Sonnets Xc-Xcvii

Sonnets XC-XCVII Artificial Smile by Michael R. Burch I’m waiting for my artificial teeth to stretch belief, to hollow out the cob of zealous righteousness, to grasp life’s stub between clenched molars, and yank out the grief. Mine must be art-official?zenlike Art? a disembodied, white-enameled grin of Cheshire manufacture. Part by part, the human smile becomes mock porcelain. Till in the end, the smile alone remains: titanium-based alloys undestroyed with graves’ worm-eaten contents, all the pains of bridgework unrecalled, and what annoyed us most about the corpses rectified to quaintest dust. The Smile winks, deified. Modern Appetite by Michael R. Burch It grumbled low, insisting it would feast on blood and flesh, etcetera, at least three times a day. With soft lubricious grease and pale salacious oils, it would ease its way through life. Each day?an aperitif. Each night?a frothy bromide, for relief. It lived on TV fare, wore pinafores, slurped sugar-coated gumballs, gobbled S’mores. When gas ensued, it burped and farted. ’Course, it thought aloud, my wife will leave me. Whores are not so damn particular. Divorce is certainly a settlement, toujours! A Tums a day will keep the shrink away, recalcify old bones, keep gas at bay. If Simon says, etcetera, Mother, may I have my hit of calcium today? Mother of Cowards by Michael R. Burch aka "The Loyal Opposition" So unlike the brazen giant of Greek fame With conquering limbs astride from land to land, Spread-eagled, showering gold, a strumpet stands: A much-used trollop with a torch, whose flame Has long since been extinguished. And her name? "Mother of Cowards!" From her enervate hand Soft ash descends. Her furtive eyes demand Allegiance to her Pimp's repulsive game. "Keep, ancient lands, your wretched poor!" cries she With scarlet lips. "Give me your hale, your whole, Your huddled tycoons, yearning to be pleased! The wretched refuse of your toilet hole? Oh, never send one unwashed child to me! I await Trump's pleasure by the gilded bowl!" Originally published by Light Premonition by Michael R. Burch Now the evening has come to a close and the party is over... we stand in the doorway and watch as they go? each stranger, each acquaintance, each unembraceable lover. They walk to their cars and they laugh as they go, though we know their warm laughter’s the wine... then they pause at the road where the dark asphalt flows endlessly on toward Zion... and they kiss one another as though they were friends, and they promise to meet again “soon”... but the rivers of Jordan roll on without end, and the mockingbird calls to the moon... and the katydids climb up the cropped hanging vines, and the crickets chirp on out of tune... and their shadows, defined by the cryptic starlight, seem spirits torn loose from their tombs. And I know their brief lives are just eddies in time, that their hearts are unreadable runes to be wiped clean, like slate, by the dark hand of fate when their corpses lie ravaged and ruined... You take my clenched fist and you give it a kiss as though it were something you loved, and the tears fill your eyes, brimming with the soft light of the stars winking gently above... Then you whisper, "It's time that we went back inside; if you'd like, we can sit and just talk for a while." And the hope in your eyes burns too deep, so I lie and I say, "Yes, I would," to your small, troubled smile. Your e-Verse by Michael R. Burch I cannot understand a word you’ve said (and this despite an adequate I.Q.); it must be some exotic new haiku combined with Latin suddenly undead. It must be hieroglyphics mixed with Greek. Have Pound and T. S. Eliot been cloned? Perhaps you wrote it on the pot, so stoned you spelled it backwards, just to be oblique. I think you’re very funny, so, “Yuk! Yuk!” I know you must be kidding; didn’t we write crap like this and call it “poetry,” a form of verbal exercise, P.E., in kindergarten, when we ran “amuck?” Oh, sorry, I forgot to “make it new.” Perhaps I still can learn a thing or two from someone tres original, like you. www.firesermon.com by Michael R. Burch your gods have become e-vegetation; your saints?pale thumbnail icons; to enlarge their images, right-click; it isn’t hard to populate your web-site; not to mention cool sound effects are nice; Sound Blaster cards can liven up dull sermons, zing some fire; your drives need added Zip; you must discard your balky paternosters: Sex!!! Desire!!! these are the watchwords, catholic; you must as Yahoo! did, employ a little lust if you want great e-commerce; hire a bard to spruce up ancient language, shed the dust of centuries of sameness; lameness SUCKS; your gods grew blurred; go 3D; scale; adjust. Published by: Ironwood, Triplopia and Nisqually Delta Review The State of the Art (?) by Michael R. Burch Has rhyme lost all its reason and rhythm, renascence? Are sonnets out of season and poems but poor pretense? Are poets lacking fire, their words too trite and forced? What happened to desire? Has passion been coerced? Shall poetry fade slowly, like Latin, to past tense? Are the bards too high and holy, or their readers merely dense? Alien Nation by Michael R. Burch for J. S. S., a "Christian" poet who believes in “hell” On a lonely outpost on Mars the astronaut practices “speech” as alien to primates below as mute stars winking high, out of reach. And his words fall as bright and as chill as ice crystals on Kilimanjaro? far colder than Jesus’s words over the “fortunate” sparrow. And I understand how gentle Emily felt, when all comfort had flown, gazing into those inhuman eyes, feeling zero at the bone. Oh, how can I grok his arctic thought? For if he is human, I am not. Keywords/Tags: sonnet, sonnets, rhyme, meter, form, art, grave, grief, life, night, pain, smile, alien, inhuman