There it is, the mirror sky, reflecting all that is beneath it and throwing it back upon itself like rain.

The flowers unfurl with alarming swiftness-delicate, they are, made of shadow and moonlight, flourishing in the dusk-and the tides rake the shore with desperate fingers, wrenched back from the land as the night pulls the day down under the water. The sun sinks crimson within the glass sea, cracking it, and it shatters into a million stars trapped inside a harsh black sky. The shore is littered with a desolate battlefield of broken shells, scarred bits of wood, rocks beaten into smoothness by the unforgiving water.


Where is the moon? There is no softness here. Hard lines, the world washed black and white, and such a stillness even in motion. The sky does not see a moon, and so the moon is gone-trapped with the sun beneath the black sea? The last shards of fiery gold and red have been swallowed by unnaturally silent waves.


Where is the life? Every creature is gone, hidden away. It is not the night that they fear, but the image of themselves reflected inside it. The world does not sleep; it waits, coiled like a spring, for whatever is coming. It is as if everything is holding its breath, silent and full of tension.


The sea isn’t alive like it should be anymore. It’s been tainted, poisoned. Why do the waves shine black and blue like a raven’s feather? Where are the whitecaps and the foam? No, this sea is smooth glass, flowing and morphing, licking cruelly at the shore. Cold as ice, but not frozen, it leaches the color from the world, drawing all the light into its frigid depths. Look down inside it and there is nothing but hard blackness, as if the water is solid now but still moving. The silence is perhaps the most terrifying. Wrong, for the world to move so fast and be so quiet. The clouds and the stars all move dizzyingly, racing across the sky, growing and changing before a real form can be discerned.


Now even the stars are going dark, falling one by one into the sea, a sad parody of rain. They are swallowed instantly, their cold lights extinguished until not one is left. For one long, silent moment, everything is dark. How long does a moment in utter despair last? A day, a year, a thousand? It is impossible to tell, with the unchanging quiet.



There it is, somewhere above, the mirror sky, reflecting itself. For that is all that’s left- darkness reflected in hallways and tunnels and funhouse mazes.


Until the moon slices through, and everything shatters. Shards of darkness fall and change, hitting the ground and seeping color into the soil. The waves crash upon the shore, released- still brutal, still cold, but free and deep cobalt blue under the golden moonlight. The wind sighs, the trees rustle, the grasses bend and sway with the whisk-whisk sound of silk on silk. Thunder and lightning roar and flash as the sky hurls itself into the sea in a torrent of bitter rain. The world is awake with a vengeance, and the moon reigns, full and golden and glorious, over the deep purples and soft blues of the night.

There it is, the mirror sky, reflecting all that is beneath it and throwing it back upon itself like rain.

The flowers unfurl with alarming swiftness-delicate, they are, made of shadow and moonlight, flourishing in the dusk-and the tides rake the shore with desperate fingers, wrenched back from the land as the night pulls the day down under the water. The sun sinks crimson within the glass sea, cracking it, and it shatters into a million stars trapped inside a harsh black sky. The shore is littered with a desolate battlefield of broken shells, scarred bits of wood, rocks beaten into smoothness by the unforgiving water.


Where is the moon? There is no softness here. Hard lines, the world washed black and white, and such a stillness even in motion. The sky does not see a moon, and so the moon is gone-trapped with the sun beneath the black sea? The last shards of fiery gold and red have been swallowed by unnaturally silent waves.


Where is the life? Every creature is gone, hidden away. It is not the night that they fear, but the image of themselves reflected inside it. The world does not sleep; it waits, coiled like a spring, for whatever is coming. It is as if everything is holding its breath, silent and full of tension.


The sea isn’t alive like it should be anymore. It’s been tainted, poisoned. Why do the waves shine black and blue like a raven’s feather? Where are the whitecaps and the foam? No, this sea is smooth glass, flowing and morphing, licking cruelly at the shore. Cold as ice, but not frozen, it leaches the color from the world, drawing all the light into its frigid depths. Look down inside it and there is nothing but hard blackness, as if the water is solid now but still moving. The silence is perhaps the most terrifying. Wrong, for the world to move so fast and be so quiet. The clouds and the stars all move dizzyingly, racing across the sky, growing and changing before a real form can be discerned.


Now even the stars are going dark, falling one by one into the sea, a sad parody of rain. They are swallowed instantly, their cold lights extinguished until not one is left. For one long, silent moment, everything is dark. How long does a moment in utter despair last? A day, a year, a thousand? It is impossible to tell, with the unchanging quiet.



There it is, somewhere above, the mirror sky, reflecting itself. For that is all that’s left- darkness reflected in hallways and tunnels and funhouse mazes.


Until the moon slices through, and everything shatters. Shards of darkness fall and change, hitting the ground and seeping color into the soil. The waves crash upon the shore, released- still brutal, still cold, but free and deep cobalt blue under the golden moonlight. The wind sighs, the trees rustle, the grasses bend and sway with the whisk-whisk sound of silk on silk. Thunder and lightning roar and flash as the sky hurls itself into the sea in a torrent of bitter rain. The world is awake with a vengeance, and the moon reigns, full and golden and glorious, over the deep purples and soft blues of the night.

This heart isn’t hallow
This emptiness is just
As full as it can get
Like drowning a sealed
Water bottle full of
Oxygen

My heart breathes like a water boarding
Screams for first dates
That don’t come
Crushes over girls
Who ask me out to coffee so
They can brag about having coffee
With a cute guy to me
While the two of us
Have coffee

Smile
Do not show the hallow
Do not let the wind being knocked out of you
Whistle off of your rib cage
Like love notes being shredded

Remember
This is just coffee
Don’t pay attention to the fact that
Coffee hardly ever happens
Don’t pay attention to the fact that
You’ve literally had a crush on this girl since
Before you actually met her
Don’t pay attention to the fact that
There might not ever be another
Coffee

Remember
This is just your life
They don’t write love stories for hallowed out hearts
Or at least hearts that are only full of an outlining
Of oxygen
With skin singed from dysphoria
I hear it’s not good theater
If the main character looks like
A burn victim—
A bit indistinguishable
Like someone threw
Scalding coffee over your gender
Or tried to fill your heart with it

Breathe

Remember getting over her
It wasn’t hard
After all
It was just coffee
And it wasn’t like you
Had hope to fill your heart with
It was too full of out-linings
It’d be like stuffing a net with sand
Or trying to pour coffee into a
Shattered cup

Breathe

Let the broken shards of the
I-guess-this-really-is-just-coffee cups
Fill your lungs
It’s easier than breathing in another night
Of lonely
At least then you know
There was coffee
And glasses that fell apart
In tune with the shattering
Of your heart
So human
To lose something
By breaking it

Breathe

Remember
There was another coffee
And another girl
And this time we didn’t drink
From busted cups
But in something sturdy
Like a glass of hugs
That held the future of more time together
And had teabags of hope attached to strings
Of fingers that interlocked with hers
On the couch during our
Second date

My god
I know we had on shoes
With rubber souls
But that night your
Fingertips felt electric
Like a coffee cup with
An outlet in it
And the fork of my fingers found
The shock inside of you
It was warm like
Body heat
Or setting yourself on fire
*******
I never knew holding hands could make
My burned heart
Feel like a bonfire
Of shredded love notes
And shattered cups

I squeezed your hand a bit too hard
Like ripping coffee out of a sponge
I hoped you didn’t feel
How desperately I needed to hold
Onto the lifeboat rope of your arm
Because I’ve been drowning
In shards of glass from
I-guess-this-really-is-just-coffee cups
My whole life

I wish that second dates
Came with instruction manuals
Because I had no idea what to do
So at 2am
When you said you needed to leave
I walked you out to your car
And while I never read an instruction manual
I know that was the right move
Because you turned
And smushed your face into mine
Like I was stealing cotton candy in my mouth

I’m glad you were a good kisser
Because I know that kissing cotton candy
Has to be awkward as ****
But I hope that you at least found
Something sweet somewhere between
My lips

My god
How great a thief you were
When I checked my breath
The next morning
It was gone
Electrocuted from my lungs
And now I knew why kids
Keep shoving forks
Into outlets
It’s because the electric feels ******* incredible
Like taking a bath in oxygen
Or drowning in an ocean of inhales
Or fighting off a horde of dragons by
******* breathing on them

So Breathe

Remember
Cotton candy may seem sweet
But it doesn’t last forever
Eventually
Everyone can’t bare to have
Another bite

Awkward-at-first-kisses became
Awkward kisses
Breath kept coming home early
And dragons began to breathe
Back at me

I wasn’t surprised when you told me
You started seeing someone
It made sense
I always kept too many dragons around
With screaming hearts
And shattered coffee cups
Burning everything

I wasn’t surprised when I cried that day
It made sense
I had all of my oxygen back now
It was the only kind of breath
I knew

You see, oxygen flows through the heart and
Circles through the veins
I know oxygen
Like shattered coffee cups
And broken hallows
Filled with oceans of air

I guess that’s why
I set my heart on fire
Because maybe
It was never
There.

Mirror mirror
On the wall
Who's the fairest
Of them all?

Not you

Mirror mirror
On the wall
Who's the one
About to fall?

You are

I shatter the mirror
And use the shards
To bleed the memories
From my skin

Mirror mirror
On the wall
You pushed me
Off the cliff so tall

*You deserved it

you paint a picture with words
speaking out just to be heard
you think yout fooling me but i've known all along
your everything you say you are
except one thing
strong
your weakness shows as you string me along
i try to believe you
but deep insidee i know you are wrong
wrong about being right
yeah its a complexed contradiction
but what else should i expect
with someone that mixes fantasy with nonfiction

so mirror mirror on the wall
its about time you crumble and fall
and amidst your broke shards of glass
come to realize the past has passed

dwelling in broken memories
your drown in your thoughts
tangeled up in emotion
afriad to admit your caught
like a spider you spin your web
parallel to the cycle spinning in your head
on your worn out path you continue to tread

i dont even know what it means to be
without you
because your always haunting me
taunting me
drawing me into your cycle
its time i break free

so mirror mirror on the wall
its about time you crumble and fall
and amidst your broken shards of glass
come to realize the past has passed

turn over a new leaf
dont look back
or stop in your tracks
determine myths from facts
begin to act
like the adult you are coming to be
look from an outer perspective
begin to see
clearly now
come to think about it
i dont know how
i believed in your self doubt

so mirror mirror on the wall
its about time your shatter and fall
and amidst your broken shards of glass
come to realize the past has passed

come to peace at last
and realize
that despise
isnt a comprimise
when it comes to fate
and that hate
isnt the only way to demonstrate
your emotion

lifes as vast as the ocean
and always in motion
changing with the tide
so swallow your pride
learn how to recognize
a blessing in disguise
end where endings end
after that
begin
know yourself deep within
submerge to the surface of conciousness
and listen
to the voice within
yeah thats really livin

so mirror mirror on the wall
its about time your shatter and fall
and amidst your broken shards of glass
come to realize the past has passed

The intensity with which we shatter,
Those what’s-left-of-us shards that cut you deep,
Brokenness and jagged edges matter,
When prices paid with pieces feels too steep.

Only two things cause our own destruction—
We’re broken from without or from within.
The damage goes beyond reconstruction,
We can’t build what we built before again.

Cracked into piles of debris on the floor,
The remnants of escaped emotion’s cage,
Whose seething burn couldn’t take it anymore,
Disposing of it disrespects its rage.

We’re broken so that something is released,
Those shards remind us what we have to do.
To put them back is just what matters least,
But don’t cut yourself making something new.

I gently place the shards of glass back into
The frame
And ignore the way their jagged edges cut
My hands.

Silent crackle, tingle,
The smell of a sticky must. Floating dust in
An abandoned attic, where the rats roam and the dead skeleton of a fish
Still lies in an empty bowl of moldy rocks and plastic plants.
Yet, despite the emptiness, a girl curls up in the corner, black
Running down her face as she weeps for the things she longs for most.
She looks out the *****, broken window at the cloudy sky and imagines it
Blue. The brightest of skies with only few hints of cirrus.
A blanket on the ground and the man she loves, nothing else in sight.
The expanse of green in her head is contrasted to the rotting floorboards she lays
On, dreaming. The steady beat of Boy in Static thrumming through her headset
As she struggles not to scream and jump, finishing the job on the window
From troubled teens years before. The sound reminds her of VHS tapes,
Press rewind, take a turn and start over. But she can't, when something has changed.
The boy she knew, looking down with his hood not up, but covering his face, shielding
Himself from her. She knew he had a ***** in his head, but she just looked away. He never answered anything she asked. He was unable.
But her heart still dropped, she smiled her best. An amazing actress, fooling everyone, makeup allergy keeping her eyes dry. She just read Huck Finn as though nothing was wrong.
Now she sits in her room, writing and shaking her head. This line is not right.
Her walls were full of color and poetry, but her mind kept wandering to that attic.

She was there again. Blankly staring at her star charm anklet. A simple blue ribbon.
And the throbbing of her heartbeat through that one spot on her thumb,
That pressure point that hurts more than anything. But one thing could be worse.
Being left. Just like the broken rocking horse in the corner and the baby's cradle
Lined with blue silk that was shoved into a box. That baby is probably dead. Just like all
Of the others who lived there, burned by the fire. Goose flesh raises, prickly
Hairs on her legs from a week of no shaving. Scratch. Scratch. Scratch. Bleed.
Change the song. Bleed Like Me. Perfect. She draws on the peeling walls, two hundred
Years of wallpaper and lead paint, chalk barely leaving a mark. She sketches a masterpiece.
A child that she wishes she could have. Impossibly too young, but still...
A daughter she could raise better than her mother raised her. A chance to do something right.
More than the mechanic life she has lead, empty and useless.
Confused and pathetic. Like the broken grandfather clock that ticks backwards.
Three, two, one.
Ding-****, ****-ding. Grandfather never taught me anything. He was not a wise man.
He was a fool. Knew too much and too little, no room to know what was right.
She let another raindrop escape and suddenly it began to pour. Lightning crashes as a glass
Slipper collides with the picture drawn of her dream. Thunder as she releases a
Bloodcurdling scream. "Why!?"
Why her? The pain in her back is unbearable. She slouches too much, and her eyes burn.
She is not Cinderella; her ball gown does not glitter.
Piano is her least favorite instrument, but it somehow gets to her. Small hammers
Striking her heart strings, low notes reminding her of his voice and the soft, feminine
Voices radiating, remind her of when she was young... Immortal. She has aged since then.
Too quickly. Her entire life has been a masquerade ball. Unskilled idiots dancing
Around her and stepping on her toes. Shouldering her in the stomach,
Breaking her ribs. Beats of music guide her skilled toes, swerve around falling raindrops that
Her own eyes emit. And she crashes through the floor of that dismal attic. Broken free,
But she is still trapped. The walls are charred down here.

But the walls are not painted black. They were once a mint color, green and cheerful, healthy.
Until a psychopath lit a match.
"I didn't mean to do it." It was all in her head. The house.
She set it aflame.

She sits in her room, writing and shaking her head. This line is not right.
Her walls were full of color and poetry. It isn't worth it to stare. Nothing will change.
She is still just a girl in a glass box, being stared at and judged. Trapped and ridiculed because her eyes bleed and bless the onlookers with bad luck. It's amazing the things
That people don't know. Drifting deeper into a pit of endless darkness. A candle won't
Live down here. No oxygen to let it breathe. But one lit self portrait hangs in the air.
Years ago, drawn in pencil. Symbolic, it wants to be erased. To die.
And the ******* the page is wearing a mask. The girl in the parchment is me.
Medium length hair and a tear painted, permanent. A Parasite. Capitalized for its meaning.

A demon is running through me, singeing
My tissues, blisters on the insides of my bones. Swelled up, show through
My skin. Waves on a shore. But I am not a beach. A ***** maybe...
Still, I hate it. The hate killed whatever flowers I had left planted in my mind.
Tainted me with the horrible visions of a tear streaked face of paper mâché.
She was the one in the attic. Her whole persona
Wilted and ashen, grey. A silent movie might mask it; the hurt, I mean.
The grey lines on the screen hiding the bags under her eyes and the redness of her nose,
Get rid of the twinkling shards of glass frozen on her cheek from crying in the dead of winter.
Slip up once, and everything goes to hell. Well, I must have slipped years before I was born.
Few smiles are left on this dismal timeline. And I shall use them wisely. But, for now,
I think I will just weep, sleep forever and hope that you don't give up on me and pull the plug.
I am still here somewhere, just dormant. Please wake me up. Get me out of this charred cabin,
This glass box. Pull me out of my warped sense of everything, teach me again what
Love feels like. I have forgotten amidst everything that I have felt and remembered.
There is no more room for things to be learned. Only for things to be repaired.
I will give you a hammer. Come inside and fix me; that ***** in your head couldn't have taken your knowledge away. You are the only one that knows.

Use this never ending lightning and bring your bride to life.

And the pieces fall, not crashing down alerting everyone
But slowly slipping silently from my fingers dripping with blood,
The beaten and worn slices mixed with a deep crimson, glisten on the floor beneath my feet.
To think that those shards once were being held out to you for the keeping is foolish
As before when they were beautifully welded together without scratches nor scars to be seen,
You denied and manipulated the magnificant detail bestowed upon you.
I'll go on, living the facade of smiling faces and emotion-full eyes, you won't tell the difference and no one else can.
All the skipped heart beats and lasting hugs come to an abrupt end seemingly wasted and impossible.
I take a step and a promising crunch rings out signifying the closure of pain,
Because to hurt, you need a heart and you just blatently destroyed my last one into a million little glass shards...

Stained glass shards glisten on the floor, from the window that was shattered. Words lost that cut the tongue, withheld because it never mattered.

Bare feet that no longer feel, I kneel on glass remains. If only my heart was unbreakable, but the overflow of everything it contains.

I built walls I let down, reluctantly for men who are undeserving. But it seems that heartache, is a lesson I'm always learning.

I'd rather just hear it burst because I'm always muffled sound. I can't keep looking in spite of hope, for something that can't be found.

I broke the window because beautiful, is nothing that is me. Maybe if I wear a mask, I can obstruct the image that is all they ever see.

Shards of broken glasses
Strewn all over the floor
Shattered dreams all over
Jagged edges of regret
Once held with affection
Held the fragrant flowers
Special Cymbidium Orchids
It’s pristine presence felt
Adorned the corsage
Now, lay shattered
No place for the Orchids
Wailing of broken dreams
Now, memories linger

All were blinded by your beauty
How ever fake it was
I remember those days so safe
Before your real light appeared
Seeping through the cracks in your mask
Only few saw and reached
Then the betrayal of ugliness burned them

Seeming so strong
It was only time that you fell
So hard
Crashing, your shards made us bleed
All you were was a lie
Waiting to break us all
All you were was a lie
Now your true light guiding you
The wrong way

There were few that witnessed the fall
Our blindfolds ripped from us
And see the monster you’ve become
Some refuse to see you
Most are still blinded by your memory
You made these whole hearts torn
Cold and ugly you have become
That was not the fate we foresaw

Seeming so strong
It was only time that you fell
So hard
Crashing, your shards made us bleed
All you were was a lie
Waiting to break us all
All you were was a lie
Now your true light guiding you
The wrong way

To you I scream in agony
Come back home though I can’t promise
Forgiveness is what you get
Our pride is strong, heavy and pure
Our hearts fortress is stronger
Your memory is always welcome
Only when it is no longer
When you are no longer a memory
You will be let back in

Seeming so strong
It was only time that you fell
So hard
Crashing, your shards made us bleed
All you were was a lie
Waiting to break us all
All you were was a lie
Now your true light guiding you
The wrong way

Sweet pictures of old paint my mind
Your sun is coming love
Open your eyes and see the pain
Yourself inflicted pain
The pain that you passed out to others
From your black box
Like your fake affection and trust

Seeming so strong
It was only time that you fell
So hard
Crashing, your shards made us bleed
All you were was a lie
Waiting to break us all
All you were was a lie
Now your true light guiding you
The wrong way

How long will you stare at the celling
How many nights will you cry
How long will you go on
With the guilt inside
How long will you lie to your self

Now we are strong
When is it our time to fall
So hard
Crashing, when will we make you bleed
All we are is a lie
Born from lies we walk
All we are is a lie
Until we realize that we are racing
The wrong way

That diamond smile
Your diamond teeth
Your diamond tongue
Your diamond fingertips
Your diamond wrists
Your diamond eyes
and your diamond thighs

How you sparkle so
much you brighten
my days

you glow inside
while I shatter black fluid out of my eyes

shards of liquid piercing
through my palms

I can't remember the good feeling I had

She sweeps up the shards

and she doesn't recognise them:


the shards of a man.

The mirror is shattered.
So without any reflection on the misuse of this image,
The shards will be incarnadine.

The bleeding will ne'er end.
It drips drops of thick sick thoughts,
Smothering the scattered shards.

A sight bred for horror.
Speckled endlessly, sorting sorrows
Into uniquely spattered shards.

The fulmination of self-imitation.
No longer are little words taken lightly.
You are now obscure shards.

I, too, once saw clearly.

he gathered the bone white shards
with great care in the near darkness
of the kitchen
the streetlights toxic amber light
burrowed into the silent house
curtailed by the narrow window
and lay unchanging on the pitted and greasy floor

his feet shuffle across that lighted square
he watches it intently as he passes over it

a few leaves of an intervening tree are
are silhouetted there as stark contrast
but he is numb to the contradiction
lighted floor tile with shadows of leaves
it makes him giggle inside like a giddy schoolgirl
the light is diseased and its so so nasty
ain't it delightful
saturated by shadows
his mind shuts off the unquiet thoughts
replacing it with something warm and fuzzy
like a warm blanket
a blanket party for the mind...
yes yes yes...beaten senseless

morning collapses the streetlights
mesmerizing light/shadow
for another day
he picks up the fine white china cup
that he drank coffee from all night
and smashes it on the floor with mock violence
where the streetlight had lain
the seed of his madness all night

the bone white shards
will lay as a dangerous reef until nightfall
when he will gather them to their grave
one more fine white china cup
one more day alone in the
shatterbox

our glass society is made of
broken girls
and
shattered boys.

Every day now my mind grows weary,
Shards of broken dreams wound me daily.
Caught in a web of endless expectations,
All I can do is quietly daydream;
Plan every step of my grand escape,
Even if I only do it to get through the day.

SELF REFLECTIONS

These are poems about mirrors, images, self-image, reflections and self-reflection. How do we see ourselves differently than other people see us? Why do our impressions of ourselves sometimes end up like so much shattered glass?



Self Reflection
by Michael R. Burch

for anyone struggling with self-image

She has a comely form
and a smile that brightens her dorm ...
but she's grossly unthin
when seen from within;
soon a griefstricken campus will mourn.

Yet she'd never once criticize
a friend for the size of her thighs.
Do unto others—
sisters and brothers?
Yes, but also ourselves, likewise.



Reflections
by Michael R. Burch

I am her mirror.
I say she is kind,
lovely, breathtaking.
She screams that I’m blind.

I show her her beauty,
her brilliance and compassion.
She refuses to believe me,
for that’s the latest fashion.

She storms and she rages;
she dissolves into tears
while envious Angels
are, by God, her only Peers.



Is the mirror unkind
by Michael R. Burch

To your lovely brown eyes is the mirror unkind,
revealing far more than reflections defined
in superficial glass, so lacking in depth?
Is the mirror unkind, at times, darling Beth?

What you see my dear, I see different by far,
as our sun from Centauri is just a “small” star,
but here it brings life and warms each day’s start.
Oh, and a mirror can never reveal a true heart.



On Looking into Curious George’s Mirrors
by Michael R. Burch

for Maya McManmon, granddaughter of the poet Jim McManmon aka Seamus Cassidy

Maya was made in the image of God;
may the reflections she sees in those curious mirrors
always echo back Love.

Amen



The Mistake
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

All your life, O Ghalib,
You kept repeating the same mistake:
Your face was *****
But you were obsessed with cleaning the mirror!



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

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



Radiance
by Michael R. Burch

for Dylan Thomas

The poet delves earth’s detritus—hard toil—
for raw-edged nouns, barbed verbs, vowels’ lush bouquet;
each syllable his pen excretes—dense soil,
dark images impacted, rooted clay.

The poet sees the sea but feels its meaning—
the teeming brine, the mirrored oval flame
that leashes and excites its turgid surface ...
then squanders years imagining love’s the same.

Belatedly he turns to what lies broken—
the scarred and furrowed plot he fiercely sifts,
among death’s sicksweet dungs and composts seeking
one element that scorches and uplifts.



Downdraft
by Michael R. Burch

for Dylan Thomas

We feel rather than understand what he meant
as he reveals a shattered firmament
which before him never existed.

Here, there are no images gnarled and twisted
out of too many words,
but only flocks of white birds

wheeling and flying.

Here, as the sun spins, reeling and dying,
the voice of a last gull
or perhaps a lost soul,

echoes its lonely madrigal
and we feel its strange pull
on the astonished soul.

O My Prodigal!

The vents of the sky, ripped asunder,
echo this wild, primal thunder—
now dying into undulations of vanishing wings . . .

and this voice which in haggard bleak rapture still somehow downward sings.




Resemblance
by Michael R. Burch

Take this geode with its rough exterior—
crude-skinned, brilliant-hearted ...
a diode of amethyst—wild, electric;
its sequined cavity—parted, revealing.
Find in its fire all brittle passion,
each jagged shard relentlessly aching.
Each spire inward—a fission startled;
in its shattered entrails—fractured light,
the heart ice breaking.



Wonderland
by Michael R. Burch

We stood, kids of the Lamb, to put to test
the beatific anthems of the blessed,
the sentence of the martyr, and the pen’s
sincere religion. Magnified, the lens
shot back absurd reflections of each face—
a carnival-like mirror. In the space
between the silver backing and the glass,
we caught a glimpse of Joan, a frumpy lass
who never brushed her hair or teeth, and failed
to pass on GO, and frequently was jailed
for awe’s beliefs. Like Alice, she grew wee
to fit the door, then couldn’t lift the key.
We failed the test, and so the jury’s hung.
In Oz, “The Witch is Dead” ranks number one.



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

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



Polish
by Michael R. Burch

Your fingers end in talons—
the ones you trim to hide
the predator inside.
Ten thousand creatures sacrificed;
but really, what’s the loss?
Apply a splash of gloss.
You picked the perfect color
to mirror nature’s law:
red, like tooth and claw.



Mending Glass
by Michael R. Burch

In the cobwebbed house—
lost in shadows
by the jagged mirror,
in the intricate silver face
cracked ten thousand times,
silently he watches,
and in the twisted light
sometimes he catches there
a familiar glimpse of revealing lace,
white stockings and garters,
a pale face pressed indiscreetly near
with a predatory leer,
the sheer flash of nylon,
an embrace, or a sharp slap,
. . . a sudden lurch of terror.

He finds bright slivers
—the hard sharp brittle shards,
the silver jags of memory
starkly impressed there—
and mends his error.



The Poet
by Michael R. Burch

He walks to the sink,
takes out his teeth,
rubs his gums.
He tries not to think.

In the mirror, on the mantle,
Time—the silver measure—
does not stare or blink,
but in a wrinkle flutters,
in a hand upon the brink
of a second, hovers.

Through a mousehole,
something scuttles
on restless incessant feet.

There is no link
between life and death
or from a fading past
to a more tenuous present
that a word uncovers
in the great wink.

The white foam lathers
at his thin pink
stretched neck
like a tightening noose.
He tries not to think.



POEMS ABOUT POOL SHARKS

These are poems about pool sharks, gamblers, con artists and other sharks. I used to hustle pool on bar tables around Nashville, where I ran into many colorful characters, and a few unsavory ones, before I hung up my cue for good.

Shark
by Michael R. Burch

They are all unknowable,
these rough pale men—
haunting dim pool rooms like shadows,
propped up on bar stools like scarecrows,
nodding and sagging in the fraying light . . .

I am not of them,
as I glide among them—
eliding the amorphous camaraderie
they are as unlikely to spell as to feel,
camouflaged in my own pale dichotomy . . .

That there are women who love them defies belief—
with their missing teeth,
their hair in thin shocks
where here and there a gap of scalp gleams like bizarre chrome,
their smell rank as wet sawdust or mildewed laundry . . .

And yet—
and yet there is someone who loves me:
She sits by the telephone
in the lengthening shadows
and pregnant grief . . .

They appreciate skill at pool, not words.
They frown at massés,
at the cue ball’s contortions across green felt.
They hand me their hard-earned money with reluctant smiles.
A heart might melt at the thought of their children lying in squalor . . .
At night I dream of them in bed, toothless, kissing.
With me, it’s harder to say what is missing . . .



Fair Game
by Michael R. Burch

At the Tennessee State Fair,
the largest stuffed animals hang tilt-a-whirl over the pool tables
with mocking button eyes,
knowing the playing field is unlevel,
that the rails slant, ever so slightly, north or south,
so that gravity is always on their side,
conspiring to save their plush, extravagant hides
year after year.

“Come hither, come hither . . .”
they whisper; they leer
in collusion with the carnival barkers,
like a bevy of improbably-clad hookers
setting a “fair” price.
“Only five dollars a game, and it’s so much Fun!
And it’s not really gambling. Skill is involved!
You can make us come: really, you can.
Here are your *****. Just smack them around.”

But there’s a trick, and it usually works.
If you break softly so that no ball reaches a rail,
you can pick them off: One. Two. Three. Four.
Causing a small commotion,
a stir of whispering, like fear,
among the hippos and ostriches.



Con Artistry
by Michael R. Burch

The trick of life is like the sleight of hand
of gamblers holding deuces by the glow
of veiled back rooms, or aces; soon we’ll know
who folds, who stands . . .

The trick of life is like the pool shark’s shot—
the wild massé across green velvet felt
that leaves the winner loser. No, it’s not
the rack, the hand that’s dealt . . .

The trick of life is knowing that the odds
are never in one’s favor, that to win
is only to delay the acts of gods
who’d ante death for sin . . .

and death for goodness, death for in-between.
The rules have never changed; the artist knows
the oldest con is life; the chips he blows
can’t be redeemed.



Pool's Prince Charming
by Michael R. Burch

this is my tribute poem, written on the behalf of his fellow pool sharks, for the legendary Saint Louie Louie Roberts

Louie, Louie, Prince of Pool,
making all the ladies drool ...
Take the “nuts”? I'd be a fool!
Louie, Louie, Prince of Pool.

Louie, Louie, pretty as Elvis,
owner of (ahem) a similar pelvis ...
Compared to you, the books will shelve us.
Louie, Louie, pretty as Elvis.

Louie, Louie, fearless gambler,
ladies' man and constant rambler,
but such a sweet, loquacious ambler!
Louie, Louie, fearless gambler.

Louie, Louie, angelic, chthonic,
pool's charming hero, but tragic, Byronic,
winning the Open drinking gin and tonic?
Louie, Louie, angelic, chthonic.

I used poetic license about what Louie Roberts was or wasn't drinking at the 1981 U. S. Open Nine-Ball Championship. Was Louie drinking hard liquor as he came charging back through the losers' bracket to win the whole shebang? Or was he pretending to drink for gamesmanship or some other reason? I honestly don't know. As for the word “chthonic,” it’s pronounced “thonic” and means “subterranean” or “of the underworld.” And the pool world can be very dark indeed, as Louie’s tragic demise suggests. But everyone who knew Louie seemed to like him, if not love him dearly, and many sharks have spoken of Louie in glowing terms, as a bringer of light to that underworld.



My wife and I were having a drink at a neighborhood bar which has a pool table. A “money” game was about to start; a spectator got up to whisper something to a friend of ours who was about to play someone we hadn’t seen before. We couldn’t hear what was said. Then the newcomer broke—with such force that his stick flew straight up in the air and shattered the light dangling overhead. There was a moment of stunned silence, then our friend turned around and remarked: “He really does shoot the lights out, doesn’t he?” — Michael R. Burch



Rounds
by Michael R. Burch

Solitude surrounds me
though nearby laughter sounds;
around me mingle men who think
to drink their demons down,
in rounds.

Now agony still hounds me
though elsewhere mirth abounds;
hidebound I stand and try to think,
not sink still further down,
spellbound.

Their ecstasy astounds me,
though drunkenness compounds
resounding laughter into joy;
alloy such glee with beer and see
bliss found.

Originally published by Borderless Journal

Keywords/Tags: mirror, image, images, imagery, self, self-image, self discovery, fear of self, self control, self harm, reflection, reflections, reflecting, glass, mrbref

I'm broken
My shards are everywhere
Please do not pick up my shards
I don't want you to get hurt by my shards.

i was young...
      well, younger than now----
   it was when it first struck me
it struck me hard.
          it struck me like reality...
       but more like
         reality when reality comes
    in the face of your
             family
        all in chains...
     then, reality looks like dreams altogether;
            no not fantasy----
              not exactly a nightmare either
                         more like
                  ----ecstasy-----
      "you are a special weapon"
           "something of great potential"
        "and massive power"
              "but you only have one shot"
          mom always used to say.
                   i even once thought
                       she stashed some kind of
           deathray or sting ray or something
           in my arm----
    ----it won't be the first thing
                 she stuffed in me anyway...
              i was eight years old when she
                     finally continued the sentence.
           before total silence.
                  "make it count."
       "cause whether you hit"
         "or even if you miss..."
           "you would be broken"
            "shattered-----"
            "torn to pieces-----"
            "torn apart."
                                 "so please"
                               "don't"
                        "break"
                         ­   "yourself"
                                "shooting"
        ­                            "for"
                      "nothing.­"
                  she never taught me
                  how to use
                  the weapon
                  myself-----
       she just fragmented
           in tears before splintering
                  tearing to shards herself
         it took me til 15
               that i was afraid
                      to yet touch
     even stare
               even think
        nothing.
                  i never knew
           what i was capable of
                      i never knew how
              to control
       to even activate
                 all i knew was that
i was powerful
i don't know what of
but i have to save it
           keep it         live it      nurture it
       store it               amass it                  seep it
             savor it                understand it
    study it            feel it
             polish it                         train it                      
              let it breathe
   let it sing
               i could hear it sing
    i could feel it whisper-----
          and i was so afraid...
                    all i saw of my mother was
      that she was in pieces
             long before i knew her.
                 shambles
                 and
                 shackles
         and i don't want to be that when i fire----
it wasn't supposed to strike me
      but it did, and it struck me hard
   reality
           i was 16 when i
       first made the discovery
                 ----love-----
          all at once
                and much, much too completely----       all off guard.
         it was like
                    you suddenly turned
                a blinding light
      on something that had always been
                 half a shadow
        that's how it struck me...
            that's how it shattered me...
    it's like a full flashback
           of my mother saying
      'i told you so'
                  except she never did.
               and it struck me.
      like i hit the right target at the wrong time
      or the opposite of it
          but truth is
             i just hit
      a poltergeist
           way too soon
                 and it wasn't like
        it was the wind that was hit----
    that's how it struck me,
              love
          and that's how it tore me apart.
                 ----fragmented----
and it did not take me long
to realise what glass cannons we were...
          all my life
      i never tried to
         activate my strength
and when i did
              it imploded.
                               it was a long time...
and i was blinded----
         it wasn't the hit
             nor was it the miss
that tore me apart
                        it was love that broke me
     because shattered pieces
                    are not
                all that bad
                            splinters...
                   shards...
                       fragments...
                                    blades...
      ­       one shot was all it took
        to break my heart
                    and so suddenly...
                    every part of me...
                              was a weapon
                         everyone who held me
                                 hurt
                                 bled
                              cried
                        ­    pained
                        burned
                    wai­led
               enraged
      agonized
                   they turned to anger
          then turned to hate
                            they turned to each other
                                 pretty soon turning to waste
          it was then that it struck me
               what a glass cannon is----
and it was until now that i was eluded...
                        for that long a time
       i thought shards were
       all love could offer...
       fragments were
       all romance could be
                     i met
            your father
            your father
            your father
            your father
    and your father
    all through different shards
                      until i saw what i had
                 all in shambles
                 and
                 all in shackles
     just like my mother
             that's when it struck me
        ---ecstasy---
                       cause looking into your eyes
              my children
                     i love you
         as a whole
                  not like with your fathers
            or like with the guys before them
        or like the guys before the other guys
                         i wanted more than ever
                    to love you
                more than
                      a few shards
                  all tainted
              with blood
          or with anger
                  or with both----
                  that's when it hit me
           and it hit me with so much pain...
           what my mother really should have said.
being a glass cannon
     doesn't mean being
          a weapon to hurt others-----
                    it means one day,
              no one knows when,
       but it will surely come
          like a thief in the night...
                 love
  and you will give your all
  even if it shatters you to pieces
               and even if you are already in pieces
       because you know love
       can make you again whole.

You can use me
To wash away the shards
Left from you broken heart

on a crisp, clean morning in the fall of 2008,  i was happy.
i walked to class, textbooks in hand.
I could almost feel the earth shifting underneath my combat boots.
I was excited to showcase my new haircut,
reaveal my new and improved self to the world.
I'll never forget when the handsome, bright eyed boy who sat behind me in first period called me a d*ke.

You see, from the very beginning, I was taught that having a ***** made me
just a girl.
Made me just a maid,
just a cook,
just a someday wife and mother,
just a dainty, pink ribbon,
just a punchline,
just an orifice,
this
is an ode to the parts of me
that no soul has ever truly desired to understand.
this is working just as hard as a man.
this is ******* with the lights on,
assuming my position,
stepping away from the kitchen.
this is burning my big girl ******* and going commando, instead.
this is scrubbing his DNA from my body and reclaiming it.

When you exist in a world
where you are instructed to keep your mouth shut,
your strongest desire is to open it,
as wide as a cavern.
Here, where we are told that we
think too much,
feel too much,
love too much,
we long to be enough.
this is being enough.
this is learning to love myself unapologetically.
this is finding comfort in my body,
despite all of the glass shards
i find myself plucking from it.
this is loving myself into
an ******, so heavy,
that it makes me feel
like a *****
is the most profound thing
a person can have.

Too long this rot has run its course, too much the damage done
When men deflect acknowledged glance, they know that wrong has won.
Across this land and far afield the wrongness seeps within
And pride becomes a memory through distant halls of spin.
How can we bow to tyranny, how can we shy away
From that which causes  eyes to slide.... and coaxes will to sway?
To tolerate the bombast, the bullying, the lies
Succumbing to a hopelessness, which, both we despise.
Division in the nation, uproar in between
A man and wife’s contention-ness beyond what should be seen
Brothers loathing brothers, silence in the room
Where a word  uttered wrongly can erupt to screaming soon.
Allies left in tatters, trust is cut to shards
Tariffs injudiciously, imposed to **** the cards.
International uproar, industry in strife
Teetering disastrously when NATO flees the knife.

Putin sits and rubs his hands, hilarious the show
Disorder and disharmony to lubricate his glow.
Beijing sits inscrutably, always opportune
Manoeuvring judiciously, in place, to call the tune.

America, the isolate, sails away to sea
Blondini, at the helm, wears smirk indulgently.

M.
The White House
HAMILTON NZ
12th July 2018

senorita, his lover, my glass shards
it was one of the shortest nights when
he brought the bright girl-child
in slacks to the backyard

in a waning day, salty skin, mid-july
by the waters of lethe, he found his annabel Lee
he shivered when retracing the gleaming july
when i was forgotten and he was loving annabel lee

he knew anything would last forever in summer
but forever was wasted and short-lived
and so he walked her out and drove her home
and made me listen to their parting songs

oh, the radio hurts! change the station, please?
(no, said my man) and he kept on driving away from annabel lee
and so the song played through seven red lights
and i collected the shards and dust of his crushed heart

Hallelujah!
It works.
We blew the **** out of them.

We blew the **** right back up their own ***
And out their ******* ears.

It works.
We blew the **** out of them.
They suffocated in their own ****!

Hallelujah.
Praise the Lord for all good things.

We blew them into ******* ****.
They are eating it.

Praise the Lord for all good things.

We blew their ***** into shards of dust,
Into shards of ******* dust.

We did it.

Now I want you to come over here and kiss me on the mouth.

born in illusory chains
gnarled metal
encrusted in my broken skin
the copper colored dust
of rusted steel
infectiously envelopes

shaving off antiquated layers
of fundamentalist religion
encrusted for generations
unpeeled until raw
an unsophisticated method
unveiling
ancient lodged glass shards
colored with deceit

brought before their court
interrogated
unfathomably skewered
an eerie salem witch trial
in modern times

barbarically they shun me
banished
i wander aimlessly
smelling the rotten decay of deceased community
as splinters pierce my feet
from the crooked wooden plank
i walk alone now

an unfathomable inner ache
kindled a residue within
igniting a wildfire from the darkest shadows
uncontainably erupting
i dance savagely
naked in the orange moonlight
and in every shaded edge
lit my soul ablaze

i am a nomad sheep
‘tho not one of their color
no pasture to contain me
no shepherd i can follow
theological safety nets
no longer there to catch me
bohemian-like
i plunge

free falling
plummeting
stripped wide open
magically
fearlessness
reverses gravitation

floating
untethered
i soar amongst
apricot tinged clouds
my skin still wet from rebirth
and rise with the flaming coral sun

you cannot destroy me
i twisted in your decrepit pencil sharpener
and with fresh mettle
cut through the chains that bound

you can have my ego
but you cannot have my soul

dismantling domestication
transcending limitation
wildly untamed
i fly

©2016janetaylor