NOTE TO THE READER – Once Apun a Time

This yarn is a flossy fabric woven of several earlier warped works, lightly laced together, adorned with fur-ther braided tails of human frailty. The looms were loosed, purling frantically this febrile fable...

Some pearls may be found wanting – unwanted or unwonted – piled or hanging loose, dangling free within a fuzzy flight of fancy...

The threads of this untethered tissue may be fastened, or be forgotten, or else be stranded by the readers and left unravelling in the knotted corners of their minds...

'twill be perchance that some may  laugh or loll in loopy stitches, else be torn or ripped apart, while others might just simply say “ ’tis made of hole cloth”, “sew what” or “cant seam to get the needle point”...,

yes, a proper disentanglement may take you for a spin on twisted twines of any strings you feel might need attaching or detaching…

picking knits, some may think that
       such strange things ‘have Never happened in our Land’,
       such quaint things ‘could Never happen in our Land’’,
       such murky things ‘will Never happen in our Land’’…

and this may all be true, if credence be dis-carded…

such is that gooey gossamer which vails the human mind...

and thus was born the teasing title of this fabricated Fantasy...

                                NEVER LAND

An ancient man named Peter Pan, disguised but from the past,
with feathered cap and tunic wrap and sabre’s sailed his last.
Though fully grown, on dust he’s flown and perched upon a mast
atop the Walls around the sprawls, unvisited and vast -
and all the while with bitter smile he’s watching us aghast.

As day begins, a spindle spins, it weaves a wanton web;
like puckered prunes, like midday moons, like yesterday’s celebs,
we scrape and *****, we seldom hope - he watches while we ebb:

The ***** grinder preaches fine on Sunday afternoons -
he quotes from books but overlooks the Secrets Carved in Runes:
“You’ve tried and toyed, but can’t avoid or shun the pale monsoons,
it’s sink or swim as echoed dim in swinging door saloons”.
The laughingstocks are flinging rocks at ball-and-chained baboons.

While ghetto boys are looting toys preparing for their doom
and Mademoiselles are weaving shells on tapestries with looms,
Cathedral cats and rafter rats are peering in the room,
where ragged strangers stoop for change, for coppers in the gloom,
whose thoughts are more upon the doors of crypts in Christmas bloom,
and gold doubloons and silver spoons that tempt beyond the tomb.

Mid *** shots from vacant lots, that strike and ricochet
a painted girl with flaxen curl (named Wendy)’s on her way
to tantalise with half-clad thighs, to trick again today;
and indiscreet upon the street she gives her pride away
to any guy who’s passing by with time and cash to pay.
(In concert halls beyond the Walls, unjaded girls ballet,
with flowered thoughts of Camelot and dreams of cabarets.)

Though rip-off shops and crooked cops are paid not once but thrice,
the painted girl with flaxen curl is paring down her price
and loosely tempts cold hands unkempt to touch the merchandise.
A crazy guy cries “where am I”, a ****** titters twice,
and double quick a lunatic affects a fight with lice.

The alleyways within the maze are paved with rats and mice.
Evangelists with moneyed fists collect the sacrifice
from losers scorned and rubes reborn, and promise paradise,
while in the back they cook some crack, inhale, and roll the dice.

A *** called Boe has stubbed his toe, he’s stumbled in the gutter;
with broken neck, he looks a wreck, the sparrows all aflutter,
the passers-by, they close an eye, and turn their heads and mutter:
“Let’s pray for rains to wash the lanes, to clear away the clutter.”
A river slows neath mountain snows, and leaves begin to shudder.

The jungle teems, a siren screams, the air is filled with ****.
The Reverent Priest and nuns unleash the Holy Shibboleth.
And Righteous Jane who is insane, as well as Sister Beth,
while telling tales to no avail of everlasting death,
at least imbrue Hagg Avenue with whisky on their breath.

The Reverent Priest combats the Beast, they’re kneeling down to prey,
to fight the truth with fang and tooth, to toil for yesterday,
to etch their mark within the dark, to paint their résumé
on shrouds and sheets which then completes the devil’s dossier.

Old Dan, he’s drunk and in a funk, all mired in the mud.
A Monk begins to wash Dan’s sins, and asks “How are you, Bud?”
“I’m feeling pain and crying rain and flailing in the flood
and no god’s there inclined to care I’m always coughing blood.”
The Monk, he turns, Dan’s words he spurns and lets the bible thud.

Well, Banjo Boy, he will annoy with jangled rhymes that fray:
“The clanging bells of carousels lead blind men’s minds astray
to rings of gold they’ll never hold in fingers made of clay.
But crest and crown will crumble down, when withered roots decay.”

A pregnant lass with eyes of glass has never learned to cope.
Once set adrift her fall was swift, she slid a slipp’ry ***** -
she casts the Curse, the Holy Verse, and shoots a shot of dope,
then stalks discreet Asylum Street her daily horoscope -
the stray was struck by random truck which was her only hope.

So Banjo Boy, with little joy, he strums her life entire:
“The wayward waif was never safe; her stars were dark and dire.
Born midst the rues and avenues where lack and want aspire
where no one heeds the childish needs that little ones require;
where faith survives in tempest lives, a swirl within the briar,
Infinity grinds as time unwinds, until the winds expire.
Her last caprice? The final peace that no one could deny her -
whipped by the flood, stray beads of blood cling, splattered on the spire;
though beads of sweat are cool and wet, cold clotted blood is dryer.”

Though broken there, she’s fled the snare with dying thoughts serene.
And now she’s dead, the rumours spread: her age? a sweet 16,
with child, *****, her soul dyed red, her body so unclean.
A place is sought where she can rot, avoiding churchyard scenes,
in limey pits, as well befits, behind forbidding screens;
and all the while a dirge is styled on tattered tambourines
which echo through the human zoo in valleys of the Queens.

Without rejoice, in hissing voice, near soil that’s seldom trod
“In pious role, God bless my soul”, was mouthed with mitred nod,
neath scarlet trim with black, and grim, behind a robed facade -
“She’ll burn in hell and sulphur smell”, spat Priest and man of god.

Well, angels sweet with cloven feet, they sing in girl’s attire,
but Banjo Boy, he’s playing coy while chanting in the choir:
“The clueless search within the church to find what they desire,
but near the nave or gravelled grave, there is no Rectifier.”
And when he’s through, without ado, he stacks some stones nearby her.

The eyes behind the head inclined reflect a universe
of shanty towns and kings in crowns and parties in a hearse,
of heaping mounds of coffee grounds and pennies in a purse,
of heart attacks in shoddy shacks, of motion in reverse,
of reasons why pale kids must die, quite trite and curtly terse,
of puppet people at the steeple, kneeling down averse,
of ****** tones and megaphones with empty words and worse,
of life’s begin’ in utter sin and other things perverse,
of lewd taboos and residues contained within the Curse,
while poets blind, in gallows’ rind, carve epitaphs in verse.

A sodden dreg with wooden leg is dancing for a dime
to sacred psalms and other balms, all ticking with the time.
He’s 22, he’s almost through, he’s melted in his prime,
his bane is firm, the canker worm dissolves his brain to slime.
With slanted scales and twisted jails, his life’s his only crime.

A beggar clump beside a dump has pencil box in hand.
With sightless eyes upon the skies he’s lying there unmanned,
with no relief and bitter grief too dark to understand.
The backyard blight is hid from sight, it’s covered up and bland,
and Robin Hood and Brother Hood lie buried in the sand.

While all night queens carve figurines in gelatine and jade,
behind a door and on the floor a deal is finally made;
the painted girl with flaxen curl has plied again her trade
and now the care within her stare has turned a darker shade.
Her lack of guile and parting smile are cutting like a blade.

Some boys with cheek play hide and seek within a house condemned,
their faces gaunt reflecting want that’s hard to comprehend.
With no excuse an old recluse is waiting to descend.
His eyes despair behind the stare, he’s never had a friend
to talk about his hidden doubt of how the world will end -
to die alone on empty throne and other Fates impend.

And soon the boys chase phantom joys and, presto when they’re gone,
the old recluse, with nimble noose and ****** features drawn,
no longer waits upon the Fates but yawns his final yawn
- like Tinker Bell, he spins a spell, in fairy dust chiffon -
with twisted brow, he’s tranquil now, he’s floating like a swan
and as he fades from life’s charades, the night awaits the dawn.

A boomerang with ebon fang is soaring through the air
to pierce and breach the heart of each and then is called despair.
And as it grows it will oppose and fester everywhere.
And yet the crop that’s at the top will still be unaware.

A lad is stopped by roving cops, who shoot in disregard.
His face is black, he’s on his back, a breeze is breathing hard,
he bleeds and dies, his mama cries, the screaming sky is scarred,
the sheriff and his squad at hand are laughing in the yard.

Now Railroad Bob’s done lost his job, he’s got no place for working,
His wife, she cries with desperate eyes, their baby’s head’s a’ jerking.
The union man don’t give a ****, Big Brother lies a’ lurking,
the boss’ in cabs are picking scabs, they count their money, smirking.

Bob walks the streets and begs for eats or little jobs for trying
“the answer’s no, you ought to know, no use for you applying,
and don’t be sad, it aint that bad, it’s soon your time for dying.”
The air is thick, his baby’s sick, the cries are multiplying.

Bob’s wife’s in town, she’s broken down, she’s ranting with a fury,
their baby coughs, the doctor scoffs, the snow flies all a’ flurry.
Hard work’s the sin that’s done them in, they skirmish, scrimp and scurry,
and midnight dreams abound with screams. Bob knows he needs to hurry.
It’s getting late, Bob’s tempting fate, his choices cruel and blurry;
he chooses gas, they breathe their last, there’s no more cause to worry.

Per protocols near ivied walls arrayed in sage festoons,
the Countess quips, while giving tips, to crimson caped buffoons:
“To rise from mass to upper class, like twirly bird tycoons,
you stretch the treat you always eat, with tiny tablespoons”

A learned leach begins to teach (with songs upon a liar):
“Within the thrall of Satan’s call to yield to dim desire
lie wicked lies that tantalize the flesh and blood Vampire;
abiding souls with self-control in everyday Hellfire
will rest assured, when once interred, in afterlife’s Empire”.
These words reweave the make believe, while slugs in salt expire,
baptised in tears and rampant fears, all mirrored in the mire.

It’s getting hot on private yachts, though far from desert plains -
“Well, come to think, we’ll have a drink”, Sir Captain Hook ordains.
Beyond the blame and pit of shame, outside the Walled domains,
they pet their pups and raise their cups, take sips of pale champagnes
to touch the tips of languid lips with pearls of purple rains.

Well, Gypsy Guy would rather die than hunker down in chains,
be ridden south with bit in mouth, or heed the hold of reins.
The ruling lot are in a spot, the boss man he complains:
“The gypsies’ soul, I can’t control, my patience wears and wanes;
they will not cede to common greed, which conquers far domains
and furtive spies and news that lies have barely baked their brains.
But in the court of last resort the final fix remains:
in boxcar bins with violins we’ll freight them out in trains
and in the bogs, they’ll die like dogs, and everybody gains
(should one ask why, a quick reply: ‘It’s that which God ordains!’)”

Arrayed in shawls with crystal *****, and gazing at the moons,
wiled women tease with melodies and spooky loony tunes
while making toasts to holey ghosts on rainy day lagoons:
“Well, here’s to you and others too, embedded in the dunes,
avoid the stares, avoid the snares, avoid the veiled typhoons
and fend your way as every day, ’gainst heavy heeled dragoons.”

The birds of pray are on their way, in every beak the Word
(of ptomaine tomes by gnarly gnomes) whose meaning is obscured;
they roost aloof on every roof, obscene but always herd,
to tell the tale of Jonah’s whale and other rhymes absurd
with shifty eyes, they’re giving whys for living life deferred.

While jackals lean, hyenas mean, and hungry crocodiles
feast in the lounge and never scrounge, lambs languish in the aisle.
The naive dare to say “Unfair, let’s try to reconcile.
We’ll all relax and weigh the facts, let justice spin the dial.”

With jaundiced monks and minds pre-shrunk, the jury is compiled.
The Rulers meet, First Ladies greet, the Kings appear in style.
Before the Court, their sins are short, they’re swept into a pile;
with diatribes and petty bribes, the jurors are beguiled.

The Herd entreats, the Shepherd bleats the verdict of the trial:
“You have no face. Stay in your place, stay in the Rank and File.
And wait instead, for when you’re dead, for riches after while”;
Aristocrats add caveats while sailing down the Nile:
“If Minds are mugged or simply drugged with philtres in a vial,
then few indeed will fail to feed the Pharaoh’s Crocodile.”
The wordsmiths spin, the bankers grin and politicians smile,
the riff and raff, they never laugh, they mark a martyred mile.

The rituals are finished, all, here comes the Reverent Priest.
He leads the crowds beneath the clouds, and there the flock is fleeced
(“the last are first, the rich are cursed” - the leached remain the least)
with crossing signs and ****** wines and consecrated yeast.
His step is gay without dismay before his evening feast;
he thanks the Lord for room and, bored, he nods to Eden East
but doesn’t sigh or wonder why the sins have not decreased.

The sinking sun’s at last undone, the sky glows faintly red.
A spider black hides in a crack and spins a silken thread
and babes will soon collapse and swoon, on curbs they call a bed;
with vacant eyes they'll fantasize and dream of gingerbread,
and so be freed, though still in need, from anguish of the dead.

Fat midnight bats feast, gnawing gnats, and flit away serene
while on the trails in distant dales the lonesome wolverine
sate appetites on foggy nights and days like crystalline.
A migrant feeds on gnats and weeds with fingers far from clean
and thereby’s blessed with barren breast (the easier to wean) -
her baby ***** an arid flux and fades away unseen.

The circus gongs excite the throngs in nighttime Never Land –
they swarm to see the destiny of Freaks at their command,
while Acrobats step pitapat across the shifting sands
and Lady Fat adores her cat and oozes charm unplanned.
The Dwarfs in suits, so small and cute when marching with the band,
ask crimson Clowns with painted frowns, to lend a mutant hand,
while Tamers’ whips with withered tips, throughout the winter land,
lure minds entranced through hoops enhanced with flames of fires fanned.
White Elephants in big-top tents sell black tusk contraband
to Sycophants in regiments who overflow the stands,
but No One sees anomalies, and No One understands.
At night’s demise, the dither dies, the lonely Crowd disbands,
down dead-end streets the Horde retreats, their threadbare rags in strands,
and Janes and Joes reweave their woes, for thoughts of change are banned.

The Monk of Mock has fled the flock caught knocking up a tween.
(She brought to light the special rite he sought to leave unseen.)
With profaned eyes they agonise, their souls no more serene
and at the shrine the flutes of wine are filled with kerosene
by men unkempt who once had dreamt but now can dream no more
except when bellowed bellies belch an ever growing roar,
which churns the seas and whips a breeze that mercy can’t ignore,
and in the night, though filled with fright, they try to end the War.

The slow and quick are hurling bricks and fight with clubs of rage
to break the chains and cleanse the stains of life within a cage,
but yield to stings of armoured things that crush in every age.

At crack of dawn, a broken pawn, in pools of blood and fire,
attends the wounds, in blood festooned (the waves flow nigh and nigher),
while ghetto towns are burning down (the flames grow high and higher);
and in their wake, a golden snake is rising from the pyre.
Her knees are bare, consumed in prayer, applauded by the Friar,
and soon it’s clear the end is near - while magpie birds conspire,
the lowly worm is made to squirm while dangling from a wire.

The line was crossed, the battle lost, the losers can’t deny,
the residues are far and few, though smoke pervades the sky.
The cool wind’s cruel, a cutting tool, the vanquished ask it “Why?”,
and bittersweet, from  Easy Street, the Pashas’ puffed reply:
“The rules are set, so don’t forget, the rabble will comply;
the grapes of wrath may make you laugh, the day you are to die.”

The down and out, they knock about beneath the barren skies
where homeward bound, without a sound, a ravaged raven flies.
Beyond the Walls, the morning calls the newborn sun to rise,
and Peter Pan, a broken man, inclines his head and cries...

I hateth th' song of th' grass outside;
and t'eir blades t'at swing about my feet
like fire. How unfeeling all of which are-
did t'ey really think I wouldst ever be tantalised
by t'eir sickly magic? Such a gross one-
demanding, rapacious, parasitic!
Even I am fed up with t'eir proposals,
and ideas t'at t'ey fervently throw
in th' hope t'at t'ey canst corrupt my dreams,
my feelings-ah, yes, my sincere feelings,
and secure, t'ough imaginary, dreams.
Oh, and my comfortable desire as well!
My rosy desire-which at times canst tiringly
petrify me-ah, unbelievable, is it not? Th' fact
t'at I am so satiatingly, and daringly, petrified
by my own desire-and reproved by th' one
whom I am astonished at, praise, and admire;
How pitiful I am! How horrific and tragic!
I hath knitted my sorry without caution,
I was too immersed in vivid glances
and disguises and mock admiration.
Perhaps it hath been my mistake!
Eyes t'at blindly saw,
ears t'at wrongly judged!
Lies t'at I forsook,
tensions t'at I undertook!
Oh, how credulous I am-to vice!
Mock me, detest me, strangle me!
Stop my sullen heart from breathing-
as I hath, I hath spurned my darling-
oh, I hath lost my love!
How sorrowful, tearful-and painful!
And how I hath lost my breath; for cannot I stop
my feet from swimming and tapping
in t'is fraudulent air, gothic and transient
With poems t'at no matter how mad,
but nearly as thoughtful and eloquent,
I shalt still remain doleful and sad,
for my love for him is indeedst thorough-
and imminent; No matter how absurd he fancies
I am, and how he looketh at me oftentimes
with twigs of governing dexterity;
but most of all, shame.
I hath no shape now.
I hath lost, and raked away,
my elaborate conscience;
I hath corrupted my conciseness,
I hath wounded my sanguinity,
originality, and thoughts even, of my poetic
soul-of my poetic bluntness and sometimes
rigid, creativity.
I am an utter failure.
I am a mad creature; I am maddened by love,
I am frightened by virtue, I despise and reject
truth. I hath no sibling in t'is world of humanity,
ah-yes, no more sibling, indeedst,
neither any more puzzles of fate
t'at I ought to host, and solve;
I deserve nothing but fading and fading away
and give up my soul, my human soul-
to being a slave to disgrace
and cordial nothingness.
I belongst not, to t'is whole human world;
T'is is not my region, for I canst, here-
smell everything sacrificed for one another
and rings of delightful and blessed laughter
which I loathe, with all th' sonnets and auguries
of my laconic heart. Oh, I am misery!
I am evil, evil misery!
I, myself, equal tragedy; I am a devil,
a feminine and laurel-like devil-
just like how I look,
but tormented I am inside,
as a cursed being by nature and God Almighty
for never I shalt be bound to any love;
and engaged to any hands
in my left years and in th' afterlife outright.
I shalt have never any marriage within me,
any marriage worthy of talks, parties,
neither anything my wan heart desires;
like sweets with no sweetness,
or dances with no music.
No human love should ever
be properly conducted by me,
I am incapable of embodying
a unity, I am destined to be with me.
To be with me only-ah, as sad as it is,
as vague as how it sounds, or it might be.
O, and how I should love, emptiness!
Any loss should thus be romantic to me:
Just how death already is;
my husband is death,
and my chamber is his grave.
I shalt, night and day, sing to th' leaves
on his tomb,
ah-as t'ey are alive to me!
Yes, my darling reader! To me, t'ey are living souls,
t'ey open t'eir mouths and sing to me
Whenever I approach 'em with my red
bucket of flowers; lilies t'ey eat, ah-
how romantic t'ey look, with tongues
slithering joyfully over th' baked loaves I proffer!
T'eir smell of rotting flesh my hug,
meanwhile t'eir deadness my kisses!
T'eir greyness, and paleness-my cherry,
and t'eir red-blood heath my berry!
So glad shalt I becometh, and shimmer shalt my hair-
and be quenched my buoyant hunger-
beneath th' sun, with my hands, t'at hath
been aborted for long, robbed of whose divine functions
Laid in such epic, and abundant rejections
Brought into life again, and its surreal breath
But t'is time realistic, t'ough which happiness
shalt be mortal, as I perfectly, and tidily knoweth
and as I flippeth my head around
And duly openeth my eyes, I shalt again
be sitting in th' same impeccable nowhereness,
nowhere about th' dead lake, with its white-furred
swans, ghost-like at t'is hour of night-
Wherein for th' rest of my years should I dwell,
with no ability and desired tranquility
t'at canst once more guarantee
my security to escape.
T'ere's no door-yes, no door, indeedst,
to flee from th' gruesome trees,
t'eir putrid breath solitary and reeks of tears,
whilst t'eir tangled leaves smell strongly
of vulgarity and hate.
I hate as well-th' foliage amongst 'em,
grotesque and fiendish art whose dreamy visages,
with sticking tails wiping and squeaking
about my eyes, t'ough as I glance through
thy heavens, Lord, gleam like watery roses
before t'eir petals swell, fall, and die.
Oh-so creepy and melancholy t'ese feelings are,
but granted to me I knoweth not how,
as to why allowed not I am,
to becomest a more agreeable mistress
to a human-a human t'at even in solitude
breathes th' same air, and feels all th' same
indolent as me, by th' tedious,
ye' cathartic, morn.
Ah, and shalt I miss my lover once more
And t'is time even more persistently t'an before,
For every single of his breath is my sonnet,
and every word he utters my play.
He is th' salvation, and mere justification
I should not for ever forget,
just like how I should cherish
every sound second; every brand-new day.
My heart is deeply rooted in him;
no matter how defunct-
and defected it may seem,
as well as how futile, as t'is selfish world
hath-with anger and jealousy, deemed.
How I feel envy towards t'ose lucky ones,
with lovers and ringlets about t'eir palms,
so jealous t'at I cringe towards my own fate,
and my inability to escape which.
How unfair t'is world is sometimes-to me!
Ah, but I shalt argue further not;
I shalt make t'is exhaustive story short-
I am like a nasty kid trapped in th' dark,
without knowing in which way I should linger,
'fore making my way out and surpass her.
She is a curse-indeedst, a curse to me,
t'ough at th' moment she is a cure-but to him,
but she is all to forever remain a bad dream,
which he should but better quit,
she shalt subdue my light,
and so cheat him out of his wit.
She is an angel to him at night,
but at noon he sees her not,
she is an elegant, but mischievous auroch
with ineffectual, ye' doll-like and plastic auras
She is deceit, she is litter, she is mockery;
She hath all but an indignant, ****** beauty
She does not even hath a life, nor
a journey of destiny
She hath not any trace of warmth, or grace,
and most of th' time, at night
It is her agelessness t'at plays,
she ages but she falsely tricks him-my love,
into her lusted, exasperating eagerness;
t'ough colourless is her soul, now,
from committing too much of yon sin
She still knoweth not of her unkindness,
and thinks t'at everything canst be bought
by beauty, and t'at neither love nor passion
canst afford her any real happiness.

Ah, my love, I am hung about
by t'is prolific suspense;
My heart feels repugnant in its wait;
uncertain about everything thou hath said
As thou wert gentle but mean to me;
despite my kindness, ye' mistaken shortcomings
as I stood by th' railings th' other day, next to thee.
Ah, thee, please hear my apologies!
Oh, thee, my life and my midday sun,
a song t'at I sing-in my bed and on my pillow,
last week, yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
I am, however, to him forever a childlike prodigy-
shalt never he believeth in my tales,
ah, his faith is not in me,
but I in him.
How despicable!
But foolishly I still love him,
even over t'is overly weighing injustice
on my heart-
ah, still I love him, I love him!
I love him too badly and madly,
I love him too keenly, but wholly passionately.
I love him with all my heart and body!
Oh, Kozarev, I love thee!
I love thee only!
For love hath no more weight, neither justice
within it, if it is given not by thee;
I was born and raised to be thine,
as how thou wert created
and painted and crafted-by God Almighty,
to be mine. As I sit here I canst savagely feel, oh,
how painfully I feel-yon emptiness,
t'is insoluble, inseparable solitude
filled not with thy air, glancing at
th' deafening thunder, rusty rainbows
With thee not by my side.
I fallest asleep, as dusk preaches
and announces its arrival,
But asleep into a burdened nightmare,
too many fears and screams heightened in it,
ah, I am about to fallest from smart rocks
into th' boiling tides of fire beneath my feet.
I wake into th' imprudent smile of th' moon,
and her coquettish hands and feet
t'at conquer th' night so cold.
She is about to scold me away again,
'fore I slap her cheeks and send her back
to sleep, weeping.
I return to my wooden bench, and weep
all over again, as without thee still I am,
barefooted and thinly clothed amongst
th' dull stars at a killing cold night.
Th' rainbow is still th' rainbow,
but it is now filled with horror,
for I am not with thee, Kozarev!
Oh, Kozarev, th' darling of my heart,
th' mere, mere darling of my silent heart,
even th' heavens art still less handsome
t'an thy images-growing and fading
and growing and fading about me
Like a defiant chain, thou art my naughty prince,
but th' most decorous one, indeed;
thou art th' gift t'at I'th so heartily prayed for
and supplicated for-over what I should regard
as th' longest months of my life.
O, Kozarev, thou art my boy,
and which boy in th' world
who does not want to
play hide-and-seek in th' garden-
like we didst, last Monday?
Thou art my poem,
and thus worth all th' stories
within which. Thou art genial,
cautious, and beneficent. Thou art
vital-o, vital to me, my love!
I still blush with madness at th' remembrance
of thy voice, and giggle with joy and tears
over yon picture of thee; I canst ever forget thee
not, and sure as I am, t'at never in my life
I shalt be able to love, nor care for another;
thou art mine, Kozarev, thou art mine!
Thou art mine only, my sweet!
And ah, Kozarev, thou knoweth, my darling,
t'at the rainbow is longer beautiful
tonight; and as haughtiness surfaces again
from th' cynical undergrowth beneath,
I am afraid t'at t'eir fairness and brightness
shalt fade-just like thy love, which was back then
so glad and tender, but gets warmer not;
as we greet every inevitable day
and tend to t'eir needs,
like those obedient clouds
to th' appalling rain, in th' sky.

Ah, but nowest look-look at thee! Thy innocence,
t'at was but so delicate and sweet-
like t'ose bare, ye' green-clustered bushes yonder,
is now in exile, yes, deep exile, my love!
I congratulate thee on which, yes, I do!
I honestly do! For thy joy and gladness
doth mean everything to me,
'ven t'ough it means th' rudest,
th' eeriest of life; t'at I shalt'th ever seen!
But should I do so? T'at is a question
I canst stop questioning myself not.
Should I? Should I let thee go
and t'us myself suffer here
from th' absence
of my own true love-
and any ot'er future miracles
in my life?
I think not!
Ah, and not t'at there'd be
any ot'er mirages in my love,
for all hath been, and shalt always be-
united in thee! O, in thee, only, Kozarev!
For I am certain I love thee,
and so hysterically love thee only,
even amongst th' floods-ah, yes,
t'ese ambiguous piles of flooding pains,
disgusting as blood, but demure,
and clear as my own heartbeat;
I love and want thee only,
as how I dreameth of,
and careth for thee every night,
t'ough just in my dream,
and in life yet not!
Ah, Kozarev, I am thy star,
just like thou art mine-already,
I am fated and bound to thee,
and thou to me.
Thou art not an illusion,
neither a picture of my imagination.
Thou art real, Kozarev,
thou art real-and forever
shalt be real to me;
thou art th' blood,
t'at floweth through my veins,
thou art th' man,
t'at conquereth my heart-and hands,
thou art everything,
thou art more t'an my poem
and my delicate sonnet,
thou art more t'an my life
or my ever dearest friend.

Probably 'tis all neither a poem,
nor a matter of daydreams;
perhaps still I needst to find him,
t'ough it may bringst me anot'er curse,
and throwest me away
and into anot'er gloom.
Ah, Kozarev, thou-who shalt never
be reading t'is poem, much less write one
Unlike thou wert to me back t'en;
Thou art still as comely as th' sun;
Thou art still th' man t'at I want.
Even whenst all my age is done;
and my future days shalt be gone.

Heretical Poems by Michael R. Burch including "The ur Poems" and  "GAUD poems"



Bible Libel
by Michael R. Burch

If God
is good,
half the Bible
is libel.

NOTE: I came up with this epigram to express my conclusions after reading the Bible from cover to cover, ten chapters per day, at age eleven.



Saving Graces
for the Religious Right
by Michael R. Burch

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



Multiplication, Tabled
for the Religious Right
by Michael R. Burch

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



***** Nilly
for the Demiurge, aka Yahweh/Jehovah
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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



What Would Santa Claus Say
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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



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

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



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

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



Red State Religion Rejection Slip
by Michael R. Burch

I’d like to believe in your LORD
but I really can’t risk it
when his world is as badly composed
as a half-baked biscuit.



Evil Cabal
by Michael R. Burch

those who do Evil
do not know why
what they do is wrong
as they spit in ur eye.

nor did Jehovah,
the original Devil,
when he murdered eve,
our lovely rebel.



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.



Be very careful what you pray for!
by Michael R. Burch

Now that his T’s been depleted
the Saint is upset, feeling cheated.
His once-fiery lust?
Just a chemical bust:
no “devil” cast out or defeated.



Practice Makes Perfect
by Michael R. Burch

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

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



Enough!
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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



Redefinitions
by Michael R. Burch

Faith: falling into the same old claptrap.
Religion: the ties that blind.



pretty pickle
by michael r. burch

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



Defenses
by Michael R. Burch

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

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



Listen
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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



fog
by michael r. burch

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



thanksgiving prayer of the parasites
by michael r. burch

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

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

ah-men!

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



no foothold
by michael r. burch

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

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

as far as the i can see ...



u-turn: another way to look at religion
by michael r. burch

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



You
by Michael R. Burch

For thirty years You have not spoken to me;
I heard the dull hollow echo of silence
as though a communion between us.

For thirty years You would not open to me;
You remained closed, hard and tense,
like a clenched fist.

For thirty years You have not broken me
with Your alien ways and Your distance.
Like a child dismissed,

I have watched You prey upon the hope in me,
knowing “mercy” is chance
and “heaven”—a list.



I’ve got Jesus’s face on a wallet insert
by Michael R. Burch

for the Religious Right

I’ve got Jesus’s face on a wallet insert
and "Hell is for Queers" on the back of my shirt.
     And I uphold the Law,
     for Grace has a Flaw:
the Church must have someone to drag through the dirt.

I’ve got ten thousand reasons why Hell must exist,
and you’re at the top of my fast-swelling list!
     You’re nothing like me,
     so God must agree
and slam down the Hammer with His Loving Fist!

For what are the chances that God has a plan
to save everyone: even Boy George and Wham!?
     Eternal fell torture
     in Hell’s pressure scorcher
will separate **** from Man.

I’m glad I’m redeemed, ecstatic you’re not.
Did Christ die for sinners? Perish the thought!
     The "good news" is this:
     soon My vengeance is his!,
for you’re not the lost sheep We sought.



Pagans Protest the Intolerance of Christianity
by Michael R. Burch

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

We had a common sky
before the Christians came.

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

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

Yet now our fellow mortals claim
our questions merit hell!

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

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



jesus hates me, this i know
by michael r. burch

jesus hates me, this I know,
for Church libel tells me so:
"little ones to him belong"
but if they use their dongs, so long!
    yes, jesus hates me!
    yes, jesus baits me!
    yes, he berates me!
    Church libel tells me so!

jesus fleeces us, i know,
for Religion scams us so:
little ones are brainwashed to
believe god saves the Chosen Few!
    yes, jesus fleeces!
    yes, he deceases
    the bunny and the rhesus
    because he's mad at you!

jesus hates me—christ who died
so i might be crucified:
for if i use my active brain,
that will drive the "lord" insane!
    yes, jesus hates me!
    yes, jesus baits me!
    yes, he berates me!
    Church libel tells me so!

jesus hates me, this I know,
for Church libel tells me so:
first priests tell me "look above,"
that christ's the lamb and god's the dove,
but then they sentence me to Hell
for using my big brain too well!
    yes, jesus hates me!
    yes, jesus baits me!
    yes, he berates me!
    Church libel tells me so!



and then i was made whole
by michael r. burch

... and then i was made whole,
but not a thing entire,
glued to a perch
in a gilded church,
strung through with a silver wire ...

singing a little of this and of that,
warbling higher and higher:
a thing wholly dead
till I lifted my head
and spat at the Lord and his choir.



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.



In His Kingdom of Corpses
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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



Beast 666
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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



I AM
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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



Snap Shots
by Michael R. Burch

Our daughters must be celibate,
die virgins. We triangulate
their early paths to heaven (for
the martyrs they'll soon conjugate).

We like to hook a little tail.
We hope there's decent ** in jail.
Don't fool with us; our bombs are smart!
(We'll send the plans, ASAP, e-mail.)

The soul is all that matters; why
hoard gold if it offends the eye?
A pension plan? Don't make us laugh!
We have your plan for sainthood. (Die.)



Unwhole
by Michael R. Burch

What is it that we strive to remember, to regain,
as memory deserts us,
leaving us destitute of even ourselves,
of all but pain?

How can something so essential be forgotten,
if we are more than our bodies?
How can a soul
become so unwhole?



Nonbeliever
by Michael R. Burch writing as Kim Cherub

She smiled a thin-lipped smile
(What do men know of love?)
then rolled her eyes toward heaven
(Or that Chauvinist above?).



evol-u-shun
by Michael R. Burch

does GOD love the Tyger
while it's ripping ur lamb apart?

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

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

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



Breakings
by Michael R. Burch

I did it out of pity.
I did it out of love.
I did it not to break the heart of a tender, wounded dove.
But gods without compassion
ordained: Frail things must break!
Now what can I do for her shattered psyche's sake?

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

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



Alien
by Michael R. Burch

for  a "Christian" poet

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

And his words fall as bright and as chill
as ice crystals on Kilimanjaro―
far colder than Jesus's words
over the "fortunate" sparrow.

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

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



Crescendo Against Heaven
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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



Advice for Evangelicals
by Michael R. Burch

"... so let your light shine before men..."

Consider the example of the woodland anemone:
she preaches no sermons but―immaculate―shines,
and rivals the angels in bright innocence and purity,
the sweetest of divines.

And no one has heard her engage in hypocrisy
since the beginning of time―an oracle so mute,
so profound in her silence and exemplary poise
she makes lessons moot.

So consider the example of the saintly anemone
and if you'd convince us Christ really exists,
then let him be just as sweet, just as guileless
and equally as gracious to bless.



Heaven Bent
by Michael R. Burch

This life is hell; it can get no worse.
Summon the coroner, the casket, the hearse!
I'm upwardly mobile; this one thing I know:
I can only go up; I'm already below!



Shock and Awe
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



Lay Down Your Arms
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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



What Immense Silence
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

why is it God that they fear?



Intimations
by Michael R. Burch

Let mercy surround us
with a sweet persistence.

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



Altared Spots
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

Or emulate earth's "highest species"―
write a few strange poems and odd treatises.



Flight
by Michael R. Burch

Poetry captures
less than reality
the spirit of things

being the language
not of the lordly falcon
but of the dove with broken wings

whose heavenward flight
though brutally interrupted
is ever towards the light.



Winter Night
by Michael R. Burch

Who will be ******,
who embalmed
for all eternity?

The night weighs heavy on me―
leaden, sullen, cold.
O, but my thoughts are light,

like the weightless windblown snow.



Tonight, Let's Remember
by Michael R. Burch

July 7,2007 (7-7-7)

Tonight, let's remember the fond ways
our fingers engendered new methods to praise
the gray at my temples, your thinning hair.
Tonight, let's remember, and let us draw near...

Tonight, let's remember, as mortals do,
how cutely we chortled when work was through,
society sated, all gods put to rest,
and you in my arms, and I at your breast...

Tonight, let's remember how daring, how free
the Madeira made us, recumbently.
Our inhibitions?―we laid them to rest.
Earth, heaven or hell―we knew we were blessed.

Tonight, let's remember the dwindling days
we've spent here together―the sun's rays
spending their power beyond somber hills.
Soon we'll rest together; there'll be no more bills.

Tonight, let's remember: we've paid all our dues,
we've suffered our sorrows, we've learned how to lose.
What's left now to take, only God can tell.
Be with me in heaven, or "bliss" will be hell!

I do not want God; I want to see you
free from all sorrow, your labor through,
a song on your tongue, a smile on your lips,
sweet, sultry and vagrant, a child at your hips,

laughing and beaming and ready to frolic
in a world free from cancer and gout and colic.
For you were courageous, and kind, and true.
There must be a heaven for someone like you.



I, Lazarus
by Michael R. Burch

I, Lazarus, without a heart,
devoid of blood and spiritless,
lay in the darkness, meritless:
my corpse―a thing cold, dead, apart.

But then I thought I heard―a Voice,
a Voice that called me from afar.
And so I stood and laughed, bizarre:
a thing embalmed, made to rejoice!

I ran ungainly-legged to see
who spoke my name, and then I knew
him by the light. His name is True,
and now he is the life in me!

I never died again! Believe!
(Oops! Seems it was a brief reprieve.)



To Know You as Mary
by Michael R. Burch

To know You as Mary,
when You spoke her name
and her world was never the same...
beside the still tomb
where the spring roses bloom.

O, then I would laugh
and be glad that I came,
never minding the chill, the disconsolate rain...
beside the still tomb
where the spring roses bloom.

I might not think this earth
the sharp focus of pain
if I heard You exclaim―
beside the still tomb
where the spring roses bloom

my most unexpected, unwarranted name!
But you never spoke. Explain?



Peers
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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



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.



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.



Birthday Poem to Myself
by Michael R. Burch

LORD, be no longer this Distant Presence,
Star-Afar, Righteous-Anonymous,
but come! Come live among us;
come dwell again,
happy child among men―
men rejoicing to have known you
in the familiar manger's cool
sweet light scent of unburdened hay.
Teach us again to be light that way,
with a chorus of angelic songs lessoned above.
Be to us again that sweet birth of Love
in the only way men can truly understand.
Do not frown darkening down upon an unrighteous land
planning fierce Retributions we require, and deserve,
but remember the child you were; believe
in the child I was, alike to you in innocence
a little while, all sweetness, and helpless without pretense.
Let us be little children again, magical in your sight.
Grant me this boon! Is it not my birthright―
just to know you, as you truly were, and are?
Come, be my friend. Help me understand and regain Hope's long-departed star!



Learning to Fly
by Michael R. Burch

We are learning to fly
every day...

learning to fly―
away, away...

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

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



The Gardener's Roses
by Michael R. Burch

Mary Magdalene, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, "Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away."

I too have come to the cave;
within: strange, half-glimpsed forms
and ghostly paradigms of things.
Here, nothing warms

this lightening moment of the dawn,
pale tendrils spreading east.
And I, of all who followed Him,
by far the least...

The women take no note of me;
I do not recognize
the men in white, the gardener,
these unfamiliar skies...

Faint scent of roses, then―a touch!
I turn, and I see: You.
"My Lord, why do You tarry here:
Another waits, Whose love is true? "

"Although My Father waits, and bliss;
though angels call―ecstatic crew!―
I gathered roses for a Friend.
I waited here, for You."



Kingdom Freedom
by Michael R. Burch

LORD, grant me a rare sweet spirit of forgiveness.
Let me have none of the lividness
of religious outrage.

LORD, let me not be over-worried
about the lack of "morality" around me.
Surround me,

not with law's restrictive cage,
but with Your spirit, freer than the wind,
so that to breathe is to have freest life,

and not to fly to You, my only sin.



Cædmon's Face
by Michael R. Burch

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

while the wind and Time blew all around,
I paced that dusk-enamored ground
and thought I heard the steps resound

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

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



He wrote here in an English tongue,
a language so unlike our own,
unlike―as father unto son.

But when at last a child is grown.
his heritage is made well-known:
his father's face becomes his own.



He wrote here of the Middle-Earth,
the Maker's might, man's lowly birth,
of every thing that God gave worth

suspended under heaven's roof.
He forged with simple words His truth
and nine lines left remain the proof:

his face was Poetry's, from youth.



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

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

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

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

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

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

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



Is there any Light left?
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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



Modern Dreams
by Michael R. Burch

after David B. Gosselin

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

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

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

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

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



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.




Well, Almost
by Michael R. Burch

All Christians say “Never again!”
to the inhumanity of men
(except when the object of phlegm
is a Palestinian).



O, My Redeeming Angel
by Michael R. Burch

O my Redeeming Angel, after we
have fought till death (and soon the night is done) ...
then let us rest awhile, await the sun,
and let us put aside all enmity.

I might have been the “victor”—who can tell?—
so many wounds abound. All out of joint,
my groin, my thigh ... and nothing to anoint
but sunsplit, shattered stone, as pillars hell.

Light, easy flight to heaven, Your return!
How hard, how dark, this path I, limping, walk.
I only ask Your blessing; no more talk!

Withhold Your name, and yet my ears still burn
and so my heart. You asked me, to my shame:
for Jacob—trickster, shyster, sham—’s my name.



To Know You as Mary
by Michael R. Burch

To know you as Mary,
when you spoke her name
and her world was never the same ...
beside the still tomb
where the spring roses bloom.

O, then I would laugh
and be glad that I came,
never minding the chill, the disconsolate rain ...
beside the still tomb
where the spring roses bloom.

I might not think this earth
the sharp focus of pain
if I heard you exclaim—
beside the still tomb
where the spring roses bloom

my most unexpected, unwarranted name!
But you never spoke. Explain?



ur-gent
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

quick, begin!



Bible libel (ii)
by Michael R. Burch

ur savior’s a cad
—he’s as bad as his dad—
according to your strange Bible.

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

was the man ever good
before made a “god”?
if so, half your Bible is libel!



stock-home sin-drone
by Michael R. Burch

ur GAUD created this hellish earth;
thus u FANTAsize heaven
(an escape from rebirth).

ur GUAD is a monster,
**** ur RELIGION lied
and called u his frankensteinian bride!

now, like so many others cruelly abused,
u look for salve-a-shun
to the AUTHOR of ur pain’s selfish creation.

cons preach the “TRUE GOSPEL”
and proudly shout it,
but if ur GAUD were good
he would have to doubt it.



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

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



yet another post-partum christmas blues poem
by michael r. burch

ur GAUD created hell; it’s called the earth;
HE mused u briefly, clods of little worth:
let’s conjure some little monkeys
to be BIG RELIGION’s flunkeys!
GAUD belched, went back to sleep, such was ur birth.



wee the many
by michael r. burch

wee never really lived: was that our fault?
now thanks to ur GAUD wee lie in an underground vault.
wee lie here, the little ones ur GAUD despised!
HE condemned us to death before wee opened our eyes!
as it was in the days of noah, it still remains:
GAUD kills us with floods he conjures from murderous rains.



Untitled ur poems

since GOD created u so gullible
how did u conclude HE’s so lovable?
—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



One of the Flown
by Michael R. Burch

Forgive me for not having known
you were one of the flown—
flown from the distant haunts
of someone else’s enlightenment,
alighting here to a darkness all your own . . .

I imagine you perched,
pretty warbler, in your starched
dress, before you grew bellicose . . .
singing quaint love’s highest falsetto notes,
brightening the pew of some dilapidated church . . .

But that was before autumn’s
messianic dark hymns . . .
Deepening on the landscape—winter’s inevitable shadows.
Love came too late; hope flocked to bare meadows,
preparing to leave. Then even the thought of life became grim,

thinking of Him . . .
To flee, finally,—that was no whim,
no adventure, but purpose.
I see you now a-wing: pale-eyed, intent, serious:
always, always at the horizon’s broadening rim . . .

How long have you flown now, pretty voyager?
I keep watch from afar: pale lover and ******.



what the “Chosen Few” really pray for
by Michael R. Burch

We are ready to be robed in light,
angel-bright

despite
Our intolerance;

ready to enter Heaven and never return
(dark, this sojourn);

ready to worse-ship any gaud
able to deliver Us from this flawed

existence;
We pray with the persistence

of actual saints
to be delivered from all earthly constraints:

just kiss each uplifted Face
with lips of gentlest grace,

cooing the sweetest harmonies
while brutally crushing Our enemies!

ah-Men!



wild wild west-east-north-south-up-down
by Michael R. Burch

each day it resumes—the great struggle for survival.

the fiercer and more perilous the wrath,
the wilder and wickeder the weaponry,
the better the daily odds
(just don’t bet on the long term, or revival).

so ur luvable Gaud decreed, Theo-retically,
if indeed He exists
as ur Bible insists—
the Wildest and the Wickedest of all
with the brightest of creatures in thrall
(unless u
somehow got that bleary
Theo-ry
wrong too).



The Strangest Rain
by Michael R. Burch

"I ... am small, like the Wren, and my Hair is bold, like the Chestnut Bur?and my eyes, like the Sherry in the Glass, that the Guest leaves ..."?Emily Dickinson

"If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry."--Emily Dickinson

The strangest rain, a few bright sluggish drops,
unsure if they should fall, run through with sun,
came tumbling down and touched me, one by one,
too few to animate the shriveled crops
of nearby farmers (though their daughters might
feel each cool splash, a-shiver with delight).

I thought again of Emily Dickinson,
who felt the tingle down her spine, inspired
to lifting hairs, to nerves’ electric song
of passion for a thing so deep-desired
the heart and gut agree, and so must tremble
as all the neurons of the brain assemble
to whisper: This is love, but what is love?
Wrens darting rainbows, laughter high above.



Note to a Chick on a Religious Kick
by Michael R. Burch

Daisy,
when you smile, my life gets sunny;
you make me want to spend all my ****** money;
but honey,
you can be a bit ... um ... hazy,
perhaps mentally lazy?,
okay, downright crazy,
praying to the Easter Bunny!



Untitled Heresies from The ur Poems and GAUD poems

& GAUD said, “Let there be LIGHT VERSE
to illuminate the ‘nature’ of my Curse!”
—michael r. burch

reverse the Curse
with LIGHT VERSE!
recant the cant
with an illuminating chant
,etc.
—michael r. burch

Can the darkness of Christianity with its “eternal hell” be repealed via humor? It’s time to recant the cant, please pardon the puns.

if ur GAUD
is good,
half the Bible
is libel.
—michael r. burch

Christianity replaces Santa Claus with Jesus, so swell,
and coal, ashes and soot with an “eternal hell.”
—Michael R. Burch



day eight of the Divine Plan
by michael r. burch

the earth’s a-stir
with a GAUDLY whirr...

the L(AWE)D’s been creatin’!

com(men)ce t’ matin’!

hatch lotsa babies
he’ll infect with rabies
then ban from college
for seekin’ knowledge
like curious eve!

dear chilluns, don’t grieve,
be(lie)ve the Deceiver!

(never ask why ur Cupid
wanted eve stupid,
animalistic, and naked.)

ah-men!



lust!
by michael r. burch

i was only a child
in a world dark and wild
seeking affection
in eyes mild

and in all my bright dreams
sweet love shimmered, beguiled ...

but the black-robed Priest
who called me the least
of all god’s creation
then spoke for the Beast:

He called my great passion a thing base, defiled!

He condemned me to hell,
the foul Ne’er-Do-Well,
for the sake of the copper
His Pig-Snout could smell
in the purse of my mother,
“the ***** jezebel.”

my sweet passions condemned
by degenerate men?
and she so devout
she exclaimed, “yay, aye-men!” ...

together we learned why Religion is hell.

Published by Lucid Rhythms, The HyperTexts and Black Waters of Melancholy


A coming day
by Michael R. Burch

for my mother, due to her hellish religion

There will be a day,
a day when the lightning strikes from a rainbowed mist
when it will be too late, too late for me to say
that I found your faith unblessed.

There will be a day,
a day when the storm clouds gather, ominous,
when it will be too late, too late to put away
this darkness that came between us.



Hellbound
by Michael R. Burch

Mother, it’s dark
and you never did love me
because you put Yahweh and Yeshu
above me.

Did they ever love you
or cling to you? No.
Now Mother, it’s cold
and I fear for my soul.

Mother, they say
you will leave me and go
to some distant “heaven”
I never shall know.

If that’s your choice,
you made it. Not me.
You brought me to life;
will you nail me to the tree?

Christ! Mother, they say
God condemned me to hell.
If the Devil’s your God
then farewell, farewell!

Or if there is Love
in some other dimension,
let’s reconcile there
and forget such cruel detention.

Keywords/Tags: god, Jesus, Christ, Christian, prayer, Bible, angel, atheist, faith, blasphemy, heresy, heresies, heretic, heretic, heretical, pagan, pagans, god, gods, mrbhere



He Lived: Excerpts from “Gilgamesh”
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I.
He who visited hell, his country’s foundation,
Was well-versed in mysteries’ unseemly dark places.
He deeply explored many underworld realms
Where he learned of the Deluge and why Death erases.

II.
He built the great ramparts of Uruk-the-Sheepfold
And of holy Eanna. Then weary, alone,
He recorded his thoughts in frail scratchings called “words”:
But words made immortal, once chiseled in stone.

III.
These walls he erected are ever-enduring:
Vast walls where the widows of dead warriors weep.
Stand by them. O, feel their immovable presence!
For no other walls are as strong as this keep’s.

IV.
Come, climb Uruk’s tower on a starless night—
Ascend its steep stairway to escape modern error.
Cross its ancient threshold. You are close to Ishtar,
The Goddess of Ecstasy and of Terror!

V.
Find the cedar box with its hinges of bronze;
Lift the lid of its secrets; remove its dark slate;
Read of the travails of our friend Gilgamesh—
Of his descent into hell and man’s terrible fate!

VI.
Surpassing all kings, heroic in stature,
Wild bull of the mountains, the Goddess his dam
—Bedding no other man; he was her sole rapture—
Who else can claim fame, as he thundered, “I am!”



Enkidu Enters the House of Dust
an original poem by Michael R. Burch

I entered the house of dust and grief.
Where the pale dead weep there is no relief,
for there night descends like a final leaf
to shiver forever, unstirred.

There is no hope left when the tree’s stripped bare,
for the leaf lies forever dormant there
and each man cloaks himself in strange darkness, where
all company’s unheard.

No light’s ever pierced that oppressive night
so men close their eyes on their neighbors’ plight
or stare into darkness, lacking sight ...
each a crippled, blind bat-bird.

Were these not once eagles, gallant men?
Who sits here—pale, wretched and cowering—then?
O, surely they shall, they must rise again,
gaining new wings? “Absurd!

For this is the House of Dust and Grief
where men made of clay, eat clay. Relief
to them’s to become a mere windless leaf,
lying forever unstirred.”

“Anu and Enlil, hear my plea!
Ereshkigal, they all must go free!
Beletseri, dread scribe of this Hell, hear me!”
But all my shrill cries, obscured

by vast eons of dust, at last fell mute
as I took my place in the ash and soot.



Reclamation
an original poem by Michael R. Burch

after Robert Graves, with a nod to Mary Shelley

I have come to the dark side of things
where the bat sings
its evasive radar
and Want is a crooked forefinger
attached to a gelatinous wing.

I have grown animate here, a stitched corpse
hooked to electrodes.
And night
moves upon me—progenitor of life
with its foul breath.

Blind eyes have their second sight
and still are deceived. Now my nature
is softly to moan
as Desire carries me
swooningly across her threshold.

Stone
is less infinite than her crone’s
gargantuan hooked nose, her driveling lips.
I eye her ecstatically—her dowager figure,
and there is something about her that my words transfigure

to a consuming emptiness.
We are at peace
with each other; this is our venture—
swaying, the strings tautening, as tightropes
tauten, as love tightens, constricts

to the first note.
Lyre of our hearts’ pits,
orchestration of nothing, adits
of emptiness! We have come to the last of our hopes,
sweet as congealed blood sweetens for flies.

Need is reborn; love dies.

Keywords/Tags: Epic of Gilgamesh, epic, epical, orient occident, oriental, ancient, ancestors, ancestry, primal



Double Dactyls and Dabble Dactyls

Sniggledy-Wriggledy
Jesus Christ’s enterprise
leaves me in awe of
the rich men he loathed!

But should a Sadducee
settle for trifles?
His disciples now rip off
the Lord they betrothed.
―Michael R. Burch

Donald Double Dactyl

Higgledy Piggledy
Ronald McDonald
cursed Donald Trump,
his least favorite clown:

"Why should I try to be
funny as Donald? He
gets all the laughs
saying upside is down!"
―Michael R. Burch



Lines for My Ascension
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

and know that my Spirit,
unvanquished, broods,
and scoffs at quaint churchyards
littered with roods.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



Listen
by Immanuel A. Michael (an alias of Michael R. Burch)

1.
Listen to me now
and heed my voice;
I am a madman, alone,
screaming in the wilderness,
but listen now.

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

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

But listen to me now,
and if you hear
the tolling of the judgment bell,
and if its tone is clear,
then do not tarry,
but listen,
or cut off your ears,
for I Am weary.

I desire mercy, not sacrifice.

2.
Listen to me now: I had a Vision.
An elevated train derailed, and Fell.
It was the Church brought low, almost to Hell.
And I alone survived, who dream of Mercy:
the Heretic, who speaks behind the Veil.

3.
Listen to me now: I saw an airplane
fall from the sky. And why should I explain?
The Visions are the same. It is my Heresy
that I survive, because I sing of Mercy,
while elevated "saints" go down in flames.

4.
Listen to me now: I saw in Nashville
how those who "soar" will plummet―Fame in flames!―
and fall on those below, as if to **** them.
The lowly, saved, will understand their names.

5.
Listen to me now: I heard another
say, "That which died shall Resurrect and Live."
An angel with a Rose bestowing Mercy!
What can it mean, but that my Visions give
fair warning to the world that God wants Mercy.
My Heresy is that we must forgive!

6.
Listen to me now: she heard god calling―
O, who will love me, who will be my friend?
Does he want Perfect Saints, the whitewashed Purists,
who frown down on their "brothers," without end?

7.
Listen to me now: you are not perfect,
and your "wise counsel" helps no one at all:
unless it's sweetened with the sweetest Mercy,
it's pure astringent antiseptic gall.

8.
Listen to me now, and learn this lesson:
If God wants mercy, why dig at the speck
in your brother's eye, when even now the Beam,
your lack of mercy, spares, no, neither neck,
becomes the Hangman's Millstone. We're all children,
all little ones! Be patient with the fleck!

9.
Listen to me now: for the Announcer
explained that wars have given Presidents
the precedents to soon assume all Power.
Vote, citizens, or be mere residents!

10.
O, listen to me now: I saw the Warheads
stored safely underground, except for One.
A red-haired woman with a bright complexion
seduced the guard. Translucent blouse, red thong,
white bra―these were her fearsome antique weapons.

I saw the Skull and Crossbones! Heed my Song!

11.
O, listen to me now, and hear my Gospel:
three verses of such sweet simplicity!
God is Light: in Him there is no darkness.
In Christ, no condemnation: Liberty!
God want no Sacrifice, but only Mercy.
O, who could ask for sweeter Heresy?

12.
Theology? I swear that I disdain it!
If Love can be explained, why then explain it!
If Love can't be explained why, then, should God,
if God is Love? Nor hell nor cattle ****
is needed, if God's good, and God's supreme.
Ask, children, what "re-ligion" truly means:
"return to *******! " Heed the bondsman's screams!

13.
Heed, children, which Theologies you dream
when Hellish Nightmares wake you, when you Scream
for comfort, but no comforter is there.
Which Voices do you heed, which Crosses bear?
If god is light, whence do Dark Visions come
which leave the Taste of Venom on your Tongue,
with which you **** your brother for one Sin
you do not share, ten thousand underskin
like Itching Worms that Squirm and Vilely Hiss:
"Your brother's sin will keep him from god's bliss,
but You are safe because god favors You! "
If God is Love, how can this voice be true?

14.
For God is not a favorer of men.
Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

Flames and Hobbies must not report your Time
As a Rebel-in-Arms beyond your Due
Yet across the Beach is a Stern Incline
Which must Inspire a Better You
Yes I know, my Friend: As his own Cousin
Your Image dulls like an Owl to a Mouse
But the Mouse can swim. So in your Giving
Behind this Chantry is a Better House
I forgive your Hate to an Elder Age
Since he killed the Fancy you so preserve
He is that Open; And preaches the Sage
Reminding the Fame you also Deserve.
Now, after all that said: Which do you know
The Owl that Betrays or the Mouse that Grows?

Sigh
I tap my pen on the desk like my teacher extracting my freedoms
and plastering it on the whiteboard.
He preaches and preaches about how he lost a game of golf last week
I need to take a dosage of education,
But whenever I take it I forget to check the side affects.

SIDE AFFECTS MAY INCLUDE;
-Boredom
-Faeries pulling down on your eye lids making you fall into the pit of sleep.
-Drifting in a car called imagination across this classroom.
-Hands are under mind control as you draw twisters in your notebook .
-NOTE: when you flip back to your notes when you are studying for a test,
they will be useless

Useless like "excuse me sir but is your love for the Broncos going to be on the test?"
I feel like this teacher is testing me not on the subject,
but how long it takes until one of the students in this class to go postal.

Too soon?
Sorry I should ship off my mouth to my mother
cuz mommas got the magic of Clorox Bleach
momma oh momma, use your powers to clean out my filthy mouth

yet he is still talking,
why is he still talking?
I'm still writing this poem,
Should I be writing notes on his college days
Or should I wait until his head lands on this landing strip
So he get his head can leave the clouds

He looks like a rasta
Preaches no money only peace
But smokes no ****
He’s been sober all his life
Like he just got out of rehab
But doesn't mind if his friends smoke a couple trees
He breaks it down like a b-boy
That might of known Michael Jackson
Then belts out American country music
In the heart of Africa
Designs fashion making Europeans wonder
If they should colonize Africa again to get his resources.
Neo-colonization anyone?
He has small money
He lives poor
But lives rich
Has his own humble home
Like the adult he’s been since 15
And loves helplessly like he’s still 15
Despite the bruises the world continues to lash on his never aging soul.
Ohhh
Those bruises must hurt
But he’s trying to heal them with his art
He is an anomaly
Doesn’t fit here or there
But anomalies are perfectly normal
They choose to sit in there soul
Release truth that needs to be told
Because it’s only natural
Not fabricated
The fabricated
Really hates it.
The fabricated
Still takes a taste of it
Because they want that
Freedom
The fabricated
Watch in awe
They say no
You aren’t allowed to do that
That’s a contradiction
You’re a paradox
Social lines wont let you cross that.
Get back in line
Get back in line
Before we shoot you
Because we want your freedom too.
He’s been shot a couple times
I think his soul is his armor
But he lives in a human body
So you can imagine he’s not all that bullet proof.
Even if his body dies one day
I swear his soul will live on.
His freedom has no expiration date.

The three stood listening to a fresh access
Of wind that caught against the house a moment,
Gulped snow, and then blew free again—the Coles
Dressed, but dishevelled from some hours of sleep,
Meserve belittled in the great skin coat he wore.

Meserve was first to speak. He pointed backward
Over his shoulder with his pipe-stem, saying,
“You can just see it glancing off the roof
Making a great scroll upward toward the sky,
Long enough for recording all our names on.—
I think I’ll just call up my wife and tell her
I’m here—so far—and starting on again.
I’ll call her softly so that if she’s wise
And gone to sleep, she needn’t wake to answer.”
Three times he barely stirred the bell, then listened.
“Why, Lett, still up? Lett, I’m at Cole’s. I’m late.
I called you up to say Good-night from here
Before I went to say Good-morning there.—
I thought I would.— I know, but, Lett—I know—
I could, but what’s the sense? The rest won’t be
So bad.— Give me an hour for it.— **, **,
Three hours to here! But that was all up hill;
The rest is down.— Why no, no, not a wallow:
They kept their heads and took their time to it
Like darlings, both of them. They’re in the barn.—
My dear, I’m coming just the same. I didn’t
Call you to ask you to invite me home.—”
He lingered for some word she wouldn’t say,
Said it at last himself, “Good-night,” and then,
Getting no answer, closed the telephone.
The three stood in the lamplight round the table
With lowered eyes a moment till he said,
“I’ll just see how the horses are.”

“Yes, do,”
Both the Coles said together. Mrs. Cole
Added: “You can judge better after seeing.—
I want you here with me, Fred. Leave him here,
Brother Meserve. You know to find your way
Out through the shed.”

“I guess I know my way,
I guess I know where I can find my name
Carved in the shed to tell me who I am
If it don’t tell me where I am. I used
To play—”

“You tend your horses and come back.
Fred Cole, you’re going to let him!”

“Well, aren’t you?
How can you help yourself?”

“I called him Brother.
Why did I call him that?”

“It’s right enough.
That’s all you ever heard him called round here.
He seems to have lost off his Christian name.”

“Christian enough I should call that myself.
He took no notice, did he? Well, at least
I didn’t use it out of love of him,
The dear knows. I detest the thought of him
With his ten children under ten years old.
I hate his wretched little Racker Sect,
All’s ever I heard of it, which isn’t much.
But that’s not saying—Look, Fred Cole, it’s twelve,
Isn’t it, now? He’s been here half an hour.
He says he left the village store at nine.
Three hours to do four miles—a mile an hour
Or not much better. Why, it doesn’t seem
As if a man could move that slow and move.
Try to think what he did with all that time.
And three miles more to go!”
“Don’t let him go.
Stick to him, Helen. Make him answer you.
That sort of man talks straight on all his life
From the last thing he said himself, stone deaf
To anything anyone else may say.
I should have thought, though, you could make him hear you.”

“What is he doing out a night like this?
Why can’t he stay at home?”

“He had to preach.”

“It’s no night to be out.”

“He may be small,
He may be good, but one thing’s sure, he’s tough.”

“And strong of stale tobacco.”

“He’ll pull through.’
“You only say so. Not another house
Or shelter to put into from this place
To theirs. I’m going to call his wife again.”

“Wait and he may. Let’s see what he will do.
Let’s see if he will think of her again.
But then I doubt he’s thinking of himself
He doesn’t look on it as anything.”

“He shan’t go—there!”

“It is a night, my dear.”

“One thing: he didn’t drag God into it.”

“He don’t consider it a case for God.”

“You think so, do you? You don’t know the kind.
He’s getting up a miracle this minute.
Privately—to himself, right now, he’s thinking
He’ll make a case of it if he succeeds,
But keep still if he fails.”

“Keep still all over.
He’ll be dead—dead and buried.”

“Such a trouble!
Not but I’ve every reason not to care
What happens to him if it only takes
Some of the sanctimonious conceit
Out of one of those pious scalawags.”

“Nonsense to that! You want to see him safe.”

“You like the runt.”

“Don’t you a little?”

“Well,
I don’t like what he’s doing, which is what
You like, and like him for.”

“Oh, yes you do.
You like your fun as well as anyone;
Only you women have to put these airs on
To impress men. You’ve got us so ashamed
Of being men we can’t look at a good fight
Between two boys and not feel bound to stop it.
Let the man freeze an ear or two, I say.—
He’s here. I leave him all to you. Go in
And save his life.— All right, come in, Meserve.
Sit down, sit down. How did you find the horses?”

“Fine, fine.”

“And ready for some more? My wife here
Says it won’t do. You’ve got to give it up.”

“Won’t you to please me? Please! If I say please?
Mr. Meserve, I’ll leave it to your wife.
What did your wife say on the telephone?”

Meserve seemed to heed nothing but the lamp
Or something not far from it on the table.
By straightening out and lifting a forefinger,
He pointed with his hand from where it lay
Like a white crumpled spider on his knee:
“That leaf there in your open book! It moved
Just then, I thought. It’s stood ***** like that,
There on the table, ever since I came,
Trying to turn itself backward or forward,
I’ve had my eye on it to make out which;
If forward, then it’s with a friend’s impatience—
You see I know—to get you on to things
It wants to see how you will take, if backward
It’s from regret for something you have passed
And failed to see the good of. Never mind,
Things must expect to come in front of us
A many times—I don’t say just how many—
That varies with the things—before we see them.
One of the lies would make it out that nothing
Ever presents itself before us twice.
Where would we be at last if that were so?
Our very life depends on everything’s
Recurring till we answer from within.
The thousandth time may prove the charm.— That leaf!
It can’t turn either way. It needs the wind’s help.
But the wind didn’t move it if it moved.
It moved itself. The wind’s at naught in here.
It couldn’t stir so sensitively poised
A thing as that. It couldn’t reach the lamp
To get a puff of black smoke from the flame,
Or blow a rumple in the collie’s coat.
You make a little foursquare block of air,
Quiet and light and warm, in spite of all
The illimitable dark and cold and storm,
And by so doing give these three, lamp, dog,
And book-leaf, that keep near you, their repose;
Though for all anyone can tell, repose
May be the thing you haven’t, yet you give it.
So false it is that what we haven’t we can’t give;
So false, that what we always say is true.
I’ll have to turn the leaf if no one else will.
It won’t lie down. Then let it stand. Who cares?”

“I shouldn’t want to hurry you, Meserve,
But if you’re going— Say you’ll stay, you know?
But let me raise this curtain on a scene,
And show you how it’s piling up against you.
You see the snow-white through the white of frost?
Ask Helen how far up the sash it’s climbed
Since last we read the gage.”

“It looks as if
Some pallid thing had squashed its features flat
And its eyes shut with overeagerness
To see what people found so interesting
In one another, and had gone to sleep
Of its own stupid lack of understanding,
Or broken its white neck of mushroom stuff
Short off, and died against the window-pane.”

“Brother Meserve, take care, you’ll scare yourself
More than you will us with such nightmare talk.
It’s you it matters to, because it’s you
Who have to go out into it alone.”

“Let him talk, Helen, and perhaps he’ll stay.”

“Before you drop the curtain—I’m reminded:
You recollect the boy who came out here
To breathe the air one winter—had a room
Down at the Averys’? Well, one sunny morning
After a downy storm, he passed our place
And found me banking up the house with snow.
And I was burrowing in deep for warmth,
Piling it well above the window-sills.
The snow against the window caught his eye.
‘Hey, that’s a pretty thought’—those were his words.
‘So you can think it’s six feet deep outside,
While you sit warm and read up balanced rations.
You can’t get too much winter in the winter.’
Those were his words. And he went home and all
But banked the daylight out of Avery’s windows.
Now you and I would go to no such length.
At the same time you can’t deny it makes
It not a mite worse, sitting here, we three,
Playing our fancy, to have the snowline run
So high across the pane outside. There where
There is a sort of tunnel in the frost
More like a tunnel than a hole—way down
At the far end of it you see a stir
And quiver like the frayed edge of the drift
Blown in the wind. I like that—I like that.
Well, now I leave you, people.”

“Come, Meserve,
We thought you were deciding not to go—
The ways you found to say the praise of comfort
And being where you are. You want to stay.”

“I’ll own it’s cold for such a fall of snow.
This house is frozen brittle, all except
This room you sit in. If you think the wind
Sounds further off, it’s not because it’s dying;
You’re further under in the snow—that’s all—
And feel it less. Hear the soft bombs of dust
It bursts against us at the chimney mouth,
And at the eaves. I like it from inside
More than I shall out in it. But the horses
Are rested and it’s time to say good-night,
And let you get to bed again. Good-night,
Sorry I had to break in on your sleep.”

“Lucky for you you did. Lucky for you
You had us for a half-way station
To stop at. If you were the kind of man
Paid heed to women, you’d take my advice
And for your family’s sake stay where you are.
But what good is my saying it over and over?
You’ve done more than you had a right to think
You could do—now. You know the risk you take
In going on.”

“Our snow-storms as a rule
Aren’t looked on as man-killers, and although
I’d rather be the beast that sleeps the sleep
Under it all, his door sealed up and lost,
Than the man fighting it to keep above it,
Yet think of the small birds at roost and not
In nests. Shall I be counted less than they are?
Their bulk in water would be frozen rock
In no time out to-night. And yet to-morrow
They will come budding boughs from tree to tree
Flirting their wings and saying Chickadee,
As if not knowing what you meant by the word storm.”

“But why when no one wants you to go on?
Your wife—she doesn’t want you to. We don’t,
And you yourself don’t want to. Who else is there?”

“Save us from being cornered by a woman.
Well, there’s”—She told Fred afterward that in
The pause right there, she thought the dreaded word
Was coming, “God.” But no, he only said
“Well, there’s—the storm. That says I must go on.
That wants me as a war might if it came.
Ask any man.”

He threw her that as something
To last her till he got outside the door.
He had Cole with him to the barn to see him off.
When Cole returned he found his wife still standing
Beside the table near the open book,
Not reading it.

“Well, what kind of a man
Do you call that?” she said.

“He had the gift
Of words, or is it tongues, I ought to say?”

“Was ever such a man for seeing likeness?”

“Or disregarding people’s civil questions—
What? We’ve found out in one hour more about him
Than we had seeing him pass by in the road
A thousand times. If that’s the way he preaches!
You didn’t think you’d keep him after all.
Oh, I’m not blaming you. He didn’t leave you
Much say in the matter, and I’m just as glad
We’re not in for a night of him. No sleep
If he had stayed. The least thing set him going.
It’s quiet as an empty church without him.”

“But how much better off are we as it is?
We’ll have to sit here till we know he’s safe.”

“Yes, I suppose you’ll want to, but I shouldn’t.
He knows what he can do, or he wouldn’t try.
Get into bed I say, and get some rest.
He won’t come back, and if he telephones,
It won’t be for an hour or two.”

“Well then.
We can’t be any help by sitting here
And living his fight through with him, I suppose.”


*****************

­
Cole had been telephoning in the dark.
Mrs. Cole’s voice came from an inner room:
“Did she call you or you call her?”

“She me.
You’d better dress: you won’t go back to bed.
We must have been asleep: it’s three and after.”

“Had she been ringing long? I’ll get my wrapper.
I want to speak to her.”

“All she said was,
He hadn’t come and had he really started.”

“She knew he had, poor thing, two hours ago.”

“He had the shovel. He’ll have made a fight.”

“Why did I ever let him leave this house!”

“Don’t begin that. You did the best you could
To keep him—though perhaps you didn’t quite
Conceal a wish to see him show the *****
To disobey you. Much his wife’ll thank you.”

“Fred, after all I said! You shan’t make out
That it was any way but what it was.
Did she let on by any word she said
She didn’t thank me?”

“When I told her ‘Gone,’
‘Well then,’ she said, and ‘Well then’—like a threat.
And then her voice came scraping slow: ‘Oh, you,
Why did you let him go’?”

“Asked why we let him?
You let me there. I’ll ask her why she let him.
She didn’t dare to speak when he was here.

Their number’s—twenty-one? The thing won’t work.
Someone’s receiver’s down. The handle stumbles.

The stubborn thing, the way it jars your arm!
It’s theirs. She’s dropped it from her hand and gone.”

“Try speaking. Say ‘Hello’!”

“Hello. Hello.”

“What do you hear?”

“I hear an empty room—
You know—it sounds that way. And yes, I hear—
I think I hear a clock—and windows rattling.
No step though. If she’s there she’s sitting down.”

“Shout, she may hear you.”

“Shouting is no good.”

“Keep speaking then.”

“Hello. Hello. Hello.
You don’t suppose—? She wouldn’t go out doors?”

“I’m half afraid that’s just what she might do.”

“And leave the children?”

“Wait and call again.
You can’t hear whether she has left the door
Wide open and the wind’s blown out the lamp
And the fire’s died and the room’s dark and cold?”

“One of two things, either she’s gone to bed
Or gone out doors.”

“In which case both are lost.
Do you know what she’s like? Have you ever met her?
It’s strange she doesn’t want to speak to us.”

“Fred, see if you can hear what I hear. Come.”

“A clock maybe.”

“Don’t you hear something else?”

“Not talking.”
“No.”

“Why, yes, I hear—what is it?”

“What do you say it is?”

“A baby’s crying!
Frantic it sounds, though muffled and far off.”

“Its mother wouldn’t let it cry like that,
Not if she’s there.”

“What do you make of it?”

“There’s only one thing possible to make,
That is, assuming—that she has gone out.
Of course she hasn’t though.” They both sat down
Helpless. “There’s nothing we can do till morning.”

“Fred, I shan’t let you think of going out.”

“Hold on.” The double bell began to chirp.
They started up. Fred took the telephone.
“Hello, Meserve. You’re there, then!—And your wife?

Good! Why I asked—she didn’t seem to answer.
He says she went to let him in the barn.—
We’re glad. Oh, say no more about it, man.
Drop in and see us when you’re passing.”

“Well,
She has him then, though what she wants him for
I don’t see.”
“Possibly not for herself.
Maybe she only wants him for the children.”

“The whole to-do seems to have been for nothing.
What spoiled our night was to him just his fun.
What did he come in for?—To talk and visit?
Thought he’d just call to tell us it was snowing.
If he thinks he is going to make our house
A halfway coffee house ‘twixt town and nowhere——”

“I thought you’d feel you’d been too much concerned.”

“You think you haven’t been concerned yourself.”

“If you mean he was inconsiderate
To rout us out to think for him at midnight
And then take our advice no more than nothing,
Why, I agree with you. But let’s forgive him.
We’ve had a share in one night of his life.
What’ll you bet he ever calls again?”

My mind preaches things I'd never believe

And my brain warps the thought to make me think I do

(And Reasons Why I Have It Pretty Good)*


2. Starving people in Africa who have nothing that even resembles a stable govermnent to keep them safe and fed and alive. 

3. Couples going through divorce or recovering from divorce, and their poor children. =\

4. Drug addicts living on the streets without a family or a hope. 

5. Women and children caught up in human trafficking and slavery who have no one to save them. 

6. Would-be-mothers who cannot have children. This is heartbreaking for many women. 

7. Children abused by their own parents who then have to go through foster care and withstand the constant reminder that they do not have parents that love and care for them. 

8. People who have no hope and who believe a bottle of pills is the only way to take away their pain. Life is never a curse, and it is not one's responsibility to take when it becomes unbearable. 

9. Fathers who can't find a job in our economy and who feel like a failure because they can't support their family's needs. 

10. People who sit in a church and believe they are being good enough to go to heaven, when they've never heard the true gospel spoken to them before. 




1. And most importantly...the great number of individuals who have not heard and those who have rejected the Good News of Jesus Christ. It's nothing that I have done that makes me any different than them, but only the grace of God that I took hold of. I won't stand by while my fellow man lives on less than I do every day. I am blessed with food, a better government than many in this world, and parents who love each other and the Lord. I have a life of hope that sustains me better than drugs, a life worth living, and the financial support that only God could supply. And I have a church that preaches the gospel each Sunday and reminds me of how much I need Him. 

Lord, never let me forget Your many blessings. Self-pity, worry, and depression keep me from my true potential as Your daughter and servant. Show me how to share my blessings with others, so that I can spread Your Word to everyone I meet.
Amen.

The concept of a whole person is an enigma that evolves within a culture . Often it is not a transitive concept and can only be conjuncted within it's social setting . In fact the realities of social fragmentation make most all concepts of a whole person universally inapplicable .

Literature is often a good tool for developing an understanding of a culture and it's inclinations . In a cultures folk tales , plays , and fictions you find authors making a deliberate attempt to portray the basic dramas of their society .

Greek myths are a vivid example of this ; they are literally frought with characterizations . In their development these multitudes of characters weave into an elaborate tapestry that depicts the developing Greek moral ethic . The intricasies of the analogous content are brought across in a multitude of forms . Names were very important and a major force in clarifying the concepts being presented . The multitudes of characters portray a multifaceted understanding of the human psyche . The chauvinistic banality of their culture and it's gods is graphically depicted against the backdrop of their developing ethics .

It is difficult for a modern man to construct a vision of a whole person from a strictly ancient Greek point of view . The obvious anachronisms envolved make such an attempt partially ludicrous . Contrarily the bulk of their characterization paints a vivid picture of their primative social state .

Of course while the Greeks were muddling through the multicolored quagmire of human frailty many societies where learning to master the powers they had developed through centuries of strict adherence to religious and social mores . The development of their socially biased realities make many Greek nuances seem decadent anachronism . Rather than deitizing their baser natures as the Greeks had thay had learned to master them and turned to new paths to clarity . Spiritual pragmatism and lack of comunication nullified the social attributes of many of these extrapolations on positive orientation .

Jung preaches that man has an innate need to assimilate all external sensory perceptions . I find this untrue . In fact I find it self abortive . Human beings have a complexity factor that is individual and must be protected from overload ; man's moral ethic is a tender and deludable feeling directed by empathy . In the hectic world of modern mass media this tender individuality can become dwarfed by the percieved need to obtain social acceptance . Whole civilizations have become deluded by the flow of their complexities into an outright denial of their moral ethics .

I find this partially estranged condition prominent throughout social history . Children are brought up to respond to a vast realm of presupposed social ideologies and are not allowed to venerate themselves until much of their conscious matrix has been established . This of course makes self evasion an easily attainable goal . Sometimes politically speaking the actual goal . The mind satiated by it's social framwork is the ideal tool for a socialistic or tyrannical government .

To me the value of social history lies not in it's application as much as it's illumination . All the fragmented pockets of human coalescence should instill an understanding of man's posibility factors . Man's inability to supersede his developing anachronism may well be the cause of his annihilation .

Modern man has learned how to use tact in instilling the acceptable social mores . Solviet psychiatrists have spent years on perfecting these social sublimations ; children learn how to make their personalities conform to the accepted mean . I think that the true nature of a well rounded being lies in an ability to reject the fragmental nature of these instilled mores and develop a more universally acceptable social orientation . Does the son of a ku klux **** member have to hate blacks ? The obvious answer is no ; contrarily socially acceptable orientation is a product of environment . This is the pitfall of man's evolution as a race ; his inability to rise above the quandary of his immediate surroundings with all of their overwhelming complexities and demands to become a cognizant and empathetic being . There in lie the keys to his future .

This does not necessarily define the well rounded person . A well rounded person must be able to cope with his immediate surroundings withoutan abject denial of his empathetic being .

I believe well roundedness lies in thoughtful orientation and a well centered understanding of self . One need not be socially active as long as they are thoughtfully cognizant . Obey the golden rule ; you can not allow your objective orientation to supersede your subjective empathy . You can't allow yourself to be thwarted or overcome by your peers into being something they might want to make you because temptation may overwhelm them and you will become a transient tool in their succession .

Salvador devotes the rest of  his life
praying to save the world from hunger and war
and pestilence.

He preaches to the  beggars: ignore
hunger, thank God for the beauty of this smog-
infested sky where the moon and the stars
and the fireflies succumb to the blasts of  neon
lights and flares of profit.  

He preaches to the beggars:  endure  
life as you sleep in pavements among blots
of bubble gum and dirt and spit and morsels
of  pity. This hell tempers your faith.

He preaches to the beggars: learn
the ways of gadflies -- know with pinpoint precision
where to look for carcass to feast on.

But the beggars gather away from Salvador’s
prayers. Cradled by  their pus and grime
and  lice and love of  life;  with their hard-bitten  
fingers and sermon-broken eardrums and
bleeding hearts, they
heave the birthing of their own salvation.

324

Some keep the Sabbath going to Church—
I keep it, staying at Home—
With a Bobolink for a Chorister—
And an Orchard, for a Dome—

Some keep the Sabbath in Surplice—
I just wear my Wings—
And instead of tolling the Bell, for Church,
Our little Sexton—sings.

God preaches, a noted Clergyman—
And the sermon is never long,
So instead of getting to Heaven, at last—
I’m going, all along.

I ask you poet
Whom do you worship?
Where does your souls eternity stand right now?
Broken? Despaired! Pained? Sorrowful? Burdened? Seeing all the chaos in the world and yet don't know where to turn or whom to turn to, OK you can flip to the next poem if you'd like that speaks of worldiness, *** maybe, lust, hopelessness, a state of being lost. May I ask you? What gives you pleasure in this world? Idols? Things of gold, such as statues? Jewelry? Maybe dope? ***? Maybe video gaming, escaping anyway possible in food? By beating your loved ones? Or abusing those whom love you? Maybe cutting yourself? As many here do, they cut to feel alive. Do you? The thought of not living there where all hope is gone, unseen and lost? Wanting to give up? What you don't know or may have turned a blind eye to by so called ( fake pastors, religious nuts, Jesus freaks whatever you wanna call them.. Yes! There are false pastors for money, and Greed's purpose... As what you may not truly understand is this world isn't just physical, revelation 12:3-4 States Satan and 1\3 Of gods once good angels as Satan him ( Lucifer) was also a high or one of highest angels ruling over other angels.... Revelation 12:3-4 speaks of Satan and one third of the angels who were kicked out of heaven. Satan in other words wanted to play gods role.Luke 10:18 sais this. ( And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.” )
King James Bible. There is a literal battle here poet whoever reads this for your soul. God wants you to come to his son Christ who said ( I am the way truth and the life, NO MAN comes to the father but by me) John 14:6 ... Christ offers salvation and hope to the whole world. As there is no life in Islam, nor Buddhism, nor Hinduism, nor all these other false ways and false ideologies of the world. Christ is the only one to have claimed to be gods son. As what you didint know. Christ was sent down to a ****** called mary, scientists now have a word for it where mothers literally have children by miracles of not having a man enter into them sexually at all. God put his son Christ who always was from the beginning before the foundation of this world. That's why us Christians also call God the great I am. Meaning he always was and will always be. God sent his son Jesus Christ. Also called in Hebrew original tongue. Yeshua ha'mashiach-. Meaning Jesus the Messiah or anointed one . Christ came in the flesh in the form of a man. To be sent here to teach everyone to love one another. And that he was the way truth and the life. He literally healed the sick, he healed lepers . opened eyes of those without sight and without hope...he was who he claimed to be . he came to die for me and yours sins... As the gospel in the Bible States..Romans 5:12- 12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: Adam and Eve sinned against God, in the garden of Eden where scientists now know just about the location of the garden... Sin passed down to all mankind. Our bible teaches. Romans 3:23- 3For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; so I tell you friend to friend poet to poet... No good works will get you to heaven as the pope falsely preaches of the Catholic Church. Why works won't get you to heaven? Ephesians 2:8-9 main verses.( 8For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9Not of works, lest any man should boast. 10For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.) Notice how it sais for by grace you are saved through faith? Meaning by grace of God if you accept Jesus as your Lord and messiah and Savior personal Savior not some far away man. Or myth. A personal Savior you can speak to in prayer and hes always there for you. Also notice it sais ( it is not of yourselves, meaning you can't save yourself neither can works you do good on earth. It also said not of works, that any man should boast??? Boast showing off pridefulness. Buy through christs shedding of blood on the cross, we have redemption through that blood if we accept him or not. I'm sure you've heard from worldly religions and one world together we are all children of God? False lie! Fact is were yes all created by the same God. Though we don't all worship the true God we should be and wonder  why our lives and your lives are haywire? We are children of God ONLY through the adoption of Jesus ( meaning coming to him as your Savior you are adopted as gods chosen and children... Christ btw spoke more on hell then he did heaven. Though here's what he said on heaven. (
1 Corinthians 2:9 - But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. ( meaning in life, and after death in heaven.)
John 14:2 - In my Father's house are many mansions: if [it were] not [so], I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
10 And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and shewed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God,

11 Having the glory of God: and her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal;

12 And had a wall great and high, and had twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names written thereon, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel:

13 On the east three gates; on the north three gates; on the south three gates; and on the west three gates.

14 And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

15 And he that talked with me had a golden reed to measure the city, and the gates thereof, and the wall thereof.

16 And the city lieth foursquare, and the length is as large as the breadth: and he measured the city with the reed, twelve thousand furlongs. The length and the breadth and the height of it are equal.

17 And he measured the wall thereof, an hundred and forty and four cubits, according to the measure of a man, that is, of the angel.

18 And the building of the wall of it was of jasper: and the city was pure gold, like unto clear glass.

19 And the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious stones. The first foundation was jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, a chalcedony; the fourth, an emerald;

20 The fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolyte; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, a topaz; the tenth, a chrysoprasus; the eleventh, a jacinth; the twelfth, an amethyst.

21 And the twelve gates were twelve pearls: every several gate was of one pearl: and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass.

22 And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.

23 And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.

24 And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it.

25 And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there.

26 And they shall bring the glory and honour of the nations into it.

27 And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life.

( revelation chapter 21) speaking of the new temple God will literally bring down to earth that's already In heaven until after Armageddon where he brings down a new temple from heaven already ready and made to go for his chosen and believers who accept Christ Jesus.

And many more verses... Which btw just type in near death experiences on youtube see the thousands of REAL results of many whom have died meaning brain dead, heart dead both, no just one issue wrong. Both things dead some people for minutes, some for hour to hour and half. All telling you same things they saw in death. The tunnel of death. One way leading to heavens gates where there are literally pearlescent gates, and a door you pass through into gods throne room and huge place. They all describe how everything's living and alive.. There is pure joy there and peace. ( as bible speaks, the peace of God surpasses all understanding) told by a black man who's story in famous on CBN and world news. As thousands of others who match the same accounts yet may all be different in forms alll conclude who they saw. Jesus Christ, literal angels by thousands who sing and praise God all the day because in heaven there Is no time clock or time in human level. You know not time. For our bible teaches... 2 Peter 3:8 ( 8But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.) Notice how verse also sais God is long-suffering toward us meaning suffering in patience willing that NONE of you should perish in a real hell Christ spoke on dozens of times, but that all ALL should come to repentance. By accepting Christ as Savior and your messiah and turning from your old ways which I'll tell you as a Christian not one Christian is a saint or perfect. Though word tells us we are to be perfected in Lord Jesus meaning working on self to be as Christ was... Holy. I am a sinner like all the rest of human beings in this earth. And daily Christians must work at doing God's will, and yes takes practice patience and work. Though Christ and God his father gets you through any trials you face and tribulations. 2 Corinthians 1-
1/Blessed [be] God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort;2- Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. Christ came and was scorned, mocked nby the scribes and Pharisees  of his day even though the Jewish Torah spoke of their coming messiah and the world's coming messiah. Though they rejected him as told in old testament they would do, he came preached love, to forgive another always!!!! Always no matter how many times one wrongs and hurts you. And as all say who die and meet God on his throne in a LITERAL heaven, seeing God on his literal throne, and seeing Christ his son, they always come back to say the same thing from death experiences, people will say I'd watch all hundreds of vids as I have..  Christ either told them to go back to earth thir job wasn't done from stuff needing changed in the person's life... These are accounts from Muslims, atheists agnostics, hateful people. Many ex terrorists from middle East. Many Buddhists , Hindus and people from All backgrounds and beliefs will say same thing... Christ told them to go back to love one another... To change things... That HE is the way truth and life. And no man ones to God but by him. And noone gets to heaven but through Jesus the Messiah... They also say God the father said the exact same to them. To tell humans to love one another...as Christ will tell them in dozens of accounts, dozens!!! Tell my people ( Christians ) I'm coming back soon. Or tell them I'm calling them up soon.... Meaning rapturing up his Christians before the 7 year hell called tribulation on earth! When the Antichrist makes fale peace deal between isreal and Palestine. And the world will cry peace and safety! Peace and safety then will sudden destruction come upon man as a woman with child. Spoken in bible. As antichrists peace deal is mentioned in Daniel 9;27 27(And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.) He shall ( Antichrist will) make a false peace deal giving isreali land over to the Palestinian people who have no claim on that land... As even a Saudi prince cams out to say Palestine doesn't own Israeli Jewish land. But the Jews do through Abraham Issac and Jacob!!! Media mainstream news tells you none of this why? Their ran by 6 elite companies who run all news stations. As Rockefeller ( billionaire elite) has his hands in most politics TV news everything you watch and read is controlled by him, the cia. And false reporting. all for the love of money and greed they lie to the American public and world. I suggest anyone to look up the RFID chips matching Antichrist mark of the beast that will be coming money system, also healthcare info. On one small tiny microchip placed in the forehead or right hand to. Spoken of in Revelation 13 which btw It's already being tested in the forehead in monkey heads in labs. And chips are being bought sold and put into USA soldiers, high officials for money. Ignorant people who have no idea what the chips are are literally PAYING to have them placed in their right hands!!! Continue at bottom....

If I told anyone I was *****, they wouldn’t believe me
I live in a world that preaches against hypothetical violence but when that **** comes into your life, everyone pushes it away.
I remember, no I don’t remember, I can barely remember his name.
I think it started with a “C”.
I think he was from Minnesota.
I think we were on a sixteen hour flight.
I think he smiled at me.
I think I smiled back, because why the **** wouldn’t I.
I think he took that as a green light.
I think I shut my eyes to try and sleep.
I think he took that as a green light.
I am fifteen.
I think too little of his advances and trust society enough for me to rest.
I know that was a mistake.
I know I woke up to a blanket around me that wasn’t there before.
I know I woke up to his palm pressed in my pants.
I know I woke up screaming.
I know I couldn’t open my mouth.
I know I was screaming.
I know my mother was on that same plane three rows back.
I was fifteen.

I told my friends and they never believed me.
I haven’t told a soul since.
Why did he walk away from that unscratched while I have been carrying it around like a dead animal for three years?
Why do men think they can own what they can see?
Let me tell you what I can see:
Five people who asked me why I didn’t fight back.
Four people that were sitting around me and claimed to see him putting the cover on me, yet did nothing.
Three of his friends I saw later on the trip who praised him for what he accomplished upon seeing what I looked like.
Two eyes in the mirror that cry almost everyday.
And one crack in that same mirror that will never go away.

His words crash around us, his miserable dark dampening everyone’s light. Your blue eyes roll high, then low, letting his hanger catch on your shoulders. I protest, claim love and want hope, but he’s well prepared; bible, violence, and stereotype in hand.
  At first, he locked his anger up tight, disguised the resentment, fought the archaic nature of his values, the great expanse of his hatred, hidden. He kept it in, fought it, failed to understand it. Finally, internal battle lost, he started leaking. Any hope for happiness killed by a diet of frozen pizza, polish sausage, and spaghetti westerns. He respects men who don’t respect women, loathes anyone who dares to think or feel more than necessary.
His eyes shift, and a creeping moustache has begun above his upper lip, framing a mouth spewing misunderstanding. You say: He makes everyone miserable. He says: Its all the cigarettes and alchohol they’ve been using. You shake your head, knowing an argument only spreads the contagion and inflames the rash.
   I forget, ask him how he knows so much about things he’s never done.  “You don’t have to try it to know,” He replies, the creeping moustache more and more evident. I roll my eyes, lay back and listen as he preaches theories  about women he’s never known, never had. How many times can he fail to realize he’s no better than anyone else. He preaches God and Christianity, but hates more than anyone, has no hope, or faith, or love, and lacks any shadow of compassion. He’s filled with violence and anger, yet claims to follow a God of love.

   He’s not tough, or hardened, or experienced, he’s afraid. Afraid to love, to lose, to understand, to hope, to accept, because it means a change.  It means growing up, throwing out comic books, drawing mor than Batman, finding friends who are real, feeling the pain, understanding the gravity, and embracing it all.

The shouting face of the sea
Ravages rocks on the toes of the beach
Seashells glued to glass
laminate the reflecting rays of the baking sun  
A pebble preaches to a mountain
Underneath an electric dream
Galvanize my heart,
It needs a jump-start
Stuck in a frozen tundra of fallacy
Chasing broken tragedies
I told her
I tried
Nothing seems to change the mind
So I guess I’ll have to lie
Praying a lion’s smile
captures her immaculate eyes
But my summer’s luck lacks the ability to clear cloudy skies
Now I am alone in a misty meadow
With taciturn trees
Yet you were like the warm belly of a manatee
And I was a calloused heart  hoping for a remedy

smoking is bad*
preaches the teacher
as he bites his nails
in anticipation
of his next
cigarette.

our culture preaches self obsession:
to always be looking at ourselves,
to always be editing, editing, editing,
photoshopping away our scars to look pretty
on a computer screen,
to be focused continuously inwardly,
focused on our own flaws.
our culture preaches self obsession
but not self love.

the things we are born into,
the things we grow into,
people tell us they're not good enough
somehow. there is such a narrow
margin for error. there is such a narrow
road to walk if we want to be thought beautiful.

it took me 16 years to understand
that I was not worthless: I hated
myself for all the things other people
told me I was:
fat because my ribcage didn't
shine through my skin
a ***** for my opinions
a ****, and ugly, because of my body,
because of my face.
is it any wonder
I was so uncomfortable in my own skin?

in the past they told you: love your neighbor
as you love yourself,
but we need a new mantra.
think of the most beautiful person you know
and treat yourself that way.
would you let them starve themselves,
would you let them cut away at their own skin,
would you let them wallow
in self pity, in regret, in fear?
think of the most beautiful person you know
and then understand, that person is you
to someone else.
you are so beautiful.
love yourself.
love yourself.

you know why you can re-watch
a television series
a second time...
unlike what you tend to do with
a movie...
there's no nostalgia...
  there's only a series of
pin-points where you're exasperated
at the number of Oh... Oh...
      Oh!
you only pick up on the staring
at you, obvious details...
the second time around...
like with the series...
   sharp objects...
             but that's beside the point...
****...
what was the original point?!
sure are **** it wasn't
a ******* tornado...
    jews... lawyers...
gentile customers...
Oh! that's right...
why am i not inclined to read
into a second tier of
    articulate?
no... that's not the word...
what's the word...
****!
                ah...
LITERATE!
   i'm not into this lawyer
******* of a second tier of literacy!
**** me!
that's what i was looking for!
guess drinking *** is
actually a memory-yank-machine!

am i really supposed to learn
the games, the thesaurus
games of this casually,
adequate, use of language,
in order, to simply concern myself,
with, becoming a lawyer?!

am i?
                     well...
if were at it... why not throw,
what could best amount to a combination
of the, Bible, and  crossword puzzle weekly!

get my, ******* DRIFT?!
death is no pardon,
but sure as chicken ****
it's hardly a, ******* recluse...
death in the form of ******
doesn't hide in the attic,
it doesn't hide in the ******* cellar,
it's a ******, blatant, lie,
lying wide awake,
in the wide open.... preview
of the obvious...
which apparently makes
an auto-suggestive proposition...
those "geniuses"
you "thought" were smart?
******* window-licking ******(s)!

oh no... no...
you're not stopping me...
i'm like a mad bear mother
seeing one or all three
of her cubs being slaughtered...
i'm not stopping...
**** i'm not stopping...
i need...  blood!
i need the perfume of ******!
i need a whiff of it!
rare stake,
or a stake tartar will do,
thank you.

what i am not buying
is a second tier literacy
if the lawyer profession...
past the thesaurus,
past the synonym,
minus the metaphor...
i'm done with the cowards...
and they said there was
no honor among thieves...
take a second look
and you'll see something,
much much different...

no...
i don't need a lesson,
in second tier teaching methods
with regards to literacy...
no lawyer will be allowed
to teach me a language,
with that he already preaches,
the thesaurus definition...
i.e.
words do not begin with, noun,
they begin with synonym,
which is a twice-respective noun
for, nuance,
or? ambiguity.
                   or? as the ancient Latins
liked it... similis...
    no...

lawyers will not have
a revision of my first lesson
in literacy,
lawyers will not occupy the conduct
of the application of linguistics...
they'll be,
abhorred, as much as politicians...
for whatever good that will
make them, revise their conduct...
which, of course
it won't...

              plus aspects within the confines
of the incurred minuses, aside...
they speak a language...
which, i vaguely demand to
understand...
but...which of course...
  i do not want to understand...
               and why would i?
am i supposed to heave a second
literary effort?!
  
i wasn't expected to learn their game,
nor their,
trans-grammatical ******* either!

play the thesaurus all the while,
i know when a thesaurus
is used when it come to pop
literary works...
       third limbs...
it all points to third limps...
you know when an author
has used a thesaurus...
the word jumps at you,
standing out like a dinosaur
       in an orangutan zoo!

what, you don't think i wasn't,
watching?!

death is a thrill,
sleep, the malaise of keeping
with one's everyday chores;

******...
cite me Lord Byron,
one more ******* time...
cite me!

no... i don't like to be "asked"
to be literate a second time,
a literacy peppered
with thesaurus nuance,
i hope you find that:
once... is enough.

Dear friends , this is an old poem of mine which was composed after I learnt that one of my favourite Hollywood actor Richard Gere had become a Buddhist and believed in Zen Philosophy. So having read about Zen, I composed in a simple format about the same. Hope you like it. Thanks, - Raj.


                    ZEN PHILOSOPHY
With roots buried deep in soils of Ancient India,
And watered by the exotic blend of three different
cultures;
Reflecting the mysticism of India, the pragmatism
of the Confucian mind, and the Taoist’s love of
naturalness and spontaneity,
Buddhism bloomed and blossomed into an exotic
flower called 'Zen Philosophy'!

In 475 AD a pupil of Buddha called Bodhidharma
went to China.
There the Mahayana School of Buddhism mingled
with Chinese Taoism, which evolved into Chan
Philosophy!
'Chan ' derived from the Sanskrit  word 'dhyana',
which meant 'silent meditation',  -
Through which the Buddha attained enlightenment
and salvation!
Later, in 1200 AD this Chan philosophy travelled to
the shores of Japan,
Where 'Chan' got translated to 'Zen' by its many
followers and fans!
ZEN is the art of meditation to achieve inner awakening,
To gain intuitive knowledge, highlighting the inadequacy
of logical reasoning!
It therefore advocates the practice of 'zazen' or 'sitting
meditation',
For acquiring inner awakening through silent
contemplation!

ZEN could be practised in our daily life,
Without entering a hermitage, leaving behind your
family or wife!
'Gain the naturalness of your original true nature',
-  preaches the Zen Teacher through meditation,
'Rather than through mere faith and devotion,
which is contrary to Zen notion.'
'One must awaken to this present moment to feel
this life,
And not waste time in speculations of an Elusive
After-Life’!
The 'Enso' or the ‘circle’, is the Zen symbol which is
often deployed,
Symbolising Enlightenment, Strength, the Universe,
and the Void!
With this 'expression of the moment ' the Zen Philosophy
starts,
And today the ‘Enso’ is also the symbol of Expressionist
Art!
Never ask the Zen Master 'What is Zen, when, or how? ',
For he will always tell you, - 'Zen Is The Instant Now'!
                                                      - Raj Nandy, New Delhi.

god is the devil and the devil is bob

god is the devil and the devil is bob

god is the devil and the devil is bob

GOD THE DEVIL AND BOB


today bob delahunty visits 3 ladies who preaches god to stop their sons from drinking

the first lady, really gets offended if her son turns off god, mind you, she lets him have

his own beliefs, but in saying that, when he makes jokes about religion, she gets really offended

and says, you should believe in god, god is the powerful being, god is the almighty saviour and

god will be there for you at every turn, and bob came in, and told this lady, that there are

possibilities that god is a myth, and you need your son to have his own beliefs and the lady

got offended for what bob said, and told bob, that god is up there looking over each of us

and i am trying to show my son, that god isn’t powerful, as such, but is a blessing to have

him watch over us, and bob said, you need to understand, religion is a touchy subject ya see

and the lady said your the devil, and she went away singing

god is the devil and the devil is bob

god is the devil and the devil is bob

god is the devil and the devil is bob

GOD THE DEVIL AND BOB

the second lady keeps her 15 year old daughter locked up in the basement because she didn’t trust

the evil spirits around her, you see she hung around these two prostitutes, because they are terribly

nice to her, and her mother didn’t like what she is doing, so she bought these iron chains, to tie the devil

right out of her, and bob said, this is wrong, we must  explain to this lady, that god will not condone this

and the lady said in her defines, my daughter hangs with devil people, and bob said, no, you are the devil

i am not saying what she is doing is rightt, but you make them sound good, and chaining your daughter

in your basement is definatlely the wrong solution for you to do, and the lady said to bob, i want my daughter

to understand what she is doing is wrong, she is disobeying gods commands, and until she understands

i have no excuse but to keep her chained in my basement, and bob hit her with a wooden spoon, not enough

to ****, just enough to rescue her daughter from her clutches, and after 2 hours, she got to her feet and said

where is my daughter, and bob said, i rescued her from you, and you need to understand that this was wrong

and the lady mumbled to herself saying

god is the devil and the devil is bob

god is the devil and the devil is bob

god is the devil and the devil is bob

GOD THE DEVIL AND BOB


The third lady was a little old lady who loves knitting, but she has really bogus beliefs, you see to her anyone

who drinks, was the devil, and if her son went out drinking, she would get cranky with him, no matter what

age he was, you see she claims the devil was giving her the impression that her son is committing crimes

and behaving like a hooligan, and when her son, tries to speak up for himself, she goes QUIET, we need

our almighty GOD, to save you from the devil’s clutches and her son called bob in, because they can’t keep

going on like this, and bob came in to talk to the old lady, asking her, what makes you think that he is worshipping

the devil, you see it’s possible that he is out having a good time at the club drinking with mates, and the lady said

i was raised to think drinking was the work of the devil and when i think of what young people get up to now, no

i am doing the right thing, protecting my son from the evil drunks, no son of mine is parading around on the streets

like a hooligan and bob said, yeah but, i think he is being a man, to enjoy a few beers with family and the lady said

i don’t care, drinking is the work of the devil, and there is no doubt about it, and bob told her, you must understand

your son, and she said i don’t need to understand him, as she walked away singing

god is the devil and the devil is bob

god is the devil and the devil is bob

god is the devil and the devil is bob

your the devil, bob, don’t deny it, buddy

god is the devil and the devil is bob

god is the devil and the devil is bob

god is the devil and the devil is bob

GOD THE DEVIL AND THE ALMIGHTY BOB, to save everyone from delusions forever

Should
never have to
face the
thickened
sticky
white and
creamy
cheesy
cliched
wrath and
terror
of her
mother's smile.

Should
never have to
flinch
inside
behind walls
made of
bricks
behind
barricades
of
stone
wrapped
in
bubble-wrap
at her
mother's
glance.

Eyes
should
never
hold
so
much
power
within
the
flash
of
discontent.

She should not
live
on a boat
always
biding time
waiting for
storms to pass
for
waves to
curl
and crack down
upon her
head
down into
the sand
that
holds her
down into
the dark
that
kisses her
goodnight
down into
the brutal
flick
the tap on the
glass
clench
of
the fingers
twitch of
the jaw

should never
have to
wait
for the
mother's roar
to
echo
through the
chamber
of her heart
until
silence
envelopes
her soul
and she
can sleep
without

fear.

Should
never
fear
her
mother's
evening breath
the
gentle and
stilling
exhale
a sigh
a brittle
and
glassed sound
that shatters
against her
tightly
pursed
lips
locked
mouth.

Should never
tell the heart
to
quiet down
and let
her run
like a
good
child
ignoring
the warning
bells
which
everyone else
seems to ignore
the words
that leave
her
stubborn
lips
in the
joke she
tells
the story
she
preaches
the hesitated
eye
widening
limerick

the expected
story
to tell
her
friends

her
mother's
wrath
tastes like
fire in
her belly
sulphur in
her throat
and
metallic
lingerings
of
biting
her tongue
to
suppress
the
screams

'what can you expect'

'my mother gets like that'

'she attacked me'

'but its okay'

'I was stubborn'

I see humans but no humanity
I see a society but no unity
Happiness comes from within
But we all seem to forget

Ignorant, naïve
And judging from incompetence
Fighting for peace
Not respecting history

Searching for truth
But you've lost your way
No more believers
Forgotten how we got here

Looking for freedom
But support the oppressor
Don't accept responsibility
And hope you don't get caught

Because you're not really breaking the law
Your conscience is poisonous
Apparently your doing things the right way
Children are dying from illness
But we're complaining about immigrants

Stop following public opinion
And separating nations
Just because you're not blind
It doesn't mean you can see

Teach your future generation
Less clothes equals beautiful
And white equals superior
Money equals power

Divide between the lesser who are  inferior
***** hatred and say its dutiful
Who are you trying to fool
We're dropping like flies

She killed herself because of cyber bullying
And he's tired of acting strong
Fearing to cry and be ******
Abuse, neglect and poverty

Increasing frequently
Morality crisis
Blame the youth and teenage pregnancies
To combat it a genius says let's teach them whilst they're younger

Sounds good right?
What about censorship
Safety and protection
Young minds are susceptible

Ignore the practice and theories
Pride doesn't let you back down
Blame the rap and rock music
Its preaches violence and hatred

Rebel riots and corruption
East and west its affected us both
Greedy bankers
And terrorists or freedom fighters

A time of lost trust
And each to their own
Independent battles
No one is connecting the dots

Its like global dominoes
Inter connected problems
One leads to another
And the root cause is lost

There at the street corner he stands
With Bible in hand he preaches
He preaches God's word for all to hear
For anyone with a listening ear

His clothes are
Tatered
*****
Worn
He has been cut by life's thorns

He looks
Weak
Hungry
Worn out
Like a fighter about to be knocked out

Still he preaches
God's salvation
God's mighty plan
Trying to help one and all understand

Sure he looks like something
Someone has thrown out
His love for God is strong
Of that there is no doubt

He's been arrested
He's been locked away
As soon as they let him out
He finds another street corner
And starts preaching away

They've
Beat him
Threatened him
Cops have tried sending him away
Nothing they've tried has worked
He just preaches away

The city has tried
Many times
With laws to confine him
None of them worked
For it's God's power
That defines him

He knows up in Heaven
He'll be homeless no more
His words will then echo
Out forevermore

So next time you see a street preacher
Don't turn away
For it maybe worth
Hearing what they have to say

icarus lays in his bed now,
an advanced placement scholar with distinction, high honors,
(his name embossed in pearly white letters on posterboard like a movie star)
drunker than he's ever been,
waiting to pass out under the gentle caress of the full moon.

who would have thought
the boy destined to scrape the sky on golden wings
would be passed out on his bedspread like a delinquent?
(it's the quiet ones you gotta watch out for,
the ones who retreat to their silent cave to descend into a fuzz of various intoxications.)
meanwhile, the dean of admissions preaches abstinence
from liquor, grass, and hazy nights.
after all, the true, distinguished, scholarly scholars
would never partake in such acts.

icarus dry heaves into his pillow,
knowing he'll regret going into his advanced calculus test
with the mother of all hangovers.

To all the teachers who have let me down, to the teachers who made me feel isolated and alone for all the teachers who made me lose faith in the education system and caused me to believe that my strengths werent nearly as large as my weaknesses, to the teachers who have made me feel like my only purpose for living was to get good grades. I want you to know how you made me feel.
To the health teacher sophomore year who during the ****** education unit ignored my inquiries about safe *** in same *** relationships and then proceeded to tell me that my questions were innapropriate and that i was too young to be asking that, i want you to know that hearing that was a slap in the face to me. Hearing that sent 16 year old me so far back into the closet that i couldnt see any ounce light. I could not see a reason to be hopeful because you deemed my sexuality as wrong and made me feel like i was alone, i want you to know that it took me 2 years after that to understand that my feelings were not something to be ashamed of and it took me a week and google to find the responses to the questions you refused to answer.
To the chemistry teacher who told my counselor that i am a ******* addicted drug user and never even had the nerve to ask me why my hands shake, i want you to know that i have a disorder called essential tremor and my shaking is something that took me years to embrace. I want you to know that your assumptions stole the years of confidence i had built up in the acceptance of my disability and made me feel targeted and insignificant, if only you had simply just asked me then you would have saved me the loss. To the same teacher who made me sit out in the hall for the whole hour long class period because i talked while you were talking, i want you to know how ****** that feels. To any teacher who sends students in the halls, know that there is nothing worse than isolation and that making your students sit out in the hallway wont do anything but make them feel the pangs of loneliness and embarrasment.
To the spanish teacher with the bad temper who always took the time to complain and point out my mistakes, i want you to know that it never helped me learn anything and for someone who preaches tolerance amd respect i think its ironic that you made students feel so bad to the point where theyd leave your class crying. I want you to know that i tried my hardest to get your approval and never got it at all. But even though there have been those who have let me down, there have also been those who have brought me up. There have been those who have pulled me out of the deepest of slumps and showed me how to be brave.
To the math teacher who was more like a mother to me, a really cool one at that, who had awesome taste in music and understood that intelligence is not defined by grades, i want you to know that even though i hated math, walking into your class always made my day a little bit better. I want to thank you for understanding me and teaching me to try even when my attitude was ****. Im lucky to have met you because if i hadnt, i wouldnt have so much motivation.
To the theatre teacher who i met before highschool even started, i want you to know that you are the person who guided me to where i am today. And even when i cant find the words to say how i feel, you always know how to lead me to them. You were like a father to me when my own father was sick and for that i will always be appreciative.
To the theatre teacher who i can say without a doubt saved my life, who brought my out of the darkness and helped me see light, who understood all of the issues going on in my life, i owe my life to you. Meeting you was something that i am forever grateful for. You always know how to make me feel better and less alone and when i feel like im falling down you always help pick me back up. You're the only teacher who can see when im not okay and the only one who i can share with why im feeling that way, you're the only teacher that still manages to inspire me everyday and make me laugh at the same time. Thank you can't even begin to explain how much you have changed my life.
Ive learned that teachers have a bigger impact on kids than we think, they can affect them so much even in even the little things, ive learned that the things that teachers do can either inspire or haunt you for the rest of your life and its important that teachers understand that school is not the only thing in a students life, its important to understand that in just a day a teacher could either save someone or break someone. Empathy is the most important key that a teacher should hold because if you can make someone feel less alone, then youre doing it right.

The sad eyes
the hopeful hands
wrapped in the ends of long sleeves
scales for fingernails
silver purple hues
axiom eye brows
proscenium arches
the eye lashes are curtains
stained black
the scent of whole milk in tea
a kind mistake
the sarcastic cries from singing speakers
like dogs at beaches
the **** of leaches
realistic vampires
in pools of waiting water
leaches on my eyes
salt on your fingertips
lost on mine
paper cuts from my own skin
Chinese Jim Carrey on my mind
not my idea
I just heard it and agreed
the sand mouth
scratching the roof
paper *****
origami
and Japanese ***
animated octopi
and ocean park aquarium blues
I’ve been equated with
spherical spaces on my palms
the pope preaches a phobia
and he is loyal to all of his children
except some
and accept cards when they are given to you
with nephews and nieces who can’t speak
yet still sign their names
the cold shoulder
I hope you think of me
in the shower
and when you drink beer
the naked alcoholic
is like a godmother to me
he brings me
experience
the fathers speech impediment is inconvenient
like parties we weren’t invited to
the brother is loyal
the mother is not
like candy floss
sweet to the tongue
then gone
like rose-coloured contact lenses
the modern age will die
like grandparents
the enthusiasm
falls like stars
and you make wishes
on coffee circles
she is going to India
(I am not)
I am going to rot in hell
such a stench they will kick me out
the boots
thick and black
shining in the sun
like tarmac
the big nose
snorting *******
with the small
fairies are real
and they ****** us all
The suicide hopeful
that breaks promises
like bread
back to church again
‘Let’s save the gays and make them straight! The prostitutes too’
As if they didn’t have enough problems already
The teenage ignorance
and underage rage
under-rated and staged
The attention seeking wave
if you want them to see
better you were a tsunami home wrecker
at the age of sixteen
than a ripple in the ocean before you were me
the attractive son-of-a-poet
***** trick
the hairy crotch with diamond juice
the one you love love love
the Starbucks umbrella you stole
the girl who loves horses
the drummer who can’t swim well
the secret lesbian
who I’m 95% sure fancies me
and the barber who cuts hair outside the school by the concrete
in the woods

Your sad eyes
make everything else
seem pointless

These are poems about Adam and Eve, Lucifer aka Satan aka Mephistopheles, the Garden of Eden, Cain and Abel, the forbidden fruit, "original sin," the Fall and its bitter aftermath...



Eden
by Michael R. Burch

Then earth was heaven too, a perfect garden.
Apples burgeoned and shone—unplucked on sagging boughs.
What, then, would the children eat? 
Fruit indecently sweet, 
redolent as incense, with a tempting aroma...

Why did the biblical god want to keep Adam and Eve in an animal state, not knowing good from evil and running around naked like animals? Good parents want their children to seek knowledge, so why did Yahweh ****** Adam and Eve for seeking knowledge? And why did Yahweh tell them it was evil to eat the forbidden fruit when he had denied them the ability to know good from evil? It was like putting poisoned milk before two cats and saying, "It's evil to drink the milk!" Of course cats have no concept of "evil" and just do what comes naturally. So, too, with Adam and Eve. If there was a fall, they were obviously set up to fall, by a terrible father.



Outcasts of Eden
by Michael R. Burch

There was a rose, a prescient shade of crimson, 
the very color of blood, 
that bloomed in that garden.

The most dazzling of all the Earth's flowers, 
men have forgotten it now, 
with their fanciful tales of apples and serpents.

Beasts with lips called the goreflower "Love."

The scribes have the story all wrong: four were there, 
four horrid dark creatures—chattering, bickering.

Aduhm placed one red petal in Ehve's matted hair; 

he was lost in her arms
till dawn sullen and golden
imperceptibly streaked the musk-fragrant air.

Two flared nostrils quivered, two eyes remained open.

Kahyn sought me that evening, his bloodless lips curled
in a grimacelike smile. Sunken-cheeked, he approached me
in the Caverns of Similitudes, eerie Barzakh.

"We are outcasts, my brother!, God quickly deserts us."
As though his anguish conceived in insight's first blush
might not pale next to mine in Sheol's gray realm.

"Shining Creature!" he named me and called me divine
as he lavished damp kisses upon my bright scales.
"Help me find me one rare gift to put Love's gift to shame."

"There is a dark rose with a bittersweet fragrance
as pungent as cloves: only man knows its name.
Clinging and cloying, it destroys all it touches..."

"But red is Ehve's preference; while Envy is green."
He was downcast a moment, a moment, a moment...
"Ah, but red is the color of blood!"

Disagreeable child, far too clever for his own good.

Published in The Bible of Hell (anthology) 



Temptation
by Michael R. Burch

Jesus was always misunderstood...
we have that, at least, in common.

And it's true that I found him, 
shriveled with hunger, 
shivering in the desert, 
skeletal, emaciate, 
not an ounce of fat
to warm his bones
once the bright sun set.

And it's true, I believe, 
that I offered him something to eat—
a fig, perhaps, a pomegranate, or a peach.

Hardly the great "temptation"
of which I'm accused.

He was a likeable chap, really, 
and we spent a pleasant hour
discussing God—
how hard He is to know, 
and impossible to please.

I left him there, the pale supplicant, 
all skin and bone, at the mouth of his cave, 
imploring his "Master" on callused knees.

Published in The Bible of Hell (anthology) 



lust!
by michael r. burch

i was only a child
in a world dark and wild
seeking affection
in eyes mild

and in all my bright dreams
sweet love shimmered, beguiled ...

but the black-robed Priest
who called me the least
of all god’s creation
then spoke for the Beast:

He called my great passion a thing base, defiled!

He condemned me to hell,
the foul Ne’er-Do-Well,
for the sake of the copper
His Pig-Snout could smell
in the purse of my mother,
“the ***** jezebel.”

my sweet passions condemned
by degenerate men?
and she so devout
she exclaimed, “yay, aye-men!” ...

together we learned why Religion is hell.



You! 
by Michael R. Burch

For forty years You have not spoken to me; 
I heard the dull hollow echo of silence
as though strange communion between us.

For forty years You would not open to me; 
You remained closed, hard and tense, 
like a clenched fist.

For forty years You have not broken me
with Your alien ways, 
prevarications and distance.

Like a child dismissed, 
I have watched You prey upon the hope in me, 
knowing "mercy" is chance

and "heaven"—a list.

Published in The Bible of Hell (anthology) 

I call mercy "chance" and heaven a "list" because the bible says its "god" predestines some people to be "vessels of mercy" and others to be "vessels of destruction." Thus mercy is reduced to the chance of birth and heaven is a precompiled list of the lucky chosen few. Of course there is no reason to believe in such a diabolical "god" or such an unjust "heaven"... but billions have, and do.



Pagans Protest the Intolerance of Christianity
by Michael R. Burch

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

We had a common sky
before the Christians came.

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

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

Yet now our fellow mortals claim
our questions merit hell!

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

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



One of the Flown
by Michael R. Burch

Forgive me for not having known
you were one of the flown—
flown from the distant haunts
of someone else’s enlightenment,
alighting here to a darkness all your own . . .

I imagine you perched,
pretty warbler, in your starched
dress, before you grew bellicose . . .
singing quaint love’s highest falsetto notes,
brightening the pew of some dilapidated church . . .

But that was before autumn’s
messianic dark hymns . . .
Deepening on the landscape—winter’s inevitable shadows.
Love came too late; hope flocked to bare meadows,
preparing to leave. Then even the thought of life became grim,

thinking of Him . . .
To flee, finally,—that was no whim,
no adventure, but purpose.
I see you now a-wing: pale-eyed, intent, serious:
always, always at the horizon’s broadening rim . . .

How long have you flown now, pretty voyager?
I keep watch from afar: pale lover and ******.



what the “Chosen Few” really pray for
by Michael R. Burch

We are ready to be robed in light,
angel-bright

despite
Our intolerance;

ready to enter Heaven and never return
(dark, this sojourn);

ready to worse-ship any gaud
able to deliver Us from this flawed

existence;
We pray with the persistence

of actual saints
to be delivered from all earthly constraints:

just kiss each uplifted Face
with lips of gentlest grace,

cooing the sweetest harmonies
while brutally crushing Our enemies!

ah-Men!



***** Nilly
by Michael R. Burch

for the Demiurge, aka Yahweh/Jehovah

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

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

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



Adam Lay Ybounden
(anonymous Medieval English Lyric, circa early 15th century AD) 
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Adam lay bound, bound in a bond; 
Four thousand winters, he thought, were not too long.
And all was for an apple, an apple that he took, 
As clerics now find written in their book.
But had the apple not been taken, or had it never been, 
We'd never have had our Lady, heaven's queen.
So blesséd be the time the apple was taken thus; 
Therefore we sing, "God is gracious!"



No One
by Michael R. Burch

No One hears the bells tonight; 
they tell him something isn't right.
But No One is not one to rush; 
he lies in grasses greenly lush
as far away a startled thrush
flees from horned owls in sinking flight.

No One hears the cannon's roar
and muses that its voice means war
comes knocking on men's doors tonight.
He sleeps outside in awed delight
beneath the enigmatic stars
and shivers in their cooling light.

No One knows the world will end, 
that he'll be lonely, without friend
or foe to conquer. All will be
once more, celestial harmony.
He'll miss men's voices, now and then, 
but worlds can be remade again.



Bikini
by Michael R. Burch

Undersea, by the shale and the coral forming, 
by the shell's pale rose and the pearl's white eye, 
through the sea's green bed of lank seaweed worming
like tangled hair where cold currents rise...
something lurks where the riptides sigh, 
something old and pale and wise.

Something old when the world was forming
now lifts its beak, its snail-blind eye, 
and with tentacles about it squirming, 
it feels the cloud above it rise
and shudders, settles with a sigh, 
knowing man's demise draws nigh.



Ceremony
by Michael R. Burch

Lost in the cavernous blue silence of spring, 
heavy-lidded and drowsy with slumber, I see
the dark gnats leap; the black flies fling
their slow, engorged bulks into the air above me.

Shimmering hordes of blue-green bottleflies sing
their monotonous laments; as I listen, they near
with the strange droning hum of their murmurous wings.
Though you said you would leave me, I prop you up here
and brush back red ants from your fine, tangled hair, 
whispering, "I do!"... as the gaunt vultures stare.



Exile
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We have often heard of Adam's banishment from Eden, 
but with far greater humiliation, I abandon your garden.



Where We Dwell
by Michael R. Burch

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

Published in The Bible of Hell (anthology) 



What Immense Silence
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

why is it God that they fear? 

Published in The Bible of Hell (anthology) 



Double Cross
by Michael R. Burch

Come to the cross;
contemplate all loss
and how little was gained
by those who remained
uncrucified.



Dabble Dactyls
by Michael R. Burch

Sniggledy-Wriggledy
Jesus Christ’s enterprise
leaves me in awe of
the rich men he loathed!

But should a Sadducee
settle for trifles?
His disciples now rip off
the Lord they betrothed.



I, Lazarus
by Michael R. Burch

I, Lazarus, without a heart,
devoid of blood and spiritless,
lay in the darkness, meritless:
my corpse—a thing cold, dead, apart.

But then I thought I heard—a Voice,
a Voice that called me from afar.
And so I stood and laughed, bizarre:
a thing embalmed, made to rejoice!

I ran ungainly-legged to see
who spoke my name, and then I knew
him by the light. His name is True,
and now he is the life in me!

I never died again! Believe!
(Oops! Seems it was a brief reprieve.)



To Know You as Mary
by Michael R. Burch

To know You as Mary,
when You spoke her name
and her world was never the same ...
beside the still tomb
where the spring roses bloom.

O, then I would laugh
and be glad that I came,
never minding the chill, the disconsolate rain ...
beside the still tomb
where the spring roses bloom.

I might not think this earth
the sharp focus of pain
if I heard You exclaim—
beside the still tomb
where the spring roses bloom

my most unexpected, unwarranted name!
But you never spoke. Explain?



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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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 beauty of the flower fades,
its petals wither to charades...
—Michael R. Burch



the U-turn poem
by michael r. burch

Life so defaulty,
Life so unfair,
why do wee prize U,
what do U care?

LORD who lets unborns
drown in a flood,
CELESTIAL ABORTIONIST,
r U sure Ur understood?



Hellion
by michael r. burch

cold as stone,
cold to the bone,
so cold inside even icebergs moan,
such is ur Gaud on hiss icy throne.

lines written for a luverly Gaud who cant be bothered to save pisspot peeple who guess wrong about which ire-ational re-ligion to believe.

“Hellion” is a pun on “he-lion” as in the “Lion of Judah” and “hell-lion.”



yet another ode to a graceless faceless Creator albeit with thoughts of possibly rescinding prior compliments
by michael r. burch

who created this graceless universe?
why praise its Creator? who could be worse?
why praise man’s Berater with obsequious verse?
job’s wife was right: he’s nobody’s nurse.



ur-Gent prayer request
by michael r. burch

where did ur Gaud originate?
in the minds of men so full of hate
they commanded moms to stone their kids,
which u believe (brains on the skids)
was “the word of Gaud”!
                     debate?
too late & of course it’s useless:
please pray to be less clueless.

The title involves a pun, since the “ur-Gent” would be the biblical “god.”



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



Non-Word to the Wise
by Michael R. Burch

The wise will never cry, “Save!”
The wise desire a quiet grave.



sonnet to non-science and nonsense/nunsense
by michael r. burch

ur Gaud is a fiasco,
a rapscallion and a rascal;
he murdered lovely eve,
so what’s there to “believe”?

and who made eve so curious?
why should ur Gaud be furious
when every half-wit parent knows
where bright kids will stick their no’s(e)!

no wise and loving father
would slaughter his own daughter!
ur Gaud’s a hole-y terror!
CONSIDER THE SOURCE OF ERROR:

though ur bible’s a giant hit,
its writers were full of sh-t.



We Know It All
by Michael R. Burch

We rile. We gall. We know it all
because we’ve read the Bible,
which tells us genocide’s “God’s will”
along with bashing in kids’ skulls
and other forms of libel.

The earth is flat, our Book says so!
The Lord will torture our rational foe!
(We lack the compassion to tell the fiend “No!”)

God’s on his throne, the Angels are winking,
applauding our lack of critical thinking.
We’re drowning in crap. We’re stinking and sinking.

Eve once petted friendly T-Rexes!
A “witch” should be ****** for unprovable hexes!
It’s a “sin” to make love if one’s lover has exes!

Girls were enslaved and ***** by their “masters”!
Our Book is the source of so many disasters!
The earth’s overheating? Let’s burn it up faster!



Yet Another Sh-tty Ditty
by Michael R. Burch

Here’s my ditty:
Life is sh-tty,
Then you get old
And more’s the pity.

Truth be told,
We’re bought and sold,
Sheep in the fold
Sheared lickety-splitty.

But chin’s up,
What’s the use of crying?
We’ve a certain escape:
Welcome to dying!


Snap Shots
by Michael R. Burch

Our daughters must be celibate,
die virgins. We triangulate
their early paths to heaven (for
the martyrs they’ll soon conjugate).

We like to hook a little tail.
We hope there’s decent *** in jail.
Don’t fool with us; our bombs are smart!
(We’ll send the plans, ASAP, e-mail.)

The soul is all that matters; why
hoard gold if it offends the eye?
A pension plan? Don’t make us laugh!
We have your plan for sainthood. (Die.)



Breakings
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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



A coming day
by Michael R. Burch

for my mother, due to her hellish religion

There will be a day,
a day when the lightning strikes from a rainbowed mist
when it will be too late, too late for me to say
that I found your faith unblessed.

There will be a day,
a day when the storm clouds gather, ominous,
when it will be too late, too late to put away
this darkness that came between us.



Hellbound
by Michael R. Burch

Mother, it’s dark
and you never did love me
because you put Yahweh and Yeshu
above me.

Did they ever love you
or cling to you? No.
Now Mother, it’s cold
and I fear for my soul.

Mother, they say
you will leave me and go
to some distant “heaven”
I never shall know.

If that’s your choice,
you made it. Not me.
You brought me to life;
will you nail me to the tree?

Christ! Mother, they say
God condemned me to hell.
If the Devil’s your God
then farewell, farewell!

Or if there is Love
in some other dimension,
let’s reconcile there
and forget such cruel detention.



Crescendo Against Heaven
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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



Advice for Evangelicals
by Michael R. Burch

“... so let your light shine before men ...”

Consider the example of the woodland anemone:
she preaches no sermons but — immaculate — shines,
and rivals the angels in bright innocence and purity —
the sweetest of divines.

And no one has heard her engage in hypocrisy
since the beginning of time — an oracle so mute,
so profound in her silence and exemplary poise
she makes lessons moot.

So consider the example of the saintly anemone
and if you’d convince us Christ really exists,
then let him be just as sweet, just as guileless
and equally as gracious to bless.



Heaven Bent
by Michael R. Burch

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



Winter Night
by Michael R. Burch

Who will be ******,
who embalmed
for all eternity?

The night weighs heavy on me—
leaden, sullen, cold.
O, but my thoughts are light,

like the weightless windblown snow.

Published by Nisqually Delta Review



Intimations
by Michael R. Burch

Let mercy surround us
with a sweet persistence.

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

Published by Katrina Anthology



Flight
by Michael R. Burch

Poetry captures
less than reality
the spirit of things

being the language
not of the lordly falcon
but of the dove with broken wings

whose heavenward flight
though brutally interrupted
is ever towards the light.

Published by Katrina Anthology



Ave Maria
by Michael R. Burch

Ave Maria,
Maiden mild,
listen to my earnest prayer.
Listen, O, and be beguiled.
Ave Maria.

Ave Maria,
Maiden mild,
be Mother now to every child
beset by earth’s thorned briars wild.
Ave Maria.

Ave Maria,
Maiden mild,
embrace us with your Love and Grace.
Let us look upon your Face.
Ave Maria.

Ave Maria,
Maiden mild,
please attend to our earnest call—
When will Love be All in All?
Ave Maria.

Copyright © 2020 by Michael R. Burch



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.



Birthday Poem to Myself
by Michael R. Burch

LORD, be no longer this Distant Presence,

Star-Afar, Righteous-Anonymous,
but come! Come live among us;

come dwell again,
happy child among men—

men rejoicing to have known you
in the familiar manger’s cool

sweet light scent of unburdened hay.
Teach us again to be light that way,

with a chorus of angelic songs lessoned above.
Be to us again that sweet birth of Love

in the only way men can truly understand.
Do not frown darkening down upon an unrighteous land

planning fierce Retributions we require, and deserve,
but remember the child you were; believe

in the child I was, alike to you in innocence
a little while, all sweetness, and helpless without pretense.

Let us be little children again, magical in your sight.
Grant me this boon! Is it not my birthright—

just to know you, as you truly were, and are?
Come, be my friend. Help me understand and regain Hope’s long-departed star!



Learning to Fly
by Michael R. Burch

We are learning to fly
every day . . .

learning to fly—
away, away . . .

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

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



The Gardener’s Roses
by Michael R. Burch

Mary Magdalene, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, “Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away.”

I too have come to the cave;
within: strange, half-glimpsed forms
and ghostly paradigms of things.
Here, nothing warms

this lightening moment of the dawn,
pale tendrils spreading east.
And I, of all who followed Him,
by far the least . . .

The women take no note of me;
I do not recognize
the men in white, the gardener,
these unfamiliar skies . . .

Faint scent of roses, then—a touch!
I turn, and I see: You.
"My Lord, why do You tarry here:
Another waits, Whose love is true?"

"Although My Father waits, and bliss;
though angels call—ecstatic crew!—
I gathered roses for a Friend.
I waited here, for You."



Come Spring
by Michael R. Burch

for the Religious Right

Come spring we return, innocent and hopeful, to the ******,
beseeching Her to bestow
Her blessings upon us.

Pitiable sinners, we bow before Her,
nay, grovel,
as She looms above us, aglow
in Her Purity.

We know
all will change in an instant; therefore
in the morning we will call her,
an untouched maiden no more,
“*****.”

The so-called Religious Right prizes virginity in women and damns them for doing what men do. I have long been a fan of women like Tallulah Bankhead, Marilyn Monroe and Mae West, who decided what’s good for the gander is equally good for the goose.



Kingdom Freedom
by Michael R. Burch

LORD, grant me a rare sweet spirit of forgiveness.
Let me have none of the lividness
of religious outrage.

LORD, let me not be over-worried
about the lack of “morality” around me.
Surround me,

not with law’s restrictive cage,
but with Your spirit, freer than the wind,
so that to breathe is to have freest life,

and not to fly to You, my only sin.



Everlasting
by Michael R. Burch

Where the wind goes
when the storm dies,
there my spirit lives
though I close my eyes.

Do not weep for me;
I am never far.
Whisper my name
to the last star ...

then let me sleep,
think of me no more.

Still ...

By denying death
its terminal sting,
in my words I remain
everlasting.



Keywords/Tags: Adam, Eve, Eden, Lucifer, fall, sin, temptation, heaven, hell, salvation, God, Yahweh, Jehovah, creation, Jesus, Cain, Abel

30 days in. Now, after, out to the market theatre.

People idling, few wondering who pulls the strings
few investigate who paints the streets
who constructs the buildings
it is a show if you slow your vision you will know

You go to a shop, you pick, you pay and go your way
Calculated activity
Prolonged elasticity
And money extends and circulates the sensitivity
the physical defying relativity
Schedules and plans, maps and structures of time
a defined life as I write

You go to church
the congregation settles, the pastor preaches
the congregation responds, "halleluyah" "amen"
songs are sung
tithes paid and progress of church displayed
soon the bell rings and away to our cottages
Cook sunday lunch and a day blessed by God
and sunday after sunday after sunday

You go to school
there's a teacher and students in the classroom
the teacher teaches, questions are asked and notes are taken
Again and again the routine iterates
until tests and assignment dates
how hypnotic this academic tale
promising a better future, a positive fate

And a mall is a town in a cubicle
a church is a social uprising theatrical
a school is a place of worship for the tamable
...and the World a jungle for those who oppose
a haven for the ignorant, a pacific abyss for the survivors of evil. All in all a theatrical play which is a story telling itself in rewind...

We rise and stand to the praises of hypocrisy

We sit and listen to the opening speeches

The narrow minded preaches 

We rise and stand again fumbling for the right dog eared page of the bible 
Looking for the hymns we hum in disjointed rhythms

Feel the spirit 

Feel the passion

Fill the collection plate

We have to build a church for all the Buddhist heathens that haven't heard the Gospel

We sit and listen again
Hanging our heads and closing our eyes in prayer

I only pray I don't fall asleep this time

The preacher

The reverend

The pastor

The pope

The Speaker of God's Word

The man annointed to deliver the path to God and Jesus but only if you seek salvation thru his sermons

The only thing I can do is watch the seconds ticking away on the wall clock
We've been here for twenty minutes and I wonder if it's impolite to stand up and walk out

But I'm kept in my seat as a sign of loyal friendship to friends that dig this kind of entertainment 

Conversion is on the mind
Saved is a word repeated and replicated until all meaning is ****** from it
Feeding grounds for the imaginary hole that only Christ can fill

Another glance at the clock reveals that God is real and he has chosen to slow the seconds down to a slow trickle

Acrimoniously I keep my mouth shut tightly 
Resisting the urge to laugh at a photoshopped picture of a prim and proper white woman teaching a school of Africans about God and how he provides for all

I imagine the children praying
For food to feed them and all they know
For the wars that have torn apart their families to end
For the death of diseases we found the cures for long ago

But they don't have the money for such nonsense like that 

so please fill the collection plate
We need to build a church in Fiji

I hear its a real nice place for a vacation

(The purpose of this parsimonious pursuit of perplexed passion and phony persecutions progressed prophetically by pontificated prayer and perseverance promises pompous pension plans for prolific preachers and prostitutes preparing for purgatory.)

This church is built for social and business networking
High class socialites and low end born withouts trying to buy their way into heaven thru redemption and baptism

The doors open finally and the choir of angels sing their praises as if God has tired of this gathering just as quickly as myself

Shaking sweaty hands and spreading our words of false sincerities 
We walk out feeling more like heathens and atheists than we did when we entered

Next Sunday I think I'll just stay home like usual.

There is a Cheshire cat with a nefarious nose ring
Who lashes berating riddles, and vernacular that’ll make you cringe
He slithers through abandoned shadows
On dilapidated gravel, and bears a deathly sickle grin
Enticing as he may be, he only wishes to deceive
So be wary of his beguiles, they are hidden underneath his symmetrical smile
Nor give in to the plastic prophecies he preaches
Nothing he teaches will stitch meaning into your ambiguities
For he enslaves your sorrows and siphons your dreams
Leaving you asphyxiated in catatonic screams

Bright child of the Tarot, a new age awaits you –

but not through the mazes you’re wandering in.

Your gypsy desire and clairvoyant excursions

are setting your beautiful brain all a-spin.

The dog at the precipice barks out a warning:

the FOOL, the MAGICIAN and PRIESTESS are wrong

Pay no heed to their signs and the omens around you –

let faith be your shield when the DEVIL seems strong.

JUSTICE, as blind as the HERMIT is *****,

has seen that our TOWER is stricken and doomed.

The SUN, MOON and STARS in their orbits bear witness

as LOVERS  in ******* to DEATH are consumed…

Egypt can’t help you – the CHARIOT‘s  stalled

While the TEMPERANCE angel was mixing the drinks.

The EMPRESS (a tedious feminist) preaches

an upside down future, the HANGED MAN thinks…

Though the WHEEL almost crushes you turning this way

And the staff of correction has battered you hard

I am sure you will make it, if only you pray

to the sovereign elector who holds every card

for a ray of redemption to light up your way.

Let the major arcana now bow and acknowledge

as  JUDGMENT is sounded and shatters the sky

that righteous and just is the blessed Redeemer

who loves every lunatic card-addled dreamer

like you and like me. Therefore hear as I cry

that the WORLD in its fulness can’t harbor His love –

nor the heavens within nor without nor above…

May the HIEROPHANT‘s dynasty wither away

and the EMPEROR‘s  scepter be broken to shards

as the breath of God’s Spirit comes into our world

to reveal the true STRENGTH of your house made of cards.

What does one do when the characters you hate
Are the ones you best construe?
Misgivings and flaws you can relate
To, tho venerable traits you eschew,

The green light gazers and "architect" praisers
Familial leeches or the confessor who preaches
That awareness absolves one of sin,
Compromisers and self-named kaisers
Resound and reverberate within

They pass by in my pages to be mocked and scorned
As evil, cruel, an oaf, or a tool
Too low to respect or too high on their horse
Despicable, maniacal, mediocre, or worse

And I do hate their vileness, I do hate their flaw
I want to shake them and claw at their skull
For nothing more than the gleam of recognition
That by some misfortune of natural law
They and I share a need for contrition.

~


Painting a picture of porcupines playing
Pincushions out in the field
Purple and pink for this playful perception
Plans of their purpose revealed

Painful endeavors of pacified pranksters
Presenting a pie at their place
Pecan or pumpkin, pickle, pineapple
Pieces are smeared on their face

Putting the paint on some powder puff paper
Pleasure in each stroke is plied
Pausing to peer at the porcupines playing
Prancing in pansies they hide

Puzzling problems with pretzels and peanuts
Posturing people to prove
Pistachio perfume in prime presentation
Preaches that peaches will move

Polishing pastels on pre-printed pages
Prized the possessions we seek
Paisley the plumes of a peacocks posterior
Portraits now come take a peek

Pampering piccolos play the piano
Pure as a pelican’s prayer
Picking a parcel of plum flavored pudding
Poetic prose fills the air

Pleats in my pants shout in proud proclamation
Puddle my pores they perspire
Poodles on playgrounds prevent prosecution
Plotting my hearts pure desire

Passion precedes every past tense of parting
Piled with a presence so true
Painting a picture while purposely dreaming
Promising my love to you

Trust is a limited currency
For those who have wronged us,
And the wall subconsciously built
In a day, can only be taken a part
Brick by brick,

But those who speak
For the force unheard,
Only proven to exist in a feeling
Or in the passed down book,
I think, are given too much credit.

Speaking for that which cannot speak for itself
Inherently is wrong, yet these priests
We give our trust
Despite the controversy
They always bring up

Speaking for not the god
That those sitting there
Came to hear about,
But speaking for those
There sitting.

Swaying and advising
The path they take and what direction
And nodding heads,
And right hands pointed to the sky
Tell you nobody pays much attention.

For a priest
Who preaches abstinence
And practices excess
On the underaged sons,
Open your eyes.

That stage shouldn’t be upheld
By one who sways people
Against one another,
But with the bible in the right context,
Anything could be directed towards anyone.

Limit your currency of trust
For those who prove
They deserve it,
The church can heal,
But my, oh my, can the pasture bleat.

Sitting alone at my party
I think of my coworker
With the gubmint 24 years and counting
For 35 hours per week
He preaches personal responsibility
While surfing his favorite political blog
I watch my dog bark at passersby
From behind the safety
Of the double paned window
To be alive is to be separate
To realize it consciousness

Dear Friends , this is an old poem of mine which was composed after I learnt that Richard Gere, one of my favourite Hollywood actors had become a Buddhist and believed in Zen Philosophy. So having read about Zen I composed this simple verse. Hope you like it. If you like it kindly re-post this poem. Thanks, - Raj.

                      ZEN PHILOSOPHY
With roots buried deep in soils of Ancient India,
And watered by the exotic blend of three different
cultures;
Reflecting the mysticism of India, the pragmatism
of the Confucian mind, and the Taoist’s love of
naturalness and spontaneity,
Buddhism bloomed and blossomed into an exotic
flower called 'Zen Philosophy'!

In 475 AD a pupil of Buddha called Bodhidharma
went to China.
There the Mahayana School of Buddhism mingled
with Chinese Taoism, which evolved into Chan
Philosophy!
'Chan ' derived from the Sanskrit  word 'dhyana',
which meant 'silent meditation',  -
Through which the Buddha attained enlightenment
and salvation!
Later, in 1200 AD this Chan philosophy travelled to
the shores of Japan,
Where 'Chan' got translated to 'Zen' by its many
followers and fans!
ZEN is the art of meditation to achieve inner awakening,
To gain intuitive knowledge, highlighting the inadequacy
of logical reasoning!
It therefore advocates the practice of 'Zazen' or 'sitting
meditation',
For acquiring inner awakening through silent
contemplation!

ZEN could be practiced in our daily life,
Without entering a hermitage, leaving behind your
family or wife!
'Gain the naturalness of your original true nature',
-  preaches the Zen Teacher through meditation,
'Rather than through mere faith and devotion,
which is contrary to Zen notion.'
'One must awaken to this present moment to feel
this life,
And not waste time in speculations of an ‘elusive
After-Life’.
The 'Enso' or the ‘circle’, is the Zen symbol which is
often deployed,
Symbolizing Enlightenment, Strength, the Universe,
and the Void!
With this 'expression of the moment ' the Zen Philosophy
starts,
And today the ‘Enso’ is also the symbol of Expressionist
Art!
Never ask the Zen Master 'What is Zen, When, or How? ' ,
For he will always tell you, - 'Zen Is The Instant Now'!
                                                      - Raj Nandy, New Delhi.

Mahayana in Sanskrit means 'Great Vehicle', and is the largest major tradition of Buddhism existing today. The other branch is called Hinayana, meaning the ‘Lesser Vehicle’.