maybe the buildings are hollow,
occupied only in facade on the first floor of storefronts

maybe this whole town is a hologram
of neon against puddles
on the pavement.

maybe the citizens are ghosts
floating by
in circles, or squares of city blocks,
around a routine,
or droning through on electric scooters
as if on muted theme park rides
to the next sensory diversion;
to the nearest gastronomical pleasure;
toward the weekend and its next party
celebrating the loss of time,
I see their tired faces

staring out from the glass
of coffeeshop windows
on every block.
I see their piles of beer cans
beside the trash chute.
I hear them singing
on *****-cruises to nowhere

What part of this cycle
that turns days into dust
moves us closer to heaven?

What feast from what new restaurant downtown
will feed our souls?

From which lonely night do we finally emerge
beside the one
whose presence fills
these hollow buildings
to the top-most floors?

Which of the empty lots
between us do we fill
with a conversation
about how this is all a dream,
or how we'll keep each other awake
on a bench
beneath a street lamp before dawn
waiting for the first bus to take us home.

I am from New Jersey.
From the paradise of small towns
And the inferno of concrete jungles.
I am from truck tire playgrounds,
Porch Clubs, and the whistle
Of the Riverline.
I am from divorce.
From alcoholism and denial,
From broken doors and hearts.
I am from next to hell.
From pouring out full forties
For one's homies passed away.
From too many candlelight vigils
And sidewalks littered with fourth grade pictures.
I am from the garden state.
From cows, corn, and Clinton,
And tractors in the parking lot.
I am from tradition.
From pasta and seven fishes,
From "Mafiosa!" screamed in the streets
And "No WHOPs" pasted on storefronts.
I am from love.
From three parents and four siblings,
From six dogs and duplicate holidays,
And the smell of tulips and holly.

Vision obscured by soft misty rain dampening harsh city lights
spilling slippery from storefronts and traffic train
shimmering upon pavements
between steps and stains.
soft misty rain
don't I know you?

O, the Horror! Halloween Poetry!

Halloween Poetry: Dark, Eerie, Haunting and Scary poems about Ghosts, Witches, Vampires, Werewolves, Reanimated Corpses and "Things that go Bump in the Night!"



Thin Kin
by Michael R. Burch

Skeleton!
Tell us what you lack...
the ability to love,
your flesh so slack?

Will we frighten you,
grown as pale & unsound,
when we also haunt
the unhallowed ground?



The Witch
by Michael R. Burch

her fingers draw into claws
she cackles through rotting teeth...
u ask "are there witches?"
… pshaw! …
(yet she has my belief)



Vampires
by Michael R. Burch

Vampires are such fragile creatures;
we dread the dark, but the light destroys them...
sunlight, or a stake, or a cross ― such common things.

Still, late at night, when the bat-like vampire sings,
we shrink from his voice.

Centuries have taught us:
in shadows danger lurks for those who stray,
and there the vampire bares his yellow fangs
and feels the ancient soul-tormenting pangs.
He has no choice.

We are his prey, plump and fragrant,
and if we pray to avoid him, he earnestly prays to find us...
prays to some despotic hooded God
whose benediction is the humid blood
he lusts to taste.



Styx
by Michael R. Burch

Black waters,
deep and dark and still...
all men have passed this way,
or will.

Charon, the ferrymen who carried the dead across the River Styx to their eternal destination, has been portrayed by artists and poets as a vampiric figure.



Revenge of the Halloween Monsters
by Michael R. Burch

The Halloween monsters, incensed,
keep howling, and may be UNFENCED!!!
They’re angry that children with treats
keep throwing their trash IN THE STREETS!!!

You can check it out on your computer:
Google says, “Please don’t be a POLLUTER!!!”
The Halloween monsters agree,
so if you’re a litterbug, FLEE!!!

Kids, if you’d like more treats this year
and don’t want to cower in FEAR,
please make all the mean monsters happy,
and they’ll hand out sweet treats like they’re sappy!

So if you eat treats on the drag
and don't want huge monsters to nag,
please put all loose trash in your BAG!!!

NOTE: If you recite the poem, get the kids to huddle up close, then yell the all-caps parts like you’re one of the unhappy monsters, and perhaps "goose" them as well. They'll get the message.



It's Halloween!
by Michael R. Burch

If evening falls
on graveyard walls
far softer than a sigh;

if shadows fly
moon-sickled skies,
while children toss their heads

uneasy in their beds,
beware the witch's eye!

If goblins loom
within the gloom
till playful pups grow terse;

if birds give up their verse
to comfort chicks they nurse,
while children dream weird dreams

of ugly, wiggly things,
beware the serpent's curse!

If spirits scream
in haunted dreams
while ancient sibyls rise

to plague nightmarish skies
one night without disguise,

while children toss about
uneasy, full of doubt,
beware the Devil's lies...

it's Halloween!



Ghost
by Michael R. Burch

White in the shadows
I see your face,
unbidden. Go, tell

Love it is commonplace;
tell Regret it is not so rare.

Our love is not here
though you smile,
full of sedulous grace.

Lost in darkness, I fear
the past is our resting place.



All Hallows Eve
by Michael R. Burch

What happened to the mysterious Tuatha De Danann, to the Ban Shee (from which we get the term “banshee”) and, eventually, to the Druids? One might assume that with the passing of Merlyn, Morgan le Fay and their ilk, the time of myths and magic ended. This poem is an epitaph of sorts.

In the ruins
of the dreams
and the schemes
of men;

when the moon
begets the tide
and the wide
sea sighs;

when a star
appears in heaven
and the raven
cries;

we will dance
and we will revel
in the devil’s
fen...

if nevermore again.



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...



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
and 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.

Held in their arms, enchanted,
we feel their lips, so old!,
till with their gorging kisses
we warm them, growing cold.



Solicitation
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

The moon shines ― maniacal, queer ― as he takes my hand whispering

Our time has come... And so we stroll together creaking docks
where the sea sends sickening things
scurrying under rocks and boards.

Moonlight washes his ashen face as he stares unseeing into my eyes.
He sighs, and the sound crawls slithering down my spine;
my blood seems to pause at his touch as he caresses my face.
He unfastens my dress till the white lace shows, and my neck is bared.

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



Sometimes the Dead
by Michael R. Burch

Sometimes we catch them out of the corners of our eyes ―
the pale dead.
After they have fled
the gourds of their bodies, like escaping fragrances they rise.

Once they have become a cloud’s mist, sometimes like the rain
they descend;
they appear, sometimes silver like laughter,
to gladden the hearts of men.

Sometimes like a pale gray fog, they drift
unencumbered, yet lumbrously,
as if over the sea
there was the lightest vapor even Atlas could not lift.

Sometimes they haunt our dreams like forgotten melodies
only half-remembered.
Though they lie dismembered
in black catacombs, sepulchers and dismal graves; although they have committed felonies,

yet they are us. Someday soon we will meet them in the graveyard dust
blood-engorged, but never sated
since Cain slew Abel.
But until we become them, let us steadfastly forget them, even as we know our children must...



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.

Published by The HyperTexts



Siren Song
by Michael R. Burch

The Lorelei’s
soft cries
entreat mariners to save her...

How can they resist
her faint voice through the mist?

Soon she will savor
the flavor
of sweet human flesh.



How Long the Night (anonymous Old English Lyric)
loose translation 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 Wild Hunt
by Michael R. Burch

Near Devon, the hunters appear in the sky
with Artur and Bedwyr sounding the call;
and the others, laughing, go dashing by.
They only appear when the moon is full:

Valerin, the King of the Tangled Wood,
and Valynt, the goodly King of Wales,
Gawain and Owain and the hearty men
who live on in many minstrels’ tales.

They seek the white stag on a moonlit moor,
or Torc Triath, the fabled boar,
or Ysgithyrwyn, or Twrch Trwyth,
the other mighty boars of myth.

They appear, sometimes, on Halloween
to chase the moon across the green,
then fade into the shadowed hills
where memory alone prevails.



The Vampire's Spa Day Dream
by Michael R. Burch

O, to swim in vats of blood!
I wish I could, I wish I could!
O, 'twould be
so heavenly
to swim in lovely vats of blood!

The poem above was inspired by a Josh Parkinson depiction of Elizabeth Bathory up to her nostrils in the blood of her victims, with their skulls floating in the background.



Nevermore!
by Michael R. Burch

Nevermore! O, nevermore!
shall the haunts of the sea
― the swollen tide pools
and the dark, deserted shore ―
mark her passing again.

And the salivating sea
shall never kiss her lips
nor caress her ******* and hips,
as she dreamt it did before,
once, lost within the uproar.

The waves will never **** her,
nor take her at their leisure;
the sea gulls shall not have her,
nor could she give them pleasure...
She sleeps, forevermore!

She sleeps forevermore,
a ****** save to me
and her other lover,
who lurks now, safely smothered
by the restless, surging sea.

And, yes, they sleep together,
but never in that way...
For the sea has stripped and shorn
the one I once adored,
and washed her flesh away.

He does not stroke her honey hair,
for she is bald, bald to the bone!
And how it fills my heart with glee
to hear them sometimes cursing me
out of the depths of the demon sea...

their skeletal love ― impossibility!



Dark Gothic
by Michael R. Burch

Her fingers are filed into talons;
she smiles with carnivorous teeth...
You ask, “Are there vampires?”
― Get real! ―
(Yet she has my belief.)



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.


Athenian Epitaphs (Gravestone Inscriptions of the Ancient Greeks)

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


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



Passerby,
tell the Spartans we lie
lifeless at Thermopylae:
dead at their word,
obedient to their command.
Have they heard?
Do they understand?
― Michael R. Burch, after Simonides



Completing the Pattern
by Michael R. Burch

Walk with me now, among the transfixed dead
who kept life’s compact and who thus endure
harsh sentence here―among pink-petaled beds
and manicured green lawns. The sky’s azure,
pale blue once like their eyes, will gleam blood-red
at last when sunset staggers to the door
of each white mausoleum, to inquire―
What use, O things of erstwhile loveliness?


Reclamation
by Michael R. Burch

after Robert Graves, with a nod to Mary Shelley

I have come to the dark side of things
where the bat sings
its evasive radar
and Want is a crooked forefinger
attached to a gelatinous wing.

I have grown animate here, a stitched corpse
hooked to electrodes.
And night
moves upon me―progenitor of life
with its foul breath.

Blind eyes have their second sight
and still are deceived. Now my nature
is softly to moan
as Desire carries me
swooningly across her threshold.

Stone
is less infinite than her crone’s
gargantuan hooked nose, her driveling lips.
I eye her ecstatically―her dowager figure,
and there is something about her that my words transfigure
to a consuming emptiness.

We are at peace
with each other; this is our venture―
swaying, the strings tautening, as tightropes
tauten, as love tightens, constricts
to the first note.

Lyre of our hearts’ pits,
orchestration of nothing, adits
of emptiness! We have come to the last of our hopes,
sweet as congealed blood sweetens for flies.

Need is reborn; love dies.



Deliver Us ...
by Michael R. Burch

The night is dark and scary―
under your bed, or upon it.

That blazing light might be a star ...
or maybe the Final Comet.

But two things are sure: your mother’s love
and your puppy’s kisses, doggonit!



the Horror
by Michael R. Burch

the Horror lurks inside our closets
the Horror hides beneath our beds
the Horror hisses ancient curses
the Horror whispers in our heads

the Horror tells us Death is coming
the Horror tells us there’s no hope
the Horror tells us “life” is futile
the Horror beckons, “there’s the Rope!”



Belfry
by Michael R. Burch

There are things we surrender
to the attic gloom:
they haunt us at night
with shrill, querulous voices.

There are choices we made
yet did not pursue,
behind windows we shuttered
then failed to remember.

There are canisters sealed
that we cannot reopen,
and others long broken
that nothing can heal.

There are things we conceal
that our anger dismembered,
gray leathery faces
the rafters reveal.



Duet
by Michael R. Burch

Oh, Wendy, by the firelight, how sad!
How worn and gray your auburn hair became!
You’re very silent, like an evening rain
that trembles on dark petals. Tears you’ve shed
for days we laughed together, glisten now;
your flesh became translucent; and your brow
knits, gathered loosely. By the well-made bed
three portraits hang with knowing eyes, beloved,
but mine is not among them. Time has proved
our hearts both strangely mortal. If I said
I loved you once, how is it that could change?
And yet I watch you fondly; love is strange . . .

Oh, Peter, by the firelight, how bright
my thought of you remains, and if I said
I loved you once, then took him to my bed,
I did it for the need of love, one night
when you were far away. My heart endured
transfigurement―in flaming ash inured
to heartbreak and the violence of sight:
I saw myself grow old and thin and frail
with thinning hair about me, like a veil . . .
And so I loved him for myself, despite
the love between us―our first startled kiss.
But then I loved him for his humanness.
And then we both grew old, and it was right . . .

Oh, Wendy, if I fly, I fly beyond
these human hearts, these cities walled and tiered
against the night, beyond this vale of tears,
for love, if it exists, dies with the years . . .

No, Peter, love is constant as the heart
that keeps till its last beat a measured pace
and sets the fixtures of its dreams in place
by beds at first well-used, at last well-made,
and counts each face a joy, each tear a grace . . .



Horror
by Michael R. Burch

What I ache to say is beyond saying―
no words for the horror
of not loving enough,
like a mummy half-wrapped in its moldering casements
holding a lily aloft.

No, there are no words for the horror
as a tormented wind howls through the teetering floes
and the cold freezes down to my clawed hairy toes ...

What use to me, now, if the stars appear?
As I moan
the moon finds me,
fangs goring the deer.



Strange Corps(e)
by Michael R. Burch

We are all dying, haunted by life―
dying, but the living will not let us go.
We are perishing zombies, haunted by the moonglow.

With what animation we, shuffling, return
nightly, to worry Love’s worm-eaten corpse,
till, living or dead, she is wholly ours.

We are the dying, enamored of “life”―
the palest of auras, the eeriest call.
We stagger to attention ... stumble ... fall.

We have only one thought―Love’s peculiar notion,
that our duty’s to “live,” though such “living” means
night’s horrific wild hungers, its stranger dreams.

We now “live” on the flesh of eroded dreams
and no longer recoil at the victims’ screams.



Love, ah! serene ghost
by Michael R. Burch

Love, ah! serene ghost,
haunts my retelling of her,
or stands atop despairing stairs
with such pale, severe eyes,
I become another pallid specter.

But what I feel
most profoundly is this:
the absolute lack of her kiss,
the absence of her wild,
unwarranted laughter.

So that,
like a candle deprived of oxygen,
I become mere wick and tallow again.
Here and hereafter ...
gone with her now, in the darkest of nights, the flame!

I lie, pallid vision of man―the same
wan ghost of her palpitations’ claim
on my heart
that I was before.

I love her beyond and despite even shame.



Eden
by Michael R. Burch

Then earth was heaven too, a perfect garden.
Apples burgeoned and shone―unplucked on sagging boughs.
What, then, would the children eat?
Fruit indecently sweet,
redolent as incense, with a tempting aroma ...



Outcasts
by Michael R. Burch

There was a rose, a prescient shade of crimson,
the very color of blood,
that bloomed in that garden.

The most dazzling of all the Earth’s flowers,
men have forgotten it now,
with their fanciful tales of apples and serpents.

Beasts with lips called the goreflower “Love.”

The scribes have the story all wrong: four were there,
four horrid dark creatures―chattering, bickering.
Aduhm placed one red petal in Ehve’s matted hair;

he was lost in her arms
till dawn sullen and golden
imperceptibly streaked the musk-fragrant air.

Two flared nostrils quivered, two eyes remained open.

Kahyn sought me that evening, his bloodless lips curled
in a grimacelike smile. Sunken-cheeked, he approached me
in the Caverns of Similitudes, eerie Barzakh.

“We are outcasts, my brother!, God quickly deserts us.”
As though his anguish conceived in insight’s first blush
might not pale next to mine in Sheol’s gray realm.

“Shining Creature!” he named me and called me divine
as he lavished damp kisses upon my bright scales.
“Help me find me one rare gift to put Love’s gift to shame.”

“There is a dark rose with a bittersweet fragrance
as pungent as cloves: only man knows its name.
Clinging and cloying, it destroys all it touches . . .”

“But red is Ehve’s preference; while Envy is green.”
He was downcast a moment, a moment, a moment . . .
“Ah, but red is the color of blood!”

Disagreeable child, far too clever for his own good.

Published in The Bible of Hell (anthology)



No One
by Michael R. Burch

No One hears the bells tonight;
they tell him something isn’t right.
But No One is not one to rush;
he lies in grasses greenly lush
as far away a startled thrush
flees from horned owls in sinking flight.

No One hears the cannon’s roar
and muses that its voice means war
comes knocking on men’s doors tonight.
He sleeps outside in awed delight
beneath the enigmatic stars
and shivers in their cooling light.

No One knows the world will end,
that he’ll be lonely, without friend
or foe to conquer. All will be
once more, celestial harmony.
He’ll miss men’s voices, now and then,
but worlds can be remade again.



Bikini
by Michael R. Burch

Undersea, by the shale and the coral forming,
by the shell’s pale rose and the pearl’s white eye,
through the sea’s green bed of lank seaweed worming
like tangled hair where cold currents rise . . .
something lurks where the riptides sigh,
something old and pale and wise.

Something old when the world was forming
now lifts its beak, its snail-blind eye,
and with tentacles about it squirming,
it feels the cloud above it rise
and shudders, settles with a sigh,
knowing man’s demise draws nigh.



Ceremony
by Michael R. Burch

Lost in the cavernous blue silence of spring,
heavy-lidded and drowsy with slumber, I see
the dark gnats leap; the black flies fling
their slow, engorged bulks into the air above me.

Shimmering hordes of blue-green bottleflies sing
their monotonous laments; as I listen, they near
with the strange droning hum of their murmurous wings.

Though you said you would leave me, I prop you up here
and brush back red ants from your fine, tangled hair,
whispering, “I do!” . . . as the gaunt vultures stare.



Contraire
by Michael R. Burch

Where there was nothing
but emptiness
and hollow chaos and despair,

I sought Her ...

finding only the darkness
and mournful silence
of the wind entangling her hair.

Yet her name was like prayer.

Now she is the vast
starry tinctures of emptiness
flickering everywhere

within me and about me.

Yes, she is the darkness,
and she is the silence
of twilight and the night air.

Yes, she is the chaos
and she is the madness
and they call her Contraire.



Dark Twin
by Michael R. Burch

You come to me
out of the sun―
my dark twin, unreal . . .

And you are always near
although I cannot touch you;
although I trample you, you cannot feel . . .

And we cannot be parted,
nor can we ever meet
except at the feet.



East End, 1888
by Michael R. Burch

Past darkened storefronts,
hunched and contorted, bent with need
through chilling rain, he walks alone
till down the glistening cobblestones
deliberate footsteps pause, resume.

He follows, by a pub confronts
a pasty face, an overbright smile,
lips intimating easy bliss,
a boisterous, over-eager tongue.

She barters what she has to sell;
her honeyed words seem cloying, stale―
pale, tainted things of sticky guile.



A rustle of her petticoats,
a flash of bulging milk-white breast
. . . the price is set: a crown. “A tip,
a shilling more is yours,” he quotes,
“to wash your privates.” She accepts.
Saliva glistens on his lips.



An alley. There, he lifts her gown,
in answer to her question, frowns,
says―“You can call me Jack, or Rip.”



East End, 1888 (II)
by Michael R. Burch

He slouched East
through a steady downpour,
a slovenly beast
befouling each puddle
with bright footprints of blood.

Outlined in a pub door,
lewdly, wantonly, she stood . . .
mocked and brazenly offered.

He took what he could
till she afforded no more.

Now a single bright copper
glints becrimsoned by the door
of the pub where he met her.

He holds to his breast the one part
of her body she was unable to *****,
grips her heart to his wildly stammering heart . . .
unable to forgive or forget her.

Originally published by Penny Dreadful



Evil, the Rat
by Michael R. Burch

Evil lives in a hole like a rat
and sleeps in its feces,
fearing the cat.

At night it furtively creeps
through the house
while the cat sleeps.

It eats old excrement and gnaws
on steaming dung
and it will pause

between odd bites to sniff through the ****,
twitching and trembling,
for a scent of the cat ...

Evil, the rat.



Temptation
by Michael R. Burch

Jesus was always misunderstood . . .
we have that, at least, in common.
And it’s true that I found him,
shriveled with hunger,
shivering in the desert,
skeletal, emaciate,
not an ounce of fat
to warm his bones
once the bright sun set.

And it’s true, I believe,
that I offered him something to eat―
a fig, perhaps, a pomegranate, or a peach.

Hardly the great “temptation”
of which I’m accused.

He was a likeable chap, really,
and we spent a pleasant hour
discussing God―
how hard He is to know,
and impossible to please.

I left him there, the pale supplicant,
all skin and bone, at the mouth of his cave,
imploring his “Master” on callused knees.

Published in The Bible of Hell (anthology)



Role Reversal
by Michael R. Burch

The fluted lips of statues
mock the bronze gaze
of the dying sun . . .

We are nonplused, they say,
smacking their wet lips,
jubilant . . .

We are always refreshed, always undying,
always young, forever unapologetic,
forever gay, smiling,

and though it seems man has made us,
on his last day, we will see him unmade―
we will watch him decay
as if he were clay,
and we had assumed his flesh,
hissing our disappointment.



Excelsior
by Michael R. Burch

I lift my eyes and laugh, Excelsior . . .
Why do you come, wan spirit, heaven-gowned,
complaining that I am no longer “pure?”

I threw myself before you, and you frowned,
so full of noble chastity, renowned
for leaving maidens maidens. In the dark

I sought love’s bright enchantment, but your lips
were stone; my fiery metal drew no spark
to light the cold dominions of your heart.

What realms were ours? What leasehold? And what claim
upon these territories, cold and dark,
do you seek now, pale phantom? Would you light

my heart in death and leave me ashen-white,
as you are white, extinguished by the Night?



Liar
by Michael R. Burch

Chiller than a winter day,
quieter than the murmur of the sea in her dreams,
eyes wilder than the crystal spray
of silver streams,
you fill my dying thoughts.

In moments drugged with sleep
I have heard your earnest voice
leaving me no choice
save heed your hushed demands
and meet you in the sands
of an ageless arctic world.

There I kiss your lifeless lips
as we quiver in the shoals
of a sea that endlessly rolls
to meet the shattered shore.

Wild waves weep, "Nevermore,"
as you bend to stroke my hair.

That land is harsh and drear,
and that sea is bleak and wild;
only your lips are mild
as you kiss my weary eyes,
whispering lovely lies
of what awaits us there
in a land so stark and bare,
beyond all hope . . . and care.

This is one of my early poems, written as a high school sophomore or junior.



The Watch
by Michael R. Burch

Moonlight spills down vacant sills,
illuminates an empty bed.
Dreams lie in crates. One hand creates
wan silver circles, left unread
by its companion—unmoved now
by anything that lies ahead.

I watch the minutes test the limits
of ornamental movement here,
where once another hand would hover.
Each circuit—incomplete. So dear,
so precious, so precise, the touch
of hands that wait, yet ask so much.

Originally published by The Lyric



Keywords/Tags: Halloween, dark, supernatural, skeleton, witch, ghost, vampire, monsters, ghoul, werewolf, goblins, occult, mrbhalloween, mrbhallow, mrbdark

Published as the collection "Halloween Poems"

Howls in the night
cross the threshold of savagery
Coordinated hate
of a hundred jackboots
stomping faces in the streets
Storefronts smashed
Crushed glass crunching
under the feet of unbridled violence
Doors bashed in
Swinging sledges smash
Women and children dragged
kicking and screaming from their homes
Beaten unconscious
then beaten while unconscious
Clothes rended
flesh roughly groped
******* mashed
by laughing barbarians
with teeth made of knives
Innocence of a generation *****
in a single evening
Ransacking hands
strangle the wealth of a culture
One thousand synagogues in flames
light cast magnified in the carpet of crystals
sparkle of hellish brilliance
Ninety one lives snuffed
they were the lucky ones
Avoided the camps
where greater horrors were wrought
in the forges of torment
from the pounding of flesh
beneath hatred like hammers

Huddled flocks pecking around
seasick seasick seasick
Stor-it-all ransacked for tax reforms
jupiter pinetrees form less pyramids a month plus shipping
Monoatomic white gold texas teatree oil of bullfight storefronts
coronas eject breast milk of magnessium sulphate under the table
dealers lower deck slips tips into his cup o soup for 99 cents
landsick landsick rot cod rot cod
dot dash doctor ankh eyes windup toys half price
sentences complete fusion conagra foods lose stock market value
Judgement night of the living end time shared ethical treatments
and other plastic surgeries
hydra lost all the fifties movie stars heads and robots grew back so quickly to take their places everyone pay it forward
ships mast ripping into the ocean spray on tans
compass spun bankrupt Say Jack E onasis
chaste chasis mer ka bah light bringer fire eater
danse macabre four pillars swatch at Sacs on fifth avenue
avec mon couer le chat screams cheshire teeth porcupine all over my new
dress shirt,  that stain is not going to come out
and playground beef factory farmed like high school mindgames
seasick seasick see it see
i see

She really was real in reality where I was too real in your past


It past us by with no pillowfights , mutual loss of trustfunds
we never had
, purposefully failed attempts to make little beastly humans grow in her stomach and burst out like aliens happen in her car on long trips.

lost art of making art artfully with out chiclet teeth blank eyes and jumping breaking stuffand hitchhiker guy twisting wills
by throwing green boxes into the dark on bike trails

or inviting things to watch ***** fountains ,
endlessly cutting out pictures
, orange ice cream menthol cigarettes and choco pyramids ,
fake friends find you when you run away from yourself
so don't play hide and go seek or you might be gone forever until the devil finds you and takes you to jailbird

jacobs ladder rung 9  times and I answered my phone
"Hello ?"  
It was the silence of God on the line.
The cosmic vibration of pure being.
I didn't listen for long enough and ran out of minutes.

Caressing my face,
Bubbles rush to greet me
Tickling like a sweet spring sigh.

This is only the first.
I am still half
A visitor. Stuck in suspension
Between this world and mine.

Slowly I pass
Through the threshold.
My air-sick ears adjust
To the sounds of the sea.

I stare down
At the small colony
On the sea floor,
My landing gear is down.

Customs arrives.
A grey, French Angelfish
Of the most industrious kind.
But he isn’t obtrusive.

As he flits in and out
Checking my bubbles
Ensuring I am not bringing
Any more air than I should.

No doubt he will stay near
Most of my stay
I have finally arrived,
The coral city stretches before me.

I catch the current trolley
And it whisks me past
Rocky storefronts and coral motels.
Lobster shopkeeps

Rush out of dark
Stores and stand in the street
Giant claws raised
Toward me in supplication.

Beckoning me to come
And browse his wares
While a fish I don’t know
Is busy cleaning homes and stores.

They must’ve dropped out of the school
Which passes by
The pupils in matching uniforms
Of flashing silver and black.

Clown fish wave
To me from their Lawns
Of sea anemone
Before darting back inside.

Here is the kind of place
Where I could put down roots.
Live out an idyllic life
Living in a coral townhouse.  

But for me to stay
Would be severely fatal.
I’m just a visitor
And my visa is about to expire.

I look back one more time
As my head breaks the surface.
The sun stings, I blink.

Thanks for the title, Boss.*

When I was a kid
my hometown
basked in that
(uncertain) period
of peace and
prosperity between
Korea and Vietnam.

It bustled
with busyness
and it seemed like
everyone knew
everyone and there
was always more.

Even the poor
felt included.

Half a century later,
peace has fled
for good and
prosperity too,
leaving only
vacant storefronts
and neighbors
who do not know
each other.

Perhaps this
was inevitable;
perhaps it is
progress.

But there are
moments when
it feels like
a lifetime is
just too much
to witness,
just too long
to live.

Nobody loves
a corpse.

~mce

Summer 1986 Sunday 5:30AM

Misty morning in Malibu.
Seagulls stitch the sea to a subtle
silver sky. They sputter stridently.
Each elegant gull hovers effortlessly.
Entreating each other. Echos bounce
off the sound of the surf into eternity. The screeching of many a
soliloquy akin to silence.

I sit on the pier. The water before
me washes onto the staccato legs
of tiny waterbirds who wander
in and out of the surf. Little
windblown ***** of ecru and grey
wool. I worship in the womb of
the great goddess ~ nature. I wasn't to know the Creator was watching patiently...

6:30AM
I make my unhurried way up the
pier to my car. A cheap but
comfortable convertable. Nobody
walks in LA. I punch in a tape.
Don Henley. Boys of Summer.

I take PCH up to the incline that
takes you from the beach. Pushing
the pedal slightly as I slide by the
colossal bleached cliffs of
Palacades Park. There the homeless
sleep under the benches dedicated
by friends and family in
rememberance of loved ones.
Small plaques attatched for
posterity.

My hands are on the steering wheel
at 7 and 12 o'clock.I look at the cast
I wear on my right wrist. A token
of rememberance from an angry romance. He and I parted
respectively, if not at all
respectfully. I drive.

7:00AM
Venice beach. Not yet boysterous.
But never boring. The young people
(and old) still bundled together in bed. Saturday night hangovers will
be had by most of the denizens of
Venice beach boardwalk. A grainy
eyed few wander around abstractidly. Shopowners enter
their buildings, their storefronts
almost as small as booths. Graphitti
and giant works of art grace walls
everywhere ~ Jim Morrison and
Venus in workout leggings much
in evidence.

I smoke my cigarette and drink my
hot coffee carefully in the open cafe'.
I consider the eyefest of the crowd
that will congregate here to enjoy
the clement weather.
The cacophony and the clamor.
Touristas and Los Angelinos alike
drawn In by calculating vendors
and coyote souled street performers.
I look forward to seeing the
non conformity usually. But not
today. For now I sit in the quiet cafe'.

Venice beach. Vulpine. Vacuous.
A strangely vunerable venue. The
***** and the beautiful. The talented and the ******.

A street performance pianist trundles his acoustic piano on
casters out onto the boardwalk.
I ask him if I may play. He looks
at my cast doubtfully.
"I can still play..." I tell him.
He ascents and listens thoughtfully
as I play my compositions. He really
likes them. I ****** the ebony and
the ivory with insistant fingers.
The smile on his face is irrepressable. I smile back and we
flirt in self conceous, fitful fashion.
Time to leave.

9:00AM
Radio is on in my car now. A cut
from the musical Chess. One night
in Bangkok makes the hard man
humble... I like the driving beat.
I'm going up I-10, a single blood cell
in the main artery that brings life
to the flesh of this mamouth town.
Traffic is tenuous. A boon here in
this conjested city.

I drive to Fairfax and Sunset, where
I lived with in a tiny one-bedroom
apartment with my mom. An
ambitious actress. I an ambivalent
artist.

Sunset. The Roxy and Whiskey-a-
Go-Go. Cartoon characters Rocky
and Bullwinkle casually cavort on
the top of a building. Billboards
as tall as the Hollywood sign. The
street of broken hearts for many
an actress -slash-model. They
wander about on street corners
looking haughty and haunted.
Waiting for who knows who to
honk. Their dreams have flown
away like the exhailation of smoke
from the mechanical lungs of the
Marlboro Man. Schwab's drugstore
and diner. The place where some
famous starlet was discovered.
Delivered into the arms of the
Hollywood machine. I opt to go
to the Sunset Grill.

11:00AM
I'm walking down Hollywood Blvd.
Perusing shops and persuing
pedestrian pleasures. Everyone
talks of the star-studded sidewalks.
To me they look tarnished and
filthy. Stars from a sultry smog
laden sky come to earth. The names
of some of the folks honored on
them I don't recognise.

I'm here to view movies today.
I'm definitely not going to
Grauman's Chinese Theater.
Been there. Done that. Gave the
very expensive T shirt to
Goodwill. I look around at the
proud and the plebian. The pedantic
and the pathetic. No prostitutes
out yet that I could see. Probably
toppled into bed to sleep
(for once). Deposed kings
and queens of the monarchy of the
night. The homeless hobble along
with their hair matted and askew.
Shopping carts with stuttering
wheels de reguer.

A couple of tourists with Izod shirts,
plaid shorts to the knee and deck
shoes sans socks gaze in a shop
window. It's borded by tarnished
and faded silver garlands... tinsel
Christmas tree.
"Want to buy a mood ring today?"
One of them querys his buddy,
laughingly.

I find my small theater and enter
the air conditioned lobby. I purchase
a soda and pass on the popcorn.
As I enter the theater's modestly
plush, dimly lit cocoon sanctuary
I notice very few patrons are here
for the matinee. GOOD. I finally
watch the premiere product of
Los Angeles. Movie after movie
slides across the screen. The callus
morally corrosive corporations
conspire with the creative to produce
the culmination of many art forms
in one. Cinema.

LA. Languid. Luxurious. Legendary.
Rollicking, raunchy rodeo.
Seaside city. Sophisticated. Spurious.

SPECTACULAR.

8:00PM
I wend my way up Mulholland Dr.
Another tape is playing in the deck.
One of my favorites. David + David.
Welcome to the Boomtown.

I pull over at a deserted vista. From
this viewpoint I can see the city
spread out like a blanketfof brilliance. The gridiron of LA.
Glitzy and glamorous. Generating
little gods and goddesses. A gigantic
gamble for the disingenuous and
gouache. Tinsel town. Titillating.
Tempestuous. Only the very brave
bring their dreams here... or fools
rush in where angels fear to tread.
All but the fallen angels. They thrive.

Oh! If this place could be bottled it
would be such sweet poison. I
look up at the auburn sky and back
down at the breathtaking panorama
The metropolis that is LA with awe
and angst. I carefully stub out my
cigarette and flip it irreverantly
toward the lagoon of lights.

I get in my car to drive home.
Home?
Could this imposing, inspiring,
impossible place be called home?

Well. Home is where the heart is.
And I live in the heart of a dream.
This is the city of dreams...

CITY OF ANGELS.

Soul Survivor
Catherine E Jarvis
(C) 2005

last night i almost
gave up thinking of bronzy brazilian girls
perspiring pure coconut oil, eau de margherita ;
supermodelas eating my dreams like concord grapes, lionesses
lounging on new york balconies, lithe, reading céline.
(esti ginzburg, on the phone, considers another pomeranian) .
almost stopped.
almost derailed strange vogue-like fantasme of irina shayk, standing legs planted
left knee out-****** and foot
in ebony heel, cocked against the earth.
set being imitation of gloomy coal mine, east of prague. thin arms firmly controlling the
arc of her pickaxe, clothed in leather, high heels;
sheen of sweat holding her feline body in sweet embrace.
imagining that when shift's end buzzer echoes thru the tunnels she smokes a cigarette
on a bench in the women's locker, apple planted on old planking, elbows on her knees.
cover-alls peeled
down to her waist and her hair,
free at last.
(click)
on the tram back into the city all the smoked glass
cartier storefronts pass by like polaroids held in the hand. the same speed.
giggling, 'rina thinks of the six she could place
along her arm; gilt gold, brushed silver, diamant...

there are 11 smoked belmonts by the back steps; i did
little with the night. (tall shadow of a woman in a black dress and my mouth
a cotton ball)
that is to say:
i did almost give up thinking about bronzy braz ilia     g rls ,
-
but i didn't/and so there's nothing else.

In a world full of ugly people,
A city made of hideous faces,
A phone call means everything.
It means a voice, free from
Its crooked nose, its wrinkled skin,
And its gapped, stained, crooked teeth.
It means a connection.
With another, with yourself,
And with the ability to disconnect
At the push of a button.
I take out my scratched, chipped cellphone
With its cracked face,
And call Helen.
Her voice swims through the mud
Inside my skull when she answers,
Stirring and churning
Until I'm weak and dizzy.
"How 'bout you just come
On over now, Big Fella?"
And I do.
I turn off the squawking television,
Don a pair of food-stained pants,
Drag a comb through my
Overgrown hair,
And descend the stairs to my
Waiting Oldsmobile.
The turn of the key in the ignition
Only produces a hollow click,
One click two click three click six,
Then a partial start,
But the beast fails to come alive.
I get out to replace
The fried starter fuse,
Then do this dance four more times
Before the old ***** clears her throat
And starts to idle.
It's a short ride,
Pawtucket is small,
And my only companion
On these post-midnight streets
Is the white noise
Issuing from the broken radio.
I pass the house I grew out of,
The crumbling schools
That taught me the value
Of impartial numbness,
The cemetery my father used to visit
To perpetrate the lie
He lives;
The role of a child
And the permanence
Of parents.
I pass abandoned factories
And abandoned hope
And abandoned pets
And abandoned storefronts.
In a world of full of past relics,
In a city full of ghosts,
A crumbling façade means everything.
It means bricks freed from their mortar,
Separated from their history,
Left to be picked up and thrown through plate glass windows.
Buildings are never empty,
Just quiet.
I pass the CVS at Newport and Armistice,
With its twenty four hour pharmacy,  
Dispensing the one a.m. hydrocodone,
The one thirty a.m. dextroamphetamine,
The two a.m. oxycodone,
The two thirty a.m. alprazolam,
The three a.m. dextromethorphan,
The three thirty a.m. methylphenidate,
The four a.m. eszopiclone,
The four thirty a.m. benzodiazeprine,
The five a.m. phenylpropanolamine.
I drive past the clinic in the old senior center
With its six a.m. methadone ready to go
In pre measured cups.
Buildings can be quiet, but not empty.
Helen lives on the third floor of a three story house
Built sometime in the forties,
Forgotten sometime in the eighties.
The two bottom floors are vacant,
The windows are boarded,
The driveway is choked with weeds,
And two lounging cats don’t flinch
When I walk by them
On my way to the door in the rear of the building.
The door is always unlocked,
So I let myself in
And begin the rickety climb to the top.
The higher I go,
The louder Amy Winehouse’s voice gets.
“What kind of fuckery is this?”
Seems an adequate question.
There are ****** handprints on the railings,
The walls,
Drops polka dot the stairs.
I don’t bother knocking,
I never do.
She’s seated in a La-Z-Boy in the kitchen
Facing the door,
In a cloud of cigarette smoke.
In place of exchanged pleasantries
I say I need to use the bathroom
And she nods,
Eyes locked on mine.
I take a look at my sallow image
In the mirror,
With specks of toothpaste and hairspray
Pocking my face like acne.
The toilet bowl is still streaked
With the last man’s ****.
I ****, wash my hands,
And take another look at myself.
Helen is no longer in the chair,
But I know where to find her.
She’s sprawled on the bed,
With a new cigarette in her mouth,
The toys spread out on one side,
The tools on the other.
I tell her I’ll forgive her for stabbing me the other night
If I can get a freebee now.
She shakes her head once,
Exhales a cloud,
“Not gonna happen, Champ,”
And I take what I can get.

Fall to me, all you streets of Rome,
With your embrowned oils from torched walls and breccia of shadows,
The pizzicato of stairways and afternoon slowly closed
Like the thick, leathery-echo from this book of all roads.

Fallen, smoldering empire of storefronts and back-shop heirlooms,
Your lupine hills unbound with milk of cur in the wind and woods,
To your fallow fields rowed deep by a conquest of oars,
To the deepest silence and soot-muted oneness of Pompeii,
And a sky that is an ancient coin, without worth,
But still rubbed smooth at the edges by overfond lovers.

Remember those city nights we spent
inhaling the marijuana and halal truck tinted air that fills the space
between the skyscrapers?

Glowing storefronts illuminated
both the skies with their stars glistening quietly under coats of dust
and the streets, dense under ***** and ***** spilled by boys
who yell obscenities to girls
who hang their heads low,
ashamed to be happy to have their push up bras appreciated.

It was the summer we read Catcher in the Rye religiously.
We were overflowing with privilege and hating privilege.
Oh god, how we thought we hated privilege back then.

In June we graduated from middle school,
and you found out your father was cheating on the woman
he cheated on your mother with.
In July you kissed a boy for the first time,
even let him feel you up a little.
I couldn't help getting uneasy,
even though you said it was nothing.

Most nights we couldn’t contain ourselves, shouting ideas
fast as the taxi cabs who'd nearly run our still-growing bodies to the ground,
always in a hurry to get home to their own sleeping children.
We raged rebellion against the red lights.
There was no time to wait around for things as unimportant
as people who weren't us.

In August, I took a klonopin pill from my mom’s drawer
because I couldn’t stop the dread beneath my skull.
It made me sleepy.

We were so filled with poems and wine copped at art galleries
where we’d feigned intellectuality,
that we'd see a *** on a subway train
and call him a vagabond.

Back then we thought we knew how life worked
like the palms of each others hands.
By September, albeit, our fingers were calloused
from the time we climbed a playground's wire fence,
twisted the caps off beer bottles,
and swung from the Monkey Bars.

Keep us out of the ballpark.
Keep fans out so no crowd.
Instead Steal Doritos and grab free beers
There's no stretch in the seventh
cause nobody's here!
Oh it's loot, loot, loot from the storefronts
If we get caught its a shame!
and its one, two, three cops knocked out
at the old brawl game.

Keep us out of the ballpark
ban the fans from the stands
The vendors laid off cause there's nobody here
he's out of a job cause no one's buying beer
Oh its loot, loot, loot from the storefronts-
that Freddie Grey's dead -it's a shame
and it's one, two, three cops knocked out
at the old brawl game

In this life, I have seen the valley of broken dreams filled with the souls of taqueria entrepreneurs. I have seen gleaming grills, Hispanic frills, greasy thrills. I have seen spirit thrive in the eyes of men armed with bank loans and family recipes. I have eaten their food, delicious beyond necessity. I have experienced the magic of taquerias and restaurants.

And I have seen that magic die.

I've observed the life unfold, unfurl with a magic to behold. I have seen that magic served in a half-empty restaurant that Frontera has outsold. I have had the magic gone, replaced by payday lenders and takeout from Taiwan. I have seen empty storefronts and the straggling last days of taqueria entrepreneurs. And I grieve every time at the lost loans and lost hopes left behind. But tonight, there will be no grieving. Instead,

Let us eat magic in their memory, enjoy the grease that will surely send us to infirmaries. Let us celebrate the time they had, the tortas, tamales, and leftovers taken home in a bag. Let us celebrate the doomed Mexican restaurants.

Our men are heroes, of course.

They protect us, gun in hand,
against enemies plastered on posters
vandalizing once-beautiful stone storefronts.
More every day.
Stapled on top of one another
until words blend.

"But now,"
the overly made-up woman at the podium says,
"women can do our part."

They’ve gathered other pretty blondes
with symmetrical features measured
by a myriad of devices.

          Beautiful,

              demure

                   women

with

          beautiful,

              Aryan

                    genes
to breed with our handsome heroes.

Because women,
and the children we bear,
are the key to Germany’s future.  

I glance at the woman to my right,
eyes skiing down the ***** of her nose
to rest on smiling lips.
Is the blush on her cheeks genuine,
or set by rouge?

It suits her.

She catches me staring.
My breath hitches in my throat.
I throw my attention back to the woman
glorifying human broodmares.

Heat assaults my cheeks.

“Your rouge is lovely.”
Her whisper warms me.
“Can you believe this?
Us, with war heroes?”

She sighs.
I can practically see the dream
play through the air.

A husband coming home in uniform,
splaying a hand on her swollen belly
and kissing her forehead.

A fantasy.

These men…
they’ll come,
take what they want from us for granted
and claim they did us a favor
when they leave us alone
with child.

But my fingers would dance
never-ending pirouettes
across that porcelain skin.
Swirl intricate patterns
through golden hair,
all for that sigh
to carry a dream with me in it.

I encountered him last night
I think I handled it well.
I was with a group of friends
in search of the gallery my friend
was showing in.

I'm staring at storefronts,
and suddenly aware that
I am facing someone familiar
12 feet away. He was in a restaurant

with a girl, facing the window.
He came into focus and I
realized who I was looking at.
As awareness crept into my face
he nodded at me. I smiled,

Raised my hand in a wave,
Turned
and walked away.

I think I handled it well.

There is only this marina and then there is the sea.
Nothing else is.
An apt enough analogy
for a myth dissolving town.

Shaded by storefronts half-expecting someone to arrive,
The hood- stripped wind
Gusts up solitary, empty alleyways
With only stroppy clatter boards to continue the conversation.

These streets knew feet in days gone by,
bustling sidewalks, crowded storefronts,
laughter, light and dancers leaking
out of smoke-filled bars.
Cars would wind through intersections,
blood cells between neighborhoods.
From The Corner came The Roar.

He remembers how the Autumn sounded
                       back in '84
when Alan Trammell brought The Series home,
the arcing shot off Gibson's bat,
the rolling wave of soaring voices.
                      Old English
                             "D"
              tattooed on the hearts
                        of a city
     who's been hurting since the 50's.

Bless You Boys.
Ya did it--
went and Sparked up Michigan
and lit a dimming town again
in Corktown's widening eyes.

In 20 years, though, losses pile up.
55 and starved for signs
of trends reversing, luck upending,
impending relief or just some kind of
                  something.

Sickening, cloying rapid decay
       as neighborhoods die.
These streets know crumbling cinderblock
walls and blistered paint coats don't
cover ribcages starting to show--
steel girder bones--and windows blown
out, like teeth lost from a well-spoken mouth,
allow the Lake Michigan wind to howl
                      out the tale--
            through oxidized bones--
       of just what it looks like
      when economic war hits home.

Heartbeats still find footing
in Motor City streets, beneath
         the Old English "D,"
but mind the scoreboard smart;
the Tigers lost a hundred games
                    in 2003.

this love is now & new & once again
stabbing @ me like durga-like diety
with sweet golden daggers
an essential togetherness
teasing out of these odd surroundings
I was listening to Jack Kerouac on the way
home in his mad
bop rhapsody apocalypse
streaming out my speakers
while familiar streets crawl past
once again
I'm thinking
as the day old glum spread over me
& out to envelop all I see
how little different to be watching
seeing street signs all opening
into cul-de-sacs and open storefronts
paraded in the endless traffic flow
now bent slow over
feeding my cat crab cakes
that my mother made
myow myow, he goes
& I acknowledge
myow myow, he goes
& I answer
what?
what in god's name is
the matter with you?
myow myow
his solemn reply
licking @ a piece of
exposed claw meat
nestled among old bits
of dry brown kibble
how about this soul?
how about this life?
this sickness?
how about this always seeking I?
how about he music of my mind
in untraceable car rides alone?
wherefore to I wander
ceaselessly in search of what
wonders where I might be
born on the road of least descent
cat paws, grabs @ bottle caps on
grained wood table
my media
fizzles & searchlights
in my window
there is something I'm not facing
something inescapable, my love
like you
born of locusts in the dust, my love
like you
my weary dune-mother
how solemn are the tunes that run
thy face, o' mother and thy will
how broken are the lines upon thine
shining brow in bedroom windows
open to the world like peace
stolen in the sad glance I gaze @ everything
stolen is the cup I fill @ leaking kitchen
sink pipe strands of scent or bark
of neighbor dogs amusing grass flow
weather flowers under well I'm never
knowing what--I never will
no matter, all is well
another's all is nothing now
where knock goes streaming
crashing loud
like anvils in the rain
it's only me
how now, my dear contender?
like a shadow fallen into sound
how now the planets unwatered?
how now the roots are killed?
we all inhabit the same fears
how rabbit hides his smear
to give me a surprise
for me, none so dear
than the mystery
& April dies today

"Old Man Rubenstein",

that's the name they knew him by

He'd worked the shop for fifty years

His friends just called him Cy

Each day he'd enter from the back

For at the front door slept

Someone trying to survive the cold

Inside the store Cy swept

The store had been a fixture

On the street for ninety years

Five Generations of Rubensteins

Had seen the smiles and tears

Of young men getting married

Picking rings out for their brides

And in many cases watching them

As they tried them on inside

The street had changed in fifty years

In ninety, even more

But one thing about Rubensteins

Was their famous tiled floor

In the foyer, just inside the door

There were tiles black and white

They were laid out like a flower

It was really quite a sight

When his Great Great Grandpa

Laid the tiles, it was done by J.C Hardin

To signify each customer

Was welcome "in his garden"

Times had changed since Cy came in

The street was not the same

A lot of stores had moved or closed

The malls all held the blame

With suburbs came progression

And with progression came bad news

Most small stores lost their customers

To chains with modern views

But Rubensteins stayed on the street

Never changing one small bit

They had been right here for ninety years

And this is where they'd sit

The front, I mentioned earlier

Each night became a bed

For someone living on the streets

A place to lay their head

Cy would leave a pillow

And a blanket by the door

It was always there next morning

Nicely folded like before

Other storefronts opened up

At nine...right sharp each day

But, Cy would leave the door shut

Letting his sleeping beauty lay

There wasn't lots of people

Who would shop in Cy's old store

With the way the neighborhood had died

No one came round here no more

With pawn shops open down the road

And two just up the block

The fact that people went to them

To Cy, was not a shock

He really ran the business

To keep himself alive

For he knew that if he closed it

He was sure he'd not survive

His life was wrapped up in the store

Each decade on a shelf

He was quite the story teller

And of stories...he'd a wealth

He sold a ring once to the Mayor

For his engagement years ago

They were still together nowadays

That was forty years or so

Harry Cooper bought his wifes rings

And his son had done as well

He'd bought a special pendant

When he lost his son in Hell

He'd go down to Giannis

And buy his lunch most days

He was never in a hurry

And most times he'd stay and gaze

He'd stare out the front windows

To a time so long before

Then he'd head back to the jewellers

And he'd still use the back door

He thought of times way in the past

When Christmas windows glowed

With displays of rings and Christmas lights

Lit up the whole **** road

But now, the storefront windows

Were protected by strong bars

There were hardly any customers

And even fewer cars

He remembered when a shopping trip

Meant dressing up to shop

But nowadays, a pair of jeans

And a t-shirt as a top

He'd sit inside the storefront

Until about six everyday

Then he'd put out a clean bedroll

And he'd quietly slip away

He'd show up every morning

Through the back door every time

He'd check on his front doorway

And he'd hum a little rhyme

"If friendship is a flower

'And a garden grows in time

I'm glad I have a garden

And you've spent some time in mine"

He'd make sure when he opened

That he'd turn on every light

Then he'd go out side the front door

And sweep away the night..

I’ve been questioned on
my late night walks,
why do I do it?
the repetitive cracks
sing hedonist soliloquies
at every avoidance,
the streetlights eat away
at forfeiting darkness,
vomiting garbage cans
spew synthetic carrion
and winking storefronts
****** nightfallers,
trash kissing curbs
pushing away affection
cry out for help,
cigarette butts cloud
sandy sidewalks
and hug dragging soles,
passing cars and
mindless youth
spewing timeless
nothings out car windows,
cop cars and crisis topped
middle-agers stumbling their way
to fast food and
regretful forenoons,
I’ve been questioned
on where I’m walking to,
but never what I’m walking from,
no matter where I go,
I find myself
burning my throat
with coffee at 2am

Lots of people come and go.
Lives cross each other, yet o one knows.
The corners are always lively.
The vendor makes another sale, and
the customer leaves satisfied.
Someone waits across the street, for
someone else to meet them.
They connect to each other with a smile.
Hands held and stride as one.
The storefronts shine brightly
hoping to make a sell.
The beauty of the city
is made by you and me.

sitting in my seat

all I do is think

saving every breath

counting every blink

thinking fashionably about death

I watch their eyes begin to wander

up and down each others’ bodies

I close

stick a hand into my thoracic cavity

and pretend it’s a clock to wind

backward through time

like they do in magazines

and in front of well lighted storefronts

and downtown mini malls across America.

any beauty column will tell you the tricks

and what you have to trade,

every weight has a balance

and every product has a price.

hands in your pockets

chin in the air

eyes on the pavement—

almost there,

almost there

button your buttons

string your shoes

"I think I can,

I think I can”

you can’t, of course,

but the emptiness of cleared out commercial blocks

and brown brick buildings

and wide streets that are empty in the night

they all call out

antagonizing you with imposing angles

narrowing density

constricting construction

walk away from it all

hide your naked figure alone and cold in the crippling dark

Echoing inside
empty buildings bolted with
fall-ed trees, hollowed stones, were reverberating
hand pats. Clapping will go
on.
Mourning cries,
tears won’t echo as well; rather, staring
hand, clasping
shriveled hand
shaking and bouncing
off wooden panels,
fake storefronts.
Acts
incited
feigned appreciation;
palms crashing, esophagi grumbling,
bodies jostling
for view.
As a species, we watched our own performance.
There, bursts from imagined forces
generated sounds, echoing
an otherwise empty darkness--
a yet empty darkness--
through purview.
Voices and people:
gone.
Objects, unacknowledged.
Thoughts, acted on.
Contained by walls
illuminating anything there was
with echoes from voices
and fingers, flapping on impact,
hitting corridor materials.
Below trap doors, no surprises are
waiting.
Everything that could have been said
is permeating,
blissful
nothingness.

Remembering My first taste of coffee--
just another commodity
standing outside Lowell Tech, a local factory,
a city corner in Haverhill snows— a worker's town
Passing out leaflets for a vapid Revolution
Another action/demonstration
to “Seize the Day!”
No computers; no social media
to fill the ranks of rallies at that time
So we froze our ***** off
trying to explain with sound bites, frosted breath
and fogs of rhetoric

A truth-- so tyranic, remote, arcane
too preposterous to even process
let alone explain

Standing there behind
its barbed wire reality
smoking from its stacks
the poisons of its process

Standing there
Stamping blood into my feet
Trying to convince my freezing self
my breaking heart
that all this truth?
was truly worth it!?
as I threw my education and my life away--
Trying to convince  

...that inside that building
IT-- was being made
****** and
that Agent of Death and Defoliation
of an orange persuasion
so our war could have its way
with rice paddies and jungles
and people of a browner, poorer smaller bent

While on the home-front
we filled the mill with unwilling bodies
that died somewhere else
off site...
“Outta sight”

...or maybe some years later
from toxins dumped in river
left to leach to cancers somewhere else
into the ground they sink
Through tentacled subsidiaries
restructured divestments
Legal dismissals
of responsibility
the players run like roaches
for the exits

One fast move after another
they dissolve disperse
morph into
renamed ****** entities
Clean up their storefronts
clean out our pockets
while “providing jobs”
“investing in community”
along the way
Putting on a Goodwill Tour
Then
taking it away

“What?  We never said....”

We'll take you down
leaving only the stench behind

2/24/2015

  The magpies sang up in the rushes– it was the second hottest day of that winter, the gilded winter specific silver sun (for the light seems brass or golden other times) parading through the glass of cars and storefronts and painting people's faces as they looked through.

  This light seems to be extremely influential in visual memory– in fact, I daresay if it were not for the light I would not be writing this.
  Wallace Stevens stated plainly and succinctly once, sweetly ochre, that the origin of love is one often hotly pursued, but its fluttering fashion has so distinct a shade, at its birth, that one can immediately tell.

  And so speaking on the similar topic of distinct fluttering things, Adrienne Rich said herself that love is given much poetic attention- that lust, too, is a jewel. And is it not? It seems more at times that *** removed from love or emotional background is more interesting.

     After all, weren't princedoms in the past running to the brim with more ******* children than actual heirs? Weren't steppe chateaus and inconspicuous inns in the ravine crawling cities put in place for politicians' mistresses?

     Digressing, these were all thoughts sitting on my shelf sitting in the Mitsubishi backseat. "This space is... surprisingly big eh?" I remarked, puffing on a perique, and he'd laughed a little, and I didn't realize what I said, and so then I laughed more.

   Is it possible to separate the after *** phenomenon found in one stemming from casual circumstances from the one in an emotional commitment? The sweet subtleties came to the surface for the very first time since I'd last loved.

    What subtleties? It may sound puerile, but a particular kiss– we were discussing the epitome of innocence in nature and I said that the range is the only place I feel a riveting sense of Puritan complacency. With this he was so struck he kissed me- no more nor less than 3 seconds. It is a very particular kiss that cannot be described- not a ****** one, but one that proves humans are physically social animals.

   It took us both by surprise. This casual sense of security and flushed faces and closure that i hadn't felt with any other casual passive passing people, I felt, was closely tied to a platonic love and admiration.

  Dopamine and oxytocin are released upon ******. It goes back to my Freudian beliefs of human reproduction being exclusive Machiavellian. The reason that oxytocin is released specifically is because it bonds- in fact, it makes the partners want to physically stay together, so in the eyes of biology they can make more children.

  Funny how science works, and funny how that's the way things were programmed to be, however humans as insolent as always found aways around. But the body prevails and so the sense of casual confidence and closeness endured.

   There has never been an instance where I have been more sure that I am not romantically interested in a person, and yet I feel this platonic adoration as strong as my romantic feelings- of course there is something tweaked, if it wasn't, It wouldn't be platonic.
  I have to ask myself if platonic love challenges romantic love, or it is a completely different name all on itself. Or perhaps I  should consider that the reason I am looking at this so hazily was because of the silver winter light.

Twelve days without eating, and I’m feeling rather ill;
My failure to come to grips, well, it gave me a great chill.
Throwing Fists and throwing glass within my twisted haze;
Everything before now has been swept away.
So check the seams of your diamond rings
And underneath your rugs-
You may find somebodies blood.

It felt so wrong so dangerous to walk into the streets,
But I was tempted by political jive and jab and confrontation with the police.
Then I found myself stuck between pepper spray and a checkout line at the mall;
Think fast, everyone’s gone mad
This must be stopped or stalled
I’m a rag-tag revolutionary
With a pocket sized copy of Shakespeare’s dictionary;
It’s a good one…

Now truth be told I was all-alone in an alley with Peg-Leg-Pete;
With every step he took he nearly broke my foot, and with his hook pointed back to the street;
There was a greeting from a whaling trumpet, which threatened me like a storm.
In the blink of an eye funnels fell from the sky,
And Pete yells, “You’ve been warned!
You’ve got to keep your head, or end up dead
In a twisted up puddle of muck.
Keep on moving, don’t test your luck.”

The revolution is in full blaze, and the tires are spinning hot;
The examiners are walking all around, examining what they’ve not got.
Through the toxic fumes and burnt out storefronts they tried to take my life:
“Yes, I can give you hat you’d like, but first you’ll have steal a knife.”
And I prayed for strange, as I ducked away
From the rally-men, and their fights
-God help us!

The president of the united world is taking off his clothes,
And showing off his birther rights so everybody knows
Who he is, and where he’s from; they’re searching for a flaw
To Guarantee their living land is one of love and law.
From the screeching tides of TV sets,
To the valley of the ******,
Just people looking for a hand.

I say Yo-**! Yo-**! The pirate’s life for me!
I was feeling low and all alone, so I went looking for Peg-Leg-Pete
To find a job, or gold doubloons, but I just came upon a note
In the back page of a lonely book, it was Peg-Leg-Pete who wrote:
“I’ve seen twisted shores, and rattled doors
But never quite so much sin
What kind of world are you living in?”

(I had this dream years ago. I was reminded of it today)

I dreamt that it rained.
Down the city street past Kathy's door,
Along the illuminated storefronts.

There was a hum in the chilly air,
in the California Dew, I stopped.
To stand under a lamp post.

'I'm singing in the rain
Just singing in the rain
What a glorious feeling...'

Gene Kelly, full of life and melody,
spun around the lamp post,
and kissed my cheek.

I find my finger tracing silhouettes of strangers

As I tap my foot and stare outside the glass pane in front of me

Onto the street where passersby greet the crisp morning air

With knit scarves and hats and boisterous jackets and saddlebags at the hip,

Ready to ride into town and run out the sheriffs in charge of the show

On West End and Broadway.
|
|
Flurries of snow greet the ground with thunderous applause

As I sip my brew, intertwining fingers with my mug like lovers

And tracing silhouettes of strangers standing at the corner

With my free hand.
|
|
The silent footsteps remind me of the cars at Piccadilly Circus on the first snow of the season,

And how all rhyme and reason belong to silhouettes of strangers that walk past the storefronts and stoplights and billboards and Barclay's

Instead of the steady sound of tires screeching and stopping traffic

In this picturesque place.
|
|
A winter's day in New York is a lot like a winter's day in London;

Silhouettes of strangers are outlined by the fingers of fresh-faced people sipping coffee in a corner café.

They tap their feet and wait for a silhouette to escape the bellowing silence of the snow and the roar of the barren roads.

All they want is to intertwine their fingers with another,

Instead of a lukewarm mug.

I want you to see
that in this world of white and black,
there is color to be found.

Even if you have to look through
the cracks and crevices in sidewalks and buildings
look behind closed signs, through empty storefronts

gaze into the starless
falling eyes of the boy next door
trying to remember what the night sky looked like

you will find them
because all lost things,
are meant to be found
one day in the end.

wow! just wow~
can you remember the flowers
the cherry blossoms that were your favorite because
you thought they smelled like me

the blue blue sky
the endless ocean of tears

and the stars
that were white
but dripping with every color

and you,
you are a rainbow,
not the one everyone expects

but a rainbow
of pain, solitude, forgiveness,
love (as hard as it is to believe),
and life.

I swear I could see myself
right beside me
on that same sidewalk.
Dilated eyes looking back
praying for temporary solace.
Words glowing in the reflective snow
illuminated by my breath.
"Just one more day."
I looked in the distance
and read the storefronts
like memoirs of my past
and let the shine of the skyscrapers
be the spotlight of my transcendence.
I walked the same blocks
that knew me so well
and saw growth in the windows
projecting my own image.
I felt all the hands
that once held my own,
I tasted the lips that showed me love,
and I felt the sting of each corresponding knife
lodged deep in my spine.
They hit me all at once
as my feet carved a path in the powder.
I sensed relief in the blizzard
and let the clouds fall
to cover my footprints.

I buzz down Bourbon St.,
bar-hopping to and fro in pursuit of some
sought-after nerve.

I’ll pass street entertainers performing
various tricks and trades
and I’ll envy not their boater hats
filled with cash, but rather the
attention they command from mothers
and fathers alike, on-looking and inebriated.
                              Maybe father would’ve looked at me
                              with the same awe, had I donned
                              a pair of stilts or covered my body in
                              tinman silver, for his
                              failure to pay me mind
                              certainly wasn’t a result of
                              under-intoxication.

I digress. The thirteen blocks that stretch between
Canal & Esplanade Avenue host
a distinct pattern of storefronts:
                    Bar, *******, bar, gift shop,
                    bar, *******, bar, gift shop,

and so on.
I’ll stop in nearly every other one,
and the taste in my mouth
will start to remind me of the street’s namesake.

With a scant blouse on and
a batting of my bedroom eyes,
a man will inevitably strike up a
“conversation” with me.
While I unconsciously engage
in repartee, I’ll wonder to myself
what must be wrong with him
that he would hone in on some
despondent fool like me.

He’ll continue to ply me with drinks
until a taxi cab takes me away,
and through a backseat window
cracked open, I’ll hear
New Orleans sing
while I sigh.


W.M.S.
2017

At the end of the road is the road...*

I used to live in a town,
but all that remains
is empty storefronts
and peopleless porches,
hardly a community.

Strangers on the streets
do not know their
neighbors and never will.

The woods and creek banks
where I hunted pheasants
and fished for trout
are overgrown now
with McMansions full
of bloated consumers.

All the orchards grow
houses instead of fruit.

The only country left is
corn and soybean fields,
slathered in pesticides,
about as natural as ******.

Now it is two towns,
the one remembered,
and the one that is.

I live in the latter,
but prefer the former.

I would leave, but
six years ago I fell
into a man-trap and
haven’t figured out
how to escape yet.

Not that it much matters.

We all end up exactly
where we are.

The smooth, clean guitar floats out of the speakers,
Out of the open windows, and through the night
Air.  It crosses the street, making its way to
Quiet and empty storefronts, abandoned for the night.
Two in the morning is usually pretty empty.

When you can't see any other cars out, it's easy
To assume there aren't any at all.  But when we just
Missed that blue Scion, so close I could see
Her eyes and her mouth wide open,
You'd think that would be a reminder that those
Red octagons read STOP.

You even told me that.  “Just because you're
Mad at me is no reason to ignore the law.”
But I didn't need advice from you, no passenger
Seat driving allowed.  And neither of us
Saw the black Expedition as it exercised its right of way.
And I was the only one to see it afterward.