Water my love, matrix, mother, sustainer.
Slips easily through my fingers, unconstrained.
It flows softly, all believing and seeing.
A living fountain, so free, and uncontained.
It's the fountainhead, the pulse that feeds the earth.
It's the medium of every breath and birth.
Its touch sustains every essence of our days,
In a flowing hymn that time itself obeys.
Yet when water goes, a watermark remains.
The scar of its absence etched in salt and rust.
A crust of sediment from dark regret stains.
A bitter nit grit that settles into dust.
It's not water's hand, but time's corroding breath,
that brands the world with the memory of death—
Its silent scourge true evidence of decay,
Of what, just pure water could not wash away.
Pennies, dimes; silver dollars rare
are flung into cool water where
passers-by for a while have stayed
Do dreams from fountains now cascade?
Since some who come are well aware
when tossing coins into the air
forgotten oft are wishes made,
can dreams of theirs from founts cascade?
But strangers who are in despair
will wish a silent fervent prayer.
Such hopes will shimmer and not fade
inside the fountainhead’s cascade.
Pennies, dimes; silver dollars rare
belie the dreams of founts’ cascade.
July 14, 2020
for the Strand Completely New (10),Any Form,Any Theme Poetry Contest
Fountainhead
by Michael R. Burch
I did not delight in love so much
as in a kiss like linnets' wings,
the flutterings of a pulse so soft
the heart remembers, as it sings:
to bathe there was its transport, brushed
by marble lips, or porcelain,—
one liquid kiss, one cool outburst
from pale rosettes. What did it mean ...
to float awhirl on minute tides
within the compass of your eyes,
to feel your alabaster bust
grow cold within? Ecstatic sighs
seem hisses now; your eyes, serene,
reflect the sun's pale tourmaline.
Published by Romantics Quarterly, Poetica Victorian, PW Review, Nutty Stories (South Africa), Inspirational Stories, Poetry Life & Times
I am not fit
to love or contemplate
the meaning of a
palliative fountainhead
synonymous
with winter longingness
enfolded by
sudden wantonness
of scorched earth
in summer
which stems from
a strength I lack
derivative of vulnerability
exposed to the point of
frigid fragility
being how recently
I supper alone
unable to stomach
such weakness
your absence has shown
to crave our collective
still perfectly fit
You are an Altruist.
You: ‘selfless because you give”
You Put others in front of you.
Agree with all else’s point of view? You are better than me because of this?
You shun me and call me an egotist?
I am. I am the creator.
Without others, you are nothing. You need others.
Without me, you are nothing. You need me. If To make and create for one’s own self is bad, Then what is it exactly that you so selflessly give away?
Would it be, that without me, You’d have nothing. We’re taught to admire the second-hander who dispenses gifts he has not produced, above the man who made the gifts possible.We praise an act of charity.We shrug at an act of achievement
I am the creator. No. not a recluse. Not selfish.
I am the creator. Non-conformist. Independent.
You? You’re a second-hander, an imitator, dependent
I think. I Judge, I act, I feel.
You, you look around to see what you will, think, say, and feel.
I am the creator.
Without me, you’d have nothing to give.
I am the Egotist
I am the achiever, I am the inventor, I am the salmon, in a society’s current.
I am…The architect…
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