"overcast" poems
i wonder if the doors in the house you grew up in
started slamming themselves to save your father the trouble.
i wonder if you can remember the last time you prayed,
and if you had trouble unfolding your hands.
i wonder if your mother knows
about the collection of hearts you hide in your closet,
i wonder if she could tell mine apart from the rest.
i wonder if your shoes know the reason why
you keep them by the back door and not your bedside.
and sometimes, i wonder
if you ever think about that night when i told you,
you wouldn't need to drink so much if you had me.
but it seems like we only speak when you've got body on your brain,
whiskey in your glass,
your judgement is overcast,
and you know i'm too weak to ignore you.
i learned how to translate your texts
from drunken mess back into english.
i am fluent in apology, but i don't ask you for them anymore.
this is just how it is.
it's not enough for either of us
but ******* it we are not above settling.
so i will ignore her name on your breath,
and you will ignore the fact that this means something to me.
i always thought the first time i kissed you,
it would be on your mouth.
i just wanted to be something warm for you to sink into,
something that could convince you to stay a second night.
but i sneak you out in the early morning,
and you take a piece of my pride with you when you go.
i am left to nurse the hangover from a wine i've never tasted,
wondering how this is possible.
waiting for the next drunk call,
for the next time i get to pretend we are lovers,
the next time i get to live out the fantasy i am most ashamed of.
it is the one in my head where you want me when you're sober too.
- m.f.
Dec 16, 2014
Dec 16, 2014 at 11:21 PM UTC
From a distance,
the incessant chant of monsoon from south west,
sounds like an old witch practising her craft,
she is all evil and dark, one would think,
the overcast sky her sinister cloak.
But intruder under my umbrella, she is playful,
I watch this coy maiden, I desired from afar,
now she walks with me step to matching step,
tries to entice me with her soft tunes,
tender cool fingers, rubbing my cheeks,
her lover's touch unmistakable, passionate, eager
I shiver, she wants me to get in to her arms, cuddle.
I throw away my umbrella,
in boyish rumbunctiousness, run to her
her hands moving fast tickle me, pinch
then a sudden embrace, making me squirm
with deep pleasure I dreamt in wakeful nights.
The joy of life that the water and receptive earth evoke,
loud green glee around, in me creates goosebumps,
in my dreams she comes to me
and tells the secrets of
nights I long for my love and me alone.
Rain, the seductress, taught me
the passions of living and loving
she, awakened the spirit that seeps deep in to the
core of my being.
**When I lay awake in monsoon nights,
across my window she tangoes
in fierce passion with the wind,
that keeps me excited till I get absorbed
in to a dream that has love as its theme.**
Jun 9, 2013
Jun 9, 2013 at 12:45 PM UTC
It was a graveyard and overcast sky
and I sat with book and accordian in hand,
hearing the world with its screams
swallow up around me.
The people whom I had loved and lost,
Papa with his silver eyes
Mama her sharp tongue and tough love
Rudy whose hair the colour of lemons
and questioned why, the living and dead,
worlds apart, yet both did not have a choice.
I stood and screamed so that everything shook
the burning rubble and ash and dust
willing my words to bring it all back
but it did not come, and my breath rose in gasps.
Death had looked me in the eye and said,
“It’s not time yet.”
I would shut my eyes to the world
only decades later.
I will understand that there was hate and pain
there was sadness
but even more so, there was love and joy.
I will know that the people I loved had reason
to kiss goodbye
whether it was their own hurt
or saw it as a necessity,
but they were never truly gone from me
always somewhere nearby,
in the thick and thin
frail and worn
of times.
I would learn
to forgive Death that day.
I will understand that
and I will be hurt,
but I will be okay.
~
*Not all deaths are sad.
Some, meant to ease their own pain,
Are called freedom.
While some,
Meant to ease the pain of others,
Are called love.*
© BT
Aug 12, 2017
Aug 12, 2017 at 7:48 PM UTC
puffs so alluring
three dimensional
but you're not
i want to touch your creamy exterior
but all i get is moisture
your shading is ravishing
symmetrical paint thing
wisps of stratus horse tail ice
dusty cumulus marsh of mallow
your nimbus is what i dream
charcoal colored opaque
mixed in with a little blue
you make it hard
not to stare
at you
so eager as light shines off
your behind
you'll soon be mine.
overcast clear
Jun 20, 2015
Jun 20, 2015 at 4:02 AM UTC
At Ellis Lake, an overcast Sunday afternoon.
A lake divided into two, oddly shaped bowls in the middle of the city, surrounded by a constant stream of birds, wind, and traffic.
A spotless white swan cleaning herself on a grassy knoll, ferretting out whatever filth lurked deep within her feathers, then smoothly sweeping her sideways bent head across her back, as if to remember the long forgotten affectionate touch of an absent lover.
A gaggle of four grey geese combing the lawn for food, waddling in unison side-by-side.
A line of five mallards barreling down the hill into the water.
A multilateral crescent of black and white pigeons receiving harsh dictation from a trio of angry snow geese strutting before them.
A red-faced duck slowly approaching in the quiet expectation of food, then the arrogant acceptance of the lack thereof.
Jan 28, 2015
Jan 28, 2015 at 11:13 AM UTC
Morning sunlight lighting the dark hardwood floors
Pages being turned and voices no louder than a whisper
People shuffling in and out the doors
The rain coming in at last
Shifting the clouds
Now to overcast
Watching silently just barely a glance
Observing life as it is
Hoping for the chance
To feel something more
Become something better
Moods always changing
According to the weather
I sip the burn of this morning roast
Nibble my eggs
Crunch on my toast
People in the park sway on the swings
Probably thinking
Of such trivial things
Man on the corner of the street
Checking the time
He's got somewhere to be
Getting back to the daily grind
A tearful woman sitting on the bench
Crying her heart out
From the guy who called her a *****
Life appears all around us
We choose what to ignore
The sick, the healthy
The rich, the poor.
Nov 4, 2012
Nov 4, 2012 at 2:33 PM UTC
It was almost spring here,
the purple light snuck in
cutting the overcast sky
and the venetian blinds.
The last snow lay out in the yard
slowly melting there
like something sad
but also something beautiful.
My kitten crawled up under my arm,
she lay her little head in my lap,
stretching out her paws
and yawning the way cats often do.
Soon it will be dark
but for now I live in the twilight
almost spring, almost night,
almost alive and almost dead.
Feb 16, 2016
Feb 16, 2016 at 6:07 PM UTC
You and I are like summertime;
You are the warm breeze that brushes the hair across my back, tickling.
I return the favor by tickling you with silly faces and sarcastic remarks.
You are the stars that come out late at night, twinkling against the navy sky.
I am the pair of eyes that light up when they meet your own.
You are the butterflies that have found a home in the depths of my stomach,
like the same ones I watch flutter around so beautifully innocent.
You are the sand that becomes so accustomed to being kissed by my salty waves, and then..
Then, low tide arrives.
The warm breezes turn chilled, leaving behind goosebumps instead of laughter.
Stars that once shone so bright become blurred into overcast skies
All good things must come to an end, and they do just that.
Nov 11, 2012
Nov 11, 2012 at 9:29 PM UTC
With the familiar blur of familiar frames -
Wearied, we wait discrete
Worried that we cannot breathe
for the wind is yet to take us away…
do you think much longer?
—
We blend in to the scene
like a sail in the overcast,
lingering in our subconscious -
striving, aching for the sting of summer to melt us in the sun…
when is it coming?
—
The frost bits our lips,
Fastening the deadly silence
A fascinating mind, hidden in fearsome chambers -
Collapsing with the dead leaves of our own trees…
How much longer?
—
We hesitate to bloom,
Blinded to our own beauty.
Another day, another season
Believing we are better by ourselves, the world is bitter…
Spring is shunned by the silence -
—
But we are fine;
The wind will take us away,
Summer’s sun will melt us,
The leaves will fall, and nature will bloom.
But we are more than we seem…
we breathe.
Sep 8, 2017
Sep 8, 2017 at 3:25 AM UTC
Today I took a walk with you in the woods
it was foggy, drizzly, overcast
and the sun dully shone through the tangle of tree branches
that curled around us like a nest
we walked hand in hand
and the light rain settled into your eyelashes
melancholy dewdrops dripping from the clouds
I've seen you cry. They looked nothing like tears
Jan 24, 2015
Jan 24, 2015 at 11:20 AM UTC
*She creeps quietly
into the dim lights of the city
inundating gentle delicate thoughts
into a deluged gray haze,
lingering vacantly in fragile minds,
and drifts over towns like an overcast of curtains
like a nebulous blanket
for she leaves with an air of mystery
on little silent cat feet*
Mar 5, 2015
Mar 5, 2015 at 6:23 AM UTC
They walk by brisk
Covered in umbrellas
On high heels with ankles
Of no appeal
They grab the shaft
With both hands
As the wind tries to steal
Their umbrage
With agility
They skip over puddles
As I marvel
At the procession
With destined determination
They ****** on
As spiked high heels
Grapple on cobblestone
Rainy day women
In gray coats and wet umbrellas
Under overcast skies
With no hellos or goodbyes
Apr 23, 2016
Apr 23, 2016 at 1:28 AM UTC
a storm rages outside
sky, overcast with clouds
fearful sounds echo through
the mountain crannies
like that of shrieking bats in flight
trees shiver under wind’s might
everything around
presages an impending doom
the least pressure would suffice
to let all the hellfire loose
sitting in my dim lit room
with all the windows shut
unable to drown the emptiness
afloat in irrepressible buoyancy
I glance over the balance sheet
of my life
all sweet memories gone
shaking their mane
like horses galloping away
bitter memories
only bitter memories remain!
May 10, 2018
May 10, 2018 at 11:41 AM UTC
Today, is an overcast, sky-filled grey, autumn day. Nevertheless, the colors are still holding out as the leaves are making their last hurrah in the parade of changing their look. Therefore, I was not bothered by the gloomy looking weather. And on my way to the health food store-- high up among the telephone poles--I spotted the sight of three parallel wires full of birds, perched side-by-side. as if connected.
I am not sure what kind of birds they were, but they lined those wires, brown and thick, like ants on a sugar stick. And they must of huddled there for warmth and security, comrades of instinct and survival. Indeed, they surely seemed fine with their electric perches, with no intent on flying off, congregating contentedly.
With too much human expansion, it seems, I surely do wonder and am at awe at the magnificence of nature, this being a small example. Birds, as fragile as they often look--they haven't a thick coat of fur to warm their feathery bodies--do not appear fit for the cold--not for a second. And many fly to the South for winter. But there they were--bird after bird after bird--just hanging out up there, as if their temporary hangout was wired and strung just for them. This surely is a common sight, and is not supposed to be a big deal , but I found it special enough to keep in mind, important enough to return home to later record in word. It is akin to me witnessing geese flying in a V-shape pattern, or hearing the melodic calling of a bird to a potential mate, of viewing a mother bird feeding her young in the bird house that I have provided outside my door. Or it reminds me of last year, on a snowy night in the Christmas season. when I was amazed by the sound of birds outside of KFC--of a bunch of sparrows that were just chirping away, arranged in a tree like living Christmas ornaments. I don't ever want to take this stuff for granted, for it becomes easy to do so in the maze of life we often have.
With just this small example, today. I am reminded of how wonderful and majestic this earth truly is. Nature surely is a feast for the eyes, as well as for nourishment for the body. For me, it is medicine for the soul, sanity for the mind, music to the ears, as well as a stimulating journey in awe and beauty in the wildlife, grand landscapes, fragrant flowers and abundant plant life. Who can say otherwise?
Nov 5, 2013
Nov 5, 2013 at 5:16 PM UTC
Did any flower bloom, in your garden today, check out now
Love alone is the flower with fragrance, don't water the rest.
An year reigned is dead, the overcast sky clearly proclaims
A dark shroud covers the sky, hiding the good cheer we need.
Alone, I climb up the winding road to the hilltop, to view
The sunset, it reminds the past year of painful events
The skyline looks blood smeared, from a corner fire erupts
Making hate the recurring motif, what's happening to the world?
Technologies to share information is no good, if we aren't sane.
If we use that to sow evil seeds of hatred, poison spreads.
Life turns a mess, all the wealth has no meaning without peace.
Are we not ashamed to be vengeful like barbarians, **** each other?
Didn't Gandhi prove, nonviolence is the weapon against brute force?
Dec 30, 2014
Dec 30, 2014 at 11:04 AM UTC
It's a nightmare
Being the burnt out
Shooting star
Replaced by the light
Of a full moon
It's a nightmare
Being hidden underneath
Clouds and overcast skies
Replaced by angel eyes
That makes you swoon
It's a nightmare
Being darkened
By nights that glow
Replaced by a shooting star
Brighter than you ever were
It's a nightmare
Being overshadowed
By dreams of the sun
Replaced by love,
Hope, joy, life... with her
Jan 7, 2015
Jan 7, 2015 at 10:58 PM UTC
You’re wishing plus wanting
to win the other side
remove your pride,
you untied tidal pool,
the wide subdivide of these paper pages.
Unrelenting numbers
remind you of the next stages,
taking you wildly to Namibia,
surrendering you to Zimbabwe,
the terminal station.
The narration vocalizes the translation of quotations,
your obligation to the violation of the rules, the regulations,
vulgarization of spoken word.
Pretty paintings plaster typecasts,
the pitter-patter of pity’s pretty ******
quickly shifting refurbished velvet sofas.
Overcast symphonies outlast
witty recast stanzas,
scores with notes naturally quote
verses romancing seltzer spines
noticing the negotiation of sore throats.
Oblivion’s oblivious to the people,
obnoxiously obscene with syncopated
saturation of public vital signs.
You’re the vain strain of virus
photocopying yourself within skin,
waste your sin on tattoos trapped on shins
safety pins selecting prints
pinning sets of twins to tanned wrappers
protecting official reports.
The ossuary welcomes records printed on thick paper
suspiciously missing skeleton swords.
Writing stories reversed while tipsy,
quickly preforming risky poetry smog,
sweetly omitting secret words,
trying to spell simply without the proper prologue.
Feb 17, 2013
Feb 17, 2013 at 1:52 PM UTC
The Picture Window
The vista view never changes but daily.
The naked eye, registers the same distances,
resting objects unmoved, modest alterations
by wind and water are noted, but for intent,
for purpose, the watercolor one would paint
be invariably unvarying as a Swiss Alp.
The subtle nuanced worldview, where the sky
stretches from ceiling to a foot above ground, as
I lay prone neath the coverlet, vista always subtly differing,
from its prior reincarnation, self-reflection demands to know.
Alive & Awake? Yes.
Breathing steady? Yes.
Toes? Still can wiggly to & fro.
My soul?
Presumably ok, as I write, because I write, the
picture window into to my insight, though oft blurry,
yet intact, making discernible the changes in light,
temperature and heart rate, as the body/soul contraption modulates, just as the gradient of daylight shifts lighter and higher, with a rising sun bringing more clarity to our interactive encounters with our environments..
The picture window internalized, much the same,as
the vista, subtle modest changes, colorations variegated,
are registered. Today is mostly cloudy overcast, and shall remain so for the foreseeable future, which be about two days hence. Not unsurprisingly, methinks, the future tends to be cloudy.
Beyond that peripheral, no one can say, our macular envisioning only gets weaker,time is a tough taskmaster
and uncertainty is it’s own principle.
But I can say, forecast from well under the comforter,
that more than less, where less is more, this picture window,
ex and in, shall remain, unchanged for the remainder of my years that fortune shall provide, and will & would grant me awakenings to the ex-sight and in-sight of a sculpted landscape, of negative entropy, where disorder minimal.
My musings end here, unless you still wish, come the morrow,
what the marrow the day reveals, what the window will spill,
new and exciting, subtly unchanged, and always different.
Caution: The injection of caffeine may dramatically alter
the windows perspective, as the exogenous always trumps the
endogenous.
5:50 AM
P.S. Making coffee clarifies: If the vista in +/- unchanging,
then, all my personal, own horizons are immortal as well.
Jun 4, 2023
Jun 4, 2023 at 6:34 AM UTC
The lotus, I choose the lotus!
The ebb and flow the shore it goads us
Static focus, a layer peeled off and cast aside
The tide it whispered it spoke to me
but I turned I looked the other way
Upwards roads and downwards roads
Set the rock aside Sisyphus,
Bear the weight no more
Stare in lost, in vacant eyes at a boatless shore
The lotus, I choose the lotus
Wayward streams, down and around it floats us
And spits us out,
Our isolated Elysium or tortured chamber
It’s a matter of where you spend your days, in or out
On what you rest your eyes upon,
The whirlwind, the spinning cannon
Fates bolt it shoots us in twirling spiral
And all along from the corner lit dim
Float the soft tunes of a harpist,
Deft fingers pluck the taught strings,
And her eyes overcast, cloudy grey
Stare vacantly out like person drowned
The lotus, I choose the lotus!
The sweet nectar it covers it soothes me
Puzzled pieces glue me, paste me together
Pluck me, toss me, say that I flew
Let’s play who knows who
Be honest who really knows you
Reflection from the lake,
a familiar face it greets me
Whirlpool tides, how they rip they pull us
Oh the lotus, give me the lotus!
Apr 26, 2019
Apr 26, 2019 at 12:03 AM UTC
His flabbered jowls were hung aghast
Beneath his slobbered liver lips
His bulbous eyes were overcast
By burly brows of stewardship
An overbearing egotist
He stood apart from infidels
Compassion dealt with belt and fist
Disdainful with no parallels
And there upon his lofty dais
In garments fit to drape a throne
He glared with bulbous eyes ablaze
Upon a ragged danger zone
A misbegotten anarchist
Audacious with his sweet implore
To strike a flaming catalyst
Emboldened by his quest for more
Oct 18, 2014
Oct 18, 2014 at 7:36 AM UTC
Il pleure dans mon coeur (“It rains in my heart”)
by Paul Verlaine
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
It rains in my heart
As it rains on the town;
Heavy languor and dark
Drenches my heart.
Oh, the sweet-sounding rain
Cleansing pavements and roofs!
For my listless heart's pain
The pure song of the rain!
Still it rains without reason
In my overcast heart.
Can it be there's no treason?
That this grief's without reason?
As my heart floods with pain,
Lacking hatred, or love,
I've no way to explain
Such bewildering pain!
Published by Better Than Starbucks
Paul-Marie Verlaine (1844-1896) was a French poet and a prominent figure in the Symbolist and Decadent poetry movements. Verlaine has been called "one of the most purely lyrical of French poets." Keywords/Tags: Verlaine, French, translation, rain, languor, heart, treason, reason, pain, hatred, love, Arthur Rimbaud
Ophélie (“Ophelia”), an Excerpt
by Arthur Rimbaud
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
On pitiless black waves unsinking stars abide
... while pale Ophelia, a lethargic lily, drifts by ...
Here, tangled in her veils, she floats on the tide ...
Far-off, in the woods, we hear the strident bugle’s cry.
For a thousand years, or more, sad Ophelia,
This albescent phantom, has rocked here, to and fro.
For a thousand years, or more, in her gentle folly,
Ophelia has rocked here when the night breezes blow.
For a thousand years, or more, sad Ophelia,
Has passed, an albescent phantom, down this long black river.
For a thousand years, or more, in her sweet madness
Ophelia has made this river shiver.
Mar 28, 2020
Mar 28, 2020 at 2:13 AM UTC
Thou wast that all to me, love,
For which my soul did pine—
A green isle in the sea, love,
A fountain and a shrine,
All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers,
And all the flowers were mine.
Ah, dream too bright to last!
Ah, starry Hope! that didst arise
But to be overcast!
A voice from out the Future cries,
“On! on!”—but o’er the Past
(Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies
Mute, motionless, aghast!
For, alas! alas! with me
The light of Life is o’er!
“No more—no more—no more”—
(Such language holds the solemn sea
To the sands upon the shore)
Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree,
Or the stricken eagle soar!
And all my days are trances,
And all my nightly dreams
Are where thy dark eye glances,
And where thy footstep gleams—
In what ethereal dances,
By what eternal streams!
Alas! for that accursed time
They bore thee o’er the billow,
From love to titled age and crime,
And an unholy pillow!
From me, and from our misty clime,
Where weeps the silver willow!
3k
Let's go grab the money
Hidden in the Christmas Tree
Shoppe mason jar with the
Frosted stencil designs,
Ornate and resembling flora.
Let's take that money,
The three separate wadded
***** of once crisp
Green pieces of paper
That somehow reach the
Arbitrary total of one
Thousand, three hundred and
Twenty dollars and
Fifty lonely cents.
Let's take that 1,320.50
And go see the desolate
Stretch of sprawling
Humanity deferred between
These hiked peaks and the
Dangerous mountains
Separating the west
From the rest.
Let's go there!
Let's go there!
We'll make it across,
Be sure of that,
Be sure of nothing
But that!
Let's use the remaining
Seven fifty
To buy some
Seven Eleven sustenance
To have while
We walk backwards
Down backroads edged
With the encroachment
Of the wild back into
Negative space some
Long-ago engineer
Carved and paved.
Let's tell the driver of
This beat-up
Time-worn down
Overcast grey
Buick LeSabre
That we can pay her
Ten dollars to replace
The juice necessary to get
Us back to our sick aunt's
House in Poughkeepsie.
At the gas station
We'll tell her to stop
Real quick
And hope she leaves the
Auto to go
Pay the schlup at
The teller's booth
And jack the beater
And hope we won't
Have to bolt
Again if she doesn't.
Let's call my cousin
And find out who will give
Us four hundred dollars for
The stolen used parts store
And take that four hundred
And buy:
Two (2) greyhound tickets to get us
Back to our ****** apartment
In Stamford: 64.50 American
Three (3) damp-bunned flimsy
Beef patties glued between
Pieces of government-issue
Yellow American cheese
With all the fixins we please: 3.24 American
One (1) zip of dried out
Seeded and stemmed breaks
From the boredom of
Our own conscious
Processes: 120 American if lucky
At least eight (8) servings
Of amphetamine based
Pressed little buttons
Of confused energy: 200 American
One (1) bouquet of
Red yellow and oranges
Mixed on the petals of
Your mother's favorite
Species: whatever's left American.
Oct 2, 2012
Oct 2, 2012 at 12:40 AM UTC