Safe Harbor

"Safe Harbor" is a poem I wrote for my friend and fellow poet Kevin N. Roberts after a discussion about modern Romanticism. These are poems about being lost at sea, adrift, unmoored, shipwrecked ...

Safe Harbor
by Michael R. Burch

for Kevin N. Roberts

The sea at night seems
an alembic of dreams—
the moans of the gulls,
the foghorns’ bawlings.

A century late
to be melancholy,
I watch the last shrimp boat as it steams
to safe harbor again.

In the twilight she gleams
with a festive light,
done with her trawlings,
ready to sleep . . .

Deep, deep, in delight
glide the creatures of night,
elusive and bright
as the poet’s dreams.

Published by The Lyric, Romantics Quarterly, Angle, The Chained Muse, Grassroots Poetry, Poetry Porch and Poetry Life & Times

“Safe Harbor” is commentary on writing romantic poetry in the 21st century (“a century late to be melancholy”) and the term “safe harbor” is primarily ironic. The shrimp boat, though it seems “festive,” actually represents the unnatural “industry” of modern technical” poetry. By “technical,” I mean poetry that is more of an academic enterprise than an affair of the heart and mind. The “creatures of night” shine with a natural luminescence, like the poet’s dreams and words.

Adrift
by Michael R. Burch

I helplessly loved you
although I was lost
in the veils of your eyes,
grown blind to the cost
of my ignorant folly
—your unreadable rune—
as leashed tides obey
an indecipherable moon.



Squall
by Michael R. Burch

There, in that sunny arbor,
in the aureate light
filtering through the waxy leaves
of a stunted banana tree,

I felt the sudden monsoon of your wrath,
the clattery implosions
and copper-bright bursts
of the bottoms of pots and pans.

I saw your swollen goddess’s belly
wobble and heave
in pregnant indignation,
turned tail, and ran.

Published by Chrysanthemum, Poetry Super Highway, Barbitos and Poetry Life & Times.



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.

Originally published by Romantics Quarterly



Nothing Returns
by Michael R. Burch

A wave implodes,
impaled upon
impassive rocks …

this evening
the thunder of the sea
is a wild music filling my ear …

you are leaving
and the ungrieving
winds demur:

telling me
that nothing returns
as it was before,

here where you have left no mark
upon this dark
Heraclitean shore.

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.

I wrote “Infinity” while in high school, around age 17-18. It was the second poem that made me feel like a “real poet.”



The Divide
by Michael R. Burch

The sea was not salt the first tide ...
was man born to sorrow that first day
with the moon—a pale beacon across the Divide,
the brighter for longing, an object denied—
the tug at his heart’s pink, bourgeoning clay?

The sea was not salt the first tide ...
but grew bitter, bitter—man’s torrents supplied.
The bride of their longing—forever astray,
her shield a cold beacon across the Divide,
flashing pale signals: Decide. Decide.
Choose me, or His Brightness, I will not stay.

The sea was not salt the first tide ...
imploring her, ebbing: Abide, abide.

The silver fish flash there, the manatees gray.

The moon, a pale beacon across the Divide,
has taught us to seek Love’s concealed side:
the dark face of longing, the poets say.

The sea was not salt the first tide ...
the moon a pale beacon across the Divide.

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.

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.



Styx
by Michael R. Burch

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

"Styx" is one of the early poems that made me feel like a "real poet." Editors apparently agreed, as "Styx" has been published by The Raintown Review, Blue Unicorn and Poezii, where it was translated into Romanian by Petru Dimofte. "Styx" was influenced by my early readings of ancient Greek mythology. Over the years Charon and the River Styx would appear in a number of my poems.



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.

I wrote this poem in my late teens or early twenties. Mare Clausum is Latin for "Closed Sea."



If You Come to San Miguel
by Michael R. Burch

If you come to San Miguel
before the orchids fall,
we might stroll through lengthening shadows
those deserted streets
where love first bloomed …

You might buy the same cheap musk
from that mud-spattered stall
where with furtive eyes the vendor
watched his fragrant wares
perfume your breasts …

Where lean men mend tattered nets,
disgruntled sea gulls chide;
we might find that cafetucho
where through grimy panes
sunset implodes …

Where tall cranes spin canvassed loads,
the strange anhingas glide.
Green brine laps splintered moorings,
rusted iron chains grind,
weighed and anchored in the past,

held fast by luminescent tides …
Should you come to San Miguel?
Let love decide.



Floating
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

bright waves throw back your reflection at me.

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.



Sailing to My Grandfather
by Michael R. Burch

for my grandfather, George Edwin Hurt

This distance between us
—this vast sea
of remembrance—
is no hindrance,
no enemy.

I see you out of the shining mists
of memory.
Events and chance
and circumstance
are sands on the shore of your legacy.

I find you now in fits and bursts
of breezes time has blown to me,
while waves, immense,
now skirt and glance
against the bow unceasingly.

I feel the sea's salt spray—light fists,
her mists and vapors mocking me.
From ignorance
to reverence,
your words were sextant stars to me.

Bright stars are strewn in silver gusts
back, back toward infinity.
From innocence
to senescence,
now you are mine increasingly.

Note: Under the Sextant’s Stars is a painting by Bernini.



Nevermore!
by Michael R. Burch

Nevermore! O, nevermore!
shall the haunts of the sea
—the swollen tide pools
and the dark, deserted shore—
mark her passing again.

And the salivating sea
shall never kiss her lips
nor caress her breasts and hips,
as she dreamt it did before,
once, lost within the uproar.

The waves will never rape her,
nor take her at their leisure;
the sea gulls shall not have her,
nor could she give them pleasure …
She sleeps, forevermore!

She sleeps forevermore,
a virgin save to me
and her other lover,
who lurks now, safely covered
by the restless, surging sea.

And, yes, they sleep together,
but never in that way …
For the sea has stripped and shorn
the one I once adored,
and washed her flesh away.

He does not stroke her honey hair,
for she is bald, bald to the bone!
And how it fills my heart with glee
to hear them sometimes cursing me
out of the depths of the demon sea …

their skeletal love—impossibility!

"Nevermore!" is a poem I wrote as a teenager, around age 18 or 19, under the influence of Edgar Allan Poe.



absinthe sea
by Michael R. Burch

i hold in my hand a goblet of absinthe

the bitter green liqueur
reflects the dying sunset over the sea

and the darkling liquid froths
up over the rim of my cup
to splash into the free,
churning waters of the sea

i do not drink

i do not drink the liqueur,
for I sail on an absinthe sea
that stretches out unendingly
into the gathering night

its waters are no less green
and no less bitter,
nor does the sun strike them with a kinder light

they both harbor night,
and neither shall shelter me

neither shall shelter me
from the anger of the wind
or the cruelty of the sun

for I sail in the goblet of some Great God
who gazes out over a greater sea,
and when my life is done,
perhaps it will be because
He lifted His goblet and sipped my sea.

Published by Borderless Journal (Singapore)

I seem to remember writing this poem in college, just because I liked the sound of the word "absinthe." I had no idea, really, what it was or what absinthe looked or tasted like, beyond something I had read somewhere.



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 ...”



The Seafarer
(anonymous Anglo-Saxon poem, circa 960-990 AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I.

Mæg ic be me sylfum / This is my self's

soðgied wrecan, / true song,

siþas secgan, / my sea-lay's-saga―

hu ic geswincdagum / of how I endured

earfoðhwile / life's hardships,

oft þrowade, / wrenching anguish,

bitre breostceare / bitter breast-cares

gebiden hæbbe,[1a] /  ... and still do!

gecunnad in ceole / Tested at the keel

cearselda fela,[1b]  / of many a care-hold,

atol yþa gewealc, / rocked by wild waves'

þær mec oft bigeat / relentless poundings

nearo nihtwaco / each anxious night-watch,  

æt nacan stefnan, / soaked at the stern

þonne he be clifum cnossað. / when tossed close to cliffs!

Calde geþrungen / Ice-enmassed

wæron mine fet, / my fettered feet

forste gebunden / became frost-bound

caldum clommum, / cold clumps!

þær þa ceare seofedun / There cares seethed

hat ymb heortan; / hot in my heart;

hungor innan slat / hunger's pangs pierced

merewerges mod. / my sea-weary soul!

Þæt se mon ne wat / How can land-locked men understand,

þe him on foldan / for whom Fortune

fægrost limpeð, / smiles more favorably?

hu ic earmcearig  / How I, care-wracked and wretched,

iscealdne sæ  / borne on the ice-cold sea,

winter wunade / weathered winter's

wræccan lastum, / exile-ways,

winemægum bidroren,[2a] / bereft of wine-brothers,

bihongen hrimgicelum;[3a] / my beard hung with icicles,

hægl scurum fleag. / my body hail-pelted!

þær ic ne gehyrde / How I heard nothing

butan hlimman sæ, / but the sea's savage roars,

iscaldne wæg. / its icy-cold rages. 

Hwilum ylfete song / Sometimes the swan's song

dyde ic me to gomene, / gave me pleasure―

ganotes hleoþor / the gannet's cries;

ond huilpan sweg / the curlew's clamor

fore hleahtor wera, / rather than men's laughter;

mæw singende / the seagull's shrieks

fore medodrince. / better than mead-drinking.

Stormas þær stanclifu beotan, / Storms slammed the stone-cliffs;

þær him stearn oncwæð, / there the tern answered

isigfeþera; / icy-feathered;

ful oft þæt earn bigeal, / ever the eagle screeched

urigfeþra; / sea-spray-slathered;

nænig hleomæga / but no consoling kinsmen

feasceaftig ferð / came to comfort

frefran meahte. / my destitute soul.

Forþon him gelyfeð lyt, / Therefore he takes it lightly, 

se þe ah lifes wyn / the one who lives easy,

gebiden in burgum, / who abides happily in a burgh

bealosiþa hwon, / except for a few trifling pains,

wlonc ond wingal,[4a] / worldly, wine-flushed.

hu ic werig oft / While often I, bone-weary,

in brimlade / had to endure

bidan sceolde. / scalding sea-paths,

Nap nihtscua, / shadows of night deepening,

norþan sniwde, / fierce northern-snows,

hrim hrusan bond, / frost binding the ground,

hægl feol on eorþan, / hail flailing the earth,

corna caldast.[5a] / the coldest of crops.

II.

Forþon cnyssað nu / Indeed, how crushing, 

heortan geþohtas / my heart-cares,

þæt ic hean streamas, / that I should strive alone with

sealtyþa gelac / miserable salt streams' tumults

sylf cunnige[5b] / while exploring

monað modes lust / my moody mind's lusts.

mæla gehwylce / While always my spirit

ferð to feran, / longs to fly forth,

þæt ic feor heonan / to find, far from here,

elþeodigra / a foreign residence

eard gesece / beyond earth-desires.

Forþon nis þæs modwlonc / There is none so mood-proud,

mon ofer eorþan, / not a man on earth,

ne his gifena þæs god,[6a] / none so generous with gifts,

ne in geoguþe to þæs hwæt, / none so bold in his youth,

ne in his dædum to þæs deor, / none so brave in his deeds,

ne him his dryhten to þæs hold, / none so beholden to his Master

þæt he a his sæfore / that he in his seafaring

sorge næbbe, / never has to worry

to hwon hine Dryhten / about what his Lord

gedon wille. / will lay upon him.

Ne biþ him to hearpan hyge / Not for him the harp-song

ne to hringþege / nor ring-bringing

ne to wife wyn / nor wife-winning

ne to worulde hyht / nor world-glory

ne ymbe owiht elles / nor anything else

nefne ymb yða gewealc; / except the numbing wave-motions;

ac a hafað longunge / but he always has longings

se þe on lagu fundað. / who strives with the sea.

Bearwas blostmum nimað, / Woodlands blossom,

byrig fægriað, / burgs grow fair,

wongas wlitigað, / meadowlands flower,

woruld onetteð: / the world hastens forward:

ealle þa gemoniað / all these things urge on

modes fusne[7a] / the doom-eager spirit―

sefan to siþe / the one with a mind to travel,

þam þe swa þenceð / the one who imagines

on flodwegas / venturing far afield

feor gewitan. / over earth's sea-paths.

Swylce geac monað / Now the cuckoo warns

geomran reorde; / with her mournful voice;

singeð sumeres weard, / the guardian of summer sings,

sorge beodeð / boding sorrows

bitter in breosthord. / bitter to the breast-hoard.

Þæt se beorn ne wat, / This the normal man knows not,

sefteadig secg, / the warrior lucky in worldly things,

hwæt þa sume dreogað / unaware of what others endure,

þe þa wræclastas / those who brave most extensively

widost lecgað. / earth's exile-paths.

Forþon nu min hyge hweorfeð / Now my spirit soars

ofer hreþerlocan, / out of my breast,

min modsefa / my mind floods

mid mereflode, / amid the waterways

ofer hwæles eþel / over the whale-path;

hweorfeð wide, / it soars widely

eorþan sceatas / over all the earth's far reaches―

cymeð eft to me / it comes back to me

gifre ond grædig; / eager and unsated;

gielleð anfloga, / the lone-flier screams, 

hweteð on hwælweg / urges the helpless heart

hreþer unwearnum / onto the whale-way

ofer holma gelagu. / over the sea-waves.

III.

Forþon me hatran sind / Deeper, hotter for me are

Dryhtnes dreamas / Lord-dreams

þonne þis deade lif / than this dead life

læne on londe. / loaned on land.

Ic gelyfe no / I do not believe

þæt him eorðwelan / that earth-riches

ece stondað. / will last forever.

Simle þreora sum / Invariably,

þinga gehwylce / three things

ær his tiddege / threaten a man's existence

to tweon weorþeð: / before his final hour:

adl oþþe yldo / either illness, old age

oþþe ecghete[8a] / or sword's-edge-malice 

fægum fromweardum / ripping out life

feorh oðþringeð. / from the doom-endangered.

Forþon biþ eorla gehwam / And so for each man

æftercweþendra / the praise of the living,

lof lifgendra / of those who mention him after life ends,

lastworda betst, / remains his best epitaph;

þæt he gewyrce, / such words he must earn

ær he on weg scyle, / before he departs ...

fremum on foldan / Bravery in the world

wið feonda niþ, / against the enmity of fiends,

deorum dædum / daring deeds

deofle togeanes, / done against devils,

þæt hine ælda bearn / thus the sons of men

æfter hergen, / will praise him afterwards,

ond his lof siþþan / and his fame will eternally

lifge mid englum / live with the angels.

Translation Notes by Michael R. Burch

[1a] Here, gebiden hæbbe suggests that the negative experiences continue.

[1b] Here, cearselda means something like "care-place," "care-hold" or "care-abode."

[2a] Here, winemægum means something like "wine-friend," "wine-brothers" or "dear kinsmen."

[3a] Here, hrimgicelum means something like "rime crystals" or "icicles."

[4a] Here, wlonc ond wingal means something like "haughty/proud and flushed with wine." The phrase also appears in "The Ruin."

[5a] Here, corna means "grain" as maize had yet to be discovered by Europeans.

[5b] Here, sylf cunnige means something like "self-exploration" or "self-discovery."

[6a] Here, his gifena þæs god may mean something like "so good in his gifts" or "so generous in his gifts."

[7a] Here, modes fusne seems to mean something like "a doom-eager mind" or a "death wish."

[8a] Here, ecghete seems to mean "edge hate" or the hatred of a sword's edge or blade.