Talent

Talent by Michael R. Burch for Kevin Nicholas Roberts I liked the first passage of her poem: where it led (though not nearly enough to retract what I said.) Now the book propped up here flutters, scarcely half read. It will keep. Before sleep, let me read yours instead. There's something like love in the rhythms of night, in the throb of streets where the late workers drone, in the sounds that attend each day’s sad, squalid end, that reminds us: till death we are never alone. So we write from the hearts that will fail us anon, words in red truly bled though they cannot reveal whence they came, who they're for. And the tap at the door goes unanswered. We write, for there is nothing more than a verse, than a song, than this chant of the blessed: "If these words be my sins, let me die unconfessed! Unconfessed, unrepentant; I rescind all my vows!" Write till sleep: it’s the leap only Talent allows. These are poems I wrote for my friend Kevin Nicholas Roberts, who in addition to being a talented Romantic poet, was the founder and first editor of Romantics Quarterly. Keywords/Tags: talent, friend, friendship, poem, poems, poetry, poet, poets, book, sounds, write, writing, words, art, creation, creativity, rhyme Ophelia by Michael R. Burch for Kevin N. Roberts Ophelia, madness suits you well, as the ocean sounds in an empty shell, as the moon shines brightest in a starless sky, as suns supernova before they die ... Goddess by Michael R. Burch for Kevin N. Roberts “What will you conceive in me?”— I asked her. But she only smiled. “Naked, I bore your child when the wolf wind howled, when the cold moon scowled . . . naked, and gladly.” “What will become of me?”— I asked her, as she absently stroked my hand. Centuries later, I understand: she whispered—“I Am.” Published by Romantics Quarterly (the first poem in the first issue), Penny Dreadful, Unlikely Stories, Underground Poets, Poetically Speaking, Poetry Life & Times and Little Brown Poetry. Keywords/Tags: Muse, Goddess, Erato, Beloved, poetic, inspiration, lyric, poetry, divinity, Orpheus, Sappho Too Gentle, Angelic by Michael R. Burch for Kevin Nicholas Roberts Too gentle, angelic for Nature, child, too pure of heart for Religion’s vice . . . Oh, charm us again, let us be beguiled! With your passionate warmth melt men’s hearts of ice. This poem was written shortly after Kevin's death. He died on December 10, 2008 and the poem was written on December 23, just before Christmas.