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Andrew Rueter Jan 2018
I'm a relationship engineer
Building engines to persevere
Through the loneliness I fear
That makes me panic
And seek out a mechanic
That tinkers
With my blinkers
But doesn't fix a thing
When I'm left with a sting
From what's defined as a fling

My pistons pumping
The way I'm *******
When I find a rocket scientist
That formulates the highest bliss
In his carefully calculated kiss

But I start to viciously *****
When our problems are subatomic
Because every decision
Creates nuclear fission
Which causes decay
And explosions of energy
His thoughts he relays
He sees me as the enemy

So I find a Christian
To pump my pistons
He has the morals of God
Which I figure can't be flawed
Though they may seem odd

But he doesn't love me
He feels he's above me
He acts like a martyr
Which makes me fall harder
But I'm left alone on the cross
He has forsaken me
He thinks I'm made of frost
He has mistaken me
I feel alone
In the brimstone
Of his dial tone

I found loneliness
In their phoniness
My engine needs trust
Otherwise it develops rust
But when everyone tries to act cool
Pain becomes my alternative fuel
Love once seemed like a jewel
Until my blood made a pool
I tried to get repairs
To find that nobody cares
I learned that science
Was of no reliance
And the pious life
Brought riot strife
So I find nowhere to turn
While my engine burns
Janelle M Rivera Sep 2018
More than just kawaii desu
More than nico nico ni
And senpai noticing me
You are the reason my heart goes doki doki

More than the final rasengan
More than the last hurrah
And all the power needed for a kamehameha
You give me strength when all hope is gone

More than just friendly rivalries
More than swimming medley relays
And underdog hero clichés
You help me be the best I can be always

With Moon Prism Power
I’ll transform right before your eyes
Into a weeb like no other
You bring me joy before I even realize
Alone in the workhouse. Is where she gave birth.
The starch Parish Surgeon. A Drunken old Nurse.
The cries of a boy child. In her arms did he lie.
Gently kissing his forehead. Before she did die.

Not to be married. Mentioned the Nurse.
Was not to be heard of. Almost a curse.
No Father to speak of. Illegitimate offspring.
His Mother a corpse. With no wedding ring.

Without relations. Brought up with force.
Grown as a captive. Poverties course.
Life in the workhouse. Juvenile offenders.
Selfish providers. Fat cat Pretenders.

"Mrs Mann", Overseer. An hierarchy lie.
Starves and abuses. Would let them all die.
Nine years of age. Each picking a straw.
The boy stumbles forward. Asking for more.

Gruel knocked aside. The fat man, Bumble.
Shocked and alarmed. Off top shelf does stumble.
Dragged by the scruff. Out in the snow.
Sowerberry’s undertakers is where he will go.

Childish look. Innocent way.
To walk at the head of the hearse, they will pay.
Treated unfair. Leading the dead.
Next to a coffin they position his bed.

Insecure Claypole. With nasty remark.
Temper unleashed. Thrown into the dark.
Overwhelming silence inviting a tear.
By morning, escape. Will leave this room clear.

Seventy mile trek. Things look so bleak.
In London he lands. Dejected and weak.
The first friendly face stands counting his loot.
All wide eyed and fresh. In whistle and flute.

"Jack Dawkins the name. But you call me Dodger.
Need somewhere to stay, cause I know this old Codger."
Old Fagin insists to offer him bread.
A warm place to live. A snug place to bed.

Next mornings instruction as Fagin explains.
We live by our wits. Rely on our brains.
Its not thieving we do. We take it by slight.
If they wanted to keep it, why leave it in sight?

Bet and Nancy drop by. For a drink they are glad.
Showing concern for this down trodden lad.
Oliver’s training goes on for days.
Each time he succeeds is allotted with praise.

The day that gave Oliver oh so much tension.
When he met the man he had heard no one mention.
Gruff, rough and evil, A man no one likes.
With Bulls-eye his dog. The man known as Sikes.

The day comes around, when Oliver goes out. With Charley and Dodger, their isn’t much doubt.
The two older boys get the items they sought. Though in all of the turmoil Oliver’s caught.

Brought before Fang, the court Magistrate. Innocent plea onto deaf ears migrate.
Last minute witness brings light forth to shine. On innocent captive in front of said shrine.
The message is out, the crooks are all fraught. Nancy is allotted to spy in the court.
The boy is acquitted. Nothing is told. Nancy relays that they haven’t been sold.
The kindly old victim shows pity on boy.A quiet misdemeanour, a look in his eye.
A child of worth, should not be alone. Mr Brownlow decides to take Oliver home.
For the first time in ever, contentment and love.Poured onto said urchin from those up above.
A picture looks down on this scene from the wall. Similarity so true, most evident for all.
But outside a danger does start to lament. The signs coming out from a previous event.
Sikes and his lady hide out in the shade. Waiting in patience for mistake to be made.
A simple small errand would easily portray. That Oliver Twist is not of bad way.
Mr Grimwig suggests that the boy should be bound. With a parcel of books and the sum of five pound.
Brownlow agrees but his friend will soon gloat. Of the loss of said books and the crisp five pound note.
Surely as hell the time is upon. When onto the streets the child is soon gone.
But Grimwig still boasts that the boy they did trust. Was simply a fraud and just earning a crust.
The kindly old man does have to agree. That Oliver Twist is about on a spree.
Held up and imprisoned by this awful pair. Terrified boy removed to old Fagin’s lair.
Bill Sikes decides that the boy needs a blow. Nancy steps in, she will not stoop so low.
Be satisfied Bill for you have ruined his life. Condemned the poor boy to an history of strife.
Is that not enough to cast onto him. He has been through the mill, now he’s out on a limb.
Brownlow decides to post a reward. For information on the loss of his young ward.
Bumble arrives for the five guinea toll. As he opens his mouth the lies they do roll.

Oliver is taken, carted away.
By Nancy and Bill to the place where they lay.
No notice is taken to the tears he will sob.
For Sikes plans to take the small boy on a job.

Shepperton town is the place they will go.

To silence the boy a gun he will show.
Darkness will produce where his sights are set on.
A quick in and out and with goods they’ll be gone.

Toby Crackit and Sikes are partners in Crime.
Through a small window will make the boy climb.
But plans all go wrong and they do not get a jot.
Although in the event the poor lad will be shot.

Old Bumble is called to the workhouse for wine.
With widowed matron intending to dine.
Things interrupted the matron must go.
To visit old Sally on deathbed below.

The dying old woman does make good a wrong.
As she pours out a death persons song.
She tells Mrs Corney about a gold locket.
That she in the past had decided to pocket.

Inside it gave clues to someone’s true worth.
As owner was dying whilst still giving birth.
To a small sickened child it could of helped save.
Returned him to family as she went to her grave.

Three Cripples a pub where to Fagin will fast. A man named of Monks will throw light on the past.
The story of Oliver’s plight he does pitch. Not knowing the boy has been left in a ditch.
Giles and Brittle two servants regale. Remembering the robbery they did make fail.
An embellished story that has one slight hitch. The bloodied young man will make their story switch.
Doctor and Constable soon to arrive. While injured is taken upstairs to survive.
Upon seeing Oliver, Miss Rose does exclaim. That burglar and boy are not one and the same.
Officer’s Blather and Doth examine the scene. Oliver soon will explain his regime.
Miss Maylie house owner and her niece Miss Rose. Will not let the boy to a prison expose.
Losberne the surgeon and Rose take some time. For ways to conceal the boy from the crime.
Giles and Brittle are forced to retake. Admitting to Officers that they made a mistake.
Oliver’s life takes an healthy uplift. And lady and niece are so glad of this gift.
Tender care and love, make this young lad at home. Never again need to feel so alone.
Losberne takes Oliver to London to see. Where Brownlow and Bedwin could possibly be.
Upon their journey the news they do find. The persons in question have left England behind.
Without any warning poor Miss Rose gets sick. Oliver runs to get Losberne so quick.
On his return as he walks down the lane. He comes on a man who is writhing in pain.
Having retrieved some assistance for man. Returns towards home just as fast as he can.
Wanting to make certain of good news for Rose. Memory of the man in the lane simply goes.
Maylie’s sons Giles and Harry attend. Harry wants Miss Rose as more than a friend.
Whilst Harry is aiming for fortune and fame. Miss Rose has a sensitive mark on her name.
Although the misdeed was no crime of her own. Her parents wrongs will not leave her alone.
Harry is aiming at Prime Minister. So marriage beneath him would cause quite a stir.
With love in his heart the relentless Harry. Tells Miss Rose once more that he does want to Marry.
Although after this time he will not ask again. A tearful lady does have to refrain.
Oliver wakes up in shock from a sleep. Whilst at the window two men they do peep.
Fagin and other man, run off for their shame. Memories rekindled. The man in the lane.
Giles and Harry soon at Oliver’s aid. Searching the grounds but no trace can be made.
Away from the scene things come to an head. Old Bumble and Corney it seems have been wed.
The matron tells husband about what she’s learned. About the dead woman, money could be earned.
Chance meeting with Monks Bumble does make. To meet this caped man his new wife he does take.
For twenty five pounds a deal is made. She passes the goods for which she has been paid.
The locket from Sally, she did take and hold. Inside of locket a ring made of gold.
Inscribed on the inside the man Monks saw there. The name of Agnes and two locks of hair.
Inclined is the man, evidence must go. Weighted and thrown into rivers own flow.
Sikes is in fever and sweat it does shine. As Fagin arrives to deliver some wine.
Fagin replies he does not think it funny. The sickened Sikes still demands from him money.
Fagin takes Nancy back to his hideaway. To get Sikes the money he must indeed pay.
A visitor arrives, two men speak alone. Inquisitive Nancy can hear their drone.
Whatever she heard commits her to see and knock on the front door of Mrs Maylie.
Admitting to Miss Rose so that she should know. Who kidnapped the boy from Mr Brownlow.
She explains what it is she heard from the other. That Monks is indeed poor Oliver’s brother.
Oliver later is out for a treat. He spots Mr Brownlow out on the street.
The young man relates what he saw unto friends. Mr Giles and Miss Rose to Brownlow attend.
Oliver is allowed a visit to see. Brownlow and Bedwin who don’t disagree.
The story from Nancy is passed onto both. To keep it from Oliver they all swear an oath.
The idea to see Nancy would be a vantage. So visit they must, upon London Bridge.
Plans are drawn up things are in sight. The deadline is Sunday. The time is midnight.
Sowerberrie Robbed, Claypole the crook. To London a journey. The police he should duck.
A meeting with Fagin does help to define. The shaking of hands as this union align.
With Dodger locked up the need for a new. Association, by joining the crew.
First on the agenda a visit to court. To view on the sentence that Dodger has bought.
The sentence is in, result deportation. For Dodger a blow, Fagin some irritation.
Fagin tells Noah he will give him one pound. To latch on to Nancy and follow her around.
The midnight meeting from shadows perceived. Of talk about Monks who is not too relieved.
Spying for gentry Nancy will announce. When Monks will attend at that old ale house.
Idea as such, he will be forced to declare. The truth about all he has worked for and where.
Sikes is informed of Nancy’s concern. Anger and hatred through him will burn.
When he returns home, throws the girl onto bed. Lifts up his stick and beats Nancy dead.
Sikes will flee London the following day but tries to drown Bulls-eye who could give him away.
Brownlow captures Monks, taking him to his home. After constant question his cover is blown.
The secret of Monks they were soon to discover. Real name Edward Leeford they then did uncover.
His father he told was forced into marriage. With woman with whom he had tried to disparage.
This loveless union for the father was coarse. So he left but was not to secure a divorce.
Agnes Fleming, this lady became his only affection. The two of them seemingly lost their direction.
As a result of this loving affair. A woman alone with unborn child to care.
Fagin and Noah by police are detained. Though Sikes and his freedom still they remained.
Held up alone at his iniquitous den. Out of the way of all other men.
Bates he does follow, Bulls-eyehe will track. Calling on others to help him attack.
Murderer Sikes is forced now to flee. For the ****** he did to his poor Nancy.
He uses the rooftop with avoiding intent. Hoping that crowds will soon give up, relent.
Using a rope to air his escape. About his person the rope he will drape.
High up on rooftop Sikes does his trek. With rope still entwined in a loop around his neck.
A slip as he ran caused a rooftile to loose. Effecting in Sikes with his head in this noose.
Onlookers can see this of this man that they dread. Asphyxiated. Hanging stone dead.
They say what it is that made this man die. Was caused by seeing into Nancy’s eye.
That her ghost came along and did have its way. Making Bill Sikes forever pay.
Even though this story we cannot prove. For many a persons minds this does indeed sooth.
A Letter its told was found by another. Proving to us to be Edwards mother.
Destroying both a Will and letter. Ensuring that Edwards life will be better.
Agnes’s father found out when she left. Became broken heart and soon to bereft.
His shame and honour were both denied. Accelerated greatly the time when he died.
Poor little sister is taken we see. By good Samaritan lady named Mrs Maylie.
Bringing this child up as her own. Miss Rose as she is now, to us be it known.
Bumble and his wife confess. To their dealings in this mess.
Concealing to Oliver’s history. Never again, office be held by he.
Harry’s makes change of his life’s employ. Prime Ministers aim he will deny.
And thus open another direction. To marry her of his hearts affection.
Fagin is sentenced for all of his crimes. The Gallows imposed for his evil times.
Oliver will feel a need to beset. Fagin for proof of his legitimate
Noah is pardoned, excluded his time. For his testimonie about Fagin’s crime.
Monks travels by ship to the new world. It isn't to long until his life is unfurled.
His wicked ways again he will try. Imprisoned, eventually this is where he will die.
Oliver becomes the adopted son. Brownlow a father does also become.
Miss Rose as aunt that will often frequent. To see Olivers life gaining so much betterment,
Life now to all will be a good friend.
This story is formally now at an end.
A poetic translation of Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens..
May 28th 2011
Love trusts, lust twists
Love rains, lust drains
Love reaches, lust catches
Love couples, lust combines

Love retains, lust detains
Love relies, lust relays
Love cares, lust caresses
Love binds, lust blinds

Love floats, lust flees
Love belongs, lust longs
Love ascends, lust descends
Love fames, lust defames

Love creates, lust recreates
Love commands, lust demands
Love chooses, lust chases
Love boosts,  lust boasts

Love at heart
Lust in mind
Love in lust is good
Lust in love is better
  
Love likes privacy
Lust looks for piracy
Love opens lust
Lust closes love

Love is slow, lust is fast
Love is steady and stable
Lust is mobile and fragile
Love is reliable, lust is liable
Love is long, lust is short
  
Love is homogeneous
Lust is heterogeneous
Love is defensive
Lust is offensive
  
Love is precious
Lust is pernicious
Love is supportive
Lust is supplementary
  
Love is refined
Lust is defined
Love betters life
Lust batters it.
  
Love has character
Lust has conduct
Love wins over
Lust weans out
  
Love combines
Lust divides
Love is cool
Lust is crazy
Love is peaceful
Lust is pleasant
  
Love is wholesome
Lust is piecemeal
Lust comes first
Love becomes best

Love is progressive
Lust is aggressive
Lust laminates
Love illuminates

Love is slow n steady
Lust is hasty n nasty
Love is dense, lust is tense
Lust is conditioned,
Love is air-conditioned
  
Lust is lovely to begin with
Love is lustrous to end up
Love heals, lust wounds
Love owns, lust disowns
  
Love is onus, lust is onerous
Love is basic, lust is allowance
Love conforms, lust confuses
Love binds, lust blinds

Be aware of love
Beware of lust
That comes like
wolf in sheep’s clothing

Let the fair blend
of love and lust
rule  the roost
L Marie Jun 2014
You ask me to prove the love I feel.
I cannot prove to you the love I feel
If you do not feel it on your own.
I can show you lust through kisses and soft touch,
As I can show attention through remembering little things.
I can show care through holding your hand as you heal and
Support as I wipe your slippery tears from your marble cheeks.
I can show many things that are mistaken as love
But that does not guarantee the everlasting sentiment,
The one that is given in its true definition, at least in my opinion.
Especially since it is my love you ask for,
I simply cannot prove to you the love I feel
For if there was real connection, the message would get through
Since the network of my love is connected like our souls,
Through invisible heart strings from the heart of our love
That relays the affection, an impact that cannot be missed.
If it was there, you couldn’t miss it.
So now I ask, is my love coming through?
Aaron E Oct 2019
If you're gonna be lonely,
maybe learn how to cook.

Parade the smoke to the rafters
after doubting the book.

Alert the parents in vowing the earnest
salt in the brook.

A fervent effort relays to bacon kisses you took.

Brine is cheap,
and on days like this
find a Mrs. or friend,
apply the bread crumb crisp.

Buy the egg to allure.
confide that "this might miss."
If not to them to yourself.
Try the odd light whip.

Find a guide or a dozen.
Fire doesn't necessarily deny the pleasant after math.
Passable dishes levy comfort on cold nights,
dying for treasure dancing in the lights,
and forming function digging diamond from plastic wrap.

"I could serve a candied berry
pair it fairly cold below a lighter cream."
See the finer things elaborate below the theme.
Mise en place allowing,
yolk to heat,
folk wreaths are crowning.

Found a leek to brown,
found out what friends to feed can mean

Be the barer
taste your food
silk confections
social fruit
Buck the system
Find connection
tuck the mood in
ginger root

get your list out
pay it forward
take the order
grab a whisk
make an impact
Pleat the border
break the silence
wrap a gift
Love trusts, lust twists
Love reins, lust rains
Love reaches, lust catches
Love couples, lust combines

Love retains, lust detains
Love relies, lust relays
Love cares, lust caresses
Love binds, lust blinds

Love floats, lust flees
Love belongs, lust longs
Love ascends, lust descends
Love fames, lust defames

Love creates, lust recreates
Love commands, lust demands
Love chooses, lust chases
Love boosts,  lust boasts

Be aware of love
Beware of lust
That comes like
wolf in sheep’s clothing
I feel so powerless as the news relays its latest story
Of a vicious storm revolving the area you're in
I wish you'd appear on the television,
So I could reach out my arm and drag you to where I am

The storm's been flooding streets and delaying travel
And soon might be wrecking homes and crushing lives
I'm so afraid of you being taken away
It'd **** me to see my beacon lose its light
I just want you to be safe out there. This is also a follow-up to 'Namesake'.
Michael R Burch Nov 2020
My most popular poems on the Internet

A number of my poems and translations have gone viral, according to Google, and some have been copied onto hundreds to thousands of web pages. That’s a lot of cutting and pasting! The results below are the results returned by Google at the time I did the searches.



This original epigram returns more than 37,000 results:

Epitaph for a Palestinian Child
by Michael R. Burch

I lived as best I could, and then I died.
Be careful where you step: the grave is wide.



This Sappho translation has more than 3,500 results:

Sappho, fragment 42
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Eros harrows my heart:
wild winds whipping desolate mountains
uprooting oaks.



This Sappho translation has more than 1,700 results:

Sappho, fragment 155
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A short revealing frock?
It's just my luck
your lips were made to mock!



This Bertolt Brecht translation has more than 1,500 results:

The Burning of the Books
by Bertolt Brecht
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When the Regime
commanded the unlawful books to be burned,
teams of dull oxen hauled huge cartloads to the bonfires.

Then a banished writer, one of the best,
scanning the list of excommunicated texts,
became enraged: he’d been excluded!

He rushed to his desk, full of contemptuous wrath,
to write fiery letters to the incompetents in power―
Burn me! he wrote with his blazing pen―
Haven’t I always reported the truth?
Now here you are, treating me like a liar!
Burn me!



This poem returns nearly 1,500 results for the first line:

Something
―for the children of the Holocaust and the Nakba
by Michael R. Burch

Something inescapable is lost―
lost like a pale vapor curling up into shafts of moonlight,
vanishing in a gust of wind toward an expanse of stars
immeasurable and void.

Something uncapturable is gone―
gone with the spent leaves and illuminations of autumn,
scattered into a haze with the faint rustle of parched grass
and remembrance.

Something unforgettable is past―
blown from a glimmer into nothingness, or less,
which finality swept into a corner, where it lies
in dust and cobwebs and silence.

NOTE: This is, I think, the first poem I wrote which didn’t rhyme, and the only one for quite some time. I consider one of the best of my early poems; it was written in my late teens.



This original poem has over 1,300 results:

Bible Libel
by Michael R. Burch

If God
is good,
half the Bible
is libel.

This may be the first poem I wrote. I read the Bible from cover to cover at age 11, and it was a traumatic experience. But I can’t remember if I wrote the epigram then, or came up with it later. In any case, it was probably written between age 11 and 13, or thereabouts.



My translation of Robert Burns’ “To a Mouse” returns over 1,300 results. It’s a bit long for this page but can be found online with a Google search like: Michael R. Burch Robert Burns translations.



This Glaucus translation returns more than 1,000 results:

Does my soul abide in heaven, or hell?
Only the sea gulls in their high, lonely circuits may tell.
―Michael R. Burch, after Glaucus



This Yamaguchi Seishi translation returns over 1,000 results:

Grasses wilt:
the braking locomotive
grinds to a halt
―Yamaguchi Seishi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch



This original poem has more than 1,000 results:

Frail Envelope of Flesh
by Michael R. Burch

for the mothers and children of Gaza

Frail envelope of flesh,
lying cold on the surgeon’s table
with anguished eyes
like your mother’s eyes
and a heartbeat weak, unstable...

Frail crucible of dust,
brief flower come to this―
your tiny hand
in your mother’s hand
for a last bewildered kiss...

Brief mayfly of a child,
to live two artless years!
Now your mother’s lips
seal up your lips
from the Deluge of her Tears...

Note: The phrase "frail envelope of flesh" was one of my first encounters with the power of poetry, although I read it in a superhero comic book as a young boy (I forget which one). More than thirty years later, the line kept popping into my head, so I wrote this poem. I have dedicated it to the mothers and children of Gaza and the Nakba. The word Nakba is Arabic for "Catastrophe."



This poem won a big Penguin Books (UK) Valentine poetry contest and returns over 800 results for the first line:

Mother’s Smile
by Michael R. Burch

for my mother, Christine Ena Burch

There never was a fonder smile
than mother’s smile, no softer touch
than mother’s touch. So sleep awhile
and know she loves you more than “much.”

So more than “much,” much more than “all.”
Though tender words, these do not speak
of love at all, nor how we fall
and mother’s there, nor how we reach
from nightmares in the ticking night
and she is there to hold us tight.

There never was a stronger back
than father’s back, that held our weight
and lifted us, when we were small,
and bore us till we reached the gate,
then held our hands that first bright mile
till we could run, and did, and flew.
But, oh, a mother’s tender smile
will leap and follow after you!



This original epigram returns over 750 results:

Autumn Conundrum
by Michael R. Burch

It’s not that every leaf must finally fall,
it’s just that we can never catch them all.



This William Dunbar translation has more than 700 results:

Sweet Rose of Virtue
by William Dunbar (1460-1525)
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Sweet rose of virtue and of gentleness,
delightful lily of youthful wantonness,
richest in bounty and in beauty clear
and in every virtue that is held most dear―
except only that you are merciless.

Into your garden, today, I followed you;
there I saw flowers of freshest hue,
both white and red, delightful to see,
and wholesome herbs, waving resplendently―
yet everywhere, no odor but rue.

I fear that March with his last arctic blast
has slain my fair rose of pallid and gentle cast,
whose piteous death does my heart such pain
that, if I could, I would compose her roots again―
so comforting her bowering leaves have been.



This Sappho translation has over 700 results:

Sappho, fragment 22
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

That enticing girl's clinging dresses
leave me trembling, overcome by happiness,
as once, when I saw the Goddess in my prayers
eclipsing Cyprus.



This original poem has over 700 results for the first line:

Child of 9-11
by Michael R. Burch

a poem for Christina-Taylor Green, who
was born on September 11, 2001 and who
died at age nine, shot to death...

Child of 9-11, beloved,
I bring this lily, lay it down
here at your feet, and eiderdown,
and all soft things, for your gentle spirit.
I bring this psalm―I hope you hear it.

Much love I bring―I lay it down
here by your form, which is not you,
but what you left this shell-shocked world
to help us learn what we must do
to save another child like you.

Child of 9-11, I know
you are not here, but watch, afar
from distant stars, where angels rue
the evil things some mortals do.
I also watch; I also rue.

And so I make this pledge and vow:
though I may weep, I will not rest
nor will my pen fail heaven's test
till guns and wars and hate are banned
from every shore, from every land.

Child of 9-11, I grieve
your tender life, cut short... bereaved,
what can I do, but pledge my life
to saving lives like yours? Belief
in your sweet worth has led me here...

I give my all: my pen, this tear,
this lily and this eiderdown,
and all soft things my heart can bear;
I bring them to your final bier,
and leave them with my promise, here.



My Plato translation (or “take” on Plato) has over 650 results:

Mariner, do not ask whose tomb this may be,
but go with good fortune: I wish you a kinder sea.
―Michael R. Burch, after Plato



This translation of a Middle English poem has more than 500 results:

How Long the Night
(anonymous Middle English poem, circa early 13th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

It is pleasant, indeed, while the summer lasts
with the mild pheasants' song...
but now I feel the northern wind's blast―
its severe weather strong.
Alas! Alas! This night seems so long!
And I, because of my momentous wrong
now grieve, mourn and fast.



This original epigram returns over 500 results for the first line:

Here and Hereafter aka Saving Graces
by Michael R. Burch

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

I have dedicated the epigram above to the so-called Religious Right and Moral Majority.



These Einstein limericks have over 500 results:

The Cosmological Constant
by Michael R. Burch

Einstein, the frizzy-haired,
said E equals MC squared.
Thus all mass decreases
as activity ceases?
Not my mass, my *** declared!

Asstronomical
by Michael R. Burch

Relativity, the theorists’ creed,
says mass increases with speed.
My (m)*** grows when I sit it.
Mr. Einstein, get with it;
equate its deflation, I plead!

Relative to Whom?
by Michael R. Burch

Einstein’s theory, incredibly silly,
says a relative grows *****-nilly
at speeds close to light.
Well, his relatives might,
but mine grow their (m)***** more stilly!



This poem has over 500 results:

Neglect
by Michael R. Burch

What good are tears?
Will they spare the dying their anguish?

What use, our concern
to a child sick of living, waiting to perish?

What good, the warm benevolence of tears
without action?

What help, the eloquence of prayers,
or a pleasant benediction?

Before this day is over,
how many more will die
with bellies swollen, emaciate limbs,
and eyes too parched to cry?

I fear for our souls
as I hear the faint lament
of theirs departing...
mournful, and distant.

How pitiful our "effort,"
yet how fatal its effect.
If they died, then surely we killed them,
if only with neglect.



This Matsuo Basho haiku translation has nearly 500 results:

The first soft snow:
leaves of the awed jonquil
bow low
―Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



This Matsuo Basho haiku translation has more than 400 results:

Come, investigate loneliness!
a solitary leaf
clings to the Kiri tree
―Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



This original Holocaust poem returns over 400 results:

Auschwitz Rose
by Michael R. Burch

There is a Rose at Auschwitz, in the briar,
a rose like Sharon's, lovely as her name.
The world forgot her, and is not the same.
I still love her and extend this sacred fire
to keep her memory exalted flame
unmolested by the thistles and the nettles.

On Auschwitz now the reddening sunset settles!
They sleep alike―diminutive and tall,
the innocent, the "surgeons." Sleeping, all.

Red oxides of her blood, bright crimson petals,
if accidents of coloration, gall
my heart no less. Amid thick weeds and muck
there lies a rose man's crackling lightning struck:
the only Rose I ever longed to pluck.
Soon I'll bed there and bid the world "Good Luck."



This translation of a Holocaust poem has nearly 300 results:

Speechless
by Ko Un
translation by Michael R. Burch

At Auschwitz
piles of glasses,
mountains of shoes...
returning, we stared out different windows.






Keywords/Tags: Michael Burch, popular, most popular, poems, epigrams, translations, quotes, Google, Internet, journals, literary journals, blogs, social media, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Yahoo


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This original poem, which has become popular at Halloween, has nearly 3,000 results for the fifth line:

White in the Shadows
by Michael R. Burch

White in the shadows
I see your face,
unbidden. Go, tell
Love it is commonplace;
tell Regret it is not so rare.

Our love is not here
though you smile,
full of sedulous grace.
Lost in darkness, I fear
the past is our resting place.

Published by Carnelian, The Chained Muse, Poetry Life & Times, A-Poem-A-Day and in a YouTube video by Aurora G. with the titles “Ghost,” “White Goddess” and “White in the Shadows”



This original poem returns nearly 1,500 results:

Safe Harbor
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

Published by The Lyric, Grassroots Poetry, Romantics Quarterly, Angle, Poetry Life & Times




This translation of the oldest extant English poem has over 1,250 results:

Cædmon's Hymn (circa 658-680 AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Humbly now we honour heaven-kingdom's Guardian,
the Measurer's might and his mind-plans,
the goals of the Glory-Father. First he, the Everlasting Lord,
established earth's fearful foundations.
Then he, the First Scop, hoisted heaven as a roof
for the sons of men: Holy Creator,
mankind's great Maker! Then he, the Ever-Living Lord,
afterwards made men middle-earth: Master Almighty!



This Faiz Ahmed Faiz translation has over 1,000 results:

Last Night
by Faiz Ahmed Faiz
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Last night, your memory stole into my heart—
as spring sweeps uninvited into barren gardens,
as morning breezes reinvigorate dormant deserts,
as a patient suddenly feels better, for no apparent reason ...


This light verse response to Philip Larkin’s “Aubade” has nearly 1,000 results:

Abide
by Michael R. Burch

after Philip Larkin's "Aubade"

It is hard to understand or accept mortality—
such an alien concept: not to be.
Perhaps unsettling enough to spawn religion,
or to scare mutant fish out of a primordial sea
boiling like goopy green tea in a kettle.
Perhaps a man should exhibit more mettle
than to admit such fear, denying Nirvana exists
simply because we are stuck here in such a fine fettle.
And so we abide . . .
even in life, staring out across that dark brink.
And if the thought of death makes your questioning heart sink,
it is best not to drink
(or, drinking, certainly not to think).

Originally published by Light Quarterly



This love poem has nearly 1,000 results:

don’t forget ...
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

don’t forget to remember
that Space is curved
(like your Heart)
and that even Light is bent
by your Gravity.



This original Hiroshima poem has nearly 800 results:

Lucifer, to the Enola Gay
by Michael R. Burch

Go then,
and give them my meaning
so that their teeming
streets
become my city.
Bring back a pretty
flower—
a chrysanthemum,
perhaps, to bloom
if but an hour,
within a certain room
of mine
where
the sun does not rise or fall,
and the moon,
although it is content to shine,
helps nothing at all.
There,
if I hear the wistful call
of their voices
regretting choices
made
or perhaps not made
in time,
I can look back upon it and recall,
in all
its pale forms sublime,
still
Death will never be holy again.

Published by Romantics Quarterly, Penny Dreadful and Poetry Life & Times



This epigram has over 600 results for the first line:
Piercing the Shell
by Michael R. Burch

If we strip away all the accouterments of war,
perhaps we’ll discover what the heart is for.



This prayer poem has over 600 results and has been set to music and performed at a charity benefit for hurricane victims:

I Pray Tonight
by Michael R. Burch

I pray tonight
the starry Light
might
surround you.

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

I pray ere the morrow
an end to your sorrow.
May angels' white chorales
sing, and astound you.



This original poem has nearly 600 results:

Like Angels, Winged
by Michael R. Burch

Like angels—winged,
shimmering, misunderstood—
they flit beyond our understanding
being neither evil, nor good.

They are as they are ...
and we are their lovers, their prey;
they seek us out when the moon is full;
they dream of us by day.

Their eyes—hypnotic, alluring—
trap ours with their strange appeal
till like flame-drawn moths, we gather ...
to see, to touch, to feel.

And in their arms, enchanted,
we feel their lips, grown old,
till with their gorging kisses
we warm them, growing cold.



This original poem has over 500 results:

Distances
by Michael R. Burch

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

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



This original poem has over 500 results:

***** 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?



This epigram/joke has over 400 results:

Teddy Roosevelt spoke softly and carried a big stick; Donald Trump speaks loudly and carries a big shtick.―Michael R. Burch



This **** Baudelaire translation has become popular with **** stars, escort sites and dating services, and has more than 400 results:

Le Balcon (The Balcony)
by Charles Baudelaire
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Paramour of memory, ultimate mistress,
source of all pleasure, my only desire;
how can I forget your ecstatic caresses,
the warmth of your ******* by the roaring fire,
paramour of memory, ultimate mistress?

Each night illumined by the burning coals
we lay together where the rose-fragrance clings—
how soft your *******, how tender your soul!
Ah, and we said imperishable things,
each night illumined by the burning coals.

How beautiful the sunsets these sultry days,
deep space so profound, beyond life’s brief floods ...
then, when I kissed you, my queen, in a daze,
I thought I breathed the bouquet of your blood
as beautiful as sunsets these sultry days.

Night thickens around us like a wall;
in the deepening darkness our irises meet.
I drink your breath, ah! poisonous yet sweet!,
as with fraternal hands I massage your feet
while night thickens around us like a wall.

I have mastered the sweet but difficult art
of happiness here, with my head in your lap,
finding pure joy in your body, your heart;
because you’re the queen of my present and past
I have mastered love’s sweet but difficult art.

O vows! O perfumes! O infinite kisses!
Can these be reborn from a gulf we can’t sound
as suns reappear, as if heaven misses
their light when they sink into seas dark, profound?
O vows! O perfumes! O infinite kisses!



This original poem has over 400 results:

What the Poet Sees
by Michael R. Burch

What the poet sees,
he sees as a swimmer
~~~underwater~~~
watching the shoreline blur
sees through his breath’s weightless bubbles ...
Both worlds grow obscure.



This original poem I wrote as a teenager has almost 400 results:

The Communion of Sighs
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

This is one of my early poems ; I believe it was probably written during my first two years in college, making me 18 or 19 at the time.



This original poem has more than 300 results:

Kin
by Michael R. Burch

O pale, austere moon,
haughty beauty ...
what do we know of love,
or duty?



This original poem has more than 300 results:

escape!
by michael r. burch

for anaïs vionet

to live among the daffodil folk . . .
slip down the rainslickened drainpipe . . .
suddenly pop out
the GARGANTUAN SPOUT . . .
minuscule as alice, shout
yippee-yi-yee!
in wee exultant glee
to be leaving behind the
LARGE
THREE-DENALI GARAGE.



This Matsuo Basho haiku translation has more than 300 results:

An ancient pond,
the frog leaps:
the silver plop and gurgle of water
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch



This haiku translation has more than 300 results:

Oh, fallen camellias,
if I were you,
I'd leap into the torrent!
― Takaha Shugyo, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



This translation of an Anacreon epigram has over 300 results:

Here he lies in state tonight: great is his Monument!
Yet Ares cares not, neither does War relent.
—Anacreon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



This 9–11 poem has over 300 results:

Charon 2001
by Michael R. Burch

I, too, have stood—paralyzed at the helm
watching onrushing, inevitable disaster.
I too have felt sweat (or ecstatic tears) plaster
damp hair to my eyes, as a slug’s dense film
becomes mucous-insulate. Always, thereafter
living in darkness, bright things overwhelm.

Originally published by The Neovictorian/Cochlea



This “almost” limerick has over 300 results:

Caveat Spender
by Michael R. Burch

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



This little poetic snapshot has over 300 results:
Warming Her Pearls
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Warming her pearls, her *******
gleam like constellations.
Her belly is a bit rotund...
she might have stepped out of a Rubens.



This vampire poem, popular at Halloween, has nearly 300 results:

Pale Though Her Eyes
by Michael R. Burch

Pale though her eyes,
her lips are scarlet
from drinking of blood,
this child, this harlot

born of the night
and her heart, of darkness,
evil incarnate
to dance so reckless,

dreaming of blood,
her fangs―white―baring,
revealing her lust,
and her eyes, pale, staring...



This Fukuda Chiyo-ni haiku translation has nearly 300 results:

Ah butterfly!
what dreams do you ply
with your beautiful wings?
― Fukuda Chiyo-ni, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



This translation of the Palestinian poet Fadwa Tuqan has over 300 results:

Enough for Me
by Fadwa Tuqan
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Enough for me to lie in the earth,
to be buried in her,
to sink meltingly into her fecund soil, to vanish ...
only to spring forth like a flower
brightening the play of my countrymen's children.
Enough for me to remain
in my native soil's embrace,
to be as close as a handful of dirt,
a sprig of grass,
a wildflower.



This translation of a poem by the Kurdish poet Kajal Ahmad has over 300 results:

Mirror
by Kajal Ahmad, a Kurdish poet
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

My era's obscuring mirror
shattered
because it magnified the small
and made the great seem insignificant.
Dictators and monsters filled its contours.
Now when I breathe
its jagged shards pierce my heart
and instead of sweat
I exude glass.



This original poem has over 300 results:

Regret
by Michael R. Burch

Regret,
a bitter
ache to bear . . .
once starlight
languished
in your hair . . .
a shining there
as brief
as rare.

Regret . . .
a pain
I chose to bear . . .
unleash
the torrent
of your hair . . .
and show me
once again—
how rare.



This original poem, popular at Valentine’s Day, has nearly 300 results:

Let Me Give Her Diamonds
by Michael R. Burch

Let me give her diamonds
for my heart's
sharp edges.

Let me give her roses
for my soul's
thorn.

Let me give her solace
for my words
of treason.

Let the flowering of love
outlast a winter
season.

Let me give her books
for all my lack
of reason.

Let me give her candles
for my lack
of fire.

Let me kindle incense,
for our hearts
require

the breath-fanned
flaming perfume
of desire.



This original poem has nearly 300 results:

Fascination with Light
by Michael R. Burch

for Anaïs Vionet

Desire glides in on calico wings,
a breath of a moth
seeking a companionable light,
where it hovers, unsure,
sullen, shy or demure,
in the margins of night,
a soft blur.

With a frantic dry rattle
of alien wings,
it rises and thrums one long breathless staccato
and flutters and drifts on in dark aimless flight.

And yet it returns
to the flame, its delight,
as long as it burns.

This Vera Pavlova translation has over 250 results:

Shattered
by Vera Pavlova
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I shattered your heart;
now I limp through the shards
barefoot.



These Holocaust poem translations of Miklos Radnoti have over 200 results each:

Postcard 1
by Miklós Radnóti
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Out of Bulgaria, the great wild roar of the artillery thunders,
resounds on the mountain ridges, rebounds, then ebbs into silence
while here men, beasts, wagons and imagination all steadily increase;
the road whinnies and bucks, neighing; the maned sky gallops;
and you are eternally with me, love, constant amid all the chaos,
glowing within my conscience―incandescent, intense.
Somewhere within me, dear, you abide forever―
still, motionless, mute, like an angel stunned to silence by death
or a beetle hiding in the heart of a rotting tree.



Postcard 2
by Miklós Radnóti
written October 6, 1944 near Crvenka, Serbia
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

A few miles away they're incinerating
the haystacks and the houses,
while squatting here on the fringe of this pleasant meadow,
the shell-shocked peasants sit quietly smoking their pipes.
Now, here, stepping into this still pond, the little shepherd girl
sets the silver water a-ripple
while, leaning over to drink, her flocculent sheep
seem to swim like drifting clouds.



Postcard 3
by Miklós Radnóti
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The oxen dribble ****** spittle;
the men pass blood in their ****.
Our stinking regiment halts, a horde of perspiring savages,
adding our aroma to death's repulsive stench.



Postcard 4
by Miklós Radnóti
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

I toppled beside him―his body already taut,
tight as a string just before it snaps,
shot in the back of the head.
"This is how you’ll end too; just lie quietly here,"
I whispered to myself, patience blossoming from dread.
"Der springt noch auf," the voice above me jeered;
I could only dimly hear
through the congealing blood slowly sealing my ear.

This was his final poem, written October 31, 1944 near Szentkirályszabadja, Hungary. "Der springt noch auf" means something like "That one is still twitching."



This poetic tribute to Muhammad Ali has over 250 results:

Ali’s Song
by Michael R. Burch

They say that gold don’t tarnish. It ain’t so.
They say it has a wild, unearthly glow.
A man can be more beautiful, more wild.
I flung their medal to the river, child.
I flung their medal to the river, child.

They hung their coin around my neck; they made
my name a bridle, “called a ***** a *****.”
They say their gold is pure. I say defiled.
I flung their slave’s name to the river, child.
I flung their slave’s name to the river, child.

Ain’t got no quarrel with no Viet Cong
that never called me ******, did me wrong.
A man can’t be lukewarm, ’cause God hates mild.
I flung their notice to the river, child.
I flung their notice to the river, child.

They said, “Now here’s your bullet and your gun,
and there’s your cell: we’re waiting, you choose one.”
At first I groaned aloud, but then I smiled.
I gave their “future” to the river, child.
I gave their “future” to the river, child.

My face reflected up, dark bronze like gold,
a coin God stamped in His own image—BOLD.
My blood boiled like that river—strange and wild.
I died to hate in that dark river, child,
Come, be reborn in this bright river, child.

Originally published by Black Medina



This poem about US involvement in an ongoing Holocaust has over 200 results:

who, US?
by Michael R. Burch

jesus was born
a palestinian child
where there’s no Room
for the meek and the mild

... and in bethlehem still
to this day, lambs are born
to cries of “no Room!”
and Puritanical scorn ...

under Herod, Trump, Bibi
their fates are the same —
the slouching Beast mauls them
and WE have no shame:
“who’s to blame?”



This Ō no Yasumaro translation has over 200 results:

While you decline to cry,
high on the mountainside
a single stalk of plumegrass wilts.
―Ō no Yasumaro (circa 711), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



These Sappho translations have over 200 results:

Sappho, fragment 156
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

She keeps her scents
in a dressing-case.
And her sense?
In some undiscoverable place.



Sappho, fragment 58
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Pain
drains
me
to
the
last
drop
.



This Parmenio translation has over 200 results:

Be ashamed, O mountains and seas,
that these valorous men lack breath.
Assume, like pale chattels,
an ashen silence at death.
—Michael R. Burch, after Parmenio



This original epigram has over 200 results:

Love is either wholly folly,
or fully holy.
—Michael R. Burch



Other poems, epigrams and translations with more than 100 results:



Hymn for Fallen Soldiers
by Michael R. Burch

Sound the awesome cannons.
Pin medals to each breast.
Attention, honor guard!
Give them a hero’s rest.
Recite their names to the heavens
Till the stars acknowledge their kin.
Then let the land they defended
Gather them in again.

When I learned there’s an American military organization, the DPAA (Defense/POW/MIA Accounting Agency) that is still finding and bringing home the bodies of soldiers who died serving their country in World War II, after blubbering like a baby, I managed to eke out this poem.



Nun Fun Undone
by Michael R. Burch

Abbesses’
recesses
are not for excesses!



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).



I, Too, Have a Dream
by Michael R. Burch writing as “The Child Poets of Gaza”

I, too, have a dream ...
that one day Jews and Christians
will see me as I am:
a small child, lonely and afraid,
staring down the barrels of their big bazookas,
knowing I did nothing
to deserve their enmity.



My Nightmare ...
by Michael R. Burch  writing as “The Child Poets of Gaza”

I had a dream of Jesus!
Mama, his eyes were so kind!
But behind him I saw a billion Christians
hissing "You're nothing!," so blind.



Multiplication, Tabled
by Michael R. Burch

(for the Religious Right)

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



Once fanaticism has gangrened brains
the incurable malady invariably remains.
—Voltaire, translation by Michael R. Burch



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.



Indestructible, for Johnny Cash
by Michael R. Burch

What is a mountain, but stone?
Or a spire, but a trinket of steel?
Johnny Cash is gone,
black from his hair to his bootheels.

Can a man out-endure mountains’ stone
if his songs lift us closer to heaven?
Can the steel in his voice vibrate on
till his words are our manna and leaven?

Then sing, all you mountains of stone,
with the rasp of his voice, and the gravel.
Let the twang of thumbed steel lead us home
through these weary dark ways all men travel.

For what is a mountain, but stone?
Or a spire, but a trinket of steel?
Johnny Cash lives on—
black from his hair to his bootheels.



Wulf and Eadwacer
ancient Old English (Anglo-Saxon) poem, circa 990 AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My clan's curs pursue him like crippled game;
they'll rip him apart if he approaches their pack.
It is otherwise with us.

Wulf's on one island; we're on another.
His island's a fortress, fastened by fens. (fastened=secured)
Here, bloodthirsty curs howl for carnage.
They'll rip him apart if he approaches their pack.
It is otherwise with us.

My hopes pursued Wulf like panting hounds,
but whenever it rained—how I wept!
the boldest cur clutched me in his paws:
good feelings for him, but for me loathsome!

Wulf, O, my Wulf, my ache for you
has made me sick; your seldom-comings
have left me famished, deprived of real meat.
Have you heard, Eadwacer? Watchdog!
A wolf has borne our wretched whelp to the woods.
One can easily sever what never was one:
our song together.

Hearthside
by Michael R. Burch

“When you are old and grey and full of sleep...” — W. B. Yeats

For all that we professed of love, we knew
this night would come, that we would bend alone
to tend wan fires’ dimming bars—the moan
of wind cruel as the Trumpet, gelid dew
an eerie presence on encrusted logs
we hoard like jewels, embrittled so ourselves.
The books that line these close, familiar shelves
loom down like dreary chaperones. Wild dogs,
too old for mates, cringe furtive in the park,
as, toothless now, I frame this parchment kiss.
I do not know the words for easy bliss
and so my shriveled fingers clutch this stark,
long-unenamored pen and will it: Move.
I loved you more than words, so let words prove.



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.



Discrimination
by Michael R. Burch

The meter I had sought to find, perplexed,
was ripped from books of "verse" that read like prose.
I found it in sheet music, in long rows
of hologramic CDs, in sad wrecks
of long-forgotten volumes undisturbed
half-centuries by archivists, unscanned.
I read their fading numbers, frowned, perturbed—
why should such tattered artistry be banned?
I heard the sleigh bells’ jingles, vampish ads,
the supermodels’ babble, Seuss’s books
extolled in major movies, blurbs for abs ...
A few poor thinnish journals crammed in nooks
are all I’ve found this late to sell to those
who’d classify free verse "expensive prose."

Originally published by The Chariton Review



Will There Be Starlight
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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



in-flight convergence
by Michael R. Burch

serene, almost angelic,
the lights of the city extend
over lumbering behemoths
shrilly screeching displeasure;
they say
that nothing is certain,
that nothing man dreams or ordains
long endures his command
here the streetlights that flicker
and those blazing steadfast
seem one: from a distance;
descend,
they abruptly
part ways,
so that nothing is one
which at times does not suddenly blend
into garish insignificance
in the familiar alleyways,
in the white neon flash
and the billboards of Convenience
and man seems the afterthought of his own Brilliance
as we thunder down the enlightened runways.

Originally published by The Aurorean and nominated for the Pushcart Prize


Pan
by Michael R. Burch

... Among the shadows of the groaning elms,
amid the darkening oaks, we fled ourselves ...
... Once there were paths that led to coracles
that clung to piers like loosening barnacles ...
... where we cannot return, because we lost
the pebbles and the playthings, and the moss ...
... hangs weeping gently downward, maidens’ hair
who never were enchanted, and the stairs ...
... that led up to the Fortress in the trees
will not support our weight, but on our knees ...
... we still might fit inside those splendid hours
of damsels in distress, of rustic towers ...
... of voices heard in wolves’ tormented howls
that died, and live in dreams’ soft, windy vowels ...



At Wilfred Owen’s Grave
by Michael R. Burch

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



Ebb Tide
by Michael R. Burch

Massive, gray, these leaden waves
bear their unchanging burden—
the sameness of each day to day
while the wind seems to struggle to say
something half-submerged planks at the mouth of the bay
might nuzzle limp seaweed to understand.
Now collapsing dull waves drain away
from the unenticing land;
shrieking gulls shadow fish through salt spray—
whitish streaks on a fogged silver mirror.
Sizzling lightning impresses its brand.
Unseen fingers scribble something in the wet sand.

Originally published by Southwest Review



At Once
by Michael R. Burch

Though she was fair,
though she sent me the epistle of her love at once
and inscribed therein love’s antique prayer,
I did not love her at once.
Though she would dare
pain’s pale, clinging shadows, to approach me at once,
the dark, haggard keeper of the lair,
I did not love her at once.
Though she would share
the all of her being, to heal me at once,
yet more than her touch I was unable bear.
I did not love her at once.
And yet she would care,
and pour out her essence ...
and yet—there was more!
I awoke from long darkness,
and yet—she was there.
I loved her the longer;
I loved her the more
because I did not love her at once.

Published by The Lyric, Romantics Quarterly and Grassroots Poetry



Chloe
by Michael R. Burch

There were skies onyx at night ... moons by day ...
lakes pale as her eyes ... breathless winds
******* tall elms; ... she would say
that we loved, but I figured we’d sinned.
Soon impatiens too fiery to stay
sagged; the crocus bells drooped, golden-limned;
things of brightness, rinsed out, ran to gray ...
all the light of that world softly dimmed.
Where our feet were inclined, we would stray;
there were paths where dead weeds stood untrimmed,
distant mountains that loomed in our way,
thunder booming down valleys dark-hymned.
What I found, I found lost in her face
while yielding all my virtue to her grace.

Originally published by Romantics Quarterly as “A Dying Fall”



The Wonder Boys
by Michael R. Burch

(for Leslie Mellichamp, the late editor of The Lyric,
who was a friend and mentor to many poets, and
a fine poet in his own right)

The stars were always there, too-bright cliches:
scintillant truths the jaded world outgrew
as baffled poets winged keyed kites—amazed,
in dream of shocks that suddenly came true . . .
but came almost as static—background noise,
a song out of the cosmos no one hears,
or cares to hear. The poets, starstruck boys,
lay tuned in to their kite strings, saucer-eared.
They thought to feel the lightning’s brilliant sparks
electrify their nerves, their brains; the smoke
of words poured from their overheated hearts.
The kite string, knotted, made a nifty rope . . .
You will not find them here; they blew away—
in tumbling flight beyond nights’ stars. They clung
by fingertips to satellites. They strayed
too far to remain mortal. Elfin, young,
their words are with us still. Devout and fey,
they wink at us whenever skies are gray.

Originally published by The Lyric



The Beat Goes On (and On and On and On ...)
by Michael R. Burch

Bored stiff by his board-stiff attempts
at “meter,” I crossly concluded
I’d use each iamb
in lieu of a lamb,
bedtimes when I’m under-quaaluded.

Originally published by Grand Little Things



Playmates
by Michael R. Burch

WHEN you were my playmate and I was yours,
we spent endless hours with simple toys,
and the sorrows and cares of our indentured days
were uncomprehended . . . far, far away . . .
for the temptations and trials we had yet to face
were lost in the shadows of an unventured maze.
Then simple pleasures were easy to find
and if they cost us a little, we didn't mind;
for even a penny in a pocket back then
was one penny too many, a penny to spend.
Then feelings were feelings and love was just love,
not a strange, complex mystery to be understood;
while "sin" and "damnation" meant little to us,
since forbidden cookies were our only lusts!
Then we never worried about what we had,
and we were both sure—what was good, what was bad.
And we sometimes quarreled, but we didn't hate;
we seldom gave thought to the uncertainties of fate.
Hell, we seldom thought about the next day,
when tomorrow seemed hidden—adventures away.
Though sometimes we dreamed of adventures past,
and wondered, at times, why things couldn't last.
Still, we never worried about getting by,
and we didn't know that we were to die . . .
when we spent endless hours with simple toys,
and I was your playmate, and we were boys.

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



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 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.


Translations with more than 100 results and/or a high number of page views:

“Wulf and Eadwacer” translation
“Deor’s Lament” translation
“The Wife’s Lament” translation
“Whoso List to Hunt” by Sir Thomas Wyatt, translation
“The Eager Traveler” by Ahmad Faraz, translation
“Herbsttag” (“Autumn Day”) by Rainer Maria Rilke, translation
“Archaischer Torso Apollos” (“Archaic Torso of Apollo”) by Rainer Maria Rilke, translation
“Komm, Du” (“Come, You”) by Rainer Maria Rilke, translation
“Der Panther” (“The Panther”) by Rainer Maria Rilke, translation
“Liebes-Lied” (“Love Song”) by Rainer Maria Rilke, translation
“Das Lied des Bettlers” (“The Beggar’s Song”) by Rainer Maria Rilke, translation
Original poems with more than 100 results:
“Water and Gold”
“See”
“The Folly of Wisdom”
“The Effects of Memory”
“Finally to Burn: the Fall and Resurrection of Icarus”




Dream of Infinity
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

This poem was originally published by TC Broadsheet Verses. I was paid a whopping $10, my first cash payment. It was subsequently published by Piedmont Literary Review, Penny Dreadful, the Net Poetry and Art Competition, Songs of Innocence, Poetry Life & Times, Better Than Starbucks and The Chained Muse.



we did not Dye in vain!
by Michael R. Burch

from “songs of the sea snails”

though i’m just a slimy crawler,
my lineage is proud:
my forebears gave their lives
(oh, let the trumps blare loud!)
so purple-mantled Royals
might stand out in a crowd.

i salute you, fellow loyals,
who labor without scruple
as your incomes fall
while deficits quadruple
to swaddle unjust Lords
in bright imperial purple!

Notes: In ancient times the purple dye produced from the secretions of purpura mollusks (sea snails) was known as “Tyrian purple,” “royal purple” and “imperial purple.” It was greatly prized in antiquity, and was very expensive according to the historian Theopompus: “Purple for dyes fetched its weight in silver at Colophon.” Thus, purple-dyed fabrics became status symbols, and laws often prevented commoners from possessing them. The production of Tyrian purple was tightly controlled in Byzantium, where the imperial court restricted its use to the coloring of imperial silks. A child born to the reigning emperor was literally porphyrogenitos ("born to the purple") because the imperial birthing apartment was walled in porphyry, a purple-hued rock, and draped with purple silks. Royal babies were swaddled in purple; we know this because the iconodules, who disagreed with the emperor Constantine about the veneration of images, accused him of defecating on his imperial purple swaddling clothes!



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



To Have Loved
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



NOVELTIES
by Thomas Campion
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Booksellers laud authors for novel editions
as pimps praise their ****** for exotic positions.



Nod to the Master
by Michael R. Burch

for the Divine Oscar Wilde

If every witty thing that’s said were true,
Oscar Wilde, the world would worship You!



A question that sometimes drives me hazy:
am I or are the others crazy?
—Albert Einstein, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



This is love: to fly toward a mysterious sky,
to cause ten thousand veils to fall.
First, to stop clinging to life,
then to step out, without feet ...
—Rumi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



To live without philosophizing is to close one's eyes and never attempt to open them. – Rene Descartes, loose translation by Michael R. Burch



Stage Fright
by Michael R. Burch

To be or not to be?
In the end Hamlet
opted for naught.



I test the tightrope
balancing a child
in each arm.
—Vera Pavlova, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Brief Fling
by Michael R. Burch

“Epigram”
means cram,
then scram!



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

You came to me as rain breaks on the desert
when every flower springs to life at once.
But joys are wan illusions to the expert:
the Bedouin has learned how not to want.



Love is either wholly folly,
or fully holy.
—Michael R. Burch



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.



Less Heroic Couplets: Marketing 101
by Michael R. Burch

Building her brand, she disrobes,
naked, except for her earlobes.



Villanelle of an Opportunist
by Michael R. Burch

I’m not looking for someone to save.
A gal has to do what a gal has to do:
I’m looking for a man with one foot in the grave.

How many highways to hell must I pave
with intentions imagined, not true?
I’m not looking for someone to save.

Fools praise compassion while weaklings rave,
but a gal has to do what a gal has to do.
I’m looking for a man with one foot in the grave.

Some praise the Lord but the Devil’s my fave
because he has led me to you!
I’m not looking for someone to save.

In the land of the free and the home of the brave,
a gal has to do what a gal has to do.
I’m looking for a man with one foot in the grave.

Every day without meds becomes a close shave
and the razor keeps tempting me too.
I’m not looking for someone to save:
I’m looking for a man with one foot in the grave.



She Always Grew Roses
by Michael R. Burch

for my grandmother, Lillian Lee

Tell us, heart, what the season discloses.
“Too little loved by the ego in its poses,
she always grew roses.”

What the heart would embrace, the ego opposes,
fritters away, and sometimes bulldozes.
Tell us, heart, what the season discloses.

“Too little loved by the ego in its poses,
she loved nonetheless, as her legacy discloses—
she always grew roses.”

How does one repent when regret discomposes?
When the shadow of guilt, at last, interposes?
Tell us, heart, what the season discloses.

“Too little loved by the ego in its poses,
she continued to love, as her handiwork shows us,
and she always grew roses.”

Too little, too late, the grieved heart imposes
its too-patient will as the opened book recloses.
Tell us, heart, what the season discloses.
“She always grew roses.”

The opened-then-closed book is a picture album. The season is late fall because it was in my autumn years that I realized I had written poems for everyone in my family except Grandma Lee. Hopefully it is never too late to repent and correct an old wrong.



Little Sparrow
by Michael R. Burch

for my petite grandmother, Christine Ena Hurt, who couldn’t carry a note, but sang her heart out with great joy, accompanied, I have no doubt, by angels

“In praise of Love and Life we bring
this sacramental offering.”
Little sparrow of a woman, sing!

What did she have? Hardly a thing.
A roof, plain food, and a tiny gold ring.
Yet, “In praise of Love and Life we bring

this sacramental offering.”
“Hosanna!” angel choirs ring.
Little sparrow of a woman, sing!

Whence comes this praise, as angels sing
to her tuneless voice? What of Death’s sting?
Yet, “In praise of Love and Life we bring

this sacramental offering.”
Let others have their stoles and bling.
Little sparrow of a woman, sing!

“In praise of Love and Life we bring
this sacramental offering
as the harps of beaming angels ring.
Little sparrow of a woman, sing!”



She is brighter than dawn
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

There’s a light about her
like the moon through a mist:
a bright incandescence
with which she is blessed

and my heart to her light
like the tide now is pulled . . .
she is fair, O, and bright
like the moon silver-veiled.

There’s a fire within her
like the sun’s leaping forth
to lap up the darkness
of night from earth's hearth

and my eyes to her flame
like twin moths now are drawn
till my heart is consumed.
She is brighter than dawn.



Geraldine in her pj's
by Michael R. Burch

for Geraldine A. V. Hughes

Geraldine in her pj's
checks her security relays,
sits down armed with a skillet,
mutters, "Intruder? I'll **** it!"
Then, as satellites wink high above,
she turns to her poets with love.



Teddy Roosevelt spoke softly and carried a big stick; Donald Trump speaks loudly and carries a big shtick.—Michael R. Burch



Viral Donald (I)
by Michael R. Burch aka "The Loyal Opposition"

Donald Trump is coronaviral:
his brain's in a downward spiral.
His pale nimbus of hair
proves there's nothing up there
but an empty skull, fluff and denial.



Viral Donald (II)
by Michael R. Burch aka "The Loyal Opposition"

Why didn't Herr Trump, the POTUS,
protect us from the Coronavirus?
That weird orange corona of hair's an alarm:
Trump is the Virus in Human Form!

Keywords/Tags: Michael Burch, popular, most popular, best poems, viral poems, poetry, poetic expression, epigrams, epitaph, translation, translations, quotes, Google, Internet, journals, literary journals, blogs, social media, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Yahoo, international, mrbpop, mrbbest, mrbest
Eriko Aug 2015
sometimes I don't know what to say
sometimes, there is nothing to say
I let the silence breathe
I let the connection seep
into those gaping wounds
inflicted soon to heal
keep a close eye
keep two toes in line
sometimes its hard
to be soft
yet to be strong
to be confident
yet terrified
of what will become
sometimes, I lose myself
sometimes, I lose the words to say
maybe even my own thoughts
whatever in a spinning galaxy
of starry relays
Jordan Frances Feb 2014
You are the last person I would expect
To smile with the glimmer that you have
To laugh with the excitement that you do
To talk with the clarity that you can.

They left you for dead
You watched your father die beside you
A bullet in your leg
Beats a bullet to his vitals.

Fifteen, you are but fifteen
When Daddy's telling you to play dead
They'll go away, just be quiet
He coos
So you do your best not to scream
As you lose blood like energy.

You wake up in a hospital bed
Bandages caressing your injured calf
A nurse tells you to turn on the news
As you ask where your father is.
The television set won't lie to you.
The flat screen relays the message
He's dead.

Years later, still living in the slums
That you so preciously embrace as your home
At seventeen, you're the only sibling without kids
But you have been deemed caretaker.

Yet, to total strangers of different race
Those who barely know suffering
From an affluent community, from generally "good" homes
You tell your story
And leave them with a lasting impression.

You are the spitting image of bravery, fearlessness, courage
And still,
No one's there to save you.
You are your own hero
Your driving force.
And no one will take the greatest gift you have away from you:
Joy, and the ability to grace others with the same.
For Kiana
Anima Torch Jun 2016
First thing's first
I awaken at six
Only to sleep until seven thirty
There
I ate breakfast and
brushed my teeth
After
I went to
swim practice
The fun kind
With relays
That my team won
Lapping the other
Then we got
Pancakes
Next
I put REAL
Clothes on
And took an hour
To install
A half metal mouth
With green bands
As a surprise
It's a surprise for my friend's party
anastasiad Nov 2016
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JW Jan 2016
Stay strong don't cry its not that bad
You shouldn't act like this you're a man
Hide your emotions, don't let them show
How dare you let anyone know...
This is what society wants
men to be strong like an ox
But I'm too sensitive to act this way
I've seen the bad the world relays
This outlet allows for me to be
What I've always needed to see
That others care of what I need
They save me from this ideology..
This world is hypocrisy right from head to toe
From some like a glow while for others its blow
Hatred and venom is inside while love to show
Some are in the palaces ,some are down below

What it seems its not ,what its not it portrays
For some it is a phase while for others a phrase
***** heart plays tricks and ***** mind relays
Whatever is given to world it definitely repays

Let us be true and honest in our day to day life
Let us face realities being on double edged knife
No matter if we go to gallows ,alter or sheer strife
Double faces and double meanings are just in rife

Col Muhammad Khalid Khan
Copyright 2016 Golden Glow
I’m convinced that someone’s hacked into my head
and deleted the part of my brain that controls my concentration.
Because at times, I have the attention span of the goldfish who just downed a bottle of vicodin.

See, my brain is a livewire lined with high-voltage power lines of dreams and ideas,
and I can’t shut off all the switches and relays flooding messages to my nervous system,
because what I have is a nervous system.

Every caustic, worried thought that I’ve ever thought tends to show up there,
and all I ever do is worry about how one wrong word might end a relationship,
or how one right word could start a new friendship,
or how everything that I keep reading into,
is just bleeding into everything else,
mixing colors,
while I’m sitting here…

forgetting to take the time to paint with my passions and prides.
Nickols Sep 2012
Your screams always cut the deepest.
Like a hand scolded under the hottest of water.
Cold to the touch as it tricks the nerve into believing--
A sheep in the wolfs clothing as it drifts into searing.
The watery message relays the misery.
The detail all there lain before my eyes.
My skin battered and marred--
Torn asunder with merely your voice.
Thick with rage, smoldering with pride.

Words intended to be used as a weapon, will always wound the feeble.
© Victoria
Joseph Childress Apr 2014
Joseph Childress

Absence makes the heart grow
Fonder for most
Somber for some
Odd of others

The presence of love
Is the foremost force
In the divorce
Of reason

Attachments
Magnets
Victims of attraction
Repel
Then make tractions
That keep the world
Moving

Rebels revel
In revolution
Worshipping
The great changing
Like crescent moons
Before the new

Each phase
Relays the latest trend
As love, hate and sin
Blends in a cocktail
Of delusion

Drunkards play martyr
In the extremist
Conditions
Relentless systems of belief
That leaves relief
For the reliving of death

The children witness it all
Imitating
And coming up shorter
Than expectations
With each generation
Alternating ideas
For alternatives
Altering native ways of thinking

Beings battle for correction
In facilities
As others rights
Squander
In the quelling of dissent
Fighting fear
Is dear
To the hearts of trendsetters
Setting the standard
For the new age
New way of thinking

Off to Walden’s Lake
For the Great Disappearance
Dissing appearance
For the sake of absence
As absentmindedness
Watches from afar
Don’t worry
I’ll return with enough
Civil disobedience
The laws will have to change
In our honor
Josh Hall Dec 2013
Snowball effect,
In any dialect,
Is the same for healthy and lame.

Building,
Declining,
Constant rounding,
Defining,
Leaving a trail behind.

When it does land,
No matter the man,
He's left in its wake,
Deprived.

As pendulum's moment,
Swings ever-fervent,
Knocking down pegs as it goes,
The pegs do fall,
To crush them all,
As the fool relays blow-by-blow.

It's obvious where the pendulum goes,
But no fool will look below his nose,
The pendulum decides his time to go.
Harvest Moon effigy , ivory in subtle contrast to pearls tranquility along windswept confident shorelines , tousled charcoal locks wrapped in silken bonds , violet attire that relays the waters reflection from a million stars ..
Sable Palm within the kindred of Oat and Sawgrass , warm Gulf
nightfall , diamond waves explore the pier , where lovers embrace ,
where romance directs the eve .. Amber lit vessels grace her southern horizon , Mexican breezes brush raven hair beneath the canopy of night ..
Breakers tinge the ocean West , ebony Aphrodite features are
aglow tonight . Unwavering and forever recalled ..
Copyright January 24 , 2016 by randolph L Wilson * All Rights Reserved
Michael R Burch Apr 2020
The Making of a Poet
by Michael R. Burch

While I don’t consider “Poetry” to be my best poem—I wrote the first version in my teens—it’s a poem that holds special meaning for me. I consider it my Ars Poetica. Here’s how it came about ...

When I was eleven years old, my father, a staff sergeant in the US Air Force, was stationed in Wiesbaden, Germany. We were forced to live off-base for two years, in a tiny German village where there were no other American children to play with, and no English radio or TV stations. To avoid complete boredom, I began going to the base library, checking out eight books at a time (the limit), reading them in a few days, then continually repeating the process. I quickly exhausted the library’s children’s fare and began devouring adult novels along with a plethora of books about history, science and nature.

In the fifth grade, I tested at the reading level of a college sophomore and was put in a reading group of one. I was an incredibly fast reader: I flew through books like crazy. I was reading Austen, Dickens, Hardy, et al, while my classmates were reading … whatever one normally reads in grade school. My grades shot through the roof and from that day forward I was always the top scholar in my age group, wherever I went.

But being bright and well-read does not invariably lead to happiness. I was tall, scrawny, introverted and socially awkward. I had trouble making friends. I began to dabble in poetry around age thirteen, but then we were finally granted base housing and for two years I was able to focus on things like marbles, quarters, comic books, baseball, basketball and football. And, from an incomprehensible distance, girls.

When I was fifteen my father retired from the Air Force and we moved back to his hometown of Nashville. While my parents were looking for a house, we lived with my grandfather and his third wife. They didn’t have air-conditioning and didn’t seem to believe in hot food—even the peas and beans were served cold!—so I was sweaty, hungry, lonely, friendless and miserable. It was at this point that I began to write poetry seriously. I’m not sure why. Perhaps because my options were so limited and the world seemed so impossibly grim and unfair.

Writing poetry helped me cope with my loneliness and depression. I had feelings of deep alienation and inadequacy, but suddenly I had found something I could do better than anyone around me. (Perhaps because no one else was doing it at all?)

However, I was a perfectionist and poetry can be very tough on perfectionists. I remember becoming incredibly frustrated and angry with myself. Why wasn’t I writing poetry like Shelley and Keats at age fifteen? I destroyed all my poems in a fit of pique. Fortunately, I was able to reproduce most of the better poems from memory, but two in particular were lost forever and still haunt me.

In the tenth grade, at age sixteen, I had a major breakthrough. My English teacher gave us a poetry assignment. We were instructed to create a poetry booklet with five chapters of our choosing. I still have my booklet, a treasured memento, banged out on a Corona typewriter with cursive script, which gave it a sort of elegance, a cachet. My chosen chapters were: Rock Songs, English Poems, Animal Poems, Biblical Poems, and ta-da, My Poems! Audaciously, alongside the poems of Shakespeare, Burns and Tennyson, I would self-publish my fledgling work!

My teacher wrote “This poem is beautiful” beside one my earliest compositions, “Playmates.” Her comment was like rocket fuel to my stellar aspirations. Surely I was next Keats, the next Shelley! Surely immediate and incontrovertible success was now fait accompli, guaranteed!

Of course I had no idea what I was getting into. How many fifteen-year-old poets can compete with the immortal bards? I was in for some very tough sledding because I had good taste in poetry and could tell the difference between merely adequate verse and the real thing. I continued to find poetry vexing. Why the hell wouldn’t it cooperate and anoint me its next Shakespeare, pronto?

Then I had another breakthrough. I remember it vividly. I working at a McDonald’s at age seventeen, salting away money for college because my parents had informed me they didn’t have enough money to pay my tuition. Fortunately, I was able to earn a full academic scholarship, but I still needed to make money for clothes, dating (hah!), etc. I was sitting in the McDonald’s break room when I wrote a poem, “Reckoning” (later re-titled “Observance”), that sorta made me catch my breath. Did I really write that? For the first time, I felt like a “real poet.”

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 . . .

Another poem, “Infinity,” written around age eighteen, again made me feel like a real poet.



Infinity
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

Now, two “real poems” in two years may not seem like a big deal to non-poets. But they were very big deals to me. I would go off to college feeling that I was, really, a real poet, with two real poems under my belt. I felt like someone, at last. I had, at least, potential.

But I was in for another rude shock. Being a good reader of poetry—good enough to know when my own poems were falling far short of the mark—I was absolutely floored when I learned that impostors were controlling Poetry’s fate! These impostors were claiming that meter and rhyme were passé, that honest human sentiment was something to be ridiculed and dismissed, that poetry should be nothing more than concrete imagery, etc.

At first I was devastated, but then I quickly became enraged. I knew the difference between good poetry and bad. I could feel it in my flesh, in my bones. Who were these impostors to say that bad poetry was good, and good was bad? How dare they? I was incensed! I loved Poetry. I saw her as my savior because she had rescued me from depression and feelings of inadequacy. So I made a poetic pledge to help save my Savior from the impostors:



Poetry
by Michael R. Burch

Poetry, I found you where at last they chained and bound you;
with devices all around you to torture and confound you,
I found you—shivering, bare.

They had shorn your raven hair and taken both your eyes
which, once cerulean as Gogh’s skies, had leapt with dawn to wild surmise
of what was waiting there.

Your back was bent with untold care; there savage brands had left cruel scars
as though the wounds of countless wars; your bones were broken with the force
with which they’d lashed your flesh so fair.

You once were loveliest of all. So many nights you held in thrall
a scrawny lad who heard your call from where dawn’s milling showers fall—
pale meteors through sapphire air.

I learned the eagerness of youth to temper for a lover’s touch;
I felt you, tremulant, reprove each time I fumbled over-much.
Your merest word became my prayer.

You took me gently by the hand and led my steps from boy to man;
now I look back, remember when—you shone, and cannot understand
why here, tonight, you bear their brand.

I will take and cradle you in my arms, remindful of the gentle charms
you showed me once, of yore;
and I will lead you from your cell tonight—back into that incandescent light
which flows out of the core of a sun whose robes you wore.
And I will wash your feet with tears for all those blissful years . . .
my love, whom I adore.

Originally published by The Lyric

I consider "Poetry" to be my Ars Poetica. However, the poem has been misinterpreted as the poet claiming to be Poetry's  sole "savior." The poet never claims to be a savior or hero, but more like a member of a rescue operation. The poem says that when Poetry is finally freed, in some unspecified way, the poet will be there to take her hand and watch her glory be re-revealed to the world. The poet expresses love for Poetry, and gratitude, but never claims to have done anything heroic himself. This is a poem of love, compassion and reverence. Poetry is the Messiah, not the poet. The poet washes her feet with his tears, like Mary Magdalene.



These are other poems I have written since, that I particularly like, and hope you like them too ...

In this Ordinary Swoon
by Michael R. Burch

In this ordinary swoon
as I pass from life to death,
I feel no heat from the cold, pale moon;
I feel no sympathy for breath.

Who I am and why I came,
I do not know; nor does it matter.
The end of every man’s the same
and every god’s as mad as a hatter.

I do not fear the letting go;
I only fear the clinging on
to hope when there’s no hope, although
I lift my face to the blazing sun

and feel the greater intensity
of the wilder inferno within me.



Second Sight
by Michael R. Burch

I never touched you—
that was my mistake.

Deep within,
I still feel the ache.

Can an unformed thing
eternally break?

Now, from a great distance,
I see you again

not as you are now,
but as you were then—

eternally present
and Sovereign.



Mending
by Michael R. Burch

for the survivors of 9-11

I am besieged with kindnesses;
sometimes I laugh,
delighted for a moment,
then resume
the more seemly occupation of my craft.

I do not taste the candies...

The perfume
of roses is uplifted
in a draft
that vanishes into the ceiling’s fans

which spin like old propellers
till the room
is full of ghostly bits of yarn...

My task
is not to knit,

but not to end too soon.

This poem is dedicated to the victims of 9-11 and their families and friends.



Love Unfolded Like a Flower
by Michael R. Burch

Love unfolded
like a flower;
Pale petals pinked and blushed to see the sky.
I came to know you
and to trust you
in moments lost to springtime slipping by.

Then love burst outward,
leaping skyward,
and untamed blossoms danced against the wind.
All I wanted
was to hold you;
though passion tempted once, we never sinned.

Now love's gay petals
fade and wither,
and winter beckons, whispering a lie.
We were friends,
but friendships end . . .
yes, friendships end and even roses die.



Shadowselves
by Michael R. Burch

In our hearts, knowing
fewer days―and milder―beckon,
how now are we to measure
that wick by which we reckon
the time we have remaining?

We are shadows
spawned by a blue spurt of candlelight.
Darkly, we watch ourselves flicker.
Where shall we go when the flame burns less bright?
When chill night steals our vigor?

Why are we less than ourselves? We are shadows.
Where is the fire of our youth? We grow cold.
Why does our future loom dark? We are old.
And why do we shiver?

In our hearts, seeing
fewer days―and briefer―breaking,
now, even more, we treasure
this brittle leaf-like aching
that tells us we are living.



Dust (II)
by Michael R. Burch

We are dust
and to dust we must
return ...
but why, then,
life’s pointless sojourn?



Leave Taking (II)
by Michael R. Burch

Although the earth renews itself, and spring
is lovelier for all the rot of fall,
I think of yellow leaves that cling and hang
by fingertips to life, let go . . . and all
men see is one bright instance of departure,
the flame that, at least height, warms nothing. I,

have never liked to think the ants that march here
will deem them useless, grimly tramping by,
and so I gather leaves’ dry hopeless brilliance,
to feel their prickly edges, like my own,
to understand their incurled worn resilience―
youth’s tenderness long, callously, outgrown.

I even feel the pleasure of their sting,
the stab of life. I do not think―at all―
to be renewed, as earth is every spring.
I do not hope words cluster where they fall.
I only hope one leaf, wild-spiraling,
illuminates the void, till glad hearts sing.

It's not that every leaf must finally fall ...
it's just that we can never catch them all.

Originally published by Silver Stork



Less Heroic Couplets: Funding Fundamentals
by Michael R. Burch

*"I found out that I was a Christian for revenue only and I could not bear the thought of that, it was so ignoble." ― Mark Twain

Making sense from nonsense is quite sensible! Suppose
you’re running low on moolah, need some cash to paint your toes ...
Just invent a new religion; claim it saves lost souls from hell;
have the converts write you checks; take major debit cards as well;
take MasterCard and Visa and good-as-gold Amex;
hell, lend and charge them interest, whether payday loan or flex.
Thus out of perfect nonsense, glittery ores of this great mine,
you’ll earn an easy living and your toes will truly shine!

Originally published by Lighten Up Online



Marsh Song
by Michael R. Burch

Here there is only the great sad song of the reeds
and the silent herons, wraithlike in the mist,
and a few drab sunken stones, unblessed
by the sunlight these late sixteen thousand years,
and the beaded dews that drench strange ferns, like tears
collected against an overwhelming sadness.

Here the marsh exposes its dejectedness,
its gutted rotting belly, and its roots
rise out of the earth’s distended heaviness,
to claw hard at existence, till the scars
remind us that we all have wounds, and I
have learned again that living is despair
as the herons cleave the placid, dreamless air.

Originally published by The Lyric



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?

Originally published by Romantics Quarterly



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.



Mother of Cowards
by Michael R. Burch aka "The Loyal Opposition"

So unlike the brazen giant of Greek fame
With conquering limbs astride from land to land,
Spread-eagled, showering gold, a strumpet stands:
A much-used trollop with a torch, whose flame
Has long since been extinguished. And her name?
"Mother of Cowards!" From her enervate hand
Soft ash descends. Her furtive eyes demand
Allegiance to her ****'s repulsive game.
"Keep, ancient lands, your wretched poor!" cries she
With scarlet lips. "Give me your hale, your whole,
Your huddled tycoons, yearning to be pleased!
The wretched refuse of your toilet hole?
Oh, never send one unwashed child to me!
I await Trump's pleasure by the gilded bowl!"



Frantisek “Franta” Bass was a Jewish boy murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust.

The Garden
by Franta Bass
translation by Michael R. Burch

A small garden,
so fragrant and full of roses!
The path the little boy takes
is guarded by thorns.

A small boy, a sweet boy,
growing like those budding blossoms!
But when the blossoms have bloomed,
the boy will be no more.



Jewish Forever
by Franta Bass
translation by Michael R. Burch

I am a Jew and always will be, forever!
Even if I should starve,
I will never submit!
But I will always fight for my people,
with my honor,
to their credit!

And I will never be ashamed of them;
this is my vow.
I am so very proud of my people now!
How dignified they are, in their grief!
And though I may die, oppressed,
still I will always return to life ...



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

“Evolution’s a Fishy Business!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Originally published by Lighten Up Online

Keywords/Tags: amphibian, amphibians, evolution, gills, water, air, lungs, fins, flippers, fish, fishy business



Unlikely Mike
by Michael R. Burch

I married someone else’s fantasy;
she admired me despite my mutilations.

I loved her for her heart’s sake, and for mine.
I hid my face and changed its connotations.

And in the dark I danced—slight, Chaplinesque—
a metaphor myself. How could they know,

the undiscerning ones, that in the glow
of spotlights, sometimes love becomes burlesque?

Disfigured to my soul, I could not lose
or choose or name myself; I came to be

another of life’s odd dichotomies,
like Dickey’s Sheep Boy, Pan, or David Cruse:

as pale, as enigmatic. White, or black?
My color was a song, a changing track.



This is my translation of one of my favorite Dimash Kudaibergen songs, the French song "S.O.S." ...

S.O.S.
by Michel Berger
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Why do I live, why do I die?
Why do I laugh, why do I cry?

Voicing the S.O.S.
of an earthling in distress ...

I have never felt at home on the ground.

I'd rather be a bird;
this skin feels weird.

I'd like to see the world turned upside down.

It ever was more beautiful
seen from up above,
seen from up above.

I've always confused life with cartoons,
wishing to transform.

I feel something that draws me,
that draws me,
that draws me
UP!

In the great lotto of the universe
I didn't draw the right numbers.
I feel unwell in my own skin,
I don't want to be a machine
eating, working, sleeping.

Why do I live, why do I die?
Why do I laugh, why do I cry?

I feel I'm catching waves from another world.
I've never had both feet on the ground.
This skin feels weird.
I'd like to see the world turned upside down.
I'd rather be a bird.

Sleep, child, sleep ...



"Late Autumn" aka "Autumn Strong"
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
based on the version sung by Dimash Kudaibergen

Autumn ...

The feeling of late autumn ...

It feels like golden leaves falling
to those who are parting ...

A glass of wine
has stirred
so many emotions swirling in my mind ...

Such sad farewells ...

With the season's falling leaves,
so many sad farewells.

To see you so dispirited pains me more than I can say.

Holding your hands so tightly to my heart ...

... Remembering ...

I implore you to remember our unspoken vows ...

I dare bear this bitterness,
but not to see you broken-hearted!

All contentment vanishes like leaves in an autumn wind.

Meeting or parting, that's not up to me.
We can blame the wind for our destiny.

I do not fear my own despair
but your sorrow haunts me.

No one will know of our desolation.



My Forty-Ninth Year
by Michael R. Burch

My forty-ninth year
and the dew remembers
how brightly it glistened
encrusting September, ...
one frozen September
when hawks ruled the sky
and death fell on wings
with a shrill, keening cry.

My forty-ninth year,
and still I recall
the weavings and windings
of childhood, of fall ...
of fall enigmatic,
resplendent, yet sere, ...
though vibrant the herald
of death drawing near.

My forty-ninth year
and now often I've thought on
the course of a lifetime,
the meaning of autumn,
the cycle of autumn
with winter to come,
of aging and death
and rebirth ... on and on.



Less Heroic Couplets: Rejection Slips
by Michael R. Burch

pour Melissa Balmain

Whenever my writing gets rejected,
I always wonder how the rejecter got elected.
Are we exchanging at the same Bourse?
(Excepting present company, of course!)

I consider the term “rejection slip” to be a double entendre. When editors reject my poems, did I slip up, or did they? Is their slip showing, or is mine?



Spring Was Delayed
by Michael R. Burch

Winter came early:
the driving snows,
the delicate frosts
that crystallize

all we forget
or refuse to know,
all we regret
that makes us wise.

Spring was delayed:
the nubile rose,
the tentative sun,
the wind’s soft sighs,

all we omit
or refuse to show,
whatever we shield
behind guarded eyes.

Originally published by Borderless Journal



Drippings
by Michael R. Burch

I have no words
for winter’s pale splendors
awash in gray twilight,
nor these slow-dripping eaves
renewing their tinkling songs.

Life’s like the failing resistance
of autumn to winter
and plays its low accompaniment,
slipping slowly
away
...
..
.



The Drawer of Mermaids
by Michael R. Burch

This poem is dedicated to Alina Karimova, who was born with severely deformed legs and five fingers missing. Alina loves to draw mermaids and believes her fingers will eventually grow out.

Although I am only four years old,
they say that I have an old soul.
I must have been born long, long ago,
here, where the eerie mountains glow
at night, in the Urals.

A madman named Geiger has cursed these slopes;
now, shut in at night, the emphatic ticking
fills us with dread.
(Still, my momma hopes
that I will soon walk with my new legs.)

It’s not so much legs as the fingers I miss,
drawing the mermaids under the ledges.
(Observing, Papa will kiss me
in all his distracted joy;
but why does he cry?)

And there is a boy
who whispers my name.
Then I am not lame;
for I leap, and I follow.
(G’amma brings a wiseman who says

our infirmities are ours, not God’s,
that someday a beautiful Child
will return from the stars,
and then my new fingers will grow
if only I trust Him; and so

I am preparing to meet Him, to go,
should He care to receive me.)

Keywords/Tags: mermaid, mermaids, child, children, childhood, Urals, Ural Mountains, soul, soulmate, radiation



The Blobfish
by Michael R. Burch

You can call me a "blob"
with your oversized gob,
but what's your excuse,
great gargantuan Zeus
whose once-chiseled abs
are now marbleized flab?

But what really alarms me
(how I wish you'd abstain)
is when you start using
that oversized "brain."
Consider the planet! Refrain!



There’s a Stirring and Awakening in the World
by Michael R. Burch

There’s a stirring and awakening in the world,
and even so my spirit stirs within,
imagining some Power beckoning—
the Force which through the stamen gently whirrs,
unlocking tumblers deftly, even mine.

The grape grows wild-entangled on the vine,
and here, close by, the honeysuckle shines.
And of such life, at last there comes there comes the Wine.

And so it is with spirits’ fruitful yield—
the growth comes first, Green Vagrance, then the Bloom.

The world somehow must give the spirit room
to blossom, till its light shines—wild, revealed.

And then at last the earth receives its store
of blessings, as glad hearts cry—More! More! More!

Originally published by Borderless Journal
POEMS ABOUT SHAKESPEARE by Michael R. Burch

These are poems I have written about Shakespeare, poems I have written for Shakespeare, and poems I have written after Shakespeare.



Fleet Tweet: Apologies to Shakespeare
by Michael R. Burch

a tweet
by any other name
would be as fleet!
@mikerburch



Fleet Tweet II: Further Apologies to Shakespeare
by Michael R. Burch

Remember, doggonit,
heroic verse crowns the Shakespearean sonnet!
So if you intend to write a couplet,
please do it on the doublet!
@mikerburch



Stage Fright
by Michael R. Burch

To be or not to be?
In the end Hamlet
opted for naught.



Ophelia
by Michael R. Burch

for Kevin N. Roberts

Ophelia, madness suits you well,
as the ocean sounds in an empty shell,
as the moon shines brightest in a starless sky,
as suns supernova before they die ...



Shakespeare's Sonnet 130 Refuted
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
— Shakespeare, Sonnet 130

Seas that sparkle in the sun
without its light would have no beauty;
but the light within your eyes
is theirs alone; it owes no duty.
Whose winsome flame, not half so bright,
is meant for me, and brings delight.

Coral formed beneath the sea,
though scarlet-tendriled, cannot warm me;
while your lips, not half so red,
just touching mine, at once inflame me.
Whose scorching flames mild lips arouse
fathomless oceans fail to douse.

Bright roses’ brief affairs, declared
when winter comes, will wither quickly.
Your cheeks, though paler when compared
with them?—more lasting, never prickly.
Whose tender cheeks, so enchantingly warm,
far vaster treasures, harbor no thorns.

Originally published by Romantics Quarterly

This was my first sonnet, written in my teens after I discovered Shakespeare's "Sonnet 130." At the time I didn't know the rules of the sonnet form, so mine is a bit unconventional. I think it is not bad for the first attempt of a teen poet. I remember writing this poem in my head on the way back to my dorm from a freshman English class. I would have been 18 or 19 at the time.



Attention Span Gap
by Michael R. Burch

What if a poet, Shakespeare,
were still living to tweet to us here?
He couldn't write sonnets,
just couplets, doggonit,
and we wouldn't have Hamlet or Lear!

Yes, a sonnet may end in a couplet,
which we moderns can write in a doublet,
in a flash, like a tweet.
Does that make it complete?
Should a poem be reduced to a stublet?

Bring back that Grand Era when men
had attention spans long as their pens,
or rather the quills
of the monsieurs and fils
who gave us the Dress, not its hem!



Chloe
by Michael R. Burch

There were skies onyx at night... moons by day...
lakes pale as her eyes... breathless winds
******* tall elms ... she would say
that we’d loved, but I figured we'd sinned.

Soon impatiens too fiery to stay
sagged; the crocus bells drooped, golden-limned;
things of brightness, rinsed out, ran to gray...
all the light of that world softly dimmed.

Where our feet were inclined, we would stray;
there were paths where dead weeds stood untrimmed,
distant mountains that loomed in our way,
thunder booming down valleys dark-hymned.

What I found, I found lost in her face
while yielding all my virtue to her grace.

“Chloe” is a Shakespearean sonnet about being parted from someone you wanted and expected to be with forever. It was originally published by Romantics Quarterly as "A Dying Fall"



Sonnet: The City Is a Garment
by Michael R. Burch

A rhinestone skein, a jeweled brocade of light,—
the city is a garment stretched so thin
her festive colors bleed into the night,
and everywhere bright seams, unraveling,

cascade their brilliant contents out like coins
on motorways and esplanades; bead cars
come tumbling down long highways; at her groin
a railtrack like a zipper flashes sparks;

her hills are haired with brush like cashmere wool
and from their cleavage winking lights enlarge
and travel, slender fingers ... softly pull
themselves into the semblance of a barge.

When night becomes too chill, she softly dons
great overcoats of warmest-colored dawn.

“The City is a Garment” is a Shakespearean sonnet.



Afterglow
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

The night is full of stars. Which still exist?
Before time ends, perhaps one day we’ll know.
For now I hold your fingers to my lips
and feel their pulse ... warm, palpable and slow ...

once slow to match this reckless spark in me,
this moon in ceaseless orbit I became,
compelled by wilder gravity to flee
night’s universe of suns, for one pale flame ...

for one pale flame that seemed to signify
the Zodiac of all, the meaning of
love’s wandering flight past Neptune. Now to lie
in dawning recognition is enough ...

enough each night to bask in you, to know
the face of love ... eyes closed ... its afterglow.

“Afterglow” is a Shakespearean sonnet.



I Learned Too Late
by Michael R. Burch

“Show, don’t tell!”

I learned too late that poetry has rules,
although they may be rules for greater fools.

In any case, by dodging rules and schools,
I avoided useless duels.

I learned too late that sentiment is bad—
that Blake and Keats and Plath had all been had.

In any case, by following my heart,
I learned to walk apart.

I learned too late that “telling” is a crime.
Did Shakespeare know? Is Milton doing time?

In any case, by telling, I admit:
I think such rules are ****.



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!

This is a poem in which I imagine Shakespeare speaking through a modern Hamlet.



That Mella Fella
by Michael R. Burch

John Mella was the longtime editor of Light Quarterly.

There once was a fella
named Mella,
who, if you weren’t funny,
would tell ya.
But he was cool, clever, nice,
gave some splendid advice,
and if you did well,
he would sell ya.

Shakespeare had his patrons and publishers; John Mella was one of my favorites in the early going, along with Jean Mellichamp Milliken of The Lyric.



Chip Off the Block
by Michael R. Burch

for Jeremy

In the fusion of poetry and drama,
Shakespeare rules! Jeremy’s a ham: a
chip off the block, like his father and mother.
Part poet? Part ham? Better run for cover!
Now he’s Benedick — most comical of lovers!

NOTE: Jeremy’s father is a poet and his mother is an actress; hence the fusion, or confusion, as the case may be.

Keywords/Tags: Shakespeare, Shakespearean, sonnet, epigram, epigrams, Hamlet, Ophelia, Lear, Benedick, tweet, tweets



Untitled Epigrams

Teach me to love:
to fly beyond sterile Mars
to percolating Venus.
—Michael R. Burch

The LIV is LIVid:
livid with blood,
and full of egos larger
than continents.
—Michael R. Burch

Evil is as evil does.
Evil never needs a cause.
Evil loves amoral “laws,”
laughs and licks its blood-red claws
while kids are patched together with gauze.
— Michael R. Burch

Poets laud Justice’s
high principles.
Trump just gropes
her raw genitals.
—Michael R. Burch



When Pigs Fly
by Michael R. Burch

On the Trail of Tears,
my Cherokee brothers,
why hang your heads?
Why shame your mothers?

Laugh wildly instead!
We will soon be dead.

When we lie in our graves,
let the white-eyes take
the woodlands we loved
for the *** and the rake.

It is better to die
than to live out a lie
in so narrow a sty.



Perhat Tursun (1969-) is one of the foremost living Uyghur language poets, if he is still alive. Tursun has been described as a "self-professed Kafka character" and that comes through splendidly in poems of his like "Elegy." Unfortunately, Tursun was "disappeared" into a Chinese "reeducation" concentration camp where extreme psychological torture is the norm. According to a disturbing report he was later "hospitalized."

Elegy
by Perhat Tursun
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

"Your soul is the entire world."
— Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

Asylum seekers, will you recognize me among the mountain passes' frozen corpses?
Can you identify me here among our Exodus's exiled brothers?
We begged for shelter but they lashed us bare; consider our naked corpses.
When they compel us to accept their massacres, do you know that I am with you?
Three centuries later they resurrect, not recognizing each other,
Their former greatness forgotten.
I happily ingested poison, like a fine wine.
When they search the streets and cannot locate our corpses, do you know that I am with you?
In that tower constructed of skulls you will find my dome as well:
They removed my head to more accurately test their swords' temper.
When before their swords our relationship flees like a flighty lover,
Do you know that I am with you?
When men in fur hats are used for target practice in the marketplace
Where a dying man's face expresses his agony as a bullet cleaves his brain
While the executioner's eyes fail to comprehend why his victim vanishes, ...
Seeing my form reflected in that bullet-pierced brain's erratic thoughts,
Do you know that I am with you?
In those days when drinking wine was considered worse than drinking blood,
did you taste the flour ground out in that blood-turned churning mill?
Now, when you sip the wine Ali-Shir Nava'i imagined to be my blood
In that mystical tavern's dark abyssal chambers,
Do you know that I am with you?



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.



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

Has rhyme lost all its reason
and rhythm, renascence?
Are sonnets out of season
and poems but poor pretense?
Are poets lacking fire,
their words too trite and forced?
What happened to desire?
Has passion been coerced?
Must poetry fade slowly,
like Latin, to past tense?
Are the bards too high and holy,
or their readers merely dense?



Solicitation
by Michael R. Burch

He comes to me out of the shadows, acknowledging
my presence with a tip of his hat, always the gentleman,
and his eyes are on mine like a snake’s on a bird’s—
quizzical, mesmerizing.

He ***** his head as though something he heard intrigues him
(although I hear nothing) and he smiles, amusing himself at my expense;
his words are full of desire and loathing, and while I hear everything,
he says nothing I understand.

The moon shines—maniacal, queer—as he takes my hand whispering
"Our time has come" ... And so together we stroll creaking docks
where the sea sends sickening things
scurrying under rocks and boards.

Moonlight washes his ashen face as he stares unseeing into my eyes.
He sighs, and the sound crawls slithering down my spine;
my blood seems to pause at his touch as he caresses my face.

He unfastens my dress till the white lace shows, and my neck is bared.
His teeth are long, yellow and hard, his face bearded and haggard.
A wolf howls in the distance. There are no wolves in New York. I gasp.
My blood is a trickle his wet tongue embraces. My heart races madly.
He likes it like that.



Less Heroic Couplets: Baseball Explained
by Michael R. Burch

Baseball’s immeasurable spittin’
mixed with occasional hittin’.



Infatuate, or Sweet Centerless Sixteen
by Michael R. Burch

Inconsolable as “love” had left your heart,
you woke this morning eager to pursue
warm lips again, or something “really cool”
on which to press your lips and leave their mark.

As breath upon a windowpane at dawn
soon glows, a spreading halo full of sun,
your thought of love blinks wildly—on and on . . .
then fizzles at the center, and is gone.



The Wonder Boys
by Michael R. Burch

(for Leslie Mellichamp, the late editor of The Lyric,
who was a friend and mentor to many poets, and
a fine poet in his own right)

The stars were always there, too-bright cliches:
scintillant truths the jaded world outgrew
as baffled poets winged keyed kites—amazed,
in dream of shocks that suddenly came true . . .

but came almost as static—background noise,
a song out of the cosmos no one hears,
or cares to hear. The poets, starstruck boys,
lay tuned in to their kite strings, saucer-eared.

They thought to feel the lightning’s brilliant sparks
electrify their nerves, their brains; the smoke
of words poured from their overheated hearts.
The kite string, knotted, made a nifty rope . . .

You will not find them here; they blew away—
in tumbling flight beyond nights’ stars. They clung
by fingertips to satellites. They strayed
too far to remain mortal. Elfin, young,
their words are with us still. Devout and fey,
they wink at us whenever skies are gray.

Originally published by The Lyric



The Singer
by Michael R. Burch

for Leslie Mellichamp

The sun that swoons at dusk
and seems a vanished grace
breaks over distant shores
as a child’s uplifted face
takes up a song like yours.

We listen, and embrace
its warmth with dawning trust.



Dawn, to the Singer
by Michael R. Burch

for Leslie Mellichamp

“O singer, sing to me—
I know the world’s awry—
I know how piteously
the hungry children cry.”

We hear you even now—
your voice is with us yet.
Your song did not desert us,
nor can our hearts forget.

“But I bleed warm and near,
And come another dawn
The world will still be here
When home and hearth are gone.”

Although the world seems colder,
your words will warm it yet.
Lie untroubled, still its compass
and guiding instrument.



Geraldine in her pj's
by Michael R. Burch

for Geraldine A. V. Hughes

Geraldine in her pj's
checks her security relays,
sits down armed with a skillet,
mutters, "Intruder? I'll **** it!"
Then, as satellites wink high above,
she turns to her poets with love.



Advice to Young Poets
by Nicanor Parra Sandoval
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Youngsters,
write however you will
in your preferred style.

Too much blood flowed under the bridge
for me to believe
there’s just one acceptable path.
In poetry everything’s permitted.

Originally published by Setu



A poet births words,
brings them into the world like a midwife,
then wet-nurses them from infancy to adolescence.
— Michael R. Burch



The Century’s Wake
by Michael R. Burch

lines written at the close of the 20th century

Take me home. The party is over,
the century passed—no time for a lover.

And my heart grew heavy
as the fireworks hissed through the dark
over Central Park,
past high-towering spires to some backwoods levee,
hurtling banner-hung docks to the torchlit seas.

And my heart grew heavy;
I felt its disease—
its apathy,
wanting the bright, rhapsodic display
to last more than a single day.

If decay was its rite,
now it has learned to long
for something with more intensity,
more gaudy passion, more song—
like the huddled gay masses,
the wildly-cheering throng.

You ask me—
How can this be?
A little more flair,
or perhaps only a little more clarity.

I leave her tonight to the century’s wake;
she disappoints me.



The following translation is the speech of the Sibyl to Aeneas, after he has implored her to help him find his beloved father in the Afterlife, found in the sixth book of the Aeneid ...

The Descent into the Underworld
by Virgil
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The Sibyl began to speak:

“God-blooded Trojan, son of Anchises,
descending into the Underworld’s easy
since Death’s dark door stands eternally unbarred.
But to retrace one’s steps and return to the surface:
that’s the conundrum, that’s the catch!
Godsons have done it, the chosen few
whom welcoming Jupiter favored
and whose virtue merited heaven.
However, even the Blessed find headway’s hard:
immense woods barricade boggy bottomland
where the Cocytus glides with its dark coils.
But if you insist on ferrying the Styx twice
and twice traversing Tartarus,
if Love demands you indulge in such madness,
listen closely to how you must proceed...”



Uther’s Last Battle
by Michael R. Burch

Uther Pendragon was the father of the future King Arthur, but he had given his son to the wily Merlyn and knew nothing of his whereabouts. Did Uther meet his son just before his death, as one of the legends suggests?

When Uther, the High King,
unable to walk, borne upon a litter
went to fight Colgrim, the Saxon King,
his legs were weak, and his visage bitter.

“Where is Merlyn, the sage?
For today I truly feel my age.”

All day long the battle raged
and the dragon banner was sorely pressed,
but the courage of Uther never waned
till the sun hung low upon the west.

“Oh, where is Merlyn to speak my doom,
for truly I feel the chill of the tomb.”

Then, with the battle almost lost
and the king besieged on every side,
a prince appeared, clad all in white,
and threw himself against the tide.

“Oh, where is Merlyn, who stole my son?
For, truly, now my life is done.”

Then Merlyn came unto the king
as the Saxons fled before a sword
that flashed like lightning in the hand
of a prince that day become a lord.

“Oh, Merlyn, speak not, for I see
my son has truly come to me.
And today I need no prophecy
to see how bright his days will be.”

So Uther, then, the valiant king
met his son, and kissed him twice—
the one, the first, the one, the last—
and smiled, and then his time was past.

Originally published by Songs of Innocence



HAIKU

Unaware it protects
the hilltop paddies,
the scarecrow seems useless to itself.
—Eihei Dogen Kigen, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Fading memories
of summer holidays:
the closet’s last floral skirt...
—Michael R. Burch

Scandalous tides,
removing bikinis!
—Michael R. Burch

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



Sulpicia Translations by Michael R. Burch

These are modern English translations by Michael R. Burch of seven Latin poems written by the ancient Roman female poet Sulpicia, who was apparently still a girl or very young woman when she wrote them.



I. At Last, Love!
by Sulpicia
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

for Carolyn Clark, who put me up to it

It's come at last! Love!
The kind of love that, had it remained veiled,
would have shamed me more than baring my naked soul.
I appealed to Aphrodite in my poems
and she delivered my beloved to me,
placed him snugly, securely against my breast!
The Goddess has kept her promises:
now let my joy be told,
so that it cannot be said no woman enjoys her recompense!
I would not want to entrust my testimony
to tablets, even those signed and sealed!
Let no one read my avowals before my love!
Yet indiscretion has its charms,
while it's boring to conform one’s face to one’s reputation.
May I always be deemed worthy lover to a worthy love!



II. Dismal Journeys, Unwanted Arrivals
by Sulpicia
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

for Carolyn Clark, who put me up to it

My much-hated birthday's arrived, to be spent mourning
in a wretched countryside, bereft of Cerinthus.
Alas, my lost city! Is it suitable for a girl: that rural villa
by the banks of a frigid river draining the fields of Arretium?
Peace now, Uncle Messalla, my over-zealous chaperone!
Arrivals of relatives aren't always welcome, you know.
Kidnapped, abducted, snatched away from my beloved city,
I’d mope there, prisoner to my mind and emotions,
this hostage coercion prevents from making her own decisions!



III. The Thankfully Abandoned Journey
by Sulpicia
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

for Carolyn Clark, who put me up to it

Did you hear the threat of that wretched trip’s been abandoned?
Now my spirits soar and I can be in Rome for my birthday!
Let’s all celebrate this unexpected good fortune!



IV. Thanks for Everything, and Nothing
by Sulpicia
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

for Carolyn Clark, who put me up to it

Thanks for revealing your true colors,
thus keeping me from making further fool of myself!
I do hope you enjoy your wool-basket *****,
since any female-filled toga is much dearer to you
than Sulpicia, daughter of Servius!
On the brighter side, my guardians are much happier,
having feared I might foolishly bed a nobody!



V. Reproach for Indifference
by Sulpicia
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

for Carolyn Clark, who put me up to it

Have you no kind thoughts for your girl, Cerinthus,
now that fever wilts my wasting body?
If not, why would I want to conquer this disease,
knowing you no longer desired my existence?
After all, what’s the point of living
when you can ignore my distress with such indifference?



VI. Her Apology for Errant Desire
by Sulpicia
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

for Carolyn Clark, who put me up to it

Let me admit my errant passion to you, my love,
since in these last few days
I've exceeded all my foolish youth's former follies!
And no folly have I ever regretted more
than leaving you alone last night,
desiring only to disguise my desire for you!



Sulpicia on the First of March
by Sulpicia
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

“One might venture that Sulpicia was not over-modest.” – MRB

Sulpicia's adorned herself for you, O mighty Mars, on your Kalends:
come admire her yourself, if you have the sense to observe!
Venus will forgive your ogling, but you, O my violent one,
beware lest your armaments fall shamefully to the floor!
Cunning Love lights twin torches from her eyes,
with which he’ll soon inflame the gods themselves!
Wherever she goes, whatever she does,
Elegance and Grace follow dutifully in attendance!
If she unleashes her hair, trailing torrents become her train:
if she braids her mane, her braids are to be revered!
If she dons a Tyrian gown, she inflames!
She inflames, if she wears virginal white!
As stylish Vertumnus wears her thousand outfits
on eternal Olympus, even so she models hers gracefully!
She alone among the girls is worthy
of Tyre’s soft wool dipped twice in costly dyes!
May she always possess whatever rich Arabian farmers
reap from their fragrant plains’ perfumed fields,
and whatever flashing gems dark India gathers
from the scarlet shores of distant Dawn’s seas.
Sing the praises of this girl, Muses, on these festive Kalends,
and you, proud Phoebus, strum your tortoiseshell lyre!
She'll carry out these sacred rites for many years to come,
for no girl was ever worthier of your chorus!

• We may not be able to find the true God through logic, but we can certainly find false gods through illogic. — Michael R. Burch

Keywords/Tags: Sulpicia, Latin, Latin Poems, English Translations, Rome, Roman, Cerinthus, Albius Tibullus, Uncle Valerius Messalla Corvinus, birthday, villa, poem, poetry, winter, spring, snow, frost, rose, sun, eyes, sight, seeing, understanding, wisdom, Ars Poetica, Messiah, disciple
"The Making of a Poet" is the account of how I came to be a poet.
Mateuš Conrad Oct 2015
i am abel’s fiery tongue upon this earth,
cannibalistic in the raw sense of things,
i spoil my kittens like i might a human being,
which does not mean philosophy meets status quo
whereupon no thought is doubted or thought doubted
equates a sensual realism, for the stalemate, this no man’s land
of lettering suggested we go one step further -
i can peer into hell and only see personal misery,
and in all that i see heaven as a collectivisation of misery
of the parched lips riddling the desert sands -
without asking whether thought is truly doubt
or a moral compass we decided upon, that the senses be doubted
and thought proclaimed freer than our allowances consider utilised
or without utility essentially kept (it’s what’s
called congregating on the word reality without a congregation
on the word thought that speaks to western society the most),
for i can allow one thing but not the other -
i too claim the cartesian mechanisation of the senses
by the double inversion of thought: a. doubt thinking to provide existence
without thinking - automation,
b1. doubt the doubting thought and enclose zoologically
further in, to stress the coordinates of preplanned execution doubtless,
b2. doubt reality to undue the method of doubting thought that encompasses
the prime realism of things without thought,
b3. doubt the existence of things to think - keith lemon saying the word... tragic.
but the revisionary trick came when the cartesian model imploded
and said: thought proves being! thought proves existence!
hence no doubt was allowed, a bit fahrenheit 451 to be honest:
i.e. read any book you like... but don’t doubt its content,
think it through, think it out, elevates you into the agglomerate inclusion
with favoured numbering - keeps the “idiots” out, steady on
the beef in the banquet **** of bulimic excesses... steady...
rein in the oesophagus octopi - or like cancer and lobster in italy said:
death by numbers - bulging weight of the nuns chuckling a cha cha cha.
so why did post-cartesian thought engage with heidegger, why
did thinking suddenly uncouple itself from doubting to provide
the “perfect” existential parameter of undoubted sight
given that doubting passed from the realm of thought and into the realm of being?
‘i doubt i was there, i doubt it, i thought about it, but thinking about it
was truly discouraging to be here, so i thought i was there,
and that mediated the equation perfectly: i doubted i was here
but thought i was there, in the end i was here and therefore couldn’t doubt it,
but thinking about being here bored me, so i was “there” doubting
hopefully - rather than doubtfully hopeful of not being there and thinking
that being "there" was me being there would justify thought and doubting ease erasing, i came to the conclusion that being the lambs for the slaughter was enough, so i was here and thought... dasein! in the rally of relays i was "here" disclosing what thought was supposed to be when usurped from doubt and made surprisingly moral. posterior interior pumped suffocating by the toilet rim signalling blitzkrieg ***** and goosebumps on the guillotine ready to pluck a goose for broth instead of flight!’
sage of the black forest has spoken, shush: all the rat skeletons will now
be used for a xylophone symphony.
well it was once called mathematical akin to grammatical,
but so much was lost in the forgotten art of teaching grammar -
adjectives were used to allow timing, adverbs for spacing -
and a lot of emoticons replaced ****** features used once - like an itchy nose
or a half brow of sympathy stretched into an expression of surprise -
but so much was lost, the arts became post-cubism exact in
lacking all inspirational overtones enraging a schooled expression to canvas
a pope might admire, least the randomised passerby.
ioan pearce Mar 2010
literate legends of the past
wordsworth, tennyson, shakespeare, poe
philosophers preaching wisdom
whilst churning words of woe

if born a century onward
their genius contribution
would re-direct thought
and our retribution

clever wit, used correctly
relays a message indirectly
be loud in voice
be strong in deed
plants that blosom
have nurtured seeds

learned men, with miserly souls
different values, different goals
hypothetically speaking, if resurrected
could this system be corrected

past vision blurred, future masked
the valley victim duly asked...
what make thee of my vale?
once vibrant, now lies stale

thine vale like a garment, tightly twined
sceptical of progress, wallow in decline
thy forefathers fester in premature tombs
martyrs to masters, grafted in gloom

thy dwell on the dead, thou should view ahead
though mystery of history must ever be read
tread forth with vision, or stumble ye blind
don't dwell on the dead, or land once mined
Corrugated tesseracts
Are enlivened under blood gorged membranes
The barrier to a cool coral maze
Of still shoals, the palest pink
Permanent waves folded
Into a frozen tidal sea

And here is the world of worlds
That makes of us, ourselves
A dimension that can't be trespassed against
Where we are always home
Inside spider woven neurons
That talk only to each other
Or to god

They relay their subsonic messages
In penumbral patterns
Translated into dismembered tongues
And ancient relays of concordance
Telegraphing farthest emotion
Into clairvoyant flesh.
Damaré M Sep 2013
You are killing your own people 
You are killing off our sequels 
...
You're dying 
If I told you that you'll be ok 
I will be lying 
... 
On the ground with you 
We're united by a state of hysteria 
So pledge of allegiance to your own grievance if you want to 
Our allies realize our lack of participation within the United Nation 
They know that's it's a race of the racist 
It's hunger and starvation for ******* 
So they don't support our sport 
They don't get a kick out of our matrix 
Master the skill of being manipulative 
And maltreat our own citizens 
Who will have our back when we're getting attacked?
For sure not the group of people who our history once beset 
Wait reset 
Why strain something that isn't our stress? 
Hold up quest!
Consistent warfare give us a rest!

Do we ever handle things professionally? 
There's pros and there's congress 
And according to our constitution 
It's precedent that every president 
Is only present 
Im a skeptic of their effectiveness 
They're just a face for this place 
A image so when things cringes 
We can look at him in disgrace 
Sometimes I think I've been misplaced 
..... 
Misplaced 
Taken away and placed 
In this place full of waste 
Place full of wasted minds 
Place full of wasted minds who waste their time 
Place full of wasted minds who waste their time trying to waste everyone else's mind and keep others below their waist line 

United States of Hysteria 
Where you have to equip yourself with a personal barrier 
The superior preys 
The inferior pays 
And the wealth relays 
The baton get passed to relatives 
This is where you can cross the finish line first and still be without work 

So we pledge of allegiance 
With our right on our heart 
Stripes and stars is for
Lashes and strikes to stun our awareness 
Our apprehension just blow effortlessly in the wind 

They cover their flaws 
The gover-meant to **** us all 
Is there a such thing as a war on war? 
We nuclear our own fears 
And air strike on our own tears 
Use Sub Atomic Bombs against our own peers 
Chemically engineer everyone who's mere 
All hail U.S.A 
All hell U.S.H
Oli Mortham Sep 2014
How can I search for Truth in a world that's built on lies?
A lid resting heavily over a once glistening eye:
Shielding, masking, concealing
What last droplets of wonderment are trickling and asking to pierce the concrete ceiling...
...Instead I cynically note its off and aging colour...
"Yellow: Choice Number 4!"
Relays my proud voice, with a more
Assertive tone; I, the host...
Discussing aesthetics to collectively pathetically awe-struck guests, over specially served toast...
"Yes, I'm an impulse shopper, so it seems"...
...(Well, according to the ******...something article I read in my monthly subscribed to magazine)...
Happily consumed by consumerism...
But still unable to consummate
Anything really, Truly sacred...
...Unless I'm exactly half naked...
(That includes wearing Calvin Klein SoCKs)
And crucially still sporting my brand-named top,
Designed for tight fit to cull any ounce of shoddiness,
Whilst giving the impression of an existing healthy body, no less,
And then, due to superficial attraction,
An end will occur, hopefully, of distraction,
From the absence of my once healthy mind...
...but that never happens...
So then, how can I search for Truth when the bricks of my own guise
Only resonate deceit, sealed to create a facade of falseness?
Sure, I can articulate,
Wielding words like swords,
Pure, planned alliteration...
Baffling the bemused by barraging both beautiful and brutally belligerent brilliance...
But...
Showmanship is the tool of the restlessly minded,
Those who search the hardest for the key to authenticity but yet cannot find it,
And then paint their walls with vibrancy set out
By observing the mass hysteria of the layman,
Because nobody wants, Truly, to be classed as grey...
Do they?
Or it may
Be that that is exactly what we're all tactfully missing:
The fact that appearance, in some sense,
Is reliant on one sense,
And thus, in defiance of what we're meant
To wholeheartedly believe,
It is, in its very nature, subjective.
We were not designed
With a panel of judges judgmentally judging what pair of shoes should be selected,
Our mind's
Blueprint was principally a highly charged and thirstily receptive
Open book, with no printed prose,
No preordained guide to "Truth",
Merely a transient vessel:
A glowing red beacon of vulnerability in glorious, continuous distress,
Uncompromisingly afraid of its own ignorance, which, through an act of defense,
Strives to follow other's paths,
In arbitrary hopefulness that someone knows the meaning of it,
The answer to it,
The code that locks it,
The spark that drives it,
So in our fearful and ever conscious lives it,
Makes us want to hide behind this
Fantasy of an apex being,
Where our car seats vibrate and our carpet is soothing,
So that we seem to have a clue of what we're doing,
And instead of resting our ego-bulging heads and choosing to accept,
That we're just not quite, you know, as adept
As we might have thought, we choose to reject and neglect
Our opportunities
In communicative
And interactive discoveries of the beauty
That goes beyond and lies behind that neatly fashioned fringe,
Within.
Love is humble as we are stupid:
We'll see that one wise man has cottoned on, and knows
That even though
He hates that smell that his wife
Adores, he incessantly sprays it lovingly from a canister for the rest of his life.
But he'll never say a word,
Because, from what he's heard,
Truth no longer exists:
In fact, as soon as the larynx allowed the habit of opinions to persist,
It became a frozen entity,
A vague depiction of pure, untampered quality...
A poem I wrote 7 years ago on the back of an envelope in terrible handwriting when I was struggling to sleep.
Parable Gerákipolis: “Some Athenian Falcons streaked the harps of King David that had to be triangulated with Patmos from some evening buntings, to assign them to a Gerákis that flew ready from Athens to Patmos. Before leaving the temple of his maiden nurse; she muttered apothegms of some Tetraktys to her, combining the sums and values ​​of the first four goods of her entrusted bird, relating to the identical values ​​of her Adonis, who always muttered at her and clumsily delayed words that she wanted to mention to her before going to the campaign. war saying: "Three campaigns, plus two relays and a short stay outside the courts, I will dare desecrate the six times that I swore to tell Athena that no more than once I would regret receiving her entourages, but only two will be fruitful in the third day I went repeatedly to look for him, without profit, only forming doubts in the return and return in the clutches of my Gerákis that smelled of harps with essences and fables of fortune, that incomings and goings formed plasmas of the Tetraktys, doing the Venusian geometry in the magnitude of the face of my Gerákipolis, becoming a landowner between two straight lines, and then with more points to offer it between the solid forms of its Falangist Hetairoi, right there, there solidifying, defenseless and willful in his inventive poetry "

The pretensions exuded in femininity flew, still with her bephos ruby ​​lips cracked from so much uttering fearful lines, which made her diligent sirens and cyclamen emerge, in contiguous instinctive premonitions of falconry and of her supported Gerákis. The hawk arrived at the buttress shutter with his ungainly temper, leaving his missive on his marble stool, he withdrew and when he was just about to go to his almería to stalk, he observed that another glowing Gerákis was coming in the opposite direction, with his red claws, and on his neck, he wore a missive for the beloved maiden. Then he observes that the hawk rises against the dive, emitting happy yells to the sky that was filled with celestial bouquets of cyclamen swooping down to leave the court, in whose defiance it finely said "it will not be easy to leave you, I am Hetairoi and I bring the stigma of Xyston and his left arm, billing the other tusk of the viper, with the signs of two apothegmatic wastelands that say that nothing will ever separate us ”. The other Gerákis watched everything from afar, seeing that his, another alien to him, fell from great elevation and plummeting, with great prosperity spreading in his Falconiade gene catalog, missioning as an angel so that his yelling would never end.

(Procorus, understood from afar that in his hands they still followed the marks of the Gerákis, which gave him more stories of snakes' fangs, from which two stories emanated from the same one, but from a secondary protagonist for potions of whoever wants to end up adorning themselves in his floating love, and in the hemlock of a vile antagonist, with his dried fruit Aquenio of neology and love that opens even if it is inflated in the bladder of all the loves that lose the filtered blood of the bleeding gods)
Parable Gerákipolis
Em Glass Oct 2014
the only place left to go is up
so I lick the syrup
from my fingers and drive north,
but every time I leave this place
behind it doesn’t stay;
it relays back and forth
between my head and the
thick rope that ties it to the back
of the car where it scrapes
against the road
and bounces between
the back tires and
the north star,
which you pointed out to me
once on a night
when it wasn’t the brightest
in the sky.

you stood behind me and pointed up
and I heard your hand move
and saw your voice rise
and questions knocked this place
out of my mind until
a child
tugged on my sleeve
and I came tumbling down,
pulled along
by the sheer weight
of here.
'I am done with my graceless heart'
Andrew Rueter Mar 2018
You're a satellite that relays pain
Synchronizing circles in my brain
While signaling shame
To come join the game

You present a mighty mystery
That makes my sanity history
From agony that is blistering
That's what your wit serves me

The ambiguity
Is slowly ruining
My innate ingenuity
Yet I must act intuitively

You're a satellite in the air
In desperate need of repairs
I ask to see your schematics
I'm told I'm being dramatic

I float through space and time
After losing this race of lies
Along with the grace of mine
While stuck in the pace of grind

Before too long I answer wrong
A one-sided game of ping-pong
And your attitude is singsong
Not caring if something's wrong

Outside of the Earth's atmosphere
The sun is to be feared
Because it doesn't care
I experience a solar flare
Then the gamma rays poke holes in my cells
Until I'm eventually in hell
With a satellite that can't communicate
Only ruminate
On information already gathered
So there is no room for me
But until an asteroid splatter
There will be signals I see
Why credence?
why anything?
we're all about pretence.

We construct glass castles
and look through stone walls,
fortune tellers and
crystal *****.

It's not depression that depresses me
or the weight on my shoulders that
makes me stoop
it's the feeling that I'm in the castle
under a glass ceiling
playing Minecraft.
That here in the passage
that twirls
swirls upon the thoughts
expresses, impresses
there its depth
where words flow and ignite.

Here in this realm of the writer
the world replays
relays within
and grasps deep the fundamentals
that crafts within those elementals
to create a world anew.

Fresh the liberated thought flows
invades, conquers, grows
Till soon a set of lines engraved
sets free the words within
that together with emotion spin
until a world of fantasy is birthed
upon the pages ****** form.

Alisdaire O'Caoimph
Barton D Smock Nov 2013
the wind overturned our trampoline which pinned the wild white pup named Fossil.  the storm passed and was our father.  our mother dragged a broom behind a small brain.  two things that are both cognitive dissonance took root in the dead twin that once bit my arm before going back to eating crayons.  one of the children I wasn’t was thought to be unlovable but later succumbed to an adorable Holocaust survivor.  are we trash?  as the pup relays itself

to god’s headache.
I
hold a thought and lose it like I have Alzheimer's
I see as different I like I have Parkinson's

Broken and sent to the trenches in and out of the face of it
Been made to ride kinds that were unkind to me
Seen friendly enemies and changing friends as if treatment has analogies

In the function of this gumption
I am found stumbling in a swing that relays me to all I can be and all I
really am
Showing me all things that are and abilities for all that I can


Been relying on society and its complex definitions ofwhat it takes to
be a man
Poetry shows an epicenter of the balance between male and female
Having nostalgic thoughts of a former fossil me that still remains
Swerving in the beat of my heart dispelling emotions that are hard to
contain
Stripped in wires for like of espionage, wrapped in coinstrains all I
can rely on is my restraint

Taken trips to Heart-so-raw and the cats scratch and wound like
Jaguar-Paw
Had a love once before and that was before the timeless heartbreaks
where I ended up shutting doors
... And the exes have hexed, coaxed the perplex complex of the poular
axe illium crest of thoughts mislead-ium chest __ Oh how raw, Earth's
crust of fix-fuss no less than confuse thus us so we don't trust, we are
waiting for our rests on the Cosmic tree tugs if not space lugs.
How deep does dysfunction spread in the Universe? verses in unison == the break up of a duality make-up== so its parts seeking for a glued shape-up; Integration.
Desperate to grab the grail of words
we decide to share our joint thoughts
to introspect our vision together
of what it takes to write two at this hour

Pen and paper, one
writes witness into the mind of the other
and meets the timid point of punctuation, followed by
the exasperation of words
it only follows

rules do not apply
nor does a simulacra of similes
the enjambment is our language
that we create we can
misplace
is it our native tongue so much so that
poetry never needs to be learned?

The friendship of thought to process
Relays poet to poem
to poet
And poem again

It's with you now
          I walk
Our eyes along the same path to troth

It's truth is spoken
Between lines, it's in the heart
Our paths, alone, come together
Its friendship Is art

Dialogical process fill in
the blanks at  1:01 4:01
p.m, hey aim
For the sweet link we proudly
discovered and shared in eyes and ink
Both black.

It's lack of light
Where the sun of the one seeks the night of the other
It's days and nights; mark hours... asunder under calendar
And daydream of once and again seeing the same sun face the marvel of the other

We are time traveling, air traveling through words
book a seat at the airline company of poetry
What the other sees in the sun sky above her
the other thinks of under his night sky
the thought of one never cancels that of the other
We trod on the same path
Me with Ginsberg, you with Plath.

Written jointly by Appoline Romanens first, third, seventh and ninth paragraph  at 1:00-1:27 pm, Lyon, France and by Jesse Altamirano, second,  fourth, fifth, sixth and eighth 4:00- 4:30 am, Riverside, California
May 23, 2017
A little writing experiment I proposed to my fellow poet Jesse. Title of the poem is due to a class we took together at the University of California, Riverside, in 2015.
René Mutumé Aug 2013
And the night has great spirit
so she will be disgusted if you do not
at least prove that your measures of horror
are forgotten like dead poems and unformed cities
where she steps over them with you
and litters their roof tops with her feet
our scents know our shadows
welcoming them, creating them
like drunk shadow puppets guessing names
below a tower bridge,
– light
eating my fathers old teeth, remaining our mother
growing day from slashes in the river tone
calling out, sleeping well when the diving pace
is still, or floating in a crazy tank
that x-rays our hands until they release our fist
asking that no thought should permeate
the vice of our restless birds, the day humble
rolling out like animals from a burrow, I
throw my eyes out. curving them against the wall
all the better for having some dice,
as the street changes them and unites
our mirrored limbs near the southbank
where it chooses a low voice to speak in the thames
and hides 2am in the wind,
and that same voice
throws my eyes back, and lets me see yours,
where finally, the last reaction in the black,
is never human, it’s the breath, that shares it all
letting dominion know
that its welcome too, as long as it rests
whilst we dance
and relays our union
from skin beating drum
to landscapes that join
finding spirit in the meakest time
that sing the same
as cries of war
or laughter
within the fox hours
of our home.
Joe Jan 2012
A new arrival sends him itching
To drag open the drapes his fingers are twitching
He benchmarks the day as they come and they go
From window-framed photos
Stories of his own

Relays the album, day after day
Till the thought becomes fact, he can’t shoo away
It bothers him and blights him
The ****** won’t quit
Till he retakes his throne at the curtain slit
My pen moves with prudent pride
For the anguished heart I cannot hide.
With strident strokes, he gambles to uncover
The choking sounds I dare to softly utter.
Offering no modest mitigation,
My heart still reeks of desolation.

And my words drunkenly drip
In a continually poisonous strip.
Stifling and suffocating my tale,
They are now entirely meek and frail.
The once crimson red ink
Turns ever dusty, ever pink!

So my diary endlessly bleeds
Of verses I long dared free,
Standing with bold bravery-
No longer bound to slavery -
Each stanza feverishly rhymes,
And relays all my cautious cries.
Catrina Sparrow Jan 2015
it was i
who gave to my telescope
the gift of animation

she relays my pulse to the stars
     slingshotting binary christmas cards to the carbon that i borrowed from

and some nights
     i wake to her breath along my neck as she studies life
and what it means

then
     come morning
she kisses my sun-stained synapses
and reminds me that my body's a testament to existence
          not a mausoleum
the only poem i ever wrote about last year's miscarriage, and thankfully, my pen only spoke of my survival. to all the women who know the ache of having to dismiss your demigod before it ever reaches its throne: i love you, and i want you to know, you aren't alone.
M Jun 2015
You must know that if I were not 20 and relatively broke,
I'd be on the next plane to you.

You need to know that I am a miserable texter and I always miss calls,
And missing you is the only thing I do better.

You should know that it is so true- distance makes the heart grow fonder,
Though I find myself only fond of the days that you were 10 minutes down the road and not 10 hours.

I ache for the long drives down silent roads at 12 am and the long coffee dates at 2 in the afternoon.

I ache for the time we had time at our leisure and it was not down to counting the days until I see you next.

You need to know that in my darkest moments, yes, a call will do. But I'm kidding myself if I think that's what I really need.

I miss having you by my side rather than on the other side of the country,
Where we are split by time zones and state lines.

I feel torn in two when I get the call about how broken you feel and there isn't a **** thing I can do other than hope the phone line somehow relays how much I really do care.

Trust me, I ache to be with you more than your actual heart aches. I have not met many people like you, people who get me and see me through.

I have not found the people I want to tell all to, people that I fit with.

I fit with you, and I need you to know that it's only fitting when we are together.
NitaAnn May 2014
A smile has a powerful message. It relays happiness, contentment, joy and love. It is a natural reaction as a result of one (or more) of these emotions. But sometimes we use our smiles incorrectly. Smiles should not hide sadness, pain, grief or loneliness.

Not only do we use our smiles to hide our feelings, but others do the same. How do we know when someone is truly happy or is using their smile to hide their real feelings? For most of us, we don't. Obviously the closer the relationship, the more you are going to recognize the attempt to cover up, but most of our daily interactions do not involve processing the true feelings of others. So is it surprising that we take the lead from others and plaster a permanent smile on our faces, too?

Today I have realized just how much that affects how I perceive other people. Tonight I decided it was time to get back on the wagon for real therefore prompting me to attend a meeting.  As I listened to the testimony of one of the leaders of the group, and his rocky road with abuse, ****** addiction, drug and alcohol use and ******* addiction, his breakdowns of multiple marriages, abandonment of his kids and the eventual path that lead him to God and to getting his life back in order. Listening to him go through his story, break down when he talked about how abandoned he felt as a young child, how empty he felt when he tried to use *** as a means to fill the hole in his heart, hit me hard. Not 30 minutes before, he was across the room, talking, eating, SMILING like nothing was wrong. And here he was before me, a flawed, hurt and broken person; just as every single one of us in that room is.

Why do we spend so much time hiding who we truly are? Why do we feel obligated to do this? Who are we protecting from our real feelings? There is no pretending that everything is happy behind our smiles. We all know otherwise. And for the first time I realized that I can be real. I don't have to always have a smile on my face, or reply "good or fine" when someone asks me how I am. I can take off my smile for a couple of hours a week and feel safe that no matter how I feel, I will be supported and loved.

Not everyone is given the amazing gift that I am just now realizing I have received. So the next time you put a smile on your face, I hope it is because you are truly happy, not masking your pain.

— The End —