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I. The Door

Out of it steps our future, through this door
Enigmas, executioners and rules,
Her Majesty in a bad temper or
A red-nosed Fool who makes a fool of fools.

Great persons eye it in the twilight for
A past it might so carelessly let in,
A widow with a missionary grin,
The foaming inundation at a roar.

We pile our all against it when afraid,
And beat upon its panels when we die:
By happening to be open once, it made

Enormous Alice see a wonderland
That waited for her in the sunshine and,
Simply by being tiny, made her cry.

II. The Preparations

All had been ordered weeks before the start
From the best firms at such work: instruments
To take the measure of all queer events,
And drugs to move the bowels or the heart.

A watch, of course, to watch impatience fly,
Lamps for the dark and shades against the sun;
Foreboding, too, insisted on a gun,
And coloured beads to soothe a savage eye.

In theory they were sound on Expectation,
Had there been situations to be in;
Unluckily they were their situation:

One should not give a poisoner medicine,
A conjurer fine apparatus, nor
A rifle to a melancholic bore.

III. The Crossroads

Two friends who met here and embraced are gone,
Each to his own mistake; one flashes on
To fame and ruin in a rowdy lie,
A village torpor holds the other one,
Some local wrong where it takes time to die:
This empty junction glitters in the sun.

So at all quays and crossroads: who can tell
These places of decision and farewell
To what dishonour all adventure leads,
What parting gift could give that friend protection,
So orientated his vocation needs
The Bad Lands and the sinister direction?

All landscapes and all weathers freeze with fear,
But none have ever thought, the legends say,
The time allowed made it impossible;
For even the most pessimistic set
The limit of their errors at a year.
What friends could there be left then to betray,
What joy take longer to atone for; yet
Who could complete without the extra day
The journey that should take no time at all?

IV. The Traveler

No window in his suburb lights that bedroom where
A little fever heard large afternoons at play:
His meadows multiply; that mill, though, is not there
Which went on grinding at the back of love all day.

Nor all his weeping ways through weary wastes have found
The castle where his Greater Hallows are interned;
For broken bridges halt him, and dark thickets round
Some ruin where an evil heritage was burned.

Could he forget a child's ambition to be old
And institutions where it learned to wash and lie,
He'd tell the truth for which he thinks himself too young,

That everywhere on his horizon, all the sky,
Is now, as always, only waiting to be told
To be his father's house and speak his mother tongue.

V. The City

In villages from which their childhoods came
Seeking Necessity, they had been taught
Necessity by nature is the same
No matter how or by whom it be sought.

The city, though, assumed no such belief,
But welcomed each as if he came alone,
The nature of Necessity like grief
Exactly corresponding to his own.

And offered them so many, every one
Found some temptation fit to govern him,
And settled down to master the whole craft

Of being nobody; sat in the sun
During the lunch-hour round the fountain rim,
And watched the country kids arrive, and laughed.

VI. The First Temptation

Ashamed to be the darling of his grief,
He joined a gang of rowdy stories where
His gift for magic quickly made him chief
Of all these boyish powers of the air;

Who turned his hungers into Roman food,
The town's asymmetry into a park;
All hours took taxis; any solitude
Became his flattered duchess in the dark.

But, if he wished for anything less grand,
The nights came padding after him like wild
Beasts that meant harm, and all the doors cried Thief;

And when Truth had met him and put out her hand,
He clung in panic to his tall belief
And shrank away like an ill-treated child.

VII. The Second Temptation

His library annoyed him with its look
Of calm belief in being really there;
He threw away a rival's boring book,
And clattered panting up the spiral stair.

Swaying upon the parapet he cried:
"O Uncreated Nothing, set me free,
Now let Thy perfect be identified,
Unending passion of the Night, with Thee."

And his long-suffering flesh, that all the time
Had felt the simple cravings of the stone
And hoped to be rewarded for her climb,

Took it to be a promise when he spoke
That now at last she would be left alone,
And plunged into the college quad, and broke.

VIII. The Third Temptation

He watched with all his organs of concern
How princes walk, what wives and children say,
Re-opened old graves in his heart to learn
What laws the dead had died to disobey,

And came reluctantly to his conclusion:
"All the arm-chair philosophies are false;
To love another adds to the confusion;
The song of mercy is the Devil's Waltz."

All that he put his hand to prospered so
That soon he was the very King of creatures,
Yet, in an autumn nightmare trembled, for,

Approaching down a ruined corridor,
Strode someone with his own distorted features
Who wept, and grew enormous, and cried Woe.

IX. The Tower

This is an architecture for the old;
Thus heaven was attacked by the afraid,
So once, unconsciously, a ****** made
Her maidenhead conspicuous to a god.

Here on dark nights while worlds of triumph sleep
Lost Love in abstract speculation burns,
And exiled Will to politics returns
In epic verse that makes its traitors weep.

Yet many come to wish their tower a well;
For those who dread to drown, of thirst may die,
Those who see all become invisible:

Here great magicians, caught in their own spell,
Long for a natural climate as they sigh
"Beware of Magic" to the passer-by.

X. The Presumptuous

They noticed that virginity was needed
To trap the unicorn in every case,
But not that, of those virgins who succeeded,
A high percentage had an ugly face.

The hero was as daring as they thought him,
But his peculiar boyhood missed them all;
The angel of a broken leg had taught him
The right precautions to avoid a fall.

So in presumption they set forth alone
On what, for them, was not compulsory,
And stuck half-way to settle in some cave
With desert lions to domesticity,

Or turned aside to be absurdly brave,
And met the ogre and were turned to stone.

XI. The Average

His peasant parents killed themselves with toil
To let their darling leave a stingy soil
For any of those fine professions which
Encourage shallow breathing, and grow rich.

The pressure of their fond ambition made
Their shy and country-loving child afraid
No sensible career was good enough,
Only a hero could deserve such love.

So here he was without maps or supplies,
A hundred miles from any decent town;
The desert glared into his blood-shot eyes,
The silence roared displeasure:
looking down,
He saw the shadow of an Average Man
Attempting the exceptional, and ran.

XII. Vocation

Incredulous, he stared at the amused
Official writing down his name among
Those whose request to suffer was refused.

The pen ceased scratching: though he came too late
To join the martyrs, there was still a place
Among the tempters for a caustic tongue

To test the resolution of the young
With tales of the small failings of the great,
And shame the eager with ironic praise.

Though mirrors might be hateful for a while,
Women and books would teach his middle age
The fencing wit of an informal style,
To keep the silences at bay and cage
His pacing manias in a worldly smile.

XIII. The Useful

The over-logical fell for the witch
Whose argument converted him to stone,
Thieves rapidly absorbed the over-rich,
The over-popular went mad alone,
And kisses brutalised the over-male.

As agents their importance quickly ceased;
Yet, in proportion as they seemed to fail,
Their instrumental value was increased
For one predestined to attain their wish.

By standing stones the blind can feel their way,
Wild dogs compel the cowardly to fight,
Beggars assist the slow to travel light,
And even madmen manage to convey
Unwelcome truths in lonely gibberish.

XIV. The Way

Fresh addenda are published every day
To the encyclopedia of the Way,

Linguistic notes and scientific explanations,
And texts for schools with modernised spelling and illustrations.

Now everyone knows the hero must choose the old horse,
Abstain from liquor and ****** *******,

And look out for a stranded fish to be kind to:
Now everyone thinks he could find, had he a mind to,

The way through the waste to the chapel in the rock
For a vision of the Triple Rainbow or the Astral Clock,

Forgetting his information comes mostly from married men
Who liked fishing and a flutter on the horses now and then.

And how reliable can any truth be that is got
By observing oneself and then just inserting a Not?

XV. The Lucky

Suppose he'd listened to the erudite committee,
He would have only found where not to look;
Suppose his terrier when he whistled had obeyed,
It would not have unearthed the buried city;
Suppose he had dismissed the careless maid,
The cryptogram would not have fluttered from the book.

"It was not I," he cried as, healthy and astounded,
He stepped across a predecessor's skull;
"A nonsense jingle simply came into my head
And left the intellectual Sphinx dumbfounded;
I won the Queen because my hair was red;
The terrible adventure is a little dull."

Hence Failure's torment: "Was I doomed in any case,
Or would I not have failed had I believed in Grace?"

XVI. The Hero

He parried every question that they hurled:
"What did the Emperor tell you?" "Not to push."
"What is the greatest wonder of the world?"
"The bare man Nothing in the Beggar's Bush."

Some muttered: "He is cagey for effect.
A hero owes a duty to his fame.
He looks too like a grocer for respect."
Soon they slipped back into his Christian name.

The only difference that could be seen
From those who'd never risked their lives at all
Was his delight in details and routine:

For he was always glad to mow the grass,
Pour liquids from large bottles into small,
Or look at clouds through bits of coloured glass.

XVII. Adventure

Others had found it prudent to withdraw
Before official pressure was applied,
Embittered robbers outlawed by the Law,
Lepers in terror of the terrified.

But no one else accused these of a crime;
They did not look ill: old friends, overcome,
Stared as they rolled away from talk and time
Like marbles out into the blank and dumb.

The crowd clung all the closer to convention,
Sunshine and horses, for the sane know why
The even numbers should ignore the odd:

The Nameless is what no free people mention;
Successful men know better than to try
To see the face of their Absconded God.

XVIII. The Adventurers

Spinning upon their central thirst like tops,
They went the Negative Way towards the Dry;
By empty caves beneath an empty sky
They emptied out their memories like slops,

Which made a foul marsh as they dried to death,
Where monsters bred who forced them to forget
The lovelies their consent avoided; yet,
Still praising the Absurd with their last breath,

They seeded out into their miracles:
The images of each grotesque temptation
Became some painter's happiest inspiration,

And barren wives and burning virgins came
To drink the pure cold water of their wells,
And wish for beaux and children in their name.

XIX. The Waters

Poet, oracle, and wit
Like unsuccessful anglers by
The ponds of apperception sit,
Baiting with the wrong request
The vectors of their interest,
At nightfall tell the angler's lie.

With time in tempest everywhere,
To rafts of frail assumption cling
The saintly and the insincere;
Enraged phenomena bear down
In overwhelming waves to drown
Both sufferer and suffering.

The waters long to hear our question put
Which would release their longed-for answer, but.

**. The Garden

Within these gates all opening begins:
White shouts and flickers through its green and red,
Where children play at seven earnest sins
And dogs believe their tall conditions dead.

Here adolescence into number breaks
The perfect circle time can draw on stone,
And flesh forgives division as it makes
Another's moment of consent its own.

All journeys die here: wish and weight are lifted:
Where often round some old maid's desolation
Roses have flung their glory like a cloak,

The gaunt and great, the famed for conversation
Blushed in the stare of evening as they spoke
And felt their centre of volition shifted.
Terry O'Leary May 2013
AWAKENING

Sleep and slumber, dreams of wonder... weaving,
morning’s vacuum broke the spell
Pitted pillow, note of parting... leaving,
“from your friend, a fond farewell”
Sunrise throbbing, twilight aching... grieving,
daydreams, flashbacks, nightmares knell
Pale phantasms, visions sneaking... thieving,
plot to fill the empty shell

12 DELIRIA

1st Delirium: COLLAPSES

Fractured sky bolts, billows bursting... rumbling,
heavens tighten, turn the vise
Horsemen saddle shafts of lightning... tumbling,
jagged highways must suffice
Ruptured skyways, hailstones crackling... crumbling,
naked pearls of paradise
Toxic tongues of laughter stinging... stumbling,
ocean buckets choked with ice
Droplets drumming, thunder muzzled... mumbling,
washed out whispers pay the price
Smothered blazes, cinders smoking... humbling,
ashes shaped in sacrifice

2nd Delirium: DESCENTS

Asphalt alleys, ashen faces... frowning,
blowing bubbles, chewing gum
Drinking ale from tavern tankards... downing,
moonlit beads of painted ***
Stony stars and sea misshapen... drowning,
humble rivers’ rhythms hum
Apparitions aspirating... clowning,
diamonds dying , minstrels strum
Incandescent candles conquered... crowning,
vacant vapours, cold and numb

3rd Delirium: FATES

Tempest turmoil, tapered turrets... holding,
dungeons, dragons, chains and racks
Wheels of fortune, Tarot temptress... molding,
Hangmen, Towers, One Eyed Jacks
Sand dune castles, cryptic candles... folding,
warping walls of liquid wax
Idols colder, combed and coddled... scolding,
hide in fissures, peek through cracks

4th Delirium: LOST SOULS

Sunken cities, pilgrims peering... gawking,
squinting eyeballs, blazing sun
Janus facing, shepherds chasing... stalking,
friends embrace before they shun
Tearooms steaming, tumult teeming... talking,
lovers listen, poets pun
Broken stones unanchored, quaking... rocking,
slipping, falling, one by one
Beaten pathways, footsteps marking... mocking,
wedged in webs which spiders spun
Circus shelters, big tops tumbling... locking,
people pacing, soon they’re none
Numbered exits, zeros numbing... knocking,
midnight daylight’s days undone
Moon blood shackles, shivers shaming... shocking,
starlight striders streaking, stun
Hushed but harried hermits waiting... walking,
restless rainbows on the run
Pixies, elves, and echoes bouncing... balking,
fading fast when dawn’s begun
Bantum butterflies are flitting... flocking
sometimes conquered, overrun
Hocus pokus, seers focus... squawking,
voodoo wavered, witchcraft won

5th Delirium: INTROSPECTION

Sundown furnace, fires fading... coughing,
dusky dew drops drain the air
Empty chalice, sipped in silence... quaffing,
thirsting shadows unaware
Looking glass and lattice scorning... scoffing,
local loser gapes and stares
Faces covered, dancing naked... doffing,
peering inside, hope despairs

6th Delirium: THE VOID

Tales of taboos, mystic mythos... missing,
windows shuttered, bolted door
Kindled candles, tongues and anvils... hissing,
heavy hammers, echoes roar
Dark deceivers, raven charmers... kissing,
draging demons from the shore
Hopeless hollows filled with doubters... dissing
standing empty - nevermore

7th Delirium: SEARCHING

Martyred monks haunt runic ruins ... waiting,
banging broken bells below
Vaulted hallways, voided voices... grating,
churning Chinese chimes aglow
Granite graveyards, spectres spooking... skating,
blackened bushes, roses grow
****** dwarfs seek mutant migrants... mating,
packing parcels, ice and snow

8th Delirium: NIGHTTIME

Throbbing drumheads, fingers blazing... steaming,
coins of copper, beggars plea
Rusty residues of resin... streaming,
opal amber filigree
Orphan shades in shallow shadows... teeming,
steeping twigs in twilight tea
Cloister doorsteps, Prophets gaming... scheming,
tracing tracks of destiny
Blacksmiths blanching, horseshoes glowing... gleaming,
partially sheathed in black debris
Phantoms feigning, nightmares scathing... screaming,
dusty dreamers drifting free

9th Delerium: EMPTYNESS

Water wheels in wastelands... turning,
drowning relics in the slum
Rumpled rags of fashioned burlap... burning,
lit by bandits blind and dumb
Pastured prisons, ponies bridled ... yearning,
forest fairies under thumb
Sounds inside of cauldrons coughing... churning,
blaring bugles, tattooed drum

10th Delirium: ALIENATION

Rain unravelling, wistfully weeping... falling,
treacle trickling, fickle sky
Mushrooms sprinkled, visions sprouting... sprawling,
seagulls drowning, dolphins die
Rabble gasping, spirits broken... crawling,
lonely lonesome swallows cry
Babbling brooks and breakers ebbing... bawling
puppies paddle, puppets sigh
People passing ripple past me... calling,
rainbow colours, collars high
Chaos seething, lepers looting... stalling,
stealing stallions on the sly
Pencils pausing, scholars scrambling... scrawling,
scratching scribbles, asking why

11th Delirium: JETSAM

Silver sails sway pallid pirates... prowling,
Jolly Rogers, wind and sound
Parrots perching, tattered feathers... fouling,
tethered talons, tied and bound
Shipwrecked foghorns, trumpets stranded... howling,
spiral springs of time unwound
Magic moonlight, shimmers shaking... scowling,
burnt out matchsticks washed aground
Prairie wolfs, coyotes calling... yowling,
witching hours, midnight hounds
Tightrope walkers, grizzlies grunting... growling,
seeking islands, lost and found

12th Delirium: RELIEF

Slumber shattered, vapours captive... haunting,
chained in mirrors, breaking free
Scarlet skylines, daylight dawning... daunting,
rivers rushing to the sea
Silence softens, sandmen whisper... wanting,
piercing rafters, turning keys
Shadows shudder, notions fluster... flaunting,
moonbeam bullets meant for me
Mind in migraine, meadows trembling... taunting,
sparrows speak in harmony

REAWAKENING

Pitter patter, teardrops paling... pearling,
salting scarves in secret drawers
Mist amongst us, smoke rings rising... curling,
climbing from the ocean floors
See-saw circles, senses swerving... swirling,
swept away with silver oars
Courtyard jesters, sceptres twisting... twirling,
push the past to foreign shores
Passing pangs of passions heaving... hurling,
burning bridges, closing doors
Roses wither, icons waning... whirling,
time decays and time restores
Set of cave genes If you could read... pluri freedoms of the dark light of ignorance teach understand that breathe under the Naturality Natural Nature is not necessary to have an understanding heart and store on their empty heads of knowing ancient rain where wisdom possess. If dance on every grain of chickpea for each foot plant what could a plant obey; foot, Plant, and Plantation...

Resulting in kingdoms on my animals, fungi, plants, and protists, media freedom as a seed to reach our evolutionary lack of ceased hopeness...

First  Ellipsis Angle loneliness"God felt Chained"

Chained down by dragging the last link of its multiple arcane freedom in which transfigured recent swings where he collapsed with the latter being of himself whose life lies lifeless alive but lost. The latter that child not to know and deprived of nascent freedom that will never be born and come knowledge in our genome of Independence.

When the caveman thought to be a complement to the world is enslaved by the mystery of lost in himself... The born and born, never dies, that's so naive and innocent... is still full unaware of their free will, rather it is he who must re-literate and be a living part of the ancestral genome Cavernario component. Oh Heavenly Lord of the steppes I look because more of you today without having lived what you lived, as he would have played with my gaze to succor and keep you had fallen into the fangs of an animal, or you had fallen on the glacier cliff where he has separated you from your Clan Cave.

Emancipation means to be always innocent, my blood runs through yours,
I read and understand any phenomenon of deprivation exist without you lack wisdom satiate if all your generations crushed by the ignorance of falling subject will be well, me and my being I take my precognitions as a tormented child's worst nightmare before about sleeping. Sixth Papal almost, almost kneel before the creation of memorizes creation. This prerogative Lord lives Bread’s God Minor remaining....of whose iconography will not leave this fifth fraternal dimension will not come, if not more will enter the latter end of absolute solitude... and shorter than the last thousand years of Neandertal.


Cavernary Political and Ellipsis:

On a day of gentle wind and tense rain proclaiming Clan joined, they all shouted running, the ground shook and the children slept in terror... the 10 infants who were talking about the Sign from above, but the nines they crossed his arms remaining to create solidarity roof that protects the man in your imagination...
The eighth child of the clan ran quickly into the arms of his mother and she imagined how far, how far would never come... uncharacteristically who came with his brother seventh had in their hands the word of entertainment of Being, to be a plaintiff political all of braiding them together with lines enabling the hermit may decide that creation is a mass of lines of certain fashions together, everything sings like the slightest cyclamen dew on the line pointy rough fallen fungus. All arms folded on the upper porch of the Vatican Macario in Franconia, saying that many who unite in their fevered requests large modern man ceased to be autonomous when it came out of their caves and charnel pit.

Ran all she enjoyed doing that almost without knowing whether or not they fall...
Ran because of every day the sun ahead of them a lesson for a man of the future...
They are running to be released the day of his birth chained to stars of light, to carry him to his mother and father, sneaking to his brothers.

Brother worn eleventh birth to her existence as another being evolved Eukaryotic: Surely those provided beings of cell membranes rhizomes reflected in higher liberty lives purged of ectoplasm walk without a discounted subsidiary. Shakespeare in Helsingor appeared immune to a blood brother to all that limits the Draconian feel in the pinnacles drawn 700 greened steeds. From the deepest swoon in the underworld subway Helsingor, follow the prevailing souls presided over by the great ear of the hard sandcastle, stressed hard Ghosts of Stratford upon Avon.

Freedom plague spits words of pancreatic poisoned exordium, spits verses of confusion disorders without permission, without solid bass sound without liquid sea that resists mad edges followed by solid sound...
But smaller stones give priority to conjugate final sentence and noble verses Guardian
to mission how important would Liberation:

Maybe it's a synonymy of Astral Solar...
It is not Solitude, is a free nation that has its own kind prosecutor's office for even when Euthanasia closes your eyes to the astral, will run the stones of the Sea of joy believing that neither you dare if there is no healthy grass to clarify the rainy day terror.


Reverse walk creeks aggravated birds feet, walking great playful ruse.
Reverse run my comrades preparing festivity meals with chandeliers and singing lay plenary., Singing Avenue pine port Firenze, Second run subtracting minutes and hours the minute is enough for me with your face in my arms to recognize your longevity anathema times oblique faces for lip-smacking hailstones Templars.

In 1297 in northern Italy nearby rural families migrate to chalky Venice, Perugia came the exiles walked to find their independence south of the Iberian Peninsula. They were so atoned as in the echoing flutes, harps, zithers, and harpsichords field temperate; They invited the blunting of intemperate monocordio.

Golden Chariot Carrenio

The golden carriage carrying them came without a single space rather than inheritances acquired goldsmiths of ancient noble and chaste solid shine. Carrenio; the coachman wore on his left arm bracelet thousand mobile travel without stopping to drink more water and to feed their horses. After revamping its gold pieces bartered by a slave who was getting Carrenio Christians fleeing the Romans. Well, they fled as far as the plains of great earthly squandered his memory and that end of the end should come.

How am away from my land more I learn it's back to her,
There is no ground for the first time, but that which is foreign
Carrenio of Perugia and sensed that ****** was Jewish ashes,
Luther King black paste of burnt forest,
Mandela and Biko Ogre garage from Victorian Empire,
Gandhi in his humility is always put behind the Sun
to figure out the small
Tagore trashed my heart caressing the entire universe uncorrupted
Hölderlin together in the cabin waiting for his mother at Zimmerman,
That my beloved Borker forest should shine gold teeth with black resin,
Theresa of Calcutta was eaten and swallowed all diseases lepers knowing good taste proverbial dessert psalm,
Jose Miguel Carrera was more than a trench, clay bullets in each of his temples where he received
To be doubly Lonco is to be halved, lacerated by lay his head on his land, not galloping on his back throngs of wit and hope out Nazareth trembles when an F-16 diluted ***** covering landless caravans Heritage continues to lead the people killed but the mosque wall has been Fe Erecta.
Helena plenipotentiary Kowalska at Vilnius, Faustina Divine Mercy Diadema
The agonizing deprivation of millions of people with cancer in every continent of private well-being analgesic, weighed down by increased pain, almost as strong as the Master Hammered Golgotha, so it was that Joshua has cancer always to slow it down on us. Benigno whether metastasis, malignant albeit benign finance.
The death of an innocent little angel devoured by the beast remains as a fluff hairless sardine in the jaws of a shark baron.
Khalil Gibran writes that with both hands to support the reviewer behind in Bicharri and bohemian Paris,

Salvador Allende Gossens was born since he was deceived by his parents who would heal politics, would rather dig their ancestors in their brains scattered in the currency in face seal or tail of.

Frei Montalva that today has to receive the Macro Augusto Heaven their arms, their sorrows, and regrets, although his worst military executioner.

Legion is an offshoot of liquid central gray material, which defers well done becoming but not defeated, it is the decree of the divine threshold space Living or ceases to live, that failure does not exist, it is the postponement of success - success.

The Genocide September 11 in New York was a ritual, who produced was a small wrath strength of the Rotary world, as the camshaft is upset in the history of trying to make more alphabet in schools where the flag hoisting and found scholars in West and East, so they can learn more than reading of both unlettered, lip and water to possess it to write with it. The worst disaster is read with the memory that will never happen... I write my greatest need with lipstick and my greatest need I write eagerly to participate. Yesterday I passed by a boutique and buy lipsticks that are closer to the language, written with the mouth and not the hand. !

Freedom, debauchery, libration, drawer, Bookstores..! Carrenio..: he said see I'm right! Raise and educate has a great synonymy with autonomy because the ancestors wrote everything that deprived them and made them fear, but do not have to eat the autumn gives me to dress the return of spring, bread orchid, and cineraria. Hence by that inner syllabic singing hunger sated that sought sheet to sheet rid of everything until the end of the book as the encounter between night and day without considering oblivious to anything or anyone on the track window swing wind, wind seeping.


It was old Zeus or Hera of Antique,
Cavern to house geometric polyphonic, angular seeds to create fashions kiss kissed everything that any vertical plane does not fit with the closed horizon
For hands and angels, Hebrews the inner soul of every carpenter and stonemason shrunk, wash their eyes and cheeks with songs of vibration and idyllic comfort,
Everything resembled and sounded Bethlehem 2.0 deities choirs sweeping grasslands,
The similarity of this clairvoyant child is born in a cave...
Rising motherly free Soliloquy Papini sitting to the right of ruminant cattle,
So archaic that to be born is not born in a clinic mega Cristus but hundreds of kilometers and hundreds who are born with the undergirding whispers and servitude being.
Where the multi gray impetuous born star is a healthy gauze story in the present tense... this angelic child grows by Miriam washes his feet in a belligerent abolished stone. His father must wash their hands on a stone which is where measured his ecclesiastical mystical stature, stone Madonna to heal his feet where he leaves to free himself, to free us... Marble gamete fémina vault, where he sleeps without knowing whether it is due, the ***** fell from the sky.
How wise is the Wise, it makes permissible for much more than two thousand years we stone quarry wheel and wheel, homily, and blessing to not wake at night to sleep startle middle and uphill.

Me of the referent of antiquity is not me of today is polished cobble stone,
Useful weapon quarry road there and backtrack to have blisters stone and soft thoughts under my pillow soft stone as a whole.

If you're ****** private living and have a free soul choosing coexist, then you are low in the cemetery on a tombstone of heresies.

Neolithic early 4500 after Hildegard von Bingen and his entourage and prowled full and channeled, swooning in her swoon with flowers in his hands and his followers planting forests on top of Stonehenge.

Carrenio says...: you see I'm right, we coexist, I die like the worst ****** cancer and then put a tombstone Stonehenge conspire in my honor black pain prayers of Salisbury. It blooms in vibrant red rubies that detonate in chromaticity and life. The stream itself is exceeded the aquatic plant Macarenia.

Call us and civilize us, outdated as far as my tired feet though I come not ashamed to see my new tracks.

Carrenio says...; see I'm right Joshua has traces of gold from other Caterpillar shod feet. Antique everything is prescribed according to their legacy today is Lent Pro that came before it was Lent vestige Pentecost came to be a nickname of the mystery of the passion in less than a rooster crows.

Beside it is the mystery of the disappointment of stubborn demon, which helps you all carry the cross, but not the entire load. Fire and Light at dawns where the splendor born...


Genome Freedom, even today every centimeter of my witness of each component, if the basic origin of the signs of the primitive world, is that we have lost the bark of the lexicon, which does not allow us to understand the meditations to ask for something, not You need to ask something. Today genome is requesting something because thousands of people who asked for millions of years, now it's time to cater to them. They were wrapped in cloth shroud of spiritual sacredness, today cemeteries mega dance their souls leave no sleepers both much grass on their heads not yet sullied by the puppet Azrael.


Impossible not to decorate the rocks forged empires that fall into the rubble, they bring 476 d. C., a new opening Middle age freedom of travel both in history thousands of years begins a new axis Golden Carrenio’s Chariot.

Carrenio Wagon

This great colossal ship Carrenio time is a timber that holds the sky, a beam that does not faint or distended thousands a. C, and the old age of King's large musings that were forgotten. It is astride ship millennium, their history of oppression has seen in the wheel, instrument wise rolling like a wheel before 5, 000 years ago, here  We fought and prostrated to distant lands millennium after millennium him away.

Golden Chariot is the structure that freedman us to enforce a new life on earth, even the Gods prided themselves move the stars to constellations called her noble Auriga sailing in full the Universes and Cartwheel Galaxy or cart Wheel. As if to say that when the Universe and its own mythology, were visited between them inch by inch by wherever they shine.

Carrenio mask and frame used had strength, temper, and tittle. When the first libertarian squall of antiquity came closer, Rome was already small and nobles populate what is a quote, Piccola. The executioner always frightened and starts out of his own wickedness. Markos Botsaris as did in Greece, and surrounding towns Messologhi remote, they were free more than tuned in massif Arankithos high wind. He was riding to Kanti once again with the golden rider Etrestles of Kalavrita. According to the Chronicle that came from distant millennia has envisioning promote its neighbor's heroic to free Messolonghi of ****** wars. All this I saw with his own eyes Carrenio, every thousand years styling with Etrestles, cleaned their nostrils so that new breed of horses to thrive,

Avignon, in the necropolis, witnessed as Azrael was cleaning his wings Jade antipopes, another story begins... even he seeks to candela who can read this story, and who can provide it from hand to hand cutting semicolons who disclosed.


Second  Ellipsis Angle  New Era:

Ara released the ropes throwing a big ship, History makes a man is at the center of the world. Revolutions, thinking, communication, and especially vindicate man in his right-libertarian. artists with their creations flowing all over the world, mutating classic Renaissance to abstract overlook. Family appearing welfare and needs. A ramble and so many broken laws. Mankind is distracted l film and theater artist of tradition. Art now has sound and movement, then social and political revolutions are industrial that unite everyone behind the pivot deployment of social classes.


Everything evolves until we get tired of doing so. It rests and then continues. This is modern reality, we wrote about the history of events on facts that have never been told. The world has tired all the Eras, but each pause time that has happened has been recharged, nothing finished if not started again. After so many wise lawyers, clergy plunged into great towers bound books. Is evident again can not read or understand. Our realities are missing valid without knowing I close and then open another door. human and civil rights, fair wages, so excessive autocracy monarchy. Freeman can walk along the paths, even if they were trenches.

Zephyr soft murmur which clutters in the Irises by Van Gogh, the painter is the biggest star trek, called with his feet images and colors that would make his own liberty to live naturally insane. And many others Brueghel "Triumph of Death" that roam the countryside, perhaps a medieval piece of Tarskovski; Andrei Rublev in futile painters decorating steps in the fontano chignon Androniko Monastery Moscow, extinct Rublev 70 years, Tarkovsky 54.

Early ellipsis - Campo dei Fiori in Rome to see die at the stake Giordano Bruno by order of the Holy Inquisition. The irruption of the Inquisition, but their feet are touching the flowers, the seasoned cassock continues to haunt the universe of Faith Dominica Trastevere, it is seen to lectures on how to be bold with the informers and the Whistle Blower dies without shade in spring, you resist the star on the asphalt on the magical island of holiness.

Carrenio says: Come I'm right, we can not read, because the brutality of the Cosmos is manure per ton weathered in the backyard of the aristocracy. I will continue with respect and crosed in Crete. Lila Kedrova means the fear of bunk bed tied to her bed and is free in foreign lands leg. Queen insular matriarchy, she lives more than any Greek Goddess, waiting for his Adonis, to fill out honors. Win an Oscar but lost to Zorba, he loses his house but won a Tony Awards. How many women teach us that to win you have to give everything to lose his brains, and thus count as the lost number remains to be retained. Zorba whines in her arms, she moans in the arms of her husband Zeus Steve, proof of a new era. Onyx for his tomb, plate of this great tragedy.

On the evening of December 14, 1964, attended the premiere. Soul of Carrenio was with them but was denied his attendance at the banquet, finally running out and watching the glasses lips and stoles spent his neck.

                                          
          ­                      Numbered Mysterious Death
                                                  Mané

If I have to feel floe on my feet and cold in my prayers will be the Dark Glory. What is slimming rays of the day, everything smelled of silence, maybe it was Kennedy, or better was The Mané.

Closure of my glory suffers the wind...
Flowers lying silence my soul alight,
Thick square displays the song of my voice...
When they speak Quadratils one to one order their
Spirituous voice.

And the spirit singing fiber of my heart told me:
Never you say I Exist ¡ not exist because they do not exist!
Only face daily the different reflection of your body
In front of yourself with another face and another body...

I want to talk with the thought
And this same subtract my little silhouette,
Lavishes wingless bird that flies only in their theology...
That is the duty and melt with my look,
Solid colors components
Crunching the altars of heaven retaining its pale warmth of anorexia.

Yellow Glory hair good event...
If you receive yellow lights, plus I do not sing my own game here in my empty veins,
Yellow my heart...
Yellow my heart
Yellow my collective heart.

They are run by large green and sunny meadows, children who had Mane in this major milestone in its last gasp. Now she is the mother of his children; it up and them in the last temptation of the mystery of death.

Carrenio keeps rolling, the brightness offered his Golden wagon to the ground. Gold grooves ago, and looking at where it realizes that it's landmass light mud. Since he felt whispers from the confines of time he had never felt as if you were finishing your journey or the world. It raining years and years and continues because nobody mends the mysterious death Numbered.

Heaven and Earth did not hold, the bottom fell precipitously pocket Lord and denied several times uncontained. She shivered in the World and the rooster crowed several times to never be heard or the Pentagon.

He is walking and knees bent,
we embraced by the golden chariot and oxen nor held
we bent us all lying on his knees,
up shoulders not hear from where came the bad grace of his departure,
numbered all the time of complaints of how then she would come,
It is unknown who would be but brought wine in his hand on the crispy mask
We ran from side to side and nothing was real

Everything seemed to sing in the chapel on a sad day,
But I hear loudly like Latin and watchfulness,
Those who know his mystery is no stranger to them
They all look but transgress the sin of silence.

Carrenio still absorbed in the hallway,
Angulo ellipsis she comes winged like a star burning tar,
A high speed to give us the new
No garden can deprive greet in speed visit
Dome comes, it comes on the eve of the new moon.

Numbered Widow mysterious,
Mané is a land of golden color and no celestial whoever wants in his cell,
A breath test, and feeding the Toffy and his henchmen
That sustaining more lively detail, there is no one that can not be targeted

It was modern, it was night, it was his torn life as an accomplice of his exile abandonment in his allegory of tender dismissal. Carrenio achieved so say goodbye to the beams of light that told him of the mysterious death Numbered. He sat on the roadside and drank some wine. Then dry with his handkerchief his neck, and have never wanted to experience such an event in a toast ever drunk.

Third Ellipsis Angle  of  New Era

Independence of Chile, it concerns Mapuche atingent case. Araucania pound, then 1818 central Chile. In Brief, Earth makes free an entire nation. His naive and primitive braves inhabitants emancipated themselves from all sides, they came to save a people who were just following where nobody can reach. Independence of the United States separates us for approximately 42 years, breaking up owners of nowhere. Industrial Abolitionist and South Slaver and Agraria. The biggest event that more than 640, 000 men and fallen activists planted safely from repression fields.

In Chile all rule resembled this secession in today's Araucano man prays for his fallen by almost more than 3 centuries in Chilean lands of Araucanía’s men. Lautaro genius and his supporters the heart of Pedro de Valdivia ate; Map ever made to your battle mapping Tucapel. "Initiation and final symbol occurred after 282 years of fierce war" and Mapuche land forever their independence from the Spanish Empire Captain-General important in foreign lands never subjected to foreign rule would eat.

The Machis and Loncos make supplications in native forests falling on them pollen on its back as if nothing out 10 times better...

To Libertas strengthen in the west is necessary to push the limits of the earth beneath his tongue and penance for the greedy entangled in the lines of bloodied sky, rebellions Chieftains death-defying all together at the edge of a cliff. 1769 The Pehuenches led by Lebian Cacique, joined the Mapuches razing Yumbel and Laja, the most peaceful Huilliches also joined mass alerting perhaps innocent people land blood-stained war and the Mackay Luchsinger.

No doubt portals military rebellion trigger blood, where they opened a tip and swords in the past. Here's reading concern is that the succession is timeless time, a sword without a sword, but on the tip of her blood is seen where there were herds and warriors crushed by their own footsteps. Here the phenomenon of freedom begins; Humanity runs treading his own footsteps, to save his family from a threat, but not strange forces that force you to use your defenses, because in the groves populate many helpless souls with his sword unused at the expense of being forced to use.

Freedom genome; It aims to reach where it has not come without looking back,
Chalices pour out is where the troubadours do not cuddle her close looks like time, singing while watching the changes are not of a new life


Heaven star,
Come to me,
I ask a sign to see them arrive,
Because I want to thus been dragged
Being together Eager to feel...
Those respites without being comforted
going to the mouth of the serpent.

About the Garden,
My home is to put my love,
He has to put the days imagining close...
To enjoy yourself is nonexistent...

Oh, my house tormenting me...!
Because in it I feel your smell
They are alone lights
Where I would wait for me to be in the dark...

In the coming future,
You will not see or hear my anger...
Perhaps my happiness nor peace praying
As the spear in the hands of the perpetrator.

You know a storm of whispers
I do sow your name in the wilderness,
It's because my judgments of hope
They mount up arable land deposited in my frenzy
Misled by a love which is my love.

But you never understand,
Because time has invaded my dwelling,
Invading my brain to give
It has invaded my choosing to love...

On the grass path,
Every time I move away from you,
I turn to see if you have not been...

Love came,
And I think that leaves us alone to avail ourselves
Ranging in our time...


But I can not resist his silence,
For my house want the noise of its action,
Why keys to the gates that serve my understanding.

Tramples my heart the fragmenting oddities into smaller pieces,
Your answer that call.

Tur love be like if I had created...
As if only you had appreciated your beautiful creation.

Do not destroy your work expresses in his mystery give life to your dreams!
Man aiming better earth, ask some of you to join your dreams...

! Your wife of this land does not procrastinate your misfortune,
I discover far peaceful landscapes like an echo in the spring,
As large and deep as your forgiveness for loving me more


It tells the Earth to the Sun in its perky tear benefactress of new opportunities as good and healthy smile rainbow on the back of Oviedo sheep valleys of freedom of Pietrelcina life.

To be continued…
Genoma Freedom , by Jose Luis Carreño Troncoso - Under Edition
sway with me, everything sad --
madmen in stone houses
without doors,
lepers steaming love and song
frogs trying to figure
the sky;
sway with me, sad things --
fingers split on a forge
old age like breakfast shell
used books, used people
used flowers, used love
I need you
I need you
I need you:
it has run away
like a horse or a dog,
dead or lost
or unforgiving.
pcbzzzt Sep 2010
Four lepers outside the gate
of besieged Jerusalem
devoid of pride
deprived of wives
nothing left to lose
least of all, their lives

Perhaps thats why Y'shua used them
to route Assyrian invaders
even rewarded them
They weren't healed
Just remained lepers
Perhaps the most famous
nameless lepers
of all time

Perhaps that's also why
the remnant suffer
rejected, despised
just as He was
There's less to lose
less to impede one's view
of the bigger picture
Father's plan

No doubt that's why
shepherds were invited to Bethlehem
not well-heeled high priests
in pearly porsches

Oh, and absolutely why
the meek will inherit the earth
Correctly he is John the Baptizer,
His birth was delayed up to late,
Late post menopausal age of his mother,
Elisabeth the wife of Zachariah the priest,
At the temple of the Jews in Palestine
During the regal time of Rome
As a world empire and a role model of tyranny,

Imagine conceiving after menopause,
During the nonagenarian ages
Of all the ages, in the nineties?
But she conceived John,
Was it true or mere sensationalism?
Or mere nerve chilling art style?
To hold the world audience a hostage?
I don’t know but  John was born
After his mother’s menopause,

He contrasts with Jesus
Born by a ****** Mary,
Imagine a Jewish ******
Without ****** *******
Became pregnant,
And gave birth to Jesus,
When Mary was pregnant
She socially visited Elisabeth
John’s fetus somersaulted,
Like a Chinese acrobat
Inside his mother’s tummy,
It was his baptism before birth,
But may be pregnancy of a ******
Has more strength than pregnancy
Of a post menopause octogenarian,

Hence the famous ode by Catholics;
In the name of Hail Mary
The mother of God
Most blessed above all women,

These post menopause pregnance
And ******‘s pregnancy without ***
Contrasts with Adam’s creation from clay
And Eve’s creation from Adam’s left rib,
Another super-sensational literature,
Or pataphorical art; Magical surrealism?

Let me not go dumb or mute
Like Zachariah when he believed not,
But no, I already believed ergo, my vocality,

Now why did John refuse to put on clothes?
Only to put on a skin of a goat,
Or was it a monkey Clobus,
The one which we in Africa
We are forced to ****
Before your father permits you
To face the circumcision knife,
John again refused to eat cooked foods,
He survived on raw honey and locusts,
Nuts, roots and raw fruits, dietician?

Or it was self denial or self immolation?
Like the one often displayed
by the Islamic statesmen aka terrorists
When committing suicide bombing?
No it began with the Japanese Kamikaze,
In preparation to bomb Pearl Habour,
I don’t know at all at all,

Now what of the howling in the wilderness,
Calling for people to baptism in water
At the riverbanks of polluted Jordan
And when he saw the Negroes
Among those who came for baptism
He called them the viper’s generation
Or were they Libyan Arabs?
And Jesus came, John went inferior,
He declined to baptize Jesus,
But Jesus pleaded for the service,
Then the dove opened the heaven
And came down to anoint Jesus,
Which heaven was opened?
Was the sky or the heaven?
This must be the writer’s Gnostics
Used to calling the sky as the heaven
Why the dove and why the heaven?

Then john again began doubting
Very genuine doubt I m telling you,
You see john began spying on privacy of the king
Was he also a night runner? Maybe,
He spied on Herodias the mother of Salome
She was a chic for the king; Herod Antipas,
This stuff threw John into  a calaboose,
Then John began day dreaming
Like any other prisoner
For his freedom and bush foods
He really missed honey and locusts
And also the fruits; Quavas and mustaberries,

He thought Jesus would come running,
Panting like a cheetah to pull him out,
Out of colonial prison, Jesus never came
Hence Johns doubts;
If Jesus is the Messiah really,
Can’t he come to redeem me?
From these colonial prison Herod,
Look; we are all Jews
In fact blood related Jews
And it is a year he has never come,
To pay me a visit when am in prison
Is he the Messiah really?
Or we still have to wait for a true messiah?

But Jesus was a rude messiah
Or Jesus was jealousy? Envious?
Of John’s spiritual competence,
I think he was wrong, totally wrong
He should have saved john the Baptizer
From the Roman colonial prison,
For there is no need nor spiritual logic
For Jesus to heal the lepers, and the blind
To resurrect Jairus’s daughter
And command the devils out of a madman,
But he could rescue his cousin brother
From a colonial prison, was it detention?
Remember Mary and Elisabeth were sisters,

John was a victim of circumstance
Like those who now languish in torture,
Torture chambers of the quatanamo bay prison,
Detained and tortured inhumanly
Without hope of trial nor justice
For no other reason but faith and race,
John was a harbinger of Sadam Hussein,
Osama Bin Laden, Mummar Gaddafi,
Nelson Mandella, Luther King, Dedan Kimathi,
Elijah Masinde, Arap Manyei and Mugo wa Gatheru,
They fought tyranny with firmness
They underwent torture for the sake of humanity,
They suffered for no reason but folly that goes with tyranny.

And finally, Salome the poet,
Living by performing the spoken word,
And Proceeds of her mother’s adultery
And vampirizing on the blood of the righteous
She came and danced in artful wickedness
by gyrating her ***** satanically
In the usual wicked style of a *****’s daughter
Sending the male audience nerveless with ego
Only for to suggest her prize;
As John’s head on the platter,
John was grisly mattered in the cells
Then his head was delivered on a platter
To Salome the poet the daughter of Herodias,
It all happened when Jesus was aware
Amid the full wind of his wonders
On the crest of his fame as the messiah
Isn’t saving the prisoner good as resurrecting
Young damsels and healing the lepers’?

But anyway, it is stark culture of Europe
To chop off the heads
Of those who oppose their tyranny,
It is not only John the Baptist that have suffered,
Suffered like this in the hands of Europeans tyranny,
The list of such-like victims is endless;
Mugo wa Gatheru was buried alive in Kenya
He was ordered at a gun point
By the British colonial police,
To dig his own grave using a mattock
Then the British clobbered and buried him a live,
On this brutal burial of Mugo wa Gatheru,
The Queen of England promoted these policemen
That buried Mugo wa Gatheru,
Kotalel Arap Samoia of the Nandi Militia in Kenya
Was shot twice in the head by the British spy;
The spy chopped off Koitalel’s head
He took it to the queen in heroic dint
And the queen glorified the spy,
Anglo-American power chopped of sadam’s head
Anglo-American power killed Mummar Gaddafi,
Anglo-American power Killed Osama bin Laden
They perpetrated all these without trial,
I am tired of all these………………
Andrew Rueter Jun 2017
My sympathy depleted
My friendships deleted
I have been defeated
By truths that hit so hard
I was decleated
By intense hatred deep-seeded
My history was repeated

I guess a three-armed mutant
Has no need for a right hand man
Until his leprosy riddled hands rot off
When he needs them the most
But his ***** limbs had been pretty useless for a while
Since he had lost feeling in them
He had to do a biopsy on his life
After the inaccurate results of the smear test
He took antibiotics to rid himself of the bacteria
But that didn't heal the nerve damage
He yearned for the rhetoric to be less inflammatory
So he took steroids
Transforming the ***** into an ogre
With no semblance of humanity
...Except for the people he devours
Their patience is delicious
He eats that first
Their pity is a delicacy
A rare treat
Their disgust tastes sour
But it's a feast
His cannibalism may seem callous
But the non-mutant lepers take Thalidomide
And get pregnant
Their kids come out defected
With an intense, deep-seeded hatred for three-armed mutants
And lepers and ogres look exactly the same
To those of another species
pcbzzzt Jun 2010
Father could reprogram all six billion of us
if He felt the  need, anytime
In fact that's exactly what He did
at Babel when our dodgy one-accord
threatened to bring the end nearer
than the six millenniums of earthtime
He'd allocated for us to seek His truth

He even re-wired Balak for a minute
to hear his donkey speak
and think of the Assyrians that fled
when He caused four lepers to sound
like a mighty mercenary army
coming to rescue Jerusalem
YHWH is omnipotent, like it not

The reason He's not 'interfering' right now
is simply because His plan is dead on time
He intends to blow the chaff from  His wheat
The true wheat, His remnant that stays faithful
(through Revelations and the mark)
will form a new constitution when Yeshua returns
for a thousand years of peace on earth

You may think "Oh I'll wait and see
if it's true, like, if the two witnesses
really die and then rise again in three days"
Problem with that approach is simple
You could be brainwashed before then
The neurophone is widely used today
Think of 911, why Bush isn't impeached
and read surveillanceissues.com

Those of us who really care
will continue to bug you and **** your spirit
Hopefully you'll make the right choice
and refuse the mark of the beast
Consider these things while there's time
'After me the storm' won't cut it
There are less than three short years to go


* Gen 6:3 And Jehovah said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, in his erring; he is flesh. Yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty years.
The 120 years referred to here in fact represent 120 jubilees, or 6000 years (2000 from Adam to the flood, 2000 from the flood to Yeshua and 2000 from Yeshua till 2017)
Ellen Joyce Sep 2013
You ask me to enter to the tilt of your head towards the computer screen
and see, in two words my definition -
bipolar disorder.

You do not look at me, just talk at me
medication? last relapse? severity of episodes?
You count failings, the moments in which I have lost my mind
and you reproach me for them.
You, as you two-finger-type a cold clinical echo of me,
I, on command, recite the past transgressions of my sanity
and you have me – three inches tall on my knees,
in a disease that thrice almost cost me my life
and in your Jobsworth view you tell me I will get ill,
as if this weren't a fact I fight and fear daily.
You with your tunic, blue, cold as your indifference,
announce this, as if calling time -
self-important, unfeeling, with one eye on your watch.

And I smile at you apologetically,
honestly offering up my mindfulness, yoga, medication compliance,
self awareness, begrudged reliance on those I love to wave the red flag
if the waters I get into are too deep.
You are curt with your nod - as if all this is folly between now and the inevitable.
My recovery, my striding, my passion and profession -
All folly.
You are doing the last offices on quick time
because your time is precious and short
and not to be wasted on crazy dreamers with barely a shot in hell

But even with every mental regression, psychotic expression
manic obsession and abyss of depression -
still, still, the world needs more of mes and much less of yous.
So make your disclaimer and write your reports
I'll chant, share the truth in the streets and courts
Michael R Burch Dec 2020
LOVE POEMS by Michael R. Burch

These are love poems written by Michael R. Burch: original poems and translations about passion, desire, lust, ***, dating, making out, relationships and marriage. On an amusing note, my steamy Baudelaire translations have become popular with the pros ― **** stars and escort services!



Sappho, fragment 42
translation by Michael R. Burch

Eros harrows my heart:
wild winds whipping desolate mountains
uprooting oaks.



Preposterous Eros
by Michael R. Burch

“Preposterous Eros” – Patricia Falanga

Preposterous Eros shot me in
the buttocks, with a Devilish grin,
spent all my money in a rush
then left my heart effete pink mush.



Sappho, fragment 155
translation by Michael R. Burch

A short revealing frock?
It's just my luck
your lips were made to mock!



Sappho, fragment 22
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

That enticing girl's clinging dresses
leave me trembling, overcome by happiness,
as once, when I saw the Goddess in my prayers
eclipsing Cyprus.



Negligibles
by Michael R. Burch

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



Warming Her Pearls
by Michael R. Burch

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



She bathes in silver
by Michael R. Burch

She bathes in silver,
afloat
on her reflections ...



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

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



Are You the Thief
by Michael R. Burch

When I touch you now,
O sweet lover,
full of fire,
melting like ice
in my embrace,

when I part the delicate white lace,
baring pale flesh,
and your face
is so close
that I breathe your breath
and your hair surrounds me like a wreath ...

tell me now,
O sweet, sweet lover,
in good faith:
are you the thief
who has stolen my heart?



The Effects of Memory
by Michael R. Burch

A black ringlet
curls to lie
at the nape of her neck,
glistening with sweat
in the evaporate moonlight ...
This is what I remember

now that I cannot forget.

And tonight,
if I have forgotten her name,
I remember:
rigid wire and white lace
half-impressed in her flesh ...

our soft cries, like regret,

... the enameled white clips
of her bra strap
still inscribe dimpled marks
that my kisses erase ...
now that I have forgotten her face.



Moments
by Michael R. Burch

There were moments full of promise,
like the petal-scented rainfall of early spring,
when to hold you in my arms
and to kiss your willing lips
seemed everything.

There are moments strangely empty
full of pale unearthly twilight
―how the cold stars stare!―
when to be without you is a dark enchantment
the night and I share.



The Communion of Sighs
by Michael R. Burch

There was a moment
without the sound of trumpets or a shining light,
but with only silence and darkness and a cool mist
felt more than seen.
I was eighteen,
my heart pounding wildly within me like a fist.
Expectation hung like a cry in the night,
and your eyes shone like the corona of a comet.

There was an instant . . .
without words, but with a deeper communion,
as clothing first, then inhibitions fell;
liquidly our lips met
―feverish, wet―
forgotten, the tales of heaven and hell,
in the immediacy of our fumbling union . . .
when the rest of the world became distant.

Then the only light was the moon on the rise,
and the only sound, the communion of sighs.



Righteous
by Michael R. Burch

Come to me tonight
in the twilight, O, and the full moon rising,
spectral and ancient, will mutter a prayer.

Gather your hair
and pin it up, knowing
that I will release it a moment anon.

We are not one,
nor is there a scripture
to sanctify nights you might spend in my arms,

but the swarms
of stars revolving above us
revel tonight, the most ardent of lovers.



For All that I Remembered
by Michael R. Burch

For all that I remembered, I forgot
her name, her face, the reason that we loved ...
and yet I hold her close within my thought.
I feel the burnished weight of auburn hair
that fell across her face, the apricot
clean scent of her shampoo, the way she glowed
so palely in the moonlight, angel-wan.

The memory of her gathers like a flood
and bears me to that night, that only night,
when she and I were one, and if I could ...
I'd reach to her this time and, smiling, brush
the hair out of her eyes, and hold intact
each feature, each impression. Love is such
a threadbare sort of magic, it is gone
before we recognize it. I would crush
my lips to hers to hold their memory,
if not more tightly, less elusively.



Le Balcon (The Balcony)
by Charles Baudelaire
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Paramour of memory, ultimate mistress,
source of all pleasure, my only desire;
how can I forget your ecstatic caresses,
the warmth of your ******* by the roaring fire,
paramour of memory, ultimate mistress?

Each night illumined by the burning coals
we lay together where the rose-fragrance clings―
how soft your *******, how tender your soul!
Ah, and we said imperishable things,
each night illumined by the burning coals.

How beautiful the sunsets these sultry days,
deep space so profound, beyond life’s brief floods ...
then, when I kissed you, my queen, in a daze,
I thought I breathed the bouquet of your blood
as beautiful as sunsets these sultry days.

Night thickens around us like a wall;
in the deepening darkness our irises meet.
I drink your breath, ah! poisonous yet sweet!,
as with fraternal hands I massage your feet
while night thickens around us like a wall.

I have mastered the sweet but difficult art
of happiness here, with my head in your lap,
finding pure joy in your body, your heart;
because you’re the queen of my present and past
I have mastered love’s sweet but difficult art.

O vows! O perfumes! O infinite kisses!
Can these be reborn from a gulf we can’t sound
as suns reappear, as if heaven misses
their light when they sink into seas dark, profound?
O vows! O perfumes! O infinite kisses!

My translation of Le Balcon has become popular with **** sites, escort services and dating sites. The pros seem to like it!



Les Bijoux (The Jewels)
by Charles Baudelaire
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



The Perfect Courtesan
by Michael R. Burch

after Baudelaire, for the courtesans

She received me into her cavities,
indulging my darkest depravities
with such trembling longing, I felt her need ...

Such was the dalliance to which we agreed—
she, my high rider;
I, her wild steed.

She surrendered her all and revealed to me—
the willing handmaiden, delighted to please,
the Perfect Courtesan of Ecstasy.



Invitation to the Voyage
by Charles Baudelaire
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My child, my sister,
Consider the rapture
Of living together!
To love at our leisure
Till the end of all pleasure,
Then in climes so alike you, to die!

The misty sunlight
Of these hazy skies
Charms my spirit:
So mysterious
Your treacherous eyes,
Shining through tears.

There, order and restraint redress
Opulence, voluptuousness.

Gleaming furniture
Burnished by the years
Would decorate our bedroom
Where the rarest flowers
Mingle their fragrances
With vague scents of amber.

The sumptuous ceilings,
The limpid mirrors,
The Oriental ornaments …
Everything would speak
To our secretive souls
In their own indigenous language.

There, order and restraint redress
Opulence, voluptuousness.

See, rocking on these channels:
The sleepy vessels
Whose vagabond dream
Is to satisfy
Your merest desire.

They come from the ends of the world:
These radiant suns
Illuminating fields,
Canals, the entire city,
In hyacinth and gold.
The world falls asleep
In their warming light.

There, order and restraint redress
Opulence, voluptuousness.



What Goes Around, Comes
by Michael R. Burch

This is a poem about loss
so why do you toss your dark hair―
unaccountably glowing?

How can you be sure of my heart
when it’s beyond my own knowing?

Or is it love’s pheromones you trust,
my eyes magnetized by your bust
and the mysterious alchemies of lust?

Now I am truly lost!



Passionate One
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Love of my life,
light of my morning―
arise, brightly dawning,
for you are my sun.

Give me of heaven
both manna and leaven―
desirous Presence,
Passionate One.

Manna is "heavenly bread" and leaven is what we use to make earthly bread rise. So this poem is saying that one's lover offers the best of heaven and earth.



Second Sight
by Michael R. Burch

I never touched you―
that was my mistake.

Deep within,
I still feel the ache.

Can an unformed thing
eternally break?

Now, from a great distance,
I see you again

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

eternally present
and Sovereign.



After the Deluge
by Michael R. Burch

She was kinder than light
to an up-reaching flower
and sweeter than rain
to the bees in their bower
where anemones blush
at the affections they shower,
and love’s shocking power.

She shocked me to life,
but soon left me to wither.
I was listless without her,
nor could I be with her.
I fell under the spell
of her absence’s power.
in that calamitous hour.

Like blithe showers that fled
repealing spring’s sweetness;
like suns’ warming rays sped
away, with such fleetness ...
she has taken my heart―
alas, our completeness!
I now wilt in pale beams
of her occult remembrance.



Love Has a Southern Flavor
by Michael R. Burch

Love has a Southern flavor: honeydew,
ripe cantaloupe, the honeysuckle’s spout
we tilt to basking faces to breathe out
the ordinary, and inhale perfume ...

Love’s Dixieland-rambunctious: tangled vines,
wild clematis, the gold-brocaded leaves
that will not keep their order in the trees,
unmentionables that peek from dancing lines ...

Love cannot be contained, like Southern nights:
the constellations’ dying mysteries,
the fireflies that hum to light, each tree’s
resplendent autumn cape, a genteel sight ...

Love also is as wild, as sprawling-sweet,
as decadent as the wet leaves at our feet.



Violets
by Michael R. Burch

Once, only once,
when the wind flicked your skirt
to an indiscrete 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.



Smoke
by Michael R. Burch

The hazy, smoke-filled skies of summer I remember well;
farewell was on my mind, and the thoughts that I can't tell
rang bells within (the din was in) my mind, and I can't say
if what we had was good or bad, or where it is today.
The endless days of summer's haze I still recall today;
she spoke and smoky skies stood still as summer slipped away ...



How Long the Night
(anonymous Old English Lyric, circa early 13th century AD)
translation by Michael R. Burch

It is pleasant, indeed, while the summer lasts
with the mild pheasants' song ...
but now I feel the northern wind's blast―
its severe weather strong.
Alas! Alas! This night seems so long!
And I, because of my momentous wrong
now grieve, mourn and fast.



Shattered
by Vera Pavlova
translation by Michael R. Burch

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



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.



The Darker Nights
by Michael R. Burch

Nights when I held you,
nights when I saw
the gentlest of spirits,
yet, deeper, a flaw ...

Nights when we settled
and yet never gelled.
Nights when you promised
what you later withheld ...



Moon Poem
by Michael R. Burch
after Linda Gregg

I climb the mountain
to inquire of the moon ...
the advantages of loftiness, absence, distance.
Is it true that it feels no pain,
or will she contradict me?

Originally published by Borderless Journal (Singapore)

The apparent contradiction of it/she is intentional, since the speaker doesn’t know if the moon is an inanimate object or can feel pain.



Because You Came to Me
by Michael R. Burch

Because you came to me with sweet compassion
and kissed my furrowed brow and smoothed my hair,
I do not love you after any fashion,
but wildly, in despair.

Because you came to me in my black torment
and kissed me fiercely, blazing like the sun
upon parched desert dunes, till in dawn’s foment
they melt, I am undone.

Because I am undone, you have remade me
as suns bring life, as brilliant rains endow
the earth below with leaves, where you now shade me
and bower me, somehow.



Stay With Me Tonight
by Michael R. Burch

Stay with me tonight;
be gentle with me as the leaves are gentle
falling to the earth.
And whisper, O my love,
how that every bright thing, though scattered afar,
retains yet its worth.

Stay with me tonight;
be as a petal long-awaited blooming in my hand.
Lift your face to mine
and touch me with your lips
till I feel the warm benevolence of your breath’s
heady fragrance like wine.

That which we had
when pale and waning as the dying moon at dawn,
outshone the sun.
And so lead me back tonight
through bright waterfalls of light
to where we shine as one.



Insurrection
by Michael R. Burch

She has become as the night―listening
for rumors of dawn―while the dew, glistening,

reminds me of her, and the wind, whistling,
lashes my cheeks with its soft chastening.

She has become as the lights―flickering
in the distance―till memories old and troubling

rise up again and demand remembering ...
like peasants rebelling against a mad king.



Medusa
by Michael R. Burch

Friends, beware
of her iniquitous hair―
long, ravenblack & melancholy.

Many suitors drowned there―
lost, unaware
of the length & extent of their folly.



Daredevil
by Michael R. Burch

There are days that I believe
(and nights that I deny)
love is not mutilation.

Daredevil, dry your eyes.

There are tightropes leaps bereave―
taut wires strumming high
brief songs, infatuations.

Daredevil, dry your eyes.

There were cannon shots’ soirees,
hearts barricaded, wise . . .
and then . . . annihilation.

Daredevil, dry your eyes.

There were nights our hearts conceived
dawns’ indiscriminate sighs.
To dream was our consolation.

Daredevil, dry your eyes.

There were acrobatic leaves
that tumbled down to lie
at our feet, bright trepidations.

Daredevil, dry your eyes.

There were hearts carved into trees―
tall stakes where you and I
left childhood’s salt libations . . .

Daredevil, dry your eyes.

Where once you scraped your knees;
love later bruised your thighs.
Death numbs all, our sedation.

Daredevil, dry your eyes.



Mingled Air
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Ephemeral as breath, still words consume
the substance of our hearts; the very air
that fuels us is subsumed; sometimes the hair
that veils your eyes is lifted and the room

seems hackles-raised: a spring all tension wound
upon a word. At night I feel the care
evaporate—a vapor everywhere
more enervate than sighs: a mournful sound

grown blissful. In the silences between
I hear your heart, forget to breathe, and glow
somehow. And though the words subside, we know
the hearth light and the comfort embers gleam

upon our dreaming consciousness. We share
so much so common: sighs, breath, mingled air.



Elemental
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

so I embrace elemental you.



Duet, Minor Key
by Michael R. Burch

Without the drama of cymbals
or the fanfare and snares of drums,
I present my case
stripped of its fine veneer:
Behold, thy instrument.

Play, for the night is long.



honeybee
by Michael R. Burch

love was a little treble thing―
prone to sing
and (sometimes) to sting



don’t forget ...
by Michael R. Burch

don’t forget to remember
that Space is curved
(like your Heart)
and that even Light is bent
by your Gravity.

The opening lines were inspired by a famous love poem by e. e. cummings. I have dedicated this poem to my wife Beth, but you're welcome to dedicate it to the light-bending person of your choice, as long as you credit me as the author.



Sudden Shower
by Michael R. Burch

The day’s eyes were blue
until you appeared
and they wept at your beauty.



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.



Isolde's Song
by Michael R. Burch

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.



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.



Heat Lightening
by Michael R. Burch

Each night beneath the elms, we never knew
which lights beyond dark hills might stall, advance,
then lurch into strange headbeams tilted up
like searchlights seeking contact in the distance . . .

Quiescent unions . . . thoughts of bliss, of hope . . .
long-dreamt appearances of wished-on stars . . .
like childhood’s long-occluded, nebulous
slow drift of half-formed visions . . . slip and bra . . .

Wan moonlight traced your features, perilous,
in danger of extinction, should your hair
fall softly on my eyes, or should a kiss
cause them to close, or should my fingers dare

to leave off childhood for some new design
of whiter lace, of flesh incarnadine.



Redolence
by Michael R. Burch

Now darkness ponds upon the violet hills;
cicadas sing; the tall elms gently sway;
and night bends near, a deepening shade of gray;
the bass concerto of a bullfrog fills
what silence there once was; globed searchlights play.

Green hanging ferns adorn dark window sills,
all drooping fronds, awaiting morning’s flares;
mosquitoes whine; the lissome moth again
flits like a veiled oud-dancer, and endures
the fumblings of night’s enervate gray rain.

And now the pact of night is made complete;
the air is fresh and cool, washed of the grime
of the city’s ashen breath; and, for a time,
the fragrance of her clings, obscure and sweet.



A Surfeit of Light
by Michael R. Burch

There was always a surfeit of light in your presence.
You stood distinctly apart, not of the humdrum world―
a chariot of gold in a procession of plywood.

We were all pioneers of the modern expedient race,
raising the ante: Home Depot to Lowe’s.
Yours was an antique grace―Thrace’s or Mesopotamia’s.

We were never quite sure of your silver allure,
of your trillium-and-platinum diadem,
of your utter lack of flatware-like utility.

You told us that night―your wound would not scar.
The black moment passed, then you were no more.
The darker the sky, how much brighter the Star!

The day of your funeral, I ripped out the crown mold.
You were this fool’s gold.



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.



Unfoldings
by Michael R. Burch

for Vicki

Time unfolds ...
Your lips were roses.
... petals open, shyly clustering ...
I had dreams
of other seasons.
... ten thousand colors quiver, blossoming.

Night and day ...
Dreams burned within me.
... flowers part themselves, and then they close ...
You were lovely;
I was lonely.
... a ****** yields herself, but no one knows.

Now time goes on ...
I have not seen you.
... within ringed whorls, secrets are exchanged ...
A fire rages;
no one sees it.
... a blossom spreads its flutes to catch the rain.

Seasons flow ...
A dream is dying.
... within parched clusters, life is taking form ...
You were honest;
I was angry.
... petals fling themselves before the storm.

Time is slowing ...
I am older.
... blossoms wither, closing one last time ...
I'd love to see you
and to touch you.
... a flower crumbles, crinkling, worn and dry.

Time contracts ...
I cannot touch you.
... a solitary flower cries for warmth ...
Life goes on as
dreams lose meaning.
... the seeds are scattered, lost within a storm.



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.



If You Come to San Miguel
by Michael R. Burch

If you come to San Miguel
before the orchids fall,
we might stroll through lengthening shadows
those deserted streets
where love first bloomed ...

You might buy the same cheap musk
from that mud-spattered stall
where with furtive eyes the vendor
watched his fragrant wares
perfume your ******* ...

Where lean men mend tattered nets,
disgruntled sea gulls chide;
we might find that cafetucho
where through grimy panes
sunset implodes ...

Where tall cranes spin canvassed loads,
the strange anhingas glide.
Green brine laps splintered moorings,
rusted iron chains grind,
weighed and anchored in the past,

held fast by luminescent tides ...
Should you come to San Miguel?
Let love decide.



Vacuum
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

that once intrigued us so.

Come then, let us quickly repent
of whatever truths we’d once determined to learn:
for whatever is left, we are unable to discern.

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



The Sky Was Turning Blue
by Michael R. Burch

Yesterday I saw you
as the snow flurries died,
spent winds becalmed.
When I saw your solemn face
alone in the crowd,
I felt my heart, so long embalmed,
begin to beat aloud.

Was it another winter,
another day like this?
Was it so long ago?
Where you the rose-cheeked girl
who slapped my face, then stole a kiss?
Was the sky this gray with snow,
my heart so all a-whirl?

How is it in one moment
it was twenty years ago,
lost worlds remade anew?
When your eyes met mine, I knew
you felt it too, as though
we heard the robin's song
and the sky was turning blue.



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 forsook,
will I recall your words―barbed, cruel?



Nothing Returns
by Michael R. Burch

A wave implodes,
impaled upon
impassive rocks . . .

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

you are leaving
and the ungrieving
winds demur:

telling me
that nothing returns
as it was before,

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



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.



Your Pull
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

You were like sunshine and rain―
begetting rainbows,
full of contradictions, like the intervals
between light and shadow.

That within you which I most opposed
drew me closer still,
as a magnet exerts its unyielding pull
on insensate steel.



Love Is Not Love
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Love is not love that never looked
within itself and questioned all,
curled up like a zygote in a ball,
throbbed, sobbed and shook.

(Or went on a binge at a nearby mall,
then would not cook.)

Love is not love that never winced,
then smiled, convinced
that soar’s the prerequisite of fall.

When all
its wounds and scars have been saline-rinsed,
where does Love find the wherewithal
to try again,
endeavor, when

all that it knows
is: O, because!



The Stake
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Love, the heart bets,
if not without regrets,
will still prove, in the end,
worth the light we expend
mining the dark
for an exquisite heart.



The One True Poem
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Love was not meaningless ...
nor your embrace, nor your kiss.

And though every god proved a phantom,
still you were divine to your last dying atom ...

So that when you are gone
and, yea, not a word remains of this poem,

even so,
We were One.



The Poem of Poems
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

This is my Poem of Poems, for you.
Every word ineluctably true:
I love you.



Enigma
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

O, terrible angel,
bright lover and avenger,
full of whimsical light
and vile anger;
wild stranger,
seeking the solace of night,
or the danger;
pale foreigner,
alien to man, or savior.

Who are you,
seeking consolation and passion
in the same breath,
screaming for pleasure, bereft
of all articles of faith,
finding life
harsher than death?

Grieving angel,
giving more than taking,
how lucky the man
who has found in your love,
this -our reclamation;
fallen wren,
you must strive to fly
though your heart is shaken;
weary pilgrim,
you must not give up
though your feet are aching;
lonely child,
lie here still in my arms;
you must soon be waking.

"O Terrible Angel" is the title of my second collection of love poems for my wife Beth, who is more formally known as Elizabeth Steed Harris Burch.



She Gathered Lilacs
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

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!



Once
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Once when her kisses were fire incarnate
and left in their imprint bright lipstick, and flame;
when her breath rose and fell over smoldering dunes,
leaving me listlessly sighing her name...

Once when her ******* were as pale, as beguiling,
as wan rivers of sand shedding heat like a mist,
when her words would at times softly, mildly rebuke me
all the while as her lips did more wildly insist...

Once when the thought of her echoed and whispered
through vast wastelands of need like a Bedouin chant,
I ached for the touch of her lips with such longing
that I vowed all my former vows to recant...

Once, only once, something bloomed, of a desiccate seed:
this implausible blossom her wild rains of kisses decreed.



At Once
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Though she was fair,
though she sent me the epistle of her love at once
and inscribed therein love's antique prayer,
I did not love her at once.

Though she would dare
pain's pale, clinging shadows, to approach me at once,
the dark, haggard keeper of the lair,
I did not love her at once.

Though she would share
the all of her being, to heal me at once,
yet more than her touch I was unable to bear.
I did not love her at once.

And yet she would care,
and pour out her essence...
and yet -there was more!
I awoke from long darkness

and yet -she was there.
I loved her the longer;
I loved her the more
because I did not love her at once.



Twice
by Michael R. Burch

Now twice she has left me
and twice I have listened
and taken her back, remembering days

when love lay upon us
and sparkled and glistened
with the brightness of dew through a gathering haze.

But twice she has left me
to start my life over,
and twice I have gathered up embers, to learn:

rekindle a fire
from ash, soot and cinder
and softly it sputters, refusing to burn.



Will there be Starlight
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

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?

Oh, will there be moonlight
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?



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

for Beth

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.



The Quickening
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

I never meant to love you
when I held you in my arms
promising you sagely
wise, noncommittal charms.

And I never meant to need you
when I touched your tender lips
with kisses that intrigued my own -
such kisses I had never known,
nor a heartbeat in my fingertips!



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.



If I Falter
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

If I regret
fire in the sunset
exploding on the horizon,
then let me regret loving you.

If I forget
for even a moment
that you are the only one,
then let me forget that the sky is blue.

If I should yearn
in a season of discontentment
for the vagabond light of a companionless moon,
let dawn remind me that you are my sun.

If I should burn -one moment less brightly,
one moment less true -
then with wild scorching kisses,
inflame me, inflame me, inflame me anew.



Because Her Heart Is Tender
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

She scrawled soft words in soap: "Never Forget, "
Dove-white on her car's window, and the wren,
because her heart is tender, might regret
it called the sun to wake her. As I slept,
she heard lost names recounted, one by one.

She wrote in sidewalk chalk: "Never Forget, "
and kept her heart's own counsel. No rain swept
away those words, no tear leaves them undone.

Because her heart is tender with regret,
bruised by razed towers' glass and steel and stone
that shatter on and on and on and on,
she stitches in damp linen: "NEVER FORGET, "
and listens to her heart's emphatic song.

The wren might tilt its head and sing along
because its heart once understood regret
when fledglings fell beyond, beyond, beyond...
its reach, and still the boot-heeled world strode on.

She writes in adamant: "NEVER FORGET"
because her heart is tender with regret.



She Spoke
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

She spoke
and her words
were like a ringing echo dying
or like smoke
rising and drifting
while the earth below is spinning.

She awoke
with a cry
from a dream that had no ending,
without hope
or strength to rise,
into hopelessness descending.

And an ache
in her heart
toward that dream, retreating,
left a wake
of small waves
in circles never completing.



Virginal
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

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

But she is mine;
her lips divine
and her ******* and hair
are mine alone.
Let the wildflowers moan.



the last defense of Love
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

... if all the parables of Love
fell mute, and every sermon too,
and every hymn and votive psalm
proved insufficient to the task
of proving Love might yet be true
in such a cruel, uncaring world...
the last defense of Love, my Love,
the gods might offer, would be You.



Your Gift
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Counsel, console.
This is your gift.

Calm, kiss and encourage.

Tenderly lift
each world-wounded heart
from its near-fatal dart.

Mend every rift.

Bid pain, "Depart! "
Help friends' healing to start.
Keep every reason to grieve
for your own untaught heart.



Rehearsal Reversal
by Michael R. Burch

The wonder of a first kiss
is:
the next will be better,
if less memorable...

and what’s unforgettable’s
this:
that, somehow,
although you just met her,

in the exchange of eclectic eyes
love came, an electric surmise,
with the smell of cordite hair
on a warm wool sweater

more than amply bosomed.
Use
any excess static to light
the fuse.

Fumble-fingered, her bra strap’s cinch
refuses to budge an inch
in either direction.
Who’s

ever prepared to be so stymied?
Smile,
lean back, drag, “relax” awhile
from practice imperfect. I’ll

leave you two jaybirds alone.
Yes, tomorrow she’ll
answer the phone,
show up for your first real date:

late, breathless, and braless!
(WAIT —
before you celebrate:
still celibate).



Reverse Strip
by Michael R. Burch

She cupped her ******* in cotton, wire-cinched,
pulled a pale taupe sheath across red-gilded toes,
across sun-auburned thighs, to midriff, rose,
paraded nimbly to her dresser, pinched
a winsome pair of *******—white with hearts—
between thumb and forefinger, just to show
how well she knew my taste. Then, bowing low,
she stepped into them (here, the music starts,
a vampish tune), slow-wriggled them waist-high.
She used her thumbs to snap elastic to
its proper place. She chose a slip—sky blue—
then shrugged it on, and patted down each thigh.

She then sat down and smiled (there’d be no dress),
uncrossed her legs, shrugged free one talcumed breast...



Dawn Flight
by Michael R. Burch

for Martin Mc Carthy

What is it about love
that defies explanation?—

the weightlessness of being,
the long elliptic climb

into darkness
amid the world’s constant uproar,

the sea’s black waves crashing
incessantly like thunder beneath us,

the long triumphant soar
into thinning contrails of nothingness,

like meteors through ether,
seeing the earth’s dark curve

outlined,
spinning softly beneath us...

gliding, suspended at last,
over the earth pliant and motionless...

feeling, suddenly, the vast
onrush

and illumination.



Of Transience
by Michael R. Burch

How many nights her vulnerability
leaned close and softly pressed its cheek to mine,
held fast by tiny buckled straps impressed
on shoulders white as swans’ white eglantine...

And many were the marks which left their trace,
then soon were gone. The thinnest finest veil
of ashen hair revealed her *******, betrayed
all that I wanted most, but still would fail

to keep me there till morning. For her sighs,
I kissed her lips in wonder; we became
one with the distant thunder. Love is wise
when it comes in flashes, streaking moonlit rain,

but leaves no mark—as transient, as bright
as the searing imprint lightning pens at night.



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

It was not for the feast of docile eyes
she shed her latex jeans, her vinyl blouse;
it was not for the catcalls that her thighs,
black-gartered, parted slightly, to arouse
limp dreams, limp organs as onlookers cheered,
revealing paunches belts could not belay.
She shunned their touch, as lepers to be feared,
swerved half-way through her dance, then waltzed away.

But something in her eyes—a mystery
as old as lust, half-veiled by raven hair—
bespoke this certain knowledge: love is free,
but *** must have its fee, transport its fare.
They pay for what they want, and in return
she teaches them what men will never learn.



At the Natchez Trace
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



BeMused
by Michael R. Burch

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

If you like Her looks …

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

Originally published by Borderless Journal



POEMS ABOUT POOL SHARKS

These are poems about pool sharks, gamblers, con artists and other sharks. I used to hustle pool on bar tables around Nashville, where I ran into many colorful characters, and a few unsavory ones, before I hung up my cue for good.

Shark
by Michael R. Burch

They are all unknowable,
these rough pale men—
haunting dim pool rooms like shadows,
propped up on bar stools like scarecrows,
nodding and sagging in the fraying light . . .

I am not of them,
as I glide among them—
eliding the amorphous camaraderie
they are as unlikely to spell as to feel,
camouflaged in my own pale dichotomy . . .

That there are women who love them defies belief—
with their missing teeth,
their hair in thin shocks
where here and there a gap of scalp gleams like bizarre chrome,
their smell rank as wet sawdust or mildewed laundry . . .

And yet—
and yet there is someone who loves me:
She sits by the telephone
in the lengthening shadows
and pregnant grief . . .

They appreciate skill at pool, not words.
They frown at massés,
at the cue ball’s contortions across green felt.
They hand me their hard-earned money with reluctant smiles.
A heart might melt at the thought of their children lying in squalor . . .
At night I dream of them in bed, toothless, kissing.
With me, it’s harder to say what is missing . . .



Fair Game
by Michael R. Burch

At the Tennessee State Fair,
the largest stuffed animals hang tilt-a-whirl over the pool tables
with mocking button eyes,
knowing the playing field is unlevel,
that the rails slant, ever so slightly, north or south,
so that gravity is always on their side,
conspiring to save their plush, extravagant hides
year after year.

“Come hither, come hither . . .”
they whisper; they leer
in collusion with the carnival barkers,
like a bevy of improbably-clad hookers
setting a “fair” price.
“Only five dollars a game, and it’s so much Fun!
And it’s not really gambling. Skill is involved!
You can make us come: really, you can.
Here are your *****. Just smack them around.”

But there’s a trick, and it usually works.
If you break softly so that no ball reaches a rail,
you can pick them off: One. Two. Three. Four.
Causing a small commotion,
a stir of whispering, like fear,
among the hippos and ostriches.



Con Artistry
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

The trick of life is knowing that the odds
are never in one’s favor, that to win
is only to delay the acts of gods
who’d ante death for sin . . .

and death for goodness, death for in-between.
The rules have never changed; the artist knows
the oldest con is life; the chips he blows
can’t be redeemed.



Pool's Prince Charming
by Michael R. Burch

this is my tribute poem, written on the behalf of his fellow pool sharks, for the legendary Saint Louie Louie Roberts

Louie, Louie, Prince of Pool,
making all the ladies drool ...
Take the “nuts”? I'd be a fool!
Louie, Louie, Prince of Pool.

Louie, Louie, pretty as Elvis,
owner of (ahem) a similar pelvis ...
Compared to you, the books will shelve us.
Louie, Louie, pretty as Elvis.

Louie, Louie, fearless gambler,
ladies' man and constant rambler,
but such a sweet, loquacious ambler!
Louie, Louie, fearless gambler.

Louie, Louie, angelic, chthonic,
pool's charming hero, but tragic, Byronic,
winning the Open drinking gin and tonic?
Louie, Louie, angelic, chthonic.

I used poetic license about what Louie Roberts was or wasn't drinking at the 1981 U. S. Open Nine-Ball Championship. Was Louie drinking hard liquor as he came charging back through the losers' bracket to win the whole shebang? Or was he pretending to drink for gamesmanship or some other reason? I honestly don't know. As for the word “chthonic,” it’s pronounced “thonic” and means “subterranean” or “of the underworld.” And the pool world can be very dark indeed, as Louie’s tragic demise suggests. But everyone who knew Louie seemed to like him, if not love him dearly, and many sharks have spoken of Louie in glowing terms, as a bringer of light to that underworld.



My wife and I were having a drink at a neighborhood bar which has a pool table. A “money” game was about to start; a spectator got up to whisper something to a friend of ours who was about to play someone we hadn’t seen before. We couldn’t hear what was said. Then the newcomer broke—with such force that his stick flew straight up in the air and shattered the light dangling overhead. There was a moment of stunned silence, then our friend turned around and remarked: “He really does shoot the lights out, doesn’t he?” — Michael R. Burch



Rounds
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

Originally published by Borderless Journal



Poems about Fathers and Grandfathers



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...



Sanctuary at Dawn
by Michael R. Burch

I have walked these thirteen miles
just to stand outside your door.
The rain has dogged my footsteps
for thirteen miles, for thirty years,
through the monsoon seasons...
and now my tears
have all been washed away.

Through thirteen miles of rain I slogged,
I stumbled and I climbed
rainslickened slopes
that led me home
to the hope that I might find
a life I lived before.

The door is wet; my cheeks are wet,
but not with rain or tears...
as I knock I sweat
and the raining seems
the rhythm of the years.

Now you stand outlined in the doorway
―a man as large as I left―
and with bated breath
I take a step
into the accusing light.

Your eyes are grayer
than I remembered;
your hair is grayer, too.
As the red rust runs
down the dripping drains,
our voices exclaim―

'My father! '
'My son! '



Sunset
by Michael R. Burch

for my Grandfather, George Edwin Hurt Sr.

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.



Sailing to My Grandfather
by Michael R. Burch

for my Grandfather, George Edwin Hurt Sr.

This distance between us
―this vast sea
of remembrance―
is no hindrance,
no enemy.

I see you out of the shining mists
of memory.
Events and chance
and circumstance
are sands on the shore of your legacy.

I find you now in fits and bursts
of breezes time has blown to me,
while waves, immense,
now skirt and glance
against the bow unceasingly.

I feel the sea's salt spray―light fists,
her mists and vapors mocking me.
From ignorance
to reverence,
your words were sextant stars to me.

Bright stars are strewn in silver gusts
back, back toward infinity.
From innocence
to senescence,
now you are mine increasingly.

Note: Under the Sextant's Stars is a painting by Benini.



Salat Days
by Michael R. Burch

for my grandfather, Paul Ray Burch, Sr.

I remember how my grandfather used to pick poke salat...
though first, usually, he'd stretch back in the front porch swing,
dangling his long thin legs, watching the sweat bees drone,
talking about poke salat―
how easy it was to find if you knew where to look for it...
standing in dew-damp clumps by the side of a road, shockingly green,
straddling fence posts, overflowing small ditches,
crowding out the less-hardy nettles.

'Nobody knows that it's there, lad, or that it's fit tuh eat
with some bacon drippin's or lard.'

'Don't eat the berries. You see―the berry's no good.
And you'd hav'ta wash the leaves a good long time.'

'I'd boil it twice, less'n I wus in a hurry.
Lawd, it's tough to eat, chile, if you boil it jest wonst.'

He seldom was hurried; I can see him still...
silently mowing his yard at eighty-eight,
stooped, but with a tall man's angular gray grace.

Sometimes he'd pause to watch me running across the yard,
trampling his beans,
dislodging the shoots of his tomato plants.

He never grew flowers; I never laughed at his jokes about The Depression.

Years later I found the proper name―'pokeweed'―while perusing a dictionary.

Surprised, I asked why anyone would eat a ****.
I still can hear his laconic reply...

'Well, chile, s'm'times them times wus hard.'



All Things Galore
by Michael R. Burch

for my grandfathers George Edwin Hurt Sr. and Paul Ray Burch, Sr.

Grandfather,
now in your gray presence
you are

somehow more near

and remind me that,
once, upon a star,
you taught me

wish

that ululate soft phrase,
that hopeful phrase!

and everywhere above, each hopeful star
gleamed down
and seemed to speak of times before
when you clasped my small glad hand
in your wise paw

and taught me heaven, omen, meteor...



Attend Upon Them Still
by Michael R. Burch

for my grandparents George and Ena Hurt

With gentleness and fine and tender will,
attend upon them still;
thou art the grass.

Nor let men's feet here muddy as they pass
thy subtle undulations, nor depress
for long the comforts of thy lovingness,

nor let the fuse
of time wink out amid the violets.
They have their use―

to wave, to grow, to gleam, to lighten their paths,
to shine sweet, transient glories at their feet.
Thou art the grass;

make them complete.



Be that Rock
by Michael R. Burch

for my grandfather George Edwin Hurt Sr.

When I was a child
I never considered man's impermanence,
for you were a mountain of adamant stone:
a man steadfast, immense,
and your words rang.

And when you were gone,
I still heard your voice, which never betrayed,
'Be strong and of a good courage,
neither be afraid...'
as the angels sang.

And, O! , I believed
for your words were my truth, and I tried to be brave
though the years slipped away
with so little to save
of that talk.

Now I'm a man―
a man... and yet Grandpa... I'm still the same child
who sat at your feet
and learned as you smiled.
Be that rock.



Of Civilization and Disenchantment
by Michael R. Burch

for Anais Vionet

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

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

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

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

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

Memphis shall be waste and desolate,
without an inhabitant.

Or so the people dreamed, in chains.



Keep Up
by Michael R. Burch

Keep Up!
Daddy, I'm walking as fast as I can;
I'll move much faster when I'm a man...

Time unwinds
as the heart reels,
as cares and loss and grief plummet,
as faith unfailing ascends the summit
and heartache wheels
like a leaf in the wind.

Like a rickety cart wheel
time revolves through the yellow dust,
its creakiness revoking trust,
its years emblazoned in cold hard steel.

Keep Up!
Son, I'm walking as fast as I can;
take it easy on an old man.



My Touchstone
by Michael R. Burch

for my grandfather George Edwin Hurt Sr.

A man is known
by the life he lives
and those he leaves,

by each heart touched,
which, left behind,
forever grieves.



Joy in the Morning
by Michael R. Burch

for my grandparents George Edwin Hurt Sr. and Christine Ena Hurt

There will be joy in the morning
for now this long twilight is over
and their separation has ended.

For fourteen years, he had not seen her
whom he first befriended,
then courted and married.

Let there be joy, and no mourning,
for now in his arms she is carried
over a threshold vastly sweeter.

He never lost her; she only tarried
until he was able to meet her.

Keywords/Tags: George Edwin Hurt Christine Ena Spouse reunited heaven joy together forever



Poems about Mothers and Grandmothers



Dawn
by Michael R. Burch

for my grandmothers Lillian Lee and Christine Ena Hurt

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



Mother's Day Haiku
by Michael R. Burch

for my grandmothers Lillian Lee and Christine Ena Hurt

Crushed grapes
surrender such sweetness:
a mother’s compassion.

My footprints
so faint in the snow?
Ah yes, you lifted me.

An emu feather ...
still falling?
So quickly you rushed to my rescue.

The eagle sees farther
from its greater height:
our mothers' wisdom.



The Rose
by Michael R. Burch

for my grandmother, Lillian Lee, who used to grow the most beautiful roses

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.

This poem above is my translation of a Sappho epigram.



The Greatest of These ...
by Michael R. Burch

for my mother, Christine Ena Burch, and the grandmother of my son Jeremy

The hands that held me tremble.
The arms that lifted
fall.
Angelic flesh, now parchment,
is held together with gauze.

But her undimmed eyes still embrace me;
there infinity can be found.
I can almost believe such infinite love
will still reach me, underground.



Arisen
by Michael R. Burch

for my mother, Christine Ena Burch

Mother, I love you!
Mother, delightful,
articulate, insightful!

Angels in training,
watching over, would hover,
learning to love
from the Master: a Mother.

You learned all there was
for this planet to teach,
then extended your wings
to Love’s ultimate reach ...

And now you have soared
beyond eagles and condors
into distant elevations
only Phoenixes can conquer.

Amen

Published as the collection "Love Poems by Michael R. Burch"

Keywords/Tags: love, Eros, ******, erotica, passion, desire, lust, ***, dating, marriage, romance, romantic, romanticism
walk into the room
With your pencil in your hand
You see somebody naked
And you say, who is that man?
You try so hard
But you dont understand
Just what youll say
When you get home

Because something is happening here
But you dont know what it is
Do you, mister jones?

You raise up your head
And you ask, is this where it is?
And somebody points to you and says
Its his
And you say, whats mine?
And somebody else says, where what is?
And you say, oh my god
Am I here all alone?

Because something is happening here
But you dont know what it is
Do you, mister jones?

You hand in your ticket
And you go watch the geek
Who immediately walks up to you
When he hears you speak
And says, how does it feel
To be such a freak?
And you say, impossible
As he hands you a bone

Because something is happening here
But you dont know what it is
Do you, mister jones?

You have many contacts
Among the lumberjacks
To get you facts
When someone attacks your imagination
But nobody has any respect
Anyway they already expect you
To just give a check
To tax-deductible charity organizations

Youve been with the professors
And theyve all liked your looks
With great lawyers you have
Discussed lepers and crooks
Youve been through all of
F. scott fitzgeralds books
Youre very well read
Its well known

Because something is happening here
But you dont know what it is
Do you, mister jones?

Well, the sword swallower, he comes up to you
And then he kneels
He crosses himself
And then he clicks his high heels
And without further notice
He asks you how it feels
And he says, here is your throat back
Thanks for the loan

Because something is happening here
But you dont know what it is
Do you, mister jones?

Now you see this one-eyed ******
Shouting the word now
And you say, for what reason?
And he says, how?
And you say, what does this mean?
And he screams back, youre a cow
Give me some milk
Or else go home

Because something is happening here
But you dont know what it is
Do you, mister jones?

Well, you walk into the room
Like a camel and then you frown
You put your eyes in your pocket
And your nose on the ground
There ought to be a law
Against you comin around
You should be made
To wear earphones

Because something is happening here
But you dont know what it is
Do you, mister jones?
Waverly Mar 2012
With a few strokes'
He drew a crazy boat
Full of perverts and lepers
In the middle of the desert. The lepers
Were picking at their skin and the perverts
Were getting drunk and pulling their *****.

Some hung over the edge
Of the boat like they spotted water. Some climbed the mast and
Hung themselves looking like ripe peaches
From the distance. A red, red moon just
Sits there in the background
At the top of a black sky
staring at the whole thing
Fall apart.

The painting stops. The painter
Coughs up some blood and his heart,
And shakes his brush like a maraca,
Making his music over blood, perverts
Lepers, and a red moon.

A girl stands behind him,
Beautiful and horrified, because she
Is witnessing a nightmare, and she wanted
To feed her head full of it, full of dreams
And demons, droughts and terror,
and wake up a
Prophet.
A Letter To My Aunt Discussing The Correct Approach To Modern Poetry

To you, my aunt, who would explore
The literary Chankley Bore,
The paths are hard, for you are not
A literary Hottentot
But just a kind and cultured dame
Who knows not Eliot (to her shame).
Fie on you, aunt, that you should see
No genius in David G.,
No elemental form and sound
In T.S.E. and Ezra Pound.
Fie on you, aunt! I'll show you how
To elevate your middle brow,
And how to scale and see the sights
From modernist Parnassian heights.

First buy a hat, no Paris model
But one the Swiss wear when they yodel,
A bowler thing with one or two
Feathers to conceal the view;
And then in sandals walk the street
(All modern painters use their feet
For painting, on their canvas strips,
Their wives or mothers, minus hips).

Perhaps it would be best if you
Created something very new,
A ***** novel done in Erse
Or written backwards in Welsh verse,
Or paintings on the backs of vests,
Or Sanskrit psalms on lepers' chests.
But if this proved imposs-i-ble
Perhaps it would be just as well,
For you could then write what you please,
And modern verse is done with ease.

Do not forget that 'limpet' rhymes
With 'strumpet' in these troubled times,
And commas are the worst of crimes;
Few understand the works of Cummings,
And few James Joyce's mental slummings,
And few young Auden's coded chatter;
But then it is the few that matter.
Never be lucid, never state,
If you would be regarded great,
The simplest thought or sentiment,
(For thought, we know, is decadent);
Never omit such vital words
As belly, genitals and -----,
For these are things that play a part
(And what a part) in all good art.
Remember this: each rose is wormy,
And every lovely woman's germy;
Remember this: that love depends
On how the Gallic letter bends;
Remember, too, that life is hell
And even heaven has a smell
Of putrefying angels who
Make deadly whoopee in the blue.
These things remembered, what can stop
A poet going to the top?

A final word: before you start
The convulsions of your art,
Remove your brains, take out your heart;
Minus these curses, you can be
A genius like David G.

Take courage, aunt, and send your stuff
To Geoffrey Grigson with my luff,
And may I yet live to admire
How well your poems light the fire.
PJ Poesy Jan 2016
Worm eats through to penetrate.
Trespasses, what ***** deeds?
What ichor is this to venerate?
How dare eat, how dare have needs?

Godly viral load unbeatable,
no t-cell left to count.
Wriggling in puddle inconceivable,
**** upon this crucified mount.

Lazarus, risen from the dead,
no dog now licks your wounds.
Lepers now banshees are instead
social workers which we swoon.

And the Roman laws and judges
continue blame, hand down sentence,
as degenerative generation smudges
out from existence, ***+ penance.

Dissected and pinned against wall,
this writhing experiment oozes.
Whilst priests and politicians naw,
compassion and AIDS funding loses.
We writhe. Yet, AIDS survives. Will any of us?
Head and Shoulders, knees and toes

That's the way the story goes

Here is something no one knows

To lepers...it's important

It's the inventory song

You may think that this is wrong

Put me back where I belong

But, lepers need to do this

Count your digits 'fore you leave

It's a fact you must believe

They're not out for to deceive

They need to inventory

If they count and all is there

They face the world without a care

They lose their parts, but not their hair

Their day will be successful

Head and Shoulders, Knees and toes

That's the way the old song goes

I've got four fingers and six toes

I guess I'll put some gloves on

The inventory song is neat

It teaches them, they need two feet

Or they can't walk down the street

It really is important

Gripping things is kind of tough

When digits...you've not enough

You know your fingers' with your stuff

You'll go and find it later

So, if you think that  this is wrong

And you do not like this song

Put me back where I belong

I think this song's a service

Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes

I've a friend with half a nose

Now you know what no one knows

Inventory is required.
.
brandon nagley Apr 2016
I ask you poet
Whom do you worship?
Where does your souls eternity stand right now?
Broken? Despaired! Pained? Sorrowful? Burdened? Seeing all the chaos in the world and yet don't know where to turn or whom to turn to, OK you can flip to the next poem if you'd like that speaks of worldiness, *** maybe, lust, hopelessness, a state of being lost. May I ask you? What gives you pleasure in this world? Idols? Things of gold, such as statues? Jewelry? Maybe dope? ***? Maybe video gaming, escaping anyway possible in food? By beating your loved ones? Or abusing those whom love you? Maybe cutting yourself? As many here do, they cut to feel alive. Do you? The thought of not living there where all hope is gone, unseen and lost? Wanting to give up? What you don't know or may have turned a blind eye to by so called ( fake pastors, religious nuts, Jesus freaks whatever you wanna call them.. Yes! There are false pastors for money, and Greed's purpose... As what you may not truly understand is this world isn't just physical, revelation 12:3-4 States Satan and 1\3 Of gods once good angels as Satan him ( Lucifer) was also a high or one of highest angels ruling over other angels.... Revelation 12:3-4 speaks of Satan and one third of the angels who were kicked out of heaven. Satan in other words wanted to play gods role.Luke 10:18 sais this. ( And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.” )
King James Bible. There is a literal battle here poet whoever reads this for your soul. God wants you to come to his son Christ who said ( I am the way truth and the life, NO MAN comes to the father but by me) John 14:6 ... Christ offers salvation and hope to the whole world. As there is no life in Islam, nor Buddhism, nor Hinduism, nor all these other false ways and false ideologies of the world. Christ is the only one to have claimed to be gods son. As what you didint know. Christ was sent down to a ****** called mary, scientists now have a word for it where mothers literally have children by miracles of not having a man enter into them sexually at all. God put his son Christ who always was from the beginning before the foundation of this world. That's why us Christians also call God the great I am. Meaning he always was and will always be. God sent his son Jesus Christ. Also called in Hebrew original tongue. Yeshua ha'mashiach-. Meaning Jesus the Messiah or anointed one . Christ came in the flesh in the form of a man. To be sent here to teach everyone to love one another. And that he was the way truth and the life. He literally healed the sick, he healed lepers . opened eyes of those without sight and without hope...he was who he claimed to be . he came to die for me and yours sins... As the gospel in the Bible States..Romans 5:12- 12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: Adam and Eve sinned against God, in the garden of Eden where scientists now know just about the location of the garden... Sin passed down to all mankind. Our bible teaches. Romans 3:23- 3For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; so I tell you friend to friend poet to poet... No good works will get you to heaven as the pope falsely preaches of the Catholic Church. Why works won't get you to heaven? Ephesians 2:8-9 main verses.( 8For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9Not of works, lest any man should boast. 10For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.) Notice how it sais for by grace you are saved through faith? Meaning by grace of God if you accept Jesus as your Lord and messiah and Savior personal Savior not some far away man. Or myth. A personal Savior you can speak to in prayer and hes always there for you. Also notice it sais ( it is not of yourselves, meaning you can't save yourself neither can works you do good on earth. It also said not of works, that any man should boast??? Boast showing off pridefulness. Buy through christs shedding of blood on the cross, we have redemption through that blood if we accept him or not. I'm sure you've heard from worldly religions and one world together we are all children of God? False lie! Fact is were yes all created by the same God. Though we don't all worship the true God we should be and wonder  why our lives and your lives are haywire? We are children of God ONLY through the adoption of Jesus ( meaning coming to him as your Savior you are adopted as gods chosen and children... Christ btw spoke more on hell then he did heaven. Though here's what he said on heaven. (
1 Corinthians 2:9 - But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. ( meaning in life, and after death in heaven.)
John 14:2 - In my Father's house are many mansions: if [it were] not [so], I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
10 And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and shewed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God,

11 Having the glory of God: and her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal;

12 And had a wall great and high, and had twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names written thereon, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel:

13 On the east three gates; on the north three gates; on the south three gates; and on the west three gates.

14 And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

15 And he that talked with me had a golden reed to measure the city, and the gates thereof, and the wall thereof.

16 And the city lieth foursquare, and the length is as large as the breadth: and he measured the city with the reed, twelve thousand furlongs. The length and the breadth and the height of it are equal.

17 And he measured the wall thereof, an hundred and forty and four cubits, according to the measure of a man, that is, of the angel.

18 And the building of the wall of it was of jasper: and the city was pure gold, like unto clear glass.

19 And the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious stones. The first foundation was jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, a chalcedony; the fourth, an emerald;

20 The fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolyte; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, a topaz; the tenth, a chrysoprasus; the eleventh, a jacinth; the twelfth, an amethyst.

21 And the twelve gates were twelve pearls: every several gate was of one pearl: and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass.

22 And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.

23 And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.

24 And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it.

25 And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there.

26 And they shall bring the glory and honour of the nations into it.

27 And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life.

( revelation chapter 21) speaking of the new temple God will literally bring down to earth that's already In heaven until after Armageddon where he brings down a new temple from heaven already ready and made to go for his chosen and believers who accept Christ Jesus.

And many more verses... Which btw just type in near death experiences on youtube see the thousands of REAL results of many whom have died meaning brain dead, heart dead both, no just one issue wrong. Both things dead some people for minutes, some for hour to hour and half. All telling you same things they saw in death. The tunnel of death. One way leading to heavens gates where there are literally pearlescent gates, and a door you pass through into gods throne room and huge place. They all describe how everything's living and alive.. There is pure joy there and peace. ( as bible speaks, the peace of God surpasses all understanding) told by a black man who's story in famous on CBN and world news. As thousands of others who match the same accounts yet may all be different in forms alll conclude who they saw. Jesus Christ, literal angels by thousands who sing and praise God all the day because in heaven there Is no time clock or time in human level. You know not time. For our bible teaches... 2 Peter 3:8 ( 8But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.) Notice how verse also sais God is long-suffering toward us meaning suffering in patience willing that NONE of you should perish in a real hell Christ spoke on dozens of times, but that all ALL should come to repentance. By accepting Christ as Savior and your messiah and turning from your old ways which I'll tell you as a Christian not one Christian is a saint or perfect. Though word tells us we are to be perfected in Lord Jesus meaning working on self to be as Christ was... Holy. I am a sinner like all the rest of human beings in this earth. And daily Christians must work at doing God's will, and yes takes practice patience and work. Though Christ and God his father gets you through any trials you face and tribulations. 2 Corinthians 1-
1/Blessed [be] God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort;2- Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. Christ came and was scorned, mocked nby the scribes and Pharisees  of his day even though the Jewish Torah spoke of their coming messiah and the world's coming messiah. Though they rejected him as told in old testament they would do, he came preached love, to forgive another always!!!! Always no matter how many times one wrongs and hurts you. And as all say who die and meet God on his throne in a LITERAL heaven, seeing God on his literal throne, and seeing Christ his son, they always come back to say the same thing from death experiences, people will say I'd watch all hundreds of vids as I have..  Christ either told them to go back to earth thir job wasn't done from stuff needing changed in the person's life... These are accounts from Muslims, atheists agnostics, hateful people. Many ex terrorists from middle East. Many Buddhists , Hindus and people from All backgrounds and beliefs will say same thing... Christ told them to go back to love one another... To change things... That HE is the way truth and life. And no man ones to God but by him. And noone gets to heaven but through Jesus the Messiah... They also say God the father said the exact same to them. To tell humans to love one another...as Christ will tell them in dozens of accounts, dozens!!! Tell my people ( Christians ) I'm coming back soon. Or tell them I'm calling them up soon.... Meaning rapturing up his Christians before the 7 year hell called tribulation on earth! When the Antichrist makes fale peace deal between isreal and Palestine. And the world will cry peace and safety! Peace and safety then will sudden destruction come upon man as a woman with child. Spoken in bible. As antichrists peace deal is mentioned in Daniel 9;27 27(And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.) He shall ( Antichrist will) make a false peace deal giving isreali land over to the Palestinian people who have no claim on that land... As even a Saudi prince cams out to say Palestine doesn't own Israeli Jewish land. But the Jews do through Abraham Issac and Jacob!!! Media mainstream news tells you none of this why? Their ran by 6 elite companies who run all news stations. As Rockefeller ( billionaire elite) has his hands in most politics TV news everything you watch and read is controlled by him, the cia. And false reporting. all for the love of money and greed they lie to the American public and world. I suggest anyone to look up the RFID chips matching Antichrist mark of the beast that will be coming money system, also healthcare info. On one small tiny microchip placed in the forehead or right hand to. Spoken of in Revelation 13 which btw It's already being tested in the forehead in monkey heads in labs. And chips are being bought sold and put into USA soldiers, high officials for money. Ignorant people who have no idea what the chips are are literally PAYING to have them placed in their right hands!!! Continue at bottom....
Mark of beast - RFID chips- Revelation 13:16-18King James Version (KJV)

16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.
This RFID chip is already in Barack Hussein Antichrist Obama's healthcare bill. Call me insane for calling him that, though he matches scripture 100 fold to who he is, as pope Francis is predicted by two St Malachi's to be last black jesuit pope. Black not meaning skin color. As everything the pope preaches to the Catholic good people. Is false. He preaches doing  good even athiests can get to heaven. Though anyone who knows coming beast system and new world order to come knows the world wants togetherness end quote... A one world religion. A one world dictator Antichrist. And their will be a false prophet to help push the Antichrist message ....this is coming and I warn you now who don't know Christ! Know him now!! Our bible speaks many will come saying they are the Messiah DONT listen to them! Accept Christ now while you have breath in your lungs! Why??? Here's why! Number one when dead and you don't accept christ as your Savior you eternally seperated from God. From gods light, love protection. Only in Christ will you be protected and saved not the world not Muhammed not Buddha. Which none of these people claimed to be of God or a part of God. Buddhist theology preaches in enlightenment that all can be a budha enlightened!!! Muslims Muhammed what they don't tell you mock Christ. And preach Christ will come back with the Islamic Mahdi ( messiah to Islam, Antichrist in reality who they will accept,) and Islam teaches that Jesus will return to claim to Jews and Christians he's a Muslim! FALSE he was a Jew born in Bethlehem lived in nathereth born of  a ******, as Muhammed as a man, who lived in sin, killed to get converts yes Christians in!past days pushed on wrong ways converting following believers as even Christ wouldn't of wanted that. Muhammed converted by the sword. Meaning follow Islamic law, or be beheaded and die just as isis does now to thousands of Christians in middle East matching scriptures in our bible. Where in old testament it sais ( when you see them coming by the sword claiming to do God a service, know the end is near.
Who's coming by sword claiming to so do god a service? Islamic real teaching that even most Muslims won't follow!!! Why you see so much bloodshed being led on by Palestinian radicals and terrorists from Al shabbab in Africa, from also Iran's ayotolah ( religious leader) telling his people go **** the Jews and Christians wherever you find them!!! Just as Islamic law teaches ( The Quran contains at least 109 verses that call Muslims to war with nonbelievers for the sake of Islamic rule. Some are quite graphic, with commands to chop off heads and fingers and **** infidels wherever they may be hiding. Muslims who do not join the fight are called 'hypocrites' and warned that Allah will send them to Hell if they do not join the slaughter.) Examples- of Islam-
Quran (2:191-193) - "And **** them wherever you find them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out. And Al-Fitnah [disbelief or unrest] is worse than killing...
but if they desist, then lo! Allah is forgiving and merciful. And fight them until there is no more Fitnah [disbelief and worshipping of others along with Allah] and worship is for Allah alone. But if they cease, let there be no transgression except against Az-Zalimun(the polytheists, and wrong-doers, etc.)" (Translation is from the Noble Quran) The verse prior to this (190) refers to "fighting for the cause of Allah those who fight you" leading some to believe that the entire passage refers to a defensive war in which Muslims are defending their homes and families. The historical context of this passage is not defensive warfare, however, since Muhammad and his Muslims had just relocated to Medina and were not under attack by their Meccan adversaries. In fact, the verses urge offensive warfare, in that Muslims are to drive Meccans out of their own city (which they later did). Verse 190 thus means to fight those who offer resistance to Allah's rule (ie. Muslim conquest). The use of the word "persecution" by some Muslim translators is disingenuous (the actual Arabic words for persecution - "idtihad" - and oppression - a variation of "z-l-m" - do not appear in the verse). The word used instead, "fitna", can mean disbelief, or the disorder that results from unbelief or temptation. This is certainly what is meant in this context since the violence is explicitly commissioned "until religion is for Allah" - ie. unbelievers desist in their unbelief.






Please

Romans 10;9-10
9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation
It tells their own people to **** infidels ( Christians and Jews wherever you may find them) and that is religion of peace!!!! Wake up!!!! A false prophet Islam follows. What mainstream news didint tell you is so this ..

Quran (3:56) - "As to those who reject faith, I will punish them with terrible agony in this world and in the Hereafter, nor will they have anyone to help...
How false of a God is that to worship? You see for yourself.

Quran (3:151) - "Soon shall We cast terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers, for that they joined companions with Allah, for which He had sent no authority". This speaks directly of polytheists, yet it also includes Christians, since they believe in the Trinity (ie. what Muhammad incorrectly believed to be 'joining companions to Allah'). This speaks on casting terror at Christian people. And others who dont wanna follow Islam ( sharia law, in their world that's what Islam wants meaning an Islamic new world order and it's happening before your eyes in USA and world as gvts are falling to their faces giving into them ..
There are over 330 million Hindu gods. Not many know that. Though Christ spoke ( he is the ONLY way, the truth and the life. Who was mocked beaten, beard ripped out, scorned. Whipped all over his body. Bloodied. Placed a Cal ( or crown of  thorns over his head which ripped into him more, mocked by scribes Pharisees, and Roman soldiers. His own Jewish people turned him over to pilate to fulfill scriptures,  to be put on a cross next to a thief and a murderer... An innocent sacrifice for mankind!! The only sacrifice! As noone else has ever died for mankind's sins and for us to have chance of salvation. In Islamic belief you got to do many things and pray many times a day as Muslims are some of the most devout in the world. Yet have no real hope!!! Take a look on Google and YouTube of truth you don't hear!! Why is the whole Muslim world converting to Christ? For one their sick of their false teachings of Muhammed. Which you didint know there's something called the satanic verses in the Islamic world. The satanic verses Islam argues of. Meaning, Muhammed literally had Satan's words in his mouth as he admitted speaking them. Islam will argue amongst each other over this! Though a dark reality!!! Even what many don't know ...though search yourself ....Christ was crucified on the cross... On the hill of Golgotha called the place of the skull known in Hebrew where a LITERAL hill sits high in the city with a skull actual skull in the rock. Christs tomb has been found years ago. He was buried in a tomb where Joseph of Arimathea a rich man who buried Jesus put Jesus in this tomb. The garden has been found. The trees are still there Jesus prayed and weeped under... The tombs found the rock that rolled over the tomb has been found. The nails in Christs wrists not hands as paintings falsely showed scientists know nails went into wrist in isreal. The nails were found with bone connected now in isrealis university. They were found in high priest Caiaphas tomb the high priest who had Christ killed... Story goes back ages Caiaphas kept the nails to find mercy with God because he realized who Christ was. Because after Christ died. The earth literally shook recorded in the Bible a freak quake happened, the moon was blood red. And the sky darkened the exact moment christs soul left his body. And the Jewish temples veil ripped into two. And shook. BTW scientists can look back in past cultures and even back in space and time. And see the quake that happened, actually did worldwide when christs death occurred. All religions and cultures recorded it at time Jesus died all way back to where mayans are and across the globe. Scientists now know a blood moon would have occurred during christs death signifying the messiahs blood was just shed!!!! For you and I!!!! WOW I can go on and on. Fact is you can accept truth and life? And God's son who came in human flesh who cried laugh joked like me and you felt what we felt. Because God loves us so much he sent his own son to die for you and me. Though those who reject God. This is some verses on that.

Revelation 21:8 - But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.
Every story I've heard where people died literally brain heart dead for minutes or hour or more.. Describe the real flames. Real pits. Prison cells underneath your feet in the earth, real demons who tortures day and night unbelievers and who take you down there .  as there are real crys. Pain. All senses in afterlife all will tell you are a thousand times more real than senses on earth! This is REALITY!!! Poetry is poetry I give you truth.
Also hell verses which Christ spoke more on because he loved us so much to die for us  that he wants noone to go there. Because mankind has free will and we can choose life in Christ? Or hell and death by free will of rejecting Jesus Christ!!!

Matthew 25:41 - Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.
This verse refers to the great white throne judgement ( meaning judgement of non believers who deny christs salvation and all of him. Who follow not him. As even Christians are call themselves Christians who aren't Christians but didint follow Christ will say in the day of judgment. Lord have we not prophesied for you? And did good works for you? God will tell them. Depart from me you workers of iniquity I NEVER knew you, we make our decisions and choice now where we go. Hell wasn't designed for you. It was oringal made for Satan and his angels his fallen angels... Though many deny christ and if don't accept him, will be there with Satan and his angels in a real horrifying place that Hollywood can't even put a finger in a movie on!!!
Also -
Revelation 20:15 - And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
The book of life is a real book in heaven your name is written in when you accept Christ if you didint accept Christ. Your name shall not be found in that book.

Romans 6:23 - For the wages of sin [is] death; but the gift of God [is] eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Eternal life is the gift of God through Christ alone.... For the wages of sin is death... And denying Christ is death.
the fire that never shall be quenched:

Matthew 10:28 - And fear not them which **** the body, but are not able to **** the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
Meaning don't fear man who can just destroy the body, but have a healthy fear of God coming to him humbly, knowing God can destroy both body and SOUL in hell. As where man only can touch the body .

1 John 5:12 - He that hath the Son hath life; [and] he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.
Simple saying- he that has Jesus christ as messiah has life eternally, literally. Those who have not the son, have not LIFE!!!!
I am not here to put down anyone's beliefs or religious thoughts and ways you grew up. If I had more space here I could go on with factual evidence more of Christ and tell you what's happening now in the world. I tell you not as some crazed poet, or some quote conspiracy theorist which the gvt calls those that's a threat to them. I tell you this as a being who loves all people. And I'm just giving you truth, truth maybe noone told you of. That there is hope, though also there is death and a real hell. Though God is light, he's love.. As our bible said. In heaven there's no need for a moon or sun for God is the light. And God is pure love spoken by thousands who have died to come back to tell you that!!! As there is God the father. The son Jesus Christ. Whom he sent to you to die one a cross so there wouldn't be need for Jews to sacrifice animals no more,or pray to false gods. But real sacrifice for our sins were carried on christs body in death!!! Now you have a chance of being saved! And WILL be no ifs and or buts about it. Christians if accept Christ are eternally secure and saved. Why do you think we have so much hope and can smile at ease? And in death when our loved ones are dying we can rejoice even in death.??? Because we know where our home is in heaven, and with our messiah Christ there. And God the father... What media doesn't tell the people in CNN fox news, MSNBC so on mainstream. Why muslims are converting to christ right now by thousands??? As China and middle East have biggest population of Christians around apbeing persecuted and killed ( for Christ said, remember the world first hated him. Before it hated us) and it's happening now!!! The hatred for Christians and God's chosen land the Jewish people!!! Muslims are coming to Christ by thousands shown on Google and YouTube by seeing Christ in dreams and visions by the THOUSANDS friends!!he's coming to them telling them by dreams, and visions and many death. Telling them he is the way truth and life and he is salvation... Muslims will tell you this... As in book of Joel in bible it speaks.... This just as I've like thousands of others haven't seen Christ but have seen the prophetic visions and dreams as are happening by thousands of accounts. Fireball dreams of asteroids I had three of them!!! Smashing the earth! Many are seeing those tsunamis, quakes in California and world. Floods, and seeing dreams of the rapture when Christ calls up his believers before the 7 years of tribulation and all hell on earth and God's wrath hitting earth and mankind's big bloodshed leading to world war three called harmageddon in Hebrew. Armageddon in English!! Joel in KJV sais Joel 2:17
17And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams!!!
Its happening!!! Gods warning us.. Im warning you... Christ is calling his chosen soon. Very soon... And I ask you, right now as a poet, and friend. Who do you believe in? Do you have Christ as your Savior? Or do you trust in world that will be renewed one day by God, and messed up by man? Do you trust in riches? Gold? Money? The razor to cut the wrist? Yourself? Bible said the man who sais in his heart there is no god, is a FOOL!!!Choose wisely. Whom do you believe! Do you feel worthy? Saveable? Well despite your beliefs Christ will save you no matter what you've done. Murderer  or thief or liars, or idol worshippers satanic worshipers, followers of Islam. Buddhism, atheist agnostic, those who don't worship Christ. Those in ****** sin, in any sin....He will save you. Christ forgives all if you want him as your Lord and Savior for eternity. Romans 10:13

Romans 10:13King James Version (KJV)

13 For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Meaning if you believe christ was born of a ****** Mary in your heart sent
Imagine the surprise of the village folk
as cabbages and carrots rained down from above.
Some saw it as a sign of a good harvest,
some saw it as a sign that evil deeds had been done,
a punishment from God for an unspecified sin.
Look at how they run, panic in their hearts,
pushing women and children to the ground,
trampling them underfoot and hurting them.

They didn’t see the lepers sneak into the bell tower
with a basket of fruit and vegetables each.
They didn’t see them climb up the steps
and laugh as they reached the top and looked down.
They didn’t see them hurl their projectiles
into the mill of the crowd below.

So many assume strange events as messages from above,
but sometimes it’s just lepers having a bit of fun.
Mike Essig Aug 2015
for all the names on that granite wall and many others...

I  Prelude

Vietnam broke my mind.
Now it runs like a cheap watch
always leaping about in time.
It pulls me backward into
strange visions of a world gone mad.
My life is time borrowed from corpses.
It is hard to lead your life
while you are stuck in another.
Time, the great healer,
only seems to make this worse.
Self-medication, legal meditation,
nothing seems strong enough
to stop the pounding of the rotors,
the screams of the men and the monkeys.
I have never been able to **** the demons
hidden in the tree lines of my mind.
Forty-three years later I'm still hiding
nauseous and naked in the napalmed jungle.
But my high mileage body clings to life:
the quest for immortality knows no shame.
Now I am a poet drunk on words,
stumbling over the illusion of art.
The more I know of language,
the less I understand life and loss.
And still the mortars rain down
in an eternal, inescapable monsoon.


II Place

Imagine a land that smells entirely of ****.
Only 70 miles wide in some places.
I flew above the abandoned bases of a war
that had been abandoned as well.
Places given up to the jungle
where 60,000 Americans died for nothing.
An implacable enemy that had fought
the Japanese and French before us
and had no doubt they would prevail.
A very beautiful place seen from the air
if no one was trying to eradicate you.
Skinny children, old women, many ******.
A place where real tigers might well
leap from ambush and eat you alive
and snakes so deadly that once bitten
you only got two steps before death.
Breathtaking sunsets and sunrises.
And the possibility of doom everywhere.
Rice paddies, mountains, triple canopy jungle.
Gorgeous beaches and an ocean laden
with sharks and sea snakes for company.
A place where death picked his teeth and smiled.


III Action

Stark terror is the mother of combat;
the rage of Peleus son Achilles
drives the soldier into the filed teeth
of impossibly horrible situations.
Not for America or the Stars and Stripes
but for the man next to you
whom you probably didn't even know.
Never ask why one man dies
and the one beside him lives on.
I shot an NVA regular from 20 feet
with a Colt Model 1911 45 automatic.
Got him exactly in the chest.
He looked very surprised to be dead.
I was surprised I didn't miss.
At An Loc a Huey 20 yards from mine
loaded with 18 hopeful human beings
took a rocket up the *** and
disintegrated into a debris cloud
of metal fragments and pink mist.
No bodies to be bothered with,
no pieces large enough to identify.
A CIA officer executing the wounded.
A tame **** torturing his countryman.
The exquisitely horrific moment when
you know you are falling, not flying.
The partner cut in half by a machine gun
five feet from where I stood.
Do not try to make any sense of this.
Fall back on the mantra: *don't mean nothing.

Cling to that and you may stay sane.
Apparently, God was busy for ten years
and never bothered to visit Vietnam.

IV Comrades

Forget that band of brothers *******,
we were more like a desperate rabble
with no one to count on but each other.
Sometimes a brother shares the blood
in your veins; sometimes you know him
by the blood that flows from his.
You scream, you curse, you try so hard
and he dies like a huge baby in your arms.
Vietnam was a club you could only join
by being there deep in the ****.
Now we are old men but our memberships
will never expire until we do.
And who will remember us then.

V Aftermath

Treated like lepers, we slunk home,
each to do the best he could.
Many died in the denouement of
drugs, alcohol, homelessness, suicide.
When I got home I wanted to be alone,
to be with people, lots of *****,
but only with no emotion attached,
an ocean of Jack Daniels, lines of coke,
mountains of ***, electro-shock therapy,
calm sleep without nightmares
and sometimes the comfort of a quick death.
Not much different than most I think.
Saigon fell. Don't mean ******* nothing.
Only some of us remember and want you to know
so you won't be fooled again.
Forget the past and it will bite you in the ***. Some stories demand to be told and heard. Like slavery, Vietnam will haunt America until it recognizes the great evil that was done. Evil can never be wished away.
Ace Jhan de Vera Feb 2020
Look at me,
Look at the ghost you have created,
The home you left for delusions,
Feeling as if the wall confined you.

Tell me, were all your words just empty promises
Sweet nothings to amuse yourself to see how far,
My lips could reach closer to my ear,
Did you even treat me as if I was dear.

You were wounded and bored,
I feel like those were the only reasons you clung on to me,
I gave you a safe space to dream, to live, to laugh and to cry,
And you thought you loved me, at that moment maybe you did.

But what happens when all the lights and glimmer are gone,
Now that you’ve realized that I am no shinier than the bottom of a glass you’ve grown so familiar to,
You’ve stopped drinking my words of advice as if they were laced,
You moved on to a shinier cup and with thoughts of better flavors.

Look at me and tell me what I’ve done wrong,
I am so tired of your excuses of you telling me that you just aren’t sure right now but you want time to figure it out,
I was once your ******* life woman, every word I uttered to you was gospel,
Now you treat me now better than how the jews have treated lepers,
All disgusted, dodging me as if I’m the **** plague,

All I want you to know, is that not everything that shines is gold,
Something new, will always grow old,
The colours you see right now will eventually fade,
You’ve left your artwork, to just paint things in gray.
She dresses in gossamer veils of scarlet and lures men to her noose
As they carelessly pour Fortune's gold into her nimble, covetous hands
And they hang themselves among the other piteous lepers before them.

As cruel as the Inferno, she drags them under as an enchantress would her dupes;
As beauteous as the beloved Aphrodite with eyes of white marble
She adds these dim men to her vast collection of trifles.

Then she disappears and I know she won't return.
For she is the Gypsy's Best.
Mother Teresa - love immortal
In frail human frame;
Angel of peace and compassion,
Knew no bounds of caste or creed:
With arms outstretched,
Waded through slums forsaken
To help the poor in their humble homes:
Orphans discarded, dying destitutes,          
Deserted cripples and lepers deformed,
Found in her a ministering angel
Whose gentle touch revived hope;
Brought solace and joy.  
Unmindful of praise or blame,
To serve the poor was her only aim,
And never did she crave for wealth or fame.
Like St.Francis of Assisi, she prayed -
" Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace,
" Where there is hatred, let me sow love,
" Where there is injury, pardon,
" Where there is doubt, faith,
" Where there is despair, hope......."
Life inspiring, a splendid saga
Of selfless service and sacrifice.
For ever she lives in the loving hearts
Of those who strive to rid the world
Of sorrow, misery and distress.
           **     M.G.Narasimha Murthy
Hyderabad, India.    mgnmurthy4@gmail
Tony Tweedy Mar 2019
I have a friend who is a surgeon a career of his decision.
Performing tonsillectomy and frequent circumcision.
Another friend who only meets with lepers lives by prostitution.
Both taking paths in life to live by their chosen best solution.
Both very different careers by choice and so many passing ships
Both surviving and living well and both taking lots of tips.
very borrowed ideas.... no doubt I am sick
Anthony Perry Feb 2016
I heard Peter Piper picked a pricey pepper, the same day I heard he got chased down by a hungry mob of less than lovely lepers, now Peter Piper and his picked pepper are prodded by hot pokers while a village of now happy, hairless, horrifyingly lipless lepers salivate in anticipation of poor Peter Piper's soon to be pickled body.

The Masses chant and cheer to sounds of Peter's screams that seem to season his sizzling skin as children scrape scolding scraps peeling from his searing kneecaps.

Veins build up pressure, veins then rupture, veins open and spray onto the crowd and moisturize all the rough textures, soaked faces gain weight and fall off exposing maggots that festered, excited crowds jump and cheer as their knees buckle and bodies fracture.

The elder ***** picks a peck of pickled Peter Piper, now the elder ***** enjoys a pepper with a peck of old Peter Piper.
Alexander K Opicho
(Eldoret, Kenya;aopicho@yahoo.com)

There are more and more misfortunes in the world
Known to you dear people in your diverse conditions,
But my life and experience has taught me unique lessons
Of kindred to befit me Elizabeth, a daughter of Zinjathropus
Hailing in the savannah desert, Turkana County of Kenya,
I have graduated in to a single lady without test of marriage,
As desert men look at me in their irritating impotence,
**** clothes wrapped around their slender waists passing on me
Like a dog passing on American dollars; cursed be desert men,
I thought my beauty of dark African complexions will give them a ****** tease
But to my chagrin; desert men have a fear of beautiful ladies
My conscience tells me that my beauty is an eye sore to them,
I thought my bulging hips will entice them as is a promise of fertility
Leave alone not to mention my concupiscent ****** warmth, uhmmm!
Desert men have dared not to see and appreciate my **** bossom,
They often pass on me driving their donkeys and emaciated carmels,
I thought my ***** sharp pointed *******, assign of virginity
Will call them to me into a treat of love, affiliative love,
But sadly enough; these dudes are erotically blind,
They they nonchalantly pass on my **** *****,
Wielding a begging bowl in their ***** long hands
Running like drunkard chimpanzees going to Oxfam stores to beg for food,
Cursed be Oxfam an imperialist agent, it has crashed flat
The testicles of our desert brothers into ****** insensitivity,
Oxfam has made African desert men to beg like Hebrew lepers
Other than standing up on their feet to feed their women,
Normally as men would do from the sweat of their brow,
I thought my education will attract them to me,
To love me with those romantic University kisses,
But desert men have crude cultures and slavish religion
They rebuke girl child education as if it is a devil,
Oh my dear God of the forsaken desert ladies
Of the forsaken African daughters,
Take me out of this ****** desert
Take me out of the city desert of Lodwar,
Take me to the equator line and give me a husband,
My eggs are pretty ready to conceive and sire children
Sons and daughters for your own glory O almighty God,
Take me out of this ****** desert,
Where no man treats a modern woman,
Take me out of here and give me a fresh man of my dream.

Because I have known from today;
It is accurse to be a woman in Africa
It is a curse to be a beautiful lady in African deserts
It is a curse to  be a woman graduate in the African desert
It is a curse to have ***** ******* in the African desert,
O! Help me God.
Edna Sweetlove Dec 2014
THIS IS THE LEPROSY TANGO
Imagine a lepers' hospital somewhere in the jungle;
it's St Valentines Day and everyone is looking for love.
Let the music begin...*


Leprosy!
I think I've got leprosy;
At least my doctor
Assures me it's so.

Oh! Oh! Oh!

Leprosy!
I'm pleased I've got leprosy;
At least for the moment,
Till my privy parts go.

One by one my bits
And pieces, they drop off
And I must be so careful
Whenever I cough.

Yes! Yes! Yes!

Leprosy!
Oh yes, I have leprosy
And I'm so happy
Cos it's a great way to go.

OLE!
Naima Mungai Jul 2012
I am descended of Lilith,
I am a child of eve,
I am cast out, i am trod on.
I am likeness of Kali,
re-incarnation of Aphrodite.

In my arms nations
  have been built
  and destroyed.

My kiss has charmed
    and killed.
My hips have
    cradled kings and emperors,
   borne beggars and lepers.

I am all this WOMAN.

Woman
  not of hips and *******
  and womb.
Woman
  not of servitude, meekness
  and petty deceit.

I am Woman.

Woman
  of pain and love
  and hate.
Woman
of blood rivers and
  barren deserts.

I am Woman.

So heed me
Heed my pain,
watch my deeds,
for my meekness,
  my servitude,
Are mere cloaks worn
  to shield, to imprison
  to impede...

And as the soul sheds the body
So do I now shed
  this lie, this deceit
You create for all to believe

And become just
    WOMAN
Meka Boyle Jul 2013
Beauty is an empty cage that shakes the world anew-
Yet, falters at the slightest rage, or faintest sickly hue.
A sweet yet poisonous embrace, it slowly clogs the pores,
Of lonely men of a pious race, slumped against heavens doors.
A heavy weight upon the back of those cursed enough to bear it,
Turned to salt for looking back, now eternally doomed to share it.
The elegance of poise and grace send shackles up the palms
Of the amorous eyes of a lover's face- the most perverted kind of alms.
Oh, Aphrodite had her laugh, her poor afflicted soul,
And now she revels in the past, as penance casts its toll
Upon her sweet reflection, the sole source of her empty joy-
As her heart cries out dejection in the name of Helen of Troy.
Ah, fragile bird have you no cause- to hide your face with shame?
Does happiness subdue your flaws- or is humility to blame?
A lepers skin can hardly hold the burden of an empty nation,
Yet, still the world has bought and sold innocence for infatuation.
There's a subtle pain beneath the ring of a mother's sordid song,
Still she bites her lip as she's forced to sing,  while the audience treads on.
The ****** Mary cast her lot among those new and pure,
Then temptation came from Camelot, and knocked her to the floor.
It's faith that holds her safe and whole, a figurine atop a shelf
Alas, her eyes so bright were smeared with coal, for love has lost itself.
Yes, virtue finds her strength in those too weak to carry further,
Doomed to bear a thorny rose, eternally sworn to serve her.
She's rattling her bones again, in hope for something hidden,
Beneath the glistening shards of glass, twisting and churning within.
How sweet it is to stomp the ground of all that hides the eye
From righteousness and morals sound- is beauty but a lie?
Rituals and good intent lay stagnant at the feet
Of Cleopatra's testament, too indifferent for defeat.
Heaven thrives as the world recoils, collapsing crumpled to the floor-
A rotten corpse of ancient toils, too tired to implore.
I've heard the sirens sing their alms, with intentions pure as snow-
As sailors mindlessly follow along, cursing the maidens as they go.
There's something to be said about a grace so bent on fate
Of that which crafts a sultry face: vanity in its purest state.
In the spirit’s solitary hours
It is lovely to walk in the sun
Along the yellow walls of summer.
Quietly whisper the steps in the grass; yet always sleeps
The son of Pan in the grey marble.

At eventide on the terrace we got drunk on brown wine
The red peach glows under the foliage.
Tender sonata, joyous laughter.

Lovely is this silence of the night.
On the dark plains
We gather with shepherds and the white stars.

When autumn rises
The grove is a sight of sober clarity.
Along the red walls we loiter at ease
And the round eyes follow the flight of birds.
In the evening pale water gathers in the dregs of burial urns.

Heaven celebrates, sitting in bare branches.
In hallowed hands the yeoman carries bread and wine
And fruit ripens in the peace of a sunny chamber.

Oh how stern is the face of the beloved who have taken their passage.
Yet the soul is comforted in righteous meditation.

Overwhelming is the desolated garden‘s secrecy,
As the young novice has wreathed his brow with brown leaves,
His breath inhales icy gold.

The hands touch the antiquity of blueish water
Or in a cold night the sisters’ white cheeks.

In quiet and harmony we walk along a suite of hospitable rooms
Into solitude and the rustling of maple trees,
Where, perhaps, the thrush still sings.

Beautiful is man and emerging from the dark
He marvels as he moves his arms and legs,
And his eyes quietly roll in purple cavities.

At suppertime a stranger loses himself in November’s black destitution;
Under brittle branches he follows a wall covered under leprosy.
Once the holy brother went here,
Engrossed in the tender music of his madness.

Oh how lonely settles the evening-wind.
Dying away a man‘s head droops in the dark of the olive tree.

How shattering is the decline of a family.
This is the hour when the seer’s eyes are filled
With gold as he beholds the stars.

The evening’s descend has muffled the belfry‘s knell in silence;
Among black walls in the public place,
A dead soldier calls for a prayer.

Like a pale angel
The son enters his ancestor’s empty house.

The sisters have traveled far to the pale ancients.
At night, returned from their mournful pilgrimage,
He found them asleep under the columns of the hallway.

Oh hair stained with dung and worms
As his silver feet stepped on it
And on those who died in echoing rooms.

Oh you palms under midnight’s burning rain,
When the servants flogged those tender eyes with nettles,
The hollyhock’s early fruit
Beheld your empty grave in wonder.

Fading moons sail quietly
Over the sheets of the feverish lad,
Into the silence of winter.

At the bank of Kidron a great mind is lost in musing,
Under a tree, the tender cedar,
Stretched out under the father’s blue eyebrows,
Where a shepherd drives his flock to pastures at night.

Or there are screams which escape the sleep;
When an iron angel approaches man in the grove,
The holy man’s flesh melts over burning coals.

Purple wine climbs about the mud-cottage,
Sheaves of faded corn sing;
The buzz of bees; the crane’s flight.
In the evening the souls of the resurrected gather on rocky paths.

Lepers behold their image in dark water;
Or they lift the hemp of their dung soiled attire,
And weep to the soothing wind, as it drifts down from the rosy hill.

Slender maidens ***** their way through the narrow lanes of night;
They hope for the gracious shepherd.
Tenderly, songs ring out from the huts on weekend.

Let the song pay homage to the boy,
To his madness to his white eyebrows and to his passage,
To the decaying corpse, who opened his blue eyes.
Oh how sad is this reunion.

The stairs of madness in black apartments –
The matriarch’s shadow emerged under the open door
When Helian’s soul beheld his image in a rosy mirror;
And from his brow bled snow and leprosy.

The walls extinguished the stars
And the white effigies of light.

From the carpet rise skeletons, escaping their graves,
Fallen crosses sit silent on the hill,
The night’s purple wind is sweet with frankincense.

Oh ye broken eyes over black gaping jaws,
When the grandson in the solitude
Of his tender madness muses over a darker ending,
The blue eyelids of the silent god sink upon him.
The world's greased, watch your step or you might slip and fall off of it,
Serpent in the garden where you're walking, show cautiousness

And nothing really grows there in the shadow of the Pyramid,
Of our plutonomy,
But honestly,
from the top the image probably isn't that vivid

That we're rats in the labyrinth scolded for eating cheese,
That we're lepers on our island rebuked for our disease

Once a pigeon ascends with doves, all in the name of peace,
The thin air is too comfortable, to return him to the streets

Hypnotized by a box framed with Rose-Colored glass
While The Owl burns bright and The Baphomet laughs
#BohemianGrove #Love #Revolution #Socialawareness #Metaphor #BraveNewWorld #Huxley
Connor Aug 2015
Islands formed thru
Sea-
Children run to
Parliament laughing/
Cheerful for their own
Crucifixion.
Airplane tendril exhaust chokeholds my
Bluesky-
IT'S GETTING HOT, HUH?
Pollution pill form
Pharmacy extract deathglue
Coats up our public parks.
Concave eyes are sputtering visions
Of smog clocks-a-tickin tomorrows.
Nobody ventures to the river anymore.
The TV antannae blasphemy signal prayer to
White House Christs
and "reality" transmitted poison
is too DISTRACTING!
Cacophony vibrating in the trees
Where somebody spray paints
"**** THIS ONE TOO"
Drunk on the Marina by midday
Oh, that one was funny.
Police cars butterfly the nest with siren wings..
THE COLORS OF AMERICA MIND YOU.
Arresting the Accordion player by Robinson's outdoor shop?
NOWwhowouldwannadothat!
They're just swaying the jagged noise imitations of Sinatra!
Decadence infected that instrument and its vessel a long time ago now.
Keep on playing there Francis its okay nobody is listening.
Budded beam of light serenades
Chinatown Upper Floor Apartment
Delirium/three women shouting from their balcony high off ***** from next door neighbor.
questions
For the next time
"Why do I feel so unhappy now?" addiction therapeutic
Temporarily, easing headache and that depression, lady is screaming now in her sleep.
Gargoyle security cameras haunt the street corners.
Electric generators perfume the musical thinman who plays saxophone on lower Pandora,
Two in the morning imagination
Boundless between industry and
Needle prodded Lepers wailing on the adjacent sidewalk, muttering to past childhood friends who took form of rapid voices
Praying for suicide in that HEAD OF THEIRS/I'LL DO ANYTHING YOU ASK!
Men searing their skin with
Carnival narcotics
Tableau upon the bleeding
Walls of modern Hades.
Hopeless romantics
Tread benches facing the
Amber sheathed City blocks
contemplating their emotional vacancies
& labyrinthine desires
(How to achieve the unconquerables of love??)
Can hardly walk in that there
Brilliant light of Luna
Candle for the lonely planetarium
(Childlike galaxy!)
Undeniably complex/
Mademoiselle waving her soft hand alltheway out to
Intercosmic space!
Lipstick stainless
Alpha Centauri
Don't know what DAZZLE romances are,
man o man o woman o mano e mano
Voltage surge thru veins and brain-
Institutionalize me!
I'm in love!
Power of Napoleon in here!
(Tap to my ribs implying the heart is beating poems again)
ecstasy isn't no sanity at all,
Happiness in times like ours is
Delusional half-consious *******
Fed by the state.
Listened in on a podcast once
At work, theys men prophesied
Discombobulation of our economy!
Nostradamus-Moderne waving his phallus of necropolis political
Myth finishing on everyone
From Taiwan to Manhattan
(Tho the myth may be truth yet)
Sunshine bedroom
The Shadows of knight play Darkside recording
(1968)
New American and Canadian Poetry
Rests under faraway currencies
That once rested in my pocket during
Late walk out of Furama,
Mosquitoes illuminated from
Restaurant lanterns and enormous Asiatic hotels.
Tropical sweat beaded from my head,
Hair was shorter back then..
Bike & Blue Cabcar race past,
Tide of the Indian ocean feline
Elegance as Southern Hemisphere
Heats up my ankles,
Balinese acoustic band covering Crosby Stills & Nash (Suite Ruby Blue Eyes) distantly midst oriental carpets and beaded umbrellas where Australians smoke the cigarettes which smell of cigars.
Guitar string clatter,
Fireflies  (flying lightbulbs)
Catching words from accent
Frenzy wordscramble.
This place calls itself Oasis,
Yet here they are the Kuta Bums!
Palm pattern shirts unbuttoned halfway revealing russet hairy chests/ sunbunrt necks/ tanned cheeks/
Pimply backs.
One keeps returning to my table,
The answers always the same
"No thank you" till I feels like being
Impolite.
Oh! The bothering efforts these Bums put in.
It's against the law to pay them jack-
but their brains have turnt to wack-
From hallucinatory perils-
Making muck of their thoughts and dreams reality a-tattered skin
Simply easing by they don't know one February vs the next
Or the laws
Or this that and the other!
Belt buckles light&wind; up toys
Glowsticks hat tricks body ticks
Lighter flicks nausea aura
Body odor
Depression
Anxiety
Illness variety
Candy capped with dots
an' golden cyanide
Bruised nails, infected eyes glazed,
Minds dazed, gods prayed to, Buddhas praised.
Sutras practiced on the southern axis
"GOOD PRICE, JUST FOR YOU MY WHITE FRIEND"
Preach their evening discount discourse holding riven boxes
Tainted with wax chalk.
Who worries of them now?
I'm across the Pacific sea!
Thousands a Miles away
From memory.

My love is hungry
My bank means nothing
The moon shines
Impressions of Autumn
Upon the consciousness of
A spark surviving a typhoon.
Where was I?
The thought has ended.
Terry O'Leary Sep 2013
The warden’s bewildered, the keeper’s amazed
as the gate gapes behind us, a hole in the haze.
Our steps seem uncertain, the cobblestones crazed,
pearly stars burn above us like pinwheels ablaze.
Though lanterns hang vacant in streets staring blind,
broken paths paved in puzzles compel me to roam,
                                       I’ll not leave you behind.

The cannons keep calling, the piccolos shriek
and the druids drift, drumming, while pale pagans speak.
They’re urging me forward, my senses they’ve mined,
and the trail is erupting, come hie to the hills
                                       I’ll not leave you behind.

The looking glass glistens, a firefly glows,
and the brownies leap lightly on tiny tip toes
for the twilight’s collapsing, which serves to remind
that as dusk turns to dust, with no time for farewells,
                                       I’ll not leave you behind.

The ponies of plunder prance, passing nearby,
as crusaders on stallions cast stones from the sky.
The figments they’re facing have paid them no mind,
but our broncos are bolting. Corral what you need,
                                        I’ll not leave you behind.

My visions are swirling, they flash from the crown,
from the rainbows of summer, the tinsel in town.
While the compass wheel’s spinning, the minutes unwind
inside evening’s auroras – so cling to my cape,  
                                       I’ll not leave you behind.

Drooping droplets of wax adorn pinched candle wicks
while the vampire steeple’s cathedral clock ticks
of the terrors in tombs where ****** flames lie reclined
with their flickers fast fading – abandon the glim,
                                       I’ll not leave you behind.

The orphans and widows lean into the breeze
watching horrified hangmen descend to their knees
for the angel of mercy’s no longer inclined
to forgive vengeful  phantoms (oh Furies of night!) ,
                                       I’ll not leave you behind.

The bandits are brazen, the highwaymen lurk,
some imbibing dark brews of a hag’s handiwork,
mostly gulping from goblets like goblins maligned.
Woman! Widen your wings, catching wisps of the wind
                                       I’ll not leave you behind.

The lepers laugh, leaping from tombstones of steel
chasing rollaway caskets on luminous wheels;
while their shadows shake, shrouded, twixt trees intertwined,
twisted time melts at midnight, take hold of my hand,
                                       I’ll not leave you behind.

The gremlins *****, grinning face down in the dust,
while the sprites and the pixies are watching nonplussed.
They sling bolted arrows at spectres enshrined
within winds somewhat flustered, just fly from your fears
                                       I’ll not leave you behind.

The tattered toy teddies and raggedy Anns
have escaped to the skyways in kid caravans
but now, spellbound by fancies, know not that they’ll find
their parade’s evanesced into echoes of dawn –
                                       I’ll not leave you behind.

The wind’s my enchantress, beguiles and commands
me to search for my fortune in faraway lands
and whispers her mysteries of passions entwined,
for the wind is Isolde – unfurling my sails
                                        I’ll not leave you behind.
brandon nagley Apr 2017
You walk into the room with your pencil in your hand
You see somebody naked and you say, "Who is that man?"
You try so hard but you don't understand
Just what you will say when you get home
Because something is happening here but you don't know what it is
Do you, Mr. Jones?
You raise up your head and you ask, "Is this where it is?"
And somebody points to you and says, "It's his"
And you say, "What's mine?" and somebody else says, "Well, what is?"
And you say, "Oh my God, am I here all alone?"
But something is happening and you don't know what it is
Do you, Mr. Jones?
You hand in your ticket and you go watch the geek
Who immediately walks up to you when he hears you speak
And says, "How does it feel to be such a freak?"
And you say, "Impossible!" as he hands you a bone
And something is happening here but you don't know what it is
Do you, Mr. Jones?
You have many contacts among the lumberjacks
To get you facts when someone attacks your imagination
But nobody has any respect, anyway they already expect you to all give a check
To tax-deductible charity organizations
Ah, you've been with the professors and they've all liked your looks
With great lawyers you have discussed lepers and crooks
You've been through all of F. Scott Fitzgerald's books
You're very well-read, it's well-known
But something is happening here and you don't know what it is
Do you, Mr. Jones?
Well, the sword swallower, he comes up to you and then he kneels
He crosses himself and then he clicks his high heels
And without further notice, he asks you how it feels
And he says, "Here is your throat back, thanks for the loan"
And you know something is happening but you don't know what it is
Do you, Mr. Jones?
Now, you see this one-eyed ****** shouting the word "Now"
And you say, "For what reason?" and he says, "How"
And you say, "What does this mean?" and he screams back, "You're a cow!
Give me some milk or else go home"
And you know something's happening but you don't know what it is
Do you, Mr. Jones?
Well, you walk into the room like a camel, and then you frown
You put your eyes in your pocket and your nose on the ground
There ought to be a law against you comin' around
You should be made to wear earphones
'Cause something is happening and you don't know what it is
Do you, Mr. Jones?
Ballad of a Thin Man" is a dirge song written and recorded by Bob Dylan, and released as the final track on Side One of his sixth album, Highway 61 Revisited, in 1965.
Dylan's song revolves around the mishaps of a Mr. Jones, who keeps blundering into strange situations, and the more questions he asks, the less the world makes sense to him. Critic Andy Gill called the song "one of Dylan's most unrelenting inquisitions, a furious, sneering, dressing-down of a hapless bourgeois intruder into the hipster world of freaks and weirdoes which Dylan now inhabited."[6]

In August 1965, soon after recording the song, when questioned by Nora Ephron and Susan Edmiston about the identity of Mr. Jones, Dylan was deadpan: "He's a real person. You know him, but not by that name... I saw him come into the room one night and he looked like a camel. He proceeded to put his eyes in his pocket. I asked this guy who he was and he said, 'That's Mr. Jones.' Then I asked this cat, 'Doesn't he do anything but put his eyes in his pocket?' And he told me, 'He puts his nose on the ground.' It's all there, it's a true story."[7] At a press conference in San Francisco in December 1965, Dylan supplied more information about Mr. Jones: "He's a pinboy. He also wears suspenders."[8]

In March 1986, Dylan told his audience in Japan: "This is a song I wrote a while back in response to people who ask me questions all the time. You just get tired of that every once in a while. You just don't want to answer no more questions. I figure a person’s life speaks for itself, right? So, every once in a while you got to do this kind of thing, you got to put somebody in their place... So this is my response to something that happened over in England. I think it was about '63, '64. [sic] Anyway the song still holds up. Seems to be people around still like that. So I still sing it. It's called 'Ballad Of A Thin Man'."[9]

There has been speculation whether Mr. Jones was based on a specific journalist.[6] In 1975, reporter Jeffrey Jones "outed" himself in a Rolling Stone article, describing how he had attempted to interview Dylan at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. When Dylan and his entourage later chanced on the hapless reporter in the hotel dining room, Dylan shouted mockingly, "Mr. Jones! Gettin' it all down, Mr. Jones?"[10] When Bill Flanagan asked Dylan, in 1990, whether one reporter could claim all the credit for Mr. Jones, Dylan replied: "There were a lot of Mister Joneses at that time. Obviously there must have been a tremendous amount of them for me to write that particular song. It was like, 'Oh man, here's the thousandth Mister Jones'."[11]

In the John Lennon-penned Beatles song "Yer Blues", Lennon describes the character as "suicidal", and that he feels "just like Dylan's Mr. Jones".
1.
Mother, my Mary Gray,
once resident of Gloucester
and Essex County,
a photostat of your will
arrived in the mail today.
This is the division of money.
I am one third
of your daughters counting my bounty
or I am a queen alone
in the parlor still,
eating the bread and honey.
It is Good Friday.
Black birds pick at my window sill.
Your coat in my closet,
your bright stones on my hand,
the gaudy fur animals
I do not know how to use,
settle on me like a debt.
A week ago, while the hard March gales
beat on your house,
we sorted your things: obstacles
of letters, family silver,
eyeglasses and shoes.
Like some unseasoned Christmas, its scales
rigged and reset,
I bundled out gifts I did not choose.
Now the houts of The Cross
rewind. In Boston, the devout
work their cold knees
toward that sweet martyrdom
that Christ planned. My timely loss
is too customary to note; and yet
I planned to suffer
and I cannot. It does not please
my yankee bones to watch
where the dying is done
in its usly hours. Black birds peck
at my window glass
and Easter will take its ragged son.
The clutter of worship
that you taught me, Mary Gray,
is old. I imitate
a memory of belief
that I do not own. I trip
on your death and jesus, my stranger
floats up over
my Christian home, wearing his straight
thorn tree. I have cast my lot
and am one third thief
of you. Time, that rearranger
of estates, equips
me with your garments, but not with grief.

2.
This winter when
cancer began its ugliness
I grieved with you each day
for three months
and found you in your private nook
of the medicinal palace
for New England Women
and never once
forgot how long it took.
I read to you
from The New Yorker, ate suppers
you wouldn't eat, fussed
with your flowers,
joked with your nurses, as if I
were the balm among lepers,
as if I could undo
a life in hours
if I never said goodbye.
But you turned old,
all your fifty-eight years sliding
like masks from your skull;
and at the end
I packed your nightgowns in suitcases,
paid the nurses, came riding
home as if I'd been told
I could pretend
people live in places.

3.
Since then I have pretended ease,
loved with the trickeries of need, but not enough
to shed my daughterhood
or sweeten him as a man.
I drink the five o' clock martinis
and poke at this dry page like a rough
goat. Fool! I fumble my lost childhood
for a mother and lounge in sad stuff
with love to catch and catch as catch can.
And Christ still waits. I have tried
to exorcise the memory of each event
and remain still, a mixed child,
heavy with cloths of you.
Sweet witch, you are my worried guide.
Such dangerous angels walk through Lent.
Their walls creak Anne! Convert! Convert!
My desk moves. Its cavr murmurs Boo
and I am taken and beguiled.
Or wrong. For all the way I've come
I'll have to go again. Instead, I must convert
to love as reasonable
as Latin, as sold as earthenware:
an equilibrium
I never knew. And Lent will keep its hurt
for someone else. Christ knows enough
staunch guys have hitched him in trouble.
thinking his sticks were badges to wear.

4.
Spring rusts on its skinny branch
and last summer's lawn
is soggy and brown.
Yesterday is just a number.
All of its winters avalanche
out of sight. What was, is gone.
Mother, last night I slept
in your Bonwit Teller nightgown.
Divided, you climbed into my head.
There in my jabbering dream
I heard my own angry cries
and I cursed you, Dame
keep out of my slumber.
My good Dame, you are dead.
And Mother, three stones
slipped from your glittering eyes.
Now it's Friday's noon
and I would still curse
you with my rhyming words
and bring you flapping back, old love,
old circus knitting, god-in-her-moon,
all fairest in my lang syne verse,
the gauzy bride among the children,
the fancy amid the absurd
and awkward, that horn for hounds
that skipper homeward, that museum
keeper of stiff starfish, that blaze
within the pilgrim woman,
a clown mender, a dove's
cheek among the stones,
my Lady of first words,
this is the division of ways.
And now, while Christ stays
fastened to his Crucifix
so that love may praise
his sacrifice
and not the grotesque metaphor,
you come, a brave ghost, to fix
in my mind without praise
or paradise
to make me your inheritor.
Conor Oberst Jun 2012
The fragile keep secrets gathered in pockets
and they'll sell them for nothing; a cheap watch or locket
That kind of gold washes off.
And the sad act like lepers; they stick to the shadows
and long to ring bells of warning to tell of their coming
so that the pure can shut their doors.
And the angry are animals, senseless and savage.
They act without order in logical lapses.
They stain their mouths with blood.
So take my hand; this barren land is alive tonight.
The corn has grown stalks that form a wall too high,
but the wind carries sounds that I can't hear from beyond that line.
Then the stalks begin to sway.
Oh stay with me Arienette, until the wolves are away.

Well the wicked are vultures and they bake in the canyons.
They circle in sunlight and wait for their victims
to collapse and call to them.
And the desperate are water; they will run down forever
as they soak into silence, mend up together
in a dark and distant, dark and distant place,
So don't leave me here with only mirrors watching me.
This house it holds nothing but the memories.
And the moon, it leaves silver but never sleep
and then the silver turns to gray.
Oh stay with me Arienette until the wolves are away.
“What a wonderful world”, so the song says
yet its ruled so unjustly by mankind’s selfish ways.
Men in boats across our wide oceans sail
for the profit of killing just another Whale
and corporations with such a money lust
turning mighty rain forests into deserts and dust.
Tigers, Rhino and Elephants roam a land filled with sun
but there numbers diminished by a man with a gun.
Gorilla’s on mountains that border Zaire
populations so low that they soon won’t be there.
People on horseback follow dogs on a trail,
the prize of this ride is a dead foxes tail.
With pollution we destroy the layer of ozone
forgetting that this world is our only home.

“What a wonderful world”, so the song goes
but for the poor and deprived full of misery and woes.
Company’s lie in wait for an oil strike to reveal
whilst many young lie in graves for the lack of a meal.
Poverty, greed, ****** and hate
another dictator lying in state.
Honoured for his military might
of keeping a nation locked up in fright.
And for the young soldier who killed twenty-four
he’s made a national hero with medals galore.
The righteous who try to speak out of this wrong
are killed or rotting in prison cells for so long
and the holy who care for the lepers and plagued
they receive little thanks for the lives they have saved.

“What a wonderful world” so the song said.
Yet into our own destruction we seem to be led.
The priority of “our leaders” is to **** and destroy
treating our world as their unbreakable toy.
Billions of pounds spent on weapons to ****
whilst so many people lie dying or ill.
Governments globally tell us all lies
as an innocent child in a civil war dies.
This climate change that we call Global warming
Is the earth giving mankind its final warning.
For this world knows that it would be a far better place
with the total extinction of the human race.
Without mankind all other life would thrive.
Without mankind this world will survive.
Another poem my wife wrote many years ago. Zaire was the former name of the Democratic Republic of Congo... I still prefer Zaire though.
This poem is copy written and has been published with her kind permission.
Andrew Rueter Jun 2018
I'm a doomsday prepper
Afraid of zombie lepers
And nuclear line steppers
So I spend my life preparing
Instead of repairing
A civilization that is constantly crumbling
I focus on post-apocalyptic rumbling

My self reliance
Met my defiance
In an alliance
Of deadly appliance
When I have no faith in the government
Because they might make preparing futile
For the disasters of my wonderment
I don't copy their community style
They'll just die when the world ends
So they're a waste of the time I spend

I tried to look above
To find love
But a giant tidal wave
Blocked the sun's rays
And I could feel the Earth quake
Under my shaking feet
So I decided it was a mistake
And to avoid what's sweet

I will no longer be a misfit
After the apocalypse
I will be more comfortable than everyone else
But will I really keep my resources to myself?
I say of course
From my high horse
I fantasize about being right
So others will see the light
Of a nuclear blast
And see that I last
They'll beg to see my stocked shelf
Yet I will offer no help
I'll say my memory is hazy
Didn't you call me crazy?
Protecting my goods in that vulnerable hour
With a stockpile of firearm firepower

I prepare for an impending doom
That'll create some elbow room
Instead of friends I gather supplies
For a cataclysmic surprise
Where everyone dies
Then I'll be happy
Hunting and trapping
All alone
In a blast zone
Where someone once said
Life is what happens
While you're making plans
But the apocalypse
Is my promised land

— The End —