Poems about Icarus

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



Southern Icarus
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

the houses watch with baffled eyes.



Flight 93
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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



I AM!
by Michael R. Burch

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

I am not one of ten billion, I.

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

I am not one life has left unsquashed.

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

I am not one without spots of disease.

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

I am not one of ten billion, I
AM!



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

Athena takes me
sometimes by the hand

and we go levitating
through strange Dreamlands

where Apollo sleeps
in his dark forgetting

and Passion seems
like a wise bloodletting

and all I remember
, upon awaking,

is: to Love sometimes
is like forsaking

one’s Being―to glide

heroically beyond thought,

forsaking the here
for the There and the Not.



O, finally to Burn,
gravity beyond escaping!

To plummet is Bliss
when the blisters breaking

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

Feathers and wax
and the watchers huddle...

Flocculent sheep,
O, and innocent lambs!,

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



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

for the Night has Wings
gentler than Moonbeams―

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

fluttering off
to quarry the Sphinx.



Riddlemethis,
riddlemethat,

Rynosseross,
throw out the Welcome Mat.

Quixotic, I seek Love
amid the tarnished

rusted-out steel
when to live is varnish.

To Dream―that’s the thing!

Aye, that Genie I’ll rub,

soak by the candle,
aflame in the tub.



Riddlemethis,
riddlemethat,

Rynosseross,
throw out the Welcome Mat.

Somewhither, somewhither
aglitter and strange,

we must moult off all knowledge
or perish caged.

*

I am reconciled to Life
somewhere beyond thought―

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

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

so fatten the oxen;
make a nice baste.

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

though we injure noone,
ourselves wildaglow.

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



Free Fall (II)
by Michael R. Burch

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

But since I touched you, fire consumes each wing!

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



Fledglings
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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



The Higher Atmospheres
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

what then?

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

what then?

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

what then?

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

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

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

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

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



Icarus Bickerous
by Michael R. Burch

for the Religious Right

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

They look up amazed
and seem rather dazed―

was it heaven’s or hell’s furious smelting

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

the higher you “rise,” the more halting?



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

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

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

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

Published by American Indian Pride and Boston Poetry Magazine



Flight
by Michael R. Burch

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

Originally published by Hibiscus (India)



The Wonder Boys
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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

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

Originally published by The Lyric



American Eagle, Grounded
by Michael R. Burch

Her predatory eye,
the single feral iris,
scans.

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

Her hard talon,
clenched in pinched expectation,
waits.

Her clipped wings,
preened against reality,
tremble.

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



Album
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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



Springtime Prayer
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

Originally published by The HyperTexts



Learning to Fly
by Michael R. Burch

We are learning to fly
every day...

learning to fly―
away, away...

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

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



In the Whispering Night
by Michael R. Burch

for George King

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

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



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

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

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

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

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



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

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

Published by Better Than Starbucks, A Hundred Voices



in-flight convergence
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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



Squall
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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



Flight
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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



Flying
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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



Stage Craft-y
by Michael R. Burch

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



Clyde Lied!
by Michael R. Burch

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



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

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

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

Published by Lighten Up Online and in Potcake Chapbook #7

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



Lance-Lot
by Michael R. Burch

Preposterous bird!
Inelegant! Absurd!

Until the great & mighty heron
brandishes his fearsome sword.



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

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



Delicacy
by Michael R. Burch

for all good mothers

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



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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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



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

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



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

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



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

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



Untitled Translations

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



Critical Mass
by Michael R. Burch

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

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



Ultimate Sunset
by Michael R. Burch

for my father, Paul Ray Burch, Jr.

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



Free Fall
by Michael R. Burch

for my father, Paul Ray Burch, Jr.

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



Leaf Fall
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

Originally published by The Neovictorian/Cochlea



The Folly of Wisdom
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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

Originally published by Romantics Quarterly



Kin
by Michael R. Burch

for Richard Moore

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

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

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

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



Songstress
by Michael R. Burch

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

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



Performing Art
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

What instinctual memories
lend stunning brightness
to the strange dreams

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

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

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



Lean Harvests
by Michael R. Burch

for T.M.

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

Published by The Rotary Dial and Angle



My Forty-Ninth Year
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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



Myth
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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



What Works
by Michael R. Burch

for David Gosselin

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

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

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

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

and teach the pallid poem to seethe.



Desdemona
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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

and strangled hope, where love dies too.

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



Transplant
by Michael R. Burch

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

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



Prodigal
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



Breakings
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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



An Illusion
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

into oblivion...

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



Lines for My Ascension
by Michael R. Burch

I.

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

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

II.

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

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

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

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

III.

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

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

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

IV.

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

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

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

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



The Locker
by Michael R. Burch

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

reproved
adulation or sentiment,
left with the pungent darkness

as remembered as the sudden light.

Originally published by The Raintown Review



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


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

and looked into the mirror that the Isness of the Universe held before me.
Seeing nothing but the Isness of the Universes indifference
and glee at the ongoing 26 armed conflicts
it has initiated worldwide.
Seeing it possessing all the vanity and all the narcissism
worthy of a "god" or "goddess"or any "religious" leader. .
I am, as are all others,the individual Isness,
which is a small but equal,
individual autonomous and independent part,
of  the essence of the Isness of the Universe.
I am incarnated in this,the latest in a long lineage of bodies
dating back beyond numbers or clocks.
I am incarnated here to realise my true nature as an individual Isness.
Seeing naught but the Isness of the Universes perversity and destructiveness
manifest all around me,
in the various civilisations that have come and gone
and still remain ever warring and corrupt.
It is a hard thing to acknowledge that one is a part of the Isness of the Universe
when you are a separated part of it,
but truthfulness wins over "truth" any day for me.

Truthfulness is the only way to preserve my most precious possession which is my individual integrity.
I looked and saw corruption and shed just the one tear and  
shook my head slowly and sadly.
And I stood up and walked away ******* myself with hollow laughter
at how impotent and nackered the Isness of the Universe has become,
since it created the universe out of its own beingness.
All of us individual,one to each body,each a part of its very beingness.
I,this particular individual Isness, was there at the beginning,as were all others,
living the pure truthfulness of existence--as all individual Isness were.
In Union with the Isness of the Universe--not separated by bodies
Minds and GroupMinds and Conditioned Identities
and Group Conditioned Identities.
The Isness of the Universe acted biggy bangy turning its self into the Universe.
Then came the transition from less than nothingness
into existential beingness in a succession of bodies.
I separated from the Isness of the Universe and took the first of many bodies,
foolishly believing the things we had agreed on before selbst manifestatie would come to pass.
Naively believing that the Isness of the Universe's word would be honoured.
Fool that I was.
How untrustworthy and sly the Isness of the Universe has become,
hiding behind "religions" and the masks of many "gods" and "goddesses".
Using its many surrogate and shallow identities,
to manipulate and mislead my gullible fellow individual Isnesses
into the slaughter of War on an industrial scale.
Lauding the death of decency and honour and integrity
and non-violence and equality and unconditional love.
How vain and shallow the Isness of the Universe has become,vainly
demanding worship and praise and the blood of innocents
as if this petty narcissism is the raspberry sauce
on its cosmic Ice cream cone,to be licked avidly,
gore running down its chin.
How untruthful and evasive the Isness of the Universe has become,
a role model for death and war and criminality
and sexism and lies and untrustworthiness.
Who will help me talk sense into our progenitor
before it destroys life altogether?.
Is there any one out there who can stand with us
and talk back to our erring and errant beingness?.
Where are the real women and men,not the "seekers" with their endless narcissism and gullibility?.
Hiding behind stolen verses and concepts
taken from a million pornographic philosopies.
And please no prancing posturing chattering "poets" with
their fancy stanzas about love and destiny and
eternal bliss.
Oh and their "sincerity".
You against the world!.
more like you against those who would stop
you ******* the very life energy out of humanity.
Oh Cowards.
Are there no other Men and Women of Integrity alive?

www.thefournobletruthsrevised.co.uk

London,
Beating heart of England,
Charismatic time-capsule thrumming to its own rhythm,
History looming, akin to massive waves splashing down,
Drenching all, the unwary, the scholar, soaking it up,
Savouring every scintillating droplet, blissful, hopeful,
Weaving through lives, changing with every moment,
Variety of race and creed, intermingling, jostling, noticing,
Sharing sight, sound, colour, scents, smiles and frowns,
Pulsing soul of people, thriving and alive, buzzing with spirit,
In Camden, easy-going, a friendly riot of textured-hazy-peace,
Artful structures of Belgravia, magnolia temples of affluence,
Lauding architectural finery while mere mortals pass through,
Mind swinging through centuries, flowing along the river artery,
Bridges carrying us home, keeping their own dark secrets,
Cranes rising high, creating modern palaces, new beginnings,
Old lives wreathed in the foggy past of legendry deeds,
Embellished beyond reality, ghosts crying out, warning,
We can never own this city, never know this city, not really,
Guardian dragon allows us entrance, pours herself upon us,
Takes our love, progresses while we observe,
All left behind, knowing, feeling, sensing,
We are but shadows in her Light,
Dust on her famous streets,
Blessed to know her,
To breathe her,
Love her,
London.

©Paul Chafer 2014

Art would last forever
But i learned feelings don't always do
And even if i painted you in hues
With every classic medium of art
This old tradition of painting
You on my canvas
As well, would never last

And even if i used digital art now
Where it would be fast
To bring you back
Reminded me that
This love faded faster
And this advanced way
Of lauding my love for you
Would never really make me move on

"Do not gloat over me, my enemy!
    Though I have fallen, I will rise.
Though I sit in darkness,
    the Lord will be my light.
Because I have sinned against him,
    I will bear the Lord’s wrath,
until he pleads my case
    and upholds my cause.
He will bring me out into the light;
    I will see his righteousness."

- Micah 7:8-9 (NIV)

----------------------------------------------------------­--

------------------------------------------------------------
­
A question mark,
Never will I bestow;
For what I sow, I will reap.

And now, as the era of harvest is today,
I am ready.

------------------------------------------------------

I­ thirst, and taste a famine;
Bitterness has flavored my tongue,
I wanna whine,
“Why it isn’t sweet?”

I counted the years..
One, two, three –
In my very own language,
I got three.

--------------------------------------

I used to sleep unaided,
With lies as my pillow,
A chock-full darkness as my bedspread;
I thought I was alright,
For my psyche, my heart
They both agreed.

“Child, my child…”
A voice like roaring thunder,
Yet so sweet,
Calling my name.

A chariot of fire,
A blazing man in his black robe!
Terrified, my knees were wobbling.
Then, I realized..
That thing which I’m used to clinched,
All the time, the source of the twinge.

I felt a Hand above me…
A safe haven, yes, I’m in here!
The Light has blinded me,
But I wasn’t troubled at all,
For I know that the same blindness
Will lead me to the real Light.

I have never seen His face,
I may have died if I did try.
All I know is that He’s magnificent,
And powerful and loving…
A forgiving One.

I have this runny feeling in my hands,
I was full of blood,
But I’m not hurt at all.
Debris of glasses are on my feet,
I felt the stooping of my knees,
It’s as if something’s dragging me down.

I realized that I was to pick those up –
With the ****** stains, still in my hands.
I saw a big picture of me,
Facing my own being -- a ****** being.

There, I started to hear a small voice,
And wondered where it comes.
Black…
Now, all were black again.
I started to feel the same fear;
My lips are to shriek,
But it was zipped.

“My child, my child…”
Here He goes again,
“Lord, help me! Help me God!”
I bawled with my full muscles,
But the words were only bubbles.

“D’you hear me Lord? Where are you? Are you there?”
The darkness has wholly wrapped me,
Like a snake about to eat me slowly.

The poison has entered my body,
I was fighting my breath –
An exchange of inhale and exhale;
And I know I was about to die.

It hurts me so much –
The Lord has abandoned me,
He has forsaken me.

I was losing my grip on Him,
Even though I know,
Even before, I wasn’t grasping at all.

I found no tears,
But a blood from my eyes..
That made me realized something.

The voice has emerged again,
“Be still, my child…”
That moment, I want a hug from Him,
Unlike the first encountered we had,
To which I just let Him be away.
For the fullness of His love,
I have never recognized.

His blood has gave me hope –
That precious blood that brought me to life!
And that’s why I’m not hurting,
‘Coz he was actually the one who’s hurt.

“Lord, I am nothing... But why?
Why die for me? Why save me?”
Questions are about to burst,
But I was so silent,
not to speak a single one anymore.

I’m waiting for His reply –
I waited with tears in my eyes.
But I heard no word from Him,
Instead, He gave me a sweet embrace..

I fear no more..
“Lord, I love you so much…
I’m sorry, please forgive me…”
Tears were like rain,
it can’t be impeded right now.

---------------------------------------

The light has awaken me,
That light strikes my eyes but I was happy.
“It’s just a dream Lord...
But I know, that embrace was real.”
I smiled.

In the richness of the darkness itself,
People will look for Him.
It will be the moment they will seek Him,
With all their hearts out.

People will be forgiven,
Not because of what they've done,
But because of God’s grace alone.
They may not have felt His first love,
They may backslide a counted times,
But surely, they’ll return to Him
And find their way back home.

The Lord is my Savior,
Jesus Christ is my Redeemer alone.
For I know what to suffer now,
Is not for my own benefit alone,
But for the sake of the Message.

For I know how sinful I am,
And how I disappointed Him a lot of times,
But He has put me in the light,
And once again, I’ll thank Him –
And will never stop lauding His holy Name

(7/9/13 @xirlleelang)

Pt.1
Love is a race
Gun fire to exhaustion
With runners, the lovers,
Kicking up rocks.
Digging, digging,
The stretch in sight
The thing, their body straining with all their might
And the crowd all cheering
The race neck and neck
Lauding the  winner, he loved
Gets the medal in his hands
I’m watching the celebration
Back at the start
I didn’t even move
Didn’t even start
Pt2.
I knew I’d crush
If Hope were involved
That *******
Held my hand
And told me it was hers
Though the door is tightly shut
That hope it still lingers
Last string on my harp, plucked clean
Hook, line, and ******* sinker.
Pt3.
Congratulations,
I hope he treats you well
I’ll retreat, again, to my little hell
Just goes to show the value
Of patience.
Enjoy each other, please.
Congratulations.
Pt4.
I never thought I’d win
And yet certain you’d be mine
Your boyfriend told me
Wordlessly
Just how pointless
Trying is.
Pt5.
*******,
I’m a loser again.
Who ******* cares?
We’ve all got our pain.
I’m nothing special,
But he certainly is.
Pt6.
Why am I *******
About this common occurrence?
It happens all the time—
All for naught
My romance.

Who, me. I don't know,
I'll ask We, the people.

How has the world,
the one we share, you with me, I with thee,
how has our reality
come to today
surrounded by hooting proud warriors lauding their leaders
made kings by the magi and the tax collectors and spenders?

That's the question.
I think it's a test, or a temptation, knowing the answer might **** us.

Do the math, or believe an expert who says
he knows he knows, an
experienced thinker and weigher of big ideas.

Choose an expert, Yahoo, Goggle experts in interesting time one.
You choose.
Only for now. These teasing toy journeys are only real
in your way of thinking.

An expert in words at play or
an expert in words of war
or work or woe or
joy and
strength'n'vigorishit--
use-ery compounded into stone
an expert in dark, full-on absense of light, al
right, al
ready -- the expert
you let be smarter than you, by God, or any other witness,

that expert better be having more than historical authority, okeh.

Gears used to grind, stick-shift,
yoost to lever m'thematically synchronized
wheels in wheels,
lesser gears, experienced old grease monkey knows,
between those,
is where m'monkey wrench goes.

Bring wheels in wheels to a screeching halt!

Like by the River of Tebar, very hard to write such thoughtscenes,
he trys, um-phailure, deep breath,

look around, selah.
Kiss the son, taste the son, know the son as brother, as gotchabacker
friend, who is the way, the truth, and the life.

No lie is of the truth. There is a basic algorythm in 2019.
AND in 2019 I have an idea that works for me,

the null set can hold any evil any mind, mortal or otherwise,
can conceive.

Napoleon Hill seeds sometimes sown as weeds to choke a crop of lies,
"What the mind of man can conceive, it can acheive."
Ah, so:
Man as a whole, he is thought to have meant, mankind, wombed and un;
but he may have meant man as in, any one man, wombed or un.

--- end first course --- recycle all utensils

I seek to sing in praise of You
But my tongue will wither,dry.

I long to write odes and verses,
lauding You,
but
the world of its ink,I would deprive.

Extolling You is like giving the ocean a droplet.
Would the Sun be made splendid by my lit candle?

But my soul is soothed by an answer from You,
"Your failure to praise is praise enough."

Disciplined with life’s goals, but lauding the journey the more important.

Goals, focused and carefully chosen: the way rigidly planned and marked: milestoned and measured.

Socially supported, to soothe wounded hands and lift weary feet; justified pleasures in righteous social schadenfreude, as goads to keep and help deviants in their Chosen Ways.

So much fear in the whims of the seductive winds: shunning strange shores, sallying strong and bold, with sendoffs and fanfare, into the wilderness, just beyond your garden’s walls.

We cannot see what we cannot see. As truths are inaccessible to reasons, so wisdom, unsearchable. And who knows if the unknowable fickle winds is for or against us.

When the wind blows, persistent, strong and consistent, even to the Moon is without doubt. Then the winds died.

Your boat absolutely still, your sail limp and lifeless; not a ripple from horizon to horizon, not a sympathetic cloud in the brazen blue sky. The food’s out, the water’s low, a day or two, at most.

Sun shines impartial with no fear nor favor, as blindfolded Justice dispensing justice. Nights, frigidly cold, and time ceased.

The journey will always be: goal or no goals, socially supported or as a lone nomad: the wind blows, always and irresistibly, never futile. Walking in fear and trembling the only wise, for all else, futility.

None sob for the hero
When at last, his end he meets
No remembrances for deeds long done
Only lauding of defeat

No parades or tickertape
Or maybe moonlight vigils
Just a simple wooden box
And a few religious symbols

And everyone's a saint
And everyone's a martyr-
Brother, sister, mother
Son or daughter, father

For when Death finally comes
And surely takes us all,
No one weeps for any
When the last one finally falls

No one mourns the common man
No fanfare at his death
Just complacence and contempt
And softly veiled regret.

Ladies and Gentleman, esteemed friends and collaborators, we find ourselves beset once more by a particular individual's overwhelmingly perverse actions of self-aggrandizement. Yes indeed, there is a stranger here among us, a purveyor of hate and dismissal, lauding his own horrifying mimicry of poetry as the makings of a legend. I will not foul my words by speaking his thrice-accursed name, and in truth, there is no need. Any one of us who has found our heart-wrought pages smeared by the childish, aristocratic and may I say it, disgusting blabberings of this ill-begotten rake shall know exactly of whom it is I speak. And I speak in ernest, terrible ernest, against this self-proclaimed genius against whom we worthless ants are compared as to a god. And in the name of humanitas and libertas we tolerate his vile ravings and insensate curses thrown toward us as if we were nothing but cattle. Why? Because we believe in something that he will never be able to understand or appreciate, the very concept of a community throws him into confusion and fear. People are dying in the streets in the name of everything that we here stand for and he has the audacity, nay, the pompousness to assault my friends in the only haven some of them have ever known. Some of you may retain your hope for him and your patience in light of his narcissism. I however, have lost my patience and will tolerate it no longer. I consider it my duty to counter his message of hate wherever I find it. I urge you all to do the same.

This is desire; nothing you have heard of in
Romantic poems, of red, of pink, of green,
Of gold and pearlescent white - it is a picture
Of me in my pjs, with my sexiest underwear
Beneath, for no reason at all - I have my feet
Up on the footstool of our stained sofa set
Coffee and alcohol and goodness-knows-what
From bygone beggars who lived our student lot
And it's quarter past two, and I have a well-eaten
Granny Smith core in my hand, and the day has beaten
Me. The week has beaten me, but hey!
I smiled through it all, almost all the way.
And my household (mis)adventures mean I carry a stale chipshop
And washing smell about me. And I stop
And I think, yeah, I'm only up because I'm working late -
I'm only working late because I got up late -
I only got up late because it finally hit me -
It finally hit me and I'm working on trying to get by
So I record myself on IG live reading a Victorian novel
I discovered two summers ago when another total
Fool decided it was wise to break my heart
Because I'm needing the typed-in hope, on my part,
Discovering that I'm sitting with a journey ahead
Stilled, getting over the craziness, the pain in my belly and head,
A hundred things I could do fresher and if I just lived normally
And I'm sitting, again, a picture of nonchalant insanity
Over a pair of strong tan arms, great hands, quick-fingers,
Beautiful blue eyes, a jaw, a beard, a chest, a heart that lingers
Everywhere, in every word you speak - it resounds, rather,
Root-chords and sevenths and sixths and fourths, and, bother,
I write you as a blazon when it was your whole and soul
I loved. "I loved you once". I think I love you now, the fool
I am, staring into the dark night, the flats across where they
Have potted tropical plants and a couple and a cat, and hey,
I sing whenever the window is open, hoping you will pass
And hear my clear voice lauding your songs and more, but alas
These hopes are vain, and the window was open wide tonight
And I wonder how many I entertained, not going left or right,
Dimming the lights, thinking about you, and losing my mind
As I still do? No, it's not a **** picture, but I'm inclined
To say it's real, and if that ain't ****, the ****** says,
Then I sure as heck will never settle for what is.

the grapes are still hanging -
i should be making my own wine right now,
but i'm not: because: i'm simply... not...
i'm sitting drinking some wine
from several years ago:
smoking my due...
looking at an eucalyptus tree
begging for a voice / movement
with a jolsting wind...
obviously "nothing"...
so i guess i'll leave these grapes just
hanging... the leaves are "gone"
dropped off... or simply migrated
for the summer with the storks...
but at least the grapes are not
simply falling...
the blackbirds are alright in keeping
up to my desires: not mine...
but what extends when you have
some grapes and you're not going
to eat them: or make wine with them...
but at least the birds are having
a fill...
blackbirds? well...
shpaki... magpies, crows... etc.
i was going to make some wine...
now i'm not going to make "some" wine...

joke: ante "contra" ad...
which implies hannibal...
    portas: and there are seven tiers
of hell...
hannibal /before/ the gates
    hannibal /at the/ gates...
no definite articles weaving with english
back into latin...

suppose who owns what:
except i ail with a voice that's also...
an illiterate X on the ballot...
but i don't grate voting...
looks like when people disagree with
me they just decide to:
pretend... it's mutually exclusive:
i don't exist they don't exist...
but the flimsy comic book is
uber-real...

democracy: amassing a sulk fest
already mattering on the verge(s)
what's already:
whether capitalism or communism:
it's bureucracy one way or
the other: the status quo of tongues
a money is grieviously
intact...

ancient lore of steel from
either die krupps or some other:
******* deserter fest:
bullet for a grain of sand...
here's to my... ivory tower:
although i don't play golf...
golf is hardly a ******* ottoman
couch - however well positioned...
i walk to ease
a claustrophobia of thought...
when i walk i require
the desirable shoe-fit...
who the **** needs
a pogo stick a ball and a concept
of a hole to settle scores...

why wouldn't these stubble brows
incoceive themselves
over a round of *******
ping-pong...

Kendal Roy... from HBO's succession...
when he buys a packet of
american spirit... steal a packet of
duracel batteries just to:
"drop" them off into a bin...
to steal in order to disregard...
all these modern names...
peaches geldoff...
why not a name like:
bob is already too.... too...
delivered at too frequently used...
rob roy son's of *******...
skurvysyny:

      pina colada...
       hic et hoc... here and "for this"...
little ol' england...
always terrible concerning
internet connectivity come a certain
hour, of, "need"...
pockets of isolation
i have a cat in my bed
attempting to claim miracles
with a coushion...
                but this cat is probably
best... since
there's nothing *******...
at best this... i can't make eases
for a chiral woah-man!
it's best to keep the cat
and never hollow myself over
an oyster's credo of ****...

and we're all luvvy-dubby will's the nuanced:
kneels... srgt. pepper and the first thrists
of charles dickens... blah blah...
queen lizzy is the shizzle and
bad drizzle... and thank you:
the show's over...

as ever a... "question"...
         a ****** under the premise
of the soviets... cul de sac of iron...
how the sstallite states
upon a gorbachev implosion:
safely done..
               who's feeding who?!
from under the curtail...
for spear in hand...
toward the h'american promise!
promise me lithuania or mongolia:
keep me... having already kept me:
it's not all cosmopolitan new yorker:
because it's not like it could
be translated via england,
the murk... the bogus... wolverhampton...
per se... e.g.,

mrs and mr quiff-bear...
high pride and the cheese tipping point
of: "blonde on blonde"...
leverage for the slaughter brigade!
thank **** i haven't
invested in beyond: the ***** towing
tissue ******* as paramount
for the worth of genocide... yes:
that's nice, nice gilded Assads...
thoroughly: from now...

invalidating response:
because... the roman poets heaved rhyme...
oh sure...
rhyme was a pop phase from
those... lost pressure being kept
a continued effort...
**** me even the ancient greek
tragedists didn't bother:
come the nuance or... chance
to rhyme... otherwise: what use
is rhyme and geometry and
prison... rhyme is a ******* square...
it's necessary pork chops
and... xeno-
   prefix alone...
         who brought in the Zee Zed: Zeno?
i ******* know what Xeno
scientology and william burroughs looks
like... a skeleton...

phonetic nuances and this tongue
of a ***** and nuanced kings / queens...
14 days of self-isolation
and i haven't yet exacted a meeting
with an authority that might support
such demands...
so lies tip-toying more lies...
yes... let's pretend that from
the excuses we met!
"but it's the 20th century"!
suddenly we met up with the 21st...

the billionaire president is playing golf...
what's that in terms of "sccore":
one more notch on the belt of... scoreland?
by the ***** or via the fiddling
with oysters?!
i never... truly... ******* know!
who's who in the game
of shoving hard-boiled eggs
up the opponents ***...
at least... no one cited
the need for either fist or elbow:
i'm poor... the prostitutes i ******
have either pychiatrist or priest status...
i play hide and seek with god...
not psychopaths...

why is it that paedophiles are target
practice while...
psychopaths are: fair... game... lauding...
who gives these nuances of
revision...
it's no to the paedophiles...
but a yes to the psychopaths...
so... i guess that's...
yes to the meteor and ol' dino!
hello monkey brain freeze!

i am allowing myself an interlude
via this... ha ha... makeshift...
populis vox:
voice of the people...
oh no... the trough... the roughage...
i believe than skins
is an unbelievable concept of
claiming reiteration...
because.. there's no milking it:
only ****... thise hard heaved
glue of the excess of...
let's pretend this evil is merely
a teen's godot of ****...
it's not evil: it's not ****...
it's just acne...
and that's all it will ever be...
hush hush: cowardrice for the sake
of: "someone's looking"!...
probably a neighbour...
              who... one will... never
relate to... beside the already presribed...
guillotine of *******...
how does one... guillotine... a ****
the worth of a centipede?
all pretend wriggly like
an **** of parasites?!
just asking: i wasn't avilabble for you
to imagine how...
maggots sold for adventures
in fishing tend to...
to: zenith with...

i drink some ***** i'm tasting plum:
it's still that cosmopolitan hangover...
it's beside giving me the blues...
the nostalgia surrounding the 1950s...
but there's a sylvia plath and i know:
someone was giggling with
being unhappy...

               otherwise it was...
the 20th century: the best kept excuse...
the hebrew party became split...
some that became the affront
of the grey ******* sniffing crowd...
and some who escaped prior
and established the harrow-woo...
"quirk" "thinkers" and
the congregation of christ...
which, they were... sorry not sorry...

this was supposed to be a conversation
without the demands of the...
afro-choccy-cult of: reiterting history...
oh i love the adverts though...
shame i can't buy into the *******
ideology!
you know what adverts are...
for a person who can't buy into them?!
******* reading material...
brainwaves:
theologians from tigh-land...
thailand...
           i can't buy ****!
if i can't buy the **** you're selling...
to the people who are buying it up
like a ******* gulp of thirst...
what's *****?!
i'm the same ******* toad-see
of voyeurism... baseless ****-****!

yes... here come the "incredibles"
of the half-wits... halving-of-knotting...
barrel bounty of laughs...
some swedish existential feast of a movie...

a society overtly saturated with ****
and irish prancing luck: four leaf clover?
this? this is all i...
oasis from a stone when suckling toward
a deadening end...
for the ink that's my mine...
and me walking off a beach
toward the ***** of the sea...
and she's still... gesticulating:
oh god what might be, will be...
she isn't going to hurry when her
"plantagenant lineage" is
being... ****-faced with no...
inheritor...

             come the grandchildren...
i'm already a quarter...
so... what's the d.n.a. atheist argument
about... keeping solace with
a variation of eternity?
me up from an eigth? "you" *******...
solace rhetoric retribution "quest":
conjunction interlude that forever
returns to... ping-pong of a *******?!

come on! let's either celebrate
the tonsure... the kippah...
the *******... or the deciphered via
islamic floral pattern of the ****!
i will gladly approach
the needs for the dodo project like
some beta-buck-delux...
i'm out... veto.. ditto... what's the other
"word" for opting out?
a latin maxim?

per caput...            pre: joggular...
towing bite, and chew...
and mandible jaw... and elbow...
and knee... and...
a variation of: i told you so...
it's not like i didn't know...
up in that acorn tree...
oh i knew:
i would have kneeled but i forgot
my knees...

that "they" stop apparently speaking...
when you ears are too eager to quest
for hearing...

i knew that i could't prescribe myself
what could have been allowed...
how much of faking it...
leaves me with habitually promising
a sentencing of reality...
without an -ism...

come to think of it...
co-conspirator... in a time of authentic grief?
and later: a time...
how such an ingregious act, most,
subjective... untested...
will come back and haunt...
oh but i have something else
to heave: to borrow...
but... will it become apparent...
how... unlikely!

     who isn't tired... "these days"...
oh god... the sun's a bbq...
the moon a blistering tan-line...
forgive me not clinging to mind
the blue and... soultry;
beheld last: i know i never do.

So, grasshopper....
What is love / to someone who is complaining?

Screaming. Wailing /  Proudly prevailing / loudly Reprimanding
Or commanding Bounded feet
Pushing.
Shushing in rushing / Busiest with everyone else's business
Pushing.

Dumbfounded yet Enforcing.
Forcing / mindlessly
divorcing meaning?

Not knowing /  Rather assuming or presuming
To speak not for himself
Instead for us, lauding law, howling for god

What is it without making / any sense? /
Having no reason?
What is love if only a word /
Sung or graffiti tag on walls / Ave. 3rd / blurbs

So to speak / a word / whispers...
Write or read / Flat screen / one dimensional unexperienced /
Word up /  Another billboard's Loud propaganda
"Unt wonder-bar sinfully delicious"
You will OBEY
Says snickers /
Harangue of commands
The replete of a single word / repeat
"Believe"
On and on / carrying calm

And what is forever to an insect? With brief breath
Vampiric      Parasitic     Abuzz
Without purpose but swarm
Wasted waning /  Locust death Landscapes / we barely notice

Cherish just a starving word

So goes my question / Unanswered. Kept
distant. Unproven / underserved
The point is moot /
What is love  / To you?
Without proof Without life
What are eyes without the light ?
What is love if nothing /  If never born
A mind Emotes  /  oceans / swells /

Love ....
The tiniest of tempests
One thought becomes a storm
Felt Like dreams /  Stars for diamond tears
Energy in living form... now asking why / Are we here?
No doubt It is to know love
And so... What is a good word?    

Truth (the word of god)

So jump for joy, grasshopper...
Being loved is like being found.
Finally seeing the awe and the wonder.
The clarity of a mind's eye,
life is the dream the heart you must plunder.
the perfect time is now
because this is love, grasshopper
and we are the tempest and peace
the hearts who think...

This must be love
Thank goodness/  for everything….

A distant rumble,
Only a tickle of memory,
Ages into it all from
Once callow disdain.
Hubris unrealized,
Now unspoken as
The hourglass grows heavier,
Evening thicker, and the
Lauding echoes
Diminish beyond summon.

Pout, with ought's body...
I host a calling wind
Simple service, a reaching for lauding
A haps, to look beyond kind

Does a shadow agree?
Dark somberness, satisfied
Only by sincerity
When strength showed a callous side...

To a world's wishes
Made to guide truth, like angels
With prettier advances, than life mentioned
More than else, a savior of spite, which fell...

Fell for a pouting love...
Perhaps the eye of tradition
Has the moment, we all long for; sovereign
History mutual, a living sulk to intimation

Somehow and always, prowess
Tenacious, worth a delight triumphant
Pride in its arrayed colors, surreal duress
To keep an attracted eye, with love's haunt

Tangled in what we are
Dichotomous beings entwined
Inside and out
Front and back
Verisimilitudes patterns obscured
Presenting outward faces
Images woven in creams
Illusionary practices
Lauding the pomp and circumstance of life
Creating the iconic pictures of average
Yet underneath
Supported by our darkest  threads
Is the true image
Worlds layered upon the one
Hidden, Blended, Shadowed
Vines of life bleeding out our
Slashes of vibrant color
Driven by ritual, pain and sacrifice
Interlaced, bound, knotted
Capturing the ghosting beauty
That is our reality

LAO Poetry 2016

Liberals love them—then they don’t.
And live to help them (till they won’t).
Neighbors fresh from Guatemala;
Salvador or Nicaragua…
Fleeing failed drug-plantations
U.S-sponsored situations;
Where corruption harvests fruits,
Doling out the business suits.
United Fruit Co. on the skids
Allen Dulles’ ******* kids . . .
For Arbenz overthrown, and worse
Our wicked past has caused this curse:
The training/arming of their thugs
Snorting about a War on Drugs…
Inform yourself on how this started
You, so smugly openhearted:
Aid diversity’s expansion—
House them in your sumptuous mansion.
Not to cut your grass, or build
but more to get their dream fulfilled
Since Allen Dulles owns the guilt
Destroying when we should have built
And sending troops to bananeros,
Lauding them as valiant heroes
For repressing Mayan peasants:
Help them now unwrap their presents.

Bach likened hope to god
Lauding in laurels like a living legend
He's dead, real dead, it's odd
Oddly deadly ditties
Harp on hope and mindful mitigation
Irrigation sows such sounds in fields
Of hearts who can't be found
Fiddled at a clavichord
Fixated on a face
Looking at her clavicle
With music
Sweetness can erase
Erasing dubious dealings
Let them leave my face
I need to forget the girl
Forget my heart and race

I think I have written about a million words,
And  that does something, a million words,
each accounted for at once, no lies,
only errors in comprehension,

some ideas repel description.
especially ones
with names,
who live legendarily in the dark
straight hallways, windowless,
hallwallssmooth as buffed bees wax,
slide down the long red hall
at ft huachuca -

Hoho kam kam legend in my friend mind
Curio dancers all sorts and clans,
those learn
in round houses… the role you are to take,
or walk away… from now,
you read as I read,
we form a we to read with, see
everywhere,
plain writing on all the walls,

earth has been infected with knowers
who know the truth of all the old lies,
are unspeakable.
pfftfugititshitsucksfooooooool!

I do allow angels, bearers of courage,
once courage is put in place
ventrally, gut level,
semper fi
do or die.
laud (v.) laud
"praise highly, sing the praises of," late 14c.,
from Old French lauder
"to praise, extol,"
from Latin laudare
"to praise, commend, honor, extol, eulogize,"
from laus (genitive laudis)
"praise, fame, glory."
Probably
from an echoic PIE root *leu-
and cognate
with Old English leoð
"song, poem, hymn,"
from Proto-Germanic *leuthan
(source also of
Old Norse ljoð
"strophe,"
German Lied
"song,"
Gothic liuþon
"to praise"). Related: Lauded; lauding.

From <https://www.etymonline.com/word/laud>

Believing the rallying cry. Laud. Laud.
Be all you can be.
Modeled on the heroes shown,
framed in this Weltanschaung,
duty X calls
- you skip, duty 2 appears,
- one more ignor and your account is
- in arears, here in the rereward guard,
- like the hinder most guardian believer,
- anointed, confirmed, called of truth,
- to protect the king and his judges.
- Some mind must judge the useful
- from useless drivel ignored sense Babel.


Days of Peleg, this leg of that journey, crosses
ours here, if you lose your place, the train
passes several random times, sometimes
after dark,
when the jitters are all jumped out,
we sway,
we slow dance as shown on TV, old boomers do.

Don't believe that story ends
as neatly as Ozzie and Harriet, {Did that end}
Then, be all you can have been
being. Set and setting:

War story number next.
Khai Vinh Fishnet Factory, 1968

Experience the experience trial.
Purple Haze, dreamin' on Owsley's flow,
it was
a long long time ago.

Yokel simple mind unwinding with a snap.
To attention, to be lauded for third place,
once again,
imitation smartest guy in the room,
exposed, as stupider than one and two.

Wars have formed from less damaged pride.
Inside the soldier, some thing snapped
to attention, the guardian exposed
the secret to the imitative poet…
woe is me, I am not wise
-I wrote:
In this, the seventeenth year
of my life
I am not wise.
Old men are wise…

-- we read to learn if others may yet imagine
making up good minds, that lack the knack
needed to employ money…

insurance proof- poems are ones
recalled after a lifetime
reused to derail grand lines of lies,
imitation poetry, plato banned those, not these,
if you please… transmission ended, third
removed from best, once more
fabricate a future
whither now is plain as day, in the mind
mentioned recently,
there is yesterday, and today and ever at the same
point,
where any story emerges, originally…
subterfuge ensued, in pursuit of reason
to be good, or good reason not to fret
being judged.

One common message, any angel carries,
fear not, do not lie,
the experience is scary in place, fixed position,
but the places are cultural metaphors,
packeted info,
modeled on the barefoot road,
the one ants make in the eastern mojave,

that road, those roads, wind around stones
too big to budge, but we are measurers,
gatherers of known knowns for power
over those taught not to know, given
the imitation of a mind, duty,
is not that mind, whoa,
and
there is a mind
that was in Christ,
according to professional knowers
of all Paul
of Tarsus, may have written;
which mind resulted in Jesus, Christ message,
echoic imspirative ding
-train my thoughts to finish in time
-- 2021 phone rings
Morphic resonance tic, remember
not knowing who it was, but learning
at a distance of a need in a friend, that's
rare… this friend who helped me help him
by helping me
-ping he calls me back, tic
Definitely like all the saviors in the imitative
poetry, the dramas presenting ways
to see the logic on the wall
to blind people on TV,

that is a good idea, but not visually… word.
Amen,
make it so, mental me, imagine we meld
mind wise, word to reader in me,
the middle
occurrence between now and next.

Suddenly, reality is word in vitro.

Who am I but one unknown
The path for me was never shown
The moon went dark and stars fell down
And laid in the sea ten twisted crowns

Beneath that crown were seven heads
Heroes I'd known living and dead
They rose up and spoke my name
Cured the sick and healed the lame

Yet in their words so sound and sweet
I came to know of their defeat
Another alike to them did rise
Not from the sea or from the skies

A second saint lauding the first
He fed the poor and quenched their thirst
His words too despite his deeds
Did not fulfill my longing needs

Neither from the sea or wild earth
Will the One to come show his worth
No, He will descend from the sky above
With justice, wrath, great power and love

Though I thought He had already come
I was made deaf, blind and dumb
It's not my fault, I never knew
Or maybe I did not want to

So, grasshopper....
What is love / to someone who is complaining?

Screaming. Wailing /  Proudly prevailing / loudly Reprimanding
Or commanding Bounded feet
Pushing.
Shushing in rushing / Busiest with everyone else's business
Parking.
Ushering
Dumbfounded yet Enforcing.
Forcing / mindlessly
divorcing meaning?

Not knowing /  Rather assuming or presuming
To speak not for himself
Instead for us, lauding law, howling for god

What is it without making / any sense? /
Having no reason?
What is love if only a word /
Sung or graffiti tag on walls / Ave. 3rd / blurbs

So to speak / a word / whispers...
Write or read / Flat screen / one dimensional unexperienced /
Word up /  Another billboard's Loud propaganda
"Unt wonder-bar sinfully delicious"
You will OBEY
Says snickers /
Harangue of commands
The replete of a single word / repeat
"Believe"
On and on / carrying calm

And what is forever to an insect? With brief breath
Vampiric      Parasitic     Abuzz
Without purpose but swarm
Wasted waning /  Locust death Landscapes / we barely notice

Cherish just a starving word

So goes my question / Unanswered. Kept
distant. Unproven / underserved
The point is moot /
What is love  / To you?
Without proof Without life
What are eyes without the light ?
What is love if nothing /  If never born
A mind Emotes  /  oceans / swells /

Love ....
The tiniest of tempests
One thought becomes a storm
Felt Like dreams /  Stars for diamond tears
Energy in living form... now asking why / Are we here?
No doubt It is to know love
And so... What is a good word?    

Truth (the word of god)

So jump for joy, grasshopper...
Being loved is like being found.
Finally seeing the awe and the wonder.
The clarity of a mind's eye,
life is the dream the heart you must plunder.
the perfect time is now
because this is love, grasshopper
Tempest hearts who think...

This must be love
Thanks for these gifts thy bring
Thank goodness for everything….

I sometimes stare into space too long
I'm contemplating why I'd be so dumb
Why I'd deliberately do things that dull my brain
Or could give me cancer
But actually I understand why, it just gives me pause

So really I'm not dumb, just aware
That I'd manifest as something so stupid because to a large extent
This all is my big regret,
But only to an extent.

Meanwhile I feel like I should be lauding us
Or at least appreciating it for everything it is
All of my children, the birds
The animals and water
Trees, sprees, mountain goats
The whole lot.

But I can't reconcile one thing,
And that is myself
And how you always seem to give me ****
When I know what I am--
And if that were ever the case
Well I think that'd be very different!

You did not see the soul or the man
in owned centered affray you winded sailed
no hearing, no quiet to listen you sip the glint wane
you saw the title  in mirages of the shattering you scaled

You did not hear the voice sincere
as you floated and flirted with primed conceit
in altered minds, frozen senses you dimmed in sphere
to genuflect as belle of the traders ball and take a topping seat

You did not give room to a heart
in your chambers, nor wave a pout, a nod to another's
rather in harsh mellows, harried come tarried to sour depart
all in self glorifying tarry, to be the raconteur to else's duped bothers

You did not do as humanly right
in any which form or shape, 'cept to wear disquiet fair
lauding oppressive storms, shading demagogues verbose delights
languishing in the twisted seedy verses of misappropriation a-share

You cannot see the man or the soul
for in empty places the vacuous find whatever they seek
chalets for musings and notions best sparse yet their grounded soil
to fight vain skirmishes, inflamed pride of those perceived born un-chic

Why should we write a love story..............