And now,
Ladies and Gentlemen
The story of a man
Who lived and died inside his own head
Came into this world on a whim
And left on a whisper
Leaving behind just his footsteps
For the waves on the nights
Darkness came too early
To wash away,
Clean to the bone
Leaving just the shiny purity
And reflections for those interested
In the forest,
As all good mad men roam,
He got lost on the edge of,
Between beginnings and endings
And no real divisions.
Occasionally, finding a wise man
To split his time with
Making it the three of them
Him, the man,
And them together
Roaming with direction
But still purposeless
Because a purpose
Would be their downfall.
He feels most comfortable
When he is certain there is no guide
No difference between territory, charted
and uncharted
Because there's no one to make maps
Only forays forward
Leave the paths clear
Spontaneous insight lost soon enough
Mystic Seam on his forehead
Childish gleam in his one blind eye
The Silly Being
Cutting his way
Through the molasses, thick
Of time
Space, inconsequential
But he knows,
The only certainty he dares carry
Is that heaven,
Heaven, doesn't begin.
Cannot be reached.
The pearly gates are grim
Not a soul passes through them
But too many
Leave through the alley exit
For Heaven is not a place
Heaven is time
Time well spent
Because the burden of passing
Is forgotten
Destroying gates
And slicing meaning
Road block!
Why!
Only in my head!
Detour!
Runs out of steam
Pure words
tainted
lost again
run off the road
missed the stream
Back to a story
A story of myself
Framed in bigger terms
Thoughts, thinking of big
And ego eating dinner
It's what the doctor ordered.
Trying to convince
What it could be, nothing
to be nothing
go nowhere
while paths grow and clean themselves
Srubbed raw
swallowed by my
tallest trees, growing richly
inside a small world
with deep holes
to **** and cling to
Being Nobody is an Overcoming
Defeating the propaganda of Somebody
The self lies
It can only grasp
Fruitlessly
It finds for itself
It can't see beyond
No!
Never that simple!
To save yourself you must save the world
Only fools grab all they can

"Only fools rush in"

Only fools stay back
Playing with fire
It's a prophesy
Doing it because we can
Is the route to go
The only route we know
There are no reasons
Sometimes directions
Even if they lead nowhere
Right back atcha'
Screaming, cuddling
Cuddling?
I'm not the sentimental type
At least,
I pretend not to be
Maybe it shows
I don't know
That's what it comes down to
Yeah,
I don't know

I can't remember a single thing I heard on the news
Even if it's all engrained in
My bark brain
A pair of loveless lovers
Wanted to prove to themselves
So they cut into my soft brain
Their own story
And I would return the favor
But I lost the binding to the pages
Of my story
But if I could so humbly request
O,
Greatest Story Tellers
And Yarn Spinners
Of our time
I would very much like it
If I was, humbly mind you,
The Greatest Story
You ever told

But Nameless
It would be my overcoming
There would be no excuse
Not to do great things
Even better if no one
Knew that I did them
It would fill my heart
And be a great conversation piece

"Hey Ladies..."

Pull up one eyebrow
Flip out my pocket-halo

"I've done it, done it all.
Not that you would know"
Just the way I'd like it
Then remind myself
I hate bars
And talk a walk home
Late at night
(Okay, maybe a jog)
(Fine, a sprint)
The night suffocates
If you hold your own neck closed
It's a nice change from day.
People have finally turned on
Engaged
Maybe its the fear,
Time to relax
I've forgotten that
But seeing others alive
Is the last thing that reminds me, I am
I am, too.

And, I hate heredity
It can make folks forget
That
They are, too
I inherited nothing
Except confusion
And that's the only gift to offer
Because
You know you love someone when you can be
Confused, together
It would bore me to death
If we could understand each other
That might just be
My Neurotic Impotence talking
Looking for an excuse to shiver in place
Yes,
Neurotic Impotence
not
neurotic impotence
It's my second name
I hate middle names
People keep them secrets
For no reason
I hate secrets
Secrets don't exist
Somebody always knows them
So they can't be very secret
National Secrets, too
Give my my cut
I'm a gossip
And I've run out of stuff
To ride conversations
Straight into
I don't do enough weird things
Or get involved too often
To tell a good story
The windows to my mind
Are sufficient
I've been informed,
That they're quite pretty, also
Makes me feel a bit better
About all the time I've invested
At staring at the tops of trees

Not much, actually

It makes me look pensive, I think
Almost like I know what I'm doing
That saddest part is that
I'm not completely lost either.
Hovering in the middle
Neither here, nor There
Typical, I suppose
So's indulgence
But I say,
Kids,
Older folk devoid of experience,
Indulge
Only in yourself, however
Indulgence isn't the problem
It's not knowing why

Now let me preach a minute
True prophets
Ask for nothing in return
Not a dime,
The good ones,
Not even your attention
They stand on their private
Street corners telling to the stars
In both hushed whispers
And crashing screeches
About what they think
And the day the find
A disciple
They will be pleasantly surprised  
Because that was never part of the the plan
They are prophets
And saviors
Because they are the select few
Who saved themselves

And now,
The man we talked about earlier
He's still alone
He's a bit afraid
Enough so to not find someone
To tread the waters with him
Because he is an almost fearless man
He doesn't fear scenery
Place, and time all the same
It's the implications that weigh heavily
On a psyche that's already burdened itself
On long bus rides
To remind himself (and his good pal,
psyche)
That he isn't going anywhere
The city he thought he was bored of
Has slipped into the background
And now that the future
Might just
Actually happen
It's time to freeze in place

It's a nice break against the pushing
rush of reality
To stop and smell the roses
While right behind
His back,
The world implodes
The sky blossoms open
Only fools rush in
Only fools stand back
Survey the scene and you
will lose the gist
The parts will show themselves
And you'll miss the whole
That's where it's alive
Don't get so caught up in the pieces
It's the weight
You'll drown in
It's a little death in the family
Enough to shake it up a little bit
Thanksgiving, dig in
One less the thing to worry about
And one more thing to write off
I'm sure there's a grand deduction for it.

Remember when I said I hate things?
That's not true
I don't hate anything
Things only exist, and are
Because other things are
That they aren't
And I can't love
So there's no hate
Nothing to compare it to
It's more of an empty feeling
With a silver lining,
It passes quickly
I haven't found the thing I just Hate yet
There's always a catch
Call the Holy Hotline,
There's always a catch
We're here for your calls, 24/7!
Heaven is neon
Brothels, tight lipped doors
It's
Sanctified Skidrow
Baptized in Hard Liquor out
By the chalice alley
The heavenly Saints
Who were brought down
Straight from
"Up There (He's smiling down on us,
I swear I can feel it, if I strain really hard and pop the blood vessels in one of
my good eyes, He's there, He's always there. I swear, She told me so,
Late at night, screaming o god at the ceiling, That's when I feel him,
***** blood and Canonized ***)"
These saints, now,
Or perhaps Saints,
Mumble to themselves
And sing invisible praises
It's weird
The visionaries are all weird
But to be insane in an insane world
Offers a sliver of freedom
Between all the crucifixions and handcuffs
White noise, and head banging

I never got
What other people called
Soul Searching
Because I did it everyday
Being broken down
and rebuilt every week
Goodbye o, Worldly World!
Not too cruel
But never too nice, either

This is not the end
I realized
That there is no end,
Is there?
That's the only certainty

And the man asked me,
"There's no end is there?"
Cigarette in mouth, limp
No, no
There never is
And the walls
We have built
Will collapse
If we turn our backs on them long enough
And soon enough
The Hopeless
Caught on each side of the wall
Will have to to unwind
Themselves
From the thick braid
They've found themselves in
Insanity
Unwinds the same way
Curling inwards
From the corner of my closed eye
Fractal Freedom
In a million parts
Twisting into
The beautiful whole
To be at liberty
To uncoil again
Back here again?
Always back here
Insanity
Before and again
And the big wide world would
Drive you so
If you dared understand it

I think I
Might just be part
Of an elite class
The ****-ups
The movers and shakers
But never the pushers
The world rotating around them
Looking for an in
Exits to nowhere aplenty

But right now,
I sit Here
Sterile, and sick
The man's voice buzzes, and rattles
Like the old AC at my grandma's apartment
The air,
Almost as dry
His low hum splits would could be
A comfortable silence
And I suppose,
That's why they think we're here
For all the "could be's"
The first words out of my mouth
Are a shrieking car crash
The mechanical man
Has such a grip
On the Atmosphere
His cogs and wires
Are free from the disease
That i Am
Rotting in my seat
Outside, where I cannot go,
The sky is static

Why is it static?
I'm afraid
It's been that way too long
And now my walls melt into the sky
Buzzing and Flickering
Low Light
The worst
It's now a diagnosis
Tell me what I have
Please oh please
It's in my head
But feels like my chest
Sitting in place
Might be
Cruel and Unusual
Long walks on the beach sound nice
But alone
If you can be with me, and alone
You're the one
-Aw....thanks me!-

And it scares me,
Like many things
The dreary rounds
I make each day
That I've built my own prison
I might just find myself
More free in a cell
(Free up my schedule a bit, just a bit)

And facing that mechanical man,
My voice dries up
Pulling my thoughts
Down with it
Flush
A soft touch to
The hard lighting

Uh,
Maybe I need to lay down
Where the grass cuts my shins
I've given up
There's nothing but god above us
And nothing below us
The sky is god
And it is empty.

A fraud, I mistook you for a mystic and also took your word
How could I not, you sang my name and you sang like a bird
You kiss like a knight
And all your lies at first seemed white.
All mild, harmless, benign, small and inconsequential
But your ******* bohemian circle is still shallow and preferential
Small and inconsequential, that's what I am now
Small, no one can see me
but how?
how does one dissolve into nothing but still feel it all
No I'm not worthy of love, but still I hear her call
In the lonely night, the winds lonesome cackles
Scared and lonely, romantic shackles
I swear I ache and ache and once again ache
For the next time this hopeless heart of mine will break
God knows I ache and then ache some more
Wanting a man to leave me sore
But they just leave me sore.

There is a love that rages here.
A kind that's incredible.
One that's illogical
and addled.

It sees through eyes though blind.
It thinks with mind though insane.
It feels with heart though unscrupulous.
It chooses with thought though reckless.

It is selfish and it wants what it wants.
It doesn't care because everything else
bears little weight.
Inconsequential.

There is a love that surges here.
And we are but...
collateral damage.

I watched the water rise. Creeping down the muddy street. As if a divine force was attempting a stealthy act of insurrection. I didn't have the heart to fight it. Had I only known.

I watched Hell's Half Acre silently succumb to the whimsical (however so pleasantly devastating) path of Gaea. Through this empowering incident I felt redemption like I never had before.

I jumped down from the platform of the livestock pen to personally welcome the satisfying force of nature's purification. The water lashed out and grabbed my leg. At that moment my jubilate spirit spoiled to uncontaminated terror. It was not a redemptive Spirit winding its way through the rail tracks but the serpent Lucifer. Had I only known.

And so in the West Bottoms Tavern I found myself under the ***** shoe of The Machine. A wayward phantom rising from our precarious Kansas River. It drifts through the sweet Midwest like the coal black locomotive smoke that paints a suffocating thick haze above the Stockyards.

A welcome slate of provision. A shelter covering us from the racial tension and poverty smothering the outside world. To those in the Bottoms with unruly desires, a saviour. To those at City Hall with loose morals, the messiah.

And it was at 1908, I nervously pulled the covers over my vulnerable body and sealed Satan's foul kiss with a diabolical red scrawl. We skipped hand in hand through the freshly paved streets of our "wide open" town. I always tried my best to look the other way but I knew full well that I travelled with a gang of thieves.

Nonetheless, everyone votes in our town. A brutal party whip keeps the Jackson County Democrats in line and "Charlie the ***" prevents any Rabbits from multiplying.

But I've been working from within the belly of a "whale" for years and I fear we've now run out of ocean. Our arranged marriage has robbed my capacity for faithful navigation. I'm seeking a radical divorce from The Beast, the cost has become inconsequential to me.

So I found genuine redemption. Finally. I closed the driver side door to my sedan and walked out to the edge of the bridge. The water below seemed whimsical (and so pleasantly devastating) in nature, much the same as it had 36 years ago. I pinned this note to the window, and with a Ready-Mixed Concrete block tied around my waist I watched the water rise.

I ravaged the vaults and came back empty
Nothing shall worry me today
Yes, i even looked for troubles and woes
No, nothing shall worry me today

Self flagellation used to be the norm
But not today, surprisingly
Self doubt evaporated, steam it became
Yes today, surprisingly

It feels grand to be renewed, vigor and strong
Into tomorrow this truth shall be
And every face that kept me dark and weak
No place it has, in tomorrow as the new truth shall be

He, she, and they, can forget i ever cared
Inconsequential beings of yesterday
And let them rot as i ascend, high and bright over
Inconsequential beings of many yesterdays

Do not fall in love with an artist;
Her mind is both a framework
And a disarray
Of jumbled sentiments.
And once you embed yourself
Within her horizons,
She’ll fathom you into a masterpiece.
She’ll draw the way your lips form words
With mesmerizing hues
And bind your love
Into a collection of poetic utterances
And she’ll make an inconsequential language
Into an unconventional expression.
She’ll pluck strings
To embody the way your chest
Rises against her ear with each breath;
She’ll make you fall in love with creativity.
And one wrong move,
And you’ll become a masterwork in her array.

In the shadow of Everest people are dying
Crushed in a chaos embirthed from beneath,
Emerged as destructor of temple and Taos,
Emerged as an innocent killer... bequeathed.
History crumbles as heavens roar mightily
Ghorka is dead in an avalanche of rock,
Beggars and potentates crushed  in the brickfall
Dharahara’s fall leaves men gaping in shock.
Shuddering mountains in avalanche of free fall
Wails of the stricken as quaking defiles,
Gold topped pagodas and statue of ancients,
Sculpture of lions now a rubble in piles.
Khathmandu in the clasp of calamity
Nightmarish forces arisen from deep,
Grasping the earth in their grip of profanity
Monstrously tearing the bedrock from sleep.
A techtonic ****** of Asia by India
Nepal’s Himalayas ****** to the sky,
Inconsequential, this plight of humanity
Nature proceeds as poor Nepalese die.**

M.
ANZAC Day 25 April 2015

It can be hard
To stay interested
It can be hard
To really care about things
That seem so inconsequential
It can be easy sometimes
To want to disconnect
To just pretend that we aren't interested
But its the inconsequential things
That we don't pay attention to
That can trip us up the most

Arrival


Upon my arrival, I whisper-walked
Erasing my steps like a broom
I avoided bottlenecks and having my back to the door


Soft voices and sweet
Made me cringe
So did people who had no smell.


What was I,  they wanted to know,
Such a delicate and precariously balanced thing,
Doing at the Crossroads?  


Even the smallest and most inconsequential among us,
Could knock you apart
with a soft, experimental tap.  


I’m sure that when they were children
They broke all their toys.
And I’m a living doll.


Perhaps I should, but I don’t want
To creak open the hinges of their faces.
There are things worse than skulls and brains.


Such as humorless laughter.
Indifference. Intentions.
And voids.


What you must realize,
What you need to comprehend.
Is that.

At times like this,
A girl would give anything
To be ugly.

two halves of your face were knitted together in the womb
and that brain of yours is a bit confused about which half should control which half of your body
but your body couldn't care less
when you smile both halves of your lips and brain operate in unison
and not every smile is for happiness, you can read minds by the smile on some ones face, and sometimes its not at all pretty.
our nose is situated just above our mouths that so we can smell the food before we eat it and know if it be rancid, and many people think its there simply random. Nothing in all creation is random, even throwing dice evens itself out, two halves of the same coin. Two halves of the same face. Inconsequential ramblings of a mind playing ping pong with itself.

When I feel
inconsequential,
I remind myself
Destiny does not happen without me
and all my actions
have consequences:
for example,
when I eat, my body gains nutrition,
when I exercise, my body becomes healthier,
when I’m kind to myself, I become happier,
when I’m kind to others, they become happier,
when I turn off the light in the room when I leave
I help save the planet from climate change,
and so on.
Then I realise
I am consequential!

Nauclatic (fairgoers): The deeply spiritually intertwined with nature just being introduced to the comforts of civilization
Rengall: Reified by concrete effrontery in discovery (Indiana jones)
flagstall: to lose national unity because of corruption
Escraven: timid in the usage of secret terminology
Glaggle: impress with gobbledygook that is divorced from substance
Flagstag: an undue importance of inconsequential elections
Fritty: someone who wastes their time
Gollumny: "my precious"
Akabu: deserted time-travelers stranded in the future or the past
kloffen: A placid body of water
Hermallop: dumping an uglier woman for a hotter one
Radiohoo: fake top secret rap and pop music
Radioglare: Menacing threats by objectionable musical trends
Aushehotaria: Having an O.B.E. relationship
Wickersnatcher: Stolen time travel pirate goods/pirates
Slalem: navigating the esoteric in common contemplation
scroogid: Spoilsport based on false expectations
Xenucography: Cryogenic attempts at eternal life
Qwersy: too popular to be ****** with
Minimasque: No ***** given about poor people
Oxyholotron: specious time travel paradox
Errid: poor mismanagement that leads to drought
wavesnatcher: chronic pirate of obscure music
Niminal: sea monster of pain
Retrude: introducing obsolescence that is unplanned
Qart: art apportionment among museums
Grimsuetude: Morose temperament impaired deeply
Qwestun: Cast System of Extras
Vilium: Missing obvious ****** opportunities
Veridium: Success with women
laskerade: Free-for-all euphoric party
seguage: Connections among times
Hortosynchrony: simultaneously played chants
Vangermyte: Sycophant NSA agents that cozy up to the stock market
Primitude: first in line
primiventure: first expedition
quilldoten: keep it on wax
jengadangle: arbitrage based on financial collapse or playing the VIX
Chrenodendron: Ancient Time Traveler
Chrenodamiange: Near future time traveler to the past
Chrenoid: seen a time machine before
Chrystrenic: The pacification and mollification of sentiment
Jakatta: wisdom of the disguiseans
ugmentum: bad trends continuing
Jocknee: To worship sports
Hackencrude: Stupid vituperative pornographic sentiments
Gullarge: a large unassailed lie fed by the media
glawson: To browbeat with nepotism in legal cases
virecreant: A male person that never flirts with women
hollertrap: Announcing non-neutrality in a world that is divided
qwink: *** between celebrities
qwasthink: an intricate pattern of visualized words
Trocket: Synergized tree-minds meeting in one body
Squirebell: A formal diplomat
Yessurp: Codeine addict
Matrhine: A smart German
poiliosis: a fake disease that is artificial
Dubois: A teed to the nines gangster that robs the corrupt blind
Flissoid: Gloss, beauty, eloquence but nasty personal hygiene among women
Reskig: Sparing animals from painful slaughter
Salug: a salute that hurts your reputation

The floor was cold under my bare feet as I crept down the stairs, listening to the noises that the house was making. The kind of noises it made when it thought everyone was asleep – the hum of the refrigerator, occasional clunks, the creaks as the walls warmed up and cooled down. By all rights, I should have been asleep.
Outside, the night was the impenetrable black that you only ever see in the dead of night, in the middle of winter. My face looked ghostly and pale in the glass of the window as I turned the tap, water sluggishly filling my glass. It was a peculiar feeling – like being disconnected from everything around you. Freefalling.

“Bit late, even for you.” I jumped, when I shouldn’t have. I don’t think you ever slept. “Couldn’t sleep?”

“Couldn’t stop thinking.”

“Ah.” Your shadow moved towards me across the room, and I watched your reflection in the frosty window.  “It’s cold.”

“I know.” This was how we worked, this shorthand. For a guy who never shut up, and a girl who never said anything, I suppose it wasn’t unusual.

“Aren’t you cold?”

“I’m not the one who’s half-naked.”

You chuckled, and I turned to look at you. Sweatpants hugging your hips and nothing else.

“Are you allergic to shirts?” I felt compelled to ask.

“I sleep naked. This is dressed up.” You smirked.

My cheeks flushed, and I was so grateful that the dark hid it. Suddenly, I was conscious of my pyjamas. Which was ridiculous – there was nothing wrong with sleepy sheepy.

You were watching me, that slow smile messing with my head.

“What?” I snapped irritably, uncomfortable with the weight of your gaze. “What?”

“Nothing.” You said, shaking your head. “You just look nice” you reached out, caught a wave of my hair, “with your hair down.”

I tugged away, making an impatient noise, and you dropped your hand to my arm. I looked up at you, wild eyed, and you stared back. I didn’t pull away.

For the first time in your life, your eyes weren’t dancing around, constantly distracted. They were still. We were still. We were trapped in that second.

“Are you cold?” I asked, and a part of me congratulated myself. That sounded almost normal, nice one.

You smiled slowly, your pupils huge and diluted. I wanted to tell them to stop, they were swallowing the green and it wasn’t fair.

“Not anymore.”

You reached your spare arm up and cupped the side of my neck, I watched your eyes, and they watched your hand. You tangled your long, pianist’s fingers in my hair, and looked up, into my eyes.

“Can I kiss you?”

Before, when we were dancing and I was so scared that the music was my drug, that I’d come around and know it had been a mistake, I had said no.

But there is nothing hypnotic about standing in a dark kitchen, skin crawling with the memory of shivers and when the soundtrack is the humming of the fridge.

“Yes.”

Your head dipped slowly towards mine, and I counted every second.

One.

I was falling.

Two.

Your breath touched my face, my eyes were closed.

Three.

Maybe you were falling too.

Four.

Your lips brushed mine, a whisper of a kiss, and then deepened. And suddenly we weren’t two, beautiful, broken teenagers with no way out and who were so, so tired. Suddenly, we were a girl in sheep pyjamas and a boy with smiling eyes. Suddenly, we were inconsequential to the grand scheme of things. Suddenly, we were all that mattered.

And when you pulled away, and my eyes opened reluctantly, I saw that you weren’t going to disappear. There was no pounding bass to hide behind and my hair was brushing my the bottom of my shoulder blades.

“Okay?” You said, and I watched the way your eyes sparked, my mind was humming.

“Okay.” I said, and I knew that, for the first time in a while, there would be no nightmares tonight.

Mayflies
by Michael R. Burch

These standing stones have stood the test of time
but who are you
                             and what are you
                                                             and why?
As brief as mist, as transient, as pale ...
Inconsequential mayfly!

Perhaps the thought of love inspired hope?
Do midges love? Do stars bend down to see?
Do gods commend the kindnesses of ants
to aphids? Does one eel impress the sea?

Are mayflies missed by mountains? Do the stars
regret the glowworm’s stellar mimicry
the day it dies? Does not the world go on
as if it’s no great matter, not to be?

Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose.
And yet somehow you’re everything to me.

Originally published by Clementine Unbound. Keywords/Tags: mayfly, mayflies, time, mist, transient, transience, pale, inconsequential, stars, sea, everything, A. E. Housman quote

Constructed in a year of inconsequential relevance,
A lighthouse stood over the turning tide.

Many a vessel had found respite in the glow of this beacon.
Through many years this tower stood strong.

The keeper, never of like name,
A position handed over in death.

Countless generations of watchful eyes relieved after duty.
All but an instant to this pillar,

This guiding light of prosperity.

I took over, 19 years from birth.
Training took a fragment of an hour.

Stood on guard, through a ceaseless haze,
First night on duty.

Tremors shook the beacon,
But it never lost its light.

A wave came to view,
Its size well beyond my comprehension.

The tower stood, as I was knocked upon the floor.
It never lost its light.

Sixteen years slipped by,
Not so much as a boat.

I admit, my head was starting to slip.
I hadn’t spoken in years.

I went in search of conversation and left my post.
In it’s place I discovered a barren wasteland of death and decay.

There was no life.
It was gone.

Without purpose or place, I marched on into the wasteland,
Until I came across a roaming beacon, shining out upon the horizon.

There I returned to my post,
With this guiding light of prosperity.

I think there are parts of our
lives that we can't possibly know
the meaning of until we are
months or even years removed.
                                                                    I'm
talking inconsequential moments
that snowball, gathering up value
over time. Then you look back,
and suddenly you are just
                                                                    so
surprised at how many actions
interacted perfectly, the necessary
amalgamation of happenings to
bring about one exact minute. I'm
                                                                    glad
to have had this experience the
second you walked up. At that time
I could never have possibly known I
would be here today. Never guess
                                                                    you
would have such an impact on my
life, knocking an avalanche into my
world, leaving me gasping for breath,
showing me what it means to
                                                                    exist.

life is too short to dwell on times past
yet every waking moment is spent with regrets for
half-truths, almost-friends, near-misses
of you         and I        and him      and her.
of two souls that had collided, only to fade back into
unknowns. back to strangers.

him     her.
near misses.
never      seen.
past surfaces.
missing    found.
of what could have
been.

I walk down the street
and there is just this radiating *** appeal
in everything I could possibly do—
even in the way the rubber on my shoes
grips the hot cement sidewalks.
(I realize that may not sound too ****—
at all;
But I’m confident that in this moment
someone is drooling over that step.)
Unmistakable swagger.
A few more moments of this
untouchable cool
& Morgan Freeman will be narrating
my every thought and movement.*

At least
that’s the way you make me feel.

How dare you.

You have the audacity to become
something so earmarked in my
little,
inconsequential,
twentysomething life.

You have the guts
to learn all of those
hidden quirks.
The same ones I relentlessly
and rightfully
keep to myself.

You have the nerve
to become the reason
why I smile for days,
go to bed alone
(but beaming)
& wake up with a larger reason
to grab life by its
big
metaphorical
*****
until it sees things my way.  

& I’m aware that
“*****” may not be the most
poetic of terms—
but the last time I checked,
poetry didn’t have
a **** definition

The last time I checked—
neither do we.

So how dare you
build me up into the only person
I can stand to be,
with only the promise
of an impending expiration date?

Then again,
there is something strangely
haunting
& remarkable
revolving around
the anticipation of that sort of heartache.

there was
your mouth,
And then
there was
mine.

I can still hear
us breathing,
giggling,
crashing together,
and

I won’t
ever
forget those small,
inconsequential
declarations of attraction—


I am gorgeous,
inconsequential,
****: also inconsequential.
hot: of the least consequence…
until you whispered
—so low I may have imagined it—
beautiful.

And then it changed.
We stopped laughing—
your breaths in my ear
became longer.
my fist became just
my hand,
in your hair.
your hand travelled,
a long journey:
from my **** (amazing, you say)
to holding my face,
a wandering thumb
gliding across my cheek.

And let us not forget
how you stopped
and pulled me closer
before
your lips yielded,
And became more pliable than before,
how
soft and slow,
you kissed me into persuasion.

Find your identity  
Not in your Suffering,
No, we survive trauma
But keep on living because
Someone loved us once
Told us we can achieve
Anything

Fail I may but there’s comfort
In the safe heaven of your warmth
Yes, you guide me to a path
Of self-discovery, until I
Realised my full potential
Grandmother’s prayer
Spirit rekindled
Arise

The entire universe is wrapped
Around your slender neck
which translates as; Woman you
Are so ******* Beautiful

God done made you,
Beautifully crafted in a raw material
Known as melanin with a heart of gold
And your eyes contains all the light
God used to make all humans
For the love of God, celebrate you

For you smile in the face of adversaries
You raise the bar and brake records
At the setting of the dawn, and if anyone
Should look down on you
Made you feel inconsequential

Do not curse
Know your identity
You are not your mistakes,
No, not even painful childhood
Memories can define you
Woman your fireflies heart
Raptures in brilliance
Constantly,

Which allows you
To never doubt your worth
You are ingrained with love
Yes, you are the best version of you
Even in difficult circumstance
I admire that bravery
Down your spine

they eat their own inconsequential and comatose integrity.
With relish.
they chew their knotty and petty problems endlessly
into bowls full of intellectually based uber slop
seasoned with bitter  inchoate knowledge
and then add  a dash of verbose celebrity froth.
Stir well.
they grind all their societal and artistic obsequiousness
into salubrious and meaningless observations
and then add the sourest flavour of the month
and stir with inconsequential turmoil.
and oh boy how poets can stir!!.

They're silent now.

No more endless empty words.

The previously clean paper that was so hastily cluttered up with meaningless drivel to justify their already decided plans, now sit unreadable.

Not a word is being spoken now as a look of stunned surprise on faces that once were clean, smug, and pretty as a picture  would look pale from shock if they were visible and not now bathed in blood and fragments of brain.

A brain that once was so full of thoughts, experiences, images, hopes and dreams.

A brain of a person that had done so much and wanted to do so much more, but was so ground down by the struggle to convince others.

A mind that for a split-second forgot who possessed it and forgot the people he so loved, that would be so hurt from this one, fleeting, solitary moment of madness.

But how can this brain that was put to such good use, now be splattered on tables, across walls, and over the last two inconsequential people to have ever seen me before this act?

By taking a gun from my bag, quietly and without emotion, into my hand, pressing firmly into the bottom of my mouth, all it took was a quick snap of a finger to metaphorically stick two up to them, and to all the others who couldn't give a ****, slicing a hole straight through me, launching a cascade of blood and body tissue into the air, across the room, and over the representation of all that has hurt me.

The decisions they make so easily, in the comfort of their own lives, without a thought for the human cost and waste of talent and potential, becomes just ink on paper.

But that pen became a dagger, ripping out my heart; and the paper that only moments ago was being filled up with my pain has now become the blood-drenched ocean of my soul.

You couldn't or wouldn't see what was on my mind and inside my head before, but you certainly can't miss it now, as it drips down your cheek.

I wanted to wipe away that empty and meaningless look I saw on your faces as you mechanically noted down my comments that I knew meant nothing to you and would go no further.

So now do your best to flick off the blood and please make sure it's all properly written up, reported on, and filed away neatly, in the organisationally detached way that all good little servants and agents of pain and misery always do.

It's so much easier to do the devil's work when it's not happening to you or anyone you care about. Wrap yourself up in the policies and procedures; insulate yourself from the person; do only what the rules say; comforting yourself in the 'organisational justification' for change; and breathe a sigh of relief it's not you or those you care for or love - at least not yet.

Through the red of the blood soaked window, a bird flies free.
What drastic steps to have taken for that to be me.

But the bird now flies home to its loved one and chicks, but sadly this will not now be for me. There's only so much a person can take.

But when will those with power and privilege see and care?
Usually not till it's far too late, as they now sit there dripping in what used to rush through my veins, giving me life and a reason to be.

I hope your reason to be, your actions and disinterest, has been worth it?
Your memory of my last breath into your face and my head exploding into your eyes might just act as a reminder.

When you see reports about an atrocity splashed across the news, and hear the repeated cries of "why?", maybe the answer for the one responsible might just be "well, why not?"

But that might be too difficult to fathom in this shallow, myopic, sound-bite driven world, so hooked on demonising, labelling as mad, and looking for easy answers for want of anything more useful.

From knee-**** reaction and tireless and narrow 'Daily Mail' rants against anyone or anything that doesn't fit their limited view of the world.

Most things don't just happen for no reason.

The reasons might be hard to see for many, especially when they don't want to see, but for those driven to such desperation they are likely quite rational to them in their world, with their experiences, their pressures, their pain, and their responses, or lack of anything beneficial from others.

When potentially destructive seeds are planted and their care is continually ignored, or their roots so callously ripped away, don't be surprised if something unwanted grows.

Maybe firmer foundations, better planting, regular watering, and careful appropriate tending would go a long way to help.

Copyright: Gordon Warren (10/1/13)

The monster in my closet is not the
Lord of the Flies or the way I hiccup at
the mention of tombstones like picket fences
or the Bible I have sitting on back burner, waiting and
turning to ash as I switch my focus elsewhere;
it is my freedom, it is my voice, it is my vulnerability.

I have found that the true steps to being a woman are
        
        One:
To never say “no” to a man: he is right, he is infinite;
Man, with a capital “M,” is Right with a capital “R.”
I must find my place beneath his boot and be
grateful for the attention.  I must offer myself to him
on a silver platter and ****** my wrists back when
he latches on like leeches in ponds—
innocence is necessary but experience is a must.
I need only to serve him and serve him well.
Dinner will be ready by five.

        Two:
After snapping my fingers and throwing on an apron
I need only to make shopping lists and fold laundry
and wash dishes and dust coffee tables and
***** train toddlers and begin the ironing—I must
become a less troublesome Lucy, and as Sylvia said,
become the place from where the arrow
shoots off from; my husband will be the
        arrow into the future
        the bright light at the end of the tunnel
        the brains, if you will,
ask him all your silly intellectual questions,
goodness me, how would I know anything
outside of homemaking?

        Three:
While living in the Valley of the Dolls,
it is important to play the part precisely because
anything less than the best is a catastrophe—
this isn’t suburbia this is su-Barbie-a  where
women are beautiful and poised, plastic in shells
with skin as cold as the freezers they keeps their words
in.  Your businessman of a husband will come home from
work at quarter to five and say,
        “silence is golden,”
as he pats your daughter on the head,
and you will not know to which one of you
he is communicating with because,
yes, of course, he is in charge of the vocal cords, being
stronger and smarter than the two of you; it is only
logical to accept his words as law.  Besides,
neither you nor your daughter really deserves the
right to not only speak when spoken to; girls have
silly and inconsequential ideas anyway.

        Four:
I must give myself up for love.  A woman without
a single altruistic bone in her body is
not a woman at all, but rather a shadow.  In order to
prove myself, prove my loyalty, prove anything, I must
first prove my heart.  At age eighteen, I will go backstage
for a costume change: graduation gown to wedding gown.
Don’t worry, Mother, he told me that college is overrated;
he told me that the only other education I will need
lies within homemaking skills—the easy life, don’t you see?
Love is my biggest flaw and greatest weapon, and
I must learn to wield it.

        Five:
But without a man, nothing is possible.  Catching
one like fish in nets is the goal, but in order to do so,
it is imperative that I realize that
beauty is not deeper than skin; beauty is pliable like bamboo
and is only prevalent when it is in paint.  I must become
Wendy, I must stay in Neverland, I
must
          not
                  age.
It is important to look young but not to act young.
It is even more important for my ribs to break
through my flesh—my beginning will be my end
but at least I’ll look good.

I am not afraid of the dark or of heights or
of storms or of doctors or dogs; I am
afraid of time reversing, I am afraid of
returning normalities.  That  fifteen-year-old girl
I saw post online about how she was
“born in the wrong decade” and how she would be
a “much better fit for the ‘50s” scares me to death.  
If I was expected to choose between
career             and             family,
I would sit at the bottom of the
fig tree like Sylvia;
              I would stick my head
                                               right in the oven.

the vastness of an empty soul
demystifies the Grand Canyon
and shrinks the universe
to microscopic molecules
barely able to manipulate energy
matter that doesn’t matter
madder than a hare in March
balance skewed
undue pressure
seasonal disfunction disorder
ordering medication
naturalization
seeking citizenship
in an isolation township
serving only self-pity
to the self-destructive –
squatting, gargoyle
surveyor on the job
soaking in the loathing
basking in the glow
caused by the discontent of others
opioid android locked in the void
unemployed
laughing at misery
in mercy centers
meticulously mimicking the miscreants
impersonating pain
seeking to blend –
ostracized miser in designer jeans
obscene in drag queen regalia
“whiskers from under his pancake make-up”
wake-up Godiva, locate the paraphernalia  
mammalian musculature
hide the heart of a snake
as she slithers across the floor
searching for the perfect surfactant
….her scaly skin itches, uncomfortably
tearing my lip skin
in the din
of her poorly lit closet –
together in terror, the admission seems worth the cost
lost in the sweet melody
of sobbing children
and clattering dishes
shattered visions
misgivings
estrangement entangled with commitment
obligations
oblivion and orange peals
appealing to a higher power
unanswered questions hover inconsequential
adding to the ozone depletion
and altered climate
owning blame
for all the world and her problems
I sit with shoulders slumped –

I recall counting the
crooked lines that ran the length of your palm,
noting how each and every one
ran on and on and on
before petering out into crosshatch
and creases.

Remember when I came to yours,
that first time?
We watched an inconsequential film,
made inconsequential small talk
as we lay on that  
rough-lined sofa of yours.
I stared into your bright-blue eyes
as you glanced up at mine
(murkier, sea-floor brown tinged with green -
“Harry”, you called me, jokingly)
and we kissed
because at the time
it seemed of consequence.

Later, we petered out somewhat
(creased and crosshatched as we were),
but even now,
as I trace the lines of my palm,
I can’t help but feel that
something that day
was of consequence.

To Flower
by Michael R. Burch

We are not long for this earth, I know—
you and I, all our petals incurled,
till a night of pale brilliance, moonflower aglow.
Is there love anywhere in this strange world?

The agave knows best when it’s time to die
and rages to life with such rapturous leaves
her name means Illustrious. Each hour more high,
she claws toward heaven, for, if she believes

in love at all, she has left it behind
to flower, to flower. When darkness falls
she wilts down to meet it, where something crawls:
beheaded, bewildered. And since love is blind,

she never adored it, nor watches it go.
Can we be as she is, moonflower aglow?

When Pentheus [“grief’] went into the mountains in the garb of the bacchae, his mother [Agave] and the other maenads, possessed by Dionysus, tore him apart (Euripides, Bacchae; Apollodorus 3.5.2; Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.511-733; Hyginus, Fabulae 184). The agave dies as soon as it blooms; the moonflower, or night-blooming cereus, is a desert plant of similar fate.

Published by The Neovictorian/Cochlea, Famous Poets and Poems, Poetry on Demand, Sonnetto Poesia (Canada). Keywords/Tags: Moonflower, cereus, agave, flower, Illustrious, Pentheus, grief, Dionysus, maenads, Euripides, Ovid, mrbch, mrbroses, mrbflow, mrbflower



Day, and Night
by Michael R. Burch

The moon exposes pockmarked scars of craters;
her visage, veiled by willows, palely looms.
And we who rise each day to grind a living,
dream each scented night of such perfumes
as drew us to the window, to the moonlight,
when all the earth was steeped in cobalt blue―
an eerie vase of achromatic flowers
bled silver by pale starlight, losing hue.

The night begins her waltz to waiting sunrise―
adagio, the music she now hears;
and we who in the sunlight slave for succor,
dreaming, seek communion with the spheres.
And all around the night is in crescendo,
and everywhere the stars’ bright legions form,
and here we hear the sweet incriminations
of lovers we had once to keep us warm.

And also here we find, like bled carnations,
red lips that whitened, kisses drawn to lies,
that touched us once with fierce incantations
and taught us love was prettier than wise.



Mayflies
by Michael R. Burch

These standing stones have stood the test of time
but who are you
and what are you
and why?

As brief as mist, as transient, as pale...
Inconsequential mayfly!

Perhaps the thought of love inspired hope?
Do midges love? Do stars bend down to see?
Do gods commend the kindnesses of ants
to aphids? Does one eel impress the sea?

Are mayflies missed by mountains? Do the stars
regret the glowworm’s stellar mimicry
the day it dies? Does not the world grind on
as if it’s no great matter, not to be?

Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose.
And yet somehow you’re everything to me.



Our English Rose
by Michael R. Burch

for my mother Christine Ena Burch

The rose is―
the ornament of the earth,
the glory of nature,
the archetype of the flowers,
the blush of the meadows,
a lightning flash of beauty.

NOTE: This is my translation/interpretation of a Sappho epigram.



First and Last
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

You are the last arcane rose
of my aching,
my longing,
or the first yellowed leaves―
vagrant spirals of gold
forming huddled bright sheaves;
you are passion forsaking
dark skies, as though sunsets no winds might enclose.

And still in my arms
you are gentle and fragrant―
demesne of my vigor,
spent rigor,
lost power,
fallen musculature of youth,
leaves clinging and hanging,
nameless joys of my youth to this last lingering hour.



Fairest Diana
by Michael R. Burch

Fairest Diana, princess of dreams,
born to be loved and yet distant and lone,
why did you linger―so solemn, so lovely―
an orchid ablaze in a crevice of stone?

Was not your heart meant for tenderest passions?
Surely your lips―for wild kisses, not vows!
Why then did you languish, though lustrous, becoming
a pearl of enchantment cast before sows?

Fairest Diana, as fragile as lilac,
as willful as rainfall, as true as the rose;
how did a stanza of silver-bright verse
come to be bound in a book of dull prose?



Sweet Rose of Virtue
by William Dunbar 1460-1525
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Sweet rose of virtue and of gentleness,
delightful lily of youthful wantonness,
richest in bounty and in beauty clear
and in every virtue that is held most dear―
except only that you are merciless.

Into your garden, today, I followed you;
there I saw flowers of freshest hue,
both white and red, delightful to see,
and wholesome herbs, waving resplendently―
yet everywhere, no odor but rue.

I fear that March with his last arctic blast
has slain my fair rose of pallid and gentle cast,
whose piteous death does my heart such pain
that, if I could, I would compose her roots again―
so comforting her bowering leaves have been.



Lady’s Favor
by Michael R. Burch

May
spring
fling
her riotous petals
devil-
may-care
into the air,
ignoring the lethal
nettles
and may
May
cry gleeful-
ly Hooray!
as the abundance
settles,
till a sudden June
swoon
leaves us out of tune,
torn,
when the last rose is left
inconsolably bereft,
rudely shorn
of every device but her thorn.

Published by The Lyric, Poem Today, Deviant Art and Suravejiliz (Tokelau)



The Harvest of Roses
by Michael R. Burch

I have not come for the harvest of roses―
the poets' mad visions,
their railing at rhyme...
for I have discerned what their writing discloses:
weak words wanting meaning,
beat torsioning time.

Nor have I come for the reaping of gossamer―
images weak,
too forced not to fail;
gathered by poets who worship their luster,
they shimmer, impendent,
resplendently pale.

Originally published by The Raintown Review



The Toast
by Michael R. Burch

For longings warmed by tepid suns
(brief lusts that animated clay),
for passions wilted at the bud
and skies grown desolate and gray,
for stars that fell from tinseled heights
and mountains bleak and scarred and lone,
for seas reflecting distant suns
and weeds that thrive where seeds were sown,
for waltzes ending in a hush,
for rhymes that fade as pages close,
for flames' exhausted, drifting ash,
and petals falling from the rose,...
I raise my cup before I drink,
saluting ghosts of loves long dead,
and silently propose a toast―
to joys set free, and those I fled.



Roses for a Lover, Idealized
by Michael R. Burch

When you have become to me
as roses bloom, in memory,
exquisite, each sharp thorn forgot,
will I recall―yours made me bleed?

When winter makes me think of you,
whorls petrified in frozen dew,
bright promises blithe spring forgot,
will I recall your words―barbed, cruel?

I don't remember the exact age at which I wrote this poem, but it was around the time I realized that "love is not a bed of roses." I wrote it after breaking up with my first live-in girlfriend, in my early twenties. We did get back together, before a longer, final separation. The poem has been published by The Lyric, Trinacria, Better Than Starbucks, The Chained Muse and Glass Facets of Poetry. It has also been translated into Italian by Comasia Aquaro and published by La luce che non muore.



Escape!!
by Michael R. Burch

You are too beautiful,
too innocent,
too inherently lovely
to merely reflect the sun’s splendor...

too full of irresistible candor
to remain silent,
too delicately fawnlike
for a world so violent...

Come, my beautiful Bambi
and I will protect you...
but of course you have already been lured away
by the dew-laden roses...



Winter
by Michael R. Burch

The rose of love's bright promise
lies torn by her own thorn;
her scent was sweet
but at her feet
the pallid aphids mourn.

The lilac of devotion
has felt the winter ****
and shed her dress;
companionless,
she shivers―****, forlorn.

Published by Songs of Innocence, The Aurorean, Contemporary Rhyme and The HyperTexts



Violets
by Michael R. Burch

Once, only once,
when the wind flicked your skirt
to an indiscreet height

and you laughed,
abruptly demure,
outblushing shocked violets:

suddenly,
I knew:
everything had changed

and as you braided your hair
into long bluish plaits
the shadows empurpled,

the dragonflies’
last darting feints
dissolving mid-air,

we watched the sun’s long glide
into evening,
knowing and unknowing.

O, how the illusions of love
await us in the commonplace
and rare

then haunt our small remainder of hours.

Originally published by Romantics Quarterly



Sunset
by Michael R. Burch

This poem is dedicated to my grandfather, George Edwin Hurt, who died April 4, 1998.

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

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

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

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



***** Nilly
by Michael R. Burch

for Tom Merrill

Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?
You made the stallion,
you made the filly,
and now they sleep
in the dark earth, stilly.
Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?

Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?
You forced them to run
all their days uphilly.
They ran till they dropped—
life’s a pickle, dilly.
Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?

Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?
They say I should worship you!
Oh, really!
They say I should pray
so you’ll not act illy.
Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?



What Would Santa Claus Say?
by Michael R. Burch

for Tom Merrill

What would Santa Claus say,
I wonder,
about Jesus returning
to **** and plunder?

For he’ll likely return
on Christmas Day
to blow the bad
little boys away!

When He flashes like lightning
across the skies
and many a homosexual
dies,

when the harlots and heretics
are ripped asunder,
what will the Easter Bunny think,
I wonder?

Published by Lucid Rhythms, Poet’s Corner and translated into Czech by Vaclav ZJ Pinkava



gimME that ol’ time religion!
by michael r. burch

for tom merrill

fiddle-dee-dum, fiddle-dee-dee,
jesus loves and understands ME!
safe in his grace, I’LL **** them to hell—
the strumpet, the harlot, the wild jezebel,
the alky, the druggie, all queers short and tall!
let them drink ashes and wormwood and gall,
’cause fiddle-dee-DUMB, fiddle-dee-WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEee . . .
jesus loves and understands
ME!



The Pain of Love
by Michael R. Burch

for Tom Merrill

The pain of love is this:
the parting after the kiss;

the train steaming from the station
whistling abnegation;

each interstate's bleak white bar
that vanishes under your car;

every hour and flower and friend
that cannot be saved in the end;

dear things of immeasurable cost...
now all irretrievably lost.

Note: The title "The Pain of Love" was suggested by an interview with Little Richard, then eighty years old, in Rolling Stone. He said that someone should create a song called "The Pain of Love." I have always found the departure platforms of railway stations and the vanishing broken white bars of highway dividing lines to be very depressing.



Lean Harvests (II)
by Michael R. Burch

for Tom Merrill

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

Published by The Rotary Dial and Angle



The Heimlich Limerick
by Michael R. Burch

for Tom Merrill

The sanest of poets once wrote:
"Friend, why be a sheep or a goat?
Why follow the leader
or be a blind *******? "
But almost no one took note.



The Donald Trumps the White House Roses
by Michael R. Burch

Roses are red,
Daffodils are yellow,
But not half as daffy
As that taffy-colored fellow.



Isolde's Song
by Michael R. Burch

According to legend, Isolde and Tristram/Tristan were lovers who died, were buried close to each other, then reunited in the form of plants growing out of their graves. A rose emerged from Isolde's grave, a vine from Tristram's, then the two became one. Tristram was the Celtic Orpheus, a minstrel whose songs set women and even nature a-flutter.

Through our long years of dreaming to be one
we grew toward an enigmatic light
that gently warmed our tendrils. Was it sun?
We had no eyes to tell; we loved despite
the lack of all sensation―all but one:
we felt the night's deep chill, the air so bright
at dawn we quivered limply, overcome.
To touch was all we knew, and how to bask.
We knew to touch; we grew to touch; we felt
spring's urgency, midsummer's heat, fall's lash,
wild winter's ice and thaw and fervent melt.
We felt returning light and could not ask
its meaning, or if something was withheld
more glorious. To touch seemed life's great task.
At last the petal of me learned: unfold
and you were there, surrounding me. We touched.
The curious golden pollens! Ah, we touched,
and learned to cling and, finally, to hold.

Originally published by The Raintown Review and nominated for the Pushcart Prize; since published by Ancient Heart Magazine (Australia), The Eclectic Muse (Canada), Boston Poetry Magazine, The Orchards Poetry Journal, Strange Road, On the Road with Judy, Complete Classics, FreeXpression (Australia), Better Than Starbucks, Fullosia Press, Glass Facets of Poetry, Sonnetto Poesia (Canada), The New Formalist and Trinacria



Will There Be Starlight
by Michael R. Burch

Will there be starlight
tonight
while she gathers
damask
and lilac
and sweet-scented heathers?

And will she find flowers,
or will she find thorns
guarding the petals
of roses unborn?

Will there be starlight
tonight
while she gathers
seashells
and mussels
and albatross feathers?

And will she find treasure
or will she find pain
at the end of this rainbow
of moonlight on rain?

Published by Grassroots Poetry, Poetry Webring, TALESetc, The Word (UK), Writ in Water, Jenion, Inspirational Stories, Famous Poets and Poems



She Gathered Lilacs
by Michael R. Burch

She gathered lilacs
and arrayed them in her hair;
tonight, she taught the wind to be free.

She kept her secrets
in a silver locket;
her companions were starlight and mystery.

She danced all night
to the beat of her heart;
with her tears she imbued the sea.

She hid her despair
in a crystal jar,
and never revealed it to me.

She kept her distance
as though it were armor;
gauntlet thorns guard her heart like the rose.

Love!―awaken, awaken
to see what you've taken
is still less than the due my heart owes!

Published by The Neovictorian/Cochlea, The Eclectic Muse (Canada), Shabestaneh (Iran), Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry, The Chained Muse, Inspirational Stories and Captivating Poetry (Anthology)



Auschwitz Rose
by Michael R. Burch

There is a Rose at Auschwitz, in the briar,
a rose like Sharon's, lovely as her name.
The world forgot her, and is not the same.
I still love her and extend this sacred fire
to keep her memory exalted flame
unmolested by the thistles and the nettles.

On Auschwitz now the reddening sunset settles!
They sleep alike―diminutive and tall,
the innocent, the "surgeons." Sleeping, all.

Red oxides of her blood, bright crimson petals,
if accidents of coloration, gall
my heart no less. Amid thick weeds and muck
there lies a rose man's crackling lightning struck:
the only Rose I ever longed to pluck.
Soon I'll bed there and bid the world "Good Luck."



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 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.



Mending
by Michael R. Burch

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.



Let Me Give Her Diamonds
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Let me give her diamonds
for my heart's
sharp edges.

Let me give her roses
for my soul's
thorn.

Let me give her solace
for my words
of treason.

Let the flowering of love
outlast a winter
season.

Let me give her books
for all my lack
of reason.

Let me give her candles
for my lack
of fire.

Let me kindle incense,
for our hearts
require

the breath-fanned
flaming perfume
of desire.



To the boy Elis
by Georg Trakl
translation by Michael R. Burch

Elis, when the blackbird cries from the black forest,
it announces your downfall.
Your lips sip the rock-spring's blue coolness.

Your brow sweats blood
recalling ancient myths
and dark interpretations of birds' flight.

Yet you enter the night with soft footfalls;
the ripe purple grapes hang suspended
as you wave your arms more beautifully in the blueness.

A thornbush crackles;
where now are your moonlike eyes?
How long, oh Elis, have you been dead?

A monk dips waxed fingers
into your body's hyacinth;
Our silence is a black abyss

from which sometimes a docile animal emerges
slowly lowering its heavy lids.
A black dew drips from your temples:

the lost gold of vanished stars.

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: I believe that in the second stanza the blood on Elis's forehead may be a reference to the apprehensive ****** sweat of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. If my interpretation is correct, Elis hears the blackbird's cries, anticipates the danger represented by a harbinger of death, but elects to continue rather than turn back. From what I have been able to gather, the color blue had a special significance for Georg Trakl: it symbolized longing and perhaps a longing for death. The colors blue, purple and black may represent a progression toward death in the poem.



She Was Very Strange, and Beautiful
by Michael R. Burch

She was very strange, and beautiful,
like a violet mist enshrouding hills
before night falls
when the hoot owl calls
and the cricket trills
and the envapored moon hangs low and full.

She was very strange, in a pleasant way,
as the hummingbird
flies madly still,
so I drank my fill
of her every word.
What she knew of love, she demurred to say.

She was meant to leave, as the wind must blow,
as the sun must set,
as the rain must fall.
Though she gave her all,
I had nothing left . . .
yet I smiled, bereft, in her receding glow.

Originally published by The Neovictorian/Cochlea



Geode, a Resemblance
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

the heart ice breaking.

Published by Poet Lore, Poetry Magazine and the Net Poetry and Art Competition



Snapshots
by Michael R. Burch

Here I scrawl extravagant rainbows.
And there you go, skipping your way to school.
And here we are, drifting apart
like untethered balloons.

Here I am, creating "art,"
chanting in shadows,
pale as the crinoline moon,
ignoring your face.

There you go,
in diaphanous lace,
making another man’s heart swoon.

Suddenly, unthinkably, here he is,
taking my place.

Published by Tucumcari Literary Review, Romantics Quarterly, Centrifugal Eye, Poetry Webring, Poetry Life & Times and The Eclectic Muse



Memento Mori
by Michael R. Burch

I found among the elms
something like the sound of your voice,
something like the aftermath of love itself
after the lightning strikes,
when the startled wind shrieks . . .

a gored-out wound in wood,
love’s pale memento mori—
that white scar
in that first heart,
forever unhealed . . .

and a burled, thick knot incised
with six initials pledged
against all possible futures,
and penknife-notched below,
six edged, chipped words
that once cut deep and said . . .

WILL U B MINE
4 EVER?

. . . which now, so disconsolately answer . . .

—————-N-
—EVER.



Published as the collection "To Flower"

Mr Darwin, please explain

Reading TS Eliot is to be drawn into timeless space where images of past and future combine in a continuous stream of thinking …. perhaps the immortality of ideas. The genetic material of life, DNA, is immortal, an unbroken thread linking life’s origins 4 billion years ago to the present ….. and future.

Sequence upon sequence of symbolic letters encoding countless forms of bodies, built to the same principles inherent in the genetic code, yet morphing in endless variety according to the tenets of natural selection ….. Darwin’s idea that transformed our thinking from a moment of purposeful creation to how life changes through time.

Cosmologists suggest we live in one of many possible universes perhaps in parallel time allowing parallel lives, one not knowing of the other’s existence because of the limitations of our three dimensional view of the world and its existence in the cosmos. We see in three dimensions and no more, but we are aware of more because mathematics tells us so.

Mr Darwin, please explain explores the seamless continuity of Darwinian thinking with the timelessness of Eliot’s poetry…..

I In my beginning is my end …. V In my end is my beginning.
(East Coker, Four Quartets, TS Eliot)


Mr Darwin, please explain

I

What is this selection of love so natural
To drive men insane and women to purgatory
Can Mr Darwin explain?
Some ask the question
But I doubt not, that his meaning is clear
Why love one to one remains so dear,
Though Karl denied it, Lenin too
And Uncle Joe dismissed it
As a plot to subvert what was good for the proletariat.
But in that recent time when ******’s darkness shadowed The Earth
Love glowed in the gloom of the despair of nations’ Terezíns
Which to-day helps to repair our broken dreams
Of why we love one to one.

Keats loved one ***** Brawne
And Coleridge his Asra
But what is ecstasy’s advantage?
When comes the pain of separation
Mr Darwin, please explain.
Is it lust, is it reproduction?
But then when love is thwarted
We cannot function,
Where is the advantage
Mr D --- what is the aim, can you explain?
How the coiled spiral passing from time to time
Its immortal message which condemns each generation
To the pain of separation
When the reaper calls, or the rival sunders
The coils of love’s message we’ve inherited
Since the beginning of time
Why? What is the advantage?
Mr D, please tell me your answer.

The whales they sing one to one
Like Eliot’s mermaids singing
Not to Prufrock but perhaps to you and me
The message of communication.
Is this love as one to one
Each supports another wounded
By the enormity of the harpoon?
The dictator’s message in another form
Devoid of love, sundered, never whole
Coming from that Terezín we never solve.
Dysfunctional Mr D, where’s the advantage
For such conflicting feelings to evolve?

David Applin
March 2012

II

Genes are the immortal ones
The links between past and future
But ever present
Unintentionally directing the future and fate of humankind.

Silent, unobserved yet Gods of their domain
Which is us and life past and future
Coiled threads of eternity that determine our happenings
Including our loving one to one.

Yet ….

In their entirety and interaction
Do they, in their interaction
Determine our loving one to one?
The bond that binds each to each
Perpetual celebration.

Or ….

Is their selfish blindness which some accord to be
Inconsequential
Like boats tossed helplessly on storm driven seas
Subject to the whims of wind and rain
No more than replicators housed in vehicles
Subject only to the chances of a changing world.


III

Bodies are vehicles, genes the replicators
Bodies and genes indivisible
At least in the present
But separated as bodies die after
Genes have passed to their immortal future.
Perhaps this is what is meant when they say
That the gene is selfish.

Accommodated in the selfless body at a particular time
But then discarded as genes pass its immortality
From past to future
Changes slow, quick depending on stasis or acceleration
According to Darwinian tenets that enfold the changes
In genes and therefore bodies
Through all time.


IV

Cycle upon cycle of genes and bodies
One perpetual, the other discarded each generation
By the unseen hand of an uncaring Nature.

Our nature, all nature, the beauty of sunsets
Driven by the mechanical clocks of cosmic cycles.

Yet Relative to other Dimensions where
What we see, we do not see
Because of the profound limitations
Of three dimensions.
We see only dimly what might be past
And what could be future
As we struggle in the presence of tautological explanation.

Body and gene, gene and body the temporary and perpetual
Bound in the dance of a living presence
The one ensuring the other’s future
For all time.
Circle upon circle, tautological argument
Explaining everything and nothing but all powerful
In its reductionism of humankind
And life kind as whales support the one
Wounded by the enormity of the harpoon
Loosed by the bodies of genes
Storm tossed and directionless
When thinking that others’ bodies
Can be discarded without thought or thinking
Perpetual damnation.

Tautomeric interaction.
We say the same thing in different ways,
Recycled ideas that parody the twenty different plots of novels
That return to the same point,
Come back to the common question

Why do we love one to one?

People ask…. ‘Can Mr Darwin explain?’

Perhaps not through bodies and genes
But instead, understanding the epistasis of genes and where we live.
We live in this world because of our past
As genes dance to the chance of environmental shifts
The whims of wind and rain, sea and wave
That blow and toss the genes
In their bodies, in random patterns,
Some sinking, others floating
Not always by chance
But because they float and fight
Yielding to the pressures of an uncaring nature.
Like soft down yielding to the thud of falling bodies
Softening their impact.

So to yield as well as fight
Is part of the selection of one by another
In the perpetual
Celebration of loving one to one.

We yield to the blandishments of the soft embrace
We fight to attain it

And once attained, what we do is all we do
To keep a hold on what we love
Only to lose it to the grim reaper of all our dreams
In this present world,
But to regain it in worlds to come
The link between past and future
For immortal genes
Of transitory bodies which is how
We think and see our presence
In time without end.



V

General relativity and quantum mechanics
The combination of infinity and the very small
Do not replace the Newtonian meaning of the day to day.
Just, that Newton is displaced to another time and place
Where description is precise but with uncertainty according to
Heisenberg.

To be certain is to fix ideas in time
Like natural selection in the Darwinian mind
To be propitiated without exception, else suffer extinction of self
And of all that matters to self and others
Sacrificed on the alter to propitiate the Gods of our certainty.

That is not to say that an idea cannot be fixed in time
That its central tenet is not true for eternity.
But truth is relative and uncertain
To be strengthened or cast aside
By better truths or developments of the same.

Our understanding expands with time
But often returns to something that was said before
And said again as if it were newly minted
In the mind of its creator
To become dogma
And as all dogmas
The truth unchanged in people’s minds.
Yet the central tenet survives, as survival is the result of natural selection
But with added components as
Understanding expands as to what is meant by surviving and survival.
To inherit the coils of love’s message is to survive.


VI

Can Mr Darwin explain?
Perhaps is not a whole question
In the same sense that answers depend on
The question asked and who is asking.

The truths that questions seek to answer
The truths of love, beauty and heating systems
Arise from answers to questions in different languages,
And languages translate imperfectly from one to one
As genes imperfectly translate proteins and therefore love in the
Darwinian world of our dreams.

Truth comes in different forms
And Darwinian truth is true to the questions it addresses.
But these are not the only questions of why we are,
Who we are, what we are
Who, what, why are we?

Questions past and future asked in the present
For all eternity.


Christmas (25th-28th) 2012
David Applin

Copyright David Applin 2015