Poems about Icarus

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



Southern Icarus
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

the houses watch with baffled eyes.



Flight 93
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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



I AM!
by Michael R. Burch

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

I am not one of ten billion, I.

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

I am not one life has left unsquashed.

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

I am not one without spots of disease.

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

I am not one of ten billion, I
AM!



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

Athena takes me
sometimes by the hand

and we go levitating
through strange Dreamlands

where Apollo sleeps
in his dark forgetting

and Passion seems
like a wise bloodletting

and all I remember
, upon awaking,

is: to Love sometimes
is like forsaking

one’s Being―to glide

heroically beyond thought,

forsaking the here
for the There and the Not.



O, finally to Burn,
gravity beyond escaping!

To plummet is Bliss
when the blisters breaking

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

Feathers and wax
and the watchers huddle...

Flocculent sheep,
O, and innocent lambs!,

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



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

for the Night has Wings
gentler than Moonbeams―

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

fluttering off
to quarry the Sphinx.



Riddlemethis,
riddlemethat,

Rynosseross,
throw out the Welcome Mat.

Quixotic, I seek Love
amid the tarnished

rusted-out steel
when to live is varnish.

To Dream―that’s the thing!

Aye, that Genie I’ll rub,

soak by the candle,
aflame in the tub.



Riddlemethis,
riddlemethat,

Rynosseross,
throw out the Welcome Mat.

Somewhither, somewhither
aglitter and strange,

we must moult off all knowledge
or perish caged.

*

I am reconciled to Life
somewhere beyond thought―

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

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

so fatten the oxen;
make a nice baste.

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

though we injure noone,
ourselves wildaglow.

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



Free Fall (II)
by Michael R. Burch

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

But since I touched you, fire consumes each wing!

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



Fledglings
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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



The Higher Atmospheres
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

what then?

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

what then?

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

what then?

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

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

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

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

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



Icarus Bickerous
by Michael R. Burch

for the Religious Right

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

They look up amazed
and seem rather dazed―

was it heaven’s or hell’s furious smelting

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

the higher you “rise,” the more halting?



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

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

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

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

Published by American Indian Pride and Boston Poetry Magazine



Flight
by Michael R. Burch

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

Originally published by Hibiscus (India)



The Wonder Boys
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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

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

Originally published by The Lyric



American Eagle, Grounded
by Michael R. Burch

Her predatory eye,
the single feral iris,
scans.

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

Her hard talon,
clenched in pinched expectation,
waits.

Her clipped wings,
preened against reality,
tremble.

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



Album
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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



Springtime Prayer
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

Originally published by The HyperTexts



Learning to Fly
by Michael R. Burch

We are learning to fly
every day...

learning to fly―
away, away...

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

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



In the Whispering Night
by Michael R. Burch

for George King

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

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



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

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

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

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

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



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

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

Published by Better Than Starbucks, A Hundred Voices



in-flight convergence
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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



Squall
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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



Flight
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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



Flying
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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



Stage Craft-y
by Michael R. Burch

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



Clyde Lied!
by Michael R. Burch

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



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

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

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

Published by Lighten Up Online and in Potcake Chapbook #7

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



Lance-Lot
by Michael R. Burch

Preposterous bird!
Inelegant! Absurd!

Until the great & mighty heron
brandishes his fearsome sword.



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

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



Delicacy
by Michael R. Burch

for all good mothers

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



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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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



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

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



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

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



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

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



Untitled Translations

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



Critical Mass
by Michael R. Burch

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

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



Ultimate Sunset
by Michael R. Burch

for my father, Paul Ray Burch, Jr.

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



Free Fall
by Michael R. Burch

for my father, Paul Ray Burch, Jr.

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



Leaf Fall
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

Originally published by The Neovictorian/Cochlea



The Folly of Wisdom
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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

Originally published by Romantics Quarterly



Kin
by Michael R. Burch

for Richard Moore

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

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

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

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



Songstress
by Michael R. Burch

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

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



Performing Art
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

What instinctual memories
lend stunning brightness
to the strange dreams

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

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

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



Lean Harvests
by Michael R. Burch

for T.M.

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

Published by The Rotary Dial and Angle



My Forty-Ninth Year
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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



Myth
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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



What Works
by Michael R. Burch

for David Gosselin

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

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

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

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

and teach the pallid poem to seethe.



Desdemona
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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

and strangled hope, where love dies too.

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



Transplant
by Michael R. Burch

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

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



Prodigal
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



Breakings
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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



An Illusion
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

into oblivion...

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



Lines for My Ascension
by Michael R. Burch

I.

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

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

II.

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

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

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

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

III.

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

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

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

IV.

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

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

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

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



The Locker
by Michael R. Burch

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

reproved
adulation or sentiment,
left with the pungent darkness

as remembered as the sudden light.

Originally published by The Raintown Review



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


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

Hey Human! I am your Sibling.

Queen bee wings are Ripped,
bee niblings are Smoked
For Your Honey Sweet.
Hey human! Listen your Sibling’s Buzz.

Tiger lost bones for Medicine,
Fox lost fur for Fashion,
Sharks lost fins for Soup.
Hey human! Do Not Butcher Siblings.

Simba’s life is not your Trophy,
Jumbo’s tusks are not Decors,
Helmets of Hornbills are not jewels.
Hey human! Do Not Reap Siblings.

Emperors of ice continent lost land,
Economics is making Amazon less,
Logging makes Orangutans homeless.
Hey human! Do Not Invade Siblings.

Warm oceans bleach corals,
Water depleted in cities,
We ingest plastic regularly.
Hey human! Do Not Desert the Earth.

Overfishing is holocaust of aquatic life,
Livestock levitates toxic emissions.
Hey human! Do Not Prey on Siblings.

Lichens stunned by pollution,
Symbionts are disintegrating,
Biodiversity is declining.
Hey human! Be Together with Siblings.

Hey Human! We are Offsprings of Mother Nature.
Monera, Animalia, Fungi, Plantae, Protista
all have common roots.
We are branches of the one Phylogenetic Tree
rooting Common Ancestry unto LUCA.

Hey Human! We are Siblings.
Hey Human! Recall your Siblings.
Hey Human! Revive your Siblings.

The dream haunts me
often, far too often, building
in intensity but is initially
disguised in absurdity and the
nonsense of a young man's lusts
with an old man's deficits.
This woman-like entity,
ill-defined at first but forming
voluptuously, emerges from
swelling curtains. She moves, more
levitates, toward my bed, buoyed
by what I don't know, but angelic-like
it would seem. Or perhaps
an Aphrodite reincarnate?

Oh this goddess, what pale
skin, as Parian marble, full bosomed,
jutting *******, ***** that
beckon, nearly drool, and pursed
red lips beaded with sweet
juice stolen from the wild cherry
tree beneath my window.
Far too much clarity for a simple
dream. But such a dream! And what
seething testosterone I feel!
I am become a hedonist, raging,
pulsing spermatozoa, renewed
of time and youthful energies.

Nerve into nerve we join, ecstacy
compounding ecstacy, bodies wantonly
impaling the other on this love bed
to the result that each cell of our
individualities melds. We are indistinct,
yes - as one, and any ****** impulse
between us is shared to the point of
utter exhaustion, depletion. I am
nearly drained of life, it would seem.

Then, as it always must,
the scene changes, Act II.
Inexplicably, shedding a ******
serpentine-like skin, she slings it away
and drops limply upon me - entirely
skeletal, dry cartilage, sinew, lifeless,
sexless, motionless. The horror
of a diabolical hollowness
stares through me, and I am
suspended, fully terrorized, in
this paralysis. So, this is
succumbing to the Succubus?
God, my dear God, that I should
never dream again!

--

five pm, mid-winter

i thank Sky for taking sweet time.
Sky sets her thumb on the light-switch of the land.
she stands still, she waits.
for the hour, she meditates
on her day.
Sky hopes her skin
becomes verdigris the next day, not grey, but
verdigris to clothe **** trees. Or perhaps she will
hurt soon— Sky scars in
rainbows. Her change of thought: the small folks who have traveled
through her this day. She wonders where
they all
        go.

Open your eyes,
do you hear Sky’s mute call?
in her meditation, hour of magic, all
wakes.

on the earth, photographers peer from their windows,
then rush through their doors to catch Sky’s dancing gleams,
beams flash through the tip-top’s of the Sugar Maple family,
their shadows splatter onto ***-hole streets.
Sky brushes her grass and her roads with paint of a gold hue,
fresh Rorschach tests while her thoughts try to rest.

i spot a leaf sleeping in the street, deep wine and apricot,
twisted from months away from its Mother
the wind levitates the leaf—lightly—and the sun
creates a squirrel of it, he climbs the tree, and scrambles over
to me. in short squeaks, he explains his political theory,
“why do you let your peep el let a few rich folks control
all others? why don’t you follow me
into the woods?”

he grabs my skirt with his sweet little paws
but i look up and notice the darkness,
i look down and see only a leaf again.
Sky’s savasana has ended,
candles ignite in the houses, Sky and Sun crawl into bed.

i’ll wait now for the selenian Sun, but i can’t rest my eyes. soon
i will escape with my new friend.
bittersweet magic: “the moment” lost in the sock drawer.

five pm, midwinter


the afternoon is reaching an end,
Lady Sky decides when she wants to change for us.
as the sun sets, she meditates.

some call it the “magic hour”
but how can you truly tell magic from reality?
go outside and see.

radiant beams do the tango on the trees
(a leaf in the street becomes a squirrel as my eye blinks)
a squirrel who runs straight up to me.

“get outta the system while you can!”
he squeaks, then nods at me to follow his path, another blink



the sky darkens, the squirrel disappears.

a late harvest in Brigadoon
plucked from good earth
by strong hands
hauling
uphill, until
a gentle
*****
rewards
a stiff
back; easing
a grateful
burden
that levitates
famine

[ bushels ]

now
ziggarats
in a root
cellar

a Sumerian skyline
of parsnips and rhubarb
with fennel minarets

where Gilgamesh slept
in a pantry of pagan loot
underneath a corner room
at the very back
of a round
house.

where four seasons bunk with an almanac

mason jars of pickled beets
breathing their own blood
hanging gardens from the ceiling
of the Underworld
like fliers of missing children
on telephone poles

i go outside and wander off

you stay home

Flickering lights, a pause of the dark.
botched up kohl, a spot on her chin
an ironic beauty mark.
She just  lay there, dummy dead..
Juggled in a crass cacophony so shrieky,
as if nothing was ever left unsaid.

Her red tinged lips clasp the stick of joy...
it, like a new bride, so crisp and coy.
a rush so sweet..
the feel to feel it forever.
WHAT. A. MAJESTIC. TREAT.

The pain evaporates..
the soul levitates..
the sins are forgotten..
a bizarre psyche evolve to take a path less trotten.

The world stands against her ..
She doesn't belong to it anyway,
a sight of it is blur to her.
In that moment. .. she belongs to her soul.
like diamonds belong to coal.
the scorchy sun don’t matter..
the night sky, just colorless with a flecky mole.

Let her lie in her limitless peace.
let that nothingness never cease.
let that brutality bestowed upon her lay low for a while...
invincible. . . let high be the highness, let her smile.

Cloudless skies and
You & I.

A BBQ aroma
Levitates
Like those hummingbirds

Did you like that movie?
I've got to be home
Maybe 11.

I like your pick-up
It makes me reminisce
For an old home

With happier times
Maybe we
Could re-create those?

Looking at the blacktop,
I'll miss you tonight
You'd make a good father

Half-moon lover,
Let my dreams
Only be of you.

sweet waters with mint fragrant hints,
memories flood me,
"walking back in time"
he describes it

of my early days of discovery,
this voyage upon the poetry ship,
with me, mere stowaway,
unfit by compare,
sailed to lands unimaginable,
friendships seeded in words,
sprouted like a field of summer sunflowers,
water weeping, for joy so joyous,
the mastery of his words
elevates, levitates,
the ashes of sadness now dispossessed,
floating on the Ganges

the drumming of my dreams,
of treasures of golden words,
in lungs undiscovered, unspoken,
leads me back to you,
Balachandran from Thiruvananthapuram

April 10, 2016

~~~

Jun 1, 2013

Balachandran


How I love to say your name,
Rolling waves over my tongue,
It is must be said out loud
Two or three times to feel its rhythm,
Two or three more just for the
Spiced pleasure it conveys.
Bala chan dran!

My name harsh, Germanic,
Like the Black Forest,
Where my ancestors dwelled,
Until a harsher people drove them away.

Balachandran!

Under the ground beneath the temple
Padmanabha Swamy,
A temple dedicated to
Vishnu,
In the state of
Kerala,
the original spice country.
South Western sea board of India,
where miracles never cease to happen,
A billion dollar treasure discovered.

A treasure of words and sounds,
A language musical, every word a poem
Of incroyable elegance.

I am so glad that you were not born in France.

Perhaps someday I will courage summon,
To spicy lands, explore, and even come to
Thiruvananthapuram.

For now, I must be satisfied with the
Poetical musicale program I attend,
When I say over and over again,
Balachandran from Thiruvananthapuram!
Dedicated to K Balachandran

Our teacher rides on her broom
she levitates on it in our classroom
she will snap and  then deride
wish she'll take her pride for a ride!

Our teacher rode off on her broom
and there was joy in the classroom!

Our teacher came back from her ride
and all the students stirred inside,
"How do we rid her?"
"We must decide!"

"There are students in other classrooms
that also ride as you on brooms"
"They need a guide!"
"They want your brew!"
"They can ride along with you!"
"They  can be your new crew!"

"Fly to them now, that's what you should do!"
" We won't miss you, we won't be blue ! "
"Fly to them now, that's what you should do!"

My Mistress' Eyes Are Everything Beneath The Moon;
The crimsom of her lip is as the shade of blood;
If coal is black, why then her thighs are cream;
If skin be burlap, white silk is her body.
You have never seen masked daisys, black and blue
But she creates blooming poppies on my cheeks,
And no perfume upon the earth compares to her scent
The exhalation of my mistress is as jasmine and honeysuckle.
I hate when she is silent, yet well she thinks,
All other sound is dissonant compared to her voice.
A godess I first saw, as she passed me;
My mistress levitates and glides across the air.
    All the horrors of hell, are fine, if her memory remains in my mind.
Her magnificence is selfevident, with words beyond compare.

All I saw were wrinkles.

These wrinkles exemplified pain, loss, happiness and content. These wrinkles in his long leathery complexion represented my life; and how every moment is a wrinkle in time. These wrinkles in the old mans face told me where I had been and where I still had to go. I glanced at the old man, pain and sorrow clouded his eyes, which were covered by his snow white hair, which fell gently upon his forehead much like how a feather almost levitates before it hits the ground.

All I saw were wrinkles.

The old man turned slowly towards me, his facade was illuminated by the warm glow of the fire, and he flashed me that all knowing smile of his, which old age could never take away. This radiant smile was a rare sight to see nowadays he seemed to enjoy the company of books rather then the company of people.

All I saw were wrinkles.

The old man was a silent presence. Silent enough to sneak up on me when I used to watch Sunday morning cartoons. Grandpa! I would exclaim, half suprised half content that he was just with me and by my side.

All I saw were wrinkles.

The old man gave me one last sad smile and stood up from the cracked leather sofa.

Where are you going? I asked him.

I never found out.

I never will.

All I saw were wrinkles

Rummaging noises that muscle into stark gravity

                           maiming
                                          black & white finishes
into the hands of young artists
                        and everyday geezers
                                          --drinking wine made for mad housewives.
                  We are seduced and strangled by this.

                  Spirits that knock seven times
on Hiroshima's soul that                       levitates through
                      planet Earth's oceans
                         --how can we not pull a ****
                      from our sweaty palms?
                                          Gods, and doors, and chalk spittle
                 that gores the gorilla's back in the abyss
                                threatening hopeful snow--the lifting of applauding
            violins. We are seduced and strangled by this.
  
                                        Cultural amoeba--
               the dimensional of minds
                                   --made up of blank smoke
                         and film negatives.
    And oh!
  How the gasoline pours rainbows
                  on the pavement, fertilizing the crosswalks
        where we danced...
                          seduced and strangled by this.

eternal sorrow breeds
eternal apologies
a succinct series of sorries
stretched out for years
i sacrifice my innate interior
to the naifs who know me not
obscurely tarnished & dimmed
one love plagues my skeleton
naivety levitates from relevance
for the new ones have been ruined
& so i repeat:
regurgitating the same remorse
just in a new direction

My love levitates above me,
begins to circle out
  heading to the silent softness
tucked beyond perception.

I have packed you
  with Milky way hopes,
  witnessed the slashing
    of stars make their way

bright against the purplish night.

I have known you to slip out from
the hidden human crevice
to perform secret plays
   with oceanic aches
       surpassing all words

threading impossible rich
   grasslands in a desert
     of a million scornful suns.

I felt you harpoon me
  pulling me back to the immense
  place beyond the curtain
  verifying every hope that kept me crawling for just one taste.

I heard you speak me into shelter
  every promise of your verse
riveted my skylines with the most delicious eclipse I've ever seen.

Your love moved me to another hidden Everest where The Golden Angel sang to me with a voice that bleeds my haunting.

I felt you craft a crystal ship, your freedom set it sail inside me.

The last garden they planted
was prickly and difficult
tomatoes that looked like loons
strawberries dripping with oil
the earth was parched
despite torrents of rain

“the world spins round and round
      yet nothing falls and nothing's found”

       There can be no revolution
without black negligees.
Shout, if you must,
but learn to whisper, too.
There can be no revolution
without question marks.

“the world spins round and round
      yet nothing falls and nothing's found”

I’m going to wash my face
in cold ash and bitter tea
and aim for that space
where everything penetrates
and my body levitates
above the fractured light

“the world spins round and round
      yet nothing falls and nothing's found”

Love those accouterments, my eyes catch, even if hidden,
though I don't particularly pry for them in any one, such ambiguity
helps to see world as a place, cryptic messages get transacted,
some are very open even, though no one seems to notice,
like this women I go out with, a free spirit, not the type
who keeps few secrets stashed away in a dark corner of an attic.

Enormous wings she has, I was fascinated by their lasciviousness
how light she would feel, when she soars up viewing the scene
from above, blessed she is , an envied celestial being
she would be in all other's eyes."Ever fancied flying on
your own wings?"  I ask her, in a tone so matter of fact
not revealing I know her secret, as if  just to know her feeling
as a flier.But her words make me think how strange this world is!
Just imagine this, she was never aware of her wings! How strange?

Pure white, delicate, befitting to her petite figure, soft yet sturdy,
her wings weren't a reality, how can it be, when I myself am a witness
the wings never came to her notice, so they cannot exist, she argued.

Her wings were thin, white, silver petals, that shines during dawn and dusk
at a midnight moment she levitates, we fall deep in a pit of velvety clouds
but by some quirkiness of reality, quantum physics may explain perhaps,
it isn't there, her wings,though for the purpose of mathematical calculations
it is counted as a reality; in my imagination, she makes me fly with her.

There’s something about the post-punk silence of nighttime that makes me doubt my soul. That makes me define things in terms of what they follow instead of what they are. Someday, I hope my life will be as interesting as a rock-and-roll portrayal of history. Something to be envied. Something to be admired for its brilliant art direction and cinematography, but panned for its lackluster script. In simpler terms, something boring but pretty. But I’ll only be in it for the costumes. And the one critic who will understand and say, “Her story is strange. At night she levitates above her bed. She’s over the age of sixteen, but she’s still not a witch yet. Kudos for not succumbing to clichés.”

I.* there is no thicker undergrowth than feeling. first to go is reason, everything
    else levitates into something graver than say, one foot deep  in the grave
     and the other somewhere off-tangent like an offbeat adagio zigzagging
      into slammed slalom.

II. the crush of oregano against mortar, and the clasping of a hand. carbon monoxide
      fades into air as youth takes on momentousness. take for instance this once soft
    hand like a breath of cotton in a precipitate noon: once whirling in claustrophobic
      space, this slight inch of feelingfulness is dazed into the span of *Maya windhovering
       somewhere unseen like paramours *******.

III. from the window you can feel the bluster of falsetto disintegrate at its slouched peak,
       and from where you hear it, a dance thwarts itself like a cigarette ember
       convulsing mid-air – that slow, repugnant twitch: that is you, when you first
        broke your silence in thick shrouds of disgust over strobe-lighted simian jaw.

IV. what else is there but to take this sour ocean in front of me and decode something
       the blue always means mellow but the froth of white something the tragic caprice
        of tropic: some nights, they remind me of bodies careening repeatedly; some days
                    they just are, like you, just are, like a riot and only sound, or sleep and only
          reticence, something short of wonder and terse with reply.

V. there is a cluster of harmonies flowering in my mind when the sensurround of din
        starts conflagrations in the ornate dark of ear. my limbs snake in the garden
        of plank, my shin bitten in sharp reiterations – my mind crossing the equinox
         looking for shade, or possible, a parasol underneath the crimson of rain.
           say this is the sky, this dense space when I motion both hands into a length
       not an inch could ever devour. suddenly a boy made out of a man, flustered
        in jangled arpeggios and unapologetic thought like a letter of debt opened,
         paying no heed the mind and only what the body dictates: a smash on the
    escritoire or vigorously scratching scalp, reopening scabs and watching
                old blood ooze dry like a lightweight webbed impression
  of       a    dreamy legato.

VI. the night deepens with the warmth of its black upholstery – we do not know
      when to stop and bid for home. last to go is will of force and first to arrive
     in the bleakness like a recalcitrant thought often straying outside with the
       strut of a yuppie, fervor of old haunt. i conjure an image over the cold chair,
    its steel framework thighs untouched, its four decrepit legs the foundation
       of something that refuses to admit its weakness. the very base of what would
   catch the anchorage of my gravity, the very heart of all, and the flattened back
      with a vandal that says “Soleil was here.” the liver shattering in the trance
                    of everything.

VII. night is stupor. i am the lilt of words from a rambunctious machine.         there seems to be an afterthought that separates
                       a concept of vastness and the tactility of narrow ether.
        a word is uttered in extremis - something heaven eschews
                with its bright, arrogant face.

What does your heart do at night?
It spins silk silently above the clouded sky.
And when it levitates back to thee
the moon is curdled in every beat of me.

© fey (20/11/22)

My feet steadfast upon the soil,

The ground stirs beneath me.

The translucent smoke levitates about,

Seclusion claiming the sublime mountains.

The wooden sovereigns retain indefinite poise,

Exuberant with gleaming white flowers.

Ants traverse the green bridge,

Their mouths opening a seal to new life.

Elegant leaves flutter in the wind,

Their entities obscuring the radiant sun.

An infinite stream flows;

A waterfall is calling to me.

The mind does not reel
It Clacks
At or near the frontal lobe
A temple eroding, I suppose
Destroying by the speed of the whir
A millisecond vertigo
Terrorizes for seemingly endless minutes
Wrought iron right neck muscle
Climaxing in a hypnagogic spasm
That levitates the body for an instant

Copyright © 2009

The need to feel alive and numb
Causes time to fly
We let the witches **** our thumbs
While we lived in cake light

The bluebird in the home is an omen
The blackbird in the heart is a prayer
One will bring you death through pleasure
One will bring you truth through despair

So watch as the flame levitates
From the ceiling to the floor
Feel the warmth light up your face
As you wish upon an open door

There is an inch of sleight in this house – this cold chair,
a burst of cologne clogging a 20 minute stride. The stringent
air tonight blusters deeper than gashing sheens.

The little dryad of dew outside and the cadenza of frogs
after lambaste of rain. Whenever you sing, your voice
communes an immense pain, something unconscious of its
gravity, something that levitates back to momentary ululations

swelling in the grime of times and heady chances. A long stretch
of a day submerged in silence resembling a howl underwater.

There will be many sorrows and they will take form of doves,
assume the skin of the populace. They will come in a volume of
names pressing the linoleumed musk the way the body turns
maneuvering over the saltine, the mattress, juxtaposed to a lover,

a brusque aroma of coffee brushing away the calm demeanor
of the morning, dragging along the weight of its lassitude
towards the sprays of fern opening a dense ornate of forget,

you, in all places that pulse without recall – an obtuse
fish feeling its life in a surge of blue, overtime, finally knowing
    what it means *to sing and drone only words.

Up? Or down?

My body levitates between two worlds
As I stare at the blank blue that throws me
Off this earth.

In that moment I am nothing, and everything,
And as I am suspended in time my
Mind is suddenly aware.

Aware of the rustling white noise that
Lies within silence, which hides the many
Voices of the beyond.

I can hear them now, they’re getting louder
But I know you can’t, so you ask me if
I'm ok; of course I am.

I am aware of their unreality  but
Still, I am wary not to let them know
That *I know they are there.

So I return to the floating ocean
Above, or was it below, me and am
Once again, drifting.

.Soft confusion doth a great poem make.Poetry was born in the circus of the mind.Chaotic modern subconscious expression shaped our world.Surreal boulevards peopled with poets.Critics act as stop lights,although I don't stop untilthe thought's been driven home.Reality stones the muse, sadness levitates the quill.Welcome to the strange streets.

Why - you asked
For the sake of a
Born and raised
Romantic poetry!

To individuums!
To lions drama!

Ontic ouroboro

Levitates lesser

Symbols equally

Time de-ploring

Overwhelmed n'

Joyfull character

E x t r a c t i n g

Timelessnesses..

A writer
in love
puts all
the effects
of recreational
drugs
to shame
A writer in love
levitates
A writer in love...
Oh God Have Mercy
for pen shall burn on paper

i made with you / gumby graphics

gifts of kiss

parameters of malleable minutia in misfit music

meanderings of our midnight sting

     our bodies in bonafide brevity, singing

seeking seiks' mischievous apathies

on the fringes

IMAX movie-like scenes without acting out / words

tongues

the levity or suspenseful sanctions / unhinged

     members and mouths mapping galactic absurdities

Mars and mercurial in star-crossed appetites

burning as suns should; meteorites / streaking sky;

in wonderful dining and gustful bites - eyes

    full of asteroid-desires coalescing

masculinity in every copious opus / in rites

of unforgiving depths / in blinding supernova nights,

forever ever / in a name of fantastics and amoebas

    these boys worshipping planets x, y, z / emotions coax & ***** elastic

strength of steeds, drinking the implacid body's

mead / wrestling without a fight's reprieve

fires, our mouths, / incite body-art / completely received

     intrigued with warm inner spaces

     paint brush of hours in museums of sweat / engraved,

encased / ******* sunburst theories on theories of tastes

and comets stroked / our body-art in hues

which love forever ever levitates . . . in spacial haste

      wormholes and Thanatos amused.

Beautiful Eros rain : Bodies paint.

(nebulae & you.)