passenging kicking friends.
exchanging violent info

My stitches were removed immediately and eventually.

I had to laugh as they left the scene
The only thing he couldn’t check off the list was insurance.
The glory of America,
now heats up
with agitation poised
to strike on the brink
sans legislation incites humiliation,
which goads desecration

as fete accompli *****
in armor of Democratic rubric,
constituting capitalistic
ethic, generic iconoclastic,
and jingoistic logic,
nor budging an inch

when mandating masses
swallow his drink
what huff huck –
this belligerent, dominant and
fervent hellraiser doth
bungle in the jungle

decreeing tacit Marshall law
fast as a shutterfly eyewink
as his cosmic crotch grab
doth put Venus under his sway
with his Mercury hill temperament
pitches the orbit of planet Earth

tubby comb out of balance
infected by hiz anti Jew pitter
damnations, excoriations, fulminations
Huzzah sing how **** derriere
didst Sat urn simultaneously
crushing crucible as an Uranus

indiscriminately plopping
two hundred fifty pounds of flesh
doubling down humming
his favorite Neptune
that dost affect Pluto hoc crass sea
repeating a self coined motto –

I yam almighty, therefore no fink
simply commandeering the reins of control,
a one man military intelligence groupthink
hut triad and true dyed in the wool
rip pug in ant guise zing rogue
rejoicing tuff fool, governing and hoodwink

king the die hard fans of dictatorial,
linkedin and monarchist ink
cube bus thriving on
wielding indomitable aggression
practiced in the Art of the Deal
incorporating an unanticipated jink

iron fist rule reigning down
vis a vis pro pens heave lee
and prop hen city
flashing hiz seal of approval,
which scribbled signature
doth not smooth monkey

serve hay puzzling kink
boot his frenzy to bulldoze
catastrophic, formulaic, and illogic
spells these United States
of America will become hell
in a handbasket worth repeating

with nary a trace of the grit of link
kin, the sixteenth president,
(whose ruggedly pioneering frontier existence)
found him steady and strong,
plus soft hearted as pelt o’ mink
the epitome of this forty fifth
elected commander in mischief.
☹ ☹ ☹ ☹ ☹ ☹ ☹ ☹ ☹ ☹ ☹ ☹ ☹
✔ There's a secret videotape of C.F.R.'s monkey Tom Clancy beggin'
✔ in vain to the Control Group that vaccinates a senile Nancy Reagan
✔ for his life to be spared as before God would whine an antsy pagan
✔Le Nègre Prix de Triomphe goes to Heidi Klum's seal-hung lancer
✔whose skin's a mucopussy mess from discoid lupus not lung cancer
✔as his soul was skinned nights dodging **** as a black-dung dancer
✔trapping weasels while boiling weevils ain't the Ivory Coast answer
☹Tex & Rita (to Memorex): Die you schizogenetic offering by dawn
☹in the dirt-bag opting of a love stymied beneath an undeterred lawn
☹in starving memory to Dutch: a ray-gun-loving Reagan called Ron,
☹that war-dodging acquaintance of stage-dead mummer **** Shawn
☹whose crap-out was viewed by attending audience as a planned con
☹but alas the gray ******* was, medico-legally, dead and gone
☹To negrita ****** & Albanian trulls & stenographers he's just John
✔The ease in which legs are compressed & unfolded at the cat house
✔ makes me hearken for unstuck Tuesdays at ye olde Erin cork house
✔ where fish are skinned like brave men tried in a federal court house
✔ while uncracked minds get cracked up at a ******-town crack house
✔ 'Cause of whitey I'm kidney-listed 7 million _sans_ country club clout
✔ I'm bony, **** & looking for a compatible liver-donor to break out
✔ of this low-immunity strata before there is a liver-disease outbreak
✔ as the runny dog-**** of ******* dogs ******* near me starts to cake
☹ so as to out-stink a South Korean who's really a North Korean fake
☹ The federal government is eugenical: to it we must own up sheeple,
☹ thus maturing emotively into a sovereign, logical, grown-up people
☹ for it stands that the melding of nanny state & citizenry is umbilical
☹ & in confliction with by-gone eras as our illogic's queerly quizzical
☹ because it pits humanoid knowledge against the quasi-metaphysical
☹ that foments hatefulness toward each appointed government radical
☹ who queerly degenerates into deviances paraphrenical and fanatical
☹ whereas whip-lash's suit-seeking, soft-tissue damage that's cervical
✔ requiring an obligatorily-worn orthopedic brace for 2 years farcical
✔ to render pro-rated, per capita lifetime-loss-of-earnings stats logical
✔ for in America breaking a sweat to earn bread has become heretical
✔ as ditzes respire hot air into bean-counting jobs designated clerical,
✔ Occidental monasticism's monasterial intrigue remains monastical
✔ overseas whereat cartographically-globular frontiers chart spherical
☹ Shrill moans of belabored Mexicalis triggers a Marxian mechanism
☹ that deflects absent divers toward proto-Brazilian-styled lesbianism
☹ which remains less evil than Theodore & Franklin D. Rooseveltism
✔ times 13 million ******* blackening white love for nig criminalism
☹ in camps of cramped campers craving crammed communitarianism
☹ Let us bathe in the spittle of homosexuals before we roll over to die
☹ as deviance's eternal, trumping the realm of  The Catcher in the Rye
☹ 'cause my ***** afro reflects nig force to punish whites before I die
☹ as a lard-***, ghetto-happy 'fro bro who digested the E.B.T. food lie
✔ while the Siamese outed glorious Teresa Teng as a Kuomintang spy
✔ No ****** wins awards for the glory of being an award-winning ***
✔ as no strip-mining strip miner burns U.M.W. cards for heaps o' ****
✔ while bagmen trade for what's behind door 2 for what's in their bag
✔ because kids trained in knife-attack'll stab in a childish game of tag
✔ to snub ****** daylight saving time with its pain-in-the-*** time-lag
✔ that denies maiden beauties their beauty sleep long before they hag
✔ & battery-operated boyfriends to prisoners gagged by jailhouse gag
✔ or mothers in the last raggedy stages of monthly ragging on the rag
☹ Back against the wall & indebted to the last lucky 7 vinegar strokes
☹ see no point to cajole unlaid, lay-about chicks for the routine coax
☹ No Christian shall deny an unborn baby's supreme court right to die
☹ 'cause the German zeppelin LZ 129 Hindenburg was too light to fly
✔ There's a secret videotape of C.F.R.'s monkey Tom Clancy beggin'
✔ in vain to the Control Group that vaccinates a senile Nancy Reagan
✔ for his life to be spared as before God would whine an antsy pagan
☹ “I'll tolerate no remark **** Lana Kramer!” Farted the proctologist,
☹ after Marlon Brando snuffed Odnarb Nolram, a Tahitian acarologist
*☹ who toyed in the nefarious world of gynecology like a gynecologist

— The End —