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These are poems for my friend and fellow poet Kevin Roberts...

Nightfall
by Michael R. Burch

for Kevin Nicholas Roberts

Only the long dolor of dusk delights me now,
   as I await death.
The rain has ruined the unborn corn,
      and the wasting breath
of autumn has cruelly, savagely shorn
         each ear of its radiant health.
As the golden sun dims, so the dying land seems to relinquish its vanishing wealth.

Only a few erratic, trembling stalks still continue to stand,
   half upright,
and even these the winds have continually robbed of their once-plentiful,
      golden birthright.
I think of you and I sigh, forlorn, on edge
         with the rapidly encroaching night.
Ten thousand stillborn lilies lie limp, mixed with roses, unable to ignite.

Whatever became of the magical kernel, golden within
   at the winter solstice?
What of its promised kingdom, Amen!, meant to rise again
      from this balmless poultice,
this strange bottomland where one Scarecrow commands
         dark legions of ravens and mice?
And what of the Giant whose bellows demand our negligible lives, his black vice?

I find one bright grain here aglitter with rain, full of promise and purpose
   and drive.
Through lightning and hail and nightfalls and pale, cold sunless moons
      it will strive
to rise up from its “place” on a network of lace, to the glory
         of being alive.
Why does it bother, I wonder, my brother? O, am I unwise to believe?
      But Jack had his beanstalk
     and you had your poems
   and the sun seems intent to ascend
  and so I also must climb
to the end of my time,
   however the story
  may unwind
 and
end.

"Nightfall" was written around a month after Kevin’s death.



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.

"Safe Harbor" is a commentary on writing romantic poetry in the 21st century. 



Ophelia
by Michael R. Burch

for Kevin N. Roberts

Ophelia, madness suits you well,
as the ocean sounds in an empty shell,
as the moon shines brightest in a starless sky,
as suns supernova before they die ...

My "Ophelia" was inspired by Kevin's "Ophelia."
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