SINKING
These are poems about sinking, poems about drowning, poems about loss, and poems about new discoveries we sometimes make while feeling lost...
Sinking
by Michael R. Burch
for Virginia Woolf
Weigh me down with stones…
fill all the pockets of my gown…
I’m going down,
mad as the world
that can’t recover,
to where even mermaids drown.
Door Mouse
by Michael R. Burch
I’m sure it’s not good for my heart—
the way it will jump-start
when the mouse scoots the floor
(I try to kill it with the door,
never fast enough, or
fling a haphazard shoe...
always too slow too)
in the strangest zig-zaggedy fashion
absurdly inconvenient for mashin’,
till our hearts, each maniacally revvin’,
make us both early candidates for heaven.
?What Goes Around, Comes
by Michael R. Burch
This is a poem about loss
so why do you toss your dark hair—
unaccountably glowing?
How can you be sure of my heart
when it’s beyond my own knowing?
Or is it love’s pheromones you trust,
my eyes magnetized by your bust
and the mysterious alchemies of lust?
Now I am truly lost!
Sonnet 26
by Giacomo da Lentini
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
I've seen it rain on sunny days;
I’ve seen the darkness split by light;
I’ve seen white lightning fade to haze;
Seen frozen snow turn water-bright.
Some sweets have bitter aftertastes
While bitter things can taste quite sweet:
So enemies become best mates
While former friends no longer meet.
Yet the strangest thing I've seen is Love,
Who healed my wounds by wounding me.
Love quenched the fire he lit before;
The life he gave was death, therefore.
How to warm my heart? It eluded me.
Yet extinguished, Love sears all the more.
Giacomo da Lentini, also known as Jacopo da Lentini or by the appellative Il Notaro (“The Notary”), was an Italian poet of the 13th century who has been credited with creating the sonnet.
The Discovery
by Michael R. Burch
for Beth
What use were my arms, before they held you?
What did my lips know of love, before they encountered yours?
I learned I was made for your heart, so true,
to overwhelm with its tender force.
Grave Oversight I
by Michael R. Burch
The dead are always with us,
and yet they are naught!
Grave Oversight II
by Michael R. Burch
for Jim Dunlap, who winked and suggested “not”
The dead are either naught
or naughty, being so sought!
Keywords/Tags: life, death, grave, sinking, drowning, bitter, sweet, rain, darkness, love, fire, fate, ruin, genius, memory, memories, heart, lips
Copyright ©
Michael Burch
|