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Steele Jan 2015
I*             wasn't born in a hospital like most children are. I
am         made of soft thoughts, but too of hard muscular rivets; steel bars are
not         nearly so malleable as my arms. So far, so good, no need to be
afraid,    no need to be alone. There's no need to cry in the dark, wishing for

home      and a soft bed and warmth and food for my soul. My soul thrives; it
is             the howl of the wind on the mountain top; My soul lives in hardship.
Where     others tremble, I will not walk alone, because My soul lives in pain
The          pretenders; the snakes; the cowards do not sway. Because My soul is
Hard
    Like my muscles, like my heart, like the place where I was born. It
is...              funny actually. I wasn't born in a hospital; I was born on the way.

I
Was
Born
Moving
Forward.
  and I refuse to move back. Because *
*I am not afraid.
It's been a rough week.
Sydney Victoria Nov 2012
How Can You Stand To Love Me?
How Come,
You Want To Hold My Already Tainted Body?
How Can You Stand To Look In,
Eyes Which Are Covered With A Film Of Tears?
How Can You Stand To Try To Figure Out,
This Enigma Called Sydney?
I'm Two Faced,
Yet You Kiss Both,
You Make Me Want To Lose Myself,
And Let The Other Part Of Me Break Free,
Though I Will Always Reign Myself,
And I Sit With My Head Held High,
With That Glittery Golden Crown,
Yet How Can You Love This Semi-Barbaric Queen,
Surreptitious In Anguish,
Untrusting And Diffident?
You've Crushed Me,
But I Was Malleable And You Resculpted Me,
You Left Behind A Few Pieces,
Yet How Can You Stand To Love Me?
Pagan Paul Apr 2017
.
I'm glad I am a rough diamond,
not cut, and ready to buy.
Women don't want polished men,
they want a malleable guy.
I'm not the King of Diamonds,
not domesticated nor trained.
I'm not a gent, soft of touch.
I'm wild and lustful and stained.

So I am the Jack of Diamonds
strong and rugged and tough.
No culture taints my mind,
and knowledge is just - stuff.
When I find me a willing Lady,
she just can't get enough,
especially when I head for
her Diamond in the Rough.


© Pagan Paul (03/04/17)
.
fit for body, fit for mind, taking up few precious times,

times moving like the water falling down, the laughter between the cold droplets

and she's naked and her body bounces around the house

the coffee brews slowly, and I am in my leather jacket, still naked to the bone, my legs grounded in still malleable water, warm, yeah thats what I'd  use to describe it

***, followed by the relaxed primordial state, where signs and numbers and images and things seem less threatening, and the cold winds outside don't effect the warmth of a loving home.

feels like home, far away from home

and she's in her room working on her project, and I'm in mine, working on mine, and the coffee is brewing, and thats just fine
Francie Lynch Jul 2019
You can be a boulder,
Unmoveable, hard, stoic;
But every stone is permeable,
And the water gets in
To make the rock sand...
Soft, malleable,
With indistinguishable grains.

I know others who swim
Against adversity to spawn in the current.
They believe destination is destiny;
Focussed, driven with tunnel vision.

Some face adversity like a roller-coaster.
When things are going north, all is good;
But they throw up their arms and scream
When going south.

I will catch the west wind,
Change course if necessary,
Tack across the white caps of roiling waters.
I will steer the rudder towards my East.
Tommy Johnson Dec 2014
This dissertation, written by a double-jointed stunt-double
A sentient being
It must take one to know one
Because he found me immediately
We counted the tally marks
Crushed cornflakes on a Kashmir carpet  
We met a paraplegic paralegal  
Whose views we're, for lack of a better word "perpendicular"
We we're entranced by him
He spoke of integrity and the dangers of toxic relationships
And how the service of justice is only so-so
He was enmeshed by contractual obligations and deadlines
He left us with two last pieces of advice
"Talk to yourself often, for you'll surely know best for yourself"
"Forgive yourself, for forgiveness proves strength and admitting your wrongs shows humility"

The stunt-double wrote his paper on this
And I wrote this poem
This occurrence so rarefied yet malleable
      -Tommy Johnson
Answered, thus labeled because views a similarity. Who had this in the hand of the eye’s compact? If presence shifts to absence and believe it is safe in transit, what contract aspires to be an object used against it?

Here must be another present, moving thing for this nonattendance to take place. Its duty need not be nominal. And when it takes place, there is a guarantee for a statement: almost, to a certain extent. Had, adhered, temporary.

This was taken as an insistence of its exclusion as an avowal of its state: when a thing ceases to move, it has named a boundary all within a venue with already christened boundaries. To rise from its nomenclature, a question: what for is this mode? The unassuming and deliberate twofold of its chrome is indicative of something. There are only two possible answers to the question, but never warrants indemnity.

If amorphous then suitable to bend or assume over and over, a confrontational: to hold it against walls everywhere, its color only when dual fixing not a shadow, but the possibility of a shadow. To spill light over the malleable – notice how a body contorts.

If distinct then determined to traverse a straight line, a sanction: to furlough the idea of its controlled variable which is its many possibilities, its shape now not only a name but a force that deals with a believable architecture of compressed options. There is no need for appellation when related to dislimn as a shade is necessary for this disappearance to simulate. But the treachery is that when light surrounds no longer, form somehow a myth as if pausing all lightness to declare something: this is of two explanations merely a single.
Michael R Burch Mar 2020
English Translations of Russian Poems by Vera Pavlova

Shattered

I shattered your heart;
now I limp through the shards
barefoot.
―Vera Pavlova, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Seasons

Winter―a beast.
Spring―a bud.
Summer―a bug.
Autumn―a bird.
Otherwise I'm a woman.
―Vera Pavlova, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Pygmalion

Immortalize me!
With your bare, warm palm
please sculpt and mold my malleable snow.
Polish me until I glow.
―Vera Pavlova, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Scales

Scales:
on the one hand joy;
on the other sorrow.
Sorrow is weightier;
therefore joy
elevates.
―Vera Pavlova, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Muse

A muse inspires when she arrives,
a wife when she departs,
a mistress when she’s absent.
Would you like me to manage all that simultaneously?
―Vera Pavlova, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Stone Wall

You, my dear, are my shielding stone:
to sing behind, or bash my head on.
―Vera Pavlova, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Fluttering

Remember me as I am this instant: abrupt and absent,
my words fluttering like moths trapped in a curtain.
―Vera Pavlova, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Flight

I have been dropped
and fell from such
immense heights
for so long that
perhaps I still
have enough
time to learn
how to
fly.
―Vera Pavlova, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

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

Three versions of Vera Pavlova's "tightrope" poem:

I test the tightrope,
balancing a child
in each arm.
―Vera Pavlova, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I walk a tightrope,
balanced by a child
in each arm.
—Vera Pavlova, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I test the tightrope,
balanced by a child
in each arm.
―Vera Pavlova, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Vera Pavlova is a Russian poet. Born in Moscow, she is a graduate of the Schnittke College of Music and the Gnessin Academy of Music, where she specialized in music history. She is the author of twenty collections of poetry, four opera librettos, and the lyrics to two cantatas. Her poetry has appeared in The New Yorker and other major literary publications. Keywords/Tags: Pavlova, Russian, translations, epigrams, woman, female, shards, seasons, scales, tightrope, child, arm, sorrow, joy, shattered, heart, broken, glass, limp, limping, barefoot, snow, sculpt, mold, polish
Michael R Burch Mar 2020
Vera Pavlova: English Translations of Russian Poems by Vera Pavlova

Shattered

I shattered your heart;
now I limp through the shards
barefoot.
―Vera Pavlova, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Seasons

Winter―a beast.
Spring―a bud.
Summer―a bug.
Autumn―a bird.
The rest of the time I'm a woman.
―Vera Pavlova, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Pygmalion

Immortalize me!
With your bare, warm palm
please sculpt and mold my malleable snow.
Polish me until I glow.
―Vera Pavlova, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Scales

Scales:
on the one hand joy;
on the other sorrow.
Sorrow is the weightier;
therefore joy
elevates.
―Vera Pavlova, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Muse

A muse inspires when she arrives,
a wife when she departs,
a mistress when she’s absent.
Would you like me to manage all that simultaneously?
―Vera Pavlova, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Stone Wall

You, my dear, are my shielding stone:
to sing behind, or bash my head on.
―Vera Pavlova, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Fluttering

Remember me as I am this instant: abrupt and absent,
my words fluttering like moths trapped in a curtain.
―Vera Pavlova, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Flight

I have been dropped
and fell from such
immense heights
for so long that
perhaps I still
have enough
time to learn
how to
fly.
―Vera Pavlova, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Three versions of Vera Pavlova's "tightrope" poem:

I test the tightrope,
balancing a child
in each arm.
―Vera Pavlova, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I walk a tightrope,
balanced by a child
in each arm.
—Vera Pavlova, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I test the tightrope,
balanced by a child
in each arm.
―Vera Pavlova, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

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

Vera Pavlova is a Russian poet. Born in Moscow, she is a graduate of the Schnittke College of Music and the Gnessin Academy of Music, where she specialized in music history. She is the author of twenty collections of poetry, four opera librettos, and the lyrics to two cantatas. Her poetry has appeared in The New Yorker and other major literary publications. Keywords/Tags: Pavlova, Russian, translations, epigrams, woman, female, shards, seasons, scales, tightrope, child, arm, sorrow, joy, shattered, heart, broken, glass, limp, limping, barefoot, snow, sculpt, mold, polish
Veronica Smith Jun 2013
To you, it is a spectacle
You watch with congealed disgust and cloying pity
Perverse satisfaction oozes from your pores
But you dare not to push back the velvet curtain
And glance behind its inky whisper
For you know deep in the soft malleable crevasses of your mind
That the walls will stand firm with time,
That the flowers breathe,
That the lamps light.

You compare each life like photographic negatives
Whispering affirmations
My dishes are whole
My walls are smooth
My curtains match
Standing ***** on a pedestal of entitlement
A halo of ivy above your eyes
Gleaming incisors bared.

You meditate only on the dysfunction
You hear only raised voices
You see only the shards, never the whole
But behind that silky curtain are eddying currents of actuality
Fluidly changing
Even as you enjoy the show.
Tell her in another world you're close enough to hold her
Tell her about your affinity for that which is not manmade but is still breakable
Tell her she's malleable in a way that makes things afraid to touch her
Tell her how you misspelled "perfection" using the letters of her name
Tell her you don't want to drink unless it's from the dips of her collarbones
Tell her she's your favourite China shop
Tell her you knew she liked it rough
Tell her she'll shatter under the weight of your softness
Tell her she's not like the other girls before her
Tell her she's the question and the answer
Tell her she's more light than tunnel
Tell her she's art
Tell her she makes you believe in God
But just don't tell her you still call me when you're drunk
PK Wakefield Nov 2010
she '
           s a bigflavor
stuffed with agile bones
and gracious stocky elated heat. winsome flush density: that to(o
which i'm merely malleable metal
some gold, palmed freshly
in the grove of supple magic
a boisterous thigh and i,m love

                        I,m

massive.

i
  ' m witless charming music i
                                              m '
clumsy lighting gnashing slow
at lewd digestible ****** of your swift
fiber shedding miracle or you
                                                     my quavering note
      of pure violence
                                         stabbing rightly my paunchy ego
    and bleding
          i steal into your absolute cherry and marvel
viciously the timber of your soul
which burns and freezes gratuitously like the sun and earth
who are lovers like we
effortless
     and
                                                    )ETERNAl
Devon Franklin Nov 2013
It is cluttered inside,
and lonely, as you sit there,
with all your noise, all your baggage,
and all your incoherent pieces,
and at the end of the day,
it is a choice;
it is your fault,
and,
but,
you can change.

Scattered, broken thoughts,
festering over the years,
rooted in fears, washing over you like tidal waves:
Are you even trying to be good?
You’re wasting everyone’s time.
You push others away because you are afraid.
Your clenching, pounding heart responds,
There is danger here, and you are not safe."

No. There is no danger. I am safe.
You are exhausted,
with the collateral damage
of harboring irrational thoughts,
and of having hurt so many people,
trying to protect yourself.

So you brazenly dive into the wreckage,
because you have had enough,
and trudge through your muddled self,
again
and again
and again.

You lurch and welter within your swamp,
and it reeks of self-pity
and blind-spots,
and now you are up to your chin
in quicksand, trapped in vat,
conjured
(with your permission)
by your own monstrous thoughts.

Get outside of yourself;
your mess, your swamp,
your polluted soul,
your trembling anxiety,
your maladaptive thinking,
your baggage,
your noise,
your clutter.

Your mind is overwhelming,
and,
but,
it is ever-malleable.
Michael R Burch Mar 2021
MODERN SONNETS

I prefer the original definition of the sonnet as a “little song” of indeterminate form and length. These modern sonnets vary from more-or-less traditional to free verse and experimental sonnets.



Auschwitz Rose
by Michael R. Burch

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

On Auschwitz now the reddening sunset settles ...
They sleep alike—diminutive and tall,
the innocent, the “surgeons.”
                                               Sleeping, all.

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

Originally published by The Neovictorian/Cochlea, then by Voices Israel, Other Voices International, Verse Weekly, Black Medina, The Eclectic Muse (Canada), Promosaik (Germany), FreeXpression (Australia), Poetry Super Highway, Inspirational Stories, Trinacria, Pennsylvania Review, Litera (UK), Yahoo Buzz, and de Volkskrant Blog (a Dutch newspaper)



Such Tenderness
by Michael R. Burch

for the mothers of Gaza

There was, in your touch, such tenderness—as
only the dove on her mildest day has,
when she shelters downed fledglings beneath a warm wing
and coos to them softly, unable to sing.

What songs long forgotten occur to you now—
a babe at each breast? What terrible vow
ripped from your throat like the thunder that day
can never hold severing lightnings at bay?

Time taught you tenderness—time, oh, and love.
But love in the end is seldom enough ...
and time?—insufficient to life’s brief task.
I can only admire, unable to ask—

what is the source, whence comes the desire
of a woman to love as no God may require?

Published by Borderless Journal and SindhuNews (India)



Lozenge
by Michael R. Burch

When I was closest to love, it did not seem
real at all, but a thing of such tenuous sweetness
it might dissolve in my mouth
like a lozenge of sugar.

When I held you in my arms, I did not feel
our lack of completeness,
knowing how easy it was
for us to cling to each other.

And there were nights when the clouds
sped across the moon’s face,
exposing such rarified brightness
we did not witness

so much as embrace
love’s human appearance.



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.



The Composition of Shadows
by Michael R. Burch

“I made it out of a mouthful of air.”—W. B. Yeats

We breathe and so we write; the night
hums softly its accompaniment.
Pale phosphors burn; the page we turn
leads onward, and we smile, content.

And what we mean we write to learn:
the vowels of love, the consonants’
strange golden weight, each plosive’s shape—
curved like the heart. Here, resonant, ...

sounds’ shadows mass beneath bright glass
like singing voles curled in a maze
of blank white space. We touch a face—
long-frozen words trapped in a glaze

that insulates our hearts. Nowhere
can love be found. Just shrieking air.

Published by The Lyric and Contemporary Rhyme



Maker, Fakir, Curer
by Michael R. Burch

A poem should be a wild, unearthly cry
against the thought of lying in the dark,
doomed―never having seen bright sparks leap high,
without a word for flame, none for the mark
an ember might emblaze on lesioned skin.

A poet is no crafty artisan―
the maker of some crock. He dreams of flame
he never touched, but―fakir’s courtesan―
must dance obedience, once called by name.
Thin wand, divine!, this world is too the same―

all watery ooze and flesh. Let fire cure
and quickly harden here what can endure.

Originally published by The Lyric

The ancient English scops were considered to be makers: for instance, in William Dunbar’s “Lament for the Makiris.” But in some modern literary circles poets are considered to be fakers, with lies being as good as the truth where art is concerned. Hence, this poem puns on “fakirs” and dancing snakes.



Ebb Tide
by Michael R. Burch

Massive, gray, these leaden waves
bear their unchanging burden―
the sameness of each day to day

while the wind seems to struggle to say
something half-submerged planks at the mouth of the bay
might nuzzle limp seaweed to understand.

Now collapsing dull waves drain away
from the unenticing land;
shrieking gulls shadow fish through salt spray―

whitish streaks on a fogged silver mirror.
Sizzling lightning impresses its brand.
Unseen fingers scribble something in the wet sand.

Originally published by Southwest Review



Marsh Song
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

Originally published by The Lyric



The City Is a Garment
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

Originally published by The Lyric



Loose Knit
by Michael R. Burch

She blesses the needle,
fetches fine red stitches,
criss-crossing, embroidering dreams
in the delicate fabric.

And if her hand jerks and twitches in puppet-like fits,
she tells herself
reality is not as threadbare as it seems ...

that a little more darning may gather loose seams.

She weaves an unraveling tapestry
of fatigue and remorse and pain ...
only the nervously pecking needle
****** her to motion, again and again.

Published by The Chariton Review (as “The Knitter”)



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 nominated for the Pushcart Prize



Chloe
by Michael R. Burch

There were skies onyx at night ... moons by day ...
lakes pale as her eyes ... breathless winds
******* tall elms ... she would say
that we’d loved, but some book said 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
by yielding all my virtue to her grace.

Originally published by Romantics Quarterly as “A Dying Fall”



Come Down
by Michael R. Burch

for Harold Bloom and the Ivory Towerists

Come down, O, come down
from your high mountain tower.
How coldly the wind blows,
how late this chill hour ...

and I cannot wait
for a meteor shower
to show you the time
must be now, or not ever.

Come down, O, come down
from the high mountain heather
blown far to the lees
as fierce northern gales sever.

Come down, or your hearts will grow cold as the weather
when winter devours and spring returns never.

I dedicated this poem to Harold Bloom after reading his introduction to the Best American Poetry anthology he edited. Bloom seemed intent on claiming poetry as the province of the uber-reader (i.e., himself), but I remember reading poems by Blake, Burns, Byron, cummings, Dickinson, Frost, Housman, Keats, Eliot, Pound, Shakespeare, Shelley, Whitman, Wordsworth, Yeats, et al, and grokking them as a boy, without any “advanced” instruction from anyone.



Erin
by Michael R. Burch

All that’s left of Ireland is her hair—
bright carrot—and her milkmaid-pallid skin,
her brilliant air of cavalier despair,
her train of children—some conceived in sin,
the others to avoid it. For nowhere
is evidence of thought. Devout, pale, thin,
gay, nonchalant, all radiance. So fair!

How can men look upon her and not spin
like wobbly buoys churned by her skirt’s brisk air?
They buy. They ***** to pat her nyloned shin,
to share her elevated, pale Despair ...
to find at last two spirits ease no one’s.

All that’s left of Ireland is the Care,
her impish grin, green eyes like leprechauns’.



To Flower
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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



Loose Knit
by Michael R. Burch

She blesses the needle,
fetches fine red stitches,
criss-crossing, embroidering dreams
in the delicate fabric.

And if her hand jerks and twitches in puppet-like fits,
she tells herself
reality is not as threadbare as it seems ...

that a little more darning may gather loose seams.

She weaves an unraveling tapestry
of fatigue and remorse and pain ...
only the nervously pecking needle
****** her to motion, again and again.

Published by The Chariton Review (as “The Knitter”)



Discrimination
by Michael R. Burch

The meter I had sought to find, perplexed,
was ripped from books of "verse" that read like prose.
I found it in sheet music, in long rows
of hologramic CDs, in sad wrecks
of long-forgotten volumes undisturbed
half-centuries by archivists, unscanned.
I read their fading numbers, frowned, perturbed―
why should such tattered artistry be banned?

I heard the sleigh bells’ jingles, vampish ads,
the supermodels’ babble, Seuss’s books
extolled in major movies, blurbs for abs ...
A few poor thinnish journals crammed in nooks
are all I’ve found this late to sell to those
who’d classify free verse "expensive prose."

Originally published by The Chariton Review



The Harvest of Roses
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

Originally published by The Raintown Review



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.

Originally published by The Lyric



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.

Published by The Eclectic Muse



Mare Clausum
by Michael R. Burch

These are the narrows of my soul—
dark waters pierced by eerie, haunting screams.
And these uncharted islands bleakly home
wild nightmares and deep, strange, forbidding dreams.

Please don’t think to find pearls’ pale, unearthly glow
within its shoals, nor corals in its reefs.
For, though you seek to salvage Love, I know
that vessel lists, and night brings no relief.

Pause here, and look, and know that all is lost;
then turn, and go; let salt consume, and rust.
This sea is not for sailors, but the ******
who lingered long past morning, till they learned

why it is named:
Mare Clausum.



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



In Praise of Meter
by Michael R. Burch

The earth is full of rhythms so precise
the octave of the crystal can produce
a trillion oscillations, yet not lose
a second's beat. The ear needs no device
to hear the unsprung rhythms of the couch
drown out the mouth's; the lips can be debauched
by kisses, should the heart put back its watch
and find the pulse of love, and sing, devout.

If moons and tides in interlocking dance
obey their numbers, what's been left to chance?
Should poets be more lax―their circumstance
as humble as it is?―or readers wince
to see their ragged numbers thin, to hear
the moans of drones drown out the Chanticleer?

Originally published by The Eclectic Muse



Free Fall
by Michael R. Burch

These cloudless nights, the sky becomes a wheel
where suns revolve around an axle star ...
Look there, and choose. Decide which moon is yours.
Sink Lethe-ward, held only by a heel.
Advantage. Disadvantage. Who can tell?
To see is not to know, but you can feel
the tug sometimes―the gravity, the shell
as lustrous as damp pearl. You sink, you reel
toward some draining revelation. Air―
too thin to grasp, to breath. Such pressure. Gasp.
The stars invert, electric, everywhere.
And so we fall, down-tumbling through night’s fissure ...
two beings pale, intent to fall forever
around each other―fumbling at love’s tether ...
now separate, now distant, now together.

Originally published by Sonnet Scroll



In this Ordinary Swoon
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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



Huntress
by Michael R. Burch

after Baudelaire

Lynx-eyed, cat-like and cruel, you creep
across a crevice dropping deep
into a dark and doomed domain.
Your claws are sheathed. You smile, insane.
Rain falls upon your path, and pain
pours down. Your paws are pierced. You pause
and heed the oft-lamented laws
which bid you not begin again
till night returns. You wail like wind,
the sighing of a soul for sin,
and give up hunting for a heart.
Till sunset falls again, depart,
though hate and hunger urge you―"On!"
Heed, hearts, your hope―the break of dawn.

Originally published by Sonnetto Poesia



Water and Gold
by Michael R. Burch

You came to me as rain breaks on the desert
when every flower springs to life at once,
but joy's a wan illusion to the expert:
the Bedouin has learned how not to want.

You came to me as riches to a miser
when all is gold, or so his heart believes,
until he dies much thinner and much wiser,
his gleaming bones hauled off by chortling thieves.

You gave your heart too soon, too dear, too vastly;
I could not take it in; it was too much.
I pledged to meet your price, but promised rashly.
I died of thirst, of your bright Midas touch.

I dreamed you gave me water of your lips,
then sealed my tomb with golden hieroglyphs.

Originally published by The Lyric



Fountainhead
by Michael R. Burch

I did not delight in love so much
as in a kiss like linnets' wings,
the flutterings of a pulse so soft
the heart remembers, as it sings:
to bathe there was its transport, brushed
by marble lips, or porcelain,―
one liquid kiss, one cool outburst
from pale rosettes. What did it mean ...

to float awhirl on minute tides
within the compass of your eyes,
to feel your alabaster bust
grow cold within? Ecstatic sighs
seem hisses now; your eyes, serene,
reflect the sun's pale tourmaline.

Originally published by Romantics Quarterly



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



Pan
by Michael R. Burch

... Among the shadows of the groaning elms,
amid the darkening oaks, we fled ourselves ...

... Once there were paths that led to coracles
that clung to piers like loosening barnacles ...

... where we cannot return, because we lost
the pebbles and the playthings, and the moss ...

... hangs weeping gently downward, maidens’ hair
who never were enchanted, and the stairs ...

... that led up to the Fortress in the trees
will not support our weight, but on our knees ...

... we still might fit inside those splendid hours
of damsels in distress, of rustic towers ...

... of voices of the wolves’ tormented howls
that died, and live in dreams’ soft, windy vowels ...

Originally published by Sonnet Scroll



Hearthside
by Michael R. Burch

“When you are old and grey and full of sleep...” — W. B. Yeats

For all that we professed of love, we knew
this night would come, that we would bend alone
to tend wan fires’ dimming bars—the moan
of wind cruel as the Trumpet, gelid dew
an eerie presence on encrusted logs
we hoard like jewels, embrittled so ourselves.

The books that line these close, familiar shelves
loom down like dreary chaperones. Wild dogs,
too old for mates, cringe furtive in the park,
as, toothless now, I frame this parchment kiss.

I do not know the words for easy bliss
and so my shriveled fingers clutch this stark,
long-unenamored pen and will it: Move.
I loved you more than words, so let words prove.

Published by Sonnet Writers, Setu (India), Borderless Journal (Singapore) and Vallance Review (Canada)



how many Nights (i)
by michael r. burch

how many Nights we laughed to see the sun
       go
down ...
your hair a frightful, dizzy golden crown ...
your skirt up to your thighs, displaying these
and others of men’s baser fantasies ...
that little pouting flower, slightly parted,
with nothing intervening, nothing thwarted ...



how many Nights (ii)
by michael r. burch

how many Nights we laughed to see the sun
       go
down ...
because the Night was made for reckless fun.
Your golden crown,
Your skin so soft, so smooth, and lightly downed.

how many nights i wept glad tears to hold
You tight against the years.
Your eyes so bold,
Your hair spun gold,
and all the pleasures Your soft flesh foretold.

how many Nights i did not dare to dream
You were so real ...
now all that i have left here is to feel
in dreams surreal
Time is the Nightmare God before whom men kneel.

and how few Nights, i reckoned, in the end,
we were allowed to gather, less to spend.



Come!
by Michael R. Burch

Will you come to visit my grave, I wonder,
in the season of lightning, the season of thunder,
when I have lain so long in the indifferent earth
that I have no girth?

When my womb has conformed to the chastity
your anemic Messiah envisioned for me,
will you finally be pleased that my *** was thus rendered
unpalatable, disengendered?

And when those strange loathsome organs that troubled you so
have been eaten by worms, will the heavens still glow
with the approval of God that I ended a maid—
thanks to a *****?

And will you come to visit my grave, I wonder,
in the season of lightning, the season of thunder?

“Come!” won fifth place in the Writer’s Digest 2012 Rhyming Poetry Contest, out of over 9,500 overall contest entries.



This is a sonnet despite the nonstandard stanza breaks. It was inspired by Dylan Thomas's poem "The force that through the green fuse drives the flower."

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!

Keywords/Tags: poem, poetry, spring, stirring, awakening, spirit, power, force, grape, vine, wine, growth, bloom, blooming, blossom, blossoming



Herbsttag (“Autumn Day”)
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Lord, it is time. Let the immense summer go.
Lay your long shadows over the sundials
and over the meadows, let the free winds blow.
Command the late fruits to fatten and shine;
O, grant them another Mediterranean hour!
Urge them to completion, and with power
convey final sweetness to the heavy wine.
Who has no house now, never will build one.
Who's alone now, shall continue alone;
he'll wake, read, write long letters to friends,
and pace the tree-lined pathways up and down,
restlessly, as autumn leaves drift and descend.

Published by Measure, Setu (India), The HyperTexts, 3 Penny Paintings and The Society of Classical Poets



Aflutter
by Michael R. Burch

This rainbow is the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh.—Yahweh

You are gentle now, and in your failing hour
how like the child you were, you seem again,
and smile as sadly as the girl
                                              (age ten?)
who held the sparrow with the mangled wing
close to her heart.
                            It marveled at your power
but would not mend.
                                And so the world renews
old vows it seemed to make: false promises
spring whispers, as if nothing perishes
that does not resurrect to wilder hues
like rainbows’ eerie pacts we apprehend
but cannot fail to keep.
                                     Now in your eyes
I see the end of life that only dies
and does not care for bright, translucent lies.
Are tears so precious? These few, let us spend
together, as before, then lay to rest
these sparrows’ hearts aflutter at each breast.

Published by The Lyric, Poetry Life & Times and The Eclectic Muse (Canada)



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.



Water and Gold
by Michael R. Burch

You came to me as rain breaks on the desert
when every flower springs to life at once.
But joys are wan illusions to the expert:
the Bedouin has learned how not to want.

You came to me as riches to a miser
when all is gold, or so his heart believes,
until he dies much thinner and much wiser,
his gleaming bones hauled off by chortling thieves.

You gave your heart too soon, too dear, too vastly;
I could not take it in; it was too much.
I pledged to meet your price, but promised rashly.
I died of thirst, of your bright Midas touch.

I dreamed you gave me water of your lips,
then sealed my tomb with golden hieroglyphs.



The Forge
by Michael R. Burch

To at last be indestructible, a poem
must first glow, almost flammable, upon
a thing inert, as gray, as dull as stone,

then bend this way and that, and slowly cool
at arm’s-length, something irreducible
drawn out with caution, toughened in a pool

of water so contrary just a hiss
escapes it—water instantly a mist.
It writhes, a thing of senseless shapelessness ...

And then the driven hammer falls and falls.
The horses ***** their ears in nearby stalls.
A soldier on his cot leans back and smiles.

A sound of ancient import, with the ring
of honest labor, sings of fashioning.

Published by The Chariton Review


See
by Michael R. Burch

See how her hair has thinned: it doesn’t seem
like hair at all, but like the airy moult
of emus who outraced the wind and left
soft plumage in their wake. See how her eyes
are gentler now; see how each wrinkle laughs,
and deepens on itself, as though mirth took
some comfort there, then burrowed deeply in,
outlasting winter. See how very thin
her features are—that time has made more spare,
so that each bone shows, elegant and rare.
For life remains undimmed in her grave eyes,
and courage in her still-delighted looks:
each face presented like a picture book’s.
Bemused, she blows us undismayed goodbyes.



Flight 93
by Michael R. Burch

I held the switch in trembling fingers ... asked
why existence felt so small, so meaningless,
like a minnow squirming 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.

Published by The Lyric



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.

Published by Romantics Quarterly



To Please The Poet
by Michael R. Burch

To please the poet, words must dance—
staccato, brisk, a two-step:
so!
Or waltz in elegance to time
of music—mild,
adagio.

To please the poet, words must chance
emotion in catharsis—
flame.
Or splash into salt seas, descend
in sheets of silver-shining
rain.

To please the poet, words must prance
and gallop, gambol, revel,
rail.
Or muse upon a moment—mute,
obscure, unsure, imperfect,
pale.

To please the poet, words must sing,
or croak, wart-tongued, imagining.

Originally published by The Lyric



The Endeavors of Lips
by Michael R. Burch

How sweet the endeavors of lips—to speak
of the heights of those pleasures which left us weak
in love’s strangely lit beds, where the cold springs creak:
for there is no illusion like love ...

Grown childlike, we wish for those storied days,
for those bright sprays of flowers, those primrosed ways
that curled to the towers of Yesterdays
where She braided illusions of love ...

“O, let down your hair!”—we might call and call,
to the dark-slatted window, the moonlit wall ...
but our love is a shadow; we watch it crawl
like a spidery illusion. For love ...

was never as real as that first kiss seemed
when we read by the flashlight and dreamed.

Published by Romantics Quarterly and The Eclectic Muse (Canada)



Once

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 would 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 impossible blossom her wild rains of kisses decreed.

Published by The Lyric, Writer’s Journal, Grassroots Poetry, Tucumcari Literary Journal, Unlikely Stories, Poetry Life & Times



These Hallowed Halls
by Michael R. Burch

a young Romantic Poet mourns the passing of an age . . .

A final stereo fades into silence
and now there is seldom a murmur
to trouble the slumber of these ancient halls.
I stand by a window where others have watched
the passage of time—alone, not untouched.
And I am as they were—unsure—for the days
stretch out ahead, a bewildering maze.

Ah, faithless lover—that I had never touched your breast,
nor felt the stirrings of my heart,
which until that moment had peacefully slept.
For now I have known the exhilaration
of a heart having leapt from the pinnacle of Love,
and the result of each such infatuation ...
the long freefall to earth, as the moon glides above.



Oasis
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

I want tears to form again
in the shriveled glands of these eyes
dried all these long years
by too much heated knowing.

I want tears to course down
these parched cheeks,
to star these cracked lips
like an improbable dew

in the heart of a desert.
I want words to burble up
like happiness, like the thought of love,
like the overwhelming, shimmering thought of you

to a nomad who
has only known drought.



Melting
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Entirely, as spring consumes the snow,
the thought of you consumes me: I am found
in rivulets, dissolved to what I know
of former winters’ passions. Underground,
perhaps one slender icicle remains
of what I was before, in some dark cave—
a stalactite, long calcified, now drains
to sodden pools whose milky liquid laves
the colder rock, thus washing something clean
that never saw the light, that never knew
the crust could break above, that light could stream:
so luminous,
                     so bright,
                                                      so beautiful . . .
I lie revealed, and so I stand transformed,
and all because you smiled on me, and warmed.

Published by Borderless Journal



Afterglow
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

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

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

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

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



All Afterglow
by Michael R. Burch

Something remarkable, perhaps ...
the color of her eyes ... though I forget
the color of her eyes ... perhaps her hair
the way it blew about ... I do not know
just what it was about her that has kept
her thought lodged deep in mine ... unmelted snow
that lasted till July would be less rare,
clasped in some frozen cavern where the wind
sculpts bright grotesqueries, ignoring springs’
and summers’ higher laws ... there thawing slow
and strange by strange degrees, one tick beyond
the freezing point which keeps all things the same
... till what remains is fragile and unlike
the world above, where melted snows and rains
form rivulets that, inundate with sun,
evaporate, and in life’s cyclic stream
remake the world again ... I do not know
that we can be remade—all afterglow.

[Note: “inundate with snow” is not a typo.]



A Vain Word
by Michael R. Burch

Oleanders at dawn preen extravagant whorls
as I read in leaves’ Sanskrit brief moments remaining
till sunset implodes, till the moon strands grey pearls
under moss-stubbled oaks, full of whispers, complaining
to the darkening autumn, how swiftly life goes—
as I fled before love ...
                                     Now, through leaves trodden black,
shivering, I wander as winter’s first throes
of cool listless snow drench my cheeks, back and neck.

I discerned in one season all eternities of grief,
the specter of death sprawled out under the rose,
the last consequence of faith in the flight of one leaf,
the incontinence of age, as life’s bright torrent slows.

O, where are you now?—I was timid, absurd.
I would find comfort again in a vain word.

Published by Chrysanthemum and Tucumcari Literary Review



Break Time
by Michael R. Burch

for those who lost loved ones on 9-11

Intrude upon my grief; sit; take a spot
of milk to cloud the blackness that you feel;
add artificial sweeteners to conceal
the bitter aftertaste of loss. You’ll heal
if I do not. The coffee’s hot. You speak:
of bundt cakes, polls, the price of eggs. You glance
twice at your watch, cough, look at me askance.
The TV drones oeuvres of high romance
in syncopated lip-synch. Should I feel
the underbelly of Love’s warm Ideal,
its fuzzy-wuzzy tummy, and not reel
toward some dark conclusion? Disappear
to pale, dissolving atoms. Were you here?
I brush you off: like saccharine, like a tear.

Published by Sonnet Writers, Freshet and Sontey (Czechoslovakia)



At Cædmon’s Grave
by Michael R. Burch

“Cædmon’s Hymn,” composed at the Monastery of Whitby (a North Yorkshire fishing village), is one of the oldest known poems written in the English language, dating back to around 680 A.D. According to legend, Cædmon, an illiterate Anglo-Saxon cowherd, received the gift of poetic composition from an angel; he subsequently founded a school of Christian poets. Unfortunately, only nine lines of Cædmon’s verse survive, in the writings of the Venerable Bede. Whitby, tiny as it is, reappears later in the history of English literature, having been visited, in diametric contrast, by Lewis Carroll and Bram Stoker’s ghoulish yet evocative Dracula.

At the monastery of Whitby,
on a day when the sun sank through the sea,
and the gulls shrieked wildly, jubilant, free,

while the wind and time blew all around,
I paced those dusk-enamored grounds
and thought I heard the steps resound

of Carroll, Stoker and good Bede
who walked there, too, their spirits freed
—perhaps by God, perhaps by need—

to write, and with each line, remember
the glorious light of Cædmon’s ember,
scorched tongues of flame words still engender.

Here, as darkness falls, at last we meet.
I lay this pale garland of words at his feet.

Published by The Lyric



Altared Spots
by Michael R. Burch

The mother leopard buries her cub,
then cries three nights for his bones to rise
clad in new flesh, to celebrate the sunrise.

Good mother leopard, pensive thought
and fiercest love’s wild insurrection
yield no certainty of a resurrection.

Man’s tried them both, has added tears,
chants, dances, drugs, séances, tombs’
white alabaster prayer-rooms, wombs

where dead men’s frozen genes convene ...
there is no answer—death is death.
So bury your son, and save your breath.

Or emulate earth’s “highest species”—
write a few strange poems and odd treatises.



Crunch
by Michael R. Burch

A cockroach could live nine months on the dried mucous you scrounge from your nose
then fling like seedplants to the slowly greening floor ...

You claim to be the advanced life form, but, mon frere,
sometimes as you ****** encrusted kinks of hair from your Leviathan ***
and muse softly on zits, icebergs snap off the Antarctic.

You’re an evolutionary quandary, in need of a sacral ganglion
to control your enlarged, contradictory hindquarters:
surely the brain should migrate closer to its primary source of information,
in order to ensure the survival of the species.

Cockroaches thrive on eyeboogers and feces;
their exoskeletons expand and gleam like burnished armor in the presence of uranium.
But your cranium
     is not nearly so adaptable.

“Crunch” is a poem about evolution and survival of the fittest which questions where human beings really are the planet earth’s most advanced life forms.



Duet (II)
by Michael R. Burch

If love is just an impulse meant to bring
two tiny hearts together, skittering
like hamsters from their Quonsets late at night
in search of lust’s productive exercise . . .

If love is the mutation of some gene
made radiant—an accident of bliss
played out by two small actors on a screen
of silver mesh, who never even kiss . . .

If love is evolution, nature’s way
of sorting out its DNA in pairs,
of matching, mating, sculpting flesh’s clay . . .
why does my wrinkled hamster climb his stairs

to set his wheel revolving, then descend
and stagger off . . . to make hers fly again?

Published by Bewildering Stories



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 Nabokov’s 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.



Because You Came to Me
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

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.



Caveat
by Michael R. Burch

If only we were not so eloquent,
we might sing, and only sing, not to impress,
but only to enjoy, to be enjoyed.

We might inundate the earth with thankfulness
for light, although it dies, and make a song
of night descending on the earth like bliss,

with other lights beyond—not to be known—
but only to be welcomed and enjoyed,
before all worlds and stars are overthrown ...

as a lover’s hands embrace a sleeping face
and find it beautiful for emptiness
of all but joy. There is no thought to love

but love itself. How senseless to redress,
in darkness, such becoming nakedness . . .

Originally published by Clementine Unbound



The Princess and the Pauper
by Michael R. Burch

for Norman Kraeft in memory of his beloved wife June

Here was a woman bright, intent on life,
who did not flinch from Death, but caught his eye
and drew him, powerless, into her spell
of wanting her himself, so much the lie
that she was meant for him—obscene illusion!—
made him seem a monarch throned like God on high,
when he was less than nothing; when to die
meant many stultifying, pained embraces.

She shed her gown, undid the tangled laces
that tied her to the earth: then she was his.
Now all her erstwhile beauty he defaces
and yet she grows in hallowed loveliness—
her ghost beyond perfection—for to die
was to ascend. Now he begs, penniless.

Published by Katrina Anthology, The Lyric and Trinacria



Every Man Has a Dream
by Michael R. Burch

lines composed at Elliston Square

Every man has a dream that he cannot quite touch ...
a dream of contentment, of soft, starlit rain,
of a breeze in the evening that, rising again,
reminds him of something that cannot have been,
and he calls this dream love.

And each man has a dream that he fears to let live,
for he knows: to succumb is to throw away all.
So he curses, denies it and locks it within
the cells of his heart and he calls it a sin,
this madness, this love.

But each man in his living falls prey to his dreams,
and he struggles, but so he ensures that he falls,
and he finds in the end that he cannot deny
the joy that he feels or the tears that he cries
in the darkness of night for this light he calls love.



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 blue 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 yet to learn
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 grasp 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.



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
as 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 husks into some raging ocean
and laugh as they shatter, 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, Poetry Life & Times and The Chained Muse



Elemental
by Michael R. Burch

for and after Dylan Thomas

The poet delves earth’s detritus—hard toil—
for raw-edged nouns, barbed verbs, vowels’ lush bouquet;
each syllable his pen excretes—dense soil,
dark images impacted, rooted clay.

The poet sees the sea but feels its meaning—
the teeming brine, the mirrored oval flame
that leashes and excites its turgid surface ...
then squanders years imagining love’s the same.

Belatedly, he turns to what lies broken—
the scarred and furrowed plot he fiercely sifts,
among death’s sicksweet dungs and composts seeking
one element whose scorching flame uplifts.



Premonition
by Michael R. Burch

Now the evening has come to a close and the party is over ...
we stand in the doorway and watch as they go—
each stranger, each acquaintance, each casual lover.

They walk to their cars and they laugh as they go,
though we know their forced laughter’s the wine ...
then they pause at the road where the dark asphalt flows
endlessly on toward Zion ...

and they kiss one another as though they were friends,
and they promise to meet again “soon” ...
but the rivers of Jordan roll on without end,
and the mockingbird calls to the moon ...

and the katydids climb up the cropped hanging vines,
and the crickets chirp on out of tune ...
and their shadows, defined by the cryptic starlight,
seem spirits torn loose from their tombs.

And we know their brief lives are just eddies in time,
that their hearts are unreadable runes
carved out to stand like strange totems in sand
when their corpses lie ravaged and ruined ...

You take my clenched fist and you give it a kiss
as though it were something you loved,
and the tears fill your eyes, brimming with the soft light
of the stars winking sagely above ...

Then you whisper, "It's time that we went back inside;
if you'd like, we can sit and just talk for a while."
And the hope in your eyes burns too deep, so I lie
and I say, "Yes, I would," to your small, troubled smile.



Leave Taking (II)
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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



Because She Craved the Very Best
by Michael R. Burch

Because she craved the very best,
he took her East, he took her West;
he took her where there were no wars
and brought her bright bouquets of stars ...

The blush and fragrances of roses,
the hush an evening sky imposes,
moonbeams pale and garlands rare,
and golden combs to match her hair ...

A nightingale to sing all night,
white wings, to let her soul take flight ...
She stabbed him with a poisoned sting
and as he lay there dying,
she screamed, "I wanted everything!"
and started crying.



Wonderland
by Michael R. Burch

We stood, kids of the Lamb, to put to test
the beatific anthems of the blessed,
the sentence of the martyr, and the pen’s
sincere religion. Magnified, the lens
shot back absurd reflections of each face—
a carnival-like mirror. In the space
between the silver backing and the glass,
we caught a glimpse of Joan, a frumpy lass
who never brushed her hair or teeth, and failed
to pass on GO, and frequently was jailed
for awe’s beliefs. Like Alice, she grew wee
to fit the door, then couldn’t lift the key.
We failed the test, and so the jury’s hung.
In Oz, “The Witch is Dead” ranks number one.



Artificial Smile
by Michael R. Burch

I’m waiting for my artificial teeth
to stretch belief, to hollow out the cob
of zealous righteousness, to grasp life’s stub
between clenched molars, and yank out the grief.

Mine must be art-official—zenlike Art—
a disembodied, white-enameled grin
of Cheshire manufacture. Part by part,
the human smile becomes mock porcelain.

Till in the end, the smile alone remains:
titanium-based alloys undestroyed
with graves’ worm-eaten contents, all the pains
of bridgework unrecalled, and what annoyed

us most about the corpses rectified
to quaintest dust. The Smile winks, deified.



www.firesermon.com
by Michael R. Burch

your gods have become e-vegetation;
your saints—pale thumbnail icons; to enlarge
their images, right-click; it isn’t hard
to populate your web-site; not to mention

cool sound effects are nice; Sound Blaster cards
can liven up dull sermons, [zing some fire];
your drives need added Zip; you must discard
your balky paternosters: ***!!! Desire!!!

these are the watchwords, catholic; you must
as Yahoo! did, employ a little lust :)
if you want great e-commerce; hire a bard
to spruce up ancient language, shed the dust

of centuries of sameness;
                                             lameness *****;
your gods grew blurred; go 3D; scale; adjust.



Happily Never After (the Second Curse of the ***** Toad)
by Michael R. Burch

He did not think of love of Her at all
frog-plangent nights, as moons engoldened roads
through crumbling stonewalled provinces, where toads
(nee princes) ruled in chinks and grew so small
at last to be invisible. He smiled
(the fables erred so curiously), and thought
bemusedly of being reconciled
to human flesh, because his heart was not
incapable of love, but, being cursed
a second time, could only love a toad’s . . .
and listened as inflated frogs rehearsed
cheekbulging tales of anguish from green moats . . .
and thought of her soft croak, her skin fine-warted,
his anemic flesh, and how true love was thwarted.

Originally published by Romantics Quarterly



130 Refuted
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

Bright roses’ brief affairs, declared
when winter comes, will wither quickly.
Your cheeks, though paler when compared
with them?—more lasting, never prickly.
And your cheeks, so dear and warm,
far vaster treasures, need no thorns.

Originally published by Romantics Quarterly



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.



Hymn to an Art-o-matic Laundromat
by Michael R. Burch

after Richard Moore’s “Hymn to an Automatic Washer”

O, terrible-immaculate
ALL-cleansing godly Laundromat,
where cleanliness is next to Art
—a bright Kinkade (bought at K-Mart),
a Persian rug (made in Taiwan),
a Royal Bonn Clock (time zone Guam)—
embrace my *** in cushioned vinyl,
erase all marks: ****, vaginal,
******, inkspot, red wine, dirt.
O, sterilize her skirt, my shirt,
my skidmarked briefs, her padded bra;
suds-away in your white maw
all filth, the day’s accumulation.
Make us pure by INUNDATION.

Published by The Oldie, where it was the winner of a poetry contest



If Love Were Infinite
by Michael R. Burch

If love were infinite, how I would pity
our lives, which through long years’ exactitude
might seem a pleasant blur—one interlude
without prequel or sequel—wanly pretty,
the gentlest flame the heart might bring to bear
to tepid hearts too sure of love to flare.

If love were infinite, why would I linger
caressing your fine hair, lost in the thought
each auburn strand must shrivel with this finger,
and so in thrall to time be gently brought
to final realization: love, amazing,
must leave us ash for all our fiery blazing.

If flesh’s heat once led me straight to you,
love’s arrow’s burning mark must pierce me through.



Imperfect Sonnet
by Michael R. Burch

A word before the light is doused: the night
is something wriggling through an unclean mind,
as rats creep through a tenement. And loss
is written cheaply with the moon’s cracked gloss
like lipstick through the infinite, to show
love’s pale yet sordid imprint on us. Go.

We have not learned love yet, except to cleave.
I saw the moon rise once ... but to believe ...
was of another century ... and now ...
I have the urge to love, but not the strength.

Despair, once stretched out to its utmost length,
lies couched in squalor, watching as the screen
reveals “love’s” damaged images: its dreams ...
and ******* limply, screams and screams.



Renown

for Jeremy

Words fail us when, at last,
we lie unread amid night’s parchment leaves,
life’s chapter past.

Whatever I have gained of life, I lost,
except for this bright emblem
of your smile . . .

and I would grasp
its meaning closer for a longer while . . .
but I am glad

with all my heart to be unheard,
and smile,
bound here, still strangely mortal,

instructed by wise Love not to be sad,
when to be the lesser poet
meant to be “the world’s best dad.”



Late Frost
by Michael R. Burch

The matters of the world like sighs intrude;
out of the darkness, windswept winter light
too frail to solve the puzzle of night’s terror
resolves the distant stars to salts: not white,

but gray, dissolving in the frigid darkness.
I stoke cooled flames and stand, perhaps revealed
as equally as gray, a faded hardness
too malleable with time to be annealed.

Light sprinkles through dull flakes, devoid of color;
which matters not. I did not think to find
a star like Bethlehem’s. I turn my collar
to trudge outside for cordwood. There, outlined

within the doorway’s arch, I see the tree
that holds its boughs aloft, as if to show
they harbor neither love, nor enmity,
but only stars: insignias I know—

false ornaments that flash, overt and bright,
but do not warm and do not really glow,
and yet somehow bring comfort, soft delight:
a rainbow glistens on new-fallen snow.



Over(t) Simplification
by Michael R. Burch

“Keep it simple, stupid.”

A sonnet is not simple, but the rule
is simply this: let poems be beautiful,
or comforting, or horrifying. Move
the reader, and the world will not reprove
the idiosyncrasies of too few lines,
too many syllables, or offbeat beats.

It only matters that she taps her feet
or that he frowns, or smiles, or grimaces,
or sits bemused—a child—as images
of worlds he’d lost come flooding back, and then . . .
they’ll cheer the poet’s insubordinate pen.

A sonnet is not simple, but the rule
is simply this: let poems be beautiful.



The Lingering and the Unconsoled Heart
by Michael R. Burch

There is a silence—
the last unspoken moment
before death,

when the moon,
cratered and broken,
is all madness and light,

when the breath comes low and complaining,
and the heart is a ruin
of emptiness and night.

There is a grief—
the grief of a lover's embrace
while faith still shimmers in a mother’s tears ...

There is no dismaler time, nor place,
while the faint glimmer of life is ours
that the lingering and the unconsoled heart fears

beyond this: seeing its own stricken face
in eyes that drift toward some incomprehensible place.

Keywords/Tags: modern, sonnet, sonnets, free, verse, song, traditional, romantic, romanticism, art, artisan
Wack Tastic Nov 2012
And then it came to mind,
How to operate within my station,
Facets of degradation,
Open with a wiliness to accept.

Mind’s eye wandering,
Everything in a quicken pace moves,
Surrounded
Blanketed in,
Blackened will to survive,
To escape the common,
Graced by impeding disaster,
Trying to dig yourself out.

The reservoir of hope,
The **** of surplus sacrilege,
Slowly drained by the common,
Conformity of the Herd.

Reasoning to keep the smile?
Why not envelope the enveloper,
The world is an oyster without a pearl,
Your life begins today and is one nanosecond shorter,
Fancy ornaments
Pathetic compensation,
Being a disillusioned higher up,
Means being a corporate *****.

Your boss,
My boss,
Has something in common,
They felt that stress is necessary,
Nervousness a virtue,
Stoicism means to be malleable,
Easy to break the spirit,
Difficult to understand that,
Below the surface,
The fault lines of the two hemispheres,
Begin to overlap and scrap,
Unravel and become lucid in plain simplicity,
Like pulling the lever which spills more
Useless garbage on your lap.

Envelope that and be comfortable with its existence,
Never agree with it, then stagnate standing water
Becomes the cesspools surface,
Underneath is the ravings of a diabolical cynic
That isn’t going to shovel the **** anymore
Born to grow
malleable to touch
fragile to the pressure
held between *******
molded by One's will
shaped to a new creation, different from the rest
          born to change the world
matilda shaye Jun 2020
I want to write a poem about being
malleable,
so I buy clay. I try to make a sculpture
of what it is that I’m feeling and it looks like
absolute ****, it isn’t my fault
my hands are just too weak to
carry the weight of the mixture I tried to make.
that you once were.
I try again.
I lift and I punch and I mold
and I kneed and
I grab the clay like I’m
grabbing the back of your head,
your hair in my fist so now it’s grey between my fingers once again
and I hit and I switch and I try so hard to make something sturdy  

it needs to be cooked to stand up straight.
maybe you’re just not there yet.
M Apr 2017
I stand on the edge
of the obsidian water
that has pooled together
Touching the tips
of my bare toes
of my bare bones

I am curious
to see what lies
on the other side
of the water
and my reflection
beckons me
but it is different than I

I am strong
I am the swell of the ocean
I am natural
I am a petal refusing to bow to the rain
I am exposed
I am content in my nakedness

But my reflection is inviting
as she waves to me
to come over to the other side

I am falling head first
into the pool
and I feel every hair
being ripped and laid
perfectly in place
and I feel my face
become malleable wax

And as I emerge
from the pool
on the other side
I am gasping
My skin is red and smooth
My hair is shiny and long
My face is smiling and demure

But my ocean is a puddle to be stepped in
But my petals are to be plucked at any given moment
But my nakedness is to be shamed and clothed

And as I look around
a myriad of pools
surround me
with people
who are just as horrified
as I am

because we are not who we are.
Butch Decatoria Feb 2017
defined as "existing or being everywhere at the same time; constantly encountered."*

_______________­


he craves online hook-ups.

...but this isn't me
or that intrepid,          
torrent trampoline
                   on wireless ether engines
zone on in  .nets & .coms
                   searching fiber-optics for sight
browsing rooms of M4M to fantasize delights
to itch to fix
to sit transfixed as if
subliminally attached
                           umbilically
digitally to a electronic felatio
                                  soundtrack
yet all the while detached
                            lurking
reading pretend profiles  explicit
with ***, sexified,
dreaming up new fetishes
with misspelled texts
                        tandem testimonials as if written
by a Compaq-machine-head
or Microsoftened lust
                        as now we are turning to dust
with iBooks & faraway Dells on our laps
scrolling lists and Adams with "anything goes"
remonstrating our vicious
                           cycle - blank with un/trust

this isn't me...
where is the warmth
       of feelings, emotions,
love??
I am not that talented
          to be in two places at once,
but he has the faces
and genius of multiple personalities
facets
   of sabotage with grace.

he says it isn't him.

my anger has only one trait. two eyes.
velvet
rope-burned
limbs...

and he has too many faces
doppleganger hatreds
where  does  one

begin??

(The rubble or the sin?)

_____________

DOPpLEGANGER­ (2016)--[Rewrite]


he craves online hook-ups.


But this isn't me
nor am I that intrepid        
a torrent trampoline
                   on wireless ether engines
                   cyber silver surfin'
zone on / in  .nets & .coms
                   searching fiber-optics for sight
browsing rooms of M4M / in-fantasized delights

an itch to fix
to sit transfixed
as if
subliminally attached
                           umbilically
digitally digitized digi-man
                            to a electronic felatio soundtrack

yet all the while detached
                            lurking duplicitly
reading pretend profiles  explicitly
for ***, sexified mind
dreaming up new fetishes
with misspelled texts
                        tandem testimonials as if written
                        by a Compaq-machine-head
                        Microsoftened lust
currents electric now as we turn into dust
with iBooks & faraway Dells on our laps
scrolling lists for Adams
status' with "anything goes"
                        remonstrating our vicious cycle
alive & blank with un/trust
gone viral...

this isn't me.

where is the warmth
       of feelings, emotions,
malleable and infallible / love??

I am not as talented
as he
          to be in two places at once,
but he
          has the many faces
and genius of multiple personalities
Cybil
facets
   of sabotage with Mommy Dearest grace.
        Beautiful strangers his acquired
              taste...

he says it was not him
(doing ****)

my rage has only one trait.
two eyes                              (once wide asleep in the lies)
and velvet-rope-burned
wrists
my feet learn to fly
my heart un-breaks
my wings reanimate...


he has too many faces
doppleganger hatred
none to care for or embrace

When did I go blind,
         and leave my many strengths?
Where do I now
again
begin??

(The rubble or the sin?)


Every night adieu
Every day anew
                                        once again...
b Aug 2018
let us reconcile
in the moment,
for a moment.
the tiniest
of tensions are so
malleable to the parts of
me that know im
not worthy.

i fixate on a star
to the point that
if i stare long enough
i dont see the others
and it will dance
through a clear sky
like it could breath.

no one is ready for
my sweater. i work to
give but have yet to
pull sword from stone.
either i am not worthy
or i am not ready, but
defeat always feels
the same.

i see a real miracle
over and over.
things have never felt
so futile.
a star will crash
into the earth
and i will never
hold a sword.
Lucy Tonic Apr 2015
All week long I could not remember what day it was. But today the calendar spoke loud and clear. It's Sunday. The day of rest. But there is no rest for my mind. And as I write this down in red ink, ironically the only ink I could find, I can't help but think of a song, and how Sundays aren't a day of rest for many. And I don't mean those who labor for money. I mean those that spin webs. This is the season they come alive- unlike me, who dies every season but is never reborn. "I have died, I will die, it's alright, I don't mind."...You mentioned red color schemes- the shade of blood- and all I could think about was your black schemes and how you're good with a knife. I thought I made my mind up about instinct, but that's easy under candlelight. Then you turned the pseudo-suns on and as you touched all my in-valuables, I wondered how malleable you think I am. Molding me slowly with your contradicting words, taking pictures of the doors and windows to a house that's not a home with a band-aid over your nose, manically mapping out your revenge....You're not the first fair-weather friend and you won't be the last...I saw your eyes. And I saw your head turn at the signal of a word. Figures- everyone in these parts are related. Whispering literal sweet Nothings in my ear. A hell of a lot can change in years. Of course, this could all be in my head. But nothing of sweetness was really said, was it? And you'll know I'll dig deeper...to figure out who is the artist and who is the ambulance. So I hope now your mouth is free of anything clean...Now that you know the ins and outs of me. Look at that, I barely rhymed. Your turn this time.
The rejuvenated year has finally shed
It’s twinkling leaf on my greenness,
Oh yes, my years have tasted the darkest
Side of the seasonal stainless moon,
Causing juvenile mango trees to bath
The malleable aurora dews,

This is my wind howling fiercely in the dark
And sobbing streams of tattoo tears,
My dreams have even caused my essence
To conjure the wordless spells of the ancestress,
Lest the dreary thunderstorm of thirst
Swims over my horrendous firmament,

Give a voice to the air!
For there is not a breath of air stirring
At my munitions of peace,
I can even feel the dry pulse
And the heartbeat of the naked Gods
Piercing the calm natural day,

Oh no, the Sun-Gods has drunk the
Stream behind my coloured walls,
Causing the stretch marks on the
Back of Mother Earth to bleach,
You dare ask Tweaduampon Kwame
To weep on your scorching pepper,
For the friendship of the pregnant clouds
Was indeed for the raining season only.


© PRINCE NANA ANIN-AGYEI
Email: nanaspeaks@gmail.com
The life of a soul
is like a candle.
Birth ignites the solid
wick,
and a fire, consuming, is breathed
into the malleable consciousness;
the wax of knowledge
is melted
and molded.

The soul is born
quite opposite of animosity,
and thrives in the
rapture of curiosity.
It is whole,
with nothing foretold
but that existence unfolds,
till pain settles and
fringes the rim.

Fear and hurt and loathing,

the gusts of extinguishing,

take back the breath of ignition,
and leave the candle's wax to settle
as before.

However, to the surprise of the mind,
observers shall find, that much like
the levels of wax still to mold,
the conscious, depressed,
is weary
and much less bold,

but, yet, passion thrives,
and the fire survives,
anew to seek what is
more potent
and true.

The cycle continues,
repeating.
Melting and fading and
melting and
fading,
and

Knowledge is gained!
Ignorance is burned like
the wick of the soul's
candle!

Until the wax is quite low,
and the fire won't show,
and the wick of life's candle,
once burning and fading,
is now dying.

The enlightened light,
the fire and shine,
was snuffed into nothing
by time.

The wax's decreasing
was brought forth
with the increase of knowledge;
with the process of living;
with the suffereing of wisdom.

Perhaps, then,
ignorance is not bliss,
but bliss is death,
for in death there is time,
time to reflect, and to grind
out the details of life,
and to rest
without the crossing breaths
of passion and exhaustion.
This is just the first draft, I hope.

I had some strong philosophical feelings poured into this poem.  I really want to make something brilliant out of it, but I know there is work to be done.  If you have any suggestions, please let me know.

Thanks,
Christopher.
Danielle Mar 2022
She romanticize the orchestra of her muffled cries, caught her canvases
bruised with purple and red,
Her bare chest was beautifully wounded by a serrated cage, arranging her disorganized open heart.

Her heart is malleable from tragic delights, she ripped herself open, willing to give it whole.

Will you take it all and leave it as it is?
Does it oblige you to wrap your arms around me like a tightening noose?

And as she draw marks of red stains and carve on her skin, her limbs were perched perfectly, as you adore it with a painful stare.

And her hands were pure certainty, remained untouched.
Note: might trigger self harm, u can skip it <33
Jessica Austin Mar 2012
My bed was built beneath

whirlwind puzzles
and bow-tied time,
pulsing menageries
and lopsided rhymes;
circles and rainbows
and dark-alley’d dreams,
suns that explode
beneath smoothed-over seams.

But between the cracks
of the never-ending skyline
live shadows and demons
and sewage-filled pipelines.

There are toy-soldier boys
carrying small metal knives,
their sharp-tongued solutions
highlight well-thought-out lies;
and the bubble-gum girl armies
that ride into the night
spread pink viscous poison
and dance out of sight.

These spectacular visions
linger over my head,
with too-full rainbows
and ship-wrecked dread;
every highlighted secret
connects the stars of a time
where each piece of the whole
was malleable and mine.
Mike Essig Apr 2015
and there comes that moment call it the first adult moment at 17 from heartbreak or at 20 fighting a lost war when the realization of emptiness attends you and you know in your testicles or ovaries that god is deaf chaos rules eternally the universe stands indifferent and you are but a carbuncle on the cosmos' *** alone and forever alone and that moment may be debilitating or delightful enslaving or freeing and your life is launched upon a trajectory that you can never escape it is a moment of depression or bliss depending on your malleable personality and temperament and you will never ever be the same again...
John Glenn May 2019
the clock
tick tocks
in golden variables
every hour malleable
every minute ductile
every second savored
while we are juvenile
feel every moment
like know just time mind life feel world lost say we're things think love there's does people night away way thought got words long reality want better left make end eyes day man human dark experience remember really right death memory going place high good live city thoughts soul meaning great pain home sky believe shall change living oh fall light choice god consciousness existence years cause hard feeling thinking fear times 'cause dreams ask alive heart need past felt days dream sensation truth true use power knowledge wrong stars understand baby tell state thing face wave broken old you'll wave new broken nature you'll **** mental look far ah drug moment best ago air lose sleep dare try leave beautiful blue born lives escape sublime doesn't body dawn friends waiting feels young daze game control perception gone story mean sun head given writing act difference reason poetry philosophy psyche little trying touch deep greatest wonder choose drugs exist we'll moments score hold play set run self forget coming hope word future dead wish burn music emotion rain stop gaze pleasure glass one's what's lies sense wake hit remain real work bad stay open brain art seek space present happy spent acid pill social we've they're half-light used land held gotta help lie path finally listen actually longing rave water cold seeking caught energy reflection information anymore venturous goes came red hide start truly hand evil divine subtle matter kind lonely yes told eternity keeps line black edge ego context dusk horizon gonna spiritual tripping dimension data die white **** seen means care getting saw places sure freedom looking hurt fool wind flow search chance la took broke existential summer content flowing belief praise empyrean empathy discovery chemical aeon couldn't who's turn forth bit question eye judgement pray passion sound personal worth memories sanity accept universe embrace lack knows free makes rise language decide consider temporal society gain wander conscious stuff religious comprehend particle psychedelic metaphysics you've entheon absurdia entactus maybe ready fate realize family meant return perfect learn miss spirit doubt rest loved minds health moving mortal bring expression sleeping cast lines purpose quiet known strange infinite king months madness haze depths ate party patterns oneself psychedelion inside guess crowd later silent clear soft breath hours hate dust forgotten arms drink fast year war longer close searching morning ashes calm beauty darkness different justice fell friend shadows knowing fine youth heavy standing sweet enjoy explain vain simple chasing hidden ends smoke gold heaven follow point person breaking necessary today relief action cool possible bass generation lying listening machine yeah substance hath engine forlorn problem subject intangible study effort quantum definitions dopamine psychedelics we'd sigma cybran apotheon isn't empathion clouds practice gave warm wanted stand poem wait storm met asleep course skies crime surely grow depression write loose fair ecstasy knew dreaming humanity waves share taken simply faith playing sands view fix winter afraid began wise welcome comprehension sought late big zero table says bliss changed repetition everybody blame unto maze understanding mr explore states ignore addiction venture define teenage american humans billion she's wasn't 'til sonder walk smile tonight speak dance skin blood breathe fears illuminate worse peace girl crave easily emotions feelings **** having force ways lets catch meet hair doors worlds hearts destroy heard walking near hurricane wisdom lights second suicide ignorance fresh waking sadness grand happiness appear rising scared save join adventure neon outside alike liberty particles wonderful compounds killed somebody grace merely closer company desert master twisted realm respect trance ridiculous *** exile pondering noble dangerous absurd nation progress culture contradiction perceive irish urban phenomena cyberspace scoreboard psi ain't you'd mydriasis entheogenesis **** ones taste throw watch painting room alas lay history spend apart sea staring poet fact cut smell happened admit river wasted brought leaves making answer sorry glow learned decided grasp breeze bed begin pretty floor lived sole sand cure awake sight tears barely kept running safe roam willing prefer mist heads asked prose wandering sounds imagine looked hour growing recognize soon falls mirror treat ***** brother climb hero problems granted digital proud changes birth quest age spring aware doing witness names amazed ****** despite takes condition intoxication level beginning worked pupils decision object insanity rhythm medium quality weather physical false process strife individual journey doth code effects abandoned channel judge notions moral swear experienced greater chain natural thunderous cleanse determine shivering hallowed plus reckon caused adolescence media superposition addict connection indigo ethics survived definition reasoning internet feedback vibrancy serotonin cyclone hacker sardonic surreality virtuality here's he's sunyata temporality ******'s empathos apotheotelos flash shining green forever anger carry son moon selfish written supposed feed ya quite loop hooked pure feet hole paper flag sick voice burning attention fly utter wicked tremble endless form infinity talking piece shores verse chest rules food placed plan hallelujah called gun fading drinking emotional measure inspiration suffering belong west read sly instead bear erase furious shame conclusion drunk roll ******* depressed calls taught died defined tire everyday answers sacred acknowledge speaks perfection games ground spoke stood motion sway keeping pretend hell movement magic park key spin kick sake jump hanging animal begins orange streetlights fade crazy honest warp puppet chained survive apathy chains claim prey science diamonds begging grip tale hang powerful wonderland heal dealing plant twice painful daylight mastery desires recall school conviction miracle yearn empyreal weekend actual court value chalk hurts humankind rabbit eggs potential offers temporary pupil atlas nostalgia serenity happens yearning ponder hypothesis worthy witnessed ideas azure tools alpha curiosity consume singularity typhoon revelation stimulant liberate application projection criminals communication throes fraternity enables actuality starshine ethos apotheosis sardonicism aren't mind's teleology empatheon entheos hear mydriatic transcendention fight tear ash minutes wanna taking nights forgot tales lest desire lust darkest single shine slow allow destruction money comes anxiety contemplate nostalgic offer continue happen ink brings brave created holding create thunder produce talk sail philosopher creating distant illuminating drive dancing ease wishing higher pass excuse figure essence angel hopes child ahead sigh using door vast loves awaits strong tornado ok sorrow immortal ghosts certain remains stained insane reached lot discovered plain poison streets killing ending tried session vs poor woke stare watching grass slick emptiness falling box painter series children virtues awareness clean rolling reach advice heavens rend half cherish bay started relax focus laughed ashamed fiend melody drop exhale void occurs beneath win chose robes thrall shield ended sons normal sunrise road forged onward burden actions unlike colors curious street observe chosen silence shades returns technology race vengeance swept bag civilization strive reconcile trouble cloud described replaced substances whilst finding euphoria dear chemistry events deal message eternal masses beliefs vision apparent honestly dr seeing idea domain soar books frames rule law pleasures eat dread bare blaze raise compassion kindness wandered objects expressed sin declare mistake smoking drum heavenly honor lands fountain renew happening aspect gotten issues divinity teach matters pills goal follows significant job romantic gazed envelope elements identity group sell foolish lucid dimensions brothers owe education november difficult recognition express properties glitter considering illusion appreciate discover resonance derived transcendental buzz notion risk scares riot rainy teaching drizzle direct experiences elation normality quote evolution versus lamplight method reflective endeavour cloth eats teenagers eventually haul club result relative breed threat subjective concerning solstice interpretations allows rational ultimately basis aligned numbness hypocrite charade morality dope chaser continuum undead exploits aeons research freeman appropriate ion ****** teachings dilation binge beatific intuitive transcendent escapism psychedelia metaphysical beta untitled mescaline otherworldly dreampt contextual experiential symbiosis codex dissociation cybernetic weren't life's let's mirror's well-being any-more entheogenic junkiedom signifiers mescalito zero-summing won't 'pataphysics window 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suspended followed pierced hall marks ruled influence functioning contained losing stopping effect electronica relate fed temper facts dependent malleable convey bent delve horror wolves won lacking certainly fooled temple oblivious watches extension molecular random subtlety rem price sear covers truths judging stage frost conditions victory millennium realised confront trickster eve daughter defines awoke terror remembere
Composed on 00:53, 21/09/2016 using Hello Poetry's 'Words' algorithm. We don't assume this means something.
What brief utterance this, the color of time

That gives more meaning than language can hold

To force a confrontation between unresolvable contradictions

Such as make malleable a gracious hospitality to ******

And sound trumpets of unwarranted discord

That lie and lament the reputation and experience of damage

Hold forth the envious clouds of displacement

To provide for the vicious energies of hate

Those oppressive weights of past problems

That enactment of intense and exhausting experience

Which embalms the tears of fresh bleeding

Without impediment dictates the human existence

Where the mistress of aggressive thought finds

Extremity of dire mishap a strenuous protest

Leads to well meaning certainty of illusion

And asks, art thou so in love with masks that you

Would transform thyself and as such

Bind a loyalty of angers to thy touch
Mikaila Sep 2013
I would be your friend.
I would be your lover.
I would be whatever it is you need that you can't define.
If, at 2 am, you were afraid and sad and alone,
I would hold you and never kiss your lips,
I would ease your pain and take with me nothing but my faith.
If you needed somebody to make you smile
And share a joke or a story with you,
I would listen and smile with my whole heart
And never reach out to comfort myself with your skin as proof
That you are solid and not imaginary.
I would sit and hear about the romantic night you spent
With him
And love the sparkle in your eyes that means you're happy,
And rearrange my heart to make room for the space that's not filled
And shouldn't be.
Don't ask me why
I would do that for you
And love it.
I don't know.
Never do.
But I can tell you that I have done it more times than I can count
For people much less extraordinary than you are,
Because all I want,
Truly,
When somebody suddenly and unexpectedly makes me happy
Is to do something for them,
Be
Something for them.
Anything they need.
You don't need a love today,
It's fine.
I will be what you let me be.
A confidant you know you can tell any secret to
Because to breathe a word you asked me not to would scald me,
A friend who will be more attentive than anyone you've ever relied on,
Because to make you happy is all I really want to do,
A silent companion for days or nights of loneliness
When nobody else could be trusted to let you be just what you are, whatever it is.
If you don't want someone to love you that way,
I hope you can still want me.
Because the day you made me feel whole was the day you made
The best friend you'll ever have,
If you want her.
The one for whom it's always fine,
Who will laugh at every joke and give you back every smile,
Who will give whatever you ask for
Not out of obligation but out of a craving to give to you.
Who will step back and melt into the shadows if you ask,
Closed up tight and tucked away until you need her again, brand new and perfectly the same.
If you want anything at all from life that you are not getting,
Ask me.
Let me.
I am malleable, I am what you want me to be.
If you can find anything to want from me,
Please,
Want it.
I will be that for you so passionately and completely,
And I will be overjoyed to be something, anything, to you.
JS Clark Apr 2018
Beware the bitter idiot--
That fellow with the sour
    Mind,
Cankered by disillusion,
And feelings of
Left behind.

So life may not be everything
As planned--
It does, after all, arrive in
Installments called the day.
One of these is enough to try
    To understand,
One enough for this thin
Vessel of stardust clay.

His voice is but a drone,
Nothing but rancor and filth
    Ride upon his tongue.
Complaint the engine of his
    Tone,
The wormwood ballad of
Pitiful woe he sings and has
    Ever sung.

He will not be mistaken,
For the street tough is at his
    Very core.
He will not allow to awaken
The malleable man of his
    Youth and yore.

And so this fellow who has
Shut his soul off,
Stands in front of his mirror and cries.
He's too proud to unhand the
Lance of the scoff--
Boldness is his favorite lie.

— The End —