The State of the Art

The State of the Art (I) 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? Keywords/Tags: poetry, art, rhyme, reason, meter, form, sonnets, fire, passion, Latin, stale, outdated, past, tense, readers, readership, writing, poems, poets, romantic, Muse Currents by Michael R. Burch How can I write and not be true to the rhythm that wells within? How can the ocean not be blue, not buck with the clapboard slap of tide, the clockwork shock of wave on rock, the motion creation stirs within? Originally published by The Lyric Kin by Michael R. Burch O pale, austere moon, haughty beauty ... what do we know of love, or duty? Originally published by The HyperTexts Sonnet: Discrimination by Michael R. Burch The meter I had sought to find, perplexed, was ripped from books of "verse" that read like prose. I found it in sheet music, in long rows of hologramic CDs, in sad wrecks of long-forgotten volumes undisturbed half-centuries by archivists, unscanned. I read their fading numbers, frowned, perturbed— why should such tattered artistry be banned? I heard the sleigh bells' jingles, vampish ads, the supermodels' babble, Seuss's books extolled in major movies, blurbs for abs... A few poor thinnish journals crammed in nooks are all I've found this late to sell to those who'd classify free verse "expensive prose." Originally published by The Chariton Review The Harvest of Roses by Michael R. Burch I have not come for the harvest of roses? the poets' mad visions, their railing at rhyme ... for I have discerned what their writing discloses: weak words wanting meaning, beat torsioning time. Nor have I come for the reaping of gossamer? images weak, too forced not to fail; gathered by poets who worship their luster, they shimmer, impendent, resplendently pale. Originally published by The Raintown Review Sonnet: The Forge by Michael R. Burch To at last be indestructible, a poem must first glow, almost flammable, upon a thing inert, as gray, as dull as stone, then bend this way and that, and slowly cool at arms-length, something irreducible drawn out with caution, toughened in a pool of water so contrary just a hiss escapes it?water instantly a mist. It writhes, a thing of senseless shapelessness ... And then the driven hammer falls and falls. The horses prick their ears in nearby stalls. A soldier on his cot leans back and smiles. A sound of ancient import, with the ring of honest labor, sings of fashioning. Originally published by The Chariton Review 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." Originally published by Romantics Quarterly (it was the first poem in the first issue) Safe Harbor by Michael R. Burch for Kevin N. Roberts The sea at night seems an alembic of dreams— the moans of the gulls, the foghorns’ bawlings. A century late to be melancholy, I watch the last shrimp boat as it steams to safe harbor again. In the twilight she gleams with a festive light, done with her trawlings, ready to sleep . . . Deep, deep, in delight glide the creatures of night, elusive and bright as the poet’s dreams. Published by The Lyric The Beat Goes On (and On and On and On ...) by Michael R. Burch Bored stiff by his board-stiff attempts at “meter,” I crossly concluded I’d use each iamb in lieu of a lamb, bedtimes when I’m under-quaaluded. Poetry by Michael R. Burch Poetry, I found you where at last they chained and bound you; with devices all around you to torture and confound you, I found you—shivering, bare. They had shorn your raven hair and taken both your eyes which, once cerulean as Gogh’s skies, had leapt with dawn to wild surmise of what was waiting there. Your back was bent with untold care; there savage brands had left cruel scars as though the wounds of countless wars; your bones were broken with the force with which they’d lashed your flesh so fair. You once were loveliest of all. So many nights you held in thrall a scrawny lad who heard your call from where dawn’s milling showers fall— pale meteors through sapphire air. I learned the eagerness of youth to temper for a lover’s touch; I felt you, tremulant, reprove each time I fumbled over-much. Your merest word became my prayer. You took me gently by the hand and led my steps from boy to man; now I look back, remember when you shone, and cannot understand why here, tonight, you bear their brand. I will take and cradle you in my arms, remindful of the gentle charms you showed me once, of yore; and I will lead you from your cell tonight back into that incandescent light which flows out of the core of a sun whose robes you wore. And I will wash your feet with tears for all those blissful years... my love, whom I adore. In the Whispering Night by Michael R. Burch for George King In the whispering night, when the stars bend low till the hills ignite to a shining flame, when a shower of meteors streaks the sky, and the lilies sigh in their beds, for shame, we must steal our souls, as they once were stolen, and gather our vigor, and all our intent. We must heave our bodies to some violent ocean and laugh as they shatter, and never repent. We must dance in the darkness as stars dance before us, soar, SOAR! through the night on a butterfly's breeze: blown high, upward-yearning, twin spirits returning to the world of resplendence from which we were seized.