Early Poems Xv

Early Poems XV Ambition by Michael R. Burch Men speak of their “ambition” and I smile to hear them say that within them burns such fire, such a longing to be great ... But I laugh at their “Ambition” as their wistfulness amasses; I seek Her tongue’s indulgence and Her parted legs’ crevasses. I was very ambitious about my poetry, even as a teenager. I wrote this poem around age 18 or 19. As the Flame Flowers by Michael R. Burch As the flame flowers, a flower, aflame, arches leaves skyward, aching for rain, but it only encounters wild anguish and pain as the flame sputters sparks that ignite at its stem. Yet how this frail flower aflame at the stem reaches through night, through the staggering pain, for a sliver of silver that sparkles like rain, as it flutters in fear of the flowering flame. Mesmerized by a distant crescent-shaped gem which glistens like water though drier than sand, the flower extends itself, trembles, and then dies as scorched leaves burst aflame in the wind. I believe I wrote the first version of this poem in my late teens. The flower aflame yet entranced by the moon is, of course, a metaphor for destructive love and its passions. Ashes by Michael R. Burch A fire is dying; ashes remain... ashes and anguish, ashes and pain. A fire is fading though once it burned bright... ashes once embers are ashes tonight. This is a companion poem to “As the Flame Flowers,” written the same day, I believe. Because You Came to Me by Michael R. Burch Because you came to me with sweet compassion and kissed my furrowed brow and smoothed my hair, I do not love you after any fashion, but wildly, in despair. Because you came to me in my black torment and kissed me fiercely, blazing like the sun upon parched desert dunes, till in dawn’s foment they melt, I am undone. Because I am undone, you have remade me as suns bring life, as brilliant rains endow the earth below with leaves, where you now shade me and bower me, somehow. I wrote the first version of this poem around age 18. Beckoning by Michael R. Burch Yesterday the wind whispered my name while the blazing locks of her rampant mane lay heavy on mine. And yesterday I saw the way the wind caressed tall pines in forests laced by glinting streams and thick with tangled vines. And though she reached for me in her sleep, the touch I felt was Time's. I wrote this poem around age 17 or 18. Keywords/Tags: 12th grade, class, age, childhood, education, high school, student