"sweetener" poems
Three orange lights
waiting in a cue.
Warm, pudgy and sweating.
Squeezing the last drop
of pure sweetener
down your throat.
Delicious syrup
growing and spreading
on the finger tips.
Feeding the eager.
Melting bright nectar
dropping down the thighs.
Saliva sprinkels
on the piano lips.
Playing chants
of lust and thirst.
Lavish liberation
buzzing for more bees.
Sep 16, 2018
Sep 16, 2018 at 4:23 PM UTC
sweet tea and you are synonymous in my mind.
the taste is just right-- although,
overall, you are both unhealthy for me.
yet i add another sweetener,
and i call you again.
Mar 25, 2014
Mar 25, 2014 at 1:01 AM UTC
In department store foyers, free samples sprayed,
A collision of cosmetics muddle the air.
The olfactory overpowered by such obvious odours,
Why do natural notes disconcert you?
Not the gym heavy sodden or overworked,
Recognition of an individual, whilst eyes remain shut.
Faint trace of the familiar or frenzied pheromones,
A headiness misplaced by the cologne wearing clones
Preference for the perfumed, the artificial sweetener.
Marketed meticulously
Musk manufactured yet not made by man
Of flowers dear, of oils and compounds.
Fresh, fruity, citrus or spiced
Artificial aromas keep your own scent disguised
Society simulates this sophistication of the senses,
Masking yourself from me as you are wooed,
Accustomed to this attraction, till you let down your defences
How shall I know you when you are ****
Oct 30, 2012
Oct 30, 2012 at 6:10 PM UTC
The Breakfast Fairies (a humorous treatise)
Summoned for to break the fast
of sleep-and-dreams that can no longer last,
As the clock to noon draws nigh,
I happily paddle off to the cabinet
Where the cereals that I CHOSE,
Since I am now a grownup,
faithfully await, calm and in repose.
The refrigerator, in nearby proximity,
sources a Stony-field yogurt,,
A yogurt that I CHOSE,
light and sweet with processed fruit,
due to the miracle of Aspartame.
Distracted, back to the kitchen for
Some multi-grain slices to hail and toast,
Which I prefer dry (no butter)
and ready for anointing with oils of
Strawberry jelly.
To the table return ready to sound
The horn of plenty,
When I see the ****
Breakfast Fairies have struck yet again!
Cousins first to those that reside in nearby dishwasher*
The nefarious fairies guard my health
tho nobody asked them too!
My Crispix, with its malty sweetness,
And the ***** aftertaste of sprayed-on "enriched vitamins,"
has been smothered neath layers of
Granola, with cranberries and nuts,
Contaminated with a hint of cinnamon.
My processed yogurt,
vanished, without a trace,
replaced by their bacterial cousins from Thrace,
which is in Greece,
who, tho white, taste like plain yogurt sourpusses,
Even when littered with blueberries,
Nothing can replace the taste of my
Artificial Sweetener!
Dry toast has been sheeted and shined neath
A tribute of fattening butter,
rationalized by a commonality,
"Everything is better with butter..."
The last indignity is that my coffee,
Not the light brown I cherish
When kissed by whole milk,
Now muddled and muddied by skim milk, so named,
Cause they skim off all the taste.
Because they are fairies,
With fluttering wings,
Hasty retreat they beat,
But I know where they hide.
The next time it be for the morning meal,
I will eat it in bed,
far from their kitchen hiding places,
And celebrate my heroics with original
Frosted Flakes and milk,
And extra sugar just for spite!
The bedroom fairies, living under the pillow,
Emerge to beg in iambic pentameter,
Won't get nary a bite,
Until they they return the poems they stole
From my midnight dreams.
Jun 1, 2013
Jun 1, 2013 at 12:08 PM UTC
life choices cast in iron skillets,
presented choices that possess no flexibility
twice, she asks me today
morning fruitage, on offer,
peaches ripe to rip real sweet perfection
from your eyes to the remembering salivating mouth,
or
sweet but just **** enough
strawberries that will wince your tongue buds
intolerant of either, but perfect together
acorn squash,
over roasted to be the violin section
to your barbecued chicken orchestra serenading,
but which shall be the sweetener,
honey or maple syrup,
similar but different
the kitchen floor explosive shakes,
pans to the floor fall, eyelet unhooked all,
spices from cabinets burst forth,
kitchen mittens slapping each other
in utter disbelief
when I reply,
let us choose both!
for there is no bifurcation,
no line of demarcation
on our taste buds
this a truthful -
our lives a perpetual blending,
both will login lead to a
the right and proper ending
Jun 30, 2019
Jun 30, 2019 at 5:34 PM UTC
Lament who will, in fruitless tears,
The speed with which our moments fly;
I sigh not over vanished years,
But watch the years that hasten by.
Look, how they come,--a mingled crowd
Of bright and dark, but rapid days;
Beneath them, like a summer cloud,
The wide world changes as I gaze.
What! grieve that time has brought so soon
The sober age of manhood on!
As idly might I weep, at noon,
To see the blush of morning gone.
Could I give up the hopes that glow
In prospect like Elysian isles;
And let the cheerful future go,
With all her promises and smiles?
The future!--cruel were the power
Whose doom would tear thee from my heart.
Thou sweetener of the present hour!
We cannot--no--we will not part.
Oh, leave me, still, the rapid flight
That makes the changing seasons gay,
The grateful speed that brings the night,
The swift and glad return of day;
The months that touch, with added grace,
This little prattler at my knee,
In whose arch eye and speaking face
New meaning every hour I see;
The years, that o'er each sister land
Shall lift the country of my birth,
And nurse her strength, till she shall stand
The pride and pattern of the earth:
Till younger commonwealths, for aid,
Shall cling about her ample robe,
And from her frown shall shrink afraid
The crowned oppressors of the globe.
True--time will seam and blanch my brow--
Well--I shall sit with aged men,
And my good glass will tell me how
A grizzly beard becomes me then.
And then should no dishonour lie
Upon my head, when I am gray,
Love yet shall watch my fading eye,
And smooth the path of my decay.
Then haste thee, Time--'tis kindness all
That speeds thy winged feet so fast:
Thy pleasures stay not till they pall,
And all thy pains are quickly past.
Thou fliest and bear'st away our woes,
And as thy shadowy train depart,
The memory of sorrow grows
A lighter burden on the heart.
2.2k
The sky dressed in a lavender hue.
Six o'clock mornings always felt better with you.
You were my morning cup of tea,
A one hundred percent all-natural sweetener guarantee.
They could find us in the sky,
With our footprints in clouds of sunset tie-dye.
Just like that, we were gone with the wind.
Sailing, never to be seen,
And so our story would begin.
Jan 28, 2021
Jan 28, 2021 at 5:20 AM UTC
i take my tea with sugar;
it curves the acidity, and
builds my validity ‘cause
a tea or a coffee taken in
without some saccharine
sweetener lends itself to
a world where tea and a
coffee can either be very
sweet or absolutely bitter.
May 21, 2016
May 21, 2016 at 1:13 AM UTC
Her life had acquired coffee flavour
and she didn't like to be that bitter
She wanted someone with sweetener
To make her life taste better
Apr 18, 2017
Apr 18, 2017 at 2:43 PM UTC
I thought I could purge all the flowers and metaphors trapped inside my rib cage with stems tickling my esophagus.
Blooming on the tip of my tongue, teeth locked them in but finger allowed escape.
Hand prying its way through my mouth, I wished to pull out my intestines and allow the stitches holding me together unravel.
Beauty doesn't thrive in an abandoned building so I let them free, no sense carrying casualties in a house destined to burn.
I remember the first time I prayed to the porcelain throne, begging for salvation.
A feeling manifested in my stomach and infected each vein, it swam through bone marrow leaving behind a trail of decay.
My framework was rotting and mind consumed, knees fell to the ground and I prayed for forgiveness, acceptance and peace.
Every time I vomited I felt one step closer to heaven, as if entrance to the gate had weight restrictions.
You stepped on a scale before they sewed on your wings, for all angels have to be pristine and my soul carried the weight of an eternity of mistakes.
I was a coward hiding behind a romanticized disorder to avoid reality.
The light has grown within, it keeps my food safely in my stomach lining and let's my words out,
A lesson I've been unable to face for years.
I remember the day I was diagnosed with EDNOS.
Eating disorder not otherwise specified.
I wanted to punch the specialist in the face with my emaciated knuckles for degrading the massacre I instilled on my body.
Not bulimia. Not anorexia. Not specified.
She tied me to a label that said the years I dedicated to restrictions and malnutrition and stomach acid dissolving the very foundation of my teeth meant nothing.
**** your dsm 5th edition and the ****** waiting room keurig green tea with low calorie sweetener you provided for each session.
I found a reason to live within myself.
Apr 8, 2014
Apr 8, 2014 at 1:23 PM UTC
Come Down
by Michael R. Burch
for Harold Bloom and the Ivory Towerists
Come down, O, come down
from your high mountain tower.
How coldly the wind blows,
how late this chill hour ...
and I cannot wait
for a meteor shower
to show you the time
must be now, or not ever.
Come down, O, come down
from the high mountain heather
blown to the lees
as fierce northern gales sever.
Come down, or your heart
will grow cold as the weather
when winter devours
and spring returns never.
NOTE: I dedicated this poem to Harold Bloom after reading his introduction to the Best American Poetry anthology he edited. Bloom seemed intent on claiming poetry as the province of the uber-reader (i.e., himself), but I remember reading poems by Blake, Burns, cummings, Dickinson, Frost, Housman, Eliot, Pound, Shakespeare, Whitman, Yeats, et al, and grokking them as a boy, without any “advanced” instruction from anyone. Keywords/Tags: Harold Bloom, literary, critic, criticism, elitist, elitism, ivory, tower, heights, mountain, winter, cold, frigid
Rant: The Elite
by Michael R. Burch
When I heard Harold Bloom unsurprisingly say:
Poetry is necessarily difficult. It is our elitist art ...
I felt a small suspicious thrill. After all, sweetheart,
isn’t this who we are? Aren’t we obviously better,
and certainly fairer and taller, than they are?
Though once I found Ezra Pound
perhaps a smidgen too profound,
perhaps a bit over-fond of Benito
and the advantages of fascism
to be taken ad finem, like high tea
with a pure white spot of intellectualism
and an artificial sweetener, calorie-free.
I know! I know! Politics has nothing to do with art
And it tempts us so to be elite, to stand apart ...
but somehow the word just doesn’t ring true,
echoing effetely away—the distance from me to you.
Of course, politics has nothing to do with art,
but sometimes art has everything to do with becoming elite,
with climbing the cultural ladder, with being able to meet
someone more Exalted than you, who can demonstrate how to ****
so that everyone below claims one’s odor is sweet.
You had to be there! We were falling apart
with gratitude! We saw him! We wept at his feet!
Though someone will always be far, far above you, clouding your air,
gazing down at you with a look of wondering despair.
Mar 30, 2020
Mar 30, 2020 at 12:44 AM UTC
It must be this third cup
of coffee that has me on
edge. But not to confuse
anxiety for indigestion.
I'm sick to my ******* stomach.
Maybe you could be a little sweeter?
I said, maybe you could pass the sweetener.
I'm not one to stir the ***
but I need something fresh.
This is stale, and the grinds
taste like pennies.
My spit is red.
The best part of waking up,
is having a *** to **** in,
to have a glass half full,
but who is the fool?
The fool is the man,
that runs out of coffee filters,
and uses toilet paper,
instead.
I drink my coffee black.
It's an absolute.
Why mix cream?
When I don't believe,
everything is so black,
and white.
Aug 9, 2012
Aug 9, 2012 at 3:01 PM UTC
Why employ an ordinary word
When an extraordinary one
Excels?
Let us wed, let us vow,
Henceforth, let us never
Wish ourselves away plain humbly,
Goodbye.
Let us end our day,
Bid our lovely comings,
The tragedy of our departures
With a gentling
Fare thee well.
In the company of the dawn,
Let us greet the one
Who lies besides us a stirring,
Not with merest hello, morning or
The accursed howareyou,
Replace haste with a deliberate
*Welcome, well comely,
To this newborn day!*
Tho do confess,
That like numerous others
Who have counted the ways,
There is no sweetener substitute for
I love you.
I will n'ere address thy grace
With appellation dissatisfying of "girl"
When woman suits thee best,
With all its attendant glories.
Should we encounter upon the street,
Address me as man,
For of that word I am a fan,
But say it not with routine irrelevance,
But in tones of softest reverence,
For I am not a child or dude,
A sir or sire, a mister mister,
But I am a man.
Our lives are not a game of chance,
Yet chance aplenty do we countenance.
Having stumbled, fallen into a subterranean,
A place where I know thee well
But likely not your face, your visage,
Thy honest name,
Accept these excelsiors as mine
Poeming opening gambit,
My closing statement,
Summary of the that, that has and yet to pass
Between us:
Peace be upon you.
Oct 25, 2013
Oct 25, 2013 at 5:49 AM UTC
Nostalgia is
Clumps of brown sugar in your oatmeal.
Hurts you teeth to bite down,
But it's sugary sweet,
And good for mornings staring into your bowl.
You never really realize how watered down nostalgia is
When you can always add more sweetener
While trying to remember why it was so good in the first place.
Nov 5, 2015
Nov 5, 2015 at 2:36 PM UTC
Nothing speaks to the heart
Like the wind whistling alarming the dark
Hurricane pains a innocent man behind bars
Or the water that dripped through..
That the levies should have caught
Katrina I remember that girl
I promise no one was meaner
Of course she rain dropped after her uncle ***** pedals from her flower
No sweetener that's why her kiss was sour
Its wild how pain produces prostitution now she linked to a coward
Pimping ain't easy cause we all were birth from a woman
Mothers dealing with men with frozen tundra emotions
Heartless what speaks to a chest cavity where a heart is missing
Just Jesus
Sep 28, 2013
Sep 28, 2013 at 11:24 AM UTC
A whistle,
blows off the steam
heated inside the kettle.
Warmth is luscious and comforting.
The sensation that will soon puncture between your lips.
It comes to a boil,
the whistle grows greater.
Higher.
Oh that one night.
The note reaches soprano,
and continues.
Water rises to a boil.
Anger.
Only a sound that can make your ears throb.
Grasping the handle,
you pull the *** from it's key source.
Oh how you yearn to do the same.
Something this bitter,
needs a sweetener.
The warmth will exit.
Won't it need someplace to go?
Honey,
your warmth is forever welcome,
if you find yourself becoming cold on the boil.
Mar 23, 2017
Mar 23, 2017 at 4:42 PM UTC
"The fireflies are out tonight" he remarked, plodding barefoot behind her. Dusk fell over the stoic faces of skyscrapers that lined the three blocks ahead of them. "First I've seen this season", she replied in a near whisper, moon-eyed and gazing at something over the space where the park was.
//stop//
Her ears emerged from beneath the water she'd grown accustomed to the temperature with her laps up and down, trying to wash away the earlier happenstances of the day. It was warm beneath the surface, but the breeze made her feel brittle.
//Stop//
"...or was it more of a situation entirely different?" the boy questioned. She stared blankly at his awaiting gaze. How long had she been under? she had no idea. She'd gotten lost in thought and, as usual forgotten to count her laps. It just figured. It was like her to drift off like that. She shrugged to herself and closed her eyes as she leaned back into the water, once again drowning out the dull sounds of obscure questions that dripped out of his mouth. She closed her eyes as she swung her legs up to the wall and exhaled as she pushed back and drifted once again to the other side of the pool.
//stop//
She was dripping wet and a man was escorting her to a new room. It smelled of grease and cigarettes. The lighting was bad.
//stop//
All dry now, except her hair. She was warmer though. She exited her current surroundings through the only door. There, to the left of the desk on the floor. She quickly skipped over and slipped them on.
//stop//
Her hair was almost completely dry and she couldn't stand still. He was cleaning in his boxers by the kitchen sink. She'd pulled up the rug in front of the makeshift TV computer screen and she danced in front of the window, happy he couldn't see.
//stop//
it's late. much later. she wanted to go upstairs but she was having a hard time trying to care. Maybe the girl she used to know would help her out with a little artificial sweetener to fight off the sleep. She could at least see.
STOP.
C.e.m. 6.11.15
Jun 17, 2015
Jun 17, 2015 at 9:25 PM UTC
Keep us in color. Mute
the traffic and sparrows
dominating the café trees.
Focus on the table,
how we stare at white cups
waiting to be filled, gold spoons
to be used, stirring in
more than sweetener, suave poise.
The waiter will come in moments
not seconds. We are left
to anticipate the scent
of espresso,
the tang of apricots,
and what must be said
about our union.
Clouds hang closer, pale
limestone gray
like *The Church of The Holy Maiden,
La Doncella Santa *
perched on the hill.
Mar 8, 2012
Mar 8, 2012 at 7:02 PM UTC
I’d have left off loving you long back
If not for the glory of our local greasy spoon.
Your long fingertips
Curled over the red plastic borders
Framing the menu’s backside, showing me lunch specials, the Hungryman plate.
In this scene we are the couple caught up in a picture-book love
And so shy of speaking it that affection
Becomes a game of concealment versus concession.
We are good at the game, and our strategies evolved
Complex techniques of deceptive chitter chatter.
We made greasy spoon small talk, talk like artificial sweetener;
Because talk of substance would be to take account of the closing in of reality and my
Impending departure to tropical countries, names unpronounceable.
How much simpler to order soggy hash browns.
How much simpler to butter white bread toast
With white butter wrapped in gold packets.
Map spread on the linoleum tabletop,
I pointed out places with names full of P’s and K’s,
Overstuffed with consonants and gathering
Crumbs from our buttery palms.
Our fingers touched so often,
These hands might as well have been holding;
But then, days before my flight into the hot tropics,
These hands won’t touch, they’ll let their fingerprints drown in finger food grease.
Those days it was summer, when the weather was a mystery—
Ceaseless weeks overcast, when grey skies hanging above
Pondered pouring rain on us; it was a very indecisive summer.
We walked from the diner, both tucked under one umbrella,
Felt the unpleasant humidity and
Our own hesitance before saying goodbye.
Aug 25, 2010
Aug 25, 2010 at 8:11 PM UTC
she sat in the corner and asks
g WHY am I always digging at the bottom of this red box
r n ' w'''
e i '''e ' '
a h ' e '' '
c c ' ' p'' ' ' '
h a ' ' i ' '
i e ' ' ' ' n ' '
n r ' ' ' ' g '
g ' ' '
Begging for understanding while the claws of misleading whispers are speaking sweet nothings, pretty as raw sugar. Which is the sweetener and which is the bitter black?
YELLING
out of frustration YELLING out of patience
out of disappointment YELLING out of ideas
but take me by the hand drape me across my bed post
use the other to pick me up GOD tell me to stop crying and
come home
Forgive me
I know sorry c doesn't always
u
t
it
WHY is it when I run to stains on the carpet You find me with even more force than the last. I never thought You were .........
such a clean freak
I hope You know
that I keep pushing
You into last weeks trash
but the trash has a certain aroma
[[[Corinthians 2:14]]]
sometimes Your Fabreeze winds are the only thing that
let me smile
I can't thank You enough for
r
e
a
c
h
i
n
g
out
letting me hear the train whistle
imagine the cloth cubicles
even while I
blatantly ignore it
and keep walking
this long road
on my own
Stop handing me ~tickets~
I'm scared one day I'll take one
and board
Apr 18, 2012
Apr 18, 2012 at 1:39 PM UTC
Around the landscape,
Grass is perfect, made of plastic
False flowers bloom year-round
The sky is a brilliant cerulean, always
The world does not spin,
Tilted on it's axis
Everyone is perfect,
Their faces equivalent to one another
There is no love,
Nor naturalism
Everything is artificially sweetened.
Nov 16, 2014
Nov 16, 2014 at 9:08 PM UTC
When life deals us cards,
make everything taste like it is salt
then you come through like the sweetener you are
to bring the bitter taste to a halt.
I like the way you smile from cheek to cheek
Those deep-set brown eyes
makes me fall in love all over and over
again
Those deep-set brown eyes.
the quirkiness in your laugh
where you have no worry about the world watching,
You are free because the world is watching.
As the sun drips down your face
without a single care in the world,
and in that moment there was us.
we stared up to the sky
sang 'goodnight n go' at the
top of our lungs.
Boy, you're such a dream to me.
before you speak, don't move
because i don't want to wake up
Wake up
Wake up
Wake up
Wake up
Wake up
[...]
When life deals us cards,
make everything taste like it is salt
then you come through like the sweetener you are
to bring the bitter taste to a halt.
Sep 15, 2020
Sep 15, 2020 at 12:40 PM UTC
Sometimes I think maybe the world needs more empathy. So I buy some
ice cream, try to imagine what it’d be like to be so cool
I’m dripping sweet, so sugary that I make people’s teeth hurt when they smile.
At first I want to be a big sundae with hot fudge
arteries and the candied-cherry heart no one really chews up.
Then I decide I’d better get two scoops of fat-free bubblegum,
because nobody likes that junk and it must get awful freezer burnt
waiting for someone to notice it behind the chocolate chip. I dress it up nice
in a waffle-cone exoskeleton so I can get a good hold on it, but it looks strange:
two violent colored plops like a flamingo and a blue parrot are mushed
in a khaki tuxedo, snazzed with ice crystals and sprinkle bling. Tastes weird
too, fluorescent and sour because someone made it that way
by using artificial sweetener instead of the real stuff. My lips pucker
like a drawstring bag tugging shut: I've had a taste
but it's too hard to swallow. Just as I begin my bubblegum death
march to the garbage some kid whizzes by, abstract blob
of bone-dry hands and sharp teeth glinting: whiter than a deep freezer frost and dentist-approved, spiraling my cone into a lethal nose dive.
Wafer tip fractures on asphalt and splatters: open-cone
surgery. I watch sidewalk cracks ooze neon blood
as I try to wipe my fingers clean on denim pockets.
But even when the ice cream is gone my hands are still sticky.
Nov 3, 2014
Nov 3, 2014 at 8:13 PM UTC