Because Her Heart Is Tender
Because Her Heart Is Tender, for Beth
by Michael R. Burch
She scrawled soft words in soap: “Never Forget”
dove-white on her car’s window (though the wren,
because its heart is tender, might regret
it called the sun to wake her). As I slept,
she heard lost names recounted, one by one.
She wrote in sidewalk chalk: “Never Forget!”
and kept her heart’s own counsel. No rain swept
away those words, no tear leaves them undone.
Because her heart is tender with regret,
bruised by razed towers’ glass and steel and stone
that shatter on and on and on and on ...
she stitches in damp linen: “NEVER FORGET!”
and listens to her heart’s emphatic song.
(The wren might tilt its head and sing along
because its heart once understood regret
when nestlings fell beyond, beyond, beyond ...
love's reach, and still the boot-heeled world strode on.)
She writes in adamant: “NEVER FORGET!”
because her heart is tender with regret.
Published by Neovictorian/Cochlea, The Villanelle, Nietzsche Twilight, The Eclectic Muse, Nietzsche Twilight, Nutty Stories (South Africa), Poetry Renewal Magazine, and Other Voices International
Because Her Heart is Tender (II)
by Michael R. Burch
Because her heart is tender
there is hope some God might mend her, …
some small hope Fates might relent.
Because her heart is tender
mighty Angels, come defend her!
Even the Devil might repent.
Because her heart is tender
Jacob’s Ladder should descend here,
the heavens open, saints assent.
Because her heart is tender
why does the cruel world rend her?
Fix the world, or let it end here!
Double Trouble
by Michael R. Burch
The villanelle is trouble:
it’s like you’re on the bubble
of beginning to see double.
It’s like you’re on the Hubble
when the lens begins to wobble:
the villanelle is trouble.
It’s like you’re Barney Rubble
scratching itchy beer-stained stubble
because you’re seeing double.
Then your lines begin to gobble
up the good rhymes, and you hobble.
The villanelle is trouble,
just like getting sloshed in the pub’ll
begin to make you babble
because you’re seeing double.
Because the form is flubbable
and is really not that loveable,
the villanelle is trouble:
it’s like you’re seeing double.
Copyright © Michael Burch | Year Posted 2019
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