Login
|
Join PoetrySoup
Home
Submit Poems
Login
Sign Up
Member Home
My Poems
My Quotes
My Profile & Settings
My Inboxes
My Outboxes
Soup Mail
Contest Results/Status
Contests
Poems
Poets
Famous Poems
Famous Poets
Dictionary
Types of Poems
Quotes
Short Stories
Articles
Forum
Blogs
Poem of the Day
New Poems
Resources
Syllable Counter
Anthology
Grammar Check
Greeting Card Maker
Classifieds
Member Area
Member Home
My Profile and Settings
My Poems
My Quotes
My Short Stories
My Articles
My Comments Inboxes
My Comments Outboxes
Soup Mail
Poetry Contests
Contest Results/Status
Followers
Poems of Poets I Follow
Friend Builder
Soup Social
Poetry Forum
New/Upcoming Features
The Wall
Soup Facebook Page
Who is Online
Link to Us
Member Poems
Poems - Top 100 New
Poems - Top 100 All-Time
Poems - Best
Poems - by Topic
Poems - New (All)
Poems - New (PM)
Poems - New by Poet
Poems - Random
Poems - Read
Poems - Unread
Member Poets
Poets - Best New
Poets - New
Poets - Top 100 Most Poems
Poets - Top 100 Most Poems Recent
Poets - Top 100 Community
Poets - Top 100 Contest
Famous Poems
Famous Poems - African American
Famous Poems - Best
Famous Poems - Classical
Famous Poems - English
Famous Poems - Haiku
Famous Poems - Love
Famous Poems - Short
Famous Poems - Top 100
Famous Poets
Famous Poets - Living
Famous Poets - Most Popular
Famous Poets - Top 100
Famous Poets - Best
Famous Poets - Women
Famous Poets - African American
Famous Poets - Beat
Famous Poets - Cinquain
Famous Poets - Classical
Famous Poets - English
Famous Poets - Haiku
Famous Poets - Hindi
Famous Poets - Jewish
Famous Poets - Love
Famous Poets - Metaphysical
Famous Poets - Modern
Famous Poets - Punjabi
Famous Poets - Romantic
Famous Poets - Spanish
Famous Poets - Suicidal
Famous Poets - Urdu
Famous Poets - War
Poetry Resources
Anagrams
Bible
Book Store
Character Counter
Cliché Finder
Poetry Clichés
Common Words
Copyright Information
Grammar
Grammar Checker
Homonym
Homophones
How to Write a Poem
Lyrics
Love Poem Generator
New Poetic Forms
Plagiarism Checker
Poetics
Poetry Art
Publishing
Random Word Generator
Spell Checker
Store
What is Good Poetry?
Word Counter
Email Poem
Your IP Address: 3.144.187.103
Your Email Address:
Required
Email Address Not Valid.
To Email Address:
Email Address Not Valid.
Required
Subject
Required
Personal Note:
Poem Title:
Poem
Juvenilia: Early Poems XII Because You Came to Me by Michael R. Burch for Beth Because you came to me with sweet compassion and kissed my furrowed brow and smoothed my hair, I do not love you after any fashion, but wildly, in despair. Because you came to me in my black torment and kissed me fiercely, blazing like the sun upon parched desert dunes, till in dawn’s foment they melt, I am undone. Because I am undone, you have remade me as suns bring life, as brilliant rains endow the earth below with leaves, where you now shade me and bower me, somehow. I wrote the first version of this poem around age 18, then revised it 30 years later and dedicated the new version to my wife Beth. Infinity by Michael R. Burch for Beth Have you tasted the bitterness of tears of despair? Have you watched the sun sink through such pale, balmless air that your soul sought its shell like a crab on a beach, then scuttled inside to be safe, out of reach? Might I lift you tonight from earth’s wreckage and damage on these waves gently rising to pay the moon homage? Or better, perhaps, let me say that I, too, have dreamed of infinity . . . windswept and blue. This is one of my early poems that made me feel like a “real poet.” I wrote the poem as a teenager, circa age 18, to no one in particular, but after I met Beth I revised the poem and dedicated it to her, as the lover and soul mate I had been searching for. The closing lines say that I, too, have felt darkness and despair, and have felt utterly alone. But the hope of the poem is that we are not alone. This poem is my “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” Winter by Michael R. Burch The rose of love’s bright promise lies torn by her own thorn; her scent was sweet but at her feet the pallid aphids mourn. The lilac of devotion has felt the winter hoar and shed her dress; companionless, she shivers—nude, forlorn. I wrote "Winter" around age 20; it has been published by Songs of Innocence, The Aurorean and Contemporary Rhyme. Desdemona by Michael R. Burch Though you possessed the moon and stars, you are bound to fate and wed to chance. Your lips deny they crave a kiss; your feet deny they ache to dance. Your heart imagines wild romance. Though you cupped fire in your hands and molded incandescent forms, you are barren now, and—spent of flame— the ashes that remain are borne toward the sun upon a storm. You, who demanded more, have less, your heart within its cells of sighs held fast by chains of misery, confined till death for peddling lies— imprisonment your sense denies. You, who collected hearts like leaves and pressed each once within your book, forgot. None—winsome, bright or rare— not one was worth a second look. My heart, as others, you forsook. But I, though I loved you from afar through silent dawns, and gathered rue from gardens where your footsteps left cold paths among the asters, knew— each moonless night the nettles grew and strangled hope, where love dies too. I wrote "Desdemona" around age 22; it has been published by Penny Dreadful, Carnelian, Romantics Quarterly, Grassroots Poetry and Poetry Life & Times. Fairest Diana by Michael R. Burch Fairest Diana, princess of dreams, born to be loved and yet distant and lone, why did you linger—so solemn, so lovely— an orchid ablaze in a crevice of stone? Was not your heart meant for tenderest passions? Surely your lips—for wild kisses, not vows! Why then did you languish, though lustrous, becoming a pearl of enchantment cast before sows? Fairest Diana, fragile as lilac, as willful as rainfall, as true as the rose; how did a stanza of silver-bright verse come to be bound in a book of dull prose? Published by Tucumcari Literary Journal and Night Roses I believe this poem was written in the late 1970s or very early 1980s, around the time it became apparent that the lovely Diana Spencer was going to marry into the British royal family. The Last Enchantment by Michael R. Burch Oh, Lancelot, my truest friend, how time has thinned your ragged mane and pinched your features; still you seem though, much, much changed—somehow unchanged. Your sword hand is, as ever, ready, although the time for swords has passed. Your eyes are fierce, and yet so steady meeting mine ... you must not ask. The time is not, nor ever shall be, for Merlyn’s words were only words; and now his last enchantment wanes, and we must put aside our swords ... Originally published by Trinacria I believe I wrote this poem in my early twenties, around 1980. I distinctly remember working on the poem on a flight to England in 1982 because an attractive girl was sitting beside me on the plane and I remember wishing she would ask me what I was doing. No such luck! According to my notes the poem was revised and filed in 1984, but it remains largely as it was originally written. Beckoning by Michael R. Burch Yesterday the wind whispered my name while the blazing locks of her rampant mane lay heavy on mine. And yesterday I saw the way the wind caressed tall pines in forests laced by glinting streams and thick with tangled vines. And though she reached for me in her sleep, the touch I felt was Time's. I wrote "Beckoning" around age 18. Keywords/Tags: early, early poems, juvenilia, child, childhood, boy, boyhood, teen, teenage, teenager, student, high school, college, poems, poetry
CAPTCHA Preview
Type the characters you see in the picture
Required