Poems of Recanted Bachelorhood
Poems of Recanted Bachelorhood
bachelorhoodwinked
by Michael R. Burch
u
are
charming
& disarming,
but mostly ALARMING
since my resolve
dissolved!
*
Disconcerted
by Michael R. Burch
Beth, my sweet,
fresh as a daisy,
when I’m with you
my heart beats like crazy
& my future gets hazy ...
*
What Goes Around, Comes
by Michael R. Burch
This is a poem about loss
so why do you toss your dark hair,
unaccountably glowing?
How can you be sure of my heart
when it’s beyond my own knowing?
Or is it love’s pheromones you trust,
my eyes magnetized by your bust
and the mysterious alchemies of lust?
Now I am truly lost!
*
Once
by Michael R. Burch
Once when her kisses were fire incarnate
and left in their imprint bright lipstick, and flame,
when her breath rose and fell over smoldering dunes,
leaving me listlessly sighing her name ...
Once when her breasts were as pale, as beguiling,
as wan rivers of sand shedding heat like a mist,
when her words would at times softly, mildly rebuke me
all the while as her lips did more wildly insist ...
Once when the thought of her echoed and whispered
through vast wastelands of need like a Bedouin chant,
I ached for the touch of her lips with such longing
that I vowed all my former vows to recant ...
Once, only once, something bloomed, of a desiccate seed ...
this implausible blossom her wild rains of kisses decreed.
*
Warming Her Pearls
by Michael R. Burch
Warming her pearls,
her breasts gleam like constellations.
Her belly is a bit rotund ...
she might have stepped out of a Rubens.
*
Sappho, fragment 22
translation by Michael R. Burch
That enticing girl's clinging dresses
leave me trembling, overcome by happiness,
as once, when I saw the Goddess in my prayers
eclipsing Cyprus.
*
Sappho, fragment 42
translation by Michael R. Burch
Eros harrows my heart:
wild winds whipping desolate mountains
uprooting oaks.
*
don’t forget
by Michael R. Burch
don’t forget to remember
that Space is curved
(like your Heart)
and that even Light is bent
by your Gravity.
*
The Stake
by Michael R. Burch
Love, the heart bets,
if not without regrets,
will still prove, in the end,
worth the light we expend
mining the dark
for an exquisite heart.
*
Because You Came to Me
by Michael R. Burch
Because you came to me with sweet compassion
and kissed my furrowed brow and smoothed my hair,
I do not love you after any fashion,
but wildly, in despair.
Because you came to me in my black torment
and kissed me fiercely, blazing like the sun
upon parched desert dunes, till in dawn’s foment
they melt, I am undone.
Because I am undone, you have remade me
as suns bring life, as brilliant rains endow
the earth below with leaves, where you now shade me
and bower me, somehow.
*
Besieged
by Michael R. Burch
Life—the disintegration of the flesh
before the fitful elevation of the soul
upon improbable wings?
*
Burn
by Michael R. Burch
for Trump
Sunbathe,
ozone baby,
till your parched skin cracks
in the white-hot flash
of radiation.
Incantation
from your pale parched lips
shall not avail;
you made this hell.
Now burn.
*
Life—it is all we know,
the travail one bright season brings ...
Now the fruit hangs,
impendent, pregnant with death,
as the hurricane builds and flings
its white columns and banners of snow
and the rout begins.
*
Daredevil
by Michael R. Burch
There are days that I believe
(and nights that I deny)
love is not mutilation.
Daredevil, dry your eyes.
There are tightropes leaps bereave—
taut wires strumming high
brief songs, infatuations.
Daredevil, dry your eyes.
There were cannon shots’ soirees,
hearts barricaded, wise...
and then...annihilation.
Daredevil, dry your eyes.
There were nights our hearts conceived
dawns’ indiscriminate sighs.
To dream was our consolation.
Daredevil, dry your eyes.
There were acrobatic leaves
that tumbled down to lie
at our feet, bright trepidations.
Daredevil, dry your eyes.
There were hearts carved into trees—
tall stakes where you and I
left childhood’s salt libations...
Daredevil, dry your eyes.
Where once you scraped your knees;
love later bruised your thighs.
Death numbs all, our sedation.
Daredevil, dry your eyes.
*
Davenport Tomorrow
by Michael R. Burch
Davenport tomorrow ...
all the trees stand stark-naked in the sun.
Now it is always summer
and the bees buzz in cesspools,
adapted to a new life.
There are no flowers,
but the weeds, being hardier,
have survived.
The small town has become
a city of millions;
there is no longer a sea,
only a huge sewer,
but the children don't mind.
They still study
rocks and stars,
but biology is a forgotten science ...
after all, what is life?
Davenport tomorrow ...
all the children murmur through vein-streaked gills
whispered wonders of long-ago.
*
Elegy for a little girl, lost
by Michael R. Burch
... qui laetificat juventutem meam ...
She was the joy of my youth,
and now she is gone.
... requiescat in pace ...
May she rest in peace.
... amen ...
Amen.
*
evol-u-shun
by Michael R. Burch
does GOD adore the Tyger
while it’s ripping ur lamb apart?
does GOD applaud the Plague
while it’s eating u à la carte?
does GOD admire ur intelligence
while u pray that IT has a heart?
does GOD endorse the Bible
you blue-lighted at k-mart?
*
faith(less)
by Michael R. Burch
Those who believed
and Those who misled
lie together at last
in the same narrow bed
and if god loved Them more
for Their strange lack of doubt,
he kept it well hidden
till he snuffed Them out.
*
Habeas Corpus
by Michael R. Burch
I have the results of your DNA analysis.
If you want to have children, this may induce paralysis.
I wish I had good news, but how can I lie?
Any offspring you have are guaranteed to die.
It wouldn’t be fair—I’m sure you’ll agree—
to sentence kids to death, so I’ll waive my fee.
*
Conformists
by Michael R. Burch
Conformists of a feather
flock together.
*
Mate Check
by Michael R. Burch
Love is an ache hearts willingly secure
then break the bank to cure.
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