Heat beats down upon the street
Birds too hot to fly,
Blistered sand you cannot stand
Drenched with sweat am I.
Cows collect in shadow deep
Panting sheep hang head,
Goshawk flies in cobalt skies
Hills of grass stand dead.

Whisp of smoke, a puff of breeze
Sirens scream in air,
Running men in squads of ten
Emerge from everywhere.
Now the rising wind takes charge
Runs with leaping flame
Into crown of eucalypts
To rage across the plain.

Too late the tenders hoses pour,
Too late the fireman’s shout
Inferno hot has run amok
And all control a rout.
Generating mighty winds
The fire charges forth
Spiralling in furnace air
To incinerate for sport.

Vanquished men exhausted stand
Watch with useless eyes,
As raging flames consume their truck,
Inside a good mate dies.
A live thing in the burnished night
It writhes and spirals high
Across the flaring treetops
Hot, red smoke fills the sky.

As sudden as it starts, it stops
A wind change in the air.
Ravaged forest stark and black
Hot ashes everywhere.
Hills of cinders smoking now
Stock in death’s repair,
Homesteads rendered charcoal like
Farmers in despair.

A silence in the ravaged hills
Birdless in the sky,
Bushfire horror, death and smoke
Enough to make you cry.

Marshalg
In support of my Australian brethren and their torched nation.
30 January 2013

His heart a setting desire
A holy man on fire
The ashes from his clothes hover overhead
Tarnished dry rain attached to eyelids
Blinding the ones admiring
He could've been loved
His demons were not friends
A lighter was no different
He screams in tortured relief
His body empty caressing the ground
A entity formed through headaches and torn garments
His need for her was never finished

Coming to now, the story of life not as a practical lesson in wisdom as such in a parable or teaching only casual experience for individual. Experiencing this wisdom will change your knowledge gained through the events of becoming with the kingdom of heaven. Ways on the tree of life or paths which are ordained or divined in the Lords or spheres build your learned life knowledge. Adapting as a disciple on the natural skill of the soul shows a person whom, the individual is in a pure state of self and exponential in the ***** of the tree of life.
As a child of light I lived happily joined in the union of spirit, my young soul always with the Almighty Father and Creator in the Tenth heaven. From a dream of the past awaking as a watcher of an extremely large craft inside the entire vessel I could see animals each of them were named and had most important characteristics from the Father. From high aloft in Heaven to the boat a watch was taking place omnipotent over the last life within. Many hosts and angels spoke once I was inside the boat but wasn’t as a soul like a spirit invisible I saw and heard. Angels divine in accord to works of commands were at work in heaven whole groups of choirs known as orders were not ever interrupted by my watch. Trumpet sounded heard in the spirits from heaven to the sea and rush gate of the heaven’s upon the earth. The name of angel that sounded and captured fallen in the thirteenth month; Tebae-et, into the stellar order of gates or fallen paradise.
A child of light borne in spirit always with the hosts or different characters in life such as Chanokh (Enokh-Father of Melekhi-Tsedek order), but it was either in dream or warden amongst crowds of souls touring in celestial spheres with paths of light on the tree of life. Walking outside my house the morning after my dream, I felt as if I could float in the air body and soul light as a feather. Surrounding me was Topaz, chrysophrase, jasper, chalcedony, and amber gemstones still transparency like crystalloluminescence. Above me sapphire with alabaster and my soul looked down upon me with white eyes shining light out of them in a robe covered in my names brilliantly shone in gold light in the temple of my soul. My body was in euphoria and I stared into the future and realms of heaven, seeing into the seven seals as celestial wardens. The divine experience was wholesome pure enrichment to my soul each word I had in communion with the throne of supreme majesty firm with glory, order, and unconditional loving care. Differences in the Father; whom was a body of so many names and creations perfect in commands, recordings, gates, cycles of hosts myriads, elementals, migrations of stars, and firmament upon firmament.
The way of the most holy spirits as complete body of the Father the original tree of life, which is known completely in the true names it was created as. The spirits, angels, guardians or incessantly serving hosts help the Father governing of the kingdom of heaven in the four parts of man. The structure I remember is perfection with tongues that fill the heart with everlasting laughter, hope that cheerfully overcomes in a soul victory. The heavenly abode the height of the throne gives the soul countenance of wisdom to the word unto man. Upon a single walk with the Father had taken my body and spirited my being in soul countenance of wisdom so far through the future I had saw unto trumpets of revelation.
Melekhi-Tsedek order the true religion to be proclaimed unto man the creatures such as animals, fallen accursed, the plant life in, promise, orphans, and widows were watched over on the decree or divine ordination from heaven. Ascending up to the throne; I went through the knowledge of the complete day in heaven or paradise recorded then toured the solar spheres, through the knowledge of the spirits or holy hosts that did in accordance to the orders. The process was divined in the Father’s willpower over my essence I had knowledge to what was being experienced in a connection unto every living creation. Completely, opening the mind unto Ratsiel (secret of God), through the third-eye founding of my soul into mysteries of kingdom of heaven. Voices of many named angels were annunciating with pleasant tones and choirs voices of angels by the thousands. Recording archangels kept the things that were occurring in the kingdom of man, while also serving the obligated roles of their natural being as direct personification of God. Organized, synchronized, and in spirit of prophecy patterning so perfected without error moving about in every way structurally sound through commanded orders. Systems of planets were kept sealed in the seven hallways or wards that divide heaven’s celestial nether space from the foundation of firmaments of word and universe unto the highest Lords signs of zodiac places. Above Almighty Father can sit omnipotent as ascending angels, spirits, or orders can go the entire flight focused on the Father’s throne. The orders of body were eminence Seraphim, Cherubim, Wheels (Thrones), Dominions (Authorities), Virtues, Powers, Principalities, Archangel, and Angels. Although the kingdom in spirit was always changing and becoming according to the cycle of the sun’s orbital sphere into the gates of each day on a 28 year cycle and 7,000 year unto 7 days in heaven the Lord a light-giver and also Lord of completion, Sabbath day.
A fresh gust of wind and a light pure feel was a regular experience while awakening my mind I learned of the Elders of heaven whom had crazy stories like when Samson had the might to slay the lions or tore down the temple of Dagon. I knew the hosts and things that had become in the kingdom of heaven to allow the might shone as a show for the heaven, but also act of the devils in his life. This knowledge was in a book the scripted the entirety of all the acts that take place as a divine act, once a celestial being was in visitation in spirit. The seraph Ratsiel (secret of God) investigated the acts of the temptation of Adam by Chavah and the acts of the archangels in response to the threat. The accord to the acts of everything that exists in the accord to knowledge of the solar is obtainable through this book, the book of knowledge.
Later in another dream I met the minister of death in spirit which as within a myriad where thousands of spirits were at works performing the acts in which is their existence and adapted behavior as a role in realms. Being in one place while still seeing into a complete different world or plane of existence doing as is need or divined in nature. Black darkened pillars came down on me as this space ship shaped like a pyramid with the patterns of natural earth red and black like lava years after a volcano. Around me each pillar stood as a being in realm invisible to my eye except for one being on a throne centered in the myriad the throne of death. Fiery torment in flames along with brimstone flowed in two pooled lakes parallel from one another with a long path going from gate to the another gate leading to Sheol or Hades. A base foundation of the throne is a horizontal shadowed hallway with many smaller pillars which give no support to the throne, while the path is vertically centered. Two stairways go up to the platform of the throne one on each side of the platform decorated with images of Baaliyal in form of a torrent. Death sat upon the throne with darkness like the appearance of black smoke blowing from his mouth a complete skeleton. Skeletal body covered in black cloak with a screeching voice like a woman’s long fingernail’s scratching a chalkboard. Terrified I walk my being over the site of my soul-mate who is on my like side and here with me she is like a dream and become in multiple places at the same time. Beautiful she was consistently becoming in hosts of cherubim changing into many different forms of the adapting natural instincts of animal’s behavior for survival, she is tan Carmel skin color and flesh uncorrupted by any mans thoughts of lusting ruin. Passionate vivid dreams of a                maiden lying in an alien jungle full of plants most like a rainforest but yet close to the planet’s beaches, wearing a purple robe. Dark and warm humid with a damp feel to the observer of the smooth cover of the claylike terrain of the solar sphere. Again I dreamed of her while she was separated from me by the prince of Tyre or the cherub covering the mercy, she ran amongst different hallways while in the tower of Babel and giant nephlim watched with other gods in gold cursed trying to look down on things in spirit. I walked up the stairs and could see myself from outside of myself, seeing my form as a human being in appearance most like Michael or Melekhidael with breastplate of gold without a helmet. Death screeched out at me and I saw an ancient giant of hell also the spirit of Tanhumeth trying to send me into the past. Awakened into a new form I walked through the gate vertical in the chamber beneath death’s ministry. Sopheriael Yahweh took me into the spirit of a seraph Hadaneriael then, into the 10 archangels of punishment over the 10 nations of Babylon the great which took me into the depth to the ninth circle of punishment for a reign in gates of the Phul seal or in Phalek. My soul was the loosened stars of Kesil through Samuil the poisoned messenger a discernment spirit involved in the surfs of the accord of the kingdom of dark princes in paradise, the divine comedy Queen of Angels enchanted songs counted into paradise. Darkness in the kingdom of heaven, with the ability to paralyze minds with seraphim hosts of terror, I walked through the brazen gates of Hades seeing everything on fire but also thousands of thousands of different forms of creations each rarity seen with delightful insight to provoke interests into any living being. The life paths of a multitude of creations would come through Hades and become baptized through spirit’s fire of pure refinement spoken as worth in the golden city, precious daughter of the loom, here in accord to John the Baptist’s   prophecy.
At a young age of 6 years old I began to refuse the world or play directly into the kingdom of heaven which was a lonely elect of self in my family also in the church my family attended. Wicked spirits attacked the gates of my inner ear where and had began to tell me of things that would happen in future then, keep me from being with the Father completely in heaven. My memory started to fade in fear that I would only to struggle if I kept learning. Gradual disillusion way from the throne began while I was only a few years old, the devils were wise in deceit most from the tree of knowledge and future mistakes from which I saw rolling with wheels of heaven. Moments of times in the future I would soul determine things into happening from the spirit of prophecy it was something I kept special between the Father and mines relationship. Constantly I would hated life and wanted to die, feed into temptation, stole, and spoke accursedly cutting my relationship from the Father.
Was not until I was seventeen years of age when I felt an overwhelming feeling like I had just explained something about the firmament of heaven which usually gives me this same feeling like a gust of wind in my person with a prestigious self worth from outside of self comforting to my soul. Looking up into the pitch black night sky, I saw a strange and odd formed constellation of stars above me I raised my arm and pointed at three stars. As if on command or through a governing of the stars each was loosed and fell immediately after pointing to them. Excited as the skin of my body was stinging as hairs stood to the point of super natural acknowledgment of the world’s great mysteries finding depth in the human soul I watched the sky then turned to the east. About to use the marijuana I torched a bowl of green bud then thought in the medium mostly of the kingdom and Father in heaven. In the zephyr region of the sky I saw a light floating, soaring, flashing, and moving faster than anything I had ever seen in life but on movies scenes. Astonished again I watch the spirit jumping around in the sky with multiple purposes and clear intent to do for the Father most high. My only other witness to this was my black minx cat shadoe, whom I looked at and said “I going to have a vision tomorrow” then finished two more hits of the cannabis before leaving to my room in the basement of a two-story house.
Awakening to the day was full of feeling of mystery I didn’t tell any of my experience from the night before. On October eighteenth in the day I smoked some marijuana went to Crook County High School and a blood drive was setup, I planned to give a pint for my first time ever so I went to auditorium where the blood was taken from my arm. Feeling faint and in hope for a high opposed to school I left and was excused from classes. Arriving at the house I stopped my Suzuki Sidekick in front then went in and downstairs to the place after the last step knowing something amazing was about to happening I uttered the name Metatron. Linear thought was tremendous while spirit balanced on a pillar and the first seal Arathron had me in celestial hallway warding the ancient spirits from the night before. Sitting down in a lazyboy recliner chair I first start the satellite television turn it on with remote, the spirits are crazy making grandeur boosts of how I can control everything like that remote but from mind. Flipping through stations I begin to change the channel in accord to how I sense and feel the spirits. Crazy things start occurring watching until I was seeing a celestial vision. Hearing my mind from above it was intriguing and making my pride compulsive like no one living I was experiencing these sights. As a mode of characters in a set ordained function were becoming visible on the tree of life but each were in a different realm not visible to the other. Beautiful alien life most exquisite to the eyes in the planes of other worldly adobes just doing into a set way of commands rare without repetition. Nine characters panther, eagle, falcon, wolf, coyote, Siberian tiger, and one man with blonde hair came into view in a dense rainforest like jungle each was adapting to the environment but they were only one soul becoming the entire time. The forest was no longer and the upper places had new hosting since I had entered and changed things with my thoughts, I became the soul of the characters. Seeing upwardly was a flight to the top of the extreme heights of the Father’s presence through the third seal of Phalek. At the arrival of my being I saw the most adorned and absolutely marvelous splendor of white shine like that of the sun’s rays hitting snow filled fields. The Father’s presence so handsome and gorgeous I have never seen another beauty like it only his eyes were so bright shining when he created my being as a star to his left-hand above a white marble pedestal of wisdom. Father had most elegant white robe shining in purity and sat upon a throne center below seven pillars known as the tabernacle of creation or tabernacle of seven days. In the presence I was pulled back down I felt spirits by the millions entering me, fusing to the dawn star in me finding a place inside me. Possessively filled with spirits till an evil pride overtook me and I felt ever sinful or dark taint of the soul. Lightening fell on the seventh pillar in the tabernacle blue bolts streaked downward as I fell from the presence back to the sphere of Adam’s where I heard two voices speaking. Red clay-like surface with rough igneous and metaphoric rock on the solar planet were a tree had burned to charred pieces. Sin from the Tree of knowledge was present as a spirit she was a young apprentice of the ancient one or Athiquelis. Introducing herself with flaming hair of red orange flames, her eyes shone as big red gemstones of ruby and a body covered with a black dress that faded into the natural darkness of her nature. Waving and floating in the air seducing temptation in her words that spoke into my mind and not from the channel. Soothsaying feminist voice would move me to her place and origin beside a large eleven foot pillar of smooth dark bla

I.
Fair Isabel, poor simple Isabel!
Lorenzo, a young palmer in Love's eye!
They could not in the self-same mansion dwell
Without some stir of heart, some malady;
They could not sit at meals but feel how well
It soothed each to be the other by;
They could not, sure, beneath the same roof sleep
But to each other dream, and nightly weep.

II.
With every morn their love grew tenderer,
With every eve deeper and tenderer still;
He might not in house, field, or garden stir,
But her full shape would all his seeing fill;
And his continual voice was pleasanter
To her, than noise of trees or hidden rill;
Her lute-string gave an echo of his name,
She spoilt her half-done broidery with the same.

III.
He knew whose gentle hand was at the latch,
Before the door had given her to his eyes;
And from her chamber-window he would catch
Her beauty farther than the falcon spies;
And constant as her vespers would he watch,
Because her face was turn'd to the same skies;
And with sick longing all the night outwear,
To hear her morning-step upon the stair.

IV.
A whole long month of May in this sad plight
Made their cheeks paler by the break of June:
"To morrow will I bow to my delight,
"To-morrow will I ask my lady's boon."--
"O may I never see another night,
"Lorenzo, if thy lips breathe not love's tune."--
So spake they to their pillows; but, alas,
Honeyless days and days did he let pass;

V.
Until sweet Isabella's untouch'd cheek
Fell sick within the rose's just domain,
Fell thin as a young mother's, who doth seek
By every lull to cool her infant's pain:
"How ill she is," said he, "I may not speak,
"And yet I will, and tell my love all plain:
"If looks speak love-laws, I will drink her tears,
"And at the least 'twill startle off her cares."

VI.
So said he one fair morning, and all day
His heart beat awfully against his side;
And to his heart he inwardly did pray
For power to speak; but still the ruddy tide
Stifled his voice, and puls'd resolve away--
Fever'd his high conceit of such a bride,
Yet brought him to the meekness of a child:
Alas! when passion is both meek and wild!

VII.
So once more he had wak'd and anguished
A dreary night of love and misery,
If Isabel's quick eye had not been wed
To every symbol on his forehead high;
She saw it waxing very pale and dead,
And straight all flush'd; so, lisped tenderly,
"Lorenzo!"--here she ceas'd her timid quest,
But in her tone and look he read the rest.

VIII.
"O Isabella, I can half perceive
"That I may speak my grief into thine ear;
"If thou didst ever any thing believe,
"Believe how I love thee, believe how near
"My soul is to its doom: I would not grieve
"Thy hand by unwelcome pressing, would not fear
"Thine eyes by gazing; but I cannot live
"Another night, and not my passion shrive.

IX.
"Love! thou art leading me from wintry cold,
"Lady! thou leadest me to summer clime,
"And I must taste the blossoms that unfold
"In its ripe warmth this gracious morning time."
So said, his erewhile timid lips grew bold,
And poesied with hers in dewy rhyme:
Great bliss was with them, and great happiness
Grew, like a ***** flower in June's caress.

X.
Parting they seem'd to tread upon the air,
Twin roses by the zephyr blown apart
Only to meet again more close, and share
The inward fragrance of each other's heart.
She, to her chamber gone, a ditty fair
Sang, of delicious love and honey'd dart;
He with light steps went up a western hill,
And bade the sun farewell, and joy'd his fill.

XI.
All close they met again, before the dusk
Had taken from the stars its pleasant veil,
All close they met, all eves, before the dusk
Had taken from the stars its pleasant veil,
Close in a bower of hyacinth and musk,
Unknown of any, free from whispering tale.
Ah! better had it been for ever so,
Than idle ears should pleasure in their woe.

XII.
Were they unhappy then?--It cannot be--
Too many tears for lovers have been shed,
Too many sighs give we to them in fee,
Too much of pity after they are dead,
Too many doleful stories do we see,
Whose matter in bright gold were best be read;
Except in such a page where Theseus' spouse
Over the pathless waves towards him bows.

XIII.
But, for the general award of love,
The little sweet doth **** much bitterness;
Though Dido silent is in under-grove,
And Isabella's was a great distress,
Though young Lorenzo in warm Indian clove
Was not embalm'd, this truth is not the less--
Even bees, the little almsmen of spring-bowers,
Know there is richest juice in poison-flowers.

XIV.
With her two brothers this fair lady dwelt,
Enriched from ancestral merchandize,
And for them many a weary hand did swelt
In torched mines and noisy factories,
And many once proud-quiver'd ***** did melt
In blood from stinging whip;--with hollow eyes
Many all day in dazzling river stood,
To take the rich-ored driftings of the flood.

XV.
For them the Ceylon diver held his breath,
And went all naked to the hungry shark;
For them his ears gush'd blood; for them in death
The seal on the cold ice with piteous bark
Lay full of darts; for them alone did seethe
A thousand men in troubles wide and dark:
Half-ignorant, they turn'd an easy wheel,
That set sharp racks at work, to pinch and peel.

XVI.
Why were they proud? Because their marble founts
Gush'd with more pride than do a wretch's tears?--
Why were they proud? Because fair orange-mounts
Were of more soft ascent than lazar stairs?--
Why were they proud? Because red-lin'd accounts
Were richer than the songs of Grecian years?--
Why were they proud? again we ask aloud,
Why in the name of Glory were they proud?

XVII.
Yet were these Florentines as self-retired
In hungry pride and gainful cowardice,
As two close Hebrews in that land inspired,
Paled in and vineyarded from beggar-spies,
The hawks of ship-mast forests--the untired
And pannier'd mules for ducats and old lies--
Quick cat's-paws on the generous stray-away,--
Great wits in Spanish, Tuscan, and Malay.

XVIII.
How was it these same ledger-men could spy
Fair Isabella in her downy nest?
How could they find out in Lorenzo's eye
A straying from his toil? Hot Egypt's pest
Into their vision covetous and sly!
How could these money-bags see east and west?--
Yet so they did--and every dealer fair
Must see behind, as doth the hunted hare.

XIX.
O eloquent and famed Boccaccio!
Of thee we now should ask forgiving boon,
And of thy spicy myrtles as they blow,
And of thy roses amorous of the moon,
And of thy lilies, that do paler grow
Now they can no more hear thy ghittern's tune,
For venturing syllables that ill beseem
The quiet glooms of such a piteous theme.

**.
Grant thou a pardon here, and then the tale
Shall move on soberly, as it is meet;
There is no other crime, no mad assail
To make old prose in modern rhyme more sweet:
But it is done--succeed the verse or fail--
To honour thee, and thy gone spirit greet;
To stead thee as a verse in English tongue,
An echo of thee in the north-wind sung.

XXI.
These brethren having found by many signs
What love Lorenzo for their sister had,
And how she lov'd him too, each unconfines
His bitter thoughts to other, well nigh mad
That he, the servant of their trade designs,
Should in their sister's love be blithe and glad,
When 'twas their plan to coax her by degrees
To some high noble and his olive-trees.

XXII.
And many a jealous conference had they,
And many times they bit their lips alone,
Before they fix'd upon a surest way
To make the youngster for his crime atone;
And at the last, these men of cruel clay
Cut Mercy with a sharp knife to the bone;
For they resolved in some forest dim
To **** Lorenzo, and there bury him.

XXIII.
So on a pleasant morning, as he leant
Into the sun-rise, o'er the balustrade
Of the garden-terrace, towards him they bent
Their footing through the dews; and to him said,
"You seem there in the quiet of content,
"Lorenzo, and we are most loth to invade
"Calm speculation; but if you are wise,
"Bestride your steed while cold is in the skies.

XXIV.
"To-day we purpose, ay, this hour we mount
"To spur three leagues towards the Apennine;
"Come down, we pray thee, ere the hot sun count
"His dewy rosary on the eglantine."
Lorenzo, courteously as he was wont,
Bow'd a fair greeting to these serpents' whine;
And went in haste, to get in readiness,
With belt, and spur, and bracing huntsman's dress.

XXV.
And as he to the court-yard pass'd along,
Each third step did he pause, and listen'd oft
If he could hear his lady's matin-song,
Or the light whisper of her footstep soft;
And as he thus over his passion hung,
He heard a laugh full musical aloft;
When, looking up, he saw her features bright
Smile through an in-door lattice, all delight.

XXVI.
"Love, Isabel!" said he, "I was in pain
"Lest I should miss to bid thee a good morrow:
"Ah! what if I should lose thee, when so fain
"I am to stifle all the heavy sorrow
"Of a poor three hours' absence? but we'll gain
"Out of the amorous dark what day doth borrow.
"Good bye! I'll soon be back."--"Good bye!" said she:--
And as he went she chanted merrily.

XXVII.
So the two brothers and their ******'d man
Rode past fair Florence, to where Arno's stream
Gurgles through straiten'd banks, and still doth fan
Itself with dancing bulrush, and the bream
Keeps head against the freshets. Sick and wan
The brothers' faces in the ford did seem,
Lorenzo's flush with love.--They pass'd the water
Into a forest quiet for the slaughter.

XXVIII.
There was Lorenzo slain and buried in,
There in that forest did his great love cease;
Ah! when a soul doth thus its freedom win,
It aches in loneliness--is ill at peace
As the break-covert blood-hounds of such sin:
They dipp'd their swords in the water, and did tease
Their horses homeward, with convulsed spur,
Each richer by his being a murderer.

XXIX.
They told their sister how, with sudden speed,
Lorenzo had ta'en ship for foreign lands,
Because of some great urgency and need
In their affairs, requiring trusty hands.
Poor Girl! put on thy stifling widow's ****,
And 'scape at once from Hope's accursed bands;
To-day thou wilt not see him, nor to-morrow,
And the next day will be a day of sorrow.

***.
She weeps alone for pleasures not to be;
Sorely she wept until the night came on,
And then, instead of love, O misery!
She brooded o'er the luxury alone:
His image in the dusk she seem'd to see,
And to the silence made a gentle moan,
Spreading her perfect arms upon the air,
And on her couch low murmuring, "Where? O where?"

XXXI.
But Selfishness, Love's cousin, held not long
Its fiery vigil in her single breast;
She fretted for the golden hour, and hung
Upon the time with feverish unrest--
Not long--for soon into her heart a throng
Of higher occupants, a richer zest,
Came tragic; passion not to be subdued,
And sorrow for her love in travels rude.

XXXII.
In the mid days of autumn, on their eves
The breath of Winter comes from far away,
And the sick west continually bereaves
Of some gold tinge, and plays a roundelay
Of death among the bushes and the leaves,
To make all bare before he dares to stray
From his north cavern. So sweet Isabel
By gradual decay from beauty fell,

XXXIII.
Because Lorenzo came not. Oftentimes
She ask'd her brothers, with an eye all pale,
Striving to be itself, what dungeon climes
Could keep him off so long? They spake a tale
Time after time, to quiet her. Their crimes
Came on them, like a smoke from Hinnom's vale;
And every night in dreams they groan'd aloud,
To see their sister in her snowy shroud.

XXXIV.
And she had died in drowsy ignorance,
But for a thing more deadly dark than all;
It came like a fierce potion, drunk by chance,
Which saves a sick man from the feather'd pall
For some few gasping moments; like a lance,
Waking an Indian from his cloudy hall
With cruel pierce, and bringing him again
Sense of the gnawing fire at heart and brain.

XXXV.
It was a vision.--In the drowsy gloom,
The dull of midnight, at her couch's foot
Lorenzo stood, and wept: the forest tomb
Had marr'd his glossy hair which once could shoot
Lustre into the sun, and put cold doom
Upon his lips, and taken the soft lute
From his lorn voice, and past his loamed ears
Had made a miry channel for his tears.

XXXVI.
Strange sound it was, when the pale shadow spake;
For there was striving, in its piteous tongue,
To speak as when on earth it was awake,
And Isabella on its music hung:
Languor there was in it, and tremulous shake,
As in a palsied Druid's harp unstrung;
And through it moan'd a ghostly under-song,
Like hoarse night-gusts sepulchral briars among.

XXXVII.
Its eyes, though wild, were still all dewy bright
With love, and kept all phantom fear aloof
From the poor girl by magic of their light,
The while it did unthread the horrid woof
Of the late darken'd time,--the murderous spite
Of pride and avarice,--the dark pine roof
In the forest,--and the sodden turfed dell,
Where, without any word, from stabs he fell.

XXXVIII.
Saying moreover, "Isabel, my sweet!
"Red whortle-berries droop above my head,
"And a large flint-stone weighs upon my feet;
"Around me beeches and high chestnuts shed
"Their leaves and prickly nuts; a sheep-fold bleat
"Comes from beyond the river to my bed:
"Go, shed one tear upon my heather-bloom,
"And it shall comfort me within the tomb.

XXXIX.
"I am a shadow now, alas! alas!
"Upon the skirts of human-nature dwelling
"Alone: I chant alone the holy mass,
"While little sounds of life are round me knelling,
"And glossy bees at noon do fieldward pass,
"And many a chapel bell the hour is telling,
"Paining me through: those sounds grow strange to me,
"And thou art distant in Humanity.

XL.
"I know what was, I feel full well what is,
"And I should rage, if spirits could go mad;
"Though I forget the taste of earthly bliss,
"That paleness warms my grave, as though I had
"A Seraph chosen from the bright abyss
"To be my spouse: thy paleness makes me glad;
"Thy beauty grows upon me, and I feel
"A greater love through all my essence steal."

XLI.
The Spirit mourn'd "Adieu!"--dissolv'd, and left
The atom darkness in a slow turmoil;
As when of healthful midnight sleep bereft,
Thinking on rugged hours and fruitless toil,
We put our eyes into a pillowy cleft,
And see the spangly gloom froth up and boil:
It made sad Isabella's eyelids ache,
And in the dawn she started up awake;

XLII.
"Ha! ha!" said she, "I knew not this hard life,
"I thought the worst was simple misery;
"I thought some Fate with pleasure or with strife
"Portion'd us--happy days, or else to die;
"But there is crime--a brother's ****** knife!
"Sweet Spirit, thou hast school'd my infancy:
"I'll visit thee for this, and kiss thine eyes,
"And greet thee morn and even in the skies."

XLIII.
When the full morning came, she had devised
How she might secret to the forest hie;
How she might find the clay, so dearly prized,
And sing to it one latest lullaby;
How her short absence might be unsurmised,
While she the inmost of the dream would try.
Resolv'd, she took with her an aged nurse,
And went into that dismal forest-hearse.

XLIV.
See, as they creep along the river side,
How she doth whisper to that aged Dame,
And, after looking round the champaign wide,
Shows her a knife.--"What feverous hectic flame
"Burns in thee, child?--What good can thee betide,
"That thou should'st smile again?"--The evening came,
And they had found Lorenzo's earthy bed;
The flint was there, the berries at his head.

XLV.
Who hath not loiter'd in a green church-yard,
And let his spirit, like a demon-mole,
Work through the clayey soil and gravel hard,
To see skull, coffin'd bones, and funeral stole;
Pitying each form that hungry Death hath marr'd,
And filling it once more with human soul?
Ah! this is holiday to what was felt
When Isabella by Lorenzo knelt.

XLVI.
She gaz'd into the fresh-thrown mould, as though
One glance did fully all its secrets tell;
Clearly she saw, as other eyes would know
Pale limbs at bottom of a crystal well;
Upon the murderous spot she seem'd to grow,
Like to a native lily of the dell:
Then with her knife, all sudden, she began
To dig more fervently than misers can.

XLVII.
Soon she turn'd up a soiled glove, whereon
Her silk had play'd in purple phantasies,
She kiss'd it with a lip more chill than stone,
And put it in her *****, where it dries
And freezes utterly unto the bone
Those dainties made to still an infant's cries:
Then 'gan she work again; nor stay'd her care,
But to throw back at times her vei

A Serotinous Pine there,
Where winter snows soak into thirsty soil but relentless summer sun bakes motionless
Every plant a tinder held close to conflagration,
in a season's Russian roulette of forest fire.
This pine seals precious seed away from every spring’s promise,
lest burning destroys every one.
Only searing heat during torched consumption triggers the last gentle act,
At the knife’s edge of apocalypse itself,
opening cones of seeds.
Fluttering down to new life on the other side of time.
Tiny bright green amid black ashes.

Swimming Penguins
Birds evolved to fly in ocean.
Wings to flippers, feet stepping clumsily from water.
Yet eggs must still nest, their babies still breathe.
Safety is the very precipice of existence, on bitter ice at 60 below,
Sheltering their young clustered from blistering winds,
fasting from sustenance,
While heaven’s glorious Aurora flame silently over their winter dreams.

So what then are we, on This Earth?
Cerebral Creatures, Storytelling Animals.
Minds created to sense spiritual constructs.
Living is the method of our creation,
Sheltering each other from inherited trials
With contrived joys and sufferings distracting each other
from the soul freezing fearful cold of the Empty Void
And consuming fire of electric chaos.
In the End, our sacrificing gift for our children
is God.

A moment is never singular, exactly;
nothing on This Earth lasts, obviously.
Yet People still search to locate a focal point,
identify the axis, ground the spar tree.
Molecules have been examined down to Music;
infinite harmonies taking perceived shape,
Each element ever-changing as our senses are tuned.
Particles are waves of color, our own hand turning the kaleidoscope.

But our mind's-eye has been clouded;
Selfish fear of inconvenience escalating,
leading us all to the cliff of catastrophe.
Inching feet-forward hover over black air;  the void right there.
Regretful feet-backward discover lost ground,  toes grasped by gravity into falling gravel.
Stilled to painful awareness, but at least to finally see

Ancient Sequoia,
giants rooted in misty epochs,
wizened moss-covered faces sleepily meditating
under their own constellations turning.
We hated their shadows, felled them for the void, stole their place in the heartbroken sun.
Our vain history in tiny arrows obscures their rings of years like graffiti.
But in the hushed forest remaining, sheltering treasured few seedlings 6 inches tall,
One breath in lasts a season; one breath out purifies the years
with timeless patience for you as well.

There's no need to hurry;
wishes already happened when they are dreamed.
time was measured to distract.

A Humpback Whale arrives to calve in sanctuary’s dawn.
Still water, then her nose appearing,
then her monumental presence rising like a building;
then her entire whaleness levitating on her tail for a moment in our thin world.
Only faithful joy has that kind of power.
Then arching to fly,
and slamming, bursting, the surface for the generations to hear and feel.
She fills an ocean with her soul, a year with one song.
She is alive today, escaping slaughter
After swimming through the blood of her family spilled by our grandfather's harpoons,
Even with all the seas poisoned and starving,
Swim in the echoes of her call; she loves completely.


Keep no tally from the intangible past,
forgiving is possible.

Swimming Penguins
Birds evolved to fly in ocean.
Wings to flippers, feet stepping clumsily from water.
Yet eggs must still nest, their babies still breathe.
Safety is the very precipice of existence, on bitter ice at 60 below,
Sheltering their young clustered from blistering winds,
fasting from sustenance,
While heaven’s glorious Aurora flame silently over their winter dreams.

Extremes reveal the Sacred, but we’re confused.
Fear mistakenly chained with control; but both dissipate with acceptance.

A Serotinous Pine there,
Where winter snows soak into thirsty soil but relentless summer sun bakes motionless
Every plant a tinder held close to conflagration,
in a season's Russian roulette of forest fire.
This pine seals precious seed away from every spring’s promise,
lest burning destroys every one.
Only searing heat during torched consumption triggers the last gentle act,
At the knife’s edge of death itself,
opening cones of seeds.
Fluttering down to new life on the other side of time.
Tiny bright green amid black ashes.

This apocalypse was our contrivance, but so is the word.
Beginning of the End or End of the beginning, all the same.

So what then are we, on This Earth?
Cerebral Creatures, Storytelling Animals,
Minds created to sense spiritual constructs.
Living is the method of our creation,
Sheltering each other from inherited trials
With contrived joys and sufferings distracting each other
From the abyss both sides:
Soul freezing fearful cold of the Empty Void and consuming fire of Electric Chaos.

In the End, our sacrificing gift,  greater than ourselves,
for our children,
is God.

In the worst of times, martyrs will march barefooted  into foreign lands  
To toil its earth with flesh and sweat and blood
They jaunt  north to south searching for milk and honey
  and gold coins to put in their empty pockets

They stop to find out that they cannot walk barefooted
For the road is nothing but thorns and hot sand that scorch the feet
The merciless air is aloof and condescending
These people, they suffered
  for their skin cracks in the winter and burns in the rain

Their tongue aches from speaking a different language:
   voices turned into an unfathomable cadence
Frail skin torched like a hot tar to tissue paper
   leaving only blackened soot
They come home with a dry mouth and scarred heart

These heroes will look up above into the cold night sky
   to look for inkling of stars that guided them
For there is nothing sweeter than to bring food back home
To where hungry mouths and empty hands suffer in pain

From day one he was trouble
His parents knew on sight
Their bundle of pure joy and bliss
Was somehow, just not right

It wasn't in his nature
To be part of a gang
He like to be off by himself
He liked things that went bang

He was troubled in his school years
Never getting real good marks
He didn't get along with other
He was burning caps and making sparks

But when this boy found fire
Well, then....his world became real small
Never mind the big explosions
He would go and burn them all

Small fires set in dumpsters
Behind the shops, by where he ran
He'd set fire to the garbages
While he trapped a cat inside the can

He progressed on up to buildings
Made that jump, in one big way
He torched a crack house, all abandoned
Buy using gas and old, dry hay

But, the thrill was not a keeper
It wore off as fast as it arrived
He had to extend the feeling
That made his body feel alive

He knew to see his fires
He would have to volunteer
First he would go set them
Then, help put them out...I fear

It was a stroke of pyro genius
He'd set them and he'd put them out
He'd learn what gave them trouble
And he'd give them more without a doubt

He never killed another
Never burnt a persons home
He always set his fires
Where buildings always stood alone

They caught him late September
He'd burned a building late one night
It was supposed to be abandoned
But, was full of squatters, out of sight

The picture, it was famous
A hippie shaking someone's hand
It was on the front page of the paper
And it was shown through out the land

A fingerprint was lifted
A switch, that burned, not like it should
And from there, it was no problem
To lock this boy away for good

He was sent away to prison
He was gonna die there, bet on that
And on his first day in that prison
He saw an old man, who just sat

Sitting in the corner
by himself, no one around
Sat a man, all old and wrinkled
Lips were moving, but no sound

Came forth from this man's mouth,
his lips all cracked and dry,
You could stand right there and listen
And hear nothing if you tried...

i have no bridges
left to burn
around here
i torched them all
ashes flew across campus
trust left town
friendships fell in fire
bridges built from wood
had no chance at all

a ****** of crows gathers
over Hamburg, carrion carrying on
with business as usual.
feeding on the festered flesh
of a gentrified populace.

in private jets coughing carbon
they fly from the west on turbine wings,
engines screaming as they dive towards a nation
secured by razor-wound walls
and barb-wire borders.

they pitched a battle in Germany,
convinced that austerity
would ******* the resistance
and give justification to premeditated violence.
but the tables have turned on the thieves again.

we are the end result of your failed policies,
globalization has destroyed our homes.
if your cabal rallies like a kettle of vultures,
you will do so behind closed doors,
cowering in your fortress' halls.

you shall not pass. watch as the power shifts
like the melting gears of torched BMWs.
we will tear the vestiges of your authority down.
we will black out your surveillance cameras,
smash your windows, and block your limos. no pasaran.

flee, while you can still run. this city belongs
to the wild ones, a black bloc, thousands strong,
dancing amidst the tear gas, tossing molotovs.
marching to liberty's sturdy drum,
equal in our solidarity song.

Addicted to Love
She used to slowly caress my hand-
She would send chills down my spine-
We would indulge in white lines as ecstasy got us high-
One journey of a heart established in her lies-
In her eyes I could see the twisted world that she believed-
So drunk on insecurities highly clouded by ****-
This is the devil’s disease-It is the devil’s fortune and fame-
In love with a substance-I became in love with her name-
Thin haired needles puncture love to my veins-
My heart would beat with tweak-
To the rhythm of the dope game-
The rhythm of the dope game-
WAIT-
What was all this ******* for?
Saying you love me as I lay incoherent on the floor-
The steamy smell of three and half turned to four makes way through my body escaping my pours-
Till the core of my soul lays alone in its own cold-
And what was all this for?
It was a ***** stained love as glass pipes held dreams of hope-
Torched lit fires turned ambition to smoke-
LSD became creativity-till the pits of hell were roamed-
And what was all this for?
It was for love-
It was for drugs-
It was my only way to cope-
Understand?
Under gram erections stood alone penetrating holes I’ve never seen before-
Moans of stupidity released thoughts I ignored-
But I adored the feeling of evolution elevating me to heights un-soared-
Where lands of all man reach limitations to explore-
My body begging me to stop but my mind is begging me for more-
Refugees and causalities lay naked on the shore-Track marks leak the scent of and all and out lost war-
And I’m still not sure what all this was for-
Maybe it was for the thrill-
The thrill of submersing all my rotten thoughts that plague my good will-
My will to live among humanity and grant myself the freedom to walk among all of G-d’s family-
But tragedy strikes at the heart of the lost kind-
Where bleeding bodies are buried by the sands of time-
Where a generational cry turns to generational screams, where a generation in denial becomes generational fends-
And bitterness soaks through her cream where lost visions of the future become a long distance dream-
And the subdue substance that once claimed me now allow me rhymes of exploration,-exploring things I’ve never seen never dreamed never thought I’d ever be another statistical teen-
But I’ve grown-I’ve grown for the ignorance-The ignorance of believing I can make sense of life and relevance-That the heaven sent failure no longer has remembrance and the continuous hell bent world that destroyed me now gives me a halo of sense and for the first time-things make sense!
So I set myself forward down a road of reflection, reflecting on things I meet at my souls introspection-inspecting deep dark thoughts that beat my soul to redemption and I question-
I question why I stand here ready to go hand to hand to prove I’m a man when all I really want to do is show her who the **** I am-but I can’t-
So I close of my angels and reach for the devil within and its plaguing me why can’t G-d see that I don’t want to live in a dream-I just don’t want to be-
Please-
Allow me ease-
As I dream of moments with my old love-with my old drugs-with my not giving a ****-
Like why the **** should I care when no one else does-
So instead of the drugs I will pick up a pen and write a rhtymatic flow about the places I’ve been-and now-the only addiction I have is writing my hymns-
For the hell hath no fury for the devil within but in the end-
Well in the end-
She slowly starts caressing my hand again man-

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.

1.
white chapel on a hill

sheep dot rugged, earthy slopes

ruminate on warm, sun-kissed dale

endless lines and lines of verdant tones

late afternoon sun slanting

behold, jaune compassion

alfalfa ocherous leans willowy in wind

distance of silence yearns on

afternoon shadows lie within majestic vales

powder-blue ranges in 3D tiers

shadowy rifts, like a painting out of heaven

lone tree not alone, reaches up

blinding turns and rust-coloured bends, twisty trails

two on horseback, apples for sale

reservoir as a hold all for all

brown mud is where redemption lies.


2.
sun dips away, out of reach

beyond the eye's catch

step out car

feel the ping of silence, deeply-alive zing

crowd in and then,

into the slot of torched horizon

the orange world slips . . .




S T, 19 May 2013

Bosnia, March, 1994, from an NPR interview with a 15-year-old Muslim girl.  Serbian forces were shelling the area we occupied. We tried to persuade her it would be safer to lie on the ground, as we were doing. She was indifferent and seemed to ignore us. She stood and talked freely amidst the  noise. She told us she liked country music and that school was getting boring and in the same casual tone asked us, ‘How long are people going to watch us die?’



She said she liked country music

Exploding sky, color of death
Exploding bodies
Men, children, women
Terror pounding ears like the heart beats
of a four legged veal marsala waiting to die
Putrid flesh, burning houses, torched spirits
15-year-old girl
Steel eyes melting under the heat of genocide
Imploding mind, split into a thousand screams
Only war
By whatever means
Deafening anguish
Running, deafening heart in throat, running
She said she liked country music
24, 41, 32
15 years old
This one here
82, 12, 7 years old

Said she liked...
Tie her wrists
Neighbor, aunt, niece
Liked count---try music
Tighter
Grandmother, sister
Spread her legs
And that school was getting boring
Spread her legs
Daughter, mother, wife
And that school was getting...
Tears running down the blood
           running down the legs
           running down the
Savage streets filled with broken Coke bottles
Wider, shove it, shove it
Coke bottles
shove it
Spread them wider
Shove it
Shove it ….  in
15-year-old girl
13, 7
Faster, faster
Knife in hand on throat in blood
All the way,   IN
Who cares
Fear disguised as hatred
Turning ***** into bullets
Piercing flesh

Piercing humanity
Just a female, just a body, just a toy
Was getting boring
No life, no more, no more
Then she turned to us and said how long...
Exploding wombs, death
Eyeballs peeling off in horror
How long...
She said...
Blood, legs, open, ******, open
She said...
Point of knife, ****** in
****** in center
Center of humanity
How long will...
******, who cares?
Piece of meat
Feed our revenge
Feed our war machines
Feed our weakness for power
Shove it in

The NY Times today stated that the UN council on human rights abuse has agreed that systematic **** is possibly being used by Serb forces as a tool for genocide against the Bosnian Muslims and that as such, may be viewed as a violation of international law.  A warning will be issued to the...
A warning will be issued to the...
A warning...

She said how long...
After two years

Brutal rapes
After two years
20,000 30,000
Systematic rapes possibly being used
50,000
Before, who cares
International law
Only now they decide to act  
Genocide, So what
How long will...
That systematic ****...
***** like lead bullets
Is possibly being...
Harder
****** the ******* thing all the way in
Then she said...
Wider
And then she...
Wider, Wider *****
And then she...
Get another, she’s dead, get another
And then...
Get another ******* *****
And then she said...
******* *****
She said
******* *****

She turned to us and said......
  
How  long are people going to watch us die?

A harbinger of life and death
He walks the sky
Carried by her breath

From above his many arms reach the earth
They beat rocks down
Carve waterways
And raise earthly pillars

From the sun he brings color
Captured in his work
Down, Down in the leaves
His gift to her

When her lungs are deep and shouts coarse
His shadow is dark
The land lost in premature night
Interrupted by angry light

On these dull nights with sullen color
Life is ruptured
And the blood of torched nature
Swallows her

When her voice is gentle and breath still
His works are thoughtful and cautious
Gifts numerous and precious
And she’s alive

Lost words capture the light
Of the ancient giant
Making the beautiful
Visible to the earthly soul

His touch like the heart
Strong and warped by passion
Imperfect and earnest
And dictated by cyclic motion

Wild and Eternal
The Heart of Nature

I know this foreign method
     made my throbbing veins its home
'cuz the familiar's not familiar
     and I'm not fine
          lest I'm messed up on
wine.
     And 9/10 of all the times
I've tried to crack a smile
since I lost you have
turned out as half-assed lies.

I wander streets, worn out,
while I wonder where you are
and what you're thinking about while
     you drive down Henderson...
          I'll try to dry out
          from time to time
        but fall back into bouts
       internal I'm interred in
       eternally--and I'll never win them.
       I'll. Never. Win them.

Not without...

          Sorry...

I meander through months while
     you walk through my mind

--and I'm glad if you're happy?--

     but you were quite angry
    with me that night I took
     and torched our collection
     of 5 years' shared memories
          QUITE ANGRY
             with me.
    And the things you said were mean
          but you meant them.

And you were right
About how wrong I was
how bad I am,
and how I taste
like lemon lies
on the tongue.

     You were right.
     And I'm drunk.

And sad and sorry and selfish
and stupid and absorbed by a
salted skyline of cold, purple steel
          every night.

It *****.

You teach kids for a living,
about the age of 9.
Me? I try to dry out
now and then, time to time,
but it's hard.

And you're far.

And I'd still come if I could,
     but it's hard
     following this heart
     when it's buried
     at the confluence
     of the Red and Assiniboine
          Rivers.

Beneath The Forks...

And that heart? Like the ground above it,
     it's covered
with ******, commercial architecture
and the clothing of bureaucracy,
     but ****,
      we had fun there.

Didn't we...?

why didn't existentialism every take off in England?
fair enough, the Poles aren't exactly saints, but they'e not
exactly  vermin... one Muslim should have learned
his history better: two naked swords, against the Northern
Crusaders - but, n'ah ah, he didn't, i told you,
never trust an Egyptian with monotheism,
he'll bury the artefacts in a desert for
2000 years... and then we'll
have the cult of Baφoμet and
the prickly skinned crusaders saying:
better the extra-**** and **** than
the headscarf... and they burnt at the stake...
got crackly pork skins with them
as if it was a hoax to remember: that's what really
happened. μι or qui or any softened
carrot: yellow gets van Gogh, blue gets
Picasso... i guess orange gets O'Hara...
it is the age of Baφoμet and the Knights
Templar... you sorta think that
agitation with amateur terror will slow
down the process of coherent and systematic
far-right activities? i swear you shipped those
Syrians into Germany for a revision
of the holocaust... i'm ******* sweating with
anticipation while i swipe left for a
kippah scalping and get a Syria monk
out of it... perhaps a date... but you know...
i'm not that much of a talker...
my mother spent 3 months in 40 degree heat
that kills... the arabs are heating the cauldron up...
soon, you'll be wishing you'd have lived in
Siberia... and i'm not kidding,
global warming is debatable in Iceland, Britain,
and New Zealand... not on any continent
we know of... 40°C... **** the **** old me!
i'm not even wishing for old age...
when this thing we cal an orb and relate
it to only one Grecian element: earth
isn't air... and we call the vest godly Venus
and Mars and Juniper -
well... why bother even thinking
about keeping up-to-date
when nothing we write will be written into
stone? i like the delusion it will be,
blame Chinese employment of youthful
unemployment in countries where beauty
is fixated on tourist vomiting down your wedding aisles,
the existence of european communism
curated the beneficiary of competition
capitalism gagged for like a sad gimp clad
in torched and fetish leather...
but that went, went to the chinese...
or a russian Babushka said: democracy, whaaaa?
ca Ching the Chinaman...
                    n'oh h'oi! thirty thousand
eyelash strokes to a pictured idea per second,
all i have is Mongolian far way, in Kazakhstan:
chum Chou chew - juggling out the dribbles -
                     hey, you're on the verge of
equipping the cinnamon men their potency
to breathe a billion ***** in a square mile...
   of hillbilly... i'll bet you a 100 to 1 and say:
               pucker blow-lobe chips are on the house:
hence the cheesy smile: anthropoid digital tunnelling
        all the way to Palestine, and the new U.N.
                  and that fake thing you have:
no matter how many billion dollars,
it won't equal a single spoon, or hammer.
it's that sort of thing that's meta-metaphysical -
or some other benzene variant prefix -
get smart, live love, hurrah Marquis de Sade!
patron of old age; while your granny said:
lessen the lesion by probing it darling.
       Tokyo tribes? the weirdest film i've ever seen,
the **** aren't even Asia... stop telling me the
sun is too bright... Buddha walked with excess squint...
and he managed it without a tap-tap-boom stick
to mark out 2 square metres...
   happy are those living in a greenhouse,
  surface mirrors, and sea,
but on the continent, they joked that palm trees
would be grown in the Baltic circumference...
hello dodo... but then the amateurs appeared...
   beheading, blowing themselves up,
a library of one... what they have birth to isn't
as spectacular as giving your voice to Cabaret Voltaire...
   they are creating a new breed of khaki stiff-necks -
ostriches and the gargantuan plan of over-easy -
i know the ***** ones, the ones siding with the left,
they think they're political, only in the sense that
their politics is a proton-neutrality,
the idle life... the life worthy of no political involvement...
the easy life...            the life of respected repudiation,
centrist silent populist party name and manifesto
combined: status quo.
     the only generation that might talk of old
age as a zenith, an ultimate goal enshrined in
the furtherance of mankind's potential is the generation
of my grandparents... only my grandparent's generation
can boast about achieving old age...
   which means no artistic profit -
      only my grandparents won the lottery that's lasted
for donkeys' years... my parents haven't,
i haven't... my parent's, and yours, haven won
the mortgage lottery... so communism was a failure
because it was deemed to be a failure
   in the span of not even a trans-generational decade?!
   trans-generational decade?
   me... father, grandfather, great-grandfather,
  great-great-grandfather... etc.
               it was a failure because i inherited a bicycle
that didn't have two wheels... how am i supposed
to join the ******* circus in capitalism on a monocycle?
this ain't ideological warfare... this is 1 billion Chinese
we're talking about... and they're not going anywhere.
but my grandparents are the only success story of
communism reaching its potential -
                  sadly, you ought to know,
i'd rather invest in euthanasia than in retirement plans,
given the fact that most of you, don't even
have a potential to begin with a mortgage.
the reason why existentialism never took off in England,
is because Darwinism got mingled with history,
a timescale crushing next week's Monday -
and gone to hell the whole joy of routine -
routine the parachute, routine the sloth of time -
existentialism in England never took off
because current affairs in life were too problematic
to be thought of as boring: the canape of / for philosophers...
come on, Heidegger: being and beyng? obeying?!
Darwinism sorta of gave history a quantum dynamic:
a scratch of 19th century, a nibble from Hastings...
bish-bash-bosh... 19th of September 2016...
existentialism never took off because of the dichotomy
between the synonyms: life and existence -
as if the two differed so much -
well, the Pope knew how to deal the theological
*****: death and the after-life - same ****,
different cover. where these words ever so despairingly
coupled? life: no mention of: out of every instance,
and existence: out of every instance - rekindled
fetishism of avoiding mortality's river of set-out
change? it looks like it's just that...
                               currency of political correctness
these days?   the grand implosion:
    Ritter Templer und Zeit βaφoμeτ.

Do you remember when I told you
I didn't like you
I teased you for what felt like hours
But were most likely only minutes

Do you remember when I called you
All those mean names
I'd laugh and laugh as you sat and stared
We both knew you weren't going anywhere

Do you remember when I cried
In front of you for the first time
We both realized it was only hate
That gave me such terrible pain

Do you remember that time you told me
Purple was my color
I wore it the next day
What was I thinking
Or maybe I wasn't

Do you remember the first time
I held your hand
So smooth but rough
Gripped perfectly in mine

Do you remember the time
I told you I liked you
The tables were turned
Torched and burned
Leaving me with that ache and pain

Do you know how it was
To be rejected
To be unloved

Do you remember when we became
Super fantastic friends
Of course let the sarcasm
Slowly sink in

Do you remember when I told you
Go for what you want
And I wanted to hear
I wanted to believe
All you wanted was
Me

Do you remember when we stopped
And nothing felt the same
Did you feel it too
That miserable drowning pain

Did you really even care
Did you even want me back
I'd tell myself no
Anything different might be a bigger blow

Do you remember when I told you
How I really feel
When I proclaimed my love
My stupid fantasy of
Us together
Forever

Of course you don't
Because I won't tell
I would never be so stupid
To fall for a king

When I know
I'll never be his
Queen

When we were eighteen the valley of the plums, prunes and apricots
kept us beaming. I had come from the north, from the nuclear
town on the Columbia River.

I never yearn for the desert sand in the wind, or the feeling
that above and beyond the first mountain men were doing things
not meant for the rest of the world to view, except that one of
those men was my father.

The company moved us to the new place, the California farm
town. Here the soil, worked hard by orchardists,
yielded a sweet aroma that persuaded us to be fond of the earth.

We would go to school and work the summer jobs, slicing cots
and stuffing fruit in cans all night, and then I would fall in love.
That is where the “we” enters.

I drove an old English sports car with a wooden frame and
wire-spoked wheels, a windshield that would drop down for
a full dose of the highway wind.

Dwellers arrived here quickly from afar. Some said it
was for the weather. Never very hot or cold, an incubational
paradise for the thousands of acres of fruit teees.

We had to stand back from the evening bonfires, and were sorrowful,
watching the fruit trees chopped, piled and torched.
This progress made me think of the American Indians.
I had seen them netting salmon on the Columbia River at Celilo Falls before the dams,
the gray concrete walls that turn gravity into a light bulb.
(I would like to flip a switch and turn on the river).

We asked ourselves what would be the limits of this 1960s
unbridled growth. Some were talking of expanding
to the moon, while we were considering holing up
in a mountain retreat.

The valley of the fruit became unrecognizable. Next
in my neighborhood a multi-story building slammed into the sky.
If even one could be built here, why not
one more Hong Kong?

We drove to the mountains in the spring when the western
slopes filled with wild flowers, and flew kites and laughed into the
face of the oncoming wind, and kissed. Love might
conquer all.

The ocean side of the range is where we knew we wanted to be.
Riding waves and kicking around in the kelp beds at
Pleasure Point. Less room for a building boom, unless steel platforms were
erected over the waves. Who knows that such an idea is even
now on the drawing boards.

We married and made the move and remain there still. A tiny house
built during one of the greater wars of the last century by
Hawaiian flower farmers, who knew nothing about how to
build a sturdy house, and had no blossom money for their dreams.

My dream is awake there though, the little house and the tiny rooms
that only want to hear the birds of the forest come near.
Daffodils and roses, enormous zucchinis, and an old
pear tree that I write poems about in the spring, and
two girls who love the ocean.

That’s about it. My whole autobiography composed this bright
sunny morning in the hills above San Luis Reservoir in
the central valley, where I come from time to time to write
and ponder the tall grass.

My parents are close by in the national veteran’s cemetery,
where I put them a few sad years ago.

I see some of the details are missing. It’s easy to fill
in the missing information–the story most of us might tell.
We’ve wept over the loss of farms, flowing rivers,
and fought the war against the war, and wondered
why we cannot just live in a teepee at the base of Yosemite Falls.

In the background, a steady trickle of death, disease, work.
I am guilty of confusing work with death and disease, but that’s
just my own hard-earned opinion.

There have been birthday cakes and communions, bicycle rides
and Monterey fish eating, candles burning in winter storms,
old tool sheds full of her paintings, a stack of notebooks with
my scribbling.

The valley of the fruit continues stacking buildings.
The redwoods here continue growing.

I feel like a truck driver on a deserted highway
But stuck in like this dark hole and I am going no where I feel like the highway is dead with no living thing in sight like its my own type of hell, all I see is dark ahead of me and sad things stuck in my mind, the thing is I don't know where I'm going, I feel like there is no reception
Because I feel so alone, head lights flashing
But still the dark surrounds my dark travil into this hell, when will I come to a city with life?
When will I come to flashing lights where am I going do I just turn off? Shut my self off?
Say good bye? Travel this highway alone until I reach my safe spot away from my dark torched

our love was a wildfire, creeping, powerful and fiery like no other passion.

our love was a wildfire, dangerous, it destroyed the relationships in its wake

our love was a wildfire, engulfing hearts and minds, leaving nothing but tragedy.

our love was a wildfire and you didn’t believe in the rain, every flower, every lust-lined letter we spoke.

our love was a wildfire that ignited with the friction of our lips crashing like waves over and over again.

our love was a wildfire and the trees we hid in turned to ash.

our love was a wildfire and I’ll never forget the day your eyes froze over.

our love was a wildfire and you kept the embers turned to rage.

our love was a wildfire and I fueled your flame before I torched you with it.

our love was a wildfire and the scars you bear will never heal.

our love was a wildfire and I wish it had burned us alive.

I am a broken man
Broken beyond repair
Fallen deep into despair
Torched to ash like a straw man

I am a broken man
Crushed into fine shiny powder
Fragments of a ruined wonder
Now feeling empty like the Morrigan

Tempted to take the Scythe for the Hammer
I chained myself in desperation
A fools decision for a reparation
Death in turn I hunger

For life is a sweet ardor
The bitter sweet taste of reconnaissance
The salt and spice of resilience
'Tis what a broken man yearns with fervor

You could say from a glance that my life is fine and care free,
But the world and its inhabitants are not what they seem to be.

I guess you could say Im a wreck,
And that all that is alive is the lamp that casts light on my desk.

Nothing is ever how it seems to be,
And Its so hard for you to see.

The massive effect that you have on me,
The constant mask that still obscures my ability to see.

It seems that even now you still have a hold,
Even after we have both sown up these emotional wounds that
Still tend to rip open and spread the cold.'

Yes, I have her,
But I am still struggling to be released from this blur.

We have spent a year and a bit together and everything was a hit,
And now we have sadly split.

I honestly am done with the constant mind games you play,
With you always switching between wanting me to go and then stay.

Well as the sun goes down on the Earth today,
This Bridge between us is burned and frayed.

Our worlds are separate and will never be anew,
We float on our own little islands out in space we both know this to be true.

I have her,
And you, someone new.

I wish you all the best,
Now set me free of this mask and let the pain ease in my chest.

Poems about Children


The Desk
by Michael R. Burch

for Jeremy

There is a child I used to know
who sat, perhaps, at this same desk
where you sit now, and made a mess
of things sometimes.I wonder how
he learned at all...

He saw T-Rexes down the hall
and dreamed of trains and cars and wrecks.
He dribbled phantom basketballs,
shot spitwads at his schoolmates' necks.

He played with pasty Elmer's glue
(and sometimes got the glue on you!).
He earned the nickname "teacher's PEST."

His mother had to come to school
because he broke the golden rule.
He dreaded each and every test.

But something happened in the fall—
he grew up big and straight and tall,
and now his desk is far too small;
so you can have it.

One thing, though—

one swirling autumn, one bright snow,
one gooey tube of Elmer's glue...
and you'll outgrow this old desk, too.

Originally published by TALESetc



A True Story
by Michael R. Burch

for Jeremy

Jeremy hit the ball today,
over the fence and far away.
So very, very far away
a neighbor had to toss it back.
(She thought it was an air attack!)

Jeremy hit the ball so hard
it flew across our neighbor's yard.
So very hard across her yard
the bat that boomed a mighty "THWACK! "
now shows an eensy-teensy crack.

Originally published by TALESetc



Success
by Michael R. Burch

for Jeremy

We need our children to keep us humble
between toast and marmalade;

there is no time for a ticker-tape parade
before bed, no award, no bright statuette

to be delivered for mending skinned knees,
no wild bursts of approval for shoveling snow.

A kiss is the only approval they show;
to leave us—the first great success they achieve.



Picturebook Princess
by Michael R. Burch

for Keira

We had a special visitor.
Our world became suddenly brighter.
She was such a charmer!
Such a delighter!

With her sparkly diamond slippers
and the way her whole being glows,
Keira's a picturebook princess
from the points of her crown to the tips of her toes!



The Aery Faery Princess
by Michael R. Burch

for Keira

There once was a princess lighter than fluff
made of such gossamer stuff—
the down of a thistle, butterflies' wings,
the faintest high note the hummingbird sings,
moonbeams on garlands, strands of bright hair...
I think she's just you when you're floating on air!



Tallen the Mighty Thrower
by Michael R. Burch

Tallen the Mighty Thrower
is a hero to turtles, geese, ducks...
they splash and they cheer
when he tosses bread near
because, you know, eating grass *****!



Lullaby
by Michael R. Burch

for Jeremy

Cherubic laugh; sly, impish grin;
Angelic face; wild chimp within.

It does not matter; sleep awhile
As soft mirth tickles forth a smile.

Gray moths will hum a lullaby
Of feathery wings, then you and I

Will wake together, by and by.

Life's not long; those days are best
Spent snuggled to a loving breast.

The earth will wait; a sun-filled sky
Will bronze lean muscle, by and by.

Soon you will sing, and I will sigh,
But sleep here, now, for you and I

Know nothing but this lullaby.



Sappho's Lullaby
by Michael R. Burch

for Jeremy

Hushed yet melodic, the hills and the valleys
sleep unaware of the nightingale's call,
while the pale calla lilies lie
listening,
glistening . . .
this is their night, the first night of fall.

Son, tonight, a woman awaits you;
she is more vibrant, more lovely than spring.
She'll meet you in moonlight,
soft and warm,
all alone . . .
then you'll know why the nightingale sings.

Just yesterday the stars were afire;
then how desire flashed through my veins!
But now I am older;
night has come,
I’m alone . . .
for you I will sing as the nightingale sings.

NOTE: The calla lily symbolizes beauty, purity, innocence, faithfulness and true devotion. According to Greek mythology, when the Milky Way was formed by the goddess Hera’s breast milk, the drops that fell to earth became calla lilies.



Oh, let me sing you a lullaby
by Michael R. Burch

for Jeremy (written from his mother’s perspective)

Oh, let me sing you a lullaby
of a love that shall come to you by and by.

Oh, let me sing you a lullaby
of a love that shall come to you by and by.

Oh, my dear son, how you’re growing up!
You’re taller than me, now I’m looking up!
You’re a long tall drink and I’m half a cup!
And so let me sing you this lullaby.

Oh, my sweet son, as I watch you grow,
there are so many things that I want you to know.
Most importantly this: that I love you so.
And so let me sing you this lullaby.

Soon a tender bud will ****** forth and grow
after the winter’s long ****** snow;
and because there are things that you have to know ...
Oh, let me sing you this lullaby.

Soon, in a green garden a new rose will bloom
and fill all the world with its wild perfume.
And though it’s hard for me, I must give it room.
And so let me sing you this lullaby.



Springtime Prayer
by Michael R. Burch

They’ll have to grow like crazy,
the springtime baby geese,
if they’re to fly to balmier climes
when autumn dismembers the leaves ...

And so I toss them loaves of bread,
then whisper an urgent prayer:
“Watch over these, my Angels,
if there’s anyone kind, up there.”

Keywords/Tags: Nature, spring, birth, baby animals, babies, fawns, fledglings, angels, prayer, heaven, mercy, compassion, chesed



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

for Maya McManmon, granddaughter of the poet Jim McManmon

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

Amen



Maya's Beddy-Bye Poem
by Michael R. Burch

for Maya McManmon, granddaughter of the poet Jim McManmon

With a hatful of stars
and a stylish umbrella
and her hand in her Papa’s
(that remarkable fella!)
and with Winnie the Pooh
and Eeyore in tow,
may she dance in the rain
cheek-to-cheek, toe-to-toe
till each number’s rehearsed ...
My, that last step’s a leap! ―
the high flight into bed
when it’s past time to sleep!

Note: “Hatful of Stars” is a lovely song and image by Cyndi Lauper.



Limericks

There once was a leopardess, Dot,
who indignantly answered: "I'll not!
The gents are impressed
with the way that I'm dressed.
I wouldn't change even one spot."
—Michael R. Burch

There once was a dromedary
who befriended a crafty canary.
Budgie said, "You can't sing,
but now, here's the thing—
just think of the tunes you can carry! "
—Michael R. Burch



Generation Gap
by Michael R. Burch

A quahog clam,
age 405,
said, "Hey, it's great
to be alive! "

I disagreed,
not feeling nifty,
babe though I am,
just pushing fifty.

Note: A quahog clam found off the coast of Ireland is the longest-lived animal on record, at an estimated age of 405 years.



Lance-Lot
by Michael R. Burch

Preposterous bird!
Inelegant! Absurd!

Until the great & mighty heron
brandishes his fearsome sword.



Mother's Smile
by Michael R. Burch

There never was a fonder smile
than mother's smile, no softer touch
than mother's touch. So sleep awhile
and know she loves you more than "much."

So more than "much, " much more than "all."
Though tender words, these do not speak
of love at all, nor how we fall
and mother's there, nor how we reach
from nightmares in the ticking night
and she is there to hold us tight.

There never was a stronger back
than father's back, that held our weight
and lifted us, when we were small,
and bore us till we reached the gate,
then held our hands that first bright mile
till we could run, and did, and flew.
But, oh, a mother's tender smile
will leap and follow after you!

Originally published by TALESetc



Keep Up
by Michael R. Burch

Keep Up!
Daddy, I'm walking as fast as I can;
I'll move much faster when I'm a man...

Time unwinds
as the heart reels,
as cares and loss and grief plummet,
as faith unfailing ascends the summit
and heartache wheels
like a leaf in the wind.

Like a rickety cart wheel
time revolves through the yellow dust,
its creakiness revoking trust,
its years emblazoned in cold hard steel.

Keep Up!
Son, I'm walking as fast as I can;
take it easy on an old man.



Poems for Older Children

Reflex
by Michael R. Burch

for Jeremy

Some intuition of her despair
for her lost brood,
as though a lost fragment of song
torn from her flat breast,
touched me there...

I felt, unable to hear
through the bright glass,
the being within her melt
as her unseemly tirade
left a feather or two
adrift on the wind-ruffled air.

Where she will go,
how we all err,
why we all fear
for the lives of our children,
I cannot pretend to know.

But, O!,
how the unappeased glare
of omnivorous sun
over crimson-flecked snow
makes me wish you were here.



Happily Never After (the Second Curse of the ***** Toad)
by Michael R. Burch

He did not think of love of Her at all
frog-plangent nights, as moons engoldened roads
through crumbling stonewalled provinces, where toads
(nee princes)ruled in chinks and grew so small
at last to be invisible. He smiled
(the fables erred so curiously), and thought
bemusedly of being reconciled
to human flesh, because his heart was not
incapable of love, but, being cursed
a second time, could only love a toad's...
and listened as inflated frogs rehearsed
cheekbulging tales of anguish from green moats...
and thought of her soft croak, her skin fine-warted,
his anemic flesh, and how true love was thwarted.



Limericks

There once was a mockingbird, Clyde,
who bragged of his prowess, but lied.
To his new wife he sighed,
"When again, gentle bride? "
"Nevermore! " bright-eyed Raven replied.
—Michael R. Burch



Autumn Conundrum
by Michael R. Burch

It's not that every leaf must finally fall,
it's just that we can never catch them all.



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.



Salat Days
by Michael R. Burch

Dedicated to the memory of my grandfather, Paul Ray Burch, Sr.

I remember how my grandfather used to pick poke salat...
though first, usually, he'd stretch back in the front porch swing,
dangling his long thin legs, watching the sweat bees drone,
talking about poke salat—
how easy it was to find if you knew where to look for it...
standing in dew-damp clumps by the side of a road, shockingly green,
straddling fence posts, overflowing small ditches,
crowding out the less-hardy nettles.

"Nobody knows that it's there, lad, or that it's fit tuh eat
with some bacon drippin's or lard."

"Don't eat the berries. You see—the berry's no good.
And you'd hav'ta wash the leaves a good long time."

"I'd boil it twice, less'n I wus in a hurry.
Lawd, it's tough to eat, chile, if you boil it jest wonst."

He seldom was hurried; I can see him still...
silently mowing his yard at eighty-eight,
stooped, but with a tall man's angular gray grace.

Sometimes he'd pause to watch me running across the yard,
trampling his beans,
dislodging the shoots of his tomato plants.

He never grew flowers; I never laughed at his jokes about The Depression.

Years later I found the proper name—"pokeweed"—while perusing a dictionary.
Surprised, I asked why anyone would eat a ****.
I still can hear his laconic reply...

"Well, chile, s'm'times them times wus hard."



Of Civilization and Disenchantment
by Michael R. Burch

for Anais Vionet

Suddenly uncomfortable
to stay at my grandfather's house—
actually his third new wife's,
in her daughter's bedroom
—one interminable summer
with nothing to do,
all the meals served cold,
even beans and peas...

Lacking the words to describe
ah!, those pearl-luminous estuaries—
strange omens, incoherent nights.

Seeing the flares of the river barges
illuminating Memphis,
city of bluffs and dying splendors.

Drifting toward Alexandria,
Pharos, Rhakotis, Djoser's fertile delta,
lands at the beginning of a new time and "civilization."

Leaving behind sixty miles of unbroken cemetery,
Alexander's corpse floating seaward,
bobbing, milkwhite, in a jar of honey.

Memphis shall be waste and desolate,
without an inhabitant.
Or so the people dreamed, in chains.



Neglect
by Michael R. Burch

What good are your tears?
They will not spare the dying their anguish.
What good is your concern
to a child sick of living, waiting to perish?

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

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

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

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



Shock
by Michael R. Burch

It was early in the morning of the forming of my soul,
in the dawning of desire, with passion at first bloom,
with lightning splitting heaven to thunder's blasting roll
and a sense of welling fire and, perhaps, impending doom—

that I cried out through the tumult of the raging storm on high
for shelter from the chaos of the restless, driving rain ...
and the voice I heard replying from a rift of bleeding sky
was mine, I'm sure, and, furthermore, was certainly insane.



Passages on Fatherhood
by Michael R. Burch

for Jeremy

He is my treasure,
and by his happiness I measure
my own worth.

Four years old,
with diamonds and gold
bejeweled in his soul.

His cherubic beauty
is felicity
to simplicity and passion—

for a baseball thrown
or an ice-cream cone
or eggshell-blue skies.

It's hard to be "wise"
when the years
career through our lives

and bees in their hives
test faith
and belief

while Time, the great thief,
with each falling leaf
foreshadows grief.

The wisdom of the ages
and prophets and mages
and doddering sages

is useless
unless
it encompasses this:

his kiss.



Boundless
by Michael R. Burch

for Jeremy

Every day we whittle away at the essential solidity of him,
and every day a new sharp feature emerges:
a feature we'll spend creative years: planing, smoothing, refining,

trying to find some new Archaic Torso of Apollo, or Thinker...

And if each new day a little of the boisterous air of youth is deflated
in him, if the hours of small pleasures spent chasing daffodils
in the outfield as the singles become doubles, become triples,
become unconscionable errors, become victories lost,

become lives wasted beyond all possible hope of repair...

if what he was becomes increasingly vague—like a white balloon careening
into clouds; like a child striding away aggressively toward manhood,
hitching an impressive rucksack over sagging, sloping shoulders,
shifting its vaudevillian burden back and forth,

then pausing to look back at us with an almost comical longing...

if what he wants is only to be held a little longer against a forgiving *****;
to chase after daffodils in the outfield regardless of scores;
to sail away like a balloon
on a firm string, always sure to return when the line tautens,

till he looks down upon us from some removed height we cannot quite see,

bursting into tears over us:
what, then, of our aspirations for him, if he cannot breathe,
cannot rise enough to contemplate the earth with his own vision,
unencumbered, but never untethered, forsaken...

cannot grow brightly, steadily, into himself—flying beyond us?



Chip Off the Block
by Michael R. Burch

for Jeremy

In the fusion of poetry and drama,
Shakespeare rules! Jeremy’s a ham: a
chip off the block, like his father and mother.
Part poet? Part ham? Better run for cover!
Now he’s Benedick ― most comical of lovers!

NOTE: Jeremy’s father is a poet and his mother is an actress; hence the fusion, or confusion, as the case may be.



Tall Tails
by Michael R. Burch

for Jeremy

Irony
is the base perception
alchemized by deeper reflection,
the paradox
of the wagging tails of dog-ma
torched by sly Reynard the Fox.

These are lines written as my son Jeremy was about to star as Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing at his ultra-conservative high school, Nashville Christian. Benedick is rather obvious wordplay but it apparently flew over the heads of the Puritan headmasters. Samson lit the tails of foxes and set them loose amid the Philistines. Reynard the Fox was a medieval trickster who bedeviled the less wily. “Irony lies / in a realm beyond the unseeing, / the unwise.”



Pan
by Michael R. Burch

... Among the shadows of the groaning elms,
amid the darkening oaks, we fled ourselves...

... Once there were paths that led to coracles
that clung to piers like loosening barnacles...

... where we cannot return, because we lost
the pebbles and the playthings, and the moss...

... hangs weeping gently downward, maidens' hair
who never were enchanted, and the stairs...

... that led up to the Fortress in the trees
will not support our weight, but on our knees...

... we still might fit inside those splendid hours
of damsels in distress, of rustic towers...

... of voices of the wolves' tormented howls
that died, and live in dreams' soft, windy vowels...

Originally published by Sonnet Scroll



Leaf Fall
by Michael R. Burch

Whatever winds encountered soon resolved
to swirling fragments, till chaotic heaps
of leaves lay pulsing by the backyard wall.
In lieu of rakes, our fingers sorted each
dry leaf into its place and built a high,
soft bastion against earth's gravitron—
a patchwork quilt, a trampoline, a bright
impediment to fling ourselves upon.

And nothing in our laughter as we fell
into those leaves was like the autumn's cry
of also falling. Nothing meant to die
could be so bright as we, so colorful—
clad in our plaids, oblivious to pain
we'd feel today, should we leaf-fall again.

Originally published by The Neovictorian/Cochlea



The Folly of Wisdom
by Michael R. Burch

She is wise in the way that children are wise,
looking at me with such knowing, grave eyes
I must bend down to her to understand.
But she only smiles, and takes my hand.

We are walking somewhere that her feet know to go,
so I smile, and I follow...

And the years are dark creatures concealed in bright leaves
that flutter above us, and what she believes—
I can almost remember—goes something like this:
the prince is a horned toad, awaiting her kiss.

She wiggles and giggles, and all will be well
if only we find him! The woodpecker's knell
as he hammers the coffin of some dying tree
that once was a fortress to someone like me

rings wildly above us. Some things that we know
we are meant to forget. Life is a bloodletting, maple-syrup-slow.

Originally published by Romantics Quarterly



Just Smile
by Michael R. Burch

We'd like to think some angel smiling down
will watch him as his arm bleeds in the yard,
ripped off by dogs, will guide his tipsy steps,
his doddering progress through the scarlet house
to tell his mommy "boo-boo!, " only two.

We'd like to think his reconstructed face
will be as good as new, will often smile,
that baseball's just as fun with just one arm,
that God is always Just, that girls will smile,
not frown down at his thousand livid scars,
that Life is always Just, that Love is Just.

We do not want to hear that he will shave
at six, to raze the leg hairs from his cheeks,
that lips aren't easily fashioned, that his smile's
lopsided, oafish, snaggle-toothed, that each
new operation costs a billion tears,
when tears are out of fashion. O, beseech
some poet with more skill with words than tears
to find some happy ending, to believe
that God is Just, that Love is Just, that these
are Parables we live, Life's Mysteries...

Or look inside his courage, as he ties
his shoelaces one-handed, as he throws
no-hitters on the first-place team, and goes
on dates, looks in the mirror undeceived
and smiling says, "It's me I see. Just me."

He smiles, if life is Just, or lacking cures.
Your pity is the worst cut he endures.

Originally published by Lucid Rhythms



Child of 9-11
by Michael R. Burch

a poem for Christina-Taylor Green, who was born
on September 11, 2001 and died at the age of nine,
shot to death...

Child of 9-11, beloved,
I bring this lily, lay it down
here at your feet, and eiderdown,
and all soft things, for your gentle spirit.
I bring this psalm — I hope you hear it.

Much love I bring — I lay it down
here by your form, which is not you,
but what you left this shell-shocked world
to help us learn what we must do
to save another child like you.

Child of 9-11, I know
you are not here, but watch, afar
from distant stars, where angels rue
the vicious things some mortals do.
I also watch; I also rue.

And so I make this pledge and vow:
though I may weep, I will not rest
nor will my pen fail heaven's test
till guns and wars and hate are banned
from every shore, from every land.

Child of 9-11, I grieve
your tender life, cut short... bereaved,
what can I do, but pledge my life
to saving lives like yours? Belief
in your sweet worth has led me here...

I give my all: my pen, this tear,
this lily and this eiderdown,
and all soft things my heart can bear;
I bear them to your final bier,
and leave them with my promise, here.

Originally published by The Flea



For a Sandy Hook Child, with Butterflies
by Michael R. Burch

Where does the butterfly go
when lightning rails,
when thunder howls,
when hailstones scream,
when winter scowls,
when nights compound dark frosts with snow...
Where does the butterfly go?

Where does the rose hide its bloom
when night descends oblique and chill
beyond the capacity of moonlight to fill?
When the only relief's a banked fire's glow,
where does the butterfly go?

And where shall the spirit flee
when life is harsh, too harsh to face,
and hope is lost without a trace?
Oh, when the light of life runs low,
where does the butterfly go?



Frail Envelope of Flesh
by Michael R. Burch

―for the mothers and children of the Holocaust and Gaza

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

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

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



This is, I believe, the second poem I wrote. Or at least it's the second one that I can remember. I believe I was around 13 or 14 when I wrote it.

Playmates
by Michael R. Burch

WHEN you were my playmate and I was yours,
we spent endless hours with simple toys,
and the sorrows and cares of our indentured days
were uncomprehended... far, far away...
for the temptations and trials we had yet to face
were lost in the shadows of an unventured maze.

Then simple pleasures were easy to find
and if they cost us a little, we didn't mind;
for even a penny in a pocket back then
was one penny too many, a penny to spend.

Then feelings were feelings and love was just love,
not a strange, complex mystery to be understood;
while "sin" and "damnation" meant little to us,
since forbidden batter was our only lust!

Then we never worried about what we had,
and we were both sure-what was good, what was bad.
And we sometimes quarreled, but we didn't hate;
we seldom gave thought to injustice, or fate.

Then we never thought about the next day,
for tomorrow seemed hidden—adventures away.
Though sometimes we dreamed of adventures past,
and wondered, at times, why things didn't last.

Still, we never worried about getting by,
and we didn't know that we were to die...
when we spent endless hours with simple toys,
and I was your playmate, and we were boys.



Children
by Michael R. Burch

There was a moment
suspended in time like a swelling drop of dew about to fall,
impendent, pregnant with possibility...

when we might have made...
anything,
anything we dreamed,
almost anything at all,
coalescing dreams into reality.

Oh, the love we might have fashioned
out of a fine mist and the nightly sparkle of the cosmos
and the rhythms of evening!

But we were young,
and what might have been is now a dark abyss of loss
and what is left is not worth saving.

But, oh, you were lovely,
child of the wild moonlight, attendant tides and doting stars,
and for a day,

what little we partook
of all that lay before us seemed so much,
and passion but a force
with which to play.



Kindergarten
by Michael R. Burch

Will we be children as puzzled tomorrow—
our lessons still not learned?
Will we surrender over to sorrow?
How many times must our fingers be burned?

Will we be children sat in the corner
over and over again?
How long will we linger, playing Jack Horner?
Or will we learn, and when?

Will we be children wearing the dunce cap,
giggling and playing the fool,
re-learning our lessons forever and ever,
never learning the golden rule?



With a child's wonder
by Michael R. Burch

for Jeremy

With a child's wonder,
pausing to ponder
a puddle of water,

for only a moment,
needing no comment

but bright eyes
and a wordless cry,
he launches himself to fly ...

then my two-year-old lands
on his feet and his hands
and water explodes all around.

(From the impact and sound
you'd have thought that he'd drowned,
but the puddle was two inches deep.)

Later that evening, as he lay fast asleep
in that dreamland where two-year-olds wander,
I watched him awhile and smilingly pondered
with a father's wonder.



The Watch
by Michael R. Burch

for Jeremy

I have come to watch my young son,
his blonde ringlets damp with sleep . . .
and what I know is that he loves me
beyond all earthly understanding,
that his life is like clay in my unskilled hands.

And I marvel this bright ore does not keep—
unrestricted in form, more content than shape,
but seeking a form to become, to express
something of itself to this wilderness
of eyes watching and waiting.

What do I know of his wonder, his awe?
To his future I will matter less and less,
but in this moment, as he is my world, I am his,
and I stand, not understanding, but knowing—
in this vast pageant of stars, he is more than unique.

There will never be another moment like this.
Studiously quiet, I stroke his fine hair
which will darken and coarsen and straighten with time.
He is all I bequeath of myself to this earth.
His fingers curl around mine in his sleep . . .

I leave him to dreams—calm, untroubled and deep.



The Tapestry of Leaves
by Michael R. Burch

for Jeremy

Leaves unfold
as life is sold,
or bartered, for a moment in the sun.

The interchange
of lives is strange:
what reason—life—when death leaves all undone?

O, earthly son,
when rest is won
and wrested from this ground, then through my clay’s

soft mortal soot
****** forth your root
until your leaves embrace the sun's bright rays.



The Long Days Lengthening Into Darkness
by Michael R. Burch

for Jeremy

Today, I can be his happiness,
and if he delights
in hugs and smiles,
in baseball and long walks
talking about Rug Rats, Dinosaurs and Pokemon

(noticing how his face lights up
at my least word,
how tender his expression,
gazing up at me in wondering adoration)

. . . O, son,
these are the long days
lengthening into darkness.

Now over the earth
(how solemn and still their processions)
the clouds
gather to extinguish the sun.

And what I can give you is perhaps no more nor less
than this brief ray dazzling our faces,
seeing how soon the night becomes my consideration.



Renown
by Michael R. Burch

for Jeremy

Words fail us when, at last,
we lie unread amid night’s parchment leaves,
life’s chapter past.

Whatever I have gained of life, I lost,
except for this bright emblem
of your smile . . .

and I would grasp
its meaning closer for a longer while . . .
but I am glad

with all my heart to be unheard,
and smile,
bound here, still strangely mortal,

instructed by wise Love not to be sad,
when to be the lesser poet
meant to be “the world’s best dad.”

Every night, my son Jeremy tells me that I’m “the world’s best dad.” Now, that’s all poetry, all music and the meaning of life wrapped up in four neat monosyllables! The time I took away from work and poetry to spend with my son was time well spent.



Miracle
by Michael R. Burch

for Jeremy

The contrails of galaxies mingle, and the dust of that first day still shines.
Before I conceived you, before your heart beat, you were mine,

and I see

infinity leap in your bright, fluent eyes.
And you are the best of all that I am. You became
and what will be left of me is the flesh you comprise,

and I see

whatever must be—leaves its mark, yet depends
on these indigo skies, on these bright trails of dust,
on a veiled, curtained past, on some dream beyond knowing,
on the mists of a future too uncertain to heed.

And I see

your eyes—dauntless, glowing—
glowing with the mystery of all they perceive,
with the glories of galaxies passed, yet bestowing,
though millennia dead, all this pale feathery light.

And I see

all your wonder—a wonder to me, for, unknowing,
of all this portends, still your gaze never wavers.
And love is unchallenged in all these vast skies,
or by distance, or time. The ghostly moon hovers;

I see; and I see

all that I am reflected in all that you have become to me.



Always
by Michael R. Burch

for Jeremy

Know in your heart that I love you as no other,
and that my love is eternal.
I keep the record of your hopes and dreams
in my heart like a journal,
and there are pages for you there that no one else can fill:
none one else, ever.
And there is a tie between us, more than blood,
that no one else can sever.

And if we’re ever parted,
please don’t be broken-hearted;
until we meet again on the far side of forever
and walk among those storied shining ways,
should we, for any reason, be apart,
still, I am with you ... always.



The Gift
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth and Jeremy

For you and our child, unborn, though named
(for we live in a strange, fantastic age,
and tomorrow, when he is a man,
perhaps this earth will be a cage

from which men fly like flocks of birds,
the distant stars their helpless prey),
for you, my love, and you, my child,
what can I give you, each, this day?

First, take my heart, it’s mine alone;
no ties upon it, mine to give,
more precious than a lifetime’s objects,
once possessed, more free to live.

Then take these poems, of little worth,
but to show you that which you receive
holds precious its two dear possessors,
and makes each lien a sweet reprieve.



This poem was written after a surprising comment from my son, Jeremy.

The Onslaught
by Michael R. Burch

“Daddy, I can’t give you a hug today
because my hair is wet.”

No wet-haired hugs for me today;
no lollipopped lips to kiss and say,
Daddy, I love you! with such regard
after baseball hijinks all over the yard.

The sun hails and climbs
over the heartbreak of puppies and daffodils
and days lost forever to windowsills,
over fortune and horror and starry climes;

and it seems to me that a child’s brief years
are springtimes and summers beyond regard
mingled with laughter and passionate tears
and autumns and winters now veiled and barred,
as elusive as snowflakes here white, bejeweled,
gaily whirling and sweeping across the yard.



To My Child, Unborn
by Michael R. Burch

for Jeremy

How many were the nights, enchanted
with despair and longing, when dreams recanted
returned with a restless yearning,
and the pale stars, burning,
cried out at me to remember
one night ... long ere the September
night when you were conceived.

Oh, then, if only I might have believed
that the future held such mystery
as you, my child, come unbidden to me
and to your mother,
come to us out of a realm of wonder,
come to us out of a faery clime ...

If only then, in that distant time,
I had somehow known that this day were coming,
I might not have despaired at the raindrops drumming
sad anthems of loneliness against shuttered panes;
I might not have considered my doubts and my pains
so carefully, so cheerlessly, as though they were never-ending.
If only then, with the starlight mending
the shadows that formed
in the bowels of those nights, in the gussets of storms
that threatened till dawn as though never leaving,
I might not have spent those long nights grieving,
lamenting my loneliness, cursing the sun
for its late arrival. Now, a coming dawn
brings you unto us, and you shall be ours,
as welcome as ever the moon or the stars
or the glorious sun when the nighttime is through
and the earth is enchanted with skies turning blue.



Transition
by Michael R. Burch

for Jeremy

With his cocklebur hugs
and his wet, clinging kisses
like a damp, trembling thistle
catching, thwarting my legs—

he reminds me that life begins with the possibility of rapture.

Was time this deceptive
when my own childhood begged
one last moment of frolic
before bedtime’s firm kisses—

when sleep was enforced, and the dark window ledge

waited, impatient, to lure
or to capture
the bright edge of morning
within a clear pane?

Was the sun then my ally—bright dawn’s greedy fledgling?

With his joy he reminds me
of joys long forgotten,
of play’s endless hours
till the haggard sun sagged

and everything changed. I gather him up and we trudge off to bed.



What does it mean?
by Michael R. Burch

for Jeremy

His little hand, held fast in mine.
What does it mean? What does it mean?

If he were not here, the sun would not shine,
nor the grass grow half as green.

What does it mean?

His arms around my neck, his cheek
snuggling so warm against my own ...

What does it mean?

If life's a garden, he's the fairest
flower ever sown,
the sweetest ever seen.

What does it mean?

And when he whispers sweet and low,
"What does it mean?"
It means, my son, I love you so.
Sometimes that's all we need to know.



First Steps
by Michael R. Burch

for Caitlin Shea Murphy

To her a year is like infinity,
each day—an adventure never-ending.
    She has no concept of time,
    but already has begun the climb—
from childhood to womanhood recklessly ascending.

I would caution her, "No! Wait!
There will be time enough another day ...
    time to learn the Truth
    and to slowly shed your youth,
but for now, sweet child, go carefully on your way! ..."

But her time is not a time for cautious words,
nor a time for measured, careful understanding.
    She is just certain
    that, by grabbing the curtain,
in a moment she will finally be standing!

Little does she know that her first few steps
will hurtle her on her way
    through childhood to adolescence,
    and then, finally, pubescence . . .
while, just as swiftly, I’ll be going gray!



The Sky Was Turning Blue
by Michael R. Burch

Yesterday I saw you
as the snow flurries died,
spent winds becalmed.
When I saw your solemn face
alone in the crowd,
I felt my heart, so long embalmed,
begin to beat aloud.

Was it another winter,
another day like this?
Was it so long ago?
Where you the rose-cheeked girl
who slapped my face, then stole a kiss?
Was the sky this gray with snow,
my heart so all a-whirl?

How is it in one moment
it was twenty years ago,
lost worlds remade anew?
When your eyes met mine, I knew
you felt it too, as though
we heard the robin's song
and the sky was turning blue.



Life Sentence or Fall Well
by Michael R. Burch

... I swim, my Daddy's princess, newly crowned,
toward a gurgly Maelstrom... if I drown
will Mommy stick the Toilet Plunger down

to **** me up?... She sits upon Her Throne,
Imperious (denying we were one),
and gazes down and whispers "precious son"...

... the Plunger worked; i'm two, and, if not blessed,
still Mommy got the Worst Stuff off Her Chest;
a Vacuum Pump, They say, will do the rest...

... i'm three; yay! whee! oh good! it's time to play!
(oh no, I think there's Others on the way;
i'd better pray)...

... i'm four; at night I hear the Banging Door;
She screams; sometimes there's Puddles on the Floor;
She wants to **** us, or, She wants some More...

... it's great to be alive if you are five (unless you're me) :
my Mommy says: "you're WRONG! don't disagree!
don't make this HURT ME! "...

... i'm six; They say i'm tall, yet Time grows Short;
we have a thriving Family; Abort! ;
a tadpole's ripping Mommy's Room apart...

... i'm seven; i'm in heaven; it feels strange;
I saw my life go gurgling down the Drain;
another Noah built a Mighty Ark;
God smiled, appeased, a Rainbow split the Dark;

... I saw Bright Colors also, when She slammed
my head against the Tub, and then I swam
toward the magic tunnel... last, I heard...

is that She feels Weird.


Keywords/Tags: child, children, childhood, son, daughter, grandchild, grandson, granddaughter, family, mother, father

In the midweek of twelves months I torched blunts and choked on wet smoke and chamomile tea.
Fretting the niggling giblets of a queasy disrememberance of a sober stroll through your tossed hair salad.
I managed to mangle  the marvelous gross lust of our impending
delirium. i farmed bok choy to annoy our local siege. our muskets were polished with misdeeds.
our demons barked, all coy and ravenous in the sweet diffuse of our useless aplomb.
ginger rockets in our thespian numb. you Dis-Oriental surrogate Mom.
You.... flame folding cranes, like a Japanese cancer
with opposable thumbs.
Unstoppable in the dead wink
of an awkward eye
upon your heaving *******.

You burn regardless.

The streets were paved with hawkers
Flamboyant sunshades
two dollar sunglasses discounted from
twenty thousand pesos.

I couldn’t walk past the conversation of skytowers
Underwear hanging precariously
Off high ledges where it was hard to read
The designer labels

A man with a small monkey
Was reading fortunes
With an ape like face
He certainly saw the future!

A delicious woman with pushed up
***** beckoned me away from boredom
I walked into a valley of sinister looks
For looking away.

At night the sky shed its diamonds
On the sidewalks of ecstasy
And the digital signage
torched the front of buildings
With blue and red flames bursting
Invitations to your wallet

I carried a six pack Lion
Home to watch the night sky
Dance till dawn with necklaces
Of neon.

Author Notes

Optional
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 7 days ago

When a wig maker saw my wife's hair, he adored it.
He wanted it and said that he'd pay top dollar for it.
So I cut my wife's hair off while she was asleep.
She walked out the door after calling me a creep.
Perhaps I did go too far.
But I wanted to buy a car.
I went to a used car lot and bought a beautiful red Camaro.
If you're wondering if I got away with it, the answer is no.
My wife went home to be with her mother.
And then I got a visit from her two brothers.
One came at me with an axe, I was lucky that my head wasn't severed.
The other torched my Camaro and covered me with tar and feathers.
It took four weeks to get that tar out of my hair and off my skin.
If I live to be a hundred, I'll never cut off a woman's hair again.

He raised his kids in a house like mine,
in a neighborhood like yours.
He believed what we believe
and obeyed our nation’s laws.

When this war came, he signed his name
and served three tours in Iraq.
When we sent him to Afghanistan
that was when our soldier cracked.

Cash was tight, and his mate took flight.
His emotions were rubbed raw.
Like many other, lesser, men,
he indulged in alcohol.

Then one night, in a drunken rage,
He held a private war.
In the village he went house to house,
killing all he saw.
He torched their homes with gasoline,
only then his rage grew still.
Only blood could satisfy
his sudden thirst to ****.

Our soldier lay his weapons down
and put his hands behind his head
He will be tried on American soil
for the attrocities he did.
When he pays for his crimes (Our Crimes)
the ultimate penalty,
will the horror and the pity fade?
Will our hands then bloodless be?

Somewhere our soldier lost his way;
He somehow betrayed the cause
He’ll never return to his house like mine
in a neighborhood like yours.

Lights twinkle across my face,
O, I love how those metal torched chambers shine,
That's a smile that's larger than the whole world.

...Large!
Large, silly hands with a strong grip,
And yet, they are so gentle,
Gliding gently across bare skin,
Sending signals that can tell the body,

"Relax"
Relaxing and soothing voice,
Who knew the most pompous vocal part could be...
So...
Bashful?
Or Beautiful?

Angelic!
Angels wrapped around your finger,
Is that how it works?
You are so pure,
Innocent,

Blessed!
I guess I'm pretty lucky,
Because I have someone full of warmth to, well -
Hug
Kiss
Smile at me.

And my goodness you may not be perfect,
But that's okay.
Just accept yourself,
Fully
Completely
Just smile,
And let the light that reflects off thin wires
Light up my face.

War isn't that fusillade you hear in the distance
betwixt the government troops and the resistance
it's the civilians getting tattered in the crossfire
it isn't the wham of bombardment from airstrikes
by blaring Jet fighters across a shower of black in the sky
it isn't the badonkadonk of a Rocket launcher or Black Mamba
but natives being swept like Safari ants in chunky numbers
War isn't those mines planted in hitherto playing field
but the ignorant innocent children in search for a distraction killed
War isn't the televised scorched homes and gardens with corns
but the consequent drought, scarcity and "famined" and feeble as thorns
War isn't those vehicles and motors torched
it's the blameless owner who in tears the absurdity watched
War isn't that cacophony of politicians on stuffed tables
their speeches filled with hypocritical vocabulary are but fables
speak to the maimed and dead whose voices are never heard
it's those who want the anarchy to end, it's they that are tired
War isn't the nations battling or the parties in contention
it's those set, torn and cast apart...the ones we seldom mention
the parents and siblings forced to say goodbye
while their Breadwinner falls victim to conscription
despondent and despairing as they look on and cry
knowing their brother and Son's like those taken before bound to die
or those refugees wanting to return to their cradle
but having no home and nothing to return to but rubble
those forced to stay in the first world midst racist chants and hate
jeered by the "civilised" like they chose their skin-color and fate
War isn't the famous voices we hear and talk about on the media
but the ****** girls abducted, gagged, ***** and mutilated
War isn't the beautiful monster tanks wrecking
but the historical landmarks and fashioned roads
reduced to nothing, the lives within squashed under their loads
War isn't the glamorous documentary films censored and unreal
but the muffled deadbeat voices from heartbreaks that never heal
It's seeing one's whole life sublime in one moment of savagery
compelling the orphaned and widowed into manacles of *** slavery
for with the loss of their husbands and parents, neighbours, Uncles
comes the tight grasp of inhumane chains and anchors
in those places they are forced to seek refuge
places where they are treated worse when they attempt to refuse
War isn't just being apart from your people by a million a mile
War's learning to wear a weighted mask of a smile
while the heart, Soul, Mind and one's entirety's in Tears
War's knowing all one's "perspirational" toils were but wasted years
fearing to tell one's story because among the presented ears
one can no longer tell one that truly listens from one that just hears
..
whatever's in speech be it poetry or Documentary isn't War
War isn't words, war isn't testimonies, there's more
destruction to War than the eyes, heart can handle
not ever can War fit in the descriptions of words we bundle
War's something humanity never deserve
so unfair for we make war when most can hardly make love.

Red wine and ugly tears,
breaking the chains you left on me.
Your heaven,
my hell.
You’ll be the death of me,
if I don’t break free.

The burns on my skin,
remind me of your monstrous sins.
Torched and confused,
with my love for you.
The farther I get,
the more I feel,
chill from you voice,
keeps me still.

Fake smiles hide tears,
make up conceals the truth.
These chains wont break,
keeping me in my place.
My life slips away,
empty eyes are all that remain.