"selfsame" poems
just came back from a weekend away, down the coast in byron bay, where the lighthouse overlooks the eastern horizon, where we made love on the rocks so long ago, where our selfsame separate memories intermingled, each with the other, where i wandered from shore to shore, and looked to the mirror moon for comfort, and found your arms
Jun 1, 2014
Jun 1, 2014 at 3:50 AM UTC
You Are the Texture
…………………………
**~ for all of you,
you, you poet~**
Impasto
“**is a technique used in painting,
where paint is laid on an area of
the surface thickly, usually thick
enough that the brush or painting-
knife strokes are visible.
Paint can also be mixed right on
to the canvas. When dry, impasto
provides texture; the paint appears
as if, to be coming out of the canvas.**”
<1:47pm>
Cut & Paste
*is a technique used in poetry writing,
we refer back to our visions,
heard words,
the eyeful, the earful, scents,
the reads read,
all in the mind’s palette blended,
thickly, but
when
the merging fused,
every word~in~coloration,
it is unique, reincarnation,
copying impossible.
The imagery, cut and pasted from thy heart and soul,
upon canvas,
your poems~pieces each appear*
***as you-are-texture,
you becoming out of, you,
the canvas.
<2:04pm>
Postscript***
………………
it is not lost on me that the
scars, our words, herein,
as we note all too frequently,
almost casually,
are, can be, those selfsame
words/painting-knife
employed
for our first and foremost canvas we utilize,
ourselves…
our bodies,
our
very selves
salved
Jun 24, 2023
Jun 24, 2023 at 8:06 AM UTC
Two doves upon the selfsame branch,
Two lilies on a single stem,
Two butterflies upon one flower:--
O happy they who look on them.
Who look upon them hand in hand
Flushed in the rosy summer light;
Who look upon them hand in hand
And never give a thought to night.
10.4k
Innocent Hyacinth tinted with mint
Tingèd grey hinged on stem singed
With chestnut leaves flowing, to me a fair hint
Of off-centred carousing, black eyes perusing
Wares of all sorts and stocks of all shares
The leading on of a pleasure most gracefully enthusing
Drops dews of all shades, of selfsame structure
And we full of rowdy Sedition;
But Wait! Recognition.
In my hopes and tired efforts, a puncture.
Music blaring loud, aftertaste of rejection
And full on full strand of all smoke addled people
Oh! How great Quasimodo I fell off my steeple
In the midst of the crowd, full dejection.
Mar 24, 2014
Mar 24, 2014 at 4:03 PM UTC
*blondes, brunettes and redheads,
the goodbye colors of the
street's tree choir members
and their leafy gowned denizens,
the good stiff chill upon them,
the selfsame chill
in my anguished mind
now hiding,
sing a comfort food song
heard above the quiet terror of the
noises of a fall winters-wind precursor
"once we green,
once we were renewal,
life everlasting emblems
once,
you were wee,
green uncaring and free,
presuming that you too,
were in possession of
life everlasting
your colors have changed as well,
endless is the process,
only slower than
a tree's scheduled maintenance,
moreover,
returning you to your first
crayon drawing youth
unlike us, an impossibility
we will turn young again
for many seasons more,
you
never will
new eyes will feast upon our
glories refreshed and love our
cast shade cast
yet special are you the man,
poet who was chosen
to see and tell,
witness to our resurrection,
during our overlapping,
parallel continuum in time
when to the shade of hades
you physic sent,
our limbs, our leaves,
our perennial lives,
for-as-long-as-they-shall-last,
will cover thy remains and
give your poems back to the
sultry summer breeze from
whence they came
and the colors
of your words
will be the colors
of a free life everlasting"*
Dec 3, 2014
Dec 3, 2014 at 12:43 AM UTC
I.
I would not if I could undo my past,
Tho' for its sake my future is a blank;
My past for which I have myself to thank,
For all its faults and follies first and last.
I would not cast anew the lot once cast,
Or launch a second ship for one that sank,
Or drug with sweets the bitterness I drank,
Or break by feasting my perpetual fast.
I would not if I could: for much more dear
Is one remembrance than a hundred joys,
More than a thousand hopes in jubilee;
Dearer the music of one tearful voice
That unforgotten calls and calls to me,
"Follow me here, rise up, and follow here."
II.
What seekest thou, far in the unknown land?
In hope I follow joy gone on before;
In hope and fear persistent more and more,
As the dry desert lengthens out its sand.
Whilst day and night I carry in my hand
The golden key to ope the golden door
Of golden home; yet mine eye weepeth sore,
For long the journey is that makes no stand.
And who is this that veiled doth walk with thee?
Lo, this is Love that walketh at my right;
One exile holds us both, and we are bound
To selfsame home-joys in the land of light.
Weeping thou walkest with him; weepeth he?--
Some sobbing weep, some weep and make no sound.
III.
A dimness of a glory glimmers here
Thro' veils and distance from the space remote,
A faintest far vibration of a note
Reaches to us and seems to bring us near;
Causing our face to glow with braver cheer,
Making the serried mist to stand afloat,
Subduing languor with an antidote,
And strengthening love almost to cast out fear:
Till for one moment golden city walls
Rise looming on us, golden walls of home,
Light of our eyes until the darkness falls;
Then thro' the outer darkness burdensome
I hear again the tender voice that calls,
"Follow me hither, follow, rise, and come."
3.6k
that’s all I know, title, subject undisclosed,
new morn amourning arrives, when writing~writhing
hunger, comes and remains till fufillment,
sometimes, nagging, sometimes roaring, completion is
the satiation satisfaction when the pouring/
spilling is from within to without, topping off
the nearest receptacle with hugger-muggery,
beauty jumbled, elegantly jagged linen creased
the it of it, must be done, so my heart un-seizes,
breathing to nearly next to normal, yet the distance there
incroyable, inch or mile, meter matters not, until closed it’s a
chasm rupturing,
fingers grasping my temples, to hold the
jumbled tumbling innards within, redirected towards my
screaming fingertips, hoping, relief will come sooner,
making room until the throat and lungs engorged,
when~with this selfsame need returns
on the morrow
if, when,
my eyes open,
and yesterday itself
is a writ,
a realization accomplished
~~~~~~~
perhaps, you recognize yourself?
perhaps, you reconcile yourself?
Sep 26, 2023
Sep 26, 2023 at 9:54 AM UTC
A bird sings the selfsame song,
With never a fault in its flow,
That we listened to here those long
Long years ago.
A pleasing marvel is how
A strain of such rapturous rote
Should have gone on thus till now
unchanged in a note!
—But its not the selfsame bird.—
No: perished to dust is he…
As also are those who heard
That song with me.
2.9k
NURSE
Our mistress bids me with all speed to call
Aegisthus to the strangers, that he come
And hear more clearly, as a man from man,
This newly brought report. Before her slaves,
Under set eyes of melancholy cast,
She hid her inner chuckle at the events
That have been brought to pass--too well for her,
But for this house and hearth most miserably,--
As in the tale the strangers clearly told.
He, when he hears and learns the story's gist,
Will joy, I trow, in heart. Ah, wretched me!
How those old troubles, of all sorts made up,
Most hard to bear, in Atreus's palace-halls
Have made my heart full heavy in my breast!
But never have I known a woe like this.
For other ills I bore full patiently,
But as for dear Orestes, my sweet charge,
Whom from his mother I received and nursed . . .
And then the shrill cries rousing me o' nights,
And many and unprofitable toils
For me who bore them. For one needs must rear
The heedless infant like an animal,
(How can it else be?) as his humor serve
For while a child is yet in swaddling clothes,
It speaketh not, if either hunger comes,
Or passing thirst, or lower calls of need;
And children's stomach works its own content.
And I, though I foresaw this, call to mind,
How I was cheated, washing swaddling clothes,
And nurse and laundress did the selfsame work.
I then with these my double handicrafts,
Brought up Orestes for his father dear;
And now, woe's me! I learn that he is dead,
And go to fetch the man that mars this house;
And gladly will he hear these words of mine.
2.9k
An oblique path cutting in two a blue hill,
bathed in a cobalt ocean of morning glories.
On the blue hill there were also a red mill,
Crickets, ants, bees, and many-hued damselflies.
A haven was the fresh upside-down coquille
For long stories untold and movements still
Of difference and dragonflies of fluttering
Over a bluesky ground of mute uttering.
On a dry log pitched not too far from the mill,
Rose an artless sign in the hushed sound of the hill;
Each of whose letters was written in blueberry -
Surely placed there by a traveler in a hurry:
“No matter how often a road is traveled by,
It never tells twice the selfsame story.”
(c) LazharBouazzi, Carthage, TUN, August 23, 2016
Aug 23, 2016
Aug 23, 2016 at 6:23 AM UTC
An easy lazy length of limb,
Dark eyes and features from the south,
A short-legged meditative pipe
Set in a supercilious mouth:
Ink and a pen and papers laid
Down on a table for the night,
Beside a semi-dozing man
Who wakes to go to bed by light.
A pair of brothers brotherly,
Unlike and yet how much the same
In heart and high-toned intellect,
In face and bearing, hope and aim:
Friends of the selfsame treasured friends
And of one home the dear delight,
Beloved of many a loving heart
And cherished both in mine, good night.
2.1k
Water of remembrance sprinkled
On the mountain crest of recollection.
Indulgent mussy memory catapulted
Stones of retentiveness into the
Courtyard of events like bricole
Of battles.
Pendulum of reminiscences swinging
On oscillating milage of roads like
Trotting horse with drippage of sweat
And itching foots.
Ghost of reminiscences restlessly
Roaming with carriage of yesteryear.
Final year educatees required
Boardinghouse,
But list of items engorged dear
Mother's treasury
"where do l raise money
to buy oyinbo mattress, Ilori?"
Mind pullulated with weariness.
Intonation of worries.
Cantillation of wants.
Deficiency of measured means.
Oyinbo mattress beyond ladder
Of reach.
Gluttonously waiting to devour
Lesser items,
But rays of compulsion unslammed
The gate of respite.
Lordly arrival warmly welcomed by
The dorm room's porter,
Walking majestically to the bed-space
With the acquired cotton wool and raffia leaves mattress.
Gamut of items passed through the eagle's eyes of the housemaster.
Silver painted pail donated by a neighbour passed through the sentry of inspection,
And got its admission.
Mother's used cloak turned bedsheets
Passed through the rigorous scrutiny.
Newly built portmanteau unlocked and neatly dissected, item by item.
Agazed eyes focused on the cotton wool and raffia leaves hand-made mattress.
Expectations rattled mumbling astonishment.
Legs stuck in the mud of mystification.
Telepathic dews covered ocean of thought.
Tranquil silence engulfed vicinity,
Deflating the balloon of hope like a litigant awaiting verdict from the jurist's chambers.
Porter's gesticulating gesture connoted nothingness of demeaning disapproval, perambulating on the hilly terrain of approval.
Akimbo stood l.
Now the verdict!
Molten volcanic magisterial command erupted in a gestapo gesture,
Spudding out from the barytone's baritone voice from the selfsame housemaster,
From the bastion of authority,
And the house generalissimo like a wild brant squalled, matter-of-factly,
"we do not accept bed bugs cotton wool and raffia leaves hand-made mattress here".
Entreaties collapsed.
Jan 11, 2019
Jan 11, 2019 at 1:30 AM UTC
Escape me?
Never—
Beloved!
While I am I, and you are you,
So long as the world contains us both,
Me the loving and you the loth,
While the one eludes, must the other pursue.
My life is a fault at last, I fear—
It seems too much like a fate, indeed!
Though I do my best I shall scarce succeed—
But what if I fail of my purpose here?
It is but to keep the nerves at strain,
To dry one’s eyes and laugh at a fall,
And baffled, get up to begin again,—
So the chase takes up one’s life, that’s all.
While, look but once from your farthest bound,
At me so deep in the dust and dark,
No sooner the old hope drops to ground
Than a new one, straight to the selfsame mark,
I shape me—
Ever
Removed!
1.9k
One face looks out from all his canvasses,
One selfsame figure sits or walks or leans;
We found her hidden just behind those screens,
That mirror gave back all her loveliness.
A queenin opal or in ruby dress,
A nameless girl in freshest summer greens,
A saint, an angel;--every canvass means
The same one meaning, neither more nor less.
He feeds upon her face by day and night,
And she with true kind eyes looks back on him
Fair as the moon and joyfull as the light;
Not wan with waiting, not with sorrow dim;
Not as she is, but was when hope shone bright;
Not as she is, but as she fills his dream.
1.8k
I plucked pink blossoms from mine apple-tree,
And wore them all that evening in my hair:
Then in due season when I went to see
I found no apples there.
With dangling basket all along the grass
As I had come I went the selfsame track:
My neighbors mocked me while they saw me pass
So empty-handed back.
Lilian and Lilias smiled in trudging by,
Their heaped-up basket teased me like a jeer;
Sweet-voiced they sang beneath the sunset sky,
Their mother's home was near.
Plump Gertrude passed me with her basket full,
A stronger hand than hers helped it along;
A voice talked with her through the shadows cool
More sweet to me than song.
Ah, Willie, Willie, was my love less worth
Than apples with their green leaves piled above?
I counted rosiest apples on the earth
Of far less worth than love.
So once it was with me you stooped to talk
Laughing and listening in this very lane:
To think that by this way we used to walk
We shall not walk again!
I let my neighbors pass me, ones and twos
And groups; the latest said the night grew chill,
And hastened: but I loitered, while the dews
Fell fast I loitered still.
1.8k
Southampton Docks: October 1899
Here, where Vespasian’s legions struck the sands,
And Cendric with the Saxons entered in,
And Henry’s army lept afloat to win
Convincing triumphs over neighboring lands,
Vaster battalions press for further strands,
To argue in the selfsame ****** mode
Which this late age of thought, and pact, and code,
Still fails to mend.—Now deckward ***** the bands,
Yellow as autumn leaves, alive as spring;
And as each host draws out upon the sea
Beyond which lies the tragical To-be,
None dubious of the cause, none murmuring,
Wives, sisters, parents, wave white hands and smile,
As if they knew not that they weep the while.
1.7k
I am thinking about newly-hatched sea turtles,
and about how perfectly formed they are.
And about how, with independent instinct,
they head straight for the open ocean.
In our dream worlds,
where convention holds no sway,
we do the same.
Left to our own unencumbered instincts,
and when we are rested and happy,
we make choices that nourish our souls,
and the souls of those around us.
Finding a point of origin,
and finding where we belong,
are two sides of the selfsame coin.
Trundling into the sea of our own authenticity
may seem too simple, lacking in choice.
It is our bravest, most definitive act.
As vital to our real survival,
as to those tiny beings,
who innocently do as they must.
Oct 5, 2015
Oct 5, 2015 at 8:36 PM UTC
Earthbound,
and yet I now fly
through the clouds that are aimlessly drifting ...
so high
that no sound
echoing by
below where the mountains are lifting
the sky
can be heard.
Like a bird,
but not meek,
like a hawk from a distance regarding its prey,
I will shriek,
not a word,
but a screech,
and my terrible clamor will turn them to clay—
the sheep,
the earthbound.
***
Tashunka Witko of the Lakota Sioux, better known as Crazy Horse, had a vision of a red-tailed hawk at Sylvan Lake, South Dakota. In his vision he saw himself riding a spirit horse, flying through a storm, as the hawk flew above him, shrieking. When he awoke, a red-tailed hawk was perched near his horse.
Published by American Indian Pride and Boston Poetry Magazine
"We Came Together" was written as song lyrics for New Zealand composer David Hamilton.
We Came Together
by Michael R. Burch
We came together – people of two lands
so unalike, at first, we hardly knew
how to be friends. We went to war, and drew
lines in the sand. And yet the sky was blue
for everyone, and big enough to share.
We came together, and our friendships grew.
We had to learn to share the selfsame air,
to find the path to harmony,
to find some common ground and let peace bloom.
We came together and we gave hope room
to blossom in our hearts. We learned to be
together in our common destiny.
We come together – people of many lands
so unalike, at first, and now we know
how to be friends.
Keywords/Tags: song, song lyrics, music, composer, diversity, understanding, tolerance, common ground, multiracial, friends, friendship
We Come Together, Holding Hands (I)
by Michael R. Burch
We come together, holding hands,
the children of so many lands;
it’s what the day demands.
We come together, seeking peace,
intent of love, our hearts at ease.
We come together, seeking peace;
it’s what the day decrees.
The time is right. The time is now.
We come together, knowing how
the world depends on us to know
the only time to love is now.
We come together, holding hands,
the children of so many lands;
it’s what the day demands.
We come together, seeking peace,
intent of love, our hearts at ease.
We come together, seeking peace;
it’s what the day decrees.
Copyright © 2023 by Michael R. Burch
We Come Together, Holding Hands (II)
by Michael R. Burch
We come together, holding hands,
the children of so many lands;
it's what the day demands.
We come together, seeking peace,
intent of love, our hearts at ease.
We come together, seeking peace;
it's what the day decrees.
Earthbound,
and yet we fly
through the clouds that are aimlessly drifting ...
so high
that all our songs
that echo where mountains stand lifting
the sky…
can be heard.
The time is right. The time is now.
We come together, knowing how
the world depends on us to know
the only time to love is now.
Earthbound,
and yet we fly
through the clouds that are aimlessly drifting ...
so high
that all our songs
that echo where mountains stand lifting
the sky…
can be heard.
We sing together, holding hands,
the children of so many lands;
it's what the day demands.
We sing together, seeking peace,
intent of love, our hearts at ease.
We sing together, seeking peace;
it's what the day decrees.
Copyright © 2023 by Michael R. Burch
i wrote a giddy little song
by michael r. burch
i wrote a giddy little song,
which u can dance to, all night long;
i wrote a giddy little poem,
it’ll tempt a smile, like sea foam;
i wrote a giddy little line,
it’ll tease a laugh, like a dandelion;
I wrote a song and took the trouble,
it’ll make u smile, like a soap bubble;
i wrote this giddy bit of fluff,
now dance to it, get off ur duff!
Copyright © 2023 by Michael R. Burch
Feb 22, 2020
Feb 22, 2020 at 1:06 AM UTC
We imagine Life sequential-
from birth until we go.
Yet, being fraught with memory,
I protest it is not so.
Our hates, our loves, our prejudice,
all build up over years.
Before we face the precipice,
we face our sum of fears.
My passionate kiss upon your neck
was learned with other lovers.
Even in the here and now
I'll speak some phrase of mother's.
Even when all my cutaneous cells
have shed and been replaced.
I continue to show the world,
what appears the selfsame face.
Every moment of my "Now"
betrays this underpinning
Only in my final breath
can I put paid to my sinning.
Jan 13, 2013
Jan 13, 2013 at 1:11 PM UTC
We are artsy lasses with dorky glasses
On spurned kisses with tinny braces
On selfsame faces at lavish places
On kindred spirits in empty spaces
We, we are the bosses
Archi, we are everything I want
We, we are the bosses
Archi, we could be everything they want
Jan 26, 2018
Jan 26, 2018 at 4:24 AM UTC
i first decipher
then transmit like a strumming messiah
wasn't i an emissary of dancing pianos a moment ago
i wish for free will
some dumb sounds keep me reverberating
and i think my subwoofer aches when i have to play screamo
i'm thirsty here
a maze of wires screaming for peripeteia
why must selfsame songs ceaselessly flow
how about something more ill
some sick stuff keeps me entertaining
the endless crowds the endless - wait, where'd they go?
oh, i was thirsty for sweat
and when you leave the room
just try to convince yourself
that i don't still boom
Jan 1, 2014
Jan 1, 2014 at 7:44 AM UTC
Time and Place (To Say Goodbye)
You know where I am ensconced,
In my nook, in my solar system,
By the bay.
My love, my life's interloper,
Who divided black from everything,
My creditor, comes upon me silently,
Checking upon her investment,
This sneak attack, holy anticipated.
The music, unfettered by earbuds,
Plays for all who share the moment,
But it plays for her, specially.
When she arrives, Madame Butterfly
Fills the air, before extinguishing life.
When entering the Kingdom of My Lapland,
Time To Say Goodbye,
Con te partirò,
Fills the frothy air, that selfsame wind of yesterday,
Not just remaining, but has grown stronger, carryover,
And the voices, my poetic entreaties,
All, have failed, to calm the blowhard's wrath.
No matter.
My possessions, few and final,
The music, my poetry, the sun bright
and my life, my love.
Of the moment, I whisper.
This, this precise spot,
In this worn down chair,
Where I gave birth to so many
Of my children,
Is where I wish to die,
When it is time,
Con te partirò,
Time To Say Goodbye.
"But not-today, my love, she orders."
In my heart I whisper,
Who can say,
But I smile and say,
*"But not-today, my love,
But not-today, my love."*
For if it were today,
I would not deny it,
For if it were today,
In the moment of now,
Its perfection, accepted.
For should to my chair,
She, solitary, returns,
She will have the music,
The sun's companionship,
The wet-stain spots where the tears,
I weep, at this, of the moment, and,
So many love poems,
And the comfort,
Of this one too,
And the perfect lyrics
Of this our song-to-be.
Sep 8, 2013
Sep 8, 2013 at 11:10 AM UTC
At a distance, the bland earth is a photo tinged of emerald green
Selfsame cars blow through. Playing in the margins
Forfeits judgment and your peace to the 10,000 shades of envy.
The usual story is re-penned like some perverse guarantee
We’ll all be disappointed some day, and everyone is at large
From a distance, those scowling portraits done with shades of emerald green
Something we’ve come to need and come to hate, against what men levy
Me and what they weigh the lithe little ghost of the human heart in
It seems strange outside light of rippling 10,000 shades of envy.
But where it is heard the gentle thrush say, “bereave, bereave, bereave,”
I’ll be a small voice in the coppice, singing, “breathe, breathe, still breathing”
At length, some small corners of the bland earth take on that emerald green
Thorns may drain burgundy from your hands, to leave your skin sticky sweet
Impressed in those ugly scabs like how you love yourself like sin,
The thorns just fall off like clothing in 10,000 shades of envy,
We lift pain away then, the happiness of the finally free
Hands lifted away from prayer can worship the single day in
And closely hold earth’s photo tinged of emerald green, then there’s no need
For forfeiture, I’ve my 10,000 shades of a different envy.
Mar 28, 2015
Mar 28, 2015 at 8:41 PM UTC
The black chair sits
in the garden,
selfsame shadow.
The mirror is
mirrored:
reflection.
Humans are:
humans are, that is,
dichotomous,
self-fulfilling
neurosis.
Oct 10, 2013
Oct 10, 2013 at 3:12 PM UTC
I have come the selfsame path
To the selfsame door,
Years have left the roses there
Burning as before.
While I watch them in the wind
Quick the hot tears start —
Strange so frail a flame outlasts
Fire in the heart.
1.2k