I will break your heart
till each fissure, each crevice, each line
exactly matches mine.
—Michael R. Burch
These are poems about things that break and all-too-often cannot be recovered or repaired…
Love can be a high-wire act, one not for the faint of heart. The photograph above may be may all-time favorite. It inspired the following poem…
Daredevil
by Michael R. Burch
There are days that I believe
(and nights that I deny)
love is not mutilation.
Daredevil, dry your eyes.
There are tightropes leaps bereave—
taut wires strumming high
brief songs, infatuations.
Daredevil, dry your eyes.
There were cannon shots’ soirees,
hearts barricaded, wise …
and then … annihilation.
Daredevil, dry your eyes.
There were nights our hearts conceived
untruths reborn as sighs.
To dream was our consolation.
Daredevil, dry your eyes.
There were acrobatic leaves
that tumbled down to lie
at our feet, bright trepidations.
Daredevil, dry your eyes.
There were hearts carved into trees—
tall stakes where you and I
left childhood’s salt libations …
Daredevil, dry your eyes.
Where once you scraped your knees;
love later bruised your thighs.
Death numbs all, our sedation.
Daredevil, dry your eyes.
How Long the Night
(Anonymous Old English Lyric, circa early 13th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
It is pleasant, indeed, while the summer lasts
with the mild pheasants' song ...
but now I feel the northern wind's blast—
its severe weather strong.
Alas! Alas! This night seems so long!
And I, because of my momentous wrong
now grieve, mourn and fast.
If I had to name the most moving poems in the English language, I would include “How Long the Night” along with “Bread and Music” by Conrad Aiken, “After the Persian” and “Song for the Last Act” by Louise Bogan, “Voyages by Hart Crane,” “Oft in My Thought” by Charles d’France, “To Earthward” by Robert Frost,” “Piano” by D. H. Lawrence, “Requiscat” by Oscar Wilde, and “The Wild Swans at Coole” by William Butler Yeats.
Shattered
by Vera Pavlova
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
I shattered your heart;
now I limp through the shards
barefoot.
Speechless
by Ko Un
translation by Michael R. Burch
At Auschwitz
piles of glasses,
mountains of shoes ...
returning, we stared out different windows.
“Speechless” is my translation of a Holocaust poem by Ko Un that has also been published as “Speechless at Auschwitz.”
Ko Un was speechless at Auschwitz.
Someday, when it’s too late,
will we be speechless at Gaza?
— Michael R. Burch
Hymn for Ukrainian Soldiers
by Michael R. Burch
Sound the awesome cannons.
Pin medals to each breast.
Attention, honor guard!
Give them a hero’s rest.
Recite their names to the heavens
Till the stars acknowledge their kin.
Then let the land they defended
Gather them in again.
I would love for someone to set this poem to music. I’ve had 59 poems set to music by composers, but this one would be especially meaningful, and for the best of causes.
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” is one of the first poems that made me feel like a "real" poet. I wrote it in sympathy with someone considering suicide. I remember reading the poem and asking myself, "Did I really write that?" Many years later, I'm still glad that I wrote it, and it still makes me feel like a real poet. I believe I wrote “Infinity” as a high school senior, age 18.
HAIKU
Dark-bosomed clouds
pregnant with heavy thunder ...
the water breaks
― Michael R. Burch
How can she bear her grief?
Mightier than Atlas, she shoulders the weight
of one fallen star.
—“Childless” by Michael R. Burch
The childless woman,
how tenderly she caresses
homeless dolls ...
—Hattori Ransetsu, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Grasses wilt:
the braking locomotive
grinds to a halt.
—Yamaguchi Seishi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Petals I amass
with such tenderness
prick me to the quick.
—Kobayashi Issa, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
This world of dew
is a dewdrop world indeed;
and yet, and yet ...
—Kobayashi Issa, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Kobayashi Issa may have written the haiku above after the death of his daughter. Dew is frequently used in Japanese poetry as a metaphor for the fleetness and transience of life.
Both victor and vanquished are dewdrops:
flashes of light
briefly illuminating the void.
—Ôuchi Yoshitaka, loose translation/interpretation of his jisei (death poem) by Michael R. Burch
This world—to what may we compare it?
To autumn fields darkening at dusk,
dimly lit by lightning flashes.
—Minamoto no Shitago, loose translation/interpretation of his jisei (death poem) by Michael R. Burch
This world?
Moonlit dew
flicked from a crane’s bill.
— Eihei Dogen Kigen, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Seventy-one?
How long
can a dewdrop last?
—Eihei Dogen Kigen, loose translation/interpretation of his jisei (death poem) by Michael R. Burch
This day of chrysanthemums
I shake and comb my wet hair,
as their petals shed rain
― Hisajo Sugita, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
The first soft snow:
leaves of the awed jonquil
bow low
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Here the leaves of the jonquil, heavy with snow, seem to bow low in reverence to the power of winter. Or at least that’s my interpretation of the poem.
Come, investigate loneliness:
a solitary leaf
clings to the Kiri tree
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
A single leaf clinging to a tree becomes a metaphor for loneliness and isolation.
One apple, alone
in the abandoned orchard
reddens for winter
― Patrick Blanche, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Whistle on, twilight whippoorwill,
solemn evangelist
of loneliness
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Winter in the air:
my neighbor,
how does he fare?
―Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Ah butterfly,
what dreams do you ply
with your beautiful wings?
― Fukuda Chiyo-ni, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
My well-bucket held hostage
by morning glories,
I went begging for water.
—Fukuda Chiyo-ni, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Fukuda Chiyo-ni (1703-1775), also known as Kaga no Chiyo and Kaga Chiyome, was a Japanese poet, painter and calligrapher of the Edo period. She began writing haiku at age seven and by age seventeen was popular throughout Japan. At age 52 she became a Buddhist nun, shaved her head, adopted the name Soen (“Escape”), and took up residence in a temple.
Oh, fallen camellias,
if I were you,
I'd leap into the torrent!
― Takaha Shugyo, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
The haiku above is one I especially love, because the poet draws the reader into feeling empathy for, and sympathizing with, dying flowers. When I interpret the poem, I see petals falling beside rapidly rushing water and hear the poet suggesting that a quick death is better than a slow, lingering death. One might say the poem suggests that suicide or euthanasia may be preferable to a long, drawn-out death, although there are other interpretations. A good poem may have as many different interpretations as there are readers.
ATHENIAN EPITAPHS
Mariner, do not ask whose tomb this may be,
But go with good fortune: I wish you a kinder sea.
― Michael R. Burch, after Plato
Does my soul abide in heaven, or hell?
Only the sea gulls in their high, lonely circuits may tell.
― Michael R. Burch, after Glaucus
Stripped of her stripling, if asked, she’d confess:
“I am now less than nothingness.”
—Michael R. Burch, after Diotimus
Here he lies in state tonight: great is his Monument!
Yet Ares cares not, neither does War relent.
― Michael R. Burch, after Anacreon
They observed our fearful fetters, braved the surrounding darkness.
Now we extol their excellence: bravely, they died for us.
― Michael R. Burch, after Mnasalcas
Blame not the gale, nor the inhospitable sea-gulf, nor friends’ tardiness,
mariner! Just man’s foolhardiness.
—Michael R. Burch, after Leonidas of Tarentum
Everywhere the sea is the sea, the dead are the dead.
What difference to me—where I rest my head?
The sea knows I’m buried.
—Michael R. Burch, after Antipater of Sidon
Be ashamed, O mountains and seas,
these valorous men lack breath.
Assume, like pale chattels,
an ashen silence at death.
—Michael R. Burch, after Parmenio
Passerby,
Tell the Spartans we lie
Lifeless at Thermopylae:
Dead at their word,
Obedient to their command.
Have they heard?
Do they understand?
― Michael R. Burch, after Simonides
There are more ancient Greek translations by Michael R. Burch at Athenian Epitaphs.
Stormfront
by Michael R. Burch
Our distance is frightening:
a distance like the abyss between heaven and earth
interrupted by bizarre and terrible lightning.
The moon has long since set;
The Pleiades are gone;
Now half the night is spent,
Yet here I lie ... alone.
―Sappho, fragment 156, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Pain
drains
me
to
the
last
drop
.
―Sappho, fragment 156, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Elegy for a little girl, lost
by Michael R. Burch
for my mother, Christine Ena Burch, who was always a little giggly girl at heart
. . . 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 was touched by this Latin prayer, which I discovered in a novel I read as a teenager. I later decided to incorporate it into a poem, which I started in high school and revised as an adult. This was my first translation and not 100% accurate. 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).
Sunset
by Michael R. Burch
This poem is dedicated to my grandfather, George Edwin Hurt, who died April 4, 1998.
Between the prophecies of morning
and twilight’s revelations of wonder,
the sky is ripped asunder.
The moon lurks in the clouds,
waiting, as if to plunder
the dusk of its lilac iridescence,
and in the bright-tentacled sunset
we imagine a presence
full of the fury of lost innocence.
What we find within strange whorls of drifting flame,
brief patterns mauling winds deform and maim,
we recognize at once, but cannot name.
See
by Michael R. Burch
See how her hair has thinned: it doesn't seem
like hair at all, but like the airy moult
of emus who outraced the wind and left
soft plumage in their wake. See how her eyes
are gentler now; see how each wrinkle laughs,
and deepens on itself, as though mirth took
some comfort there and burrowed deeply in,
outlasting winter. See how very thin
her features are—that time has made more spare,
so that each bone shows, elegant and rare.
For loveliness remains in her grave eyes,
and courage in her still-delighted looks:
each face presented like a picture book's.
Bemused, she blows us undismayed goodbyes.
Originally published by Writer's Digest's—The Year's Best Writing 2003
The Lingering and the Unconsoled Heart
by Michael R. Burch
There is a silence—
the last unspoken moment
before death,
when the moon,
cratered and broken,
is all madness and light,
when the breath comes low and complaining,
and the heart is a ruin
of emptiness and night.
There is a grief—
the grief of a lover's embrace
while faith still shimmers in a mother’s tears ...
There is no emptier time, nor place,
while the faint glimmer of life is ours
that the lingering and the unconsoled heart fears
beyond this: seeing its own stricken face
in eyes that drift toward some incomprehensible place.
Modern Charon
by Michael R. Burch
I, too, have stood—paralyzed at the helm
watching onrushing, inevitable disaster.
I too have felt sweat (or ecstatic tears) plaster
damp hair to my eyes, as a slug’s dense film
becomes mucous-insulate. Always, thereafter
living in darkness, bright things overwhelm.
Break Time
by Michael R. Burch
for those who lost loved ones on 9-11
Intrude upon my grief; sit; take a spot
of milk to cloud the blackness that you feel;
add artificial sweeteners to conceal
the bitter aftertaste of loss. You’ll heal
if I do not. The coffee’s hot. You speak:
of bundt cakes, polls, the price of eggs. You glance
twice at your watch, cough, look at me askance.
The TV drones oeuvres of high romance
in syncopated lip-synch. Should I feel
the underbelly of Love’s warm Ideal,
its fuzzy-wuzzy tummy, and not reel
toward some dark conclusion? Disappear
to pale, dissolving atoms. Were you here?
I brush you off: like saccharine, like a tear.
Mending
by Michael R. Burch
for the victims of 9-11 and their survivors
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
which 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.
Bubble
by Michael R. Burch
...…..….........Love
..…......fragile elusive
..…...if held too closely
…..cannot.........withstand
..the inter..................ruption
of its............................…bright
..unmalleable.............tension
....and breaks disintegrates
..…...at the............touch of
....…....an undiscerning
..................hand.
I believe “Bubble” is my only shape/shaped/concrete poem.
Please feel free to share this poem with anyone it might help . . .
Self Reflection
by Michael R. Burch
for anyone struggling with self-image
She has a comely form
and a smile that brightens her dorm . . .
but she’s grossly unthin
when seen from within;
soon a griefstricken campus will mourn.
Yet she’d never once criticize
a friend for the size of her thighs.
Do unto others—
sisters and brothers?
Yes, but also ourselves, likewise.
Snapshots
by Michael R. Burch
Here I scrawl extravagant rainbows.
And there you go, skipping your way to school.
And here we are, drifting apart
like untethered balloons.
Here I am, creating "art,"
chanting in shadows,
pale as the crinoline moon,
ignoring your face.
There you go,
in diaphanous lace,
making another man’s heart swoon.
Suddenly, unthinkably, here he is,
taking my place.
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 “Regret” 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.
Leave Taking
by Michael R. Burch
Brilliant leaves abandon battered limbs
to waltz upon ecstatic winds
until they die.
But the barren and embittered trees,
lament the frolic of the leaves
and curse the bleak November sky ...
Now, as I watch the leaves' high flight
before the fading autumn light,
I think that, perhaps, at last I may
have learned what it means to say—
goodbye.
"Leave Taking" started out as a stanza in a much longer poem, "Jessamyn's Song," that dates to around age 14-16. "Leave Taking" has been published by The Lyric, Mindful of Poetry, Silver Stork Magazine and There is Something in the Autumn (an anthology). Not too shabby for a young poet testing his wings.
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.
This is one of my early poems, written around age 19.
Second Sight
by Michael R. Burch
I never touched you—
that was my mistake.
Deep within,
I still feel the ache.
Can an unformed thing
eternally break?
Now, from a great distance,
I see you again
not as you are now,
but as you were then—
eternally present
and Sovereign.
In this Ordinary Swoon
by Michael R. Burch
In this ordinary swoon
as I pass from life to death,
I feel no heat from the cold, pale moon;
I feel no sympathy for breath.
Who I am and why I came,
I do not know; nor does it matter.
The end of every man’s the same
and every god’s as mad as a hatter.
I do not fear the letting go;
I only fear the clinging on
to hope when there’s no hope, although
I lift my face to the blazing sun
and feel the greater intensity
of the wilder inferno within me.
Breakings
by Michael R. Burch
I did it out of pity.
I did it out of love.
I did it not to break the heart of a tender, wounded dove.
But gods without compassion
ordained: Frail things must break!
Now what can I do for her shattered psyche’s sake?
I did it not to push.
I did it not to shove.
I did it to assist the flight of indiscriminate Love.
But gods, all mad as hatters,
who legislate in such great matters,
ordained that everything irreplaceable shatters.
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.
Sinking
by Michael R. Burch
for Virginia Woolf
Weigh me down with stones ...
fill all the pockets of my gown ...
I’m going down,
mad as the world
that can’t recover,
to where even mermaids drown.
Besieged
by Michael R. Burch
Life—the disintegration of the flesh
before the fitful elevation of the soul
upon improbable wings?
Life—it is all we know,
the travail one bright season brings...
Now the fruit hangs,
impendent, pregnant with death,
as the hurricane builds and flings
its white columns and banners of snow
and the rout begins.
The Leveler
by Michael R. Burch
The nature of Nature
is bitter survival
from Winter’s bleak fury
till Spring’s brief revival.
The weak implore Fate;
bold men ravish, dishevel her ...
till both are cut down
by mere ticks of the Leveler.
I believe I wrote this poem in my late teens or perhaps around age 20. It has since been published in The Lyric, Tucumcari Literary Review, Romantics Quarterly and The Aurorean.
The Watch
by Michael R. Burch
Moonlight spills down vacant sills,
illuminates an empty bed.
Dreams lie in crates. One hand creates
wan silver circles, left unread
by its companion—unmoved now
by anything that lies ahead.
I watch the minutes test the limits
of ornamental movement here,
where once another hand would hover.
Each circuit—incomplete. So dear,
so precious, so precise, the touch
of hands that wait, yet ask so much.
The Effects of Memory
by Michael R. Burch
A black ringlet
curls to lie
at the nape of her neck,
glistening with sweat
in the evaporate moonlight ...
This is what I remember
now that I cannot forget.
And tonight,
if I have forgotten her name,
I remember:
rigid wire and white lace
half-impressed in her flesh ...
our soft cries, like regret,
... the enameled white clips
of her bra strap
still inscribe dimpled marks
that my kisses erase ...
now that I have forgotten her face.
To Flower
by Michael R. Burch
When Pentheus ["grief'] went into the mountains in the garb of the bacchae, his mother [Agave] and the other maenads, possessed by Dionysus, tore him apart (Euripides, Bacchae; Apollodorus 3.5.2; Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.511-733; Hyginus, Fabulae 184). The agave dies as soon as it blooms; the moonflower, or night-blooming cereus, is a desert plant of similar fate.
We are not long for this earth, I know—
you and I, all our petals incurled,
till a night of pale brilliance, moonflower aglow.
Is there love anywhere in this strange world?
The Agave knows best when it's time to die
and rages to life with such rapturous leaves
her name means Illustrious. Each hour more high,
she claws toward heaven, for, if she believes
in love at all, she has left it behind
to flower, to flower. When darkness falls
she wilts down to meet it, where something crawls:
beheaded, bewildered. And since love is blind,
she never adored it, nor watches it go.
Can we be as she is, moonflower aglow?
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 livid white scar
in that first shattered heart,
forever unhealed . . .
this 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.
Distances
by Michael R. Burch
Moonbeams on water —
the reflected light
of a halcyon star
now drowning in night ...
So your memories are.
Footprints on beaches
now flooding with water;
the small, broken ribcage
of some primitive slaughter ...
So near, yet so far.
"Distances" has been set to music by the award-winning New Zealand composer David Hamilton. In the first stanza the "halcyon star" is the sun, which has dropped below the horizon and is thus "drowning in night." But its light strikes the moon, creating moonbeams which are reflected by the water. Sometimes memories seem that distant, that faint, that elusive. Footprints are being washed away, a heart is missing from its ribcage, and even things close at hand can seem infinitely beyond our reach. I rate this poem higher than Google. It has five stars at PoemHunter.
The Folly of Wisdom
by Michael R. Burch
She is wise in the way that children are wise,
looking at me with such knowing, grave eyes
I must bend down to her to understand.
But she only smiles, and takes my hand.
We are walking somewhere that her feet know to go,
so I smile, and I follow ...
And the years are dark creatures concealed in bright leaves
that flutter above us, and what she believes—
I can almost remember—goes something like this:
the prince is a horned toad, awaiting her kiss.
She wiggles and giggles, and all will be well
if only we find him! The woodpecker’s knell
as he hammers the coffin of some dying tree
that once was a fortress to someone like me
rings wildly above us. Some things that we know
we are meant to forget. Life is a bloodletting, maple-syrup-slow.
The Peripheries of Love
by Michael R. Burch
Through waning afternoons we glide
the watery peripheries of love.
A silence, a quietude falls.
Above us—the sagging pavilions of clouds.
Below us—rough pebbles slowly worn smooth
grate in the gentle turbulence
of yesterday’s forgotten rains.
Later, the moon like a virgin
lifts her stricken white face
and the waters rise
toward some unfathomable shore.
We sway gently in the wake
of what stirs beneath us,
yet leaves us unmoved ...
curiously motionless,
as though twilight might blur
the effects of proximity and distance,
as though love might be near—
as near
as a single cupped tear of resilient dew
or a long-awaited face.
Ebb Tide
by Michael R. Burch
Massive, gray, these leaden waves
bear their unchanging burden—
the sameness of each day to day
while the wind seems to struggle to say
something half-submerged planks at the mouth of the bay
might nuzzle limp seaweed to understand.
Now collapsing dull waves drain away
from the unenticing land;
shrieking gulls shadow fish through salt spray—
whitish streaks on a fogged silver mirror.
Sizzling lightning impresses its brand.
Unseen fingers scribble something in the wet sand.
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
then flutters and drifts on in dark aimless flight.
And yet it returns
to the flame, its delight,
as long as it burns.
The Pain of Love
by Michael R. Burch
for Tom Merrill
The pain of love is this:
the parting after the kiss;
the train steaming from the station
whistling abnegation;
each interstate’s bleak white bar
that vanishes under your car;
every hour and flower and friend
that cannot be saved in the end;
dear things of immeasurable cost ...
now all irretrievably lost.
The title “The Pain of Love” was suggested by Little Richard, then eighty years old, in an interview with Rolling Stone. Little Richard said someone should create a song called “The Pain of Love.” How could I not obey a living legend? I have always found the departure platforms of railway stations and the vanishing broken white bars of highway dividing lines to be depressing, so they were natural images for my poem. Perhaps someone can set the lyrics to music and fulfill the Great Commission!
At Wilfred Owen's Grave
by Michael R. Burch
A week before the Armistice, you died.
They did not keep your heart like Livingstone's,
then plant your bones near Shakespeare's. So you lie
between two privates, sacrificed like Christ
to politics, your poetry unknown
except for one brief flurry: thirteen months
with Gaukroger beside you in the trench,
dismembered, as you babbled, as the stench
of gangrene filled your nostrils, till you clenched
your broken heart together and the fist
began to pulse with life, so close to death.
Or was it at Craiglockhart, in the care
of "ergotherapists" that you sensed life
is only in the work, and made despair
a thing that Yeats despised, but also breath,
a mouthful's merest air, inspired less
than wrested from you, and which we confess
we only vaguely breathe: the troubled air
that even Sassoon failed to share, because
a man in pieces is not healed by gauze,
and breath's transparent, unless we believe
the words are true despite their lack of weight
and float to us like chlorine—scalding eyes,
and lungs, and hearts. Your words revealed the fate
of boys who retched up life here, gagged on lies.
Originally published by The Chariton Review
Just Smile
by Michael R. Burch
We’d like to think some angel smiling down
will watch him as his arm bleeds in the yard,
ripped off by dogs, will guide his tipsy steps,
his doddering progress through the scarlet house
to tell his mommy "boo-boo!," only two.
We’d like to think his reconstructed face
will be as good as new, will often smile,
that baseball’s just as fun with just one arm,
that God is always Just, that girls will smile,
not frown down at his thousand livid scars,
that Life is always Just, that Love is Just.
We do not want to hear that he will shave
at six, to raze the leg hairs from his cheeks,
that lips aren’t easily fashioned, that his smile’s
lopsided, oafish, snaggle-toothed, that each
new operation costs a billion tears,
when tears are out of fashion.
O, beseech
some poet with more skill with words than tears
to find some happy ending, to believe
that God is Just, that Love is Just, that these
are Parables we live, Life’s Mysteries ...
Or look inside his courage, as he ties
his shoelaces one-handed, as he throws
no-hitters on the first-place team, and goes
on dates, looks in the mirror undeceived
and smiling says, "It’s me I see. Just me."
He smiles, if life is Just, or lacking cures.
Your pity is the worst cut he endures.
Child of 9-11
by Michael R. Burch
a poem for Christina-Taylor Green, who was born
on September 11, 2001 and died at the age of nine,
shot to death ...
Child of 9-11, beloved,
I bring this lily, lay it down
here at your feet, and eiderdown,
and all soft things, for your gentle spirit.
I bring this psalm — I hope you hear it.
Much love I bring — I lay it down
here by your form, which is not you,
but what you left this shell-shocked world
to help us learn what we must do
to save another child like you.
Child of 9-11, I know
you are not here, but watch, afar
from distant stars, where angels rue
the vicious things some mortals do.
I also watch; I also rue.
And so I make this pledge and vow:
though I may weep, I will not rest
nor will my pen fail heaven's test
till guns and wars and hate are banned
from every shore, from every land.
Child of 9-11, I grieve
your tender life, cut short ... bereaved,
what can I do, but pledge my life
to saving lives like yours? Belief
in your sweet worth has led me here ...
I give my all: my pen, this tear,
this lily and this eiderdown,
and all soft things my heart can bear;
I bear them to your final bier,
and leave them with my promise, here.
Cleansings
by Michael R. Burch
Walk here among the walking specters. Learn
inhuman patience. Flesh can only cleave
to bone this tightly if their hearts believe
that God is good, and never mind the Urn.
A lentil and a bean might plump their skin
with mothers’ bounteous, soft-dimpled fat
(and call it “health”), might quickly build again
the muscles of dead menfolk. Dream, like that,
and call it courage. Cry, and be deceived,
and so endure. Or burn, made wholly pure.
If one prayer is answered,
“G-d” must be believed.
No holy pyre this—death’s hissing chamber.
Two thousand years ago—a starlit manger,
weird Herod’s cries for vengeance on the meek,
the children slaughtered. Fear, when angels speak,
the prophesies of man.
Do what you "can,"
not what you must, or should.
They call you “good,”
dead eyes devoid of tears; how shall they speak
except in blankness? Fear, then, how they weep.
Escape the gentle clutching stickfolk. Creep
away in shame to retch and flush away
your vomit from their ashes. Learn to pray.
Styx
by Michael R. Burch
Black waters,
deep and dark and still . . .
all men have passed this way,
or will.
I wrote "Styx" as a teenager, in high school, and it remains one of my favorite poems. It was part of a longer poem “Death” that I distilled down to an epigram.
Autumn Conundrum
by Michael R. Burch
It's not that every leaf must finally fall,
it's just that we can never catch them all.
Piercing the Shell
by Michael R. Burch
If we strip away all the accouterments of war,
perhaps we'll discover what the heart is for.
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 finality has swept into a corner ... where it lies
in dust and cobwebs and silence.
"Something" was my first poem that didn't rhyme, written around age 18 or thereabouts. This was not a conscious decision on my part; the poem came to me "out of blue nothing" to quote my friend the Maltese poet Joe Ruggier.
Auschwitz Rose
by Michael R. Burch
There is a Rose at Auschwitz, in the briar,
a rose like Sharon's, lovely as her name.
The world forgot her, and is not the same.
I still love her and enlist this sacred fire
to keep her memory's exalted flame
unmolested by the thistles and the nettles.
On Auschwitz now the reddening sunset settles;
they sleep alike—diminutive and tall,
the innocent, the "surgeons."
Sleeping, all.
Red oxides of her blood, bright crimson petals,
if accidents of coloration, gall
my heart no less.
Amid thick weeds and muck
there lies a rose man's crackling lightning struck:
the only Rose I ever longed to pluck.
Soon I'll bed there and bid the world "Good Luck."
Frail Envelope of Flesh
by Michael R. Burch
for the mothers and children of the Holocaust and 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 ...
I read the phrase "Frail envelope of flesh!" in a comic book as a boy and never forgot it. Eventually, it occurred to me to write a poem with that title and theme. I wrote the poem around age 20. When I published the poem online, probably around 2002 after it had been originally published by The Lyric, I scoured the Internet for the phrase "frail envelope of flesh" trying the find the comic where I had read it as a boy, but the phrase was unknown to Google. And yet today other writers are using it, so I suspect that I gave the phrase a second life. At the height of its popularity, "Frail Envelope of Flesh" had 1.4K Google results. It has been set to music by the composer Eduard de Boer and performed in Europe by the Palestinian soprano Dima Bawab. It has been translated into Arabic by Nizar Sartawi, into Italian by Mario Rigli, and into Vietnamese by Ngu Yen. It is also being taught in online courseware by Course Hero. "Frail Envelope of Flesh" has been published by The Lyric, Promosaik (Germany), Setu (India), Sindhu News (India), Tho Tru Tinh (in a Vietnamese translation by Ngu Yen), Sejak Sajak Di (Indonesia), Orphans of Gaza, Irish Blog, Alarshef, ArtVilla, Borderless Journal (Singapore), Daily Motion, Poetry Life & Times, Generations Shall Call Them Blessed (a Holocaust book by Dan Paulos) and Academia.edu.
Because Her Heart Is Tender
by Michael R. Burch
for Beth
She scrawled soft words in soap: "Never Forget,"
Dove-white on her car's window, and the wren,
because her heart is tender, might regret
it called the sun to wake her. As I slept,
she heard lost names recounted, one by one.
She wrote in sidewalk chalk: "Never Forget,"
and kept her heart's own counsel. No rain swept
away those words, no tear leaves them undone.
Because her heart is tender with regret,
bruised by razed towers' glass and steel and stone
that shatter on and on and on and on,
she stitches in wet linen: "NEVER FORGET,"
and listens to her heart's emphatic song.
The wren might tilt its head and sing along
because its heart once understood regret
when fledglings fell beyond, beyond, beyond ...
its reach, and still the boot-heeled world strode on.
She writes in adamant: "NEVER FORGET"
because her heart is tender with regret.
This is a true poem about what my wife Beth did on the first anniversary of 9-11. This is the sort of unabashedly sentimental poem that no self-respecting "major journal" would publish ... but then what do any of them know about poetry, much less human hearts? I love this villanelle because it captures Beth in all her fury and all her love. It may not be a great poem, but I think readers will grok Beth, so hopefully the poem accomplishes its purpose.
A Surfeit of Light
by Michael R. Burch
There was always a surfeit of light in your presence.
You stood distinctly apart, not of the humdrum world—
a chariot of gold in a procession of plywood.
We were all pioneers of the modern expedient race,
raising the ante: Home Depot to Lowe’s.
Yours was an antique grace—Thrace’s or Mesopotamia’s.
We were never quite sure of your silver allure,
of your trillium-and-platinum diadem,
of your utter lack of flatware-like utility.
You told us that night—your wound would not scar.
The black moment passed, then you were no more.
The darker the sky, how much brighter the Star!
The day of your funeral, I ripped out the crown mold.
You were this fool’s gold.
This was an usual poem for me to write. I was trying to capture the idea of someone endowed with grace but struggling with the basics of life.
Crescendo Against Heaven
by Michael R. Burch
As curiously formal as the rose,
the imperious Word grows
until it sheds red-gilded leaves:
then heaven grieves
love’s tiny pool of crimson recrimination
against God, its contention
of the price of salvation.
These industrious trees,
endlessly losing and re-losing their leaves,
finally unleashing themselves from earth, lashing
themselves to bits, washing
themselves free
of all but the final ignominy
of death, become
at last: fast planks of our coffins, dumb.
Together now, rude coffins, crosses,
death-cursed but bright vermilion roses,
bodies, stumps, tears, words: conspire
together with a nearby spire
to raise their Accusation Dire ...
to scream, complain, to point out these
and other Dark Anomalies.
God always silent, ever afar,
distant as Bethlehem’s retrograde star,
we point out now, in resignation:
You asked too much of man’s beleaguered nation,
gave too much strength to his Enemy,
as though to prove Your Self greater than He,
at our expense, and so men die
(whose accusations vex the sky)
yet hope, somehow, that You are good ...
just, O greatest of Poets!, misunderstood.
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 its weary worth.
I believe I wrote the first version of this early poem toward the end of my senior year of high school, around age 18. To my recollection this is my only poem directly influenced by the “sprung rhythm” of Dylan Thomas (moreso than that of Gerard Manley Hopkins).
Will There Be Starlight
by Michael R. Burch
for Beth
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?
Moments
by Michael R. Burch
for Beth
There were moments full of promise,
like the petal-scented rainfall of early spring,
when to hold you in my arms and to kiss your willing lips
seemed everything.
There are moments strangely empty
full of pale unearthly twilight—how the cold stars stare!—
when to be without you is a dark enchantment
the night and I share.
Remembrance
by Michael R. Burch
Remembrance like a river rises;
the rain of recollection falls;
frail memories, like vines, entangled,
cling to Time's collapsing walls.
The past is like a distant mist,
the future like a far-off haze,
the present half-distinct an hour
before it blurs with unseen days.
Be that Rock
by Michael R. Burch
for George Edwin Hurt Sr.
When I was a child
I never considered man’s impermanence,
for you were a mountain of adamant stone:
a man steadfast, immense,
and your words rang.
And when you were gone,
I still heard your voice, which never betrayed,
"Be strong and of a good courage,
neither be afraid ..."
as the angels sang.
And, O!, I believed
for your words were my truth, and I tried to be brave
though the years slipped away
with so little to save
of that talk.
Now I'm a man—
a man ... and yet Grandpa ... I'm still the same child
who sat at your feet
and learned as you smiled.
Be that rock.
I don't remember when I wrote this poem, but I will guess around age 18. The verse quoted is from an old, well-worn King James Bible my grandfather gave me after his only visit to the United States, as he prepared to return to England with my grandmother. I was around eight at the time and didn't know if I would ever see my grandparents again, so I was heartbroken—destitute, really. Fortunately my father was later stationed at an Air Force base in Germany and we were able to spend four entire summer vacations with my grandparents. I was also able to visit them in England several times as an adult. But the years of separation were very difficult for me and I came to detest things that separated me from my family and friends: the departure platforms of train stations, airport runways, even the white dividing lines on lonely highways and interstates as they disappeared behind my car. My idea of heaven became a place where we are never again separated from our loved ones. And that puts hell here on earth.
Stunningly beautiful, poetry as prayer! Thank you Sir, Geraldine
There are some incredibly sad and brilliant poems in this post. I picked out 'How Long the Night', and I restacked it with a little note saying that you considered it among the most moving poems in the English language.