Sometimes,
No matter how satisfactory
Your explanation is
It wouldn't matter
because
You have already been judged

Harsh geographical tongues,
Set up against the asphalt gleaming in the bright light,
The A Crowd betwixt and between- efforting that cool knowing stance to cover the fear reeked knee **** bloodthirst their inadequacy always spawned.
The B Crowd simpers aghast at what unconscious desires to adopt the life husk of burned out hucksters has wrought.
The sentimental inspector dutifully tweaks the scales so we all have a tighter grasp on true value.
Postscript: Lord grant me the grace to disguise the portentous notions that I am anything other than what I pretend to be...


[Rolloroberson copyright 2020]

I.

This, a final offering,
before the clipping of wings.
A love like blood,
oh anathema.
A grey declined to black,
oh herem.

It means salvation
knelt with darkness.


II.

So it be!
So it be!
So it be!

Ring the bell,
close the book,
blow out the candle.

Douse the sacred sun
and find belief caught in fishermen's nets.


III.

In silence of angels,
climbing broken ladders,
no ascent, no longer.

Salvation has
knelt with darkness.

R.I.P.
by Michael R. Burch

When I am lain to rest
and my soul is no longer intact,
but dissolving, like a sunset
diminishing to the west ...

and when at last
before His throne my past
is put to test
and the demons and the Beast

await to feast
on any morsel downward cast,
while the vapors of impermanence
cling, smelling of damask ...

then let me go, and do not weep
if I am left to sleep,
to sleep and never dream, or dream, perhaps,
only a little longer and more deep.

Published by Romantics Quarterly and The Chained Muse. This is an early poem from my “Romantic Period” that was probably written in my late teens. Keywords/Tags: death, eternity, eternal rest, sunset, west, demons, beast, judgment, sleep, dream, nightfall, night, throne, vapor, vapors, impermanence

Oh ugly butterfly
They think less of you

When you were a caterpillar
There was hope
The children caught you
Placed you in a jar
Picked you leaves
And watched you grow

Hatched
From a cocoon
Sprouted wings
But "oh no"
They were not colorful

The children released you
Just let you go
"Fly away ugly butterfly"
They scream and shout
"We do not love you
for you are not beautiful"

Just because you know my name
Doesn't mean you know what I've been through
Just because you know the colour of my eyes
Doesn't mean you know how many tears they have cried
Just because you have seen the clothing I wear
Doesn't mean u know what type of person I am
Just because you heard stories about me
Doesn't mean they are true

So therefore don't judge me. .. just because ...

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)

Also published by Michael R. Burch writing as Immanuel A. Michael and Kim Cherub

Keywords/Tags: Listen, heed, prophet, crying, wilderness, voice, prophecy, black, white, gray, moon, wind, speak, speaking, speech, instruction, teaching, warning, omen, illuminations, intimations, ears, hear, judgment, bell, toll, tolling, peal, pealing, tone, I, Am

Note: The poet as a “madman, alone, screaming in the wilderness” is likened to John the Baptist, foretelling a momentous “second coming”: his own, with no other Messiah in sight.