Burn

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. Keywords/Tags: burn, earth, environment, fire, future, nature, natural, planet, climate, pollution, climate change, global warming, extinction, Trump Ali’s Song by Michael R. Burch They say that gold don’t tarnish. It ain’t so. They say it has a wild, unearthly glow. A man can be more beautiful, more wild. I flung their medal to the river, child. I flung their medal to the river, child. They hung their coin around my neck; they made my name a bridle, “called a spade a spade.” They say their gold is pure. I say defiled. I flung their slave’s name to the river, child. I flung their slave’s name to the river, child. Ain’t got no quarrel with no Viet Cong that never called me , did me wrong. A man can’t be lukewarm, ’cause God hates mild. I flung their notice to the river, child. I flung their notice to the river, child. They said, “Now here’s your bullet and your gun, and there’s your cell: we’re waiting, you choose one.” At first I groaned aloud, but then I smiled. I gave their “future” to the river, child. I gave their “future” to the river, child. My face reflected up, dark bronze like gold, a coin God stamped in His own image?BOLD. My blood boiled like that river?strange and wild. I died to hate in that dark river, child, Come, be reborn in this bright river, child. Originally published by Black Medina Note: Cassius Clay, who converted to Islam and changed his “slave name” to Muhammad Ali, said that he threw his Olympic boxing gold medal into the Ohio River. Confirming his account, the medal was recovered by Robert Bradbury and his wife Pattie in 2014 during the Annual Ohio River Sweep, and the Ali family paid them $200,000 to regain possession of the medal. When drafted during the Vietnamese War, Ali refused to serve, reputedly saying: “I ain't got no quarrel with those Viet Cong; no Vietnamese ever called me a .” The notice mentioned in my poem is Ali's draft notice, which metaphorically gets tossed into the river along with his slave name. I was told through the grapevine that this poem appeared in Farsi in an Iranian publication called Bashgah. ?Michael R. Burch Love Is Not Love by Michael R. Burch for Beth Love is not love that never looked within itself and questioned all, curled up like a zygote in a ball, throbbed, sobbed and shook. (Or went on a binge at a nearby mall, then would not cook.) Love is not love that never winced, then smiled, convinced that soar’s the prerequisite of fall. When all its wounds and scars have been saline-rinsed, where does Love find the wherewithal to try again, endeavor, when all that it knows is: O, because! The Folly of Wisdom by Michael R. Burch 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