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Index of poems:
- Aflutter
- For All That I Remembered
- Fountainhead
- In Praise of Meter
- Ordinary Love
- See
- She Was Very Strange, and Beautiful
- The Effects of Memory
- The Folly of Wisdom
- Water and Gold
Oh, you are gentle now, and in your failing hour, how like the child you were, you seem again ... and smile as sadly as, when, nine or ten, the meadow sparrow with the broken wing lay calm, unblinking, trusting in your power you could not mend. And so the world renews old vows it could not keep, false promises that whispered–Nothing lovely perishes, but comes again as springlike flourishes, out of the grave–wild rose and violet hues, like rainbows’ eerie pacts we apprehend but cannot fail to keep. Now in your eyes I see the end of life that only dies and does not care for bright, translucent lies. Are tears so precious? These few, let us spend together, as before, then lay to rest this sparrow’s heart aflutter at your breast. Originally published by The Lyric
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For All That I Remembered
© Michael R. Burch
For all that I remembered, I forgot her name, her face, the reason that we loved . . . and yet I hold her close within my thought. I feel the burnished weight of auburn hair that fell across her face, the apricot clean scent of her shampoo, the way she glowed so palely in the moonlight, angel-wan. The memory of her gathers like a flood and bears me to that night, that only night, when she and I were one, and if I could ... I’d reach to her this time and, smiling, brush the hair out of her eyes, and hold intact each feature, each impression. Love is such a threadbare sort of magic, it is gone before we recognize it. I would crush my lips to hers to hold their memory, if not more tightly, less elusively. [Originally published by The Raintown Review]Back to top
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Fountainhead
© Michael R. Burch
I did not delight in love so much as in a kiss like linnets’ wings, the flutterings of a pulse so soft the heart remembers, as it sings: to bathe there was its transport, brushed by marble lips, or porcelain,– one liquid kiss, one cool outburst from pale rosettes. What did it mean . . . to float awhirl on minute tides within the compass of your eyes, to feel your alabaster bust grow cold within? Ecstatic sighs seem hisses now; your eyes, serene, reflect the sun’s pale tourmaline. Originally published by Romantics QuarterlyBack to top
In Praise of Meter
© Michael R. Burch
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 of the couch
drown out the mouth’s; the lips can be debauched
by kisses, should the heart put back its watch
and find the pulse of love, and sing, devout.
If moons and tides in interlocking dance
obey their numbers, what is left to chance?
Should poets be more lax–their circumstance
as humble as it is?–or readers wince
to see their ragged numbers thin, to hear
of Nero’s death, yet mourn the Cavalier?
Originally published in The Eclectic Muse and
The Best of the Eclectic Muse 1989-2003
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Ordinary Love
© Michael R. Burch
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, white . . .
indescribably in love. Or so we say.
Your hair’s blonde thicket now is tangle-gray;
you turn your back; you murmur to the night,
“I love you,” in the ordinary way.
Beneath the sheets our hands and feet would stray . . .
to warm ourselves. We do not touch, despite
a love so indescribable. We say
we’re older now, that “love” has had its day.
But that which love once countenanced, delight,
still makes you indescribable. I say,
“I love you,” in the ordinary way.
Originally published by The Lyric
and winner of the Charles Algernon Swinburne Poetry Award
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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 wake. See how her eyes are gentler now; see how each wrinkle laughs, and deepens on itself, as though mirth took some comfort there and burrowed deeply in, outlasting winter. See how very thin her features are–that time has made more spare, so that each bone shows elegant and rare. For loveliness remains in her grave eyes, and courage in her still-delighted looks: each face presented like a picture book’s. Bemused, she blows us undismayed goodbyes Originally published by The Eclectic Muse
She Was Very Strange, and Beautiful
© Michael R. Burch
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 was very strange, in a pleasant way, as the hummingbird flies madly still, so I drank my fill of her every word. What she knew of love, she demurred to say. She was meant to leave, as the wind must blow, as the sun must set, as the rain must fall. Though she gave me all, I had nothing left. Long I smiled, bereft, in her receding glow. Originally published by The Neovictorian/Cochlea and The Eclectic Muse
The Effects of Memory
© Michael R. Burch 2006
A black ringlet curls to lie at the nape of her neck, glistening with sweat in the evaporate moonlight . . . This is what I remember now that I cannot forget. And tonight, if I have forgotten her name, I remember . . . rigid wire and white lace half-impressed in her flesh, our soft cries, like regret . . . the enameled white clips of her bra strap still inscribe dimpled marks that my kisses erase . . . now that I have forgotten her face. Originally published by Poetry Magazine
The Folly of Wisdom
© Michael R. Burch 2006
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. We are walking somewhere that her feet know to go, so I smile, and I follow . . . And the years are dark creatures concealed in bright leaves that flutter above us, and what she believes– I can almost remember–goes something like this: the prince is a horned toad, awaiting her kiss. She wiggles and giggles, and all will be well if only we find him! The woodpecker’s knell as he hammers the coffin of some dying tree that once was a fortress to someone like me rings wildly above us. Some things that we know we are meant to forget. Life is a bloodletting, maple-syrup-slow. Originally published by Romantics Quarterly
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Water and Gold
© Michael R. Burch 2006
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. You came to me as riches to a miser when all is gold, or so his heart believes, until he dies much thinner and much wiser, his gleaming bones hauled off by chortling thieves. You gave your heart too soon, too dear, too vastly; I could not take it in; it was too much. I pledged to meet your price, but promised rashly. I died of thirst, of your bright Midas touch. I dreamed you gave me water of your lips, then sealed my tomb with golden hieroglyphs. [Originally published by The Lyric]
