Bemused by Muses?

Are the Muses imaginary, or do they really exist and sometimes come to the aid of the poets they favor?

The poet Christina Rossetti

The ancient Greeks invented goddesses, the Muses, to explain the source of otherwise inexplicable poetry. Where did divine poetry originate? Why not with divinities? And while I am normally an agnostic on the subject of gods, it seems in retrospect that I have had my fair share of encounters with the Muses, sometimes producing inexplicably good results when making initial stabs at then-unfamiliar poetic forms. At other times it seemed I was channeling departed poets and/or engaging in automatic writing. For example...

LITTLE HERETIC

What are the odds that the first poem a preteen poet wrote would end up on 78K web pages, according to Google? This is the first poem I remember writing, sometime between age 11 and 13:

Bible Libel
by Michael R. Burch

If god
is good
half the bible
is libel.

I read the Bible from cover to cover at age 11, at the suggestion of my devout Christian parents. But I was more of a doubting Thomas and "Bible Libel" was the result. Other people have liked the epigram enough to cut and paste it, a LOT. At one time, according to Google results, the poem appeared on over 78K web pages! Those seem like pretty good results for a preteen poem. "Bible Libel" has been published by Boloji (India), Nexus Myanmar (Burma), Kalemati (Iran), Pride Magazine (Nigeria), Brief Poems, Formal Verse, Idle Hearts, AZquotes (in its Top 17 Very Witty Quotes), Quote Master, and numerous other quote websites.

A COMICAL MUSE

The phrase "frail envelope of flesh" was one of my first encounters with the power of poetry, although I read it in a superhero comic book as a boy (I forget which one). I believe that was around age ten. Years later, the line kept popping into my head, so I turned it into a poem, either in my late teens or early twenties. In my forties I dedicated the poem to the mothers and children of Gaza.

Frail Envelope of Flesh
by Michael R. Burch

for the mothers and children of Gaza

Frail envelope of flesh,
lying cold on the surgeon’s table
with anguished eyes
like your mother’s eyes
and a heartbeat weak, unstable ...

Frail crucible of dust,
brief flower come to this—
your tiny hand
in your mother’s hand
for a last bewildered kiss ...

Brief mayfly of a child,
to live two artless years!
Now your mother’s lips
seal up your lips
from the Deluge of her tears ...

Published by The Lyric, Promosaik (Germany), Setu (India), SindhuNews (India), Tho Tru Tinh (in a Vietnamese translation by Ngu Yen), Orphans of Gaza, Irish Blog, Alarshef, Daily Motion and Poetry Life & Times; translated into Arabic by Nizar Sartawi and Italian by Mario Rigli; set to music by composer Eduard de Boer and performed in Europe by the Palestinian soprano Dima Bawab.

MY FIRST VILLANELLE

"Ordinary Love" was my first attempt at a villanelle. I was so new to the form that I miscounted and the poem ended up missing a stanza. However, it won the 2001 Algernon Charles Swinburne poetry contest and was published by Romantics Quarterly, where it was nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

Ordinary Love
by Michael R. Burch

Indescribable—our love—and still we say
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.

"FLAMINGO-MINTED"

How does a phrase like "flamingo-minted" come to a struggling 15-year-old poet? Was it divine intervention? Or was I channeling Lord Byron with my “black-haired beauty like the night”?

Sharon
by Michael R. Burch

apologies to Byron

I.
Flamingo-minted, pink, pink cheeks,
dark hair streaked with a lisp of dawnlight;
I have seen your shadow creep
through eerie webs spun out of twilight...

And I have longed to kiss your lips,
as sweet as the honeysuckle blooms;
and to hold your pale albescent body,
more curvaceous than the moon...

II.
Black-haired beauty, like the night,
stay with me till morning's light.
In shadows, Sharon, become love
until the sun lights our alcove.

Red, red lips reveal white stone:
whet my own, my passions hone.
My all in all I give to you,
in our tongues’ exchange of dew.

Now all I ever ask of you
is: do with me what now you do.
In shadows, Sharon, shed your gown;
let all night’s walls come tumbling down.

III.

Now I will love you long, Sharon,
as long as longing may be.

The first and third sections are all I can remember of a “Sharon” poem that I destroyed in a fit of frustration about my writing, around age 15. The middle section was a separate poem written around age 17.

MIKE MEETS MOZART

This is a poem I wrote about a vacation my family took to Salzburg when I was a boy, age 11 or perhaps a bit older. But I wrote the poem much later in life: around 50 years later, in 2020.

Ironic Vacation
by Michael R. Burch

Salzburg.
Seeing Mozart’s baby grand piano.
Standing in the presence of sheer incalculable genius.
Grabbing my childish pen to write a poem & challenge the Immortals.
Next stop, the catacombs!

SMOKE

I wrote "Smoke" around age 14. It was my first attempt at a "rhyme rich" poem, by which I mean a poem with internal rhymes as well as end rhyme.

Smoke
by Michael R. Burch

The hazy, smoke-filled skies of summer I remember well;
farewell was on my mind, and the thoughts that I can't tell
rang bells within (the din was in) my mind, and I can't say
if what we had was good or bad, or where it is today.
The endless days of summer's haze I still recall today;
she spoke and smoky skies stood still as summer slipped away ...

"Smoke" appeared in my high school journal, the Lantern, in 1976. It also appeared in my college literary journal, Homespun, in 1977. It has since been published by The Eclectic Muse (Canada), Fullosia Press and Better Than Starbucks, and translated into Romanian and published by Petru Dimofte in Poezii. On an interesting note, one of my "youngest" poems has been published by one of England's oldest publishing houses, Sampson Low, in the Lost Love issue of its Potcake Chapbooks series, edited by Robin Helweg-Larsen and illustrated by Alban Low.

Those are pretty good results for a 14-year-old poet, I do believe. But did I have help, not knowing it at the time?

I find it interesting that I was able to write a "rhyme rich" poem at such a young age. In six lines the poem has 26 rhymes and near rhymes: smoke-spoke-smoky, well-farewell-tell-bells-still-recall-still, summer-remember-summer-summer, within-din-in, say-today-days-haze-today-away, had-good-bad.

I had The Summer of '42 in mind when I wrote the poem. Ironically, I didn't see the movie until many years later (too young for an R-rated movie), but something about its advertisement touched me. Am I the only poet who wrote a love poem for Jennifer O'Neil after seeing her fleeting image in a blurb? At least in that respect, I may be unique! In any case, the movie came out in 1971 or 1972, so I was probably around 14 when I wrote “Smoke”.

MY FIRST TRANSLATION

I never had any intention to be a translator — I had lived in Germany and studied the language for four years with tremendous indifference — but perhaps the Muses knew better. Without thinking of myself as a translator, I created my first translation around age 16 or 17 when I stumbled on a Latin prayer that touched me:

Elegy for a little girl
by Michael R. Burch

... qui laetificat juventutem meam ...
She was the joy of my youth,
and now she is gone
... requiescat in pace ...
May she rest in peace
... amen ...
Amen.

I discovered this prayer while sneak-reading one of my sister's steamy historical romance novels! I decided to incorporate the prayer into a poem, which I wrote in high school and revised later as an adult. From what I now understand, “ad deum qui laetificat juventutem meam” means “to the God who gives joy to my youth,” but I am sticking with my original interpretation: a lament for a little girl at her funeral. The phrase can be traced back to Saint Jerome's translation of Psalm 42 in the Latin Vulgate Bible (circa 385 AD). I can’t remember exactly when I read the novel or wrote the poem, but I believe it was around my junior year of high school, age 16-17 or thereabouts. I revised the poem slightly in 2001 after realizing that I had “misremembered” one of the words in the Latin prayer. I dedicated the poem to my mother, Christine Ena Burch, after her death, because she was always a little giggly girl at heart.

OBSERVANCE

"Observance" was the first poem that made me feel like a "real poet." If the Muses ever intervened, surely it was on this one, after around three years in which I had despaired of ever being a poet, although in retrospect some of my early poems were pretty good and to date 54 of them have been published by literary journals. But "Observance," written around age 16 or 17, felt different, the minute I wrote it...

Observance
by Michael R. Burch

Here the hills are old and rolling
carefully in their old age;
on the horizon youthful mountains
bathe themselves in windblown fountains ...

By dying leaves and falling raindrops,
I have traced time's starts and stops,
and I have known the years to pass
almost unnoticed, whispering through treetops ...

For here the valleys fill with sunlight
to the brim, then empty again,
and it seems that only I notice
how the years flood out, and in ...

I vividly remember writing "Observance" in the break room of the McDonald's where I worked as a high school student. I eventually pared a longer poem down to its best lines. As a young poet with high aspirations, I felt that "Infinity" and "Reckoning/Observance" were my two best poems, so I didn't publish them in my high school or college literary journals. I decided to hang onto them and use them to get my foot in the door elsewhere. And the plan worked pretty well. "Observance" was originally published by Nebo as "Reckoning." It was later published by Tucumcari Literary Review, Piedmont Literary Review, Verses, Romantics Quarterly, the anthology There is Something in the Autumn and Poetry Life & Times.

INFINITY

"Infinity" was the second poem that made me feel like a "real poet." I believe I wrote it as a high school senior, around age 18. "Infinity" was another poem that felt different, the minute I wrote it. I remember reading it and asking myself, "Did I really write that?" Half a century later, I'm still glad that I wrote it, and it still makes me feel like a real poet.

Infinity
by Michael R. Burch

Have you tasted the bitterness of tears of despair?
Have you watched the sun sink through such pale, balmless air
that your heart sought its shell like a crab on a beach,
then scuttled inside to be safe, out of reach?

Might I lift you tonight from earth’s wreckage and damage
on these waves gently rising to pay the moon homage?
Or better, perhaps, let me say that I, too,
have dreamed of infinity ... windswept and blue.

"Infinity" was originally published by TC Broadsheet Verses (for a whopping $10, my first cash payment), then subsequently by Piedmont Literary Review, Penny Dreadful, the Net Poetry and Art Competition, Songs of Innocence, Setu (India), Better Than Starbucks, Borderless Journal (Singapore), Poetry Life & Times, Formal Verse (Potcake Poet’s Choice) and The Chained Muse.

MYTH

I believe I wrote the first version of "Myth" toward the end of my senior year of high school, around age 18, but it could have been written during my freshman year in college, age 18-19. The way this poem came to me, in a flash, I felt as if I were channeling Dylan Thomas himself.

Myth
by Michael R. Burch

Here the recalcitrant wind
sighs with grievance and remorse
over fields of wayward gorse
and thistle-throttled lanes.

And she is the myth of the scythed wheat
hewn and sighing, complete,
waiting, lain in a low sheaf—
full of faith, full of grief.

Here the immaculate dawn
requires belief of the leafed earth
and she is the myth of the mown grain—
golden and humble in all her weary worth.

To my recollection this is my only poem directly influenced by the “sprung rhythm” of Dylan Thomas (moreso than that of Gerard Manley Hopkins). But I was not happy with the fourth line and put the poem aside until 1998, when I revised it. But I was still not happy with the fourth line, so I put it aside and revised it again in 2020, nearly half a century after originally writing the poem! I believe this remains my only attempt at sprung rhythm. "Myth" was published in the anthology There is Something in the Autumn.

SOMETHING

"Something" was my first major poem that didn't rhyme, but that was not a conscious decision on my part. The poem came to me "from blue nothing" (to borrow a phrase from my friend the Maltese poet Joe Ruggier). It seemed to write itself, as if I were channeling someone else. I wrote it around age 18-19. Many years later, I dedicated "Something" to the children of the Holocaust and the Nakba.

Something
by Michael R. Burch

for the children of the Holocaust and the Nakba

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 denial has swept into a corner, where it lies
in dust and cobwebs and silence.

"Something" has been published by There is Something in the Autumn (anthology), The Eclectic Muse (Canada), Setu (India), FreeXpression (Australia), Life and Legends, Poetry Super Highway, Poet’s Corner, Promosaik (Germany), Better Than Starbucks and The Chained Muse; it has also been used in numerous Holocaust projects; translated into Romanian by Petru Dimofte; translated into Turkish by Nurgül Yayman; turned into a YouTube video by Lillian Y. Wong; and used by Windsor Jewish Community Centre during a candle-lighting ceremony.

MY ARS POETICA

I consider "Poetry," written circa age 18-19 as a college freshman, to be my ars poetica.

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 at 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 child to man;
now I look back, remember when
you shone, and cannot understand
why now, 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.

In this poem I profess to be Poetry's lover and disciple. Of course such things are no longer allowed in respectable poetic circles. But then ... why be a conformist? However, the poem has been misinterpreted as the poet claiming to be Poetry's "savior." The poet never claims to be a savior or hero. The poem only says that when Poetry is finally freed, in some unspecified way, the poet will be there to take her hand and watch her glory be re-revealed to the world. The poet expresses his love for Poetry, and loyalty and gratitude, but never claims to have done anything himself. This is a poem of love, compassion and reverence. Poetry is the Messiah, not the poet. The poet washes her feet with his tears, like Mary Magdalene.

"Poetry" was published by The Lyric in 2001, nearly a quarter century after the first version was written. I remember The Lyric having a line limit of something like 40 to 48 lines, and because "Poetry" was initially much longer, I had to spend quite a bit of time paring the poem down to its best lines.

SHAKESPEARE REFUTED!

This was my first "real" sonnet, written in my teens after I discovered Shakespeare's "Sonnet 130." At the time I didn't know the rules of the sonnet form, so mine is a bit unconventional. I think it's not bad for the first attempt of a teen poet. I remember composing this poem in my head on the way back to my dorm from a freshman English class. I would have been 18 or 19 at the time.

Shakespeare's Sonnet 130 Refuted
by Michael R. Burch

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
— Shakespeare, Sonnet 130

Seas that sparkle in the sun
without its light would have no beauty;
but the light within your eyes
is theirs alone; it owes no duty.
Whose winsome flame, not half so bright,
is meant for me, and brings delight.

Coral formed beneath the sea,
though scarlet-tendriled, cannot warm me;
while your lips, not half so red,
just touching mine, at once inflame me.
Whose scorching flames mild lips arouse
fathomless oceans fail to douse.

Bright roses’ brief affairs, declared
when winter comes, will wither quickly.
Your cheeks, though paler when compared
with them?—more lasting, never prickly.
Whose tender cheeks, so enchantingly warm,
far vaster treasures, harbor no thorns.

Originally published by Romantics Quarterly

A MYSTERY WOMAN

This was an unusual poem that I wrote in my late teens, and it took me some time to figure out who the old woman was. She was a victim of childhood incest, hence the title I eventually came up with.

Ince St. Child
by Michael R. Burch

When she was a child
     in a dark forest of fear,
          imagination cast its strange light
               into secret places,
               scattering traces
           of illumination so bright,
     years later, she could still find them there,
their light undefiled.

When she was young,
     the shafted light of her dreams
          shone on her uplifted face
               as she prayed ...
               though she strayed
          into a night fallen like woven lace
     shrouding the forest of screams,
her faith led her home.

Now she is old
     and the light that was flame
          is a slow-dying ember ...
               what she felt then
               she would explain;
          she would if she could only remember
     that forest of shame,
faith beaten like gold.

Published by Piedmont Literary Review, Songs of Innocence, Romantics Quarterly and Poetry Life & Times

HAIKU & TANKA

Dark-bosomed clouds
pregnant with heavy thunder ...
the water breaks
―Michael R. Burch

The poem above was my first serious haiku. It came to me in a flash, fully formed, under the influence of the Japanese masters, as I published a collection of my favorite haiku. At that point, I had not translated any haiku, but I went on to translate, or, more properly, interpret, hundreds of haiku. Was my haiku the gift of the Muses, in reward for my efforts on their behalf? I would like to think so. Or did I channel one of the ancient masters? In any case, despite not having been a penner of haiku before, I went on to write a number of haiku that seem good to me...

Am I really this old,
so many ghosts
beckoning?
—Michael R. Burch

Brittle autumn leaf,
how was I to know
you were my life?
—Michael R. Burch

Sleepyheads!
I recite my haiku
to the inattentive lilies.
—Michael R. Burch

Celebrate the New Year?
The cat is not impressed,
the dogs shiver.
—Michael R. Burch

Cats are seldom impressed by human accomplishments, while the canine members of our family have always hated fireworks and other unexpected loud noises.

Early robins
get the worms,
cats waiting to pounce.
—Michael R. Burch

Fireflies
thinking to illuminate the darkness?
Poets!
―Michael R. Burch

Elderly sunflowers:
bees trimming their beards.
―Michael R. Burch

The ability
to disagree agreeably—
civility.
―Michael R. Burch

The following haiku were written for the mothers and children of the Tail of Tears, the Holocaust, the Palestinian Nakba, Putin's invasion of Ukraine, school shootings, and so many other avoidable catastrophes. I agree with Gandhi, who said that if we want to live in a better world, we must start with the children.

Mightier than Atlas,
she shoulders the weight
of one fallen star.
―Michael R. Burch, "Childless"

My footprints
so faint in the snow?
Ah yes, you lifted me.
―Michael R. Burch

An emu feather
still falling?
So quickly you rushed to my rescue.
―Michael R. Burch

The sun warms
a solitary stone.
Let us abandon no one.
―Michael R. Burch

Born into the delicate autumn,
too late to mature,
pale petal ...
―Michael R. Burch

Soft as daffodils fall
all the lamentations
of life’s smallest victims,
departing unheard ...
―Michael R. Burch

As springs’ budding blossoms emerge
the raptors glide mercilessly.
―Michael R. Burch

The haiku above was written on 3-27-2023 after the Nashville Covenant school shooting. This is another haiku that came to me in a flash, fully formed.

"Slain" — an impossible word to comprehend.
The male lion murders cubs,
licks his lips, devours them.
―Michael R. Burch, "Incomprehensible"

I also wrote "Slain" in response to the Nashville Covenant school shooting.

The eagle sees farther
from its greater height—
our ancestors' wisdom
―Michael R. Burch

We should listen to the wisest of our ancestors on the subject of equality and justice, including Sappho (who wrote the first "make love, not war" poem over 2,500 years ago), Sitting Bull, Frederick Douglass, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela and Jimmy Carter.

Can eagles soar,
hooded?
—Michael R. Burch, "American Eagle"

My lovely wife Beth, more formally known as Elizabeth Steed Harris Burch, embodies and exemplifies love and compassion.

Teach me to love:
to fly beyond sterile Mars
to percolating Venus.
―Michael R. Burch

You rise with the sun,
mysteriously warm,
also scattering sunbeams.
―Michael R. Burch

one pillow ...
our dreams
merge
―Michael R. Burch

She bathes in silver,
~~~~ afloat ~~~~
on her reflections...
—Michael R. Burch

Crushed grapes
surrender such sweetness!
A mother’s compassion.
―Michael R. Burch

Love is a surreal sweetness
in a world where trampled grapes
become wine.
―Michael R. Burch

The day’s eyes were blue
until you appeared
and they wept at your beauty.
―Michael R. Burch

The moon blushed
then fled behind a cloud:
her stolen kiss.
―Michael R. Burch

You astound me,
your name
unpronounceable on my lips.
―Michael R. Burch

You astound me;
your name on my lips
remains unpronounceable.
―Michael R. Burch

A leaf brushes my cheek:
a subtle lover’s
gentlest caress.
―Michael R. Burch

The plums were sweet,
icy and delicious.
To eat them all
was perhaps malicious.
But I vastly prefer your kisses!
―Michael R. Burch

How vaguely I knew you
though I held you close ...
your heart’s muffled thunder,
your breath the wind—
rising and falling.
―Michael R. Burch

OTHER POEMS THAT MAY HAVE BEEN BLESSED BY THE MUSES

Styx
by Michael R. Burch

Black waters,
deep and dark and still ...
all men have passed this way,
or will.

"Styx" is another early poem that made me feel like a "real poet." I believe I wrote it as a high school senior, after "Infinity," or early my freshman year in college. "Styx" has been published by The Raintown Review, Blue Unicorn and Poezii, where it was translated into Romanian by Petru Dimofte. It was part of a longer poem called “Death” that I pared down to the best lines.

Will There Be Starlight
by Michael 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?

If I remember correctly, I wrote the first version of this poem toward the end of my senior year in high school, around age 18, then forgot about it for 15 years until I met my future wife Beth and she reminded me of the poem’s mysterious enchantress. I dedicated the poem to her on September 21, 1991, the same day I wrote "Seasons, for Beth." Since then "Will There Be Starlight" has been published by The Chained Muse, Famous Poets and Poems, Grassroots Poetry, Inspirational Stories, Jenion, Poetry Webring, Starlight Archives, TALESetc, The Word (UK) and Writ in Water. David Hamilton, an award-winning New Zealand composer, has set the lyrics to music. There are spoken-word performances of "Will There Be Starlight" on YouTube by David B. Gosselin and Ben W. Smith.

Moon Lake
by Michael R. Burch

Starlit recorder of summer nights,
what magic spell bewitches you?
They say that all lovers love first in the dark ...
Is it true?
    Is it true?
        Is it true?

Starry-eyed seer of all that appears
and all that has appeared—
What sights have you seen?
What dreams have you dreamed?
What rhetoric have you heard?

Is love an oration,
or is it a word?
Have you heard?
     Have you heard?
         Have you heard?

I believe I wrote this poem around age 18, along with its companion poem "Tomb Lake." I still find the questions interesting. Do all lovers love first in the dark? Is love an oration, or is it a word? David Hamilton, an award-winning New Zealand composer, has set the lyrics to music and the song has been performed by one of Australia's best choirs, Choralation.

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,
for 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 having leapt from the pinnacle of love,
and the result of each such 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.

I wrote this poem as a college freshman, age 18, watching my peers return to their dorms from a hard night of partying during rush week. It was probably the first poem I wrote as a college student.

In the Whispering Night
by Michael R. Burch

for George King

In the whispering night, when the stars bend low
till the hills ignite to a shining flame,
when a shower of meteors streaks the sky
while the lilies sigh in their beds, for shame,
we must steal our souls, as they once were stolen,
and gather our vigor, and all our intent.
We must heave our husks into some famished ocean
and laugh as they shatter, and never repent.
We must dance in the darkness as stars dance before us,
soar, Soar! through the night on a butterfly's breeze ...
blown high, upward-yearning, twin spirits returning
to the heights of awareness from which we were seized.

Published in Songs of Innocence, Romantics Quarterly and Poetry Life & Times. This is a poem I wrote as a college freshman, circa age 18-19, for my favorite college English teacher, George King, about poetic kinship, brotherhood and romantic flights of fancy.

The Toast
by Michael R. Burch

For longings warmed by tepid suns
(brief lusts that animated clay),
for passions wilted at the bud
and skies grown desolate and gray,
for stars that fell from tinseled heights
and mountains bleak and scarred and lone,
for seas reflecting distant suns
and weeds that thrive where seeds were sown,
for waltzes ending in a hush,
for rhymes that fade as pages close,
for flames' exhausted, drifting ash,
and petals falling from the rose, ...
I raise my cup before I drink,
saluting ghosts of loves long dead,
and silently propose a toast—
to joys set free, and those I fled.

According to my notes, this poem was filed in 1977, meaning that I wrote it around age 19 or earlier. This was one of my earliest-written "professional" poems: I earned a whopping five dollars! But that publication came many years after I wrote the poem. I had never been thrilled with the first two lines and rewrote them after the poem's initial publication by Contemporary Rhyme. But the rest of the poem is largely the same.

Floating/Entanglements
by Michael R. Burch

Memories flood the sand’s unfolding scroll;
they pour in with the long, cursive tides of night.

Memories of revenant blue eyes and wild lips
moist and frantic against my own.

Memories of ghostly white limbs . . .
of soft sighs
heard once again in the surf’s strangled moans.

We meet in the scarred, fissured caves of old dreams,
green waves of algae billowing about you,
becoming your hair.

Suspended there,
where pale sunset discolors the sea,
I see all that you are
and all that you have become to me.

Your love is a sea,
and I am its trawler—
harbored in dreams,
I ride out night’s storms.

Unanchored, I drift through the hours before morning,
dreaming the solace of your warm breasts,
pondering your riddles, savoring the feel
of the explosions of your hot, saline breath.

And I rise sometimes
from the tropical darkness
to gaze once again out over the sea . . .
You watch in the moonlight
that brushes the water;

bright waves throw back your reflection at me.

This is one of my more surreal poems, as the sea and lover become one. I believe I wrote this one at age 19. It has been published by Penny Dreadful, Romantics Quarterly, Boston Poetry Magazine and Poetry Life & Times.

Mare Clausum
by Michael R. Burch

These are the narrows of my soul—
dark waters pierced by eerie, haunting screams.
And these uncharted islands bleakly home
wild nightmares and deep, strange, forbidding dreams.

Please don’t think to find pearls’ pale, unearthly glow
within its shoals, nor corals in its reefs.
For, though you seek to salvage Love, I know
that vessel lists, and night brings no relief.

Pause here, and look, and know that all is lost;
then turn, and go; let salt consume, and rust.
This sea is not for sailors, but the damned
who lingered long past morning, till they learned

why it is named:
Mare Clausum.

Originally published by Penny Dreadful

Mare Clausum is Latin for "Closed Sea." I seem to remember the poem being inspired by merely reading the term Mare Clausum somewhere and finding it eerie, haunting and a bit chilling. I tried to find words and images with a similar eerie, haunting, chilling feel. I believe "Mare Clausum" was written around age 19.

Shock
by Michael R. Burch

It was early in the morning of the forming of my soul,
in the dawning of desire, with passion at first bloom,
with lightning splitting heaven to thunder's blasting roll
and a sense of welling fire and, perhaps, impending doom—
that I cried out through the tumult of the raging storm on high
for shelter from the chaos of the restless, driving rain ...
and the voice I heard replying from a rift of bleeding sky
was mine, I'm sure, and, furthermore, was certainly insane.

I may have been reading too many gothic ghost stories when I wrote this one! I think it shows a good touch with meter for a young poet. "Shock" has been published by multiple literary journals, including Penny Dreadful, The Eclectic Muse (Canada) and Poetry Life & Times.

Regret
by Michael R. Burch

1.
Regret,
a bitter
ache to bear ...

once starlight
languished
in your hair ...

a shining there
as brief
as rare.

2.
Regret ...
a pain
I chose to bear ...

unleash
the torrent
of your hair ...

and show me
once again—
how rare.

I believe I wrote this poem around 1978 to 1980, in my late teens or early twenties. It's not based on a real experience, to my recollection. I may have been thinking about Rapunzel.

Step Into Starlight
by Michael R. Burch

Step into starlight,
lovely and wild,
lonely and longing,
a woman, a child ...

Throw back drawn curtains,
enter the night,
dream of his kiss
as a comet ignites ...

Then fall to your knees
in a wind-fumbled cloud
and shudder to hear
oak hocks groaning aloud.

Flee down the dark path
to where the snaking vine bends
and withers and writhes
as winter descends ...

And learn that each season
ends one vanished day,
that each pregnant moon holds
no spent tides in its sway ...

For, as suns seek horizons—
boys fall, men decline.
As the grape sags with its burden,
remember—the wine!

I believe I wrote the original version of this poem in my early twenties, circa 1978-1979.

Winter
by Michael R. Burch

The rose of love's bright promise
lies torn by her own thorn;
her scent was sweet
but at her feet
the pallid aphids mourn.

The lilac of devotion
has felt the winter hoar
and shed her dress;
companionless,
she shivers—nude, forlorn.

I believe I wrote the first version of this poem around 1978 or 1979, in my early twenties. According to my notes, I revised the poem in 1997 and it was published in 2001 by Songs of Innocence, then subsequently by The Aurorean and Contemporary Rhyme. "Winter" was inspired and influenced by William Blake's poem "The Sick Rose."

Sarjann
by Michael R. Burch

What did I ever do
to make you hate me so?
I was only nine years old,
lonely and afraid,
a small stranger in a large land.

Why did you abuse me
and taunt me?
Even now, so many years later,
the question still haunts me:
what did I ever do?

Why did you despise me and reject me,
pushing and shoving me around
when there was no one to protect me?

Why did you draw a line
in the bone-dry autumn dust,
daring me to cross it?
Did you want to see me cry?
Well, if you did, you did.

... oh, leave me alone,
for the sky opens wide
in a land of no rain,
and who are you
to bring me such pain? ...

Can a bully be a Muse? This is one of the few "true poems" I've written, in the sense of being about the "real me." I had a bad experience with an older girl named Sarjann (or something like that), who used to taunt me and push me around at a bus stop in Roseville, California (the "large land" of "no rain" where I was a "small stranger" because I only lived there for a few months). I believe this poem was written in my teens.

The next two poems are the longest and most ambitious of my early poems. "Jessamyn's Song" was inspired by Claude Monet’s oil painting "The Walk, Woman with a Parasol," which I interpreted as a walk in a meadow or heather. The woman’s dress and captivating loveliness made me think of an impending wedding, with dances and festivities. The boy made me think of a family. I gave the woman a name, Jessamyn, and wrote her story, thinking along these lines, while in high school. The opening lines were influenced by "Fern Hill" by the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, one of my boyhood favorites and still a favorite today. "Jessamyn's Song" was substantially complete by around age 16, my first long poem, although I was not happy with the longer poem, overall, and eventually published the closing stanza as an independent poem, "Leave Taking." I have touched up the longer poem here and there over the last half century, but it remains substantially the same as the original poem. 

Jessamyn's Song
by Michael R. Burch

16
There are meadows heathered with thoughts of you,
where the honeysuckle winds
in fragrant, tangled vines
down to the water's edge.

Through the wind-bent grass I watch time pass
slow with the dying day
on its lolling, rolling way ...
And I know you’ll soon be mine.

17
There are oak trees haggard and gnarled by Time
where the shrewd squirrel makes his lair,
sleeping through winters unaware
of the white commotion below.

By the waning sun I keep watch upon
the earth as she spins—so slow!—
and I know within
they're absolved from sin
who sleep beneath the snow.

They have no sin, and we sin not
although we sleep and dream in bliss
while others rage, and charge ... and die,
and all our nights’ elations miss.

For life is ours, and through our veins
it pulses with a tranquil flow,
though in others’ it may surge and froth
and carry passions to and fro.

18
By murmuring streams I sometimes dream
of whirling reels, of taut bows lancing,
when my partner’s the prettiest dancing,
and she is always you.

So let the meadows rest in peace,
and let the woodlands lie ...
Life’s the pulse in your heart and in mine—
let us not let it die.

19
By the windmill we have often kissed
as your clothing slipped,
exposing pale breasts and paler hips
to the naked glory of the sun.

Yes, my darling, I do love you
with all my wicked heart.
Promise that you'll be my bride
and these lips will never part
for any other’s.

20
There are daisies plaited through the fields
that make the valleys shine
(though the darker hawthorns wind
up to the highest ledge).

As the rising sun
                  blinks lazily on
the horizon’s eastern edge,
I watch the tangerine dawn
congeal to a brighter lime.

Oh, the season I love best is fall—
the trees coyly shedding their leaves, and all
creation watching, in thrall.

And you in your wedding dress, so calm,
seem less of this earth than the sky.

I expect you at any moment to
ascend through the brightening dimensionless blue
to softly go floating by—
a cloud or a pure-white butterfly.

21
There are rivers sparkling bright as spring
and others somber as the Nile,
but whether they may frown or smile,
none can match this brilliant stream
beside whose banks I lie and dream;
her waters, flowing swift, yet mild,
lull to sleep my new-born child!

22
There are mountains purple and pocked with Time,
home to goats and misfit trees ...
in lofty grandeur above vexed seas
they lift their haughty heads.

When the sun explodes over tonsured domes
and bright fountains splash in youthful ruin
against strange bizarre antediluvian runes
of tales to this day untold ...

I taste with my eyes the dawn's harsh gold
and breathe the frigid mountain air,
drinking deeply, wondering where
the magic days of youth have flown.

23
There are forests aged and ripe with rain
that loom at the brink of the trout's blue home.
There deer go to feast of the frothy foam,
to lap the gurgling water.

In murky shallows, swamped with slime,
the largemouth bass now sleeps,
his muddy memories dark and deep,
safe 'neath the sodden loam.

And often I have wondered
how it must feel to sleep
for timeless ages, fathoms deep
within a winter dream.

26
By the window ledge where the candle begs
the night for light to live,
the deepening darkness gives
the heart good cause to shudder.
For there are curly, tousled heads
that know one use for bed
and not any other ...

“Goodnight father.”
“Goodnight mother.”
“Goodnight sister.”
“Goodnight brother.”
“Tomorrow new adventures
we surely shall discover!”

30
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.

Sea Dreams
by Michael R. Burch

I.
In timeless days
I've crossed the waves
of seaways seldom seen.
By the last low light of evening
the breakers that careen
then dive back to the deep
have rocked my ship to sleep,
and so I've known the peace
of a soul at last at ease
there where Time's waters run
in concert with the sun.

With restless waves
I've watched the days’
slow movements, as they hum
their antediluvian songs.
Sometimes I've sung along,
my voice as soft and low
as the sea's, while evening slowed
to waver at the dim
mysterious moonlit rim
of dreams no man has known.

In thoughtless flight,
I've scaled the heights
and soared a scudding breeze
over endless arcing seas
of waves ten miles high.
I've sheared the sable skies
on wings as soft as sighs
and stormed the sun-pricked pitch
of sunset’s scarlet-stitched,
ebullient dark demise.

I've climbed the sun-cleft clouds
ten thousand leagues or more
above the windswept shores
of seas no man has sailed
— great seas as grand as hell's,
shores littered with the shells
of men's "immortal" souls —
and I've warred with dark sea-holes
whose open mouths implored
their depths to be explored.

And I've grown and grown and grown
till I thought myself the king
of every silver thing . . .

But sometimes late at night
when the sorrowing wavelets sing
sad songs of other times,
I taste the windborne rime
of a well-remembered day
on the whipping ocean spray,
and I bow my head to pray . . .

II.
It's been a long, hard day;
sometimes I think I work too hard.
Tonight I'd like to take a walk
down by the sea —
down by those salty waves
brined with the scent of Infinity,
down by that rocky shore,
down by those cliffs that I used to climb
when the wind was tart with a taste of lime
and every dream was a sailor's dream.

Then small waves broke light,
all frothy and white,
over the reefs in the ramblings of night,
and the pounding sea
—a mariner’s dream—
was bound to stir a boy's delight
to such a pitch
that he couldn't desist,
but was bound to splash through the surf in the light
of ten thousand stars, all shining so bright.

Christ, those nights were fine,
like a well-aged wine,
yet more scalding than fire
with the marrow’s desire.

Then desire was a fire
burning wildly within my bones,
fiercer by far than the frantic foam . . .
and every wish was a moan.
Oh, for those days to come again!
Oh, for a sea and sailing men!
Oh, for a little time!

It's almost nine
and I must be back home by ten,
and then . . . what then?
I have less than an hour to stroll this beach,
less than an hour old dreams to reach . . .
And then, what then?

Tonight I'd like to play old games—
games that I used to play
with the somber, sinking waves.
When their wraithlike fists would reach for me,
I'd dance between them gleefully,
mocking their witless craze
—their eager, unchecked craze—
to batter me to death
with spray as light as breath.

Oh, tonight I'd like to sing old songs—
songs of the haunting moon
drawing the tides away,
songs of those sultry days
when the sun beat down
till it cracked the ground
and the sea gulls screamed
in their agony
to touch the cooling clouds.
The distant cooling clouds.

Then the sun shone bright
with a different light
over different lands,
and I was always a pirate in flight.

Oh, tonight I'd like to dream old dreams,
if only for a while,
and walk perhaps a mile
along this windswept shore,
a mile, perhaps, or more,
remembering those days,
safe in the soothing spray
of the thousand sparkling streams
that rush into this sea.
I like to slumber in the caves
of a sailor's dark sea-dreams . . .
oh yes, I'd love to dream,
to dream
and dream
and dream.

“Sea Dreams” is one of my longer and more ambitious early poems, along with the full version of “Jessamyn’s Song.” To the best of my recollection, I wrote “Sea Dreams” around age 18, circa 1976-1977. For years I thought I had written “Sea Dreams” around age 19 or 20, circa 1978. But then I remembered a conversation I had with a friend about the poem in my freshman dorm, so the poem must have been started around age 18 or earlier. Dating my early poems has been a bit tricky, because I keep having little flashbacks that help me date them more accurately, but often I can only say, “I know this poem was written by about such-and-such a date, because ...”