Flicker Shimmer Glow

The brightest star can shine even with thick black velvet draped over it.  
Quartz, lime and salt crystals formed a glass ball.
The dark womb held me, warm and soft.  
My mom called my cries when I was born the most sorrowful sound she had ever heard.  
She said she’d never heard a baby make a sound like that.    
I’d open my eyes in low light until the world’s light healed rather than hurt.  
The summer before eighth grade, July 1992,
I watched a shooting star burn by at 100,000 miles per hour as I stood on the balcony  
while my family celebrated my birthday inside.  
It made it into the earth’s atmosphere
but it didn’t look like it was coming down;
I know it didn’t hit the ground but it burned something in the time it was here.  
The glass ball of my life cracked inside.  
Light reflected off the salt crystal cracks.  
I saw the beauty of the light within.  
Nacre from my shell kept those cracks from getting worse,
a wild pearl as defense mechanism.  
In 2001, I quit my job after they melted and poured tar all over my life.  
All summer literature class bathtubs filled with rose hip oil cleaned the tar.  
That fall logic and epistemology classes spewed black ink all over my philosophy
written over ten years then.  
Tar turned to asphalt when I met someone from my old job for a drink in November
and it paved a road for my life that went to the hospital I was in that December
where it sealed the roof on my life
when I was almost murdered there
and in February after meeting her for another drink.  
They lit a fire at the top of the glacier and pushed the burning pile of black coal off the edge,
burnt red, looking like flames falling into the valley.  
While that blazed the side of the cliff something lit an incandescent light.  
The electricity from the metal lightbulb ***** went through wires and heated the filament between until it glowed.  
I began putting more work into emotional balance from things I learned at AA meetings.  
In Spring 2003, the damage that the doctors at the hospital in 2001 had done
made it harder for light to reflect from the cracks in the glass ball.
I’d been eating healthy and trying to get regular exercises since 1994
but in Spring 2003 I began swimming for an hour every morning .  
The water washed the pollution from the burning coals off
And then I escaped in July.  
I moved to London to study English Language and Linguistics.  
I would’ve studied English Language and Literature.  
I did well until Spring 2004 when I thought I was being stalked.  
I thought I was manic.  
I thought I was being stalked.  
I went home and didn’t go back for my exams after spring holiday.  
Because I felt traumatized and couldn’t write poetry anymore,
I used black ink to write my notes for my book on trauma and the Russian Revolution.
I started teaching myself German.  
I stayed healthy.  
In 2005, my parents went to visit my mom’s family in Malaysia for two weeks.
I thought I was being stalked.  
I knew I wasn’t manic.  
I thought I was being stalked.  
I told my parents when they came home.  
They thought I was manic.  
I showed them the shoe prints in the snow of different sizes from the woods to the windows.  
They thought I was manic.  
I was outside of my comfort zone.  
I moved to California. I found light.  
I made light,
the light reflected off the salt crystals I used to heal the violence inflicted on me from then on.  
The light turned the traffic lights to not just green from red
but amber and blue.  
The light turned the car signals left and right.  
The light reflected off of salt crystals, light emitting diodes,
electrical energy turned directly to light,
electroluminescence.  
The electrical currents flowed through,
illuminating.  
Alone in the world, I moved to California in July 2005
but in August  I called the person I escaped in 2003,
the sulfur and nitrogen that I hated.  
He didn’t think I was manic but I never said anything.
I never told him why I asked him to move out to California.  
When his coal seemed like only pollution,
I asked him to leave.  
He threatened me.  
I called the authorities.  
They left me there.
He laughed.  
Then the violence came.  
****:  stabbed and punched, my ****** bruised, purple and swollen.  
The light barely reflected from the glass ball wIth cracks through all the acid rain, smoke and haze.
It would take me half an hour to get my body to do what my mind told it to after.  
My dad told me my mom had her cancer removed.
The next day, the coal said if I wanted him to leave he’d leave.  
I booked his ticket.
I drove him to the airport.  
Black clouds gushed the night before for the first time in months,
the sky clear after the rain.  
He was gone and I was free,
melted glass, heated up and poured—
looked like fire,
looked like the Snow Moon in February
with Mercury in the morning sky.  
I worked through ****.  
I worked to overcome trauma.  
Electricity between touch and love caused acid rain, smoke, haze, and mercury
to light the discharge lamps, streetlights and parking lot lights.
Then I changed the direction of the light waves.  
Like lead glass breaks up the light,
lead from the coal, cleaned and replaced by potassium,
glass cut clearly, refracting the light,
electrolytes,
electrical signals lit through my body,
thick black velvet drapes gone.  





















Lava

I think that someone wrote into some palm leaf a manuscript, a gift, a contract.  
After my parents wedding, while they were still in India,
they found out that my dad’s father and my mom’s grandfather worked for kings administering temples and collecting money for their king from the farmers that worked the rice paddies each king owned.  They both left their homes before they left for college.  
My dad, a son of a brahmin’s son,
grew up in his grandmother’s house.  
His mother was not a Brahmin.  
My mother grew up in Malaysia where she saw the children from the rubber plantation
when she walked to school.  
She doesn’t say what caste she is.  
He went to his father’s house, then college.  
He worked, then went to England, then Canada.  
She went to India then Canada.  
They moved to the United States around Christmas 1978
with my brother while she was pregnant with me.  
My father signed a contract with my mother.  
My parents took ashes and formed rock,
the residue left in brass pots in India,
the rocks, so hot, they turned back to lava miles away before turning back to ash again,
then back to rock,
the lava from a super volcano,
the ash purple and red.  


















Circles on a Moss Covered Volcano

The eruption beatifies the magma.  
It becomes obsidian,
only breaks with a fracture,
smooth circles where it breaks.  

My mom was born on the grass
on a lawn
in a moss covered canyon at the top of a volcanic island.  
My grandfather lived in Malaysia before the Japanese occupied.  
When the volcano erupted,
the lava dried at the ocean into black sand.  
The British allied with the Communist Party of Malaysia—
after they organized.  
After the Americans defeated the Japanese at Pearl Harbor,
the British took over Malaysia again.  
They kept different groups apart claiming they were helping them.  
The black sand had smooth pebbles and sharp rocks.  
Ethnic Malay farmers lived in Kampongs, villages.  
Indians lived on plantations.  
The Chinese lived in towns and urban areas.  
Ethnic Malays wanted independence.
In 1946, after strikes, demonstrations, and boycotts
the British agreed to work with them.  
The predominantly Chinese Communist Party of Malaysia went underground,
guerrilla warfare against the British,
claiming their fight was for independence.  
For the British, that emergency required vast powers
of arrest, detention without trial and deportation to defeat terrorism.  
The Emergency became less unpopular as the terrorism became worse.  
The British were the iron that brought oxygen through my mom’s body.  
She loved riding on her father’s motorcycle with him
by the plantations,
through the Kampongs
and to the city, half an hour away.  
The British left Malaysia independent in 1957
with Malaysian nationalists holding most state and federal government offices.  
As the black sand stretches towards the ocean,
it becomes big stones of dried lava, flat and smooth.  

My mom thought her father and her uncle were subservient to the British.  
She thought all things, all people were equal.  
When her father died when she was 16, 1965,
they moved to India,
my mother,
a foreigner in India, though she’s Indian.  
She loved rock and roll and mini skirts
and didn’t speak the local language.  
On the dried black lava,
it can be hard to know the molten lava flickers underneath there.  
Before the Korean War,
though Britain and the United States wanted
an aggressive resolution
condemning North Korea,
they were happy
that India supported a draft resolution
condemning North Korea
for breach of the peace.  
During the Korean War,
India, supported by Third World and other Commonwealth nations,
opposed United States’ proposals.
They were able to change the U.S. resolution
to include the proposals they wanted
and helped end the war.  
China wanted the respect of Third World nations
and saw the United States as imperialist.  
China thought India was a threat to the Third World
by taking aid from the United States and the Soviets.  
Pakistan could help with that and a seat at the United Nations.  
China wanted Taiwan’s seat at the UN.
My mother went to live with her uncle,
a communist negotiator for a corporation,
in India.  
A poet,
he threw parties and invited other artists, musicians and writers.  
I have the same brown hyperpigmentation at my joints that he had.  
During the day, only the steam from the hot lava can be seen.  
In 1965, Pakistani forces went into Jammu and Kashmir with China’s support.  
China threatened India after India sent its troops in.  
Then they threatened again before sending their troops to the Indian border.  
The United States stopped aid to Pakistan and India.
Pakistan agreed to the UN ceasefire agreement.  
Pakistan helped China get a seat at the UN
and tried to keep the west from escalating in Vietnam.  
The smoldering sound of the lava sizzles underneath the dried lava.  
When West Pakistan refused to allow East Pakistan independence,
violence between Bengalis and Biharis developed into upheaval.  
Bengalis moved to India
and India went into East Pakistan.  
Pakistan surrendered in December 1971.  
East Pakistan became independent Bangladesh

The warm light of the melted lava radiates underneath but burns.  
In 1974, India tested the Smiling Buddha,
a nuclear bomb.  
After Indira Gandhi’s conviction for election fraud in 1973,
Marxist Professor Narayan called for total revolution
and students protested all over India.  
With food shortages, inflation and regional disputes
like Sikh separatists training in Pakistan for an independent Punjab,
peasants and laborers joined the protests.  
Railway strikes stopped the economy.  
In 1975, Indira Gandhi, the Iron Lady,
declared an Emergency,
imprisoning political opponents, restricting freedoms and restricting the press,
claiming threats to national security
because the war with Pakistan had just ended.  
The federal government took over Kerala’s communist dominated government and others.  

My mom could’ve been a dandelion, but she’s more like thistle.  
She has the center that dries and flutters in the wind,
beautiful and silky,
spiny and prickly,
but still fluffy, downy,
A daisy.
They say thistle saved Scotland from the Norse.  
Magma from the volcano explodes
and the streams of magma fly into the air.  
In the late 60s,
the civil rights movement rose
against the state in Northern Ireland
for depriving Catholics
of influence and opportunity.
The Northern Irish police,
Protestant and unionist, anti-catholic,
responded violently to the protests and it got worse.  
In 1969, the British placed Arthur Young,
who had worked at the Federation of Malaya
at the time of their Emergency
at the head of the British military in Northern Ireland.
The British military took control over the police,
a counter insurgency rather than a police force,
crowd control, house searches, interrogation, and street patrols,
use of force against suspects and uncooperative citizens.  
Political crimes were tolerated by Protestants but not Catholics.  
The lava burns the rock off the edge of the volcano.  

On January 30, 1972, ****** Sunday,  
British Army policing killed 13 unarmed protesters
fighting for their rights over their neighborhood,
protesting the internment of suspected nationalists.
That led to protests across Ireland.  
When banana leaves are warmed,
oil from the banana leaves flavors the food.  
My dad flew from Canada to India in February 1972.  
On February 4, my dad met my mom.  
On February 11, 1972,
my dad married my mom.  
They went to Canada,
a quartz singing bowl and a wooden mallet wrapped in suede.  
The rock goes down with the lava, breaking through the rocks as it goes down.  
In March 1972, the British government took over
because they considered the Royal Ulster Police and the Ulster Special Constabulary
to be causing most of the violence.  
The lava blocks and reroutes streams,
melts snow and ice,
flooding.  
Days later, there’s still smoke, red.  
My mom could wear the clothes she liked
without being judged
with my dad in Canada.  
She didn’t like asking my dad for money.
My dad, the copper helping my mother use that iron,
wanted her to go to college and finish her bachelors degree.
She got a job.  
In 1976, the police took over again in Northern Ireland
but they were a paramilitary force—
armored SUVs, bullet proof jackets, combat ready
with the largest computerized surveillance system in the UK,
high powered weapons,
trained in counter insurgency.  
Many people were murdered by the police
and few were held accountable.  
Most of the murdered people were not involved in violence or crime.  
People were arrested under special emergency powers
for interrogation and intelligence gathering.  
People tried were tried in non-jury courts.  
My mom learned Malayalam in India
but didn’t speak well until living with my dad.  
She also learned to cook after getting married.  
Her mother sent her recipes; my dad cooked for her—
turmeric, cumin, coriander, cayenne and green chiles.  
Having lived in different countries,
my mom’s food was exposed to many cultures,
Chinese and French.
Ground rock, minerals and glass
covered the ground
from the ash plume.  
She liked working.  

A volcano erupted for 192 years,
an ice age,
disordered ices, deformed under pressure
and ordered ice crystals, brittle in the ice core records.  
My mother liked working.  
Though Khomeini was in exile by the 1970s in Iran,
more people, working and poor,
turned to him and the ****-i-Ulama for help.
My mom didn’t want kids though my dad did.
She agreed and in 1978 my brother was born.
Iran modernized but agriculture and industry changed so quickly.  
In January 1978, students protested—
censorship, surveillance, harassment, illegal detention and torture.  
Young people and the unemployed joined.  
My parents moved to the United States in December 1978.  
The regime used a lot of violence against the protesters,
and in September 1978 declared martial law in Iran.  
Troops were shooting demonstrators.
In January 1979, the Shah and his family fled.  
On February 11, 1979, my parents’ anniversary,
the Iranian army declared neutrality.  
I was born in July 1979.
The chromium in emeralds and rubies colors them.
My brother was born in May and I was born in July.

Obsidian—
iron, copper and chromium—
isn’t a gas
but it isn’t a crystal;
it’s between the two,
the ordered crystal and the disordered gas.  
They made swords out of obsidian.  





Warm Light Shatters

The eruption beatifies the magma.  
It becomes obsidian,
only breaks with a fracture,
smooth circles where it breaks.  

My dad was born on a large flat rock on the edge of the top
of a hill,
Molasses, sweet and dark, the potent flavor dominates,
His father, the son of a Brahmin,
His mother from a lower caste.
His father’s family wouldn’t touch him,
He grew up in his mother’s mother’s house on a farm.  
I have the same brown hyperpigmentation spot on my right hand that he has.

In 1901, D’Arcy bought a 60 year concession for oil exploration In Iran.
The Iranian government extended it for another 32 years in 1933.
At that time oil was Iran’s “main source of income.”
In 1917’s Balfour Declaration, the British government proclaimed that they favored a national home for the Jews in Palestine and their “best endeavors to facilitate the achievement” of that.

The British police were in charge of policing in the mandate of Palestine.  A lot of the policemen they hired were people who had served in the British army before, during the Irish War for Independence.  
The army tried to stop how violent the police were, police used torture and brutality, some that had been used during the Irish War for Independence, like having prisoners tied to armored cars and locomotives and razing the homes of people in prison or people they thought were related to people thought to be rebels.
The police hired Arab police and Jewish police for lower level policing,
Making local people part of the management.
“Let Arab police beat up Arabs and Jewish police beat up Jews.”

The lava blocks and reroutes streams, melts snow and ice, flooding.
In 1922, there were 83,000 Jews, 71,000 Christians, and 589,000 Muslims.
The League If Nations endorsed the British Mandate.
During an emergency, in the 1930s, British regulations allowed collective punishment, punishing villages for incidents.
Local officers in riots often deserted and also shared intelligence with their own people.
The police often stole, destroyed property, tortured and killed people.  
Arab revolts sapped the police power over Palestinians by 1939.

My father’s mother was from a matrilineal family.
My dad remembers tall men lining up on pay day to respectfully wait for her, 5 feet tall.  
She married again after her husband died.
A manager from a tile factory,
He spoke English so he supervised finances and correspondence.
My dad, a sunflower, loved her: she scared all the workers but exuded warmth to the people she loved.

Obsidian shields people from negative energy.
David Cargill founded the Burmah Oil Co. in 1886.
If there were problems with oil exploration in Burma and Indian government licenses, Persian oil would protect the company.  
In July 1906, many European oil companies, BP, Royal Dutch Shell and others, allied to protect against the American oil company, Standard Oil.
D’Arcy needed money because “Persian oil took three times as long to come on stream as anticipated.”
Burmah Oil Co. began the Anglo-Persian Oil Co. as a subsidiary.
Ninety-seven percent of British Petroleum was owned by Burmah Oil Co.
By 1914, the British government owned 51% of the Anglo-Persian Oil Co.  
Anglo-Persian acquired independence from Burmah Oil and Royal Dutch Shell with two million pounds from the British government.

The lava burns the rock off the edge of the volcano.
In 1942, after the Japanese took Burma,
the British destroyed their refineries before leaving.
The United Nations had to find other sources of oil.
In 1943, Japan built the Burma-Thailand Railroad with forced labor from the Malay peninsula who were mostly from the rubber plantations.

The rock goes down with the lava, breaking through the rocks as it goes down.
In 1945. Japan destroyed their refineries before leaving Burma.
Cargill, Watson and Whigham were on the Burmah Oil Co. Board and then the Anglo Iranian Oil Co. Board.  

In 1936 Palestine, boycotts, work stoppages, and violence against British police officials and soldiers compelled the government to appoint an investigatory commission.  
Leaders of Egypt, Trans Jordan, Syria and Iraq helped end the work stoppages.
The British government had the Peel Commission read letters, memoranda, and petitions and speak with British officials, Jews and Arabs.  
The Commission didn’t believe that Arabs and Jews could live together in a single Jewish state.
Because of administrative and financial difficulties the Colonial Secretary stated that to split Palestine into Arab and Jewish states was impracticable.  
The Commission recommended transitioning 250,000 Arabs and 1500 Jews with British control over their oil pipeline, their naval base and Jerusalem.  
The League of Nations approved.
“It will not remove the grievance nor prevent the recurrence,” Lord Peel stated after.
The Arab uprising was much more militant after Peel.  Thousands of Arabs were wounded, ten thousand were detained.  
In Sykes-Picot and the Husain McMahon agreements, the British promised the Arabs an independent state but they did not keep that promise.  
Representatives from the Arab states rejected the Peel recommendations.
United Nations General Assembly Resolution181 partitioned Palestine into Arab and Jewish states with an international regime for the city of Jerusalem backed by the United States and the Soviet Union.  

The Israeli Yishuv had strong military and intelligence organization —-  
the British recognized that their interest was with the Arabs and abstained from the vote.  
In 1948, Israel declared the establishment of its state.  
Ground rock, minerals, and gas covered the ground from the ash plume.
The Palestinian police force was disbanded and the British gave officers the option of serving in Malaya.

Though Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy supported snd tried to get Israel to offer the Arabs concessions, it wasn’t a major priority and didn’t always approve of Israel’s plans.
Arabs that had supported the British to end Turkish rule stopped supporting the West.  
Many Palestinians joined left wing groups and violent third world movements.  
Seventy-eight percent of the territory of former Palestine was under Israel’s control.  

My dad left for college in 1957 and lived in an apartment above the United States Information services office.
Because he graduated at the top of his class, he was given a job with the public works department of the government on the electricity board.  
“Once in, you’ll never leave.”
When he wanted a job where he could do real work, his father was upset.
He broke the chains with bells for vespers.
He got a job in Calcutta at Kusum Products and left the government, though it was prestigious to work there.
In the chemical engineering division, one of the projects he worked on was to design a *** distillery, bells controlled by hammers, hammers controlled by a keyboard.
His boss worked in the United Kingdom for. 20 years before the company he worked at, part of Power Gas Corporation, asked him to open a branch in Calcutta.
He opened the branch and convinced an Industrialist to open a company doing the same work with him.  The branch he opened closed after that.  
My dad applied for labor certification to work abroad and was selected.  
His boss wrote a reference letter for my him to the company he left in the UK.  My dad sent it telling the company when he was leaving for the UK.  
The day he left for London, he got the letter they sent in the mail telling him to take the train to Sheffield the next day and someone from the firm would meet him at the station.  
His dad didn’t know he left, he didn’t tell him.
He broke the chains with chimes for schisms.


Anglo-Persian Oil became Anglo-Iranian Oil in 1935.
The British government used oil and Anglo-Persian oil to fight communism, have a stronger relationship with the United States and make the United Kingdom more powerful.  
The National Secularists, the Tudeh, and the Communists wanted to nationalize Iran’s oil and mobilized the Iranian people.
The British feared nationalization in Iran would incite political parties like the Secular Nationalists all over the world.  
In 1947, the Iranian government passed the Single Article Law that “[increased] investment In welfare benefits, health, housing, education, and implementation of Iranianization through substitution of foreigners” at Anglo-Iranian Oil Co.
“Anglo-Iranian Oil Company made more profit in 1950 than it paid to the Iranian government in royalties over the previous half century.”
The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company tried to negotiate a new concession and claimed they’d hire more Iranian people into jobs held by British and people from other nationalities at the company.
Their hospitals had segregated wards.  
On May 1, 1951, the Iranian government passed a bill that nationalized Anglo- Iranian Oil Co.’s holdings.  
During the day, only the steam from the hot lava can be seen.
In August 1953, the Iranian people elected Mossadegh from the Secular Nationalist Party as prime minister.
The British government with the CIA overthrew Mossadegh using the Iranian military after inducing protests and violent demonstrations.  
Anglo-Iranian Oil changed its name to British Petroleum in 1954.
Iranians believe that America destroyed Iran’s “last chance for democracy” and blamed America for Iran’s autocracy, its human rights abuses, and secret police.

The smoldering sound of the lava sizzles underneath the dried lava.  
In 1946, Executive Yuan wanted control over 4 groups of Islands in the South China Sea to have a stronger presence there:  the Paracels, the Spratlys, Macclesfield Bank, and the Pratas.
The French forces in the South China Sea would have been stronger than the Chinese Navy then.
French Naval forces were in the Gulf of Tonkin, U.S. forces were in the Taiwan Strait, the British were in Hong Kong, and the Portuguese were in Macao.
In the 1950s, British snd U.S. oil companies thought there might be oil in the Spratlys.  
By 1957, French presence in the South China Sea was hardly there.  

When the volcano erupted, the lava dried at the ocean into black sand.
By 1954, the Tudeh Party’s communist movement and  intelligence organization had been destroyed.  
Because of the Shah and his government’s westernization policies and disrespectful treatment of the Ulama, Iranians began identifying with the Ulama and Khomeini rather than their government.  
Those people joined with secular movements to overthrow the Shah.  

In 1966, Ne Win seized power from U Nu in Burma.
“Soldiers ruled Burma as soldiers.”
Ne Win thought that western political
Institutions “encouraged divisions.”
Minority groups found foreign support for their separatist goals.
The Karens and the Mons supported U Nu in Bangkok.  


Rare copper, a heavy metal, no alloys,
a rock in groundwater,
conducts electricity and heat.
In 1965, my Dad’s cousin met him at Heathrow, gave him a coat and £10 and brought him to a bed and breakfast across from Charing Cross Station where he’d get the train to Sheffield the next morning.
He took the train and someone met him at the train station.  
At the interview they asked him to design a grandry girder, the main weight bearing steel girder as a test.
Iron in the inner and outer core of the earth,
He’d designed many of those.  
He was hired and lived at the YMCA for 2 1/2 years.  
He took his mother’s family name, Menon, instead of his father’s, Varma.
In 1967, he left for Canada and interviewed at Bechtel before getting hired at Seagrams.  
Iron enables blood to carry oxygen.
His boss recommended him for Dale Carnegie’s leadership training classes and my dad joined the National Instrument Society and became President.
He designed a still In Jamaica,
Ordered all the parts, nuts and bolts,
Had all the parts shipped to Jamaica and made sure they got there.
His boss supervised the construction, installation and commission in Jamaica.
Quartz, heat and fade resistant, though he was an engineer and did the work of an engineer, my dad only had the title, technician so my dad’s boss thought he wasn’t getting paid enough but couldn’t get his boss to offer more than an extra $100/week or the title of engineer; he told my dad he thought he should leave.
In 1969, he got a job at Celanese, which made rayon.
He quit Celanese to work at McGill University and they allowed him to take classes to earn his MBA while working.  

The United States and Israel’s alliance was strong by 1967.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 at the end of the Third Arab Israeli War didn’t mention the Palestinians but mentioned the refugee problem.
After 1967, the Palestinians weren’t often mentioned and when mentioned only as terrorists.  
Palestinians’ faith in the “American sponsored peace process” diminished, they felt the world community ignored and neglected them also.
Groups like MAN that stopped expecting anything from Arab regimes began hijacking airplanes.
By 1972, the Palestine Liberation Organization had enough international support to get by the United States’ veto in the United Nations Security Council and Arab League recognition as representative of the Palestinian people.
The Palestinians knew the United States stated its support, as the British had, but they weren’t able to accomplish anything.  
The force Israel exerted in Johnson’s United States policy delivered no equilibrium for the Palestinians.  

In 1969, all political parties submitted to the BSPP, Burma Socialist Programme Party.
Ne Win nationalized banks and oil and deprived minorities of opportunities.
Ne Win became U Nu Win, civilian leader of Burma in 1972 and stopped the active role that U Nu defined for Burma internationally
He put military people in power even when they didn’t have experience which triggered “maldistribution of goods and chronic shortages.”  
Resources were located in areas where separatist minorities had control.

The British presence in the South China Sea ended in 1968.  
The United States left Vietnam in 1974 and China went into the Western Paracels.
The U.S. didn’t intervene and Vietnam took the Spratlys.
China wanted to claim the continental shelf In the central part of the South China Sea and needed the Spratlys.
The United States mostly disregarded the Ulama In Iran and bewildered the Iranian people by not supporting their revolution.

Obsidian—
iron, copper and chromium—
isn’t a gas
but it isn’t a crystal;
it’s between the two,
the ordered crystal and the disordered gas.  
They made swords out of obsidian.


Edelweiss

I laid out in my backyard in my bikini.  
I love the feeling of my body in the sun.  
I’d be dark from the end of spring until winter.
The snow froze my bare feet through winter ,
my skin pale.
American towns in 1984,
Free, below glaciers the sunlight melted the snow,
a sea of green and the edelweiss on the edge of the  limestone,
frosted but still strong.    
When the spring warmed the grass,
the grass warmed my feet. 
The whole field looked cold and white from the glacier but in the meadow,
the bright yellow centers of those flowers float free in the center of the white petals.
The bright yellow center of those edelweiss scared the people my parents ran to America from India to get away from.  
On a sidewalk in Queens, New York in 1991, the men stared and yelled comments at me in short shorts and a fitted top in the summer.  
I grabbed my dad’s arm.

























The Bread and Coconut Butter of Aparigraha

Twelve year old flowerhead,
Marigold, yarrow and nettle,
I’d be all emotion
If not for all my work
From the time I was a teenager.
I got depressed a lot.
I related to people I read about
In my weather balloon,
Grasping, ignorant, and desperate,
But couldn’t relate to other twelve year olds.
After school I read Dali’s autobiography,
Young ****** Autosodomized by Her Own Chastity.
Fresh, green nettle with fresh and dried yarrow for purity.
Dead souls enticed to the altar by orange marigolds,
passion and creativity,
Coax sleep and rouse dreams.
Satellites measure indirectly with wave lengths of light.
My weather balloon measures the lower and middle levels of the atmosphere directly,
Fifty thousand feet high,
Metal rod thermometer,
Slide humidity sensor,
Canister for air pressure.

I enjoy rye bread and cold coconut butter in my weather balloon,
But I want Dali, and all the artists and writers.
Rye grows at high altitudes
But papyrus grows in soil and shallow water,
Strips of papyrus pith shucked from their stems.
When an anchor’s weighed, a ship sails,
But when grounded we sail.
Marigolds, yarrow and nettle,
Flowerhead,
I use the marigold for sleep,
The yarrow for endurance and intensity,
toiling for love and truth,
And the nettle for healing.
Strong rye bread needs equally strong flavors.
By the beginning of high school,
I read a lot of Beat literature
And found Buddhism.
I loved what I read
But I didn’t like some things.
I liked attachment.  
I got to the ground.
Mushrooms grow in dry soil.
Attachment to beauty is Buddha activity.
Not being attached to things I don’t find beautiful is Buddha activity.  
I fried mushrooms in a single layer in oil, fleshy.
I roasted mushrooms at high temperatures in the oven, crisp.
I simmered mushrooms in stock with kombu.
Rye bread with cold coconut butter and cremini mushrooms,
raw, soft and firm.  
Life continues, life changes,
Attachments, losses, mourning and suffering,
But change lures growth.
I find stream beds and wet soil.
I lay the strips of papyrus next to each other.
I cross papyrus strips over the first,
Then wet the crossed papyrus strips,
Press and cement them into a sheet.
I hammer it and dry it in the sun,
With no thought of achievement or self,
Flowerhead,
Hands filled with my past,
Head filled with the future,
Dali, artists poets,
Wishes and desires aligned with nature,
Abundance,
Cocoa, caraway, and molasses.

If I ever really like someone,
I’ll be wearing the dress he chooses,
Fresh green nettle and yarrow, the seeds take two years to grow strong,
Lasting love.
Marigolds steer dead souls from the altar to the afterlife,
Antiseptic, healing wounds,
Soothing sore throats and headaches.
Imperturbable, stable flowerhead,
I empty my mind.
When desires are aligned with nature, desire flows.
Papyrus makes paper and cloth.
Papyrus makes sails.
Charcoal from the ash of pulverized papyrus heals wounds.
Without attachment to the fruit of action
There is continuation of life,
Rye bread and melted coconut butter,
The coconut tree in the coconut butter,
The seed comes from the ground out of nothing,
Naturalness.
It has form.
As the seed grows the seed expresses the tree,
The seed expresses the coconut,
The seed expresses the coconut butter.
Rye bread, large open hollows, chambers,
Immersed in melted coconut butter,
Desire for expansion and creation,
No grasping, not desperate.
When the mind is compassion, the mind is boundless.
Every moment,
only that,
Every moment,
a scythe to the papyrus in the stream bed of the past.  

































Sound on Powdery Blue

Potter’s clay, nymph, plum unplumbed, 1993.
Dahlia, ice, powder, musk and rose,
my source of life emerged in darkness, blackness.
Seashell fragments in the sand,
The glass ball of my life cracked inside,
Light reflected off the salt crystal cracks,
Nacre kept those cracks from getting worse.
Young ****** Autosodomized By Her Own Chastity,
Nymph, I didn’t want to give my body,
Torn, *****, ballgown,
To people who wouldn’t understand me,
Piquant.

Outside on the salt flats,
Aphrodite, goddess of beauty, pleasure and fertility and
Asexual Artemis, goddess of animals, and the hunt,
Mistress of nymphs,
Punish with ruthless savagery.

In my bedroom, blue caribou moss covered rocks, pine, and yew trees,
The heartwood writhes as hurricane gales, twisters and whirlwinds
Contort their bark,
Roots strong in the soil.
Orris root dried in the sun, bulbs like wood.
Dahlia runs to baritone soundbath radio waves.
Light has frequencies,
Violet between blue and invisible ultraviolet,
Flame, slate and flint.
Every night is cold.

Torii gates, pain secured as sacred.
An assignation, frost hardy dahlia and a plangent resonant echo.
High frequency sound waves convert to electrical signals,
Breathe from someone I want,
Silt.
Beam, radiate, ensorcel.
I break the bark,
Sap flows and dries,
Resin seals over the tear.
I distill pine,
Resin and oil for turpentine, a solvent.
Quiver, bemired,
I lead sound into my darkness,
Orris butter resin, sweet and warm,
Hot jam drops on snow drops,
Orange ash on smoke,
Balm on lava,
The problem with cotton candy.

Electrical signals give off radiation or light waves,
The narrow frequency range where
The crest of a radio wave and the crest of a light wave overlap,
Infrared.
Glaciers flow, sunlight melts the upper layers of the snow when strong,
A wet snow avalanche,
A torrent, healing.
Brown sugar and whiskey,
Undulant, lavender.
Pine pitch, crystalline, sticky, rich and golden,
And dried pine rosin polishes glass smooth
Like the smell of powdery orris after years.
Softness, flush, worthy/not worthy,
Rich rays thunder,
Intensify my pulse,
Frenzied red,
Violet between blue and invisible ultraviolet.
Babylon—flutter, glow.
Unquenchable cathartic orris.  

















Pink Graphite

Camellias, winter shrubs,
Their shallow roots grow beneath the spongy caribou moss,
Robins egg blue.
After writing a play with my gifted students program in 1991,
I stopped spending all my free time writing short stories,
But the caribou moss was still soft.

In the cold Arctic of that town,
The evergreen protected the camellias from the afternoon sun and storms.
They branded hardy camellias with a brass molded embossing iron;
I had paper and graphite for my pencils.

After my ninth grade honors English teacher asked us to write poems in 1994,
It began raining.
We lived on an overhang.
A vertical rise to the top of the rock.
The rainstorm caused a metamorphic change in the snowpack,
A wet snow avalanche drifted slowly down the moss covered rock,
The snow already destabilized by exposure to the sunlight.

The avalanche formed lakes,
rock basins washed away with rainwater and melted snow,
Streams dammed by the rocks.  
My pencils washed away in the avalanche,
My clothes heavy and cold.
I wove one side of each warp fiber through the eye of the needle and one side through each slot,
Salves, ointments, serums and tinctures.
I was mining for graphite.
They were mining me,
The only winch, the sound through the water.

A steep staircase to the red Torii gates,
I broke the chains with bells for vespers
And chimes for schisms,
And wove the weft across at right angles to the warp.  

On a rocky ledge at the end of winter,
The pink moon, bitters and body butter,
They tried to get  me to want absinthe,
Wormwood for bitterness and regret.
Heat and pressure formed carbon for flakes of graphite.
Heat and pressure,
I made bitters,
Brandy, grapefruit, chocolate, mandarin rind, tamarind and sugar.
I grounded my feet in the pink moss,
paper dried in one hand,
and graphite for my pencils in the other.  



































Flakes

I don’t let people that put me down be part of my life.  
Gardens and trees,
My shadow sunk in the grass in my yard
As I ate bread, turmeric and lemon.
Carbon crystallizes into graphite flakes.
I write to see well,
Graphite on paper.  
A shadow on rock tiles with a shield, a diamond and a bell
Had me ***** to humiliate me.
Though I don’t let people that put me down near me,
A lot of people putting me down seemed like they were following me,
A platform to jump from
While she had her temple.  

There was a pink door to the platform.
I ate bread with caramelized crusts and
Drank turmeric lemonade
Before I opened that door,
Jumped and
Descended into blankets and feathers.
I found matches and rosin
For turpentine to clean,
Dried plums and licorice.  

In the temple,
In diamonds, leather, wool and silk,
She had her shield and bells,
Drugs and technology,
Thermovision 210 and Minox,
And an offering box where people believed
That if their coins went in
Their wishes would come true.

Hollyhock and smudging charcoal for work,  
Belled,
I ground grain in the mill for the bread I baked for breakfast.
The bells are now communal bells
With a watchtower and a prison,
Her shield, a blowtorch and flux,
Her ex rays, my makeshift records
Because Stalin didn’t like people dancing,
He liked them divebombing.
Impurities in the carbon prevent diamonds from forming,
Measured,
The most hard, the most expensive,
But graphite’s soft delocalized electrons move.  






































OCEAN BED

The loneliness of going to sleep by myself.  
I want a bed that’s high off the ground,
a mattress, an ocean.
I want a crush and that  person in my bed.  
Only that,
a crush in my bed,
an ocean in my bed.  
Just love.  
But I sleep with my thumbs sealed.  
I sleep with my hands, palms up.  
I sleep with my hands at my heart.  
They sear my compassion with their noise.  
They hold their iron over their fire and try to carve their noise into my love,
scored by the violence of voices, dark and lurid,  
but not burned.  
I want a man in my bed.  
When I wake up in an earthquake
I want to be held through the aftershocks.  
I like men,
the waves come in and go out
but the ocean was part of my every day.  
I don’t mind being fetishized in the ocean.  
I ran by the ocean every morning.  
I surfed in the ocean.  
I should’ve gone into the ocean that afternoon at Trestles,
holding my water jugs, kneeling at the edge.  














Morning

I want to fall asleep in the warm arms of a fireman.  
I want to wake up to the smell of coffee in my kitchen.  

Morning—the molten lava in the outer core of the earth embeds the iron from the inner core into the earth’s magnetic field.  
The magnetic field flips.  
The sun, so strong, where it gets through the trees it burns everything but the pine.  
The winds change direction.  
Storms cast lightening and rain.  
Iron conducts solar flares and the heavy wind.  
In that pine forest, I shudder every time I see a speck of light for fear of neon and fluorescents.  The eucalyptus cleanses congestion.  
And Kerouac’s stream ululates, crystal bowl sound baths.  
I follow the sound to the water.  
The stream ends at a bluff with a thin rocky beach below.  
The green water turns black not far from the shore.  
Before diving into the ocean, I eat globe mallow from the trees, stems and leaves, the viscous flesh, red, soft and nutty.  
I distill the pine from one of the tree’s bark and smudge the charcoal over my skin.  

Death, the palo santo’s lit, cleansing negative energy.  
It’s been so long since I’ve smelled a man, woodsmoke, citrus and tobacco.  
Jasmine, plum, lime and tuberose oil on the base of my neck comforts.  
Parabolic chambers heal, sound waves through water travel four times faster.  
The sound of the open sea recalibrates.  
I dissolve into the midnight blue of the ocean.  

I want to fall asleep in the warm arms of a fireman.  
I want to wake up to the smell of coffee in my kitchen.  
I want hot water with coconut oil when I get up.  
We’d lay out on the lawn, surrounded by high trees that block the wind.  
Embers flying through the air won’t land in my yard, on my grass, or near my trees.  





Blue Paper

Haze scatters blue light on a planet.  
Frought women, livid, made into peonies by Aphrodites that caught their men flirting and blamed the women, flushed red.
and blamed the women, flushed red.
Frought women, livid, chrysanthemums, dimmed until the end of the season, exchanged and retained like property.  
Blue women enter along the sides of her red Torii gates, belayed, branded and belled, a plangent sound.  
By candles, colored lights and dried flowers she’s sitting inside on a concrete floor, punctures and ruin burnished with paper, making burnt lime from lime mortar.  
Glass ***** on the ceiling, she moves the beads of a Palestinian glass bead bracelet she holds in her hands.  
She bends light to make shadows against  thin wooden slats curbed along the wall, and straight across the ceiling.
A metier, she makes tinctures, juniper berries and cotton *****.
Loamy soil in the center of the room,
A hawthorn tree stands alone,
A gateway for fairies.
large stones at the base protecting,
It’s branches a barrier.  
It’s leaves and shoots make bread and cheese.
It’s berries, red skin and yellow flesh, make jam.
Green bamboo stakes for the peonies when they whither from the weight of their petals.
And lime in the soil.  
She adds wood chips to the burnt lime in the kiln,
Unrolled paper, spools, and wire hanging.
Wood prayer beads connect her to the earth,
The tassels on the end of the beads connect her to spirit, to higher truth.
Minerals, marine mud and warm basins of seawater on a flower covered desk.  
She adds slaked lime to the burnt lime and wood chips.  
The lime converts to paper,
Trauma victims speak,
Light through butterfly wings.  
She’s plumeria with curved petals, thick, holding water

my tears aren’t forced
they flow in that
dark tunnel that she
dreamed so long ago
she wasn’t ready
to take her first steps
I wasn’t ready to
take mine without her.
Little things bring her back
like empty bowls or the tower
of books she’s never going to read.
People have been calling this a
trauma, but they’ve forgotten the
loneliness of life’s journey. She dreamed
a tunnel and added bright lights
and dusted the floor with powdery snow
she traveled far yet I can
only see the trails of
milk puddling around the lost key that she
dropped under blankets
of memory and phrases of
I-promise and tomorrow. I’m growing up as
she falls down. She wasn’t
perfect but that’s why it
was so easy to love her.
My journey’s ongoing, and the
deep undercurrents of pain and
grief are pulling me through
that tunnel.
I’m rowing softly by,
quietly, quietly,
as she is laid to rest.
her memories swallow the emptiness
she is kneeling at the throne.
I follow slowly and leave my
tears for her to know that life’s
path isn’t paved in water but
with sorrow, with endings, and with lost
boats on turbid seas.

it is 9:24
and the
insecurities of you haunt me
like gray skied-snowflakes
I wish I could crush them
in my yellow-white teeth
till they are powdery
turned into a powerless narcotic
diet soda tastes sweeter
than regular
spilling onto the seat of the car
I ordered it anyway
it's raining and there are
diet coke kisses on my
tongue
cloudy raindrops on
my forehead
dandelions in
my eyes

i want you to beat me up
real bad
please please let me bleed completely
before infancy clots at the back of my mind
don't wait for me to be tired
break me all at once
grind my feelings into a powdery mess
so that when someone enters our bedroom they slip on the floor and see a stretch mark-ed ceiling
to not know pain but just how ironical numbness is
                      and then hug me
like you would a voodoo soft toy
with the scratched leather wings
of a bewitched witch who has seen it all sober
but still can't tell a sheep's wool from snakeskin
caress my dilapidated knees
without once telling me to stand up on my own or for myself
all i want from you is
to **** me at dawn
i'll know that i was loved
enough or.... at least.

(1)

This is the sea, then, this great abeyance.
How the sun's poultice draws on my inflammation.

Electrifyingly-colored sherbets, scooped from the freeze
By pale girls, travel the air in scorched hands.

Why is it so quiet, what are they hiding?
I have two legs, and I move smilingly..

A sandy damper kills the vibrations;
It stretches for miles, the shrunk voices

Waving and crutchless, half their old size.
The lines of the eye, scalded by these bald surfaces,

Boomerang like anchored elastics, hurting the owner.
Is it any wonder he puts on dark glasses?

Is it any wonder he affects a black cassock?
Here he comes now, among the mackerel gatherers

Who wall up their backs against him.
They are handling the black and green lozenges like the parts of a body.

The sea, that crystallized these,
Creeps away, many-snaked, with a long hiss of distress.

                (2)

This black boot has no mercy for anybody.
Why should it, it is the hearse of a dad foot,

The high, dead, toeless foot of this priest
Who plumbs the well of his book,

The bent print bulging before him like scenery.
Obscene bikinis hid in the dunes,

******* and hips a confectioner's sugar
Of little crystals, titillating the light,

While a green pool opens its eye,
Sick with what it has swallowed----

Limbs, images, shrieks.  Behind the concrete bunkers
Two lovers unstick themselves.

O white sea-crockery,
What cupped sighs, what salt in the throat....

And the onlooker, trembling,
Drawn like a long material

Through a still virulence,
And a ****, hairy as privates.

                (3)

On the balconies of the hotel, things are glittering.
Things, things----

Tubular steel wheelchairs, aluminum crutches.
Such salt-sweetness.  Why should I walk

Beyond the breakwater, spotty with barnacles?
I am not a nurse, white and attendant,

I am not a smile.
These children are after something, with hooks and cries,

And my heart too small to bandage their terrible faults.
This is the side of a man:  his red ribs,

The nerves bursting like trees, and this is the surgeon:
One mirrory eye----

A facet of knowledge.
On a striped mattress in one room

An old man is vanishing.
There is no help in his weeping wife.

Where are the eye-stones, yellow and valuable,
And the tongue, sapphire of ash.

                (4)

A wedding-cake face in a paper frill.
How superior he is now.

It is like possessing a saint.
The nurses in their wing-caps are no longer so beautiful;

They are browning, like touched gardenias.
The bed is rolled from the wall.

This is what it is to be complete.  It is horrible.
Is he wearing pajamas or an evening suit

Under the glued sheet from which his powdery beak
Rises so whitely unbuffeted?

They propped his jaw with a book until it stiffened
And folded his hands, that were shaking:  goodbye, goodbye.

Now the washed sheets fly in the sun,
The pillow cases are sweetening.

It is a blessing, it is a blessing:
The long coffin of soap-colored oak,

The curious bearers and the raw date
Engraving itself in silver with marvelous calm.

                (5)

The gray sky lowers, the hills like a green sea
Run fold upon fold far off, concealing their hollows,

The hollows in which rock the thoughts of the wife----
Blunt, practical boats

Full of dresses and hats and china and married daughters.
In the parlor of the stone house

One curtain is flickering from the open window,
Flickering and pouring, a pitiful candle.

This is the tongue of the dead man:  remember, remember.
How far he is now, his actions

Around him like living room furniture, like a décor.
As the pallors gather----

The pallors of hands and neighborly faces,
The elate pallors of flying iris.

They are flying off into nothing:  remember us.
The empty benches of memory look over stones,

Marble facades with blue veins, and jelly-glassfuls of daffodils.
It is so beautiful up here:  it is a stopping place.

                (6)

The natural fatness of these lime leaves!----
Pollarded green *****, the trees march to church.

The voice of the priest, in thin air,
Meets the corpse at the gate,

Addressing it, while the hills roll the notes of the dead bell;
A glittler of wheat and crude earth.

What is the name of that color?----
Old blood of caked walls the sun heals,

Old blood of limb stumps, burnt hearts.
The widow with her black pocketbook and three daughters,

Necessary among the flowers,
Enfolds her lace like fine linen,

Not to be spread again.
While a sky, wormy with put-by smiles,

Passes cloud after cloud.
And the bride flowers expend a freshness,

And the soul is a bride
In a still place, and the groom is red and forgetful, he is featureless.

                (7)

Behind the glass of this car
The world purrs, shut-off and gentle.

And I am dark-suited and still, a member of the party,
Gliding up in low gear behind the cart.

And the priest is a vessel,
A tarred fabric, sorry and dull,

Following the coffin on its flowery cart like a beautiful woman,
A crest of *******, eyelids and lips

Storming the hilltop.
Then, from the barred yard, the children

Smell the melt of shoe-blacking,
Their faces turning, wordless and slow,

Their eyes opening
On a wonderful thing----

Six round black hats in the grass and a lozenge of wood,
And a naked mouth, red and awkward.

For a minute the sky pours into the hole like plasma.
There is no hope, it is given up.

Those shortcakes tallest skyrocket
His pocket, a poem mountain
top setting words whip cream
Him and her fountain sunset love
Above all "Strawberry pie" dream
The oven overloved to trust
Or underbaked the pie crust

One bite the skywriting
Told her I love you
My strawberry eye patch
Powdery her lips "Smuckers" rich
Her strawberry sky velvet sigh
Strawberry field forever lake
Her cheeks like a piece of cake
The Prom with Tom what a Sawyer
The true love strawberry buyer

Potter’s clay, nymph, plum unplumbed, 1993.
Dahlia, ice, powder, musk and rose.
My source of life emerged in darkness, blackness.
Seashell fragments in the sand that makes glass,
The glass ball of my life,
Cracked inside,
Light reflected off the salt crystal cracks,
Nacre kept those cracks from getting worse.
Young ****** Autosodomized By Her Own Chastity,
Nymph, I didn’t want to give my body,
Torn, *****, ballgown,
To people who wouldn’t understand me,
Piquant.

Outside on the salt flats,
Aphrodite, goddess of beauty, pleasure and fertility and
Asexual Artemis, goddess of animals, and the hunt,
Mistress of nymphs,
Punish with ruthless savagery.

In my bedroom, blue caribou moss covered rocks, pine, and yew trees,
The heartwood writhes as hurricane gales, twisters and whirlwinds
Contort their bark,
Roots strong in the soil.
Orris root dried in the sun, bulbs like wood.
Dahlia runs to baritone soundbath radio waves.
Light has frequencies,
Violet between blue and invisible ultraviolet,
Flame, slate and flint.
Every night is cold.

Torii gates, pain secured as sacred.
An assignation, frost hardy dahlia and a plangent resonant echo.
High frequency sound waves convert to electrical signals,
Breathe from someone I want,
Silt.
Beam, radiate, ensorcel.
I break the bark,
Sap flows and dries,
Resin seals over the tear.
I distill pine,
Resin and oil for turpentine, a solvent.
Quiver, bemired,
I lead sound into my darkness,
Orris butter resin, sweet and warm,
Hot jam drops on snow drops,
Orange ash on smoke,
Balm on lava,
The problem with cotton candy.

Electrical signals give off radiation or light waves,
The narrow frequency range where
The crest of a radio wave and the crest of a light wave overlap,
Infrared.
Glaciers flow, sunlight melts the upper layers of the snow when strong,
A wet snow avalanche,
A torrent, healing.
Brown sugar and whiskey,
Undulant, lavender.
Pine pitch, crystalline, sticky, rich and golden,
And dried pine rosin polishes glass smooth
Like the smell of powdery orris after years.
Softness, flush, worthy/not worthy,
Rich rays thunder,
Intensify my pulse,
Frenzied red,
Violet between blue and invisible ultraviolet.
Babylon—flutter, glow.
Unquenchable cathartic orris.

There is a girl
on a bench in the park
at the edge of the town.
She is young.
Little ringlets of copper brown
frame her delicate face.
Wide eyes of the purest sky blue
scan the trees.
She is looking for something.

She stands up
and straightens her skirt.
Her legs shiver,
and her socks grow heavy with water.
Nobody is around to question her,
about why she's out in the snowstorm.
She wouldn't answer anyway;
she's too focused.
She is looking for something.

Cautious steps now.
The ground is slippery with ice.
Her boots do not hold
because they are too worn from walking.
Finally she reaches it,
the edge of the sidewalk.
She peers intently into the grove.
Her blue eyes narrow.
She is looking for something.

All is silent,
except for the flurries of snow.
Before long there is a blanket on the ground.
It is thick powdery snow.
It collects in her boots and on her scarf,
and she shudders as the ice
presses against her porcelain skin.
But she is silent, focused.
She is looking for something.

After a moment,
she steps back and sighs.
There is a slight smile on her lips.
Her nose is red and drippy with cold.
Still, she is silent,
though not by choice.
She has no one to talk with.
It's barren.
She has found what she was looking for.

What it was I can't say.
Either I don't know,
or it's not my place,
or you could ask her yourself.
But there is a girl
on a bench in the park
at the edge of town,
and she is happy.

eyeglasses nestled in the fluffy snow
frosted, with a single crack
bouncing winter sun off my tarnished window
a glint of hidden history from below
it sent me on a journey way, way back

a memory of reflected light
off a tree lined lake where i swam as a child
all day until the moon gave birth to night
and the sky was black with pinholes of white
a remembrance long ago filed

delivered back to me by a frozen emissary
whose lenses are no longer fit for eyes
whose rounded frames are a bit ordinary
but found one final way to be visionary
as a door unlocked by a cold, powdery sunrise

on this rumbling
              stretch of tundra
                  no trees reach up
                     to soothe the sky
                     there is a pulling down
                  of wind tunnel vortex
               like conifers in reverse
          an icy howl
in the bonechill
               of time
Translucent holes,
         perfectly round, are dug
                in glacial archeology
                  and in the sea below
               gelid creatures lurk,
           half-frozen
         in the history of my
                                        soul
Only moss and lichens
grow on the rock,
somehow softening the
rugged textures
of the wild landscapes
that seethe
          just beneath my skin
and there, just
shy of the surface
is a quickening
a subtle pulse of veins
that pumps life
between the gales of
my heart's steppes
flushing out
           the pain
somewhere
deep
      within the private lotus
of my being
folioles unfurl
leafy shapes around
my organs
wrapping them like gifts
          as they undulate in whorls
opening my petals
in renewed consciousness
and deliberation
as a new kind of  
           stamen
                rises
    dusty pollen
powdery
budding ripeness
       bursting up
       and out
   of my deepest
       centered
whirlpool pistil
nectar dripping
in viscous webs,
to be caught upon
the tongue of
a new dawning
My silky outer
wings of vegetation,
slender stalks of
          filaments and anther
have been turned
into hot steel
They protect
    the tender vulnerable
                   when burned
as poison words held up to my
watchful eyes,
                   are properly discerned
I give myself over
to this new power,
my back arched to fully embrace
what is to come,
a universe calling thunder,
the old patterns undone
I am ready
to reveal my all
as the goddess deep within
comes to release my gold
suffusing light through skin
conjured from me
a relentless strength,
ever-growing,
                now tenfold
rising way past
soft-lit stratospheres
and orbiting
               to
                 bold

My mother raised me under the belief that monotony was a worse state than death and she lived her life accordingly. She taught me to do the same. About five years ago, my mother died. Her death steered my course from any sort of seated, settled life and into a spiral of new experiences.
For months after she left, I skulked about each day feeling slumped and cynical and finding everything and everyone coated in the sickly metallic taste of loss. I noticed that without her I had allowed myself to settle into a routine of mourning. I pitied myself, knowing what she would have thought.  Life was already so different without her there and I couldn’t continue with life as if nothing had happened, so I jumped from my stagnancy in attempts to forget my mother’s name and to destroy the mundane just like she had taught me to. I had to learn how to live again, and I wanted to find something that would always be there if she wouldn’t. I had a purpose. I tried to start anew and drown myself in change by throwing all that I knew to the wind and leaving my life behind.

I was running away from the fact that she had died for a long time. When I first picked up and left, I befriended the ocean and for many months I soaked my sorrows in salt water and *****, hoping to forget. I repressed my thoughts. Mom’s Gone would paint the inside of my mind and I would cover it up with parties and Polynesian women.
I was the sand on the shores of Tahiti, living on the waves of my own freedom. A freedom I had borrowed from nature. A gift that had been given to me by my birth, by my mother. I tried to lose myself in those waves and they treated me with limited respect. More often than not, they kicked me up against their black walls of water. They were made of such immense freedom that many times made me scream and **** my pants in fear, but they shoved loads that fear into my arms and forced me to eventually overcome the burden.
As time slipped by unnoticed, I created routine around the unpredictability of the tides and the cycle of developing alcoholism. One night after a full day of making love to the Tahitian waters, my buddies and I celebrated the big waves by filling our aching bodies with a good bit of Bourbon. By morning time, a good bit of Bourbon had become a fog of drink after drink of not-so-good *****? Gin maybe? I awoke to the sight of the godly sunrise glinting off of the wet beach around me, pitying my trouser-less hungover self. With sand in every orifice, I took a swim to wash me of the night before. I floated on my back in silence while the birds taunted me. I felt the ocean fill every nook and cranny of my body, each pulse of my heartbeat sending ripples through it. My heart was the moon that pressed the waves of my freedom onward and it was sore for different waters. The ache for elsewhere was coming back, and the hole she left in my gut that was once filled with Tahiti was now almost gaping. It had been a beautiful ride in Tahiti but I had not found solace, only distraction. The currents were shifting towards something new.
She had always said that the mountains brought her a solace that she never felt in church. They were her place to pray and they were the gods that fulfilled her. She told me this under the sheets at bedtime as if it were her biggest secret. I had delusional hope that she might be somewhere, she might not be gone. I thought if I would find her anywhere it would be there, up in the clouds on the highest peaks.
The next day, I was on the plane back to the States where I would gather gear. The mountains had called and left a needy voicemail, so I told them I was on my way.

In Bozeman, the home I had run from when I left, every street and friend was a reminder of my childhood and of her. I was only there to trade out my dive mask for my goggles. I had sold most of my stuff and had no house, apartment, or any place of residence to return to except for a small public storage unit where I’d stashed the rest of my goods. Almost everything I owned was kept in a roomy 25 square foot space, the rest was in my duffel. I’d left my pick-up in the hands of my good man, Max, and he returned her to me *****, gleaming, and with the tank full. I took her down to the storage yard and opened my unit to see that everything remained untouched. Beautifully, gracefully, precariously piled just as it was when I left. I transitioned what I carried in my duffel from surf to snow. I made my trades: flip flops for boots, bare chest for base layers, board shorts for snow pants, and of course, board for skis. Ah, my skis… sweet and tender pieces of soulful engineering, how I missed them. They still suffered core-shots and scratches from last season. I embraced them like the old friends they were.
I loaded up the pick-up with all the necessities and hit the road before anyone could give me condolences for a loss I didn’t want to believe. I could not stray from my path to forget her or find her or figure out how to live again. I did not know exactly what I wanted but I could not let myself hear my mother’s name. She was not a constant; that was now true.  

My truck made it half way there and across the Canadian border before I had to set her free. She had been my stallion for some time, but her miles got the best of her. It was only another loss, another betrayal of constancy. I walked with everything on my back until I eventually thumbed my way to the edge of the wild forest beneath the mountains that I had dreamt of. They were looming ahead but I swore I caught a whiff of hope in their cool breeze.
With skis and skins strapped to my feet, I took off into the wilderness. My eyes were peeled looking for something more than myself, and I found some things. There were icy streams and a few fattened birds and hidden rocks and tracks from wolves and barks of their pups off in the distance. But what I found within all of these things was just the constant reminder of my own loneliness.
I spent the days pushing on towards some unknown relief from the pain. On good days there fresh snow to carry me and on most days storms came and pounded me further into my seclusion. The trees bowed heavy to me as I inched forward on my skis, my only loyal companions; I only hoped they would not betray me on this journey. I could not afford to lose any more, I was alone enough. My mother was no where to be found. The snow seemed to miss her too and sometimes I think it sympathized with me.
I spent the nights warmed with a whimpy fire lying on my back in wait hoping that from out of the darkness she would speak to me, give me some guidance or explanation on how I could live happily and wildly without her. Where was this solace she had spoken of? Where was she? She was not with me, yet everything told me about her. The sun sparkled with her laughter, the air was as crisp as her wit, the cold carried her scent. I could feel her embrace around me in her hand-me-downs that I wore. They were family heirlooms that had been passed to her through generations, and then to me. The lives that had been lived in these jackets and sweaters were lived on through me. Though the stories hidden in the seams of these Greats had long been forgotten, died off with their original masters, I could feel the warmth of their memories cradle me whenever I wore them. I cringed to think about what was lost from their lives that did not live on. I was the only one left of my family to tell the world of the things they had done. I was all that was left of my mother. She had left her mark on the world, that was clear. It was a mark that stained my existence.
These forested mountain hills held a tragic beauty that I wish I could have appreciated more, but I felt heavy with heartache. Nature was not always sweet to me. For days storms surged without end and I coughed up crystals, feeling the snowflake’s dendrites tickle at my throat. I had gotten a cold. Snot oozed from my nostrils, my eyes itched, my schnoz glowed pink, my voice was hoarse, and I wanted nothing but to go home to a home that no longer existed. But I chose to go it alone on this quest and I knew the dangers in the freedom of going solo. The winds were strong and the snow was sharp. New ice glazed once powdery fields and the storms of yesterday came again and there was nothing I could do except cower at the magnificence of Nature’s sword: a thing so grand and powerful that it has slayed armies of men with merely a windy slash. I was nature’s *****. I felt no promise in pressing on, but I did so only to keep the snow from burying me alive in my tent.
And I am so glad that I did, because when the great storm finally passed I looked up to see the sky so hopeful and blue bordering the mountains I knew to be the ones I was searching for. I recognized them from the bedtime stories. She had said that when she saw them for the first time that she felt a sudden understanding that all the many hundred miles she’d ever walked were supposed to take her here. She said that the mere sight of them gave her purpose. These were those mountains. I knew because the purpose I had lost sight of came bubbling back out of my aching heart, just as it had for her.

These peaks as barren as plucked pelicans and peacocks, but as beautiful as the feathers taken from them, were beacons in the night for those in search of a world of dreams in which to create a new reality. From them I heard laughter jiggle and echo, hefty and deep in the stomachs of the only people truly living it seemed. When I was scouring the vastness of this wilderness for a sign or a purpose, I followed the scent of their delicious living and I guess my nose led me well.
A glide and a hop further on my skis, there the trees parted and powder deepened and sun shone just a bit brighter. Behind the blinding glare of the snow, faces gleamed from tents and huts and igloos and hammocks. Shrieks of children swinging from branches tickled my ears, which had grown accustomed to the silence of winter. As I approached this camp, I saw they were not kids but grown men and women. It seemed I had stumbled down a rabbit hole while following the tracks of a white jackalope. I had found my world of dreams. I had found them. I had found a home.
I was escaping my lonely, wintery existence into a shared haven perfectly placed beneath the peaks that had plagued my dreams. A place where the only directions that existed were up and down the slopes and forwards to the future. Never Eat Soggy Waffles did not matter anymore. By the end of my time there, I had even forgotten my lefts and rights. The camp had been assembled with the leftovers of the modern world and looked like a puzzle with mismatched pieces from fifty different pictures. At first glance, it could have been a snow covered trash heap, but there was a sentimental glow on each broken appliance that told me otherwise. Everything had a use, though it was not usually what was intended. The homes of these families and friends were made of tarp or blankets or animal hides and had smelly socks or utensils or boots or bones hanging from their openings. There were homemade hot springs made of bathtubs placed above fires with water bubbling. Unplugged ovens buried in snow and ice kept the beer cooled. Trees doubled as diving boards for jumping into the deep pits of powder around them. The masterminds behind this camp were geniuses of invention and creation. Their most impressive creation was their lifestyle; it was one that had been deemed impossible by society. This place promised the solace I had been searching for.
A hefty mass of man and dogs galumphed its way through the snow. Rosy cheeks and big hands came to greet me. This was Angus. His face grew a beard that scratched the skies; it was a doppelganger to the mossy branches above us. But his smile shone through the hairs like the moon. There are people in this world whose presence alone is magic, an anomaly among existence. Angus was one of them. Not an ounce of his being made sense. The gut that hung from his broad-shouldered bodice was its own entity and it swung with rhythms unknown to any man; it was known only to the laughter that shook it. Gently perched atop this, was his shaggy white head that flew backwards and into the clouds each time he laughed, which was often. Angus fathered and fed the folks who’d found their way to this wintery oasis, none of which were of the ordinary. There was a lady with snakes tattooed to her temples, parents who’d birthed their babies here beneath the full moon, couples who went bankrupt and eloped to Canada, men and women who felt the itch just as me and my mother had. The itch for something beyond the mundane that left us unsatisfied with life out in the real world. All of them came out of their lives’ hardships with hilarious belligerence and wit, each with their own story to tell. The common thread sewn between all these dangerous minds was an undeniable lust for life.
The man who represented this lust more than any other was Wiley and wily he was. He’d seen near-death countless times and every time he saw the light at the end of the tunnel, he would run like a fool in the other direction. He lived on borrowed time. You could see that restlessness driving him in each step he took. Each step was a leap from the edges of what you thought possible. Wiley was a man of serious grit, skill, and intelligence and never did he let his mortality shake him from living like the animal he was. He’d surely forgotten where and whence he came from and, until finding his way here, had made homes out of any place that offered him beer and some good eatin’. Within moments of shaking hands, he and I created instant brotherhood.
The next few days turned into months and I eventually lost track of time all together. I could have stayed there forever and no day would have been the same. I played with these people in the mountains and pretended it was childhood again. We lived with the wind and the wildness the way my mother had once shown me how to live. I had forgotten how to live this way without her and I was learning it all over again. We awoke when we pleased and trekked about when weather permitted, and sometimes when it didn’t. Each day the sun rose ripe with opportunities for new lines to ski and new peaks to explore. The backcountry was ours and only ours to explore. We were its residents just like the moose and the wolves. My body grew stinky and hairy with joy and pushed limits. Hair that stank of musk and days of labor was washed only with painful whitewashes courtesy of Wiley. Generally after a nice run, we’d exchange them, shoving each other’s faces deep into the icy layers of snow, which would be followed with some hardy wrestling. By the end of each day, if we didn’t have blood coming out of at least two holes in our faces then it wasn’t a good day.
I never could wait to get my life’s adventures in and here I was having them, recalling the unsatisfied ache I had before I left. Life was lost to me before. I had forgotten how to live it after she had died. Modern monotony had taken control until my life became starved of genuine purity and all that was left then was mimicry. But the hair grown long on these men and smiles grown large on these woman showed no remembrance of such an earth I had come from. They had long ago cast themselves away from such a society to relish in all they knew to be right, all their guts told them to pursue: the truth that nature supplies. Still I worried I would not remember these people and these moments, knowing how they would be ****** into the abyss of loss and time like all the others. But we lived too loud and the sounds of my worries were often drowned in fun.
     We spent the nights beside the fire and listened to Wiley softly plucking strings, that was when I always liked to look at Yona. Her curls endlessly waterfalled down her chest and the fire made her hair shimmer gold in its glow. She was the spark among us, and if we weren’t careful she could light up the whole forest.  She was a drum, beating fast and strong. Never did she lose track of herself in the clashing rhythms of the world. She had ripped herself from the hands of the education system at a young age and had learned from the ways of the changing seasons f

Do you remember me?
Do you know who I am?
You don't remember these soft drown eyes
Staring into the vacant depths
Of your glazed over eyes
Donut wholes on your sunk in face
Mother, I'm that 13 month old baby
You abandoned and never looked back on
I'm the nuisance in the back of your head
Wishing you would wake up and feed me
Change my soiled diapers
The way you should change your habits
Mother, pleas I'm begging
I'm crying tears of snowflake shadows
I need you yet you're not there
You're two inches from my face
Crashing into couch cushions
Like suicide bombers
Needle stil stuck in your arm
Filling your veins with a substance
That prevented you from loving me
Hello...mother
Do you remember me?
Do you know who I am now?
I wanted you to love me
Tell me bedtime stories
Keep the nightlight on
Long enough for me to fall asleep
Unafraid of what the shadows hold
Tuck me in and kiss me goodnight
Like the moon itself
Every night to the rest of the world
I want to be your world
Drenched in your loving moonlight
But no, the drugs you overdosed on
Prevented you from doing just that
And you still haven't learned your lesson
You called me several times
Telling me you love me
That you're sorry for leaving
But within the 5 minutes
It took you to choke your tongue
To say even one of those words
You sail away on that kite
Crash immediately into my heart
Causing missile words to bombard my walls
Calling me worthless, pathetic, and a waste
Hello...mother
Please remember me!
Please remember who I am!
I'm the baby you refused to hold at birth
I'm the last child of four
You wish you would have aborted
1 month prior to my concieving
Hello...mother
The late night hours of needles and pills
Powdery white lines cut like a chef
Must have erased me from your life
And if I could bleed every drop of your blood out
I'd carve canyons in my wrist
Let loose the dams
Drown in the wake
I don't want to be your son
I want to be the child of four you never had
Hello...
Forgive me for this
I know you don't remember me
I know you don't know who I am
But I hate you
I can only thank you for making me a poet
Giving me this curse
Because I'm no longer your puppet
Or your voodoo doll
With 12 needles in his chest
I'm the kid you will never know
So this greeting shall be as strangers
You never cared to know me
So this farewell shall be as strangers
Goodbye...
                  ...Mother

THIS **** ******* *****!
You have deleted every profile picture
and cover photo with us in it,
Ten times out of Ten you changed
your laptop background of all the pictures
of us,
Forgot the song that you gave us 3 years ago,
changed your cell phone background,
deleted the cell phone pictures,
Go to sleep without thinking a bit about me,
Talk about me casually to people like I
pretty much don’t ******* exist,
And to top it all off,
You are probably the happiest you’ve ever been.
Like our relationship was nothing but handcuffs of burden
you were dying to break out of.
I guess my lies and stupid decisions were memory cards
large enough to completely erase all of our past data -
How is this so easy for you?
How is walking around campus easy for you?
How is going home alone easy for you?
How is cooking alone easy for you?
How is sleeping alone easy for you?
We have marked our forevers on every inch of this
25,000 populated resident.
I can’t go 3 feet without remembering a time where
we were here, and there, and EVERYWHERE.
How we held hands on every speck of the sidewalks,
How our favorite bus seat is now unoccupied,
And our short cuts that weren’t really short cuts,
just flatter ground to walk on because you were so
lazy to walk that way is now a ghost filled alley
of “I don’t give a ****”

What also ***** is I still do all of your habits.
Like put my sides of food on top of one another.
Or how I turn off the lights when I leave a room,
Or how I now buy that Gain powdery washing
stuff for my clothes
Or how I turn off the sink when I’m brushing my teeth,
AND how even though I am not lactose intolerant like you are,
I STILL BUY LACTAID MILK!
WHY?!
I DON’T ******* KNOW!

My mom always told me I will learn everything the hard way.
I guess I wasn’t meant to get my first real relationship
right the first time around.
Heartbreak.
I would rather wish for God to come take back his Saints
but leave me on earth’s dying wasteland
than this.
I feel like I am wasting my time saving myself for that
hint of what if called, faith
but then doubt comes along and says,
She’s gone.
She’s never coming back.
Ever.
Move. On.

It’s so hard for me.
What harder is that I know it’s easy for you.

The words come flowing out  when the blood is boiling under.  That is when vengeance comes to rescue your soul
longing to fulfill our thirst .
I just want to strike him with my rage
and want to literally burn him into ashes just so that I can roll into those, deathlike corporeal ruins
leaving soul frenziedly lust of mine to satiate .
I want to hold some of his powdery residual remains
as the rest
just scatters by ;
staring at my ascendancy.
Till then let another par of anger pile up and
get that load off
with my bare hands ,
bathing in the
pleasant sight of his blood stains .
My vendatta would be eternally be lasting even in afterlife .
After all it is a fight of a soul to get his righteous stand someday and may that be by ,
                            
                             A
                        DEATH
                            OF
                           THE
                        OTHER
                          ONE

Eyes that flash the soul of civilization
And warm the heart in observation.

Love that whispers with a gentle touch
And surrounds with hugs that seem so much.

Cry Beloved!

Water that caresses with a thousand tongues
Sunshine that coos all the birds’ songs

Teachers and vets, pronouns and clowns
Croissants, marmalade, coffee and new lawns.

Cry Beloved!

Breezes and sneezes, walks by the shore
Seashells that capture all the sea’s roar

Powdery sand and laconic lagoons
Daydreams and naps in the afternoons

Cry Beloved!

Smiles, museums, carriages in the park
Salads with friends and chocolates too dark

Rowing among lily pads and turtles and frogs
Hiking and crossing the streams on new logs.

Cry Beloved!

Flowers and bees buzzing in the sun
Hummingbirds hovering, dogs on the run

Children running, giggles and wiggles
Caring, learning, reading and snuggles

Cry Beloved!

Snowy mountains, valleys green
Faith proclaimed, faith unseen


Wonder and ponder, awe and reverence
Invitations from God to join in the dance

Cry beloved!

Hands held together in prayer and in love
Eyes raised to heaven on the wings of a dove

Caring so deep, affection so real
Feel the love and start to heal

Cry My Beloved!

I am not old, yet.

My skin is not powdery and white, see-through like a paper lantern.

But there is a part of me which

When I dare to reach for someone I love

Reaches with brittle ***** fingers, soft and cold and fluttering like white moths

That edge closer to a flame until they catch.

There is a part of me that feels old, and fragile.

And already even in the crest of my youth I’ve cursed this body

For its frailty, its needs.

It suffers and complains, always crying out for something,

Never sated, never still.

I’ve said it feels like living inside a porcelain doll

A look, and cracks can spider out along an arm,

A word and blood can bloom beneath the surface, seeping up into

Bruised pictures and symbols.

I must always be gentle,

I must always be

Watching.

Too passionate, and fissures form, marring the cheek, spreading like shadows thrown by a lace curtain.

I stare out, burning to touch everything,

And yet I pull back:

To dare is to risk, and I’ve seen

Both reward and loss.

I have seen a thousand shining colors spread across me like sunrise,

Warming my skin,

Calling to me like prayer until a bit of light escaped through the spaces between my atoms and reached another person’s palms,

But I have also seen the pale, flat shards of myself,

Sifted through white dust in dismay

For a salvageable portion.

Indeed, there are rooms in this world where sharp edges of me still linger

Waiting in obstructed corners and beneath heavy refrigerators

To gouge a foot or snag a hem,

Interred

In the dark and hollow places where they flew when I shattered and could not gather them all.

I have known

Intimately

My own fragility,

How maddeningly breakable I am

And how difficult to mend.

And there is a part of me now, always,

Which whispers to me when I would be bold,


“You are not old, yet.

But wouldn’t you just love

To live that long?”

Most mornings are not clear.
Most mornings are not the type with a
ten-state view from the top of
Clingman's Dome, and two very expensive
tanks of gasoline. You're welcome.

No, most mornings are battered
by some kind of weather condition -
rains and drizzles and nebulous fogs,
unhappy bedmates, a productive cough -
or else the sun just remits,
stays dozing until it has slept enough.

Then you get that gray sky-
chalkboard, the punitive slap of
humid cold on your early walks, your
coffee rendezvous. Then you have
too many garments at 3 because you put
on extra at 8. Morning, in short,
wishes you ill.

Be aware that if you were born
this century, you lurched into no
midwife's hands, full of love and wet, but
a surgeon's, gloved and powdery,
who spanked you firmly, knocked you
down with a commanding stare, and gave you
the first of many cuts you were to receive.

But for having woken up, let's say,
on the wrong side of the bed (if
even there's a right one), I would
like to think we've done alright,
are not too warm or upset at midday,
not too disappointed in ourselves, our moments
of astounding social gracelessness
that we leave like bits of sneaker in our wake.

Still, though, a question:
where grows happiness? Where sprouts
the silver trunk, the cypress or birch? Or
ficus or orange or ginkgo biloba? Tell me.
I would tap that tree 'til it withers, and die
under its trunk, and the two very expensive
tanks of gasoline it took
to get me where I am.

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.



Smoke
by Michael R. Burch

The hazy, smoke-filled skies of summer I remember well;
farewell was on my mind, and the thoughts that I can't tell
rang bells within (the din was in) my mind, and I can't say
if what we had was good or bad, or where it is today ...
The endless days of summer's haze I still recall today;
she spoke and smoky skies stood still as summer slipped away ...
We loved and life we left alone and deftly was it done;
we sang our song all summer long beneath the sultry sun.

I wrote this poem as a boy, after seeing an ad for the movie "Summer of ’42," which starred the lovely Jennifer O’Neill and a young male actor who might have been my nebbish twin. I didn’t see the R-rated movie at the time: too young, according to my parents! But something about the ad touched me; even thinking about it today makes me feel sad and a bit out of sorts. The movie came out in 1971, so the poem was probably written around 1971-1972. In any case, the poem was published in my high school literary journal, The Lantern, in 1976. The poem is “rhyme rich” with eleven rhymes in the first four lines: well, farewell, tell, bells, within, din, in, say, today, had, bad. The last two lines appear in brackets because they were part of the original poem but I later chose to publish just the first six lines. I didn’t see the full movie until 2001, around age 43, after which I addressed two poems to my twin, Hermie …



Listen, Hermie
by Michael R. Burch

Listen, Hermie . . .
you can hear the strangled roar
of water inundating that lost shore . . .

and you can see how white she shone

that distant night, before
you blinked
and she was gone . . .

But is she ever really gone from you . . . or are
her lips the sweeter since you kissed them once:
her waist wasp-thin beneath your hands always,
her stockinged shoeless feet for that one dance
still whispering their rustling nylon trope
of―“Love me. Love me. Love me. Give me hope
that love exists beyond these dunes, these stars.”

How white her prim brassiere, her waist-high briefs;
how lustrous her white slip. And as you danced―
how white her eyes, her skin, her eager teeth.
She reached, but not for *** . . . for more . . . for you . . .
You cannot quite explain, but what is true
is true despite our fumblings in the dark.

Hold tight. Hold tight. The years that fall away
still make us what we are. If love exists,
we find it in ourselves, grown wan and gray,
within a weathered hand, a wrinkled cheek.

She cannot touch you now, but I would reach
across the years to touch that chord in you
which still reverberates, and play it true.



Tell me, Hermie
by  Michael R. Burch

Tell me, Hermie ― when you saw
her white brassiere crash to the floor
as she stepped from her waist-high briefs
into your arms, and mutual griefs ―
did you feel such fathomless awe
as mystics do, in artists’ reliefs?

How is it that dark night remains
forever with us ― present still ―
despite her absence and the pains
of dreams relived without the thrill
of any ecstasy but this ―
one brief, eternal, transient kiss?

She was an angel; you helped us see
the beauty of love’s iniquity.



Fountainhead
by Michael R. Burch

I did not delight in love so much
as in a kiss like linnets' wings,
the flutterings of a pulse so soft
the heart remembers, as it sings:
to bathe there was its transport, brushed
by marble lips, or porcelain,—
one liquid kiss, one cool outburst
from pale rosettes. What did it mean ...
to float awhirl on minute tides
within the compass of your eyes,
to feel your alabaster bust
grow cold within? Ecstatic sighs
seem hisses now; your eyes, serene,
reflect the sun's pale tourmaline.

Published by Romantics Quarterly, Poetica Victorian, Nutty Stories (South Africa)



I Pray Tonight
by Michael R. Burch

I pray tonight
the starry light
might
surround you.

I pray
each day
that, come what may,
no dark thing confound you.

I pray ere tomorrow
an end to your sorrow.
May angels’ white chorales
sing, and astound you.



A Possible Argument for Mercy
by Michael R. Burch

Did heaven ever seem so far?
Remember-we are as You were,
but all our lives, from birth to death―
Gethsemane in every breath.



Gethsemane in Every Breath
by Michael R. Burch

LORD, we have lost our way, and now
we have mislaid love―earth's fairest rose.
We forgot hope's song―the way it goes.
Help us reclaim their gifts, somehow.

LORD, we have wondered long and far
in search of Bethlehem's retrograde star.
Now in night's dead cold grasp, we gasp:
our lives one long-drawn rattling rasp

of misspent breath... before we drown.
LORD, help us through this spiral down
because we faint, and do not see
above or beyond despair's trajectory.

Remember that You, too, once held
imperiled life within your hands
as hope withdrew... that where You knelt
―a stranger in a stranger land―

the chalice glinted cold afar
and red with blood as hellfire.
Did heaven ever seem so far?
Remember―we are as You were,

but all our lives, from birth to death―
Gethsemane in every breath.



Just Smile
by Michael R. Burch

We’d like to think some angel smiling down
will watch him as his arm bleeds in the yard,
ripped off by dogs, will guide his tipsy steps,
his doddering progress through the scarlet house
to tell his mommy "boo-boo!," only two.

We’d like to think his reconstructed face
will be as good as new, will often smile,
that baseball’s just as fun with just one arm,
that God is always Just, that girls will smile,
not frown down at his thousand livid scars,
that Life is always Just, that Love is Just.

We do not want to hear that he will shave
at six, to raze the leg hairs from his cheeks,
that lips aren’t easily fashioned, that his smile’s
lopsided, oafish, snaggle-toothed, that each
new operation costs a billion tears,
when tears are out of fashion.
O, beseech
some poet with more skill with words than tears
to find some happy ending, to believe
that God is Just, that Love is Just, that these
are Parables we live, Life’s Mysteries ...

Or look inside his courage, as he ties
his shoelaces one-handed, as he throws
no-hitters on the first-place team, and goes
on dates, looks in the mirror undeceived
and smiling says, "It’s me I see. Just me."

He smiles, if life is Just, or lacking cures.
Your pity is the worst cut he endures.

Originally published by Lucid Rhythms



Aflutter
by Michael R. Burch

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

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



Gallant Knight
by Michael R. Burch

for Alfred Dorn and Anita Dorn

Till you rest with your beautiful Anita,
rouse yourself, Poet; rouse and write.
The world is not ready for your departure,
Gallant Knight.

Teach us to sing in the ringing cathedrals
of your Verse, as you outduel the Night.
Give us new eyes to see Love's bright Vision
robed in Light.

Teach us to pray, that the true Word may conquer,
that the slaves may be freed, the blind have Sight.
Write the word LOVE with a burning finger.
I shall recite.

O, bless us again with your chivalrous pen,
Gallant Knight!

It was my honor to have been able to publish the poetry of Dr. Alfred Dorn and his wife Anita Dorn.



To Have Loved
by Michael R. Burch

"The face that launched a thousand ships ..."

Helen, bright accompaniment,
accouterment of war as sure as all
the polished swords of princes groomed to lie
in mausoleums all eternity ...

The price of love is not so high
as never to have loved once in the dark
beyond foreseeing. Now, as dawn gleams pale
upon small wind-fanned waves, amid white sails, ...

now all that war entails becomes as small,
as though receding. Paris in your arms
was never yours, nor were you his at all.
And should gods call

in numberless strange voices, should you hear,
still what would be the difference? Men must die
to be remembered. Fame, the shrillest cry,
leaves all the world dismembered.

Hold him, lie,
tell many pleasant tales of lips and thighs;
enthrall him with your sweetness, till the pall
and ash lie cold upon him.

Is this all? You saw fear in his eyes, and now they dim
with fear’s remembrance. Love, the fiercest cry,
becomes gasped sighs in his once-gallant hymn
of dreamed “salvation.” Still, you do not care

because you have this moment, and no man
can touch you as he can ... and when he’s gone
there will be other men to look upon
your beauty, and have done.

Smile―woebegone, pale, haggard. Will the tales
paint this―your final portrait? Can the stars
find any strange alignments, Zodiacs,
to spell, or unspell, what held beauty lacks?

Published by The Raintown Review, Triplopia, The Electic Muse, The Chained Muse, and The Pennsylvania Review



Fahr an' Ice
(Apologies to Robert Frost and Ogden Nash)
by Michael R. Burch

From what I know of death, I'll side with those
who'd like to have a say in how it goes:
just make mine cool, cool rocks (twice drowned in likker),
and real fahr off, instead of quicker.

Originally published by Light Quarterly



Ordinary Love
by Michael R. Burch

Indescribable—our love—and still we say
with eyes averted, turning out the light,
"I love you," in the ordinary way

and tug the coverlet where once we lay,
all suntanned limbs entangled, shivering, white ...
indescribably in love. Or so we say.

Your hair's blonde thicket now is tangle-gray;
you turn your back; you murmur to the night,
"I love you," in the ordinary way.

Beneath the sheets our hands and feet would stray
to warm ourselves. We do not touch despite
a love so indescribable. We say

we're older now, that "love" has had its day.
But that which Love once countenanced, delight,
still makes you indescribable. I say,
"I love you," in the ordinary way.

Winner of the 2001 Algernon Charles Swinburne poetry contest; published by The Lyric, Romantics Quarterly, Mandrake Poetry Review, Carnelian, and Famous Poets and Poems



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



Tremble
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 by The Lyric, Verses Magazine, Romantics Quarterly, Journeys, The Raintown Review, MahMag (Iran), The Eclectic Muse (Canada)



Millay Has Her Way with a Vassar Professor
by Michael R. Burch

After a night of hard drinking and spreading her legs,
Millay hits the dorm, where the Vassar don begs:
“Please act more chastely, more discretely, more seemly!”
(His name, let’s assume, was, er... Percival Queemly.)

“Expel me! Expel me!”—She flashes her eyes.
“Oh! Please! No! I couldn’t! That wouldn’t be wise,
for a great banished Shelley would tarnish my name...
Eek! My game will be lame if I can’t milque your fame!”

“Continue to live here—carouse as you please!”
the beleaguered don sighs as he sags to his knees.
Millay grinds her crotch half an inch from his nose:
“I can live in your hellhole, strange man, I suppose...
but the price is your firstborn, whom I’ll sacrifice to Moloch.”
(Which explains what became of pale Percy’s son, Enoch.)



Shrill Gulls and Other Skeptics
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.

Originally published by Able Muse



Caveat Spender
by Michael R. Burch

It’s better not to speculate
"continually" on who is great.
Though relentless awe’s
a Célèbre Cause,
please reserve some time for the contemplation
of the perils of EXAGGERATION.



At Wilfred Owen’s Grave
by Michael R. Burch

A week before the Armistice, you died.
They did not keep your heart like Livingstone’s,
then plant your bones near Shakespeare’s. So you lie
between two privates, sacrificed like Christ
to politics, your poetry unknown
except for that brief flurry’s: thirteen months
with Gaukroger beside you in the trench,
dismembered, as you babbled, as the stench
of gangrene filled your nostrils, till you clenched
your broken heart together and the fist
began to pulse with life, so close to death.
Or was it at Craiglockhart, in the care
of “ergotherapists” that you sensed life
is only in the work, and made despair
a thing that Yeats despised, but also breath,
a mouthful’s merest air, inspired less
than wrested from you, and which we confess
we only vaguely breathe: the troubled air
that even Sassoon failed to share, because
a man in pieces is not healed by gauze,
and breath’s transparent, unless we believe
the words are true despite their lack of weight
and float to us like chlorine—scalding eyes,
and lungs, and hearts. Your words revealed the fate
of boys who retched up life here, gagged on lies.



Safe Harbor
by Michael R. Burch

for Kevin N. Roberts

The sea at night seems
an alembic of dreams—
the moans of the gulls,
the foghorns’ bawlings.

A century late
to be melancholy,
I watch the last shrimp boat as it steams
to safe harbor again.

In the twilight she gleams
with a festive light,
done with her trawlings,
ready to sleep...

Deep, deep, in delight
glide the creatures of night,
elusive and bright
as the poet’s dreams.

Published by The Lyric, Romantics Quarterly and Angle



The Harvest of Roses
by Michael R. Burch

for Harvey Stanbrough

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

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

Originally published by The Raintown Review when Harvey Stanbrough was the editor



The Pain of Love
by Michael R. Burch

for T.M.

The pain of love is this:
the parting after the kiss;

the train steaming from the station
whistling abnegation;

each interstate’s bleak white bar
that vanishes under your car;

every hour and flower and friend
that cannot be saved in the end;

dear things of immeasurable cost...
now all irretrievably lost.

Note: The title “The Pain of Love” was suggested by an interview with Little Richard, then eighty years old, in Rolling Stone. He said that someone should create a song called “The Pain of Love.” I have always found the departure platforms of railway stations and the vanishing broken white bars of highway dividing lines depressing.



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



The Heimlich Limerick
by Michael R. Burch

for T. M.

The sanest of poets once wrote:
"Friend, why be a sheep or a goat?
Why follow the leader
or be a blind *******?"
But almost no one took note.



Millay Has Her Way with a Vassar Professor
by Michael R. Burch

After a night of hard drinking and spreading her legs,
Millay hits the dorm, where the Vassar don begs:
“Please act more chastely, more discretely, more seemly!”
(His name, let’s assume, was, er... Percival Queemly.)

“Expel me! Expel me!”—She flashes her eyes.
“Oh! Please! No! I couldn’t! That wouldn’t be wise,
for a great banished Shelley would tarnish my name...
Eek! My game will be lame if I can’t milque your fame!”

“Continue to live here—carouse as you please!”
the beleaguered don sighs as he sags to his knees.
Millay grinds her crotch half an inch from his nose:
“I can live in your hellhole, strange man, I suppose...
but the price is your firstborn, whom I’ll sacrifice to Moloch.”
(Which explains what became of pale Percy’s son, Enoch.)



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).



Snapshots
by Michael R. Burch

Here I scrawl extravagant rainbows.
And there you go, skipping your way to school.
And here we are, drifting apart
like untethered balloons.

Here I am, creating "art,"
chanting in shadows,
pale as the crinoline moon,
ignoring your face.

There you go,
in diaphanous lace,
making another man’s heart swoon.

Suddenly, unthinkably, here he is,
taking my place.

Published by Tucumcari Literary Review, Romantics Quarterly, Centrifugal Eye, and The Eclectic Muse



Distances
by Michael R. Burch

Moonbeams on water —
the reflected light
of a halcyon star
now drowning in night ...
So your memories are.

Footprints on beaches
now flooding with water;
the small, broken ribcage
of some primitive slaughter ...
So near, yet so far.

Originally published by The HyperTexts



Step Into Starlight
by Michael R. Burch

Step into starlight,
lovely and wild,
lonely and longing,
a woman, a child . . .

Throw back drawn curtains,
enter the night,
dream of his kiss
as a comet ignites . . .

Then fall to your knees
in a wind-fumbled cloud
and shudder to hear
oak hocks groaning aloud.

Flee down the dark path
to where the snaking vine bends
and withers and writhes
as winter descends . . .

And learn that each season
ends one vanished day,
that each pregnant moon holds
no spent tides in its sway . . .

For, as suns seek horizons―
boys fall, men decline.
As the grape sags with its burden,
remember―the wine!

Originally published by The Lyric



hymn to Apollo
by Michael R. Burch

something of sunshine attracted my i
as it lazed on the afternoon sky,
golden,
splashed on the easel of god . . .
what,
i thought,
could this airy stuff be,
to, phantomlike,
flit through tall trees
on fall days, such as these?

and the breeze
whispered a dirge
to the vanishing light;
enchoired with the evening, it sang;
its voice
enchantedly
rang
chanting “Night!” . . .

till all the bright light
retired,
expired.

This poem appeared in my high school literary journal; I believe I was around 16 when I wrote it.



****** Analysis
by Michael R. Burch

This is not what I need . . .
analysis,
paralysis,
as though I were a seed
to be planted,
supported
with a stick and some string
until I emerge.
Your words
are not water. I need something
more nourishing,
like cherishing,
something essential, like love
so that when I climb
out of the lime
and the mulch. When I shove
myself up
from the muck . . .
we can ****.



The One and Only
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

If anyone ever loved me,
It was you.

If anyone ever cared
beyond mere things declared;
if anyone ever knew ...
My darling, it was you.

If anyone ever touched
my beating heart as it flew,
it was you,
and only you.



Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller

#2 - Love Poetry

She says an epigram’s too terse
to reveal her tender heart in verse ...
but really, darling, ain’t the thrill
of a kiss much shorter still?
―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

#5 - Criticism

Why don’t I openly criticize the man? Because he’s a friend;
thus I reproach him in silence, as I do my own heart.
―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

#11 - Holiness

What is holiest? This heart-felt love
binding spirits together, now and forever.
―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

#12 - Love versus Desire

You love what you have, and desire what you lack
because a rich nature expands, while a poor one retracts.
―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

#19 - Nymph and Satyr

As shy as the trembling doe your horn frightens from the woods,
she flees the huntsman, fainting, uncertain of love.
―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

#20 - Desire

What stirs the ******’s heaving ******* to sighs?
What causes your bold gaze to brim with tears?
―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

#23 - The Apex I

Everywhere women yield to men, but only at the apex
do the manliest men surrender to femininity.
―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

#24 - The Apex II

What do we mean by the highest? The crystalline clarity of triumph
as it shines from the brow of a woman, from the brow of a goddess.
―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

#25 -Human Life

Young sailors brave the sea beneath ten thousand sails
while old men drift ashore on any bark that avails.
―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

#35 - Dead Ahead

What’s the hardest thing of all to do?
To see clearly with your own eyes what’s ahead of you.
―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

#36 - Unexpected Consequence

Friends, before you utter the deepest, starkest truth, please pause,
because straight away people will blame you for its cause.
―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

#41 - Earth vs. Heaven

By doing good, you nurture humanity;
but by creating beauty, you scatter the seeds of divinity.
―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



The Poet
by Michael R. Burch

He walks to the sink,
takes out his teeth,
rubs his gums.
He tries not to think.

In the mirror, on the mantle,
Time—the silver measure—
does not stare or blink,
but in a wrinkle flutters,
in a hand upon the brink
of a second, hovers.

Through a mousehole,
something scuttles
on restless incessant feet.
There is no link

between life and death
or from a fading past
to a more tenuous present
that a word uncovers
in the great wink.

The white foam lathers
at his thin pink
stretched neck
like a tightening noose.
He tries not to think.



These are poems I wrote in my early teens on the themes of play, playing, playmates, vacations, etc.

Playmates
by Michael R. Burch

WHEN you were my playmate and I was yours,
we spent endless hours with simple toys,
and the sorrows and cares of our indentured days
were uncomprehended... far, far away...
for the temptations and trials we had yet to face
were lost in the shadows of an unventured maze.

Then simple pleasures were easy to find
and if they cost us a little, we didn't mind;
for even a penny in a pocket back then
was one penny too many, a penny to spend.

Then feelings were feelings and love was just love,
not a strange, complex mystery to be understood;
while "sin" and "damnation" meant little to us,
since forbidden cookies were our only lusts!

Then we never worried about what we had,
and we were both sure—what was good, what was bad.
And we sometimes quarreled, but we didn't hate;
we seldom gave thought to the uncertainties of fate.

Hell, we seldom thought about the next day,
when tomorrow seemed hidden—adventures away.
Though sometimes we dreamed of adventures past,
and wondered, at times, why things couldn't last.

Still, we never worried about getting by,
and we didn't know that we were to die...
when we spent endless hours with simple toys,
and I was your playmate, and we were boys.

This is probably the poem that "made" me, because my high school English teacher called it "beautiful" and I took that to mean I was surely the Second Coming of Percy Bysshe Shelley! "Playmates" is the second longish poem I remember writing; I believe I was around 13 or 14 at the time.



Playthings
by Michael R. Burch

a sequel to “Playmates”

There was a time, as though a long-forgotten dream remembered,
when you and I were playmates and the days were long;
then we were pirates stealing plaits of daisies
from trembling maidens fearing men so strong . . .

Our world was like an unplucked Rose unfolding,
and you and I were busy, then, as bees;
the nectar that we drank, it made us giddy;
each petal within reach seemed ours to seize . . .

But you were more the doer, I the dreamer,
so I wrote poems and dreamed a noble cause;
while you were linking logs, I met old Merlin
and took a dizzy ride to faery Oz . . .

But then you put aside all "silly" playthings;
with sunburned hands you built, from bricks and stone,
tall buildings, then a life, and then you married.
Now my fantasies, again, are all my own.

I believe “Playthings” was written in my late teens, around 1977. According to my notes, I revised the poem in 1991, then again in 2020 and 2021.



hey pete
by Michael R. Burch

for Pete Rose

hey pete,
it's baseball season
and the sun ascends the sky,
encouraging a schoolboy's dreams
of winter whizzing by;
go out, go out and catch it,
put it in a jar,
set it on a shelf
and then you'll be a Superstar.

This is another of my boyhood poems about play and playing. When I was a boy, Pete Rose was my favorite baseball player; this poem is not a slam at him, but rather an ironic jab at the term "superstar."



Have I been too long at the fair?
by Michael R. Burch

Have I been too long at the fair?
The summer has faded,
the leaves have turned brown;
the Ferris wheel teeters ...
not up, yet not down.
Have I been too long at the fair?

This is one of my earliest poems, written around age 15.



Ironic Vacation
by Michael R. Burch

Salzburg.
Seeing Mozart’s baby grand piano.
Standing in the presence of sheer incalculable genius.
Grabbing my childish pen to write a poem & challenge the Immortals.
Next stop, the catacombs!

This is a poem I wrote about a vacation my family took to Salzburg when I was a boy, age 11 or perhaps a bit older. But I wrote the poem much later in life: around 50 years later, in 2020.



Of course the ultimate form of play is love ...



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 little dream-poem appeared in my high school literary journal, the Lantern, so I was no older than 18 when I wrote it, probably younger. I will guess around age 16.



Smoke
by Michael R. Burch

The hazy, smoke-filled skies of summer I remember well;
farewell was on my mind, and the thoughts that I can't tell
rang bells within (the din was in) my mind, and I can't say
if what we had was good or bad, or where it is today.
The endless days of summer's haze I still recall today;
she spoke and smoky skies stood still as summer slipped away ...

This poem appeared in my high school journal, the Lantern, in 1976. It also appeared in my college literary journal, Homespun, in 1977. I was probably around 14 when I wrote the poem.



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.

I believe I wrote the first version of this poem toward the end of my senior year of high school, around age 18.



The Communion of Sighs
by Michael R. Burch

There was a moment
  without the sound of trumpets or a shining light,
    but with only silence and darkness and a cool mist
      felt more than seen.
      I was eighteen,
    my heart pounding wildly within me like a fist.
  Expectation hung like a cry in the night,
and your eyes shone like the corona of a comet.

There was an instant ...
  without words, but with a deeper communion,
    as clothing first, then inhibitions fell;
      liquidly our lips met
      —feverish, wet—
    forgotten, the tales of heaven and hell,
  in the immediacy of our fumbling union ...
when the rest of the world became distant.

Then the only light was the moon on the rise,
and the only sound, the communion of sighs.

I believe this poem was written around age 18 as the poem itself says.



Infinity
by Michael R. Burch

Have you tasted the bitterness of tears of despair?
Have you watched the sun sink through such pale, balmless air
that your heart sought its shell like a crab on a beach,
then scuttled inside to be safe, out of reach?

Might I lift you tonight from earth’s wreckage and damage
on these waves gently rising to pay the moon homage?
Or better, perhaps, let me say that I, too,
have dreamed of infinity ... windswept and blue.

This is one of the first poems that made me feel like a "real" poet. I remember reading the poem and asking myself, "Did I really write that?" I believe I wrote it around age 17 or 18.



Will There Be Starlight
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Will there be starlight
tonight
while she gathers
damask
and lilac
and sweet-scented heathers?

And will she find flowers,
or will she find thorns
guarding the petals
of roses unborn?

Will there be starlight
tonight
while she gathers
seashells
and mussels
and albatross feathers?

And will she find treasure
or will she find pain
at the end of this rainbow
of moonlight on rain?

If I remember correctly, I wrote the first version of this poem toward the end of my senior year in high school, around age 18, then forgot about it for fifteen years until I met my future wife Beth and she reminded me of the poem’s mysterious enchantress.



Childhood's End
by Michael R. Burch

How well I remember
those fiery Septembers:
dry leaves, dying embers of summers aflame
lay trampled before me
and fluttered, imploring
the bright, dancing rain to descend once again.

Now often I’ve thought on
the meaning of autumn,
how the moons those pale mornings enchanted dark clouds
while robins repeated
gay songs they had heeded
so wisely when winters before they’d flown south.

And still, in remembrance,
I’ve conjured a semblance
of childhood and how the world seemed to me then;
but early this morning,
when, rising and yawning,
my lips brushed your ******* . . . I celebrated its end.

I believe I wrote this poem in my early twenties, no later than 1982, but probably around 1980.



The Tender Weight of Her Sighs
by Michael R. Burch

The tender weight of her sighs
lies heavily upon my heart;
apart from her, full of doubt,
without her presence to revolve around,
found wanting direction or course,
cursed with the thought of her grief,
believing true love is a myth,
with hope as elusive as tears,
hers and mine, unable to lie,
I sigh ...

This poem has an unusual rhyme scheme, with the last word of each line rhyming with the first word of the next line. The final line is a “closing couplet” in which both words rhyme with the last word of the preceding line. I believe I invented this ***** form and will dub it the "End-First Curtal Sonnet."



Starting from Scratch with Ol’ Scratch
by Michael R. Burch

for the Religious Right

Love, with a small, fatalistic sigh
went to the ovens. Please don’t bother to cry.
You could have saved her, but you were all *******
complaining about the Jews to Reichmeister Grupp.

Scratch that. You were born after World War II.
You had something more important to do:
while the children of the Nakba were perishing in Gaza
with the complicity of your government, you had a noble cause (a
religious tract against homosexual marriage
and various things gods and evangelists disparage.)

Jesus will grok you? Ah, yes, I’m quite sure
that your intentions were good and ineluctably pure.
After all, what the hell does he care about Palestinians?
Certainly, Christians were right about serfs, slaves and Indians.
Scratch that. You’re one of the Devil’s minions.



Orpheus
by Michael R. Burch

for and after William Blake

I.
Many a sun
and many a moon
I walked the earth
and whistled a tune.

I did not whistle
as I worked:
the whistle was my work.
I shirked

nothing I saw
and made a rhyme
to children at play
and hard time.

II.
Among the prisoners
I saw
the leaden manacles
of Law,

the heavy ball and chain,
the quirt.
And yet I whistled
at my work.

III.
Among the children’s
daisy faces
and in the women’s
frowsy laces,

I saw redemption,
and I smiled.
Satanic millers,
unbeguiled,

were swayed by neither girl,
nor child,
nor any God of Love.
Yet mild

I whistled at my work,
and Song
broke out,
ere long.



how many Nights
by michael r. burch

how many Nights we laughed to see the sun
go down
because the Night was made for reckless fun.

...Your golden crown,
Your skin so soft, so smooth, and lightly downed...

how many nights i wept glad tears to hold
You tight against the years.

...Your eyes so bold,
Your hair spun gold,
and all the pleasures Your soft flesh foretold...

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

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



Duet (II)
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

Originally published by Bewildering Stories



Rant: The Elite
by Michael R. Burch

When I heard Harold Bloom unsurprisingly say:
Poetry is necessarily difficult. It is our elitist art ...
I felt a small suspicious thrill. After all, sweetheart,
isn’t this who we are? Aren’t we obviously better,
and certainly fairer and taller, than they are?

Though once I found Ezra Pound
perhaps a smidgen too profound,
perhaps a bit over-fond of Benito
and the advantages of fascism
to be taken ad finem, like high tea
with a pure white spot of intellectualism
and an artificial sweetener, calorie-free.

I know! I know! Politics has nothing to do with art
And it tempts us so to be elite, to stand apart ...
but somehow the word just doesn’t ring true,
echoing effetely away—the distance from me to you.

Of course, politics has nothing to do with art,
but sometimes art has everything to do with becoming elite,
with climbing the cultural ladder, with being able to meet
someone more Exalted than you, who can demonstrate how to ****
so that everyone below claims one’s odor is sweet.
You had to be there! We were falling apart
with gratitude! We saw him! We wept at his feet!
Though someone will always be far, far above you, clouding your air,
gazing down at you with a look of wondering despair.



Chinese Poets: English Translations

These are modern English translations of poems by some of the greatest Chinese poets of all time, including Du Fu, Huang O, Li Bai/Li Po, Li Ching-jau, Li Qingzhao, Po Chu-I, Tzu Yeh, Yau Ywe-Hwa and Xu Zhimo.



Quiet Night Thoughts
by Li Bai aka Li Po
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Moonlight illuminates my bed
as frost brightens the ground.
Lifting my eyes, the moon allures.
Lowering my eyes, I long for home.



Lines from Laolao Ting Pavilion
by Li Bai aka Li Po
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

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


A Toast to Uncle Yun
by Li Bai aka Li Po
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Water reforms, though we slice it with our swords;
Sorrow returns, though we drown it with our wine.

Chinese translations Li Bai

These are my modern English translations of Chinese poems by Li Bai, who was also known as Li Po.



Zazen on Ching-t’ing Mountain
by Li Bai
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Now the birds have deserted the sky
and the last cloud slips down the drains.

We sit together, the mountain and I,
until only the mountain remains.



Farewell to a Friend
by Li Bai
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Rolling hills rim the northern border;
white waves lap the eastern riverbank...
Here you set out like a windblown wisp of grass,
floating across fields, growing smaller and smaller.
You’ve longed to travel like the rootless clouds,
yet our friendship declines to wane with the sun.
Thus let it remain, our insoluble bond,
even as we wave goodbye till you vanish.
My horse neighs, as if unconvinced.

Li Bai (701-762) was a romantic figure called the Lord Byron of Chinese poetry. He and his friend Du Fu (712-770) were the leading poets of the Tang Dynasty era, the Golden Age of Chinese poetry. Li Bai is also known as Li Po, Li Pai, Li T’ai-po, and Li T’ai-pai.

Keywords/Tags: China, Chinese, bird, birds, clouds, mountains, spring, partings, farewell, goodbye, green, twig, bitter, water, sorrow, wine, moon, love, bed, frost, eyes, introspection



Moonlit Night
by Du Fu (712-770)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Alone in your bedchamber
you gaze out at the Fu-Chou moon.

Here, so distant, I think of our children,
too young to understand what keeps me away
or to remember Ch'ang-an ...

A perfumed mist, your hair's damp ringlets!
In the moonlight, your arms' exquisite jade!

Oh, when can we meet again within your bed's drawn curtains,
and let the heat dry our tears?



Moonlit Night
by Du Fu (712-770)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Tonight the Fu-Chou moon
watches your lonely bedroom.

Here, so distant, I think of our children,
too young to understand what keeps me away
or to remember Ch'ang-an ...

By now your hair will be damp from your bath
and fall in perfumed ringlets;
your jade-white arms so exquisite in the moonlight!

Oh, when can we meet again within those drawn curtains,
and let the heat dry our tears?



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 ...



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

This year with the end of autumn
I find my reflection graying at the edges.
Now evening gales hammer these ledges ...
what shall become of the plum blossoms?

Li Qingzhao was a poet and essayist during the Song dynasty. She is generally considered to be one of the greatest Chinese poets. In English she is known as Li Qingzhao, Li Ching-chao and The Householder of Yi’an.



Star Gauge
Sui Hui (c. 351-394 BC)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

So much lost so far away
on that distant rutted road.

That distant rutted road
wounds me to the heart.

Grief coupled with longing,
so much lost so far away.

Grief coupled with longing
wounds me to the heart.

This house without its master;
the bed curtains shimmer, gossamer veils.

The bed curtains shimmer, gossamer veils,
and you are not here.

Such loneliness! My adorned face
lacks the mirror's clarity.

I see by the mirror's clarity
my Lord is not here. Such loneliness!

Sui Hui, also known as Su Hui and Lady Su, appears to be the first female Chinese poet of note. And her "Star Gauge" or "Sphere Map" may be the most impressive poem written in any language to this day, in terms of complexity. "Star Gauge" has been described as a palindrome or "reversible" poem, but it goes far beyond that. According to contemporary sources, the original poem was shuttle-woven on brocade, in a circle, so that it could be read in multiple directions. Due to its shape the poem is also called Xuanji Tu ("Picture of the Turning Sphere"). The poem is now generally placed in a grid or matrix so that the Chinese characters can be read horizontally, vertically and diagonally. The story behind the poem is that Sui Hui's husband, Dou Tao, the governor of Qinzhou, was exiled to the desert. When leaving his wife, Dou swore to remain faithful. However, after arriving at his new post, he took a concubine. Lady Su then composed a circular poem, wove it into a piece of silk embroidery, and sent it to him. Upon receiving the masterwork, he repented. It has been claimed that there are up to 7,940 ways to read the poem. My translation above is just one of many possible readings of a portion of the poem.



Reflection
Xu Hui (627–650)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Confronting the morning she faces her mirror;
Her makeup done at last, she paces back and forth awhile.
It would take vast mountains of gold to earn one contemptuous smile,
So why would she answer a man's summons?

Due to the similarities in names, it seems possible that Sui Hui and Xu Hui were the same poet, with some of her poems being discovered later, or that poems written later by other poets were attributed to her.



Waves
Zhai Yongming (1955-)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The waves manhandle me like a midwife pounding my back relentlessly,
and so the world abuses my body—
accosting me, bewildering me, according me a certain ecstasy ...



Monologue
Zhai Yongming (1955-)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I am a wild thought, born of the abyss
and—only incidentally—of you. The earth and sky
combine in me—their concubine—they consolidate in my body.

I am an ordinary embryo, encased in pale, watery flesh,
and yet in the sunlight I dazzle and amaze you.

I am the gentlest, the most understanding of women.
Yet I long for winter, the interminable black night, drawn out to my heart's bleakest limit.

When you leave, my pain makes me want to ***** my heart up through my mouth—
to destroy you through love—where's the taboo in that?

The sun rises for the rest of the world, but only for you do I focus the hostile tenderness of my body.
I have my ways.

A chorus of cries rises. The sea screams in my blood but who remembers me?
What is life?

Zhai Yongming is a contemporary Chinese poet, born in Chengdu in 1955. She was one of the instigators and prime movers of the “Black Tornado” of women’s poetry that swept China in 1986-1989. Since then Zhai has been regarded as one of China’s most prominent poets.



Pyre
Guan Daosheng (1262-1319)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You and I share so much desire:
this love―like a fire—
that ends in a pyre's
charred coffin.



"Married Love" or "You and I" or "The Song of You and Me"
Guan Daosheng (1262-1319)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You and I shared a love that burned like fire:
two lumps of clay in the shape of Desire
molded into twin figures. We two.
Me and you.

In life we slept beneath a single quilt,
so in death, why any guilt?
Let the skeptics keep scoffing:
it's best to share a single coffin.

Guan Daosheng (1262-1319) is also known as Kuan Tao-Sheng, Guan Zhongji and Lady Zhongji. A famous poet of the early Yuan dynasty, she has also been called "the most famous female painter and calligrapher in the Chinese history ... remembered not only as a talented woman, but also as a prominent figure in the history of bamboo painting." She is best known today for her images of nature and her tendency to inscribe short poems on her paintings.



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I heard my love was going to Yang-chou
So I accompanied him as far as Ch'u-shan.
For just a moment as he held me in his arms
I thought the swirling river ceased flowing and time stood still.



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Will I ever hike up my dress for you again?
Will my pillow ever caress your arresting face?



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Night descends ...
I let my silken hair spill down my shoulders as I part my thighs over my lover.
Tell me, is there any part of me not worthy of being loved?



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I will wear my robe loose, not bothering with a belt;
I will stand with my unpainted face at the reckless window;
If my petticoat insists on fluttering about, shamelessly,
I'll blame it on the unruly wind!



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When he returns to my embrace,
I’ll make him feel what no one has ever felt before:
Me absorbing him like water
Poured into a wet clay jar.



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Bare branches tremble in a sudden breeze.
Night deepens.
My lover loves me,
And I am pleased that my body's beauty pleases him.



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Do you not see
that we
have become like branches of a single tree?



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I could not sleep with the full moon haunting my bed!
I thought I heard―here, there, everywhere―
disembodied voices calling my name!
Helplessly I cried "Yes!" to the phantom air!



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I have brought my pillow to the windowsill
so come play with me, tease me, as in the past ...
Or, with so much resentment and so few kisses,
how much longer can love last?



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When she approached you on the bustling street, how could you say no?
But your disdain for me is nothing new.
Squeaking hinges grow silent on an unused door
where no one enters anymore.



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I remain constant as the Northern Star
while you rush about like the fickle sun:
rising in the East, drooping in the West.

Tzŭ-Yeh (or Tzu Yeh) was a courtesan of the Jin dynasty era (c. 400 BC) also known as Lady Night or Lady Midnight. Her poems were pinyin ("midnight songs"). Tzŭ-Yeh was apparently a "sing-song" girl, perhaps similar to a geisha trained to entertain men with music and poetry. She has also been called a "wine shop girl" and even a professional concubine! Whoever she was, it seems likely that Rihaku (Li-Po) was influenced by the lovely, touching (and often very ****) poems of the "sing-song" girl. Centuries later, Arthur Waley was one of her translators and admirers. Waley and Ezra Pound knew each other, and it seems likely that they got together to compare notes at Pound's soirees, since Pound was also an admirer and translator of Chinese poetry. Pound's most famous translation is his take on Li-Po's "The River Merchant's Wife: A Letter." If the ancient "sing-song" girl influenced Li-Po and Pound, she was thus an influence―perhaps an important influence―on English Modernism. The first Tzŭ-Yeh poem makes me think that she was, indeed, a direct influence on Li-Po and Ezra Pound.―Michael R. Burch



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 ...



Music Heard Late at Night
Lin Huiyin (1904-1955)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

for Xu Zhimo

I blushed,
hearing the lovely nocturnal tune.

The music touched my heart;
I embraced its sadness, but how to respond?

The pattern of life was established eons ago:
so pale are the people's imaginations!

Perhaps one day You and I
can play the chords of hope together.

It must be your fingers gently playing
late at night, matching my sorrow.

Lin Huiyin (1904-1955), also known as Phyllis Lin and Lin Whei-yin, was a Chinese architect, historian, novelist and poet. Xu Zhimo died in a plane crash in 1931, allegedly flying to meet Lin Huiyin.



Saying Goodbye to Cambridge Again
Xu Zhimo (1897-1931)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Quietly I take my leave,
as quietly as I came;
quietly I wave good-bye
to the sky's dying flame.

The riverside's willows
like lithe, sunlit brides
reflected in the waves
move my heart's tides.

Weeds moored in dark sludge
sway here, free of need,
in the Cam's gentle wake ...
O, to be a waterweed!

Beneath shady elms
a nebulous rainbow
crumples and reforms
in the soft ebb and flow.

Seek a dream? Pole upstream
to where grass is greener;
rig the boat with starlight;
sing aloud of love's splendor!

But how can I sing
when my song is farewell?
Even the crickets are silent.
And who should I tell?

So quietly I take my leave,
as quietly as I came;
gently I flick my sleeves ...
not a wisp will remain.

(6 November 1928)

Xu Zhimo's most famous poem is this one about leaving Cambridge. English titles for the poem include "On Leaving Cambridge," "Second Farewell to Cambridge," "Saying Goodbye to Cambridge Again,"  and "Taking Leave of Cambridge Again."



The Leveler
by Michael R. Burch

The nature of Nature
is bitter survival
from Winter’s bleak fury
till Spring’s brief revival.

The weak implore Fate;
bold men ravish, dishevel her . . .
till both are cut down
by mere ticks of the Leveler.

I believe I wrote this poem around age 20, in 1978 or thereabouts. It has since been published in The Lyric, Tucumcari Literary Review, Romantics Quarterly and The Aurorean.



The Insurrection of Sighs
by Michael R. Burch

She was my Shiloh, my Gethsemane;
she nestled my head to her breast
and breathed upon my insensate lips
the fierce benedictions of her ubiquitous sighs,
the veiled allegations of her disconsolate tears . . .

Many years I abided the agile assaults of her flesh . . .
She loved me the most when I was most sorely pressed;
she undressed with delight for her ministrations
when all I needed was a good night’s rest . . .

She anointed my lips with her soft lips’ dews;
the insurrection of sighs left me fallen, distressed, at her elegant heel.
I felt the hard iron, the cold steel, in her words and I knew:
the terrible arrow showed through my conscripted flesh.

The sun in retreat left her victor and all was Night.
The last peal of surrender went sinking and dying—unheard.



Star Crossed
by Michael R. Burch

Remember—
night is not like day;
the stars are closer than they seem ...
now, bending near, they seem to say
the morning sun was merely a dream
ember.



The State of the Art (?)
by Michael R. Burch

Has rhyme lost all its reason
and rhythm, renascence?
Are sonnets out of season
and poems but poor pretense?

Are poets lacking fire,
their words too trite and forced?
What happened to desire?
Has passion been coerced?

Shall poetry fade slowly,
like Latin, to past tense?
Are the bards too high and holy,
or their readers merely dense?



Options Underwater: The Song of the First Amphibian
by Michael R. Burch

“Evolution’s a Fishy Business!”

1.
Breathing underwater through antiquated gills,
I’m running out of options. I need to find fresh Air,
to seek some higher Purpose. No porpoise, I despair
to swim among anemones’ pink frills.

2.
My fins will make fine flippers, if only I can walk,
a little out of kilter, safe to the nearest rock’s
sweet, unmolested shelter. Each eye must grow a stalk,
to take in this green land on which it gawks.

3.
No predators have made it here, so I need not adapt.
Sun-sluggish, full, lethargic―I’ll take such nice long naps!

The highest form of life, that’s me! (Quite apt
to lie here chortling, calling fishes saps.)

4.
I woke to find life teeming all around―
mammals, insects, reptiles, loathsome birds.
And now I cringe at every sight and sound.
The water’s looking good! I look Absurd.

5.
The moral of my story’s this: don’t leap
wherever grass is greener. Backwards creep.
And never burn your bridges, till you’re sure
leapfrogging friends secures your Sinecure.

Originally published by Lighten Up Online


Yasna 28, Verse 6
by Zarathustra (Zoroaster)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Lead us to pure thought and truth
by your sacred word and long-enduring assistance,
O, eternal Giver of the gifts of righteousness.

O, wise Lord, grant us spiritual strength and joy;
help us overcome our enemies’ enmity!

Translator’s Note: The Gathas consist of 17 hymns believed to have been composed by Zoroaster, also known as Zarathustra, Zarathushtra Spitama or Ashu Zarathushtra.



“Whoso List to Hunt” is a famous early English sonnet written by Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542) in the mid-16th century.

Whoever Longs to Hunt
by Sir Thomas Wyatt
loose translation/interpretation/modernization by Michael R. Burch

Whoever longs to hunt, I know the deer;
but as for me, alas!, I may no more.
This vain pursuit has left me so bone-sore
I'm one of those who falters, at the rear.
Yet friend, how can I draw my anguished mind
away from the doe?
                               Thus, as she flees before
me, fainting I follow.
                                I must leave off, therefore,
since in a net I seek to hold the wind.

Whoever seeks her out,
                                     I relieve of any doubt,
that he, like me, must spend his time in vain.
For graven with diamonds, set in letters plain,
these words appear, her fair neck ringed about:
Touch me not, for Caesar's I am,
And wild to hold, though I seem tame.



The First Complete Musical Composition

Shine, while you live;
blaze beyond grief,
for life is brief
and Time, a thief.
—Michael R. Burch, after Seikilos of Euterpes

The so-called Seikilos Epitaph is the oldest known surviving complete musical composition which includes musical notation. It is believed to date to the first or second century AD. The epitaph appears to be signed “Seikilos of Euterpes” or dedicated “Seikilos to Euterpe.” Euterpe was the ancient Greek Muse of music.



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.



VILLANELLES

These are villanelles and villanelle-like poems, including a new new poetic form I invented, the “trinelle” or “triplenelle.”

What happened to the songs of yesterdays?
by Michael R. Burch

Is poetry mere turning of a phrase?
Has prose become its height and depth and sum?
What happened to the songs of yesterdays?

Does prose leave all nine Muses vexed and glum,
with fingers stuck in ears, till hearing’s numbed?
Is poetry mere turning of a phrase?

Should we cut loose, drink, guzzle jugs of ***,
write prose nonstop, till Hell or Kingdom Come?
What happened to the songs of yesterdays?

Are there no beats to which tense thumbs might thrum?
Did we outsmart ourselves and end up dumb?
Is poetry mere turning of a phrase?

How did a feast become this measly crumb,
such noble princess end up in a slum?
What happened to the songs of yesterdays?

I’m running out of rhymes! Please be a chum
and tell me if some Muse might spank my ***
for choosing rhyme above the painted phrase?
What happened to the songs of yesterdays?



Trump’s Retribution Resolution
by Michael R. Burch

My New Year’s resolution?
I require your money and votes,
for you are my retribution.

May I offer you dark-skinned scapegoats
and bigger and deeper moats
as part of my sweet resolution?

Please consider a YUGE contribution,
a mountain of lovely C-notes,
for you are my retribution.

Revenge is our only solution,
since my critics are weasels and stoats.
Come, second my sweet resolution!

The New Year’s no time for dilution
of the anger of victimized GOATs,
when you are my retribution.

Forget the ****** Constitution!
To dictators “ideals” are footnotes.
My New Year’s resolution?
You are my retribution.



Why I Left the Right
by Michael R. Burch

I was a Reagan Republican in my youth but quickly “left” the GOP when I grokked its inherent racism, intolerance and retreat into the Dark Ages.

I fell in with the troops, but it didn’t last long:
I’m not one to march to a klanging gong.
“Right is wrong” became my song.

I’m not one to march to a klanging gong
with parrots all singing the same strange song.
I fell in with the bloops, but it didn’t last long.

These parrots all singing the same strange song,
with no discernment between right and wrong?
“Right is wrong” became my song.

With no discernment between right and wrong,
the **** marched on in a white-robed throng.
I fell in with the rubes, but it didn’t last long.

The **** marched on in a white-robed throng,
enraged by the sight of boys in sarongs.
“Right is wrong” became my song.

Enraged by the sight of boys in sarongs
and girls with butch hairdos, the clan klanged its gongs.
I fell in with the dupes, but it didn’t last long.
“Right is wrong” became my song.



The vanilla-nelle
by Michael R. Burch

The vanilla-nelle is rather dark to write
In a chocolate world where purity is slight,
When every rhyming word must rhyme with white!

As sure as night is day and day is night,
And walruses write songs, such is my plight:
The vanilla-nelle is rather dark to write.

I’m running out of rhymes and it’s a fright
because the end’s not nearly (yet) in sight,
When every rhyming word must rhyme with white!

It’s tougher when the poet’s not too bright
And strains his brain, which only turns up “blight.”
Yes, the vanilla-nelle is rather dark to write.

I strive to seem aloof and recondite
while avoiding ancient words like “knyghte” and “flyte”
But every rhyming word must rhyme with white!

I think I’ve failed: I’m down to “zinnwaldite.”
I fear my Muse is torturing me, for spite!
For the vanilla-nelle is rather dark to write
When every rhyming word must rhyme with white!



I may have invented a new poetic form, the “trinelle” or “triplenelle.”

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.



This is a "trinelle" or "triplenelle" about one of my favorite basketball players:

The Ballad of Dalton "Connect" Knecht
by Michael R. Burch

The basket's bent, the nets are charred.
It's hard to **** his will, as well.
Dalton Knecht is hard to guard.

To all defenders, it's "en garde!"
It's hard to **** his will, as well.
The basket's bent, the nets are charred.

There's no defense, all exits 're barred.
It's hard to **** his will, as well.
Dalton Knecht is hard to guard.

All hope is lost, not even a shard.
It's hard to **** his will, as well.
The basket's bent, the nets are charred.

The opposing coach's faith is jarred.
It's hard to **** his will, as well.
Dalton Knecht is hard to guard.

The defense's pride is maimed and scarred.
It's hard to **** his will, as well.
The basket's bent, the nets are charred.
Dalton Knecht is hard to guard.



Door Mouse
by Michael R. Burch

I’m sure it’s not good for my heart—
the way it will jump-start
when the mouse scoots the floor
(I try to **** it with the door,
never fast enough, or
fling a haphazard shoe ...
always too slow too)
in the strangest zig-zaggedy fashion
absurdly inconvenient for mashin’,
till our hearts, each maniacally revvin’,
make us both early candidates for heaven.



Prose Poem: The Trouble with Poets
by Michael R. Burch

This morning the neighborhood girls were helping their mothers with chores, but one odd little girl was out picking roses by herself, looking very small and lonely. Suddenly the odd one refused to pick roses anymore because she decided it might “hurt” them. Now she just sits beside the bushes, rocking gently back and forth, weeping and consoling the vegetation!
Now she’s lost all interest in nature, which she finds “appalling.” She dresses in black “like Rilke” and says she prefers the “roses of the imagination”! She mumbles constantly about being “pricked in conscience” and being “pricked to death.” What on earth can she mean? Does she plan to have *** until she dies?

For chrissake, now she’s locked herself in her room and refuses to come out until she has “conjured” the “perfect rose of the imagination”! We haven’t seen her for days. Her only communications are texts punctuated liberally with dashes. They appear to be badly-rhymed poems. She signs them “starving artist” in lower-case. What on earth can she mean? Is she anorexic, or bulimic, or is this just a phase she’ll outgrow?



Mercedes Benz
by Michael R. Burch

I'd like to do a song of great social and political import. It goes like this:

Oh Donnie, won't you sell me your Mercedes Benz?
My friends ***** in Porsches, I must make amends!
Like you, I ****** my partners and now have no friends.
So, Donnie won't you sell me your Mercedes Benz?

Oh Donnie, won't you sell me a **** import?
You need to pay your lawyers: a **** for a tort!
I’ll await her delivery, each day until three.
And Donnie, please throw in Ivanka for free!

Oh, Donnie won't you buy me a night on the town?
I'm counting on you, Don, so please don't let me down!
Oh, prove you're a ******* and bring them around.
Oh, Donnie won't you buy me a night on the town?

Oh Donnie, won't you sell me your Mercedes Benz?
My friends ***** in Porsches, I must make amends!
Like you, I ****** my partners and now have no friends.
So, Donnie won't you sell me your Mercedes Benz?



Syndrome
by Michael R. Burch

When the heart of a child,
fragile, like a flower, unfolds;
when his soul emerges from its last concealment,
nestled in the womb’s muscular whorls, its secret chambers;
when he kicks and screams,
flung from the watery darkness into the harsh light’s glare,
feeling its restive anger, its accusatory stare;
when he feels the heart his emergent heart remembers
fluttering against his cheek,
then falls into the lilac arms of heavy-lidded sleep;
when he reopens his eyes to the bellows’ thunder
(which he has never heard before, save as a drowned echo)
and feels its wild surmise, and sees—with wonder
the tenderness in another’s eyes
reflecting his startled wonder back at him,
as his heart picks up the beat of his mother’s grieving hymn for the world’s intolerable slander;
when he understands, with a babe’s discernment—
the *******, the hands, that now, throughout the years,
will bless him with their comforts, console him with caresses,
the gentle eyes, which, with their knowing tears,
will weep him away from the world’s slick, writhing dangers
through all his restlessly-flowering years;
as his helplessly-frail fingers curl around the nose now leaning to catch his powdery talcum scent ...
Remember—it is the world’s syndrome, its handicap, not his,
that will insulate assumers from the gentle pollinations of his loveliness,
from his gifts of enchantment, from his all-encompassing acceptance,
from these tender angelic charms now lifting awed earthlings who gladly embrace him.

Published by the National Association for Down Syndrome



Homer translations

Surrender to sleep at last! What a misery, keeping watch all night, wide awake. Soon you’ll succumb to sleep and escape all your troubles. Sleep. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Passage home? Impossible! Surely you have something else in mind, Goddess, urging me to cross the ocean’s endless expanse in a raft. So vast, so full of danger! Hell, sometimes not even the sea-worthiest ships can prevail, aided as they are by Zeus’s mighty breath! I’ll never set foot on a raft, Goddess, until you swear by all that’s holy you’re not plotting some new intrigue! — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Let’s hope the gods are willing. They rule the vaulting skies. They’re stronger than men to plan, execute and realize their ambitions. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Few sons surpass their fathers; most fall short, all too few overachieve. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Death is the Great Leveler, not even the immortal gods can defend the man they love most when the dread day dawns for him to take his place in the dust. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Any moment might be our last. Earth’s magnificence? Magnified because we’re doomed. You will never be lovelier than at this moment. We will never pass this way again. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Beauty! Ah, Terrible Beauty! A deathless Goddess, she startles our eyes! — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Many dread seas and many dark mountain ranges lie between us. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The lives of mortal men? Like the leaves’ generations. Now the old leaves fall, blown and scattered by the wind. Soon the living timber bursts forth green buds as spring returns. Even so with men: as one generation is born, another expires. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Since I’m attempting to temper my anger, it does not behoove me to rage unrelentingly on. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Overpowering memories subsided to grief. Priam wept freely for Hector, who had died crouching at Achilles’ feet, while Achilles wept himself, first for his father, then for Patroclus, as their mutual sobbing filled the house. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

“Genius is discovered in adversity, not prosperity.” — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Ruin, the eldest daughter of Zeus, blinds us all with her fatal madness. With those delicate feet of hers, never touching the earth, she glides over our heads, trapping us all. First she entangles you, then me, in her lethal net. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Death and Fate await us all. Soon comes a dawn or noon or sunset when someone takes my life in battle, with a well-flung spear or by whipping a deadly arrow from his bow. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Death is the Great Leveler, not even the immortal gods can defend the man they love most when the dread day dawns for him to take his place in the dust.—Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Giacomo da Lentini

Giacomo da Lentini, also known as Jacopo da Lentini or by the appellative Il Notaro (“The Notary”), was an Italian poet of the 13th century who has been credited with creating the sonnet.

Sonnet 26
by Giacomo da Lentini
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I've seen it rain on sunny days;
I’ve seen the darkness split by light;
I’ve seen white lightning fade to haze;
Seen frozen snow turn water-bright.

Some sweets have bitter aftertastes
While bitter things can taste quite sweet:
So enemies become best mates
While former friends no longer meet.

Yet the strangest thing I've seen is Love,
Who healed my wounds by wounding me.
Love quenched the fire he lit before;
The life he gave was death, therefore.

How to warm my heart? It eluded me.
Yet extinguished, Love sears all the more.



Haiku

Am I really this old,
so many ghosts
beckoning?
—Michael R. Burch

Sleepyheads!
I recite my haiku
to the inattentive lilies.
—Michael R. Burch

The sky tries to assume
your eyes’ azure
but can’t quite pull it off.
—Michael R. Burch

The sky tries to assume
your eyes’ arresting blue
but can’t quite pull it off.
—Michael R. Burch

Early robins
get the worms,
cats waiting to pounce.
—Michael R. Burch

Two bullheaded frogs
croaking belligerently:
election season.
—Michael R. Burch

An enterprising cricket
serenades the sunrise:
soloist.
—Michael R. Burch

A single cricket
serenades the sunrise:
solo violinist.
—Michael R. Burch

My life:
how little remains
of a night so brief?
—Masaoka Shiki, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Masaoka Shiki struggled with tuberculosis and died at age 35.
Yesterday’s snows
that fell like cherry blossoms
are mudpuddles again.

—Koshigaya Gozan, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
I write, erase, revise, erase again,
and then...
suddenly a poppy blooms!

—Katsushika Hokusai, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Vanishing spring:
songbirds lament,
fish weep with watery eyes.

—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Wearily,
I enter the inn
to be welcomed by wisteria!

—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Pale moonlight:
the wisteria’s fragrance
seems equally distant.

—Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
By such pale moonlight
even the wisteria's fragrance
seems distant.

—Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Pale moonlight:
the wisteria’s fragrance
drifts in from afar.

—Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Pale moonlight:
the wisteria’s fragrance
drifts in from nowhere.

—Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Plum flower temple:
voices ascend
from the valleys.

—Natsume Soseki, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
limping to the grave under the sentence of death,
should i praise ur LORD? think i’ll save my breath!
–michael r. burch

Because you made a world where nothing matters,
our hearts lie in tatters.
—Michael R. Burch



Hurrian Hymn No. 6
ancient Akkadian hymn
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

"Hurrian Hymn No. 6" was discovered in the ruins of Ugarit, near the modern town of Ras Shamra in Syria. It is the oldest surviving substantially complete work of notated music, dating to around 1400 BCE. The hymn is addressed to the goddess Nikkal (aka Ningal), the wife of the moon god Sin in ancient Mesopotamian mythology. "Hurrian Hymn No. 6" is one of 36 ancient Akkadian hymns called the "Hurrian Hymns" that were preserved in cuneiform, although the rest of the hymns are not as well-preserved.

1.
Having endeared myself to the Deity, she will embrace me.
May this offering of bread I bring wholly cover my sins.
May the sesame oil purify me as I bow low before your divine throne in awe.
Nikkal will make the sterile fertile, cause the barren to be fruitful:
They will bring forth children like grain.
The wife will bear her husband’s children.
May she who has not yet borne children now conceive them!

2.
For those who receive my offerings,
I place two loaves in their bowls as I perform the rites.
The couple have raised sacrifices to the heavens for their health and good fortune!
I have placed the loaves before your Divine Throne.
I will purify their sins, without denying them.
I will bring the lovers to you, that you may find them agreeable, for you love those who come forward to be reconciled.
I have brought their sins before you, to be removed through the reconciliation ritual.
I will honor you at your footstool.
Nikkal will strengthen them.
She allows married couples have children.
She allows children to be conceived by their fathers.
But the unreconciled will weep: "Why have I not yet born my husband children?"


Ammiditāna's Hymn to Ištar
Ancient Akkadian poem, author unknown
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1 iltam zumrā rašubti ilātim
2 litta''id bēlet iššī rabīt igigī
3 ištar zumrā rašubti ilātim
4 litta''id bēlet ilī nišī rabīt igigī

1 Sing the praises of the Goddess, our awe-inspiring Goddess!
2 Sing the praises of our Lady, the greatest of the gods!
3 Sing the praises of Ishtar, our awe-inspiring Goddess!
4 Sing the praises of our Lady, the greatest of the gods!

5 šāt mēleṣim ruāmam labšat
6 za'nat inbī mīkiam u kuzbam
7 šāt mēleṣim ruāmam labšat
8 za'nat inbī mīkiam u kuzbam

5 Ishtar who becomes aroused, exuding lust,
6 dripping desire—voluptuous and amorous!
7 Ishtar who becomes aroused, exuding lust,
8 dripping desire—voluptuous and amorous!

9 šaptīn duššupat balāṭum pīša
10 simtišša ihannīma ṣīhātum
11 šarhat irīmū ramû rēšušša
12 banâ šimtāša bitrāmā īnāša šitārā

9 Her lips drip honey-sweetness, her mouth is life itself,
10 Her cheeks are flushed with delight!
11 She is lovely, with beads braided in her hair!
12 Her cheeks are comely, her eyes are iridescent!

13 eltum ištāša ibašši milkum
14 šīmat mimmami qatišša tamhat
15 naplasušša bani bu'āru
16 baštum mašrahu lamassum šēdum

13 Our Goddess is pure, her counsel uncontested;
14 She holds the fates of all worlds in her hands!
15 Seeing her brings prosperity and happiness
16 for her pride, splendor, and protective spirit!

17 tartāmī tešmê ritūmī ṭūbī
18 u mitguram tebēl šīma
19 ardat tattadu umma tarašši
20 izakkarši innišī innabbi šumša

17 She is the Goddess of love-making and seduction,
18 of pleasure and harmony!
19 She teaches the naked girl to become a mother;
20 She will advance her name among the people!

21 ayyum narbiaš išannan mannum
22 gašrū ṣīrū šūpû parṣūša
23 ištar narbiaš išannan mannum
24 gašrū ṣīrū šūpû parṣūša

21 Who can rival her glory?
22 Her powers are unlimited, exalted and manifest!
23 Who can rival Ishtar's glory?
24 Her powers are unlimited, exalted and manifest!

25 gaṣṣat inilī atar nazzazzuš
26 kabtat awassa elšunu haptatma
27 ištar inilī atar nazzazzuš
28 kabtat awassa elšunu haptatma

25 Highest of the gods, her standing immense,
26 Her word is law, she towers above them!
27 Ishtar among the gods, her standing immense,
28 Her word is law, she towers above them!

29 šarrassun uštanaddanū siqrīša
30 kullassunu šâš kamsūšim
31 nannarīša illakūši
32 iššû u awīlum palhūšīma

29 They beg their queen to issue them orders;
30 they bow down obsequiously before her!
31 Acolytes orbit around her;
32 Men and women approach her in fear!

33 puhriššun etel qabûša šūtur
34 ana anim šarrīšunu malâm ašbassunu
35 uznam nēmeqim hasīsam eršet
36 imtallikū šī u hammuš

33 Foremost in the assembly, her speech altogether exalted,
34 she sits throned among them, an equal to Anu, the king!
35 She is wise beyond comprehension
36 when she and her chieftan confer!

37 ramûma ištēniš parakkam
38 iggegunnim šubat rīšātim
39 muttiššun ilū nazzuizzū
40 epšiš pîšunu bašiā uznāšun

37 They sit at the dais together,
38 in their delightful dwelling,
39 as the gods stand respectfully
40 awaiting her bidding.

41 šarrum migrašun narām libbīšun
42 šarhiš itnaqqišunūt niqi'ašu ellam
43 ammiditāna ellam niqī qātīšu
44 mahrīšun ušebbi li'ī u yâlī namrā'i

41 The king, their favourite, their hearts' beloved,
42 offers his sacrifice before them in splendour.
43 In their presence, Ammiditana, with his own hands
44 makes fattened offerings of bulls and stags.

45 išti anim hāmerīša tēteršaššum
46 dāriam balāṭam arkam
47 madātim šanāt balāṭim ana ammiditāna
48 tušatlim ištar tattadin

45 From Anum, her bridegroom, she has demanded
46 for the king a long fruitful life.
47 Many long years of life for Ammiditana
48 Ishtar has granted!

49 siqrušša tušaknišaššu
50 kibrat erbe'im ana šēpīšu
51 u naphar kalīšunu dadmī
52 taṣammissunūti ana nīrīšu

49 At her command the four corners of the earth
50 bow down to him!
51 She has bound the entire orb of the earth
52 to his yoke!

53 bibil libbīša zamar lalêša
54 naṭumma ana pîšu siqri ea īpuš
55 ešmēma tanittaša irissu
56 libluṭmi šarrašu lirāmšu addāriš

53 Her heart's desire, the praise-filled song,
54 is suited to his mouth, the commandment of Ea.
55 "I have heard her eulogy," said Ea, "and I was delighted with it!"
56 "May her king live long and may she love him forever!"

57 ištar ana ammiditāna šarri rā'imīki
58 arkam dāriam balāṭam šurqī

57 O Ishtar, may he live long and prosper,
58 Ammiditana, the king who loves you!



Keywords/Tags: amphibian, amphibians, evolution, gills, water, air, lungs, fins, flippers, fish, fishy business, poets, poetry, writing, art, work, works, rhyme, ballad, immortality, passion, emotion, desire, mrbwork, mrbworks

Published as the collection "What Works"

my god, you embody admirable beauty
you replenish all the good when my world is crashing
with waves so persistent these rocks must remember
the importance they leave when the tide begins to fall
i'm dying to know, has this sand always been so white?
i find peace in the piles my car is collecting

i beam at the worlds these rocks are collecting
communal homes, no fighting; just beauty
my pale limbs get lost in sand so white
shortly revealing themselves as waves come crashing
sometimes i stand on that rugged pier and i fall
awaiting the swallow of the sea, forgetting what i shouldn't remember

here, the wind is always changing, it will never remember
these impeding worries I've been collecting
it may not be strong enough to catch my fall
but it floods my lungs with beauty
for a moment i feel this high is crashing
a seagull grooms his messy feathers, searching for the white

i tell the gull he's beautiful, despite his lack of white
he distracts me from what i shouldn't remember
in taking flight, i envy his crashing
colliding with the water at such height, i grasp the shells I've been collecting
i notice the tide receding from its path, revealing more beauty
tripping over sand, i race to the pier for one last fall

i attempt to leave but the oceans current begs for another fall
the powdery sand on shore grabs me by the ankles and i'm glowing white
i am flattered by this playful behavior, i'm grateful for its beauty
with you, my dear, my peace of mind is all you must remember
rest assured i will never abandon the memories we are collecting
for it is you, i run to when my world is crashing

i swiftly dodge the sudden rain so violently crashing
in a dreamy state, i observe the drops as they fall
still, my shoes are soaked from where water insisted on collecting
in my rear view i see the sand converts to mud and is no longer white
it doesn't matter though, its not the way i'll remember
a storm could never retract genuine beauty

recounting the days moments, drenched in beauty, i feel my body crashing
time is limited when trying to remember as my eyelids fall
white sand is all i see and i'm buried beneath the pillows I've been collecting

There is no time more bleak and promising than the break of dawn.
The eggshell sky beckons with a powdery blue which promises of nobler and greater things just beyond our ever reaching grasp.

Rain slaps the pavement,
Low thunder grumbles, hungering and thirsting for more,
For me.

Shrill bird calls
the homely call of the crow
speckle the air with a spirit of understanding
(and a building intensity)
that simply cannot be felt ever again.
At any other time.

And I light a cigarette.
And I light a cigarette
because just like that.
The Beauty is gone.

Because in the time that it takes to coat the innards of my lungs with just one more layer of sludge,
The Beauty is gone.

The soft blue is usurped by a dull grey,
--a great that could only dream of the powerful
sting of a steel blade.

And people come alive again.
And my heart is broken.
Again.
Again, again, and
Again with the pathetic whorish promise of what could be,
but has not been,
and possibly never will be.

And yet I still hope,
And yet I still yearn for the promise of the powdery blue.

Nothing is better than The Rush.
No feeling in the world can compare to the high.
The smell of a powdery mountain overtakes my nose.
The tingle of a warm syrup slithers through my veins.
The inhale of smoke swarms into my lungs.
And the days slowly fade away.

Nothing is worse than The Crash.
When you can feel the euphoria dripping out of every crevice.
The stink of the sweat that rains down over my clammy skin.
The aches and shadows that encompass my sunken eyes.
The cramps that seize me and ******* my body.
Make me realize the I can't live without the high.

To the middle school English teachers
that simplified Shakespearean plays to the last syllable, feeling like the same dagger of odd epiphanies.

The distinct powdery paint stained floors, acrylic smudged tables and the coffee aroma by 09:03.
An art class educated by a poetic tongue, flicking through all art movements like he existed eloquently in each.

Our engineering & graphics teacher who simultaneously mothered us as her own from the isolated section of block D. In the background, a blackboard with  meticulously drawn site plans of the highest precision. Her shouts were just as sharp.

To my spontaneous IT teachers that taught me how to maneuver through binary dilemmas and store any distress in random access memory.

Or to the person who found my wallet with my ID and bank cards but had no idea where my cash disappeared to.

The aloof B15 bus driver constantly arriving before the last bell, especially on rainy pastel gray days.

The far too kind Mrs Sharon. I've never met you personally. However, your positive impact on my grandparent's life rolled both from their tongues and into my life.

Thank you.

bone traitor.
Skin viper
Edge Stealer
Ridge maker
Health reflector.
Mirror- you liar!
Rogue on the scale...
Signs that my brain has duped me;
Floating oily in the
Basin
Phantom aches
Blood test lies
Powdery remedies pressed almond abandon all cows
Bean curd body snatching
**** the doctor to get a clue

Girl in pain this isn't me so-
Who the hell are you?

On the bridge
between waking and sleeping
I met my father's eyes.

So beautiful and dark,
filled with quiet trouble,
and with tender invention.

Here in this nature park
green branches reach out
to one another, embracing
the air and the sky, touching,
sending chills down each other's
bark and trunk, meeting overhead.

You, my youngest brother, have
our father's eyes, and they are eyes
of pain and tenderness, of caring
every day for our beloved, ailing planet.

Above our heads, just now, down at the bottom
of the road to Ely Ford, sycamores carry thousands
of backlit leaves, each a green window into its own reality.

Who could have known that after so many months of silent solitude,
giving up completely on the illusory version of love,
a new beginning to life would begin as clearly and simply
as the moment when a butterfly, shoulders hunched in the final stages
of imprisonment within its sacred cocoon, knows unswervingly that
this is the day to bust loose, to slowly stretch wet, untried wings,
gingerly begin to flex her coloured, powdery, armature:
learning the way trust in truth and goodness
frees one completely.

*And sheets, and sheets of white light wash over me.
Sheets and sheets of white light wash over me.

trailing like meteors
ash flicks of embers
that tumble through darkness
and no one remembers
dissolving in liquid
like powdery pigment
that forms and then fades
in less than an instant
its all spreading out
like scatter star skies
each as the other
in dark and disguise


molecular symphonies
energized masses
that circle each other
like sublimised gasses
a hailstorm of being
a meteor shower
reactive conversions
of matter and power
its all spreading out
like scatter star skies
each as the other
in dark and disguise

It was the first snowfall of the year, a very soft, quiet, powdery snow that silently swept over the town. She stood at the door, watching the soft flakes collect on the ground. Every year she thought of how she dreaded with wintertime, the cold, the snow, the slush, all of it. She had been quite pessimistic towards the idea of the first snow of the year. She wasn’t ready for the absolute sign of cold, not so soon. She sighed, knowing it was inevitable. The month was November and it had been cold since mid-October. She could only accept it and move on with her life for the rest of the winter.
As she stood, watching the snow dust the points of the grass, she felt something swelling up inside. She couldn’t tell whether it was nostalgia, or happiness or sadness, it was a feeling she had either lost the name for or it had no name. She felt her eyes sting as the tears filled them to the brim. She thought it was ridiculous to cry about the snow, of all things. There were more important things to worry about and she was crying about snow.
She shook her head and closed the door, walking away from the view. She held herself as goosebumps covered her skin. Slowly she went through the motions she went through every night, with the exception of the tears crystallizing on her skin. She rubbed the skin before going to bed, that curious feeling still filling her up.
She thought of the snow, and the one she loved, and everything else. As the night grew quieter still, the feeling became apparent as a nostalgic loneliness. As the soft snow covered the little down in blankets, she covered herself and wished to share her blanket with another.

Sometimes, if I try, I hum between the tumbling
Hills of the world bracing domesticated beasts.
They graze and grunt all over again,
Entering slumbers following the daily sweep
Of lactic creeks, thin enough to guide tree roots.
Dusk is explained by the party of two, embracing the dividing sun.
Look left to see coral reef skies swim attempting to grasp what is to the right of the Sun:
Silhouettes outlining prayers flattening dimensions of rugged Mosques
Still dusty from wheat flour and patterned by uncooked lentils, that
Slipped through missing seams of Burlap, blackened from the hearth
Malleable as a result of dependency.

Though only half of my sight functions, I reason that
Earth shifts without you. Watching centuries and some odd
Years of changes, I yearn to know where you have gone.
I peer from the peacock’s tail, feeling the pulse of the
World tick away as the fearless pray to someone new.
Your countenance, I interlaced with feathered fingers
Depicts movements, curves. A shame to be without
Language to fill the contours of a nebulaic expression
Or swindling modifications.
You put me here. My eyes anyway.
Expecting me to retire along with buildings for your worship
Powdery paint has spilled and faded along with
Others who have modified your appearance, their someone new.

Even as the shadows swells
A million replicates of Io, moo and sway home, tired from the
Beating sun, to which eyes remain fixed.
One momentary memory visits.
Vision simulate traces of wonder, travelling on
Pathways believed to be conquerable. The people have learned
What I have not. They pause, breathe.

Asleep in math class, not me, the matrices
Nobody cares about them it seems,
They lie, tucked in, drowsy between the textbook pages of more important chapters
But today, I finally saw the magic in them
The numbers dance
You can take two matrices, written in powdery chalk,
On the smooth, green ballroom floor on the wall
And watch, as if underwater, all is murmurs, all music
Comprehension of a different sort than paying attention
As the entries shift and multiply and add
Moving, sliding, locking into place like Tetris
And only some partners are compatible, and only under certain circumstances
2X3 and 3X5 meet in the middle, merge and mutate into 2X5
Two become one, each bringing their differences to the ball
New dimensions
Translating, the rows become columns and the whole constellation
Spins, twirling, kaleidoscope
Square matrices waltz
Others salsa and tango
Slowing, slowing, sinking into the final dip
Finding identity
1     0     0
0     1     0
0     0     1

The country lane is covered with powdery snow,
Like a blanket it clasps the street and field;
The icy wind is uttering an auspicious sough.
Trudging towards my destination that niveous fir trees yield.

Amidst the eerie lonely hush, down in the frozen valley,
A glimmer of light reflecting on crystalline snowflakes;
The place appearing like a lighthouse down the alley.
I reach your house, next to the frozen solid lake,
It is the only bright glare in this devouring black night.

You are my stars in the universe, guiding me through the dark,
You are my anchor in the untamed tides, precluding me to roam;
And with a violent streak of intuition, like a sudden spark,
A feeling of bliss - I realize I finally arrived at home.

You can’t really picture the place.  
You don’t recall who was there.

But you remember surprise
That human ashes are not powdery dust,
Apt to disintegrate like snow,
Or soft like bread cast upon the waters.

Dad’s ashes chafed your palms like jagged seeds
As you clutched fistfuls from a plastic purple box
And flung them down a hillside
Somewhere in Little Cottonwood Canyon.

And you remember the feeling of urgency
As you retreated up the hill.
You had motions to go through,
Space to occupy,
A black and white landscape to walk
Among small figures filing along a dirt track
In the airless September heat.

I grew into my youth without fearing dinosaurs,
Because I watched too many re-programmings of Jurassic Park.
I wasn't aware that my basketball skills could take me places.
I was born here, I ran through cornfields and tall shades of grass,
playing hooky with *******, hopscotch with ******,
yet still averaging 24.6ppg while playing only 20 minutes a game.
It seemed so easy and simple at first, doing these things.
My neighbor Craig down the street,
used to work at the children's hospital so he always had access to needles;
all he wanted from me was a stack of metal spoons
that I could steal from my grandmother's house so we could dissolve the ******.
“This ****'ll make you feel like you could never die”, he would always say.

It was the 3rd quarter of our high school opening game against Fullerton.
We played at the redeveloped convocation 20 miles south of town,
because our high school received a bomb threat earlier that week.
The court constructed with cheers and boos due to my low field goal percentage.
I stashed my lucky line inside of my practice shorts in the locker room,
so I could lie to my coaches about needing some air.

My nostrils captured the effects of this white powdery substance,
as my body started to fail and deteriorate.
I think I felt my heart stop beating when I came to the free throw line.
First shot...air ball.
Second shot...no shot, body falls to the hardwood.
My shoes squeaked like rabid mice without control,
my right leg became convulsive and spastic, my left moved none.
The floor below my body drenched in a bilinear merging of crimson red and **** yellow.
The last image that I witnessed before my eyes left this world
Were the faces of the opposing cheerleaders,
Their young eyes bleeding blue and yellow,
mascara and grief running down their pretty cheeks.
They knew this from the beginning, my parents did.
They thought I had changed and found a new sport to love.
As my body laid on the floor, my parents laid in the belly of the audience,
Incapable of shedding tears,
because their suffering overtook their ability to cry.