Why does this darkness exist? The power to bring death and destruction

So quickly it came to rest at his fingertips–am I still human?

It appeared as a vortex of shadows–he thought it a hallucination

It was insane and all too real, he could not resist stepping into the swirling dark

He thought it meant the end, but he was wrong

The unending black, still, and quiet

He found security

What does it mean when the “inner you” is silent?

Black tower, his home, wherever it stands, a spiral stair, sharp spines, sheer design

Black throne, occupied

Black blade, the edge of balance, cutting through eternity

What is in between black and white?

This is the effect of light, across space and time

Sitting at the center of his world, thinking, brooding, asking questions you are afraid to answer

What do you see when you look into your own eyes?

Testing those who call for it, testing you

Making people prove themselves–do you really know what life and love are?

Digging deep, bearing water from the well of notions

What things do you do or say because of your fears?

I will not leave until I crack every porcelain mask

falling through the sky
tumbling down now to nothing
foundations lay bare

one word
just one spark
one soul
just one race

remember

we built a tower up to heaven
reaching up and out to Him
curious to what’s beyond
united in our purpose then

one tongue
one mind
one hand
we climbed

the tower

and was it wrong to search the sky?
to know the angels, brush their wings?
was it wrong to meditate?
to equate ourselves to kings?

and when He deemed we rose too high
He brought the tower to the ground
colored flesh and broke our tongues
with a hard hand held us down

remember
the tower

and was it wrong to search the sky
with all those stars we looked upon?
to see the truths eluding us?
to know what heaven lies beyond?

”Well, my friends are gone and my hair is grey
I ache in the places where I used to play
And I'm crazy for love but I'm not comin' on.
I'm just payin' my rent every day in the Tower of Song”

Leonard Cohen lyric from The Tower of Song


§§§

this lyric hits, it’s a ten fingered cheeky ****** marking,
fits like a new white t-shirt, clean~perfect in every aspect,
I’ve just changed song to poetry, so nobody’s complaining

axiomatic, slept less a than three shambolic hours last nite,
don’t ask what I was doing or even a simple why, even the
vultures grew tired, helplessly hoping for solutions to start appearing

water pressure ok, poem spigot strong but the words desiccated,
it’s time to revisit roots, back to where I’ve come-begun, bury losses,
seek no consideration, write in isolation, a-quiet niche, a shhh! beach

my silent reverie owns me and the angels, biggest fans, just can’t
get enough, know their faith is strong, never proofing reads required,
content to wait till find my lost chords, comforts of only fresh truths

so arrivederci, until we meet again, when cadences have resumed,
rolling in unbroken, won’t need other’s words recirculating my blood,
till my slip sliding over, direction from arrows stabbing new openings

rented a storage unit in nearby woods, empty shelves greet ya with a
‘ready, willing, and able,’  many open arms looking for fulfilling, a job, that don’t even pay minimum wage, but the benefits are just fan-tastic

So:
should you spot a man ungainly wrought,
weighted down by a harpoon cross, resting,
‘pon on his cursed Cain-marked back, fingertips,
you need not move to the other side, or hide,
'tis only a make-believe poet, no longer believing,
with his recording device, seizing your rhapsodies
to rhyme with his own collected artifacts, your crinkly
smiles are his meat, his metier, his chosen career,
to be again a comfort caresser of your illusions into
a shapely sculpture of words be-loved, keeping-worthy,
tokens of a reexamined self worth, a new girth, leaner,
a celebration for the keeping, dug up with pail and shovel,
a best left hid on his treasured island, in a treasure chest, only his new-no-good-best-most-satisfying-new-no-good-best-mystifying-sati­sfying-cursing-muses-who-got-two-knee-on-my-soul-I’m-
howling...
­
Monday Jun 1, 2020

Come Down
by Michael R. Burch

for Harold Bloom and the Ivory Towerists

Come down, O, come down
from your high mountain tower.
How coldly the wind blows,
how late this chill hour ...

and I cannot wait
for a meteor shower
to show you the time
must be now, or not ever.

Come down, O, come down
from the high mountain heather
blown to the lees
as fierce northern gales sever.

Come down, or your heart
will grow cold as the weather
when winter devours
and spring returns never.

NOTE: I dedicated this poem to Harold Bloom after reading his introduction to the Best American Poetry anthology he edited. Bloom seemed intent on claiming poetry as the province of the uber-reader (i.e., himself), but I remember reading poems by Blake, Burns, cummings, Dickinson, Frost, Housman, Eliot, Pound, Shakespeare, Whitman, Yeats, et al, and grokking them as a boy, without any “advanced” instruction from anyone. Keywords/Tags: Harold Bloom, literary, critic, criticism, elitist, elitism, ivory, tower, heights, mountain, winter, cold, frigid



Rant: The Elite
by Michael R. Burch

When I heard Harold Bloom unsurprisingly say:
Poetry is necessarily difficult. It is our elitist art ...
I felt a small suspicious thrill. After all, sweetheart,
isn’t this who we are? Aren’t we obviously better,
and certainly fairer and taller, than they are?

Though once I found Ezra Pound
perhaps a smidgen too profound,
perhaps a bit over-fond of Benito
and the advantages of fascism
to be taken ad finem, like high tea
with a pure white spot of intellectualism
and an artificial sweetener, calorie-free.

I know! I know! Politics has nothing to do with art
And it tempts us so to be elite, to stand apart ...
but somehow the word just doesn’t ring true,
echoing effetely away—the distance from me to you.

Of course, politics has nothing to do with art,
but sometimes art has everything to do with becoming elite,
with climbing the cultural ladder, with being able to meet
someone more Exalted than you, who can demonstrate how to ****
so that everyone below claims one’s odor is sweet.
You had to be there! We were falling apart
with gratitude! We saw him! We wept at his feet!
Though someone will always be far, far above you, clouding your air,
gazing down at you with a look of wondering despair.