Michael Burch
Ordinary Love
Indescribable our love and still we say With eyes averted, turning out the light, “I love you,” in the ordinary way And tug the coverlet where once we lay, All suntanned limbs entangled, shivering,
The Folly of Wisdom
She is wise in the way that children are wise, Looking at me with such knowing, grave eyes I must bend down to her to understand. But she only smiles, and takes my hand.
She Was Very Strange, and Beautiful
She was very strange, and beautiful, as the violet mist upon the hills before night falls when the hoot owl calls and the cricket trills And the envapored moon hangs low and full. She
Charon 2004
I, too, have stood paralyzed at the helm Watching onrushing, inevitable disaster. I too have felt sweat (or ecstatic tears) plaster Damp hair to my eyes, as a slug’s dense film Becomes mucous-insulate. Always,
She Gathered Lilacs, for Beth
She gathered lilacs And arrayed them in her hair; Tonight, she taught the wind to be free. She kept her secrets In a silver locket; Her companions were starlight and mystery. She danced all
In Praise of Meter
The earth is full of rhythms so precise The octave of the crystal can produce A trillion oscillations, yet not lose A second’s beat. The ear needs no device To hear the unsprung rhythms
Pan
… Among the shadows of the groaning elms, Amid the darkening oaks, we fled ourselves… … Once there were paths that led to coracles That clung to piers like loosening barnacles… … where we
See
See how her hair has thinned: it does not seem / Like hair at all, but like the airy moult / Of emus who outraced the wind and left / Soft plumage in their
The Locker
All the dull hollow clamor has died And what was contained, Removed, Reproved Adulation or sentiment, Left with the pungent darkness As remembered as the sudden light. Originally published by The Raintown Review
Auschwitz Rose
There is a Rose at Auschwitz, in the briar, A rose like Sharon’s, lovely as her name. The world forgot her, and is not the same. I love her and would not forget desire,
The City Is A Garment
A rhinestone skein, a jeweled brocade of light,- The city is a garment stretched so thin Her festive colors bleed into the night, And everywhere bright seams, unraveling, Now spill their brilliant contents out
Cleansings
Walk here among the walking scepters. Learn Inhuman patience. Flesh can only cleave To bone this tightly if their hearts believe That G-d is good, and never mind the Urn. A lentil and a
Water and Gold
You came to me as rain breaks on the desert When every flower springs to life at once, But joy is an illusion to the expert: The Bedouin has learned how not to want.
In Flight Convergence
Serene, almost angelic, The lights of the city attend Upon lumbering behemoths Shrilly screeching displeasure; they say That nothing is certain, That nothing man dreams or ordains Long endures his command. Here the streetlights
The Forge
To at last be indestructible, a poem Must first glow, almost flammable, upon A thing inert, as gray, as dull as stone, Then bend this way and that, and slowly cool At arms-length, something