THE ABSOLUTE WORST OF MICHAEL R. BURCH
These are some of my least successful poems, but am I wrong to like them?
I’ve had many hundreds of poems published by literary journals and sundry publications, but these poems have been among my most rejected/neglected compositions. If you like any of them and have the time, please let me know which, and thanks in advance for your time and consideration!
Teach Me to Love
by Michael R. Burch
Teach me to love:
to fly beyond sterile Mars
to percolating Venus.
—Michael R. Burch
I wrote the haiku above and below for the love of my life, Beth, more formally known as Elizabeth Steed Harris Burch.
She bathes in silver
by Michael R. Burch
She bathes in silver,
~~~~~afloat~~~~~
on her reflections ...
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.
Anti-Vegan Manifesto
by Michael R. Burch
Let us
avoid lettuce,
sincerely,
and also celery!
Menu Venue
by Michael R. Burch
At the passing of the shark
the dolphins cried Hark!;
cute cuttlefish sighed Gee
there will be a serener sea
to its utmost periphery!;
the dogfish barked,
so joyously!;
pink porpoises piped Whee!
excitedly,
delightedly.
But ...
Will there be as much glee
when there’s no you and me?
Be very careful what you pray for!
by Michael R. Burch
Now that his T’s been depleted
the Saint is upset, feeling cheated.
His once-fiery lust?
Just a chemical bust:
no “devil” cast out or defeated.
Heat Lightening
by Michael R. Burch
Each night beneath the elms, we never knew
which lights beyond dark hills might stall, advance,
then lurch into strange headbeams tilted up
like searchlights seeking contact in the distance . . .
Quiescent unions . . . thoughts of bliss, of hope . . .
long-dreamt appearances of wished-on stars . . .
like childhood’s long-occluded, nebulous
slow drift of half-formed visions . . . slip and bra . . .
Wan moonlight traced your features, perilous,
in danger of extinction, should your hair
fall softly on my eyes, or should a kiss
cause them to close, or should my fingers dare
to leave off childhood for some new design
of whiter lace, of flesh incarnadine.
In a Stolen Moment
by Michael R. Burch writing as Kim Cherub
In a stolen moment,
when the clock’s hands complete their inevitable course
and sleep is the night’s dark spell,
I call it a curse,
seeking the force,
the font of candescent words, the electric thrill
tingling from brain to spine
to incessant quill—
the fever, the chill.
I know it as well as I know myself.
Time’s second hand stirs; not I; in my cell,
words spill.
Childless
by Michael R. Burch
How can she bear her grief?
Mightier than Atlas, she shoulders the weight
of one fallen star.
Styx
by Michael R. Burch
Black waters,
deep and dark and still . . .
all men have passed this way,
or will.
I wrote “Styx” around age 18 or 19.
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.
I’m not sure why "Distances" hasn’t been snapped up. It may be my favorite of all my unpublished poems. 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 in 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 be infinitely beyond our reach. Every time the poem has been rejected, I have been surprised and disappointed.
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.
“Ebb Tide” is one of my most-rejected poems, but it was eventually published by Southwest Review.
The Communion of Sighs
by Michael R. Burch
There was a moment
without the sound of trumpets or a shining light,
but with only silence and darkness and a cool mist
felt more than seen.
I was eighteen,
my heart pounding wildly within me like a fist.
Expectation hung like a cry in the night,
and your eyes shone like the corona of a comet.
There was an instant . . .
without words, but with a deeper communion,
as clothing first, then inhibitions fell;
liquidly our lips met
—feverish, wet—
forgotten, the tales of heaven and hell,
in the immediacy of our fumbling union . . .
when the rest of the world became distant.
Then the only light was the moon on the rise,
and the only sound, the communion of sighs.
This is one of my early poems, written around age 18 or 19.
The evening light is broad and yellow
by Anna Akhmatova
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
The evening light is broad and yellow;
it glides in on an April rain.
You arrived years late,
yet I’m glad you came.
Please sit down here, beside me,
receive me with welcoming eyes.
Here is my blue notebook
with my childhood poems inside.
Forgive me if I lived in sorrow,
spent too little time rejoicing in the sun.
Forgive, forgive, me, if I mistook
others for you, when you were the One.
Moore or Less
by Michael R. Burch
for Richard Moore
Less is more —
in a dress, I suppose,
and in intimate clothes
like crotchless hose.
But now Moore is less
due to death’s subtraction
and I must confess:
I hate such redaction!
Sonnet: Sun Poem
by Michael R. Burch
I have suffused myself in poetry
as a lizard basks, soaking up sun,
scales nakedly glinting; its glorious light
he understands—when it comes, it comes.
A flood of light leaches down to his bones,
his feral eye blinks—bold, curious, bright.
Now night and soon winter lie brooding, damp, chilling;
here shadows foretell the great darkness ahead.
Yet he stretches in rapture, his hot blood thrilling,
simple yet fierce on his hard stone bed,
his tongue flicking rhythms,
the sun—throbbing, spilling.
East Devon Beacon
by Michael R. Burch
Evening darkens upon the moors,
Forgiveness—a hairless thing
skirting the headlamps, fugitive.
Why have we come,
traversing the long miles
and extremities of solitude,
worriedly crisscrossing the wrong maps
with directions
obtained from passing strangers?
Why do we sit,
frantically retracing
love’s long-forgotten signal points
with cramping, ink-stained fingers?
Why the preemptive frowns,
the litigious silences,
when only yesterday we watched
as, out of an autumn sky this vast,
over an orchard or an onion field,
wild Vs of distressed geese
sped across the moon’s face,
the sound of their panicked wings
like our alarmed hearts
pounding in unison?
Within the CPU
by Michael R. Burch
Here the electronic rush of meaning,
the impulse of mathematics
and rationality,
becomes almost a restless dreaming
never satisfied—
the first stirrings of some fetal Entity.
Here within a sterile void
flash wild electrons,
portent stars.
Once the earth was an asteroid
this inert, this barren
till a force
flashed across the face of formless waters
and a zigzag bolt of lightning
sparked life within an ocean.
Now inquisitive voltage crackles
along pathways
never engineered. A notion
stirs. And what we have created
creates within itself
something we cannot hope to comprehend.
Whatever It is,
when It emerges from the mist,
its god will not be man.
I wrote “Within the CPU” as a freshman computer science major, age 18 or 19.
Ultimate Sunset
by Michael R. Burch
for my father, Paul Ray Burch, Jr.
he now faces the Ultimate Sunset,
his body like the leaves that fray as they dry,
shedding their vital fluids (who knows why?)
till they’ve become even lighter than the covering sky,
ready to fly...
“Nous nous sommes assises” (“We Sat Down”)
by Renée Vivien
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
I.
Darling, we were like two exiles
bearing our desolate souls within us.
Dawn broke more revolting than any illness...
Neither of us knew the native language
As we wandered the streets like strangers.
The morning’s stench, so oppressive!
Yet you shone like the sunrise of hope...
II.
As night fell, we sat down,
Your drab dress grey as any evening,
To feel the friendly freshness of kisses.
No longer alone in the universe,
We exchanged lovely verses with languor.
Darling, we dallied, without quite daring to believe,
And I told you: “The evening is far more beautiful than the dawn.”
You nudged me with your forehead, then gave me your hands,
And I no longer feared uncertain tomorrows.
The sunset sashayed off with its splendid insolence,
But no voice dared disturb our silence...
I forgot the houses and their inhospitality...
The sunset dyed my mourning attire purple.
Then I told you, kissing your half-closed eyelids:
“Violets are more beautiful than roses.”
Darkness overwhelmed the horizon...
Harmonious sobs surrounded us...
A strange languor subdued the strident city.
Thus we savored the enigmatic hour.
Slowly death erased all light and noise,
Then I knew the august face of the night.
You let the last veils slip to your naked feet...
Then your body appeared even nobler to me, dimly lit by the stars.
Finally came the appeasement of rest, of returning to ourselves...
And I told you: “Here is the height of love…”
We who had come carrying our desolate souls within us,
like two exiles, like complete strangers.
"Nous nous sommes assises" by Renée Vivien from the collection Recueil: "À l'heure des mains jointes"
Less Heroic Couplets: Sweet Tarts
by Michael R. Burch
Love, beautiful but fatal to many bewildered hearts,
commands us to be faithful, then tempts us with sweets and tarts.
(If I were younger, I might mention
you’re such a temptation.)
Songstress
by Michael R. Burch
for Nadia Anjuman
Within its starkwhite ribcage, how the heart
must flutter wildly, O, and always sing
against the pressing darkness: all it knows
until at last it feels the numbing sting
of death. Then life's brief vision swiftly passes,
imposing night on one who clearly saw.
Death held your bright heart tightly, till its maw―
envenomed, fanged―could swallow, whole, your Awe.
And yet it was not death so much as you
who sealed your doom; you could not help but sing
and not be silenced. Here, behold your tomb's
white alabaster cage: pale, wretched thing!
But you'll not be imprisoned here, wise wren!
Your words soar free; rise, sing, fly, live again.
The Strangest Rain
by Michael R. Burch
“I ... am small, like the Wren, and my Hair is bold, like the Chestnut Bur—and my eyes, like the Sherry in the Glass, that the Guest leaves ...”—Emily Dickinson
“If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry.”—Emily Dickinson
The strangest rain, a few bright sluggish drops,
unsure if they should fall, run through with sun,
came tumbling down and touched me, one by one,
too few to animate the shriveled crops
of nearby farmers (though their daughters might
feel each cool splash, a-shiver with delight).
I thought again of Emily Dickinson,
who felt the tingle down her spine, inspired
to lifting hairs, to nerves’ electric song
of passion for a thing so deep-desired
the heart and gut agree, and so must tremble
as all the neurons of the brain assemble
to whisper: This is love, but what is love?
Wrens darting rainbows, laughter high above.
The Song of Roland
by Michael R. Burch
“for spring in retreat”
Rain down,
strange murmurous water...
no, summer is not yet nigh.
Cease your complaining,
for May is,
calling December a lie,
still rocking the high white sky.
Sleep now,
summer hours...
too soon your time shall come.
Softly straining,
the raining
spring begs, "Let me run
one more hour beneath the sun,
for soon I shall be gone."
Lie down,
weary Roland,
for summer is not yet nigh.
Remember a pyre
of stars blazing higher
upon night’s immense dark sky
unsettling as her eyes,
twinkling, even as you died...
Lie down,
weary Roland,
for summer is not yet nigh.
I don’t remember exactly when I wrote “The Song of Roland,” but I will guess around age 16 because I had weaned myself of archaisms like “nigh” by my late teens. However, “nigh” doesn’t seem out of place in this poem. Also, this is one of my more Romantic poems and my Romantic phase was at its zenith from age 14 to 17. This poem was influenced by the original The Song of Roland and by my readings of John Keats.
Letdown
by Michael R. Burch
Life has not lived up to its first bright vision—
the light overhead fluorescing, revealing
no blessing—bestowing its glaring assessments
impersonally (and no doubt carefully metered).
That first hard
SLAP
demanded my attention. Defiantly rigid,
I screamed at their backs as they, laughingly,
ripped
my mother’s pale flesh from my unripened shell,
snapped it in two like a pea pod, then dropped
it somewhere—in a dustbin or a furnace, perhaps.
And that was my clue
that some deadly, perplexing, unknowable task
lay, inexplicable, ahead in the white arctic maze
of unopenable doors, in the antiseptic gloom…
Longing
by Michael R. Burch
We stare out at the cold gray sea,
overcome
with such sudden and intense longing . . .
our eyes meet,
inviolate,
and we are not of this earth,
this strange, inert mass.
Before we crept
out of the shoals of the inchoate sea,
before we grew
the quaint appendages
and orifices of love . . .
before our jellylike nuclei,
struggling to be hearts,
leapt
at the sight of that first bright, oracular sun,
then watched it plummet,
the birth and death of our illumination . . .
before we wept . . .
before we knew . . .
before our unformed hearts grew numb,
again,
in the depths of the sea’s indecipherable darkness . . .
When we were only
a swirling profusion of recombinant things
wafting loose silt from the sea’s soft floor,
writhing and sucking in convulsive beds
of mucousy foliage,
flowering,
flowering,
flowering . . .
what jolted us to life?
Less Heroic Couplets: Gilded Silence
by Michael R. Burch
Golden silence reigned supreme
in her nightmare and my dream.
A Further Farewell to Dentistry
by Michael R. Burch
for and after Richard Moore, from whom I absconded the title, after being initially inspired by a Facebook exchange between Sam Gwynn and Alicia Stallings
Lately I've been eschewing
ice chewing
and my indentured dentist’s been boo-hooing.
Sonnet: O, My Redeeming Angel
by Michael R. Burch
O my Redeeming Angel, after we
have fought till death (and soon the night is done) ...
then let us rest awhile, await the sun,
and let us put aside all enmity.
I might have been the “victor”—who can tell?—
so many wounds abound. All out of joint,
my groin, my thigh ... and nothing to anoint
but sunsplit, shattered stone, as pillars hell.
Light, easy flight to heaven, Your return!
How hard, how dark, this path I, limping, walk.
I only ask Your blessing; no more talk!
Withhold Your name, and yet my ears still burn
and so my heart. You asked me, to my shame:
for Jacob—trickster, shyster, sham—’s my name.
King of the World
by the Child Poets of Gaza, an alias of Michael R. Burch
If I were King of the World, I would make
every child free, for my people’s sake.
And once I had freed them, they’d all run and scream
straight to my palace, for free ice cream!
[Directly to the audience:]
Why are you laughing? Can’t a young king dream?
If I were King of the World, I would banish
hatred and war, and make mean men vanish.
Then, in their place, I’d bring in a circus
with lions and tigers, but they’d never hurt us!
If I were King of the World, I would teach
the preachers to always do as they preach;
and so they could practice being of good cheer,
we’d have Christmas —and sweets—each day of the year!
[Directly to the audience:]
Why are you laughing? Some dreams do appear!
If I were King of the World, I would send
my couns'lors of peace to the wide world’s end ...
[Spoken to the audience:]
But all this hard dreaming is making me thirsty!
I proclaim lemonade! Please bring it in a hurry!
If I were King of the World, I would fire
racists and bigots, with their message so dire.
And we wouldn’t build walls, to shut people out.
I would build amusement parks, have no doubt!
If I were King of the World, I would make
every child blessed, for my people’s sake,
and every child safe, and every child free,
and every child happy, especially me!
[Directly to the audience:]
Why are you laughing? Appoint me and see!
This is a rhyming poem I wrote about an ancient string of beads. It is also a thought experiment of sorts…
BEAD BY BEAD
by Michael R. Burch
Bead by bead,
I count my lovers’ moons ...
Moon by sad moon,
I await my children. Soon ...
Genevieve von Petzinger determined that symbols she had found on numerous cave walls were being combined on necklaces, circa 14,000 BC, found at the French village of Les Eyzies-de-Tayac. My theory is that the beads could have been used to keep track of a woman’s menstrual cycles (moons) and when she had sex and with whom, in case a baby resulted.
This poem imagines a modern-day "Goth girl" as a vampire...
Dark Gothic
by Michael R. Burch
Her fingers are filed into talons;
she smiles with carnivorous teeth ...
You ask, “Are there vampires?”
Get real!
(Yet she has my belief.)
Untitled
Death is the ultimate finality
and banality
of reality.
—Michael R. Burch
Our awful unlawful “president”
will soon be a jailhouse resident.
— Michael R. Burch aka “The Loyal Opposition”
God and his "profits" could never agree
on any gospel acceptable to an intelligent flea.
—Michael R. Burch
Second Sight (II)
by Michael R. Burch
Newborns see best at a distance of 8 to 14 inches.
Wiser than we know, the newborn screams,
red-faced from breath, and wonders what life means
this close to death, amid the arctic glare
of warmthless lights above.
Beware! Beware!―
encrypted signals, codes? Or ciphers, noughts?
Interpretless, almost, as his own thoughts―
the brilliant lights, the brilliant lights exist.
Intruding faces ogle, gape, insist―
this madness, this soft-hissing breath, makes sense.
Why can he not float on, in dark suspense,
and dream of life? Why did they rip him out?
He frowns at them―small gnomish frowns, all doubt―
and with an ancient mien, O sorrowful!,
re-closes eyes that saw in darkness null
ecstatic sights, exceeding beautiful.
Reading between the lines
by Michael R. Burch
Who could have read so much, as we?
Having the time, but not the inclination,
TV has become our philosophy,
sheer boredom, our recreation.
Ceremony
by Michael R. Burch
Lost in the cavernous blue silence of spring,
heavy-lidded and drowsy with slumber, I see
the dark gnats leap; the black flies fling
their slow, engorged bulks into the air above me.
Blue and green, shimmering hordes of bottleflies sing
their monotonous laments; as I listen, they near
with the strange droning hum of their damp, lustrous wings.
Though you said you would leave me, I prop you up here
and brush back red ants from your fine, tangled hair,
whispering, “I do!” . . . as the gaunt vultures stare.
They Take Their Shape
by Michael R. Burch
“We will not forget moments of silence and days of mourning ...”—George W. Bush
We will not forget ...
the moments of silence and the days of mourning,
the bells that swung from leaden-shadowed vents
to copper bursts above “hush!”-chastened children
who saw the sun break free (abandonment
to run and laugh forsaken for the moment),
still flashing grins they could not quite repent ...
Nor should they—anguish triumphs just an instant;
this every child accepts; the nymphet weaves;
transformed, the grotesque adult-thing emerges:
damp-winged, huge-eyed, to find the sun deceives ...
But children know; they spin limpwinged in darkness
cocooned in hope—the shriveled chrysalis
that paralyzes time. Suspended, dreaming,
they do not fall, but grow toward what is,
then grope about to find which transformation
might best endure the light or dark. “Survive”
becomes the whispered mantra of a pupa’s
awakening ... till What takes shape and flies
shrieks, parroting Our own shrill, restive cries.
Sonnet: Swan Song
by Michael R. Burch
The breast you seek reserves all its compassion
for a child unborn. Soon meagerly she’ll ration
soft kisses and caresses—not for Him,
but you. Soon in the night, bright lights she’ll dim
and croon a soothing love hymn (not for you)
and vow to Him that she’ll always be true,
and never falter in her love. But now
she whispers falsehoods, meaning them, somehow,
still unable to foresee the fateful Wall
whose meaning’s clear: such words strange gods might scrawl
revealing what must come, stark-chiseled there:
Gaze on them, weep, ye mighty, and despair!
There’ll be no Jericho, no trumpet blast
imploding walls womb-strong; this song’s your last.
http://www.firesermon.com
by Michael R. Burch
your gods have become e-vegetation;
your saints—pale thumbnail icons; to enlarge
their images, right-click; it isn’t hard
to populate your web-site; not to mention
cool sound effects are nice; Sound Blaster cards
can liven up dull sermons, [zing some fire];
your drives need added Zip; you must discard
your balky paternosters: Sex!!! Desire!!!
These are the watchwords, catholic; you must
as Yahoo! did, employ a little lust :)
if you want great e-commerce; hire a bard
to spruce up ancient language, shed the dust
of centuries of sameness; lameness SUCKS;
your gods grew blurred; go 3D; scale; adjust.
Fledglings
by Michael R. Burch
With her small eyes, pale and unforgiving,
she taught me—December is not for those
unweaned of love, the chirping nestlings
who bicker for worms with dramatic throats
still pinkly exposed, who have not yet learned
the first harsh lesson of survival: to devour
their weaker siblings in the high-leafed ferned
fortress and impregnable bower
from which men must fly like improbable dreams
to become poets. They have yet to learn that,
before they can soar starward, like fanciful archaic machines,
they must first assimilate the latest technology, or
lose all in the sudden realization of gravity,
following Icarus’s, sun-unwinged, singed trajectory.
Our Sweet Ecologist
by Michael R. Burch
Our sweet ecologist —
what will she do with the ants
and the cockroaches, bedbugs and lice
when they want to live in her pants?
Untitled
The LIV is LIVid:
livid with blood,
and full of egos larger
than continents.
—Michael R. Burch
Evil is as evil does.
Evil never needs a cause.
Evil loves amoral “laws,”
laughs and licks its blood-red claws
while kids are patched together with gauze.
— Michael R. Burch
Poets laud Justice’s
high principles.
Trump just gropes
her raw genitals.
—Michael R. Burch
That Not-So-Mellow Fellow, Othello
by Michael R. Burch
Not sure ’bout that fellow, Othello,
was he a “hero” or merely piss yellow?
He killed his poor wife
over a handkerchief!
Thus Iago proved his heart Jello.
Time Out!
by Michael R. Burch
Time is at war with my body!
am i Time’s most diligent hobby?
for there’s never Time out
from my low-t and gout
and my once-brilliant mind has grown stodgy!
Waiting Game
by Michael R. Burch
Nothing much to live for,
yet no good reason to die:
life became
a waiting game...
Rain from a clear blue sky.
Nipples' Ripples
by Michael R. Burch
Men are scared of nipples:
that’s why they can’t be seen.
For if they were,
we’d go to war
as in the days of Troy, I ween.
The Bachelor Spectacular
by Michael R. Burch
One heart? Tossed aside.
The other? A bride’s.
In all his great wisdom, the bachelor decides.
Eeenie, mean-ie, mine-y, mo’,
one gal must stay and one must go.
If she hollers? That’s the show!
No heart can handle such despair!
But hearts get broken, hearts repair.
Next season? The treasoned will rule the air.
Originally published by Light
The Unspectacular Bachelor
by Michael R. Burch
The bachelor is back, he’s black,
and some fair-skinned gals sure want him in the sack!
And, yes, he’s a whole lot smarter
than the previous knights of that peculiar garter.
We can hear the white supremacists stewing:
What the hell are the screenwriters doing?
They know love requires a nice white spark,
and this apprentice is far too dark!
bachelorhoodwinked
by michael r. burch
u
are
charming
& disarming,
but mostly alarming
since all my resolve
dissolved!
u
are
chic
as a sheikh’s
harem girl in the sheets
but my castle’s no longer my own
and my kingdom’s been overthrown!
Updated Advice to Amorous Bachelors
by Michael R. Burch
At six-thirty,
feeling flirty,
I put on the hurdy-gurdy ...
But Ms. Purdy,
all alert-y,
kicked me where I’m sore and hurty.
The moral of my story?
To avoid a fate as gory,
flirt with gals a bit more whore-y!
Cut Out the Bachelor Nonsense!
There's a bun in auntie's oven;
now soon you'll have a cousin!
―Michael R. Burch
Chixiao (“The Owl”)
by Duke Zhou
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Owl!
You've stolen my offspring,
Don't shatter my nest!
When with labors of love
I nurtured my fledglings.
Before the skies darkened
And the dark rains fell,
I gathered mulberry twigs
To thatch my nest,
Yet scoundrels now dare
Impugn my enterprise.
With fingers chafed rough
By the reeds I plucked
And the straw I threshed,
I now write these words,
Too hoarse to speak:
I am homeless!
My wings are withered,
My tail torn away,
My home toppled
And tossed into the rain,
My cry a distressed peep.
This was my first-ever dabble dactyl.
Donald Dabble Dactyl #1
by Michael R. Burch
Piggledy-Wiggledy
Ronald McDonald
cursed Donald Trump,
his least favorite clown:
"Why should I try to be
funny as Donald? He
gets all the laughs
claiming upside is down!"
Donald Dabble Dactyls must begin with "Piggledy-Wiggledy" in homage to The Donald's oinkerishness and his 'do. References to clowns, gold-plated toilets and/or diapers are a plus but not required.
Donald Dabble Dactyl #2
by Michael R. Burch
Wond’ringly, blund’ringly
Ronald McDonald
asked, “Who the hell
is this strange orange clown?”
“Why should I try to be
funny as Donnie? He
gets all the laughs
from marks who should frown!”
I see that I violated my prime directive, so "never mind."
Donald Dabble Dactyl #3
by Michael R. Burch
Piggledy-Wiggledy
45th president,
or erstwhile manse resident,
perched on a throne
of gold-plated porcelain
matching his orange “tan,”
bombing Iran
from his twittery phone?
Time Out
by Michael R. Burch
Time is running out,
no doubt.
Time is running out.
I don’t know what the LORD’s about,
since Time is running out, the Lout!,
and leaving me with gas and gout.
I don’t know what the LORD’s about;
still, it does no good to grouse or pout,
since Time is merely running out,
like quail before a native scout.
’Twill do no good to shout or flout:
Time’s running out,
I have no doubt,
though who knows what the LORD’s about?
No need for faith or even doubt,
since Time is merely running out,
like water from a rusty spout
or mucous from a leaky snout.
Yes, Time is merely running out,
and yet I feel inclined to pout
and truth be told, sometimes to doubt
just what the hell the LORD’s about.
Cowpoke
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 16
Sleep, old man ...
your day has long since passed.
The endless plains,
cool midnight rains
and changeless ragged cows
alone remain
of what once was.
You cannot know
just how the Change
will rape the windswept plains
that you so loved ...
and so sleep now,
O yes, sleep now ...
before you see just how
the Change will come.
Sleep, old man ...
your dreams are not our dreams.
The Rio Grande,
stark silver sand
and every obscure brand
of steed and cow
are sure to pass away
as you do now.
I believe this poem was written around the same time as “Blue Cowboy,” perhaps on the same day. That was probably sometime around 1974, at age 16 or thereabouts.
Blue Cowboy
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 16
He slumps against the pommel,
a lonely, heartsick boy—
his horse his sole companion,
his gun his only toy
—and bitterly regretting
he ever came so far,
forsaking all home's comforts
to sleep beneath the stars,
he sighs.
He thinks about the lover
who awaits his kiss no more
till a tear anoints his lashes,
lit by uncaring stars.
He reaches to his aching breast,
withdraws a golden lock,
and kisses it in silence
as empty as his thoughts
while the wind sighs.
Blue cowboy, ride that lonesome ridge
between the earth and distant stars.
Do not fall; the fiends of hell
would leap to feast upon your heart.
Blue cowboy, sift the burnt-out sand
for a drop of water warm and brown.
Dream of streams like silver seams
even as you gulp it down.
Blue cowboy, sing defiant songs
to hide the weakness in your soul.
Blue cowboy, ride that lonesome ridge
and wish that you were going home
as the stars sigh.
Tr(end)y
by Michael R. Burch
Ain’t it funny how trendy
becomes so dead-endy?
Lava lamps and bell bottoms
soon became “never bought ‘ems.”
While that teenage tattoo
soon’ll have its wrinkles too.
The Final Revelation of a Departed God’s Divine Plan
by Michael R. Burch
Here I am, talking to myself again . . .
pissed off at God and bored with humanity.
These insectile mortals keep testing my sanity!
Still, I remember when . . .
planting odd notions, dark inklings of vanity,
in their peapod heads might elicit an inanity
worth a chuckle or two.
Philosophers, poets . . . how they all made me laugh!
The things they dreamed up! Sly Odysseus’s raft;
Plato’s Republic; Dante’s strange crew;
Shakespeare’s Othello, mad Hamlet, Macbeth;
Cervantes’ Quixote; fat, funny Falstaff!;
Blake’s shimmering visions. Those days, though, are through . . .
for, puling and tedious, their “poets” now seem
content to write, but not to dream,
and they fill the world with their pale derision
of things they completely fail to understand.
Now, since God has long fled, I am here, in command,
reading this crap. Earth is Hell. We’re all damned.
Original Haiku
Fading memories
of summer holidays:
the closet’s last floral skirt...
—Michael R. Burch
Scandalous tides,
removing bikinis!
—Michael R. Burch
Old age, believe me, is a blessing. While it’s true you get gently shouldered off the stage, you’re awarded such a comfortable front row seat as spectator. — Confucius, loose translation by Michael R. Burch
Less Heroic Couplets: Baseball Explained
by Michael R. Burch
Baseball’s immeasurable spittin’
mixed with occasional hittin’.
Less Heroic Couplets: Midnight Stairclimber
by Michael R. Burch
Procreation
is at first great sweaty recreation,
then—long, long after the sex dies—
the source of endless exercise.
Christ!
by Michael R. Burch
If I knew men could be so dumb,
I would never have come!
Now you lie, cheat and steal in my name
and make it a thing of shame.
Did I heal the huge holes in your heart, in your head?
Isn’t it obvious: I’m dead
and unable to repeal what I never said?
#POEMS #POETRY #MRBPOEMS #MRBPOETRY #MRBWORST
Is there no end to all the poems you've written? Going through this new post, it's easy to understand why you keep everything. There are some truly fine poems in here: Autumn Conundrum, Styx, Ebb Tide, We Sat Down - but the one that really surprised me was Longing. I hadn't seen that one before, and I really, really liked it! I don't know why. Perhaps because it felt as old as the beginning of the world. Yes, there was something irresistible in the tone of it, like something longing to be born.