Mario hits it with the sounds
of bodies hitting plexiglass.

My horses hit it without a sound. They want to escape it.
And I am trying to drive this dune buggy
off this cliff, but the clipping is strong here.

In Pac-Man, the tunnels were circular. I don’t know
if people realized that they were trapped in a sphere.

In Asteroids when you get to the edge of the universe,
you begin again.

And that Snake. His body could stretch all over his world
looping, but he could never eat his tail.


If all your electrons were in the right place, and all the wall’s
electrons were in the right place. You could feasibly walk through
the wall.

What would you do while in the wall? Think. Fear.
The superposition could rip your body into ragdoll parts.


When I turned clipping off, I expected the freedom to walk through
the wall and suddenly the floor
fell out from under me.

Every time I respawn I feel like my inventory is heavier,
and my flamethrower burns colder.

Section 17 Row H seats 11 and 12
Almost every home game does he see
A grey haired man with a clip board sits
Two seats over and one down from me
He's a scout for the bigs, Comes most games to watch
Can't watch as a fan anymore
They know he made it, was up with the Bruins
Played defence with Old Number Four
He watches intently for five minutes or so
Just enough to watch each kid skate twice
Then he drinks down his coffee all in one gulp
and then he returns his eyes to the ice
The Scout, we will call him, for lack of a name
Has seen kids who've got game disappear
They find out he's watching, they get all uptight
And they can't play 'cause they're all tense with fear

I watched for four games, got his routine down pat
Watched him arrive and watch the kids skate
He'd go down in the corner and stand by the glass
Watching close through the plexiglass plate
He stayed away from the coaches, the players as well
And the parents, he'd avoid like the plague
If one ever stopped him, and asked "How's my boy"
He'd smile, and give an answer so vague
His career ended early with a stick to the head
Almost killed him, but, he was too mean
His left the game early, with Wayne Maki to blame
The Scout, is Edward "Ted" Green


Each season he'd sit, watching game after game
In arenas all over the land
Some kids he'd notice, he did not come to watch
They were just something that wasn't planned
He'd come into town to watch a kid who could score
And go home with two names on his list
One a defence man, and the goalie as well
But, the scorer, couldn't skate and got missed
Ted, would watch and make his reports on kids
Some were right, and the kid would go pro
He may be a star in the minors right now
But, the bigs...well, fate only knows

He'd listen to parents and coaches talk of the boys
Saying "My son's the next Bobby Orr"
Ted would chuckle a little and not say a word
He knew the kid would be heard from no more
Putting pressure like that on a young players back
Is like saying, "My boy will be God"
From then on it's never, the talented kid
I'ts the boy cursed with Orr's lightning rod
Many young players get compared to the best
But to say it out loud is a curse
You put a red dot on the young players back
He may as well leave in a hearse

Ted's seen them all, coaches, players and bums
Played when the game was real tough
They  had lighter equipment, not kevlar like now
and Ted, as we know liked it rough
His scratches and scribbles on the page tell a lot
But to the untrained they look like a mess
A pharmacy student couldn't read what he wrote
Nor a court stenographer I guess
He's a spotter of talent with stories to tell
More of them about kids who fell short
Most of them cursed with the "My kids the next..."
and the name of the best in the sport

Two Hundred and Ten games he watches each year
Most times he's gone early on
He's sees what he needs and then he packs up his stuff
And by the end of the first, Ted is gone
He's off on the road to another ice rink
To sit and watch on the hard seats, so cold
To listen as parents and coaches again
Talk of greatness, it's all gotten old
Terrible Ted has a warriors soul
And his grey hair is thinner but, curly
He has ice in his veins and a stick through his heart
Too bad his playing time ended too early.

we went to hiroshima
to look at salvaged pieces
of mangled corpses,
twisted limbs
that were once controlled
by human brains

we lowered our heavy heads
and squinted our blood shot eyes
to read the time frozen on
the wristwatch of a
severed arm,

10:18

it was 10:18 twice today,
it will be 10:18 twice tomorrow
and my arm is in its socket now
but when will my watch stop ticking?

when will my wrist disintegrate
so much that the tan leather strap
will cease to be strapped to anything at all?

as if my senses have been
heightened in this instant
i can hear the faint
whisper from my arm,
"tick, tock, tick, tock"
i am older with every slight
motion of each narrow hand

consistently aging,
rhythmic like perfect breathing,
always dying,
always dying

there is no space
that time doesn't occupy

but we went to hiroshima
to look at salvaged pieces
of mangled corpses,
twisted limbs
that were once controlled
by human brains

and we were comforted,
all gathered between museum walls
to see the depth of our mortality,
without really having to feel it

here,
we were safe,
at least we pretended to be

because here,
we were looking at death
encased in glass,
death right beside
a hanging sign that read
"do not touch glass"
in red ink

here,
we could see death
but we couldn't get too close
and to us that meant
death can see us
but it couldn't get too close

so we stood before
every expression
of frozen time,
the end of time,
the continuation of time,
with this plexiglass shield
that we thought was immortality,

drunk on this illusion
that we were somehow
being protected from our own
inevitable doom
by some material
produced by men in a factory,
and held down by two screws
on either side

every time we inhale,
every time we exhale
the unpredictable moments
that cradle our glass lives,
while reaching over
glistening concrete
where we can turn into
a heaping pile of blood
and sharp edges,
losen their grip
every single time
we inhale,
every single time
we exhale

we can pretend
that air is endless,
and i guess it is
but individually
it can't be

individually,
air is limited

each one of us
are only allowed so much,
some of us less than others,
but for all of us the same rule applies,
each breath is spent,
never lended

each breath
is a breath we will not
be reimbursed for

so,
we pay to
scrunch our noses
up like sleeping bags
and open our eyes wide like
neglected *** holes,
at the sight of
time all caged up
cause we need to
believe we have a say

I see my life through plexiglass
Trying to bulletproof the past,
Nostalgia? No, but I recall
That rising up precedes the fall.
But the films I watch inside my mind
Are missing parts I cannot find
So I fill the blanks with what I see,
I fill it up with what I need.

Now is it truth, or is it lie?
I like to think that I am right,
But I’m not the well-oiled machine
I used to think I used to be.

I love spending nights on the lake.
Once the oven-like sun disappears,
things get suddenly quiet, except for
the occasional hoot of an owl, crickets, frogs
and the soft lapping of the lake on the boat.

When the moon rises above the pines
the sky lights up, like a fireworks bloom,
its reflection is brushed, in scatters on the lake,
giving insubstantial moonlight a sharp substance
not unlike a fractured, undulating, glittery lace.

This evening, there’s a rumble, stage left, off to the west,
and a thunderstorm’s growl, like a wolf on the prowl.
The wind was picking up, so we began battening down,
stowing things in the galley and taking in the flag. The wind,
had become almost solid with its insistent and restless energy.

The question, with these daily, southern, summer thunderstorms
is whether you’re going to catch the edge of it or get the full onslaught. The doppler radar, of my iPad weather app indicated the monster was headed right for us.

Just as our phones, watches and iPads began chirping
with National Weather Service, “Severe Weather Alerts,”
Charles asked, “You two still want to stay?” His voice fighting
against the stiff wind as he watched the tall pine-tree tops bob,
like boxers, afraid of the far off lightning flashes in the sky.

“Of course!” I chimed in, wearing a grin, I LOVE boat storms!
“Lisa, there’s a storm on the way but we’ll stay on the boat, ok?” I asked, trying to English the question with both a sense of adventure and nonchalance. Lisa, of course, followed my lead, saying, “Sure.”
“It’ll be ill,” I assured her.

Charles nodded and leapt to the dock, replacing the gunwale rope lines with longer dock rods to distance and secure the boat (lowering front and back anchors too).

“We’re staying,” Charles walkie-talkie’d Carol (his wife) below in the staterooms where she was probably making the beds. “10-4” she replied.
I love her, she’s so game for anything. While Charles worked, Lisa and I sealed the upper deck from cockpit (helm) to transom, putting up sturdy plexiglass windows and closing the transom doors.

Charles came aboard just as we turned up the air conditioning and thick raindrops started falling. Having finished our work, we looked up and the moon was gone, hidden by dark clouds that writhed like some angry, mythical, steel wool animal.

The rain went from a delicate pitter-patter to a generous applause and finally, a steady torrent. We felt it initially pass over us from port (left) to starboard (right). The wind whistled, like a giant’s breath, rocking the boat, alternately, in two directions. It was wonderful.

The far-off thunder had become intimate, bomb-like and personal, with its Crack-k-KA-BOOM! Every time such a concussion rocked the air, the boat and our teeth, I cackled, with joy, like Poe’s Madeline Usher, the madwoman in the attic.

“HOW DO YOU LIKE IT!?” I yelled to Lisa, but she made an ‘I can’t hear you,’ sign. Carol, who’d been working the galley, produced yummy tuna-fish sandwiches, potato chips and milk. We played a dominoes game called ‘Mexican Train’ until the rain stopped, then we watched ‘Jaws’ on the fold-down TV. Lisa had never seen it!

The boat had rocked, lightning had flashed, the cutting wind howled and the thunder boomed, but it was the clawing rain, like a tiger trying to break into the boat, that made it an unforgettable night on the lake.

The attendees are told, in a manner befitting a high mass
You have been finally set free,
(Although, in truth, free is a very large and entirely vague word),
And the message is sent forth from all comers in all corners:
Vendor and visionary alike,
German socialists who left university to ride boats for Greenpeace,
First lieutenants doing their level best
To appear at ease in civilian polos and khakis,
But no matter the vessel,
The message is still the same.  
The tyranny of cables and storage space is dead,
It is all but shouted from the lecterns,
(Although it is noted, in small print and sotto voce
That there are certain requirements
In terms of hardware and licensing)
And it is stated by Those Who Know
In tones which neither brook nor invite contradiction,
That they have surmounted, all Hadrian-like,
The alpine divide separating mere data and magic.

Two or three blocks down the street from the convention center,
In a narrow storefront housing an exhibition of ether-only comics
Which have broken the nettling constraints
Of editors and syndication,
There sits, under a somewhat opaque
And slightly scratched piece of plexiglass,
A yellowing comic strip of uncertain vintage,
In which a frowzy cat,
Free of the constraints of panels, gender, and standard grammar,
Is the recipient of a mouse-tossed brick
Whose flight, unfettered by physics, probablility, indeed time itself
Ends striking its mark right between the x’s of the eyes
The projectile itself an inexplicable alchemy
Of confusion, mirth, frustration
And the impossibility of an undeniably pure love.

I saw a man once,
walking slowly.

and
once behind the plexiglass wall of a bus stop overhang
I saw an advertisement that read
BLONDE IS GOD
and the model was thin- and her skin was enhanced by zeros and ones-
and I was entranced by her.
and she was GOd
and she was made to be beautiful.
and she was made out of beautiful.
and then, on my way home I passed by the place again and her picture was gone
and instead was the image of a raven haired beauty-
***** and lustsome with bedroom eyes
and she looked at me and said,
I AM EVERYTHING
and smiled, adding bluntly,
BUY MY BODY AND DRINK MY BLOOD.
I gazed upon her airbrushed ******* and breathed,
No,
I refuse you,
BLONDE IS GOD
and bleach touch-up foam, Our Savior.
and *** is God
and the Natick Mall is my favorite place to be
and I love you.

and I am i
and barely . -
and
YOU ARE EVERYTHING
and I will always adore you.
and

everything i have ever done, becomes quantified in this, tell me how to be beautiful- tell me how to be worthless-  tell me-



once, behind the plexiglass wall of a bus stop overhang
I saw an advertisement that read
BLONDE IS GOD

i was raised in the suburbs,
that's where i learned my first words,
also where i learned to curb,
any notions of uniqueness,
this bleakness, was fostered,
in our fundraisers, door-to-door,
selling subscriptions, order more,
and don't ask what the money's for,
school spirit for sports, i never played,
go bears, no care, for my awkward phase,
my awkward ways, 2 buses and a subway,
to get downtown, to hear that sound,
of cars, of movement,
home i'd found,
i was homeward bound,
surrounded by people,
the streets became my easel,
the streets became my easel,
the streets became my easel.

the suburban nights i remember best
deserted street, our love confessed,
riding, trying to avoid attention,
fogged up windows, signs of affection,
what did we know? best of intentions,
you were the girl that i met in detention,
feelings fostered in parks
that were well maintained,
neighbourhood watch campaigns,
trimmed grass, cul-de-sacs
sterile sidewalks, no art attacks,
i'd take you out,
to avoid cafeteria fries,
the tears in your eyes,
echoing words of those you despised,
hallway acoustics, erased by a quick kiss,
love notes in lockers,
we swore, we'd come back and prove our validity,
that wasn't me, that isn't me,
i am more than you thought that i'd ever be
in hindsight, that goal was empty.
in hindsight, that goal was empty.
in hindsight, that goal was empty.

i rode this train in an attempt to arrive
at a destination thought mutually suitable,
mutually doable, the journey viewable,
and verified viewed in full,
but our paths differed along the way,
our grip withered from pursuits of gpa,
the sacrifices made for a number,
sweat and anxiety, tears and fear,
from what would occur, if not maintained
in the exact range, expected by academics
i'm a polemic, seen through these false idols,
graduates don't know a thing about survival,
vital signs drained to the point of oblivion,
questioning just isn't how you win, it isn't in,
they're sittin' in their leather chairs,
dismissin' receding hair,
in front of leather-bound books,
leather patches on their elbows,
their vacant look,
behind eyeglasses, so cold,
i tried to ace classes, to sit in the seats
of these empty elite,
to live up to expectation,
and after convocation,
i took my place in a chair
behind a plexiglass pane,
initials after my name on
my orange jumpsuit,
i only now realize the truth.
i have all that i sought,
but lost all that i had.
i have all that i sought,
but lost all that i had.
i have all that i sought,
but lost all that i had.

before i bury myself
in the fallen leaves,
i paint
a golden picture. idolize
unreality. force open a dream
of spring
and what it should mean.
and whenever i see two ready eyes like the
gestation of a new cosmos,
my anxious fingers tinker about;
there are fruit and flower
worth the time it takes to focus upon
like a man who is
worth the time it takes to love--
but romance is not natural
for such an animal
as i have been,
unread, not belonging within, clattering, preparing false wings
to abandon
a family. i grow old and young inside depths
that i cave
in.
attuned to noise, some crazy flute,
i go cacophonous toward the sound of sickness,
calling the name of no one into random abysses;
an abstract heart is precious, the selfish self-hatred however
, a practically biological second nature.
bred. arterial, laced
in a genome.
it has nothing to do with womanhood
god
or area. now by the side of whatever is wrong,
future dies
prematurely.
observe the scolding history
rearticulating itself. how i pressed barely visible
to wrought iron and plexiglass
kneeling to whitecoats, a sinkhole stomach pillfilled,
for extended temporarity a frenzy lent to me,
i drew unintending daggers. there was no defense,
but there was no bravery either.
escape and escape and escape and
claim loyalty and value to
somethings, but i did not follow
to that other end
where light lived.
where they were talking
and talking and talking about me
and shaking my shoulders,
jumping in after me,
i wandered persistently so far
so deep and so dark until
they dared not enter. fascinating strangeness,
still they are afraid of what they do not know
and i continue to be afraid of what i do
know.
miserable as unwanted rain,
lamenting the instability and
inventorying uncontrolled damages.
i have no reliable property, i have no money, i squander potential,
restlessly i change shape at night like a fabled figure,
like my father, like a jeckyll, like a hyde, like an
addict or
adolescent rat.
reclawed, hand out free kisses, rest in forbidden laps,
ashamed at the summit,
with a deceptive shadow, i don
a foiled crown gleaming
and scream into the fabricated storm.
the trees all crack their necks.
by morning i slap myself and untangle my hair and
play with my suitcase.
flipping through pages of what i wish i was,
what many people wish they were.
staring at the washing machine long-motionless,
i have a favorite stained outfit, a few clean shirts.
i will probably learn to anticlimactically dump into the sink the crumbs
that collect at the bottom
of the toaster. i will stop running
and take a time out in a place with no season
or color soon
but before i step further into the same street
godwilling i say something
important.

dwelt,
dwelling,
spend years dwelling in what pools
afterward.
there is my face in blood,
there is my face in ketchup,
there is my face in the grocery store floor,
there is my face in front of a padlocked gate,
there is my face in liquor ambivalent, in *****,
there is my face in ravines unflashlit,
there is my face in a wadded poem,
there is my face
in my hands.

at standard cruising altitude
sipping my digestive
after a quite decent hot lunch
on the flight from Vienna to Athens

I gaze through the scratched
double plexiglass bulleye
shielding me from the outside world
and try to pierce the blinding haze
of a lazy spring afternoon
hiding from me

   the people shot by snipers
   the shelling of suburbs
   the burning houses
   the crowded hospitals
   of Sarajevo, Gorazde, Mostar, Zadar ...

suspended in diffuse light
all I can see is
   the silhouette of an occasional
       snow-capped mountain range

there is no sign
of human suffering

*May 1992

Its eleven pm and I dont know where I am going as I pull my feet onto the train platform. My shoulders bumping with a stranger standing inside, even though there is only three of us on this train and enough distance between us to fit a car. I politely apologize and slump into a seat. I dont say, lm sorry, I was busy trying to breathe water,or im sorry my heart sounded like a grenade going off in a home; windows shattering, framework cracking, people choking and crying through the smoke, I am sorry my heart was too loud to hear you say excuse me. I watch the girl go and sit in a seat strategically placed in equal distance away from me and the other disheveled young man crying to himself with music blaring loud enough to compete with the war in my chest. I try to ignore the way she pushes her hair back just like you used to, or the way only half of her lip curls up as she smiles at her phone. I dont want to remember your smile, or think about who is putting it on your face. I rotate in the ***** and cut up bench laying my head against the double thick window. My forehead vibrating off of the glass, angrily ricocheting when the train hits a bump, bouncing off of the window and colliding back against the plexiglass. I dont do anything to stop it. I just sit and stare at nothing, trying to erase every inch of you from my mind, letting my head continue to bounce on the window, desperately trying not to pretend that it is morse code from you. I am trying to stop weaving you into every **** thing. Its really ******* hard. Especially when all I can seem to do right now is paint your face into the blank space. It feels like I am drowning, instead of breathing all I do is choke on the tears that are issued with every old memory. I am suffocating in my own ocean. And then in a second, everything is one eightied and I am on fire, scribbling ash over the picture of you I had carved into the seat. Every piece of me, wanting to burn down every piece of you. Its like each train stop is a new emotion. Everytime my head smacks into the window is a new flood of memories and new kaleidoscope of feelings that I dont want to deal with. Its like I am hitting a light switch, except every time I turn the lights back on its a different room.; but each time the florescent lights kick on there is more burn marks on the walls and the flood lines are higher. I am still dying, just in a new location. I am locked in a room no one can see, laying in six feet of water, waiting for the space between the ceiling and my lungs to collapse. The girl ten seats down cant see your hands pressed around my throat, or the inch gap I have remaining before I am left with nothing to breathe. I think the boy can though. We lock eyes and he rubs his face like he is scrubbing bleach acrossed a ***** floor, like he is trying to burn off his features, pulling the memory of his face out of my mind before it even has the option of staying. He looks at me, eyes pleading, “forget me, please dear God forget that I exist” He is begging me to ignore him so that he can continue to pretend he is a ghost. It’s okay boy with the see through eyes, the girl desperately trying to exclude us from her reality is the only one living on this train. I can tell your heart stopped beating just like mine did. I can see all of the broken support beams of the house you just left jutting out of your chest. I am so sorry. I am so so sorry that you were given a hand grenade instead of a lover. I can see that the water is up to your neck in your prison cell. So. I will give you everything that I have left. Every bit of oxygen that I have remaining so that you may walk off of this train with a pulse and colour in your cheeks. So that you can walk off alive with the girl humming softly to her music seated between us. I love you. You will make it. It will be okay You will do what I can not; learn to walk away.

they let their sticky humid hands
hold my glitching hologram body
against the scratchy playhouse
walls and drag their clammy
claws where no child should
think to rub all the while
whispering into my vacant ears
how they would beat me and
bite me and cut me and kick me
if anyone were to ever find out
our little game as tapeworm
tears sludged from my sickly
sweet rotting eyesockets and
down my shiny shaking dust
stained cheeks silently over my
cold and closing throat and
when my dad finally ripped the
splintering wooden door across
the sandy shifting floor i was so
pale pink blue i could have been
six hours dead save for my
fracturing porcelain and
plexiglass heart destructive and
bashing and shattering itself
through my frail and brittle
crumbling ribcage whispering to
me how badly my dad would
scream at me for the way we
were playing

Original Haiku and Tanka
by Michael R. Burch

These are original haiku and tanka written by Michael R. Burch, along with haiku-like and tanka-like poems inspired by the forms but not necessarily abiding by all the rules.

Dark-bosomed clouds
pregnant with heavy thunder ...
the water breaks
―Michael R. Burch

The poem above is my favorite of my original haiku. I wrote it while working on translations of haiku by the Oriental masters. Here's another one I particularly like:

one pillow ...
our dreams
merge
―Michael R. Burch



The Original Sin: Rhyming Haiku!

Haiku
should never rhyme:
it’s a crime!
―Michael R. Burch

The herons stand,
sentry-like, at attention ...
rigid observers of some unknown command.
―Michael R. Burch

Late
fall;
all
the golden leaves turn black underfoot:
soot
―Michael R. Burch

A snake in the grass
lies, hissing
"Trespass!"
―Michael R. Burch

Honeysuckle
blesses my knuckle
with affectionate dew
―Michael R. Burch

My nose nuzzles
honeysuckle’s
sweet nothings
―Michael R. Burch

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

The moon in decline
like my lover’s heart
lies far beyond mine
―Michael R. Burch

My mother’s eyes
acknowledging my imperfection:
dejection
―Michael R. Burch

The sun sets
the moon fails to rise
we avoid each other’s eyes
―Michael R. Burch

There are more rhyming haiku later on this page ...



Iffy Coronavirus Haiku

yet another iffy coronavirus haiku #1
by michael r. burch

plagued by the Plague
i plague the goldfish
with my verse

yet another iffy coronavirus haiku #2
by michael r. burch

sunflowers
hang their heads
embarrassed by their coronas

I wrote the poem above after having a sunflower arrangement delivered to my mother, who is in an assisted living center and can’t have visitors due to the coronavirus pandemic. I have been informed the poem breaks haiku rules about personification, etc.

Homework (yet another iffy coronavirus haiku #3)
by michael r. burch

Dim bulb overhead,
my silent companion:
still imitating the noonday sun?

yet another iffy coronavirus haiku #4
by michael r. burch

Spring fling—
children string flowers
into their face masks

yet another iffy coronavirus haiku #5
by michael r. burch

the Thought counts:
our lips and fingers
insulated by plexiglass ...

yet another iffy coronavirus haiku #6
by michael r. burch

masks, masks
everywhere
and not a straw to drink ...

Dark Cloud, Silver Lining
by Michael R. Burch

Every corona has a silver lining:
I’m too far away to hear your whining,
and despite my stormy demeanor,
my hands have never been cleaner!

New World Order (last in a series and perhaps a species)
by Michael R. Burch

The days of the dandelions dawn ...
soon man will be gone:
fertilizer.



Untitled Haiku

Dark-bosomed clouds
pregnant with heavy thunder ...
the water breaks
―Michael R. Burch

one pillow ...
our dreams
merge
―Michael R. Burch

Crushed grapes
surrender such sweetness!
A mother’s compassion.
―Michael R. Burch

My footprints
so faint in the snow?
Ah yes, you lifted me.
―Michael R. Burch

An emu feather
still falling?
So quickly you rushed to my rescue.
―Michael R. Burch

The sun warms
a solitary stone.
Let us abandon no one.
―Michael R. Burch

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

The ability
to disagree agreeably—
civility.
―Michael R. Burch

She bathes in silver
..……. afloat ……..
on her reflections
—Michael R. Burch

Celebrate the New Year?
The cat is not impressed,
the dogs shiver.
—Michael R. Burch

NOTE: Cats are seldom impressed by human accomplishments, while the canine members of our family have always hated fireworks and other unexpected loud noises.



Variations on Fall

Farewells like
falling
leaves,
so many sad goodbyes.
―Michael R. Burch

Falling leaves
brittle hearts
whisper farewells
―Michael R. Burch

Autumn leaves
soft farewells
falling ...
falling ...
falling ...
―Michael R. Burch

Autumn leaves
Fall’s farewells
Whispered goodbyes
―Michael R. Burch



Variations on the Seasons
by Michael R. Burch

Mother earth
prepares her nurseries:
spring greening

The trees become
modest,
coy behind fans



Wobbly fawns
have become the fleetest athletes:
summer



Dry leaves
scuttle like *****:
autumn

*

The sky
shivers:
snowfall

each
translucent flake
lighter than eiderdown

the entire town entombed
but not in gloom,
bedazzled.



Variations on Night

Night,
ice and darkness
conspire against human warmth
―Michael R. Burch

Night and the Stars
conspire against me:
Immensity
―Michael R. Burch

in the ice-cold cathedral
prayer candles ablaze
flicker warmthlessly
―Michael R. Burch



Variations on the Arts
by Michael R. Burch

Paint peeling:
the novel's
novelty wears off ...

The autumn marigold's
former glory:
allegory.

Human arias?
The nightingale frowns, perplexed.
Tone deaf!

Where do cynics
finally retire?
Satire.

All the world’s
a stage
unless it’s a cage.

To write an epigram,
cram.
If you lack wit, scram.

Haiku
should never rhyme:
it’s a crime!

Video
dumped the **** tube
for YouTube.

Anyone
can rap:
just write rhythmic crap!



Variations on Lingerie
by Michael R. Burch

Were you just a delusion?
The black negligee you left
now merest illusion.

The clothesline
quivers,
ripe with unmentionables.

The clothesline quivers:
wind,
or ghosts?



Variations on Love and Wisdom
by Michael R. Burch

Wise old owls
stare myopically at the moon,
hooting as the hart escapes.

Myopic moon-haunted owls
hoot as the hart escapes

The myopic owl,
moon-intent, scowls;
my rabbit heart thunders ...
Peace, wise fowl!



Tanka

All the wild energies
of electric youth
captured in the monochromes
of an ancient photobooth
like zigzagging lightning.
―Michael R. Burch

The plums were sweet,
icy and delicious.
To eat them all
was perhaps malicious.
But I vastly prefer your kisses!
―Michael R. Burch

A child waving ...
The train groans slowly away ...
Loneliness ...
Somewhere in the distance gusts
scatter the stray unharvested hay ...
―Michael R. Burch

How vaguely I knew you
however I held you close ...
your heart’s muffled thunder,
your breath the wind―
rising and dying.
―Michael R. Burch



Miscellanea

sheer green stockings
queer green beer
St. Patrick's Day!
―Michael R. Burch

cicadas chirping everywhere
singing to beat the band―
surround sound
―Michael R. Burch

Regal, upright,
clad in royal purple:
Zinnia
―Michael R. Burch

Love is a surreal sweetness
in a world where trampled grapes
become wine.
―Michael R. Burch

although meant for market
a pail full of strawberries
invites indulgence
―Michael R. Burch

late November;
skeptics scoff
but the geese no longer migrate
―Michael R. Burch

as the butterfly hunts nectar
the generous iris
continues to bloom
―Michael R. Burch



Childless
by Michael R. Burch

How can she bear her grief?
Mightier than Atlas, she shoulders the weight
of one fallen star.



Ascendance Transcendence
by Michael R. Burch

Breaching the summit
I reach
the horizon’s last rays.



The Reason for the Rain
by Michael R. Burch

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



Imperfect Perfection
by Michael R. Burch

You're too perfect for words―
a problem for a poet.



Intimations
by Michael R. Burch

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



Expert Advice
by Michael R. Burch

Your ******* are perfect for your lithe, slender body.
Please stop making false comparisons your hobby!



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.



Laughter's Cry
by Michael R. Burch

Because life is a mystery, we laugh
and do not know the half.

Because death is a mystery, we cry
when one is gone, our numbering thrown awry.



The Reason for the Rain (II)
by Michael R. Burch

The sky was blue
until you appeared
and it wept at your beauty.



Here's a poem composed of haiku-like stanzas:

Dandelion
by Michael R. Burch

Lift up your head
dandelion,
hear spring roar!

How will you tidy your hair
this near
summer?

Leave to each still night
your lightest affliction,
dandruff.

Soon you will free yourself:
one shake
of your white mane.

Now there are worlds
into which you appear
and disappear

seemingly at will
but invariably blown
wildly, then still.

Gasp at the bright chill
glower
of winter.

Icicles splinter;
sleep still an hour,
till, resurrected in power,

you lift up your head,
dandelion.
Hear spring roar!



More Rhyming Haiku

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

brief leaf flung awry ~
bright butterfly, goodbye!
―Michael R. Burch

leaf flutters in flight ~
bright, O and endeavoring butterfly,
goodbye!
―Michael R. Burch

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

The girl with the pallid lips
lipsticks
into something less comfortable
―Michael R. Burch

I am a traveler
going nowhere,
but my how the gawking bystanders stare!
―Michael R. Burch



Keywords/Tags: Haiku, Tanka, coronavirus, nature, love, heart, family, mother, son, seasons, spring, summer, fall, winter, sun, moon, rhyme, rhymed, mrbhaiku

You are a sprawling backyard
and I am a toddler
and I just learned how to run

You are a four inch thick piece of plexiglass
and I am a wild animal trapped behind you.

You are a seventeenth century novel
and I am not making sense.

****** again,
Post-hasted doubting and raving,
Confused why I torture myself so –
Truer words never spoken as lies,
The dull, pumpkin-glow of the broken lamp casting ghosts,
Filling my visions with demons I’d thought excised.
****** again,
Alone in its tendrils again,
I travel –
Travel through ideas shattered and plexiglass melting,
Singing and burning as it covers my senses like a myelin sheath,
Conducting protons-only,
But my brain is slow and the receptors dull,
And the raw input manifests only as trails of spirits.
****** again,
The madness thick as bog sludge,
Stinking of scorched sulfur,
It kicks corroded and dead gears into spin,
Generating false ideas and wild delusions
That I know aren’t real but –
Nothing else here is, either, especially not you,
Disembodied you, listener.
****** again,
But not alone this time no,
Her idea ghosting simulacra,
Taunting me with her shortcomings and spitting like venom
Those thousands of details I’d always hated while
Refusing acknowledgment, but
Like a brick golem she’s got a core,
A conduit of last-year’s hopes, and I flee, panicked –
****** again,
The clouds high above the ruined October grass,
Laughing like spaceships, and returning me to boyhood fancy:
I’ll never be an astronaut.

She is the epitome of awesome, the essence of beauty
the look in her eyes makes me feel alive
She is different, and independent
She has her good and her bad, and even her sad
She's not perfect but that's alright i think that's what makes it right
but alas she is surrounded by plexiglass  
and I cannot get through what else is there to do
besides Give up

It’s Friday evening, (11-12-21) and Lisa’s Birthday. To celebrate, we’re going to see “A Night With Bill Maher” at the New York Comedy Festival (we’ll be socially distanced, in an opera box). He goes on at 8:30PM and my last class on Fridays ends at 05:25 (in New Haven CT). We had to hurry.

We have our bags and we’re hustling out the dorm gate loaded down like a couple of tourists. “We want to be on the island (NYC) by 7:30 for our dinner reservation.” Lisa said. I gave her a quizzical look, checking my watch, “It’s 6:18,” I said doubtfully, “we’ll NEVER..”  “Yeah, we will,” Lisa interrupts, “we’re taking a helicopter ride!” “Whaa.. REALLY??” I gasp. “Yeah,” Lisa grinned, “my dad arranged it, his treat.” “Thanks DAD,” I say, as we climb into our Uber.

An Uber off-loads us by a helicopter 15 minutes later (at Tweed Airport). I knew the blue and white grasshopper-looking whirligig didn’t have a mind - that it wasn’t capable of feelings or eagerness, but the blades were spinning and it seemed eager to escape earth - like a bug afraid of birds.

After we boarded, a guy in a yellow vest and helmet said - above the noise - “Buckle up!” and pointed to our seat belts. The “seat belt” was a harness that made an “X” across our bodies. Once the doors were closed it became surprisingly quiet. The cabin could hold four but we were alone, facing forward, Lisa seated next to me.

The earnest-looking pilot turned to us and said, “37 air minutes to the 34th street heliport,” but before he could close the little plexiglass door to our compartment, Lisa said, “Afghan takeoff please!” He nodded and closed the window, it got quieter still.

The pilot throttled up, the jet engines whined, the rotors became frantic and we lifted up into the air - just a few feet. I held tightly to my seat sitting perfectly still, as though the helicopter were a frightened animal I didn’t want to startle. “Relax,” Lisa said, with a BIG grin, “You’re going to LOVE this.” The helo rotated 180 degrees, “Woah,” I said.

“Wait for it,” she giggled. The back of the chopper suddenly rose, my body pressed forward, hard, against the harness. I went bug-eyed - about the time I thought the whole shaky contraption would roll forward end-over-end and we’d die in a fireball, we sprang into the air like a rollercoaster ride. When we lurched skyward, I had to fight the urge to hurl but Lisa roared with laughter.

After a moment we leveled out. “That wasn’t funny.” I said, still trembling and deadly serious. I opened a bottle of water, took a big swig and I felt myself relax a bit. “I almost threw up!” I wiped my hair away from my face. “I’m sorry,” Lisa said in a pouty, baby appeasing way. I glowered.

“Seriously,” she said, in a more reasonable voice, “I HAD to do it - I COULDN’T resist.” Unbuckling her harness she scooted over by me and took my hand. “It was a little mean, I know. I SWEAR, I’ll never, ever, EVER, trick you again.” She said, adding a girl scout salute that morphed into a pinky promise and we were suddenly whole again.

“I mean, it only works ONCE - and your FACE! - GOD!, I should have videoed that,” she laughed again - I just rolled my eyes and turned to look out into the darkness.

Maybe it was that take-off, but at first, all I could think of was falling to a watery death. I never get nervous on commercial flights, they feel like solid, white noise filled living rooms but this chopper was small and trembling, like an economy car or a hayride.

There was a TV screen that showed our altitude (9,000 feet and climbing) and airspeed indicator (140 knots) - I had to remind myself that trustworthy physics was at work somewhere behind this clippity-cloppity contraption our lives depended on.

The view of Long Island Sound, just after dusk, WAS amazing and soon I began to enjoy it. I counted 30 ships and barges lit up like birthday cakes against the watery darkness - and the approaching lights of New York City looked like a glittering tiara being worn by the horizon.

Ok, I thought, I have to write about this.

The sunflower dreams disintegrate, leaving dust. I see you there through the plexiglass wall, and wonder if you can see me too. The wax drips from the tip of the candle. Five spots, six-seven. Nine. I burn for you. The red runs crimson down my thigh. I reach for you through my condemned klonopin haze. Once again, I was too weak for you. The pressure builds, forming cracks in my psyche, making me wonder who I am or where I’m going.

Blank spaces. The canvas between white and black, the words that don’t fill the spaces in between I love you. And I don’t know what you want me to do, so I sit outside and chain smoke and listen to the birds who are confused, because it’s raining. I’m sick, you say, as if that straightens out the jumble in my mind. We’re solving the world’s problems one puff of nicotine at a time.

My fingernails crave your skin
Hard red assassins
My fingernails sweep your skin
Texturizing our love

In every corner of your body
Your breath is twitching
Melodiously
You fill with air

Speak to me in tongues
On a plate like a breaded chicken breast
Marinating in a fine Italian wine and Balsamic Vinaigrette
Sauce craving an open flame
Homemade.

I'm falling asleep
I'm falling asleep
To the digging of a Disco party on a late
Friday night in yellow polyester baby blue You forgot
To pick me up, again but it's okay 'cause I'm
Stayin' Alive.
In a plexiglass life.
See right through it, it's translucent
Then never look at me again.

He had no idea if he would...
If he could actually do it...
When the time came,
When his sergeant gave the nod,
Let slip the dogs of war,
Unleash the copper bees,
Send missiles hurtling up or down
At targets moving now...
On men who may be wondering
If they could fire the same,
When the time came....

"Steady, men!"
"On my command."

He lay there,
On a roof,
In a ditch,
On an open field,
Crouched inside a turret,
Bellied down in a plexiglass ball,
Hurtled above a world mostly covered in cloud,
Standing far below the earth in silo'd steel,
Seeing still, through satellite eyes....

Peered into the mil dot scope,
Ignored the cross
To see through the center,
Found the circled aperture,
Punched coordinates into a seeing machine,
Saw green circles on the screen...
Aligned the circles....
Tried to breathe.

So that was how it was
For farm boys, Mowers of hay,
Grocers' sons, smashers of ants,
Carpenters, hammerers of nails,
And bakers' boys, cutters of bread,
Just in from shooting marbles and BB guns,
Transported into war,
Fed soldiers' ration:
meat and bread and beans,
Five cigarettes apiece in boxed MREs,
Sent off to **** and to be killed
With mothers' tears still fresh upon their cheeks,
With lovers' ache still glowing embered heat.

Training fresh,
Waiting command
To fire only when the order came...
To remain firing til the order came...
To hold the breath and squeeze...
To hold the sight just so...
To squeeze...
And to reload
Keeping head low,
Eyes on target...
To ignore all but the sergeant's yell,
To think of squeezing on new targets,
To wait awhile to process coming hell....

And when the time came,
He squeezed,
Felt the sudden life,
Heard little but the sound of
Clean ejection ...
Saw his bullet,
Saw his missile,
Saw his target meet,
And in the meeting,
Red,
And in the meeting ,
Fire and smoke,
And in the meeting
Knew  that he could do
What soldiers do.

This boy
Now cutting hay,
Now stomping ants,
Hammering nails,
Cutting loaves of cooling bread...
Caught in the maelstrom of war
With no moment left but now,
No possible tomorrow...
Only targets,
Only targeted
In ferocious winds
Of battle.

Like a 21st century Snow White in her crystal casket,
You can find me in the frozen aisle, lying on a bed of ice cream tubs and chicken kievs,
Unconcious.

Slide the plexiglass door open,
Pick me up.
Do not worry if your freezer looks too small,
I can bend, I can fold.
You can consume me tonight, tomorrow, next week, six months from now and I won't expire.

It doesn't take too much to cook me,
Yet it shows you haven't done enough cooking in your life to know
That once meat is defrosted, you can't freeze it again and expect it to taste good.

Somedays I feel like I’m
Huddled in a corner
staring wide-eyed
At the world passing by
watching me through
Plexiglass walls
and spotlights blaring down
all hours of the day and night
all I have ever wanted was to be natural
An apostle of instinct
Fighting back using the laws
of claw, and gnashing fangs
But instead
I’m met with cattle prods, and steel chains
I’ve learned that the world just doesn’t play fair
I’ve learned that love and loss come with the same price tag
You lose parts of yourself either way
So many people want to take others
out of their habitat
And put them on display
I have spent far too many days
in other people’s possession
and now I am finally breaking free
I just need
Someone
That will hold me loosely
Someone
Who will let me live free
Someone
Who can love me
For being wild

He hoarded fingernails he bit off or found
in the curtain-less showers in a pile in his cell,
like a pixie collecting shrunken satyr horns.
He ate only the cheese at lunch and pulled
off the white fat bologna and let it sweat
in the sink.
His markhor beard held dead skin and peanut butter
clumps and it refused to grow anymore.
Behind the rosewood door
he stood on the steel toilet and stared into
the sun-glow bulb dimmed behind plexiglass.
When he was tired he slept under the bunk
like a frightened child.

He was allowed an hour a day
to stretch his harpy legs,
he’d hop to the phone and talk
to the dial tone like it were a confessional
to John Paul II,
“God doesn’t know, God never knew”.

I found him on a Tuesday afternoon
after lunch cleanup hanging by a shoelace
from his light fixture,
curved like a sunflower.
I cut the stem from the pseudanthium
and it wilted into my arms.

His neck looked like a corseted waist,
and when I loosened the shoelace
his dry mouth opened and he coughed bleu cheese
returning life into my face.
His teary mud colored eyes rolled forward and we stared into
each others as I cradled him like a baby.

He later told John Paul he wanted to quiet the voices.

In ’97 he took his ***** girlfriend’s crying three
month old and quieted him by crushing his
skull in a dresser drawer.

Well organized and tidy
Murals, collages, trophies, crafts
Feelings, emotions, blood, sweat, and tears all captured , saved and put on display

Studiedly  I walk station to station in amazement

Recalling and recollecting, but hesitant to reminisce on the bliss and carefulness that's swept and swift

Taken out of humanity to share, and placed into a strategy for only eyes to stare

So the only way that we can become engaged is on field trips or when we vacate?

Hands off the glass , and please no pictures sir!!!
Is the blockade

Well may I at least purchase a souvenir?

But I Thought love didn't cost a thing?

I also thought love was suppose to be balled into my heart , not placed onto the wall for art.

This museum has artifacts that date back;  way back , prior to the common era in fact

Love was used all over the world, evidently it didn't discriminate , but it separate ones from others, sometimes it hesitates because of it's density , because  if no reciprocity then the love become logically lessened

Love taught a lot of lessons , and raised a lot of personal questions

Hearteologists seems to have it all figured out

They say centuries ago love evolved with a color , a shape, a phrase , and a holiday.

An image
More so an image and no longer a feeling
The image that allowed Hearteologists to dig up, find and study any evidence , empires, households... the culture of love

The past half of a century the television developed and became everything except supplementary

So as viewers look at the screen they witness love as only being inside the characters jeans

When really love is hereditary, a trait that we all carry in our genes from the first beings

Now to be placed on the wall, behind plexiglass

Only to be put into perspective from 10am. until 6pm.
Mondays through Saturdays

As for the human race
You, I and true love can never link

Love is in a museum because love is extinct

It sticks to the back of my throat
like peanut butter
It sits back there like a frog
and I croak croak croak,
but it never escapes my quivering lips
It never leaves me
It never makes itself known
But it hopes like every little insecurity I've ever owned
that you will see it one day
accept it one day
read bedtime stories to it
feed it food from your dinner table
cloth it as it wants to be clothed
support it like you are the keystone
to my door
to the world, I deserve to belong in
yet I still only manage to look at it
from the blurry red plexiglass windows

I hear voices from beyond it
Be brave.
Be brave.
It gets better
little one.

But when I look out that window
I hear the depressions and suppressions of a people
gunshots and violence
and somewhere off in the distance
I hear the singing laughter and joy

Be brave
Be brave
little one

but they are as far as my voice is trapped and away from me
and as tangible as the frog in my throat
Stuck in Pandora's box
with a million others just like me.

Wipe my pollen dust
From your lavender scented
Christ ****** fingers
Milk knuckles shredding
My wings
Like sunburned bible pages
Sighing much like an owl
At 2PM
Or the honey badger
Chewing frozen mice
Behind plexiglass
My heart is a massive
Black bull
Pacing the ring
Always waiting for the sword
Ah! Not anymore!
I am bored of the crawling clocks
I am bored of your necessary
Torture
Today i will call in sick
Burn my wallet
And dance naked
Until moon drown
Im taking my bright orange
Black striped
Silk dotted
Heart back

You showed me your private-joy,
your clear blue-plexiglass,
battery-powered,
vibrational-toy
& I became enthusiastic
with how skillfully
you played with it,
moved to the buzzing noises
with your own sweet sounds.
Your sighs were fantastic darling,
they put me in a finer state,
a beautiful romantic mood
to make love.

grotesque characters smash themselves against Plexiglass windows
the sheer mass bowing and distorting the transparent protector
squeezing into the darkened faux-cave for a glimpse
of the last starfish in the Pacific –
droopy fingers cling desperately to transplanted basalt
slow death from radiation poisoning
the future picture for all of mankind
little Cindy sheds a tear as discolored water flows, unfiltered
saline ratio destroyed by the introduction or pesticides
and straight petroleum
reflective properties shifting the absorption rate
oceanic temperature altered
the tree so memorizing
no one notices the inferno on the ridgeline –
facilitating the fall, politicians look to tax carbon emissions
pretending to understand
while Jupiter develops another eye
and the storms on Venus have gained intensity at a steady rate for 25 years
blaming the diesel SUV, sun worshipers get skin cancer
and ulcers –
unrepentant hordes of sheeple march through drive-throughs
signing up for the slaughter
the gods of old are coming home
and blood sacrifice is all they accept –

You are
a new, exciting challenge.

With the games you play,
I'll never be able to tell
if I'm winning or not.
(but you can bet your happy trail I'll try)

Are you really
as cold as you seem?
Distant and Reflective

You are water.
Forever breezy—
go with the flow
and float on the ripples.

And I am plexiglass.
I don't break—
I shatter
but it takes a lot.

If you think about it,
(and I know you do)
the best container
for reckless water
is a plexiglass tank.

and it can hold
a myriad
of different things.

Young girl, songs lamenting the American condition,

You are the catalyst of sexuality.
You are the tar on my fingers that keeps me writing.

Clear in your heart, paradox is the word and I am the scar,

You're too afraid to come outside,
Bombs won't break through your kitchen tables and plexiglass.

Far too much shelter, this is a movement I can get behind. Starting to crack. Starting to scream.

The motivation now: breaking out of mediocrity.
///
At least I'm better than those guys, I must continue to assure myself.

I might be the loner,

Underwhelming boy who will never serve his country,

Yet I don't go around breaking things that aren't mine—

Urania may have pulled my strings like a puppet,

But I snapped her sanity.

we call these stars.
white strips of clarity bursting through pinpricks
spotlights through feather falling dandruff

thunder buckles the plexiglass sheet with it's shoulder
crackles little eggshell triangles past the dancing dandruff
pale veins spread like ink in fabric
thin burnt parchment
holding back thudding pulses from the Amniotic sun

We call this a sunrise
when the Sun hurls the final flaming shoulder into day.

Not the giggling gums of a baby faced Tele-tubby sun
not the serenade of "goodnight moon, and goodnight you"

My sunrise is A dragon-glass egg,
pulsing to the drumbeat of a feathered heart

A tea-light spider spinning webs into an inferno shoulder
flexing flamesilk muscles through each pinprick star

lamp posts hum a prismatic prayer
Grassy fields catch light with their fireflies
old country porch lights attract moths
dust hung in stasis
starts feather falling when light catches

tubes of Mercury fashioned into bar-signs
flicker as ghosts hum on the gas
poets flick cigarette ashes
call in stardust for the wind to carry
up
to Gatsby it up in the pin ******
there is nothing more beautiful and warm
then stardust Dancing rich in the suns desperate pinpricks

Watching the Debut of struggling birth
throwing itself against confinement
shedding light, on the tiniest flurry of dandruff
before filling each vein of the broken sky with fire.

I love to watch gasoline soaked parchment
curl in on itself like an old handwritten letter.
I call this the night sky.

Catch the falling ashes on my tongue like snowflakes.
If I swallow enough of them
a tiny pheonix fire in my belly can hurl it's little shoulder against my rib cage.
Pounding until it bursts out through all these pinpricks.

I will call out to the mothsdust, dandruff and fireflies
invite them to dance in the combustion.

If I am anything like a starlit night.
I will buckle before I burst

Thunderclap an invitation
Shatter the street lamps and mercury tubes
with the winding bass drop.
direct the audiences attention to dust hung gentle in a cold still sky.
feather falling in silence
A blossoming caged sun.
No one expects a gentle sunrise