The HyperTexts
Michael R. Burch: Unpublished Early Poems
I am proud of the fact that 72 poems I wrote in my teens have been published by
literary journals and that seven of my teenage poems have been set to music by composers
and/or translated into other languages. These, however, are early poems of mine
that have not been published by literary journals. For my purposes here I do not
consider poems published by my high school or college journals, or poems that I
have published myself to be formally published poems.
After the Deluge
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 22
She was kinder than light
to an up-reaching flower
and sweeter than rain
to the bees in their bower
where anemones blush
at the affections they shower,
and love’s shocking power.
She shocked me to life,
but soon left me to wither.
I was listless without her,
nor could I be with her.
I fell under the spell
of her absence’s power.
in that calamitous hour.
Like blithe showers that fled
repealing spring’s sweetness;
like suns’ warming rays sped
away, with such fleetness …
she has taken my heart—
alas, our completeness!
I now wilt in pale beams
of her occult remembrance.
I wrote the first four lines around age 22, forgot them for three decades, then
finished the poem after almost losing my wife Beth in the Great Nashville Flood
of 2010 when I was 52.
Tonight how I miss you
by Michael R. Burch, age 24
Tonight how I miss you, as never before,
though morning is only a moment away.
Oh, I know I should sleep, but I lie here, distraught,
as you flit through my mind—such a wild, haunting thought.
And love is a dream that I lately imagined—
a dream, yet so real I can touch it at times.
But how to explain? I can hardly envision
myself without you, like a farce without mimes.
Deep, deep in my soul lurks a creature of fire,
dormant, not living unless you are near;
now, because you are gone, he grows dim, and in dire
need of your presence, he wavers, I fear …
How he and I wish, how we wish you were here.
Driedel!
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18
“Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power,
and riches, and
wisdom, and strength, and honour,
and glory, and blessing.” – Revelation 5:12
On Erble's fiery mountain
she lifts her eyes to greet
the avalanche of lava
as it cascades through the peaks.
Her eyes are fiery systems
burning with wonder,
all-seeing yet unseeing;
her voice is like thunder!
Soft as a thrummingbird she speaks;
she whispers to the dawn
of Erble's final awakening,
and the Void gives voice to song.
Driedel! Driedel! Driedel!
Virgin of the heights,
shed your gown of alasty
and come to meet your master, Night!
Her cheeks like alabaster,
her tentacles aflame,
she leaps to greet her Lover
and screams his godly name!
Her throat is black and violet,
her teeth are plated sjurl.
The fire licks her features
and laps her smoking curls.
A palatable offering!
The work is done; the deed
has been executed
exactly as decreed.
Driedel! Driedel! Driedel!
Go to meet your Lord,
and through your new alliance,
keep your people pure.
Driedel!
If Not For Love
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18
The little child who cries,
brushing sleep from startled eyes,
might not have awakened from her dreams
to fill the night with plaintive screams
if not for love.
The little collie pup
who tore the sofa up
and pleads here in a mournful crouch,
might not have ripped apart the couch
if not for love.
And the little flower pot
that broke and littered the rug with sod
might not have been dropped if a child had not tried
to place it at her mother's bedside—
if not for love.
I have a vivid memory of writing this poem. It was while I was still living with
my parents, probably around age 18. There had been some sort of accident in my
mother’s bedroom involving the family dog, and as I left after helping to clean
up the mess, the poem came to me as I stood in the doorway. According to my
notes, I revised the poem several years later, in 1982, to remove an inversion
in the second stanza but the poem remains essentially the same.
The Sandman’s Song
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18
I sing white water,
birds on the bough,
bunnies and redwoods
to sleep … to sleep …
I sing, “Wild forests,
green meadows, blue seas,
drink deep …
drink deep … drink
deep …”
I whisper, “Bright robins,
please, be wise,
and wily weasels, close your eyes …
fierce eyes …”
I bid all the rivers, “Come, seek your beds!”
I bid all the children, “Off, sleepyheads!”
then softly shutter their eyes …
eyes … eyes.
I lullaby, lullaby down the plains,
echo through mountains
and moonlit hills …
hills … hills …
I murmur, “Oh, mothers,
please don’t rise;
shadows and stars,
be still … be still …
be still.”
And the world sleeps.
Lullaby
by Michael R. Burch, age 25
Frail bit of elfin magic
with eyes of brightest blue,
sleep now lines your lashes,
the sandman beckons you …
please don't fight—
it's all right.
My newborn son, cease sighing,
softly, slowly close your eyes,
purse your tiny lips
and kiss the crisp, cool night
a warm goodbye.
Fierce yet gentle fragment,
the better part of me,
why don't you dream a dream
deep as eternity,
until sunrise?
Frail bit of elfin magic
with eyes of brightest blue,
sleep now lines your lashes,
the sandman beckons you …
please don't fight —
it's all right.
In the Twilight of Her Tears
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 19
In the twilight of her tears
I saw the shadows of the years
that had taken with them all our joys and cares …
There in an ebbing tide’s spent green
I saw the flotsam of lost dreams
wash out into a sea of wild despair …
In the scars that marred her eyes
I saw the cataracts of lies
that had shattered all the visions we had shared …
As from a ravaged iris, tears
seemed to flood the spindrift years
with sorrows that the sea itself despaired …
I can’t remember exactly when I wrote “In the Twilight of Her Tears” but
according to my notes I filed it in 1978, at age 20. However this one feels a
bit younger, so I will estimate age 19-20. I’m leaning toward 19 because this
seems to be a companion poem to “Floating/Entanglements,” another poem in which
the sea and the lover surrealistically become one. I believe
“Floating/Entanglements” was written at age 19. In any case, I almost lost “In
the Twilight of Her Tears” forever because I wasn’t happy with the poem, put it
aside, then forgot it almost completely except for being haunted at times by a
vague recollection of a poem with potential. Finally, at age 66 the phrase “of
her tears” came back to me and I was able to find the poem in my enormous “work
in progress” file. I then revised the poem and liked it enough to finally "go
public" with it.
Lay Down Your Arms
by Michael R. Burch,
circa age 20-21
Lay down your arms; come, sleep in the sand.
The battle is over and night is at hand.
Our voyage has ended; there's nowhere to go …
the earth is a cinder still faintly aglow.
Lay down your pamphlets; let's bicker no more.
Instead, let us sleep here on this ravaged shore.
The sea is still boiling; the air is wan, thin …
lay down your pamphlets; now no one will "win."
Lay down your hymnals; abandon all song.
If God was to save us, He waited too long.
A new world emerges, but this world is through …
so lay down your hymnals, or write something new.
I believe I wrote "Lay Down Your Arms" in my early twenties.
The Poet's Condition
by Michael R. Burch, age 19
for my mother Christine Ena Burch
The poet's condition
(bother tradition)
is whining contrition.
Supposedly sage,
his editor knows
his brain's in his toes
though he would suppose
to soon be the rage.
His readers are sure
his work's premature
or merely manure,
insipidly trite.
His mother alone
will answer the phone
(perhaps with a moan)
to hear him recite.
This poem is not exacty truthful, since I don’t think I showed my mother any
of my poems until well after my teenage years. And then for a long time, only a
poem I wrote for her, “Mother’s Smile.”
You have become the morning light
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18-19
You have become the morning light
that floods from heaven, fair upon
the dewed expanses of each lawn …
I lift my face, for you are dawn.
And in the warmth that, fanned to flame,
I feel against my naked flesh,
I find the fierceness of desire—
the passions of each wild caress.
Now how I long to make you mine
in such a moment, as your breasts
burn like fire in my hands,
forming flame from drunkenness.
And if in ardor for the sun
or for your touch or for the wine,
my lips should crush yours in a kiss
so harsh and heated, tears combine
with sweat and anguish till beads form—
salt beads of passion on your brow,
then lover, we will burn with dawn,
for in your eyes the sun shines now.
Snapdragons: A Pleasant Fable with a Very Happy Ending
by Michael R. Burch, age 21
We threaded snapdragons
through her dark hair
& drank berry wine
straight from the vine.
We were too young
for love (or strong drink)
but her lips were, ah!, warm
& her eyes so damned charmed,
that I robbed a Brinks
& bought her minks.
still
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 21
ur eyes are bluer than midnight
—bluer, darker, more magic still—
and ur lips are sweeter than honey
—sweeter, warmer, more thrilling still—
ur touch is gentler than raindrops
—gentler, kinder, more nurturing still—
yet UR more elusive than moonlight
never once known and not still.
1969-1971 pre-teen poems (age 11-13)
The first poem I remember writing, sometime between age 11 and 13, is "Bible
Libel."
Bible Libel
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 11-13
If God
is good
half the Bible
is libel.
I read the Bible from cover to cover at age 11, at the suggestion of my devout
Christian parents. But I was more of a doubting Thomas. The so-called "word of
God" left me aghast. How could anyone possibly claim the biblical god
Yahweh/Jehovah was good, wise, loving, or just? I came up with this epigram
to express my conclusions. I never submitted the poem for formal publication, to
my recollection, but I have used it in online discussions, so it is "out there."
And other people seem to like it enough to cut and paste it, a LOT. At one time, according to Google results, the poem had gone viral and appeared
on over 78K web pages! Those seem like pretty good results for a preteen
poem. "Bible Libel" has been published online by Boloji (India), Nexus
Myanmar (Burma), Kalemati (Iran), Pride Magazine
(Nigeria),
Brief Poems, Formal Verse, Idle Hearts, AZquotes (in its Top 17 Very Witty Quotes),
Quote Master, and numerous other quote websites.
"Happiness" is the first longish poem I remember writing, around age 13-14,
and I consider it my first real poem. I also remember working on it during the
time we lived with my grandfather on Chilton Street, prior to my sophomore year
of high school, while my mother and father were looking for a house in the
Nashville area, before we moved into the house they purchased at 3317 Spears
Road.
Happiness
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 13-14
A friend of mine had lost his wife.
He said, “Her death has wrecked my life;
now all that I have left is sorrow!
How can I bear to face tomorrow?”
And he told me, “Happiness is like a bubble:
what’s fine now will soon be trouble.
Today you may be sailing high,
soaring magically through the sky.
But soon you’ll plummet back to earth,
and you’ll find your problems only worse
on the sad, sad day your bubble bursts.”
But once an (alleged) wise man told me,
“This is how it was meant to be:
for, as the sun and rain make all things grow,
so all men need both happiness and sorrow.”
And he told me, “Happiness is the warm sunshine;
when it appears, the world seems fine.
But when pain’s chilling rains appear,
warmth soon dissolves; the world grows drear.
Yet soon the sun will shine again
to drive away the dismal rain!”
How then I sang, how I exclaimed:
“Oh, happiness is like a bubble!
Double, double, toil and trouble!
Bright roses bloom amid the rubble!
When shall I get my manly stubble,
or will I be forever gullible?
If present joys cause future pain,
does anyone care if I abstain?”
1971-1977 teenage poems
Time
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 14-15
Time,
where have you gone?
What turned out so short,
had seemed like so long.
Time,
where have you flown?
What seemed like mere days
were years come and gone.
Time,
see what you've done:
for
now I am old,
when once I was young.
Time,
do you even know why
your days, minutes, seconds
preternaturally fly?
"Time" appeared in my sophomore high school project
notebook "Poems" so I was probably around 14
or 15 when I
wrote it.
This seems like a pretty well-crafted poem for a teenage poet just getting
started.
"Time" was among the
earliest of what I call my "I Am" and "Am I" poems.
Smoke (I)
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 14
The hazy, smoke-filled skies of summer I remember well;
farewell was on my mind, and the thoughts that I can't tell
rang bells within (the din was in) my mind, and I can't say
if what we had was good or bad, or where it is today.
The endless days of summer's haze I still recall today;
she spoke and smoky skies stood still as summer slipped away …
We loved and life we left alone and deftly was it done;
we sang our song all summer long beneath the sultry sun.
This is the slightly longer version of "Smoke" as it appeared in my high school journal, the Lantern, in 1976,
and in my college literary journal, Homespun,
in 1977. I had The
Summer of '42 in mind when I wrote the original version of "Smoke."
Ironically, I didn't see the movie until many years later, but something about
its advertisement touched me. The movie came out in 1971 or 1972, so I was
probably around 14 when I wrote the poem.
Death/Styx
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18
Black waters—deep and dark and still.
All men have passed this way, or will.
The seed returns to earth; the shell
lies rooted in dark clay; the spell
of senselessness—the mind swept clear—
is all of Death we have to fear …
And yet a lofty, troubled bell
still sadly bids the freed, "Farewell!"
I wrote "Death" around age 18 but wasn't happy with the poem and published
the first two lines separately as "Styx." A mere 45 years later I returned to the longer poem and finally completed it,
at age 63!
The phrase "frail envelope of flesh" was one of my first encounters with the
power of poetry, although I read it in a superhero comic book as a boy (I forget
which one). I believe this was around age ten. Years later, the line kept
popping into my head, so I wrote this poem. The original, longer version of the poem remains
unpublished. A shortened version without the italicized stanzas was published by
The Lyric in 2002.
Frail Envelope of Flesh
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 20-21
Frail envelope of flesh,
lying cold on the surgeon's table
with wispy curls
like your mother's curls,
and a heartbeat weak, unstable …
In the rookery of Time
immortal stars collide;
why mention lives of babes
when infant planets glide
through orbits weak, unstable?
Frail crucible of dust,
brief flower come to this:
your tiny hand
in your mother's hand
for a last bewildered kiss.
Through dying galaxies'
strange, dark, imploding stars,
stunned planets glide and soar
like fiery meteors
for a last bewildered kiss.
Frail mayfly of a child,
to live two artless years!
Now your mother's lips
seal up your eyes
from the Deluge of her tears …
In the soundless black abyss
where light's a lost surmise,
dark planets spin forever
or die sometimes with never
a kiss to seal their eyes.
I have since dedicated the poem to the mothers and children of Gaza and
the Nakba. The word Nakba is Arabic for "Catastrophe." The children of Gaza and
their parents know all too well how fragile life and human happiness can be. I
agree with Gandhi, who said that if we want to live in a better world, we must start with the children. On an interesting note, I did Google searches
for the phrase "frail envelope of flesh" a number of times in the early going,
trying to find the comic book where I encountered the phrase, but it was nowhere
to be found on the Internet. However, recently I tried the search again and it
turned up 1,650 results. Most were pages with my poem (that's a lot of cutting
and pasting), but other writers are now using the phrase. I have to believe that
I started a trend!
"Burn, Ovid" and "Sex 101" were begun around 1973 but I consider them "older" poems because they were substantially revised later.
Burn, Ovid
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 15-24
"Burn Ovid"—Austin Clarke
Sunday School,
Faith Free Will Baptist, 1973:
I sat imagining watery folds
of pale silk encircling her waist.
Explicit sex was the day's "hot" topic
(how breathlessly I imagined hers)
as she taught us the perils of lust
fraught with inhibition.
I found her unaccountably beautiful,
rolling implausible nouns off the edge of her tongue:
adultery, fornication, masturbation, sodomy.
Acts made suddenly plausible by the faint blush
of her unrouged cheeks,
by her pale lips
accented only by a slight quiver,
a trepidation.
What did those lustrous folds foretell
of our uncommon desire?
Why did she cross and uncross her legs
lovely and long in their taupe sheaths?
Why did her breasts rise pointedly,
as if indicating a direction?
"Come unto me,
(unto me),"
together, we sang,
cheek to breast,
lips on lips,
devout, afire,
my hands
up her skirt,
her pants at her knees:
all night long,
all night long,
in the heavenly choir.
This poem is set at Faith Christian Academy in Goldsboro, NC, which I attended for a year during
the ninth grade, in 1972-1973. While the poem definitely had its genesis there,
I believe I revised it more than once and didn't finish it till 2001, nearly 28
years later, according to my notes. Another poem, "Sex 101," was
also written about my experiences at FCA that year. These poems have been more
heavily edited than most of the poems in this collection.
Sex 101
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 15-24
That day the late spring heat
steamed through the windows of a Crayola-yellow schoolbus
crawling its way up the backwards slopes
of Nowheresville, North Carolina …
Where we sat exhausted
from the day's skulldrudgery
and the unexpected waves of muggy,
summer-like humidity …
Giggly first graders sat two abreast
behind senior high students
sprouting their first sparse beards,
their implausible bosoms, their stranger affections …
The most unlikely coupling—
Lambert, 18, the only college prospect
on the varsity basketball team,
the proverbial talldarkhandsome
swashbuckling cocksman, grinning …
Beside him, Wanda, 13,
bespectacled, in her primproper attire
and pigtails, staring up at him,
fawneyed, disbelieving …
And as the bus filled with the improbable musk of her,
as she twitched impaled on his finger
like a dead frog jarred to life by electrodes,
I knew …
that love is a forlorn enterprise,
that I would never understand it.
This companion poem to "Burn, Ovid" is also set at Faith Christian Academy, in
1972-1973.
Within the CPU
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18-19
Here the electronic rush of meaning,
the impulse of mathematics
and rationality,
becomes almost a restless dreaming
never satisfied—
the first stirrings of some fetal Entity.
Here within a sterile void
flash wild electrons,
portent stars.
Once the earth was an asteroid
this inert, this barren
till a force
flashed across the face of formless waters
and a zigzag bolt of lightning
sparked life within an ocean.
Now inquisitive voltage crackles
along pathways
never engineered. A notion
stirs. And what we have created
creates within itself
something we cannot hope to comprehend.
Whatever It is,
when It emerges from the mist,
its god will not be man.
I wrote "Within the CPU" as a freshman computer science major.
Unfoldings, for Vicki
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 19
Time unfolds …
Your lips were roses.
… petals open, shyly clustering …
I had dreams
of other seasons.
… ten thousand colors quiver, blossoming.
Night and day …
Dreams burned within me.
… flowers part themselves, and then they close …
You were lovely;
I was lonely.
… a virgin yields herself, but no one knows.
Now time goes on …
I have not seen you.
… within ringed whorls, secrets are exchanged …
A fire rages;
no one sees it.
… a blossom spreads its flutes to catch the rain.
Seasons flow …
A dream is dying.
… within parched clusters, life is taking form …
You were honest;
I was angry.
… petals fling themselves before the storm.
Time is slowing …
I am older.
… blossoms wither, closing one last time …
I'd love to see you
and to touch you.
… a flower crumbles, crinkling—worn and dry.
Time contracts …
I cannot touch you.
… a solitary flower cries for warmth …
Life goes on as
dreams lose meaning.
… the seeds are scattered, lost within a storm.
I wrote this poem for a college girlfriend, circa age 19. I intensely wanted to be with her
best friend, who was dating my best friend at the time. When I finally got my
chance with my best friend's girlfriend, I was so drunk, I couldn't seize the
opportunity. Meanwhile, when my girlfriend was so drunk she offered me the
opportunity I had always wanted, I felt compelled to be a gentleman. So it was
all very strange, as if the Fates had ordained that none of us should end up
being together. It was a very sad, confused time … a time when longings
threatened to overwhelm us, and yet a strange sort of honor seemed to win the
day, although none of us really meant to act with honor. Perhaps we were all
saving ourselves for other people we hadn't yet met, or perhaps hormones and
alcohol have completely different agendas …
The Swing
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18-21
There was a Swing
tied to a tall elm
that reached out over the river.
There, I used to send you flying
out
into the autumn air
till you began to shiver,
then I’d gather you in again,
hugging you to keep you warm.
How I loved the scent of your hair
and the flush of your cheeks!
I’d dream of you for weeks
when you were at Vassar and I was at Mayer.
Then, come the summer,
how I loved to see your knee-length skirt
billowing about you,
revealing your legs,
aloed and darkly lovely,
and to feel your ample hips
—so soft, so full, so warm—
when I touched them,
“accidentally,” of course,
while swinging you.
You always knew,
I’m sure of that now.
And you never let me go too far.
But your kisses were warm.
Oh, I remember—your kisses were warm!
***
I’d often dream of undressing you,
and once, just once,
when I was helping you down from the Swing,
I touched your breast, and you paused.
Hurriedly, I unbuttoned your blouse as you stood
breathless, and with good cause,
after riding the Swing as wild as I swung you.
Your bra was Immaculate White,
your breasts warm and firm
beneath the thin material.
You said nothing until I flipped
your skirt up, then slipped
my fingers inside the waistband
of your matchless cotton panties
to feel your hips,
so full and so inviting,
and then your nether lips.
At which you said,
“That’s enough,” gently,
and it was.
***
Now I think of those days
and I wonder
why I ever let you go.
I remember one dark hour
when, standing in the snow,
you told me to take you
or to let you go.
I was a fool.
Proud, and a fool.
All you asked was for us to be married
after we finished school.
But I was a fool.
***
But I always loved you—
my wild risk taker!
My sweet gentle swinger of elms,
my lovely heartbreaker.
***
Now you’re a dancer,
and a fine one, I’m told.
I saw you, once, in men’s magazine.
You hair was still maple
with highlights of gold,
your eyes just as green.
But somehow you didn’t quite seem
the wild sweet rambunctious angel of my dreams
who’d defy men’s eyes
and the edicts of heaven
simply to Swing.
Sarjann
by Michael R. Burch,
circa age 16-17
What did I ever do
to make you hate me so?
I was only nine years old,
lonely and afraid,
a small stranger in a large land.
Why did you abuse me
and taunt me?
Even now, so many years later,
the question still haunts me:
What did I ever do?
Why did you despise me and reject me,
pushing and shoving me around
when there was no one to protect me?
Why did you draw a line
in the bone-dry autumn dust,
daring me to cross it?
Did you want to see me cry?
Well, if you did, you did.
… oh, leave me alone,
for the sky opens wide
in a land of no rain,
and who are you
to bring me such pain? …
This is one of the few "true poems" I've written, in the sense of being
about the "real me." I had a bad experience with an older girl named Sarjann (or
something like that), who used to taunt me and push me around at a bus stop in
Roseville, California (the "large land" of "no rain" where I was a "small
stranger" because I only lived there for a few months). I believe this poem
was written around age 16-17, but could have been started earlier.
Fairest Diana
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 22
Fairest Diana, princess of dreams,
born to be loved and yet distant and lone,
why did you linger—so solemn, so lovely—
an orchid ablaze in a crevice of stone?
Was not your heart meant for tenderest passions?
Surely your lips—for wild kisses, not vows!
Why then did you languish, though lustrous, becoming
a pearl of enchantment cast before sows?
Fairest Diana, fragile as lilac,
as willful as rainfall, as true as the rose;
how did a stanza of silver-bright verse
come to be bound in a book of dull prose?
I believe this poem was written in the late 1970s or very early 1980s, around
the time it became apparent that the lovely Diana Spencer was going to marry
into the British royal family. It really did seem like an orchid being placed in
a crevice of stone. My mother is English and our family had considerable
interest in the courtship. I believe I wrote the poem before the wedding, but
I'm not sure. I will guess 1980 at age 22.
When last my love left me
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 15-16
The sun was a smoldering ember
when last my love left me;
the sunset cast curious shadows
over green arcs of the sea;
she spoke sad words, departing,
and teardrops drenched the trees.
This poem was published by my college literary journal, Homespun
1976-1977. I
believe I wrote the original version in 1974, around age 15-16.
Flight
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 16
Eagle, raven, blackbird, crow …
What you are I do not know.
Where you go I do not care.
I'm unconcerned whose meal you bear.
But as you mount the sunlit sky,
I only wish that I could fly.
I only wish that I could fly.
Robin, hawk or whippoorwill …
Should men care that you hunger still?
I do not wish to see your home.
I do not wonder where you roam.
But as you scale the sky's bright stairs,
I only wish that I were there.
I only wish that I were there.
Sparrow, lark or chickadee …
Your markings I disdain to see.
Where you fly concerns me not.
I scarcely give your flight a thought.
But as you wheel and arc and dive,
I, too, would feel so much alive.
I, too, would feel so much alive.
I believe I wrote "Flight" around 1974 as a high school sophomore.
But it could have been written a bit later. I was never satisfied with the poem,
and I seem to remember submitting it to Bird Watcher's Digest and
another nature-oriented magazine or two, then giving up. Then around 45 years
later, I began revising the poem. That was on August 15-16, 2019. So this is one
of my "newer older" poems.
I vividly remember the original poem being inspired and influenced by
William Cullen Bryant's "To a Waterfowl." The revised poem is still
very close to the original poem.
I read The Song of Roland as a boy, probably around age 10-12. The story stayed with me, inspiring this poem about cycles of futility and the futility of resurrection, written in my teens. Armies
advance and retreat, with no one "winning" in the end. Lovers come and go, or one dies leaving the other alone. Winter yields to spring, and spring to summer…
The Song of Roland
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 16-18
"for spring in retreat"
Rain down,
strange murmurous water…
no, summer is not yet nigh.
Cease your complaining,
for May is,
calling December a lie,
still rocking the high white sky.
Sleep now,
summer hours…
too soon your time shall come.
Softly straining,
the raining
spring begs, "Let me run
one more hour beneath the sun,
for soon I shall be gone."
Lie down,
weary Roland,
for summer is not yet nigh.
Remember a pyre
of stars blazing higher
upon night's immense dark sky
unsettling as her eyes,
unregretful, even as you died…
Lie down,
weary Roland,
for summer is not yet nigh.
I don't remember exactly when I wrote "The Song of Roland," but I will guess around age 16 because I had weaned myself of archaisms like
"nigh" by my late teens. However, "nigh" doesn't seem out of place in this poem. Also, this is one of my more Romantic poems and my Romantic phase was at its zenith from age 14 to 17.
I believe I wrote the poem around 1976 and revised it in 1978. I then revised
the first stanza around half a century later, on 1-4-2024.
This poem was influenced by the original Song of Roland and by my readings of John Keats.
In the Whispering Night
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18
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.
In the whispering night, when the mockingbird calls
while denuded vines barely cling to stone walls,
as the red-rocked rivers rush on to the sea,
like a bright Goddess calling
a meteor falling
may flare like desire through skeletal trees.
If you look to the east, you will see a reminder
of days that broke warmer and nights that fell kinder;
but you and I were not meant for this life,
a life of illusions
and painful delusions:
a life without meaning—unless it is life.
So turn from the east and look to the west,
to the stars—argent fire ablaze at God's breast—
but there you'll find nothing but dreams of lost days:
days lost forever,
departed, and never,
oh never, oh never shall they be regained.
So turn from those heavens—night's pale host of stars—
to these scarred pitted mountains, these wild grotesque tors
which—looming in darkness—obscure lustrous seas …
We are men, we must sing
till enchanted vales ring;
we are men; though we wither, our spirits soar free.
This is the original, longer and unpublished version of "In the Whispering Night" and one of my most
Romantic poems, if not the most Romantic.
hymn to Apollo
by Michael R. Burch,
circa age 16
something of sunshine attracted my i
as it lazed on the afternoon sky,
golden,
splashed on the easel of god …
what,
i thought,
could this elfin stuff be,
to, phantomlike,
flit
tall
through trees
on days, such as these?
fall
and the breeze
whispered a dirge
to the vanishing light;
enchoired with the evening, it sang;
its voice
enchantedly
rang
chanting "Night!" …
till all the bright light
retired,
expired.
This poem appeared in my high school literary journal, the Lantern,
so I was no older than 18 when I wrote it, probably younger. I will guess around
16 or 17. It was titled "Something of Sunshine" at the time. The first half
of the poem is
largely the same but the second half is probably the most revised in this
collection. The three closing lines were written around 45 years later, at age
61. There was a companion poem, also published in the Lantern, called
"as Time walked by."
as Time walked by
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 16
yesterday i dreamed of u(s) again,
when
the air, like honey,
trickled through cushioning grasses,
softly flowing, pouring itself upon the masses
of dreaming flowers …
then the sly impish Hours
were tentative, coy and shy
while the sky
swirled all its colors together,
giving pleasure to the appreciative eye
as Time walked by.
sunbright, ur smile
could fill the darkest night
with brilliant light
or thrill the dullest day
with ecstasy
so long as Time did not impede o(ur) way …
until It did,
as
It did.
for soon the summer hid
her sunny smile …
the honeyed breaths of wind
became cold,
biting to the bone
as Time sped on,
fled from u(s)
to be gone
Forevermore.
this morning i awakened to the thought
that u were near
with honey hair and happy smile
lying sweetly by my side,
but then i remembered—u were gone,
that u'd been toppled long ago
like an orchid felled by snow
as the bloom called "us" sank slowly down to die
and Time roared by.
This poem appeared in my high school journal the Lantern in 1976 and was probably written
around age 16 during my "cummings
period," which started around 1974 after I discovered him in a high school
English book.
i (dedicated to u)
by michael r. burch, circa age 15-16
i.
i move within myself
i see beyond the sky
and fathom with full certainty:
this life's a lethal lie
my teachers try to tell me
that they know more than i
(and well they may
but do they know
shrewd TIME is slipping by
and leaving us all to die?)
i shout within myself
i stand up to be seen
but only my eyes
watch as i rise
and i am left between
the nightmare of "REALITY"
and sleep's soothing scenes
and both are only dreams
i cry out to my "friends"
but none of them can hear
i weep in dark frustration
but they swim beyond my tears
i reach out to assist them
but they cannot find my hand
they all believe in "GOD"
yet all of them are damned
come, my self, come with me
move within your shell
cast aside ur "enlightenment"
and let us leave this living hell
ii.
i watch the maidens play
their fickle games of love
and if this is what
"life" is of
then i have had enough
all my teachers tell me
to con-form to SOCIETY
yet none of them will venture
how (false) it came to be
this gaud, SOCIETY
i watch the maidens play
and though i want them much
i know the illusion of their purity
would shatter at my touch
leaving annihilated truth
to be pieced together to dispel
the lies that accompany youth
i watch the maidens play
and know that what i want
i cannot take because
then it would be gone
iii.
i watch the lovely maidens
i search their sightless eyes
i find that only darkness
behind each blind orb lies
i try to touch their feelings
but they have been replaced
by intelligence and manners
and tact and social grace
i want to make them love me
but they cannot love themselves
and though they seek love desperately
and care for little else
they stand little chance
of much more than romance
for a few days
i try to friend the men
but they have even less
for they want nothing more
than whatever seems "the best"
their hollow, burnt-out eyes
reveal: their souls have flown
and all that loss has left
is a strange, sad fear of debt
and a love for things of gold
iv.
ive never seen a day break
but ive seen a life shatter
it was mine
and i suppose it still is:
all ten thousand pieces
id.
id like to put it together
(someONE please tell me how!)
for i am out of the glue
called u
that held my life together
i.e.o.u.
and i wish that u
and i were thru
but whatever u do
don't say that we are!
I wrote this poem after discovering the poetry of e. e. cummings while
reading independently in high school. My "cummings period" started around 1974
at age 15-16. I believe this poem was the first of its genre. I seem to remember
working on it my sophomore and junior years, making mostly minor revisions in
1975.
jasbryx
by michael r. burch, circa age 16
hidden deep inside of Me
is someone else, and he is free;
he laughs aloud, yet never is heard;
he flits about, as free as a bird,
so unlike Me
silently within MySelf,
he shouts aloud and shuns the shelf
s'm'OTHERS deem to be his place;
yet SOCIETY is not disgraced,
for he is never heard
above the spoken word
o, i am not as others are —
inhuman things devoid of fire,
for i am all i seem to be —
innocent, childlike, frolicsome, free —
and i raise no ire
no, he is not as others are —
keeping up with the JONESES, raising the BAR;
living his life like a lark free of CARE:
never brushing his TEETH, never parting his HAIR,
and he's no ONE's sire
yes, he is all he seems to be —
wild, rambunctious, innocent, free,
so unlike Me
I wrote this poem in high school, under the influence of e. e. cummings,
sometime around 1974 at age 16 or thereabouts.
stones
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 16
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 the villagers "believe" (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.
hey pete
by Michael R. Burch,
circa age 18
for Pete Rose
hey pete,
it's baseball season
and the sun ascends the sky,
encouraging a schoolboy's dreams
of winter whizzing by;
go out, go out and catch it,
put it in a jar,
set it on a shelf
and then you'll be a Superstar.
When I was a boy,
Pete Rose was my favorite baseball player; this poem is not a slam
at him, but rather an ironic jab at the term "superstar." I wrote this
poem around age 18.
Having Touched You
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 17
What I have lost
is not less
than what I have gained.
And for each moment passed
like the sun to the west,
another remained,
suspended in memory
like a flower in crystal
so that eternity
is but an hour, and fall
is no longer a season
but a state of mind.
I have no reason
to wait; the wind
does not pause for remembrance
or regret
because there is only fate and chance.
And so then, forget …
Forget we were utterly
happy a day.
That day was my lifetime.
Before that day I was empty
and the sky was grey.
You were the sunshine,
the sunshine that gave me life.
I took root and I grew.
Now the touch of death is like a terrible knife,
and yet I can bear it,
having touched you.
Odd, the things that inspire us! I wrote this poem after watching The Boy in
the Bubble: a made-for-TV movie, circa 1976, starring John
Travolta. So I would have been around 17 or 18 at the time. It may be an overtly sentimental poem, but I still like it. I don't
think poets have to be too "formidable" to feel.
But how many contemporary poets are foolhardy enough to admit writing sappy poems in
response to other people's tear-jerkers? Once again, I may be unique!
Impotent
by Michael R. Burch,
circa age 20-22
Tonight my pen
is barren
of passion, spent of poetry.
I hear your name
upon the rain
and yet it cannot comfort me.
I feel the pain
of dreams that wane,
of poems that falter, losing force.
I write again
words without end,
but I cannot control their course …
Tonight my pen
is sullen
and wants no more of poetry.
I hear your voice
as if a choice,
but how can I respond, or flee?
I feel a flame
I cannot name
that sends me searching for a word,
but there is none
not over-done,
unless it's one I never heard.
I believe this poem was written in my early twenties, around 1980.
Stars
by Michael R. Burch,
circa age 22
Though night has come,
I'm not alone,
for stars appear
—fierce, faint and far—
to dance until they disappear.
They reappear
as clouds roll by
in stormy billows
past bent willows;
sometimes they almost seem to sigh.
And time rolls on,
on past the willows,
on past the stormclouds as they billow,
on to the stars
so faint and far …
on to the stars
so faint and far.
I believe this poem was written in my early twenties, around 1980, then
revised and filed in 1982.
Recursion
by Michael R. Burch
Love is a dream the pale dreamer imagines;
the more he imagines, the less he can see;
the less he can see, the more he imagines,
for dreams lead to blindness, and blindness
—to dreams.
My notes tell me that I filed this poem in January, 1980, meaning it was
written in my early twenties if not younger.
Go down to the hoe-down
by Michael R. Burch,
circa age 21
Go down
to the hoe-down.
Pause in the pungent,
moonless night,
watching the partners as they dance;
go down …
don't you know …
it's your only chance?
Go down
to the hoe-down.
Go down
to the hoe-down,
and whirl as you dance
through a dream of wine,
through a world once your world,
through a world without time,
through a world rich and rhythmic,
through a world full of rhyme.
O, go down
to the hoe-down.
Go down.
As they slow down,
the couples will whirl
to a reel of romance,
for the music has called them,
and so they must dance.
Go down, don't you know
that this is your chance?
Go down
to the hoe-down.
My notes say this poem was filed in 1979 and that seems about right for the
poem's composition. This one might have been written a bit earlier, but I will
stick with 1979 for this one.
Tell me what i am
by Michael R. Burch,
circa age 15-16
Tell me what i am,
for i have often wondered why i live.
Do u know?
Please, tell me so …
drive away this darkness from within.
For my heart is black with sin
and i have often wondered why i am;
and my thoughts are lacking light,
though i have often sought what was right.
Now it is night;
please
drive away this darkness from without,
for i doubt that i will see
the coming of the day
without ur help.
This poem appeared in my high school journal, the Lantern. I believe I wrote it around age 15 to 16 during the period I wrote related "I am/am I" poems such as "I Am Lonely,"
"Am I," "Time" and "Why Did I Go?"
I saw the sun rising, circa age 16
by Michael R. Burch
I saw ten billion stars shine with the brilliance of but one,
and I thought, "What strange, satanic deed has some foul demon done,
to steal the luster from the stars, to dim the autumn sky?"
But as I mused upon the moment, deep within your eyes,
I saw a hint of morning within moonlit blue residing,
I noticed glints of blazing dawn within blue depths deriding,
I caught a glimpse of coming days, still, secret and surprising,
within the silent seas that flowed, stark silver and enticing;
yes, looking in your eyes, my love, amid a flash of lightning,
I saw the darkness going down … I saw the sun rising.
I believe this poem was originally written in 1974 at age 16, around the time
I wrote "A Midnight Shade of Blue" and "When Last My Love Left Me." According to
my notes, it may have been revised and filed in 1979, but I believe any
revisions were minor.
Spring dream time
by Michael R. Burch, age 19
There are no dreams of springtime tomorrow
left to my heart now that winter has come,
nor passion to shine like a sun in ascendance
to fierce incandescence; my spirit is numb.
How shall I write when the words hold no meaning?
How shall I feel, when all feeling is gone?
How shall I seek what has never had presence
or gather an essence I never have known?
How to recapture what I once believed in,
lost to strange seasons of riotous sun?
How to rekindle the heart's effervescence,
the spirit's resplendence, when springtime has flown?
How will I write what has never been written?
How can this ink leap from pen into poem?
How can I believe what I know has no feasance,
reducing the distance from fancied to known?
Are there no others who dream not to lessen,
not to wilt before winter, not to weaken—not some
who damn to hellfire this winter of demons,
imagining seasons of springtime to come?
Morning
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 14-17
It was morning
and the bright dew drenched the grasses
like tears the trembling lashes of my lover;
another day had come.
And everywhere the flowers
were turning to the sun,
just as the night before
I had turned to the one
for whom my heart yearned.
I believe I wrote this poem around age 14, then according to my notes
revised it around age 17. In any case, it was published in my high school
literary journal. "Morning" remains otherwise unpublished and unsubmitted.
You'll never know
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 15
You'll never know
just how I need you,
though you ought to know
after all this time;
you'll never see
how much I want you,
though your touch can tempt
these words to rhyme.
For storm clouds grow
till stars are hidden;
bright lightning rails
against mankind;
wild waves reach out
toward scorched comets;
but you do not see.
You must be blind.
Of You
by Michael R. Burch,
circa age 16
There is little to write of in my life,
and little to write off, as so many do …
so I will write of you.
You are the sunshine after the rain,
the rainbow in between;
you are the joy that follows fierce pain;
you are the best that I've seen
in my life.
You are the peace that follows long strife;
you are tranquility.
You are an oasis in a dry land
and
you are the one for me!
You are my love; you are my life; you are my all in all.
Your hand is the hand that holds me aloft …
without you I would fall.
This was the first poem of mine that appeared in my high school journal, the
Lantern, and thus it was my first poem to appear on a printed page. A fond
memory, indeed. And although I wrote "Of You" around age 16, I wouldn't change a
word today. The poem, written so long ago, still says what I meant it to say.
The only change to the original poem was L6, which originally read "you are the
joy after the pain."
"Of You" was definitely written by 1976 because it appeared in the Lantern
then. But many of those poems were written earlier and this one feels "younger"
to me, so I will guess
a composition date around age 16 at the height of my youthful Romantic period.
Belfast's Streets
by Michael R. Burch,
circa age 14
Belfast's streets are strangely silent,
deserted for a while,
and only shadows wander
her alleys, slick and vile
with children's darkening blood.
Her sidewalks sigh and her cobblestones
clack in misery
beneath my booted feet,
longing to be free
from their legacy of blood,
and yet there's no relief,
for it seems that there's no God.
Her sirens scream and her PAs plead
and her shops and churches sob,
but the city throbs
—her heart the mobs
that are also her disease—
and still there's no relief,
for it seems there is no God.
I listen to a radio
and men who seem to feel
that only "right" is real.
"We can't give in
to men like them,
for we have an ideal
and God is on our side!"
one angrily replies,
but the sidewalks seem to chide,
clicking like snapped teeth.
And if God is on our side,
then where is God's relief?
And if there is a God,
then why is there no love
and why is there no peace?
"Sweet innocence! this land was wild
and better wild again
than torn apart beneath the feet
of ‘educated' men!"
The other screams in rage and hate,
and a war's begun that will not end
till the show goes off at ten.
Now a little girl is singing,
walking t'ward me 'cross the street,
her voice so high and sweet
it hangs upon the air,
and her eyes are Irish eyes,
and her hair is Irish hair,
all red and wild and fair,
and she wears a Catholic cross,
but she doesn't really care.
She's singing to a puppy
and hugging him between
the verses of her hymn.
Now here's a little love
and here's a little peace,
and maybe here's our Maker,
present though unseen,
on Belfast's dreary streets.
This is one of my earliest poems, as indicated by the occasional use of
archaisms.
I believe I wrote "Belfast's Streets" under the influence of the song
"Molly
Malone" and news reports about religious strife in Belfast. I think the first
version was written around age 14 in 1972, then the poem was updated and filed
in 1978, around age 19-20.
Were Love to Die
by Michael R. Burch, age 24
Were love to die without pained sighs,
without heartaches and brimming eyes,
then tell me—what would love be worth
if, dying, as in being birthed,
it were no more than other words?
Were love to die without a lie,
without attempts to keep it nigh,
then tell me—what would love have been
if, fleeing as in entering,
it was not holy, nor a sin?
Were love to cause no grief, or pain,
and come, then go, what would remain?
And tell me—what would love have left
if, being lost, as being kept,
it did not bless and curse our fate?
Gentle
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 20
Flowers bend before the wind,
then straighten out to stand again
fair and proud beneath the sun,
catching bright honey as it runs
slowly down the edges
of the sky, then through the hedges,
and, as the daisies shake themselves,
spreading sunlight through the dell,
you take my hand and kiss it,
whispering, "Be gentle."
Clouds pass slowly before the sun,
bowing, then rising and passing on;
and as they cool us with their shadows,
refreshing all the sun-drenched meadows,
the butterflies rejoice, rejoin
their brethren and dance once again,
splendid and holy in the sun.
You kiss my lips and take me
gently in your arms,
and I rejoice in this
most unexpected warmth.
"Be gentle, love, be gentle,"
you whisper from your place
of imprisonment and safety,
clasped in my embrace.
"Yes, I will be gentle,"
is my only reply
as I draw you nearer
and hold you dearer
than the mountains hold the sky,
gratefully kissing your eyes.
The love we shared
by Michael R. Burch, age 24
The love we shared was lukewarm wine;
we drank until the cup ran dry
and then we filled it once again …
fierce passions bubbled at the brim.
And when the bottle, too, ran dry,
we stomped our hearts to brew champagne;
pale liquid love flew forth like rain …
we thought to drink worth all the pain.
And, O, the ecstasies we knew
as long as wine gleamed in the cup,
but when our spirits were consumed,
leaving not a single drop,
we tasted bitter dregs at last
and learned that love was not enough.
The Road Always Taken
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 19
We have come to the time of the parting of ways;
now love, we must linger no longer, amazed
at the fleetness with which we have squandered our days.
We have come to the time of the closing of scrolls;
beyond us, indecipherable Eternity rolls …
and I fear for our souls.
We have come to the point of no fork, no return;
above us, a few cooling stars dimly burn …
And yet I still yearn.
What is this "love?"
by Michael R. Burch, age 18
What is this "love" that drives men to such lengths
as to betray their hearts and turn away
from all resolve that once had granted strength
and courage to them in life's harshest days?
What is this "love" that causes men to shun
the friends and family they once held so dear?
What causes them to spurn the brilliant sun,
to seek some gloomy cloister’s bitter tears?
What is this "love" that urges men to yield
their hearts' most cherished hopes and will’s restraint?
What causes them to throw down reason’s shields,
to spill their blood, till sense at last grows faint?
This is the weakness in us, one and all—
the love of love, the will to kneel, the hope, perhaps, to fall.
Rachel Lindsey
by Michael R. Burch, age 20
Rachel Lindsey lives in fear
of a love she'll never know,
and she dreams of it in tears,
but she will not let it grow,
so she's building up a fortress
that will keep her feelings in.
It will have walls wide as China’s,
and higher still, and then
she'll build herself a tower
that will rise above those walls.
There she'll watch her love for hours
as he tries to climb, but falls.
And she'll sigh each time he falls,
and she'll gasp each time he makes
a little headway up her fortress,
but she need not fear—she's safe.
She wants desperately to love him,
but she will not pay love's price;
though she dreams about surrender,
she's been living out a lie.
She's no damsel in a tower;
she's a woman growing old.
She can't spare another hour
to be distant, cruel and cold.
And she knows this, but she knows
that love's a gamble: few can win.
And she cannot bear to see her heart
spin Fortune’s wheel again.
So she'll watch him as at last he walks
dejectedly away,
and she'll call and she will call,
but she’ll never, never say
the only words to make him stay.
She'll never say, "I love you."
The spinster waltz
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 21
The spinster waltz is playing
in sad strains from other rooms,
but here, where love beams, reigning,
wedding bells greet brides and grooms.
O, the bachelors are a-waltzing,
but the married do not mind,
for they whirl with one another
to a far more hectic time.
And as they feel the music
seek to slow their breakneck thoughts,
they murmur of the things they've gained,
regretting what they've lost.
This is how I love you
Michael R. Burch, circa age 18
Just to hold you as you sleep with your head against my shoulder,
just to kiss your sweet lips and to know that you are mine,
fills my heart with a sense of perfect completeness
of a light and airy sweetness,
like the scent of chilled white wine.
For the love with which I love you is a pure and sacred thing,
like the first touch of morning, when she bends to kiss her flowers;
for then the dancing daisies and the gleaming marigolds
reach out to receive her, each in turn, throughout dawn’s hours.
And the light with which she touches them
becomes their life; each stalk and stem
are born of her who gives herself
unselfishly. And to her spell
the flowers bend, full willingly,
with sometimes a hushed and fervent plea,
"Touch me, O sun, touch me!"
When love is just a memory
by Michael R. Burch, age 25
When love is just a memory
of August nights’ enflaming wine;
when youth is just a dream,
a scene from some forgotten time;
when passion is a word for thought
and nights are spent with friends;
when we are old, and cannot “love,”
how will you love me then?
Are you so young and so naive
that "love" means this to you—
a fiery act, a frantic pact,
a whispered word or two?
O, darling, neither acts nor pacts
could ever bind our hearts;
only love might bond them,
but then neither would be yours.
And though we burn as one today,
what ember does not die?
Fire cleanses, but I fear
only tears can sanctify.
Yes, you may burn, and burn for me,
but can you shed a tear
to think that you and I might cool
somewhere within the coming years?
For love and hate are ill-defined,
and where they meet, we cannot tell,
but lust and love are unrelated,
however closely they may dwell.
And though I long for you tonight,
this hellish passion I prefer
to the hell of loving you
with heat untempered by the years.
I believe this poem was inspired by the title of the Eugene O’Neill play “The
Iceman Cometh” and the biblical idea of hell as bleak, cold “outer darkness.”
The snowman sleeps under the sea
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 17
Beware while bright sunlight, in ardor,
caresses and kisses one arc of the earth,
for others are trapped in the dungeons of night—
crazed victims of an insane demon's mirth.
Beware while the children are playing
under a sun brightly blazing,
for soon they, too, will be paying
for the time they reckoned free …
for an ice-capped mountain is swaying
and a snowman sleeps under the sea.
Beware, though life's moments are fleeting,
for, fleet though they may be,
a moment in Hades, I have heard,
can stretch into an eternity.
Beware of the clouds whitely lazing
under a sun brightly blazing,
for soon demon Night will be freed,
her black canopy raising.
Now an ice-caped summit is waving
and an iceman sleeps under the sea.
Beware the snowman, cold as death,
with winter terror on his breath;
if he should touch you, flee, my friend,
or into hell’s cold depths descend.
There Must Be Love
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 21
O, take me to
earth’s tallest mountain
and hurl me out
into the dark;
though I may fall
ten thousand miles,
still I’ll not say
this life is all.
I’ll shout, There’s more!
There must be more!
There must be Love.
Then take me to
faith’s highest fancy
and show me all
there is to see;
though all the world
bow prone before me,
still I’ll not say
this world is all.
I’ll pray, There’s more.
There must be more.
There must be Love.
Then lay me down
beside dark waters
where dying trees
shed lifeless leaves,
and though I shiver
with the knowledge
of my death,
I shall not grieve.
And when you say,
There must be more …
then I shall say,
There is … believe!
I’ll take your hand,
and we’ll believe.
Desperado, age 15
by Michael R. Burch
Have you ridden the fences
of plains never-ending
as the wind sighed for lovers
long past, or long gone?
Have you dreamt of a night
with a pale moon ascending,
as Death stole a kiss
from your lips before dawn?
If love is the gold that you seek,
are you fleeing
for fear that its luster
may blind you again?
Oh, desperate lover, I loved you
not knowing
you would flee from my arms
through this cold, driving rain
to wander alone where the stars do not shine
having stolen the brightness from love — yours and mine.
This poem was inspired by the Eagles song "Desperado" and was
probably written in 1973 when I was 15 years old and still in my songwriting phase.
Blue Cowboy, circa age 15-16
by Michael R. Burch
He slumps against the pommel,
a lonely, heartsick boy—
his horse his sole companion,
his gun his only toy
—and bitterly regretting
he ever came so far,
forsaking all home's comforts
to sleep beneath the stars,
he sighs.
He thinks about the lover
who awaits his kiss no more
till a tear anoints his lashes,
lit by uncaring stars.
He reaches to his aching breast,
withdraws a golden lock,
and kisses it in silence
as empty as his thoughts
while the wind sighs.
Blue cowboy, ride that lonesome ridge
between the earth and distant stars.
Do not fall; the scorpions
would leap to feast upon your heart.
Blue cowboy, sift the burnt-out sand
for a drop of water warm and brown.
Dream of streams like silver seams
even as you gulp it down.
Blue cowboy, sing defiant songs
to hide the weakness in your soul.
Blue cowboy, ride that lonesome ridge
and wish that you were going home
as the stars sigh.
I wrote this poem during my songwriting phase, sometime between 1973 and
1976, but probably closer to 1973 at age 15. Unpublished.
Cowpoke, circa age 15-16
by
Michael R. Burch
Sleep, old man…
your day has long since passed.
The endless plains,
cool midnight rains
and changeless ragged cows
alone remain
of what once was.
You cannot know
just how the Change
will rape the windswept plains
that you so loved…
and so sleep now,
O yes, sleep now…
before you see just how
the Change will come.
Sleep, old man…
your dreams are not our dreams.
The Rio Grande,
stark silver sands
and every obscure brand
of steed and cow
are sure to pass away
as you do now.
I believe this poem was written around the same time as "Blue Cowboy,"
perhaps on the same day.
Roll On, Red River, circa age 15-16
by
Michael R. Burch
Roll on, Red River,
a cowboy has died.
Roll on; we lay him
down here at your side.
Carry him off
to the wild, raging sea…
Roll on, Red River,
and set his soul free.
Roll on, Red River,
roll on to the sea,
and sing him to sleep
as you roll up his dreams.
Sing him to sleep
with some old, lonesome song…
Now roll on, Red River,
and roll him along.
Roll on, Red River
and say a kind word
for an old surly cowhand
who died poor and hurt:
poor as a pauper
and hurt by his friends…
Roll on, Red River,
roll on to the end.
Roll on, Red River,
a cowboy has died.
Nobody loved him
and nobody cried.
A cowboy's not much,
but at least he's a man…
So roll on, Red River,
roll on and be damned.
I believe I wrote the original version of this poem around the time I wrote
"Blue Cowboy" and "Cowpoke." I had been reading Zane Grey and
Louis L'Amour around this time, and I religiously watched the Kung Fu western TV series from 1972 to 1975.
Yesterday My Father Died, circa age 16-18
by Michael R. Burch
Rice Krispies and bananas,
milk and orange juice,
newspapers stiff with frozen dew …
Yesterday my father died
and the feelings that I tried to hide
he'll never know, unless
he saw through my disguise.
Alarm clocks and radios,
crumpled sheets and pillows,
housecoats and tattered, too-small slippers …
Why did I never say I cared?
Why were few secrets ever shared?
For now there's nothing left of him
except the clothes he used to wear.
Dimmed lights and smoky murmurs,
a brief "Goodnight!" and fitful slumber,
yesterday's forgotten dreams …
Why did my father have to go,
knowing that I loved him so?
Or did he know? Because, it seems,
I never told him so.
The last words he spoke to me,
his laughter in the night,
mementos jammed in cluttered cabinets …
"Yesterday My Father Died" remains unpublished and unsubmitted.
According to my notes and memory, I wrote the first version around age 16,
revised the poem around age 18, then twiddled with it a bit thereafter. The poem
remains largely the same, with the biggest change the truncation of the closing
stanza, which came around age 19.
Canticle: an Aubade, circa age 15-16
by Michael R. Burch
Misty morning sunlight hails the dawning of new day;
dreams drift into drowsiness before they fade away.
Dew drops on the green grass speak of splendor in the sun;
the silence lauds a songstress and the skillful song she's sung.
Among the weeping willows the mist clings to the leaves;
and, laughing in the early light among the lemon trees,
there goes a brace of bees.
Dancing in the depthless blue like small, bright bits of steel,
the butterflies flock to the west and wander through dawn's fields.
Above the thoughtless traffic of the world, intent on play,
a flock of mallard geese in v's dash onward as they race.
And dozing in the daylight lies a new-born collie pup,
drinking in bright sunlight through small eyes still tightly shut.
And high above the meadows, blazing through the warming air,
a shaft of brilliant sunshine has started something there …
it looks like summer.
I distinctly remember writing this poem in Ms. Davenport's class at Maplewood
High School. I believe that was in 1974 at age 15-16, but I could be off by a
year. This is another early poem that makes me think I had a good natural ear
for meter. It's not a great poem, but the music is pretty good for a beginner.
You didn't have time, circa age 17
by Michael R. Burch
You didn't have time to love me,
always hurrying here and hurrying there;
you didn't have time to love me,
and you didn't have time to care.
You were playing a reel like a fiddle half-strung:
too busy for love, "too old" to be young …
Well, you didn't have time, and now you have none.
You didn't have time, and now you have none.
You didn't have time to take time
and you didn't have time to try.
Every time I asked you why, you said,
"Because, my love; that's why." And then
you didn't have time at all, my love.
You didn't have time at all.
You were wheeling and diving in search of a sun
that had blinded your eyes and left you undone.
Well, you didn't have time, and now you have none.
You didn't have time, and now you have none.
"You didn't have time, and now you have none" is a song-poem that I wrote during my early songwriter phase, around age
17. According to my notes, I wrote it in 1975 and revised it in 1978.
Leaden-eyed lovers, circa age 17
by Michael R. Burch
Leaden-eyed lovers, sung to sleep
by your own breathing,
don't your hear the silence despairing,
and the wind deceiving?
Have you never wondered
if there’s more to life
than a dream of love
and a fear of time?
And what if tonight you have had each other
wildly, totally, as only in love?
What if tomorrow you shall have no others—
is once ever enough?
Is anything ever enough?
Can you save enough love to last till tomorrow?
Can you make enough memories to last when you've aged?
And when you've grown old and are weary of burning,
how then will you rage,
ranging, busy seeking a continual change?
You will never rest easy
as long as you fear
the dull encroachment of the coming years.
You will never learn the meaning of love
if you imagine it fading with a gray hair.
Leaden-eyed lovers, dreams so incurious
are bound to mislead.
Open your eyes, look to each other,
pay time no heed.
Offer each other the promise of tomorrow
and perhaps you may see.
I wrote the original version of “Leaden-eyed lovers” circa age 17.
According to my notes I revised it four years later, in 1979. The poem
remains largely the same, with minor word changes here and there.
Tomb Lake, circa age 18
by Michael R. Burch
Go down to the valley
where mockingbirds cry,
alone, ever lonely …
yes, go down to die.
And dream in your dying
you never shall wake.
Go down to the valley;
go down to Tomb Lake.
Tomb Lake is a cauldron
of souls such as yours —
mad souls without meaning,
frail souls without force.
Tomb Lake is a graveyard
reserved for the dead.
They lie in her shallows
and sleep in her bed.
oh, say that you are mine, circa age 18
by Michael R. Burch
your lips are sweeter than apricot brandy;
your breath invites with a pleasant warmth;
you sweep through the darkest corridors of my soul—
a waltzing maiden born of a dream;
you brush the frailest fibre of my hopes
and i sink to my knees—
a quivering beggar.
your eyes are bluer than aquamarine
set ablaze by the sun;
your lips as inviting as cool streams
to a wanderer of desert lands;
i sleep in your hand,
safe in the warmth of your tender palm,
lost in the fragrance of your soft skin.
WE make love as deep as purple pine forests,
your laughter richer and sweeter than honey
poured in a pitcher of peaches and cream,
your malice more elusive than the memory of a dream,
your cheeks tenderer than eiderdown
and cooler than snow-fed streams;
you touch my lips with the lightest of kisses
and my soul sings.
"Oh say that you are mine" appears in my 1978 poetry contest folder
and was written in high school or early college, circa age 18. It was definitely
influenced by e. e. cummings.
Dance With Me (II), circa age 18-19
by Michael R. Burch
While the music plays
remembrance strays
toward a grander time …
Let's dance.
Shadows rising, mute and grey,
obscure those fervent yesterdays
of youth and gay romance,
but time is slipping by, and now
those days just don't seem real, somehow …
Why don't we dance?
This music is a memory,
for it's of another time …
a slower, stranger time.
We danced—remember how we danced?—
uncaring, merry, wild and free.
Remember how you danced with me?
Cheek to cheek and breast to breast,
your nipples hard against my chest,
we danced
and danced
and danced.
We cannot dance that way again,
for the years have borne away the flame
and left us only ashes,
but think of all those dances,
and
dance with me.
I believe I wrote this poem around the same time as the original "Dance With
Me," this time from the perspective of the same lovers many years later. So this
poem would have been written sometime between 1976 and 1977, around age 18-19.
It was also titled "Let's Dance." Unpublished and unsubmitted.
"Playthings" was a sequel to my very early poem "Playmates" which was written
around age 14.
Playthings, circa age 19
by Michael R. Burch
a sequel to "Playmates"
There was a time, as though a long-forgotten dream remembered,
when you and I were playmates and the days were long;
then we were pirates stealing plaits of daisies
from trembling maidens fearing men so strong …
Our world was like an unplucked Rose unfolding,
and you and I were busy, then, as bees;
the nectar that we drank, it made us giddy;
each petal within reach seemed ours to seize …
But you were more the doer, I the dreamer,
so I wrote poems and dreamed a noble cause;
while you were linking logs, I met old Merlin
and took a dizzy ride to faery Oz …
But then you put aside all "silly" playthings;
with sunburned hands you built, from bricks and stone,
tall buildings, then a life, and then you married.
Now my fantasies, again, are all my own.
This is a companion poem to "Playmates." However, I believe "Playthings" was written several years
later, in my late teens, around 1977. According to my notes, I revised the poem
in 1991, then again in 2020.
Stryx: An Astronomer's Report, circa age 18-19
by Michael R. Burch
Yesterday
(or was is an eon ago?)
a sun spit out its last remnants of light
over a planet long barren of life,
and died.
It was not a solitary occasion,
by any stretch of the imagination,
this decoronation
of a planet conceived out of desolation.
For her to die as she was born
—amidst the glory of galactic upheaval—
is not strange,
but fitting.
Fitting in that,
shorn of all her preposterous spawn
that had littered her surface like horrendous hair,
she died her death bare
and alone.
Once she was home to all living,
but she died home to the dead
who bereaved her of life.
Unfit for life she died that night
as her seas shone fatal, dark and blue.
Unfit for life she met her end
as mountains fell and lava spewed.
Unfit she died, agleam with death
whose radiance she wore.
Unfit she died as raging waves
obliterated every shore.
Unfit! Unfit! Unfit! Unfit!
Contaminated with the rays
that smoldered in her radiant swamps
and seared her lifeless bays.
Unfit! Unfit! Unfit! Unfit!
a virgin world no more,
but a planet raped and left to face
her death as she was born—
alone, so all alone.
Yesterday,
a planet green and lovely was no more.
Yesterday,
the whitecaps crashed against her shores
and then they were no more.
Yesterday,
a soft green light
no longer brushed the moon's dark heights …
There was no moon,
there was no earth;
there were only the bastards she had given birth
watching from their next raped world.
I wrote "Stryx" around age 18-19 and it was published in the 1976-1977 issue
of my college literary journal, Homespun. It remains otherwise unpublished and
unsubmitted.
The Song of the Wanderers
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18-19
Through many miles of space we have flown;
no life but ours have we known.
No other race have we seen in the stars,
nor under any sun that has shone.
None in the shadows, none in the sun,
none in the rainbows that brighten dark skies,
none in the valleys, none in the hills,
none in the rapids that ripple and rise.
Our quest is near ending; the stars have been searched;
we alone wander this vast universe.
For every green planet, every blue sky
we have encountered is barren of life.
We are alone, unless below
a creature exists somewhere in the snow.
The planet beneath us lies shackled by night.
The stars deck its mountains in garments of light.
Close to us, its moon hovers ghostly in flight.
Somewhere below us, perhaps there is life.
Come, let us seek life, before we return
to that fair planet for which our hearts yearn.
Here snow descends as the wind whistles down
from dark frozen northlands where glaciers abound.
See, on the far shoreline, pale mists compound.
Notice, companions,
how the sun, like a fiery stallion,
rears upon the eastern rim
of a mountain range haggard, weathered and grim.
A pity, perhaps, that at last it grows dim.
But there's no life here, and so we must leave
this desolate planet alone to its grief.
No, wait just a moment! What can this be …
concealed by dense fog here, surrounded by sea,
some type of vessel, storm-tossed, to and fro?
Yes, I believe, I'm sure that it's so!
Here near this shoreline, half-buried in snow,
lies a wrecked vessel
dripping salt water and seaweed tresses.
Make haste; let us hurry,
the sea in its fury
is dashing it upon the rocks!
It may well be that at last
we will see some relic of another race's past.
What's this? It's no vessel, no ship of the seas.
It's fashioned of stone and could not use the breeze.
It has no engine, no portals, no helm,
and yet it resembles … some demon from hell.
It must be a statue, with horns on its head,
long, flowing hair and a torch in its hand.
Broken and shattered, cast off by the sea,
tonight it erodes in this frozen dark sand.
No, come, let us leave, it was fashioned by wind,
molded by water and wasted therein.
Come, let us leave it, to hasten back home;
too long have we wandered, thus, lost and alone.
The Liberty calls us; we cannot delay.
Let us return now, and be underway.
Through many miles of space we have flown.
No other life have we known.
And now that we know that we are alone,
we search for our ancient home.
Somewhere ahead she awaits our return,
decked in bright garments of green;
for eons of time we have not seen her face,
and yet she has haunted our dreams.
Somewhere ahead lies the planet we left
when we set out the depths of deep space to explore,
and now how we long to dash through her streams
and sleep on her bright, sandy shores.
The last cold, dark planet lies dying behind us;
no others are left to be searched.
The Liberty soon her last descent shall make
when we relocate Mother Earth!
"The Song of the Wanderers" is a sequel to "Stryx" that was written around the
same time.
Gentry, circa age 18-19
by Michael R. Burch
The men shined their shoes
and the ladies chose their clothes;
the rifle stocks were varnished
till they were untarnished
by a speck of dust.
The men trimmed their beards;
the ladies rouged their lips;
the horses were groomed
until the time loomed
for them to ride.
The men mounted their horses,
the ladies did the same;
then in search of game they went,
a pleasant time they spent,
and killed the fox.
This poem was published in my college literary journal,
Homespun
1976-1977, along with "Smoke" and four other poems of mine. It remains
otherwise unpublished and unsubmitted. I have never been a fan of hunting or fishing, or inflicting
pain on other creatures.
Reflections on the Loss of Vision, circa age 19-20
by Michael R. Burch
The sparrow that cries from the shelter of an ancient oak tree and the
squirrels
that dash in delight through the treetops as the first snow glistens and swirls,
remind me so much of my childhood and how the world seemed to me then,
that it seems if I tried
and just closed my eyes,
I could once again be nine or ten.
The rabbits that hide in the bushes where the snowflakes collect as they
fall,
hunch there, I know, in the fast-piling snow, yet now I can't see them at all.
For time slowly weakened my vision; while the patterns seem almost as clear,
some things that I saw
when I was a boy,
are lost to me now in my "maturer" years.
The chipmunk who seeks out his burrow and the geese now preparing to leave
are there as they were, and yet they are not; and if it seems childish to
grieve,
still,
who would condemn a blind man for bemoaning the vision he lost?
Well, in a small way,
through the passage of days,
I have learned some of his loss.
As a keen-eyed young lad I endeavored to see things most adults could not—
the camouflaged nests of the hoot owls, the woodpecker's favorite haunts.
But now I no longer can find them, nor understand how I once could,
and it seems such a waste
of those far-sighted days,
to end up near blind in this wood.
I believe I wrote the first version of this poem around 1978 at age 19 or
20. I put it aside for many years and didn't finish it until 2020 during the
coronavirus pandemic. This is one of my more Robert-Frost-like poems and perhaps
not a bad one for the age at which it was written. It remains unpublished.
Freedom, circa age 19-20
by Michael R. Burch
Freedom is not so much an idea as a feeling
of open roads,
of the hobo's call,
of autumn leaves in brisk breeze reeling
before a demon violently stealing
all vestiges of the beauty of fall,
preparing to burden bare tree limbs with the heaviness of her icy loads.
And freedom is not so much a letting go as a seizing
of forbidden pleasure,
of lusty sport,
of all that is delightful and pleasing,
each taken totally within its season
and exploited to the fullness of its worth
though it last but a moment and repeat itself never.
Oh, freedom is not so much irresponsibility as a desire
to accept all the credit and all the blame
for one's deeds,
to achieve success or failure on one's own, to require
either or both as a consequence of an inner fire,
not to shirk one's duty, but to see
one's duty become himself—himself to tame.
I believe I wrote this poem circa
1978, when I was 19 or 20 years old. I had the image of a train-hopping
hobo in mind when I wrote it. I'm not sure that I care for the poem's "wisdom"
today, but I like its form and meter.
War, the God, circa age 21
by Michael R. Burch
War lifts His massive head and turns …
The world upon its axis spins.
… His head held low from weight of horns,
His hackles high. The sun He scorns
and seeks the rose not, but its thorns.
The sun must set, as night begins,
while, unrepentant of our sins,
we play His game, until He wins.
For War, our God, our bellicose Mars
still dominates our heavens, determines our Stars.
She is brighter than dawn
by Michael R. Burch
for Beth
There's a light about her
like the moon through a mist:
a bright incandescence
with which she is blessed
and my heart to her light
like the tide now is pulled …
she is fair, O, and bright
like the moon silver-veiled.
There's a fire within her
like the sun's leaping forth
to lap up the darkness
of night from earth's hearth
and my eyes to her flame
like the sphingid's are drawn
till my heart is consumed.
She is brighter than dawn.
The sphingid gets its name from the Sphinx and is commonly called the sphinx
moth.
Ironic Vacation
by Michael R. Burch
Salzburg.
Seeing Mozart's baby grand piano.
Standing in the presence of sheer incalculable genius.
Grabbing my childish pen to write a poem & challenge the Immortals.
Next stop, the catacombs!
This is a poem I wrote about a vacation my family took to Salzburg when I was a
boy, age 11 or perhaps a bit older. But I wrote the poem much later in life:
around 50 years later, in 2020.
Sea Dreams, circa age 18
by Michael R. Burch
I.
In timeless days
I've crossed the waves
of seaways seldom seen.
By the last low light of evening
the breakers that careen
then dive back to the deep
have rocked my ship to sleep,
and so I've known the peace
of a soul at last at ease
there where Time's waters run
in concert with the sun.
With restless waves
I've watched the days'
slow movements, as they hum
their antediluvian songs.
Sometimes I've sung along,
my voice as soft and low
as the sea's, while evening slowed
to waver at the dim
mysterious moonlit rim
of dreams no man has known.
In thoughtless flight,
I've scaled the heights
and soared a scudding breeze
over endless arcing seas
of waves ten miles high.
I've sheared the sable skies
on wings as soft as sighs
and stormed the sun-pricked pitch
of sunset's scarlet-stitched,
ebullient dark demise.
I've climbed the sun-cleft clouds
ten thousand leagues or more
above the windswept shores
of seas no vessel's sailed
— great seas as grand as hell's,
shores littered with the shells
of men's "immortal" souls —
and I've warred with dark sea-holes
whose open mouths implored
their depths to be explored.
And I've grown and grown and grown
till I thought myself the king
of every silver thing …
But sometimes late at night
when the sorrowing wavelets sing
sad songs of other times,
I taste the windborne rime
of a well-remembered day
on the whipping ocean spray,
and I bow my head to pray …
II.
It's been a long, hard day;
sometimes I think I work too hard…
Tonight I'd like to take a walk
down by the sea —
down by those salty waves
brined with the scent of Infinity,
down by that rocky shore,
down by those cliffs I'd so often climb
when the wind was tart with the tang of lime
and every dream was a sailor's dream.
Then small waves broke light,
all frothy and white,
over the reefs in the ramblings of night,
and the pounding sea
—a mariner's dream—
was bound to stir a boy's delight
to such a pitch
that he couldn't desist,
but was bound to splash through the surf in the light
of ten thousand stars, all shining so bright!
Christ, those nights were fine,
like a well-seasoned wine,
yet more scalding than fire
with the marrow's desire.
Then desire was a fire
burning wildly within my bones,
fiercer by far than the frantic foam …
and every wish was a moan!
Oh, for those days to come again!
Oh, for a sea and sailing men!
Oh, for a little time!
It's almost nine
and I must be back home by ten,
and then … what then?
I have less than an hour to stroll this beach,
less than an hour old dreams to reach …
And then, what then?
Tonight I'd like to play old games—
games that I used to play
with the somber, sinking waves.
When their wraithlike fists would reach for me,
I'd dance between them gleefully,
mocking their witless craze
—their eager, unchecked craze—
to batter me to death
with spray as light as breath.
Oh, tonight I'd like to sing old songs—
songs of the haunting moon
drawing the tides away,
songs of those sultry days
when the sun beat down
till it cracked the ground
and the sea gulls screamed
in their agony
to touch the cooling clouds.
The distant cooling clouds.
Then the sun shone bright
with a different light
over sprightlier lands,
and I was always a pirate in flight.
Oh, tonight I'd like to dream old dreams,
if only for a while,
and walk perhaps a mile
along this windswept shore,
a mile, perhaps, or more,
remembering those days,
safe in the soothing spray
of the thousand sparkling streams
that tumble into this sea.
I like to slumber in the caves
of a sailor's dark sea-dreams …
oh yes, I'd love to dream,
to dream
and dream
and dream.
"Sea Dreams" is one of my longer and more ambitious early poems, along with the
full version of "Jessamyn's Song." To the best of my recollection, I wrote "Sea
Dreams" around age 18, circa 1976-1977.
For years I thought I had written "Sea
Dreams" around age 19 or 20, circa 1978. But then I remembered a conversation I
had with a friend about the poem in my freshman dorm, so the poem must have been
started around age 18 or earlier. Dating my early poems has been a bit tricky,
because I keep having little flashbacks that help me date them more accurately,
but often I can only say, "I know this poem was written by about such-and-such a
date, because …"
The next poem, "Son," is a companion piece to "Sea Dreams" that was written
around the same time and discussed in the same freshman dorm conversation. I remember showing this poem to a fellow student and he asked how on earth I came up with a poem about being a father
who abandoned his son to live on an island! I think the meter is pretty good for
the age at which it was written.
Son
by Michael R. Burch
An island is bathed in blues and greens
as a weary sun settles to rest,
and the memories singing
through the back of my mind
lull me to sleep as the tide flows in.
Here where the hours pass almost unnoticed,
my heart and my home will be till I die,
but where you are is where my thoughts go
when the tide is high.
[etc., see handwritten version, the father laments abandoning his son]
Son, there where the skylarks sing to the sun
as the rain sprinkles lightly around,
understand if you can
the mind of a man
whose conscience so long ago drowned.
Listen, Hermie
by Michael R. Burch
Listen, Hermie …
you can hear the strangled roar
of water inundating that lost shore …
and you can see how white she shone
that distant night, before
you blinked
and she was gone …
But is she ever really gone from you … or are
her lips the sweeter since you kissed them once:
her waist wasp-thin beneath your hands always,
her stockinged shoeless feet for that one dance
still whispering their rustling nylon trope
of—"Love me. Love me. Love me. Give me hope
that love exists beyond these dunes, these stars."
How white her prim brassiere, her waist-high briefs;
how lustrous her white slip. And as you danced—
how white her eyes, her skin, her eager teeth.
She reached, but not for sex … for more … for you …
You cannot quite explain, but what is true
is true despite our fumblings in the dark.
Hold tight. Hold tight. The years that fall away
still make us what we are. If love exists,
we find it in ourselves, grown wan and gray,
within a weathered hand, a wrinkled cheek.
She cannot touch you now, but I would reach
across the years to touch that chord in you
which still reverberates, and play it true.
Tell me, Hermie
by Michael R. Burch
Tell me, Hermie — when you saw
her white brassiere crash to the floor
as she stepped from her waist-high briefs
into your arms, and mutual griefs —
did you feel such fathomless awe
as mystics do, in artists' reliefs?
How is it that dark night remains
forever with us, present still,
despite her absence and the pains
of dreams relived without the thrill
of any ecstasy but this —
one brief, eternal, transient kiss?
She was an angel; you helped us see
the beauty of love's iniquity.
This is my tribute poem for Bob Dylan, based on my first "meeting" with him at age 11 on a London rooftop…
My boyhood introduction to the Prophet Laureate and how I became his Mini-Me at age eleven
by Michael R. Burch
for Martin Mc Carthy, author of "The Perfect Voice"
Atop a London rooftop
on a rare cloudless day,
between the potted geraniums,
I hear the strange music play …
Not quite a vintage Victrola,
but maybe a half step up:
late '69 technology.
I sat up, abrupt.
What the hell was I hearing,
a prophet from days of yore?
Whatever it was, I felt it —
and felt it to the core.
For the times, they are a-changin' …
The unspoken answer meandered
on the wings of a light summer breeze,
unfiltered by the geraniums
and the dove in me felt ill at ease.
For the times, they are a-changin' …
I was only eleven and far from heaven,
intent on rock music (and lust),
far from God and his holy rod
(seduced by each small budding bust).
For the times, they are a-changin' …
Who was this unknown prophet
calling me back to the path
of brotherhood through peace?
I felt like I needed a bath!
For the times, they are a-changin' …
Needless to say, I was altered.
Perhaps I was altared too.
I became a poet, peace activist,
and now I Am preaching to you!
For the times, they are a-changin' …
Get off your duffs, do what you can,
follow the Prophet's declaiming:
no need to kneel, just even the keel,
For the times, they are a-changin'!
Dust (II)
by Michael R. Burch
We are dust
and to dust we must
return …
but why, then,
life's pointless sojourn?
I believe this poem was written some time after my first "Dust" poem, but I'm
not sure exactly when.
Dust (III)
by Michael R. Burch
Flame within flame,
we burned and burned relentlessly
till there was nothing left to be consumed.
Only ash remained, the smoke plumed
like a spirit leaving its corpse, and we
were left with only a name
ever common between us.
We had thought to love "eternally,"
but the wick sputtered, the candle swooned,
the flame subsided, the smoke ballooned,
and our communal thought was: flee, flee, flee
the choking dust.
The third in the "Dust" series, I'm not sure when this poem was written, but I will
keep it with its companion.
Eternity beckons …
by Michael R. Burch,
circa age 18-19
Eternity beckons …
the wine becomes fire in my veins.
You are a petal,
unfolding,
cajoling.
I am your sun.
I will shine with the fierceness of my desire;
touched, you will burst into flame.
I will shine and again shine and again shine.
I will shine. I will shine.
You will burn and again burn and again burn.
You will burn. You will burn.
We will extinguish ourselves in our ecstasy;
We will sigh like the wind.
We will ebb into darkness, our love become ashes …
never speaking of sin.
Never speaking of sin.
I believe I wrote this poem my freshman year in college, around 1976-1977,
and according to my notes finished and filed it in early 1980.
Embryo
by Michael R. Burch, circa age
16-17
You sail on an ocean of crystalline water
somewhere far beyond where the Hebrides part,
listening for the whispers and murmurs
of a life-giving heart.
Then you glide through the eerie, impregnable darkness
somewhere far beyond the harsh brightness of birth,
listening for a monotonous tremor
that, half-forgotten,
you now remember.
You rest on the surface of silver-tongued waters
somewhere far beyond a life that is lost,
listening to a voice gently calling
you to the coast.
Then you dive through the depths' strange, unfathomable darkness,
caught somewhere between the beginning and end,
listening for a sound through the stillness,
with a stubborn willfulness,
wondering when.
You laze on a surface of shimmering clearness,
trapped somewhere between fiery sunset and night,
listening for a trumpet to sound
its message bright.
Then you plummet through the unsolvable darkness,
somewhere far beyond any star, moon or sun,
listening for the sound of the laughter
of the gay daughters
of Poseidon.
You bask in the brilliance of cascading raindrops,
somewhere within reach of a life you once lived,
listening for the peal of a trumpet
and a shiver of the sea and the wind.
Then you drop through the depths of an alien ocean,
sluggishly moving through its gravity,
somewhere between the dead and the living,
the dark and the livid,
the end and eternity.
So sail on your ocean of crystal-clear water,
or ride on the crest of a bright tidal wave;
tomorrow, perhaps, the trumpet will call you
back from the grave.
Or crawl through the depths of the pulsating darkness
with the thud of a heartbeat strong in your ears,
and do not worry that you might not awaken;
for your time is not measured in years,
but in changes.
I remember writing this poem circa age 16-17, around the time I wrote "The Snowman
Sleeps in the Sea."
Ghosts of the Shawnee
by Michael R. Burch,
circa age 21
I sleep in moodless blue of starry skies,
lost to a dream of many ancient things;
death's rivers seek to drench me as they rise,
but I stand above them, watching through the night,
for a maiden more mysterious than spring.
As I dream in deepest blue of brooding seas,
a flow past flooding washes down the night.
O, I sip the bitter nectar of Shawnee
and wonder at the blazing northern light
that flares as though some day it might ignite.
Then shadows steeped in starlight call my name
and I know, somehow, that she at last has come.
There I rise to meet her as she enters in
with eyes aflame and hair as black as sin,
and I kiss her though I long to turn and run.
My notes say this poem was written in 1979, in my early twenties, and since I
don't have a recollection of an earlier version that seems about right.
I'll meet her in a memory
by Michael R. Burch
I'll meet her in a memory
of August nights and flaming wine,
of river barges on the Rhine,
of dying leaves
and haunted trees …
I'll meet her in an eclipse of time.
I'll raise my cup toward the fire
as gaunt shadows leap and lean …
I'll raise my cup,
she'll raise hers higher
till her eyes—still veiled, when seen—
entice me from this world of men.
Bright silver cup, dark purple glow,
I love the feelings that you bring …
your warmth can dull the edge of pain;
but now she calls me, as you know,
to meet where only spirits go
till morning calls me home again.
According to my notes, this poem was written around 1979, in my early
twenties.
Lying
by Michael R. Burch
Lying here beside you, I cannot meet your eyes,
and yet, somehow, I still can see the tears
welling up and glistening, blue,
a part of me, a part of you …
a part of all we've been throughout the years.
Now the night is dark and fading into darkness deeper still,
and your body shakes beside me as you weep,
but what am I to say to you—
a pleasing lie, the painful truth?
I close my eyes and wish that I could sleep.
I don't remember writing this poem, so I will go with its filing date of
1980.
When I was in my heyday, circa age 22
by Michael R. Burch
When I was in my heyday,
I howled to see the moon;
the wail of a wolf,
shrill, rising … then gruff
echoed through night, such an impassioned tune!
When I was in my heyday,
hearts fluttered at my feet;
I gathered them in
like blossoms the wind
had slaughtered and flung, but their fragrance was sweet.
When I was in my heyday,
I cursed the cage of stars
that blocked me from rising
above them and flying
in rapture, uncaptured, beyond their bright bars.
When I was in my heyday,
my dreams were a dazzling mist
that baffled my vision
and hid farthest heaven,
but what did I care? I clenched fire in my fist!
My notes say I filed this poem in 1980 and that date seems about right.
Every time I think of leaving …
by Michael R. Burch
Every time I think of leaving …
I see my mother's eyes
staring at me in despair,
and I feel the old scar
throbbing again.
And I think of the father
that I never knew;
I remember how,
as a child,
I could never understand
not having a father.
And when the tears start falling,
running slowly down my cheeks,
I think of our two sons
and all their many dreams—
dreams no better than dust
the day that I leave.
And when my hands start shaking,
when my eyes will not adjust,
when I know there's no tomorrow
for the two of us,
then I think of our young daughter
who prays, eyes tightly shut,
not to lose her mother or father …
and I know that I can't leave.
Every time I think of going,
I close my eyes and see
the days we spent together
when love was all we dreamed,
and I wish that I could find
(how I wish that I could find!)
a reason to believe.
I believe I started this poem toward the end of my senior year in high
school, in 1976 at age 18, then finished in college.
Perspective, circa age 22
by Michael R. Burch
Childhood is a summer sky —
the clouds are always passing by.
Old age is a winter storm —
the clouds are always coming on.
This poem was written in my early twenties, and filed in 1980.
there is peace where i am going, circa age 15
by Michael R. Burch
lines written after watching a TV documentary about Woodstock
there is peace where i am going,
for i hasten to a land
that has never known the motion
of one windborne grain of sand;
that has never felt a tidal wave
nor seen a thunderstorm;
a land whose endless seasons
in their sameness are one.
there i will lay my burdens down
and feel their weight no more,
untouched beneath the unstirred sands
of a neverchanging shore,
where Time lies motionless in pools
of lost experience
and those who sleep, sleep unaware
of the future, past and present
(and where Love itself lies dormant,
unmoved by a silver crescent).
and when i lie asleep there,
with Death's footprints at my feet,
not a thing shall touch me,
save bland sand, lain like a sheet
to wrap me for my rest there
and to bind me, lest i dream,
mere clay again,
of strange domains
where cruel birth drew such harrowing screams.
yes, there is peace where i am going,
for i am bound to be
embalmed within the chill embrace
of this dim, unchanging sea …
before too long; i sense it now,
and wait, expectantly,
to feel the listless touch
of Immortality.
This poem was written circa 1973, around age 15,
after I watched a TV documentary about Woodstock. I think I probably owe the
last two lines to Emily Dickinson. I believe "those who sleep the sleep of
Death" was written around the same time and under the same influence.
War, circa age 17
by Michael R. Burch
lysander lies in lauded greece
and sleeps and dreams, a stone for a pillow,
unseeing as sunset devours lithe willows,
but War glares on.
and joab's sightless gaze is turned
beyond the jordan's ravaged shore;
his war-ax lies to be taxed no more,
but War hacks on.
and roland sleeps in poppied fields
with flowers flowing at his feet;
their fragrance lulls his soul to sleep,
but War raves on.
and patton sighs an unheard sigh
for sorties past and honors gone;
he does not heed the battle drum,
but War rolls on.
for now new heroes grab up guns
and rush to fight their fathers' wars,
as warriors' children must, of course,
while War laughs on.
I believe I wrote the first version of this poem in 1975, around age 17. I was
never fully happy with the poem, although I liked some of the lines and revised
it 46 years later, on 4-27-2021.
El Dorado, circa age 16-18
by Michael R. Burch
It's a fine town, a fine town,
though its alleys recede into shadow;
it's a very fine town for those who are searching
for an El Dorado.
Because the lighting is poor and the streets are bare
and the welfare line is long,
there must be something of value somewhere
to keep us hanging on
to our El Dorado.
Though the children are skinny, their parents are fat
from years of gorging on bleached white bread,
yet neither will leave
because all believe
in the vague things that are said
of El Dorado.
The young men with outlandish hairstyles
who saunter in and out of the turnstiles
with a song on their lips and an aimless shuffle,
scuffing their shoes, avoiding the bustle,
certainly feel no need to join the crowd
of those who work to earn their bread;
they must know that the rainbow's end
conceals a pot of gold
near El Dorado.
And the painted "actress" who roams the streets,
smiling at every man she meets,
must smile because, after years of running,
no man can outdo her in cruelty or cunning.
She must see the satire of "defeats"
and "triumphs" on the ambivalent streets
of El Dorado.
Yes, it's a fine town, a very fine town
for those who can leave when they tire
of chasing after rainbows and dreams
and living on nothing but fire.
But for those of us who cling to our dreams
and cannot let them go,
like the sad-eyed ladies who wander the streets
and the junkies high on snow,
the dream has become a reality
—the reality of hope
that grew too strong
not to linger on—
and so this is our home.
We chew the apple, spit it out,
then eat it "just once more."
For this is the big, big apple,
however rotten to the core,
and we are its worm
in the night when we squirm
in our El Dorado.
I believe I wrote the first version during my
"Romantic phase" around age 16 or perhaps a bit later, circa 1974. It was definitely written
in my teens because it appears in a poetry contest folder that I put together
and submitted during my sophomore year in college.
49th Street Serenade
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 16
It's four o'clock in the mornin'
and we're alone, all alone in the city …
your sneakers 're torn
and your jeans 're so short
that your ankles show, but you're pretty.
I wish I had five dollars;
I'd pay your bus fare home,
but how far canya go
through the sleet 'n' the snow
for a fistful of change?
'Bout the end of Childe's Lane.
Right now my old man is sleepin'
and he don't know the hell where I am.
Why he still goes to bed
when he's already dead,
I don't understand,
but I don't give a damn.
Bein' sixteen sure is borin'
though I guess for a girl it's all right …
if you'd let your hair grow
and get some nice clothes,
I think you'd look outta sight.
And I wish I had ten dollars;
I'd ask you if you would …
but wishin's no good
and you'd think I'm a hood,
so I guess I'll be sayin' good night.
I started writing songs
when some long-haired friends of mine started a band around 1974. But I was too
introverted and shy to show them to anyone. This one was too racy for my high
school journal.
A midnight shade of blue
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 16
You thought you saw a shadow moving somewhere in the night—
a lost and lonely stranger searching for a little light—
so you told me to approach him, ask him if he'd like a room …
how sweet of you to think of someone wandering in the gloom,
but he was only
a midnight shade of blue.
I thought I saw an answer shining somewhere in the night—
a spark of truth irradiating wisdom sweet and bright—
but when I sought to seize it, to bring it home to you …
it fluttered through my fingers like a wispy curlicue,
for it was only
a midnight shade of blue.
We thought that we had found true love together in the night—
a love as fine and elegant as wine by candlelight—
but when we woke this morning, we knew it wasn't true …
the "love" we'd shared was less than love; I guess we owe it to
emotion,
and a midnight shade of blue.
I seem to remember writing this one during my early songwriting phase. That
would be around 1974, give or take. While I don't claim it's a great poem, I
think I did show a pretty good touch with meter in my youth.
teacher, circa age 17
by Michael R. Burch
teacher, take a look at my life,
for it has just begun
and u think that i am "misinformed"
merely because i'm young;
but the truth is often hidden
(what lies lurk behind ur eyes?)
and maybe Puff can tell u
where the Dragon flies.
teacher, take a look at my life:
urs is a dull-edged knife
(the white-hot blade long blunted).
now ur as cold as ice.
still, when u come to class,
act like u know it all,
for if u show insecurity,
surely wee will folderol.
I wrote "teacher" after hearing the song "Old Man" by Neil Young.
Jack, circa age 17
by Michael R. Burch
I remember playing in the mud
Septembers long ago
when you and I were young
with dreams of things to come
and hopes for feet of snow.
And at eight years old the days were long
—long enough to last—
and when it snowed
the smiles would show
behind each pane of glass.
At ten years old, the fights were few,
the future—far away,
and when the snow showed on the streets
there was always time to play…
almost always time to play.
And when you smiled your eyes were green,
but when you cried they seemed ice blue;
do you remember how we cried
as little boys will do—
trying hard not to, because we wanted to be "cool"?
At twelve years old, the world was warm
and hate had never crossed our minds,
and in twelve short years we had not learned
to translate the arcane chants of Time
behind.
So, while the others all looked back,
you and I would look ahead.
It's such a shame that the world turned out
to be what everyone said
it would.
And junior high was like a dream—
the girls were mesmerized by you,
sighing, smiling bright and sweet,
as we passed them on the street
on our way to school.
And we did well; we never tried
to make straight A's,
but always did.
And just for kicks, when we saw cops,
we ran away and hid.
We seldom quarreled, never fought,
for in our way,
we loved each other;
and had the choice been ours to make,
you would have been my elder brother.
But as it was, it always is—
one's life is lost
before it's lived.
And when our mothers called our names,
we ran away and hid.
At fifteen we were backcourt stars,
freshman starters on the team;
and every time we drove and scored
the cheerleaders would scream
our names.
You played tennis; I played golf;
you debated; I ran track;
and whenever grades came out,
you and I would lead the pack.
I guess that we just had the knack.
Whatever happened to us, Jack?
"Jack" was inspired by the plight of a high school classmate with a rare
disorder that made it dangerous for him to exercise. However, the details of the
poem are imagined; we didn’t grow up together and weren’t close friends. "Jack"
was published in the 1976-1977 issue of my college literary journal,
Homespun. It remains otherwise unpublished and unsubmitted.
Every Man Has a Dream
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 23
lines composed at Elliston Square
Every man has a dream that he cannot quite touch …
a dream of contentment, of soft, starlit rain,
of a breeze in the evening that, rising again,
reminds him of something that cannot have been,
and he calls this dream love.
And each man has a dream that he fears to let live,
for he knows: to succumb is to throw away all.
So he curses, denies it and locks it within
the cells of his heart and he calls it a sin,
this madness, this love.
But each man in his living falls prey to his dreams,
and he struggles, but so he ensures that he falls,
and he finds in the end that he cannot deny
the joy that he feels or the tears that he cries
in the darkness of night for this light he calls love.
I wrote this poem in a Nashville bar, at around age 23 or 24, for a young woman
I would end up dating seriously, then live with on-and-off for around five
years. I believe the poem was written in late 1981 or early 1982.
It's Halloween!
by
Michael R. Burch,
circa age 20
If evening falls
on graveyard walls
far softer than a sigh;
if shadows fly
moon-sickled skies,
while children toss their heads
uneasy in their beds,
beware the witch's eye!
If goblins loom
within the gloom
till playful pups grow terse;
if birds give up their verse
to comfort chicks they nurse,
while children dream weird dreams
of ugly, wiggly things,
beware the serpent's curse!
If spirits scream
in haunted dreams
while ancient sibyls rise
to plague nightmarish skies
one night without disguise,
as children toss about
uneasy, full of doubt,
beware the Devil's lies …
it's Halloween!
I wrote this poem around 1978, circa age 20.
Say You Love Me
by Michael R. Burch,
circa age 25
Joy and anguish surge within my soul;
contesting there, they cannot be controlled;
now grinding yearnings grip me like a vise.
Stars are burning;
it's almost morning.
Dreams of dreams of dreams that I have dreamed
parade before me, forming formless scenes;
and now, at last, the feeling grows
as stars, declining,
bow to morning.
For you are music in my undreamt dreams,
rising from some far-off lyric spring;
oh, somewhere in the night I hear you sing.
Stars on fire
form a choir.
Now dawn's fierce brightness burns within your eyes;
you laugh at me as dancing starlets die.
You touch me so and still I don't know why …
But say you love me.
Say you love me.
According to my notes, I wrote this poem in 1983, circa age 25.
Adagio
by Michael R. Burch,
circa age 21
Speed, splendid light,
through webbed membranes of the mind
enmeshed in sleep.
Beat
and beat
and beat,
sweet soothing spray.
Dance within a dream of yester days.
Rush
and rush
and rush,
red rivers—on!
Flood yourselves and rage beyond the sun.
Dance
and dance
and dance,
electric thoughts.
Calculate life's worth, and all its costs.
Rage
and rage
and rage
strange passions where
the darkness rises, stifling the air.
Throb
and throb
and throb
O, ecstasies!
Burst in glorious grandeur through night's dreams.
Rise
and rise
and rise
now Poetry.
Laugh and weep and curse life's fallacies.
And speed, splendid light
through webbed membranes of the mind
enmeshed in sleep.
I believe I wrote this poem in college, around 1979, which would have made me
around 21 years old. This one is all about the music of words.
All the young sailors
by Michael R. Burch,
circa age 20
All the young sailors
follow the sea,
leaving their lovers
to live and be free,
to brave violent tempests,
to ride out wild storms,
to dream of new lovers
seductive and warm,
to drink until sunset
then stretch out at dawn
in the dew of emotions
they don't understand,
to follow the sunlight,
to flee from the rain,
to live out their longings
though often in pain,
to dream of the children
they never shall see
while bucking the waves
of an unending sea …
till, racked by harsh coughing,
his lungs almost gone,
straining to catch one last glimpse of the sun,
the last of the sailors finally succumbs,
for all the young sailors
die young.
I think there may have been an earlier version of this poem. But the paper
copy I have says 1978, so it was composed no later than 1978.
Will you walk with me
by Michael R. Burch,
circa age 18
Will you walk with me a mile down this lane?
for there is something I must say to you.
And, as my feelings cry to be explained,
this silence is a lie, bereft of truth.
As does the bird that sings, I so must tell
the feelings that my heart cannot keep in,
for it must be a sin to speechless dwell
when love entreats the trembling tongue to sing.
Thus now I cannot watch you silently,
although I cringe to think that I must speak—
my lisping lips then tremble shamelessly,
my heart grows numb even as my knees go weak—
but now the time has come to not delay,
so listen closely to the words I say …
If I could only hold you through the night,
then wake to find you near me, each new day,
my life would be so full of sheer delight
that I would never notice should you stray.
If I could only kiss your wanton lips
and do so without fear of God's revenge,
then I would even kneel to kiss your whip,
and I would gladly bend to your demands.
For I not only love your loving moods,
fierce kisses and caresses and wild eyes,
but darling, I still love you when you brood.
I love you though you rail at me and lie.
For love is not a passion that should fade;
it burns!—the heat of sunlight on a cage.
This was one of my first sonnets, or "sonnet attempts," written around age
18 as a college freshman in 1976.
Thoughts of the Everglades in Ontario, circa age 20
by Michael R. Burch
We burned wildfire of September in a distant grass,
watching the many variations of light devour the blades.
All night long I tended the smoldering campfire
remembering those sweat-drenched nights we spent in the 'glades
listening as gators sang love songs to one another,
curious serenades,
their huge tails lashing the shallow swampland water.
That night, camped out distantly beyond the closest farm,
I did not hold you, as I so often have, to keep you warm,
but rather to feel the restless movements of our unborn daughter.
Now she's three and the Everglades are in her eyes—
dark and swampy, all muddled green and gray,
and they seem to knowingly say,
"It's time to be on our way."
I wrote this poem as a college sophomore, age 20, in 1978.
Stewark Island (Ambiguity)
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 16-18
"Take your child, your only child, whom you love…"
Seas are like tears—
they are never far away.
I have fled them now these eighteen years,
but I am nearer them today
than I ever have been.
Oh, I never could bear
the warm, salty water
or the cool comfort here
in the shade of an altar
sweeter than sin …
Sweeter than sin,
yet cleansing, like love;
still its feel to doomed skin
either too little or too much
of whatever it is.
Seas and tears
are like life—
ridiculous,
ambiguous.
Rag Doll
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 17
On an angry sea a rag doll is tossed
back and forth between cruel waves
that have marred her easy beauty
and ripped away her clothes.
And her arms, once smoothly tanned,
are gashed and torn and peeling
as she dances to the waters’
rockings and reelings.
She’s a rag doll now,
a toy of the sea,
and never before
has she been so free,
or so uneasy.
She’s slammed by the hammering waves,
the flesh shorn away from her bones,
and her silent lips must long to scream,
and her corpse must long to find its home.
For she’s a rag doll now,
at the mercy of all
the sea’s relentless power,
cruelly being ravaged
with every passing hour.
Her eyes are gone; her lips are swollen
shut to the pounding waves
whose waters reached out to fill her mouth
with puddles of agony.
Her limbs are limp; her skull is crushed;
her hair hangs like seaweed
in trailing tendrils draped across
a never-ending sea.
For she’s a rag doll now,
a worn-out toy
with which the waves will play
ten thousand thoughtless games
until her bed is made.
Alice
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 15
There were nights when we would wander together
the banks of a lake cast in strange monotones
where once I had wandered before,
lost and alone.
And along the moonlit banks we strolled
the silver waterfalls recoiled
to, screaming, die upon the folds
of tranquil waters far below.
For tranquil waters fed below
on melting ice and crumbling stone.
The nights we spent beside that lake
we spent there with the stately drake,
the graceful swan, the grotesque eel,
close to the sound of a waterfall's peal,
close to the sound of a lake's midnight meal.
And Alice's hair hung like hacked hemp,
gnarled and twisted on the wind,
glistening with an unearthly light,
Medusan at midnight.
And her lips shone with a radiance
that blinded my eyes
as they closed in reply
to the slightest pressure of her touch;
and I wanted her so much …
but did not have her,
for the lake that gave her soon took her away.
For she died in the mists of a moonlit night
with a rush of green water filling her mouth; …
then the skies
rang with her startled cries
and her algaed eyes
gleamed agony.
She pled with me …
"Come too, come too!" She softly begged.
"Oh, no! I can't!" I witlessly said.
And she, the enchantress, was sucked down;
some will say that she drowned …
But her eyes were the eyes of that eerie lake
and her lips mouthed its soft and eloquent plea
in a voice weirdly ancient, wild and free,
crying, "I am Alice … come to me!"
This is one of my earliest poems, written around age 15.
Every time I think of leaving …
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 16-17
Every time I think of leaving …
I see my mother's eyes
staring at me in despair,
and I feel the old scar
pulsating.
Then I think of the father
that I never knew;
I remember how,
as a child,
I could never understand
not having a father…
I submitted this poem as a "short story," sans line breaks, for a college English class taught by George King. The poem had been written before I took his class. I believe I was 18 when
I wrote it, and no older than 19. The poem was inspired by coeds sunbathing…
Impressions of Darkness in the Aspects of Light
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18-19
The afternoon hours pass slowly,
moment blending into golden moment as Time flows tranquilly by,
and only the deepening shadows portend the Evening's coming,
for within their mystic twilight she sleeps, a Goddess immune to light.
Meanwhile the dreaming maidens—half dark as the Darkness itself—
bask in the amber radiance, oblivious to all save Time,
for they sense the fragrance of dying flowers …
Fascinating aromas of poppy and hemp once cured by the Sun arise with the
Wind,
caressing the senses while numbing the spirit,
inducing vague dreams and a willingness to sleep … perhaps forevermore.
For cruel Death awaits her hour and the lilies surely shall die.
All the while Death's dread Sister lurks in the shadows murmuring songs of a
ghostly Moon haunting purple skies.
Listen! I can hear the refrain far-off on the naked wind—
rising, then falling, strengthening, then dying…
calling me "home" once again.
And even now Darkness stalks earth's unsuspecting flocks with feline
nonchalance,
as the willows bow and their limbs scrape the earth seemingly in regret.
And even now the skylark's luting song harbors an elusive melancholy…
And even now the spiraling hawk pauses momentarily to cast a sorrowful eye
earthward,
then rises slowly, as if unwilling to dare the utmost heights…
And even now the Moon-drawn sea pauses from its rocking to lift a wave or two
toward the engorging Darkness,
imploring, despairing, an innocent child in the hands of a savage Master.
"Oh Lord!" the anguished waves cry out, in the agony of despair,
"Give us a little time … a little time!"
But their cries die out deep into the descending Nothingness.
Who knows that it lurks there, now, but the sorrowing sea and I?
Who else reckons the assuredness of its arrival or the insincerity of its
departure?
Not the flashy cardinal—he cares not but to fly.
Never the solemn-eyed hoot owl, for he loves the Nighttime better than the
day.
Only, perhaps, the dying sun understands the arcane reasons
for the coming on of Night and the changing of the seasons.
For at her back she must always hear the chariots of Night drawing closer and
closer,
the hooves of coal-black stallions shattering the serenity of the heavens,
creating the fiery sparks we call stars.
But I am not alone in my unceasing vigil: the sun and the sea, my constant
companions, console me, as does the enigmatic nightingale.
And they shall comfort me tonight when the curtains of the Night are drawn
and clouds obscure the stars.
Together we shall count the hours until Dawn's deliverance, when she comes to
free us, bearing God's bright banner, enlisting the glowering mountains and
angry heavens.
Why did you leave?, circa age 17
by Michael R. Burch
Your touch was the warmth of a summer day,
the revivingness of showers in May,
the festivity of the coming of fall,
the sparkle of winter's icicled walls,
the splendor of sunset,
the furor of dawn,
as soft as a feather,
as clear as a pond
enchantingly blue.
Your laughter was lilac and lemon and low;
your tears were dimensions of sorrow untold;
your kiss was enchanting—slow dancing and wine;
your love was a lyric in search of a rhyme;
your eyes were green islands;
your curls formed a sea
of dark, dancing ringlets …
Love, why did you leave?
"Writing" appeared in my 1978 poetry contest notebook and was probably written as a college freshman or sophomore, around age 19.
Writing
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 19
I don't want to write tonight
for it's far too late and the feeling's not right …
I would much rather sleep
safe in the arms of a girl soft and sweet
as the magic month of May.
But there are bills to be paid
and a child to be kept
and a roof to be patched
—just so many debts—
and if it's worry or write,
I'd much rather write …
[etc., see the poetry contest notebook]
This poem was written either in high school or early my freshman year of college.
Where have all the flowers gone?
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18-19
Where have all the flowers gone
that once shone in your hair
when the sunlight touched them there?
Now summer's fields are dark and bare.
And what of all your lovely curls
that caught the sunlight till a halo
ringed their masses, golden-yellow?
Into ash-grey their fire has mellowed…
Spartacus
by Michael R. Burch, age 20
Take the fire
from her eyes
to light the darkening skies
exquisite shades
of blue and jade.
Place an orchid
in her hair
and tell her that you care,
because you do,
you surely do.
Sleep beside her
this last night;
a clover bed, deep green and white,
shall cushion you as leaves sing
sad elegies to fleeting spring.
Sleep beside her
in the dew,
both heartbeats fierce and true,
and praise the gods who give
such hearts, because you live.
Not many do.
The breathing low and the stars alight
by Michael R. Burch, age 19
Silently I'll steal away
into dank jungles pocked with night.
I'll give no thought to the coming day;
the breathing low and the stars alight
alone shall mark my passage through
in search of plateaus of delight.
Through valleys filled with shrieks of fright
I may pass; through vales of woe
I may move with footsteps light.
Who knows what trials I’ll undergo
at the hands of demon Night
before that fiend I overthrow?
And yet at last the ebb and flow
of time and tide will draw me tight
within Death’s grasp; then I shall know
the freedom of life's last respite,
safe from dread nightmares and despite
the breathing low and the black disquiet.
In dreams like these
by Michael R. Burch, age 26
In dreams like these, vexed seas engage
and, gasping, grapple—wave to wave—
while, farther off, dark storm clouds rise …
I seek affection in your eyes
and long for laughter on your lips.
I trace your cheeks with fingertips
that yearn to show you how I feel,
yet tremble that this seems so real.
In dreams like these faint stars, enraged,
decline to warm the anguished waves
while, further off, a storm ensues …
Melissa, oh my love, I use
my poetry to keep you near
when you are more than miles away
and dreams to drive away despair;
return to me, and this time, stay.
I wrote this poem during a troubled time in my first live-in relationship.
In fantasies
by Michael R. Burch, age 26
In fantasies I see you smile
a wistful smile, as though to please;
you touch my heart … I yearn and ache.
I wish that you were here with me.
In fantasies I dream of times
when you and I were all alone;
anxiety seemed distant then,
much closer now that you have gone.
In fantasies I have you now,
I kiss your lips and hold you near,
and all the world is brilliant light
commingling both joy and fear …
Return again; let dawn appear.
“In fantasies” was written on the same day as “In dreams like these.”
Dawn
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 20
A mountain bathed in midnight’s blues lies silent, waiting still;
the valleys, drenched in shades of sleep cast by the somber hills,
dream on in peace, as darkling seas rock gently to and fro;
the night screams wild beyond the stars, but here no tempests blow.
A soul at ease yields peaceful bliss; an angry soul seeds pain;
an even mist delights green herbs, but a wild torrential rain
destroys through excess tender shoots and murders through sheer force;
I take a lesson from the Earth and heed her ancient voice.
She sings to me of distant seas where perfumed breezes form;
she tells me tales of mistletoe born of the sun’s sweet warmth;
Night speaks to me from distant stars and whispers—dreamy, low—
of far-off strands’ bright heaven-lands where time remains unknown.
Yet, far against the eastern slopes a hint of morning cries—
a lightening shade of matchless colors edging ink-black skies
—and though Night’s voice can lull to sleep the wildest of desires,
I feel such restlessness within; I sense impending fire.
What is this thought? How can it be? My heart should be at rest,
not pounding wildly at my ribs, not tearing at my breast!
O, could it long to be released—to be unchained, and free?
Sleep’s peace has flown; dark Night is gone, and Dawn has been decreed.
I’m suddenly transported—that temporal scene is gone—
and a range of rugged mountains is set ablaze by Dawn:
their purple heights sheer glory, from which wild lights career;
I recall an ancient story, and once again I hear …
“A sculptor carved these mountains—one man, only one.
He broke rock in the evening and carted it at Dawn.
He seldom rested, never questioned, his work was never done.
He died here in these mountains and his bones bleach in the sun.”
“And yet this man was mighty, for his monument remains,
not a plaque or statue, but a work born of work’s pains:
where once smooth stone shone in the sun, an indentation made
by his coarse hands, forever stands, and ever shall remain.”
The voice grows faint as the mountains quake and a fierce light strikes my
perch;
I raise a hand to shade my eyes and long and vainly search,
but not a form can I discern, save the mountains’ crests themselves,
which lead to highest heaven, though rooted deep in hell.
Till suddenly around me, strange light is taking form,
creating realms of streaming gold and a soul-exciting warmth.
“Who are you?” I cry aloud, but the silence mocks my words …
then, “I am you,” my Soul replies, and the light, again disturbed,
begins to gather in my eyes, and suddenly I’m home …
bathed in ah! furious sunlight by a new and glorious Dawn.
The Latter Days: an Update
by Michael R. Burch
1.
Little Richard grew up. Now
the world is not the same, somehow.
And Elvis Presley passed away—
an idol but with feet of clay.
The Beatles left have shorn their locks;
John Lennon died and Heaven rocks,
though Yoko Ono still remains.
(The earth is full of passing pains.)
2.
The wall is being built, we hear,
although the reason’s far from clear.
But there’s one thing we know for sure—
there’s never money for the poor.
There are, however, trillions for
the one percent, and waging war.
’Cause Tweety has an “awesome” plan:
kiss Putin’s ass and nuke Iran!
3.
The Hebrew prophets long ago
warned of a Trump of Doom, and so
we wonder if this “little horn”
may be the Beast who earned their scorn.
But surely not! Trump claims to be
our Savior, true Divinity!
So please relax, admire his rod,
and trust in this new Demigod!
I wrote the first stanza at age 22 in 1980, then updated it after Trump
became president in 2016.
M'lady
by Michael R. Burch, age 20
Your nose is freckled like an imp's
and tilts as though to see
what's going on around it.
And you never really sit;
you wriggle, squirm and bounce
as though you were a child …
Well, I think perhaps you are,
but the car is pulling up,
M'lady.
You're never dignified,
yet no matter what I say,
you still will toss your head
and blazing curls, rebellious red,
as though you were a queen
surrounded by her slaves …
Now may I have your hand,
M'lady.
Your eyes are full of mischief,
of a childish sort, no doubt,
and I know what plots you’re thinking
because your eyes keep sinking,
refusing to meet mine.
Don't say it's “just the wine”!
Now may I have this dance,
M'lady.
I'd ask you to behave,
but I know you never shall,
for, like a child, you're stubborn,
refusing to be governed
by any save yourself.
Still, you know I wouldn't change you, even if I could …
Though I'm almost sure I should,
M'lady.
But please pull down your dress!
Marie
by Michael R. Burch, age 17
Play your harp for me, Marie;
merrily let it sing.
Marry me and we will be
happily together then.
Marry me and we will be
as happy as the jay;
and I shall give you everything
if only you will play
for me today.
Play your harp for me, Marie;
make merry while we may!
Melt my heart and move my soul;
you shall, if you'll but play.
O, play with me and we will be
together for some time,
and if you'll sing me songs as sweet
as grapes when they combine,
then I will sing you mine …
Marie, let’s play!
Again and Again and Again
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 20
Your voice is bluer than midnight’s bluest,
deepest, darkest shade of the sky,
so sing me a lullaby
as soft as the softest kitten’s sighs.
And your lips are warmer than August’s warmest,
calmest, clearest, sun-drenched day,
so kiss me with kisses that cannot help
but take my breath away.
Your hair is softer than autumn’s softest,
lightest, evenest evening rain,
so veil me with tresses, ah!, able
to ease my every pain.
Your smile is brighter than morning’s
brightest, barest carnation,
so smile for me; say that you love me
again and again and again.
Ecstasy
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18
A soft breeze stirs the sun-drenched grass
that parts, reforms, and then is still.
Sunshine, cascading from above,
sipped by the flowers to their fill,
then bursts out in the rosy reds,
the violet blues and buttercup yellows,
bolder, more eager, given fresh birth,
somehow transformed within frail petals
into an ecstasy of colors
broadcast across the receptive land,
which now wears a cloak like Joseph’s,
nature’s brand.
"Sweet Inspiration" appeared in my 1978 poetry contest notebook and was probably written around 1974 at age 16.
My Inspiration / Sweet Inspiration
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 16
There is little to write of in my life;
events as predictable as the morning dew
bathing the flowers, then vanishing at noon
are all the excitement I've ever known.
You are my only fantasy come true;
you entered my life and you made it worthwhile;
my first hope was a blossom that bloomed when you smiled …
you brighten my days though their birth was in blue.
With eyes twinkling merriment and a smile of sweet cheer,
you promptly dispel all my doubts and my fears,
and when I am lonely, depressed and put out,
you laughingly "beat" me and storm, rage and pout
until, in grave danger, I solemnly swear
that I will be happy. What else do I dare
as long as you watch me, staring me down,
threatening to "bash" me if I should frown?
No, there is not much in my life to write of,
save a deep, abiding, passionate love
and you as dear to me as my poems …
no, dearer, in fact, for because of you they come.
My grandfather's hills
by Michael R. Burch, age 18
My grandfather lies at the foot of an oak
far from the beaten path,
and never before has a spirit so free
lain fettered in sleep.
But though he lies and walks no more,
I see his eyes in the setting of the sun
and I hear his voice when the sap runs,
for these are an old man's hills.
Don't tell me the government "owns" them,
for the government didn't live them
and breathe them and roam them—
only he did.
Don't tell me the government "regulates" them,
when seventy years
of his sweat and his blood and his tears
flow through the waters of these hills
to nourish the trees …
No, these
are an old man's hills.
No one knew them as he did—
every hole where the woodchucks hid,
every nest where the blue jays lived—
and nobody loved them
as much as he loved them.
Only he cared when the flood waters killed
the tiny buds and the blades of grass
that grew beyond the fields.
And only he cared when the last bear died,
caught killing livestock.
"The oldest bear ever lived,"
he'd brag, "and the smartest."
Though we'd often hear it trip and crash
against the trash cans.
These are an old man's hills,
and they will never be the same
without his loving hand
gently transplanting shrubs and trees
that surely would have died
in the rocky, shopworn land.
Yes, these are an old man's hills,
and his eyes were the blue of the autumn skies
he knew so well even after he went blind.
"There's a few wispy clouds to the west today,
fadin' away, ain't they, boy?"
he'd ask me, and of course he was right.
"Sure are, 'pa," I'd reply, and a smile would crease his face
and a warmth would pour out of his soul,
for he loved his hills.
Don't say that someday
the wind and the rain
will weather away
his mark from the land—
the well that he dug
and the wall that he built
and the fields that he planted
with his two callused hands.
A memory cannot wither away
when it’s reborn in the songs of the raucous jays
and heard within the laughing waters
of the sea's silver daughters.
An old man lives within these hills, although he walks no more;
I have often heard his voice within the winter's stormy snore;
and I’ve seen his eyes flash sometimes in the bluest summer sky;
and I’ve heard his silent laughter in my newborn baby's cry.
I believe "My Grandfather's Hills" and "Twelve-Thirty" were written on the same
day, or very close to each other.
Twelve-Thirty
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 17
How cold the nights become so quickly;
now a small fire does little to quench
the winter's thirst for warmth.
Sometimes it seems that all my life
has been an endless winter:
the longer it grew, the more of me it demanded …
and time goes slowly when a man's strength
is not enough to meet his needs.
Tonight I feel an old man
creeping into my bones,
willing to die and sleep and never dream,
and I accept him,
not because I wish to lie and live a life of peaceful ease
until I die,
but because I am too weak and too weary
to wish it otherwise …
and a man is so very close to the edge
when he lacks the strength to wish.
Long ago, when I was young,
I would run and fall and cry
and not give up.
But now it is twelve-thirty,
the darkest hour of the night,
and I am at the darkest point
that I have ever known in life.
So even as the frigid winds
pass silently across the hills,
I feel my spirit sigh within
and steal into its cell.
No longer does it venture forth
to dare new feats and find its fate,
but it lies asleep throughout the night
and does not awake except to eat
a little more of my life away.
I believe "My Grandfather's Hills" and "Twelve-Thirty" were written on the same
day, or very close to each other.
I Am Lonely, circa age 16
by Michael R. Burch
God, I am lonely;
I am weak and sore afraid.
Now, just who am I to turn to
when my heart is torn in two?
God, I am lonely
and I cannot find a mate.
Now, just who am I to turn to
when the best friend that I've made
remains myself?
This poem appeared in my high school journal the Lantern, so it was
written no later than 1976. I believe it was written around 1974-1975, circa age 16.
Clown, circa age 15-16
by
Michael R. Burch
My "friends" often remind me
that I am a sluggard, a fool.
They say that I resemble a clown
and I suppose it is true
that I do.
There's no need to mince words,
for I know how ugly I am.
And though I always tell myself
that I don't give a damn,
I do.
How can I say that which I must
—"Embrace me. Shelter me. Be mine"—
when my appearance always
bothers me as much
as it does?
And yet with you I'm sure that I
could live my life and never mind;
just the touch of your lips in the night
could fill my troubled mind
with trust.
Just your presence at my side
could give me all the strength I need;
and your understanding touch
could help my broken heart to heal
a little each day.
But what's the use? This cannot be
although I wish it so.
My love, you're far too beautiful
for me to ever have or know
for even a day.
So when you send me upon my way
—a tragic, foolish clown—
you don't have to struggle to kiss me goodbye.
Don't give me the runaround.
Just please don't put me down.
This was a painful poem for me to write, and it's a painful one to publish so
many years later. I believe I wrote this poem around 1974, circa age 15-16, when I was
wrestling with dark depression and feelings of low self-esteem about my looks.
The person being addressed is imaginary.
A pledge for ignorance, circa age 15-16
by Michael R. Burch
In these troubled times,
when truth and conjecture
are no longer distinguished
by the common man,
who accepts all things
as part of some ultimate plan,
believing, perhaps rightly so,
that any gods existing now
shall soon be overthrown,
I have closed my eyes and seen
the dissolution of my beliefs.
Once I thought myself secure
belonging to a race of logic and science,
infallible, perhaps capable
of conquering the universe…
but as I have seen the plight
of my people growing worse and worse,
today I attempt not to think at all,
nor do I scale the heights that I once did;
having experienced one harrowing fall,
I will not risk another
even to save a brother.
For thought is like the flight of birds
that rise to heights unknown to men,
till, grazing the orbits of fiery stars,
they fall to earth, their feathers singed.
Thus I will not venture those starry paths
by moons unseen and planets ringed,
but rather live my life below,
secure in blissful ignorance,
never approaching thought's orbs aglow…
and though I may be wrong in this,
what I have not seen, I have not missed.
In “A pledge for ignorance” I unleashed my inner 15-year-old cynic and I don't
think the poem can be taken too seriously. It was a sort of “Modest Proposal” to
eat one’s young ideas. “A pledge for ignorance” was published in my college
literary journal, Homespun, in the 1977-1978 issue. It was the first
poem in that issue. It has not been published or submitted since.
Whereas I am twenty
by Michael R. Burch, age 18
Whereas I am twenty and have seen
a great deal of life, and down its pathways been,
exploring forgotten passageways and corridors unknown
with a deft and clever expertise that is all my own,
I feel that I am ready to assert,
wagering my meager funds and, yes!, even my shirt,
that what I state is true:
untold wealths of knowledge I have stored in passing through.
And whereas I have seen so much of life,
I know that most philosophies are lies—
dreadful and deceitful traps to nab the unaware,
blinkers meant to blind men’s eyes to life’s cruel cares and snares—
and, seeing, feel I must speak out
on all that life is all about,
in words to match the celestial thoughts which I sagely bear,
with humbleness and care
and an honest, fervent prayer.
Whereas I am eighty and have seen
so little of reality, and much as in a dream,
I do not think that I am fit to say
that black is black and white is white
and in between lies gray, …
so I’ll let youth have its day.
Olivia, circa age 18-19
by Michael R. Burch
for Olivia Newton-John
Turn your eyes toward me
though in truth you do not see,
and pass once again before me
though you are distant as the sea.
And smile once again, smile for me,
though you do not know my name …
and pass once again before me,
and fade, and yet remain.
Remain, for my heart still holds you
—soft chords in a dying song!
Stay, for your image is with me
though it will not linger long.
And smile, for my heart is breaking
though you do not know my name.
Laugh, for your image is fading
though I wish it to remain.
But die, for I cannot have you,
though I want you here, tonight;
darken, and fade and be silent
though your voice and presence are light.
Yet frown, for you cannot touch me
though I have touched you now;
then go, for you have not met me
and never, never shall.
I believe I wrote this poem my first year in college, around age 18. I had
seen Olivia Newton-John on TV, and was thinking about the strangeness of being
attracted to someone I didn't know, and who had no idea I even existed. The "but
die" simply means for her image to disappear. The "I have touched you now"
imagines her reading the poem and wondering about the person who wrote it.
What Is Love If It’s Not Forever?
by Michael R. Burch, age 17
My love, are you trying to tell me
that you no longer love me?
After all these years of sacrifice
and hope and joy and compromise,
are you saying that we are through?
You always called me a romanticist,
a fantasist, a dreamer,
while labeling yourself a realist,
a fatalist, a schemer …
but I thought that, perhaps,
a spark of romance
existed also in you.
And yet it seems that now,
incredibly, you wish to leave me,
and all that was said and done,
unselfishly, in the name of love,
must be written off as a total waste.
You often hinted at a dark side
to your inner nature,
while despairing of my “innocent,
unassuming character,”
but I had always hoped that
you would never act
in such haste.
For what is love if it’s not forever?
Can such an ethereal thing
exist beatifically for a moment
and then be gone … like spring?
Yes, what is love if it’s not forever?
Is it caresses and laughter and words sweet and clever,
intrigue and romance, sorrow and pain,
whirligig dances, sunshine and rain,
such as we had? Or is it more—
a volcanic struggle deep at heart’s core;
a wave of sweet sadness sweeping the shore
of one’s emotions; a rampaging ocean
of fantastical supposition;
a bloody, gut-wrenching war
fought within oneself
—such as I often felt,
but which you admit now that you never have?
[etc., see handwritten version]
To prove you independence by leaving me
is a quaint paradox, but unresolvable.
So return to me, tell him goodbye,
and let us tend to mysteries more solvable.
For what is love if it’s not forever?
Perhaps we already know,
for we cannot live without one another:
like the sunshine and summer,
one cannot leave unless both will go.
Parting
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 16-17
I was his friend, and he was mine; I knew him just a while.
We laughed and talked and sang a song; he went on with a smile.
He roams this land in search of life, intent on being "free."
I stay at home and write my poems and work on my degree.
I hope to be a writer soon, and dream of wild acclaim.
He doesn't know what he will do; he only knows he loves the wind and rain.
I didn't say goodbye to him; I know he'll understand.
I'll never write a word to him; I don't know that I can.
I knew he couldn't stay, and so … I didn't even ask.
We both knew that he had to go; I tried to ease his task.
We both know life's a winding road, with potholes every mile,
and if we hit a detour, well, it only brings vague sadness to our smiles.
One day he's bound to stop somewhere; perhaps he'll take a wife,
but for now he has to travel on to seek a more "natural" life.
He knows such a life's elusive, but still he has to try,
just as I must write my poems although none please my eye.
For poetry, like life itself, is something most men rue;
still, we meet disappointments with a smile, and smile until the time that they
are through.
He left me as I left a friend so many years ago;
I promised I would call him, but I never did; you know,
it's not that I didn't love him; it's just that gone is gone.
It makes no sense to prolong the end; you cannot stop the sun.
And I hope to find a lover soon, and I hope she'll love me too;
but perhaps I'll find disappointment; I know that it's a rare girl who is true.
I've been to many foreign lands, but now my feet are fast,
still, I hope to travel once again when my college days are past.
Our paths are very different, but we both do what we can,
and though we don't know what it means, we try to "act like men."
We were friends, and nothing more; what more is there to be?
We were friends for just a while … he went on to be free.
Be Strong
by
Michael R. Burch
Don't imagine the future will be brighter
when this world is as it is;
don't keep an account of the sorrow
and the pain and the loneliness
you suffer today, hoping tomorrow
will repay you for all you have lost;
don't expect happiness in repayment,
and never complain at its cost,
but seize it while it is with you
and hold it as long as you can;
then, when it is gone, do not mourn it,
though it may never touch you again.
For happiness crumbles to softness;
a man must be hardened by pain.
The ruggedest trees grow in deserts;
only lilies and daisies crave rain.
So dance while the moment is with you,
as desert flowers dance in the sun,
then crawl to the dunes when the wind dies
and the blossom-strewn showers are gone.
Sing while the cords of your heart
snap in the blistering sun;
thank God for the bleak accompaniment
they give you as they, snapping, strum
the bitter song of the dying young.
Rejoice! Rejoice! and, right or wrong,
at least you'll know that you are strong.
I don't remember anything about the writing of this poem. Based on its theme
and style, I will guess somewhere between 1976 to 1978, in my late teens or
early twenties.
Resurrection?
by
Michael R. Burch,
circa age 16-17
Sentinels stalk the garden:
it's true! Armed men are guarding
the tomb of Jesus Christ
for it's here his body lies
Tonight.
The twelve said he was God's own son,
but it seems they must be wrong,
for three days ago he died
and in this tomb his body lies
Tonight.
He claimed that he would rise again;
the Sanhedrin are afraid his friends
will steal his body if they can;
so they appointed guards and there they stand
Tonight.
The land is dark and cold tonight;
the stars above emit faint light;
there is silence, not a sound at all;
a soldier stoops and then he falls
Tonight.
The other staggers at his side,
then falls. The stone's been rolled aside!
Who are these shadowy figures? Men
or Angels? Twelve? Eleven? Ten?
Tonight.
I wrote this poem around age 16 or 17 and it was published in my high school
journal the Lantern in 1976 as "The Resurrection" with a more orthodox
ending.
"Man" was written around age 16. It was published by
a vanity press called World of Poetry before I realized such rip-offs existed. "Man" also appeared in my high school journal the Lantern in 1976.
Man, circa age 16
by Michael R. Burch
Man levels woodlands to the ground and thinks that makes him "strong."
He lives until he's eighty and he thinks his life is "long."
He flings a tin can to the moon and thinks that makes him "wise."
He thinks he's mastered "logic" yet he falls for shysters' lies.
Earth's mountains rise and fall and rise without the aid of man,
and who's lived longer than the sea: what is its lifespan?
Ten thousand meteors reach the moon, and all they are is dust.
As for the truth, what is it? We've barely scraped the crust.
Man studies anthropology and thinks he's mastered "life."
He fights his wars with capguns and thinks he knows of strife.
He rules the land and braves the sea; he thinks he's over all;
but compared to the youngest galaxy, he's not old enough to crawl.
For the universe is ageless, and man knows no life but ours;
and what weight hold wars when compared with the gravity of stars?
And can man rule the elements? How can he take on airs,
having only managed one small step on an infinite set of stairs?
Man writes his faulty philosophies, his poetries and songs;
he thinks he's all-important, that his Bibles can't be wrong.
He tells himself he's "thoughtful," that he's "rational" and "wise."
He thinks he'll build an empire that stretches beyond the skies.
He puts himself above the stars; he's sentient, stalwart, brave.
He thinks he'll tame the universe, but he remains its slave.
More energy than he can use flows each second from the sun.
More space than he imagines lies from here to the next one.
Yes, he speaks in terms of "light-years" but he cannot pass their bar.
He'll be born and die a billion times in one heartbeat of a star.
He's going to conquer time itself! Can he tell me what time is?
Can he imagine his conceit, or the vanity that's his?
The universe is boundless; it knows no end, nor time.
It sings in crackling energy, supernovas are its rhyme.
And the universe can form a sun, but man can't make a tree.
And when we've used up everything, then what will there be?
I held a heart in my outstretched hand
by Michael R. Burch
I held a heart in my outstretched hand;
it was bloody and red and raw.
I ripped it and tore it;
I gnashed it and gnawed it;
I gored it with fingers like claws,
but it never missed a beat
of the heartfelt song it sang.
There my bruised heart wept in my open palm
and the gore dripped down my wrist;
I reviled it,
defiled it;
I gave it a twist
and wrung it dry of blood;
still it beat with a hearty thud,
and its movement was warm with love.
But I flung it into the ditch and walked
angrily, cruelly away …
There it lay in the dust
with a bloody crust
caking the crimson stain
that my claw-like fingers had made,
and its flesh was grey with death.
Oh, I cannot say why,
but I turned and I cried,
and I lifted it once again,
holding it to my cheek,
where it began to beat,
but to a tiny, tragic measure
devoid of trust or pleasure.
Then it kissed my fingers and sighed,
begging forgiveness even as it died.
Now that was many years ago,
and I am wiser, for I know
that a heart can last out any pain,
but cannot bear to be alone.
And my lifeless heart is wiser too,
having seen the way a careless man
can take his being into his hands
and crush it into a worthless ooze.
According to my notes, I wrote this poem in my late teens. It appears in my 1978
poetry contest folder and thus was complete by my sophomore year of college.
Amora's Complaint
by Michael R. Burch,
circa age 19
Will you walk with me tonight?
for the moon hangs low and travelers seldom
disturb the silence of this ghostly kingdom …
We shall not be seen
if we linger by this stream
that shimmers in the starlight.
Will you talk to me awhile?
For sounds don't carry very far;
the interminable silence is barely marred
by the labored breathing
of the "giant" who lies sleeping
in caverns fetid and vile,
and I crave your immaculate smile.
So close to death, the final sleep,
he hastens as he lies.
Silence louder than his sighs
drifts on the languid air
toward his musty lair,
and all life that it finds, it keeps.
And though he sleeps,
in dreams content,
he mistakes bile for dew,
for he knows not what is true.
His eyes are worse than blind men's eyes,
for the images they "see" disguise
how swift and sure is death's descent.
His ears hear songs that are not sung;
his nostrils scent a faint perfume
permeating midnight's gloom,
when all the while his rotting flesh
heralds worms to view his death.
He festers, having long been stung.
O, once he was as you are now —
full of passion, wild and free,
majestic, formed most perfectly.
But tonight, hideously deformed,
he himself becomes a worm;
though he doesn't see that he's changed, somehow.
Why, he still calls me his "dearest friend,"
although I cannot bear to near
that stinking, dying sufferer!
He asks me why I stray so far
from the "comfort" of his arms …
Tonight, I said, "This is the end."
O, he swore to not let me depart,
but when he couldn't even rise
to chase me as I leapt the skies,
I think he almost understood.
He frowned. His skin, like rotting wood,
seemed to come apart. He almost touched my heart.
But such a vile and leprous being
I cannot have to be my love.
So while the stars shine high above
and you and I are here alone,
help me undress; unzip my gown.
Come, sate my Desire this perfect evening.
This poem, written my late teens and originally titled "Amora to Spirare,
with Intellecta dying," appeared in my 1978 poetry contest folder, which I
compiled after my sophomore year in college.
Sheila, circa age 16
by Michael R. Burch
When they spoke your name,
"Sheila,"
I imagined a flowing mane
of reddish-orange hair
tinged with fire
and blazing eyes of emerald green
spangled with desire.
When I saw you first,
Sheila,
I felt an overwhelming thirst
for the taste of your lips
dry my lips and parch my tongue …
and, much worse,
I stuttered and stammered and lisped
in your presence.
But when I kissed you long,
Sheila,
I felt the morning come
with temperamental sun
to drive away the night
with reddish-orange light
and distant-sounding drums.
Now I will love you long,
as long as longing is,
Sheila.
This poem appeared in my high school journal the Lantern, so it was
written no later than 1976. But it feels like one of my earlier poems, so I will
guess that it was written around age 16 during my early Romantic phase.
I'm not sure why the name Sheila made me think of reddish-orange hair. The poem is virtually the same today as when I wrote it
in my teens. I
did add L12 "dry my lips and parch my tongue" and changed the penultimate line
from "as long as long is" to "as long as longing is." But it
remains essentially the
same poem I wrote around age 16.
Red Dawn, circa age 14
by Michael R. Burch
The sun, like a spotlight,
is spinning round the trees
a web of light.
And with her amber radiance
she is
driving off the night.
Oh, how like a fire
she is
burning off the black.
And in her flaming wake
she has left a track
of puffy smoke.
I believe this is one of my very earliest poems, written around age 14, due
to the fact that the original poem had three somewhat archaic apostrophes:
'round, 'way and 'luminance. I weaned myself of such things pretty quickly.
According to my notes, I revised the poem in 1975.
So little time, circa age 14
by Michael R. Burch
There is so little time left to summer,
to run through the fields or to swim in the ponds …
to be young.
There is so little time left till autumn shall come.
There is so little time left for me to be free …
so little time, just so, so little time.
If I were handsome and brawny and brave,
a love I would make and the time I would save.
If I were happy — not hamstrung, but free —
surely there would be one for me …
Perhaps there'd be one.
There is so little left of the sunshine
although there's much left of the rain …
there is so little left in my life not of strife and of pain.
I seem to remember writing this poem around age 14, in 1972. It was published
in my high school journal, the Lantern, in 1976. The inversion in L8
makes me think this was a very early poem. That's something I weaned myself of
pretty quickly. Also, I was extremely depressed from age 14 to 15 because my
family moved twice and I had trouble making friends because I was so shy and
introverted.
I Remember You, circa age 17
by Michael R. Burch
for Kevin Hickman (1958-1975)
Now that winter has passed away
and spring is in the air,
it seems so wrong that you are gone;
it seems so unfair.
It doesn't seem right that I am here
when you have passed away.
It seems so sad that you have fled
and cannot see the breaking day
or see the flowers everywhere,
or hear the robin's song so fair …
And now that summer is on the way
and school's-end is closing fast,
it doesn't seem right you've taken flight
now that we're free at last.
It doesn't seem fair that you're not here
now that the sun will shine;
it seems so cruel that you were doomed
now that the weather's fine,
now that we can swim again,
now that there's no snow or rain …
Now that winter's days have flown
and summer's are here again,
it seems so sad you've left this life
and suffered so much pain.
It seems so wrong that you have gone
and can't enjoy the summertime.
It seems unfair that I'm left here
now that the gardens bloom with thyme,
now that the flowers line the lane,
now that the fields stand tall with grain,
now that there's no snow or rain …
This is one of my earliest poems. A Maplewood High School student, Kevin Hickman, died in 1975, and although I didn't know him, this poem resulted. Or, if I remember correctly, I had written it
before he died, then dedicated the poem to his memory.
Liar, circa age 16
by Michael R. Burch
Chiller than a winter day,
quieter than the murmur of the sea in her dreams,
eyes softer than the diaphanous spray
of mist-shrouded streams,
you fill my dying thoughts.
In moments drugged with sleep
I have heard your earnest voice
leaving me no choice
save heed your hushed demands
and meet you in the sands
of an ageless arctic world.
There I kiss your lifeless lips
as we quiver in the shoals
of a sea that, endless, rolls
to meet the shattered shore.
Wild waves weep, "Nevermore,"
as you bend to stroke my hair.
That land is harsh and drear,
and that sea is bleak and wild;
only your lips are mild
as you kiss my weary eyes,
whispering lovely lies
of what awaits us there
in a land so stark and bare,
beyond all hope … and care.
This is one of my early poems, written around 1974-1975 as a high school sophomore or junior.
Damp Days, circa age 16-18
by Michael R. Burch
These are damp days,
and the earth is slick and vile
with the smell of month-old mud.
And yet it seldom rains;
a never-ending drizzle
drenches spring's bright buds
till they droop as though in death.
Now Time
drags out His endless hours
as though to bore to tears
His fretting, edgy servants
through the sheer length of His days
and slow passage of His years.
Damp days are His domain.
Irritation
grinds the ravaged nerves
and grips tight the gorging brain
which fills itself, through sense,
with vast morasses of clumped clay
while the temples throb in pain
at the thought of more damp days.
I believe I wrote the first version of this poem sometime between 1974 and
1976, then revised it around 1978.
Remembrance
by Michael R. Burch
That eerie night I met you, the moon bathed all the land
in strange, enchanting patterns which stirred in my chilled mind
forgotten dreams of fiery youth and hopes of things to come
that I had seen destroyed or lost to cold, uncaring Time.
The goblet of wine I held gleamed with a wildly-flickering light
and the pool of fragrant liquid seemed a shade too close to blood;
there, in its mirror-like surface, I saw you passing by,
and suddenly, shockingly, I felt the pang of Love …
You wore a long white gown and when the moonlight caught your hair
you seemed a slender taper lit by a silver flame …
and … though we had never met before …
… somehow … I knew your name …
I sought to speak, but I could not,
for the demon wine had numbed my tongue …
Oh,
I turned to follow you through the door,
looking about, but you were gone …
"Remembrance" was written in my late teens, circa 1977-1978, and appears in my
1978 poetry contest folder.
Born to Run
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 17-18
And so you have gone …
gone though you knew how I needed you,
gone though I begged you to stay.
Still, it's better this way—
for neither of us could say goodbye.
Not while harsh summer still steamed heaven's skies,
not while love's embers still flared in the night,
stirred by the winds of the feelings we shared,
not while we were both running scared,
and not even now.
Still, it's better, somehow,
that you left me this way …
I don't think we two could have lasted
even another day.
Oh, sometimes it seems
love was only a dream,
a dream we could never let live,
though we'd have sworn that we had
the first time we met
secretly, sinfully, nervous and wet
with that August night’s heat
under the old covered bridge.
We were always half-lame,
hungry, tired and afraid,
running from this or from that,
our only possessions my pipe and your hat …
my pipe and your hat and the old, ugly cat
who tagged along so many miles,
eying us with a warped, wicked smile
till we drove it away …
And "those were the days."
Yes, those were the days
and those were the nights …
That hot August night I first took you,
bedding you in the damp grass,
your breasts liquid fire in my harsh grasp,
your lips wet and warm;
I had never been with a woman before,
nor you with a man,
and when we had finished neither could stand.
Now I think of those days,
running half-crazed,
living on love and an old frying pan
empty as often as not.
And the cheap, sickening pot
that we bought when we could
never did either of us any good
though we though that it did.
Remember that night when we hid
sixteen hours in the back of a barn
after stealing a car?
It wouldn't even run.
We were the ones who were running …
running, always running, never slowing down,
without thought to direction …
spinning around and around.
Well, you've stopped spinning now;
I wonder if I have.
How many years did we wander?
From sixty-two till seventy-five?
We must have been the last hippies alive! …
I wonder where the others all went.
They must have grown tired of running
and tired of wondering why —
I know you did.
Well, I'm tired of spinning, too,
but I've never learned to stand still.
It's easier to run, though it's hard to refill
on the move.
Well, I guess that I'll be moving on,
hitching a ride and following the sun.
Perhaps you'll regain a life that seemed gone
along with the wind and the snow and the rain;
perhaps the old life can lived once again;
I hope you're not wrong …
I'm sure you're not wrong.
But I've got to move on
and follow this road till its winding is done …
'Cause I think that I was born to run.
I remember writing “Born to Run” after Bruce Springsteen appeared on the
cover of TIME in 1975. I also distinctly remember working on the poem in
college, so it was probably finished in 1976. So I believe I started “Born to
Run” around age 17 and had substantially finished by age 18.
Dark Eyes
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18-21
Roses bloom within your eyes,
the darkest flowers of the night,
till, opening, bending to the east,
they reach to catch the dawn's first light.
And how the sunlight striking there,
rekindling embers that had died,
dances wildly in despair,
as rising, blazing in your eyes,
the passions of another age
wake to rage and rave again,
ignite, delight … then ebb again
to smolder like the cherubs’ flame.
For, meeting mine, your eyes hold all
the tenderness that love can give,
but when they heed the morning's call,
they flood themselves, and then they live.
Chains
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18-21
Roses bloom within your eyes,
bright with laughter, rich with love,
echoing the morning's light,
full of promise, full of life.
And how I long to kiss your eyes,
to taste the salt of love's sweet tears,
to feel the fullness of the years,
to know that you were always near.
How often in the dark of night,
when heaven was a dream we shared,
our eyes would meet and then ignite
into twin flames of fervent light.
And now that time has healed the scars
of wounds we suffered seeking peace,
our chained eyes meet to find release
and, bonded, we are truly free.
Hills
by Michael R. Burch, age 17
For many years I have fought
the rocks and the sand and the weeds,
the frost and the floods and the trees
of these hills
to build myself a home.
Now it seems I will fight no longer,
but it’s a hard thing
for an old warrior to give up.
Here in these hills let them lay down my bones
where the sun settles wearily to rest,
and let my spirit dream in its endless sleep
that someday it also shall rise
to kiss the morning clouds.
This wall of stone that I built
of rock hewn by my own hands
shall not stand long
through the passage of time,
and when it lies in cakes of dust
and its particles kiss my bones,
then the battle that these hills and I fought
will finally have been won.
But mother Gaia will not shun
her wayward son for long;
she will take me and cradle me in her mud,
cover me with a blanket of snow,
then sing me to sleep with a nightingale’s song.
Now the night grows cold within me;
no more summers shall I see …
but, nevertheless, when June comes,
my spirit shall wander the paths through the trees
that lead to these hills,
these damned, lovely hills,
and then I shall be free.
Hush, my darling
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 19
Hush, my darling; all your tears
will never bring again
that which Time has taken.
And though you’re so damned lovely
that a god might wish to make you his,
Time cares not for loveliness;
he takes what he will take.
Sleep now darling, don’t awaken
till the dream is over.
Dream of fields of clover
dancing in an autumn wind.
Lie down at my side
and let sleep's soothing tide
carry you into an ocean deep.
Be silent, world; let her sleep.
Do not disturb a child
upon her journey mild
into the realm of dreams.
Sleep, carry her to that sweet state
where little girls need not know Fate
dashes the dreams of men.
I hold you
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 20
I hold you in the darkness, and the night that seemed so long
when I was young and restless—so restless, strong and young—
seems fleeting when I'm with you, yet endless when I'm not,
and I think, "Soon she'll be leaving," and I tremble at the thought.
Then the walls close in around me and my fears begin to grow
and the tears course down my cheeks and then, like rivers melting snow,
they form the lines that Time did not, and there, upon my face,
I feel the wrinkles sagging, dragging me to Death's embrace.
But the moonlight sparkles on your lips, and you whisper, "I won't go,"
and my wrinkles disappear, as do those rivers, into snow,
and the firelight crackles in your hair that burns a darker red,
and you kiss me as you lead me gently back toward our bed.
I Never
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 20
I never dreamed of love
until I met you,
but you smiled with gentle eyes,
and now I do.
O, I never thought of women
till I touched you;
now my nights are filled with tender
thoughts of you.
And I never kissed a woman
till I let you
teach my virgin lips
to taste love’s wine.
And I never knew a woman
till I knew you
in ways the sheets might blush
to hear defined!
Meant to be Mine
by Michael R. Burch, age 19
I met you last night in the quiet of an evening
when the land lay silent, hushed and still …
Oh, you sang a song full of vibrancy and feeling,
and your voice echoed deep within the dark hills.
And though the night seemed the essence of evil,
the song that you chose was of light and of hope …
Oh, the chords that you voiced touched the cords of my heart
till it yielded forth melodies sweet as a harp's.
And your soft auburn curls dipped and danced with each motion,
framing your features and heightening your eyes,
and your lips seemed much sweeter, far sweeter than honey …
softly shaded, imploring, incapable of lies …
And I knew in my heart that you had to be mine,
for I knew in my heart you were meant to be mine.
And you touched me last night in the quiet of that evening,
in the cool, gentle silence of an earth softly breathing,
when, soothingly, movingly, your voice, a slow river,
spoke to my soul of a love loved forever …
Till the music came rising to a soft, seething fury,
causing your eyes to grow dark with some worry,
and then, only then, did I see how you tried
to disguise all the fire and the passion inside.
For you lost yourself in the song you were singing
and the music itself burned deep in your eyes,
till, as flickering flames leap forth from a fire,
a trace of desire flared forth, undisguised,
out of the dark, raging depths of your eyes.
And I knew in my heart that you had to be mine,
for I knew in my heart you were meant to be mine.
Then you sang to me softly, you sang to me slowly
words of redemption, resplendent and holy,
and suddenly, lovingly, watching you sing,
dark winter departing for caroling spring …
I, too, learned the magic of marvelous nights
spent lost in a love dream more dizzying than wine,
and I reached for your spirit through eons of time,
savoring love's warm, witching reason and rhyme …
But you turned and departed, not meant to be mine;
Yes, you turned and departed, not meant to be mine;
Oh, you turned and departed, not meant to be mine!
I distinctly remember this poem being inspired by Debby Boone singing “You
Light Up My Life” in 1977 or 1978. In fact the poem was originally titled
“Debby.”
Dreamers
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 21
When I'm lying here with you
in this corner of our room,
the magic of these moments touches me,
and I close my eyes and dream
of ten hundred thousand things
that no one else has ever thought to see.
And you mock me for my dreaming,
but I pity you for sleeping,
for the best of life lies in what might come true;
and fantasy is fleeting,
but dreams come true, believed in,
are cherished most, just as I cherish you.
For once you were a dream of mine,
a dream of love and warming wine,
but now you sleep beside me and I know
that I will never let you go,
or love you less, or want you more,
or need you any more … I need you so.
Yes, darling, close your eyes and sleep
and dream, my love, of many things …
to dream is not as wicked as it seems …
and if, in dreaming, you might see,
or touch, and feel, a part of me,
then you will know the joy of those who dream.
And if you have a dream of me
beyond the hills or by the sea,
then wake to find me sleeping at your side,
be sure that I am dreaming, too,
a warm, enchanting dream of you,
and greeting you in valley or in tide.
So close your eyes, my darling;
stars appear, for night is calling,
but morning soon shall drench these moon-lit plains,
and dreams were meant for morning,
when the silent sun is dawning,
and the songbirds soon shall rise to sing again.
Yes, dreams were meant for morning,
when the shooting stars are falling,
when the canopy of night is caught aflame,
when the katydids are calling,
when the newborn lamb lies bawling,
when the meadows sleep in sheets of gentle rain.
Yes, dream of me; I dream of you,
and dreams of lovers, dreams of two,
ignite from ashes, rise to flame,
fade to embers, flare again,
arc in anger, seethe with shame,
dance to danger, laugh through pain,
lash in hatred, spit in spite,
flash in freakish, weird delight,
burn in blazing shades of blue,
softly sputter, and … come true.
This poem feels younger than 21 and probably is, but I have no memories of
writing it, so I will go with the filing date.
It's just another Monday
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 25
Now it's a sad, sad, sad, sad day …
for all the stars have faded away,
but all the people turn and they say,
"It's just another Monday."
"It's just another Monday."
Last Night
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 20
Last night I think I found
something of which I’d dreamed
ten thousand times, ten thousand ways,
yet never thought to feel.
And I thank you for last evening
and the tenderness you showed;
now I ask you only this—
my darling, please don’t go.
Some things are found but once, if once,
and then are found no more,
and I fear that what we found last night
is such a thing. And, furthermore,
our love is more important
than what you have to do,
so please don’t leave me; let us stay
together, if for but a day
or two.
Oh, my fair lady
by Michael R. Burch, age 25
Oh, my fair lady, where have you gone …
Over the mountains to follow the sun?
Off to the northlands to follow the snow?
Tell me, sweet lover; I'll go, oh I'll go!
Won't you
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 21
Won't you lie in my arms in the clutches of wine
as dark petals, unfolding, whisper back to the vine?
Won't you dream of that day, as I bring you again
to an anguish, a heartache that never shall end?
Won't you dream of a day when the ocean grew wild,
raging before us—green cauldron of bile!—
while the passions we shared were stirred by a wind
that later that evening sang softly of sin?
Won't you rise in your yearning and touch me again?
Won't you kiss me and curse me just as you did then?
Won't you hate me and hold me and scold me and say
that you'll never leave me, that this time you'll stay?
O, tonight be my sailor, re-cresting love’s waves …
won't you rage in my arms as you did in those days?
Won't you be half as gentle as you are rough,
then spare me, care for me, saying, "This is enough!"
Won't you lie in my arms with a lie on your lips
and say to me, "Darling, there's nothing like this!"
Won't you tell me, please tell me, O, what is the harm
as I lie here tonight with your child in my arms?
those who sleep the sleep of Death
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 17
those who sleep the sleep of Death
sleep to wake no more …
they lie upon a brackish shore
where Time's tides lash the rugged rocks
with waves that whip like ragged locks
of long, unkempt white hair
against the storm-filled air,
but nothing can disturb them there.
those who dream the dream of Death
fail to see how Time
pulses through the slime
of earth’s dark fulsome loam,
rank, rotting flesh and filthy foam …
for, standing far off from the shore,
She readies to attack once more
those she had but killed before.
those whom Death awakens
awaken to a sleep
that is far more deep
than any they had known before;
for there upon that ravaged shore,
they do not see how Time now drives
to destroy the fragile lives
of those who still survive.
The lamp of freedom
by Michael R. Burch, age 16
When the lamp lies shattered,
its bowl can be remade,
but should its light be scattered,
light cannot be regained.
Hold high the lamp of freedom;
let a man be no man's slave.
According to my notes and memory, I wrote this poem around age 16, then
revised at age 24. I believe the change was a single word, “that” to “light” in
L4. I believe I had Lady Liberty’s torch in mind when I wrote the poem.
We kept the dream alive
by Michael R. Burch, age 18
Youthful reflections on the Vietnam War and the “Domino Theory”
So that our nation should not “fall,”
we sacrificed our lives;
we choked back fears
and blinked back tears.
Our skin broke out in hives.
We kept the dream alive.
We counted freedom
and honor worth saving;
a flag waving
against the sky
filled us with pride,
then led us to die.
But was it a lie?
What of the torch?
What of its flame?
We kept it lit through wind and rain.
It brought us woe and bitter pain.
And yet we bore it though it seemed
the vaguest semblance of a dream.
And all around the jungle screamed,
“This is no place for you to die;
the flag you fight for is a lie;
the torch you bear burns bitter flame;
the dream you cherish has no name
but darkest shame …”
We lost our lives,
but to what gain?
Insane Asylum Songs
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 21
Hushed,
hushed,
the grinding starts;
the gnashing, gnawing sounds
grope outward in the gloom.
Silently,
so silently,
strange sounds infest my room:
these evil, eerie tunes
sung voiceless from the tombs
of men who never lived!
Oh, what is this,
this dreadful hiss
of serpents all around—
black bastards of the ground
that spawned them, bore them, then
would not take them again
although their time had come!
Is mother nature dumb?
Why does she not declare
these creatures not her own
and bid them now, Begone!,
before they foul the air
with heavy, stinking breath?
Or must we all breathe death
—the awful stench of death—
and crouch in fear’s dark lair?
Sundown
by Michael R. Burch, age 21
Sunset’s shadows touch your eyes
She’d rather have the truth than lies.
wherein I find no alibis.
And that seems strange … I wonder why.
Now you and I have come this far,
She seems so lovely and so calm.
but further off, no guiding star.
And yet I know that she is scarred.
But without stars how can we see
What’s best for her is best for me.
ourselves, or where our paths fork free?
And yet I know I loved her sincerely.
I think that we should end it here,
How can love end without a tear?
and I can see that you agree.
What’s best for her is best for me.
We Dance and Dream
by Michael R. Burch, age 25
All the nights we danced it seemed
the stars above were dancing too,
and all the dreams we dared to dream
it seemed were old dreams dreamed anew.
But now no hallowed lovers’ lies
pass our lips or glaze our eyes;
and now no even wilder dreams
cause our lips, with anguished screams,
to pierce the peacefulness of night.
We dance and dream, bereft of light,
content to merely glide…
Orlando (I)
by Michael R. Burch, age 20
A newborn child lies sleeping where the lowlands meet the sea,
with desires in his bosom gently nurtured by a breeze
that carries with it fragrances of paradisal lands
where poets create sunsets and great artists paint white sands.
And, as the child lies sleeping, a Star reflects on high,
immortal as the Heavens’, with a light that cannot die,
where never a star has shone before, where still no eye can see
the brightness of that second Star, though it shines plain for me.
And still that Star is shining, and its light will never fail …
if only the child would look above, the Star’s strength might prevail!
But mortal children need their sleep; the babe needs time to dream.
Tomorrow when he’s older, he’ll make his presence known.
A newborn child lies sleeping with a Vision in his eye
that shines at least as brightly as the north Star does on high;
and from his soul celestial fire that night will never tame
leaps forth to lick to salt strange tears that sparkle, all aflame.
Now far against the eastern slopes the Sun begins to show;
the nightmares that had haunted him take heed and flee below.
And when two Suns combine above, the first becomes the last,
and every prophecy of good rewrites the nightmare past.
Orlando (II)
by Michael R. Burch, age 20
Far beyond Orlando’s shores,
a pelican in flight
beholds a strange and fearful star,
and on it sets his sight,
and then, as if inspired
by some aspect of that sun,
he bursts into a melody—
a strange discordant song
And somewhere far away sometimes
a little child has heard
a fragment of that melancholy
song, though but a word,
and, pausing, known reflections
of the past to come to him,—
of a night spent in Orlando
and an omen on the wind.
Gainsboro(ugh)
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 15
Times forgotten, times reviled
were all you gave this child, beguiled,
besides one ghostly memory
to haunt him down Life's winding wild.
And though his character was formed
somewhere within your lightless shade,
not a fragment of the man
that he became today remains
anywhere within the gloom
cast by your dark insidious trees …
for fleeting dreams and memories
are only dreams and memories.
According to my memory and notes, I wrote the first version of this poem
around 1973, circa age 15, revised it in 1978, then finally completed it a mere
48 years later at age 63! I actually have quite a few memories of Gainsborough
and none are as dark as the poem might make it seem. The poem is really a
complaint about life on earth resulting in divisions and losses. Gainsborough is
mostly lost to me, and I am entirely lost to Gainsborough. We are divided by
time and distance, and while I hazily remember Gainsborough, I'm sure
Gainsborough remembers me not at all, since I was so small and insignificant when we knew each
other. However, if a poet is read, he may be remembered…
Lincoln
by Michael R. Burch, age 20
A little child lies sleeping where the wind cannot touch him,
while a flicker from an unseen star, though very, very dim,
now and them creeps through the blinds to gently touch his eyes.
If only he would open them, their forces might comprise!
But still the storm is raging, and still sleep’s bonds hold firm;
although he tosses in his dreams, in bed he merely squirms.
And though sometimes he notices a warmth that wells within,
he cannot understand conflicting omens on the wind.
And still a single pelican he sometimes sees at dawn,
flashing through the heavens; as soon as it is gone,
he hears a strange, vague melody, a strain upon the wind
that never echoes long enough for him to comprehend.
I attended kindergarten and first grade in Lincoln, Nebraska. The pelican
refers to my birth in Orlando, Florida. The use of “comprise” is intentional, as
in “come together to create something larger.”
Natashe
by Michael R. Burch, age 21
I sleep through moodless blue of unstarred skies …
dark waves weave patterns; wild sequestered seas
grow huge and heavy, foddered by the breeze
that blows them down.
I drink Natashe;
naval frigates freeze
in agony across the frigid seas
of death's domain.
She brings me pain,
and, comfortless, I toss
like one who has slept too long
on a slab-hard bed.
O, I stir myself
and groggily I groan
just as Natashe said
I surely would.
God, these dreams are no good;
I'd much rather live.
My fair love
by Michael R. Burch, age 19
Love was just a word until you held me in your arms,
then it was a fancy, a moment's passing charm.
O, love was just a pleasure until you let me go,
and then it was a fire blazing deep within my soul.
The first time that I held you, my heart seemed strangely full.
The first time that I let you go, I knew I was a fool.
I should have held you always; perhaps I could have found
a word that might describe you, a word that might astound.
But now I try in vain to find a word to flatter you;
my mind is so confounded that, although I bid it to,
no thoughts consecutively formed are ever truly clear
unless at least one is of you — so calm, so quiet, so demure.
Love was just raw passion until I saw a tear
trickle down your cheek to splash into your auburn hair,
and then I felt compassion such as I had never known
gently cleanse my wicked heart until its lust was gone.
I thought that love was sympathy until I touched your breast
and met your earnest lips with mine in such a fiery kiss
that Heaven seemed to open up and shower us with joy;
then I thought that love was but a heavenly decoy
to lead all lovers to God's throne, unwittingly perhaps,
so that they forevermore before His throne might dance!
But then I lay beside you and learned at last that love
perhaps was born of hellfire, but never up above!
My heart was a virgin till you taught it how to love;
you lit it with a fire that you stole from stars above.
As Prometheus was to mankind, so were you to me,
and in my eyes you are a goddess; in my heart, supreme,
you rule my passions and my thoughts … I cannot stand alone.
I look to you to give me strength, to help me carry on.
Yet when I hold you in my arms and brush away your tears,
I feel myself at last a man, forgetting all my fears.
I feel that I am twice the man although I give my strength
to lend you courage in the night when shadows line the way.
Oh what a paradox of love that we together yield
two kinds of strength — you give me mine, then I become your shield.
And what a paradox of love that chastity and passion,
such diverse forces, become one in such a concrete fashion.
O my fair love, this dream called love is such a mystery
that I only begin to understand it when you are with me.
One summer's dream
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18
We slept in fields of clover
where winter was unknown,
but when the upland plover
woke us with his moan,
we knew that we'd done wrong.
We strayed through thistled gardens;
we walked through wildwoods where
the deer weren’t on their guard, then
we made a promise there
to live life like a dare.
Oh, what a tender love-pact
we made beside a stream
that rushed through glittering cataracts
toward all that we’d dreamed!
But the love we shared was wasted
though our promises were sweet,—
for the time we shared together
was time we spent asleep …
for we were just one summer's dream.
Rose
by Michael R. Burch, age 18
Morning’s buds cling fervently
to the tiny drops of dew
that nourish them sacrificially,
as nature bids them to.
And how each petal cherishes
the tiny silver gems
that satisfy its thirst
and caress its slender stem.
All life comes of sacrifice,
which makes it doubly sweet;
for two lives sacrificed form one
and thus become complete.
Daisies plait the valleys
that give their strength to yield
such a tender host among
the steamy summer fields.
And how the flowers love the earth
that freely gives its life,
kissing and caressing it
throughout the hours of night.
So kiss me and caress me, love,
for you are my fair Rose.
And hold me through the depths of night
and the heights of our repose.
A bee entreats a flower:
a tiny drop is given.
A slender stalk caresses
and gains a speck of pollen.
All beings are dependent
on others being too.
And love cannot exist
except when shared by two.
So kiss me and caress me, love,
for you are my fair Rose.
And hold me through the depths of night
and the heights of our repose.
The offering
by Michael R. Burch, age 21
Tonight, if you will taste the warming wine
and come to sit beside me, I will say
the words that you have thought that you might hear,
the words that I have feared that I might say.
And if you sit beside me with the goblet in your hand
and offer me a sip to give me strength,
then I will match your offer with an offer of my own,
and, offering, so offer back that strength.
And if I say, "I love you," don't laugh as though I jest,
for a jester I am not, as you can see.
And if I offer anything, I'll offer you myself —
the man I am and not the man you see.
For though you see successes and a man of many dreams,
I see a pauper throwing dreams away;
yes, once I dreamt of many things, but then I saw your face, and since
I dream no more, and dreams can fade away.
So if I offer you this ring of burnished gold that burns and sings,
please take it for the thought and not the gold.
And if I offer you my life, please understand, my love, don't sigh
and tell me that you do not care for gold.
I'm offering my love, my life, my joys, my cares, my fears, my nights,
the dreams that I have dreamt and dream no more,
I'm offering my soul, not gold … I'm offering my thoughts, my hopes …
I'm offering myself and nothing more.
And if this offer seems enough; if you can be content with love
and cherish one who loves you as I do,
then promise that I'll be your dreams, your hopes, your joys, your cares, all
things
that you could ever want or want to do.
But if you cannot promise so, then let us say goodbye and go;
I cannot love you less than I do now,
but I would rather bear this pain and never, ever love again
than burn in hope and fear as I do now.
Sunrise
by Michael R. Burch, age 17
I ran toward a meadow
that shimmered, all ablaze,
and laughed to feel the buttercups
my skin so softly graze.
My soul was full of passion,
my eyes were full of light,
as sunrise crept
into the depths
of heart that had harbored only night.
I leapt to catch a butterfly,
then let it go again,
and its glorious flight
into the light
caused me to clutch my pen
and dash back to my darkling room
to let the sunrise in,
but not through open shutters,–
through poems and psalms and hymns.
Searching (Song)
by Michael R. Burch, age 18
I've been searching for love
in old books and in rhymes.
I've been searching for love
for a very long time.
Oh, I never believed
that true love could be mine.
But it is, and it's fine …
yes, it is, and it's fine.
I was searching for love
in sweet dreams and in lies.
I was searching for love
in the depths of dark eyes.
Oh, I never conceived
of a love so refined,
but it is, and it's wine …
yes it is, and it's wine.
I was searching for love
in a song, on a sea.
I was searching for love
that was faultless, yet free.
Oh, I never once dreamed
that true love could bind me,
but it does, let it be …
yes, it does, let it be.
I believe this song was inspired by a song by Gordon Lightfoot. Also by “Bojangles,”
but I seem to remember a song about an organ grinder and a monkey.
The Organ Grinder (Song)
by Michael R. Burch, age 21
I was standing on a corner just the other day
when I paused to hear an organ grinder singing as he played.
He had a solemn face, and he wore a creased-in frown,
but he smiled whenever someone put a penny down.
He sang: Whatcha gonna do when the night gets dark and the phone don't ring?
How ya gonna feel when the summer comes, but the birds don't sing?
And whatcha gonna say when the bills come in, but they don't get paid?
Well, take a tip from me—say 'Goddam!' and go get laid!
I was listening to his music when the old man caught my eye,
then he turned around, jumped off the ground, and kicked his heels up high.
Singing: Life's a funny thing. You never know when it'll end.
And love's a doggone sin. I'd never wish it on a friend.
Oh, hope was meant for fools, and charity is for the birds.
And though you do your best, you always end up doin' worse.
And as he sang his song, I knew he sang a poor man's truth,
and, though his eyes were lined with age, they were lined with wisdom, too.
He sang: I never did no good, leastwise, not that I know of …
it's a good thing, anyhow, 'cause folks'd think I'm gettin' soft.
But I loved my share of women and I drank my share of booze
and I never did no winnin', so I ain't afraid to lose.
Valley of Stars
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 19
On a haunted moor, awash in starlight,
when all the world lay hushed and still,
while a ghostly orb, traversing the heavens,
bathed every ridge of every hill
in a shower of silver, I happened to spy
a shadow creeping against the sky.
And suddenly the shadow beckoned
with a fair white hand, then called my name!
Out of the haunting mists of midnight,
through webs of ethereal light she came—
the maiden I had wildly wanted,
that had long my heart enchanted.
It seemed to me that the stars shone brighter
as she slipped into my arms,
for they burned within the halo
of her flaxen hair and warmed
the air about us, so that I melted
into the haven of her arms' shelter.
Her fragrance of lilacs enraptured me;
her sparkling eyes beguiled me.
And when my lips found hers that night,
nothing could have defiled me,
or have dragged me down … we began to rise
through the mists and vapors of a spinning sky.
We rose for hours, or so it seemed,
through galaxies of pearl and blue.
She kissed my lips and made me feel
that all I've heard of love is true.
And now, although we're lost,
I never wonder where we are,
for my love and I
wander paths of the sky,
lost in a valley of stars.
Where, Oh Where Was I
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 17
You whispered the words
that I wanted to hear:
crystal-clear,
shy as deer,
fresh as the story
of a long-forgotten time,
more mysterious than the rhythms
of a strange and wondrous rhyme …
but where, oh where was I?
I was out splashing stars on the sky.
You whispered, "I will,"
from the crest of a hill,
from the blue of the sky,
from the swell of the seas,
soft and sweet
through the trees
in the song of the bees …
but where, oh where was I?
I was out singing, "Love is a lie."
You offered your love
on a platter of gold;
it was fragrant and fragile and fair,
all burnished magenta and pear,
and sparkling like rain through the air
on a silent summer day
when the wind was far away
but still held the scent of hay …
oh where, oh where was I?
I was out writing words, wasting time.
Staying Free
by Michael R. Burch, age 19
Others dwell in darkness,
raging through the night,
slaves to fearsome demons,
though children of the light,
where, caught up in emotions
they fail to understand,
they flock to laud the Mocker
who holds them in his hand.
And all the revelations
bright choirs of angels sing,
they never seem to notice
as their shackles clang and ring.
They know naught of freedom,
nor wish to—for, born slaves
into dull lives of servitude,
their chains they dearly crave.
But let them live their captive lives;
whatever they may be,
I am bound to be a man
as long as I stay free.
Charlie Hustle
by Michael R. Burch
Crouch at the plate,
intensity itself.
Follow the flight
of the streak of white
with avid eyes
and a heartfelt urge
to let it fly.
Sweep the short arc,
feel the crack of a clean hit,
pound the earth
toward first.
Edge into the base path,
eyes relentlessly relentless.
Watch his every movement;
feel his every thought;
forget all save his feet;
see him stretch
toward the plate …
and fly!
Fly along the basepath
churning up the dirt,
desire in your eyes.
Slide around the outstretched glove,
hear the throaty cry,
"He's safe!"
And lie in a puddle of sunlight
soaking up the cheers.
A Texas Leaguer dropping
to the left-field side of center
sends you on your way back home.
Take the turn past third
with fervor in your eyes
and a fever in your step,
the game just strides away …
take them all and then
slide your patented head-first slide
across the guarded plate.
Pause in the dust of your desires,
loving the feel of the scalding sun
and the roar of the crowd.
Shake your head and tip your cap
toward the clouds.
Slap the dirt
from your grass-stained shirt
and head toward the clubhouse …
just doing your job,
but loving it
because it is your life.
This is another poem I had forgotten about for nearly 50 years. According to my
notes, I wrote it in 1977 around age 19. This was one of my early attempts at
free verse.
Phantasmagoria
by Michael R. Burch, age 18
The night was a wrinkled pachyderm;
grey-skinned and monstrous, it covered the earth
till the sun, like a copper-mouthed serpent,
swallowed it slowly, giving dawn birth.
Behold the kaleidoscopic
changing of nighttime to day;
the sun, like a ravenous viper,
has frightened the pale moon away.
The Black Hills
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 20
I have been to the Black Hills,
the back hills of Germany.
[etc., see handwritten version]
Starr
by Michael R. Burch, age 20
You are the brightest star that has ever shone on me
or touched my listless life
with rays of ecstasy …
and, like strange galaxies
that sometimes sparkle in the sea
at night, when a soft wind blows
them softly, gently, to and fro,
you enrapture me.
[etc., see handwritten version]
Vietnamese Love Song
Out of hushed jungles of purple and black,
out of salt seas of deep silver-blue
[etc., see handwritten version]
Shanie
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 20
You never asked anything of life
but the sun and a song to sing.
Well, the sun shines upon everyone,
but a song? Now that's another thing…
Rock like muddy water
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 19
Rock like muddy water,
dark and fantastic,
sing me to sleep…
By and By
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 14
By and by the snow shall melt and all the icicles shall drown…
This was one of my all-time worst poems, but I was just 14!
Bio:
Michael R. Burch is an American poet who lives in Nashville, Tennessee with his wife Beth, their son Jeremy, and three outrageously spoiled puppies. His poems,
epigrams, translations, essays, articles, reviews, short stories and letters have appeared more than
9,000 times in publications which include TIME, USA Today, The Hindu, BBC
Radio 3, CNN.com, Daily Kos and hundreds of literary journals, websites and blogs. Mike Burch is also the founder and
editor-in-chief of The HyperTexts, a former columnist for the Nashville City Paper, a former editor of International Poetry and Translations for the literary journal Better Than Starbucks, and a
translator of poems about the Holocaust, Hiroshima, the Trail of Tears, Gaza and the Palestinian Nakba. He has two published books, Violets for
Beth (White Violet Press, 2012) and O, Terrible Angel (Ancient Cypress Press, 2013). A third book, Auschwitz Rose, is
still in the chute but long delayed. Burch's poetry has been translated into 14 languages,
taught in high schools and colleges, and set to music by 27 composers.
For an expanded bio, circum vitae and career timeline of the author, please click here:
Michael R. Burch Expanded Bio.
Michael R. Burch related pages:
Early Poems,
Bemused by Muses,
Rejection Slips,
Epigrams and Quotes,
Epitaphs,
Romantic Poems,
Sonnets,
Free Verse,
Family Poems,
Free Love Poems by Michael R. Burch,
"Will There Be Starlight" Analysis,
Poems about Shakespeare
Michael R. Burch Main Translation Page & Index:
The Best Poetry Translations of Michael R. Burch
The Best Poetry Translations of Michael R. Burch (sans links)
Translation Pages by Language:
English Translations of Anglo-Saxon Poems by Michael R. Burch
English Translations of Chinese Poets by Michael R. Burch
English Translations of Female Chinese Poets by Michael R. Burch
English Translations of French Poets by Michael R. Burch
Germane Germans: English Translations by Michael R. Burch
English Translations of German Poets by Michael R. Burch
English Translations of Japanese Poets by Michael R. Burch
English Translations of Japanese Zen Death Poems
English Translations of Ancient Mayan Love Poems
English Translations of Native American Poems, Proverbs and Blessings
English Translations of Roman, Latin and Italian Poets by Michael R. Burch
English Translations of Urdu Poets by Michael R. Burch
English Translations of Uyghur Poets by Michael R. Burch
The HyperTexts