Transplant

These are poems about shadows and shadowy things... Transplant by Michael R. Burch You float, unearthly angel, clad in flesh as strange to us who briefly knew your flame as laughter to disease. And yet you laugh. Behind your smile, the sun forfeits its claim to earth, and floats forever now the same— light captured at its moment of least height. You laugh here always, welcoming the night, and, just a photograph, still you can claim bright rapture: like an angel, not of flesh— but something more, made less. Your humanness this moment of release becomes a name and something else—a radiance, a strange brief presence near our hearts. How can we stand and chain you here to this nocturnal land of burgeoning gray shadows? Fly, begone. I give you back your soul, forfeit all claim to radiance, and welcome grief’s dark night that crushes all the laughter from us. Light in someone Else’s hand, and sing at ease some song of brightsome mirth through dawn-lit trees to welcome morning’s sun. O daughter! these are eyes too weak for laughter; for love’s sight, I welcome darkness, overcome with light. Shadows by Michael R. Burch Alone again as evening falls, I join gaunt shadows and we crawl up and down my room's dark walls. Up and down and up and down, against starlight—strange, mirthless clowns— we merge, emerge, submerge . . . then drown. We drown in shadows starker still, shadows of the somber hills, shadows of sad selves we spill, tumbling, to the ground below. There, caked in grimy, clinging snow, we flutter feebly, moaning low for days dreamed once an age ago when we weren't shadows, but were men . . . when we were men, or almost so. Skalded by Michael R. Burch Fierce ancient skalds summoned verse from their guts; today’s genteel poets prefer modern ruts. My Religion attributed to Sappho loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch 1. I found the Goddess in your body's curves and crevasses. 2. I sought the Goddess in your body's curves and crevasses. 3. My religion consists of your body's curves and crevasses. 4. My religion became your body's curves and crevasses. 5. I discovered my religion in your body's curves and crevasses. Keywords/Tags: shadows, shadow, shadowed, shadowy, dark, darkness, transplant, angel, flesh, daughter, flame, laughter, disease, smile, sun, earth, light, night, photograph, radiance, radiant, aura, soul, grief, religion, goddess, skalds, guts, ruts