there's a rift in your heart (as there
are in the hardest of hearts)
and it festers like an unsolicited wound,
inflamed by the ire from which your deeply-seeded roots grew, from which you longed to escape but could never run from  ,
but leave it, now.
lay it low,
in a river of forgiveness dispel your grievances
and come up, come again, unbowed of burden,
lest it finds its way downstream to you once more.

I was never one to pick one over the other
They used to function together as well as brothers
As time passes, their relationship sours
One works hard and focuses for hours
The other struggles to relay to the main tower
Dripping with blood is this brother
Dripping with liquid salt in worry is the other
Together they used to form pictures in the clouds
Now one  peers through a fog stitched shroud
Teamwork is a thing of the past
The rift between them is filling with fog, fast
They still both serve under the same mast
But one is absorbing as much sun as he still last

i reach out, fingers stretched and aching;
across galaxies, my bones are breaking.

i spill my spacial despair into the cosmos,
and pour my tears into Andromeda, and think "almost."

my binary star, a galaxy gushes past my lips.
when i reach you, i will know that our love has eclipsed.

Locksley Hall

by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Comrades, leave me here a little, while as yet 't is early morn:
Leave me here, and when you want me, sound upon the bugle-horn.

'T is the place, and all around it, as of old, the curlews call,
Dreary gleams about the moorland flying over Locksley Hall;

Locksley Hall, that in the distance overlooks the sandy tracts,
And the hollow ocean-ridges roaring into cataracts.

Many a night from yonder ivied casement, ere I went to rest,
Did I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the West.

Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising thro' the mellow shade,
Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid.

Here about the beach I wander'd, nourishing a youth sublime
With the fairy tales of science, and the long result of Time;

When the centuries behind me like a fruitful land reposed;
When I clung to all the present for the promise that it closed:

When I dipt into the future far as human eye could see;
Saw the Vision of the world and all the wonder that would be.--

In the Spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast;
In the Spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest;

In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove;
In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.

Then her cheek was pale and thinner than should be for one so young,
And her eyes on all my motions with a mute observance hung.

And I said, "My cousin Amy, speak, and speak the truth to me,
Trust me, cousin, all the current of my being sets to thee."

On her pallid cheek and forehead came a colour and a light,
As I have seen the rosy red flushing in the northern night.

And she turn'd--her ***** shaken with a sudden storm of sighs--
All the spirit deeply dawning in the dark of hazel eyes--

Saying, "I have hid my feelings, fearing they should do me wrong";
Saying, "Dost thou love me, cousin?" weeping, "I have loved thee long."

Love took up the glass of Time, and turn'd it in his glowing hands;
Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands.

Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might;
Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd in music out of sight.

Many a morning on the moorland did we hear the copses ring,
And her whisper throng'd my pulses with the fulness of the Spring.

Many an evening by the waters did we watch the stately ships,
And our spirits rush'd together at the touching of the lips.

O my cousin, shallow-hearted! O my Amy, mine no more!
O the dreary, dreary moorland! O the barren, barren shore!

Falser than all fancy fathoms, falser than all songs have sung,
Puppet to a father's threat, and servile to a shrewish tongue!

Is it well to wish thee happy?--having known me--to decline
On a range of lower feelings and a narrower heart than mine!

Yet it shall be; thou shalt lower to his level day by day,
What is fine within thee growing coarse to sympathize with clay.

As the husband is, the wife is: thou art mated with a clown,
And the grossness of his nature will have weight to drag thee down.

He will hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its novel force,
Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse.

What is this? his eyes are heavy; think not they are glazed with wine.
Go to him, it is thy duty, kiss him, take his hand in thine.

It may be my lord is weary, that his brain is overwrought:
Soothe him with thy finer fancies, touch him with thy lighter thought.

He will answer to the purpose, easy things to understand--
Better thou wert dead before me, tho' I slew thee with my hand!

Better thou and I were lying, hidden from the heart's disgrace,
Roll'd in one another's arms, and silent in a last embrace.

Cursed be the social wants that sin against the strength of youth!
Cursed be the social lies that warp us from the living truth!

Cursed be the sickly forms that err from honest Nature's rule!
Cursed be the gold that gilds the straiten'd forehead of the fool!

Well--'t is well that I should bluster!--Hadst thou less unworthy proved--
Would to God--for I had loved thee more than ever wife was loved.

Am I mad, that I should cherish that which bears but bitter fruit?
I will pluck it from my *****, tho' my heart be at the root.

Never, tho' my mortal summers to such length of years should come
As the many-winter'd crow that leads the clanging rookery home.

Where is comfort? in division of the records of the mind?
Can I part her from herself, and love her, as I knew her, kind?

I remember one that perish'd; sweetly did she speak and move;
Such a one do I remember, whom to look at was to love.

Can I think of her as dead, and love her for the love she bore?
No--she never loved me truly; love is love for evermore.

Comfort? comfort scorn'd of devils! this is truth the poet sings,
That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things.

Drug thy memories, lest thou learn it, lest thy heart be put to proof,
In the dead unhappy night, and when the rain is on the roof.

Like a dog, he hunts in dreams, and thou art staring at the wall,
Where the dying night-lamp flickers, and the shadows rise and fall.

Then a hand shall pass before thee, pointing to his drunken sleep,
To thy widow'd marriage-pillows, to the tears that thou wilt weep.

Thou shalt hear the "Never, never," whisper'd by the phantom years,
And a song from out the distance in the ringing of thine ears;

And an eye shall vex thee, looking ancient kindness on thy pain.
Turn thee, turn thee on thy pillow; get thee to thy rest again.

Nay, but Nature brings thee solace; for a tender voice will cry.
'T is a purer life than thine, a lip to drain thy trouble dry.

Baby lips will laugh me down; my latest rival brings thee rest.
Baby fingers, waxen touches, press me from the mother's breast.

O, the child too clothes the father with a dearness not his due.
Half is thine and half is his: it will be worthy of the two.

O, I see thee old and formal, fitted to thy petty part,
With a little hoard of maxims preaching down a daughter's heart.

"They were dangerous guides the feelings--she herself was not exempt--
Truly, she herself had suffer'd"--Perish in thy self-contempt!

Overlive it--lower yet--be happy! wherefore should I care?
I myself must mix with action, lest I wither by despair.

What is that which I should turn to, lighting upon days like these?
Every door is barr'd with gold, and opens but to golden keys.

Every gate is throng'd with suitors, all the markets overflow.
I have but an angry fancy; what is that which I should do?

I had been content to perish, falling on the foeman's ground,
When the ranks are roll'd in vapour, and the winds are laid with sound.

But the jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that Honour feels,
And the nations do but murmur, snarling at each other's heels.

Can I but relive in sadness? I will turn that earlier page.
Hide me from my deep emotion, O thou wondrous Mother-Age!

Make me feel the wild pulsation that I felt before the strife,
When I heard my days before me, and the tumult of my life;

Yearning for the large excitement that the coming years would yield,
Eager-hearted as a boy when first he leaves his father's field,

And at night along the dusky highway near and nearer drawn,
Sees in heaven the light of London flaring like a dreary dawn;

And his spirit leaps within him to be gone before him then,
Underneath the light he looks at, in among the throngs of men:

Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new:
That which they have done but earnest of the things that they shall do:

For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;

Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,
Pilots of the purple twilight dropping down with costly bales;

Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain'd a ghastly dew
From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue;

Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm,
With the standards of the peoples plunging thro' the thunder-storm;

Till the war-drum throbb'd no longer, and the battle-flags were furl'd
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.

There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,
And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law.

So I triumph'd ere my passion sweeping thro' me left me dry,
Left me with the palsied heart, and left me with the jaundiced eye;

Eye, to which all order festers, all things here are out of joint:
Science moves, but slowly, slowly, creeping on from point to point:

Slowly comes a hungry people, as a lion, creeping nigher,
Glares at one that nods and winks behind a slowly-dying fire.

Yet I doubt not thro' the ages one increasing purpose runs,
And the thoughts of men are widen'd with the process of the suns.

What is that to him that reaps not harvest of his youthful joys,
Tho' the deep heart of existence beat for ever like a boy's?

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and I linger on the shore,
And the individual withers, and the world is more and more.

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and he bears a laden breast,
Full of sad experience, moving toward the stillness of his rest.

Hark, my merry comrades call me, sounding on the bugle-horn,
They to whom my foolish passion were a target for their scorn:

Shall it not be scorn to me to harp on such a moulder'd string?
I am shamed thro' all my nature to have loved so slight a thing.

Weakness to be wroth with weakness! woman's pleasure, woman's pain--
Nature made them blinder motions bounded in a shallower brain:

Woman is the lesser man, and all thy passions, match'd with mine,
Are as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine--

Here at least, where nature sickens, nothing. Ah, for some retreat
Deep in yonder shining Orient, where my life began to beat;

Where in wild Mahratta-battle fell my father evil-starr'd,--
I was left a trampled orphan, and a selfish uncle's ward.

Or to burst all links of habit--there to wander far away,
On from island unto island at the gateways of the day.

Larger constellations burning, mellow moons and happy skies,
Breadths of tropic shade and palms in cluster, knots of Paradise.

Never comes the trader, never floats an European flag,
Slides the bird o'er lustrous woodland, swings the trailer from the crag;

Droops the heavy-blossom'd bower, hangs the heavy-fruited tree--
Summer isles of Eden lying in dark-purple spheres of sea.

There methinks would be enjoyment more than in this march of mind,
In the steamship, in the railway, in the thoughts that shake mankind.

There the passions cramp'd no longer shall have scope and breathing space;
I will take some savage woman, she shall rear my dusky race.

Iron-jointed, supple-sinew'd, they shall dive, and they shall run,
Catch the wild goat by the hair, and hurl their lances in the sun;

Whistle back the parrot's call, and leap the rainbows of the brooks,
Not with blinded eyesight poring over miserable books--

Fool, again the dream, the fancy! but I know my words are wild,
But I count the gray barbarian lower than the Christian child.

I, to herd with narrow foreheads, vacant of our glorious gains,
Like a beast with lower pleasures, like a beast with lower pains!

Mated with a squalid savage--what to me were sun or clime?
I the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of time--

I that rather held it better men should perish one by one,
Than that earth should stand at gaze like Joshua's moon in Ajalon!

Not in vain the distance beacons. Forward, forward let us range,
Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change.

Thro' the shadow of the globe we sweep into the younger day;
Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.

Mother-Age (for mine I knew not) help me as when life begun:
Rift the hills, and roll the waters, flash the lightnings, weigh the Sun.

O, I see the crescent promise of my spirit hath not set.
Ancient founts of inspiration well thro' all my fancy yet.

Howsoever these things be, a long farewell to Locksley Hall!
Now for me the woods may wither, now for me the roof-tree fall.

Comes a vapour from the margin, blackening over heath and holt,
Cramming all the blast before it, in its breast a thunderbolt.

Let it fall on Locksley Hall, with rain or hail, or fire or snow;
For the mighty wind arises, roaring seaward, and I go.

perpetual expeditions amidst this hazy twilight,
periwinkled vistas ensnaring me in

buzzzzzzzzzzzz
the sound penetrates my ear drum

black and yellow rabble-rouser
this rambunctious little menace

a pomegranate
eternally ripe, giving me life

gilled, scaled, underwater creature
emerging from the deep, boundless rift

two tantalizing tigers
troublesome, treacherous

and she laid there—
undisturbed, unaware

jabbed in her side by a M1903 Springfield
soothed state rattled, shattered

wincing from the poke of the blunt end of the gun
the sleeping lady slept no more

poor fellows,
how were they supposed to hold on to it without opposable thumbs?
  
the distressed damsel appeared grotesque,
flailing and fidgeting at the sight of her surroundings

surface rocking beneath my feat,
my trusty elephant’s weak ankles shattering my already shattered stability

i had no more time for such nonsenses
buzzing sounds burned deep into my psyche

the soft-spoken horizon called out to me
calling for me to continue on into the enigmatic expanse

some of the dryness will bleach from pithing
your noetic strands and the rest, a ****
prinked rind deluded.

i dip cupped hands into the lowlands, scraping
fractal mold flakes captioned, answers in light
crowded lenses.

cubic rift, that, i will toss adoration engines,
in the end, the goddess of substance will
not react.

not retrace, not the rift. mortaled caper,
inflection of the flats, grinded
reactions. grinding thoughts
grounded.

scribbled to-dos spreading forth, immurdered.
tokenized spice cabinets, enter rift
refuge. the caper collapses on molar-novas,
solar lepidoptera folding in your hair.

the sweat-between-us hive. the separatist mind.
salt mines alarm us, a subject deepened
between two gestures. have you the stratum
of intention?

germinal grains, embryonic clock tower -
mineral lies don timescales
tucked in our hereafter mattress.

i will deathlessly dry with a towel
unless i’m showering with it, a full commit
to the status kiss.

[after all that, you still love me,
in the bedlam trees the choral key,
the old oak door embroidery
are pieces of me scattered (spelled) naturally.]

Poem 3
How to raise kids

How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?

I got into to teaching to make a difference,
To add some joy to a kids existence,
I knew, so well, the hurt and pain
That kids in secondary school sustain
The tears and the fears and the dread and the...
"Ahahahaha! Look at his Nicks!! He thinks he's got Nikes but he's wearing Nicks!"
And how it switches you off and makes you not care,
Because you just don't want to go back there.
So, you wander into town to HMV
Til your parents feel let down when you only got an E
Until you failed Art and Graphics and Literacy
But at least you got an A in history...
Because academic subjects are "more important"

How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?

So I left 6th form and I needed change
And wanted to go to somewhere strange
(And new)
Somewhere away from all the drama
At 19 I went by myself to Ghana
"God bless our homeland Ghana
And make our nation great and strong,
Vow to defend forever
The cause of Freedom and of Right"
And I taught
Maths and English
With no books
And no training
And no observing
And I was ******* at it... Really bad
But somehow, i felt the change
Just because I cared and they cared

How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?

A few years later I started teachin.
GTP, hands on, straight in.
My teaching mentor was called Mr Hickey,
He smoked a pipe and drank down whiskey
(In school)
My first proper job was Bradford inner city
It was a bit rough and the buildin was ******
There we had a guy who was a lazy old ****
And he had kids tracing instead of learning Art
When I first got there I was overwrought
These weren't like the training lessons that I taught
These kids had opinions. They needed to engage...
To be taught in a way that suited kids of their age
I nearly gave up, because I felt so scared
But at the end of the day, I knew that I still cared

How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?

In my 3rd year I had this year 11 class
They wanted a good lesson and they wanted to pass
But they needed convincing and I nearly cried
So I tried and I tried and I tried and I tried
To listen
And react
To change
And Adapt
And those kids made me better
And for 3 years I got better
Our grades were sky high
The kids wanted to try
They wanted learn, they wanted to know "why"
But I got to the top and I needed to fly
Because I needed somewhere that I could ask the "why"

How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?

You have those moments sometimes in life, where you know that a decision is important, but you don't know why and you don't know which way is the right way to go with it. This was that point for me. Sat in the interview, saying I wanted to pull out but letting them convince me to stay. That was the point, I think where everything changed.

2010. New job. New government.

How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?

I was head of Art and I got noticed
Within a year I got promoted
Faculty leader of creative skills
This is the part where it really kills
What do you do when you just aren't wanted
When people are angry that you're there
When all of your decisions seem to be haunted
By the ghost of a culture where they just don't care
Where nastiness and gossip always bite
Resting in the coffin of a lost tradition
Kids so bored they're turning white
Beaten down to bored submission
And everyone seems to have given up the fight
But they're still convinced that their way's "right"

How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?

After so much pain, we were getting through it
We realised there was much more to it
No more easy working out of booklets
(The teaching equivalent of rhyming couplets)
But every time you made a shift
The goal posts seemed to start to drift
And this all caused a further rift
The final one I couldn't lift

How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?

Gossip and lies caused by others stress
Creates a catastrophic mess
Turns people's lives upside down
Gives off the sense that they're a clown
They're trying. They're just really down
Simply trying not to drown
Marriage ending
Friends unfriending
Children's lives are slowly bending
House and finance are up-ending
Mediation sessions need attending
Everything seems to need mending
And the pain seems to be never-ending

How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?

Professional life vs Personal life
Professional strife = Personal strife
Personal wife goes through professional strife
Personal strife =

"I understand what you're going through, but we need to think about the learners."

Stress in teaching is the expectation
Work life balance has no correlation
The pressures of a confused nation
Makes teachers into the poor relation

Goodbye btec, goodbye vocation
Hello Gove and his minds creation
Goodbye Gove and hello Morgan
Hiding behind a gritty slogan
Creating the pressure of pointless change
For teachers to correct and rearrange

How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?

But here's the thing. It's not their fault.
Sure, they've no idea MPs
They've less common sense than a piece of cheese
But all MPs really do is set
Some criteria that need to be met
A league table
Academies
Appraisal
Curriculums
It's nothing new. They've always done it
But it's given to schools to interpret
We don't lose money, we just get judged
We need conviction that can't be budged
We need to get a message out
To every parent, round about
And what this message needs to say
Is "we aren't doing extra maths today,
We're going to go outside and play
Because whatever MPs say
We'll do what's right for the kids
And here's why it's right you know
Cause we want to see your children grow
We're not just for levels, grades, progress
We're also here to relieve stress
We're also here to make your child feel
That happiness is something real
That in spite of all the crap you see
You can become head of art when you failed gcse."
Learn People skills
Determination
Creativity
Imagination
Honesty
Integrity
Sen­sitivity
And empathy
It's not an easy sell I know
You can't measure how people grow
You can't report or give a grade
But they're qualities that are heaven made
And maybe think the same for teachers
We're all very caring creatures
We care about how kids are raised
We don't need to be constantly appraised
Default 100%?!?
Like energy is heaven sent
Like when your kids are down with flu
You just man up, there's work to do
When you've got a quality person who just needs backing
Why give pressure and then threaten with sacking?

How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?

School - this week mark all your books
I need them up to date so I can look

Teacher - I've got to take my daughter swimming
I've got to see my son try winning

School - read through your teaching standards mate
And leave your children at the gate

End of the week the books are done
But head and deputies are overrun
"We'll have to put these books aside
To push our children down the slide"

And good for them. They work really hard. It's not a job to take lightly and they deserve to be there. But they don't have the time to step back and think "big picture"

Let's flip it round and just imagine

Teacher - I'm sorry, I'm afraid I'm ill
School - you can't be ill the learners will fail
Teacher - I need some patience, I need some time
School - the kids need work which is sublime
Don't they deserve that? Don't you think?
Do you really want your learners to sink?

And there it is. The teacher guilt.
Because that's the way that we've been built
We care too much
We try too much
We give too much
We work too much
And we lose too much
We get ideas above our station
About how this job is a vocation
When we stop and look around
The evidence just can't be found
Someone tells me what to teach
Someone tells me how to teach it
Someone tells me how to plan
Someone tells me when to plan it
Someone tells me how to mark
Someone tells me when to mark it
We work to targets, get appraised
Residuals to get profiles raised
It's industry. I rest my case.

How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?

Or, put it another way.

I just think that teaching has lost all its common sense. And it's kindness. It behaves like an industry which is about getting results and meeting targets. There's nothing that measures people's happiness or how deeply moved or affected someone is by what they've learned. It just checks that they learned it. And we are given this guilt trip. That it's about children and that we are affecting their lives if we don't meet targets. We give up more and more because "teaching is a vocation"  "it's about kids", and yet schools use cover supervisors, cut subjects, limit choices etc to save money and get results. So the profession behaves like an industry but the teachers have to give their lives to it like its a vocation. It's not a vocation. At all. It's a job.

How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?

It wasnt long before the baluster flapped somewhere in the distance and Icarus knew how old he had been on the day of his birth. For whatever reason, the snow capped cappuccinos he had willfully destroyed in a heated debate on fiscal policy had him beginning again. Why was there always a beginning where there was an end? Fur traders used to circumnavigate the Hudson's Bay of his humanity when he was young, sharing drinks and fire water whiskey like it was all an H2O ready for the soul search. Sadly, many ended up in Hitlers concentration camps weeks after the **** invasion of Poland, about a month or so before the fall of the Roman Empire. Beginning with a last breath, Icarus strode off the plank with a new-found confidence unnatural in his niceties of long past. It was as if 1 minute and 35 seconds was enough to dish a clamouring populace onto the dinner table before the fat step-father gleefully orders
everyone to 'dig in, everyone!'

Cancelling everyone's appointment with Dr. Pardon meant the gaining of a key participatory certificate in El Dorado, and the gold lingering in dusty sun-beams was sifted for the taking. Some got rich, the rest got miserable. The rest used to imagine the gold, staring at ivory towers and lottery tickets, apple cores lording over old public servant applications near the city hall drain pipes as the modern world collapsed into a flash-mob image of Ronald Reagan.

Icarus was a sliver of duskish light flittering a top distant windowsills, all cupped in an intentional light because happiness was as possible as sadness. Not that considering either would make you either.

Icarus slept as his wings incinerated at the first glimpse of the solar system. He now believed every single proverb the old ***** slumbers had whispered their children as they woke to find themselves adults.

In the beginning he found the beginning beginning again. It made him feel however you wish. Both were just as possible. Both were just as much a jazz configuration as a smooth and easy guitar rift.

Ahha!

There are just two voices
society's and mine
there's a rift that can't be bridged
our minds could never combine

for I couldn't be bought or persuaded
too often I oppose and its truth I deny
the louder it yells and coaxes
the more I challenge and defy-

still painful is my scar
I had been bruised before
every single power it summoned
me to destroy and kicked me from its door

yet my voice it couldn't muzzle
my will refuses to give in or die
the rift widens and company we part
no longer need I tolerate its perennial lie.

The impetus
                     Of being
Always on the run
               Through pinwheel eyes
                              Those standing by
                                          The mystic roadway :    River
Blues yet to be brushed
                      or in blush
                           Of evening chill's breathing
a canvas like windows dreaming felt
All mindful
And chockfull O'
                              Wonder
Then ponder
                Yonder "window breaks"
                         Past the wilderness' sleep
Bone heavy wood
                             Umber earth

                             Past whoosh and rush of liquid
Folding on itself / a soundtrack

      Listen now
      Pedestrian be

Mindful of the cautionary whales
                                               Old Ahab’s yell
                                  Obsessions
                           Fears
                                   Or loathing.

If one is drowning in one's sleep
Look wildly
                  widely
                              Blithely
                                    Down river  
Or up there beyond finger's point
                      Sidewinder snake journeys
Until sky and below it
All meet

The distance
        Now only a line
                 Coalescing what is beyond
                      Our ability to see
Far and away
    Evanescent
         Effervescent
                     Ever after      
                             River.     Life.
Here we are
And proud
     The free spirit is fluent
           With the rapid rivers loud
                            Always on the run
Currents like a child's curiosity ...
How then,
When or why
                        does it end ?
Where do we go?
                    
Like most things existing,
           Will lead to the high art /
love's deep oceans...
          
We often forget to seek
                              And mind
                                     the sublimations/
                                                            d¬¬r­ift wood.
So then,
Begin with a dot .
A speck of dusk
                     A burst of light
                                        A starry sky,
pieces to mastering
                   Raging fragility of water

Liquid undulations  
                    Folding itself in / volumes

Or falling from on high
       A droplet cry

Then the lightning
                   (crash or bloom)
From the heavens
                                 like electric rivers
So brilliantly
                   Festoons

Where do we go (so low)
       There and here / underfoot /
                   Over north / southern sleep
                                   To oceans twilight deep?

Go wrapped or map-less
Or no.
            Up
                Way
       Up yonder
There up there
                    Everywhere
                    All without fear...
My heart like the river yearns
                 To go toward the sun
                       A flow /
                                     the beating drum
Always on the run
And
     Yet
            Still
                    Here.

Wind blows its way right through my senses
All my thoughts have but slowly disappeared
One more large smoky glass of cheap whisky
One more sad lonely night that you're not here.

Loneliness set in as the door quickly closed
Using the back door now and keeping that one shut
It will stay like that until ever you come back
But I've a notion now that it will stay put.

Old sore wounds that somehow resurfaced
Caused a bitter rift long forgotten to return
And the memories and the tears from the last time
Hit the heart, exploded and then burned.

So I sit trying to write and supping whisky
As I wait to hear your key in the front door
I hope with all my heart that you'll forgive me
I can't bear to be alone here any more.

The wind is getting stronger now and I thought I heard the latch
But it was just some fighting creatures out in the dark
So I'll wait as I do each night with my whisky and my pen
Sitting here and waking up with the sound of the lark.



©Joe Wilson - Whisky and my pen 2014

There's a line drawn in the sand
It's a line drawn by the man
It's a line drawn by the hand
That feeds
Our breed
Misery

There are lines drawn on our faces
As sand hits the ground
These fault lines are from the races
Our lives have found
The lines get deeper
Like cuts on our skin
The lines get steeper
Like our chance to win

We're thrown into a landslide
We see the ground collapsing
For all the silly things we lie
And the things we say in passing
The momentum of this earthquake
Will never cease, only take
And these tectonic plates shift
When we live a hectic hate rift

I need safety
To embrace me
And save me from my world imploding
Before anyone can say they know me
But the planet is shaking
My mangled mind aching
I trap myself inside a steel vault
Never forgetting this is my fault

Algeria a rich land poor people,
Angola seems to have kings,
Benin is blessed with voodoo,
Botswana blood bulls diamonds,
Burkina Faso can't cope coups,
Burundi twelve years a slave,
Cape Verde has half a million,
Cameroon got cocoa,
Chad's lake is shrinking,
Comoros has under a million,
DRC is third largest,
Congo is it's neighbour with capitals facing,
Côte d'Ivoire has few elephants,
Djibouti's on the horn,
Egypt has mummy's,
Equatorial guinea struck oil in 95 but didn't loose change,
Eritrea has 5000 running annually,
Ethiopia's great rift is pretty ******,
Gabon is subject to black gold,
Gambia got a peace of it after 65,
Great Ghana oasis of peace,
Guinea is diverse,
Bissau too,
Kenyans have beautiful smiles,
Lesotho is SA's baby,
Liberia oldest republic,
Libya needs liberty,
Madagascar where are the penguins!
Malawi has warm hearts,
Mali is 8th,
Mauritania is 11th,
Mauritius marvel,
Morocco fine leather,
Mozambique keeps the dugongs,
Namibia Windhoek ah,
Niger after a river,
Nigeria makes zuma rock,
Rwanda listen,
Sao tome and principe 2nd smallest,
Senegoals,
She sells Seychelles,
Sierra Leone free?
Somalia loose,
S. Africa reign,
South Sudan independent?
Sudan - black,
Swaziland more than solo men,
Tanzania trade,
Togo up down,
Two knees yeah,
Uganda teacher come simeon,
Zambia's peace?
Zimbabwe got rid of Mugabe.

Always thought zed was co.za but we're actually co.zm,
so what's zim?

One way we'll loose change is when the overseers begin to acknowledge the under looked.

-nyanta

Let me meet you in a marbled
                                                 field of
                                                           sand...
                                      
                                                               Though
you bewitch me with clifftops hooded in emerald grass ...
                                                 Though
your sheep bleat loudly the marvel of your serenity...
                                   Though
you wait patiently beyond your lonely precipice,

             I cannot endure the eons
                                         raging against the cliffs of your security.

Every
passing year, the thunder of my broken waves
gouges deeper into your wounded coastline.
Every
rock torn from your embrace, resounds the pain of our growing rift
Every
crumbling cliffs edge dissolves the beauty I held in reverie...

                      I wound us in this way.


Let me meet you in a secluded
                                                     gentle
                                                          ­      cove...

There,
    upon quieted sands, my waves will softly stroke your skin.
There,
    the lions will laugh in cacophonous delight at our simple joy.
There,
    our worlds will dance as pebbles tumble into diamond crystals.

There, a child will listen woefully,
                                 the sea song of our love.

With eyes in contented darkness,
         With a soul filled, overflowing
                     With the power of bearing witness
                                                         ­      to this daily wonder.

Each
     breath brings her deeper into the burning core of her mind,
Each
     thought sparks the flame brighter
Each
     billowing blaze will enliven her roots, and
                                                             ­                     she will bloom.
    
      Then,
her eyes will open to a shimmering world,
glistening through tears of quiet understanding.
                     Then,
breath will guide the salt of our dance into her veins
                                  Then,
         she will dance to the song of our world.

With arms wide as eyes,
               she will embrace
                      this treasured moment  
                                 With the divinity of her mortality.

When the moment calms, she will walk solemnly through our shallows.
When my waves pull home at her ankles,
When the crystalline pebble shines brightly in her visage

she will reach with focused surrender through my water for a memento
of the love she feels so presently.

In our slow dance,
of Land and Sea,
               our love bears its fruits in tiny treasures.
In her little pocket,
                             the diamond of our love
will travel further into your heart than my waves ever could.

In this way...
                  you and I grow fonder
                                                             with every passing day.

I stumbled across a letter from an old friend,
its contents were long and wordy but they had their end.
It was just her way of saying she appreciated our friendship.
A friendship unanchored, blew away with the wind
with paper sails that have only thinned.

Birthdays used to be a grand affair; a day to celebrate
but each year the wishes dwindle down so I reciprocate.
Radio meets silence while we're both aware of the days
until it becomes a memory of the song that no longer plays.
Too busy trying to navigate channels that changed.

Then an invitation to a graduation came to me one year
a wedge of uninterrupted distance bridged by a, "Dear."
I don't know if olive branches can hold my weighted heart
but I sent my response to expect me there
before I decided to not care.

When the day came you said, "I didn't think you would come!"
I kept quiet how I cried in my car a block from
your home. I hid my face in your arms and squeezed you tight
because the wedge between us was five-years wide.
"I said I would," is all I replied.

And we asked each other questions that friends don't ask.
What did you study? Where do you live? What do you do?
We joke around but do not laugh as hard as we used to.
My past brought to my present like a nostalgic gift.
A chance to heal over our ocean-wide rift.

And there were no known reasons! I can't turn back the clock!
I just drifted like a small boat barely tethered to its dock
until a storm came and everyone forgot to tie me down.
Or maybe it was on purpose, or maybe I couldn't secure me.
I was the fourth in a unit of three, send me out to sea.

But there is a positive to all of this turmoil
there is a reason the invitation made it to my door.
I rowed myself through the five-year waves back to shore
and tethered my boat and checked the knots times ten.
When friends become strangers we get to meet again.

I’d hazard a guess there aren’t many folk who don’t know the tales of Harry, Hermione and Ron
and how with a cast of a multitude of friends they defeated Voldemort with aplomb,
rightly these heroic adventures are held in the highest regard,
and will be told forever by musicians, singers and bards,
these stories will be remembered, people will talk of those courageous and brave
and how they turned the evil tide of The Dark Lord with everything they gave,
how they dispelled the magic of horror with the strength of the Gryffindor lion,
but less well known than this wonder is the fable of Tayrn and her Ryan.
R and T arrived to Hogwarts  10  years after He Who Can Not Be Named was vanquished in the great struggle,
Tayrn was pure wizard born whereas Ryan was pure muggle,
both took to wizarding school easily and did well in all their classes,
of course Tayrn was a hit with the lads and Ryan a swoon with the lasses,
but it didn’t matter they gave all folk in their year at Hogwarts an involuntary love shudder
because ace Tayrn and Ryan only had eyes for each other!
Their wonderful sweet love was easy and went without a hitch,
spent Saturdays gazing at each other when they should have been watching Quidditch,
hand in hand they skipped around The Forbidden Forest, their romance knowing no rift,
saying hello to a friendly centur or a flying hippogriff,
they galloped around Diagon Alley, their souls full of cheer,
or sat relaxed and tranquil in The Leaky Cauldron sipping butter beer.
T and R were ace at spells, Tayrn’s best was with a wand swish creating healing
and Ryan’s wonderful arty prowess was painting The Sistine Chapel on any ceiling;
yes they were each other’s equal in the way they weaved the magic from above
and this is one of the reasons they were very much in love.
One night T and R were going on one of their romantic walks
and decided to have a jaunt to a wonderful clearing just near Hogwarts,
they sauntered through the darkening evening with a song on their lips,
swaggered along the green with the music of love on their hips,
as they got to the secluded clearing they were anticipating with glee each other’s hold
but then all of a sudden they started feeling very cold.
They both noticed that the summer grass was covered in a blanket of frost,
the trees were looking pale, freezing, withdrawn and lost,
the air was filled with frigidity and held the hints of scare,
the flowers were wilting with chilled terror, bloom given way to despair,
as Tayrn and Ryan wondered what was the cause of such floral bad health
just a few yards away  the answer revealed itself;
over a hill came a hooded figure that immediately brought fright to the fore
as Tayrn and Ryan paid attention in Defence Against The Dark Arts they instantly recognised it as a dementor,
but they noticed something different about this one, it was nearly trebled in size,
and had a deeper blackness where should have been it’s eyes.
Being skilled at magic they knew what they had to do to avoid any harm
so both quickly fired off their best Patronus Charm,
but these spells had no effect, the huge dementor merely shrugged them off
and they could have sworn beneath it’s hood it let out a derisive scoff.
The enormous dementor hovered over Tayrn and Ryan and from its mouth emerged a hiss,
as it prepared to give the two lovers their final goodbye kiss,
but as it stooped over them with it’s awful deathly hue
T and R looked into each other’s eyes and figured out what they were going to do;
they remembered in one class learning about the bravest man Hogwarts had ever knew
and how he was able to hoodwink The Dark Lord with a love strong, solid and true,
how Snape drew on his love of Lilly to ride through any storm,
even on his darkest night it was what kept him warm,
so Tayrn and Ryan pushed their wands together and thought of beautiful Severus
and how they both too shared the romantic love buzz,
and channelling the wonder of that special feeling thus
they both pointed their wands in unison and screamed Expelliarmus!
Emitted from the tip of each wand was the half of a love heart projected from each soul
that both came together to create the fantastic whole,
in the shine of such love the vast dementor instantly recoiled,
knowing that it’s draining wish was in no doubt foiled,
it writhed around and in the glare of joy did it’s nefarious purpose erode,
every bleak and blank about it started to corrode,
the dementor slowly ebbed away until all of it did go
and in it’s place was left a striking brown young doe,
it bowed it’s head to Tayrn and Ryan and then it flew into the trees,
gliding with majesty on the sweet night breeze.
Awed by what had happened Ryan and Tayrn turned and started to walk back to the dorm,
aware of what occurred was special and not the norm,
but then they stopped in their tracks and at the same time both did say,
“oh my beautiful love, I know  I’m going to marry you someday!”

Ambush
An azure curtain is ripped in two
With scornful arrogance

Needle-points glow
Weaving the rift with intricate wefts
Of red
Of white
And blue

Heady aviation fumes
Lift us swimming
Skyward

Imaginations looping the loop

I guess the metal is
bound leaf like.
I'm like the bubbles
of the rift; quickly formed
and quickly done. The
air inside happens only so long
I can escape to the
chromium metal and tease
the snakes. Let's see how
they like it.
Pollution is aprtheid.
Apartheid is man-made,
like the lake, the rubbermaid
containers. The earth
is a big etch a sketch.  This
will give geologists something to
figure out in a few thousand years.

At his little hippie college
he shows me a *** that looks like a wall
in a Rwandan museum, all skulls, he

learned clay in the Rift Valley
boarding school, on a kick wheel,
still his favorite

My brother is a potter
multicolor plaid shorts
little goatee

Banjo
Japan dreams
girl from Mozambique.

When we were little in Loiyangalani
we made tiny huts out of obsidian
while our Rhodesian Ridgebacks

sniffed the ground for cobras
sand vipers
scorpions

while twenty camels
walked by in a row
followed by tiny replicas

My brother is a potter, says to me
'When I am doing this I am
doing what I was created to do'

He makes a green and blue
candleholder for me which he calls
'The Islands,' light escapes through many holes

which look like sea turtles
pockets of air and
an atomic bomb just gone off

we turn off the lights
in my room in the hood,
snorkel in candlelight

My brother gives me
Rumi, incense, peace flags
We walk the silent night

smoke a clove
look at stars
like we used to do in the African riverbeds

The sand hides the sun.
Through a fog of particulate silica.
Distorted.
For the first time in my life,
I may look upon that glowing
bearing, for minutes straight.

Innards swallow,
That rock it flings,
Paints on the light.
Now the water vapor hangs,
Amongst its spiny rays,
Creating a mist of cloudy haze.
My eyes must seek to,
Penetrate.
Alas they lose this skirmish fray.
The sun cannot hide its specter.
The doppelganger image always,
Dapper and prim.
Amongst the thoughts in rift entrails of brain,
I think i am my brain. I don't think that when, head cut from body,
Shall my soul reside where my heart was;
Instead I may see, conscious, from where the two parted.
Creating a scar from which to view this hazed sun.
Ever notice,
How the eyes,
Are the only,
Place,
You can,
See from...

I can be an Ammonite with many chambers calcified.
Ghost fossil human head.
A ghost in a shell.
My eyes will carve shapes from the clouds.

Boundaries converge
subduction, descension
divergent margins widen
convective from the core
red hot and sticky
hardening to obsidian

succumb to subterranean pull
an infinitesimal slide below
dense and pressured soil
the slow parting seam
a rift becomes a chasm
consuming solid ground

the night of the fake dead has become eternal
(i will wear Susan Lucci's face for it)

staggering through excesses unknown
and the uncertainty of this ranking system,
you tried to eat my earlobe
but lost interest in it quickly.
your scent safe in this butterfly net,
i am surrounded by the
murderous howls of your perennial
buttercups, determined to tempt
my animal ******* instincts.

     (enuma elish la nabu shamamu)
     (shapiltu ammatum shuma la zakrat)

i have tripped in the garden of Eve's desire
and felt torrents across my cheeks
of alternating salt and sugar-sweet nectar.
i have held the red locks of wort
and danced on the blossom-littered ground
in remembrance of wandered attention.

     (When in the heights heaven had not been named)
     (and below, firm ground had not been called...)

i have wept in the shadow of Adam's twin towers
and seen the rift between the continents
ebb and fall under silence's blanket.
i have leathered my skin under this star
to defend my eyes and tongue from
the bite of the turtle goddess.

i have seen the feast of the water,
devouring the naked soil of Pangea,
and tasted its salt with my eyes.
i have undertaken the toil of the shaduf,
churning mud and planting seeds for
the return of the floral messiah.

     (Amaru baur rata)
     (Shagane Ir Imshi)

i have borne the yoke of the oxen
and reaped stalks of wheat
in the summer's first harvest
i have broken bread with companions
under starlight mixed embers
glowing log light orange dynamo

     (The Flood swept thereover)
     (His heart was filled with tears)

Will you scream for me?
Can you profess the holiness
of my mission?
My name, my motif, echoes
across the ages...

Siaynoq!
Siaynoq!
Siaynoq!

In the end we are called upon by
stronger forces, blank expressions, glassy eyes

Siaynoq!
Siaynoq!
Siaynoq!

the cold of the world's knife,
pressed against the flesh of our selves,
unconscious rhythm heartbeat pounding
twisted sense rhumba of a thousand tiny shards

Siaynoq!
Call me to a greater purpose
Siaynoq!
Spill my blood across the sand

A gift to the world
With a rift to unfurl
A new baby girl
Will give it a whirl
But the water will swirl
Around the innocent pearl

A gift for this land
With the perils of man
And nature at hand
Before she can stand
She faces the brand
Of human demands

A gift for the people
She's a glorious sequel
That must build a steeple
Where everyone's equal
And prosper the meek will
On their own free will

A gift
A treasure
Will shift
Our pleasure
From the initial
Superficial
Towards
More words
With each other
As brothers
With a new sister
Removing blisters

A gift for all
She must answer the call
With a chance she'll fall
Into the ways people stall
To avoid an order too tall
Then just block up the hall

We receive the gift of life
From a man and his wife
That they present to humanity
So she may remove our insanity
Disarming the gun they handed me
She unwraps the gift of standing free

I sit in the dungeon in the church by my house.  My parents, they put me here, I said, to no one in particular.  I am happy here, giddy in fact, yet I know my mind is gone.  Gone, gone, like the bits of eyelashes I’ve been pulling out and stacking on my calves, making miniature figurines and people going about their day-to-day lives, except I’m always the hero and they always glorify me and tussle my hair and say “congrAAAdulations my boy, we’re so proud of you!” and I’m so happy I could just ******* and I get **** all over my eyelashes and scream because look what I’ve just done and I jump up to rub my leg up against the wall of to wipe it off and then realize I’m in a dungeon and that my mind is gone, gone, and I sit down to cry.  Except there is no one to cry to when you’re in a dungeon.  So I just sit. And wait.  And hope to ******* God the tears can come out soon, but no, no, not here, not here, so I scrape off the *** from the wall and go back to work.

A feeling, an ocean and a dream to describe:
It’s another mid afternoon morning and the sunlight billows through the windows and pierces my eyes; they fight for consciousness and after some struggle with my two-ton eyelids, I managed to pick myself up and stagger off to the shower. Twenty minutes later, cleaned and clothed, I make my way downstairs to see what faces still linger in the house from the night before. With each step from under my feet comes a cold shrill scream; the nails, with a century of twisting and turning wiggled themselves free. With the slightest exchange of pressure, the nails give way and plunge back into the body of the stair from which they had escaped.  
It’s quiet downstairs. There’s not a sound; no voices of laughter echoing from the floors and off of the ceilings, not a sound of friends or strangers’ feet as they scramble to rustle up their clothes and belongings from the night prior. I had grown accustomed to hearing this in the morning and in all honestly, I’ve grown quite fond of the array of faces that had made camp here for the night. Usually this means front row seats to a race track where they all spin and run into one another to get started on their endless lists of routines and obligations. For the lucky few who get to vacation rather than push papers on the weekend, this meant a new companion and hopefully a day of company. Unfortunately, today the house is hallow, so empty it could make someone dream.
After pacing the house for a bit, the stillness starts to settle in; the leaking faucet growing unbearably ever more predominate with a slow crescendo of slurred reminders, drip no one’s home, drip you’re alone, drip what are you going to do? Drip, drip and the deafening silence like a parasite is crawling its way up and under my skin. My feet and hands get restless so I grab my acoustic guitar and head for the door.
On the porch, I take refuge on the cool concrete and light a cigarette; as the cherry churns the paper burns slowly, mimicking the melody of minors strummed ever so softly. My mind starts to wander, slipping into its self, lofting away like the ribbon of smoke from the cigarette. How funny it is that the greatest of men and minds have achieved the unbelievable; they unraveled the wheel, the moon met man from a tin can, empires leveled by the push of a button and as a tired heart’s tick softens, a surgeon’s scalpel cuts open and easily replaces it. With all the trophies brightly polished placed on the mantle of man there is not a space for the trophy that is truly worth parading; a cure for emotions. Irony, like a well aged whiskey, drunken my humor and ferments my appreciation. As a disease loneliness infests like a tumor, endlessly growing. The thoughts that once retreated so easily at the first hint of war are now back, glowing with vengeance tailored with armies; and they’ve got me cornered, it begins.
I start sinking, farther and farther down, unable to swim in this brackish abyss; any attempt to kick my legs, swing my arms has become a day dream, perhaps its only momentary paralysis caused from my leap of faith from my raft of hope that in my mind I had been previously enjoying the warm weather and smooth sailing; until the vessel caught a flame and was swallowed by the ocean of despair.
The light that once danced all alone up on the surface has retreated from fear. My lungs now burning as they cling to my last breath, they swell with anger, splitting at the seams from the pressure of the ocean’s hand gasping my poor lungs, tension alone compressing my entire chest I can feel the sharp pains as they are growing nearer and nearer to exploding, I clench my already squinted eyes from the burn of ocean’s salt. In some last attempt for survival with my eyes firmly tightened, just as the water starts to creep its way down my throat into my lungs I can feel the water begin to thicken.
No longer sinking into the great void of salted rift tides but resting gently on a mattress of sand. With my back exposed, the sun quickly heats my sopping wet T-shirt, my bones fill once again with life. Have I, by some lottery of luck, washed up on the beach? Scrapping the sand from my eyes in pursuit to unravel this mystery, the sand has magnetized itself to pruned skin and drenched clothing. I clear my eyes to the best of my ability, I can still feel the sand gritting in the folds of my eye lids and after a few fresh breaths of air which fill my sore lungs with relief, I roll over to sit up and dig my feet deep into the sand. I look out shielding my eyes from the blinding sun with my hand. I look to the left and then the right and quickly darting back and forth from each position, there is no ocean in view. What was my inevitable aquatic ending has now vanished; no longer sinking but standing. I am alone in what has become an ocean of sand; a desert of wandering and mystery.
With the blistering sun and vultures circling over head as constant reminder that this is in fact real; I began to stumble about for shelter. After what seemed like hours of hurdles the moon flies high while the sun sleeps in the southern sky, I find myself under a cliff of overhanging rocks; sitting down the rocks are warm and almost caressing. This bit of refuge reminds me of my mother; as a child I remember straying from her in a department store. Unknowing then that she had not been tailing me like a blood hound, until I turned around and as far as I knew she had vanished from the earth. After sprinting and retracing my steps like map I see her, the site of her from across the store fills me with joy, still sprinting I run to her, eyes like a fountain they poured into her arms as she held me there in her arms; they were warm and safe.
A faint smile crawls its way onto my face and the same tears of relief rain from my eyes and floods the ground; the sand now flooded starts to move vigorously from side to another. Out of the mist of their rumbling out gets pushed a blade of grass, and then another and another one by one pull their way out of the sand  to the surface; as the flowers start to blossom the slumbered sun awakes to a lush field of flowers filled with life. Within the field I move freely about, running in circles of familiar joy; the large sunflowers sway in the breeze of my arms as I run past them. The garden is beautiful with explosions of color all around held by peddles of flowers, and a small pond in the very center; a garden this perfect had to have been birthed by a gardener with the most beautiful of hands; Hands much like my grandfather.
Kneeling down beside the pond I splash some water with my hands on to my face to clear the filth from my pores. A gleam catches my eye from the mirror of the water, and I’m staring myself in the eyes. The pond isn’t reflecting what’s circled around me, but it’s reflecting me as a child, a bit older than the child crying for his mother; my face in the reflection, so precious and young just beaming full of life.
As if the pond were a movie screen the memory that had started to fade with age in my memory is playing crystal clear. I can see that little boy surrounded by familiar trees and flowers with the fields running farther than my eyes can see. That little boy is laying on the equally little wooden bridge that stretches over the little pond, my father laying beside him on the bridge with their heads and hands poking playfully over the edge of the bridge. Through the eyes of that little boy I can see a stick in hand trying to catch the nonexistent fish just as his father had showed him. My father looks down at me with a smile flooding his face as he says to me, “you know, Chad; I’m very lucky to have you, you’re all I could have ever asked for in this world. You’re a beautiful boy, a perfect son and I love you very much”. I remember watching a tear roll down the side of his face and watching it fall and disrupt the surface of the pond. Back on the other side of the glass; as his tear hits the pond the ripple breaks up the memory and just like the garden, the pond with the little bridge, my father and his sweet child; they all disappeared just as they had throughout my life. This time things felt different, not the cold touch of my bitter friend loneliness, but seeing that memory polished, shining new brings peace to my heavy heart.
A sharp sting burns my lips, the cigarette now burnt to the filter rips me back into body leaving the army, that ocean, the desert and the garden all behind. From footsteps behind me “I hoped I’d find you here”; I turn around and there she is, standing silhouetted by the sun, my angel. Charcoaled hair and island sky eyes, she had come to rescue me. “Hey you, I was hoping we could spend the day together; are you alright? You look like you’ve seen a ghost!” I smile and nod my head. “Aright then come on.” and with that no longer in the vantage point window watching, but through a door and living.

What avails of this sidereal year?
If not my love with me ever.

What if the flowers spread and disperse?
Even they make the earth paradise.

What though sweetest your incessant loving be?
If now you're receding from me.

What lies behind your heart to reside far?
To me it seems all, you rift through the clouds like a lone star.
Is it a gentle pride?
It’s your fallacy my beautiful bride!

Afraid of your restless youth and irresistible trait,
I am drawn so close to you; so no one can drift us apart.
My thoughts in your mind should often come across
A timeless true love in your mind brighter than luminous stars
That you never forget.

Playing hot and cold never dishearten the resolute.
Give and take in love is an enchanted gift
Never drift away from true love otherwise pain will grow in rift.

Where have you been all this while?
Your sweet incessant love beguile.

Setting moon besets, between us flitting moments
Wretchedness came upon in disappointments.
The days, the moments and the years all unfetched begone.
All this time, our feelings had never lain dormant and forlorn
There you dear staring at me willingly,
Yet looking upon your grace continually.

Of Tetley's and V-2's
(or, “Why Not to Bomb the Brits”)
by Michael R. Burch

The English are very hospitable,
but tea-less, alas, they grow pitiable ...
or pitiless, rather,
and quite in a lather!
O bother, they're more than formidable!

Keywords/Tags: limerick, light verse, nonsense verse, humor, humorous, England, English, Tetley, tea, milk, crumpets, scones, war, bomb, bombs, V-2, rocket, missile, missiles, formidable, Britain, Brits, defense, military, mrbtet, mrbtetley



This World's Joy
(anonymous Middle English lyric)
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Winter awakens all my care
as leafless trees grow bare.
For now my sighs are fraught
when it enters my thought:
regarding this world's joy,
how everything comes to naught.



Elegy for a little girl, lost
by Michael R. Burch

. . . qui laetificat juventutem meam . . .
She was the joy of my youth,
and now she is gone.
. . . requiescat in pace . . .
May she rest in peace.
. . . amen . . .
Amen.

I was touched by this Latin prayer, which I discovered in a novel I read as a teenager. I later decided to incorporate it into a poem. From what I now understand, “ad deum qui laetificat juventutem meam” means “to the God who gives joy to my youth,” but I am sticking with my original interpretation: a lament for a little girl at her funeral. The phrase can be traced back to Saint Jerome's translation of Psalm 42 in the Vulgate Latin Bible (circa 385 AD).



How Long the Night
anonymous Middle English lyric, 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.



Fowles in the Frith
anonymous Middle English lyric, circa 13th-14th century AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The fowls in the forest,
the fishes in the flood
and I must go mad:
such sorrow I've had
for beasts of bone and blood!

Sounds like an early animal rights activist! The use of "and" is intriguing ... is the poet saying that his walks in the wood drive him mad because he is also a "beast of bone and blood," facing a similar fate?



I am of Ireland
anonymous Medieval Irish lyric, circa 13th-14th century AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I am of Ireland,
and of the holy realm of Ireland.
Gentlefolk, I pray thee:
for the sake of saintly charity,
come dance with me
in Ireland!



Whan the turuf is thy tour
(anonymous Middle English lyric, circa the 13th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
When the turf is your tower
and the pit is your bower,
your pale white skin and throat
shall be sullen worms’ to note.
What help to you, then,
was all your worldly hope?

2.
When the turf is your tower
and the grave is your bower,
your pale white throat and skin
worm-eaten from within ...
what hope of my help then?

NOTE: The second translation leans more to the "lover's complaint" and carpe diem genres, with the poet pointing out to his prospective lover that by denying him her favors she make take her virtue to the grave where worms will end her virginity in macabre fashion. This poem may be an ancient precursor of poems like Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress."



Ech day me comëth tydinges thre
anonymous Middle English lyric, circa the 13th to 14th century AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Each day I’m plagued by three doles,
These gargantuan weights on my soul:
First, that I must somehow exit this fen.
Second, that I cannot know when.
And yet it’s the third that torments me so,
Because I don't know where the hell I will go!



Ich have y-don al myn youth
anonymous Middle English lyric, circa the 13th to 14th century AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I have done it all my youth:
Often, often, and often!
I have loved long and yearned zealously ...
And oh what grief it has brought me!



I Sing of a Maiden
anonymous Medieval English Lyric, circa early 15th century AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I sing of a maiden
That is matchless.
The King of all Kings
For her son she chose.
He came also as still
To his mother's breast
As April dew
Falling on the grass.
He came also as still
To his mother's bower
As April dew
Falling on the flower.
He came also as still
To where his mother lay
As April dew
Falling on the spray.
Mother and maiden?
Never one, but she!
Well may such a lady
God's mother be!



Enigma
by Michael R. Burch

O, terrible angel,
bright lover and avenger,
full of whimsical light
and vile anger;
wild stranger,
seeking the solace of night,
or the danger;
pale foreigner,
alien to man, or savior ...

Who are you,
seeking consolation and passion
in the same breath,
screaming for pleasure, bereft
of all articles of faith,
finding life
harsher than death?

Grieving angel,
giving more than taking,
how lucky the man
who has found in your love,
this, our reclamation;

fallen wren,
you must strive to fly
though your heart is shaken;

weary pilgrim,
you must not give up
though your feet are aching;

lonely child,
lie here still in my arms;
you must soon be waking.



Floating
by Michael R. Burch

Memories flood the sand’s unfolding scroll;
they pour in with the long, cursive tides of night.

Memories of revenant blue eyes and wild lips
moist and frantic against my own.

Memories of ghostly white limbs ...
of soft sighs
heard once again in the surf’s strangled moans.

We meet in the scarred, fissured caves of old dreams,
green waves of algae billowing about you,
becoming your hair.

Suspended there,
where pale sunset discolors the sea,
I see all that you are
and all that you have become to me.

Your love is a sea,
and I am its trawler—
harbored in dreams,
I ride out night’s storms.

Unanchored, I drift through the hours before morning,
dreaming the solace of your warm *******,
pondering your riddles, savoring the feel
of the explosions of your hot, saline breath.

And I rise sometimes
from the tropical darkness
to gaze once again out over the sea ...
You watch in the moonlight
that brushes the water;

bright waves throw back your reflection at me.

This is one of my more surreal poems, as the sea and lover become one. I believe I wrote this one at age 19. It has been published by Penny Dreadful, Romantics Quarterly, Boston Poetry Magazine and Poetry Life & Times. The poem may have had a different title when it was originally published, but it escapes me ... ah, yes, "Entanglements."



Shock
by Michael R. Burch

It was early in the morning of the forming of my soul,
in the dawning of desire, with passion at first bloom,
with lightning splitting heaven to thunder's blasting roll
and a sense of welling fire and, perhaps, impending doom—

that I cried out through the tumult of the raging storm on high
for shelter from the chaos of the restless, driving rain ...
and the voice I heard replying from a rift of bleeding sky
was mine, I'm sure, and, furthermore, was certainly insane.



The Sky Was Turning Blue
by Michael R. Burch

Yesterday I saw you
as the snow flurries died,
spent winds becalmed.
When I saw your solemn face
alone in the crowd,
I felt my heart, so long embalmed,
begin to beat aloud.

Was it another winter,
another day like this?
Was it so long ago?
Where you the rose-cheeked girl
who slapped my face, then stole a kiss?
Was the sky this gray with snow,
my heart so all a-whirl?

How is it in one moment
it was twenty years ago,
lost worlds remade anew?
When your eyes met mine, I knew
you felt it too, as though
we heard the robin's song
and the sky was turning blue.



The Children of Gaza

Nine of my poems have been set to music by the composer Eduard de Boer and have been performed in Europe by the Palestinian soprano Dima Bawab. My poems that became “The Children of Gaza” were written from the perspective of Palestinian children and their mothers. On this page the poems come first, followed by the song lyrics, which have been adapted in places to fit the music …



Epitaph for a Child of Gaza
by Michael R. Burch

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



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 ...



For a Child of Gaza, with Butterflies
by Michael R. Burch

Where does the butterfly go
when lightning rails
when thunder howls
when hailstones scream
while winter scowls
and nights compound dark frosts with snow?

Where does the butterfly go?

Where does the rose hide its bloom
when night descends oblique and chill
beyond the capacity of moonlight to fill?
When the only relief's a banked fire's glow,
where does the butterfly go?

And where shall the spirit flee
when life is harsh, too harsh to face,
and hope is lost without a trace?
Oh, when the light of life runs low,
where does the butterfly go?



I Pray Tonight
by Michael R. Burch

for the children of Gaza and their mothers

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 tomorrow
an end to your sorrow.
May angels' white chorales
sing, and astound you.



Something
by Michael R. Burch

for the mothers and children of Gaza

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,
and finality has swept into a corner where it lies
in dust and cobwebs and silence.



Mother’s Smile
by Michael R. Burch

for the mothers of Gaza and their children

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!



Such Tenderness
by Michael R. Burch

for the mothers of Gaza

There was, in your touch, such tenderness―as
only the dove on her mildest day has,
when she shelters downed fledglings beneath a warm wing
and coos to them softly, unable to sing.

What songs long forgotten occur to you now―
a babe at each breast? What terrible vow
ripped from your throat like the thunder that day
can never hold severing lightnings at bay?

Time taught you tenderness―time, oh, and love.
But love in the end is seldom enough ...
and time?―insufficient to life’s brief task.
I can only admire, unable to ask―

what is the source, whence comes the desire
of a woman to love as no God may require?



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?”



My nightmare ...

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.
―The Child Poets of Gaza (written by Michael R. Burch for the children of Gaza)



I, too, have a dream ...

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.
―The Child Poets of Gaza (written by Michael R. Burch for the children of Gaza)



Suffer the Little Children
by Nakba

I saw the carnage . . . saw girls' dreaming heads
blown to red atoms, and their dreams with them . . .

saw babies liquefied in burning beds
as, horrified, I heard their murderers’ phlegm . . .

I saw my mother stitch my shroud’s black hem,
for in that moment I was one of them . . .

I saw our Father’s eyes grow hard and bleak
to see frail roses severed at the stem . . .

How could I fail to speak?
―Nakba is an alias of Michael R. Burch



Here We Shall Remain
by Tawfiq Zayyad
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Like twenty impossibilities
in Lydda, Ramla and Galilee ...
here we shall remain.

Like brick walls braced against your chests;
lodged in your throats
like shards of glass
or prickly cactus thorns;
clouding your eyes
like sandstorms.

Here we shall remain,
like brick walls obstructing your chests,
washing dishes in your boisterous bars,
serving drinks to our overlords,
scouring your kitchens' filthy floors
in order to ****** morsels for our children
from between your poisonous fangs.

Here we shall remain,
like brick walls deflating your chests
as we face our deprivation clad in rags,
singing our defiant songs,
chanting our rebellious poems,
then swarming out into your unjust streets
to fill dungeons with our dignity.

Like twenty impossibilities
in Lydda, Ramla and Galilee,
here we shall remain,
guarding the shade of the fig and olive trees,
fermenting rebellion in our children
like yeast in dough.

Here we wring the rocks to relieve our thirst;
here we stave off starvation with dust;
but here we remain and shall not depart;
here we spill our expensive blood
and do not hoard it.

For here we have both a past and a future;
here we remain, the Unconquerable;
so strike fast, penetrate deep,
O, my roots!



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.



Palestine
by Mahmoud Darwish
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This land gives us
all that makes life worthwhile:
April's blushing advances,
the aroma of bread warming at dawn,
a woman haranguing men,
the poetry of Aeschylus,
love's trembling beginnings,
a boulder covered with moss,
mothers who dance to the flute's sighs,
and the invaders' fear of memories.

This land gives us
all that makes life worthwhile:
September's rustling end,
a woman leaving forty behind, still full of grace, still blossoming,
an hour of sunlight in prison,
clouds taking the shapes of unusual creatures,
the people's applause for those who mock their assassins,
and the tyrant's fear of songs.

This land gives us
all that makes life worthwhile:
Lady Earth, mother of all beginnings and endings!
In the past she was called Palestine
and tomorrow she will still be called Palestine.
My Lady, because you are my Lady, I deserve life!



Distant light
by Walid Khazindar
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Bitterly cold,
winter clings to the naked trees.
If only you would free
the bright sparrows
from the tips of your fingers
and release a smile—that shy, tentative smile—
from the imprisoned anguish I see.
Sing! Can we not sing
as if we were warm, hand-in-hand,
shielded by shade from a glaring sun?
Can you not always remain this way,
stoking the fire, more beautiful than necessary, and silent?
Darkness increases; we must remain vigilant
and this distant light is our only consolation—
this imperiled flame, which from the beginning
has been flickering,
in danger of going out.
Come to me, closer and closer.
I don't want to be able to tell my hand from yours.
And let's stay awake, lest the snow smother us.

Walid Khazindar was born in 1950 in Gaza City. He is considered one of the best Palestinian poets; his poetry has been said to be "characterized by metaphoric originality and a novel thematic approach unprecedented in Arabic poetry." He was awarded the first Palestine Prize for Poetry in 1997.



Excerpt from “Speech of the Red Indian”
by Mahmoud Darwish
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Let's give the earth sufficient time to recite
the whole truth ...
The whole truth about us.
The whole truth about you.

In tombs you build
the dead lie sleeping.
Over bridges you *****
file the newly slain.

There are spirits who light up the night like fireflies.
There are spirits who come at dawn to sip tea with you,
as peaceful as the day your guns mowed them down.

O, you who are guests in our land,
please leave a few chairs empty
for your hosts to sit and ponder
the conditions for peace
in your treaty with the dead.



Existence
by Fadwa Tuqan
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

In my solitary life, I was a lost question;
in the encompassing darkness,
my answer lay concealed.

You were a bright new star
revealed by fate,
radiating light from the fathomless darkness.

The other stars rotated around you
—once, twice —
until I perceived
your unique radiance.

Then the bleak blackness broke
and in the twin tremors
of our entwined hands
I had found my missing answer.

Oh you! Oh you intimate, yet distant!
Don't you remember the coalescence
Of our spirits in the flames?
Of my universe with yours?
Of the two poets?
Despite our great distance,
Existence unites us.



Nothing Remains
by Fadwa Tuqan
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Tonight, we’re together,
but tomorrow you'll be hidden from me again,
thanks to life’s cruelty.

The seas will separate us ...
Oh!—Oh!—If I could only see you!
But I'll never know ...
where your steps led you,
which routes you took,
or to what unknown destinations
your feet were compelled.

You will depart and the thief of hearts,
the denier of beauty,
will rob us of all that's dear to us,
will steal our happiness,
leaving our hands empty.

Tomorrow at dawn you'll vanish like a phantom,
dissipating into a delicate mist
dissolving quickly in the summer sun.

Your scent—your scent!—contains the essence of life,
filling my heart
as the earth absorbs the lifegiving rain.

I will miss you like the fragrance of trees
when you leave tomorrow,
and nothing remains.

Just as everything beautiful and all that's dear to us
is lost—lost!—when nothing remains.



Identity Card
by Mahmoud Darwish
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Record!
I am an Arab!
And my identity card is number fifty thousand.
I have eight children;
the ninth arrives this autumn.
Will you be furious?

Record!
I am an Arab!
Employed at the quarry,
I have eight children.
I provide them with bread,
clothes and books
from the bare rocks.
I do not supplicate charity at your gates,
nor do I demean myself at your chambers' doors.
Will you be furious?

Record!
I am an Arab!
I have a name without a title.
I am patient in a country
where people are easily enraged.
My roots
were established long before the onset of time,
before the unfolding of the flora and fauna,
before the pines and the olive trees,
before the first grass grew.
My father descended from plowmen,
not from the privileged classes.
My grandfather was a lowly farmer
neither well-bred, nor well-born!
Still, they taught me the pride of the sun
before teaching me how to read;
now my house is a watchman's hut
made of branches and cane.
Are you satisfied with my status?
I have a name, but no title!

Record!
I am an Arab!
You have stolen my ancestors' orchards
and the land I cultivated
along with my children.
You left us nothing
but these bare rocks.
Now will the State claim them
as it has been declared?

Therefore!
Record on the first page:
I do not hate people
nor do I encroach,
but if I become hungry
I will feast on the usurper's flesh!
Beware!
Beware my hunger
and my anger!

NOTE: Darwish was married twice, but had no children. In the poem above, he is apparently speaking for his people, not for himself personally.



Passport
by Mahmoud Darwish
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

They left me unrecognizable in the shadows
that bled all colors from this passport.
To them, my wounds were novelties—
curious photos for tourists to collect.
They failed to recognize me. No, don't leave
the palm of my hand bereft of sun
when all the trees recognize me
and every song of the rain honors me.
Don't set a wan moon over me!

All the birds that flocked to my welcoming wave
as far as the distant airport gates,
all the wheatfields,
all the prisons,
all the albescent tombstones,
all the barbwired boundaries,
all the fluttering handkerchiefs,
all the eyes—
they all accompanied me.
But they were stricken from my passport
shredding my identity!

How was I stripped of my name and identity
on soil I tended with my own hands?
Today, Job's lamentations
re-filled the heavens:
Don't make an example of me, not again!
Prophets! Gentlemen!—
Don't require the trees to name themselves!
Don't ask the valleys who mothered them!
My forehead glistens with lancing light.
From my hand the riverwater springs.
My identity can be found in my people's hearts,
so invalidate this passport!



Autumn Conundrum
by Michael R. Burch

for the mothers and children of Gaza

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



Piercing the Shell

for the mothers and children of Gaza

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



Children of Gaza Lyrics

(adapted in places to the music by Michael R. Burch and Eduard de Boer)

World premiere, April 22, 2017, in the Oosterkerk in the Dutch town of Hoorn. Dima Bawab, soprano; Eduard de Boer, piano.

I. Prologue:

Where does the Butterfly go?
I'd love to sing about things of beauty,
like a butterfly, fluttering amid flowers,
but I can't, I can't …

Where does the butterfly go
when lightning rails
when thunder howls
when hailstones scream
while winter scowls
and nights compound dark frosts with snow,
where does the butterfly go?

Where does the rose hide its bloom
when night descends oblique and chill
beyond the power of moonlight to fill?
When the only relief's a banked fire's glow,
where does the butterfly go?

Where does the butterfly go
when mothers cry
while children die
and politicians lie, politicians lie?

When the darkness of grief blots out all that we know:
when love and life are running low,
where does the butterfly go?

And how shall the spirit take wing
when life is harsh, too harsh to face,
and hope is flown without a trace?

Oh, when the light of life runs low,
where does the butterfly go,
where does the butterfly go?

II. The Raid

When the soldiers came to our house,
I was quiet, quiet as a mouse…

But when they beat down our door with a battering ram,
and I heard their machine guns go "Blam! Blam! Blam!"
I ran! I ran! I ran!

First I ran to the cupboard and crept inside;
then I fled to my bed and crawled under, to hide.

I could hear my mother shushing my sister…
How I hoped and prayed that the bullets missed her!
My sister! My sister! My sister!

Then I ran next door, to my uncle's house,
still quiet, quiet as a mouse...

Young as I am,
I did understand
that they had come to take our land!
Our land! Our land! Our land!
They've come to take our land!

They shot my father, they shot my mother,
they shot my dear sister, and my big brother!
They shot down my hopes, they shot down my dreams!
I still hear their screams! Their screams! Their screams!

Now I am here: small, and sad, and still ...
no mother, no father, no family, no will.

They took everything I ever had.
Now how can I live, with no mom and no dad?
How can I live, with no mom and no dad?
How can I live? How can I live?

III. For God’s Sake, I'm only a Child

For God’s sake, ah, for God's sake, I’m only a child―
and all you’ve allowed me to learn are these tears scalding my cheeks,
this ache in my gut at the sight of so many corpses, so much horrifying blood!

For God’s sake, I’m only a child―
you talk about your need for “security,”
but what about my right to play in streets
not piled with dead bodies still smoking with white phosphorous!

Ah, for God’s sake, I’m only a child―
for me there's no beauty in the world
and peace has become an impossible dream;
destruction is all I know because of your deceptions.

For God’s sake, I’m only a child―
fear and terror surround me stealing my breath
as I lie shaking like a windblown leaf.

For God’s sake, for God's sake, I'm only a child,
I'm only a child, I'm only a child.

IV. King of the World

If I were King of the World,
I would make every child free, for my people’s sake.
And once I had freed them, they’d all run and scream
straight to my palace, for free ice cream!
[Directly to the audience, spoken:]
Why are you laughing? Can’t a young king dream?

If I were King of the World, I would banish
hatred and war, and make mean men vanish.
Then, in their place, I’d bring in a circus
with lions and tigers (but they’d never hurt us!)

If I were King of the World, I would teach
the preachers to always do as they preach;
and so they could practice being of good cheer,
we’d have Christmas ―and sweets―each day of the year!

[Directly to the audience, spoken:]
Why are you laughing? Some dreams do appear!

If I were King of the World, I would send
my couns'lors of peace to the wide world’s end ...
[spoken:] But all this hard dreaming is making me thirsty!
I proclaim lemonade; please [spoken] bring it in a hurry!

If I were King of the World, I would fire
racists and bigots, with their message so dire.
And we wouldn’t build walls, to shut people out.
I would build amusement parks, have no doubt!

If I were King of the World, I would make
every child blessed, for my people’s sake,
and every child safe, and every child free,
and every child happy, especially me!
[Directly to the audience, spoken:]
Why are you laughing? Appoint me and see!

V. Mother’s Smile

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 ...

VI. In the Shelter

Mother:
Hush my darling, please don’t cry.
The bombs will stop dropping, by and by.
Hush, I'll sing you a lullaby…

Child:
Mama, I know that I’m safe in your arms.
Your sweet love protects me from all harms,
but still I fear the sirens’ alarms!

Mother:
Hush now my darling, don’t say a word.
My love will protect you, whatever you heard.
Hush now…

Child:
But what about pappa, you loved him too.

Mother: My love will protect you.
My love will protect you!

Child:
I know that you love me, but pappa is gone!

Mother:
Your pappa’s in heaven, where nothing goes wrong.
Come, rest at my breast and I’ll sing you a song.

Child:
But pappa was strong, and now he’s not here.

Mother:
He’s where he must be, and yet ever-near.
Now we both must be strong; there's nothing to fear.

Child:
The bombs are still falling! Will this night never end?

Mother:
The deep darkness hides us; the night is our friend.
Hush, I'll sing you a lullaby.

Child:
Yes, mama, I'm sure you are right.
We will be safe under cover of night.
[spoken] But what is that sound?
[screamed] Mama! I am fri(ghtened)….!

VII. Frail Envelope of Flesh

Frail envelope of flesh,
lying 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 five artless years…
Now your mother's lips seal up your lips
from the Deluge of her tears…

VIII. Among the Angels

Child:
There is peace where I am now,
I reside in a heavenly land
that rests safe in the palm
of a loving Being’s hand;
where the butterfly finds shelter
and the white dove glides to rest
in the bright and shining sands
of those shores all men call Blessed.

Mother:
My darling, how I long to touch your face,
to see your smile, to hear your laughter’s grace.
Great Allah, hear my plea.
Return my child to me.

Child:
My darling mother, here beyond the stars
where I now live,
I see and feel your tears,
but here is peace and joy, and no more pain.
Here is where I will remain.

Mother:
My darling, do not leave me here alone!
Come back to me!
Why did you turn to stone?
Great Allah, hear my plea.
Please send my child back to me...

Child:
Dear mother, to your wonderful love I bow.
But I can't return...
I am among the Angels now.
Do not worry about me.
Here is where I long to be.

Mother:
My darling, it is as if I hear your voice consoling me.
Oh, can this be your choice?
Great Allah, hear my plea.
Impart wisdom to me.

Child:
Dear mother, I was born of your great love,
a gentle spirit...
I died a slaughtered dove,
that I might bring this message from the stars:
it is time to end earth’s wars.

Remember―in both Bible and Koran
how many times each precious word is used―
“Mercy. Compassion. Justice.”
Let each man, each woman live by the Law
that rules both below and above:
reject all hate and embrace Love.

IX. Epilogue: I have a dream

I have a dream...
that one day all the world
will see me as I am:
a small child, lonely and afraid,
a small child, lonely and afraid.

Look at me... I am flesh...
I laugh, I bleed, I cry.
Look at me; I dare you
to look me in the eye
and tell me and my mother
how I deserve to die.

I only ask to live
in a world where things are fair;
I only ask for love
in a world where people share,
I only ask for love
in a world where people share.

Oh, I have a dream...
that one day all the world
will see me as I am:
a small child, lonely and afraid,
a small child, lonely and afraid.



hey pete
by Michael R. Burch

for Pete Rose

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

When I was a boy, Pete Rose was my favorite baseball player; this poem is not a slam at him, but rather an ironic jab at the term "superstar."



Reflections on the Loss of Vision
by Michael R. Burch

The sparrow that cries from the shelter of an ancient oak tree and the squirrels
that dash in delight through the treetops as the first snow glistens and swirls,
remind me so much of my childhood and how the world seemed to me then,
that it seems if I tried
and just closed my eyes,
I could once again be nine or ten.

The rabbits that hide in the bushes where the snowflakes collect as they fall,
hunch there, I know, in the flurrying snow, yet now I can't see them at all.
For time slowly weakened my vision; while the patterns seem almost as clear,
some things that I saw
when I was a boy,
are lost to me now in my advancing years.

The chipmunk who seeks out his burrow and the geese in their unseen reprieve
are there as they were, and yet they are not; and though it seems childish to grieve,
who would condemn a blind man for bemoaning the vision he lost?
Well, in a small way,
through the passage of days,
I have learned some of his loss.

As a keen-eyed young lad I endeavored to see things most adults could not―
the camouflaged nests of the hoot owls, the woodpecker’s favorite haunts.
But now I no longer can find them, nor understand how I once could,
and it seems such a waste
of those far-sighted days,
to end up near blind in this wood.



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 my eyes 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 although I hear,
he says nothing that I understand.

The moon shines—maniacal, queer—as he takes my hand and whispers
"Our time has come!" ... and so we stroll together along the docks
where the sea sends things that wriggle and crawl
scurrying under rocks and boards.

Moonlight in great floods washes his pale face as he stares unseeing
into my eyes. He sighs, and the sound crawls slithering down my spine,
and 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 is 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.

Published by Dowton Abbey, Aesthetically Pleasing Vampires, Into the Unknown, Since Halloween is Coming, and Poetry Life & Times



Songstress
by Michael R. Burch

for Nadia Anjuman

Within its starkwhite ribcage, how the heart
must flutter wildly, O, and always sing
against the pressing darkness: all it knows
until at last it feels the numbing sting
of death. Then life's brief vision swiftly passes,
imposing night on one who clearly saw.
Death held your bright heart tightly, till its maw–
envenomed, fanged–could swallow, whole, your Awe.
And yet it was not death so much as you
who sealed your doom; you could not help but sing
and not be silenced. Here, behold your tomb's
white alabaster cage: pale, wretched thing!
But you'll not be imprisoned here, wise wren!
Your words soar free; rise, sing, fly, live again.

A poet like Nadia Anjuman can be likened to a caged bird, deprived of flight, who somehow finds it within herself to sing of love and beauty. But when the world robs her of both flight and song, what is left for her but to leave, bereaving it and us of herself and her song?



Southern Icarus
by Michael R. Burch

Windborne, lover of heights,
unspooled from the truck’s wildly lurching embrace,
you climb, skittish kite . . .

What do you know of the world’s despair,
gliding in vast  solitariness  there,
so that all that remains is to
fall?

Only a little longer the wind invests its sighs;
you
stall,
spread-eagled, as the canvas snaps
and *****
its white rebellious wings,
and all
the houses watch with baffled eyes.

Published by Poetry Porch and The Chained Muse



To the boy Elis
by Georg Trakl
translation by Michael R. Burch

Elis, when the blackbird cries from the black forest,
it announces your downfall.
Your lips sip the rock-spring's blue coolness.

Your brow sweats blood
recalling ancient myths
and dark interpretations of birds' flight.

Yet you enter the night with soft footfalls;
the ripe purple grapes hang suspended
as you wave your arms more beautifully in the blueness.

A thornbush crackles;
where now are your moonlike eyes?
How long, oh Elis, have you been dead?

A monk dips waxed fingers
into your body's hyacinth;
Our silence is a black abyss

from which sometimes a docile animal emerges
slowly lowering its heavy lids.
A black dew drips from your temples:

the lost gold of vanished stars.

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: I believe that in the second stanza the blood on Elis's forehead may be a reference to the apprehensive ****** sweat of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. If my interpretation is correct, Elis hears the blackbird's cries, anticipates the danger represented by a harbinger of death, but elects to continue rather than turn back. From what I have been able to gather, the color blue had a special significance for Georg Trakl: it symbolized longing and perhaps a longing for death. The colors blue, purple and black may represent a progression toward death in the poem.



Published as the collection "Of Tetley's and V-2's"

Heroine, and our hero...

Breaking the bad souls into half

We don't give a **** it's our time to laugh

Heavens await as the shore brings us gifts

She lions dressed in polka dots and Doc Martens

Daily milking makes them smarter

Trees in the forest, land masses rift

The time has come to lose your number

Jenny in a hammock, sleep and slumber