Poems For Poets X
POEMS FOR POETS X
US Verse, after Auden
by Michael R. Burch
“Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful.”
Verse has small value in our Unisphere,
nor is it fit for windy revelation.
It cannot legislate less taxing fears;
it cannot make us, several, a nation.
Enumerator of our sins and dreams,
it pens its cryptic numbers, and it sings,
a little quaintly, of the ways of love.
(It seems of little use for lesser things.)
The Monarch’s Rose
by Michael R. Burch
I lead you here to pluck this florid rose
still tethered to its post, a dreary mass
propped up to stiff attention, winsome-thorned
(what hand was ever daunted less to touch
such *flame*, in blatant disregard of all
but atavistic beauty)? Does this rose
not symbolize our love? But as I place
its emblem to your breast, how can this poem,
long centuries deflowered, not debase
all art, if merely genuine, but not
“original”? Love, how can *reused words*
though frailer than all petals, bent by air
to lovelier contortions, still persist,
defying even gravity? For here
beat Monarch’s wings: they rise on emptiness!
Sweenies (or Swine-ies) Among the Nightingales
by Michael R. Burch
for the Corseted Ones and the Erratics
Open yourself to words, and if they come,
be glad the stone-tongued apes are stricken dumb
by anything like music; they believe
in petrified dry meaning. Love conceives
wild harmonies,
while lumberjacks fell trees.
Sweet, unifying music, *a cappella* ...
but apeneck Sweeny’s not the brightest fella.
He has no interest in celestial brightness;
he’d distill Love to chivalry, politeness,
yet longs to be acclaimed, like those before him
who (should the truth be told) confuse and bore him.
For Sweeney is himself a piggish boor —
the kind pale pearl-less swine claim to adore.
Fireflies
thinking to illuminate the darkness?
Poets!
—Michael R. Burch
The Plums Were Sweet
by Michael R. Burch
after WCW
The plums were sweet,
icy and delicious.
To eat them all
was perhaps malicious.
But I vastly prefer your kisses!
Geraldine in her pj's
by Michael R. Burch
for Geraldine A. V. Hughes
Geraldine in her pj's
checks her security relays,
sits down armed with a skillet,
mutters, "Intruder? I'll kill it!"
Then, as satellites wink high above,
she turns to her poets with love.
Keywords/Tags: poet, poets, poems, poetry, poetic expression, rhyme, editor, publisher, mother, readers, recite, recitation, reciting, performance, reading, slam, phone, verse, rose
Copyright © Michael Burch | Year Posted 2023
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