we did not Dye in vain!
My poem "we did not Dye in vain!" is an observation about the American middle class being reduced to producing "imperial purple" for rich overlords.
we did not Dye in vain!
by Michael R. Burch
from “songs of the sea snails”
though i’m just a slimy crawler,
my lineage is proud:
my forebears gave their lives
(oh, let the trumps blare loud!)
so purple-mantled Royals
might stand out in a crowd.
i salute you, fellow loyals,
who labor without scruple
as your incomes fall
while deficits quadruple
to swaddle unjust Lords
in bright imperial purple!
Notes: In ancient times the purple dye produced from the secretions of purpura mollusks (sea snails) was known as “Tyrian purple,” “royal purple” and “imperial purple.” It was greatly prized in antiquity, and was very expensive according to the historian Theopompus: “Purple for dyes fetched its weight in silver at Colophon.” Thus, purple-dyed fabrics became status symbols, and laws often prevented commoners from possessing them. The production of Tyrian purple was tightly controlled in Byzantium, where the imperial court restricted its use to the coloring of imperial silks. A child born to the reigning emperor was literally porphyrogenitos (”born to the purple”) because the imperial birthing apartment was walled in porphyry, a purple-hued rock, and draped with purple silks. Royal babies were swaddled in purple; we know this because the iconodules, who disagreed with the emperor Constantine about the veneration of images, accused him of defecating on his imperial purple swaddling clothes!
These are poems about inclusion, and the myriad dangers of exclusion and inequality…
Stormfront
by Michael R. Burch
Our distance is frightening:
a distance like the abyss between heaven and earth
interrupted by bizarre and terrible lightning.
Childless
by Michael R. Burch
How can she bear her grief?
Mightier than Atlas, she shoulders the weight
of one fallen star.
I wrote “Childless” thinking of mothers who have lost children in school shootings and in war-torn regions like Gaza and Ukraine.
In My House
by Michael R. Burch
When you were in my house
you were not free—
in chains bound.
Manifest Destiny?
I was wrong;
my plantation burned to the ground.
I was wrong.
This is my song,
this is my plea:
I was wrong.
When you are in my house,
now, I am not free.
I feel the song
hurling itself back at me.
We were wrong.
This is my history.
I feel my tongue
stilting accordingly.
We were wrong;
brother, forgive me.
Published by Black Medina
I wrote “Poet to poet” as a teenager under the influence of the “I Have a Dream” speech of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., which I consider a poem and hopefully a prophecy. In the poem, the capitalized Poet is Dr. King and the lower-case poet is the young me.
Poet to poet
by Michael R. Burch
I have a dream
pebbles in a sparkling sand
of wondrous things.
I see children
variations of the same man
playing together.
Black and yellow, red and white,
stone and flesh, a host of colors
together at last.
I see a time
each small child another’s cousin
when freedom shall ring.
I hear a song
sweeter than the sea sings
of many voices.
I hear a jubilation
respect and love are the gifts we must bring
shaking the land.
I have a message,
sea shells echo, the melody rings
the message of God.
I have a dream
all pebbles are merely smooth fragments of stone
of many things.
I live in hope
all children are merely small fragments of One
that this dream shall come true.
I have a dream . . .
but when you’re gone, won’t the dream have to end?
Oh, no, not as long as you dream my dream too!
Here, hold out your hand, let’s make it come true.
i can feel it begin
Lovers and Dreamers are Poets too.
poets are lovers and dreamers too
Styx
by Michael R. Burch
Black waters,
deep and dark and still . . .
all men have passed this way,
or will.
I wrote “Styx” in my teens and I consider it one of my best early poems.
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.
Lucifer, to the Enola Gay
by Michael R. Burch
Go then,
and give them my meaning
so that their teeming
streets
become my city.
Bring back a pretty
flower—
a chrysanthemum,
perhaps, to bloom
if but an hour,
within a certain room
of mine
where
the sun does not rise or fall,
and the moon,
although it is content to shine,
helps nothing at all.
There,
if I hear the wistful call
of their voices
regretting choices
made
or perhaps not made
in time,
I can look back upon it and recall,
in all
its pale forms sublime,
still
Death will never be holy again.
Defenses
by Michael R. Burch
Beyond the silhouettes of trees
stark, naked and defenseless
there stand long rows of sentinels:
these pert white picket fences.
Now whom they guard and how they guard,
the good Lord only knows;
but savages would have to laugh
observing the tidy rows.
The Drawer of Mermaids
by Michael R. Burch
This poem is dedicated to Alina Karimova, who was born with severely deformed legs and five fingers missing. Alina loves to draw mermaids and believes her fingers will eventually grow out.
Although I am only four years old,
they say that I have an old soul.
I must have been born long, long ago,
here, where the eerie mountains glow
at night, in the Urals.
A madman named Geiger has cursed these slopes;
now, shut in at night, the emphatic ticking
fills us with dread.
(Still, my momma hopes
that I will soon walk with my new legs.)
It’s not so much legs as the fingers I miss,
drawing the mermaids under the ledges.
(Observing, Papa will kiss me
in all his distracted joy;
but why does he cry?)
And there is a boy
who whispers my name.
Then I am not lame;
for I leap, and I follow.
(G’amma brings a wiseman who says
our infirmities are ours, not God’s,
that someday a beautiful Child
will return from the stars,
and then my new fingers will grow
if only I trust Him; and so
I am preparing to meet Him, to go,
should He care to receive me.)
Frail Envelope of Flesh
by Michael R. Burch
for the mothers and children of the Holocaust and Gaza
Frail envelope of flesh,
lying cold on the surgeon’s table
with anguished eyes
like your mother’s eyes
and a heartbeat weak, unstable ...
Frail crucible of dust,
brief flower come to this—
your tiny hand
in your mother’s hand
for a last bewildered kiss ...
Brief mayfly of a child,
to live two artless years!
Now your mother’s lips
seal up your lips
from the Deluge of her tears ...
The title and first line of this poem came from a comic book that I read around age eleven while living in Wiesbaden, Germany. The line, uttered by a super-villain really struck me and stayed with me.
Not Elves, Exactly
by Michael R. Burch
Something there is that likes a wall,
that likes it spiked and likes it tall,
that likes its pikes’ sharp rows of teeth
and doesn’t mind its victims’ grief
(wherever they come from, far or wide)
as long as they fall on the other side.
Dispensing Keys
by Hafiz
translation by Michael R. Burch
The imbecile
constructs cages
for everyone he knows,
while the sage
(who has to duck his head
whenever the moon glows)
keeps dispensing keys
all night long
to the beautiful, rowdy,
prison gang.
I love the wisdom and spirit of Hafiz in this subversive (pardon the pun) little poem. I can see Trump putting refugees in cages, while Hafiz goes around letting them out for a moondance.
In this Ordinary Swoon
by Michael R. Burch
In this ordinary swoon
as I pass from life to death,
I feel no heat from the cold, pale moon;
I feel no sympathy for breath.
Who I am and why I came,
I do not know; nor does it matter.
The end of every man’s the same
and every god’s as mad as a hatter.
I do not fear the letting go;
I only fear the clinging on
to hope when there’s no hope, although
I lift my face to the blazing sun
and feel the greater intensity
of the wilder inferno within me.
Conformists
by Michael R. Burch
Conformists of a feather
flock together.
Bible Libel
by Michael R. Burch
If God
is good
half the Bible
is libel.
This is a heretical poem of mine that I ended up publishing myself. After having read the Bible from cover to cover as a young boy, I came to agree with William Blake, who called the biblical god "Nobodaddy" because no child would want him for a father.
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
that your intentions were good and ineluctably pure.
After all, what the hell does he care about Palestinians?
Certainly, Christians were right about serfs, slaves and Indians.
Scratch that. You’re one of the Devil’s minions.
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?
War is Obsolete
by Michael R. Burch
"If we are to carry out a real war against war, we will have to begin with the children." — 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 arctic 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.
Mirror
by Kajal Ahmad, a Kurdish poet
loose translation by Michael R. Burch
The obscuring mirror of my era
broke
because it magnified the small
and made the great seem insignificant.
Dictators and monsters monopolized its maze.
Now when I breathe
its jagged shards pierce my heart
and instead of sweat
I exude glass.
Veiled
by Michael R. Burch
She has belief
without comprehension
and in her crutchwork shack
she is
much like us . . .
tamping the bread
into edible forms,
regarding her children
at play
with something akin to relief . . .
ignoring the towers ablaze
in the distance
because they are not revelations
but things of glass,
easily shattered . . .
and if you were to ask her,
she might say—
sometimes God visits his wrath
upon an impious nation
for its leaders’ sins,
and we might agree:
seeing her mutilations.
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.
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.)
Only Flesh (II)
by Michael R. Burch
Moonlight in a pale silver rain caresses her cheek
but what she feels is an emptiness more chilling than fear ...
Nothing is questioned, yet the answer seems clear:
Night, inevitably, only seems to end ...
Flesh is the stuff that does not endure.
The sand slips sinuously through narrowing glass
as Time sums all things past, and to come.
Only flesh does not last.
Eternally, Night pirouettes with the Sun;
each bright grain, slipping past, will return.
Only flesh fades to ash though unable to burn.
Only flesh does not last.
Only flesh, in the end, makes its bed in brown grass.
Only flesh shivers, frailer than the pale wintry light.
Only flesh seeps in oils that will not ignite.
Only flesh rues its past.
Only flesh.
Only Flesh (I)
by Michael R. Burch
Moonlight in a pale silver rain caresses her cheek
but all she sees are dark nights when no stars cohere.
Nothing is questioned, yet the answer seems clear:
Night, inevitably, only seems to end . . .
Flesh is the stuff that does not endure.
The sand slips sinuously through narrowing glass
as Time sums all things past, and to come.
Only flesh does not last.
Eternally, Night pirouettes with the Sun;
each bright grain, slipping past, will return.
Only flesh fades to ash though unable to burn.
Only flesh does not last.
Only flesh, in the end, makes its bed in brown grass.
Only flesh shivers, frailer than the pale wintry light.
Only flesh seeps in oils that will not ignite.
Only flesh rues its past.
Only flesh.
The Bear on the Delhi Road
by Michael R. Burch
after the poem of the same title by Earle Birney
I want to create a myth.
The myth I create is me.
Of dreams, I sip a fifth,
and dance, most delicately.
Like the Himalayan bear
entranced to dance by men
of Kashmir, keen and spare,
who walk beyond his ken,
I teach myself to dance,
then rise and tower here.
Spellbound, in myth’s vast trance,
I catch a whiff of fear ...
I should pursue the fakirs,
amid odd berries sweet,
then make them fly, shot-putted,
into next week ...
but I merely cuff the fakers,
take clues from their mad song,
and then become dreams’ Nadir
as I shuffle-dance along.
For I want to create a myth,
and the Myth I Create Is Me.
Of dreams, I sip five fifths,
and dance, dervishly.
Well, Well
by Michael R. Burch
Yes, I thought you did well
when she proffered her cheek—
to kiss her (so lightly, so well!)
and to speak
(so politely, so well!),
and I hope she can tell
that you’re doing well.
Perhaps she’ll remember
to call you next week
now that you are out
(and are doing so well!);
and you’ll say, “This is swell!
By the way, can we meet
for a drink at that café
we once loved so well?”
And you’ll laugh and she’ll smile
through the phone—smiles as sweet
as she once used to smile,
till your heart skips a beat,
and she’ll say, “Yes, I will,
for I’m fond of you still.
Very well.”
Over coffee, she’ll note
that you still do not gloat
that you won the divorce
(for you hide it so well!).
You’ll talk of the weather
and murmur together—
the whispers of lovers
intoning a spell.
And you’ll say, “I’m quite pleased
that we need not conceal
how we feel for each other.”
And as you reveal
how well you have loved her,
how well you’ve recovered,
she’ll regret that she ever
said you were unwell.
Rising Fall
by Michael R. Burch
after Keats
Seasons of mellow fruitfulness
collect at last into mist
some brisk wind will dismiss ...
Where, indeed, are the showers of April?
Where, indeed, the bright flowers of May?
But feel no dismay ...
It’s time to make hay!
I believe the closing line was influenced by this remark J. R. R. Tolkien made about the inspiration for his plucky hobbits: “I've always been impressed that we're here surviving because of the indomitable courage of quite small people against impossible odds: jungles, volcanoes, wild beasts ... they struggle on, almost blindly in a way.” Thus, whatever our apprehensions about the coming winter, when autumn falls and fall rises, it’s time to make hay.
The Abyss
by Michael R. Burch
Love, the abyss
where pale Lorelei dwell,
swells with bright music —
the music of hell.
For the sirens there lure
countless men to their doom,
crying, “Give us a child!”
in the luminous gloom.
And who can resist
their cries — wild & untamed —
or the flash of a breast,
its pink nipple inflamed?
So the young men all leap
in their lemming-like urge
to thresh their soft shells
where the dark waters surge.
Now many lie shattered
on the sharp, hidden rocks
where they succor the spawn
of some wily sea-fox.
Lures of the Lorelei
by Michael R. Burch
These are the rocks where the Lorelei combs
her wind-tangled hair as the dark water moans,
and her uncanny hymns echo softly between
worlds fashioned of stone and strange algaed dreams . . .
Here men hear her songs, as they always have done,
as they dream to be one with the pulse of the foam . . .
as they also now long for her sleek, slender arms—
sweet relief from their ships, mules, wives, shanties and farms!
But what does she offer them—is it love?
As she croons her desire, is she moray, minx, dove?
Or merely a mystery: an enigma, like death,
to men bent on drowning, unhappy with breath?
Coo and F.T. pushed out to sea ...
by michael r. burch
I.
Coo and F.T.
pushed out to sea
in a tub that was really a tub ...
Rub-a-dub-dub*
then glub-a-glub-glub ...
Land sakes, it was really a sub!
They swam with the fishes
and made winsome wishes,
which kind manatees soon approved.
Forgetting their troubles
they just counted bubbles
and learned how seahorses are hooved.
But then, golly-gee,
it was past time for tea
and with only saltwater in sight,
they had to pop home
till their next time to roam,
so now we must bid them “Good night!”
Of the Further Adventures of Coo and F.T.
II.
Soon Coo and F.T.
re-set out to sea
in their lover-ly pea-green tub ...
Rub-a-dub-dub*
then glub-a-glub-glub ...
Once again, it turned into a sub!
Once a-glide underwater,
F.T. and her daughter,
the one with angelic white wings,
looked high and low
for a chap we all know:
the Walrus who hand-jives and sings!
Happ’ly they found him
and now they astound him
with song lyrics fit for a King:
not strange old mad Lear,
but Edward, our peer,
whom the Jumblies assemble to bring!
What happened when Edward Lear made his celebrated appearance.
III.
It was such a wild court
(as reporters report)
and such lusty cheering ensued
when our friend Edward Lear
came to cheer his sweet peer
that our F.T. blushed twice and boo-hooed!
But there’s nothing to fear:
only tears of joy here!
Now the Jumblies sing on in fine tune ...
And it’s rumored that you
(cup your ears) can hear Coo
singing back from her perch on the moon!
*These are the magical words that turn ordinary bathtubs into the sleekest of submarines.
Strange Tides, Stranger Tidings
by Michael R. Burch
for Sharron Rose
She walked into the sea one night
to never be seen again;
the Maelstrom made her hair a fright
as she left the world of men.
Some say she thus gained second sight.
Beware strange tides! Amen.
The first year of her life was hard;
the second harder still.
Like a cameo carved out of sard
she bent to God’s harsh will.
At last her doctors all agreed:
“Just give her some damn pill!”
The years flashed by; she did not age
so much as disappeared.
For who could see
human dignity
in a thing small, wizened, weird?
At last she had no memory
save all she’d ever feared.
Then the sea called to her strangely,
as if the Voice of God:
“I repent, O, I repent
of my Anger and my Rod!
Now I only wish to hold you,
and have you Tulip-Cod!”
She thought her nickname sweet indeed;
she did not stop to think,
for who can doubt the Word of God?
She tottered to the brink
of Doom itself, an ancient crone
doomed like a stone: to sink.
She made a votive offering;
she cast a lonely spell
upon the sea, before she stepped
into the gates of Hell;
the Maelstrom took her greedily;
she bade the world, “Farewell!”
So what became of her, you ask?
I can’t pretend to say:
did Michael and the Devil
contend for her that day?
Did the Voice of God mislead her,
or the wind lead her astray?
But sometimes late at night
when the ocean’s dreary roar
abates somewhat, an eerie light
gleams on that rocky shore,
and a lovely Mermaid, tulip-white,
sings, tremulous and pure ...
sweet ancient songs of ancient wrongs
the “love” of God endures.
Amen
I Panajia I gorgona (“The Mermaid Madonna”)
by Michael R. Burch
To touch—the trembling eagerness of fingers
that sightless, in blind darkness, knew to grope,
to seize the hand outstretched, and thus to hope ...
such was your touch, and softly, now, it lingers:
fond memory! I do not understand
this foreign hand that grasps mine now: crude claws’
rude pincers, which engage, but without cause
except to trap me in suffocating sands.
O softer than your mermaid’s swimming tresses:
your arcane touch, your almost human hand!
You held a shell shaped like an ampersand
close to my ear; the surging sea’s caresses
spoke to my heart ... until Gorgona neared
on crablike feet: repulsive, skittering, weird.
Rant: Inevitability
by Michael R. Burch
There is change in the wind; there is change in the sea
preternaturally strange with her myriad eyes—
stars mirrored in waves. Compelled by the moon,
whipped to foam, she is drawn into restive tides
rising and cresting as kestrels flee
shrieking, “Passion is all!” You are nothing to me.
What will be, will be.
There are words to arrange; there are tongues to employ;
there are songs to engrave on each vellum leaf.
But the gold will not hold lacking passion or joy
and the gilt ink fades without rage or grief.
All your high Latin hymnals bind spineless belief,
and your mild incantations mean nothing to me.
What will be, will be.
Emotionless arrows impale no meat,
leave no prey blood-splattered, no white bone staring,
no pale breast shattered, no lamb’s soft bleat ...
but a table barren, an ear uncaring.
And your listless denouements mean nothing to me.
What will be, will be.
There are souls’ riven screams, there are blind eyes staring—
imploring the sun or the moon or the sea
for an inkling of meaning, a morsel, a shaving ...
and your pallid dispassion means nothing to me.
What will be, will be.
There is much that is lost, and yet much to be gained
from each starless night, each advance of sun.
We have so little time to wrestle your meaning.
Stars trestle the heavens. Wind haunts. You are done.
And your temple bells’ tinklings mean nothing to me.
What will be, will be.
All my cruel Celtic henchmen, my bold Nordic bards,
will shatter the canes of your cripples to shards,
impaling pale corpses on blood-slickened staves,
tossing leprous white limbs to the wild-drooling waves.
For your steaming viscera are manna to me.
What will be, will be.
No Iscariot kiss, but a Jubilant Hiss
you will get from me. What will be, now is.
The Onslaught
by Michael R. Burch
This poem is dedicated to George King, my college English professor, who compared lines in one of my poems to Wordsworth and Tennyson.
There are years between us; we stand—
the last outpost, the uncertain sentries
of a forgotten command—
awaiting a word.
The wind does not pause for remembrance or regret.
There are centuries of sand
in our boots, in our hair, trickling down our backs,
chaffing our necks.
And yet we stand—
unable to remember, unlikely to forget . . .
that rout:—the devastation, the onslaught,
the pale bodies dismembered, outstretched.
It is over now; there was no time to retreat.
They won, and yet, O words!,
even in defeat, . . .
even in desolation, your enticements are sweet.
stones
by michael r. burch
i.
far below me lies a village
with its houses hewn from stone
and though Everyman who lives there
bravely claims he’s not alone,
i can tell him, yes u are!
for u cannot touch the stars
no matter how u try;
nor can u tame the mountain,
nor appease the darkening sky.
ii.
and late at night
their flinty fires blazing cannot warm their stony hearts;
though each villager “believes” (in what?)
the terror-fear departs
them only at mid-day
for they fear what Others say
when their walls have shut them in.
iii.
and do they sin?
who am i to say?
most stones are shades of gray;
what does it matter, anyway?
iv.
oh, i think that living is not easy
and that dying is not hard ...
as the stars above wink, meaningless,
so they are;
so we all are.
v.
a legion without sound
in dusky darkness drawing down
to settle on the town,
the Night is like a stone —
hard and dark and rolling on,
hard and dark and rolling on.
The Celtic Cross at Île Grosse
by Michael R. Burch
“I actually visited the island and walked across those mass graves [of 30,000 Irish men, women and children], and I played a little tune on me whistle. I found it very peaceful, and there was relief there.” – Paddy Maloney of The Chieftains
There was relief there,
and release,
on Île Grosse
in the spreading gorse
and the cry of the wild geese . . .
There was relief there,
without remorse,
when the tin whistle lifted its voice
in a tune of artless grief,
piping achingly high and longingly of an island veiled in myth.
And the Celtic cross that stands here tells us, not of their grief,
but of their faith and belief—
like the last soft breath of evening lifting a fallen leaf.
When ravenous famine set all her demons loose,
driving men to the seas like lemmings,
they sought here the clemency of a better life, or death,
and their belief in God was their only wealth.
They were proud folk, with only their lives to owe,
who sought the liberation of this strange new land.
Now they lie here, ragged row on ragged row,
with only the shadows of their loved ones close at hand.
And each cross, their ancient burden and their glory,
reflects the death of sunlight on their story.
And their tale is sad—but, O, their faith was grand!
Syndrome
by Michael R. Burch
When the heart of a child,
fragile, like a flower, unfolds;
when his soul emerges from its last concealment,
nestled in the womb’s muscular whorls, its secret chambers;
when he kicks and screams,
flung from the watery darkness into the harsh light’s glare,
feeling its restive anger, its accusatory stare;
when he feels the heart his emergent heart remembers
fluttering against his cheek,
then falls into the lilac arms of heavy-lidded sleep;
when he reopens his eyes to the bellows’ thunder
(which he has never heard before, save as a drowned echo)
and feels its wild surmise, and sees—with wonder
the tenderness in another’s eyes
reflecting his startled wonder back at him,
as his heart picks up the beat of his mother’s grieving hymn for the world’s intolerable slander;
when he understands, with a babe’s discernment—
the breasts, the hands, that now, throughout the years,
will bless him with their comforts, console him with caresses,
the gentle eyes, which, with their knowing tears,
will weep him away from the world’s slick, writhing dangers
through all his restlessly-flowering years;
as his helplessly-frail fingers curl around the nose now leaning to catch his powdery talcum scent ...
Remember—it is the world’s syndrome, its handicap, not his,
that will insulate assumers from the gentle pollinations of his loveliness,
from his gift of enchantment, from his all-encompassing acceptance,
from these angelic charms which will now tenderly lift those earthlings who gladly embrace him.
Published by the National Association for Down Syndrome
I believe I wrote this poem at our subdivision’s pool in 1998, while watching a Down syndrome child with his lovely, loving mother.
Orpheus
by Michael R. Burch
for and after William Blake
I.
Many a sun
and many a moon
I walked the earth
and whistled a tune.
I did not whistle
as I worked:
the whistle was my work.
I shirked
nothing I saw
and made a rhyme
to children at play
and hard time.
II.
Among the prisoners
I saw
the leaden manacles
of Law,
the heavy ball and chain,
the quirt.
And yet I whistled
at my work.
III.
Among the children’s
daisy faces
and in the women’s
frowsy laces,
I saw redemption,
and I smiled.
Satanic millers,
unbeguiled,
were swayed by neither girl,
nor child,
nor any God of Love.
Yet mild
I whistled at my work,
and Song
broke out,
ere long.
Burn
by Michael R. Burch
for Trump
Sunbathe,
ozone baby,
till your parched skin cracks
in the white-hot flash
of radiation.
Incantation
from your pale parched lips
shall not avail;
you made this hell.
Now burn.
Davenport Tomorrow
by Michael R. Burch
Davenport tomorrow ...
all the trees stand stark-naked in the sun.
Now it is always summer
and the bees buzz in cesspools,
adapted to a new life.
There are no flowers,
but the weeds, being hardier,
have survived.
The small town has become
a city of millions;
there is no longer a sea,
only a huge sewer,
but the children don't mind.
They still study
rocks and stars,
but biology is a forgotten science ...
after all, what is life?
Davenport tomorrow ...
all the children murmur through vein-streaked gills
whispered wonders of long-ago.
Privilege
by Michael R. Burch
This poem is dedicated to Harvey Stanbrough, an ex-marine who was nominated for the 1999 Pulitzer Prize and has written passionately and eloquently about the horror and absurdity of war in “Lessons for a Barren Population.”
No, I will never know
what you saw or what you felt,
thrust into the maw of Eternity,
watching the mortars nightly
greedily making their rounds,
hearing the soft damp hiss
of men’s souls like helium escaping
their collapsing torn bodies,
or lying alone, feeling the great roar
of your own heart.
But I know:
there is a bitter knowledge
of death I have not achieved.
Thus in thankful ignorance,
and especially for my son
and for all who benefit so easily
at so unthinkable a price,
I thank you.
Milestones Toward Oblivion
by Michael R. Burch
A milestone here leans heavily
against a gaunt, golemic tree.
These words are chiseled thereupon:
"One mile and then Oblivion."
Swift larks that once swooped down to feed
on groping slugs, such insects breed
within their radiant flesh and bones ...
they did not heed the milestones.
Another marker lies ahead,
the only tombstone to the dead
whose eyeless sockets read thereon:
"Alas, behold Oblivion."
Once here the sun shone fierce and fair;
now night eternal shrouds the air
while winter, never-ending, moans
and drifts among the milestones.
This road is neither long nor wide . . .
men gleam in death on either side.
Not long ago, they pondered on
milestones toward Oblivion.
Mother of Cowards
by Michael R. Burch
So unlike the brazen giant of Greek fame
With conquering limbs astride from land to land,
Spread-eagled, showering gold, a strumpet stands:
A much-used trollop with a torch, whose flame
Has long since been extinguished. And her name?
"Mother of Cowards!" From her enervate hand
Soft ash descends. Her furtive eyes demand
allegiance to her Pimp's repulsive game.
"Keep, ancient lands, your wretched poor!" cries she
With scarlet lips. "Give me your hale, your whole,
Your huddled tycoons, yearning to be pleased!
The wretched refuse of your toilet hole?
Oh, never send one unwashed child to me!
I await Trump's pleasure by the gilded bowl!"
One-Liners
by Michael R. Burch
If the US consulted a competent headshrinker, it might boil down to nothing more than hot air and delusions.—Michael R. Burch
Thanks to politicians like George W. Bush, Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, Steve Bannon and Donald Trump, we now have a duh-mock-racy.—Michael R. Burch
Q: What do you call it when a Man-Baby takes over the American government?
A: Coup d'Tot.
—Michael R. Burch
Teddy Roosevelt spoke softly and carried a big stick; Donald Trump speaks loudly and carries a big shtick.—Michael R. Burch
Sarah Palin is truly unique: she alone can make us appreciate Bush Junior's vastly superior intellect.—Michael R. Burch
I believe God is using Michelle Bachmann to conclusively prove that man did not evolve.—Michael R. Burch
DPAA Hymn for Fallen Soldiers
by Michael R. Burch writing as Kim Cherub
Sound the awesome cannons.
Pin medals to each breast.
Attention, honor guard!
Give them a hero’s rest.
Recite their names to the heavens
Till the stars acknowledge their kin.
Then let the land they defended
Gather them in again.
NOTE: When I learned there’s an American military organization, the DPAA (Defense/POW/MIA Accounting Agency) that is still finding and bringing home the bodies of soldiers who died serving their country in World War II, after blubbering like a baby, I managed to eke out this poem.
Laughter’s Cry
by Michael R. Burch
Because life is a mystery, we laugh
and do not know the half.
Because death is a mystery, we cry
when one is gone, our numbering thrown awry.
Meal Deal
by Michael R. Burch
Love is a splendid ideal
(at least till it costs us a meal).
There’s no need to rant about Al-Qaeda and ISIS.
The cruelty of “civilization” suffices:
our ordinary vices.
—Michael R. Burch
Self-ish
by Kim Cherub
Let’s not pretend we “understand” other elves
As long as we remain mysteries to ourselves.
Peace Prayer
by Michael R. Burch
Be calm.
Be still.
Be silent, content.
Be one with the buffalo cropping the grass to a safer height.
Seek the composure of the great depths, barely moved by exterior storms.
Lift your face to the dawning light; feel how it warms.
And be calm.
Be still.
Be silent, content.
Love is her Belief and her Commandment
by Michael R. Burch
for Beth
Love is her belief and her commandment;
in restless dreams at night, she dreams of Love;
and Love is her desire and her purpose;
and everywhere she goes, she sings of Love.
There is a tomb in Palestine: for others
the chance to stake their claims (the Chosen Ones),
but in her eyes, it’s Love’s most hallowed chancel
where Love was resurrected, where one comes
in wondering awe to dream of resurrection
to blissful realms, where Love reigns over all
with tenderness, with infinite affection.
While some may mock her faith, still others wonder
because they see the rare state of her soul,
and there are rumors: when she prays the heavens
illume more brightly, as if saints concur
who keep a constant vigil over her.
And once she prayed beside a dying woman:
the heavens opened and the angels came
in the form of long-departed friends and loved ones,
to comfort and encourage. I believe
not in her God, but always in her Love.
Wonderland
by Michael R. Burch
We stood, kids of the Lamb, to put to test
the beatific anthems of the blessed,
the sentence of the martyr, and the pen’s
sincere religion. Magnified, the lens
shot back absurd reflections of each face—
a carnival-like mirror. In the space
between the silver backing and the glass,
we caught a glimpse of Joan, a frumpy lass
who never brushed her hair or teeth, and failed
to pass on GO, and frequently was jailed
for awe’s beliefs. Like Alice, she grew wee
to fit the door, then couldn’t lift the key.
We failed the test, and so the jury’s hung.
In Oz, “The Witch is Dead” ranks number one.
chrysalis
by Michael R. Burch
these are the days of doom
u seldom leave ur room
u live in perpetual gloom
yet also the days of hope
how to cope?
u pray and u grope
toward self illumination ...
becoming an angel
(pure love)
and yet You must love Your Self
Nuclear Winter
by Michael R. Burch
Out of the ashes
a flower emerges
and trembling bright sunshine
bathes its scorched stem,
but how will this flower
endure for an hour
the rigors of winter
eternal and grim
without men?
Advice to Young Poets
by Nicanor Parra Sandoval
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Youngsters,
write however you will
in your preferred style.
Too much blood flowed under the bridge
for me to believe
there’s just one acceptable path.
In poetry everything’s permitted.
Originally published by Setu
Beast 666
by Michael R. Burch
“... what rough beast ... slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?”—W. B. Yeats
Brutality is a cross
wooden, blood-stained,
gas hissing, sibilant,
lungs gilled, deveined,
red flecks on a streaked glass pane,
jeers jubilant,
mocking.
Brutality is shocking—
tiny orifices torn,
impaled with hard lust,
the fetus unborn
tossed in a dust-
bin. The scarred skull shorn,
nails bloodied, tortured,
an old wound sutured
over, never healed.
Brutality, all its faces revealed,
is legion:
Death March, Trail of Tears, Inquisition . . .
always the same.
The Beast of the godless and of man’s “religion”
slouching toward Jerusalem:
horned, crowned, gibbering, drooling, insane.
Recursion
by Michael R. Burch
In a dream I saw boys lying
under banners gaily flying
and I heard their mothers sighing
from some dark distant shore.
For I saw their sons essaying
into fields—gleeful, braying—
their bright armaments displaying;
such manly oaths they swore!
From their playfields, boys returning
full of honor’s white-hot burning
and desire’s restless yearning
sired new kids for the corps.
In a dream I saw boys dying
under banners gaily lying
and I heard their mothers crying
from some dark distant shore.
Transplant
by Michael R. Burch
You float, unearthly angel, clad in flesh
as strange to us who briefly knew your flame
as laughter to disease. And yet you laugh.
Behind your smile, the sun forfeits its claim
to earth, and floats forever now the same—
light captured at its moment of least height.
You laugh here always, welcoming the night,
and, just a photograph, still you can claim
bright rapture: like an angel, not of flesh—
but something more, made less. Your humanness
this moment of release becomes a name
and something else—a radiance, a strange
brief presence near our hearts. How can we stand
and chain you here to this nocturnal land
of burgeoning gray shadows? Fly, begone.
I give you back your soul, forfeit all claim
to radiance, and welcome grief’s dark night
that crushes all the laughter from us. Light
in someone Else’s hand, and sing at ease
some song of brightsome mirth through dawn-lit trees
to welcome morning’s sun. O daughter! these
are eyes too weak for laughter; for love’s sight,
I welcome darkness, overcome with light.
Nucleotidings
by Michael R. Burch
“We will walk taller!” said Gupta,
sorta abrupta,
hand-in-hand with his mom,
eyeing the A-bomb.
“Who needs a mahatma
in the aftermath of NAFTA?
Now, that was a disaster,”
cried glib Punjab.
“After Y2k,
time will spin out of control anyway,”
flamed Vijay.
“My family is relatively heavy,
too big even for a pig-barn Chevy;
we need more space,”
spat What’s His Face.
“What does it matter,
dirge or mantra,”
sighed Serge.
“The world will wobble
in Hubble’s lens
till the tempest ends,”
wailed Mercedes.
“The world is going to hell in a bucket.
So fuck it and get outta my face!
We own this place!
Me and my friends got more guns than ISIS,
so what’s the crisis?”
cried Bubba Billy Joe Bob Puckett.
America's Riches
by Michael R. Burch
Balboa's dream
was bitter folly—
no El Dorado near, nor far,
though seas beguiled
and rivers smiled
from beds of gold and silver ore.
Drake retreated
rich with plunder
as Incan fled Conquistador.
Aztecs died
when Spaniards lied,
then slew them for an ingot more.
The pilgrims came
and died or lived
in fealty to an oath they swore,
and bought with pain
the precious grain
that made them rich though they were poor.
Apache blood,
Comanche tears
were shed, and still they went to war;
they fought to be
unbowed and free—
such were Her riches, and still are.
Published by Poetic Reflections and Tucumcari Literary Review
For an expanded bio, circum vitae and career timeline of the author, please click here: Michael R. Burch Expanded Bio.