"unsigned" poems
I've never been to Paris in the spring summer or fall
Nor seen the Champs-Élysées blanketed in winters fresh snow
I've never seen it, Why? As I could never go alone
I seemed to miss the part where two lovers met and kissed or stood for 20 minuites in a passionate embrace
Then slowley walk together hand in hand in the rain, along the banks of the river of romance, the Siene
I'm not in the lovers photographs, beneath the Eiffel tower or the playful Quasimodo pose outside of Notre Dame
You won't see me in any of them, for I was never there, because while my lover travelled I stayed and built a home, a place we could call our own.
But bigger and better was never enough your greed for things was just to much then one day off you went as you didn't hear a word I'd said
To you by now I was simply staff and just like them I was sacked
But now alone I look at things and know what I can do
Change the way I look at life and why I never went with you
For Paris is for lovers and not just those who share the rent
So one day I'll go to Paris, even if I am alone
I shall walk the streets and see the sights that lovers call their own
Who knows If I'm the only one who needs to make that trip
Do others think of it the same in reverence and wish?
One day i'll go to gay Paris and a blank post card I shall send
"From Paris" with a smiley face
"I learnt to love myself".....
A picture of the tower or a snap outside the Louvre
Unsigned
No senders address
From Paris
With Love
Aug 13, 2012
Aug 13, 2012 at 8:22 PM UTC
A hollow ‘hello’ from Hell! Yes, from Hell.
Where do names come from? This Hell is
a sleepy fishing village and the best
spot that we’ve found on Hollow Head,
a Sleepy Hollows, so to speak.
We are in the ‘Bridegroom’, a little Bed
and Breakfast, run by a Rip Van Winkle
wise enough to know it was Empedocles
who jumped into Mount Etna. Empedocles!
Is my face red! Yet it will glorify
my pronoun to perfection—‘he jumps’. Yes,
both poetry and philosophy ought
to have the same antecedent. They forge
a world that’s capable of consciousness.
The self, per se, remains vestigial—
the voice of the volcano, not its source.
Your pronoun is the antecedent, not
your noun. Problematic resolved. Perhaps
I will go for a walk in Hell, perhaps
I will take the air, take the breezes.
A wonderful day in Hell! Ha-ha!
Apr 18, 2010
Apr 18, 2010 at 4:49 PM UTC
Independent Grammy
Ameripolitan Billboard
CMA Triple Play
Indigenous K-Love Fan
Austin YouTube
Loudwire MTV Video
GMA Dove iHeartRadio
Canadian Country
Stellar BBC Music Magazine
Americana Blues
Tennessee Songwriters Association
Soribada Best K-Music
Texas Country
APRA Western Heritage
Texas Sounds
Academy of Country Music
Wine Country
Carolina Teen Choice
Pulitzer Prize
Latin American Unsigned
Alternative Press
International Western
People's Choice
American Tejano
ASCAP Country Soul Train
Soribada Best K-Music
Texas Country
American Songwriting
Branson Terry
Nashville Industry
International Bluegrass
Sep 24, 2018
Sep 24, 2018 at 6:27 PM UTC
When I discovered I had cancer,
I was told that I would learn a lot
About Life and Death and Time,
But I never thought that I would
Discover what it means
To be intimate
With strangers,
Or anyone, for that matter.
When my insides were cut open like a game of operation,
I told myself:
Be detached.
When visitors came,
We talked about the weather.
When I arrived home, I spent my time
Trying to forget
The experience
Of impermanence
And shared emotions
That I couldn't even grapple with
Myself.
When the person I loved
Left me
I flinched
And then sunk back into an abyss of
Emotionless functioning,
Cutting myself further and further
Off from my narrative
Of pain.
When it was time to go back to school,
I flinched
And signed up for a workload
Heavy enough
To push out the fading reality
Of my condition.
It wasn't until I was sitting on the steps
Outside of a bar that was slowly beginning
To empty out,
As intoxicated shadows gained substance and lit cigarettes against the brick wall.
I sunk down next to friend I had recently met-
My big t shirt inched up above my abdomen
And the lower jagged mark of my scar
Peeked out-
I didn't choose to tell him my story
Until he asked me about the obvious
Stale incison mark that had a presence
Of its own.
Piece by piece, it peeled itself from off my stomach
And liquified into a sequence of events
And feelings
That poured from me
Like a stream of bubbling bath water
Overflowing from the rim
Of a porcelain tub.
That's when I realized that there is something shared and intimate about scars:
Marred reminders of the flesh
That speak to our upmost human
Encounters with our own mortality.
An indecipherable label of sorts:
An unsigned invitation into the taboo.
In a moment of unintentional word *****
At 2am to a stranger,
I regained my intimacy with myself
And my journey.
I learned that while Life and Death and Time
Will always plague our existence,
They distance us from the human experience that is
To feel:
To feel everything in this God forsaken world.
To feel angry at people for leaving when they should have stayed.
To feel compassion at the same time.
To feel intimacy with others.
To feel intimacy with yourself.
To feel love.
To feel pain.
To feel the cold creases in the wooden floor as you make your way to the bathroom in the middle of the night.
To feel alone.
To feel surrounded.
To feel the trembling echoes of the past and be able to grab its elusive coattails and shake away the dusty remnants of time and shout that you are present.
To feel nothing.
Jan 21, 2015
Jan 21, 2015 at 1:07 AM UTC
W. S. Rendra translations
Willibrordus Surendra Broto Rendra (1935-2009), better known as W. S. Rendra or simply Rendra, was an Indonesian dramatist and poet. He said, “I learned meditation and the disciplines of the traditional Javanese poet from my mother, who was a palace dancer. The idea of the Javanese poet is to be a guardian of the spirit of the nation.” The press gave him the nickname Burung Merak (“The Peacock”) for his flamboyant poetry readings and stage performances.
SONNET
by W. S. Rendra
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Best wishes for an impending deflowering.
Yes, I understand: you will never be mine.
I am resigned to my undeserved fate.
I contemplate
irrational numbers―complex & undefined.
And yet I wish love might ... ameliorate ...
such negative numbers, dark and unsigned.
But at least I can’t be held responsible
for disappointing you. No cause to elate.
Still, I am resigned to my undeserved fate.
The gods have spoken. I can relate.
How can this be, when all it makes no sense?
I was born too soon―such was my fate.
You must choose another, not half of who I AM.
Be happy with him when you consummate.
THE WORLD'S FIRST FACE
by W. S. Rendra
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Illuminated by the pale moonlight
the groom carries his bride
up the hill―
both of them naked,
both consisting of nothing but themselves.
As in all beginnings
the world is naked,
empty, free of deception,
dark with unspoken explanations―
a silence that extends
to the limits of time.
Then comes light,
life, the animals and man.
As in all beginnings
everything is naked,
empty, open.
They're both young,
yet both have already come a long way,
passing through the illusions of brilliant dawns,
of skies illuminated by hope,
of rivers intimating contentment.
They have experienced the sun's warmth,
drenched in each other's sweat.
Here, standing by barren reefs,
they watch evening fall
bringing strange dreams
to a bed arrayed with resplendent coral necklaces.
They lift their heads to view
trillions of stars arrayed in the sky.
The universe is their inheritance:
stars upon stars upon stars,
more than could ever be extinguished.
Illuminated by the pale moonlight
the groom carries his bride
up the hill―
both of them naked,
to recreate the world's first face.
Keywords/Tags: Rendra, Indonesian, Javanese, translation, love, fate, god, gods, goddess, groom, bride, world, time, life, sun, hill, hills, moon, moonlight, stars, life, animals , international, travel, voyage, wedding, relationship, mrbtran
Oct 15, 2020
Oct 15, 2020 at 5:36 AM UTC
**A ravaged beauty -
long threatened tired life,
riding appreciated**
Friday’s off-road cycle ride started late with a heart-choking chill head-wind blown rain - blurring my glassed vision, so I trusted into the triple lanes of colours slicing through the Vale of Neath. Here a builder’s ladder jumped boomeranging off it's white van - attempting to decapitate me - behind me it’s miss was announced by squealing brakes and crunching impacts, scaring alive splattered visions of a flat-end and being posted within a near drain. Surviving today's devilled ribbon of the dangerous windscreen imprisoned - sitting with pub bound murderous cohorts - I found off-road safe solitude’s mountain bike path East to Coelbren - joining new, a fine yet unsigned cycle route curling around Mynydd y Drum, to open views of Cwm Tawe as I pass hunting twisting through woods a single Red Kite. Then gravities speed, circles barriers into Ystradgynlais top - a narrow ribboned descent, hemmed by cars and paved children to the rugby fields.
**Senses travelogue -
previously un-experienced,
time spins slower**
Here the trails old section points to Swansea - winding lost betwixt fields, paths, trees and roads to Cwmtawe Cycleway proper, there to pedal beside and across Afon Tawe with repeated special offers of child saddled exhaust roaring kamikazes, bicycle maiming broken glass, proudly owned attack dogs, branch hung ball-sacks of excrement, visions of the lost ripped-away steel gated stops, hacked-off wooden fences and never-there deceitful dreams of red doggy bins all disguised what passed for hidden beauty, which he called lovely ugly. *Backing-into Pontardawe to crawl away below the dark bridge,
past a single inviting pub - I accompany the Tawe and it's twin a decrepit polished canal
through ***** alleys - until our hero stutters, gapes then tunnels under
great noisious noxious ribbons of hurtling tired....*
**Pressured paced life -
impossible commitments,
Living organic**
.
May 1, 2010
May 1, 2010 at 9:37 AM UTC
Loneliness is a sketchwork of pen and ink of iron gall,
Brushed over in brown wash of wood soot from oak,
Disguised then under tempera of golden-ratio of yolk,
Flared over with fiery oils to the smoke-blurred brink, sfumato,
Or pigment of the fresco, a shade of off-life, languid as watercolor,
Or from the too-fondly-felt impasto knife.
But bares its bones in the light-dark cleft of Caravaggio,
With diminutions of death and the storm’s dark imbroglio,
And sunlight as flesh made into soul,
The skin stretched whole around the world.
Each sky is just a sketch
Of loneliness, left unsigned,
By every hand.
Jul 4, 2019
Jul 4, 2019 at 10:11 PM UTC
Red and long stemmed,
beautiful, true.
They were sent to her office
with no card and no clue.
A secret Admirer, or an
FTD stalker?
The long stems were lovely-
but none was a talker.
She made a few calls to find out
who had sent them.
It seemed obvious there must
be a romantic intention.
I was surprised by her call,
but not at all sad.
We’d broken up last spring
but nothing too bad..
I said I hadn’t sent them,
but I wished that I had.
Those words led to coffee
and coffee to drinks..
Those words led to vows
and connubial links.
Our life and our home and
two kids in the yard;
all the result of that unsigned gift card.
Swept up in the currents
of time, past recall-
Our lives would be poorer
with no roses at all.
Feb 9, 2012
Feb 9, 2012 at 6:14 AM UTC
Another ‘hello’ from Hollow Head Island!
Yesterday we took the ‘Journey to
the Center of the Earth’ tour. Down, down
into a deep crevasse, two miles to see
the Rorschach Sandstones! I shall have
to write to you about panpsychism,
about the ‘antecedents problematic’.
It was like being inside a volcano.
The tremors remain inside of me. How can
I even think at all? Remind me. Was it
Protagoras or Pythagoras who jumped
into the volcano? The antecedents thing
suggests ‘he jumped’ sufficient, precedent
enough, enough to be a god.
Apr 18, 2010
Apr 18, 2010 at 4:47 PM UTC
Mysterious packages...
discarded
in litter bins
unsigned for
and
undelivered
Nov 21, 2013
Nov 21, 2013 at 10:02 PM UTC
Knock! Knock!
Anybody home?
Knock! Knock!
Hey I am home
A silent whisper
of the wind...
A grave silent from within...
Knock! Knock! again
No answer
Knock! Knock! a hundred times
Just a long complete silence...
A second later...
A hand written note
Pushed under the door
An unsigned warning letter
Please walk away
Please do not stay
How could you leave us
just like that
How could you show up
and dare knock on that door again
Do not Knock Knock anymore
Just leave us alone
We wont be missing
that knock knock
on that very door ever again!
Sep 4, 2015
Sep 4, 2015 at 8:54 AM UTC
Lover's Hymn:
Notes of music,
Written on a scarlet parchment,
Left unsigned, sound like her;
The sweetest of God's tunes.
Alas, of such a token, vanity be the consummation?
Oh, but then how the Summer Sun,
That the Bard measured his beloved against,
Dissolves into the heavenly ether;
And how the Moon, looks but so marred!
Fie, Mortals, who be no kin to her, whose unwithering grace evades all reason.
By poor sonnets, and by humble songs,
Love's pursuit, that one might consider vain,
Gives eternal joy, for a moment's pain,
Sage's Sermon:
Never, never a lover's discretion believe,
For never a lover's eye does poise fair,
And never does his ear justly measure.
For so is the grasp of unhinged affection;
That a moment's joy seems to last forever,
And a lifetime's misery seems meaningless.
Sep 4, 2019
Sep 4, 2019 at 4:42 PM UTC
I walked along the rough and rugged road
Traveled farther than the walking dead
Bearing the heaviest, the worst of loads
My hands are strong; forever stained with red
And carrying the burden of the ****
That I committed; seared into my mind
Reminding me that one day I'll fulfill
The contract with death that remains unsigned
And as I step into his cold embrace
Death releases me from my tightening chain
No longer apart of the living race
Once again I see the man that I have slain
And as I flow into the deadly dances
I know at last that I am out of chances
Oct 10, 2012
Oct 10, 2012 at 1:30 AM UTC
**A ravaged beauty -
long threatened tired life,
riding appreciated
Friday’s off-road cycle ride started late with a heart-choking chill head-wind blown rain - blurring my glassed vision, so I trusted into the triple lanes of colours slicing through the Vale of Neath. Here a builder’s ladder jumped boomeranging off it's white van - attempting to decapitate me - behind me it’s miss was announced by squealing brakes and crunching impacts, scaring alive splattered visions of a flat-end and being posted within a near drain. Surviving today's devilled ribbon of the dangerous windscreen imprisoned - sitting with pub bound murderous cohorts - I found off-road safe solitude’s mountain bike path East to Coelbren - joining new, a fine yet unsigned cycle route curling around Mynydd y Drum, to open views of Cwm Tawe as I pass hunting twisting through woods a single Red Kite. Then gravities speed, circles barriers into Ystradgynlais top - a narrow ribboned descent, hemmed by cars and paved children to the rugby fields.
Senses travelogue -
previously un-experienced,
time spins slower
Here the trails old section points to Swansea - winding lost betwixt fields, paths, trees and roads to Cwmtawe Cycleway proper, there to pedal beside and across Afon Tawe with repeated special offers of child saddled exhaust roaring kamikazes, bicycle maiming broken glass, proudly owned attack dogs, branch hung ball-sacks of excrement, visions of the lost ripped-away steel gated stops, hacked-off wooden fences and never-there deceitful dreams of red doggy bins all disguised what passed for hidden beauty, which he called lovely ugly. Backing-into Pontardawe to crawl away below the dark bridge, past a single inviting pub - I accompany the Tawe and it's twin a decrepit polished canal through ***** alleys - until our hero stutters, gapes then tunnels under great noisious noxious ribbons of hurtling tired....
Pressured paced life -
impossible commitments,
Living organic**
.
May 6, 2010
May 6, 2010 at 12:54 AM UTC
An adventurous ‘hello’ from Hollow Head
Island! Apologies about the penmanship.
It seems the postcards shake these days,
not the volcanoes, not the earth.
So far we’ve been to the Stalactite Park,
the Gotterdammerung Grotto, hid in
the Hidden Caves, got lost in the Lost World.
We even walked some of the Infinity Trail.
No one finishes that, I guess. Ha-ha!
Abandonment in extremis. Ha-ha!
Apr 18, 2010
Apr 18, 2010 at 4:45 PM UTC
Scruffy and unkempt,
The manic look of someone who's stayed up 36 hours.
Still drove 10 hours for a bunch of strangers.
Had no idea what you were getting into.
A chance greeting of "Hello New Friend!",
The taking of an empty seat.
You had never cracked a bullwhip--I know, 'cause you confessed it.
Your mad scientist brain instantly found the perfect chemistry:
Bad jokes and photography.
A bit of flirting.
"I'm not looking for anything right now".
Still talking by the campfire at dawn,
Arms wrapped round for warmth.
You shoved your number in my pocket,
Hot pink marker scrawled on a scrap of paper.
Phone calls and g-chat.
Mostly **** jokes and bad music references.
Some serious stuff too..
Confessions--you're more 'you' around 'me'.
Midnight and both of us complaining-- not getting enough sleep.
Stretching it out until 1 AM, 2 AM, 3...
Left each other with squid-diddled desirous tentacles,
Havoc on our senses.
Senseless at work.
And you're actually being honest--don't have the backbone to lie.
You're not greedy, or sleezy, or trying to use me.
Course, you're killing me with those unsigned divorce papers...
No dreamer--realistic.
But ****** if you don't hit every weak spot.
Walls broken, just the hint of a smile.
**** good thing there's a few hundred miles between us.
Black and hell and triple ****
..I miss you...
When are you coming back?
Nov 30, 2010
Nov 30, 2010 at 6:36 PM UTC
summer incisions on a crystalline day
(it sorrows me to end a poem this way)
every leaf, every tree,
edged silhouetted sharp
against the pale blue cadet uniform color of a
portrait background framing sky,
this museum piece painting,
unsigned, unguarded, uninsured,
yet, surely the worlds most valuable
the sun's early morn golden glint reflection,
somehow pools in the palm of the each chlorophyll green flat goblet,
this necklace of carat gold cavatine melodies
gets me happy drunk on an aurora of
the green n' blue seasonal summer's glories,
upon the skin-stamped a caramel hallmark,
what we wait for all year long,
all the earth's colors crystalline pure,
my senses say it's as it was
on the first day of creation
this is not the first day of summer 2014,
yet, it should be so remarked,
for summer visions so perfect crystalline
are summer incisions,
allowing entry of interferon hopes of we irregular,
imperfected assorted human shapes,
the marvel of a free-for-all serenity,
nature's sweet permanent kindness to
wayfaring temporal humans
corporeal that I am, my being flooded
by all of this and a grateful satisfaction,
but my mind knows that as real as all this,
is as well, the not well, the ashen pallor inside,
the burnt tongue words that circulate
in my bloodstream, the status of my
reality, where my job, survival, is a
Monday day to one day thing, and where the luxury of being
summer incised
is a sometime thing
*and it sorrows me to end this poem this way
but I come from another place this day*
and the computer asks
save this poem?
and I answer,
no, save me, save my family,
even if it must rain every day for the rest of my
sunsetting life
*and it sorrows me to end this poem this way
but I come from another place this day*
Jun 8, 2014
Jun 8, 2014 at 7:38 AM UTC
She was the kind of girl you want to wake up next to
With the marmalade lips you always longed to find.
Instead you would fill the silhouette of her body,
Engraved on the empty space she left behind
With the words to be continued
Left in ink and unsigned.
Mar 3, 2015
Mar 3, 2015 at 1:04 PM UTC
call me a work in progress,
an unsigned letter,
an unfinished job,
operating under a false pretense,
polluting an innocent being…
call me an unmarked grave,
an heirloom for destruction,
a way for an excuse,
a form unfilled.
a failure in the making…
call me an empty jar,
a readily hung noose,
a way for an exit,
who has nothing to lose...
Oct 29, 2011
Oct 29, 2011 at 7:20 PM UTC
Is this it?
is this all?
just getting up
each time we fall...
afraid to live
too scared of death
****** by both
by ev'ry breath
no hangmans noose
no guillotine
just the bitter taste
of the end unseen
the open grave
headstone unsigned
as time runs out
and underlined
farewell goodbye
let's part our ways
and dream once more
the end of days
May 27, 2013
May 27, 2013 at 8:11 PM UTC
Upon appearance of an untitled poem with no body in my Drafts
<>
never have I ever
written an untitled poem,
nor painted a human sans
a head; arms, legs, o.k., but,
but when the purging urging
enwraps me at 12:22 in the AM,
i cannot birth my babies
stillborn,
unnamed, forlorn,
it’s every breath would be
an accusation, of breach, malfeasance,
a child nameless, is the worst of all orphans,
the poem’s title is its inner essence, a preface,
a forward, and epilogue, just as your names is
both begin and end, a hint of who you are and from
whence you came, and where you are bound to be bound,
it is your birth name, and final resting place, a hint of who you
we’re, ared destined to become, to be, and to come,
an entitlement!
ah you curse or bless, thy given name, no longer do
you examine it, write it repeatedly, to despise or admire
the sounds of it exiting thy mouth, a roomful of teeth
and tongue in concert cooperating and conniving, silky
hissing your who-you-are-ness, you, who are poem, exist not,
cannot be, without your entitlement; ah you pause and say
to the sleeping woman who neither hears nor cares,
who am I, who I am, and the differences
entre deux
that are my
character
yes, a untitled poem is forever
unwished, unfinished
unwashed?
and to eternity, forever lost,
unsigned, unconsigned,
unfortunate
unconsummated
Feb 6, 2024
Feb 6, 2024 at 7:36 AM UTC
For his sickly mind,
There is no cure
Anywhere in the near future,
Because even the suggested life sentence,
Is just a paper left unsigned.
But are we to suffer?
A head case,
With answers to everything,
Isn't really concerned,
With all things lesser.
His notions take precedence,
Over sense and logic,
A million terrible fantasies,
That never come true,
Show the absence of any guidance.
To us, they're obvious lies,
To him, the unavoidable truth
Delusions, clearly,
But in his mind, he's a mistreated messenger,
Prepared to shout out his self-induced goodbyes.
HIS rights have been violated?
What about ours?
Clothes, words, spark plugs, and potatoes,
Those are the weapons of his choice.
It wouldn't make sense even if his reasons WERE valid.
A lifetime of travail,
Does it amount to this?
Yes, we're soon to be freed of his shadow,
But freed of our hearts? No,
Over those, we will never prevail.
Jun 15, 2012
Jun 15, 2012 at 7:14 PM UTC
You ask no questions; I provide the answers.
Greetings, my friend! We have moved on from Hell.
Today I stand in surf up to my knees.
Imagine: liquid rock, a steaming sea,
the battle of fire with water, land
like iron being forged, the earth refreshed.
We must make this moment a postcard from
infinity. My friend, I need your help.
This message, like our hope for life itself,
must be left unattributed. It must
be left an unresolved antecedent.
Think of Empedocles poised at the mouth
of that volcano, Etna’s edge. He is
about to enter this world’s soul. He is about
to die. We are all thrown into the world.
Empedocles, the poet philosopher,
must hear a voice from far into
the future, a voice from today that will
insure his resurrection, one
to clarify his immortality.
Write something in the sand for him to see.
'There was something more,
something more divine,
more bestial…'
Write that. Leave it unsigned.
'For I have been ere now a boy and a girl,
a bush and a bird and a dumb fish in the sea.'
Write that. Knowledge will come.
Apr 18, 2010
Apr 18, 2010 at 4:52 PM UTC
but she'll crack a joke and it'll fry in the pan
yoke running suntans like we're not burnt
plan like we weren't drowning in tick marks
learnt that those sparks don't set us alight
snarks sizzle and kite our cheap cameras up
fight or flight, cock-ups stroll us over to both
makeup's made of oaths and expired lippies
and
growth was just memories we'd left behind
cities were left unsigned and roosters hum
spellbinds bit off crumbs of our holidays
sums done sideways with scrambled minds
haze of upturned blinds flip us sunny-side
rinds of orange chide us but our hats are gone
stride down, we egg on, sandals beg mercy
but
crayons colour sprees in glasses-off views
degrees weren't those corkscrew rollercoasters
drive-thru karaoke, poster bed fairy lights dim
toasters retorted, skim reading as shoes kick dust
limbs stiff, favour a cuss but don't do big talk
buses see less than walks, distance is a job
toolbox couldn't fix this throb.
so
maybe if we hadn't lit the fuse twice
it might not have fireworked so quick
but i'm glad we rolled that dice
getting summered was a cement
to those heat-blown bricks.
Sep 10, 2025
Sep 10, 2025 at 10:48 AM UTC
i keep my time
under my skin
years cut from memory mourning
in the lines
of a lifetime's twin
under my skin
i keep my time
iron gates rusted shut
from within
each sleeping love
unsigned
Nov 16, 2013
Nov 16, 2013 at 1:46 AM UTC