Poems About Poems Ii

Poems about Poems (II) Kin by Michael R. Burch for Richard Moore 1. Shrill gulls, how like my thoughts you, struggling, rise to distant bliss? the weightless blue of skies that are not blue in any atmosphere, but closest here... 2. You seek an air so clear, so rarified the effort leaves you famished; earthly tides soon call you back? one long, descending glide... 3. Disgruntledly you grope dirt shores for orts you pull like mucous ropes from shells’ bright forts... You eye the teeming world with nervous darts? this way and that... Contentious, shrewd, you scan? the sky, in hope, the earth, distrusting man. Gallant Knight by Michael R. Burch for Alfred Dorn and Anita Dorn Till you rest with your beautiful Anita, rouse yourself, Poet; rouse and write. The world is not ready for your departure, Gallant Knight. Teach us to sing in the ringing cathedrals of your Verse, as you outduel the Night. Give us new eyes to see Love's bright Vision robed in Light. Teach us to pray, that the true Word may conquer, that the slaves may be freed, the blind have Sight. Write the word LOVE with a burning finger. I shall recite. O, bless us again with your chivalrous pen, Gallant Knight! It was my honor to have been able to publish the poetry of Dr. Alfred Dorn and his wife Anita Dorn. The Harvest of Roses by Michael R. Burch for Harvey Stanbrough I have not come for the harvest of roses? the poets' mad visions, their railing at rhyme... for I have discerned what their writing discloses: weak words wanting meaning, beat torsioning time. Nor have I come for the reaping of gossamer? images weak, too forced not to fail; gathered by poets who worship their luster, they shimmer, impendent, resplendently pale. Safe Harbor by Michael R. Burch for Kevin N. Roberts The sea at night seems an alembic of dreams? the moans of the gulls, the foghorns’ bawlings. A century late to be melancholy, I watch the last shrimp boat as it steams to safe harbor again. In the twilight she gleams with a festive light, done with her trawlings, ready to sleep... Deep, deep, in delight glide the creatures of night, elusive and bright as the poet’s dreams. Come Down by Michael R. Burch for Harold Bloom Come down, O, come down from your high mountain tower. How coldly the wind blows, how late this chill hour... and I cannot wait for a meteor shower to show you the time must be now, or not ever. Come down, O, come down from the high mountain heather blown to the lees as fierce northern gales sever. Come down, or your heart will grow cold as the weather when winter devours and spring returns never. In a Stolen Moment by Michael R. Burch In a stolen moment, when the clock’s hands complete their inevitable course and sleep is the night’s dark spell, I call it a curse, seeking the force, the font of candescent words, the electric thrill tingling from brain to spine to incessant quill: the fever, the chill. I know it as well as I know myself. Time’s second hand stirs; not I; in my cell, words spill. Orpheus by Michael R. Burch after William Blake I. Many a sun and many a moon I walked the earth and whistled a tune. I did not whistle as I worked: the whistle was my work. I shirked nothing I saw and made a rhyme to children at play and hard time. II. Among the prisoners I saw the leaden manacles of Law, the heavy ball and chain, the quirt. And yet I whistled at my work. III. Among the children’s daisy faces and in the women’s frowsy laces, I saw redemption, and I smiled. Satanic millers, unbeguiled, were swayed by neither girl, nor child, nor any God of Love. Yet mild I whistled at my work, and Song broke out, ere long. Discrimination by Michael R. Burch for poets who continue to write traditional poetry The meter I had sought to find, perplexed, was ripped from books of "verse" that read like prose. I found it in sheet music, in long rows of hologramic CDs, in sad wrecks of long-forgotten volumes undisturbed half-centuries by archivists, unscanned. I read their fading numbers, frowned, perturbed? why should such tattered artistry be banned? I heard the sleigh bells’ jingles, vampish ads, the supermodels’ babble, Seuss’s books extolled in major movies, blurbs for abs... A few poor thinnish journals crammed in nooks are all I’ve found this late to sell to those who’d classify free verse "expensive prose." Abide by Michael R. Burch after Philip Larkin's "Aubade" It is hard to understand or accept mortality? such an alien concept: not to be. Perhaps unsettling enough to spawn religion, or to scare mutant fish out of a primordial sea boiling like goopy green tea in a kettle. Perhaps a man should exhibit more mettle than to admit such fear, denying Nirvana exists simply because we are stuck here in such a fine fettle. And so we abide... even in life, staring out across that dark brink. And if the thought of death makes your questioning heart sink, it is best not to drink (or, drinking, certainly not to think). Millay Has Her Way with a Vassar Professor by Michael R. Burch After a night of hard drinking and spreading her legs, Millay hits the dorm, where the Vassar don begs: “Please act more chastely, more discretely, more seemly!” (His name, let’s assume, was, er... Percival Queemly.) “Expel me! Expel me!”?She flashes her eyes. “Oh! Please! No! I couldn’t! That wouldn’t be wise, for a great banished Shelley would tarnish my name... Eek! My game will be lame if I can’t milque your fame!” “Continue to live here, carouse as you please!” the beleaguered don sighs as he sags to his knees. Millay grinds her crotch half an inch from his nose: “I can live in your hellhole, strange man, I suppose... but the price is your firstborn, whom I’ll sacrifice to Moloch.” (Which explains what became of pale Percy’s son, Enoch.) Keywords/Tags: Poems, Poets, Poetry, Muse, Rhythm, Rhyme, Creation, Words, Works, Alfred Dorn, Anita Dorn, Richard Moore, Harvey Stanbrough, Kevin Roberts