Early Poems Ii

Juvenilia: Early Poems by Michael R. Burch 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 believe I wrote the first version of this poem in my early twenties. Mare Clausum by Michael R. Burch These are the narrows of my soul— dark waters pierced by eerie, haunting screams. And these uncharted islands bleakly home wild nightmares and deep, strange, forbidding dreams. Please don’t think to find pearls’ pale, unearthly glow within its shoals, nor corals in its reefs. For, though you seek to salvage Love, I know that vessel lists, and night brings no relief. Pause here, and look, and know that all is lost; then turn, and go; let salt consume, and rust. This sea is not for sailors, but the damned who lingered long past morning, till they learned why it is named: Mare Clausum. NOTE: Mare Clausum is Latin for "Closed Sea." I believe this poem was written around age 19. An Illusion by Michael R. Burch The sky was as hushed as the breath of a bee and the world was bathed in shades of palest gold when I awoke. She came to me with the sound of falling leaves and the scent of new-mown grass; I held out my arms to her and she passed into oblivion ... This little dream-poem appeared in my high school literary journal, the Lantern, so I was no older than 18 when I wrote it, probably younger. I will guess around age 16. Myth by Michael R. Burch Here the recalcitrant wind sighs with grievance and remorse over fields of wayward gorse and thistle-throttled lanes. And she is the myth of the scythed wheat hewn and sighing, complete, waiting, lain in a low sheaf— full of faith, full of grief. Here the immaculate dawn requires belief of the leafed earth and she is the myth of the mown grain— golden and humble in all its weary worth. I believe I wrote the first version of this poem toward the end of my senior year of high school, around age 18. Accounting by Michael R. Burch And so I have loved you, and so I have lost, accrued disappointment, ledgered its cost, debited wisdom, accredited pain ... My assets remaining are liquid again. I think I wrote this early poem around age 19 or 20. Shock by Michael R. Burch It was early in the morning of the forming of my soul, in the dawning of desire, with passion at first bloom, with lightning splitting heaven to thunder's blasting roll and a sense of welling fire and, perhaps, impending doom— that I cried out through the tumult of the raging storm on high for shelter from the chaos of the restless, driving rain ... and the voice I heard replying from a rift of bleeding sky was mine, I'm sure, and, furthermore, was certainly insane. The Communion of Sighs by Michael R. Burch There was a moment without the sound of trumpets or a shining light, but with only silence and darkness and a cool mist felt more than seen. I was eighteen, my heart pounding wildly within me like a fist. Expectation hung like a cry in the night, and your eyes shone like the corona of a comet. There was an instant ... without words, but with a deeper communion, as clothing first, then inhibitions fell; liquidly our lips met —feverish, wet— forgotten, the tales of heaven and hell, in the immediacy of our fumbling union ... when the rest of the world became distant. Then the only light was the moon on the rise, and the only sound, the communion of sighs. there is peace where i am going ... by Michael R. Burch there is peace where i am going, for i hasten to a land that has never known the motion of one windborne grain of sand; that has never felt a tidal wave nor seen a thunderstorm; a land whose endless seasons in their sameness are one. there i will lay my burdens down and feel their weight no more, and sleep beneath the unstirred sands of a soundless ocean’s shore, where Time lies motionless in pools of lost experience and those who sleep, sleep unaware of the future, past and present (and where Love itself lies dormant, unmoved by a silver crescent). and when i lie asleep there, with Death's footprints at my feet, not a thing shall touch me, save bland sand, lain like a sheet to wrap me for my rest there and to bind me, lest i dream, mere clay again, of strange domains where cruel birth drew such harrowing screams. yes, there is peace where i am going, for i am bound to be safe here, within the dull embrace of this dim, unchanging sea ... before too long; i sense it now, and wait, expectantly, to feel the listless touch of Immortality. This is one of my early poems, written around age 15. Keywords/Tags: Early, Juvenilia, Young, Youth, Teen, Write, Writing, Poets, Poetry, Poems