"quarterly" poems
What happens
____ to space______
between us
This is the
human race
Ah, Vey?
Just pray
Overly smitten
But not seeing
clearly picture-prey
He or she runs!!
Little darlings
here comes the sun*
The lime doing the time
Falling trees of coconut
Feeling- overloved
Deviant artist
splat coconut milk
No Security Cat
comfort box
So out of recession
Killer fox______
Chocolatey coconut
Cleanse my mind detox
Almond Joy concession
Rise up Face Botox
He cannot
read you
Haywire always
wired up his words
Hurried Hazelnut
coffee if you mind
Over-sugared
Increased brain
functions bitter rinds
So commercialized
The Cocoa Puffs
Going bananas
monkey ***
Lexie Vamp Vex
Mr. Ed overload
of Oz colors baboon
Going up Air Balloon
So many airheads
The Rainforest
GQ he's gone IQ
((Quarterly Neck of the woods))
Not orderly Outback
Steakhouse
Dinosaurs
******
Vicarious
No shortcut
The nervous system
The fast have a drink
furious
Cracking a coconut
Her Safe______**
6-6-6 combinations
Could crack her
Coconut oil neck her
City Girl call her
Intellectual brain
Singing
Gene Kelly
umbrella
Raining coconuts
(On Overload)
Strawberry Fields
This will be short
Yeah right forever
shortcake, not any sort
The trend of
coconut
Nearer because
of you I am
further
She was the
Brazilian Nut
With her
blind gut
((Coconut Houdini))
Island of Bali
Beauty of Judy
Somewhere so over it
rainbow
King Kong
Hairy chest banging
coconut drink slurping
Of girl talk
Strong New Jersey
Stamina
***** of Venezuela
Overload of
Prima, Donna's
Instant Karma
going to get them
Knocked them off
there feet
Where is my
John Lennon
He has the best beat
May 21, 2018
May 21, 2018 at 6:58 AM UTC
For a Palestinian Child, with Butterflies
by Michael R. Burch
Where does the butterfly go ...
when lightning rails ...
when thunder howls ...
when hailstones scream ...
when winter scowls ...
when nights compound dark frosts with snow ...
where does the butterfly go?
Where does the rose hide its bloom
when night descends oblique and chill,
beyond the capacity of moonlight to fill?
When the only relief’s a banked fire’s glow,
where does the butterfly go?
And where shall the spirit flee
when life is harsh, too harsh to face,
and hope is lost without a trace?
Oh, when the light of life runs low,
where does the butterfly go?
Published by Tucumcari Literary Review, Romantics Quarterly, Poetry Life & Times, Victorian Violet Press (where it was nominated for a “Best of the Net”), The Contributor (a Nashville homeless newspaper), Siasat (Pakistan), and set to music as a part of the song cycle “The Children of Gaza” which has been performed in various European venues by the Palestinian soprano Dima Bawab. Keywords/Tags: butterfly, children, storm, lightning, thunder, hailstones, snow, frost, night, shelter, comfort, safety, rose, fire, warmth, Holocaust, Nakba, Gaza, Trail of Tears, slavery, injustice, abuse, ethnic cleansing, genocide
Apr 4, 2020
Apr 4, 2020 at 4:39 AM UTC
Dear David:
We are deeply gratified that you gave us the opportunity
to read your poems. Notice that we say “opportunity”
rather than “submission,” for truly you graced us with works
of such enduring power, so sublime, so transcendent,
that our humble words scarce can adequately praise
the sacred privilege of reading them.
Seldom, no, never has human experience been so distilled,
so purified, so exalted, yet so exposed
in all its paradox, its shades and sunbursts,
shouts and silences, the hiding places redolent of inner light,
as in these timeless works.
A calm breeze from the desert’s edge at dusk,
the chatter of a mockingbird at dawn,
the rumble and crash of a hidden waterfall,
the laughter of a child unseen in a cool wood’s shade,
emanate so intensely from the shapes of these letters
that our faith in the power of language to evoke reality
has been nourished and restored to its proper place.
However, we regret to inform you
that your poems do not meet our needs at this time,
which are for relevant poems for the upcoming
theme issue on Hammer Toes.
We hope you will consider us for future opportunities.
Sincerely,
The editors of Foot Fetish Quarterly
Oct 14, 2016
Oct 14, 2016 at 4:28 PM UTC
Circe
by Michael R. Burch
She spoke
and her words
were like a ringing echo dying
or like smoke
rising and drifting
while the earth below is spinning.
She awoke
with a cry
from a dream that had no ending,
without hope
or strength to rise,
into hopelessness descending.
And an ache
in her heart
toward that dream, retreating,
left a wake
of small waves
in circles never completing.
Originally published by Romantics Quarterly
Keywords/Tags: Circe, enigma, enigmatic, enchantress, siren, enchanted, witch, goddess, magic, Ulysses, pigs, sty
Moon Lake
by Michael R. Burch
Starlit recorder of summer nights,
what magic spell bewitches you?
They say that all lovers love first in the dark...
Is it true?
Is it true?
Is it true?
Starry-eyed seer of all that appears
and all that has appeared—
What sights have you seen?
What dreams have you dreamed?
What rhetoric have you heard?
Is love an oration,
or is it a word?
Have you heard?
Have you heard?
Have you heard?
I believe I wrote this poem in my late teens, during my “Romantic Period.”
Tomb Lake
by Michael R. Burch
Go down to the valley
where mockingbirds cry,
alone, ever lonely . . .
yes, go down to die.
And dream in your dying
you never shall wake.
Go down to the valley;
go down to Tomb Lake.
Tomb Lake is a cauldron
of souls such as yours —
mad souls without meaning,
frail souls without force.
Tomb Lake is a graveyard
reserved for the dead.
They lie in her shallows
and sleep in her bed.
I believe this poem and "Moon Lake" were companion poems, written around my senior year in high school, in 1976. In addition to having similar titles, they had similar "staircase" indention styles. According to my notes, I modified "Moon Lake" two years later in 1978, at which time the poem was substantially finished. I then modified "Tomb Lake" in 1981, but must have forgotten about it, because I don't show that I ever submitted the poem for publication or did anything with it for more than 40 years. Keywords/Tags: Moon, Lake, Lakes, Water, Reflection, Reflections, Image, Imagery, Mirror, Magic, Magician, Seer, Prophet, Shaman, Spell, Spells, Enchantment, Sorcery, Bewitchment, Bewilderment, Incantation, Rhapsody, Love Talk, Love Potion
Mar 28, 2020
Mar 28, 2020 at 4:47 AM UTC
The intimations of our golden youth
Are whispering the dreams of manhood-
Subtle ways of ageless yearning
Which in kind with ambient stars
Quarterly describes, in subtle play
The chiming of a universal soul
Whose consort is a universal heart
In man or woman, ever yielding scales
From pole to pole, the hermeneutic art.
Sweet songs of knowing, harmonies in time
Resolved, upwelling, urging on the climb
Of sacred being, born to unify…
Conceived of ash, from ash to mount the skies
On wings supernal, loft on fiery reins
To ring the victors’ anthem and the aims
Of truth and love for life’s enduring worth!
O fair noblesse and sweet repose
Of sacred care, always we hold you dear
In trials of election and sojourning.
Your constant grace, deep from within, unfolds
To free the tortured thought and lonely fears
Of desperate nights and homesick yearning.
At last in you we find the kindliness
Of heart, whose honored worth is bright as gold
To phantom souls and this, too darkened, world.
Your equipage and host of tenderness
Wrought pure intent, more sure than has been told
Of truth by men, the best of mind unfurled!
Let none forget, in U we find our rest
From whom we’re born, to whom we must return
Our hope of innocence, in us the best
Of love, whose lamp has ever inward burned.
Mystery of love that sends
In timeless whispers, on the mend
Of heart and mind, eternal tides
Of being; faith unto sacred faith
Raising up the ancient gates
Where mercy ever abides.
Patiently, your mourning dove
Has preened the pinions of our love
Recouping every bit of life’s content.
At last, what awful beauty drapes the sea
And broods the dark on holy wings of peace
A train of captives, born to pure intent!
Still working yet upon the day
Though battered in the idols’ fray
To overcome the world and show forth
The proven heart, all worthlessness disposed;
Not trusting in those shadowy ways
But piercing what, upon the naked eye
Has taunted love, too dimly beheld.
While alone the thought matured
One social pact allied the tortured doubts
And rose upon the gate Beautiful
Acceptance and cooperation
Our universal worth, more brightly lit!
Apr 14, 2012
Apr 14, 2012 at 12:07 PM UTC
They cry turmoil thru my web-pages,
pages on pages of Tribunes and Suns and Times
and Quarterly
"Free Burma!"
it's all turkey and pig-latin to me,
just "dunno!" like a dunce-capped miscreant,
inept of their vitriol
as i was not so great at geography
i got by before junior high.
Where-the-tarnished-nation is it?
"Free Burma!"
Notice the elephant in the room
like a whale named *****
attempting to escape
brothers of all of ours
engulfed in war
some ocean somewhere someone is dying;
notice that elephant in our laptops
ivory and blue tooth and iphones
telling me, showing us
to care
i do / want to
we should and we must
yes
"Free Burma!"
will i need to donate a dollar,
two, three? will i receive
a correspondence
of a child i am saving
a face of a country
i'm ignorant to...
will it's big sad puppy eyes be
commercialized?
i am no less as educated for not
following the strife of thousands
my own is as heavy here as an orca's leap
"Free Burma!"
what cage, bear or mouse trap
have they gotten themselves
and ourselves into?
if it's anything like Yayo or Martha
business
i have a better "good thing" to do
but if it is
like famines in Africa,
Mendelson, or Tibetan Monks
on strike with kung-fu skills
i will join U2,
(and if she's aware) with Oprah power
activate!
(fist to fist)
"i will be a well of spring-water!"
and she a holy cow, a worshipped saint
"Free Burma!!"
free water
free of fear
free everyone, i pray,
under this sky
wipe away all tears
free you of your worries
free of all chains
free of mines
free of lies and borderlines.
Free to be
together
free to live and choose to see
A planet a place
A peace
"Free Burma!"
Freedom
as one
community.
For you, for me.
Home.
Free...
Dec 14, 2015
Dec 14, 2015 at 9:15 PM UTC
1: an economic good: as
a : a product of agriculture or mining
b : an article of commerce especially when delivered for shipment <commodities futures>
c : a mass-produced unspecialized product <commodity chemicals> <commodity memory chips>
2 a : something useful or valued <that valuable commodity patience>; also : thing, entity
b : convenience, advantage
3 obsolete : quantity, lot
4: a good or service whose wide availability typically leads to smaller profit margins and diminishes the importance of factors (as brand name) other than price
5: one that is subject to ready exchange or exploitation within a market <stars as individuals and as commodities of the film industry — Film Quarterly>
May 27, 2014
May 27, 2014 at 12:47 PM UTC
We've got sounds, we've got city.
It's really coming down but I can't see it.
Airplanes? Apollo or just another meteor?
Weekend Thunder Wind on Friday morning.
I can carry the thick. I can carry the idle.
But my sea legs don't kick in while I'm standing on dry soil.
If it's going to be Red Dawn, I'd like to at the very least
Have a chance to put my boots on. But if it's not Construction or the chill Of Winter, it might just be the Weekend Thunder Wind doing fly-bys on a Friday morning.
All night hungry burning sweet grass, California sage, and listening to the wind talks of the Navajo. She's asleep at my back, but the gusts are 21 miles per hour and chasing after all the gales. Another slamming, shaking crash from the Weekend Thunder Wind acting spoiled on a Friday morning.
Dogs they **** inside the house.
The shingles are getting gone.
The tuning of the A-string is brutally wrong and off.
I can hear T. Rex's dancing and having ******
Or maybe it's just the Weekend Thunder Wind waking up one day too early.
I've been haunted thrice and seen my guts ooze out
Its hellacious and abhorrent.
But there's 17 more hours to hang out with
The Weekend Thunder Wind while we get coffee and The Chicago Quarterly.
If the Spring weather will be arriving soon.
Let's wear our Ray Ban's and fly kites this afternoon.
Feb 19, 2016
Feb 19, 2016 at 8:09 AM UTC
Through cold New England January's air
I saw him (Frost) squint,
iconic
from across the East Portico,
culturally symbolic
on a platform above me (I was twenty-eight).
Years later I knew the paper
he held hard to read,
his hotel's old typewriter
running low on ink
the night before.
The illegible poem a preface
to the one Kennedy requested -
the one he'd read years before (ca. 1942)
in the Virginia Quarterly Review,
eyes watering.
Frost stood there, faltering
in the new-fallen snow's reflective light,
half-blinded,
and I was twenty-eight as I thought,
"Kennedy:
cultured man,
sycophant, or...?"
Jul 21, 2013
Jul 21, 2013 at 3:49 AM UTC
I lived as best I could, and then I died.
Be careful where you step: the grave is wide.
Originally published by Romantics Quarterly
Feb 21, 2020
Feb 21, 2020 at 10:51 PM UTC
Hey Fragments! a Haiku Contest!!
Spring is everywhere.
We want everyone to contribute to the first, "Quarterly Season Greetings Haiku Contest!"
We will select a panel of judges, who will send me their three favorite haiku submissions. The haiku with the most selections will be declared the "winner" and enjoy a warm feeling of satisfaction.
Please, have those haiku in by the end of May
No limit on the number of submissions. Your haiku should follow the traditional form, but as always, the poem is more important than strict observance of form.
Write Every Day!
John and LP
May 5, 2012
May 5, 2012 at 7:22 AM UTC
"time for the quarterly internet rabbit-hole of your early life.
are you going to spend the next hour looking for pictures of an old mall?
or by finding out the real reason why the first movie theater burned down eleven years ago?
or perhaps look at how your favorite grocery store has changed?
how about we look at the once empty fields that are now occupied by mattress stores?
then will you end it by crying yourself to sleep?
wondering why you cannot remember any of it all?
why you cannot make sense of being a child?
did you ever become conscious before 2012?
are all these hazy memories just dreams?
did you even exist in any of it?
what are you even searching for?"
anything.
Dec 28, 2021
Dec 28, 2021 at 6:29 PM UTC
Tremble
by Michael R. Burch
Her predatory eye,
the single feral iris,
scans.
Her raptor beak,
all jagged sharp-edged ******
juts.
Her hard talon,
clenched in pinched expectation,
waits.
Her clipped wings,
preened against reality,
tremble.
Published by The Lyric, Verses Magazine, Romantics Quarterly, Journeys, The Raintown Review, Poetic Ponderings, Poem Kingdom, The Fabric of a Vision, NPAC—Net Poetry and Art Competition, Poet’s Haven, Listening To The Birth Of Crystals (Anthology), Poetry Renewal, Inspirational Stories, Poetry Life & Times, MahMag (Iranian/Farsi), The Eclectic Muse
Keywords/Tags: Tremble, predator, raptor, hawk, eagle, falcon, talon, beak, wing, preen, preened, preening
Ordinary Love
by Michael R. Burch
Indescribable—our love—and still we say
with eyes averted, turning out the light,
"I love you," in the ordinary way
and tug the coverlet where once we lay,
all suntanned limbs entangled, shivering, white ...
indescribably in love. Or so we say.
Your hair's blonde thicket now is tangle-gray;
you turn your back; you murmur to the night,
"I love you," in the ordinary way.
Beneath the sheets our hands and feet would stray
to warm ourselves. We do not touch despite
a love so indescribable. We say
we're older now, that "love" has had its day.
But that which Love once countenanced, delight,
still makes you indescribable. I say,
"I love you," in the ordinary way.
Winner of the 2001 Algernon Charles Swinburne poetry contest; published by The Lyric, Romantics Quarterly, Mandrake Poetry Review, Carnelian, Poem Kingdom, Net Poetry and Art Competition, Famous Poets and Poems, FreeXpression, PW Review, Poetic Voices, Poetry Renewal and Poetry Life & Times
Mar 16, 2020
Mar 16, 2020 at 5:25 AM UTC
Snapshots
by Michael R. Burch
Here I scrawl extravagant rainbows.
And there you go, skipping your way to school.
And here we are, drifting apart
like untethered balloons.
Here I am, creating "art,"
chanting in shadows,
pale as the crinoline moon,
ignoring your face.
There you go,
in diaphanous lace,
making another man’s heart swoon.
Suddenly, unthinkably, here he is,
taking my place.
Published by Tucumcari Literary Review, Romantics Quarterly, Centrifugal Eye, Poetry Webring, Poetry Life & Times and The Eclectic Muse. Keywords/Tags: snapshot, picture, photograph, photo, album, memory, keepsake, remembrance, token, memento, art, replacement
Mar 23, 2020
Mar 23, 2020 at 12:12 AM UTC
The Man in the Moon will be leavin’ soon
Officially, he retired.
But Polaris and some other stars
Are saying he got fired
The Man in the Moon would never leave
Of his own volition.
Management, cutting back on costs,
Is phasing out his position.
His quarterly reviews have not been going very well,
They say he isn’t any good with change.
When he gives his full attention, he seems to do ok,
But lately he’s been acting kind of strange,
His bosses claim he sleeps all day.
And on cloudy nights, he stays away,
(It’d be age discrimination if they said he’s getting old)
So they say that he won’t listen and won’t do as he is told.
They say because he has seniority,
That he resents authority,
Won’t show his new boss how the job is done,
And in their final summary, out of ten, they gave him three,
Said that he doesn’t hold a candle to the sun.
But those of us who know his work
Know he would never, ever shirk
Responsibility, or jobs that must be done -
At night when he works overtime,
Countless souls look up to him, but
At night they’ll never, ever, see the sun.
If The Man in the Moon is told to leave
Our lives will be amiss,
So I took a poet’s initiative
To make management a list:
Reasons Not to Fire the Man in the Moon
Who will watch young lovers kiss?
Who will push and pull the tides?
Who will occupy the space
Where The Man in the Moon resides?
Who will tell the farmer when it’s time to plant his field?
Who will lead the eclipse when the sun needs lunar shield?
Who will be the subject of songs and nursery rhymes?
Who will notify the werewolf when it’s his changin’ time?
Who will calm the sailors after stormy nights at sea?
Who will make a silhouette of an owl in the tree?
Who will light the children’s path each All Hallows’ Eve?
Who would raise vampires from their coffins
Were The Man in the Moon to leave?
I ask these questions with a plea
Knowing that, if it were up to me
And I had the power to blunt the cutter’s knife,
We’d leave the Earth and Heavens as they’ve been for all these years,
And The Man in the Moon would have his job for life.
PwL 5/24/15w
May 24, 2015
May 24, 2015 at 10:33 PM UTC
Investors need to stop treating stocks as a ‘beauty contest’ and follow the difficult investment style of Keynes, global pension expert Keith Ambachtsheer said.
Data produced in a working paper from the Harvard Business Schoolshowed that portfolios built on firms with a good material sustainability rating outperformed those that had a poor rating, an aspect not considered enough by investors who were caught up with quarterly returns, Ambachtsheer said at a Chartered Financial Analyst seminar in Sydney on Monday.
“What I see happening out there is largely speculation – what Keynes called ‘beauty contest investing’, where everybody tries to figure out what the most popular stocks are going to be in six months, buys them and when they become really popular sells them,” Ambachtsheer said.
He added the implications of this investment style as an aggregate was a zero sum game, whereas investing should be taking savings and turning them into wealth producing capital.
“The key thing is you need to look beyond the next quarter; you look at the long-term sustainability of the business model of the corporation, as well as the people behind it in terms of how it is being managed.”
The Harvard Business School (HBS) working paper superimposed the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board materiality map (which identifies likely material sustainability issues on an industry-by-industry basis) onto 400 common US stocks identified through sustainability metrics from Kinder, Lydenberg, Domini Research & Analytics.
They examined what effect materiality would have over the long-term (starting from the 1980s) and found the top 10 per cent of firms that scored strongly on material sustainability outperformed the bottom 10 per cent, by nine per cent over a rolling twenty-year period.
“The practical question is, can you actually manage money this way in the real world? And the answer is yes, but it’s very hard, because you are doing unconventional things,” Ambachtsheer said.
Real-world Keynesianism investors – such as Warren Buffett and the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan – are in a minority despite outperforming over the long-term. In chapter 12 of his seminal workThe General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, Keynes explained the reason for this was the essence of long-term investors meant their behaviour would be eccentric, unconventional and rash in the eyes of average opinion.
“Most organisations can’t function like this,” Ambachtsheer said, as they were too focused on the present.Read more at:www.marieaustralia.com/vintage-formal-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/backless-formal-dresses
Nov 15, 2016
Nov 15, 2016 at 2:31 AM UTC
Ince St. Child
by Michael R. Burch
When she was a child
in a dark forest of fear,
imagination cast its strange light
into secret places,
scattering traces
of illumination so bright,
years later, they might suddenly reappear,
their light undefiled.
When she was young,
the shafted light of her dreams
shone on her uplifted face
as she prayed;
though she strayed
into a night fallen like mildewed lace
shrouding the forest of screams,
her faith led her home.
Now she is old
and the light that was flame
is a slow-dying ember . . .
What she felt then
she would explain;
she would if she could only remember
that forest of shame,
faith beaten like gold.
Published by Piedmont Literary Review, Songs of Innocence, Romantics Quarterly and Poetry Life & Times. This is an unusual poem that I wrote in my late teens or early twenties, and it took me some time to figure out who the elderly woman was. She was a victim of childhood ****** hence the title I eventually chose. Keywords/Tags: child, abuse, ****** fear, night, faith, prayer, screams, shame, beaten
Apr 5, 2020
Apr 5, 2020 at 4:12 AM UTC
Redolence
by Michael R. Burch
Now darkness ponds upon the violet hills;
cicadas sing; the tall elms gently sway;
and night bends near, a deepening shade of gray;
the bass concerto of a bullfrog fills
what silence there once was; globed searchlights play.
Green hanging ferns adorn dark window sills,
all drooping fronds, awaiting morning’s flares;
mosquitoes whine; the lissome moth again
flits like a veiled oud-dancer, and endures
the fumblings of night’s enervate gray rain.
And now the pact of night is made complete;
the air is fresh and cool, washed of the grime
of the city’s ashen breath; and, for a time,
the fragrance of her clings, obscure and sweet.
Published by Poetry Magazine, Poetic Reflections, The New Formalist, Carnelian, Little Brown Poetry, Poetic Ponderings, Poem Kingdom, Net Poetry and Art Competition, The Best of the Eclectic Muse 1989-2003, Romantics Quarterly, Sonnetto Poesia, Poetry Life & Times and Trinacria
Keywords/Tags: Sonnet, night, darkness, violet, hills, rain, fresh, cleansing, fragrance, perfume, clings, clinging, obscure, sweet, concerto, dance, dancer
Mar 16, 2020
Mar 16, 2020 at 11:16 PM UTC
It Is Not the Sword!
by Michael R. Burch
This poem illustrates the strong correlation between the names that appear in Welsh and Irish mythology. Much of this lore predates the Arthurian legends, and was assimilated as Arthur’s fame (and hyperbole) grew. Caladbolg is the name of a mythical Irish sword, while Caladvwlch is its Welsh equivalent. Caliburn and Excalibur are later variants.
“It is not the sword,
but the man,”
said Merlyn.
But the people demanded a sign—
the sword of Macsen Wledig,
Caladbolg, the “lightning-shard.”
“It is not the sword,
but the words men follow.”
Still, he set it in the stone
—Caladvwlch, the sword of kings—
and many a man did strive, and swore,
and many a man did moan.
But none could budge it from the stone.
“It is not the sword
or the strength,”
said Merlyn,
“that makes a man a king,
but the truth and the conviction
that ring in his iron word.”
“It is NOT the sword!”
cried Merlyn,
crowd-jostled, marveling
as Arthur drew forth Caliburn
with never a gasp,
with never a word,
and so became their king.
Published by Songs of Innocence, Neovictorian/Cochlea, Romantics Quarterly and Celtic Twilight. Keywords/Tags: King Arthur, Arthurian, Merlin, round table, knights, stone, sword, Excalibur, chivalry, Camelot, Uther Pendragon, England
Apr 16, 2020
Apr 16, 2020 at 7:43 PM UTC
Remembrance
by Michael R. Burch
a coronavirus poem
Remembrance like a river rises;
the rain of recollection falls;
frail memories, like vines, entangled,
cling to Time's collapsing walls.
The past is like a distant mist,
the future like a far-off haze,
the present half-distinct an hour
before it blurs with unseen days.
Published by Romantics Quarterly. Keywords/Tags: coronavirus, remembrance, memory, memories, recollection, time, rain, river, mist, haze, blurs, past, present, future
Aug 3, 2020
Aug 3, 2020 at 3:24 AM UTC
Violets
by Michael R. Burch
Once, only once,
when the wind flicked your skirt
to an indiscreet height
and you laughed,
abruptly demure,
outblushing shocked violets:
suddenly,
I knew:
everything had changed.
Later, as you braided your hair
into long bluish plaits
the shadows empurpled,
the dragonflies’
last darting feints
dissolving mid-air,
we watched the sun’s long glide
into evening,
knowing and unknowing.
O, how the illusions of love
await us in the commonplace
and rare
then haunt our small remainder of hours.
Published by Romantics Quarterly, Muse Apprentice Guild, Victorian Violet Press, Boston Poetry Magazine, and Poetry on Demand
Keywords/Tags: Violets, flowers, wind, skirt, blush, hair, shadows, sunset, evening, love, illusions, time, commonplace, rare
Mar 19, 2020
Mar 19, 2020 at 11:45 PM UTC
i have a rendezvous with rhyme
with only the lyrics of this orchestra
my cadence is only for rhythm
free-verse in its purest ingenuity
I ache for quarterly submissions
of my essential need to write
the autopilot poetica of my
last kaleidoscopic vision strange
a musical hopscotch of surrender
a mystical milking it of thirst
muse & fate here relaxes
for a final teasing and tasting
of the plump record of odes
and the promise of exhaustive cadence
that reaches humming pentameter
stares organic pink into utopia
requesting documentation from the stars
in how to be a poet, as legends burn
martyrs in their alien worlds
a last dynasty of awkward prayer-rituals.
Oct 18, 2014
Oct 18, 2014 at 10:51 PM UTC
Privilege
by Michael R. Burch
This poem is dedicated to Harvey Stanbrough, an ex-marine who has written eloquently about the horror and absurdity of war in "Lessons for a Barren Population."
No, I will never know
what you saw or what you felt,
****** into the maw of Eternity,
watching the mortars nightly
greedily making their rounds,
hearing the soft damp hiss
of men’s souls like helium escaping
their collapsing torn bodies,
or lying alone, feeling the great roar
of your own heart.
But I know:
there is a bitter knowledge
of death I have not achieved,
and in thankful ignorance,
and especially for my son
and for all who benefit so easily
at so unthinkable a price,
I thank you.
Published by Romantics Quarterly, Poetic Reflections and Poetry SuperHighway. Keywords/Tags: Vietnam War, maw, mortars, rounds, souls, escaping, bodies, corpses, death, heart, roar, bitter, knowledge, thanks, thank you, service, honor, duty, courage, bravery, heroism, patriotism
Apr 11, 2020
Apr 11, 2020 at 5:26 AM UTC
Observance
by Michael R. Burch
Here the hills are old and rolling
casually in their old age;
on the horizon youthful mountains
bathe themselves in windblown fountains . . .
By dying leaves and falling raindrops,
I have traced time's starts and stops,
and I have known the years to pass
almost unnoticed, whispering through treetops . . .
For here the valleys fill with sunlight
to the brim, then empty again,
and it seems that only I notice
how the years flood out, and in . . .
This is an early poem that made me feel like a “real poet.” I remember writing it in the break room of the McDonald's where I worked as a high school student. I believe that was at age 17. "Observance" was originally published by Nebo as "Reckoning." It was later published by Tucumcari Literary Review, Piedmont Literary Review, Verses, Romantics Quarterly, the anthology There is Something in the Autumn, and Poetry Life & Times. Keywords/Tags: hills, mountains, valleys, time, seasons, years, fall, leaves, flood, cycle, horizon, brim, rim
Mar 24, 2020
Mar 24, 2020 at 9:55 PM UTC
Fountainhead
by Michael R. Burch
I did not delight in love so much
as in a kiss like linnets’ wings,
the flutterings of a pulse so soft
the heart remembers, as it sings:
to bathe there was its transport, brushed
by marble lips, or porcelain,—
one liquid kiss, one cool outburst
from pale rosettes. What did it mean ...
to float awhirl on minute tides
within the compass of your eyes,
to feel your alabaster bust
grow cold within? Ecstatic sighs
seem hisses now; your eyes, serene,
reflect the sun’s pale tourmaline.
Published by Romantics Quarterly, Poetica Victorian, PW Review, Nutty Stories (South Africa), Inspirational Stories, Poetry Life & Times
Keywords/Tags: Fountain, love, heart, pulse, bathe, kiss, sun, marble, bust, tides, sighs, eyes, sun, tourmaline
Mar 16, 2020
Mar 16, 2020 at 6:03 AM UTC