with eyes averted, turning out the light, "I love you," in the ordinary way
and tug the coverlet where once we lay, all suntanned limbs entangled, shivering, white ... indescribably in love. Or so we say.
Your hair's blonde thicket now is tangle-gray; you turn your back; you murmur to the night, "I love you," in the ordinary way.
Beneath the sheets our hands and feet would stray to warm ourselves. We do not touch despite a love so indescribable. We say
we're older now, that "love" has had its day. But that which Love once countenanced, delight, still makes you indescribable. I say, "I love you," in the ordinary way.
Winner of the 2001 Algernon Charles Swinburne poetry contest; published by The Lyric, Romantics Quarterly, Mandrake Poetry Review, Carnelian, Poem Kingdom, Net Poetry and Art Competition, Famous Poets and Poems, FreeXpression, PW Review, Poetic Voices, Poetry Renewal, and Poetry Life & Times
She was very strange, and beautiful, like a violet mist enshrouding hills before night falls when the hoot owl calls and the cricket trills and the envapored moon hangs low and full.
She was very strange, in a pleasant way, as the hummingbird flies madly still ... so I drank my fill of her every word. What she knew of love, she demurred to say.
She was meant to leave, as the wind must blow, as the sun must set, as the rain must fall. Though she gave her all, I had nothing left ... Yet I smiled, bereft, in her receding glow.
Published by the University of Athens (translated into Greek by Gerassimos Kombothekras), Amerikai költok a második (translated into Hungarian by István Bagi), Romantics Quarterly, Tucumcari Literary Review, Poetry Podium, The Neovictorian/Cochlea, The Eclectic Muse (Canada), The Best of the Eclectic Muse 1989-2003, PW Review, Numbat (Australia), The People’s Poet (England), Nutty Stories (South Africa) and Poetry Life & Times
She gathered lilacs and arrayed them in her hair; tonight, she taught the wind to be free.
She kept her secrets in a silver locket; her companions were starlight and mystery.
She danced all night to the beat of her heart; with her tears she imbued the sea.
She hid her despair in a crystal jar, and never revealed it to me.
She kept her distance as though it were armor; gauntlet thorns guard her heart like the rose.
Love!―awaken, awaken
to see what you’ve taken is still less than the due my heart owes!
Published by The Neovictorian/Cochlea, The Eclectic Muse (Canada), Shabestaneh (Iran), Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry, The Chained Muse, Inspirational Stories and Captivating Poetry (Anthology)
1. Shrill gulls, how like my thoughts you, struggling, rise to distant bliss― the weightless blue of skies that are not blue in any atmosphere, but closest here ...
2. You seek an air so clear, so rarified the effort leaves you famished; earthly tides soon call you back― one long, descending glide ...
3. Disgruntledly you grope dirt shores for orts you pull like mucous ropes from shells’ bright forts ... You eye the teeming world with nervous darts― this way and that ... Contentious, shrewd, you scan― the sky, in hope, the earth, distrusting man.
Though you possessed the moon and stars, you are bound to fate and wed to chance. Your lips deny they crave a kiss; your feet deny they ache to dance. Your heart imagines wild romance.
Though you cupped fire in your hands and molded incandescent forms, you are barren now, and―spent of flame―
the ashes that remain are borne toward the sun upon a storm.
You, who demanded more, have less, your heart within its cells of sighs held fast by chains of misery, confined till death for peddling lies― imprisonment your sense denies.
You, who collected hearts like leaves and pressed each once within your book, forgot. None―winsome, bright or rare―
not one was worth a second look. My heart, as others, you forsook.
But I, though I loved you from afar through silent dawns, and gathered rue from gardens where your footsteps left cold paths among the asters, knew― each moonless night the nettles grew
Within its starkwhite ribcage, how the heart must flutter wildly, O, and always sing against the pressing darkness: all it knows until at last it feels the numbing sting of death. Then life's brief vision swiftly passes, imposing night on one who clearly saw.
Death held your bright heart tightly, till its maw― envenomed, fanged―could swallow, whole, your Awe.
And yet it was not death so much as you who sealed your doom; you could not help but sing and not be silenced. Here, behold your tomb's white alabaster cage: pale, wretched thing!
But you'll not be imprisoned here, wise wren! Your words soar free; rise, sing, fly, live again.
Love of my life, light of my morning― arise, brightly dawning, for you are my sun.
Give me of heaven both manna and leaven― desirous Presence, Passionate One.
Sunset by Michael R. Burch
for my grandfather, George Edwin Hurt Sr.
Between the prophecies of morning and twilight’s revelations of wonder, the sky is ripped asunder.
The moon lurks in the clouds, waiting, as if to plunder the dusk of its lilac iridescence,
and in the bright-tentacled sunset we imagine a presence full of the fury of lost innocence.
What we find within strange whorls of drifting flame, brief patterns mauling winds deform and maim, we recognize at once, but cannot name.
War is Obsolete by Michael R. Burch
Trump’s war is on children and their mothers. "An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind." ― Gandhi
War is obsolete; even the strange machinery of dread weeps for the child in the street who cannot lift her head to reprimand the Man who failed to countermand her soft defeat.
But war is obsolete; even the cold robotic drone that flies far overhead has sense enough to moan and shudder at her plight (only men bereft of Light with hearts indurate stone embrace war’s Siberian night.)
For war is obsolete; man’s tribal “gods,” long dead, have fled his awakening sight while the true Sun, overhead, has pity on her plight. O sweet, precipitate Light!― embrace her, reject the night that leaves gentle fledglings dead.
For each brute ancestor lies with his totems and his “gods” in the slavehold of premature night that awaited him in his tomb; while Love, the ancestral womb, still longs to give birth to the Light. So which child shall we murder tonight, or which Ares condemn to the gloom?
Originally published by The Flea. While campaigning for president in 2016, Donald Trump said that, as commander-in-chief of the American military, he would order American soldiers to track down and murder women and children as "retribution" for acts of terrorism. When aghast journalists asked Trump if he could possibly have meant what he said, he verified more than once that he did. Keywords/Tags: war, terrorism, retribution, violence, murder, children, Gandhi, Trump, drones
For all that I remembered, I forgot her name, her face, the reason that we loved ... and yet I hold her close within my thought. I feel the burnished weight of auburn hair that fell across her face, the apricot clean scent of her shampoo, the way she glowed so palely in the moonlight, angel-wan.
The memory of her gathers like a flood and bears me to that night, that only night, when she and I were one, and if I could ... I'd reach to her this time and, smiling, brush the hair out of her eyes, and hold intact each feature, each impression. Love is such a threadbare sort of magic, it is gone before we recognize it. I would crush my lips to hers to hold their memory, if not more tightly, less elusively.
Originally published by The Raintown Review
Roses for a Lover, Idealized by Michael R. Burch
When you have become to me as roses bloom, in memory, exquisite, each sharp thorn forgot, will I recall―yours made me bleed?
When winter makes me think of you, whorls petrified in frozen dew, bright promises blithe spring forgot, will I recall your words―barbed, cruel?
I don't remember the exact age at which I wrote this poem, but it was around the time I realized that "love is not a bed of roses." I wrote it after breaking up with my first live-in girlfriend, in my early twenties. We did get back together, before a longer, final separation. The poem has been published by The Lyric, Trinacria, Better Than Starbucks, The Chained Muse and Glass Facets of Poetry. It has also been translated into Italian by Comasia Aquaro and published byLa luce che non muore.
Insurrection by Michael R. Burch
She has become as the night―listening for rumors of dawn―while the dew, glistening, reminds me of her, and the wind, whistling, lashes my cheeks with its soft chastening
She has become as the lights―flickering in the distance―till memories old and troubling rise up again and demand remembering ... like peasants rebelling against a mad king.
Originally published by The HyperTexts
What the Poet Sees by Michael R. Burch
What the poet sees, he sees as a swimmer ~~~underwater~~~ watching the shoreline blur sees through his breath’s weightless bubbles ... Both worlds grow obscure.
Published by ByLine, Mandrake Poetry Review, Poetically Speaking, E Mobius Pi, Underground Poets, Little Brown Poetry, Little Brown Poetry, Triplopia, Poetic Ponderings, Poem Kingdom, PW Review, Neovictorian/Cochlea, Muse Apprentice Guild, Mindful of Poetry, Poetry on Demand, Poet’s Haven, Famous Poets and Poems, and Bewildering Stories
In Praise of Meter by Michael R. Burch
The earth is full of rhythms so precise the octave of the crystal can produce a trillion oscillations, yet not lose a second's beat. The ear needs no device to hear the unsprung rhythms of the couch drown out the mouth's; the lips can be debauched by kisses, should the heart put back its watch and find the pulse of love, and sing, devout.
If moons and tides in interlocking dance obey their numbers, what's been left to chance? Should poets be more lax―their circumstance
as humble as it is?―or readers wince
to see their ragged numbers thin, to hear the moans of drones drown out the Chanticleer?
Originally published by The Eclectic Muse, then by The Best of the Eclectic Muse 1989-2003
Grave Oversight
by Michael R. Burch
The dead are always with us,
and yet they are naught!
To the boy Elis by Georg Trakl translation by Michael R. Burch
Elis, when the blackbird cries from the black forest, it announces your downfall. Your lips sip the rock-spring's blue coolness.
Your brow sweats blood recalling ancient myths and dark interpretations of birds' flight.
Yet you enter the night with soft footfalls; the ripe purple grapes hang suspended as you wave your arms more beautifully in the blueness.
A thornbush crackles; where now are your moonlike eyes? How long, oh Elis, have you been dead?
A monk dips waxed fingers into your body's hyacinth; Our silence is a black abyss
from which sometimes a docile animal emerges slowly lowering its heavy lids. A black dew drips from your temples:
the lost gold of vanished stars.
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: I believe that in the second stanza the blood on Elis's forehead may be a reference to the apprehensive bloody sweat of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. If my interpretation is correct, Elis hears the blackbird's cries, anticipates the danger represented by a harbinger of death, but elects to continue rather than turn back. From what I have been able to gather, the color blue had a special significance for Georg Trakl: it symbolized longing and perhaps a longing for death. The colors blue, purple and black may represent a progression toward death in the poem.
Brother Iran by Michael R. Burch for the poets of Iran
Brother Iran, I feel your pain. I feel it as when the Turk fled Spain. As the Jew fled, too, that constricting span, I feel your pain, Brother Iran.
Brother Iran, I know you are noble! I too fear Hiroshima and Chernobyl. But though my heart shudders, I have a plan, and I know you are noble, Brother Iran.
Brother Iran, I salute your Poets! your Mathematicians!, all your great Wits! O, come join the earth's great Caravan. We'll include your Poets, Brother Iran.
Brother Iran, I love your Verse! Come take my hand now, let's rehearse the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. For I love your Verse, Brother Iran.
Bother Iran, civilization's Flower! How high flew your spires in man's early hours! Let us build them yet higher, for that's my plan, civilization's first flower, Brother Iran.
Pellinore’s Fancy
by Michael R. Burch
King Pellinore spent most of his time hunting an elusive "questing beast" ... or was it just an excuse not to go home to the nagging missus?
What do you do when your wife is a nag and has sworn you to hunt neither fish, fowl, nor stag? When the land is at peace, but at home you have none, Is that, perchance, when the Questing Beasts run?
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 ...
Published by The Chariton Review, Poetry Porch/Sonnet Scroll, Muse Apprentice Guild, Romantics Quarterly, The Eclectic Muse (Canada), Famous Poets & Poems, Inspirational Stories, The Chained Muse, The Neovictorian/Cochlea, Poetry Life & Times and Sonnetto Poesia (Canada)
The Communion of Sighs by Michael R. Burch
There was a moment without the sound of trumpets or a shining light, but with only silence and darkness and a cool mist felt more than seen. I was eighteen, my heart pounding wildly within me like a fist. Expectation hung like a cry in the night, and your eyes shone like the corona of a comet.
There was an instant . . . without words, but with a deeper communion, as clothing first, then inhibitions fell; liquidly our lips met ―feverish, wet― forgotten, the tales of heaven and hell, in the immediacy of our fumbling union . . . when the rest of the world became distant.
Then the only light was the moon on the rise, and the only sound, the communion of sighs.
Published by Grassroots Poetry and Poetry Webring
The Harvest of Roses by Michael R. Burch
for Harvey Stanbrough
I have not come for the harvest of roses― the poets' mad visions, their railing at rhyme ... for I have discerned what their writing discloses: weak words wanting meaning, beat torsioning time.
Nor have I come for the reaping of gossamer― images weak, too forced not to fail; gathered by poets who worship their luster, they shimmer, impendent, resplendently pale.
Originally published by The Raintown Review when Harvey Stanbrough was the editor
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.
Published by The Lyric, Grassroots Poetry, Romantics Quarterly, Angle, Poetry Life & Times
White in the Shadows 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.
Published by Carnelian, The Chained Muse, Poetry Life & Times, A-Poem-A-Day and in a YouTube video by Aurora G. with the titles “Ghost,” “White Goddess” and “White in the Shadows”
Goddess by Michael R. Burch
for Kevin Roberts
“What will you conceive in me?” I asked her. But she only smiled.
“Naked, I bore your child when the wolf wind howled, when the cold moon scowled ... naked, and gladly.”
“What will become of me?” I asked her, as she absently stroked my hand.
Centuries later, I understand; she whispered, “I Am.”
Stay With Me Tonight by Michael R. Burch
Stay with me tonight; be gentle with me as the leaves are gentle falling to the earth. And whisper, O my love, how that every bright thing, though scattered afar, retains yet its worth.
Stay with me tonight; be as a petal long-awaited blooming in my hand. Lift your face to mine and touch me with your lips till I feel the warm benevolence of your breath’s heady fragrance like wine.
That which we had when pale and waning as the dying moon at dawn, outshone the sun. And so lead me back tonight through bright waterfalls of light to where we shine as one.
Originally published by The Lyric
Unfoldings, for Vicki by Michael R. Burch
Time unfolds . . . Your lips were roses. . . . petals open, shyly clustering . . . I had dreams of other seasons. . . . ten thousand colors quiver, blossoming.
Night and day . . . Dreams burned within me. . . . flowers part themselves, and then they close . . . You were lovely; I was lonely. . . . a virgin yields herself, but no one knows.
Now time goes on . . . I have not seen you. . . . within ringed whorls, secrets are exchanged . . . A fire rages; no one sees it. . . . a blossom spreads its flutes to catch the rain.
Seasons flow . . . A dream is dying. . . . within parched clusters, life is taking form . . . You were honest; I was angry. . . . petals fling themselves before the storm.
Time is slowing . . . I am older. . . . blossoms wither, closing one last time . . . I'd love to see you and to touch you. . . . a flower crumbles, crinkling―worn and dry.
Time contracts . . . I cannot touch you. . . . a solitary flower cries for warmth . . . Life goes on as dreams lose meaning. . . . the seeds are scattered, lost within a storm.
Practice Makes Perfect by Michael R. Burch
I have a talent for sleep; it’s one of my favorite things. Thus when I sleep, I sleep deep ... at least till the stupid clock rings.
I frown as I squelch its damn beep, then fling it aside to resume my practice for when I’ll sleep deep in a silent and undisturbed tomb.
Originally published by Light Quarterly
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 breasts and hips, as she dreamt it did before, once, lost within the uproar.
The waves will never rape her, nor take her at their leisure; the sea gulls shall not claim her, nor could she give them pleasure... She sleeps, forevermore!
She sleeps forevermore, a virgin 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!
Performing Art by Michael R. Burch
Who teaches the wren in its drab existence to explode into song?
What parodies of irony does the jay espouse with its sharp-edged tongue?
What instinctual memories lend stunning brightness to the strange dreams
of the dull gray slug ―spinning its chrysalis, gluing rough seams―
abiding in darkness its transformation, till, waving damp wings,
it applauds its performance? I am done with irony. Life itself sings.
Pointed Art by Michael R. Burch
The point of art is that there is no point. (A grinning, quick-dissolving cat from Cheshire must have told you that.)
The point of art is this― the hiss of Cupid’s bright bolt, should it miss, is bliss compared to Truth’s neurotic kiss.
911 Carousel by Michael R. Burch
“And what rough beast ... slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”―W. B. Yeats
They laugh and do not comprehend, nor ask which way the wind is blowing, no, nor why the reeling azure fixture of the sky grows pale with ash, and whispers “Holocaust.”
They think to seize the ring, life’s tinfoil prize, and, breathless with endeavor, shriek aloud. The voice of terror thunders from a cloud that darkens over children adult-wise,
far less inclined to error, when a step in any wrong direction is to fall a JDAM short of heaven. Decoys call, their voices plangent, honking to be shot . . .
Here, childish dreams and nightmares whirl, collide, as East and West, on slouching beasts, they ride.
Survivors by Michael R. Burch
for the victims and survivors of 9/11 and their families
In truth, we do not feel the horror of the survivors, but what passes for horror:
a shiver of “empathy.”
We too are “survivors,” if to survive is to snap back from the sight of death
like a turtle retracting its neck.
Published by The HyperTexts, Gostinaya (Russia), Ulita (Russia), Promosaik (Germany), The Night Genre Project and Muddy Chevy; also turned into a YouTube video by Lillian Y. Wong
Remembrance by Michael R. Burch
Remembrance like a river rises; the rain of recollection falls; frail memories, like vines, entangled, cling to Time's collapsing walls.
The past is like a distant mist, the future like a far-off haze, the present half-distinct an hour before it blurs with unseen days.
Discrimination by Michael R. Burch
for poets who continue to write traditional poetry
The meter I had sought to find, perplexed, was ripped from books of "verse" that read like prose. I found it in sheet music, in long rows of hologramic CDs, in sad wrecks of long-forgotten volumes undisturbed half-centuries by archivists, unscanned. I read their fading numbers, frowned, perturbed― why should such tattered artistry be banned?
I heard the sleigh bells’ jingles, vampish ads, the supermodels’ babble, Seuss’s books extolled in major movies, blurbs for abs ... A few poor thinnish journals crammed in nooks are all I’ve found this late to sell to those who’d classify free verse "expensive prose."
Originally published by The Chariton Review
Leave Taking by Michael R. Burch
Brilliant leaves abandon battered limbs to waltz upon ecstatic winds until they die.
But the barren and embittered trees, lament the frolic of the leaves and curse the bleak November sky ...
Now, as I watch the leaves' high flight before the fading autumn light, I think that, perhaps, at last I may
have learned what it means to say― goodbye.
Published by The Lyric, Mindful of Poetry, There is Something in the Autumn (anthology) Several of my early poems were about aging, loss and death. Young poets can be so morbid! Like "Styx" this poem is the parings of a longer poem. This poem started out as a stanza in a much longer poem, "Jessamyn's Song," that dates to around age 14 or 15.
Styx by Michael R. Burch
Black waters, deep and dark and still . . . all men have passed this way, or will.
Published by The Raintown Review and Blue Unicorn. Also translated into Romanian and published by Petru Dimofte. This is one of my early poems, written as a teenager. I believe it was my first epigram after “Bible Libel.”
Bible Libel by Michael R. Burch
If God is good, half the Bible is libel.
I believe this was my first epigram, written after reading the Bible from cover to cover at age eleven. But I think I came up with the epigram a bit later, sometime around age thirteen, when I started writing poetry.
The Forge by Michael R. Burch
To at last be indestructible, a poem must first glow, almost flammable, upon a thing inert, as gray, as dull as stone,
then bend this way and that, and slowly cool at arms-length, something irreducible drawn out with caution, toughened in a pool
of water so contrary just a hiss escapes it―water instantly a mist.
It writhes, a thing of senseless shapelessness ...
And then the driven hammer falls and falls. The horses prick their ears in nearby stalls. A soldier on his cot leans back and smiles.
A sound of ancient import, with the ring of honest labor, sings of fashioning.
Originally published by The Chariton Review
To Flower by Michael R. Burch
When Pentheus ["grief'] went into the mountains in the garb of the baccae, his mother [Agave] and the other maenads, possessed by Dionysus, tore him apart (Euripides, Bacchae; Apollodorus 3.5.2; Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.511-733; Hyginus, Fabulae 184). The agave dies as soon as it blooms; the moonflower, or night-blooming cereus, is a desert plant of similar fate.
We are not long for this earth, I know― you and I, all our petals incurled, till a night of pale brilliance, moonflower aglow. Is there love anywhere in this strange world?
The Agave knows best when it's time to die and rages to life with such rapturous leaves her name means Illustrious. Each hour more high, she claws toward heaven, for, if she believes
in love at all, she has left it behind to flower, to flower. When darkness falls she wilts down to meet it, where something crawls: beheaded, bewildered. And since love is blind,
she never adored it, nor watches it go. Can we be as she is, moonflower aglow?
Originally published by The Neovictorian/Cochlea
Reflections by Michael R. Burch
I am her mirror. I say she is kind, lovely, breathtaking. She screams that I’m blind.
I show her her beauty, her brilliance and compassion. She refuses to believe me, for that’s the latest fashion.
She storms and she rages; she dissolves into tears while envious Angels are, by God, her only Peers.
Self Reflection by Michael R. Burch
for anyone struggling with self-image
She has a comely form and a smile that brightens her dorm ... but she's grossly unthin when seen from within; soon a griefstricken campus will mourn.
Yet she'd never once criticize a friend for the size of her thighs. Do unto others ... sisters and brothers? Yes, but also ourselves, likewise.
chrysalis
by michael r. burch
these are the days of doom u seldom leave ur room u live in perpetual gloom
yet also the days of hope how to cope? u pray and u grope
toward self illumination ... becoming an angel (pure love)
and yet You must love Your Self
The Poet by Michael R. Burch
He walks to the sink, takes out his teeth, rubs his gums. He tries not to think.
In the mirror, on the mantle, Time―the silver measure―
does not stare or blink, but in a wrinkle flutters, in a hand upon the brink of a second, hovers.
Through a mousehole, something scuttles on restless incessant feet. There is no link
between life and death or from a fading past to a more tenuous present that a word uncovers in the great wink.
The white foam lathers at his thin pink stretched neck like a tightening noose. He tries not to think.
Having Touched You
by Michael R. Burch
What I have lost
is not less
than what I have gained.
And for each moment passed
like the sun to the west,
another remained,
suspended in memory
like a flower in crystal
so that eternity
is but an hour, and fall
is no longer a season
but a state of mind.
I have no reason
to wait; the wind
does not pause for remembrance
or regret
because there is only fate and chance.
And so then, forget...
Forget we were utterly
happy a day.
That day was my lifetime.
Before that day I was empty
and the sky was grey.
You were the sunshine,
the sunshine that gave me life.
I took root and I grew.
Now the touch of death is like a terrible knife,
and yet I can bear it,
having touched you.
Odd, the things that inspire us! I wrote this poem after watching "The Boy in the Bubble," a made-for-TV movie, circa 1976, starring John Travolta. So I would have been around 17 or 18 at the time. It may be an overtly sentimental poem, but I still like it. I don't think poets have to be too "formidable" to feel.
If you want to have children, this may induce paralysis.
I wish I had good news, but how can I lie?
Any offspring you have are guaranteed to die.
It wouldn’t be fair―I’m sure you’ll agree―
to sentence kids to death, so I’ll waive my fee.
Paradoxical Ode to Antinatalism by Michael R. Burch
A stay on love would end death’s hateful sway, someday.
A stay on love would thus be love, I say.
Be true to love and thus end death’s fell sway!
Bittersight by Michael R. Burch
for Abu al-Ala Al-Ma'arri, an ancient antinatalist poet
To be plagued with sight in the Land of the Blind, ―to know birth is death and that Death is kind― is to be flogged like Eve (stripped, sentenced and fined) because evil is “good” as some “god” has defined.
In His Kingdom of Corpses
by Michael R. Burch
In His kingdom of corpses, God has been heard to speak in many enraged discourses, high, high from some mountain peak where He’s lectured man on compassion while the sparrows around Him fell, and babes, for His meager ration of rain, died and went to hell, unbaptized, for that’s His fashion.
In His kingdom of corpses, God has been heard to vent in many obscure discourses on the need for man to repent, to admit that he’s a sinner; give up sex, and riches, and fame; be disciplined at his dinner though always he dies the same, whether fatter or thinner.
In his kingdom of corpses, God has been heard to speak in many absurd discourses of man’s Ego, precipitous Peak!, while demanding praise and worship, and the bending of every knee. And though He sounds like the Devil, all religious men now agree He loves them indubitably.
Free Fall to Liftoff
by Michael R. Burch
for my father, Paul Ray Burch, Jr.
I see the longing for departure gleam
in his still-keen eye,
and I understand his desire
to test this last wind, like those late autumn leaves
with nothing left to cling to ...
The Love Song Of Shu-Sin Earth’s Oldest Love Song (circa 2,000 BC) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Darling of my heart, my belovéd, your enticements are sweet, far sweeter than honey.
Darling of my heart, my belovéd, your enticements are sweet, far sweeter than honey. You have captivated me; I stand trembling before you.
Darling, lead me swiftly into the bedroom!
You have captivated me; I stand trembling before you. Darling, lead me swiftly into the bedroom! Sweetheart, let me do the sweetest things to you!
My precocious caress is far sweeter than honey!
In the bedchamber, dripping love's honey, let us enjoy life's sweetest thing. Sweetheart, let me do the sweetest things to you! My precocious caress is far sweeter than honey!
Bridegroom, you will have your pleasure with me! Speak to my mother and she will reward you; speak to my father and he will award you gifts.
I know how to give your body pleasure― then sleep, my darling, till the sun rises.
To prove that you love me, give me your caresses, my Lord God, my guardian Angel and protector, my Shu-Sin, who gladdens Enlil's heart, give me your caresses!
My place like sticky honey, touch it with your hand! Place your hand over it like a honey-pot lid! Cup your hand over it like a honey cup!
This is a balbale-song of Inanna.
Published by Assyria News
NOTE: This may be earth’s oldest love poem, written around 2,000 BC, long before the Bible’s “Song of Solomon,” which had been considered to be the oldest extant love poem by some experts. “The Love Song of Shu-Sin” was discovered when the archaeologist Austen Henry Layard began excavations at Kalhu in 1845, assisted by Hormuzd Rassam. Layard’s account of the excavations, published in 1849 CE, was titled Nineveh and its Remains. Due to Nineveh’s fame from the Bible, the book became a best seller. But it turned out that the excavated site was not Nineveh, after all! Shu-Sin was a Mesopotamian king who ruled over the land of Sumer close to four thousand years ago. The poem seems to be part of a rite, performed each year, known as the “sacred marriage” or “divine marriage,” in which the king would symbolically marry the goddess Inanna, mate with her, and so ensure fertility and prosperity for the coming year. The king would accomplish this feat by marrying and/or having sex with a priestess or votary of Inanna, the Sumerian goddess of love, fertility and war. Her Akkadian name was Istar or Ishtar, and she was also known as Astarte. Whichever her name, she was the most prominent Mesopotamian female goddess. Inanna's primary temple was the Eanna, located in Uruk. But there were many other temples dedicated to her worship. The high priestess would choose a young man who represented the shepherd Dumuzid, the consort of Inanna, in a hieros gamos or sacred marriage, celebrated during the annual Akitu (New Year) ceremony, at the spring Equinox. The name Inanna derives from the Sumerian words for “Lady of Heaven.” She was associated with lions―a symbol of power―and was frequently depicted standing on the backs of two lionesses. Her symbol was an eight-pointed star or a rosette. Like other female love and fertility goddesses, she was associated with the planet Venus. The Enlil mentioned was Inanna’s father, the Sumerian storm god, who controlled the wind and rain. (According to some genealogies, Enlil was her grandfather.) In an often-parched land, the rain god would be ultra-important, and it appears that one of the objects of the “divine marriage” was to please Enlil and encourage him to send rain rather than destructive storms!
Nuclear Winter by Michael R. Burch
Out of the ashes a flower emerges and trembling bright sunshine bathes its scorched stem, but how will this flower endure for an hour the rigors of winter eternal and grim without men?
Modern Appetite by Michael R. Burch
It grumbled low, insisting it would feast on blood and flesh, etcetera, at least three times a day. With soft lubricious grease
and pale salacious oils, it would ease its way through life. Each day―an aperitif.
Each night―a frothy bromide, for relief.
It lived on TV fare, wore pinafores, slurped sugar-coated gumballs, gobbled S’mores. When gas ensued, it burped and farted. ’Course,
it thought aloud, my wife will leave me. W****s are not so damn particular. Divorce is certainly a settlement, toujours!
A Tums a day will keep the shrink away, recalcify old bones, keep gas at bay. If Simon says, etcetera, Mother, may
I have my hit of calcium today?
The One True Poem by Michael R. Burch
Love was not meaningless ... nor your embrace, nor your kiss.
And though every god proved a phantom, still you were divine to your last dying atom ...
So that when you are gone and, yea, not a word remains of this poem,
even so, We were One.
The Poem of Poems by Michael R. Burch
This is my Poem of Poems, for you. Every word ineluctably true: I love you.
Peace Prayer by Michael R. Burch
Be calm. Be still. Be silent, content.
Be one with the buffalo cropping the grass to a safer height.
Seek the composure of the great depths, barely moved by exterior storms.
Lift your face to the dawning light; feel how it warms.
And be calm. Be still. Be silent, content.
bachelorhoodwinked by Michael R. Burch
u are charming & disarming, but mostly ***ALARMING*** since all my resolve dissolved!
u are chic as a sheikh's harem girl in the sheets but now my bed’s not my own and my kingdom's been overthrown!
Because You Came to Me by Michael R. Burch
Because you came to me with sweet compassion and kissed my furrowed brow and smoothed my hair, I do not love you after any fashion, but wildly, in despair.
Because you came to me in my black torment and kissed me fiercely, blazing like the sun upon parched desert dunes, till in dawn’s foment they melt, I am undone.
Because I am undone, you have remade me as suns bring life, as brilliant rains endow the earth below with leaves, where you now shade me and bower me, somehow.
Besieged by Michael R. Burch
Life―the disintegration of the flesh
before the fitful elevation of the soul upon improbable wings?
Life―it is all we know,
the travail one bright season brings ...
Now the fruit hangs, impendent, pregnant with death, as the hurricane builds and flings its white columns and banners of snow
and the rout begins.
Burn by Michael R. Burch
for Trump
Sunbathe, ozone baby, till your parched skin cracks in the white-hot flash of radiation.
Incantation from your pale parched lips shall not avail; you made this hell. Now burn.
Ultimate Sunset by Michael R. Burch
for my father, Paul Ray Burch, Jr.
he now faces the Ultimate Sunset, his body like the leaves that fray as they dry, shedding their vital fluids (who knows why?) till they’ve become even lighter than the covering sky, ready to fly ...
Free Fall by Michael R. Burch
for my father, Paul Ray Burch, Jr.
I see the longing for departure gleaming in his still-keen eye, and I understand his desire to test this last wind, like those late autumn leaves with nothing left to cling to ...
Sanctuary at Dawn by Michael R. Burch
I have walked these thirteen miles just to stand outside your door. The rain has dogged my footsteps for thirteen miles, for thirty years, through the monsoon seasons . . . and now my tears have all been washed away.
Through thirteen miles of rain I slogged, I stumbled and I climbed rainslickened slopes that led me home to the hope that I might find a life I lived before.
The door is wet; my cheeks are wet, but not with rain or tears . . . as I knock I sweat and the raining seems the rhythm of the years.
Now you stand outlined in the doorway ―a man as large as I left― and with bated breath I take a step into the accusing light.
Your eyes are grayer than I remembered; your hair is grayer, too. As the red rust runs down the dripping drains, our voices exclaim―
"My father!" "My son!"
NOTE: “Sanctuary at Dawn” was written either in high school or during my first two years of college.
All Things Galore by Michael R. Burch
for my grandfathers George Edwin Hurt Sr. and Paul Ray Burch, Sr.
Grandfather, now in your gray presence you are
somehow more near
and remind me that, once, upon a star, you taught me
wish
that ululate soft phrase, that hopeful phrase!
and everywhere above, each hopeful star
gleamed down
and seemed to speak of times before when you clasped my small glad hand in your wise paw
and taught me heaven, omen, meteor . . .
Attend Upon Them Still by Michael R. Burch
for my grandparents George and Ena Hurt
With gentleness and fine and tender will, attend upon them still; thou art the grass.
Nor let men’s feet here muddy as they pass thy subtle undulations, nor depress for long the comforts of thy lovingness,
nor let the fuse of time wink out amid the violets. They have their use―
to wave, to grow, to gleam, to lighten their paths, to shine sweet, transient glories at their feet. Thou art the grass;
make them complete.
Burn, Ovid by Michael R. Burch
“Burn Ovid”―Austin Clarke
Sunday School, Faith Free Will Baptist, 1973: I sat imaging watery folds of pale silk encircling her waist. Explicit sex was the day’s “hot” topic (how breathlessly I imagined hers) as she taught us the perils of lust fraught with inhibition.
I found her unaccountably beautiful, rolling implausible nouns off the edge of her tongue: adultery, fornication, masturbation, sodomy. Acts made suddenly plausible by the faint blush of her unrouged cheeks, by her pale lips accented only by a slight quiver, a trepidation.
What did those lustrous folds foretell of our uncommon desire? Why did she cross and uncross her legs lovely and long in their taupe sheaths? Why did her breasts rise pointedly, as if indicating a direction?
“Come unto me, (unto me),” together, we sang,
cheek to breast, lips on lips, devout, afire,
my hands up her skirt, her pants at her knees:
all night long, all night long, in the heavenly choir.
This poem is set at Faith Christian Academy, which I attended for a year during the ninth grade, in 1972-1973. While the poem definitely had its genesis there, I believe I revised it more than once and didn't finish it till 2001, nearly 28 years later, according to my notes on the poem. Another poem, "Sex 101," was also written about my experiences at FCA that year.
Sex 101 by Michael R. Burch
That day the late spring heat steamed through the windows of a Crayola-yellow schoolbus crawling its way up the backwards slopes of Nowheresville, North Carolina ...
Where we sat exhausted from the day’s skulldrudgery and the unexpected waves of muggy, summer-like humidity ...
Giggly first graders sat two abreast behind senior high students sprouting their first sparse beards, their implausible bosoms, their stranger affections ...
The most unlikely coupling―
Lambert, 18, the only college prospect on the varsity basketball team, the proverbial talldarkhandsome swashbuckling cocksman, grinning ...
Beside him, Wanda, 13, bespectacled, in her primproper attire and pigtails, staring up at him, fawneyed, disbelieving ...
And as the bus filled with the improbable musk of her, as she twitched impaled on his finger like a dead frog jarred to life by electrodes, I knew ...
that love is a forlorn enterprise, that I would never understand it.
This companion poem to "Burn, Ovid" is also set at Faith Christian Academy, in 1972-1973.
Daredevil by Michael R. Burch
There are days that I believe (and nights that I deny) love is not mutilation.
Daredevil, dry your eyes.
There are tightropes leaps bereave― taut wires strumming high brief songs, infatuations.
Daredevil, dry your eyes.
There were cannon shots’ soirees, hearts barricaded, wise . . . and then . . . annihilation.
Daredevil, dry your eyes.
There were nights our hearts conceived dawns’ indiscriminate sighs. To dream was our consolation.
Daredevil, dry your eyes.
There were acrobatic leaves that tumbled down to lie at our feet, bright trepidations.
Daredevil, dry your eyes.
There were hearts carved into trees― tall stakes where you and I left childhood’s salt libations . . .
Daredevil, dry your eyes.
Where once you scraped your knees; love later bruised your thighs. Death numbs all, our sedation.
Daredevil, dry your eyes.
Davenport Tomorrow by Michael R. Burch
Davenport tomorrow ... all the trees stand stark-naked in the sun.
Now it is always summer and the bees buzz in cesspools, adapted to a new life.
There are no flowers, but the weeds, being hardier, have survived.
The small town has become a city of millions; there is no longer a sea, only a huge sewer, but the children don't mind.
They still study rocks and stars, but biology is a forgotten science ... after all, what is life?
Davenport tomorrow ... all the children murmur through vein-streaked gills whispered wonders of long-ago.
At Tintagel by Michael R. Burch
That night, at Tintagel, there was darkness such as man had never seen... darkness and treachery, and the unholy thundering of the sea...
In his arms, who is to say how much she knew? And if he whispered her name... "Ygraine" could she tell above the howling wind and rain?
Could she tell, or did she care, by the length of his hair or the heat of his flesh,... that her faceless companion was Uther, the dragon,
and Gorlois lay dead?
Originally published by Songs of Innocence, then subsequently by Celtic Twilight, Fables, Fickle Muses and Poetry Life & Times
Isolde's Song by Michael R. Burch
Through our long years of dreaming to be one we grew toward an enigmatic light that gently warmed our tendrils. Was it sun? We had no eyes to tell; we loved despite the lack of all sensation―all but one:
we felt the night's deep chill, the air so bright at dawn we quivered limply, overcome.
To touch was all we knew, and how to bask. We knew to touch; we grew to touch; we felt spring's urgency, midsummer's heat, fall's lash, wild winter's ice and thaw and fervent melt. We felt returning light and could not ask its meaning, or if something was withheld more glorious. To touch seemed life's great task.
At last the petal of me learned: unfold and you were there, surrounding me. We touched. The curious golden pollens! Ah, we touched, and learned to cling and, finally, to hold.
Originally published by The Raintown Review
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.
Originally published by Celtic Twilight, then by Celtic Lifestyles and Auldwicce
Morgause's Song by Michael R. Burch
Before he was my brother, he was my lover, though certainly not the best.
I found no joy in that addled boy, nor he at my breast.
Why him? Why him? The years grow dim. Now it's harder and harder to say...
Perhaps girls and boys are the god's toys when the skies are gray.
Originally published by Celtic Twilight as "The First Time"
The Last Enchantment by Michael R. Burch
Oh, Lancelot, my truest friend, how time has thinned your ragged mane and pinched your features; still you seem though, much, much changed―somehow unchanged.
Your sword hand is, as ever, ready, although the time for swords has passed. Your eyes are fierce, and yet so steady meeting mine... you must not ask.
The time is not, nor ever shall be. Merlyn's words were only words; and now his last enchantment wanes, and we must put aside our swords...
Northern Flight: Lancelot's Last Love Letter to Guinevere by Michael R. Burch
"Get thee to a nunnery..."
Now that the days have lengthened, I assume the shadows also lengthen where you pause to watch the sun and comprehend its laws, or just to shiver in the deepening gloom.
But nothing in your antiquarian eyes nor anything beyond your failing vision repeals the night. Religion's circumcision has left us worlds apart, but who's more wise?
I think I know you better now than then― and love you all the more, because you are ... so distant. I can love you from afar, forgiving your flight north, far from brute men, because your fear's well-founded: God, forbid, was bound to fail you here, as mortals did.
Originally published by Rotary Dial
Lance-Lot by Michael R. Burch
Preposterous bird! Inelegant! Absurd!
Until the great & mighty heron brandishes his fearsome sword.
Truces by Michael R. Burch
We must sometimes wonder if all the fighting related to King Arthur and his knights was really necessary. In particular, it seems that Lancelot fought and either captured or killed a fairly large percentage of the population of England. Could it be that Arthur preferred to fight than stay at home and do domestic chores? And, honestly now, if he and his knights were such incredible warriors, who would have been silly enough to do battle with them? Wygar was the name of Arthur's hauberk, or armored tunic, which was supposedly fashioned by one Witege or Widia, quite possibly the son of Wayland Smith. The legends suggest that Excalibur was forged upon the anvil of the smith-god Wayland, who was also known as Volund, which sounds suspiciously like Vulcan...
Artur took Cabal, his hound, and Carwennan, his knife, and his sword forged by Wayland and Merlyn, his falcon, and, saying goodbye to his sons and his wife, he strode to the Table Rounde.
"Here is my spear, Rhongomyniad, and here is Wygar that I wear, and ready for war, an oath I foreswore to fight for all that is righteous and fair from Wales to the towers of Gilead."
But none could be found to contest him, for Lancelot had slewn them, forsooth, so he hastened back home, for to rest him, till his wife bade him, "Thatch up the roof! "
Originally published by Neovictorian/Cochlea, then by Celtic Twilight
Midsummer-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, Morgause 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.
Originally published by Penny Dreadful
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.
The Kiss of Ceridwen by Michael R. Burch
The kiss of Ceridwen I have felt upon my brow, and the past and the future have appeared, as though a vapor, mingling with the here and now.
And Morrigan, the Raven, the messenger, has come, to tell me that the gods, unsung, will not last long when the druids' harps grow dumb.
Merlyn, on His Birth by Michael R. Burch
Legend has it that Zephyr was an ancestor of Merlin. In this poem, I suggest that Merlin was an albino, which might have led to claims that he had no father, due to radical physical differences between father and son. This would have also added to his appearance as a mystical figure. The reference to Ursa Major, the bear, ties the birth of Merlin to the future birth of Arthur, whose Welsh name ("Artos" or "Artur") means "bear." Morydd is another possible ancestor of Merlin's. In Welsh names "dd" is pronounced "th."
I was born in Gwynedd, or not born, as some men claim, and the Zephyr of Caer Myrrdin gave me my name.
My father was Madog Morfeyn but our eyes were never the same, nor our skin, nor our hair; for his were dark, dark ―as our people's are― and mine were fairer than fair.
The night of my birth, the Zephyr carved of white stone a rune; and the ringed stars of Ursa Major outshone the cool pale moon; and my grandfather, Morydd, the seer saw wheeling, a-gyre in the sky, a falcon with terrible yellow-gold eyes when falcons never fly.
Merlyn's First Prophecy by Michael R. Burch
Vortigern commanded a tower to be built upon Snowden, but the earth would churn and within an hour its walls would cave in.
Then his druid said only the virginal blood of a fatherless son, recently shed, would ever hold the foundation.
"There is, in Caer Myrrdin, a faery lad, a son with no father; his name is Merlyn, and with his blood you would have your tower."
So Vortigern had them bring the boy, the child of the demon, and, taciturn and without joy, looked out over Snowden.
"To kill a child brings little praise, but many tears." Then the mountain slopes rang with the brays of Merlyn's jeers.
"Pure poppycock! You fumble and bumble and heed a fool. At the base of the rock the foundations crumble into a pool! "
When they drained the pool, two dragons arose, one white and one red, and since the old druid was blowing his nose, young Merlyn said:
"Vortigern is the white, Ambrosius the red; now, watch, indeed." Then the former died as the latter fed and Vortigern peed.
Published by Celtic Twilight
It Is Not the Sword! by Michael R. Burch
This poem illustrates the strong correlation between the names that appear in Welsh and Irish mythology. Much of this lore predates the Arthurian legends, and was assimilated as Arthur's fame (and hyperbole)grew. Caladbolg is the name of a mythical Irish sword, while Caladvwlch is its Welsh equivalent. Caliburn and Excalibur are later variants.
"It is not the sword, but the man, " said Merlyn. But the people demanded a sign― the sword of Macsen Wledig, Caladbolg, the "lightning-shard."
"It is not the sword, but the words men follow." Still, he set it in the stone ―Caladvwlch, the sword of kings― and many a man did strive, and swore, and many a man did moan.
But none could budge it from the stone.
"It is not the sword or the strength, " said Merlyn, "that makes a man a king, but the truth and the conviction that ring in his iron word."
"It is NOT the sword! " cried Merlyn, crowd-jostled, marveling as Arthur drew forth Caliburn with never a gasp, with never a word,
and so became their king.
Uther's Last Battle by Michael R. Burch
When Uther, the High King, unable to walk, borne upon a litter went to fight Colgrim, the Saxon King, his legs were weak, and his visage bitter. "Where is Merlyn, the sage? For today I truly feel my age."
All day long the battle raged and the dragon banner was sorely pressed, but the courage of Uther never waned till the sun hung low upon the west. "Oh, where is Merlyn to speak my doom, for truly I feel the chill of the tomb."
Then, with the battle almost lost and the king besieged on every side, a prince appeared, clad all in white, and threw himself against the tide. "Oh, where is Merlyn, who stole my son? For, truly, now my life is done."
Then Merlyn came unto the king as the Saxons fled before a sword that flashed like lightning in the hand of a prince that day become a lord. "Oh, Merlyn, speak not, for I see my son has truly come to me.
And today I need no prophecy to see how bright his days will be." So Uther, then, the valiant king met his son, and kissed him twice― the one, the first, the one, the last― and smiled, and then his time was past.
Small Tales by Michael R. Burch
According to legend, Arthur and Kay grew up together in Ector's court, Kay being a few years older than Arthur. Borrowing from Mary Stewart, I am assuming that Bedwyr (later Anglicized to Bedivere)might have befriended Arthur at an early age. By some accounts, Bedwyr was the original Lancelot. In any case, imagine the adventures these young heroes might have pursued (or dreamed up, to excuse tardiness or "lost" homework assignments). Manawydan and Llyr were ancient Welsh gods. Cath Pulag was a monstrous, clawing cat. ("Sorry teach! My theme paper on Homer was torn up by a cat bigger than a dragon! And meaner, too! ")Pen Palach is more or less a mystery, or perhaps just another old drinking buddy with a few good beery-bleary tales of his own. This poem assumes that many of the more outlandish Arthurian legends began more or less as "small tales, " little white lies which simply got larger and larger with each retelling. It also assumes that most of these tales came about just as the lads reached that age when boys fancy themselves men, and spend most of their free time drinking and puking...
When Artur and Cai and Bedwyr were but scrawny lads they had many a boozy adventure in the still glades of Gwynedd. When the sun beat down like an oven upon the kiln-hot hills and the scorched shores of Carmarthen, they went searching and found Manawydan, the son of Llyr. They fought a day and a night with Cath Pulag (or a screeching kitten), rousted Pen Palach, then drank a beer and told quite a talltale or two, till thems wasn't so shore which'un's tails wus true.
And these have been passed down to me, and to you.
The Song of Amergin by Michael R. Burch
Amergin is, in the words of Morgan Llywelyn, "the oldest known western European poet." Robert Graves said: "English poetic education should, really, begin not with The Canterbury Tales, not with the Odyssey, not even with Genesis, but with the Song of Amergin." Amergin was one of the Milesians, or sons of Mil: Gaels who invaded Ireland and defeated the mysterious Tuatha De Danann, thereby establishing a Celtic beachhead, not only on the shores of the Emerald Isle, but also in the annals of Time and Poetry.
He was our first bard and we feel in his dim-remembered words the moment when Time blurs...
and he and the Sons of Mil heave oars as the breakers mill till at last Ierne―green, brooding―nears,
while Some implore seas cold, fell, dark to climb and swamp their flimsy bark ... and Time here also spumes, careers...
while the Ban Shee shriek in awed dismay to see him still the sea, this day, then seek the dolmen and the gloam.
Stonehenge by Michael R. Burch
Here where the wind imbues life within stone, I once stood and watched as the tempest made monuments groan as though blood boiled within them.
Here where the Druids stood charting the stars I can tell they longed for the heavens... perhaps because hell boiled beneath them?
The Celtic Cross at Île Grosse by Michael R. Burch
"I actually visited the island and walked across those mass graves of 30, 000 Irish men, women and children, and I played a little tune on me whistle. I found it very peaceful, and there was relief there." - Paddy Maloney of The Chieftans
There was relief there, and release, on Île Grosse in the spreading gorse and the cry of the wild geese...
There was relief there, without remorse when the tin whistle lifted its voice in a tune of artless grief, piping achingly high and longingly of an island veiled in myth. And the Celtic cross that stands here tells us, not of their grief, but of their faith and belief― like the last soft breath of evening lifting a fallen leaf.
When ravenous famine set all her demons loose, driving men to the seas like lemmings, they sought here the clemency of a better life, or death, and their belief in God gave them hope, a sense of peace.
These were proud men with only their lives to owe, who sought the liberation of a strange new land. Now they lie here, ragged row on ragged row, with only the shadows of their loved ones close at hand.
And each cross, their ancient burden and their glory, reflects the death of sunlight on their story.
And their tale is sad―but, O, their faith was grand!
At Cædmon's Grave by Michael R. Burch
"Cædmon's Hymn, " composed at the Monastery of Whitby (a North Yorkshire fishing village), is one of the oldest known poems written in the English language, dating back to around 680 A.D. According to legend, Cædmon, an illiterate Anglo-Saxon cowherd, received the gift of poetic composition from an angel; he subsequently founded a school of Christian poets. Unfortunately, only nine lines of Cædmon's verse survive, in the writings of the Venerable Bede. Whitby, tiny as it is, reappears later in the history of English literature, having been visited, in diametric contrast, by Lewis Carroll and Bram Stoker's ghoulish yet evocative Dracula.
At the monastery of Whitby, on a day when the sun sank through the sea, and the gulls shrieked wildly, jubilant, free,
while the wind and time blew all around, I paced those dusk-enamored grounds and thought I heard the steps resound
of Carroll, Stoker and of Bede who walked there, too, their spirits freed ―perhaps by God, perhaps by need―
to write, and with each line, remember the glorious light of Cædmon's ember, scorched tongues of flame words still engender.
Here, as darkness falls, at last we meet. I lay this pale garland of words at his feet.
Originally published by The Lyric
Ibykos Fragment 286, Circa 564 B.C. loose translation by Michael R. Burch
Come spring, the grand apple trees stand watered by a gushing river where the maidens’ uncut flowers shiver and the blossoming grape vine swells in the gathering shadows.
Unfortunately for me Eros never rests but like a Thracian tempest ablaze with lightning emanates from Aphrodite;
the results are frightening― black, bleak, astonishing, violently jolting me from my soles to my soul.
Originally published by The Chained Muse
Peace Prayer by Michael R. Burch
for Jim Dunlap
Be calm. Be still. Be silent, content.
Be one with the buffalo cropping the grass to a safer height.
Seek the composure of the great depths, barely moved by exterior storms.
Lift your face to the dawning light; feel how it warms.
And be calm. Be still. Be silent, content.
Published by Hibiscus (India), Ethos Literary Journal and Mad Hatter
Fairest Diana by Michael R. Burch
Fairest Diana, princess of dreams, born to be loved and yet distant and lone, why did you linger―so solemn, so lovely―
an orchid ablaze in a crevice of stone?
Was not your heart meant for tenderest passions? Surely your lips―for wild kisses, not vows! Why then did you languish, though lustrous, becoming a pearl of enchantment cast before sows?
Fairest Diana, as fragile as lilac, as willful as rainfall, as true as the rose; how did a stanza of silver-bright verse come to be bound in a book of dull prose?
Published by Tucumcari Literary Journal and Night Roses
Will There Be Starlight for Princess Diana byMichael 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?
She Was Very Strange, and Beautiful for Princess Diana byMichael R. Burch
She was very strange, and beautiful, like a violet mist enshrouding hills before night falls when the hoot owl calls and the cricket trills and the envapored moon hangs low and full.
She was very strange, in a pleasant way, as the hummingbird flies madly still, so I drank my fill of her every word. What she knew of love, she demurred to say.
She was meant to leave, as the wind must blow, as the sun must set, as the rain must fall. Though she gave her all, we had nothing left . . . yet we smiled, bereft, in her receding glow.
The Peripheries of Love for Princess Diana byMichael R. Burch
Through waning afternoons we glide the watery peripheries of love. A silence, a quietude falls.
Above us―the sagging pavilions of clouds.
Below us―rough pebbles slowly worn smooth
grate in the gentle turbulence of yesterday’s forgotten rains.
Later, the moon like a virgin lifts her stricken white face and the waters rise toward some unfathomable shore.
We sway gently in the wake of what stirs beneath us, yet leaves us unmoved ... curiously motionless,
as though twilight might blur the effects of proximity and distance, as though love might be near―
as near as a single cupped tear of resilient dew or a long-awaited face.
The Aery Faery Princess for Princess Diana byMichael R. Burch
There once was a princess lighter than fluff made of such gossamer stuff― the down of a thistle, butterflies’ wings, the faintest high note the hummingbird sings, moonbeams on garlands, stands of bright hair ... I think she’s just you when you’re floating on air.
I Pray Tonight for Princess Diana byMichael R. Burch
I pray tonight the starry light might surround you.
I pray by day that, come what may, no dark thing confound you.
I pray ere tomorrow an end to your sorrow. May angels' white chorales sing, and astound you.
Sweet Rose of Virtue by William Dunbar [1460-1525] loose translation byMichael R. Burch
Sweet rose of virtue and of gentleness, delightful lily of youthful wantonness, richest in bounty and in beauty clear and in every virtue that is held most dear― except only that death is merciless.
Into your garden, today, I followed you; there I saw flowers of freshest hue, both white and red, delightful to see, and wholesome herbs, waving resplendently― yet everywhere, no odor but rue.
I fear that March with his last arctic blast has slain my fair rose of pallid and gentle cast, whose piteous death does my heart such pain that, if I could, I would compose her roots again― so comforting her bowering leaves have been.
Hearthside by Michael R. Burch
“When you are old and grey and full of sleep...”―W. B. Yeats
For all that we professed of love, we knew this night would come, that we would bend alone to tend wan fires’ dimming bars―the moan of wind cruel as the Trumpet, gelid dew an eerie presence on encrusted logs we hoard like jewels, embrittled so ourselves.
The books that line these close, familiar shelves loom down like dreary chaperones. Wild dogs, too old for mates, cringe furtive in the park, as, toothless now, I frame this parchment kiss.
I do not know the words for easy bliss and so my shriveled fingers clutch this stark, long-unenamored pen and will it: Move. I loved you more than words, so let words prove.
This sonnet is written from the perspective of the great Irish poet William Butler Yeats in his loose translation or interpretation of the Pierre de Ronsard sonnet “When You Are Old.” The aging Yeats thinks of his Muse and the love of his life, the fiery Irish revolutionary Maude Gonne. As he seeks to warm himself by a fire conjured from ice-encrusted logs, he imagines her doing the same. Although Yeats had insisted that he wasn’t happy without Gonne, she said otherwise: “Oh yes, you are, because you make beautiful poetry out of what you call your unhappiness and are happy in that. Marriage would be such a dull affair. Poets should never marry. The world should thank me for not marrying you!”
Autumn Conundrum by Michael R. Burch
It’s not that every leaf must finally fall, it’s just that we can never catch them all.
Piercing the Shell by Michael R. Burch
If we strip away all the accouterments of war, perhaps we’ll discover what the heart is for.
Currents by Michael R. Burch
How can I write and not be true to the rhythm that wells within? How can the ocean not be blue, not buck with the clapboard slap of tide, the clockwork shock of wave on rock, the motion creation stirs within?
Originally published by The Lyric
Premonition by Michael R. Burch
Now the evening has come to a close and the party is over ... we stand in the doorway and watch as they go― each stranger, each acquaintance, each unembraceable lover.
They walk to their cars and they laugh as they go, though we know their forced laughter’s the wine ... then they pause at the road where the dark asphalt flows endlessly on toward Zion ...
and they kiss one another as though they were friends, and they promise to meet again “soon” ... but the rivers of Jordan roll on without end, and the mockingbird calls to the moon ...
and the katydids climb up the cropped hanging vines, and the crickets chirp on out of tune ... and their shadows, defined by the cryptic starlight, seem spirits torn loose from their tombs.
And I know their brief lives are just eddies in time, that their hearts are unreadable runes to be wiped clean, like slate, by the Eraser, Fate, when their corpses lie ravaged and ruined ...
You take my clenched fist and you give it a kiss as though it were something you loved, and the tears fill your eyes, brimming with the soft light of the stars winking sagely above ...
Then you whisper, "It's time that we went back inside; if you'd like, we can sit and just talk for a while." And the hope in your eyes burns too deep, so I lie and I say, "Yes, I would," to your small, troubled smile.
I rather vividly remember writing this poem after an office party the year I co-oped with AT&T (at that time the largest company in the world, with presumably a lot of office parties). This would have been after my sophomore year in college, making me around 20 years old. The poem is “true” except that I was not the host because the party was at the house of one of the upper-level managers. Nor was I dating anyone seriously at the time.
Resurrecting Passion by Michael R. Burch
Last night, while dawn was far away and rain streaked gray, tumescent skies, as thunder boomed and lightning railed, I conjured words, where passion failed ...
But, oh, that you were mine tonight, sprawled in this bed, held in these arms, your breasts pale baubles in my hands, our bodies bent to old demands ...
Such passions we might resurrect, if only time and distance waned and brought us back together; now I pray that this might be, somehow.
But time has left us twisted, torn, and we are more apart than miles. How have you come to be so far― as distant as an unseen star?
So that, while dawn is far away, my thoughts might not return to you, I feed your portrait to the flames, but as they feast, I burn for you.
Marina Tsvetaeva: Modern English Translations
Marina Tsvetaeva (1892-1941) ranks among the greatest Russian poets of all time. Along with Anna Akhmatova, Boris Pasternak and Osip Mandelstam, she was one of the four great poets who kept their humanity and integrity through Russia's "terrible years." Pasternak praised her "golden, incomparable genius."
I Know The Truth
by Marina Tsvetaeva loose translation by Michael R. Burch
I know the truth―abandon lesser truths!
There's no need for anyone living to struggle! See? Evening falls, night quickly descends! So why the useless disputes―generals, poets, lovers?
The wind is calming now; the earth is bathed in dew; the stars' infernos will soon freeze in the heavens. And soon we'll sleep together, under the earth, we who never gave each other a moment's rest above it.
I Know The Truth (Alternate Ending) by Marina Tsvetaeva loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
I know the truth―abandon lesser truths!
There's no need for anyone living to struggle! See? Evening falls, night quickly descends! So why the useless disputes―generals, poets, lovers?
The wind caresses the grasses; the earth gleams, damp with dew; the stars' infernos will soon freeze in the heavens. And soon we'll lie together under the earth, we who were never united above it.
Poems about Moscow by Marina Tsvetaeva loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
5 Above the city Saint Peter once remanded to hell now rolls the delirious thunder of the bells.
As the thundering high tide eventually reverses, so, too, the woman who once bore your curses.
To you, O Great Peter, and you, O Great Tsar, I kneel! And yet the bells above me continually peal.
And while they keep ringing out of the pure blue sky, Moscow's eminence is something I can't deny ...
though sixteen hundred churches, nearby and afar, all gaily laugh at the hubris of the Tsars.
8 Moscow, what a vast uncouth hostel of a home! In Russia all are homeless so all to you must come.
A knife stuck in each boot-top, each back with its shameful brand, we heard you from far away. You called us: here we stand.
Because you branded us criminals for every known kind of ill, we seek the all-compassionate Saint, the haloed one who heals.
And there behind that narrow door where the uncouth rabble pour, we seek the red-gold radiant heart of Iver, who loved the poor.
Now, as "Halleluiah" floods bright fields that blaze to the west, O sacred Russian soil, I kneel here to kiss your breast!
Insomnia by Marina Tsvetaeva loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
2 In my enormous city it is night as from my house I step beyond the light; some people think I'm daughter, mistress, wife ... but I am like the blackest thought of night.
July's wind sweeps a way for me to stray toward soft music faintly blowing, somewhere. The wind may blow until bright dawn, new day, but will my heart in its rib-cage really care?
Black poplars brushing windows filled with light ... strange leaves in hand ... faint music from distant towers ... retracing my steps, there's nobody lagging behind ... This shadow called me? There's nobody here to find.
The lights are like golden beads on invisible threads ... the taste of dark night in my mouth is a bitter leaf ... O, free me from shackles of being myself by day! Friends, please understand: I'm only a dreamlike belief.
Poems for Akhmatova by Marina Tsvetaeva loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
4 You outshine everything, even the sun at its zenith. The stars are yours! If only I could sweep like the wind through some unbarred door, gratefully, to where you are ...
to hesitantly stammer, suddenly shy, lowering my eyes before you, my lovely mistress, petulant, chastened, overcome by tears, as a child sobs to receive forgiveness ...
This gypsy passion of parting! by Marina Tsvetaeva loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
This gypsy passion of parting! We meet, and are ready for flight! I rest my dazed head in my hands, and think, staring into the night ...
that no one, perusing our letters, will ever understand the real depth of just how sacrilegious we were, which is to say we had faith,
in ourselves.
The Appointment by Marina Tsvetaeva loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
I will be late for the appointed meeting. When I arrive, my hair will be gray, because I abused spring. And your expectations were much too high!
I shall feel the effects of the bitter mercury for years. (Ophelia tasted, but didn't spit out, the rue.) I will trudge across mountains and deserts, trampling souls and hands without flinching,
living on, as the earth continues with blood in every thicket and creek. But always Ophelia's pallid face will peer out from between the grasses bordering each stream.
She took a swig of passion, only to fill her mouth with silt. Like a shaft of light on metal, I set my sights on you, highly. Much too high in the sky, where I have appointed my dust its burial.
Rails by Marina Tsvetaeva loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
The railway bed's steel-blue parallel tracks are ruled out, neatly as musical staves.
Over them, people are transported like possessed Pushkin creatures whose song has been silenced. See them: arriving, departing?
And yet they still linger, the note of their pain remaining ... always rising higher than love, as the poles freeze to the embankment, like Lot's wife transformed to salt, forever.
Despair has arranged my fate as someone arranges a wedding; then, like a voiceless Sappho I must weep like a pain-wracked seamstress
with the mute lament of a marsh heron! Then the departing train will hoot above the sleepers as its wheels slice them to ribbons.
In my eye the colors blur to a glowing but meaningless red. All young women, at times, are tempted by such a bed!
Every Poem is a Child of Love by Marina Tsvetaeva loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Every poem is a child of love, A destitute b*****d chick A fledgling blown down from the heights above― Left of its nest? Not a stick. Each heart has its gulf and its bridge. Each heart has its blessings and griefs. Who is the father? A liege? Maybe a liege, or a thief.
What works― hewn stone; the blush the iris shows the sun; the lilac’s pale-remembered bloom.
The frenzied fly: mad-lively, gay, as seconds tick his time away, his sentence―one brief day in May,
a period. And then decay.
A frenzied rhyme’s mad tip-toed time, a ballad’s languid as the sea, seek, striving―immortality.
When gloss peels off, what works will shine. When polish fades, what works will gleam. When intellectual prattle pales, the dying buzzing in the hive of tedious incessant bees, what works will soar and wheel and dive and milk all honey, leap and thrive,
WHY SHULD I LERN TO SPELL? HELL, NO ONE REEDS WHAT I SAY ANYWAY!!! :(
Sing for the cool night, whispers of constellations. Sing for the supple grass, the tall grass, gently whispering. Sing of infinities, multitudes, of all that lies beyond us now, whispers begetting whispers. And i am glad to also whisper . . .
I WUS HURT IN LUV I’M DYIN’ FER TH’ TEARS I BEEN A-CRYIN’!!!
i abide beyond serenities and realms of grace, above love’s misdirected earth, i lift my face. i am beyond finding now . . .
I WAS IN, LOVE, AND HE SCREWED ME!!! THE JERK!!! TOTALLY!!!
i loved her once, before, when i was mortal too, and sometimes i would listen and distinctly hear her laughter from the juniper, but did not go . . .
I JUST DON’T GET POETRY, SOMETIMES. IT’S OKAY, I GUESS. I REALLY DON’T READ THAT MUCH AT ALL, I MUST CONFESS!!! ;-)
Travail, inherent to all flesh, i do not know, nor how to feel. Although i sing them nighttimes still: the bitter woes, that do not heal . . .
POETRY IS BORING. SEE, IT SUCKS!!!, I’M SNORING!!! ZZZZZZZ!!!
The words like breath, i find them here, among the fragrant juniper, and conifers amid the snow, old loves imagined long ago . . .
WHY DON’T YOU LIKE MY PERFICKT WORDS YOU USELESS UN-AMERIC’N TURDS?!!!
What use is love, to me, or Thou? O Words, my awe, to fly so smooth above the anguished hearts of men to heights unknown, Thy bare remove . . .
Finally to Burn (the Fall and Resurrection of Icarus) by Michael R. Burch
Athena takes me sometimes by the hand
and we go levitating through strange Dreamlands
where Apollo sleeps in his dark forgetting
and Passion seems like a wise bloodletting
and all I remember ,upon awaking,
is: to Love sometimes is like forsaking
one’s Being―to glide
heroically beyond thought,
forsaking the here for the There and the Not.
*
O, finally to Burn, gravity beyond escaping!
To plummet is Bliss when the blisters breaking
rain down red scabs on the earth’s mudpuddle ...
Feathers and wax and the watchers huddle ...
Flocculent sheep, O, and innocent lambs!,
I will rock me to sleep on the waves’ iambs.
*
To sleep's sweet relief from Love’s exhausting Dream,
for the Night has Wings gentler than moonbeams―
they will flit me to Life like a huge-eyed Phoenix
fluttering off to quarry the Sphinx.
*
Riddlemethis, riddlemethat,
Rynosseross, throw out the Welcome Mat.
Quixotic, I seek Love amid the tarnished
rusted-out steel when to live is varnish.
To Dream―that’s the thing!
Aye, that Genie I’ll rub,
soak by the candle, aflame in the tub.
*
Riddlemethis, riddlemethat,
Rynosseross, throw out the Welcome Mat.
Somewhither, somewhither aglitter and strange,
we must moult off all knowledge or perish caged.
*
I am reconciled to Life somewhere beyond thought―
I’ll Live the Elsewhere, I’ll Dream of the Naught.
Methinks it no journey; to tarry’s a waste,
so fatten the oxen; make a nice baste.
I’m coming, Fool Tom, we have Somewhere to Go,
though we injure noone, ourselves wildaglow.
Published by The Lyric and The Ekphrastic Review
Talent
by Michael R. Burch
for Kevin Nicholas Roberts
I liked the first passage
of her poem―where it led
(though not nearly enough
to retract what I said.)
Now the book propped up here
flutters, scarcely half read.
It will keep.
Before sleep,
let me read yours instead.
There's something like love
in the rhythms of night
―in the throb of streets
where the late workers drone,
in the sounds that attend
each day’s sad, squalid end―
that reminds us: till death
we are never alone.
So we write from the hearts
that will fail us anon,
words in red
truly bled
though they cannot reveal
whence they came,
who they're for.
And the tap at the door
goes unanswered. We write,
for there is nothing more
than a verse,
than a song,
than this chant of the blessed:
"If these words
be my sins,
let me die unconfessed!
Unconfessed, unrepentant;
I rescind all my vows!"
Write till sleep:
it’s the leap
only Talent allows.
hymn to Apollo
by Michael R. Burch
something of sunshine attracted my i
as it lazed on the afternoon sky,
golden,
splashed on the easel of god . . .
what,
i thought,
could this airy stuff be,
to, phantomlike,
flit through tall trees
on fall days, such as these?
and the breeze
whispered a dirge
to the vanishing light;
enchoired with the evening, it sang;
its voice
enchantedly
rang
chanting “Night!” . . .
till all the bright light
retired,
expired.
This poem appeared in my high school literary journal; I believe I was around 16 when I wrote it.
Poetry by Michael R. Burch
Poetry, I found you where at last they chained and bound you; with devices all around you to torture and confound you, I found you―shivering, bare.
They had shorn your raven hair and taken both your eyes which, once cerulean as Gogh’s skies, had leapt with dawn to wild surmise of what was waiting there.
Your back was bent with untold care; there savage brands had left cruel scars as though the wounds of countless wars; your bones were broken with the force with which they’d lashed your flesh so fair.
You once were loveliest of all. So many nights you held in thrall a scrawny lad who heard your call from where dawn’s milling showers fall― pale meteors through sapphire air.
I learned the eagerness of youth to temper for a lover’s touch; I felt you, tremulant, reprove each time I fumbled over-much. Your merest word became my prayer.
You took me gently by the hand and led my steps from boy to man; now I look back, remember when―you shone, and cannot understand
why here, tonight, you bear their brand.
I will take and cradle you in my arms, remindful of the gentle charms you showed me once, of yore; and I will lead you from your cell tonight―back into that incandescent light
which flows out of the core of a sun whose robes you wore. And I will wash your feet with tears for all those blissful years . . . my love, whom I adore.
Originally published by The Lyric
Lines for My Ascension by Michael R. Burch
I.
If I should die, there will come a Doom, and the sky will darken to the deepest Gloom.
But if my body should not be found, never think of me in the cold ground.
II.
If I should die, let no mortal say, “Here was a man, with feet of clay,
or a timid sparrow God’s hand let fall.” But watch the sky darken to an eerie pall
and know that my Spirit, unvanquished, broods, and cares naught for graves, prayers, coffins, or roods.
And if my body should not be found, never think of me in the cold ground.
III.
If I should die, let no man adore his incompetent Maker: Zeus, Jehovah, or Thor.
Think of Me as One who never died― the unvanquished Immortal with the unriven side.
And if my body should not be found, never think of me in the cold ground.
IV.
And if I should “die,” though the clouds grow dark as fierce lightnings rend this bleak asteroid, stark ...
If you look above, you will see a bright Sign― the sun with the moon in its arms, Divine.
So divine, if you can, my bright meaning, and know― my Spirit is mine. I will go where I go.
And if my body should not be found, never think of me in the cold ground.
Published as the collection "The Lingering and the Unconsoled Heart"
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