Did you just say i love you
or it's in my head?
Haha, why would you say it
cause you think  I am ugly, I am bad
and I dont listen to your mother
cause I am too busy with my own self and it makes her mad
Did you just touch me
or it's in my head?
Haha, why would you love me
cause you always come near to hit me even in bed,
your hands always touch my face to slap, you want me dead.
Your hands were hard and they never stopped no matter how many tears I shed,
sometimes my healed scars fills me with dread.
Did you just say you miss me
or it's in my head?
Haha, why would you miss me
when I was never part of your life,
I am just a story unread.
Did you just say don't leave
or it's in my head?
Sigh, why would you say that
when I know your cell phone is more dear to you than me and I remember every word that you said.
It's like I am under your debt
now I am slowly coming out of red.

The Checkout Line

I wish to speak with you
ten years from now, you'll be ten years behind.

The words and meanings you carry in your pants, the pick-pocket steals your hopes from time.
and the visions of empty trash receptacles
with their late evening drunken lovers' bouts, at restless end tables. And the bums with their ******* attitudes **** covered clothes, and soiled minds

the clarity of the curbside drunk, picking up shades of filtered cigarettes of twilight scandalous
pickup lovers in their evening best.

And to talk with you ten years from now, you'll be ten years behind.

They're Green Beret head ornaments
detailing the porcelain platforms of Delft
Lining up for one last line to carry them into another faded sunrise at dawn's forgotten memory of yester night
and they walk their gallows holding pride fully their flags of exalted countrymen.

The republic of teacups of literary proficiency.
Wearing the necklaces of paid tolls to an afterlife they find in the miniscule car crashes of engagement with a grinless driving mate in a neighboring car in its pass into the forethought of turned corners.
Where they befell the great disappointment of failure in the frosted eyes of their fathers' expectations.

Who carried the shame of their mother's incessant discontent through short skirts, and high heels.

Who disapproved of the **** whom wore the sneak-out-of-the-house-wear clothing line, and traveled by night over turbulent asphalt by way of sidecar through turn and turnabout hand-over-hand contracts of lover's affection, and slept in tall grasses of wet nightfall with views of San Francisco, and were trapped in the inescapable Alcatraz and Statesville of unconsenting parents and their curfews,

through trials and trails of Skittles leading to after school Doctor visits in the basement of a doting mother, whilst she sits quietly in her exclusive quilting parties with noble equities of partners in knowledge, listening to Edith Piaf and the like,

All the while condemned to time, trapped in the second hand, hand me downs of the 21st century, decades of decadent introverts with their table top unread notebooks, and old forgotten score cards, and the numbers of scholars of years past,

and to talk with you ten years from now will be my greatest pleasure, for you will be....ten year's behind.


They push the sterile elevator buttons, and descend upon the floor of scents flourishing from their crowded family rooms, only aware of distinctive flavors, in their middle eastern shades of desert gumbo,

Who speak ribbit and alfalfa until midnight of the afternoon, sharing fables of slaughtered giraffes and camels that walked from Kiev to Baghdad in a fortnight,

Who are aware the power is out, but continue to scour for candles in a dark room where candles once burned, where candle wax seals the drawers of where candles can be found. Where once sat gluttonous kings and queens in Sunday attire waiting for words of freedom from the North.

of Florence, Sochi,Shanghai
of Dempster, Foster, Lincoln
of Dodge, Ford, Shelby

Of concrete fortune tellers in 2nd story tenement blocks with hairy legs, and head lice, wearing beautiful sachets of India speaking ribbit and alfalfa.

On their unbirthdays they walk the fish tanks wearing their birthday suits to remind them who serves the food on the floors of the family room fish mongers tactics.

The old men wear gargoyles on their shoulders.

Lo! Fear has crept the glass marbles of their wisdom and fortune, blearing rocket ships and kazoos on the sidewalks of their Portuguese forefathers.

Where ancestry burns cigarette holes in the short-haired blue carpet, where Hoover breaks flood waters of insignificance across hard headed Evangelical trinities.

Who share construction techniques one early morning at four, where questions of Hammer and **** build intelligence in secondary faces of nameless twilight lovers, who possess bear blankets, and upheavals, finely wired bushes of ***** maturity. Eating *** and check, tongue and pen.

Where police caress emergency flame retardants over the fire between their legs, wielding the chauvinistic blade of comfort in the backseat of a Yellow faced driving patron.

With their innocent daughters with their nubile thighs, and malleable personalities, which require elite words and jewelry. Wearing wheat buns, Longfellow, and squire.

Holding postmarked cellular structure within their mobile anguish.

Who go curling in their showers, pushing afternoon naps and pretentious frou-frou hats over tainted friendships with their girlfriend's brothers with minimum paychecks'.

Through their narcissus and narcosis, their mirrored perceptions of medicinal scripture of Methamphetamine and elegant five-star meat.

Who amend their words with constitutional forgiveness, in their fascist cloth rampages through groves of learning strategies. And the closets, cupboards, and coins
with rubber hearts, steel *****, and gold *****,

Tall-tales of sock puppet hands with friendly sharing ******* techniques, dry with envy, colorful scabs, and coagulation of eccentric ****** endeavors, With their social lubricants and their tile feet wardrobes with B-quality Adidas and Reeboks gods of the souls of us. Who possess piceous syndromes of Ouiji boards in their parent’s basements.

When will fire burn another Bush? Spread the fire walls of Chicago, and part grocery store fields of food. Wrapping towels under the doors of smoke filled lungs, on the fingernails of a sleepover between business executives with the neoprene finish of their sons and daughters who attend finishing school, with resumes of oak furnishings,

And I long to talk with you ten years from now,
For you'll be talking ten years behind.

Who profligate their padded inventories breaking Mohammed and Hearst,
laying the pillows of cirrus minor
waiting for the rain to paint the eyes of the scriptures which waft through concrete corridors,
and scent the air with their exalted personas,

With the different channels of confusions, watching dimple past freckle, eating the palms of our tropical mental vocations to achieve purity from the indignation of those whom are contemptuous for lack of innocence in America,
this America, of lack of peace,
of America hold me,
Let me be.

Whom read the letters off music, blearing Sinatra and Krall, Manson where is your contempt?

Manson where is your manipulation of place settings?, you deserve fork and knife, the wounded commandments that regretfully fall like timber in an abandoned sanctuary of Yellowstone,
Manson, with your claws of the heart.
Manson, with your sheik vulgarity of **** cloaks exposing your ladies undercarriage,

Those who take their pets to walk the aisles of famished eyes,
allowing the dorsals of their backsides to wonder aimlessly through Vietnam and Chinaman,
holding peace of mind aware of their chemical leashes and fifteen calorie mental meals, holding hands, unaware of repercussion,

With their vivid recollections of sprinkler and slide, through dew and beyond,
Holding citrus drinks to themselves, apart from pleasure, trapped with excite from sunsets, and in-between.

Withholding reservation of tongue to lung.
Flowing ribbit and alfalfa, in the corridors of expected fragrance.

and to speak with you of ten years from now, will be a pleasure all my own, for you will be talking ten years behind.

They walked outside climbing over mountains of shrapnel, popped collars
and endless buffets of emotion,
driving Claremont all the way to art gallery premiers
and forever waited for plane crash landings
and the phone calls that never came

Glowing black and white cameras
giving modelesque perceptions to all-you-can-eat eyes
giving cigarettes endless chasms of light

Colored pavement trenches and divots
cliff note alibis
and surgery that lasted until the seamstress had gone into an
endless rest
and
empty cupboards

Classic stools painted with sleepless white smoke and bleached canvas rolling tobacco with the stained yellow window panes of feral tapestry and overindulgent vernacular

Like a satiated cheeseburger weeping smile simple emotion
on November the 18th celebrations
and Wisconsin out of business sales

Too much comfort, stealing switchboards from the the elderly, constantly putting gibberish into
effortless conversation.

Dormant doormats, with the greetings that never
reached as far as coffee table favelas,
arriving to homes of famished
furniture, awaiting temperate lifestyles and the window sill arguments from pedantic literacy

Silver shillings and corporate discovery clogged the persuasive
push and shove
to and from

Killing enterprise
loquacious attempt at too soon
much too soon
too soon for forever

Wall to wall post-card collages
happy reminders of the places never visited by drinks in the hands of
those received

Registered to the clouded skies of clip board artists
this arthritis of envy
of bathtub old age
wrinkled matted faces
logged with quick-fixes, anemia, and heart-break

disposed of off the streets
of youth, wheeling and wailing
rolling down striped stairs
of shock and arraignment
holding the hand rails of a wheelchair
suitcase
packed away in a life

Down I-37
into the ochre autumn fallen down leaves
and left memories behind
their green Syphilis eyeglasses

weeping tumuli
recalcitrant
mulish, furrow of beast and beyond

yelling, screaming, howling
at the prurient puerile tilling
of sheets

****** the voices of words
and vomiting the mind into the pockets of the turbulent perambulations
expelled from meat-packing
whispering condescension
and coercing adolescent obsessions
with fame, glamour, and *****

Creeping out into the naked
light of the Darger scale janitorial
closets, carrying the notorious gowns
of red wine spells, backpacks, and pins

henchmen, plaintiff, and youth

All the while
ripping at the incantations of the soul
whispering ribbit and alfalfa
in the guard-rail scars
of the dawns decadent forgotten

We share a bond,
and poetries and songs in the spaces between.
We love ice cream,
and the conversations that come with it.
We dance,
and pour our hearts out into the lyrics.
We share hugs,
and giggle through those bedtime stories.
We steal kisses,
and some untold stories that peep through those peals of laughter between the drinks.
We gossip,
as if no one's watching.
We cry,
while watching movies and pamper each other after finishing.
We live in different cities,
and still, never miss a call a day whether it's for just five minutes or fifty.
We miss each other,
and write letters about it.
Distance.
The distance feels really unread between us.
Maybe.
Maybe, that's why we're just best friends and not lovers.

Passes not by a day, that many an e-mail
unsolicited for would not stray--
from only Christ knows where--into
my SPAM folder. Some do sail
there to have a prurient stay,
bringing along many a memento
in an argosy of raunchy piquant pictures.

Some convey commerce, insurance or banking
messages; some the cargo of relationship
carry; while another an ad of ******
bears, still another talks about dealership.

Yet stood out Twain. Two diverse
SPAM e-mails have been berthing,
with goatish gaits and sharkish smirks,
in that folder unrelenting and unswerving.

One SPAM e-mail reads: "Why wait--have
an affair with a cheating wife today."

Sweetest SPAM!

Gorging myself on this fetish
fare free of charge. Kittenish
jades, serve me thy dainties of
dalliance enough!

To rock and roll, rolling in the hay,
making merry heaves, does ever crave
this rebellious flesh--yet, this randy
SPAM e-mail's offer offsets much the mind:

"A cheating wife" desiring to find--
for reasons amourous--a dandy,
a sort of cad.

Wondering muse: "A cheating wife"?
What a magic life!

Another SPAM e-mail says its own thus: "View
my pics. Lonely married women--
view **** pics." Indeed and true,
they grip with a serious sudden
poke the soul, like pangs the heart,
those three momentous, wrecking,
wretched words: "lonely married women."

Though content spicy and Libidinous;
yet maddening.
Secret meals seemingly are delicious,
but have a fiery taste.

Where--on Earth, in Mars, or in Hell
are they? Here, in this world they dwell.

Thought marriage is a blessed haven--
a heaven of unfeigned love and lasting bliss.

How could one be married and yet
be alone in life--lonely, who has
crossed over singlehood's borders,
nor is she a widow for bereavement?

A husband did his queen abandon
for a fresh-fangled pawn,
flying away with that new
dove--frittering his fortune away,
as she chirps love in lust songs anew
into his donkey's ears; flattery
displayed, a groovy
guise--

playing ducks and drakes with his riches

until his substance ship sank, like Titanic,
colliding with an iceberg of folly
in the deep of adultery:

making a muck of his wealth.

The flirtatious dollybird no sooner
flitted, then flew abroad at last,
leaving him to drown in the murky
waters of his wreck.


Returned the prodigal man to his hearth
in a sad pickle, with one shirt, one
jean,
and a pair of snickers, to the ever
gracious ***** of his loving Missis--
like a sinner contrite to Jesus.


Whilst a sudden grass widow, his wife
did not covet the companionship,
comforts and copulation
of another flagship--

but was committed to her
vows
to that fun-tossed lugger--
despite the billowy waves,

praying he'd come to his harbour.


The women howbeit in my SPAM folder--
those "cheating wives and lonely married
women", are like Lady Portiphar
pining and yearning for Joseph.

Unread.
Unreplied.

You had to be the loudest laugh. You had to get the last word. You liked to make people cry but now one of your victims had to die.
You got everything you wanted and so everything you had. You had to be known, and known is what you got. Making people feel worthless has made your life rot.

to believe in what was lost
for over a dozen months
-to fall in love, but slowly

from those old pictures
of blisses and grandeur
to new messages unread

for what reason was it
to be found living like that
only to be forced dead

now, one can never expect
a sharp cliff waiting for them
at the end of a short story

So, so many things I could say,
"I love you," "I need you," "I miss you," etc.
But the response is like a lot of messages
-unread, blocked, archived, and forgotten
So it all remains in my head; a better off place said

Even if I loved thee a thousand times, still thou'd never be real.
But still, in t'ese dark miseries and dreams of th' night-
ah, just like t'is silent night of ours
And t'ose fierce fairy tales of young hours
Thou'd still be shaken off my realms
As soon as morn comes-and unveils anew, my charms.
O, death, how lush and inviting thou art,
even though at t'is early age thou might
still be asleep and thus soundeth really far.
Thou art but as naughty as t'ose abundant peeping stars,
brimming with locks of divine warmth and wealth
T'ey shalt again, tease up my mind
Whilst capture my rude, hating heart;
and once more shall t'is gruesome life turn into a solitude
Beside promises t'at canst harm souls' benign attitude.
But as soon as thou art gone; thou might just be no longer safe
And to my conscience thy threat is no more than a slave
Thy delicacy is but servile and uninviting
In t'ose choruses of blood and suffering
For which our senses should nay be proud;
but only of our genuine voices and gravity
T'at though sometimes seem virtual,
but still, are crafted within reality.

And yes, my painting, behind thy soul was ever born thy art,
Locked safely within thy summer foliage and forests
But shall I, for your goodwill ever be sketched?
Ah, one swiftly done, and miraculously correct-
yes, one only, my love, for th' very sake of single jests!
For in thy eyes hovers my triumph,
and in t'ose bogs beneath-
yes, th' ones idling about thy feet,
are cuddled-just here like my little heart, my love.
A sacred love t'at is thrown about
But to which my thirst canst never shout.
Ah, as if my voice is hoarse, and not loud-
and soon I step into whose soils, shall be sanely caught.
Caught and swung around thy idyll-though against my will;
amongst heaven's sandy shoals, and t'eir creepy windowsill.
Oh, and be defected with t'ose blades of thy swords, how evil!
Bereft of my sanity, prudence and sometimes too-bitter delicacy
As I dance around to those lands of hurtful mockery.
Be my soul's delighted worry, and mouth-oh, but mouth of blasphemy!
Ah, how of which I'm now devilishly tired!
Though you might be my eternal sire,
and beside whom my virginal soul shall forever feel so sure
As if my pride shall never ever retire,
everything shall altogether be wounded and obscure
But comely and true, just like t'at shimmering white-lipped dew
With breaths so smooth, like one from my feelings for you.

Ah, my prince! T'is craze for thee is an arrogant little devil;
and its longing for thee which gradually eats away my soul
and at times ****** and tells me harshly what to feel.
Just like t'ose ill-hearted fruits of people's minds
For which t'eir villains wouldst even in death bleakly whine
I am but forever bound to thee;
just like thou art already inside of me;
For in majestic times of our days
Thou shall hungrily partake
my fruity; but eager soul, soul away
and marvel about th' visages of my purity
I shall always but love thee once more;
no matter how boastful thou art,
and detestable virginal pain might be!
For thou art always to me as pure,
though unconvincingly art forever in vain-
For t'ose loveless satisfactions thou hath procured-
and premature pain thou hath delightfully endured.
But healthily t'ese senses shall always love thee
And with such tragedies and tears
canst t'ey but forgive thee only
Because, regardless of how untrue thou art;
You lifted my soul when I was down
And cheered me up 'twixt yon last wound
Dark was th' night t'at day, ye' tender was the moon
As both would pass and dusk would fade away soon
And into my blood thou injected th' real meaning of virtue
Whenst I was all wasted and coldly blue
Whilst my thoughts had not even a clue.

Ah, painting, but still, our love is incorrect as a tragedy-
for t'is world is too exhaustive and greedy
And at times elusive whenst but not necessary-
to grant our love th' chance we needst best!
Oh, but hark; hark once more, my love!
Over t'ere are bursts and chants of a heartbroken violin,
Though spurned by heretic hanging clouds,
slandered by boastful chirping winds.
But, no matter; no matter how hard it might seem
Thou art still to me an indescribable story;
and in thy red cheeks lies my stranded vitality
Signs of virtuous tenderness and curtained loyalty
As though thou art but still with no sin;
No sin; and ah! No stain, no stain at all-of
neither viable crossness nor madness
Though thy cleverness is at times no more to be seen
As once thou said, t'at for thee t'ere might just be
no any further happiness.

Ah! And trapped shall I be, within poisonous vileness
Should I not be granted thee
For thou art th' only soul I love, and idolise
Through whom my life was once formed, and characterised.
For love, to me is like a whole pattern;
and thus needst to be complete;
Thereby in t'is sense-loving him is but like denying
my own merit-merit t'at I am part of, and sure of-
for it is not love, though he might; as fate might say;
just as reliable and handsome and sweet.
But still, he is not thee!
And by no chance, is being not thee is but the same,
as being thee!
How fraudulent, and gross-t'is comparison all be!
Ah! And so thou knoweth, t'at he is, too me-
more even not than a stunning evening doll
Like those ones I hath seen so often
strutting about posh malls
Whilst with heartlessness welcoming
and sneering at innocent cold falls
With faces too stern, yellow, and sometimes bold;
Too bold to be true, much less sincere
And wholly unlike thine-amongst those sins;
t'at for thou honestly admit; look still sparkling and keen;
thus so astoundingly charming my veins and curdling my blood
Until thy unread shadows but reach my heart;
With such braveness and th' frankness of a gentleman
Like at that moment-whenst we told each other's life stories, back then.

Ah, and lure, lure my heart, my love!
And play with it soon as we sit 'mongst th' groves;
I would like to lay again about thy breast,
as I whisper once more to thy chest;
t'at it is truly thee that my soul loves;
and invites to love from t'is moment to end.
Ah, but t'is love started I knew not when,
though never have I thought thou art just my friend.
And lie, just lie to me no more,
t'at thou, just like me-but needst me to thy very core,
with a love t'at seems impatient,
but is born still, from pure virtue and resilience.
Oh! How valuable thou art to me, darling!
Thou who art to me such a mindful; soulful treasure,
and betwixt thy impurity thou remaineth but pure;
Thou are a smiling cloud to my blinding sun;
but sunlight to my rain as soon as it is done.

And thick and tough just as yon bough may seem,
thou shall forever be to me more t'an him!
I shall do and always want thee,
it is thy picture t'at I keepest within and about me.
Ah! And to t'is world, I promise, I shall not bluntly surrender
as how my wailing heart it shall never disrupt!
For thee I shall swear with a thousand loves greater,
t'at from actualising thee, I shall never be stopped!

Then please, please me, o my love-once more,
and talk to me and look at me sweetly as just never before.
For I love thee brightly and gently, as how air loves breath;
and so shall I love thee purely and greatly, as how life loves death.

Here in America,
we improvise morgues
as needed.
in the cafeterias
or by the lockers,
near the ticket booths,
and at the altars.
We divvy up the dead.
Tally them
and report the number
like an answer.
13, 20, 49, 58, 6
Every death count
a timely national shock.
Almost as if  
our well-televised  
monthly tragedy
was ever anything less
than a game of roulette.
anything less than a matter of time
and time and time again.
Covering them each
with our bed sheets,
we try and stifle it.
Do our best to
staunch the the sights,
the noises,
(“just like chairs falling”)
the names
that keep bleeding out
onto our thoughts  
and tongues,
Far too much and
too often
not to choke on.

Here in America,
we’ve learned that  
horror is level-headed.
It is debatable.  
It is pangless.
It seeps, deep to the core,
perverting with a silent smile.
the steady, feverish dread
weaving itself into the mundane.
the “god help us”  
annulled by the
“respectfully disagreed”
the nightmare that lies  
always just underneath,
and just out of mind,
Until it insinuates itself
Again and again...

Here, in America
We line the bodies,
death slumped, and  
bled out on the pavement.
We arrange them-
Side by side.
Most are missing things-
a hat, a piece of face.
one shoe, a dulled pencil
(fill in C)
phones
buzzing on the ground
lit up with unread messages
(“Please call me”)
They are missing-
an upcoming  
7th birthday party,
(Star Wars themed)
They are missing-
their vacations.
their first dates.
their college applications.
job interviews.
kids.
fiancées.
Lined up lifeless,  
they are missing
far too many things  
to gather.

I don't know where we're going,
but I can tell you where I've been..
and I'd tell you every detail,
but you'd throw me to the wind

you think you want to know,
what made me who I am,
but you have no idea,
where these blurry eyes once ran

I'd give these words to you,
from the bottom of my heart,
but you'd be wondering where I left you
and you'd forget what made you start..

Things are not as easy,
as we all want them to be,
but life is just a challenge,
given to you and me.

If you dig too deep into it,
with anyone but yourself,
you risk loosing everything
a pattern that never fails

I've seen the way the tides roll in,
I've watched a plane take flight,
I've witnessed the birth of brand new life,
I've seen a grown man cry

I've been through towns I couldn't pronounce,
I've learned a lesson or two,
I've given up hope on a lasting love,
but I'll never give up on you

I've watched the sun rise from the East
while the moon followed closely
I've watched the planets I cannot fathom
shine brighter then the last one

I've been through the rain that I couldn't foresee
but I've bypassed a storm that sure would've killed me
and I've survived a few falls I shouldn't have had
while making a few choices that made a few people mad

I've flown over oceans, for hours on end,
I've deleted a few answers, when I should've hit send
I've answered a few questions that cost a few friends
but I've never lost respect for the powers that lend.

I'm thankful for the things
the greater being lets me see
and I live every day happy to breathe
I'll be there for you, forever and always
we can roam the states bumpy highways
open the sunroof so I can sit and stargaze
I'm sorry its not what you want it to be,
but maybe a friendship is just what you need...

The infatuating smile you got
On this spring day.
Capricious like you, London.

I can't stop myself from
Stumbling back to you.

The things unsaid, the poems unread
A thin lipped man like you, full beard suits you the best.

Ah, the beard,dotted with white snow flakes
my hearts skips for this fickle spring day.

In a little pub in London,
Moriarty drank his beer,
Night came, a ***** black night with rain.
Mid-December, nineteen hundred and thirty nine,
Just a few months before ****** turned London's
sky black with lead.
But for now,
Moriarty drank his beer,
Sat solemnly in the candle-lit corner.
He gazed ruefully into his drink,
Like a haggard old grey ghost.
He was tired and felt strange and lost
in this faraway disgusting place.
The whorey smell of the city.
He felt a million and one miles away
from his home.
He was born in a little white cottage,
straw roof, on a small tragic island
off the West of Ireland;
Just a few stone-trows away from
the sleepy fishing village of the
village of Kinsheenlan.
Moriarty had often written letters to
his lonesome mother dearest,
but instead of tossing the letters
into gloomy London post-boxes,
he would post them into
the pub's fireplace.
Fuel for his shame.
Alas, the curse of drink had taken
over his soul and mind.
The sweet poison was now
his only pleasure,
his only softness.

So there he sat, drinking the Devil's drop,
like a mop soaks up spills on the counter-top.
And blowing out sliver smoke rings
all through those long winter nights.
Give to Moriarty to drink mandragora,
until he becomes muddied and slow.
Those rose colored glasses that he had
on for so long now,
they were not going to shield him forever.
As he transfixed his eyes on his beer,
he heard a voice,
a wondrous voice,
at first he thought it lay alone in his mind,
but it was coming from down the hallway,
the sounds of a young maiden's song,
wild and free.
It made his heart feel the substance of his life.
That fabulous blue center-light delight of song.
Sounding so alike to his sister Betty.
It shook him to his core.

Moriarty, the poor lost soul,
had not seen his sister in twenty odd years.
He recalled their last meeting.

The ship has set sail into an ocean, black and calm.
Just that morning, Moriarty got the letter from his mother,
Handwritten in felt tip, slightly stained with a tear,
Telling him to keep warm and stay safe,
To fill his stomach and fill his pockets.

As his sister stood on Dublin's docks to see him off and wish him well
She shrinks with the distance growing between and
She looks twelve and three quarter years younger than she did that day,
The little girl who Moriarty fought with all the live long day over nothing.
Now, she was the women who put up a fight over his sailing away.
Sometimes, brothers and sisters never change.

She knew that this was for the best, but she would never admit that,
Not with words,
She felt her words, weightless would have just sailed right away with him.
Moriarty wondered what she will look like if he seen her again,
Will she have received wrinkles from worrying about mother?
Will her chestnut hair have turned white as the snow burying her bare feet?
And now
Betty was all Moriarty's mother had, after Moriarty's father,
a fisherman, drowned that awful November night.

Then, just as Moriarty thought of his ghostling past,
there came the question
'Are you going home for Christmas, dear?'
Asked the barmaid,
Her words dripping like honey into Moriarty's half-empty-glass.
'Sure, I have not been to Ireland in an age, but I know for certain
that my mother is waiting for me with arms open' Moriarty answered.
But he was unsure if his own poor mother would recognize him
for it had been so long.
But just then, Moriarty heard the Christmas-bell-like-voice of
the women standing, singing in the hallway.
The past came into consciousness like a flood.
And in the corner of his eye,
there glazed, the starting of a tear.
Moriarty pushed aside his beer glass-half-full and
said to himself
'I shall be home for Christmas day'.

After two weeks, long weeks
Gone drink nor smoke,
Moriarty have sharped up enough pounds and pennies
to bring him to his home of Ireland.
And while on that train through the lands, green and beautiful,
The deeper into the West Moriarty went
the stronger he felt it,
a beat, beat, beat that thumped and rang out in his chest.
Night fell by the time Moriarty set foot in Kinsheelan,
The church bells rang true and strong sixfold.
Moriarty was unrecognized by the sailor Tomas Bawn,
As he climbed into the little white boat
to sail home across the calm, blue, winter-waters,
to that same white cottage.
Tomas Bawn heard Moriarty as he said to himself
in little more then a whisper
'Thank God above, I shall be home for Christmas day'.


In a little pub in London,
Moriarty's abode,
By the hallway door,
A letter, unread,
Laid upon the floor, It read-

'Oh dear Danny,
Our poor mother has passed.
The funeral will take place
In Kinsheelan church
After mass
On Christmas day'.




-Jamie F. Nugent

confidence
something I've not yet mastered
confidence is only doable
when I'm plastered
confidence
says more than words themselves
confidence is a book
that I tucked on the highest shelves
confidence
the unread page
confidence in the book of social skills
why learn it when I've got these pills?

i forget what i need,
replacing the bubble up of unwanted thoughts with heavy heaves and maybe some other unprecedented love

the kind of love that doesn't make you choked up, stuttering over words you can't get out and holding back laughs in the back of the room, instead i stay;
head down
eyes shut
block them out
close it up

it's hard to end what could have
but it's easier that it didn't
i'm not patient therefore I cannot wait for you, and I cannot wait until you've changed your mind, felt what you've missed, lost what you almost had. could have had, didn't want, or was too ignorant to see.
if you wish to forget me
so it shall be
i will not stand in the corner, drooling for you, for negativity and the i cannot do without you mentality. i will not envy, for i will see all i can deal without.
i've lost too much to waiver over how these things could have been.
i will not miss you
for you will see what i'll grow into
what i can become without you

how comfortable life is without a filter and a hand around your throat.

Lying apart now, each in a separate bed,
He with a book, keeping the light on late,
She like a girl dreaming of childhood,
All men elsewhere - it is as if they wait
Some new event: the book he holds unread,
Her eyes fixed on the shadows overhead.

Tossed up like flotsam from a former passion,
How cool they lie. They hardly ever touch,
Or if they do, it is like a confession
Of having little feeling - or too much.
Chastity faces them, a destination
For which their whole lives were a preparation.

Strangely apart, yet strangely close together,
Silence between them like a thread to hold
And not wind in. And time itself's a feather
Touching them gently. Do they know they're old,
These two who are my father and my mother
Whose fire from which I came, has now grown cold?

Feelings are within you
In your deepest heart and soul
Feelings are felt and seen
By those who only feel for you

Feelings unheard troubles the mind
Feelings unread torches the softest heart
Feelings unvoiced torments your soul..
Feelings uninterpreted, unanswered...
Killing you.. killing you softly , suicidal love..

Feelings are words unspoken
Feelings are invisible touches
Feelings are unseen caresses..
Feelings are shared dreams unfulfilled
But feelings are continuous...
Reflections of heart, life, love and soul...

Hidden feelings ... pathetic souls
Blinded kisses... numb and cold..
Unveil... unveil...
Let the magical love be revealed....

I sew therefore I am. This is what women do she thought, even with the television on, muttering and flickering in the corner. But its turning on was but a reflex action to being alone when she came down stairs after reading to her child, and the sitting room empty of his presence. Only the cats occupied her chair where she now sat and sewed.

For once her sewing pile had his nightshirt, a tear at the bottom, a missing button. It was old, well-worn, of a light blue stripe. That was what he wore in bed, and, as he invariably read to her each night, she would slip her hand inside the shirt, across his stomach to a place she had discovered at the top of his pelvis that seemed to be there for her hand to rest. One night she had felt the tear and thought, I must mend this.

She knew something of the feminist canon: Rozsika Parker's Subversive Stitch lay browsed but unread on her bookshelf. The impact of the book was enough: that the relationship between women’s lives and embroidery had brought sewing out from the private world of female domesticity into the fine arts and created a breakthrough in art history and criticism. She remembered writing that somewhere in a student essay. But mending clothes was hardly fine art. And then she remembered Sashiko, the ‘little stabs’, that functional stitching of clothes in Japan.

They had met at the station for a 30-mile train journey to a nearby city. It was a blue-cold December day and they had felt warmed by seeing from the train window a covering of snow on the ploughed fields. She had worn her grey coat with the green lining and an indigo blue-pattern scarf, a swinging denim skirt and orange-patterned top. Tights and boots. He: she had forgotten. Funny that, remembering what she had worn, but for the man she was beginning to feel so hopelessly in love with, and by the end of that day, hold in her heart, seemingly, for evermore, she could not remember. His old brown jacket perhaps . . . No, she couldn’t be certain.

He had loved the exhibition. It was an unencountered world, though he had experienced Japan, but not, as he said (at length), the rural fastness of an offshore island where women were loggers and men were firemen. It was the simplicity of the stitch that captured his attention, the running white-cotton stitch on the blue indigo workware, occasionally a red thread on a decorative piece – a fireman’s tunic. This was stitching about mending, reinforcing a worn area by stitching on a new patch, and in doing so novel patterns evolved, so novel that this traditional stitch became an inspiration for Reiko Sudo, Hideko Takahshi, and the cutting edge textile designers of 20C Japan. It was reuse that made sense.

He had loved the names of the stitches: passes in the mountain, fishing nets, the interlaced circles of two birds in flight, woven bamboo, the seven treasures of Buddha.  She remembered the proximity of him, touching his arm to show, and sometimes just to touch his arm – yes, he was wearing that old brown coat. It was before they were lovers, but she was sure then they were in love, and it seemed impossible and quite wrong to be in this large gallery, flowing too and fro, apart then together, apart then together. She thought: he knows how I want to be when looking at such things; I need space. And she supposed he needed space too because the moment they entered the gallery he left her alone. But that coming together was, and remained ever after, a warm thing, and she remembered that day being a little aroused by it being so.

Later, they had walked a short way from the gallery to a tiny cottage-like bookshop he knew, a bookshop full of impossibly large books on art and architecture. He had something to find: The Crystal Chain Letters – architectural fantasies Bruno Taut and his circle by Ian Boyd Whyte. There had been her favourite  Mark Hearld cards and his collaged pictures in the window. She went upstairs and knelt on the wooden floor to take out the books on gardens on the lowest shelves. The winter sun had poured through a nearby window, warming her face till it glowed. But she was already glowing inside. And he came and knelt behind her. He rested his head on her shoulder and she had turned and put her arms around him. They had kissed, a delicate, exploratory, yet to be lovers kiss that had made her feel weaker than she already felt. She knew she would remember that moment, and she had, here on her chair years later, now in a different sitting room from the one she had returned to that evening without him, returning to her husband and children. And she had missed him beyond any measure and written to him the next day, a letter written in her head before she had slept, and then the following morning, with the children at school, she had lain on her bed and calmly touched herself to remember his kiss, their kiss.

Between the sun and moon
Were the poems that we shed
Words of love  that fell as snowflakes
But were forever left unread
The night stars were ever crying
At the words we left unsaid
They poured stardust down like teardrops
At all the love we left uhshed.

It was the same sky, the same atmosphere
The cacophony of sounds that distracts the outcasts
The strong aroma of coffee that goes around from day to day
Only a special someone would make me feel this way
It is how the universe brought us together

Days have become empty
You became a necessity
Trying to escape reality, to find a way out of this
I turned around
For the first time in my life,
I thought i knew what i was looking for

I was lost in you
It made me feel like we were the only ones left that needs to be fixed
In this world where everyone is looking for a sign
The unsolved problem, the solution
A change that would prove its existence
An unfamiliar feeling, a special one

It was a sight to see
I wondered if she's looking for the same thing
The satisfaction that readers look for
Does she know that things don't always work well?
That books are far from reality?

Again, i was lost
Lost in the sight of her being engaged in her own world
Whether it's in the story that she's reading
Or the life that she's living,
She's lost

It reminded me of someone
Someone very familiar
It dawned on me that the sight
Was a spitting image of me

The beauty, the smile at every turn of pages
It is the eyes of wonder, the curiosity of what happens next
The excitement, the hope of what's about to come
She was carefree

It turns out that in the end,
It wasn't what we always expected
It was we who's gonna make the last smile
Knowing the outcome ever since the first page

She put the book down with dissatisfaction
I walk up to her
Then asked 'how was it resolved?'
She closed her eyes like she expected the question
On that moment, my life was on pause

Do we really need to know the outcome?
Would it do us any good?
All that matters is the journey
The pain, the joy, the expectation, and the disappointment
The feeling of flying, the feeling of falling

I wasn't part of her story
Definitely not her favorite
I'm just a book in her shelf, unread, untouched
She didn't get to know my story, my poison, my ups and downs
Even in her solitary moment
But i was kept, like a book on her shelf

I'm an uninteresting story
But i know, someday, someone is going to pick me up
Some reader who does not care about the outcome, but the journey
Some person that know things don't always work out

She opened her eyes, hugged the book and gaze far into the distance
She said, "It's always like that. You just feel empty. It makes you wish you opened another book. The ending always ruins it. But it doesn't disregard the whole story"

She left with no other word and never looked back.
I'm left here in the same place as i was
Waiting for someone to get me out of this shelf
To introduce me to the world
To entertain or to be kept

Sure, I've ruined it again!
Follow me around like I'm the actual
And only problem. You'll eventually get yours!
So you think I'm the ultimate biggest of fools?

(Well, for once and for all, check yourself!)*

Nice people finish last, and there's nothing nice
About going around with personal problems, that I
Have to fit your personal standard, even when they
Are following all of the standard rules!

Looking back, I think I knew she wasn’t going to wake up that night. Maybe I thought she wouldn’t wake up ever.
CHAPTER 1: ENDLESS SLEEP
It seemed to me that the fact that movies and stories make it appear as if sad things can only and will only occur during rain and thunder was just stupid. The weather has no affect on the events, right? But I was wrong. On Tuesday, April 18th, I began to realize this apparently idiotic movie ploy might have an inkling of truth buried in it.
That day, the kids had teased me again, but to be totally honest, I didn’t mind it then and I don’t mind it now. It had begun to rain when I was halfway down 17th street. I had immediately removed my shoes and socks, and stuffed them into my bag, which was already overflowing with scraps of paper and books. Most of the books had been for free time reading, and are currently lying in a heap in my room at Dad's, where they will remain unread until I decide to forget that awful, horrible, tragic day.
I ran all the way to our apartment, but went the long way and danced and twirled as my un-zippered jacked flapped uselessly behind me. My lungs burned white-hot, but my body was freezing, a feeling I still to this day enjoy. By the time I had reached the alleyway behind the crumbling yet comforting building, I was soaked through, and I loved it. I decided to go around back so Martin would have no excuse to yell at me in that foul, ill-tempered way that made the skin underneath his chin jiggle. I had started towards the rusted door when I saw her. Of course, it hadn't been her. She had been inside, where she alway waited for me to get home. But I had felt on that day as protective of her as she always insisted upon being with me.
I grasped the icy handle and slipped inside, the warmth of the building suffocating rather than comforting me. To this day, I prefer being cold, because it clears the mind, and warmth clouds it, like the foul demon that lures you into the endless sleep that tried to take my mother that day. I climbed the steps; the sudden noise of my feet on the stairs was like a rock sliding under the water, breaking the calm.
I remember how the climb up the stairs that day had seemed especially long. But mostly, I remember how the apartment smelled when I finally reached the top and slid the key into the lock, turning it noisily. I remember the smell, and how the instant it hit my nose I knew that I wasn’t to expect the warm, gentle mother I came to expect most days, but that I was going to get the harsh, drunken version, when she had been smoking and on drugs.
Resignedly, I called, “MOM! I'm home from school!” only then I hadn't known that I would never get an answer. I dumped my soaking bag unceremoniously in the hall, and it hit the floor with a wet thump, splattering mud on the tiles. When she didn't respond, I had frowned; a face Andrew tells me makes me look somehow more mysterious.
The trip I had then taken to her room revealed only that she had passed out on the bed, and that she smelt of sadness. But at that time, sadness wasn't uncommon. I don't remember how long I stood there, but I know that when I finally awoke from my thoughts, I showered and got into my softest pajamas. I settled down to do my homework, but I hadn't been trying hard, so when the time had come to make dinner, I had only made the smallest of dents.
Simply because I had been tired and hadn't been up to making anything more complicated, I made tomato soup. Mom always used to make my soup with milk rather than water, so that was how I made it too. I poured the soup into mugs, because we always liked to drink it rather than eat it. I remember sipping from my mug, and I remember how the warmth burned the roof of my mouth. The heat of it brought tears to my eyes, which were every bit as salty as the soup. I walked to her room, and knocked on the door, the sound echoing through the apartment. She hadn’t answered though, so I entered with the intention of waking her up.
“Mom!” I had said. “Wake up, I made dinner!” and I set the mugs down on her bedside table. With my freed hands, I had shaken her shoulder softly. She didn't wake though, which had surprised me, for she always woke instantly as if her dreams were frail and easy to shatter.
“Mom!” I had raised my voice, and I shook her more vigorously. “MOM!” I think it was on the third time that I finally began to realize, but I still shook her.
On the fifth try I had begun to cry, and on the sixth the calm part of me told the hysterical part: *She is fine. She will wake in the morning, I promise. She will wake. That was the first time I ever lied to myself.
I remember pulling the covers on the bed over her, and then gingerly lying down next to her. Mom. I kept thinking to myself, as if my mere thoughts might wake her. But I had known she wasn't gone, for I felt her breath next to me, soft, shallow, and hardly discernible from my own, yet still breathing. I had drunk the rest of my soup, but left hers, telling myself she would drink it when she woke. Now, looking back, I realize how stupid it was of me to have thought that she would wake up.
I don't even remember falling asleep that night, but I must have, for in the morning when I woke I looked quickly over at her, hoping, wishing that she might have risen. I remember shaking her again, pleading, “Mom, it's the morning, and you missed dinner but it's okay, I will make you more if you please wake up, please momma. Please,” But she didn't heed me. I remember sitting in bed with her all morning, watching the clock. I didn't get ready for school. My mom was more important, I told myself. When the clock had ticked from 8:29 to 8:30, I knew the bell had rung, and I was late. I guess to me that had been a signal: The rest of the world has continued without us. I remember standing up and padding to the kitchen, and grabbing the wireless phone. I remember how icy cold it had felt, as opposed to the warmth and comfort of the bed in Mom's room. For once I simply craved the innocent warmth from my mother's inert body. I walked back in and sat on the edge of the bed. I dialed 9-1-1 and hit the 'call' button.
“This is 9-1-1 what is your emergency?” a rough male voice had said.
“I-” I had to clear my throat from lack of use. “My mom was passed out last night when I got home from school. I thought she would wake up, like she always does, but she hasn't. She is still breathing. Please come,” I had said all that with a flat voice, refusing the awful feeling in my throat that warned of tears.
“What is your location?” he asked, his voice softer now.
“913 Alvarado,” I whisper. “Fourth floor, number 413. My name is Sierra Banks.”
“Paramedics are on their way, ok?”
“Ok,” I recall how loud the click was when he hung up, and I felt the cold, empty silence press down and around me until I couldn't stand it anymore. I wanted to talk to someone, anyone, except the police officers who sounded way too casual. My mom's life might be on the line, and all they do is talk in monotone. Like they don’t care about all those lives. I knew then that I was being unfair, and that they were simply used to losing lives, but...
I looked up at the soup mugs on the table and next to them...her cell. The last person she talked to. I scooped it up, went to last calls, and hit redial.
Ring...Ring...Ring... “Hello, Clemens residence.”
“Dad.” The pain of hearing his voice then was the same as when I hear it every day now. Regret had instatly clouded my heart with the cold wall I built four years ago. Tears began to pour down my cheeks, but I can't recall now if they were hot and scalding, or cold.
“Sierra?” his voice too had become thick, and I hated him for crying. He left us.
“Yes,” I had been unable to force any other meaningless words at him. I hadn't seen him in four years, when we visited him, his beautiful new wife, and worst of all, his new baby girl. He replaced me! My throat burns to think of it. I hadn't thought of Lila, my step sister, and my replacement since she was born. Fury built up inside me. Why did mom call them last? Why does she still hold his number in her phone even after he left? And most importantly, what did they talk about? I still haven't forgotten these questions, but I most certainly haven't got any answers.
“Dad, mom is in trouble. She hasn't woken up since yesterday. I thought she would wake up but she hasn't. The ambulance is on its way,” Instantaneously, I hated myself for telling him, pouring out how scared I was. He didn't deserve to know, to pretend to feel sorry.
“Oh Sierra. Oh my beautiful daug-” he began, but I had already ended the call. How dare he call me beautiful? He hadn't seen me in so many years. He didn't deserve to pretend he care. Maybe I loved him once, but not anymore. I didn’t, and still don’t, want his sympathy, his false words, dripping in I-told-you-so. But most importantly, I didn’t want him to hear me cry.
Now I find myself having to live with him, and have to be constantly aware of him walking in on me. Like the other day when he walked into my room to see how I was doing with homework and found me rocking and bawling on the bed. Gasps had escaped from me in rapid succession; my sobs had shaken the bed so that it creaked softly. My lips curled apart from my teeth as I convulsed. I sniffed loudly and, gradually, my sobs had died down. Eventually too, my ears had regained their sense, and their voices had drifted to me from outside my bubble of silence.
Most days I had control enough to save my tears for the night or not cry at all. A week ago my English teacher had made us write letters to our parents. I had asked if I could write mine to someone else, because I was still furious at my dad, and mom left me. I know that she was in a coma, and she can't help it now, but I remember all the times that I was strong through her rampages. It didn't matter anyways, because Mr. Steiner blatantly refused. I decided to write it to mom, since I refused those days to even to acknowledge that I had a father.
And to this day I remember every word, for I read that letter a hundred times that day, until I had it committed to memory, so that I could have it with me, where ever I might be.
The ambulance arrived about five minutes after I hung up on Richard. The memory of crying, and rocking endlessly in pitch blackness made me refuse even to call him my father. What I kind of father, I asked myself, leaves his daughter crying, without comforting her, when the only person who ever loved her, is a million miles away? 'Mine,' I had answered myself, bitterly.

an average American
in a slept-in crumpled suit
stuffs today’s unread news
into holes in his shoes,
burps the taste of greasy chicken soup
sliding stale mission bread
down his gullet
regards two smelly
rag-tag ****** hobos
lapping the same charity meal
and realizes sadly,
the Bolsheviks may be right.

doug curry
may 4, 2012

Oh, may I join the choir invisible
Of those immortal dead who live again
In minds made better by their presence; live
In pulses stirred to generosity,
In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn
For miserable aims that end with self,
In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars,
And with their mild persistence urge men's search
To vaster issues. So to live is heaven:
To make undying music in the world,
Breathing a beauteous order that controls
With growing sway the growing life of man.
So we inherit that sweet purity
For which we struggled, failed, and agonized
With widening retrospect that bred despair.
Rebellious flesh that would not be subdued,
A vicious parent shaming still its child,
Poor anxious penitence, is quick dissolved;
Its discords, quenched by meeting harmonies,
Die in the large and charitable air,
And all our rarer, better, truer self
That sobbed religiously in yearning song,
That watched to ease the burden of the world,
Laboriously tracing what must be,
And what may yet be better, -- saw within
A worthier image for the sanctuary,
And shaped it forth before the multitude,
Divinely human, raising worship so
To higher reverence more mixed with love, --
That better self shall live till human Time
Shall fold its eyelids, and the human sky
Be gathered like a scroll within the tomb
Unread forever. This is life to come, --
Which martyred men have made more glorious
For us who strive to follow. May I reach
That purest heaven, -- be to other souls
The cup of strength in some great agony,
Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love,
Beget the smiles that have no cruelty,
Be the sweet presence of a good diffused,
And in diffusion ever more intense!
So shall I join the choir invisible
Whose music is the gladness of the world.

The Muted Commoner

You don't see them,
......Just past them......

Speak but unheard,
perforce, thus, muted,
against their will

blogs bread unread uneaten,
poem orphans better than us,
vine ripened unto death

Truly dare you say I/you the better?

Shamed heat, you spit,
outed, no penance offered,
non granted,
the forgivers are muted too

so this be your charge,
so this be your salvation:

free the mutes from the trance -
exhume, exhort find them
in the back pages, then
acknowledge  that we are all
Muted Commoners.

find the poem unread,
revive it with a read, a heart,
and then you can speak your
Peace.

OLD HOUSE

They retain precious memories,
intimate feelings of inhabitants
passing through its sagging doors.

Romantic are seekers of forgotten times
memories encased in hard wood floors;
as lath plastered walls ooze remnants of a
history while we; when inclined listen.

We don't go very often, to abandon houses,
perhaps on a dare, or at Halloween.
Are we passed enjoying extremes into this
another world, musty energy a curious child.

That was the yesterday
which now waits behind
musty, dusty, derelict halls.

I stand I stand at paint chipped banister,
a faded worn carpet once carried dancing feet,
children playing before they sleep. The
broken coat tree on the floor.

From the third floor murmuring,
a wind storm jars
loose fears, of time
once lost to dreams.

Echos billow from
each room, curtains hanging
yellowed by a sun where
dancing light through holes in damask lace.

Mice gremlin's artful droppings,
tracks of nature on dirt strewn floor.
Broken shards from window
panes, confetti after New Years day.

Branches scratched
etched paths, tracks like graffiti
on sill its unread words, a glif
eerily cast shadows trigger echos from the past.

Jagged memories protrude from every corner
mixing with new, enriching our fantasies
bringing us closer renewed;
these musty memories long forgotten.

Like waves rushing back;
flooding a mind like broken
dikes they crash into our world,
Rembrandt's paintings on canvas fading.

Silent footsteps outside a door,
we hear laughter from bedroom walls;
a smell a whiff of hot butter ***, silent
conversation coming our way.

Old Doc Masters listened at my chest, as
I read all by candle light, Sherlock detective stories
or the Tell Tale Heart of Poe or
Othello; all masters in the past.

A Grandfather clock
stands silent, keeping time,
lost its tick yet still striking,
it stands tall, upon a clueless floor.

Knowledge lost to a past
in a house so worn,
births, deaths, wars, wrapped
forgotten, encased by neglect,

I visited a house besotted,
neglected waiting to be
remodeled into another century
moving it to present times.

Ajerry
Archival Jan 5, 2011

Poems about the Moon and Stars

These are poems about starlight and moonlight, moons and stars, dreams and visions, illuminations and intimations …



Will There Be Starlight
by Michael R. Burch

Will there be starlight
tonight
while she gathers
damask
and lilac
and sweet-scented heathers?

And will she find flowers,
or will she find thorns
guarding the petals
of roses unborn?

Will there be starlight
tonight
while she gathers
seashells
and mussels
and albatross feathers?

And will she find treasure
or will she find pain
at the end of this rainbow
of moonlight on rain?

Published by Starlight Archives, The Chained Muse, Writ in Water, Jenion, Famous Poets and Poems, Grassroots Poetry, Poetry Webring, TALESetc and The Word (UK)



Step Into Starlight
by Michael R. Burch

Step into starlight,
lovely and wild,
lonely and longing,
a woman, a child...

Throw back drawn curtains,
enter the night,
dream of his kiss
as a comet ignites...

Then fall to your knees
in a wind-fumbled cloud
and shudder to hear
oak hocks groaning aloud.

Flee down the dark path
to where the snaking vine bends
and withers and writhes
as winter descends...

And learn that each season
ends one vanished day,
that each pregnant moon holds
no spent tides in its sway...

For, as suns seek horizons—
boys fall, men decline.
As the grape sags with its burden,
remember—the wine!

Published by The Lyric, Poetry Life & Times and Opera News



Regret
by Michael R. Burch

Regret,
a bitter
ache to bear...

once starlight
languished
in your hair...

a shining there
as brief
as rare.

Regret...
a pain
I chose to bear...

unleash
the torrent
of your hair...

and show me
once again—
how rare.

Published by The HyperTexts and The Chained Muse


Infectious!
by Hafiz aka Hafez
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I became infected with happiness tonight
as I wandered idly, singing in the starlight.
Now I'm wonderfully contagious—
so kiss me!

Published by Better Than Starbucks and Poem Today



Bath by Moonlight
by Michael R. Burch

She bathes in silver
~~~~~afloat~~~~~
on her reflections.…



Kin
by Michael R. Burch

O pale, austere moon,
haughty beauty...

what do we know of love,
or duty?



Kindred
by Michael R. Burch

Rise, pale disastrous moon!
What is love, but a heightened effect
of time, light and distance?

Did you burn once,
before you became
so remote, so detached,

so coldly, inhumanly lustrous,
before you were able to assume
the very pallor of love itself?

What is the dawn now, to you or to me?
We are as one,
out of favor with the sun.

We would exhume
the white corpse of love
for a last dance,

and yet we will not.
We will let her be,
let her abide,

for she is nothing now,
to you
or to me.


Moon Lake
by Michael R. Burch

Starlit recorder of summer nights,
what magic spell bewitches you?
They say that all lovers love first in the dark...
Is it true?
Is it true?
Is it true?

Starry-eyed seer of all that appears
and all that has appeared—
What sights have you seen?
What dreams have you dreamed?
What rhetoric have you heard?

Is love an oration,
or is it a word?
Have you heard?
Have you heard?
Have you heard?

I wrote this poem in my teens, during my "Romantic Period." It has been set to music by David Hamilton, the award-winning Australian composer who also set "Will There Be Starlight" to music.



Only Flesh
by Michael R. Burch

Moonlight in a pale silver rain caresses her cheek.
What she feels is an emptiness more chilling than fear...

Nothing is questioned, yet the answer seems clear.
Night, inevitably, only seems to end.
Flesh is the stuff that does not endure.

The sand begins its passage through narrowing glass
as Time sifts out each seed yet to come.
Only flesh does not last.

Eternally, the days rise and fall with the sun;
each bright grain, slipping past, will return.
Only flesh fades to ash though unable to burn.
Only flesh does not last.

Only flesh, in the end, makes its bed in brown grass.
Only flesh shivers, pale as the pale wintry light.
Only flesh seeps in oils that will not ignite.
Only flesh rues its past.
Only flesh.



Nashville and Andromeda
by Michael R. Burch

I have come to sit and think in the darkness once again.
It is three a.m.; outside, the world sleeps...

How nakedly now and unadorned
the surrounding hills
expose themselves
to the lithographies of the detached moonlight—
******* daubed by the lanterns
of the ornamental barns,
firs ruffled like silks
casually discarded...

They lounge now—
indolent, languid, spread-eagled—
their wantonness a thing to admire,
like a lover's ease idly tracing flesh...

They do not know haste,
lust, virtue, or any of the sanctimonious ecstasies of men,
yet they please
if only in the solemn meditations of their loveliness
by the ***** pen...

Perhaps there upon the surrounding hills,
another forsakes sleep
for the hour of introspection,
gabled in loneliness,
swathed in the pale light of Andromeda...

Seeing.
Yes, seeing,
but always ultimately unknowing
anything of the affairs of men.

Published by The Aurorean and The Centrifugal Eye



Day, and Night
by Michael R. Burch

The moon exposes syphilitic craters
and veiled by ghostly willows, palely looms,
while we who rise each day to grind a living,
dream each scented night of such perfumes
as drew us to the window, to the moonlight,
when all the earth was steeped in cobalt blue—
an eerie vase of achromatic flowers
bled silver by pale starlight, losing hue.

The night begins her waltz to waiting sunrise—
adagio, the music she now hears,
while we who in the sunlight slave for succor,
dreaming, seek communion with the spheres.
And all around the night is in crescendo,
and everywhere the stars' bright legions form,
and here we hear the sweet incriminations
of lovers we had once to keep us warm.

And also here we find, like bled carnations,
red lips that whitened, kisses drawn to lies,
that touched us once with fierce incantations
and taught us love was prettier than wise.



Deliver Us...
by Michael R. Burch

for my mother, Christine Ena Burch

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

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

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



Dark Twin
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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



Upon a Frozen Star
by Michael R. Burch

Oh, was it in this dark-Decembered world
we walked among the moonbeam-shadowed fields
and did not know ourselves for weight of snow
upon our laden parkas? White as sheets,
as spectral-white as ghosts, with clawlike hands
****** deep into our pockets, holding what
we thought were tickets home: what did we know
of anything that night? Were we deceived
by moonlight making shadows of gaunt trees
that loomed like fiends between us, by the songs
of owls like phantoms hooting: Who? Who? Who?

And if that night I looked and smiled at you
a little out of tenderness... or kissed
the wet salt from your lips, or took your hand,
so cold inside your parka... if I wished
upon a frozen star... that I could give
you something of myself to keep you warm...
yet something still not love... if I embraced
the contours of your face with one stiff glove...

How could I know the years would strip away
the soft flesh from your face, that time would flay
your heart of consolation, that my words
would break like ice between us, till the void
of words became eternal? Oh, my love,
I never knew. I never knew at all,
that anything so vast could curl so small.

Originally published by Nisqually Delta Review. I believe this was my first attempt at blank verse.



The Watch
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

Originally published by The Lyric



A Surfeit of Light
by Michael R. Burch

There was always a surfeit of light in your presence.
You stood distinctly apart, not of the humdrum world—
a chariot of gold in a procession of plywood.

We were all pioneers of the modern expedient race,
raising the ante: Home Depot to Lowe's.
Yours was an antique grace—Thrace's or Mesopotamia's.

We were never quite sure of your silver allure,
of your trillium-and-platinum diadem,
of your utter lack of flatware-like utility.

You told us that night—your wound would not scar.
The black moment passed, then you were no more.
The darker the sky, how much brighter the Star!

The day of your funeral, I ripped out the crown mold.
You were this fool's gold.



In this Ordinary Swoon
by Michael R. Burch

In this ordinary swoon
as I pass from life to death,

I feel no heat from the cold, pale moon;
I feel no sympathy for breath.

Who I am and why I came,
I do not know; nor does it matter.

The end of every man's the same
and every god's as mad as a hatter.

I do not fear the letting go;
I only fear the clinging on

to hope when there's no hope, although
I lift my face to the blazing sun

and feel the greater intensity
of the wilder inferno within me.



The Pictish Faeries
by Michael R. Burch

Smaller and darker
than their closest kin,
the faeries learned only too well
never to dwell
close to the villages of larger men.

Only to dance in the starlight
when the moon was full
and men were afraid.
Only to worship in the farthest glade,
ever heeding the raven and the gull.



Heat Lightening
by Michael R. Burch

Each night beneath the elms, we never knew
which lights beyond dark hills might stall, advance,
then lurch into strange headbeams tilted up
like searchlights seeking contact in the distance...

Quiescent unions... thoughts of bliss, of hope...
long-dreamt appearances of wished-on stars...
like childhood's long-occluded, nebulous
slow drift of half-formed visions... slip and bra...

Wan moonlight traced your features, perilous,
in danger of extinction, should your hair
fall softly on my eyes, or should a kiss
cause them to close, or should my fingers dare
to leave off childhood for some new design
of whiter lace, of flesh incarnadine.



Listen
by Michael R. Burch

Listen to me now and heed my voice;
I am a madman, alone, screaming in the wilderness,
but listen now.

Listen to me now, and if I say
that black is black, and white is white, and in between lies gray,
I have no choice.

Does a madman choose his words? They come to him,
the moon's illuminations, intimations of the wind,
and he must speak.

But listen to me now, and if you hear
the tolling of the judgment bell, and if its tone is clear,
then do not tarry,

but listen, or cut off your ears, for I Am weary.

Published by Penny Dreadful, The HyperTexts, the Anthologise Committee and Nonsuch High School for Girls (Surrey, England). I believe I wrote the first version of "Listen" around age 17.

Keywords/Tags: moon, full moon, star, stars, night, sky, nightfall, tonight, dream, dreams, dreaming, dream time, dream girl, love, affinity and love, bittersweet love, blind love

Published as the collection "Poems about the Moon and Stars"

I've been blocked
well an good
by some obtuse
butthurt mindfuck

cant believe my luck!

but please unblock me
long enough
to delete your unread
message (so I can clean
up your verbal Diarrhea)

It's annoying
to me
as its messing up
the aesthetics
of my screen

the newbie failure complex(ity)

the poems come torrentially,
hurricane, waterfall & tornado are working adjectives
worthy of the task, yet unequal to the unlimited army
of the written dead of unread poems and poets
that occupy the nether of blog, podcast, and poetry sites,
orphan stars in the un-salvaged junkyard galaxy of verbiage

a faceless wight, once alive, now permanently dead,
we shuffle march, chanting each our own newbie poem,
onward soldiers to ignominy and glory so fleeting,
we are forgot before we are remembered

this is life in poetry,
or better yet,
the worst of it, (sigh)
this is the poetry of lives

all for nought,
nought for all,
at least we pass our prison time
in the company of fellow strugglers

the scattered letters i know,
i turn into words
the thoughts floating in my mind
i turn into poetry
when vague, it becomes prose
when i can, i turn them into song

but, at all times—
they never reach you.

O, the Horror! Halloween Poetry!

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



Thin Kin
by Michael R. Burch

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

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



The Witch
by Michael R. Burch

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



Vampires
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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



Styx
by Michael R. Burch

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

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



Revenge of the Halloween Monsters
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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



It's Halloween!
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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

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

If spirits scream
in haunted dreams
while ancient sibyls rise

to plague nightmarish skies
one night without disguise,

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

it's Halloween!



Ghost
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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



All Hallows Eve
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

when a star
appears in heaven
and the raven
cries;

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

if nevermore again.



Pale Though Her Eyes
by Michael R. Burch

Pale though her eyes,
her lips are scarlet
from drinking of blood,
this child, this harlot

born of the night
and her heart, of darkness,
evil incarnate
to dance so reckless,

dreaming of blood,
her fangs ― white ― baring,

revealing her lust,
and her eyes, pale, staring...



Like Angels, Winged
by Michael R. Burch

Like angels ― winged,
shimmering, misunderstood ―
they flit beyond our understanding
being neither evil, nor good.

They are as they are...
and we are their lovers, their prey;
they seek us out when the moon is full
and dream of us by day.

Their eyes ― hypnotic, alluring ―
trap ours with their strange appeal
till like flame-drawn moths, we gather...
to see, to touch, to feel.

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



Solicitation
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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

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



Sometimes the Dead
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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



Polish
by Michael R. Burch

Your fingers end in talons—
the ones you trim to hide
the predator inside.

Ten thousand creatures sacrificed;
but really, what’s the loss?
Apply a splash of gloss.

You picked the perfect color
to mirror nature’s law:
red, like tooth and claw.

Published by The HyperTexts



Siren Song
by Michael R. Burch

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

How can they resist
her faint voice through the mist?

Soon she will savor
the flavor
of sweet human flesh.



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

It is pleasant, indeed, while the summer lasts
with the mild pheasants' song...
but now I feel the northern wind's blast ―
its severe weather strong.
Alas! Alas! This night seems so long!
And I, because of my momentous wrong
now grieve, mourn and fast.



The Wild Hunt
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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



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

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

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



Nevermore!
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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

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

their skeletal love ― impossibility!



Dark Gothic
by Michael R. Burch

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



Epitaph for a Palestinian Child
by Michael R. Burch

I lived as best I could, and then I died.
Be careful where you step: the grave is wide.


Athenian Epitaphs (Gravestone Inscriptions of the Ancient Greeks)

Mariner, do not ask whose tomb this may be,
but go with good fortune: I wish you a kinder sea.
― Michael R. Burch, after Plato


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



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



Completing the Pattern
by Michael R. Burch

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


Reclamation
by Michael R. Burch

after Robert Graves, with a nod to Mary Shelley

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

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

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

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

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

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

Need is reborn; love dies.



Deliver Us ...
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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



the Horror
by Michael R. Burch

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

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



Belfry
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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



Duet
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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



Horror
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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



Strange Corps(e)
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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



Love, ah! serene ghost
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

I love her beyond and despite even shame.



Eden
by Michael R. Burch

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



Outcasts
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

Beasts with lips called the goreflower “Love.”

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

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

Two flared nostrils quivered, two eyes remained open.

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

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

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

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

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

Disagreeable child, far too clever for his own good.

Published in The Bible of Hell (anthology)



No One
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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



Bikini
by Michael R. Burch

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

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



Ceremony
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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



Contraire
by Michael R. Burch

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

I sought Her ...

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

Yet her name was like prayer.

Now she is the vast
starry tinctures of emptiness
flickering everywhere

within me and about me.

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

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



Dark Twin
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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



East End, 1888
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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



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



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



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

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

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

He took what he could
till she afforded no more.

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

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

Originally published by Penny Dreadful



Evil, the Rat
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

Evil, the rat.



Temptation
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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

Published in The Bible of Hell (anthology)



Role Reversal
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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



Excelsior
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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



Liar
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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

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



The Watch
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

Originally published by The Lyric



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

Published as the collection "Halloween Poems"

Hi.
I miss you.
Please come home.
I love you.

Breathing on the surface but smothering inside,
Pale face blue lips and wide open eyes.
Running desperately with no company and guide,
Too little time and too many disguise.

Like a lost site pervade with dreariness and spite.

Who would help you when they heard your yelp?
Hoped to be broach but no one to approach.
Who would love you when without the pure white dove?

Trapped in coach and let the soul slowly encroach.

How would you feel when no one to reach?
Stares at the window just to look for a shadow.
How would you feel when your heart starts to screech?
At last it became hollow slowly loaded with deep sorrow.

Like a letter unsent filled with unread content.

Holding on like a puppet being sway,
With those unsure senses and constraint.
Living faithlessly and ends up stray,
Nerves are brutally torn and mind gone insane.

The letter
I've sent to you last day,
I realized
it won't be read by you.
You've gone from the words
I wrote to.

The letter
I've sent to you last day,
I realized
it won't be read by you.
I never try to write my feeling for,
because there is nothing to write for.

blunt tips of bent cigarettes
were incisive as razors -
sliced wrists weeping
bright red sentences,
spattered unborn to blank paper
and turned into statues
so the dead would always remember
what they did,
never safe in the graves
in which they'd took refuge

but blue on blue
was ever her color;
blue on blues
seeping from old sins,
deep, hidden within spidery veins
that traced pale, soft *******,
finally filling mute lips as she slept,
subsumed in oceans of color,
blues that gave stories, as waves to shore
subsided, reclaiming their pain,
and cleansed sand once more

What end to life!
a collection of furies like stone turtles
arranged on the mantle -
just a few dozen last words
tucked among ads for
Old Spice and Polident tabs
unread, used to line
litter boxes in Cambridge
or wrap fresh fish at Hay Market;

then, someone pausing to wave at the sky
missed saving the drowning woman
by years, if he'd tried,
finding questions in every answer;
child curled in hard lap of his mother,
her cold affections of words
blew from dead lips like old wishes
without tender touch or wet kisses;
but that life continued,
if lived only blue on blue