An Illusion

These are poems about first love, young love, the passions of youth, dreams and illusions.

An Illusion
by Michael R. Burch

The sky was as hushed as the breath of a bee
and the world was bathed in shades of palest gold
when I awoke.

She came to me with the sound of falling leaves
and the scent of new-mown grass;
I held out my arms to her and she passed

into oblivion ...

 
This little dream-poem appeared in my high school literary journal, the Lantern, so I was no older than 18 when I wrote it, probably younger. I will guess around age 16.

These are poems about first love, young love, dreams and illusions. 

The Endeavors of Lips

by Michael R. Burch

How sweet the endeavors of lips―to speak

of the heights of those pleasures which left us weak

in love’s strangely lit beds, where the cold springs creak:

for there is no illusion like love ...

Grown childlike, we wish for those storied days,

for those bright sprays of flowers, those primrosed ways

that curled to the towers of Yesterdays

where She braided illusions of love ...

“O, let down your hair!”―we might call and call,

to the dark-slatted window, the moonlit wall ...

but our love is a shadow; we watch it crawl

like a spidery illusion. For love ...

was never as real as that first kiss seemed

when we read by the flashlight and dreamed.

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?

Uncanny 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?

Copyright © 1992 by Michael R. Burch

Violets

by Michael R. Burch

Once, only once,

when the wind flicked your skirt

to an indiscreet height

and you laughed,

abruptly demure,

outblushing shocked violets:

suddenly,

I knew:

everything had changed

and as you braided your hair

into long bluish plaits

the shadows empurpled,

the dragonflies’

last darting feints

dissolving mid-air,

we watched the sun’s long glide

into evening,

knowing and unknowing.

O, how the illusions of love

await us in the commonplace

and rare

then haunt our small remainder of hours.

Mother’s Smile

by Michael R. Burch

for my mother, Christine Ena Burch, 

and all mothers who encourage their
childrens' dreams

There never was a fonder smile

than mother’s smile, no softer touch

than mother’s touch. So sleep awhile

and know she loves you more than “much.”

So more than “much,” much more than “all.”

Though tender words, these do not speak

of love at all, nor how we fall

and mother’s there, nor how we reach

from nightmares in the ticking night

and she is there to hold us tight.

There never was a stronger back

than father’s back, that held our weight

and lifted us when we were small

and bore us till we reached the gate,

then held our hands that first bright mile

till we could run, and did, then flew.

But, oh, a mother’s tender smile

will leap and follow after you!

Love is her Belief and her Commandment

by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Love is her belief and her commandment;

in restless dreams at night, she dreams of Love;

and Love is her desire and her purpose;

and everywhere she goes, she sings of Love.

There is a tomb in Palestine: for others 

the chance to stake their claims (the Chosen Ones),

but in her eyes, it’s Love’s most hallowed chancel

where Love was resurrected, where one comes

in wondering awe to dream of resurrection

to blissful realms, where Love reigns over all

with tenderness, with infinite affection.

While some may mock her faith, still others wonder

because they see the rare state of her soul,

and there are rumors: when she prays the heavens

illume more brightly, as if saints concur

who keep a constant vigil over her. 

And once she prayed beside a dying woman:

the heavens opened and the angels came

in the form of long-departed friends and loved ones,

to comfort and encourage. I believe

not in her God, but always in her Love.

Floating

by Michael R. Burch

Memories flood the sand’s unfolding scroll;

they pour in with the long, cursive tides of night.

Memories of revenant blue eyes and wild lips

moist and frantic against my own.

Memories of ghostly white limbs ...

of soft sighs

heard once again in the surf’s strangled moans.

We meet in the scarred, fissured caves of old dreams,

green waves of algae billowing about you,

becoming your hair.

Suspended there, 

where pale sunset discolors the sea,

I see all that you are

and all that you have become to me.

Your love is a sea, 

and I am its trawler―

harbored in dreams, 

I ride out night’s storms;

unanchored, I drift through the hours before morning,

dreaming the solace of your warm breasts,

pondering your riddles, savoring the feel

of the explosions of your hot, saline breath.

And I rise sometimes

from the tropical darkness

to gaze once again out over the sea . . .

You watch in the moonlight

that brushes the water;

bright waves throw back your reflection at me.

"Floating" is a poem I wrote as a teenager, around age 18-19. 

Smoke

by Michael R. Burch, age 14

The hazy, smoke-filled skies of summer I remember well;

farewell was on my mind, and the thoughts that I can't tell

rang bells within (the din was in) my mind, and I can't say

if what we had was good or bad, or where it is today ...

The endless days of summer's haze I still recall today;

she spoke and smoky skies stood still as summer slipped away ...

I wrote "Smoke" around age 14 and it appeared in my high school literary journal, The Lantern, and my college literary journal, Homespun.

The Toast

by Michael R. Burch

For longings warmed by tepid suns

(brief lusts that animated clay),

for passions wilted at the bud

and skies grown desolate and grey,

for stars that fell from tinseled heights

and mountains bleak and scarred and lone,

for seas reflecting distant suns

and weeds that thrive where seeds were sown,

for waltzes ending in a hush,

for rhymes that fade as pages close,

for flames’ exhausted, drifting ash

and petals falling from the rose ...

I raise my cup before I drink,

saluting ghosts of loves long dead,

and silently propose a toast―

to joys set free, and those I fled.

Originally published by Contemporary Rhyme

Safe Harbor

by Michael R. Burch

for Kevin N. Roberts

The sea at night seems

an alembic of dreams―

the moans of the gulls,

the foghorns’ bawlings.

A century late

to be melancholy,

I watch the last shrimp boat as it steams

to safe harbor again.

In the twilight she gleams

with a festive light,

done with her trawlings,

ready to sleep . . .

Deep, deep, in delight

glide the creatures of night,

elusive and bright

as the poet’s dreams.

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 her sway . . .

For, as suns seek horizons,

boys fall, men decline.

As the grape sags with its burden,

remember―the wine!

Circe

by Michael R. Burch

She spoke

and her words

were like a ringing echo dying

or like smoke

rising and drifting

while the earth below is spinning.

She awoke

with a cry

from a dream that had no ending,

without hope

or strength to rise,

into hopelessness descending.

And an ache

in her heart

toward that dream, retreating,

left a wake

of small waves

in circles never completing.

Originally published by Romantics Quarterly

Pan

by Michael R. Burch

... Among the shadows of the groaning elms,

amid the darkening oaks, we fled ourselves ...

... Once there were paths that led to coracles

that clung to piers like loosening barnacles ...

... where we cannot return, because we lost

the pebbles and the playthings, and the moss ...

... hangs weeping gently downward, maidens’ hair

who never were enchanted, and the stairs ...

... that led up to the Fortress in the trees

will not support our weight, but on our knees ...

... we still might fit inside those splendid hours

of damsels in distress, of rustic towers ...

... of voices heard in wolves’ tormented howls

that died, and live in dreams’ soft, windy vowels ...

Man Retreats into Savagery 

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 cyclone howls between 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.

Author's Note

This is a collection of poems about first love, young love, the passions of youth, dreams and illusions.