The weedy wanderer searches for his tricks:
They hide among the flowerbeds
And in behind the gutters
Cleaning out the filth
Of the lucky master's overwhelming testimonies
Testimonies of love and hate:
They explore the times people were participating,
Clinging to the tufts of an imaginary carpet man,
Exploring in sondor-ous glee and enthusiasm.

There are oceans in this room, swelling,
They fill me up and soak me;
I'm still dry
Yet I am drowned in these waves of apathy.

Screams and whispers echo my body
With cries and laughter,
Fill this empty room

Swivel sideways,
A new perspective,
All turned on its head
All diagonal tribute
Spinning, cycling through
I. can. not. grasp. anything.
Flatten my palm.
Let it go.

A dandelion clock floating on the wind
Swirling and dancing
In spite of stifling cross breezes
Muttering discordant harmonies
Rhyming melodies, unfinished senta...

The night fuzzes now
Soft
Comforting
Full of warmth
Dribbling from the mouth of hope
Who will speak to me in the darkness?
Or will the light speak to me?

Be blissful
and serene

Take care of yourself
and others

Run and stop
enjoy every moment as it flies by

Enjoy the way hot tears spill down your cheeks
and love the way your chest hurts from silenced screams

Rage is just as beautiful
as your smile

Crinkling eyes
and big dimples

Wrinkles, stretch marks, and freckles
are your victories

Be Blissful
and Serene

I overflow, I absorb,
I push, I retreat — and then
I pour it out.
I gave myself names,
So, I took on forms,
Types, meanings,
Traits I had never worn before —
Unlikely mutations.
The end was
The Beginning of Everything.

II
I materialized,
Threading time and space onto myself.
I exploded,
Giving birth and dying —
In multiverses.

III
I budded through fractals,
Creating illogical gravities.
Where there was supposed to be no life —
Angular feelings emerged,
Flattened stars,
Ellipsoidal planets...

Until Human Beings appeared.

IV
Then everything changed.
They began to put me in boxes
Shouting with anger:
“My Faith!”
“Your Philosophy!”

And yet I am everything:
Existence in non-existence,
A colorful flash,
Undulating silence,
A sigh that screams.

V
Drink me,
Eat me piece by piece,
Discover me — but don't defend yourself
Against denial,
Consequences
And mistakes
When you see a wall in front of you.

VI
Don't take yourself away —
Because YOU ARE
Also, in that
In which you sink

Your Gaze

Your Hearing

Your Thoughts.

A laughter is just a flight of a moment
made of straws that wither and burn
On the summer it glows and shows
In the winter it faints and hides
awaiting the cycle of redemption

Happiness is forever, a fulfilment
the contextual locked in filaments
When the sun strokes it matches
In the coldness it dances proud
It is ever present and sustaining

Sorrow is a transient melancholy
A thunder strike that disables all
In the warmth of the day it cries
It unfolds like a starving toddler
A disabling concept that lives and dies

Loneliness is a key to happiness
A journey of self awareness and love
It taunts like a recurrent cancer
It screams until lessons are echoed
with infinite possibilities locked to self

Enjoying my evening stroll
I catch a glimpse of beauty.
Through a window and soft red light
Tonight may be a fulfillment
I detour through the yard
Excited, and rock hard
I peek into an open window
Moving the curtain I begin to climb
My heart is racing
I should turn around
Passed the table and up the stairs
I see her reflection in a mirror
slowly I creep to what I had peeped
Her scent wafted in the air
From the shower and her still wet hair
Another step
A creak
she spots me,
Startled, she screams
I run to her
Hand over her mouth
Her naked fighting body flailing
I slam my **** inside her
pain surges from her *****
violently I pound away
She stops her fighting and succumbs to my will
Her limp catatonic body bounces lifelessly
I release my self inside her
Oh ****
now what
Was it worth it
Oh yes
Standing over her I contrive a plan
To the kitchen I drag her
My other mind does concur
a butcher knife to slice her parts
...

This is a poem of ***,
Simple in nature, I am writing about ***.
Facing the day filled,
I stroke your thighs in the womb
Of the day, we birth the dawn.
Full light comes to
Our bare bodies
Entangling light and dark.

This poem is about ***,
The profilic and harmonic presence
Of a thousand fingers probing
Each other, the kind of animalistic
Pleasure that brings together
The link of man the beast,
God, oh God,
The sensational foray into freedom
Of the body, into the wild!

Oh, sweet sin of heavenly pleasure,
The silent screams!

To the feast!

In a world just on the otherside

Are shadows in the light

Whispering screams into the upside down sky

Where fire is cold and water flies

A dream where life ends but you can never die

There's a quality to her smile
That these days is not often seen
One that triggers memories
Of places you'd hate to leave

There's a depth inside of her eyes
Of oceans deep and rivers wide
No submarine could endure
The bottom of her waters

There's a sad ache to her touch
A whisper on her wind
That brings you oh so close to her
Then let's you go again

There's a graveness in her voice
A silence filled with screams
That penetrates your very soul
If you dare to listen

Would you like to know a secret
If you do, this one's for free
If you care to dare to look real close
You'll see this girl is me

The emptiness inside of me screams loudly,
though, no one else can see
Wisdom is it's only feed
Only knowledge can plant the seed
Searching through the knowledge to fertilize the tree
Waking the unconscious wisdom inside of me
One day the emptiness will be gone, the tree grown,
living life fulfilled
I wonder, will this be the day my coffin is sealed

Shoulders Sunken by Gravity ,
Music's what fuels  me.
Ears blared by pitchy strings ,
And drum beats ,
And screams that speak,
To the girl that's weak,
music is what fuels me .
Hope held by a string
she Feels one word .
Scream .
Music is what fuels me

Dezearea n. parisi

Chained with shiny metal in our necks , slavery that allows you to express , but its still slavery okay!

Gold chains,diamond rings
Outside similes while inside screams

We allowed slavery in our eyes
We see treasure afraid to blink

People watch while they getting brainwashed , when they get told ,they don't accept it.

At times in existence
What you feel cannot be described
The words are there ready to erupt
The circuitry laid inside
Is beyond description
You're allowed your own wants
You'll never know if they're wrong
You paint it, you say it, angry at night
You sing it til it curdles into bloodied screams
The reality is your beauty
Is so kind that it gets the knife
The tip drips with black instead of white
The pen is, it turns out, poisoned
With toxicity to life
You live hope. You live faith.
You are strength.
Yet your desire is forever ensnared
Caught in a cry

Breathless . . . Heaving . . . Sputtering . . .
Many more steps to go.
Hardened feet.
No longer are my steps maligned by stabs of blood.
Condemnation . . . Damnation . . . Corruption . . .
My seasoned back launches into my perennial burden.
And another step I take.
Into an inevitable future of drudgery.
Hope . . . Exoneration . . . Absolution . . .
Have long been forgotten.
Their burnt ashes adorn my forehead.
My shoulder screams ahead, into the weight it upholds.
Rumble  . . . Rumble . . . Rumble . . .
Each step like the millions before it,
thrusts the stone another foot towards the jagged peak
that towers impressively up ahead.
Dum Da De  . . . Dum Da Doo . . . Dum De Da Dum . . .
And the day goes on.
Dum Da De . . . Dum Da Doo . . . Dum De Da Dum . . .
And the night lives long.
Breathless . . . Heaving . . . Sputtering . . .
My war-torn muscles relax.
And the stone sits.
Stares at the valley below.
Lightning . . . Rain . . . Thunder . . .
The wind caresses and cajoles,
And the stone rolls down below, echoing Thor’s exclamations
And my heart leaps with joy.
After all, there will be another day.
And my feet have hardened anyway.
Ha Ha . . . Ha Ha . . . Ha Ha . . .

you spread your love across state lines

and i'm sitting here crumbling under the pressure of my names

and i'm wondering how you could spread yourself so thin

and still be whole

when i'm having a hard time just walking out of my bedroom door

and seeing my bloodlines splashed across

this 60 by 100 lot

but you were willing to cross those lines

and share so much of yourself

and i'm still afraid of carving into my own skin

for myself

to see what's inside

for fear of someone finding out and wanting it for themselves

all those gardens inside of me left to grow in someone else's hands

helpless while i watch myself **** over

overgrown

underfed

give me love,

but here you are

opening your gates and letting the floods through

what happens when the garden of Eden gets washed away?

all of the topsoil washing out to sea

roots worn out, removed by gentle hands

one by one

open season in your chest

until you were emptied

and there was no more garden for you to grow.

and i just kept building my walls too high

but one day i looked over because i heard your screams

and i saw you and your broken stems

soiled petals and trampled earth

so i opened the door

intending for you to stay just for a minute

for the taking of tea

or a glass of wine

but look at you now, growing like a vine

on the wall of my secret garden.

I am incomplete, like a part of me is missing,



It wasn’t an absolute, it came over time



Amongst a tangle of knotted days.



In dreams, it screams, find the missing jigsaw,



And on the edge of awakeness,



In the fuzzy champagne light of a new dawn,



I almost capture it.



But it hides like a viper in the grass,



Moving the blades, yet impossible to see.



Involuntarily my awareness,



Diminishes the power of the scream.



In the mirrors of eternity



I dare to glimpse for the missing in me.



But all I get is a hollow blankness,



My waking mind defies who I am!



I knock on the door of unconsciousness



Begging with a bowl of fruits of mind,



Yet a barricade of steel like strength



Blocks my entrance.



I break down tiny fragments that rise to surface,



Yet this primordial desire to search



Is unrequited, unblessed, ignored.

THE SOLDIER


Billy Clark was seventeen
When he went off to war.
He kissed his mum and dad goodbye
And walked out through the door.
He kissed his girl at the station
And wiped away her tears.
He said that he’d be back again
If it took a  thousand years.

He headed for the trenches,
For Afghanistan.
Gallipoli, The Falklands.
Beirut  and Vietnam.
He set off for Dunkirk,
Agincourt and Troy.
Passchendaele would make
A man out of a boy.

A million Billy Clarks
Have gone away to war.
Old men sit and shake their heads.
They’ve passed this way before.


He was in the thick of it
Right from the very start.
But Billy was a brave boy
With a patriotic heart.
Billy fought his hardest
But he was in a fix.
These were guns and tanks he faced
Not childhood toys and sticks.

Now, Billy was no coward,                            
But he was scared as hell.
No boy should have to bury
His comrades where they fell.
It took a thousand years
For Billy to return
And still the burning question is:
When will we ever learn?

When will this crazy world unite
And watch  each others’ back?
When  media screams  the headline:
‘GREEN MEN FROM MARS ATTACK!!!!’.

A million Billy Clarks
Have gone away to war.
Old men sit and shake their heads
They’ve seen it all before.

After my first hospitalization I began writing. I signed my name, about five times, proving to the staff and myself that I was ready to be discharged. The envelope held against my chest contained reading material, a diagnosis, and copious sheets of paper with lightly drawn animal sketches. Two weeks in a hospital, sitting at a desk by a caddy-cornered television, holding a styrofoam cup of decaf coffee, I'd sit listening to news stories while skimming through piles of xeroxed copies of coloring books. This became the precursor to many more manic months that would eventually and periodically follow.

Adolescent behavior is uncertain, but a child that runs off into a wooded enclosure to scream until collapse is significantly more uncertain. More often than not, when a child screams, an adult comes running. But when the source of the scream is just as misplaced as the child, it will only become an echo lost to the wind. When feeling lost becomes a constant what else is there to do but draw a map, or in this case, animal sketches.

Have you ever cried hysterically while laughing? Not producing tears from a belly ache caused by momentary elation, but two conflicting emotions? Imagine dowsing yourself in gasoline and running into a burning home to get a drink of water. Picture yourself flying through the air, wind caressing your face, but you can't fly, and right before you hit the ground you only just realized that you jumped. No child can prepare for this, as much as an ignorant parent can help their child clean wounds that will not scab over. Medication will become a bandage, and if the wound can never heal, the bandage will eventually be ripped off.

Art therapy before therapy was introduced was sitting on the bedroom floor, fashioning little cut-out rectangles, hole at the top, and string pulled through and wrapped around my big toe. A blanket pulled over my face, just to know what it was like to rest in peace. But you know, kids will be kids, or so they say.

Aspirations to be an artist should have been the first clue that mental illness had come and was here to stay, but the dreamers of the world ruined that. You start painting happy little trees, and two months later you're medicated in a hospital room with the faintest idea of what a tree even looks like, let alone the fact that because of these unimaginable trees you are able to breath. But you are breathing, and slowly you are able to grasp a pencil, and soon after you are able to draw these trees, these happy little trees that you not so long ago had forgotten about. And you lean your face down, nose touching the sheet of paper, and you inhale. You feel reborn. Not exactly home, because, well, you're not home, but you're comfortable in your new skin. This new skin leads the doctors to explain to you that you are manic. You nod your head, obligatory nodding, seeing as how your mind is elsewhere, many places in fact, thinking of all of the ideas you'd like to put on paper. And soon enough you're signing your name, multiple times, being discharged with your diagnosis. This is your enlightenment you're told. This is the first day of your new life.
But it's not. The cycling wasn't explained. And you failed to read the paperwork given to you that was sealed in the envelope. Instead you tore it open to procure your drawings and discarded the rest of the contents.

Those drawings lead you to college. To be the artist you know you are.
You bleed for your work. Figuratively, at first. Until you decide to find a new medium. You put yourself into your work. Red smeared all over a canvas. Curled up in a ball on the floor, losing blood quickly, eyes slowly closing. And when you wake, with tubes in your arm, and hands secured to a bed, you wonder what season it is. And what the trees look like, whether they are barren or blossoming.
Then you smile.
You smile because you remember what trees are.

If only you could find a pencil.

Gena is a fragile spiderweb
Glorious in the morning sun
but shining with her tears
Gena is a kaleidoscope
red, gold, blue
Changing her patterns
always sometime new,
Gena is a glass beaded puzzle,
The filamentous kind which gentle fingers could solve,
If only she would let them,

She shouts her strength and wisdom,
Covering her brittle heart with sheer curtains,
But she will choose the right path when she screams for stability,
And her painted lattice masks go up in final flames.

My most popular poems on the Internet, according to Google ...

A number of my poems and translations have gone viral, according to Google, and some have been copied onto hundreds of web pages. That’s a lot of cutting and pasting, which suggests someone likes the writing enough to take the time to share it …

This translation returns over 1,000 results, according to Google:

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



This translation of a Sappho epigram returns more than 500 results, according to Google:

Sappho, fragment 42
translation by Michael R. Burch

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



This original epigram returns more than 400 results:

Epitaph for a Palestinian Child
by Michael R. Burch

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



My translation/interpretation/modernization of Robert Burns’s “To a Mouse” also has more than 400 results.



This epigram returns more than 300 results:

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



This poem, based on a phrase I found in a comic book as a boy, returns more than 300 results:

Frail Envelope of Flesh
by Michael R. Burch

for the mothers and children of Gaza

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

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

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

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



Others with more than 100 results:

Speechless
by Ko Un
translation by Michael R. Burch

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



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

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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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

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



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

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

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

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



Auschwitz Rose
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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



Nun Fun Undone
by Michael R. Burch

Abbesses’
recesses
are not for excesses!



Bible Libel
by Michael R. Burch

If God
is good,
half the Bible
is libel.



Asstronomical
by Michael R. Burch

Einstein, the frizzy-haired,
proved E equals MC squared.
And so mass decreases
as activity ceases?
Not my mass, my *** declared!



Like Angels, Winged
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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



Pale Though Her Eyes
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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



Neglect
by Michael R. Burch

What good are tears?
Will they spare the dying their anguish?
What use, our concern
to a child sick of living, waiting to perish?

What good, the warm benevolence of tears
without action?
What help, the eloquence of prayers,
or a pleasant benediction?

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

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

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



Sappho, fragment 155
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

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



Sappho, fragment 156
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

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



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

Pain
drains
me
to
the
last
drop
.



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

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



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



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

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

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

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



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

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



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

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



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

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



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

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

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



Letter to My Wife
by Miklós Radnóti
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

This is a poem written during the Holocaust in Lager Heidenau, in the mountains above Zagubica, August-September, 1944

Deep down in the darkness hell awaits—silent, mute.
Silence screams in my ears, so I shout,
but no one hears or answers, wherever they are;
while sad Serbia, astounded by war,
and you are so far,
so incredibly distant.
Still my heart encounters yours in my dreams
and by day I hear yours sound in my heart again;
and so I am still, even as the great mountain
ferns slowly stir and murmur around me,
coldly surrounding me.
When will I see you? How can I know?
You who were calm and weighty as a Psalm,
beautiful as a shadow, more beautiful than light,
the One I could always find, whether deaf, mute, blind,
lie hidden now by this landscape; yet from within
you flash on my sight like flickering images on film.
You once seemed real but now have become a dream;
you have tumbled back into the well of teenage fantasy.
I jealously question whether you'll ever adore me;
whether—speak!—
from youth's highest peak
you will yet be my wife.
I become hopeful again,
as I awaken on this road where I formerly had fallen.
I know now that you are my wife, my friend, my peer—
but, alas, so far! Beyond these three wild frontiers,
fall returns. Will you then depart me?
Yet the memory of our kisses remains clear.
Now sunshine and miracles seem disconnected things.
Above me I see a bomber squadron's wings.
Skies that once matched your eyes' blue sheen
have clouded over, and in each infernal machine
the bombs writhe with their lust to dive.
Despite them, somehow I remain alive.

Miklós Radnóti [1909-1944], a Hungarian Jew and a fierce anti-fascist, is perhaps the greatest of the Holocaust poets. He was born in Budapest in 1909. In 1930, at the age of 21, he published his first collection of poems, Pogány köszönto (Pagan Salute). His next book, Újmódi pásztorok éneke (Modern Shepherd's Song) was confiscated on grounds of "indecency," earning him a light jail sentence. In 1931 he spent two months in Paris, where he visited the "Exposition coloniale" and began translating African poems and folk tales into Hungarian. In 1934 he obtained his Ph.D. in Hungarian literature. The following year he married Fanni (Fifi) Gyarmati; they settled in Budapest. His book Járkálj csa, halálraítélt! (Walk On, Condemned!) won the prestigious Baumgarten Prize in 1937. Also in 1937 he wrote his Cartes Postales (Postcards from France), which were precurors to his darker images of war, Razglednicas (Picture Postcards). During World War II, Radnóti published translations of Virgil, Rimbaud, Mallarmé, Eluard, Apollinare and Blaise Cendras in Orpheus nyomában. From 1940 on, he was forced to serve on forced labor battalions, at times arming and disarming explosives on the Ukrainian front. In 1944 he was deported to a compulsory labor camp near Bor, Yugoslavia. As the Nazis retreated from the approaching Russian army, the Bor concentration camp was evacuated and its internees were led on a forced march through Yugoslavia and Hungary. During what became his death march, Radnóti recorded poetic images of what he saw and experienced. After writing his fourth and final "Postcard," Radnóti was badly beaten by a soldier annoyed by his scribblings. Soon thereafter, the weakened poet was shot to death, on November 9, 1944, along with 21 other prisoners who unable to walk. Their mass grave was exhumed after the war and Radnóti's poems were found on his body by his wife, inscribed in pencil in a small Serbian exercise book. Radnóti's posthumous collection, Tajtékos ég (Clouded Sky, or Foaming Sky) contains odes to his wife, letters, poetic fragments and his final Postcards. Unlike his murderers, Miklós Radnóti never lost his humanity, and his empathy continues to live on and shine through his work.

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This silence is of the other sort.

Not that silence of stillness born;
That meditative calm that washes you
when morning's light shyly peeks
through your curtains.

No, this is the *malignant sort,
an out of control cellular growth,

(A Growth!)
that pushes out other thought
and claims the territories
of your mind all for
himself.

for himself.

This silence screams at you, "Listen to me!",

"Listen, now, lover!

And you can't do anything
but hear his absent,
his vacant,

that vacant,

that Voice!

This is the silence that shoves his way into your brain
and demands attention.
He stamps his foot and shouts
"Look at me!"

Are you looking?

And all you can do is stare at his
invisible,

His implacable

Face.

You wonder,
"Who are you, to invade

"my sanctuary?!"

But then it comes to you,
in that moment of

Reckoning:

You left your key laying

casually

on the window sill outside your door,
red ribbon tied on,
an exclamation point,

That mocking point!

No, you can't blame this silence.

You are the one who left the light burning brightly,
in your window,

that small, indescript window,

all night long.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SE_l1hLps1g&feature;=shareice.

"What?
What are these streaming down my cheeks?
Are... are these tears?"

Yes, today, I cried for the first time
The first time in years
I felt grief gnawing on my stomach
I felt hopelessness tighten my throat
My heart was ripped apart
I couldn't breathe

But why?
Why now?

I was pushed over the edge
As if all of my hidden demons
Suddenly wanted to come out and play
They heard my sighs being silenced
They knew my screams were hushed
They were the only ones to hear my cries for
Help.

he loves me
he loves me not

He loves me not

Never in a million years did i imagine this,
sensation of lonely haunts me.

                                         *consumes me

becomes the true identity of what it means to be me.
                  Alone.
                           Forever more.
No love to give,
No love to share,
No Love, that's it.
                           Nevermore

she loves me
she loves me not

She loves me not

you just haven't met the one,
oh you're young,
there's plenty of time,
                              stop stressin ***.

but that's not the point.

Used so much my soul screams for protection,
had people walk out,
judge me for my choices,
                               Like they were my choice

She loves me
He loves me not

*They love me not

sinking ship.
iceberg ahead.
I'm going under.
Ready to give up instead.

My walls are up,
Don't need to take cover.
Put the gun away.
Spare me of this final blow.

We had the best table
at the very edge of creation.

Our waiter
( the Devil you know )

looking so
debonaire  and almost human

rattling off
an expensive menu.

Embarrassingly I had to have it translated into Mortal.

The Devil's faux
supernatural accent

really grated
and I could detect

a slight Aberystwyth
tone.

"Now, this night
of nights

we are serving
a very rare Kraken

fried in a rich
imagination.

Or a superb Leviathan
basted in  delicious mythological sauce.

I'm afraid the slightly sautéed  souls are off.

And to drink
we have the finest minds

( from all time )

our cellars are the envy
of the Imaginary.

Or may I be so bold as to suggest
the latest universe?

Or a sparkling non-alcoholic
sub-conscious.

And for starters?
Some screams perhaps?"

God burps:
"I pray thee, pardon!"

I apologised
said I had already eaten

in a previous life
and that I was

anyway
a dreamatarian.

But if I could
have a glass of H2O?

I listened to the table talk
understanding very little

I didn't speak
fluent Creationese.

I politely made my excuses
and left

...before the after dinner
speeches.

demons slithered into my view as night fell
whipped my curtains across
so I could not see through this relentless storm
my breath became a shallow wind
as they cast shadows upon what was once my sanctuary
all wings, no fairy

they grabbed me by the throat with spindly fingers
and ***** steak knife nails
turning my screams into a gasping whisper
they pressed until I begged them to take me
put me to sleep
make this end