Early Poems Iii

Juvenilia: Early Poems by Michael R. Burch In the Whispering Night by Michael R. Burch In the whispering night, when the stars bend low till the hills ignite to a shining flame, when a shower of meteors streaks the sky while the lilies sigh in their beds, for shame, we must steal our souls, as they once were stolen, and gather our vigor, and all our intent. We must heave our bodies to some famished ocean and laugh as they shatter, and never repent. We must dance in the darkness as stars dance before us, soar, Soar! through the night on a butterfly's breeze ... blown high, upward-yearning, twin spirits returning to the heights of awareness from which we were seized. Leave Taking by Michael R. Burch Brilliant leaves abandon battered limbs to waltz upon ecstatic winds until they die. But the barren and embittered trees, lament the frolic of the leaves and curse the bleak November sky ... Now, as I watch the leaves' high flight before the fading autumn light, I think that, perhaps, at last I may have learned what it means to say— goodbye. This poem dates to around age 14. 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 early poem was written around age 15. Sea Dreams by Michael R. Burch I. In timeless days I've crossed the waves of seaways seldom seen. By the last low light of evening the breakers that careen then dive back to the deep have rocked my ship to sleep, and so I've known the peace of a soul at last at ease there where Time's waters run in concert with the sun. With restless waves I've watched the days’ slow movements, as they hum their antediluvian songs. Sometimes I've sung along, my voice as soft and low as the sea's, while evening slowed to waver at the dim mysterious moonlit rim of dreams no man has known. In thoughtless flight, I've scaled the heights and soared a scudding breeze over endless arcing seas of waves ten miles high. I've sheared the sable skies on wings as soft as sighs and stormed the sun-pricked pitch of sunset’s scarlet-stitched, ebullient dark demise. I've climbed the sun-cleft clouds ten thousand leagues or more above the windswept shores of seas no man has sailed —great seas as grand as hell's, shores littered with the shells of men's "immortal" souls— and I've warred with dark sea-holes whose open mouths implored their depths to be explored. And I've grown and grown and grown till I thought myself the king of every silver thing... But sometimes late at night when the sorrowing wavelets sing sad songs of other times, I taste the windborne rime of a well-remembered day on the whipping ocean spray, and I bow my head to pray... II. It's been a long, hard day; sometimes I think I work too hard. Tonight I'd like to take a walk down by the sea— down by those salty waves brined with the scent of Infinity, down by that rocky shore, down by those cliffs that I used to climb when the wind was tart with a taste of lime and every dream was a sailor's dream. Then small waves broke light, all frothy and white, over the reefs in the ramblings of night, and the pounding sea —a mariner’s dream— was bound to stir a boy's delight to such a pitch that he couldn't desist, but was bound to splash through the surf in the light of ten thousand stars, all shining so bright. Christ, those nights were fine, like a well-aged wine, yet more scalding than fire with the marrow’s desire. Then desire was a fire burning wildly within my bones, fiercer by far than the frantic foam... and every wish was a moan. Oh, for those days to come again! Oh, for a sea and sailing men! Oh, for a little time! It's almost nine and I must be back home by ten, and then...what then? I have less than an hour to stroll this beach, less than an hour old dreams to reach... And then, what then? Tonight I'd like to play old games— games that I used to play with the somber, sinking waves. When their wraithlike fists would reach for me, I'd dance between them gleefully, mocking their witless craze —their eager, unchecked craze— to batter me to death with spray as light as breath. Oh, tonight I'd like to sing old songs— songs of the haunting moon drawing the tides away, songs of those sultry days when the sun beat down till it cracked the ground and the sea gulls screamed in their agony to touch the cooling clouds. The distant cooling clouds. Then the sun shone bright with a different light over different lands, and I was always a pirate in flight. Oh, tonight I'd like to dream old dreams, if only for a while, and walk perhaps a mile along this windswept shore, a mile, perhaps, or more, remembering those days, safe in the soothing spray of the thousand sparkling streams that rush into this sea. I like to slumber in the caves of a sailor's dark sea-dreams... oh yes, I'd love to dream, to dream and dream and dream. Written around age 19. Keywords/Tags: Early, Juvenilia, Young, Youth, Teen, Write, Writing, Poets, Poetry, Poems