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These are poems about shadows and shadowy things...

Transplant
by Michael R. Burch

You float, unearthly angel, clad in flesh
as strange to us who briefly knew your flame
as laughter to disease. And yet you laugh.
Behind your smile, the sun forfeits its claim
to earth, and floats forever now the same—
light captured at its moment of least height.

You laugh here always, welcoming the night,
and, just a photograph, still you can claim
bright rapture: like an angel, not of flesh—
but something more, made less. Your humanness
this moment of release becomes a name
and something else—a radiance, a strange
brief presence near our hearts. How can we stand
and chain you here to this nocturnal land
of burgeoning gray shadows? Fly, begone.
I give you back your soul, forfeit all claim
to radiance, and welcome grief’s dark night
that crushes all the laughter from us. Light
in someone Else’s hand, and sing at ease
some song of brightsome mirth through dawn-lit trees
to welcome morning’s sun. O daughter! these
are eyes too weak for laughter; for love’s sight,
I welcome darkness, overcome with light.



Shadows
by Michael R. Burch

Alone again as evening falls,
I join gaunt shadows and we crawl
up and down my room's dark walls.

Up and down and up and down,
against starlight—strange, mirthless clowns—
we merge, emerge, submerge . . . then drown.

We drown in shadows starker still,
shadows of the somber hills,
shadows of sad selves we spill,	

tumbling, to the ground below.
There, caked in grimy, clinging snow,
we flutter feebly, moaning low

for days dreamed once an age ago
when we weren't shadows, but were men . . .
when we were men, or almost so.



Skalded
by Michael R. Burch

Fierce ancient skalds summoned verse from their guts;
today’s genteel poets prefer modern ruts.



My Religion
attributed to Sappho
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
 
1.
I found the Goddess in your body's curves and crevasses.
 
2.
I sought the Goddess in your body's curves and crevasses.
 
3.
My religion consists of your body's curves and crevasses.
 
4.
My religion became your body's curves and crevasses.
 
5.
I discovered my religion in your body's curves and crevasses. 



Keywords/Tags: shadows, shadow, shadowed, shadowy, dark, darkness, transplant, angel, flesh, daughter, flame, laughter, disease, smile, sun, earth, light, night, photograph, radiance, radiant, aura, soul, grief, religion, goddess, skalds, guts, ruts
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