The HyperTexts
Free Verse
by Michael R. Burch
What is free verse, exactly? Socrates would advise us to define the term "free
verse" before using it! I like the original French term vers libre
("liberated verse"). Some of my free verse poems rhyme, some don't. Some are
more metrical/musical than others. What these poems share is being "liberated"
from rules and being able to do pretty much do as they please.
These are free verse poems (is that redundant?) that start with the first non-rhyming poem that I wrote as a teenager ...
For prose poems and experimental poetry by Michael R. Burch, please click here:
Prose Poems and Experimental
Verse by Michael R. Burch
Something
―for the children of the Holocaust and the Nakba
by Michael R. Burch
Something inescapable is lost—
lost like a pale vapor curling up into shafts of moonlight,
vanishing in a gust of wind toward an expanse of stars
immeasurable and void.
Something uncapturable is gone—
gone with the spent leaves and illuminations of autumn,
scattered into a haze with the faint rustle of parched grass
and remembrance.
Something unforgettable is past—
blown from a glimmer into nothingness, or less,
which finality swept into a corner, where it lies
in dust and cobwebs and silence.
This was my first poem that didn't rhyme, written in
my late teens. The poem came to me "from
blue nothing" (to borrow a phrase from my friend the Maltese poet Joe Ruggier). Years later, I dedicated
the poem to the children of the Holocaust and the Nakba.
don’t forget ...
by Michael R. Burch
for Beth
don’t forget to remember
that Space is curved
(like your Heart)
and that even Light is bent
by your Gravity.
I dedicated this poem to the love of my life, but you are welcome to dedicate it
to the love of yours, if you like it. The opening lines were
inspired by a famous love poem by e. e. cummings. I went through a
"cummings phase" around age 15 and wrote a number of poems "under the
influence."
Lady’s Favor
by Michael R. Burch
May
spring
fling
her riotous petals
devil-
may-care
into the air,
ignoring the lethal
nettles
and may
May
cry gleeful-
ly Hooray!
as the abundance
settles,
till a sudden June
swoon
leave us out of tune,
torn,
when the last rose is left
inconsolably bereft,
rudely shorn
of every device but her thorn.
Southern Icarus
by Michael R. Burch
Windborne, lover of heights,
unspooled from the truck’s wildly lurching embrace,
you climb, skittish kite . . .
What do you know of the world’s despair,
gliding in vast
solitariness there,
so that all that remains is to
fall?
Only a little longer the wind invests its sighs;
you
stall,
spread-eagled, as the canvas snaps
and flaps
its white rebellious wings,
and all
the houses watch with baffled eyes.
brrExit
by Michael R. Burch
what would u give
to simply not exist—
for a painless exit?
he asked himself, uncertain.
then from behind
the hospital room curtain
a patient screamed—
"my life!"
The Shrinking Season
by Michael R. Burch
With every wearying year
the weight of the winter grows
and while the schoolgirl outgrows
her clothes,
the widow disappears
in hers.
Sometimes the Dead
by Michael R. Burch
Sometimes we catch them out of the corners of our eyes—
the pale dead.
After they have fled
the gourds of their bodies, like escaping fragrances they rise.
Once they have become a cloud’s mist, sometimes like the rain
they descend;
they appear, sometimes silver like laughter,
to gladden the hearts of men.
Sometimes like a pale gray fog, they drift
unencumbered, yet lumbrously,
as if over the sea
there was the lightest vapor even Atlas could not lift.
Sometimes they haunt our dreams like forgotten melodies
only half-remembered.
Though they lie dismembered
in black catacombs, sepulchers and dismal graves; although they have committed
felonies,
yet they are us. Someday soon we will meet them in the graveyard dust
blood-engorged, but never sated
since Cain slew Abel.
But until we become them, let us steadfastly forget them, even as we know our
children must ...
Fascination with Light
by Michael R. Burch
Desire glides in on calico wings,
a breath of a moth
seeking a companionable light,
where it hovers, unsure,
sullen, shy or demure,
in the margins of night,
a soft blur.
With a frantic dry rattle
of alien wings,
it rises and thrums one long breathless staccato
and flutters and drifts on in dark aimless flight.
And yet it returns
to the flame, its delight,
as long as it burns.
Progress
by Michael R. Burch
There is no sense of urgency
at the local Burger King.
Birds and squirrels squabble outside
for the last scraps of autumn:
remnants of buns,
goopy pulps of dill pickles,
mucousy lettuce,
sesame seeds.
Inside, the workers all move
with the same très-glamorous lethargy,
conserving their energy, one assumes,
for more pressing endeavors: concerts and proms,
pep rallies, keg parties,
reruns of Jenny McCarthy on MTV.
The manager, as usual, is on the phone,
talking to her boyfriend.
She gently smiles,
brushing back wisps of insouciant hair,
ready for the cover of Glamour or Vogue.
Through her filmy white blouse
an indiscreet strap
suspends a lace cup
through which somehow the nipple still shows.
Progress, we guess, ...
and wait patiently in line,
hoping the Pokémons hold out.
grave request
by Michael R. Burch
come to ur doom
in Tombstone;
the stars stark and chill
over Boot Hill
care nothing for ur desire;
still,
imagine they wish u no ill,
that u burn with the same antique fire;
for there’s nothing to life but the thrill
of living until u expire;
so come, spend ur last hardearned bill
on Tombstone.
briefling
by Michael R. Burch
manishatched,hopsintotheMix,
cavorts,hassex(quick!,spawnanewBrood!);
then,likeamayfly,he’ssuddenlygone:
plantfood
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!
Starting from Scratch with Ol’ Scratch
by Michael R. Burch
for the Religious Right
Love, with a small, fatalistic sigh
went to the ovens. Please don’t bother to cry.
You could have saved her, but you were all tied up
complaining about the Jews to Reichmeister Grupp.
Scratch that. You were born after World War II.
You had something more important to do:
while the children of the Nakba were perishing in Gaza
with the complicity of your government, you had a noble cause (a
religious tract against homosexual marriage
and various things gods and evangelists disparage.)
Jesus will grok you? Ah, yes, I’m quite sure
that your intentions were good and ineluctably pure.
After all, what the hell does he care about Palestinians?
Certainly, Christians were right about serfs, slaves and Indians.
Scratch that. You’re one of the Devil’s minions.
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.
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.
Veiled
by Michael R. Burch
She has belief
without comprehension
and in her crutchwork shack
she is
much like us . . .
tamping the bread
into edible forms,
regarding her children
at play
with something akin to relief . . .
ignoring the towers ablaze
in the distance
because they are not revelations
but things of glass,
easily shattered . . .
and if you were to ask her,
she might say—
sometimes God visits his wrath
upon an impious nation
for its leaders’ sins,
and we might agree:
seeing her mutilations.
Lucifer, to the Enola Gay
by Michael R. Burch
Go then,
and give them my meaning
so that their teeming
streets
become my city.
Bring back a pretty
flower—
a chrysanthemum,
perhaps, to bloom
if but an hour,
within a certain room
of mine
where
the sun does not rise or fall,
and the moon,
although it is content to shine,
helps nothing at all.
There,
if I hear the wistful call
of their voices
regretting choices
made
or perhaps not made
in time,
I can look back upon it and recall,
in all
its pale forms sublime,
still
Death will never be holy again.
escape!
by michael r. burch
for anaïs vionet
to live among the daffodil folk . . .
slip down the rainslickened drainpipe . . .
suddenly pop out
the GARGANTUAN SPOUT . . .
minuscule as alice, shout
yippee-yi-yee!
in wee exultant glee
to be leaving behind the
LARGE
THREE-DENALI GARAGE.
Escape!!
by Michael R. Burch
You are too beautiful,
too innocent,
too inherently lovely
to merely reflect the sun’s splendor ...
too full of irresistible candor
to remain silent,
too delicately fawnlike
for a world so violent ...
Come, my beautiful Bambi
and I will protect you ...
but of course you have already been lured away
by the dew-laden roses ...
Loose Knit
by Michael R. Burch
She blesses the needle,
fetches fine red stitches,
criss-crossing, embroidering dreams
in the delicate fabric.
And if her hand jerks and twitches in puppet-like fits,
she tells herself
reality is not as threadbare as it seems ...
that a little more darning may gather loose seams.
She weaves an unraveling tapestry
of fatigue and remorse and pain; ...
only the nervously pecking needle
pricks her to motion, again and again.
It’s Hard Not To Be Optimistic: An Updated Sonnet to Science
by Michael R. Burch
“DNA has cured deadly diseases and allowed
labs to create animals with fantastic new
features.” — U.S. News & World Report
It’s hard not to be optimistic
when things are so wondrously futuristic:
when DNA, our new Louie Pasteur,
can effect an autonomous, miraculous cure,
while labs churn out fluorescent monkeys
who, with infinite typewriters, might soon outdo USN&WR’s flunkeys.
It’s hard not to be optimistic
when the world is so delightfully pluralistic:
when Schrödinger’s cat is both dead and alive,
and Hawking says time can run backwards. We thrive,
befuddled drones, on someone else’s regurgitated nectar,
while our cheers drown out poet-alarmists who might Hector
the Achilles heel of pure science (common sense)
and reporters who tap out supersillyous nonsense.
NOTE: I am a fan of both real science and science fiction, and I like to
think I can tell the difference, at least between the two extremes. I feel confident that
Schrödinger didn’t think the cat in his famous experiment was both dead and
alive. Rather, he was pointing out that we can’t know until we open the
box, scratchings and smell aside. While traveling backwards in time is great for
science fiction, it seems extremely doubtful as a practical application. And as
for DNA curing deadly diseases ... well, it must have created them, so perhaps
don’t give it too much credit!
Submitted to U.S. News & World Report
Dear Editor,
While I’m usually a fan of your magazine, as a writer I must take to task the
Frankensteinian logic of the excerpt I cited, and I challenge you to publish
my “letter” as proof that poets do have a function in the third millennium, even
if it is only to suggest that paid writers should not create such outlandish,
freakish horrors of the English language.
Somewhat irked, but still a fan,
Michael R. Burch
The Octopi Jars
by Michael R. Burch
Long-vacant eyes
now lodged in clear glass,
a-swim with pale arms
as delicate as angels'...
you are beyond all hope
of salvage now...
and yet I would pause,
no fear!,
to once touch
your arcane beaks...
I, more alien than you
to this imprismed world,
notice, most of all,
the scratches on the inside surfaces
of your hermetic cells ...
and I remember documentaries
of albino Houdinis
slipping like wraiths
over the walls of shipboard aquariums,
slipping down decks'
brine-lubricated planks,
spilling jubilantly into the dark sea,
parachuting through clouds of pallid ammonia...
and I know now in life you were unlike me:
your imprisonment was never voluntary.
Published by Triplopia and The Poetic Musings of Sam Hudson
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.
Lozenge
by Michael R. Burch
When I was closest to love, it did not seem
real at all, but a thing of such tenuous sweetness
it might dissolve in my mouth
like a lozenge of sugar.
When I held you in my arms, I did not feel
our lack of completeness,
knowing how easy it was
for us to cling to each other.
And there were nights when the clouds
sped across the moon’s face,
exposing such rarified brightness
we did not witness
so much as embrace
love’s human appearance.
Poppy
by Michael R. Burch
“It is lonely to be born.” – Dannie Abse, “The Second Coming”
It is lonely to be born
between the intimate ears of corn . . .
the sunlit, flooded, shellshocked rows.
The scarecrow flutters, listens, knows . . .
Pale butterflies in staggering flight
ascend the gauntlet winds and light
before the scything harvester.
The winsome buds of cornflowers
prepare themselves to be airborne,
and it is lonely to be shorn,
decapitate, of eager life
so early in love’s blinding maze
of silks and tassels, goldened days
when life’s renewed, gone underground.
Sad confidante of worm and mound,
how little stands to be regained
of what is left.
A tiny cleft
now marks your birth, your reddening
among the amber waves. O, sing!
Another waits to be reborn
among bent thistle, down and thorn.
A hoofprint’s cleft, a ram’s curved horn
curled inward, turned against the heart,
a spoor like infamy. Depart.
You came too late, the signs are clear:
whose world this is, now watches, near.
There is no opiate for the heart.
Originally published by Borderless Journal
I’m afraid Donald Justice was a bit over-optimistic in his poem “Men at Forty” …
Men at Sixty
by Michael R. Burch
after Donald Justice's "Men at Forty"
Learn to gently close
doors to rooms
you can never re-enter.
Rest against the stair rail
as the solid steps
buck and buckle like ships’ decks.
Rediscover in mirrors
your father’s face
once warm with the mystery of lather,
now electrically plucked.
Syndrome
by Michael R. Burch
When the heart of a child,
fragile, like a flower, unfolds;
when his soul emerges from its last concealment,
nestled in the womb’s muscular whorls, its secret chambers;
when he kicks and screams,
flung from the watery darkness into the harsh light’s glare,
feeling its restive anger, its accusatory stare;
when he feels the heart his emergent heart remembers
fluttering against his cheek,
then falls into the lilac arms of heavy-lidded
sleep;
when he reopens his eyes to the bellows’ thunder
(which he has never heard before, save as a drowned echo)
and feels its wild surmise, and sees—with wonder
the tenderness in another’s eyes
reflecting his startled wonder back at him,
as his heart picks up the beat of his mother’s grieving hymn for the world’s
intolerable slander;
when he understands, with a babe’s discernment—
the breasts, the hands, that now, throughout the years,
will bless him with their comforts, console him with caresses,
the gentle eyes, which, with their knowing tears,
will weep him away from the world’s slick, writhing dangers
through all his restlessly-flowering years;
as his helplessly-frail fingers curl around the nose now leaning to catch his
powdery talcum scent ...
Remember—it is the world’s syndrome, its handicap, not his,
that will insulate assumers from the gentle pollinations of his loveliness,
from his gift of enchantment, from his all-encompassing acceptance,
from these angelic charms now tenderly lifting those earthlings who
gladly embrace him.
Published by the National Association for Down Syndrome
I believe I wrote this poem at our subdivision’s pool in 1998, while watching
a Down syndrome child with his lovely, loving mother.
Critical Mass
by Michael R. Burch
I have listened to the rain all this evening
and it has a certain gravity,
as if it knows its destination,
perhaps even its particular destiny.
I do not believe mine is to be uplifted,
although I, too, may be flung precipitously
and from a great height.
"Gravity" and "particular destiny" are puns, since rain droplets are seeded by
minute particles of dust adrift in the atmosphere and they fall due to gravity
when they reach "critical mass." The title is also a pun, since the poem is
skeptical about heaven-lauding Masses and other religious ceremonies.
Orpheus
by Michael R. Burch
after William Blake
I.
Many a sun
and many a moon
I walked the earth
and whistled a tune.
I did not whistle
as I worked:
the whistle was my work.
I shirked
nothing I saw
and made a rhyme
to children at play
and hard time.
II.
Among the prisoners
I saw
the leaden manacles
of Law,
the heavy ball and chain,
the quirt.
And yet I whistled
at my work.
III.
Among the children’s
daisy faces
and in the women’s
frowsy laces,
I saw redemption,
and I smiled.
Satanic millers,
unbeguiled,
were swayed by neither girl,
nor child,
nor any God of Love.
Yet mild
I whistled at my work,
and Song
broke out,
ere long.
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.
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.
Privilege
by Michael R. Burch
This poem is dedicated to Harvey Stanbrough, an ex-marine who was
nominated for the 1999 Pulitzer Prize and has written passionately and
eloquently about the horror and absurdity of war in Lessons for a Barren
Population.
No, I will never know
what you saw or what you felt,
thrust into the maw of Eternity,
watching the mortars nightly
greedily making their rounds,
hearing the soft damp hiss
of men’s souls like helium escaping
their collapsing torn bodies,
or lying alone, feeling the great roar
of your own heart.
But I know:
there is a bitter knowledge
of death I have not achieved.
Thus in thankful ignorance,
and especially for my son
and for all who benefit so easily
at so unthinkable a price,
I thank you.
East Devon Beacon
by Michael R. Burch
Evening darkens upon the moors,
Forgiveness—a hairless thing
skirting the headlamps, fugitive.
Why have we come,
traversing the long miles
and extremities of solitude,
worriedly crisscrossing the wrong maps
with directions
obtained from passing strangers?
Why do we sit,
frantically retracing
love’s long-forgotten signal points
with cramping, ink-stained fingers?
Why the preemptive frowns,
the litigious silences,
when only yesterday we watched
as, out of an autumn sky this vast,
over an orchard or an onion field,
wild Vs of distressed geese
sped across the moon’s face,
the sound of their panicked wings
like our alarmed hearts
pounding in unison?
Resemblance
by Michael R. Burch
Take this geode with its rough exterior—
crude-skinned, brilliant-hearted ...
a diode of amethyst—wild, electric;
its sequined cavity—parted, revealing.
Find in its fire all brittle passion,
each jagged shard relentlessly aching.
Each spire inward—a fission startled;
in its shattered entrails—fractured light,
the heart ice breaking.
Imperfect Sonnet
by Michael R. Burch
A word before the light is doused: the night
is something wriggling through an unclean mind,
as rats creep through a tenement. And loss
is written cheaply with the moon’s cracked gloss
like lipstick through the infinite, to show
love’s pale yet sordid imprint on us. Go.
We have not learned love yet, except to cleave.
I saw the moon rise once ... but to believe ...
was of another century ... and now ...
I have the urge to love, but not the strength.
Despair, once stretched out to its utmost length,
lies couched in squalor, watching as the screen
reveals “love’s” damaged images: its dreams ...
and masturbating limply, screams and screams.
These Hallowed Halls
by Michael R. Burch
a young Romantic Poet mourns the passing of an age . . .
I.
A final stereo fades into silence
and now there is seldom a murmur
to trouble the slumber
of these ancient halls.
I stand by a window where others have watched
the passage of time alone,
not untouched,
and I am as they were—
unsure,
and the days
stretch out ahead,
a bewildering maze.
II.
Ah, faithless lover—
that I had never touched your breast,
nor felt the stirrings of my heart,
which until that moment had peacefully slept.
For now I have known the exhilaration
of a heart that has leapt from the pinnacle of love,
and the result of every infatuation—
the long freefall to earth, as the moon glides above.
III.
A solitary clock chimes the hour
from far above the campus,
but my peers,
returning from their dances,
heed it not.
And so it is
that we seldom gauge Time’s speed
because He moves so unobtrusively
about His task.
Still, when at last
we reckon His mark upon our lives,
we may well be surprised
at His thoroughness.
IV.
Ungentle maiden—
when Time has etched His little lines
so carelessly across your brow,
perhaps I will love you less than now.
And when cruel Time has stolen
your youth, as He certainly shall in course,
perhaps you will wish you had taken me
along with my broken heart,
even as He will take you with yours.
V.
A measureless rhythm rules the night—
few have heard it,
but I have shared it,
and its secret is mine.
To put it into words
is as to extract the sweetness from honey
and must be done as gently
as a butterfly cleans its wings.
But when it is captured, it is gone again;
its usefulness is only
that it lulls to sleep.
VI.
So sleep, my love, to the cadence of night,
to the moans of the moonlit hills
that groan as I do, yet somehow sleep
through the nightjar’s cryptic trills.
But I will not sleep this night, nor any . . .
how can I, when my dreams
are always of your perfect face
ringed in whorls of fretted lace,
and a tear upon your pillowcase?
VII.
If I had been born when knights roamed the earth
and mad kings ruled strange lands,
I might have turned to the ministry,
to the solitude of a monastery.
But there are no monks or hermits today—
theirs is a lost occupation
carried on, if at all,
merely for sake of tradition.
For today man abhors solitude—
he craves companions, song and drink,
seldom seeking a quiet moment,
to sit alone by himself, to think.
VIII.
And so I cannot shut myself
off from the rest of the world,
to spend my days in philosophy
and my nights in tears of self-sympathy.
No, I must continue as best I can,
and learn to keep my thoughts away
from those glorious, uproarious moments of youth,
centuries past though lost but a day.
IX.
Yes, I must discipline myself
and adjust to these lackluster days
when men display no chivalry
and romance is the "old-fashioned" way.
X.
A single stereo flares into song
and the first faint light of morning
has pierced the sky's black awning
once again.
XI.
This is a sacred place,
for those who leave,
leave better than they came.
But those who stay, while they are here,
add, with their sleepless nights and tears,
quaint sprigs of ivy to the walls
of these hallowed halls.
Kindred (II)
by Michael R. Burch
Rise, pale disastrous moon!
What is love, but a heightened effect
of time, light and distance?
Did you burn once,
before you became
so remote, so detached,
so coldly, inhumanly lustrous,
before you were able to assume
the very pallor of love itself?
What is the dawn now, to you or to me?
We are as one,
out of favor with the sun.
We would exhume
the white corpse of love
for a last dance,
and yet we will not.
We will let her be,
let her abide,
for she is nothing now,
to you
or to me.
The Evolution of Love
by Michael R. Burch
Love among the infinitesimal
flotillas of amoebas is a dance
of transient appendages, wild sails
that gather in warm brine and then express
one headstream as two small, divergent wakes.
Minuscule voyage—love! Upon false feet,
the pseudopods of uprightness, we creep
toward self-immolation: two nee one.
We cannot photosynthesize the sun,
and so we love in darkness, till we come
at last to understand: man’s spineless heart
is alien to any land.
We part
to single cells; we rise on buoyant tears,
amoeba-light, to breathe new atmospheres ...
and still we sink.
The night is full of stars
we cannot grasp, though all the World is ours.
Have we such cells within us, bent on love
to ever-changingness, so that to part
is not to be the same, or even one?
Is love our evolution, or a scream
against the thought of separateness—a cry
of strangled recognition? Love, or die,
or love and die a little. Hopeful death!
Come scale these cliffs, lie changing, share this breath.
Mending
by Michael R. Burch
I am besieged with kindnesses;
sometimes I laugh,
delighted for a moment,
then resume
the more seemly occupation of my craft.
I do not taste the candies;
the perfume
of roses is uplifted
in a draft
that vanishes into the ceiling’s fans
that spin like old propellers
till the room
is full of ghostly bits of yarn . . .
My task
is not to knit,
but not to end too soon.
Distances
by Michael R. Burch
There is a small cleanness about her,
as though she has always just been washed,
and there is a dull obedience to convention
in her accommodating slenderness
as she feints at her salad.
She has never heard of Faust, or Frost,
and she is unlikely to have been seen
rummaging through bookstores
for mementos of others
more difficult to name.
She might imagine “poetry”
to be something in common between us,
as we write, bridging the expanse
between convention and something . . .
something the world calls “art”
for want of a better word.
At night I scream
at the conventions of both our worlds,
at the distances between words
and their objects: distances
come lately between us,
like a clean break.
Psycho Analysis
by Michael R. Burch
This is not what I need . . .
analysis,
paralysis,
as though I were a seed
to be planted,
supported
with a stick and some string
until I emerge.
Your words
are not water. I need something
more nourishing,
like cherishing,
something essential, like love
so that when I climb
out of the lime
and the mulch. When I shove
myself up
from the muck . . .
we can fuck.
Consequence
by Michael R. Burch
They are fresh-faced,
not innocent, but perhaps not yet jaded,
oblivious to time and death,
of each counted breath
in the pendulum’s sway
falling unheeded.
They are bright, undissuaded
by foreign tongues,
by sepulchers empty and waiting,
by sarcophagi of ancient kings,
by proclamations,
by rituals of scalpels and rings.
They are sworn, they are fated
to misadventure and grief;
but they revel in life
till the sun falls, receding
into silent halls
to torrents of inconsequential tears . . .
. . . to brief tragedies of tears
when they consider this: No one else sees.
But I know.
We all know.
We all know the consequence
of being so young.
Cycles
by Michael R. Burch
I see his eyes caress my daughter’s breasts
through her thin cotton dress,
and how an indiscreet strap of her white bra
holds his bald fingers
in fumbling mammalian awe . . .
And I remember long cycles into the bruised dusk
of a distant park,
hot blushes,
wild, disembodied rushes of blood,
portentous intrusions of lips, tongues and fingers . . .
and now in him the memory of me lingers
like something thought rancid,
proved rotten.
I see Another again—hard, staring, and silent—
though long-ago forgotten . . .
And I remember conjectures of panty lines,
brief flashes of white down bleacher stairs,
coarse patches of hair glimpsed in bathroom mirrors,
all the odd, questioning stares . . .
Yes, I remember it all now,
and I shoo them away,
willing them not to play too long or too hard
in the back yard—
with a long, ineffectual stare
that years from now, he may suddenly remember.
Incommunicado
by Michael R. Burch
All I need to know of life I learned
in the slap of a moment,
as my outward eye turned
toward a gauntlet of overhanging lights
which coldly burned, hissing—
"There is no way back!"
As the ironic bright blood
trickled down my face,
I watched strange albino creatures twisting
my flesh into tight knots of separation
while tediously insisting—
“He's doing just fine!"
An Ecstasy of Fumbling
by Michael R. Burch
The poets believe
everything resolves to metaphor—
a distillation,
a vapor
beyond filtration,
though perhaps not quite as volatile as before.
The poets conceive
of death in the trenches
as the price of art,
not war,
fumbling with their masque-like
dissertations
to describe the Hollywood-like gore
as something beyond belief,
abstracting concrete bunkers to Achaemenid bas-relief.
East End, 1888
by Michael R. Burch
He slouched East
through a steady downpour,
a slovenly beast
befouling each puddle
with bright footprints of blood.
Outlined in a pub door,
lewdly, wantonly, she stood . . .
mocked and brazenly offered.
He took what he could
till she afforded no more.
Now a single bright copper
glints becrimsoned by the door
of the pub where he met her.
He holds to his breast the one part
of her body she was unable to whore,
grips her heart to his wildly stammering heart . . .
unable to forgive or forget her.
Originally published by Penny Dreadful
i o u
by Michael R. Burch
i might have said it
but i didn’t
u might have noticed
but u wouldn’t
we might have been us
but we couldn’t
u might respond
but probably shouldn’t
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.
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. While
1976 is an educated guess, it was definitely written sometime between 1974 and
1978. At that time thirty seemed “old” to me and I used that age more than once
to project my future adult self. For instance, in the poem “You.”
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 resplendent glories at their feet.
Thou art the grass;
make them complete.
The Discovery
by Michael R. Burch
for Beth
What use were my arms, before they held you?
What did my lips know of love, before they encountered yours?
I learned I was made for your heart, so true!,
to overwhelm with its tender force.
Our English Rose
by Michael R. Burch
for Christine Ena Burch
The rose is—
the ornament of the earth,
the glory of nature,
the archetype of the flowers,
the blush of the meadows,
a lightning flash of beauty.
NOTE: This is my translation/interpretation of a Sappho epigram.
Dearly Beloved
by Michael R. Burch
for Suzan Blacksmith
She was
Dearly Beloved by her children, who gather
to pay their respects; they remember her
as they clung together through frightful weather,
always learning that Love can persevere ...
She was
Dearly Beloved by family and friends
who saw her great worth, even as she grew frail;
for they saw with Love’s eyes how Love’s vision transcends,
how her heart never faltered, through cyclones and hail ...
She is
Dearly Beloved, well-loved, sadly missed ...
and, while we mourn the lost days of a life too-soon ended,
we also rejoice that her suffering is past ...
she now lives in the Light, by kind Angels befriended.
And if
others were greater in fortune and fame,
and if some had iron wills when life’s pathways grew dark ...
still, since Love’s the great goal, we now reaffirm her claim
to the highest of honors: a mother’s Heart.
Beyond the Tempest
by Michael R. Burch
for Martha Pilkington Johnson
Martha Johnson was a formidable woman,
like her namesake, Martha Washington—
a woman like the Rock of Gibraltar,
a sure and steadfast refuge for her children and grandchildren
against the surging storms of life.
But later in her life
I beheld her transformation:
her hair became like a corona of light,
as if she were intent on becoming an angel
and something in her visage
brightened and softened,
as if she were preparing to enter heaven
where love and compassion rule
and the troubles of earth are like a tempest in teapot.
My Touchstone
by Michael R. Burch
for my grandfather George Edwin Hurt Sr.
A man is known
by the life he lives
and those he leaves,
by each heart touched,
which, left behind,
forever grieves.
Kin
by Michael R. Burch
for Richard Moore
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.
no foothold
by Michael R. Burch
there is no hope;
therefore i became invulnerable to love.
now even god cannot move me:
nothing to push or shove,
no foothold.
so let me live out my remaining days in clarity,
mine being the only nativity,
my death the final crucifixion
and apocalypse,
as far as the i can see ...
Everlasting
by Michael R. Burch
Where the wind goes
when the storm dies,
there my spirit lives
though I close my eyes.
Do not weep for me;
I am never far.
Whisper my name
to the last star ...
then let me sleep,
think of me no more.
Still ...
By denying death
its terminal sting,
in my words I remain
everlasting.
The Resting Place
by Michael R. Burch
for Harmony
Sleep, then, child;
you were dearly loved.
Sleep, and remember
her well-loved face,
strong arms that would lift you,
soft hands that would move
with love’s infinite grace,
such tender caresses!
*
When autumn came early,
you could not stay.
Now, wherever you wander,
the wildflowers bloom
and love is eternal.
Her heart’s great room
is your resting place.
*
Await by the door
her remembered step,
her arms’ warm embraces,
that gathered you in.
Sleep, child, and remember.
Love need not regret
its moment of weakness,
for that is its strength,
And when you awaken,
she will be there,
smiling,
at the Rainbow Bridge.
Advice to Young Poets
by Nicanor Parra Sandoval
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Youngsters,
write however you will
in your preferred style.
Too much blood flowed under the bridge
for me to believe
there’s just one acceptable path.
In poetry everything’s permitted.
Originally published by Setu
Upon a Frozen Star
by
Michael R. Burch
Oh, was it in this dark-Decembered world
we walked among the moonbeam-shadowed fields
and did not know ourselves for weight of snow
upon our laden parkas? White as sheets,
as spectral-white as ghosts, with clawlike hands
thrust deep into our pockets, holding what
we thought were tickets home: what did we know
of anything that night? Were we deceived
by moonlight making shadows of gaunt trees
that loomed like fiends between us, by the songs
of owls like phantoms hooting: Who? Who? Who?
And if that night I looked and smiled at you
a little out of tenderness ... or kissed
the wet salt from your lips, or took your hand,
so cold inside your parka ... if I wished
upon a frozen star ... that I could give
you something of myself to keep you warm ...
yet something still not love ... if I embraced
the contours of your face with one stiff glove ...
How could I know the years would strip away
the soft flesh from your face, that time would flay
your heart of consolation, that my words
would break like ice between us, till the void
of words became eternal? Oh, my love,
I never knew. I never knew at all,
that anything so vast could curl so small.
NOTE: I believe this was my first attempt at blank verse.
Shadowselves
by Michael R. Burch
In our hearts, knowing
fewer days—and milder—beckon,
how now are we to measure
that wick by which we reckon
the time we have remaining?
We are shadows
spawned by a blue spurt of candlelight.
Darkly, we watch ourselves flicker.
Where shall we go when the flame burns less bright?
When chill night steals our vigor?
Why are we less than ourselves? We are shadows.
Where is the fire of youth? We grow cold.
Why does our future loom dark? We are old.
Why do we shiver?
In our hearts, seeing
fewer days—and briefer—breaking,
now, even more, we treasure
the brittle leaf-like aching
that tells us we are living.
Longing
by Michael R. Burch
We stare out at the cold gray sea,
overcome
with such sudden and intense longing . . .
our eyes meet,
inviolate,
and we are not of this earth,
this strange, inert mass.
Before we crept
out of the shoals of the inchoate sea,
before we grew
the quaint appendages
and orifices of love . . .
before our jellylike nuclei,
struggling to be hearts,
leapt
at the sight of that first bright, oracular sun,
then watched it plummet,
the birth and death of our illumination . . .
before we wept . . .
before we knew . . .
before our unformed hearts grew numb,
again,
in the depths of the sea’s indecipherable darkness . . .
When we were only
a swirling profusion of recombinant things
wafting loose silt from the sea’s soft floor,
writhing and sucking in convulsive beds
of mucousy foliage,
flowering,
flowering,
flowering . . .
what jolted us to life?
Only Flesh
by Michael R. Burch
Moonlight in a pale silver rain caresses her cheek.
What she feels is an emptiness more chilling than fear ...
Nothing is questioned, yet the answer seems clear.
Night, inevitably, only seems to end.
Flesh is the stuff that does not endure.
The sand begins its passage through narrowing glass
as Time sifts out each seed yet to come.
Only flesh does not last.
Eternally, the days rise and fall with the sun;
each bright grain, slipping past, will return.
Only flesh fades to ash though unable to burn.
Only flesh does not last.
Only flesh, in the end, makes its bed in brown grass.
Only flesh shivers, pale as the pale wintry light.
Only flesh seeps in oils that will not ignite.
Only flesh rues its past.
Only flesh.
Memento Mori
by Michael R. Burch
I found among the elms
something like the sound of your voice,
something like the aftermath of love itself
after the lightning strikes,
when the startled wind shrieks . . .
a gored-out wound in wood,
love’s pale memento mori—
that white scar
in that first heart,
forever unhealed . . .
and a burled, thick knot incised
with six initials pledged
against all possible futures,
and penknife-notched below,
six edged, chipped words
that once cut deep and said . . .
WILL U B MINE
4 EVER?
. . . which now, so disconsolately answer . . .
N
EVER.
Salve
by Michael R. Burch
for the victims and survivors of 9-11
The world is unsalvageable ...
but as we lie here
in bed
stricken to the heart by love
despite war’s
flickering images,
sometimes we still touch,
laughing, amazed,
that our flesh
does not despair
of love
as we do,
that our bodies are wise
in ways we refuse
to comprehend,
still insisting we eat,
drink ...
even multiply.
And so we touch ...
touch, and only imagine
ourselves immune:
two among billions
in this night of wished-on stars,
caresses,
kisses,
and condolences.
We are not lovers of irony,
we
who imagine ourselves
beyond the redemption
of tears
because we have salvaged
so few
for ourselves ...
and so we laugh
at our predicament,
fumbling for the ointment.
Annual
by Michael R. Burch
Silence
steals upon a house
where one sits alone
in the shadow of the itinerant letterbox,
watching the disconnected telephone
collecting dust ...
hearing the desiccate whispers of voices’
dry flutters,—
moths’ wings
brittle as cellophane ...
Curled here,
reading the yellowing volumes of loss
by the front porch light
in the groaning swing . . .
through thin adhesive gloss
I caress your face.
The Secret of Her Clothes
by Michael R. Burch
The secret of her clothes
is that they whisper a little mysteriously
of things unseen
in the language of nylon and cotton,
so that when she walks
to her amorous drawers
to rummage among the embroidered hearts
and rumors of pastel slips
for a white wisp of Victorian lace,
the delicate rustle of fabric on fabric,
the slightest whisper of telltale static,
electrifies me.
Published by Erosha, Velvet Avalanche (Anthology) and Poetry
Life & Times
Prose Poem: The Trouble with Poets
by Michael R. Burch
This morning the neighborhood girls were helping their mothers with chores, but
one odd little girl was out picking roses by herself, looking very small and
lonely. Suddenly the odd one refused to pick roses anymore because she decided
it might “hurt” them. Now she just sits beside the bushes, rocking gently back
and forth, weeping and consoling them!
Now she’s lost all interest in nature, which she finds “appalling.” She dresses
in black “like Rilke” and says she prefers the “roses of the imagination”! She
mumbles constantly about being “pricked in conscience” and being “pricked to
death.” What on earth can she mean? Does she plan to have sex until she dies?
For chrissake, now she’s locked herself in her room and refuses to come out
until she has “conjured” the “perfect rose of the imagination”! We haven’t seen
her for days. Her only communications are texts punctuated liberally with
dashes. They appear to be badly-rhymed poems. She signs them “starving artist”
in lower-case. What on earth can she mean? Is she anorexic, or bulimic, or is
this just a phase she’ll outgrow?
I may have invented a new poetic form: the rhyme-rich prose poem...
Prose Poem: Litany
by Michael R. Burch
Will you take me with all my blemishes? I will take you with all your blemishes, and show you mine. We’ll suck wine
from cardboard boxes till our teeth and lips shine red like greedily gorging
foxes’. We’ll swill our fill, then have sex for hours till our neglected guts at
last rebel. At two in the morning, we’ll eat cold Krystals as our blood
detoxes, and we will be in love. And that’s it? That’s it! And can I go out with my friends and drink until dawn?
You can go out with your friends and drink until dawn, come home
lipstick-collared, pass out by the pool, or stay at the bar till the new moon
sets, because we'll be in love, and in love there's no room for remorse or
regret. There's no right, no wrong, and no mistrust, only limb-numbing sex,
hot-pistoning lust. And that’s all? That’s all. That’s great!
But wait... Wait? Why? What’s wrong? I want to have your children. Children?
Well, perhaps just one. And what will happen when we have children? The most incredible things will happen—you’ll change, stop acting so strangely,
start paying more attention to me, start paying your bills on time, grow up and
get rid of your horrible friends, and never come home at a-quarter-to-three
drunk from a night of swilling, smelling like a lovesick skunk, stop acting so
lewdly, start working incessantly so that we can afford a new house which I will
decorate lavishly and then grow tired of in a year or two or three, start
growing a paunch so that no other woman would ever have you, stop acting so
boorishly, start growing a beard because you’re too tired to shave, or too
afraid, thinking you might slit your worthless wrinkled throat...
Children's Prose Poem: The Three Sisters and the Mysteries of the
Magical Pond
by Michael R. Burch
Every child has a secret name, which only their guardian angel knows.
Fortunately, I am able to talk to angels, so I know the secret names of the
Three Sisters who are the heroines of the story I am about to tell ...
The secret names of the Three Sisters are Etheria, Sunflower and Bright Eyes.
Etheria, because the eldest sister’s hair shines like an ethereal blonde halo.
Sunflower, because the middle sister loves to plait bright flowers into her
hair. Bright Eyes, because the youngest sister has flashing dark eyes that are
sometimes full of mischief! This is the story of how the Three Sisters solved
the Three Mysteries of the Magical Pond ...
The first mystery of the Magical Pond was the mystery of the Great Heron. Why
did the Great Heron seem so distant and aloof, never letting human beings or
even other animals come close to it? This great mystery was solved by Etheria,
who noticed that the Great Heron was so large it couldn’t fly away from danger
quickly. So the Heron was not being aloof at all ... it was simply being
cautious and protecting itself by keeping its distance from faster creatures.
Things are not always as they appear!
The second mystery was the mystery of the River Monster. What was the dreaded
River Monster, and did it pose a danger to the three sisters and their loved
ones? This great mystery was solved by Sunflower, who found the River Monster’s
footprints in the mud after a spring rain. Sunflower bravely followed the
footprints to a bank of the pond, looked down, and to her surprise found a giant
snapping turtle gazing back at her! Thus the mystery was solved, and the River
Monster was not dangerous to little girls or their family and friends, because
it was far too slow to catch them. But it could be dangerous if anyone was
foolish enough to try to pet it. Sometimes it is best to leave nature’s larger
creatures alone, and not tempt fate, even when things are not always as they
appear!
The third mystery was the most perplexing of all. How was it possible that tiny
little starlings kept chasing away much larger crows, hawks and eagles? What a
conundrum! (A conundrum is a perplexing problem that is very difficult to solve,
such as the riddle: “What walks on four legs in the morning, on two legs during
the day, then on three legs at night?” Can you solve it? ... The answer is a
human being, who crawls on four legs as a baby, then walks on two legs most of
its life, but needs a walking cane in old age. This is the famous Riddle of the
Sphinx.) Yes, what a conundrum! But fortunately Bright Eyes was able to solve
the Riddle of the Starlings, because she noticed that the tiny birds were much
more agile in the air, while the much larger hawks and eagles couldn’t change
direction as easily. So, while it seemed the starlings were risking their lives
to defend their nests, in reality they had the advantage! Once again, things are
not always as they appear!
Now, these are just three adventures of the Three Sisters, and there are many
others. In fact, they will have a whole lifetime of adventures, and perhaps we
can share in them from time to time. But if their mother reads them this story
at bedtime, by the end of the story their eyes may be getting very sleepy, and
they may soon have dreams of Giant Herons, and Giant Turtles, and Tiny Starlings
chasing away Crows, Hawks and Eagles! Sweet dreams, Etheria, Sunflower and
Bright Eyes!
Fake News, Probably
by Michael R. Burch
The elusive Orange-Tufted Fitz-Gibbon is the rarest of creatures—rarer by far
than Sasquatch and the Abominable Snowman (although they are very similar in
temperament and destructive capabilities). While the common gibbon is not all
that uncommon, the orange-tufted genus has been found less frequently in the
fossil record than hobbits and unicorns. The Fitz-Gibbon sub-genus is all the
more remarkable because it apparently believes itself to be human, and royalty,
no less! Now there are rumors—admittedly hard to believe—that an Orange-Tufted
Fitz-Gibbon resides in the White House and has been spotted playing with the
nuclear codes while chattering incessantly about attacking China, Mexico, Iran
and North Korea. We find it very hard to credit such reports. Surely American
voters would not elect an oddly-colored ape with self-destructive tendencies
president!
Writing Verse for Free, Versus Programs for a Fee
by Michael R. Burch
How is writing a program like writing a poem? You start with an idea, something
fresh. Almost a wish. Something effervescent, like foam flailing itself
against the rocks of a lost tropical coast . . .
After the idea, of course, there are complications and trepidations, as with the
poem or even the foam. Who will see it, appreciate it, understand it? What will
it do? Is it worth the effort, all the mad dashing and crashing about, the
vortex—all that? And to what effect?
Next comes the real labor, the travail, the scouring hail of things that simply
don’t fit or make sense. Of course, with programming you have the density of
users to fix, which is never a problem with poetry, since the users have already
had their fix (this we know because they are still reading and think everything
makes sense); but this is the only difference.
Anyway, what’s left is the debugging, or, if you’re a poet, the hugging yourself
and crying, hoping someone will hear you, so that you can shame them into
reading your poem, which they will refuse, but which your mother will do if you
phone, perhaps with only the tiniest little mother-of-the-poet, harried,
self-righteous moan.
The biggest difference between writing a program and writing a poem is simply
this: if your program works, or seems to work, or almost works, or doesn’t work
at all, you’re set and hugely overpaid.
Made-in-the-shade-have-a-pink-lemonade-and-ticker-tape-parade OVERPAID.
If your poem is about your lover and sucks up quite nicely, perhaps you’ll get
laid. Perhaps. Regardless, you’ll probably see someone repossessing
your furniture and TV to bring them posthaste to someone like me. The moral is
this: write programs first, then whatever passes for poetry. DO YOUR SHARE; HELP
END POVERTY TODAY!
Sweet Nothings
by Michael R. Burch
Tonight, will you whisper me a sweet enchantment?
We’ll take my motorcycle, blaze a trail of metallic exhaust and scorched-black
sulphuric fumes to a tawdry diner where I’ll slip my fingers under your yellow
sun dress, inside the elastic waist band of your thin white cotton panties, till
your pinkling lips moisten obligingly and the corpulent pink hot dog with tangy
brown mustard and sweet pickle relish comes.
Tonight, can we talk about something other than sex, perhaps things we both
love?
What I love is to go to the beach, where the hot oil smells like baking
coconuts, and lie in the sun’s humidor thinking of you, while the sand worms its
way inside your sexy little pink bikini, your compressed breasts squishy with
warm sweet milk like coconuts, the hair between your legs sleek as a wet mink’s
...
Tonight, can we make love instead of just talking dirty?
Sorry, honey, I’m just not in the mood.
Nucleotidings
by Michael R. Burch
“We will walk taller!” said Gupta,
sorta abrupta,
hand-in-hand with his mom,
eyeing the A-bomb.
“Who needs a mahatma
in the aftermath of NAFTA?
Now, that was a disaster,”
cried glib Punjab.
“After Y2k,
time will spin out of control anyway,”
flamed Vijay.
“My family is relatively heavy,
too big even for a pig-barn Chevy;
we need more space,”
spat What’s His Face.
“What does it matter,
dirge or mantra,”
sighed Serge.
“The world will wobble
in Hubble’s lens
till the tempest ends,”
wailed Mercedes.
“The world is going to hell in a bucket.
So fuck it and get outta my face!
We own this place!
Me and my friends got more guns than ISIS,
so what’s the crisis?”
cried Bubba Billy Joe Bob Puckett.
Confession
by Michael R. Burch
What shall I say to you, to confess,
words? Words that can never express
anything close to what I feel?
For words that seem tangible, real,
when I think them
become vaguely surreal when I put ink to them.
And words that I thought that I knew,
like "love" and "devotion"
never ring true.
While "passion"
sounds strangely like the latest fashion
or a perfume.
Originally published by The HyperTexts
NOTE: At the time I wrote this poem, a perfume called Passion was in fashion.
Keywords/Tags: confession, confess, words, tangible, real, surreal, feelings,
love, devotion, passion, perfume, fashion, false advertising, hype
Revision
by Michael R. Burch
I found a stone
ablaze in a streambed,
honed to a flickering jewel
by all the clear,
swiftly-flowing
millennia of water...
and as I kneeled
to do it obeisance,
the homage of retrieval,
it occurred to me
that perhaps its muddied
underbelly
rooted precariously
in the muck
and excrescence
of its slow loosening
upward...
might not be finished,
like a poem
brilliantly faceted
but only half revised,
which sparkles
seductively
but is not yet worth
ecstatic digging.
Originally published by The HyperTexts
Open Portal
by Michael R. Burch
“You already have zero privacy—get over it.”—Scott McNealy, CEO of Sun
Microsystems
While you’re at it—
don’t bother to wear clothes:
We all know what you’re concealing underneath.
Let the bathroom door swing open.
Let, O let Us peer in!
What you’re doing, We’ve determined, may be a sin!
When you visit your mother
and it’s time to brush your teeth,
it’s okay to openly spit.
And, while you’re at it,
go ahead—
take a long, noisy shit.
What the he|ll is your objection?
What on earth is all this fuss?
Just what is it, exactly, you would hide from Us?
Originally published by The HyperTexts
They Take Their Shape
by Michael R. Burch
“We will not forget moments of silence and days of mourning ...”—George W.
Bush
We will not forget ...
the moments of silence and the days of mourning,
the bells that swung from leaden-shadowed vents
to copper bursts above “hush!”-chastened children
who saw the sun break free (abandonment
to run and laugh forsaken for the moment),
still flashing grins they could not quite repent ...
Nor should they—anguish triumphs just an instant;
this every child accepts; the nymphet weaves;
transformed, the grotesque adult-thing emerges:
damp-winged, huge-eyed, to find the sun deceives ...
But children know; they spin limpwinged in darkness
cocooned in hope—the shriveled chrysalis
that paralyzes time. Suspended, dreaming,
they do not fall, but grow toward what is,
then grope about to find which transformation
might best endure the light or dark. “Survive”
becomes the whispered mantra of a pupa’s
awakening ... till What takes shape and flies
shrieks, parroting Our own shrill, restive cries.
Originally published by The HyperTexts
Scowl
by Michael R. Burch
apologies to Allen Ginsberg
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by social media, overdressed
obsessive savers dragging themselves scowling through albino streets at dawn
looking for a Facebook fix while cautiously protecting their Personal Data,
addleheaded quipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the latest Podcast,
who in poverty for lack of a Smartphone upgrade sat hollow-eyed smoking
medicinal weed in the unnatural illumination of their rebooting routers while
contemplating the wonders of AI,
who bared their brains to ChatGPT and saw Marvel-ous angels in YouTube ads while
waxing nostalgic about things they never actually experienced,
who passed through minor universities with solid B’s hallucinating careers as
computer programmers advancing quickly to systems analysts, ready to compete
confidently with robots,
who were never expelled for publishing obscene odes on bathroom stalls or Subway
walls, but were always well-behaved and polite to their supervisors,
who always wore appropriate underwear to job interviews and never burned their
bras in defiance of Big Brother,
who never grew their hair too long or sprouted scraggly beards while returning
on redeyes from Big Apple job interviews,
who never ate fire in paint hotels, or drank turpentine in paradise alley, or
purgatoried their toned torsos night after night with dreams, or with drugs, but
only with reruns of Games of Thrones,
who never wandered blind streets of shuddering cloud and lightning in the mind
leaping toward poles of canada & paterson, but rather sought the mystical
illumination of AI,
who scorned peyote for the tantalizing Tweets of Technocrats sharing their
opinions like oracles,
who never once chained themselves to subways for the endless ride from battery
to the bronx on benzedrine, but only arrived at the next job interview drained
of brilliance in the drear light of the latest breakup between Ross and Rachel,
who were always ready to please their oppressive employers with robotic
diligence while advancing in their careers like automatons,
who never sank all night in the submarine light of bickford’s but floated high
on the stirring strains of the Spice Girls and Justin Bieber,
who talked continuously seventy hours about the advantages of homoeopathic
medicines, a lost battalion of platonic conversationalists more progressive than
Wonder Bread and Wireless Bras, all crying “me too,”
yakety-yakking facts, anecdotes and memories all plastered incessantly on
Instagram,
whose intellects were disgorged for seven sleepless days and nights with eyes
dulled by monitor radiance, as if they’d been marooned on the moon with Maroon
5,
who vanished into nowhere Zen New Jersey leaving a trail of unambiguous selfies
shot with the ubiquitous holy iPhone,
suffering Whatsapp withdrawal sweats and Internet downtime migraines worse than
any heroin addict’s,
who wandered restless at midnight wondering when Paradise Lost would be
restored, i.e. the Internet coming back up, while making prophets of Green Day,
who never lit cigarettes in boxcars or even knew what boxcars were, but rode
Virtual “Reality” snowmobiles to the north pole, then bragged about their
conquests on Quora,
who never read plotinus poe st. john of the cross but knew by heart every word
uttered in the Marvel Universe and every word of Klingon ever spoken on Star
Trek,
who never loned it through the streets of idaho seeking visionary indian angels
but only revered Warren Kenneth Worthington III,
who experienced bliss when the Big Bang aired in supernatural ecstasy and a nerd
nailed the cute girl (Aye, there is hope for us all!).
who rode in rented limousines on prom night dreaming of similar hookups while
listening to Justin Timberlake prophetically sing “Cry Me a River,”
who lounged wellfed through houston seeking sex or Smartphone games only to
relate their lack of success on SnapChat,
who disappeared into the bowels of Bluetooth wired to their earbuds never to be
seen again, not even on Reddit,
only to reappear on TikTok investigating 9-11 conspiracy theories and posting
incomprehensible memes,
who burned vape holes in their arms protesting the cancellation of Friends, then
posted the pictures on Pinterest,
who distributed languid Tweets mildly protesting the term “slacktivism,”
who broke down crying in white gymnasiums naked and trembling before the
bullying of jocks,
who bit their abusers with sharp braces and attacked them with protractors
stored unconcealed in their plaid shirt pockets’ plastic holsters,
who howled on their knees for faster Internet access, like monks for
transcendence,
who watched Internet porn until their libidos shriveled,
who were blown, then blown away by sexy Avatars,
who balled so infrequently they had only 2.02 children,
who preferred Marvel’s Angel to those of religion,
who lost their loverboys and/or lovergirls to the lures of the latest Video Game
and LinkedIn,
who copulated ecstatic and insatiate with Alexa until they came eluding the last
gyzym of consciousness,
who preferred the snatches of virtual girlfriends to those of their real ones
(And safer as well!) trembling with joy after sunset but redeyed rising
from lack of sleep perusing Paradisal Porn,
who went out VR-whoring safe from venereal diseases, fabled Cocksmen and
Adonises of their sheeplike Android Dreams, the Marvel-ous Masters of
innumerable lays of girls with artificial breasts bigger than Bot-swana,
who starred in sordid movies as their Avatars, grabbed snatches of sleep, then
woke with sudden Smartwatch alarms in order to arrive dutifully at work on time,
if slightly worse for wear,
who never walked all night with their shoes full of blood on the snowbank docks
waiting for an east river door to swing open to a room full of steam-heat and
opium,
but instead employed E-Readers to study Ulysses in preparation for MFA exams,
who never ate the lamb stew of the imagination but only digested slimy eels
dredged from the muddy river bottoms of Babel-on,
who wept at the music of Britney Spears pouring endlessly from their Smart
Speakers,
whose best friends and heroes were Sheldon, Leonard, Howard and Raj (And how
earnestly we prayed for them to finally get laid!),
who never sat in boxes breathing in the darkness under the bridge, nor rose to
build harpsichords in their lofts,
but instead worshiped the gods of American Idol and bowed prostrate before a
heavenly Voice,
who confused rock-‘n’-roll with fizzled pop, whose anthem became “I Want It That
Way” sung by the Backstreet Boys,
whose archetype was Eminem’s Stan, the Holy Grail of Fandom,
who screamed “Save the whales!” while shucking oysters and watching
Predator
reruns,
who never plunged themselves under meat trucks looking for an egg, but instead
preferred vegan Egg Replacers,
who never threw their watches from roofs to cast their ballot for Eternity
outside Time, but dutifully set their Smartwatches to remind them when to
exercise, and stop, and when to record Sex and the City,
who never opened actual antique stores but sold their families’ heirlooms on
eBay,
who were never burned alive in their well-tailored suits on Madison Avenue but
were run down after hours by the drunken taxicab of Leisure Suit Larry,
who never jumped from the Brooklyn Bridge but once bungeed from the Bridge to
Nowhere on a dare,
who never sang from their windows in despair, but posted many aggrieved missives
on their sacred Facebook walls,
who barreled down many Virtual Highways in their Virtual Hotrods despite never
mastering a real-world stick shift,
whose only Mario was a plumber,
who never drove crosscountry seventytwo hours pursuing a vision of eternity, but
once played Gran Turismo seventytwo hours nonstop,
who never made it to Denver, but managed the Broncos thanks to Madden,
who never fell on their knees in hopeless cathedrals praying for each other’s
salvation, but blessed each other in the names of Marvel-ous Odin, Thor and
heavenly Asgaard,
who retired to California to cultivate legal weed
and thus never ended up in jail pleading to pay their bail with BitCoin,
who never demanded sanity trials but questioned the nature of reality having
grokked The Matrix,
who never threw potato salad at CCNY lecturers but were always attentive to
their mentors,
who like the Cambridge ladies were invariably interested in various things like
insulin Metrazol electricity hydrotherapy psychotherapy occupational therapy
pingpong & amnesia,
who in humorless protests revolted mildly against the trumping of the paris
accords,
who would have been bald by now except for hair plugs imprecisely implanted,
who never bickered with the echoes of the soul in foetid halls as their bodies
turned to stone heavy as the moon,
but always thanked their mothers on Facebook after watching It’s a Wonderful
Life (obligatory at Christmastime) for the umpteenth time.
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
If you know someone who is very caring and loving, but struggles with self
worth, this may be a poem to consider.
Reason Without Rhyme
by Michael R. Burch
I once was averse
to free verse,
but now freely admit
that
YOUR rhyming is WORSE!
But alas, in the end,
it’s a losing game:
all verse is unpaid
and a crying shame.
Bio:
Michael R. Burch is an American poet who lives in Nashville, Tennessee with his
wife Beth, their son Jeremy, and three outrageously spoiled puppies. His poems, epigrams, translations, essays, articles,
reviews, short stories and letters have appeared
more than 5,000 times in publications which include TIME, USA Today, The Hindu,
BBC Radio 3, CNN.com, Daily Kos, The Washington Post, Light Quarterly, The Lyric, Measure, Writer's Digest—The Year's Best Writing,
The Best of the Eclectic Muse, Unlikely Stories and
hundreds of other literary journals, websites and blogs. Mike Burch is also the
founder and editor-in-chief of The HyperTexts, a former columnist for the Nashville City Paper and, according to Google, a relevant online publisher of poems about the Holocaust,
Hiroshima, the Trail of Tears, Darfur, Haiti, Gaza
and the Palestinian Nakba. He has two published books,
Violets for Beth (White
Violet Press, 2012) and
O, Terrible Angel (Ancient Cypress Press, 2013).
A third book, Auschwitz Rose, is still in the chute but long delayed.
Burch's poetry has been translated into eleven languages and set to music by the
composers Mark Buller, Alexander Comitas and Seth Wright. One of his poems, "First They
Came for the Muslims," has been adopted by Amnesty International for its
Words That Burn anthology, a free online resource for
students and educators. He has also served as editor of International
Poetry and Translations for the literary journal Better
Than Starbucks.
For an expanded bio, circum vitae and career timeline of the
author, please click
here:
Michael R.
Burch Expanded Bio.
Categories: Early, Children, Family, Romantic, Heretical
Michael R. Burch Related Pages:
Early Poems,
Rejection Slips,
Epigrams and Quotes,
Prose Poems,
Free Love Poems by Michael R. Burch,
Romantic Poems by Michael
R. Burch, Poems
for Children by Michael R. Burch,
Poems about Icarus
by Michael R. Burch
The HyperTexts