The Gentle Cycle
These are poems about gentleness and tenderness...
“… and must be done as gently as a butterfly cleans its wings …”
When I fell in love with poetry as a boy, it was because my favorite poets had the ability to magically communicate feelings like gentleness, tenderness and desire. At age 14, mesmerized by the wizards of words, I decided to become an apprentice magician …
A measureless rhythm rules the night—
few have heard it,
but I have shared it,
and its secret is mine.
To put it into words
is as to extract the sweetness from honey
and must be done as gently
as a butterfly cleans its wings.
But when it is captured, it is gone again;
its usefulness is only
that it lulls to sleep…
I wrote the lines above as a college freshman, age 18, watching my peers return from rush week partying as a towering campus clock tolled the hour. The full poem, “These Hallowed Halls,” appears later on this page.
For a Palestinian Child, with Butterflies
by Michael R. Burch
Where does the butterfly go
when lightning rails,
when thunder howls,
when hailstones scream,
when winter scowls,
when nights compound dark frosts with snow …
Where does the butterfly go?
Where does the rose hide its bloom
when night descends oblique and chill
beyond the capacity of moonlight to fill?
When the only relief's a banked fire's glow,
where does the butterfly go?
And where shall the spirit flee
when life is harsh, too harsh to face,
and hope is lost without a trace?
Oh, when the light of life runs low,
where does the butterfly go?
Ah butterfly,
what dreams do you ply
with your beautiful wings?
― Chiyo-ni, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
The butterfly
perfuming its wings
fans the orchid
― Matsuo Basho, 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
Elderly sunflowers:
bees trimming their beards.
―Michael R. Burch
Brittle autumn leaf,
how was I to know
you were my life?
—Michael R. Burch
Am I really this old,
so many ghosts
beckoning?
—Michael R. Burch
Crushed grapes
surrender such sweetness!
A mother’s compassion.
―Michael R. Burch
Love is a surreal sweetness
in a world where trampled grapes
become wine.
―Michael R. Burch
My footprints
so faint in the snow?
Ah yes, you lifted me.
―Michael R. Burch
An emu feather
still falling?
So quickly you rushed to my rescue.
―Michael R. Burch
Born into the delicate autumn,
too late to mature,
pale petal ...
―Michael R. Burch
Soft as daffodils fall
all the lamentations
of life’s smallest victims,
departing unheard ...
―Michael R. Burch
Farewells like
falling
leaves,
so many sad goodbyes.
―Michael R. Burch
Late
fall;
all
the golden leaves turn black underfoot:
soot
―Michael R. Burch
As springs’ budding blossoms emerge
the raptors glide mercilessly.
―Michael R. Burch
The haiku above was written on 3-27-2023 after the Nashville Covenant school shooting.
"Slain" — an impossible word to comprehend.
The male lion murders cubs,
licks his lips, devours them.
―Michael R. Burch, "Incomprehensible"
I also wrote "Incomprehensible" in response to the Nashville Covenant school shooting.
Dark-bosomed clouds
pregnant with heavy thunder ...
the water breaks
―Michael R. Burch
Mightier than Atlas,
she shoulders the weight
of one fallen star.
―Michael R. Burch, "Childless"
The childless woman,
how tenderly she caresses
homeless dolls ...
—Hattori Ransetsu, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
The sun warms
a solitary stone.
Let us abandon no one.
―Michael R. Burch
Stay With Me Tonight
by Michael R. Burch
Stay with me tonight;
be gentle with me as the leaves are gentle
falling to the earth.
And whisper, O my love,
how that every bright thing, though scattered afar,
retains yet its worth.
Stay with me tonight;
be as a petal long-awaited blooming in my hand.
Lift your face to mine
and touch me with your lips
till I feel the warm benevolence of your breath’s
heady fragrance like wine.
That which we had
when pale and waning as the dying moon at dawn,
outshone the sun.
And so lead me back tonight
through bright waterfalls of light
to where we shine as one.
“Stay With Me Tonight” was originally published by The Lyric and that remains its only publication outside The HyperTexts and various other self-publications. “Stay With Me Tonight” was rejected by at least five journals, including The Lyric the first time I submitted it there! But perhaps it grew over time on editor Jean Mellichamp Milliken.
In the Whispering Night
by Michael R. Burch
for George King
In the whispering night, when the stars bend low
till the hills ignite to a shining flame,
when a shower of meteors streaks the sky
as the lilies sigh in their beds, for shame,
we must steal our souls, as they once were stolen,
and gather our vigor, and all our intent.
We must heave our husks into some savage ocean
and laugh as they shatter, and never repent.
We must dance in the darkness as stars dance before us,
soar, Soar! through the night on a butterfly's breeze …
blown high, upward-yearning, twin spirits returning
to the heights of awareness from which we were seized.
Published by Songs of Innocence, Romantics Quarterly, The Chained Muse and Poetry Life & Times. This is a poem I wrote for my favorite college English teacher, George King, about poetic kinship, brotherhood and romantic flights of fancy.
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 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).
Elegy for a little girl, lost
by Michael R. Burch
… qui laetificat juventutem meam …
She was the joy of my youth,
and now she is gone
… . requiescat in pace …
May she rest in peace
… . amen …
Amen.
I 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. From what I now understand, “ad deum qui laetificat juventutem meam” means “to the God who gives joy to my youth,” but I am sticking with my original interpretation: a lament for a little girl at her funeral. The phrase can be traced back to Saint Jerome's translation of Psalm 42 in the Latin Vulgate Bible (circa 385 AD). I can’t remember exactly when I read the novel or wrote the poem, but I believe it was around my junior year of high school, age 17 or thereabouts. This was my first translation. I revised the poem slightly in 2001 after realizing I had “misremembered” one of the words in the Latin prayer.
Remembering Not to Call
by Michael R. Burch
a villanelle permitting mourning, for my mother, Christine Ena Burch
The hardest thing of all,
after telling her everything,
is remembering not to call.
Now the phone hanging on the wall
will never announce her ring:
the hardest thing of all
for children, however tall.
And the hardest thing this spring
will be remembering not to call
the one who was everything.
That the songbirds will nevermore sing
is the hardest thing of all
for those who once listened, in thrall,
and welcomed the message they bring,
since they won’t remember to call.
And the hardest thing this fall
will be a number with no one to ring.
No, the hardest thing of all
is remembering not to call.
Are mayflies missed by mountains? Do stars
applaud the glowworm’s stellar mimicry?
—excerpt from “Mayflies” by Michael R. Burch
Later there’ll be talk of saving whales
over racks of lamb and flambéed snails.
—“After the Poetry Recital” by Michael R. Burch
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
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.
Originally published by Contemporary Rhyme
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.
Several of my early poems were about aging, loss and death. Young poets can be so morbid! Like "Death" this poem is the parings of a longer poem. Most of my poems end up being sonnet-length or shorter. I think the sounds here are pretty good for a young poet "testing his wings." This poem 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). The longer poem appears later on this page.
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.
“Nothing Returns” remains unpublished, outside The HyperTexts and other self-publications. It was rejected by at least six journals and I suppose I gave up. But I still like it myself.
Something
by Michael R. Burch
for the children of the Holocaust and the Nakba
Something inescapable is lost—
lost like a pale vapor curling up into shafts of moonlight,
vanishing in a gust of wind toward an expanse of stars
immeasurable and void.
Something uncapturable is gone—
gone with the spent leaves and illuminations of autumn,
scattered into a haze with the faint rustle of parched grass
and remembrance.
Something unforgettable is past—
blown from a glimmer into nothingness, or less,
which denial has swept into a corner … where it lies
in dust and cobwebs and silence.
Originally published by There Is Something in the Autumn (anthology)
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
as 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 but I can’t remember exactly when I wrote it. Due to its romantic style and the age specified, I believe the poem was probably written during my first two years in college, making me 18 or 19 at the time. "The Communion of Sighs" has also been published as "Corona," a title I used during the coronavirus pandemic. The poem was originally published as "The Communion of Sighs" by Grassroots Poetry and Poetry Webring, then later online with both titles. But I think of the poem as I originally wrote it, as "The Communion of Sighs."
Mending
by Michael R. Burch
I am besieged with kindnesses;
sometimes I laugh,
delighted for a moment,
then resume
the more seemly occupation of my craft.
I do not taste the candies...
the perfume
of roses is uplifted
in a draft
that vanishes into the ceiling’s fans
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.
"Mending" is dedicated to the victims of 9-11 and their families and friends.
Roses for a Lover, Idealized
by Michael R. Burch
When you have become to me
as roses bloom, in memory,
exquisite, each sharp thorn forgot,
will I recall—yours made me bleed?
When winter makes me think of you—
whorls petrified in frozen dew,
bright promises blithe spring forsook,
will I recall your words—barbed, cruel?
Published by The Lyric, La Luce Che Non Moure (Italy), The Chained Muse, Setu (India), Borderless Journal (Singapore), Glass Facets of Poetry, Better Than Starbucks and Trinacria
Almost
by Michael R. Burch
We had—almost—an affair.
You almost ran your fingers through my hair.
I almost kissed the almonds of your toes.
We almost loved,
that’s always how love goes.
You almost contemplated using Nair
and adding henna highlights to your hair,
while I considered plucking you a Rose.
We almost loved,
that’s always how love goes.
I almost found the words to say, “I care.”
We almost kissed, and yet you didn’t dare.
I heard coarse stubble grate against your hose.
We almost loved,
that’s always how love goes.
You almost called me suave and debonair
(perhaps because my chest is pale and bare?).
I almost bought you edible underclothes.
We almost loved,
that’s always how love goes.
I almost asked you where you kept your lair
and if by chance I might seduce you there.
You almost tweezed the redwoods from my nose.
We almost loved,
that’s always how love goes.
We almost danced like Rogers and Astaire
on gliding feet; we almost waltzed on air …
until I mashed your plain, unpolished toes.
We almost loved,
that’s always how love goes.
I almost was strange Sonny to your Cher.
We almost sat in love’s electric chair
to be enlightninged, till our hearts unfroze.
We almost loved,
that’s always how love goes.
Originally published by Lighten Up Online
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.
Originally published by New Lyre
Desdemona
by Michael R. Burch
Though you possessed the moon and stars,
you are bound to fate and wed to chance.
Your lips deny they crave a kiss;
your feet deny they ache to dance.
Your heart imagines wild romance.
Though you cupped fire in your hands
and molded incandescent forms,
you are barren now, and—spent of flame—
the ashes that remain are borne
toward the sun upon a storm.
You, who demanded more, have less,
your heart within its cells of sighs
held fast by chains of misery,
confined till death for peddling lies—
imprisonment your sense denies.
You, who collected hearts like leaves
and pressed each once within your book,
forgot. None—winsome, bright or rare—
not one was worth a second look.
My heart, as others, you forsook.
But I, though I loved you from afar
through silent dawns, and gathered rue
from gardens where your footsteps left
cold paths among the asters, knew—
each moonless night the nettles grew
and strangled hope, where love dies too.
Originally published by Romantics Quarterly
Ophelia
by Michael R. Burch
for Kevin N. Roberts
Ophelia, madness suits you well,
as the ocean sounds in an empty shell,
as the moon shines brightest in a starless sky,
as suns supernova before they die …
Originally published by The HyperTexts
Chloe
by Michael R. Burch
There were skies onyx at night … moons by day …
lakes pale as her eyes … breathless winds
undressing tall elms; … she would say
that we loved, but I figured we’d sinned.
Soon impatiens too fiery to stay
sagged; the crocus bells drooped, golden-limned;
things of brightness, rinsed out, ran to gray …
all the light of that world softly dimmed.
Where our feet were inclined, we would stray;
there were paths where dead weeds stood untrimmed,
distant mountains that loomed in our way,
thunder booming down valleys dark-hymned.
What I found, I found lost in her face
while yielding all my virtue to her grace.
Marsh Song
by Michael R. Burch
Here there is only the great sad song of the reeds
and the silent herons, wraithlike in the mist,
and a few drab sunken stones, unblessed
by the sunlight these late sixteen thousand years,
and the beaded dews that drench strange ferns, like tears
collected against an overwhelming sadness.
Here the marsh exposes its dejectedness,
its gutted rotting belly, and its roots
rise out of the earth’s distended heaviness,
to claw hard at existence, till the scars
remind us that we all have wounds, and I …
I have learned again that living is despair
as the herons cleave the placid, dreamless air.
Originally published by The Lyric
Come Down
by Michael R. Burch
for Harold Bloom and the Ivory Towerists
Come down, O, come down
from your high mountain tower.
How coldly the wind blows,
how late this chill hour …
and I cannot wait
for a meteor shower
to show you the time
must be now, or not ever.
Come down, O, come down
from the high mountain heather
blown to the lees
as fierce northern gales sever.
Come down, or your heart
will grow cold as the weather
when winter devours
and spring returns never.
Originally published by Borderless Journal (International/Singapore)
Righteous
by Michael R. Burch
for Beth
Come to me tonight
in the twilight, O, and the full moon rising,
spectral and ancient, will mutter a prayer.
Gather your hair
and pin it up, knowing
I will release it a moment anon.
We are not one,
nor is there a scripture
to sanctify nights you might spend in my arms,
but the swarms
of stars revolving above us
revel tonight, the most ardent of lovers.
Originally published by Writer's Gazette
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.
Drippings
by Michael R. Burch
I have no words
for winter’s pale splendors
awash in gray twilight,
nor these slow-dripping eaves
renewing their tinkling songs.
Life’s like the failing resistance
of autumn to winter
and plays its low accompaniment,
slipping slowly
away
…
..
.
Originally published by The HyperTexts
Salat Days
by Michael R. Burch
Dedicated to the memory of my grandfather, Paul Ray Burch, Sr.
I remember how my grandfather used to pick poke salat …
though first, usually, he’d stretch back in the front porch swing,
dangling his long thin legs, watching the sweat bees drone,
explaining how easy it was to find if you knew where it's hiding …
standing in dew-damp clumps by the side of a road, shockingly green,
straddling fence posts, overflowing small ditches,
crowding out the less-hardy nettles.
“Nobody knows that it’s there, lad, or that it’s fit tuh eat
with some bacon drippin’s or lard.”
“Don’t eat the berries. You see—the berry’s no good.
And you’d hav’ta wash the leaves a good long time.”
“I’d boil it twice, less’n I wus in a hurry.
Lawd, it’s tough to eat, chile, if you boil it jest wonst.”
He seldom was hurried; I can see him still …
silently mowing his yard at eighty-eight,
stooped, but with a tall man’s angular gray grace.
Sometimes he’d pause to watch me running across the yard,
trampling his beans,
dislodging the shoots of his tomato plants.
He never grew flowers; I never laughed at his jokes about The Depression.
Years later I found the proper name—“pokeweed”—while perusing a dictionary.
Surprised, I asked why anyone would eat a weed.
I still can hear his laconic reply …
“Well, chile, s’m’times them times wus hard.”
Originally published by Lonzie's Fried Chicken
Instruction
by Michael R. Burch
Toss this poem aside
to the filigreed and the prettified tide
of sunset.
Strike my name,
and still it is all the same.
The onset
of night is in the despairing skies;
each hut shuts its bright bewildered eyes.
The wind sighs
and my heart sighs with her—
my only companion, O Lovely Drifter!
Still, men are not wise.
The moon appears; the arms of the wind lift her,
pooling the light of her silver portent,
while men, impatient,
are beings of hurried and harried despair.
Now willows entangle their fragrant hair.
Men sleep.
Cornsilk tassels the moonbright air.
Deep is the sea; the stars are fair.
I reap.
Originally published by Romantics Quarterly
She Was Very Strange, and Beautiful
by Michael R. Burch
She was very strange, and beautiful,
like a violet mist enshrouding hills
before night falls
when the hoot owl calls
and the cricket trills
and the envapored moon hangs low and full.
She was very strange, in her pleasant way,
as the hummingbird
flies madly still, …
so I drank my fill
of her every word.
What she knew of love, she demurred to say.
She was meant to leave, as the wind must blow,
as the sun must set,
as the rain must fall.
Though she gave her all,
I had nothing left …
yet I smiled, bereft, in her receding glow.
Originally published by Romantics Quarterly
Water and Gold
by Michael R. Burch
You came to me as rain breaks on the desert
when every flower springs to life at once,
but joys are wan illusions to the expert:
the Bedouin has learned how not to want.
You came to me as riches to a miser
when all is gold, or so his heart believes,
until he dies much thinner and much wiser,
his gleaming bones hauled off by chortling thieves.
You gave your heart too soon, too dear, too vastly;
I could not take it in; it was too much.
I pledged to meet your price, but promised rashly.
I died of thirst, of your bright Midas touch.
I dreamed you gave me water of your lips,
then sealed my tomb with golden hieroglyphs.
Originally published by The Lyric
This is a poem longing to be a hymn, if anyone can set it to music …
Ave Maria
by Michael R. Burch
Ave Maria,
Maiden mild,
listen to my earnest prayer.
Listen, O, and be beguiled.
Ave Maria.
Ave Maria,
Maiden mild,
be Mother now to every child
beset by earth’s thorned briars wild.
Ave Maria.
Ave Maria,
Maiden mild,
embrace us with your Love and Grace.
Let us look upon your Face.
Ave Maria.
Ave Maria,
Maiden mild,
please attend to our earnest call—
When will Love be All in All?
Ave Maria.
Copyright © 2020 by Michael R. Burch
Fascination with Light
by Michael R. Burch
Death 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.
Copyright © 1999 by Michael R. Burch; published by New Lyre and The Chained Muse (and recited twice in a TCM podcast); translated into Chinese by Chen Bolai; set to music by David Hamilton and performed by the Jade String Quartet.
Hymn to an Art-o-matic Laundromat
by Michael R. Burch
after Richard Moore’s “Hymn to an Automatic Washer”
O, terrible-immaculate
ALL-cleansing godly Laundromat,
where cleanliness is next to Art
—a bright Kinkade (bought at K-Mart),
a Persian rug (made in Taiwan),
a Royal Bonn Clock (time zone Guam)—
embrace my ass in cushioned vinyl,
erase all marks: anal, vaginal,
penile, inkspot, red wine, dirt.
O, sterilize her skirt, my shirt,
my skidmarked briefs, her padded bra;
suds-away in your white maw
all filth, the day’s accumulation.
Make us pure by INUNDATION.
Published by The Oldie, where it was the winner of a poetry contest.
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.
All the More Human, for Eve Pandora
by Michael R. Burch
a lullaby for the first human Clone
God provide the soul, and let her sleep
be natural as ours, unplagued by dreams
of being someone else, lost in the deep
wild swells of grieving all that human means …
and do not let her come to doubt herself—
that she is as we are, so much alike
in frailty, in the books that line the shelf
that tell us who we are—a rickety dike
against the flood of doubt—that we are more
than cells and chance, that love, perhaps, exists
because of someone else who would endure
such pain because some part of her persists
in us, and calls us blesséd by her bed,
become a saint at last, in whose frail arms
we see ourselves—the gray won out of red,
the ash of blonde—till love is safe from harm
and all that human means is that we live
in doubt, and die in doubt, and only love
the more because together we must strive
against an end we loathe and fear. What of?—
we cannot say, imagining the Night
as some weird darkened structure caving in
to cold enormous pressure. Lacking sight,
we lie unbreathing, thinking breath a sin …
and that is to be human. You are us—
true mortal, child of doubt, hopeful and curious.
Brief Encounters: Prose Epigrams
• Elevate your words, not their volume. Rain grows flowers, not thunder.—Rumi, translation by Michael R. Burch
• No wind is favorable to the man who lacks direction.—Seneca the Younger, translation by Michael R. Burch
• Little sparks may ignite great Infernos.—Dante, translation by Michael R. Burch
• You can crop all the flowers but you cannot detain spring.—Pablo Neruda, translation by Michael R. Burch
• Warmthless beauty attracts but does not engage us; it floats like hookless bait.—Capito, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
• Love distills the eyes’ desires, love bewitches the heart with its grace.—Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch
• He who follows will never surpass.—Michelangelo, translation by Michael R. Burch
• Nothing enables authority like silence.—Leonardo da Vinci, translation by Michael R. Burch
• My objective is not to side with the majority, but to avoid the ranks of the insane.—Marcus Aurelius, translation by Michael R. Burch
• Blinding ignorance misleads us. Myopic mortals, open your eyes!—Leonardo da Vinci, translation by Michael R. Burch
• Fools call wisdom foolishness.—Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch
• Improve yourself through others' writings, attaining freely what they acquired at great expense.—Socrates, translation by Michael R. Burch
• Experience is the best teacher but a hard taskmaster.—Michael R. Burch
• A man may attempt to burnish pure gold, but who can think to improve on his mother?—Mahatma Gandhi, translation by Michael R. Burch
The Horror
by Michael R. Burch
What I ache to say is beyond saying—
no words for the horror
of not loving enough,
like a mummy half-wrapped in its moldering casements
holding a lily aloft.
No, there are no words for the horror
as a cyclone howls through the teetering floes
and the cold freezes down to my clawed hairy toes …
What use to me, now, if the stars appear?
As I moan
the moon finds me,
fangs goring the deer.
Vacuum
by Michael R. Burch
Over hushed quadrants
forever landlocked in snow,
time’s senseless winds blow …
leaving odd relics of lives half-revealed,
if still mostly concealed …
such are the things we are unable to know
that once intrigued us so.
Come then, let us quickly repent
of whatever truths we’d once determined to learn:
for whatever is left, we are unable to discern.
There’s nothing left of us here; it’s time to go.
Completing the Pattern
by Michael R. Burch
Walk with me now, among the transfixed dead
who kept life’s compact
and who thus endure
harsh sentence here—among pink-petaled beds
and manicured green lawns.
The sky’s azure,
pale blue once like their eyes, will gleam blood-red
at last when sunset staggers to the door
of each white mausoleum, to inquire—
What use, O things of erstwhile loveliness?
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.
Will There Be Starlight
by Michael R. Burch
Will there be starlight
tonight
while she gathers
damask
and lilac
and sweet-scented heathers?
And will she find flowers,
or will she find thorns
guarding the petals
of roses unborn?
Will there be starlight
tonight
while she gathers
seashells
and mussels
and albatross feathers?
And will she find treasure
or will she find pain
at the end of this rainbow
of moonlight on rain?
First They Came for the Muslims
by Michael R. Burch
after Martin Niemöller
First they came for the Muslims
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Muslim.
Then they came for the homosexuals
and I did not speak out
because I was not a homosexual.
Then they came for the feminists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a feminist.
Now when will they come for me
because I was too busy and too apathetic
to defend my sisters and brothers?
It is indeed an honor to have one of my poems published by such an outstanding organization as Amnesty International, one of the world's finest. Not only is the cause good―a stated goal is to teach students about human rights through poetry―but so far the poetry published seems quite good to me. My poem appears beneath the famous Holocaust poem that inspired it, "First They Came" by Martin Niemöller. Here's a bit of background information: Words That Burn is an online poetry anthology and human rights educational resource for students and teachers created by Amnesty International in partnership with The Poetry Hour. Amnesty International is the world’s largest human rights organization, with seven million supporters. Its new webpage has been designed to "enable young people to explore human rights through poetry whilst developing their voice and skills as poets." This exemplary resource was inspired by the poetry anthology Words that Burn, curated by Josephine Hart of The Poetry Hour, which in turn was inspired by Thomas Gray's observation that "Poetry is thoughts that breathe and words that burn." My poem now returns a staggering 690,000 Google results, suggesting that it has been widely cut-and-pasted.
Momentum! Momentum!
by Michael R. Burch
for the neo-Cons
Crossing the Rubicon, we come!
Momentum! Momentum! Furious hooves!
The Gauls we have slaughtered, no man disapproves.
War’s hawks shrieking-strident, white doves stricken dumb.
Coo us no cooings of pale-breasted peace!
Momentum! Momentum! Imperious hooves!
The blood of barbarians brightens our greaves.
Pompey’s head in a basket? We slumber at ease.
Seduce us again, great Bellona, dark queen!
Momentum! Momentum! Curious hooves
Now pound out strange questions, but what can they mean
As the great stallions rear and their riders careen?
Bellona was the Roman goddess of war. The name "Bellona" derives from the Latin word for "war" (bellum), and is linguistically related to the English word "belligerent" (literally, "war-waging"). In earlier times she was called Duellona, that name being derived from a more ancient word for "battle."
Starting from Scratch with Ol’ Scratch
by Michael R. Burch
for the Religious Right
Love, with a small, fatalistic sigh
went to the ovens. Please don’t bother to cry.
You could have saved her, but you were all tied up
complaining about the Jews to Reichmeister Grupp.
Scratch that. You were born after World War II.
You had something more important to do:
while the children of the Nakba were perishing in Gaza
with the complicity of your government, you had a noble cause (a
religious tract against homosexual marriage
and various things gods and evangelists disparage.)
Jesus will grok you? Ah, yes, I’m quite sure!
After all, your intentions were ineluctably pure.
And what the hell does THE LORD care about palestinians?
Certainly, Christians were correct about negroes and indians.
Scratch that. You’re one of the Devil’s minions.
In His Kingdom of Corpses
by Michael R. Burch
In His kingdom of corpses,
God has been heard to speak
in many enraged discourses,
aghast, from some mountain peak
where He’s lectured man on compassion
while the sparrows around Him fell,
and babes, for His meager ration
of rain, died and went to hell,
unbaptized, for that’s His fashion.
In His kingdom of corpses,
God has been heard to vent
in many obscure discourses
on the need for man to repent,
to admit he’s a lust-addled sinner;
give up threesomes, and riches, and fame;
to be disciplined at his dinner
though always he dies the same,
whether fatter or thinner.
In his kingdom of corpses,
God has been heard to speak
in many absurd discourses
of man’s Ego, precipitous Peak!,
while demanding praise and worship,
and the bending of every knee.
And though He sounds like the Devil,
all good Christian men agree:
He loves them indubitably.
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.
This poem was written in 2001 after a discussion about Romanticism in the late 20th century. Kevin N. Roberts was the founder and first editor of the literary journal Romantics Quarterly, and a talented and accomplished poet, writer and philosopher.
Sweet Rose of Virtue
by William Dunbar [1460-1525]
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Sweet rose of virtue and of gentleness,
delightful lily of youthful wantonness,
richest in bounty and in beauty clear
and in every virtue men hold most dear―
except only that you are merciless.
Into your garden, today, I followed you;
there I found flowers of freshest hue,
both white and red, delightful to see,
and wholesome herbs, waving resplendently―
yet nowhere one leaf nor petal of rue.
I fear that March with his last arctic blast
has slain my fair flower and left her downcast;
whose piteous death does my heart such pain
that I long to replant love's root again―
so comforting her bowering leaves have been.
If the tenth line seems confusing, it helps to know that rue symbolizes pity and also has medicinal uses; thus I believe the unrequiting lover is being accused of a lack of compassion and perhaps of withholding her healing attentions. The penultimate line can be taken as a rather naughty double entendre, but I will leave that interpretation up to the reader!
Medusa
by Michael R. Burch
Friends, beware
of her iniquitous hair—
long, ravenblack & melancholy.
Many suitors drowned there—
lost, unaware
of the length & extent of their folly.
Originally published in Grand Little Things
Less Heroic Couplets: Murder Most Fowl!
by Michael R. Burch
“Murder most foul!”
cried the mouse to the owl.
“Friend, I’m no sinner;
you’re merely my dinner.
As you fall on my sword,
take it up with the Lord!”
the wise owl replied
as the tasty snack died.
Originally published by Lighten Up Online and in Potcake Chapbook #7
NOTE: In an attempt to demonstrate that not all couplets are heroic, I have created a series of poems called “Less Heroic Couplets.” I believe even poets should abide by truth-in-advertising laws! — Michael R. Burch
Premonition
by Michael R. Burch
Now the evening has come to a close and the party is over …
we stand in the doorway and watch as they go—
each stranger, each acquaintance, each casual lover.
They walk to their cars and they laugh as they go,
though we know their forced laughter’s the wine …
then they pause at the road where the dark asphalt flows
endlessly on toward Zion …
and they kiss one another as though they were friends,
and they promise to meet again “soon” …
but the rivers of Jordan roll on without end,
and the mockingbird calls to the moon …
and the katydids climb up the cropped hanging vines,
and the crickets chirp on out of tune …
and their shadows, defined by the cryptic starlight,
seem spirits torn loose from their tombs.
And I know their brief lives are just eddies in time,
that their hearts are unreadable runes
to be wiped clean, like slate, by the dark hand of Fate,
when their corpses lie ravaged and ruined …
You take my clenched fist and you give it a kiss
as though it were something you loved,
and the tears fill your eyes, brimming with the soft light
of the stars winking sagely above …
Then you whisper, "It's time that we went back inside;
if you'd like, we can sit and just talk for a while."
And the hope in your eyes burns too deep, so I lie
and I say, "Yes, I would," to your small, troubled smile.
I rather vividly remember writing this poem after an office party the year I co-oped with AT&T (at that time the largest company in the world, with presumably a lot of office parties). This would have been after my sophomore year in college, making me around 20 years old. The poem is “true” except that I was not the host because the party was at the house of one of the upper-level managers. Nor was I dating anyone seriously at the time. Oh, and I changed the season too, because it was a Christmas/New Year's party and there were no katydids or crickets to be seen or heard.
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.
Originally published by Contemporary Rhyme
War is Obsolete
by Michael R. Burch
Trump’s war is on children and their mothers.
"If we are to carry out a real war against war, we will have to begin with the children." — Gandhi
"An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind." — Gandhi
War is obsolete;
even the strange machinery of dread
weeps for the child in the street
who cannot lift her head
to reprimand the Man
who failed to countermand
her soft defeat.
But war is obsolete;
even the cold robotic drone
that flies far overhead
has sense enough to moan
and shudder at her plight
(only men bereft of Light
with hearts indurate stone
embrace war’s Siberian night.)
For war is obsolete;
man’s tribal “gods,” long dead,
have fled his awakening sight
while the true Sun, overhead,
has pity on her plight.
O sweet, precipitate Light! —
embrace her, reject the night
that leaves gentle fledglings dead.
For each brute ancestor lies
with his totems and his “gods”
in the slavehold of premature night
that awaited him in his tomb;
while Love, the ancestral womb,
still longs to give birth to the Light.
So which child shall we murder tonight,
or which Ares condemn to the gloom?
Originally published by The Flea
While campaigning for president in 2016, Donald Trump insisted that, as commander-in-chief of the American military, he would order American soldiers to track down and murder women and children as "retribution" for acts of terrorism. When disbelieving journalists asked Trump if he could possibly have meant what he said, he verified several times that he did.
Excerpts from “Travels with Einstein”
by Michael R. Burch
for Trump
I went to Berlin to learn wisdom
from Adolph. The wild spittle flew
as he screamed at me, with great conviction:
“Please despise me! I look like a Jew!”
So I flew off to ’Nam to learn wisdom
from tall Yankees who cursed “yellow” foes.
“If we lose this small square,” they informed me,
earth’s nations will fall, dominoes!”
I then sat at Christ’s feet to learn wisdom,
but his Book, from its genesis to close,
said: “Men can enslave their own brothers!”
(I soon noticed he lacked any clothes.)
So I traveled to bright Tel Aviv
where great scholars with lofty IQs
informed me that (since I’m an Arab)
I’m unfit to lick dirt from their shoes.
At last, done with learning, I stumbled
to a well where the waters seemed sweet:
the mirage of American “justice.”
There I wept a real sea, in defeat.
Originally published by Café Dissensus
Heroin or Heroine?
by Michael R. Burch
for mothers battling addiction
serve the Addiction;
worship the Beast;
feed the foul Pythons,
your flesh, their fair feast …
or rise up, resist
the huge many-headed hydra;
for the sake of your Loved Ones
decapitate medusa.
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.
For All that I Remembered
by Michael R. Burch
For all that I remembered, I forgot
her name, her face, the reason that we loved …
and yet I hold her close within my thought.
I feel the burnished weight of auburn hair
that fell across her face, the apricot
clean scent of her shampoo, the way she glowed
so palely in the moonlight, angel-wan.
The memory of her gathers like a flood
and bears me to that night, that only night,
when she and I were one, and if I could …
I'd reach to her this time and, smiling, brush
the hair out of her eyes, and hold intact
each feature, each impression. Love is such
a threadbare sort of magic, it is gone
before we recognize it. I would crush
my lips to hers to hold their memory,
if not more tightly, less elusively.
Originally published by The Raintown Review
escape!
by michael r. burch
for anaïs vionet
to live among the daffodil folk …
slip down the rainslickened drainpipe …
suddenly pop out
the GARGANTUAN SPOUT …
minuscule as alice, shout
yippee-yi-yee!
in wee exultant glee
to be leaving behind the
LARGE
THREE-DENALI GARAGE.
Escape!!
by Michael R. Burch
You are too beautiful,
too innocent,
too inherently lovely
to merely reflect the sun’s splendor …
too full of irrepressible candor
to remain silent,
too delicately fawnlike
for a world so violent …
Come, my beautiful Bambi
and I will protect you …
but of course you have already been lured away
by the dew-laden roses …
Once
by Michael R. Burch
for Beth
Once when her kisses were fire incarnate
and left in their imprint bright lipstick, and flame,
when her breath rose and fell over smoldering dunes,
leaving me listlessly sighing her name ...
Once when her breasts were as pale, as beguiling,
as wan rivers of sand shedding heat like a mist,
when her words would at times softly, mildly rebuke me
all the while as her lips would more wildly insist ...
Once when the thought of her echoed and whispered
through vast wastelands of need like a Bedouin chant,
I ached for the touch of her lips with such longing
that I vowed all my former vows to recant ...
Once, only once, something bloomed, of a desiccate seed—
this impossible blossom her wild rains of kisses decreed.
Published by The Lyric, Writer’s Journal, Grassroots Poetry, Tucumcari Literary Journal, Unlikely Stories and Poetry Life & Times
At Tintagel
by Michael R. Burch
The legend of what happened on a stormy night at Tintagel is endlessly intriguing. Supposedly, Merlin transformed Uther Pendragon to look like Gorlois so that he could sleep with Ygraine, the lovely wife of the unlucky duke. While Uther was enjoying Ygraine’s lovemaking, Gorlois was off getting himself killed. The question is: did Igraine suspect that her lover was not her husband? Regardless, Arthur was the child conceived out of this supernatural (?) encounter.
That night,
at Tintagel,
there was darkness such as man had never seen . . .
darkness and treachery,
and the unholy thundering of the sea . . .
In his arms,
who can say how much she knew?
And if he whispered her name . . .
“Ygraine”
. . . could she tell above the howling wind and rain?
Could she tell, or did she care,
by the length of his hair
or the heat of his flesh, . . .
that her faceless companion
was Uther, the dragon,
and Gorlois lay dead?
Published by Songs of Innocence, Celtic Twilight, Fables, Fickle Muses and Poetry Life & Times
Ode to Postmodernism, or, Bury Me at St. Edmonds!
by Michael R. Burch
“Bury St. Edmonds—Amid the squirrels, pigeons, flowers and manicured lawns of Abbey Gardens, one can plug a modem into a park bench and check e-mail, download files or surf the Web, absolutely free.”—Tennessean News Service. (The bench was erected free of charge by the British division of MSN, after a local bureaucrat wrote a contest-winning ode of sorts to MSN.)
Our post-modernist-equipped park bench will let
you browse the World Wide Web, the Internet,
commune with nature, interact with hackers,
design a virus, feed brown bitterns crackers.
Discretely-wired phone lines lead to plugs—
four ports we swept last night for nasty bugs,
so your privacy’s assured (a threesome’s fine)
while invited friends can scan the party line:
for Internet alerts on new positions,
the randier exploits of politicians,
exotic birds on web cams (DO NOT FEED!).
The cybersex is great, it’s guaranteed
to leave you breathless—flushed, free of disease
and malware viruses. Enjoy the trees,
the birds, the bench—this product of Our pen.
We won in with an ode to MSN.
Epitaph for a Palestinian Child
by Michael R. Burch
I lived as best I could, and then I died.
Be careful where you step: the grave is wide.
Childless
by Michael R. Burch
How can she bear her grief?
Mightier than Atlas, she shoulders the weight
of one fallen star.
Stormfront
by Michael R. Burch
Our distance is frightening:
a distance like the abyss between heaven and earth
interrupted by bizarre and terrible lightning.
Styx
by Michael R. Burch
Black waters,
deep and dark and still …
all men have passed this way,
or will.
"Styx" is one of my earliest poems, written as a teenager.
Elegy for a little girl, lost
by Michael R. Burch
… qui laetificat juventutem meam …
She was the joy of my youth,
and now she is gone
… . requiescat in pace …
May she rest in peace
… . amen …
Amen.
I 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. From what I now understand, “ad deum qui laetificat juventutem meam” means “to the God who gives joy to my youth,” but I am sticking with my original interpretation: a lament for a little girl at her funeral. The phrase can be traced back to Saint Jerome's translation of Psalm 42 in the Latin Vulgate Bible (circa 385 AD). I can’t remember exactly when I read the novel or wrote the poem, but I believe it was around my junior year of high school, age 17 or thereabouts. This was my first translation. I revised the poem slightly in 2001 after realizing I had “misremembered” one of the words in the Latin prayer.
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.
Moments
by Michael R. Burch
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.
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.
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.
Will we remain parted forever?
Here at your grave:
two flowerlike butterflies!
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Air ballet:
twin butterflies, twice white,
meet, match & mate.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Ballet in the air!―
two butterflies, twice white,
meet, mate, unite.
―Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Come, butterfly,
it’s late
and we’ve a long way to go!
—Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
A spring wind
stirs willow leaves
as a butterfly hovers unsteadily.
―Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Dusk-gliding swallow,
please spare my small friends
flitting among the flowers!
―Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Something
by Michael R. Burch
for the children of the Holocaust and the Nakba
Something inescapable is lost—
lost like a pale vapor curling up into shafts of moonlight,
vanishing in a gust of wind toward an expanse of stars
immeasurable and void.
Something uncapturable is gone—
gone with the spent leaves and illuminations of autumn,
scattered into a haze with the faint rustle of parched grass
and remembrance.
Something unforgettable is past—
blown from a glimmer into nothingness, or less,
which denial has swept into a corner … where it lies
in dust and cobwebs and silence.
Will we remain parted forever?
Here at your grave:
two flowerlike butterflies!
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Air ballet:
twin butterflies, twice white,
meet, match & mate.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Ballet in the air!―
two butterflies, twice white,
meet, mate, unite.
―Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Come, butterfly,
it’s late
and we’ve a long way to go!
—Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
A spring wind
stirs willow leaves
as a butterfly hovers unsteadily.
―Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Dusk-gliding swallow,
please spare my small friends
flitting among the flowers!
―Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
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. The longer poem appears later on this page.
VALENTINE HAIKU, FOR BETH
Teach me to love:
to fly beyond sterile Mars
to percolating Venus.
―Michael R. Burch
You rise with the sun,
mysteriously warm,
also scattering sunbeams.
―Michael R. Burch
She bathes in silver,
~~~~ afloat ~~~~
on her reflections...
—Michael R. Burch
one pillow ...
our dreams
merge
―Michael R. Burch
The day’s eyes were blue
until you appeared
and they wept at your beauty.
―Michael R. Burch
The moon blushed
then fled behind a cloud:
her stolen kiss.
―Michael R. Burch
You astound me,
your name
unpronounceable on my lips.
―Michael R. Burch
How vaguely I knew you
although I held you close ...
your heart’s muffled thunder,
your breath the wind—
rising and falling.
―Michael R. Burch
Mending
by Michael R. Burch
I am besieged with kindnesses;
sometimes I laugh,
delighted for a moment,
then resume
the more seemly occupation of my craft.
I do not taste the candies...
the perfume
of roses is uplifted
in a draft
that vanishes into the ceiling’s fans
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.
"Mending" is dedicated to the victims of 9-11 and their families and friends.
Sleepyheads!
I recite my haiku
to the inattentive lilies.
—Michael R. Burch
Fireflies
thinking to illuminate the darkness?
Poets!
―Michael R. Burch
Honeysuckle
blesses my knuckle
with affectionate dew
―Michael R. Burch
My nose nuzzles
honeysuckle’s
sweet nothings
―Michael R. Burch
The next poem is the longest and most ambitious of my early poems, started around age 14. "Jessamyn's Song" was inspired by Claude Monet’s oil painting "The Walk, Woman with a Parasol," which I interpreted as a walk in a meadow or heather. The woman’s dress and captivating loveliness made me think of an impending wedding, with dances and festivities. The boy made me think of a family. I gave the woman a name, Jessamyn, and wrote her story, thinking along these lines, while in high school. The opening lines were influenced by "Fern Hill" by the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, one of my boyhood favorites and still a favorite today. "Jessamyn's Song" was substantially complete by around age 16, my first long poem, although I was not happy with the longer poem, overall, and eventually published the closing stanza as an independent poem, "Leave Taking." I have touched up the longer poem here and there over the last half century, but it remains substantially the same as the original poem.
Jessamyn's Song
by Michael R. Burch
16
There are meadows heathered with thoughts of you,
where the honeysuckle winds
in fragrant, tangled vines
down to the water's edge.
Through the wind-bent grass I watch time pass
slow with the dying day
on its lolling, rolling way ...
And I know you’ll soon be mine.
17
There are oak trees haggard and gnarled by Time
where the shrewd squirrel makes his lair,
sleeping through winters unaware
of the white commotion below.
By the waning sun I keep watch upon
the earth as she spins—so slow!—
and I know within
they're absolved from sin
who sleep beneath the snow.
They have no sin, and we sin not
although we sleep and dream in bliss
while others rage, and charge ... and die,
and all our nights’ elations miss.
For life is ours, and through our veins
it pulses with a tranquil flow,
though in others’ it may surge and froth
and carry passions to and fro.
18
By murmuring streams I sometimes dream
of whirling reels, of taut bows lancing,
when my partner’s the prettiest dancing,
and she is always you.
So let the meadows rest in peace,
and let the woodlands lie ...
Life’s the pulse in your heart and in mine—
let us not let it die.
19
By the windmill we have often kissed
as your clothing slipped,
exposing pale breasts and paler hips
to the naked glory of the sun.
Yes, my darling, I do love you
with all my wicked heart.
Promise that you'll be my bride
and these lips will never part
for any other’s.
20
There are daisies plaited through the fields
that make the valleys shine
(though the darker hawthorns wind
up to the highest ledge).
As the rising sun
blinks lazily on
the horizon’s eastern edge,
I watch the tangerine dawn
congeal to a brighter lime.
Oh, the season I love best is fall—
the trees coyly shedding their leaves, and all
creation watching, in thrall.
And you in your wedding dress, so calm,
seem less of this earth than the sky.
I expect you at any moment to
ascend through the brightening dimensionless blue
to softly go floating by—
a cloud or a pure-white butterfly.
21
There are rivers sparkling bright as spring
and others somber as the Nile,
but whether they may frown or smile,
none can match this brilliant stream
beside whose banks I lie and dream;
her waters, flowing swift, yet mild,
lull to sleep my new-born child!
22
There are mountains purple and pocked with Time,
home to goats and misfit trees ...
in lofty grandeur above vexed seas
they lift their haughty heads.
When the sun explodes over tonsured domes
and bright fountains splash in youthful ruin
against strange bizarre antediluvian runes
of tales to this day untold ...
I taste with my eyes the dawn's harsh gold
and breathe the frigid mountain air,
drinking deeply, wondering where
the magic days of youth have flown.
23
There are forests aged and ripe with rain
that loom at the brink of the trout's blue home.
There deer go to feast of the frothy foam,
to lap the gurgling water.
In murky shallows, swamped with slime,
the largemouth bass now sleeps,
his muddy memories dark and deep,
safe 'neath the sodden loam.
And often I have wondered
how it must feel to sleep
for timeless ages, fathoms deep
within a winter dream.
26
By the window ledge where the candle begs
the night for light to live,
the deepening darkness gives
the heart good cause to shudder.
For there are curly, tousled heads
that know one use for bed
and not any other ...
“Goodnight father.”
“Goodnight mother.”
“Goodnight sister.”
“Goodnight brother.”
“Tomorrow new adventures
we surely shall discover!”
30
Brilliant leaves abandon battered limbs
to waltz upon ecstatic winds
until they die.
But the barren and embittered trees,
lament the frolic of the leaves
and curse the bleak November sky.
Now, as I watch the leaves' high flight
before the fading autumn light,
I think that, perhaps, at last I may
have learned what it means to say
goodbye.
These Hallowed Halls
by Michael R. Burch
a young Romantic Poet mourns the passing of an age …
I.
A final stereo fades into silence
and now there is seldom a murmur
to trouble the slumber
of these ancient halls.
I stand by a window where others have watched
the passage of time—alone,
not untouched.
And I am as they were
… unsure …
for the days
stretch out ahead,
a bewildering maze.
II.
Ah, faithless lover—
that I had never touched your breast,
nor felt the stirrings of my heart,
which until that moment had peacefully slept.
For now I have known the exhilaration
of a heart that has vaulted the Pinnacle of Love,
and the result of each such infatuation—
the long freefall to earth, as the moon glides above.
III.
A solitary clock chimes the hour
from far above the campus,
but my peers,
returning from their dances,
heed it not.
And so it is
that we fail to gauge Time’s speed
because He moves so unobtrusively
about His task.
Still, when at last
we reckon His mark upon our lives,
we may well be surprised
at His thoroughness.
IV.
Ungentle maiden—
when Time has etched His little lines
so carelessly across your brow,
perhaps I will love you less than now.
And when cruel Time has stolen
your youth, as He certainly shall in course,
perhaps you will wish you had taken me
along with my broken heart,
even as He will take you with yours.
V.
A measureless rhythm rules the night—
few have heard it,
but I have shared it,
and its secret is mine.
To put it into words
is as to extract the sweetness from honey
and must be done as gently
as a butterfly cleans its wings.
But when it is captured, it is gone again;
its usefulness is only
that it lulls to sleep.
VI.
So sleep, my love, to the cadence of night,
to the moans of the moonlit hills'
bass chorus of frogs, while the deep valleys fill
with the nightjar’s shrill, cryptic trills.
But I will not sleep this night, nor any …
how can I—when my dreams
are always of your perfect face
ringed by soft whorls of fretted lace,
framed by your perfect pillowcase?
VII.
If I had been born when knights roamed the earth
and mad kings ruled savage lands,
I might have turned to the ministry,
to the solitude of a monastery.
But there are no monks or hermits today—
theirs is a lost occupation
carried on, if at all,
merely for sake of tradition.
For today man abhors solitude—
he craves companions, song and drink,
seldom seeking a quiet moment,
to sit alone, by himself, to think.
VIII.
And so I cannot shut myself
off from the rest of the world,
to spend my days in philosophy
and my nights in tears of self-sympathy.
No, I must continue as best I can,
and learn to keep my thoughts away
from those glorious, uproarious moments of youth,
centuries past though lost but a day.
IX.
Yes, I must discipline myself
and adjust to these lackluster days
when men display no chivalry
and romance is the "old-fashioned" way.
X.
A single stereo flares into song
and the first faint light of morning
has pierced the sky's black awning
once again.
XI.
This is a sacred place,
for those who leave,
leave better than they came.
But those who stay, while they are here,
add, with their sleepless nights and tears,
quaint sprigs of ivy to the walls
of these hallowed halls.