Best Archivists Poems

No Mark
by Michael R. Burch

A wave implodes, 
impaled upon
impassive rocks...

this evening
the thunder of the sea
is a wild music filling my ear...

you are leaving
and the ungrieving
winds demur...

telling me
that nothing returns
as it was before...

here where you have left no mark
upon this dark
Heraclitean shore.

Heraclitus said we can't step...

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Poems about Poems (II)

Kin
by Michael R. Burch

for Richard Moore

1.
Shrill gulls,
how like my thoughts
you, struggling, rise
to distant bliss?
the weightless blue of skies
that are not blue
in any atmosphere,
but closest here...

2.
You seek an air
so clear,
so rarified
the effort leaves you famished;
earthly tides
soon call you back?
one long, descending glide...

3.
Disgruntledly you...

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Words reside alone in time and space;
Only sentient minds their roots trace.
Etymologists bring accents, forms to the surface;
Lexicographers establish a chronological base.
In dark, library basements, archivists file in database;
In academic institutes, linguists their value appraise.
Calligraphers, Engravers with artistic touch glaze.

Phrases the syntactical bridge brace,
and cultured...

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MODERN SONNETS I

I prefer the original definition of the sonnet as a “little song” of indeterminate form and length. These modern sonnets vary from more-or-less traditional to free verse.


Maker, Fakir, Curer
by Michael R. Burch

A poem should be a wild, unearthly cry
against the thought of lying...

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An ephemeral
loyalty of unity
divides faded pride.

Cosmopolitan
this block upon block monument
shaded by white clouds
enclaved in stains switched
mundane tirades to acclaim
that spades lisp sunk hate.

To the fortunate
the philosophies that form
the thesis relics speak.

A purge that caused the turn
Decades of archivists exhibit it 
The berth...the crane it built
Canada's...

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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...

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The Making of a Poet
by Michael R. Burch

While I don’t consider “Poetry” to be my best poem—I wrote the first version in my teens—it’s a poem that holds special meaning for me; I call it my ars poetica. I also consider the poems that follow...

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Sonnets XVII-XXIV

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,...

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feeling his vitamin injection a new adventure begins
a slapstick epic of unfathomable implication here unfolds
as the rat gnawed curtain rises at Ye Bone and Gristle
among the clattering of wooden pints of bitter ale
the floor show a fatigued and spent collegiate symposium
a haggard attempt at ecumenical...

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truth is in fact an unreality
and unattainable
often outrageous and will
 make you or your self image crazy
if turned into a fetish
the object being in every case
to avoid compulsion
the future expands infinitely
we know this self evidently
what else do we know self evidently
the rules of self evidence
come...

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We, 
with the geometry and evening 
balance of our midcentury hands—gently 
lower the cloche over the day between us. It is a 
nightly ritual, gravity-driven, habit built over time, the glass 
encasement marred by scars, and etched with near misses and 
necessary compromises. Wonder, so...

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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...

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Poems about Poets VI

beMused
Michael R Burch

Perhaps at three
you'll come to tea,
to have a cuppa here?

You'll just stop in
to sip dry gin?
I only have a beer.

To name the greats:
Pope, Dryden, mates?
The whole world knows their names.

Discuss the songs
of Emerson?
But these are children's games.

Give me rhythms
wild as...

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Some parts have regenerated
not backwards, local history
cannot be expunged with a backhoe and eraser.
There are facilities, collection plants,
distributions centers, storage units.
Where once summer sky’s grazed
there are mechanical cows
and the rusting bull horns of the defunct.
Creeks and backwaters
limp through new tracts where above ground pools
snort weekend...

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