Poems For Poets X

POEMS FOR POETS X US Verse, after Auden by Michael R. Burch “Let the living creature lie, Mortal, guilty, but to me The entirely beautiful.” Verse has small value in our Unisphere, nor is it fit for windy revelation. It cannot legislate less taxing fears; it cannot make us, several, a nation. Enumerator of our sins and dreams, it pens its cryptic numbers, and it sings, a little quaintly, of the ways of love. (It seems of little use for lesser things.) The Unisphere mentioned is a spherical stainless steel representation of the earth constructed for the 1964 New York World’s Fair. It was commissioned to celebrate the beginning of the space age. The Monarch’s Rose by Michael R. Burch I lead you here to pluck this florid rose still tethered to its post, a dreary mass propped up to stiff attention, winsome-thorned (what hand was ever daunted less to touch such *flame*, in blatant disregard of all but atavistic beauty)? Does this rose not symbolize our love? But as I place its emblem to your breast, how can this poem, long centuries deflowered, not debase all art, if merely genuine, but not “original”? Love, how can *reused words* though frailer than all petals, bent by air to lovelier contortions, still persist, defying even gravity? For here beat Monarch’s wings: they rise on emptiness! Sweenies (or Swine-ies) Among the Nightingales by Michael R. Burch for the Corseted Ones and the Erratics Open yourself to words, and if they come, be glad the stone-tongued apes are stricken dumb by anything like music; they believe in petrified dry meaning. Love conceives wild harmonies, while lumberjacks fell trees. Sweet, unifying music, *a cappella* ... but apeneck Sweeny’s not the brightest fella. He has no interest in celestial brightness; he’d distill Love to chivalry, politeness, yet longs to be acclaimed, like those before him who (should the truth be told) confuse and bore him. For Sweeney is himself a piggish boor — the kind pale pearl-less swine claim to adore. Fireflies thinking to illuminate the darkness? Poets! —Michael R. Burch The Plums Were Sweet by Michael R. Burch after WCW The plums were sweet, icy and delicious. To eat them all was perhaps malicious. But I vastly prefer your kisses! Keywords/Tags: poet, poets, poems, poetry, poetic expression, rhyme, editor, publisher, mother, readers, recite, recitation, reciting, performance, reading, slam, phone, telephone, verse, revelation, rose