Starlight and Moonlight Ii

Starlight and Moonlight II These are poems about starlight and moonlight, moons and stars, dreams and visions, illuminations and intimations … Deliver Us... by Michael R. Burch for my mother, Christine Ena Burch The night is dark and scary— under your bed, or upon it. That blazing light might be a star... or maybe the Final Comet. But two things are sure: your mother's love and your puppy's kisses, doggonit! Dark Twin by Michael R. Burch You come to me out of the sun — my dark twin, unreal... And you are always near although I cannot touch you; although I trample you, you cannot feel... And we cannot be parted, nor can we ever meet except at the feet. Upon a Frozen Star by Michael R. Burch Oh, was it in this dark-Decembered world we walked among the moonbeam-shadowed fields and did not know ourselves for weight of snow upon our laden parkas? White as sheets, as spectral-white as ghosts, with clawlike hands thrust deep into our pockets, holding what we thought were tickets home: what did we know of anything that night? Were we deceived by moonlight making shadows of gaunt trees that loomed like fiends between us, by the songs of owls like phantoms hooting: Who? Who? Who? And if that night I looked and smiled at you a little out of tenderness... or kissed the wet salt from your lips, or took your hand, so cold inside your parka... if I wished upon a frozen star... that I could give you something of myself to keep you warm... yet something still not love... if I embraced the contours of your face with one stiff glove... How could I know the years would strip away the soft flesh from your face, that time would flay your heart of consolation, that my words would break like ice between us, till the void of words became eternal? Oh, my love, I never knew. I never knew at all, that anything so vast could curl so small. Originally published by Nisqually Delta Review. I believe this was my first attempt at blank verse. The Watch by Michael R. Burch Moonlight spills down vacant sills, illuminates an empty bed. Dreams lie in crates. One hand creates wan silver circles, left unread by its companion—unmoved now by anything that lies ahead. I watch the minutes test the limits of ornamental movement here, where once another hand would hover. Each circuit—incomplete. So dear, so precious, so precise, the touch of hands that wait, yet ask so much. Originally published by The Lyric A Surfeit of Light by Michael R. Burch There was always a surfeit of light in your presence. You stood distinctly apart, not of the humdrum world— a chariot of gold in a procession of plywood. We were all pioneers of the modern expedient race, raising the ante: Home Depot to Lowe's. Yours was an antique grace—Thrace's or Mesopotamia's. We were never quite sure of your silver allure, of your trillium-and-platinum diadem, of your utter lack of flatware-like utility. You told us that night—your wound would not scar. The black moment passed, then you were no more. The darker the sky, how much brighter the Star! The day of your funeral, I ripped out the crown mold. You were this fool's gold. In this Ordinary Swoon by Michael R. Burch In this ordinary swoon as I pass from life to death, I feel no heat from the cold, pale moon; I feel no sympathy for breath. Who I am and why I came, I do not know; nor does it matter. The end of every man's the same and every god's as mad as a hatter. I do not fear the letting go; I only fear the clinging on to hope when there's no hope, although I lift my face to the blazing sun and feel the greater intensity of the wilder inferno within me. The Pictish Faeries by Michael R. Burch Smaller and darker than their closest kin, the faeries learned only too well never to dwell close to the villages of larger men. Only to dance in the starlight when the moon was full and men were afraid. Only to worship in the farthest glade, ever heeding the raven and the gull. Heat Lightening by Michael R. Burch Each night beneath the elms, we never knew which lights beyond dark hills might stall, advance, then lurch into strange headbeams tilted up like searchlights seeking contact in the distance... Quiescent unions... thoughts of bliss, of hope... long-dreamt appearances of wished-on stars... like childhood's long-occluded, nebulous slow drift of half-formed visions... slip and bra... Wan moonlight traced your features, perilous, in danger of extinction, should your hair fall softly on my eyes, or should a kiss cause them to close, or should my fingers dare to leave off childhood for some new design of whiter lace, of flesh incarnadine. Listen by Michael R. Burch Listen to me now and heed my voice; I am a madman, alone, screaming in the wilderness, but listen now. Listen to me now, and if I say that black is black, and white is white, and in between lies gray, I have no choice. Does a madman choose his words? They come to him, the moon's illuminations, intimations of the wind, and he must speak. But listen to me now, and if you hear the tolling of the judgment bell, and if its tone is clear, then do not tarry, but listen, or cut off your ears, for I Am weary. Published by Penny Dreadful, The HyperTexts, the Anthologise Committee and Nonsuch High School for Girls (Surrey, England). I believe I wrote the first version of "Listen" around age 17. Keywords/Tags: moon, full moon, star, stars, night, sky, nightfall, dream, dreams, dreaming, dream time, dream girl, love, affinity and love, bittersweet love, blind love, magic Published as the collection "Poems about the Moon and Stars"