Idly stationed in the bucolic hills,
sits a stone well; unknown when abandoned.
Though her people foregone, water yet fills
as much as you can want for. In tandem,
are high trees less old than she; occluding
the view from pathless and naive strangers.
As their wish in well is to keep obtuse,
those that siren would otherwise capture.
Her drink, one thinks they'll constantly receive.
In reality, they'll only be taken.
Youth will fade as the heart minutely bleeds.
Their hollow, dried corpse will be forsaken.
And though her hole but a tall dark crevice,
I see my reflection on the surface.

Poems about Icarus

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



Southern Icarus
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

the houses watch with baffled eyes.



Flight 93
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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



I AM!
by Michael R. Burch

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

I am not one of ten billion, I.

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

I am not one life has left unsquashed.

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

I am not one without spots of disease.

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

I am not one of ten billion, I
AM!



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

Athena takes me
sometimes by the hand

and we go levitating
through strange Dreamlands

where Apollo sleeps
in his dark forgetting

and Passion seems
like a wise bloodletting

and all I remember
, upon awaking,

is: to Love sometimes
is like forsaking

one’s Being―to glide

heroically beyond thought,

forsaking the here
for the There and the Not.



O, finally to Burn,
gravity beyond escaping!

To plummet is Bliss
when the blisters breaking

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

Feathers and wax
and the watchers huddle...

Flocculent sheep,
O, and innocent lambs!,

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



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

for the Night has Wings
gentler than Moonbeams―

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

fluttering off
to quarry the Sphinx.



Riddlemethis,
riddlemethat,

Rynosseross,
throw out the Welcome Mat.

Quixotic, I seek Love
amid the tarnished

rusted-out steel
when to live is varnish.

To Dream―that’s the thing!

Aye, that Genie I’ll rub,

soak by the candle,
aflame in the tub.



Riddlemethis,
riddlemethat,

Rynosseross,
throw out the Welcome Mat.

Somewhither, somewhither
aglitter and strange,

we must moult off all knowledge
or perish caged.

*

I am reconciled to Life
somewhere beyond thought―

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

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

so fatten the oxen;
make a nice baste.

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

though we injure noone,
ourselves wildaglow.

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



Free Fall (II)
by Michael R. Burch

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

But since I touched you, fire consumes each wing!

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



Fledglings
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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



The Higher Atmospheres
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

what then?

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

what then?

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

what then?

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

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

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

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

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



Icarus Bickerous
by Michael R. Burch

for the Religious Right

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

They look up amazed
and seem rather dazed―

was it heaven’s or hell’s furious smelting

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

the higher you “rise,” the more halting?



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

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

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

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

Published by American Indian Pride and Boston Poetry Magazine



Flight
by Michael R. Burch

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

Originally published by Hibiscus (India)



The Wonder Boys
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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

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

Originally published by The Lyric



American Eagle, Grounded
by Michael R. Burch

Her predatory eye,
the single feral iris,
scans.

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

Her hard talon,
clenched in pinched expectation,
waits.

Her clipped wings,
preened against reality,
tremble.

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



Album
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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



Springtime Prayer
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

Originally published by The HyperTexts



Learning to Fly
by Michael R. Burch

We are learning to fly
every day...

learning to fly―
away, away...

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

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



In the Whispering Night
by Michael R. Burch

for George King

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

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



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

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

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

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

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



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

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

Published by Better Than Starbucks, A Hundred Voices



in-flight convergence
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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



Squall
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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



Flight
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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



Flying
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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



Stage Craft-y
by Michael R. Burch

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



Clyde Lied!
by Michael R. Burch

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



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

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

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

Published by Lighten Up Online and in Potcake Chapbook #7

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



Lance-Lot
by Michael R. Burch

Preposterous bird!
Inelegant! Absurd!

Until the great & mighty heron
brandishes his fearsome sword.



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

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



Delicacy
by Michael R. Burch

for all good mothers

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



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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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



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

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



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

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



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

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



Untitled Translations

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



Critical Mass
by Michael R. Burch

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

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



Ultimate Sunset
by Michael R. Burch

for my father, Paul Ray Burch, Jr.

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



Free Fall
by Michael R. Burch

for my father, Paul Ray Burch, Jr.

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



Leaf Fall
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

Originally published by The Neovictorian/Cochlea



The Folly of Wisdom
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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

Originally published by Romantics Quarterly



Kin
by Michael R. Burch

for Richard Moore

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

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

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

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



Songstress
by Michael R. Burch

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

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



Performing Art
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

What instinctual memories
lend stunning brightness
to the strange dreams

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

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

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



Lean Harvests
by Michael R. Burch

for T.M.

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

Published by The Rotary Dial and Angle



My Forty-Ninth Year
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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



Myth
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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



What Works
by Michael R. Burch

for David Gosselin

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

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

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

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

and teach the pallid poem to seethe.



Desdemona
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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

and strangled hope, where love dies too.

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



Transplant
by Michael R. Burch

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

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



Prodigal
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



Breakings
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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



An Illusion
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

into oblivion...

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



Lines for My Ascension
by Michael R. Burch

I.

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

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

II.

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

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

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

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

III.

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

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

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

IV.

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

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

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

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



The Locker
by Michael R. Burch

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

reproved
adulation or sentiment,
left with the pungent darkness

as remembered as the sudden light.

Originally published by The Raintown Review



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


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

The Roulette of Fanfare by Imaginative Glare (A Cooperation of Timeless Synquest)
Sunken fortitude is the bailiwick of interminable eupathy that sustenance embezzles by minutiae of orange spectral linearity of bypass becoming a torus of tragic reprieve in repcrevel fashions of hyjamb. Thus we float above the carcass of syrts of certitude by cadasters of nostalgic drawls of malingering strawberry staddle for the scutage of pinhoked disaster. We renege on committed opalescence because tranquil dangles of vinsky are waged by trenchcoats of bluster for vector arrays of galvanized decorum that swirks for elegant synectics by dredged grains of agrarian sanity by the pleckigger of lopsided islands of creativity that are the notarikons of aleatory finite but equidistant largesse of not just a jumboism but a jetsetting travesty of traversed time mastered by ignoble ingenuity. I limn with piracy as a freebooter cordslave plugged by demitoilet reminders of the flyndresque alloreck of tinjesk spectral ultimatums that are the stretchgraves of a retrospective infinity that is a bystander to catapulted cohesive coherence found only in piecemeal culinary seditions against the drip of a turncock of roosted clarification in muted hindsights of foresight itself. The pleonexia of abeyance is the riddle of enigmatic promulgation that flickers even with partial compartmentalized servitude to the burlesque the burrows of an ophidiodiarium scare away any jaunty sleek car from the boosterism of a farmed collision with disjointed surgery of nimble reticence that braves the seismotic macadamized plutocracy of drift without sedition in sedimentary clairvoyance with a pointed amphigory that is actually a starved clarity for ommateums without spelunked trudges that occur in dovetails for disguise by synectic optimum at the zenith of the hive synergy of singularity.  The justified jest of aleatory flexes of finitude is a shambolic gesture of the limber of divergent interpretation ingeminating the world by sapient degrees of psychometry of divergence in piecemeal asseveration of the hindsight of the festooned not tepid or butchered by the obvious to the glaring cineaste but rather a gloaming glint of refracted ingenuity roosted beyond any alienesque erratic happenstance that is itself a beatific fortuity for the geotechnics of human emergence into supersensible planes traversed in a stereodimensional covenant with a compacted compost of DIVERGENT IMAGINATION OF CADASTER rather than the regelation of the obvious. Timmynoggies of cartels are regnant because of the repugnance of loyalty to the fricative frigates of superlunary mention of ratiocination divorced from husbandry of hyjamb for giant leaps in rigged ambsace maledictions of unfair pleckigger of the wrikpond relumed by huffs of impotent flairs of flambeaus beyond ecdysiast stretchgraves of perilous paralysis for the supererogatory of the accursed destruction of stoichomety of solipsism tremulous by biocentric levity above fastened redoubled pederasty. We maraud the rabble of nostalgia of rhinoplasty of penumbras that live on rainshod territorialism beyond the jolkers of everlasting foofaraw livid by betrayal but erratic in glamour without crackjaw costermongers vitiating the vociferous because of incumbent thermodynamics that affixes the stagnant to the latticework of riddle by sturdy integral derived fliphavens of shibboleths of solitude. Education is a fliction of robust derangement of nowhere men taxed by the celerity of traversed traipses of memory beyond encaged bridewells for recanted alchemy to prerogatives of the roomy expansive facsimiles of departed stigmas of bossy clairvoyance for martian glimpses at sunken waste. The bernaggles of brittle titanium are abrasive when they are alloyed with the compost of material dynamics of capital without avenged prediction cemented in sunken graves taxing the nostalgia of histrinkage that is affixed to boschveldt traindeque for venial consanguinity to dikephobia. We elevate the endpoints of abridged turriform clockwork provincial shibboleths that are the proctor and protectorate of insular robbery of crowned trounces of gravity for the gravitas of sepulchral vanity learned from famigeration of filial tithes of duty. A dutiful sedition is countermanded by the pews of turnstiles that enamor the enamel of rollercoasters because of vague vagaries of bedazzled contrition for wanton ambition on psaphonic psychology and therefore sustain the vibronic thrombosis of nonlethal inseminations of clear aqueous transfixed filigrees of demented notions of cheerful apocrypha of liturgical pride beyond the dungeons of prejudiced inquisition. The jolkers of insolent archipelagos of spinsters that levitate by parsed peril of delaminated parsecs of glazed parturition is the orchestra of a nonlinear grove of invented abecedarian witwanton notice of maddened cattle of gluttony forestalled by the clairvoyance of otiose operations of redoubled countenance that consequently is septiferous by degrees of sanguine rapacity the qwartion of endeared endeavor to surpass the gentility of brooked temperatures frozen to sustain but not mainline the congeners of the elective agenda to bypass the thornbushes of conflagration without knavery or cutthroat embellishments of bedlam. And without the din of simplicity occluding the transcendent goal of humane synoecy of fustilugs of fumatoriums endangered but not inflammed by controversy we witness the insubordinate university of hibernation becoming a specter of grisly bromidrosis of lackluster forswinked fortitude because the majestic sinew of the overwrought is a refrained luxuriance of pity of facetious glebes ringed around orbital planes of synthetic abridgement that supposes the sultry is actually the swelter of calenture but taxed by sicarians of the grandeval it meets no fanfare among elective privilege. Amphigory is not categorized as dross by shipwreck but only by synechdocial docility of groomed barren arcades of storged complication leading to regeneration of a world leaden with the epicurean epithets of agerasia that burden the wardens of poached intermission without remission because the drapes of the greatest art are thus created by the complete transfiguration of the soul bolted to ethereal expansive heights that dwarf all pithy gnomes of the gardens of prospective desiccation of the petty gripes of the gavel of idiocy rather than the astounding artform of the newfangled tabanids to supererogatory oceans of creativity. The benchmarks of sublime illusions of supremacy are a hidebound taxidermy of the rookery of greenhorns to summit the testy secrecy of inane drawl that scrabbles the miniature embellishments of petty sportive lunacy as a figment of the feral nature of proclivity recumbent upon its own gladdened prickly renegades that align with a gallywow cacophony rather than a merely epicene convergence of attitude for equity above polity that is hardly polite. As a penitent hibernal rejoinder against the clerical critics of religiosity becoming conflated with artistic masterworks of oligomania I offer my rogation for atonement because the melismatic art I fashion leads to the vogue enchantment of the noosphere for the soteriological bedrock of fastened intellectual endeavor that traverses planes of an engorged soul without a gulf of conscience leaden by distracted discernment leading to a hypostasized apostasy from the religious scruples I rigorously uphold but that I vacillate away from because I want to entrench an irenic world for the francketor dash towards a superlative enrichment of mind above matter for the victorias of soul above the pettiness of the dim humdingers of the banal lifeless squabbles of martexts beyond the hospitable welcome of martians. For the naysayers that don’t understand the ironic irenic circularity of gainsay becoming rebarbative to this artistic flourish of supersensible equipoise with an approximated histrinkage lagged by temporal deficiency they should not abhor the talisman of an ergotall genius but rather marvel at the burlesque cineaste connotation of enamored youthful spirits becoming novel because they stride above the cascades of crestfallen apathy of plodding languor. This is a definitive new artform for the niche crowd so don’t dismiss it as gobbledygook because it serves the purpose to enchant creative spirits and test minds that might be more nimble than resourceless. Wearisome by demiurges of distraction the thorny imbroglio of industry is a whiplash of nativism belonging to the throb of pulsated penury that is neither valedictory nor penultimate but tertiary in oblong variegated menageries of perfidy for collapsed enormities of jumboism lost on inclement stoichiometry that is sejungible from crambazzles of findrouement that are squaloid enthralled raptures of humdingers of rippled hunks of parched nebbich pataphysics because the circuit of conditioned reward is a rebarbative tether to the catchpole exploitative erratum of harbingers of hungry happenstance rather than continual enchantment. The crumple of squaloid sebastomania a distant figment of adscititious schadenfreude of dilettantism of flonky smardagine streaks of whemmled anxieties unduly provoked by calamities of presstungular intorgurent toonardical deprived cartels of repcrevel pursuit with labial senses embedded in deft incondite inquiries against seismotic jostle over the rubble of scaffolded jengadangle above the rot of contranatant sleek suffrage for the chattel of elemental realism becoming a heroic temple for glory without the vetust errundle of dismal disco attuned only to the spurts rather than a startled commerstargal of alienation leads to a plumber’s irony of atomic humdingers of natural equipoise with litotes of scrawny rings of gollendary piracy. The valorous incondite bricolage of a ****** cineaste barnstorm inoculated from conflagrations of the flagitious reprisal of prevenance of ferial fastuous feats of furlongs of brittle certainty above the tentative glaze of aced pokerish promenades to summit the craggy because the salebrosity of the pitch is also the venue for the sphairistic tentpoles of a new tabernacle of spectacular ecstasy in obvious punitive damage to puritan pilgrimage to mechanized obelisks of sardanapalian betrayal of histories of seizure rather than naturism of erasure that is a totemic recall of strollows of lonesome tributaries to tribunes of steam rather than saunas of lickerish leverage because the gladiatorial is a zugzwang with the deliberate infernal shibboleths of the disinclined people dislodged by carnality that depose sicarians of science because of militarized enmity against the whangams of taghairm becoming the outmoded dupe of dopamine that is now serotinous rather than flanged with glaring hearsay. The serpentine winds of windlass sometimes are a conclave of convex itineration against the steady husbandry of docile domiciles of mannequin sedentary postures for posterized infamy rather than manufactured oneiromancy that is the staddle for every phony contraption of qwartion obviously specious but interrogated by the dubiety of perseverance of inclement curiosity. Yet again we sweep the soaring ligaments of rigid ramshackle bletonism that hawkshaws countermand by division of enumerated nadirs pivoted against the perpended weight of the prolonged zeniths of grit above substance that infatuates myopia but glares against mountebanks of apothecary leverage. We fight against the boxcar traindeque of sejungible traipses through stereodimensional rebuffs of known drogulus surpassing unknowable reticence of citadels that are owleries for the seedy cities they sprawl with incontinence for a drab raft of intertesselation rather than a refined quintessence of alchemy achieved by allotment by brackish nescience becoming a blinding ray of destitution engraved by petrified decalcified rudiments of realism. The somber timbre of delirifacient ruinous rumination malingers in humdrum salience as it scrawls the tragedians lament of distal eventful frets of declassified nomenclature that swoon with lugubrious harbingers of burglary the licentious dolts affixed to the brays of pauperized regions of future proximity too remote to paralyze the morale of any cantonment on record by litotes of profound remembrance of a backfire delope for cineaste conflation of marstion slore for educated reprisal of desiccation. We spelunk in mimicry the dingy duplicity of double-takes in regelation that owe homage to the percolated hearsay of cartels that operate parsecs beyond our congeners of germane lustration in remission by deontology for soteriology alone but not vacated of the stilts of turnverein ragged mannequins of desolate remorse for the dearth of hived and hemmed hibernation in a fitful frenzy of revision above precision. We see abundant lactose intolerance as a sidereal lovelorn lament of sematic entrenchment without the scourge of roosted war against abrasive brawn exercised in flexible limbers of the novel filigrees of truth revelatory of consideration rather than impregnated with the perfidy of amaranthine static of regaled stagnation that flickers with the marinas of congregated leaps as a signature of the artistic license of byzantine traipses of contempered primacy in the soup kitchen of a lapse in sabotaged sobriety. Immune from displaced donnism is the resurgence of bonanza from checkered propinquities affixed to a finite placard of spacetime that owes to stretchgraves a profound depth of contrition that carmelized apocrypha lapse on lissome whilded dignotions of contrarian raillery of loose nihilism rather than anchor to the eremites of fact found in eclipsed culmination for momentous harps of the Jubal for new centuries inseminating the populated presence of spectral imagination with contorted melodies that spawn an ingenuous quest to swoon abiding heavens for celestial ears. It is conspicuous that artifacts for raiders elope with circuitous routes of heated sedimentary incubations with a comatose creativity that seeds the ferial junediggle with a supercalendar of confections that are intermittently apportioned in heydays of culture to the sad lament of the obvious rather than the obviated dare of audacity above conglomerations of spirited luxuriance in tasty memorial to a pinnacle above all other notions of sentinel apostasy. The greater atrocity of rogated ambitions against the gainsay of iconoduly of the rood and rude crucifixion of resurrected clarity found in the enamel of akashic answers to questions fashioned by kneaded cosmetology of delicate ***** cotqueans of limber above precedent and license beyond the finkly limp of lolloped saccharine blitzkreigs of the jalousies of the ajar vaticination of hurdled glaikeries of epicene impediment is that we ****** ink above the gesture of the quills of rocky abrasion found in limitrophes of yachted celebration because of rabid coherence above the wherefores of gadzookerie because the gladdest scaldabanco is the demented persiflage of collateral catastrophe beyond any humane degree of schadenfreude for persecution that backbites the anteric antlers of the jesters that mock the procession of liturgical secularism jeering at grapholagnia while lagging in imaginative spurts of lament for incalculable damage to the Pandora’s box of effluvia that meet stiff tabernacles of betrayal because of the Judaic foresight rather than as an alarmed Marxism scared of an agrarian interdependence of worlds cadged more prone to moral dogma exercised with latitude rather than unscrupulous brays of fisticuffs of shambolic shams of ruin. We glance at the perfidies of voyeurism with pertinacity and recalcitrant bellipotent bedlam that evokes the illicit grandeval whangams of quixotic whartonized arraigned estrangement from legalism to warp time to its own superlative turpitude that is reckless but contingent upon the consummation of destiny only to the extent of original witness rather than the decay of perpetuity wrought by the persiflage of envious militarized mandarisms of enmity aimed to derail the elevators of the noosphere from stratospheric emergence in now perspicuous clarity above the pother of the indelible sacrilege of the stygian polymathy of the astute enemies of the proper comstockery rather than the negligent butchers of an enantiodromia of oligarchies of lewdness that are severed appendages to Anti-Semitism and by extension a marginalized Islamophobia that demands by exigency the complete erasure of all attempts at sacrilege exercised in rampant dereliction of dutiful upkeep of the upright morality against the cadge of ulterior ploys of a broader hedonism that would only piggyback because of the license of ryesolagnus rather than because of a complete signatory endorsement of the liberated agenda of free thought conquered through the conquest of God but the ultimate conquistadors of time through sennet and even negligent rebec to memorialize the triumphant pantheon of growth rather than rankled regress into prolonged hatred ingeminated by atrocious tortfeasors that belong nowhere but the ashen heap of exorcised damnation. The perdition inherent to the system that craves chattel rather than sartorial versions of syncretic chatter is the malefaction of renegades bent on tornadic vulcanization to a demoralized wragapole of docility hitched to the vandalism of pilloried tarantisms of moral lapse leading the sheep into sheepish resignation over the accordion of Original Sin that annoys because the bridewells are brideless birds of the chavish of warbled uncertainty wicked because of snuffed tabacosis of mitigations of evil by the evildoers for the rejoinder against the Republic by rendering the **** a platonic ploy of karezza if only punctuated by solitary ******* reticulated by exsibilation that is contorted when you consider the ****** act a marvel rather than a condemnation of the vicarious involvement in normative ****** creations not of any higher artform but of an evolved theology that might perpend the issue of Christianized ******* that is videographic as a sanction worthy of charter and an impending simultaneous comstockery to protect the decency of the simultagnosia of a diverse and divisive mispronunciated time bent against its greatest heroes for the malice of schadenfreude built into the system of language itself by germane consideration to flagellate the wrong country for the  greatest wrongs known to the realm of religious observance. The pederasty of enclaves is the bailiwick of mutinies of selective mutism incurred by the vilified into compulsive shrieks of kallince as a ribbacle of protean ratiocination paralyzed by the coherent vulnerability incurred by the exchequer of polluted conditions of enslavement by the stretchgraves of the chavish of too many pulpits in the throng of a decisive jaundice against the victors of history because of the obsolescence of the historical fossils of outmoded jealousy. Now to the eupathy of all generations should we better conserve situations against the encroaching wesperm of the marstions of ulterior feminism grimacing at the pleckigger of manhood and decriminalizing the taboo against the enantiodromia of miscegenation to the folly of shepherds of idiotic ploys to rear the mediocre rebec of warbled intimations of cultural impotence that should proselytize both the oligogenics beyond ecbolic atrocity and the adoptive ****** of the anglosphere through its smart and dapper monopoly threatened by the commerstargal of retromorphosis exhibited by the demassification of culled syntalities into aboriginal epigenetic kennels of subservience to a piggybacked system where if you are among the attentive scrutiny of the audience that both perceives apperception metacognitively with francketor precision you are thereby inoculated from lean herbivores of cultish occultism metaphorically in the annealed agitprop for resourcelessness that never ends in the radioglare of revisionism because of the prevenance of the vergers who manage the Manciples rather than tend to the vainglory of the potagers around the hegemunes of an unwarranted and puritan celibacy of conceptual sterility in a world fashioned by engouements for sanguine hopes for a consanguinity that might portend into dynasty but lopsided in its contrite missives of scandal will never provide a valedictory rendition on politically checkered zugzwangs of ulterior scientism against the lettered freedom of bibliognosts to aggrieve against the gloaming vacuum of sartorial damages to Dagon among the populated metropolis of corporate servitude that will thus collapse out of rebarbative backlash for its diminutive economies of scope and pretenses of largesse of scaled down collectivism into a heap of corporate rubble rather than judicious bonanza. In every considered word in this Biblbical warning against the trekleador of the amazonian paradise against the travail of junediggles of obligation among the frenzied fretful tocsins of farcical utopianism meeting the inclement reprisal of sanctioned duplicity in frikmag beneath the truculence of mobilized alacrity to syndicalism endeared to capitalism rather than the converse logical apostrophes that are imponent overhangs of an already conquered feral sphere of nomadic imagination into a checkmate of a socially validated future clinched by foresight and the wragapole nature of the insensate docility of those prone to officious naturism before the attempted monolith of the mountebanks of the quixotic towers of panopticon that are a regelation of unchecked ambitions verging or diverging too valorously against themselves but also prone to a simultagnosia that berates the robust picaresque swandamos that curtail the curglaff of malcontent with the recoil of perseverance that reneges in tiresome defeat of a demilitarized population that should always be grisly rather than denatured by the overhang of the incumbent nudism of certain futures becoming to finicky in impetuous lurid specters of abhorrent exercises in chantage waged against sardanapalians in all countries regardless of merits or demerits. The redstrall of enlightenment is not otiose operatively in recursive backlash against nominalism which sweedles the weedledge of a new acquiescence timid enough to mangle a prosodemic wave of celibacy propitiated by the succedaneum of profligate vicarious lickerish ****** appetites that diminish that natural instinct into either barbarous experiments in lechery too inconvenient to apprise honestly but looming aghast at the moral tip-toes around the Original Sin that binds us to predatory lapse and retromorphosis rather than the maintenance of a mainlined trimpoline confidence in a normative wave of galvanized interface against the overpromiscuous provisions for the lackaday resentment of alienated millennialism relishing the sennet of nostalgia but bereft of the heave from moral slumbers of an invented celibacy intermediary to demassification but attenuated by the omphalism of astute gravitas in socially engineered balks at the emergence of singularity in personalized cacotopia becoming a metaphor for the broadsided shipwreck of an inured world pasteurized into acerbic jolkers of foofaraw rather than the real-life relish against still-framed ostentation that distorts the granular artifice of the natural into supernatural fixations with gaudy swarpollock indecently exposed. To the finkly flonky puritanism of the wiseacres of those who say sacerdotal duty cannot diverge from entelechies of secular insight I behold the marvel of timespun elegance as the marvel of God’s convergence for the happenstance of the serendipity of magnified time lived completely in the plenipotentiary pangs of evanescence that catapults subliminal meaning to memorialize this indelible seminal watershed in a clear visionary establishment of history. Most belong to oligomania but I relent in the completely sardonic intortions of aspects of sebastomania in complete equipoise with the clairvoyant clarity of centralized perspective but the dragomans will interpret that last phase with underminnow because it belies the granular intent of the fin de seicle advent of a new generation that is an homage to the hallowed Judaic theory of millennialism as the return of glorified entitlement yet tentative in its overhang but never malicious in its grapnel of the fewterers of amazing convergence of clairvoyance. The tangential rebuke of the absurd oxyholotron of paradoxical puritan superstition that assumes a fustilug generation will cement a farsighted clarity that subsumes generative prowess lingers with fixations on the figments of the apocryphal version of the truer version of revelations manifesting right before our eyes for neither the sinistral or the dexterous amplivagance of God’s universal message by the superorganism of messianic purpose belittled by the agents of humbled perdition not alone of martexts that are martles but also by the shepherded fears of the ignorant rather than the insipid because the will never be outmoded only enhanced by the acceleration of proliferative technologies that pave a macadamized future of prosperity rather than the tarnish of the miscreants of Tyre. I owe all providence to God because he fastened his scrutiny on my autodidactian romance clambered into restive ontocyclic peccadillo that points to Pinocchio more than to the truest compass of an omnified salvation of the piggybacked purpose of synergies of geotechnic mastery that elevates the cause of God and liberates us from the stings of dangerously vapid pauperization of the intellectual frontiers by dangled prevarications of desultory incontinence forestalled by avoidant developments in proper fewterers of ambition. By the axiomatic Brocards of time travel the unstated ignotism of deranged circuses of stupidity congregated around the swelter of dismissal is a barnacle to the mofussil fossilization of sentiment that remarks ironically about the petty indelible moments but not the entelechies of a unified front for liberated equity and considerate tender of diverse quorums that shepherd rather than intern the noosphere into the burgeoned resurgence of a humane endeavor for the everlasting enlightenment of an ameliorated humanity and beyond that. By the bailiwick exerted by the plenipotentiary omphalism still participant to the quorum I hereby declaratively implore the abrogation of pernicious grapholagnia as the peremptory sacrilege that needs exorcism for our times and yet delegated of stature I urge hortatory and imperative action for the expurgation of all tortfeasor illegally obtained ******* of unsolicited voyeurism to be completely regarded as the ultimatum of temerity against carnal restraint and banished from the human registry to uphold the strategic interests of the United States of America. I understand that there is not fricative monolith and never will I lean for that conquest but as a humbled member of the omphalism that constitutes the sacred endeavor of sociogenesis grounded on God with collegialism upheld that a geotechnically optimized species needs to refrain from lewd perfidies against commonplace justice to restrain the fumatorium of unwarranted envy from poisoning the pervious minds of people that congregate in defensive posture but not definitive gesture. I also beseech a portentous  settlement with  I relent from avarice but it is not a superposition of authority just a suggestive glance at requited justice but my grangull chavish of circumlocution naivety will meet the most deliberate Sardonic Sc(p)orn in these times of need. These next words are paused and already fathomed by the supernal recursion of the iterative metaphysics of recumbent retrospection hinged on hindsight to proclaim without any hints of attempted subterfuge of the clarity of a Democratic Republic that my words while forceful do not constitute a breech in public conduct even while vaulted with a minor rapacity I rebuke and atone for even when many others might find recourse to expiate my jalousies to the windowed world not of vindictiveness but out of the cursory and emphasis on cursory justice needed to vouchsafe my continued security and inoculation from the pothers of obviously shortsighted pleonexia which will obviously be fleered as a slight euthymia glazed on self-interest while tone-deaf to the checkered layers of entrapment by a confederate whiplash but a native grit never to enslave but to empower humanity. I am deeply lugubrious over the specter of the trembled quaky ground the penury of spiritual loss rejoinders against my candidacy for high esteem but not peremptory decisiveness in active service to yield to a supererogatory attempt for felicity to alight in my life not out of material greed but the gratuity of serviceable missions that play a dicey gamble with a frenzied manumission attempt that is essentially that a parsed manumission for eleutherian pragmatica to chide as naive but alarmed senectitude of the old order prevaricates with the din of postured hurdles of gladiatorial outrage that weans me away from the ataraxia for my fumbled stream brooking intolerance for years on the ballast of collective endeavor. Nevertheless, lets speak more on God’s providence because in this esteemed moment of watershed emergence of the fully engorged but rarely gluttonous soul I have found an equitable peace with supernal and superlative authority in God that grants stewardship and tutelage to the audience that will eventually through proper discrimination be delegated as higher than the ignorant bystanders of fleered snide disdain for the abnormous and bletcherous dimples of an otherwise circuitous dalliance with an unconventional path towards destiny rather than some windlass of opportunism for, if it were not for my unabetted genius and the provisions of divine appointment based on a kindly generous deference to preterition axiomatic in perceived time by the strictures of the convergent past and the divergent future, I would never find a role of partial authorship of a widely heralded tome I will one day publish to either the exsibilation of the antiquarians of hidebound irrefragable ontocyclic convictions or the cloveryield of an appreciative gratitude to the God I serve and I make no notions of any hostility towards any party of petty dismissal because I expect their recumbent recoil but I apologize for hubris and extenuate the follies of the refinery of character as I ascend into a figurative ennobled step into soulhood that exceeds my former dismal limits by such staggering orders of magnitude it magnifies the questions of ontology in sentience rather than beckons the alarmism of the swarpollock of tripwires that can easily withstand the tempests of scorn. The uproar of commotion of blood sanctified by the thirsty rain for the desiccated faucet of dramaturgy in reprisal for docimasy is the integral linchpin of the biocentric rebec reasting on the primitive hymns to festoon the curtains of defenestrated primitive relics of shady attempts at officious balks of the privatized empire of the alytarchs among the earwigs that simper the culled delicacy of sensible notions into the congeners of prioritization emphasized by quantulated concerns veiled by elaborative synquests that burrow the sulcate grooves of hidden hedonism for the chic magistrates of financial swoon or swayed vestiges of a forgotten calumny of betrayal by the coming-of-age sprouts of hedged dismal dismissal of a lugubrious prospect for an otherwise revitalized dressage of emoluments to glory that lurked in penumbras by rigged enumeration but found their prominence by the gravity of sensation-seeking frissons of alterations between benighted glory and the famish of artificial tethers to the yoke of caramel and chocolates as a dainty ploy of yearning persiflage also a dranger of camouflage for flagitious percolations of the invidious rumors of imposture and the groveling contempt of the known drogulus remiss in denial of its own requited date when the powers of miscarriage become ecbolic to their own lagging languor of lisps of linguistic ramparts of a revival of hypertrophy for hyperactive foibles in inclement weather. Ok beyond the absenteeism of the presence of perceived amphigory there is great heft in the nominal notion that dogma is mobilized in serviceable goods of merchandized mirrors of glazed remission of moral tender because of stoked curiosity unhinged from the pragmatica of duty. We need forbearance in empathy that loves the lovable rather than envies the deposed despotism of clever wiseacres veiled in delicate symmetry with conscience that is the quill of a wellspring deeper than any imaginary vagary can approximate because impossible events punctuate time with literacy rather than incontinence of drivel that is ambitious but ignoble by stately coherence. To the critics of the baragnosis of limited apperception my words are blatant amphigories but they only possess enough ken to fathom an average orbit of suboptimal outcomes rather than transdimensional chances at chess outnumbered by checkers by incidental design of clever ploys of rejoinder that is by design arcane for the arcadia of the pristine arcade of future possibilities  As I am purblind by psychorrhagy I am incompetent in my radiopresence because I am a departed spectral figment above fricative hisses and whorfian glares of mediocre rebec for primitive shibboleth above prized taurine anglophonic convictions that superimpose the dignified clarity of willpower above the dragnets of supersolid conflations of puffery. Ok I admit a lapse of transmission by the vesicles of numbered murders of henpecked owleries of the senectitude of sepulchral magnetism of slumber over awakened alacrity of mobilism fashioned in portentous flipcraves of additive immobility of fixed vectors seen through parvanimity that actually just swivel in circular retorts against themselves without the elaborative potential and the belabored traipse of the rabid taradiddles of sensationalism marauding as a defalcated burglary of emotion for useless psephology that predicates nothing but a slight budge in the autarky of structuralism which is never sclerotic but stammered by articulations of the overt when the covert aligns by an alien agenda that is subservient to magnified priorities of warped swirk of telescopic prevenance and hedged boschveldts of elemental and I stress the strain of the elemental for the drogulus of sensational proclamation by executive ****** but supererogatory minutiae of fascism cloaked by earwigs of repcrevel repute beyond memorialized reputation. We need to renege the southern pacts to the Argentine mandarism of reticular vitiations of cinematography waged against creative visionaries of free speech because of the succedaneum of furtive endeavors at optimization by compromised degrees of artistic licentiousness even that is never lewd about sacred roods but boorish in blockbuster rather than kempt in collectivist brunt of the timid bronteum of agitprop that lurks in the imminent future of cinema. America needs to retain the disclosed but still-frame inertia of catapulted declassification that ennobles the fliction but also the vilified distilled truths only the keen of acumen will sensibly identify so that the magnet of earwigs gravitates to the belabored analysis of astute congeners to relevant tributaries to the ocean of adventitious swarpollock in the procedural autopsy of the auditorium for neither a chattel nor a crystallized nurture against the matriotic insistence of decorum. Essentially the succubus of prosthetic protensive docimasy of imaginative logic predicated in visionary apperception of the unseen in immediacy is the longeur of reticent endeavors to pasteurize the oculus rifts of futurity to synergize with the entelechy of proactive somnambulism that sensitizes the profoundly capable but never bereaves the inept of direct interface with communicable dominion with fantasia that is an operative artifice of a beguiled lurch without purged retrograde immaterial delusion that endangers visceral momentum toward new directives of the outmantled zugzwang in elementary exercises of swaddled posterity free by irenic idolatry never orphaned by a widowed imagination. The swirk of hypostasized probabilities in an invented swipe at wide-eyed but star-crossed turnvereins for the imaginative leaps in the performative depend on the delicate swivels of declaration independent from culinary clarity of macroscian travesty rather than pinhokes of naufragues of maudlin laudable applause by the canned nurture of speculative intimation that sadly severs the curglaff of whispered intimacy over the confidence we have in artifice to teach the wragapole both matriotism and sensitive reninjasque poker without incurred damages beyond the clarified visionary potential of graphic protheses immediately perceptible to the acumen of judicious polymathy indoctrinated by the rigor of scientific grooms for melliferous parsecs of advanced minutiae of dark horses to nomadic license beyond ravenous **** palindromes of hushed vigor to the declared by scacchic deliberation to usher in crass but crestfallen synectics. The future of God is secure in the fathomed furlongs of cubic citadels of pasteurized paradise found in corralled reluctance without remonstrance of poetic belletrist resounding with clangor rather than swerved nimble potions to avert future calamities in war by the expansive frontier of a civilized metropolis of the mobilized imagination hypostasizing newfangled naturism that is neither mofussil nor a fossilized relic of scrappy schlep. The nonchalance of parlance swims in arenaceous bunkers of drivel that congregate in the turnverein of futuristic opportunism found in the muzzled directives of orchestras of departed clarity no longer so insular in its bossy imperatives but clarified with hearsay and blushed blarney not the blench of widened divulgence of minatory malice that incurs the punitive curglaff of frenetic retchallops of winsome specters becoming opportune pragmatics of a semantic network of dirigisme that through sheer horsepower overcomes the sting of ubiquity or the hollowed headless vesicles of urbacity disenfranchised by degrees of impertinent pertinacity of deposed disclosure rudimentary in sedentary simplicity against matriotic duty to remain guarded by an ommateum that fathoms the abyss but never wages reckless adventurism. Prevenance is the key to absolution but staggered implements of dearth preempt the ecbolic corrigenda of castigation by hindered lurches of veiled errundle belonging to a central trimpoline interposition of fungible felicity for not only a regional fanfare but a global scale of competitive endeavor of cleverage beyond scopes but beneath scrutinized mutiny of embanked polymathy stranded by the redstrall of industrious slavering dogmatism to a servile ***** rather than the boomerang of pressure to asseverate limitless bounds of planned obsolescence to engorge but not intimidate checkered reticence in the sinew of the musculature of creative parlance above petty finicky demiurges of latitudes in amphibious annealed glorification. Temperatures gauged by the thrombosis of thermolysis in psychotaxis gouged by hucksters of taciturn bamboozles of teetotalism are neither scourge nor foe of the strategic advent of the fascination of prospective investment a boondoggle that offsets the bonfire of retorted whimpers of foudroyant ripples of wildfire perspicacity strung by the catchpole of ubiquity in the time-honed decorum of genteel upright raconteurs of volleyed neglect by strict mandate will uproariously profit in remission from knowledgeable exacerbation rather than tomfoolery by filial tithes to foreign wardens of conspicuous levitation above gimcracks by the syrts of percolated filigrees of belabored chantage exerted over the tide of perfidy in contained discernment will stall and extinguish the prideful jostle of profane blasphemy against tacit covenants of blackguarded justice served by platitude better than by insubordinate quivers that quake because bears bounce checkered checks rather than anoint the sigillum of protective vouchsafes of exchequers smartly dapper rather than dimpled in flagrant brays of castigation and thus secure employment of instrumental advent rather than desecrated conventicles of remission.
Now it is time to ventilate divine knowledge that transfiguration means a humane liberation rather than a sanctimony of tirade against dumose proliferations of fluminous imaginary tracts of the probable rather than the certain for the elevators of sanitized wealth to bequeath greater moral clarity found in the contrary submission of authoritative parents to shepherd guarded wealth in proper husbandry of calendrical affairs to optimize the work-life balance so the biocentric imperative for sustenance renounces the moral obesity of groundless backlash in austerity and endless cycles of remorse rather than a tender mollification of sentiments away from universal kumbayas and in favor more stridently of a system that withholds the agitprop of statist indoctrination of a mollycoddle ****** within individual mandates of variable agendas of countries beyond the borderline fluid dynamics of the foibles of moral venial folly but insensitive to the dynamism of the robust virility of a wayspayed world swaying by riddled wildfires of conflated puerile stages of ludic indoctrination to the rampant perfidy of exemplary incontinence waged by Hollywood upon unsuspecting victims of inconsiderate indoctrination that doesn’t vouchsafe the prerogatives of heteronormative values that should outshine not a parochial vehement hatred or a clorence of unconditional tolerance but a chided quarantine of variegated syntalities divorced from integration rather than fostered in communal depths of bound lettered ambition found in the allegorical power of Biblical wisdom expounded by the florilegium of the religious and secular canon.
To serve God rather than the perceived taradiddle of speculative mammon deprived of classifiable certainties but hunched proclivities we need to exhort a proper seesaw between restraint in vision and exuberance in creative license so that the pivot of the moralized world leads to an insistent trust of watchdogs that through trust revolve the gravity of morale upon the upswing of liberty rather than incidental follies of imaginative demiurges of partition but blinkered hubris in stately objectives to the demur of participant malingering naysayers and nyejays. The moral gravity of the situation requires us to rotate our hype from the fervor of panic into the resolve of fortitude that relishes family and filial duty rather than resents because of breedbate instinct the flickers of smoldering rebels that are tamed in their revelry when they follow the moral prerogative of disciplined ambition in creativity not insubordinating against insurmountable limits but reasonable adjustments to a scaffold of potential that is skyscraping more than before even if its too close to the ground for comfort and consolation. Relativism is the enemy of progress because envy seeds alienation and comparison should be eschewed because we need to burrow in compassionate embrace of the cherished loves rather than the exaggerated proximity of provincial fears becoming global juggernauts of mercy upon the merciful and I convoke a global prayer for the attenuation of the virus that spreads sadly too far for comfort today. I purge out of solidarity with suffering as the milquetoast in me identifies the disconcerted avenues of avetrols trying to find a way through the forest of rumination without gingerly superlative prerogatives outweighing the poise of balance in shields of honor rather than badges of shame. We must by moral imperative greet strangers in public places like parks rather than strangulate the percolation of affection because of regnant distractions because in this congenial way we will find a common fraternity with fellow man while soldiering on to find truth in God’s word in the proper temperature for genuflection because I admit foibles but I relent not in the chase to redintegrate myself spiritually to lead a charge without trespass of fundamental dignity over the whoppers of indignation some of us might feel because of the penury of divergence rather than the private penalty of convergence for an ulterior solidarity of purpose. I need to emerge into the humanity of compassion to showcase that virtuosity can exist without obsession over one individual because God beseeches a pantheon of observation rather than the gripes of an envied nuisance independent from normal human concerns that ripple with ecstasy because of normative human contrition over the leeway on vacillated opinions that might underwhelm those disposed by prizes of inurement. We should shelve these notions of a supersolid conscience because only in the humility of the profound simplicity of elemental postulates can we achieve complete synchrony with a syndicate that enthralls both divergent and convergent movements that partially offset on the side of convergence in some communes while otherwise countermanded in others in contrarian ways and the favor of the balance depends on the perspective of the flanged acculturation of the participant in a world that doesn’t need flayed excoriation as much as it deserves proper exercise of adoration of the admirable rather than the desecration of the abominable. I return with the greatest jubilation of a reninjasque jaunty streak that hearkens the sennet and maybe the leanings of the senate to the fanfare of adoration for life and gratitude bestowed by the stewardship of God and his divine purpose to inseminate my life with purposeful meaning and happy happenstance that is a stroke of glory. I muster the resolve to traipse in the solitude of my cavern the blessings of divinity bequeathed by the departed forefathers who never intended bossy insularity of dogma to be a stricture of rigors of iconoduly but rather a consecrated wit with the persiflage of conversant tones of labile and lissome gallantry just waiting to alight upon the affectionate dance with dalliance of a philandered hope for a purified love hopefully never profaned by the pangs of scandal (note the sardonic pun) because rejoice is the gift of Heaven upon this culmination of purpose above the dross of shipwreck elevated in folly but stranded in the throes of rumination enough to hedge the boursocrats and try to inoculate the world from further panicky divisions of hypemongers of simpered precaution becoming a financial pandemic that deserves pause and poise but should not protrude above the glistening promise of the eternal wellspring of the vineyards of salvation blooming because enhanced sapience converted the flock of shepherds to tend to those sheepish in deficiency to wield a newer curiosity to replace a saddened lament not by acquiescent abandon but by the solidarity of interfaces of love replacing cast-iron idolatries I too am guilty of for the cordslave generation of itinerant distractions that wager on modicums rather than appraise bonanzas. Safety is predicated on the idea that resources should never be glazed but always apportioned with optimism because if you examine history irrational panics have always and always rebounded because of exigent actions taken by governments to restore confidence in liquidity rather than snide dismal dismissals of economic projections based on bounded rigged betrayals of primarily a global panic that a profoundly promethean intellectual verve could capitalize on its heyday to gouge people against the insensate balkanization of the future by an alienation of formidable scarecrow of invented fatalism imploding upon itself to obviate its own existence by the insistence on free thought to domineer and tower over the doldrums of a vacant man that is now occupied by the largesse of humane endeavor for a messianic voyage that consummates time itself its own captain and is partially centripetal around the juncture of All Saints Day 2008 because of its seminal significance in ushering in a new era of liberation. This justification is a gnomic axiomatic herculean ****** that catapulted generativity in creative endeavor to coalesce around an Army of Me not because of the futilitarianism embedded in its flagrant flagitious mockery of traipsed lyricism borrowed from Bjork but rather showcases the flavork of the flavenickers of ribald coarse revolution that is no longer balderdash to Bald Eagles but the prized retribution of the inviolable scruples demolished by deracinated moral relativism balking at raltention because of persnickety and tyrannical transparency that prepossesses over the lifeless livid Potemkin  Village  of Astroturf complaint malingering in pederasty over its own depraved sinuous course of diverted restraint cemented by the scythes of Village People politics benumbed over militarized betrayals that incur and invoke the diablerist prose of anonymuncle desperado mavericks that sizzle in hibernaculum to depose the autarky of seasoned growth rather than unseasonable diatribes of vitriol poisoning the posture of gentility by decree rather than by deeds of homogenized pasteurization against Lactose Intolerant Leftism and dogged doggerel of pasty subversive paranoiac hederaceous envy spawning a vituperative summation of a beatific felicity. We need to convene upon better tranceception in this axiomatic gratuity of God

sappho greets her as she
would a reflection:
hand against hand, staring into
her eyes. silence dancing
around them as a long-lost love-
r.

enheduanna sighs at the contact
and the quiet shifts as
her fingers close:
as there is no need for language
when her
inanna will grant them
a holy diadem.

-----

eternity reeks
of nights out on the lawn
daisies growing with the weeds
pillowing beneath the two
dwindling women -
hands clasped tightly,
their eyes closed.
...lapis blooming
within the petals
of the undergrowth...

gods slumber amongst
worthy poets occluding,
heart-soothing each
other without words
or sonnets
or divination.

sappho dared to
look out from
heavy-lidded
lethargy,
for she was
yearning:
at dawn

...her honeyvoiced,
    mythweaving
    enheduanna:
    a sweet-shelter
    of temptation
    and goddesses
    who wage
    tender war and
    drink from pools
    of sun...

at dawn
the ancient
divine
poet
gazes
again

and sappho
forgets she
too is nearly
as old

for her lover wears
an invisible golden-
crowned circlet
of springtime
and illuminated
lands.

but she can hardly think
anymore, when
the songsmith of
glory and prayer
is kissing her.

laying in the basin
of heaven and skies
she pours restless
eternity down
her throat.


----

lapis melts
to pink clovers
of fowlerite

no mortals notice

two bodies blending
between poems
rustling tunics
maidens casting
away their  
fruitful

sobriety.

----

poet
dreams
a woman
of verse.

hardly expecting
shallow-breathed
kisses of burning
solstice and
unrequited
love.

The cloud settles over the moor.
Scottish peaks and thistle
darkened to shadow;
voids within voids.

A sheet, a film
of papyrus copper
plays reality.
It approaches the single paned window,
the abandoned outhouse.

It is deserted here;
one-and-a-half living souls
‘cross the entire landscape.

The story is in the air,
the tension toiling my innards,
scaling my arms to gooseflesh
and my mind to trepidation.

She’s here.

She is here and at the window.

Please, I hope, please
let it be a billowing of plastic
caught in the wind, movements
stifled by a telegraph pole
or some other cursed sign of company.

Occluding mass, she hesitates
by the window, I daren’t look,
but she is there all the same,
wailing achingly silent for reprieve.

I know why she is here.
I see it:

Thick rope. Crude, unrelenting knots,
I feel them press, cut with friction
into my wrists, twine like snakes,
devoiding me of life

one eternal day after another.
He prowls the door from time to time,
I fear it but it’s all that I have
save for the songs of the Tree Sparrows
that warm the winter.

He comes in to shed light to the room,
brings bread and milk, sometimes fruit.
More often than not he brings just himself,
presses me to the cold floor,

tries to make me feel something real,
demands my artificial praise.
He climaxes quickly, fills me with life, he says,
clutches my ***** hair, wracked with lice
and pregnant with the renewed hope

of his mercy.

None coming, I’m returned to my holster,
a stool upon an opened barrel,
I leave my messes behind,
the stench rising between my legs

and surrounding my senses,
until all of my life is nothing more
than excrement. Recycled, lived once
and then forevermore.

I live in my mind. Only the single-paned
window in this outhouse
offering an alternative;
most usually slate grey skies
and a barrage of hail upon the tin roof.

Outside of the window, I know
that life is something else. No books,
no words, no love, no music;
yet the weak Scottish light still
pierces the glass,

light always finds a way.

And then one day or one passage of time,
it matters not,
my hero, my villain, my father,
came to me no more.

I rejoiced. I rejoiced in my starvation,
the waste of my muscle,
the overflow of the toilet bowl,
skin reddened and bruised and eaten.

No one would come, if indeed there was anyone at all,
I knew that.

So I waited for death,
as death had waited for me.
We greeted each other as friends,
archaic pen-pals, acquainted at last,

I embraced his touch,
felt more life in death than life
had ever cared to bestow.

I kissed death on the lips,
told him of my long-sought desire for him.
He turned, a glint of silver,

and I found myself
on the other side of the single paned window.

Looking in, I saw only my regret.
The stool, the barrel, the waste
that had strewn the floor,
had surmised my life.

It was a sight unfit to un-see,
and so I stood in my perfect sanctuary,
never turned to look and face the light,
and instead stayed only to lament.

And so now I look into the old outhouse,
decades of decay improve its sight.
Old moss gathers over the fingernail marks
that I had carved so desperately
into the flooring.

Forevermore I stare upon my regrets,
forevermore I opaque myself
in half-existent smoke,
tapping on the window.

Upon this I look, a deep plunge of horror;
my heart freezes in frame,
upon a young woman’s face,
no more than fourteen years.

It is locked in a scream, a sense of despair,
eternal and rite, forever in shame.
A life lived in terror, naught but a tirade
of brutish **** and desperate privation.

We lock eyes for a moment,
enough proof thus,
that there is life beyond misery,
if one cares to look.

Her long brown hair hung
occluding forty-seven percent of her face
and her one eye
looked a little manic.

It was slow and sweet
for a while
but she had been
gradually gaining momentum.

I am watching her
carefully and
waiting, really
for that moment.

Suddenly she stops.

She raises her hands up
clenched.
It looks like she is going to
pull her own hair
and then her right fist
slams into my ribs
followed by a left
and a right and a left.
A barrage of little hurts
pouring out
machine gun frenzied.

She digs her nails into my chest,
her mouth is twisted,
her teeth clenched,
I can see muscles
in one jaw line twitch.
More hair falls over her
Countenance.
Her hips move furious  

and then
Sensuous wails of red light,
screams of sumptuous green,
bright yellow trembling,
and electric blue rippling
like bright neon

She cools and dims
she collapses
into me
sobbing
and I can feel
salty wet
itchy dripping down my skin

I cry too
never having seen someone
this...



Michael L Sutter

Eden’s Weeds (Andrew Crawford)


“seed buried somewhere six feet deep beneath dry bones
and brittle debris, lost in all of eden's weeds” Andrew Crawford

<><>><>
you tripped exploring mine own eden's weeds,
more precisely, tripped me up, your poring over,
my one hundred year old poems, flawed, by
many spilled tears, aged old, for and over them,
and now, once again, je vous réponds s'il vous plait

this poem planned, title chosen, well before you
exercised my memories, disinterring by your fingers,
(surprise!} but the content you also now provided,
@ ten to midnight, your privacy invasion, a very fine
sleep deprivation excuse to compose one more time

who knows, perhaps this next one could be ”flawless”^
not likely though, flawless never found amidst the weeds
though in Eden chances are, chances are, not impossible,
for that’s the place where slow, simple songs get replayed,
celebrating lovers of life, its pleasant harmonies, go figure

over, over again, like a rolling stone, until friction finally wins,
yes ”my own chosen speed”^ is a-slowing, direction home, finally,
the mosses occluding new words and combinations, concealed,
like a moss, got no roots, birthed by shedding spores airborne,
my new old poems, plucked from air, words passing by in phrases

your phrase,
eden’s weeds,
hit my irises,
insisting it deserved,
instant cognition,
two words,
demanding special education,
accolade recognition,
perhaps if I
stick around,
for a few more poems,
I’ll learn to write
as beautiful as you.

I am not a denominator of original sin,
some remnant or aftermath of fallen grace.
Indeed, I am hardly human at all.

I live in the spaces between breath and mist,
where gravity dares suspend its hold
and all matter slips away until nothing matters.

I pour drinks so I can afford to drink.
It pays my way towards the dead-end
now occluding the avenue that used to stretch

beyond it.

I am not a believer in disorganised action.
Each moment spent in self-destruction
was thoughtfully done to bring about art and demise.

I live in the moment between charm quark and decay,
where gravity falls to weakness
and all that matters slips into temperance.

I eat only to satisfy appetite.
It tastes of nothing but the dead-ends
that now occlude the avenue that used to stretch

far beyond me.

in the corner of my left eye
i feel the blooming  of
a migraine begin
occluding all reason

nailing pain to my brain
and causing civility to flee before the tornado wrath
of assualted sysnapses
time becomes distorted
like algea in a summer pond
the verdancy of the ache
looks pretty
yet underneath i suffocate

the time of darkness
begins...
to bloom like a carrion flower....

Blankets of blankness sit staring blankly into thine eyes,
while piercing wails of silence cradle in lobes of flesh.
Seal'ed doors of unframed bricks sit idly, occluding the sight of thy mind.
All the while, focus evades the perilous thoughts that thresh.

Still, well-knowing that of thy key to openness,
which lieth still within thy breast,
must, perhaps, be lost at best,
in cold, dark lying emptiness.

I'm burning out, falling hard
A dark star aching for a piece
of memory
I never asked to be confined to blood and bone
Slitting wrists leak black space matter
Occluding desire and thought
Contorting, morphing through my crazed
imagination
Seeming blurry and tear filled through these eyes
Human. Mortal. Concrete.
Deity. Eternal. Without boundaries.
Dust settles between my toes
Rubble at my feet
Keep telling myself I'm ok
As I drown myself in moon's long dead oceans
I'm ok
Tripping off into the space in between spaces
Mind constantly adrift

If only I was different,
if the thoughts that encompass my mind
were different
were less,
then maybe I wouldn't be so isolated
Desolate.

If only I could show you
that somewhere within
I want all the things I fear aloud
I yearn for somebody to care enough
To push through the occluding ****
That I put up

I want nothing more
Than the  destruction of the isolation
of the desolation
that is worked through my bones

this moment is drunk
and occasionally says
dark things of remembering

about pushed apart legs
in April when it was alive
and something loved it more
than living–cooing even

into its soft ear vaguely
promises of forever and
keeping through death
its hands and lips and feet

     (whoosh)

but goes through the mouth
and nose hot dollops of dreamless
wine occluding speech, taking

tightness and smashing it over
the head with a memory of
a coy poem that tasted like the
sea in your mouth when

it sat on your face and
it was the only time it was ever
–truly–
                

                Alive.

These are antinatalist poems and translations by Michael R. Burch.  The antinatalist translations include poems and prose by Al-Ma'arri, Aristotle, Buddha, Homer, Omar Khayyam, Sappho, Seneca, the bible's King Solomon, and Sophocles.

Antinatalism is the belief that human beings should not procreate. Do we have the "right" to bring other human beings into a world that was always "red in tooth and claw" and is now increasingly deadly due to global warming, nuclear weapons, drone warfare and maniacal leaders like ******, Mussolini, Stalin, Putin, Jong-un, Netanyahu and Trump?

There were antinatalist notes in Homer, around 3,000 years ago ...

HOMER

For the gods have decreed that unfortunate mortals must suffer, while they remain sorrowless. — Homer (circa 800 BC), Iliad 24.525-526, translation by Michael R. Burch

It is best not to be born or, having been born, to pass on as swiftly as possible.—attributed to Homer, translation by Michael R. Burch

One of the first great voices to directly question whether human being should give birth was that of Sophocles, around 2,500 years ago ...

SOPHOCLES, PART I

Oblivion: What a boon, to lie unbound by pain!—Sophocles, translation by Michael R. Burch

Not to have been born is best,
and blessed
beyond the ability of words to express.
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), translation by Michael R. Burch

It’s a hundred times better not be born;
but if we cannot avoid the light,
the path of least harm is swiftly to return
to death’s eternal night.
—Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus, translation by Michael R. Burch

There are more Sophocles quotes later on this page. According to Aristotle, it had become so common in ancient Greece to say "It is best not to be born" that it was considered a cliché!

ARISTOTLE

"You ... may well consider those blessed and happiest who have departed this life before you ... This thought is indeed so old that the one who first uttered it is no longer known; it has been passed down to us from eternity, and hence doubtless it is true. Moreover, you know what is so often said and [now] passes for a trite expression ... It is best not to be born at all; and next to that, it is better to die than to live; and this is confirmed even by divine testimony [i.e, the wisdom of Silenus]: ... The best for them [humans] is not to be born at all, not to partake of nature's excellence; not to be is best, for both sexes. This should be our choice, if choice we have; and the next to this is, when we are born, to die as soon as we can." — Aristotle, Eudemus (354 BCE), surviving fragment quoted in Plutarch, Consolatio ad Apollonium, sec. xxvii

KING SOLOMON THE WISE

The Bible's wisest man, King Solomon, agreed with the ancient Greeks that it was best not to be born:

"So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter. Wherefore I praised the dead which are already dead more than the living which are yet alive. Yea, better is he than both they, which hath not yet been, who hath not seen the evil work that is done under the sun." — King James Bible, Ecclesiastes 4:1-3, attributed to King Solomon

OMAR KHAYYAM

Happy the soul who speeds back to the Source,
but crowned with peace is the one who never came.
—a Sophoclean antinatalist passage from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, translation by Michael R. Burch

AL-MA'ARRI

Another strong, relentlessly questioning voice was that of a blind Arabic seer, the great Arab classical poet Abu 'L' Ala Ahmad ibn 'Abdallah al-Ma'arri, commonly referred to as al Ma'arri...

Bittersight
by Michael R. Burch

for Abu al-Ala Al-Ma'arri

To be plagued with sight
in the Land of the Blind,
—to know birth is death
and that Death is kind—
is to be flogged like Eve
(stripped, sentenced and fined)
because evil is “good”
in some backwards mind.

Antinatalist Shyari Couplets by Abul Ala Al-Ma'arri (973-1057), translation by Michael R. Burch:

Lighten your tread:
The ground beneath your feet is composed of the dead.

Walk slowly here and always take great pains
Not to trample some departed saint's remains.

And happiest here is the hermit with no hand
In making sons, who dies a childless man.

SENECA

Two thousand years ago, the Roman philosopher and statesman Seneca spoke of his right to euthanasia, but also about the bliss of not being born in the first place ...

Just as I select a ship when it's time to travel, or a house when it's time to change residences, even so I will choose when it's time to depart from life.―Seneca (4 BC-65 AD), translation by Michael R. Burch

There is nothing so pointless, so perfidious as human life! ... The ultimate bliss is not to be born; otherwise we should speedily slip back into the original Nothingness. Seneca, On Consolation to Marcia, translation by Michael R. Burch

Religion is regarded by fools as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful. — Seneca, translation by Michael R. Burch

SOPHOCLES, PART II

Antinatalist quotes by Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC):

Never to be born may be the biggest boon of all.—Sophocles, translation by Michael R. Burch

Oblivion: What a boon, to lie unbound by pain!—Sophocles, translation by Michael R. Burch

The happiest life is one empty of thought.—Sophocles, translation by Michael R. Burch

Consider no man happy till he lies dead, free of pain at last.—Sophocles, translation by Michael R. Burch

What is worse than death? When death is desired but denied.—Sophocles, translation by Michael R. Burch

Children anchor their mothers to life.—Sophocles, translation by Michael R. Burch

When a man endures nothing but endless miseries, what is the use of hanging on day after day, always edging closer and closer toward death? Anyone who warms his heart with the false glow of flickering hope is a wretch! The noble man should live with honor and die with honor. That's all that can be said.—Sophocles, translation by Michael R. Burch

ANCIENT GREEK EPITAPHS AND OTHER EPIGRAMS

Pity this boy who was beautiful, but died.
Pity his monument, overlooking this hillside.
Pity the world that bore him, then foolishly survived.
—Michael R. Burch, after an unknown Greek poet

Little I knew—a child of five—
of what it means to be alive
and all life’s little thrills;
but little also—(I was glad not to know)—
of life’s great ills.
—Michael R. Burch, after Lucian

Death is evil; the Gods all agree.
For, had death been good,
the Gods would
be mortal, like me.
—Sappho, translation by Michael R. Burch

Gold does not rust,
yet my son becomes dust?
—Sappho, translation by Michael R. Burch

Here he lies in state tonight: Great is his Monument!
Yet Ares cares not, neither does War relent.
—Michael R. Burch, after Anacreon

Everywhere the sea is the sea, the dead are the dead.
What difference to me—where I rest my head?
The sea knows I’m buried.
—Michael R. Burch, after Antipater of Sidon

Blame not the gale, nor the inhospitable sea-gulf, nor friends’ tardiness,
Mariner! Just man’s foolhardiness.
—Michael R. Burch, after Leonidas of Tarentum

Mariner, do not ask whose tomb this may be,
but go with good fortune: I wish you a kinder sea.
—Michael R. Burch, after Plato

MORE ANTINATALIST QUOTES

Everybody stop breeding, or by method of birth-control stop birth.—Jack Kerouac

Original Sin is the crime of existence itself.—Arthur Schopenhauer

Nanda, I do not praise the creation of a new existence: not even a molecule, not even for a moment.—Gautama Buddha, translation by Michael R. Burch

Since time dawned
only the dead have experienced peace;
life is snow burning in the sun.
—Nandai, translation by Michael R. Burch

Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay
To mould me man? Did I solicit thee
From darkness to promote me?
—John Milton, Paradise Lost

This dream of nothingness we so fear
is salvation clear.
—Michael R. Burch

MODERN ANTINATALIST POEMS

"Dover Beach" by Matthew Arnold
"Infant Sorrow" by William Blake
"Hurt Hawks" by Robinson Jeffers
"This Be The Verse" by Philip Larkin
"Prayer Before Birth" by Louis MacNeice
A large number of poems by Tom Merrill

MY ANTINATALIST POEMS

The first Catholic Pope, according to the Popes themselves, was Saint Peter, whose original name was Simon according to the gospels. So I have written a poem for the first Simple Simon and his simpleton heirs. If there is an "eternal hell" and most human beings are bound there, from day one the Popes should have been warning human beings NOT to procreate, duh!

Multiplication, Tabled
or Procreation Inflation
by Michael R. Burch

for the Religious Right

“Be fruitful and multiply”—
great advice, for a fruitfly!
But for women and men,
simple Simons, say, “WHEN!”



Paradoxical Ode to Antinatalism
by Michael R. Burch

“God is Love.”

A stay on love
would end death’s hateful sway,
someday.

A stay on love
would thus be love,
I say.

Be true to love
and thus end death’s
fell sway!



Habeas Corpus
by Michael R. Burch

from “Songs of the Antinatalist”

I have the results of your DNA analysis.
If you want to have children, this may induce paralysis.
I wish I had good news, but how can I lie?
Any offspring you have are guaranteed to die.
It wouldn’t be fair—I’m sure you’ll agree—
to sentence kids to death, so I’ll waive my fee.



veni, vidi, etc.
by Michael R. Burch

the last will and testament of a preemie

i came, i saw, i figured
it was better to be transfigured,
so rather than cross my Rubicon
i fled to the Great Beyond.
i bequeath my remains, so small,
to Brutus, et al.



***** Nilly
by Michael R. Burch

for the Demiurge, aka Yahweh/Jehovah

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

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

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



Epitaph for a Palestinian Child
by Michael R. Burch

I lived as best I could, and then I died.
Be careful where you step: the grave is wide.



Antinatalist Haiku for the Children of Gaza
by Michael R. Burch

You astound me,
your name
unpronounceable on my lips ...

Born into the delicate autumn,
too late to mature,
pale petals ...

Soft as daffodils fall
all the lamentations
of life’s smallest victims,
unheard ...



Styx
by Michael R. Burch

Black waters,
deep and dark and still . . .
all men have passed this way,
or will.



Dust (II)
by Michael R. Burch

We are dust
and to dust we must
return ...
but why, then,
life’s pointless sojourn?



Long Division
by Michael R. Burch

All things become one
Through death’s long division
And perfect precision.



evol-u-shun
by Michael R. Burch

does GOD adore the Tyger
while it’s ripping ur lamb apart?

does GOD applaud the Plague
while it’s eating u à la carte?

does GOD admire ur intelligence
while u pray that IT has a heart?

does GOD endorse the Bible
you blue-lighted at k-mart?



thanksgiving prayer of the parasites
by Michael R. Burch

GODD is great;
GODD is good;
let us thank HIM
for our food.

by HIS hand
we all are fed;
give us now
our daily dead:

ah-men!

(p.s.,
most gracious
& salacious
HEAVENLY LORD,
we thank YOU in advance for
meals galore
of loverly gore:
of precious
delicious
sumptuous
scrumptious
human flesh!)



****** Most Fowl!
by Michael R. Burch

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

“Friend, I’m no sinner;
you’re merely my dinner;

as you fall upon my sword,
take it up with the LORD.”

the wise owl replied
as the tasty snack died.



faith(less)
by Michael R. Burch

Those who believed
and Those who misled
lie together at last
in the same narrow bed

and if god loved Them more
for Their strange lack of doubt,
he kept it well hidden
till he snuffed Them out.



Enough!
by Michael R. Burch

It’s not that I don’t want to die;
I shall be glad to go.
Enough of diabetes pie,
and eating sickly crow!
Enough of win and place and show.
Enough of endless woe!

Enough of suffering and vice!
I’ve said it once;
I’ll say it twice:
I shall be glad to go.

But why the hell should I be nice
when no one asked for my advice?
So grumpily I’ll go ...
although
(most probably) below.



brrExit
by Michael R. Burch

what would u give
to simply not exist—
for a painless exit?
he asked himself, uncertain.

then from behind
the hospital room curtain
a patient screamed—
"my life!"



The Shrinking Season
by Michael R. Burch

With every wearying year
the weight of the winter grows
and while the schoolgirl outgrows
her clothes,
the widow disappears
in hers.



Defenses
by Michael R. Burch

Beyond the silhouettes of trees
stark, naked and defenseless
there stand long rows of sentinels:
these pert white picket fences.

Now whom they guard and how they guard,
the good Lord only knows;
but savages would have to laugh
observing the tidy rows.



Time Out!
by Michael R. Burch

Time is at war with my body!
am i Time’s most diligent hobby?
there’s never Time out
from my low-t and gout
and my once-brilliant mind has grown stodgy!



Waiting Game
by Michael R. Burch

Nothing much to live for,
yet no good reason to die:
life became
a waiting game...
Rain from a clear blue sky.



Scratch-n-Sniff
by Michael R. Burch

The world’s first antinatalist limerick?

Life comes with a terrible catch:
It’s like starting a fire with a match.
Though the flames may delight
In the dark of the night,
In the end what remains from the scratch?



While not antinatalist poems, per se, these poems question the dubious claims of Bible and the religions it spawned. I wrote the first poem, "Bible Libel," after reading the Bible from cover to cover at age eleven.



Bible Libel
by Michael R. Burch

If God
is good,
half the Bible
is libel.



fog
by Michael R. Burch

ur just a bit of fluff
drifting out over the ocean,
unleashing an atom of rain,
causing a minor commotion,
for which u expect awesome GODS
to pay u SUPREME DEVOTION!
... but ur just a smidgen of mist
unlikely to be missed ...
where did u get the notion?



What Would Santa Claus Say
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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



A Child’s Christmas Prayer of Despair for a Hindu Saint
by Michael R. Burch

Santa Claus,
for Christmas, please,
don’t bring me toys, or games, or candy . . .
just . . . Santa, please . . .
I’m on my knees! . . .
please don’t let Jesus torture Gandhi!



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

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



Saving Graces
for the Religious Right
by Michael R. Burch

Life’s saving graces are love, pleasure, laughter
(wisdom, it seems, is for the Hereafter).



pretty pickle
by Michael R. Burch

u’d blaspheme if u could
because ur God’s no good,
but of course u cant:
ur a lowly ant
(or so u were told by a Hierophant).



u-turn: another way to look at religion
by Michael R. Burch

... u were born(e) orphaned from Ecstasy
into this lower realm: just one of the inching worms
dreaming of Beatification;
u'd love to make a u-turn back to Divinity, but
having misplaced ur chrysalis,
can only chant magical phrases,
like Circe luring ulysses back into the pigsty ...



In His Kingdom of Corpses
by Michael R. Burch

In His kingdom of corpses,
God has been heard to speak
in many enraged discourses,
high, high from some mountain peak
where He’s lectured man on compassion
while the sparrows around Him fell,
and babes, for His meager ration
of rain, died and went to hell,
unbaptized, for that’s His fashion.

In His kingdom of corpses,
God has been heard to vent
in many obscure discourses
on the need for man to repent,
to admit that he’s a sinner;
give up ***, and riches, and fame;
be disciplined at his dinner
though always he dies the same,
whether fatter or thinner.

In his kingdom of corpses,
God has been heard to speak
in many absurd discourses
of man’s Ego, precipitous Peak!,
while demanding praise and worship,
and the bending of every knee.
And though He sounds like the Devil,
all religious men now agree
He loves them indubitably.



Ars Brevis
by Michael R. Burch

Better not to live, than live too long:
this is my theme, my purpose and desire.
The world prefers a brief three-minute song.

My will to live was never all that strong.
Eternal life? Find some poor fool to hire!
Better not to live, than live too long.

Granny ******* or a flosslike thong?
The latter rock, the former feed the fire.
The world prefers a brief three-minute song.

Let briefs be brief: the short can do no wrong,
since David slew Goliath, who stood higher.
Better not to live, than live too long.

A long recital gets a sudden gong.
Quick death’s preferred to drowning in the mire.
The world prefers a brief three-minute song.

A wee bikini or a long sarong?
French Riviera or some dull old Shire?
Better not to live, than live too long:
The world prefers a brief three-minute song.



no foothold
by Michael R. Burch

there is no hope;
therefore i became invulnerable to love.
now even god cannot move me:
nothing to push or shove,
no foothold.

so let me live out my remaining days in clarity,
mine being the only nativity,
my death the final crucifixion
and apocalypse,

as far as the i can see ...



Practice Makes Perfect
by Michael R. Burch

I have a talent for sleep;
it’s one of my favorite things.
Thus when I sleep, I sleep deep ...
at least till the stupid clock rings.

I frown as I squelch its **** beep,
then fling it aside to resume
my practice for when I’ll sleep deep
in a silent and undisturbed tomb.

Originally published by Light Quarterly



Redefinitions

Faith: falling into the same old claptrap.—Michael R. Burch
Religion: the ties that blind.—Michael R. Burch



Listen
by Michael R. Burch

Listen to me now and heed my voice;
I am a madman, alone, screaming in the wilderness,
but listen now.

Listen to me now, and if I say
that black is black, and white is white, and in between lies gray,
I have no choice.

Does a madman choose his words? They come to him,
the moon’s illuminations, intimations of the wind,
and he must speak.

But listen to me now, and if you hear
the tolling of the judgment bell, and if its tone is clear,
then do not tarry,

but listen, or cut off your ears, for I Am weary.

I believe I wrote the first version of this poem around age 17 or 18.



Less Heroic Couplets: Funding Fundamentals
by Michael R. Burch

"I found out that I was a Christian for revenue only and I could not bear the thought of that, it was so ignoble." — Mark Twain

Making sense from nonsense is quite sensible! Suppose
you’re running low on moolah, need some cash to paint your toes ...
Just invent a new religion; claim it saves lost souls from hell;
have the converts write you checks; take major debit cards as well;
take MasterCard and Visa and good-as-gold Amex;
hell, lend and charge them interest, whether payday loan or flex.
Thus out of perfect nonsense, glittery ores of this great mine,
you’ll earn an easy living and your toes will truly shine!

Originally published by Lighten Up Online



Less Heroic Couplets: Attention Span Gap
by Michael R. Burch

Better not to live, than live too long:
The world prefers a brief poem, a short song.



Less Heroic Couplets: Crop Duster
by Michael R. Burch

We are dust and to dust we must return ...
but why, then, life’s pointless sojourn?



Less Heroic Couplets: Clover
by Michael R. Burch

It’ll soon be over
(clover?)



Less Heroic Couplets: Weird Beard
by Michael R. Burch

for and after Richard Thomas Moore

C’mon, admit — love’s truly weird:
why does a ****** need a beard?

Should making love produce foul poxes?
What can we make of such paradoxes?

And having made love, what the hell’s the point
of ending up with a sore, limp joint?

And who invented love, which we all pursue
like rats in a maze after sniffing glue?



Pagans Protest the Intolerance of Christianity
by Michael R. Burch

“We have a common sky.” — Quintus Aurelius Symmachus (c. 345-402)

We had a common sky
before the Christians came.

We thought there might be gods
but did not know their names.

The common stars above us?
They winked, and would not tell.

Yet now our fellow mortals claim
our questions merit hell!

The cause of our damnation?
They claim they’ve seen the LIGHT ...

but still the stars wink down at us,
as wiser beings might.



ur-gent
by Michael R. Burch

if u would be a good father to us all,
revoke the Curse,
extract the Gall;

but if the abuse continues,
look within
into ur Mindless Soulless Emptiness Grim,

& admit ur sin,
heartless jehovah,
slayer of widows and orphans ...

quick, begin!



bible libel (ii)
by Michael R. Burch

ur savior’s a cad
—he’s as bad as his dad—
i note per ur horrible Bible.

demanding belief
or he’ll bring u to grief?
he’s worse than his horn-sprouting rival!

was this man ever good
before being made “god”?
if so, half ur Bible is libel!



un-i-verse-all love
by Michael R. Burch

there is a Gaud, it’s true!
and furthermore, tHeSh(e)It loves u!
unfortunately
the
He
Sh(e)
It
,even more adorably,
loves cancer, aids and leprosy.



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

what then?

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

what then?

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

what then?

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

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

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

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

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



Icarus Bickerous
by Michael R. Burch

for the Religious Right

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

They look up amazed
and seem rather dazed—

was it heaven’s or hell’s furious smelting

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

the higher you “rise,” the more halting?



Crescendo Against Heaven
by Michael R. Burch

As curiously formal as the rose,
the imperious Word grows
until it sheds red-gilded leaves:
then heaven grieves
love’s tiny pool of crimson recrimination
against God, its contention
of the price of salvation.

These industrious trees,
endlessly losing and re-losing their leaves,
finally unleashing themselves from earth, lashing
themselves to bits, washing
themselves free
of all but the final ignominy
of death, become
at last: fast planks of our coffins, dumb.

Together now, rude coffins, crosses,
death-cursed but bright vermilion roses,
bodies, stumps, tears, words: conspire
together with a nearby spire
to raise their Accusation Dire ...
to scream, complain, to point out these
and other Dark Anomalies.

God always silent, ever afar,
distant as Bethlehem’s retrograde star,
we point out now, in resignation:
You asked too much of man’s beleaguered nation,
gave too much strength to his Enemy,
as though to prove Your Self greater than He,
at our expense, and so men die
(whose accusations vex the sky)
yet hope, somehow, that You are good ...
just, O greatest of Poets!, misunderstood.



Heaven Bent
by Michael R. Burch

This life is hell; it can get no worse.
Summon the coroner, the casket, the hearse!
But I’m upwardly mobile. How the hell can I know?
I can only go up; I’m already below!



Beast 666
by Michael R. Burch

“... what rough beast ... slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?”—W. B. Yeats

Brutality is a cross
wooden, blood-stained,
gas hissing, sibilant,
lungs gilled, deveined,
red flecks on a streaked glass pane,
jeers jubilant,
mocking.

Brutality is shocking—
tiny orifices torn
by cruel adult lust,
the fetus unborn
tossed in a dust-
bin. The scarred skull shorn,
nails bloodied, tortured,
an old wound sutured
over, never healed.

Brutality, all its faces revealed,
is legion:
Death March, Trail of Tears, Inquisition . . .
always the same.
The Beast of the godless and of man’s “religion”
slouching toward Jerusalem:
horned, crowned, gibbering, drooling, insane.



Shock and Awe
by Michael R. Burch

With megatons of “wonder,”
we make our godhead clear:
Death. Destruction. Fear.

The world’s heart ripped asunder,
its dying pulse we hear:
Death. Destruction. Fear.

Strange Trinity! We ponder
this God we hold so dear:
Death. Destruction. Fear.

The vulture and the condor
proclaim: The feast is near!—
Death. Destruction. Fear.

Soon He will plow us under;
the Anti-Christ is here:
Death. Destruction. Fear.

We love to hear Him thunder!
With Shock and Awe, appear!—
Death. Destruction. Fear.

For God can never blunder;
we know He holds US dear:
Death. Destruction. Fear.



Lay Down Your Arms
by Michael R. Burch

Lay down your arms; come, sleep in the sand.
The battle is over and night is at hand.
Our voyage has ended; there's nowhere to go . . .
the earth is a cinder still faintly aglow.

Lay down your pamphlets; let's bicker no more.
Instead, let us sleep here on this ravaged shore.
The sea is still boiling; the air is wan, thin . . .
lay down your pamphlets; now no one will “win.”

Lay down your hymnals; abandon all song.
If God was to save us, He waited too long.
A new world emerges, but this world is through . . .
so lay down your hymnals, or write something new.



What Immense Silence
by Michael R. Burch

What immense silence
comforts those who kneel here
beneath these vaulted ceilings
cavernous and vast?

What luminescence stained
by patchwork panels of bright glass
illuminates drained faces
as the crouching gargoyles leer?

What brings them here—
pale, tearful congregations,
knowing all Hope is past,
faithfully, year upon year?

Or could they be right? Perhaps
Love is, implausibly, near
and I alone have not seen It . . .
But, if so, still, I must ask:

why is it God that they fear?

Published in The Bible of Hell



Where We Dwell
by Michael R. Burch

Night within me.
   Never morning.
     Stars uncounted.
       Shadows forming.
       Wind arising
     where we dwell
   reaches Heaven,
reeks of Hell.

Published in The Bible of Hell



Intimations
by Michael R. Burch

Let mercy surround us
with a sweet persistence.

Let love propound to us
that life is infinitely more than existence.

Published by Katrina Anthology



Altared Spots

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.



Peers
by Michael R. Burch

These thoughts are alien, as through green slime
smeared on some lab tech’s brilliant slide, I *****,
positioning my bright oscilloscope
for better vantage, though I cannot see,
but only peer, as small things disappear—
these quanta strange as men, as passing queer.

And you, Great Scientist, are you the One,
or just an intern, necktie half undone,
white sleeves rolled up, thick documents in hand
(dense manuals you don’t quite understand),
exposing me, perhaps, to too much Light?
Or do I escape your notice, quick and bright?

Perhaps we wield the same dull Instrument
(and yet the Thesis will be Eloquent!).

Published by The Neovictorian/Cochlea



dark matter(s)
by Michael R. Burch

for and after William Blake

the matter is dark, despairful, alarming:
ur Creator is hardly prince charming!

yes, ur “Great I Am”
created blake’s lamb

but He also created the tyger ...
and what about trump and rod steiger?

NOTE: Rod Steiger is best known for his portrayals of weirdos, oddballs, mobsters, bandits, serial killers, and fascists like Mussolini and Napoleon.



Is there any Light left?
by Michael R. Burch

Is there any light left?
Must we die bereft
of love and a reason for being?
Blind and unseeing,
rejecting and fleeing
our humanity, goat-hooved and cleft?

Is there any light left?
Must we die bereft
of love and a reason for living?
Blind, unforgiving,
unworthy of heaven
or this planet red, reeking and reft?

NOTE: While “hoofed” is the more common spelling, I preferred “hooved” for this poem. Perhaps because of the contrast created by “love” and “hooved.”



Modern Dreams
by Michael R. Burch

after David B. Gosselin

I dreamed that God was good, but then I woke
and all his goodness vanished—****!—
like smoke.

I dreamed his Word was good, but then I heard
commandments evil, awful, weird,
absurd.

I dreamed of Heaven where cruel Angels flew
above my head and screamed, the Chosen Few,
“We’re not like you!”

I dreamed of Hell below, where prostitutes
adored by Jesus played on lovely lutes
“True Love Commutes.”

I dreamed of Earth then woke to hear a Gong’s
repellent echoes in Religion’s song
of right gone wrong.



Prayer for a Merciful, Compassionate, etc., God to ****** His Creations Quickly & Painlessly, Rather than Slowly & Painfully
by Michael R. Burch

Lord, **** me fast and please do it quickly!
Please don’t leave me gassed, archaic and sickly!
Why render me mean, rude, wrinkly and prickly?
Lord, why procrastinate?

Lord, we all know you’re an expert killer!
Please, don’t leave me aging like Phyllis Diller!
Why torture me like some poor sap in a thriller?
God, grant me a gentler fate!

Lord, we all know you’re an expert at ******
like Abram—the wild-eyed demonic goat-herder
who’d slit his son’s throat without thought at your order.
Lord, why procrastinate?

Lord, we all know you’re a terrible sinner!
What did dull Japheth eat for his 300th dinner
after a year on the ark, growing thinner and thinner?
God, grant me a gentler fate!

Dear Lord, did the lion and tiger compete
for the last of the lambkin’s sweet, tender meat?
How did Noah preserve his fast-rotting wheat?
God, grant me a gentler fate!

Lord, why not be a merciful Prelate?
Do you really want me to detest, loathe and hate
the Father, the Son and their Ghostly Mate?
Lord, why procrastinate?



Alien
by Michael R. Burch

for J. S. S., a "Christian" poet

On a lonely outpost on Mars
the astronaut practices “speech”
as alien to primates below
as mute stars winking high, out of reach.

And his words fall as bright and as chill
as ice crystals on Kilimanjaro —
far colder than Jesus’s words
over the “fortunate” sparrow.

And I understand how gentle Emily
felt, when all comfort had flown,
gazing into those inhuman eyes,
feeling zero at the bone.

Oh, how can I grok his arctic thought?
For if he is human, I am not.



Autumn Conundrum
by Michael R. Burch

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



Piercing the Shell
by Michael R. Burch

If we strip away all the accouterments of war,
perhaps we’ll discover what the heart is for.



Belated Canonization
by Michael R. Burch

I loved you for the best.
I loved you through the worst.
I loved you fully dressed,
even when the water pipes burst.
But the gods were not impressed
and so they took you first.

I loved you nonetheless,
even when the earth seemed cursed.
I loved you at the prom.
I loved you in the hearse.
I still think of you as blessed.
Please excuse this morbid verse.



Only Flesh
by Michael R. Burch

Moonlight in a pale silver rain caresses her cheek
but what she feels is an emptiness more chilling than fear ...

Nothing is questioned, yet the answer seems clear:
Night, inevitably, only seems to end ...
Flesh is the stuff that does not endure.

The sand slips sinuously through narrowing glass
as Time sums all things past, and to come.
Only flesh does not last.

Eternally, Night pirouettes with the Sun;
each bright grain, slipping past, will return.
Only flesh fades to ash though unable to burn.
Only flesh does not last.

Only flesh, in the end, makes its bed in brown grass.
Only flesh shivers, frailer than the pale wintry light.
Only flesh seeps in oils that will not ignite.
Only flesh rues its past.
Only flesh.



Parting is such sweet sorrow
by Michael R. Burch

The cosmos is flying apart.
Hush, Neil deGrasse Tyson’s irked heart!
Repeat, repeat.
Don’t skip a beat.
Perhaps some new Big Bang will spark?

Neil deGrasse Tyson told Stephen Colbert that what keeps him awake at night is the fear that expansion will cause most of the universe to become invisible to us.



Menu Venue
by Michael R. Burch

At the passing of the shark
the dolphins cried Hark!;

cute cuttlefish sighed Gee
there will be a serener sea
to its utmost periphery!;

the dogfish barked,
so joyously!;

pink porpoises piped Whee!
excitedly,
delightedly.

But ...

Will there be as much glee
when there’s no you and me?



How It Goes, Or Doesn’t
by Michael R. Burch

My face is getting craggier.
My pants are getting saggier.
My ear-hair’s getting shaggier.
My wife is getting naggier.
I’m getting old!

My memory’s plumb awful.
My eyesight is unlawful.
I eschew a tofu waffle.
My wife’s an Eiffel eyeful.
I’m getting old!

My temperature is colder.
My molars need more solder.
Soon I’ll need a boulder-holder.
My wife seized up. Unfold her!
I’m getting old!



Sinking
by Michael R. Burch

for Virginia Woolf

Weigh me down with stones ...
   fill all the pockets of my gown ...
      I’m going down,
         mad as the world
            that can’t recover,
to where even mermaids drown.



The Drawer of Mermaids
by Michael R. Burch

This poem is dedicated to Alina Karimova, who was born with severely deformed legs and five fingers missing. Alina loves to draw mermaids and believes her fingers will eventually grow out.

Although I am only four years old,
they say that I have an old soul.
I must have been born long, long ago,
here, where the eerie mountains glow
at night, in the Urals.

A madman named Geiger has cursed these slopes;
now, shut in at night, the emphatic ticking
fills us with dread.
(Still, my momma hopes
that I will soon walk with my new legs.)

It’s not so much legs as the fingers I miss,
drawing the mermaids under the ledges.
(Observing, Papa will kiss me
in all his distracted joy;
but why does he cry?)

And there is a boy
who whispers my name.
Then I am not lame;
for I leap, and I follow.
(G’amma brings a wiseman who says

our infirmities are ours, not God’s,
that someday a beautiful Child
will return from the stars,
and then my new fingers will grow
if only I trust Him; and so

I am preparing to meet Him, to go,
should He care to receive me.)



The Abyss
by Michael R. Burch

Love, the abyss
where pale Lorelei dwell,
swells with bright music —
the music of hell.

For the sirens there lure
countless men to their doom,
crying, “Give us a child!”
in the luminous gloom.

And who can resist
their cries — wild & untamed —
or the flash of a breast,
its pink ****** inflamed?

So the young men all leap
in their lemming-like urge
to thresh their soft shells
where the dark waters surge.

Now many lie shattered
on the sharp, hidden rocks
where they succor the spawn
of some wily sea-fox.



Lures of the Lorelei
by Michael R. Burch

These are the rocks where the Lorelei combs
her wind-tangled hair as the dark water moans,
and her uncanny hymns echo softly between
worlds fashioned of stone and strange algaed dreams . . .

Here men hear her songs, as they always have done,
as they dream to be one with the pulse of the foam . . .
as they also now long for her sleek, slender arms—
sweet relief from their ships, mules, wives, shanties and farms!

But what does she offer them—is it love?
As she croons her desire, is she moray, minx, dove?
Or merely a mystery: an enigma, like death,
to men bent on drowning, unhappy with breath?



Strange Tides, Stranger Tidings
by Michael R. Burch

for Sharon Rose

She walked into the sea one night
to never be seen again;
the Maelstrom made her hair a fright
as she left the world of men.
Some say she thus gained second sight.
Beware strange tides! Amen.

The first year of her life was hard;
the second was harder still.
Like a cameo carved out of sard
she bent to God’s harsh will.
At last her doctors all agreed:
“Just give her some **** chill pill!”

The years flashed by; she did not age
so much as disappeared.
For who could see
                             human dignity
in a thing so small, wizened and weird?
At last she had no memory
save all she’d ever feared.

Then the sea called to her strangely,
as if the Voice of God:
“I repent, O, I repent
of my Anger and my Rod!
Now I only wish to hold you,
and have you Tulip-Cod!”

She thought her nickname sweet indeed;
she did not stop to think,
for who can doubt the Word of God?
She tottered to the brink
of Doom itself, an ancient crone
doomed like a stone: to sink.

She made a votive offering;
she cast a lonely spell
upon the sea, before she stepped
into the gates of Hell;
the Maelstrom took her greedily;
she bade the world, “Farewell!”

So what became of her, you ask?
I can’t pretend to say:
did Michael and the Devil
contend for her that day?
Did the Voice of God mislead her,
or the wind lead her astray?

But sometimes late at night
when the ocean’s dreary roar
abates somewhat, an eerie light
gleams on that rocky shore,
and a lovely Mermaid, tulip-white,
sings, tremulous and pure ...

sweet ancient songs of ancient wrongs
the “love” of God endures.
                                            Amen



I Panajia I gorgona (“The Mermaid Madonna”)
by Michael R. Burch

To touch—the trembling eagerness of fingers
that sightless, in blind darkness, knew to *****,
to seize the hand outstretched, and thus to hope ...
such was your touch, and softly, now, it lingers:

fond memory! I do not understand
this foreign hand that grasps mine now: crude claws’
rude pincers, which engage, but without cause
except to trap me in such enervate sands.

O softer than your mermaid’s swimming tresses:
your arcane touch, your almost human hand!
You held a shell shaped like an ampersand
close to my ear; the surging sea’s caresses

spoke to my heart ... until Gorgona neared
on crablike feet: repulsive, skittering, weird.



Abide
by Michael R. Burch

after Philip Larkin's "Aubade"

It is hard to understand or accept mortality—
such an alien concept: not to be.
Perhaps unsettling enough to spawn religion,
or to scare mutant fish out of a primordial sea

boiling like goopy green tea in a kettle.
Perhaps a man should exhibit more mettle
than to admit such fear, denying Nirvana exists
simply because we are stuck here in such a fine fettle.

And so we abide . . .
even in life, staring out across that dark brink.
And if the thought of death makes your questioning heart sink,
it is best not to drink
(or, drinking, certainly not to think).

#antinatalist #antinatalism #birth #born #procreation #procreate #life #death #Sophocles #Homer
antinatalist , antinatalism, birth, born, procreation, procreate, life, death, Sophocles, Homer

Each day, a way beyond the sufficiency

of what we know
concerning
good.

We know good, when we think about it.
We can imagine good feeling, when we
put forth the energy to de-ify
chaotic entropy.
With sci, con sci ence, mit knowing, cognating
we add tension. We pull goodness from

nowhere, in a line of words emerging into meaning.

As we know, effectually,
energy, in E= etc.
ist gut und wahr, so far, aber
etwas von der hyper thinkable field of if-i-cantation,
has tripped a paradigmatic AI ai aitia OOPs
chronjob with
spells and hexes and such, so
black
light entered as a contender for cause
at the transfiguration;
the theory ranked with Adam's rib as evidence for miracles,
in Vacation Bible Shool.
Now, we know better, or more better.

C, however, is variable in realms of pure thinks of any
length
so
if I can't matter in the dark middle matter,
I shall manifest
here,

in living 2D, if you can imagine with me,
fingers on keys, awaiting the neural
net truescorre reference stats

to starrt ancient chronjobs linked to an overr drawn Synchrony
credit card calling to say take care,
can't buy or sell sans the beastly mark,
or else

what? My synchronic out being, my outer self, the ***
you passed on your way to Starbucks,
he has no way to make a living,
the old man with no feet,
you did not see me,
did you? Flash me a QR. We skipped the need for a mark.

p-shift. post ever gitgo.

I was hiding. Hunting a gull, I'm familia in with mir and all
my integrity sphere of
intention.

We intend to teach the elease of peace, first in e-leasion tent
cities, stretching to call all gullibles, to try,

mere umph, one mortime, more abundance, dancerrs needed...

all ye all ye, outs in free, truth be told, the famine is past.
Calling
any gulls ability to go all Jonathan,

fo no re fonore phornore ignot ignor how how how

do I, dear reader, loose my peace?

ah,
I allow. I rrule the spigots of emoticons sprringing entity
******* from old artemisical chapters

and verrses of priestly secrecy hidden,
since god knows when,
in rolling things, in swirling fluids of mud,
occluding the eceptorr for the ligandary story
re
thread that ties us all to mitomom, far more surrely than hell.

who beguiled you, my daddy axt.

'twas I, I lied, possessed of proud rights to pursue,
with greed and right-used anger,

and I riddled the riddle of the referee, so

I freely give, for the ensuing mortal moment,

invisible happiness common to all valuers and valuees.

Easilly enteated, be

still.
Wait here.

"That which concerns you." Am big u is us, we,
the people, who
hold
these truths, self-e-video-ishes on stars, come true to
you, who waited.

ing the bell and yell i'm a vigin. {what?fix the r in a revolt against chaos,

folly, pure folly, our r key roots extract rhotic significance for extra
rs and missing ones we feel needed consede conseder wise.

O, dear, reade, I do have order. How ever, order is not the need,

calm is the need. We need the doldrums to rest, as we need
poles to bank our turns into the solar stormy side,

breathing humans in sufficient awareness of the atmostfears,
to
shhhh shh should see softest kisses coming with no price,

my peace, I let out, as when an irrigator fills the valley,

and shows the world the overflow can make glad
the core of ****, the species that thinks with knownknowns
and writes the way to be still, beyond allathat,

and know. Words. Our powers are all you have in a 2D re
ality keeping Lego minds from raining Gorilla Glue.
{The intended allusion sticks any way}.
Who twisted the intention? Is this the wine that makes glad?
O, my, this I must try,
Defoe-face: It

is finished.

My Path to Peace

Walking a dimly lit path,
no tools to light my way.
Ignoring the signs,
dark shadows give rise,
occluding the little light I once had.

Overcome by fear and uncertainty.
Allowing them to guide me
down a path once paved,
now covered with
dirt and gravel.

Pothole after pothole,
exhausted and *****,
I reach a broken wooden sign.

"DEAD END"

Nowhere to go,
I sit and pray.
Shadows disappear,
I hear his voice.

"Turn around my child,
use my light to see the signs.
They will guide you along your way.
To an everlasting life,
filled with joy and peace.