Long Charnel 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...

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Once wars were fought with sticks and stones
to flog the flesh and batter bones
and conquer lands, defending thrones -
though gods provoke, not one atones. 

The multitude (by hordes beset
with battle-ax or bayonet)
braved blades, dyed red...

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"By definition, a ghost is unable to bonk anybody --
save the believer in ghosts."
-- a Rational exorcist of all no things "supernatural" 
  
*   *   *
   
Now, once...

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Reflections upon mine gender identity redux

Although heterosexual 
predilections punctuated
physiological pulsations 
about five inches below
innie belly button of mine 
showcasing undersize
male member, when fully erect 
not much to crow
about, contributed 
diminished masculinity within
body electric regarding 

wordsmith...

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“Good Councilman, I believe that my father created a vault somewhere in this room at the same time that he commissioned the stained glass window to be installed.  I believe that as the sun...

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I do not know how men many we were
or how we went, what we saw on the way 
nor do I know for what ungodly purport was ours
or what goaded us on into deeper uncharted...

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It happened many years ago, just after World War ll.
When I was just a little girl with lots to see and do.
A visit to my cousin's house, ten miles northeast of town,
Would cause the frown...

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If tomorrow  never comes
my heart will be kept in your hands
you remember me when sword is seen by
my words will never lie like an eunuch wind
i tried hard to discard those ugly image of...

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ON LOOKING AT SCHILLER’S SKULL
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Here in this charnel-house full of bleaching bones,
like yesteryear’s
fading souvenirs,
I see the skulls arranged in strange ordered rows.

Who knows whose owners might...

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 Continued from Part 1 

The Beggars ’neath the balustrades,
and broken Children, Chambermaids,
are running wild from wraiths, afraid
	of dreams where death redoubles.
They fritter time with tattered threads
(from ragged clothes they’ve left in shreds),
crocheting hoods to...

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Mirrors don't lie about frank and ernest portrayal...

Especially when giving cheeky badass
blemished physiognomic reflection
tricking me seeing displeasing likeness
Matthew Scott Harris, a grown lad brandishing
his treasured invisible cutlass
poised to strike, (where spiderlines
instantaneously provoked, webbed,
and frankly zapped...

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( This poem is about the ' Killing Fields' of Cambodia, 1975-79,  where as many as 2 million people were murdered by the communist Khmer Rouge. I taught in Phnom-Penh from '73-74, and never...

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Land of Graves

A land of graves makes for quiet neighbors.  
He who blessed or cursed extant thereupon remains 
Shall suffer little disturbance at the will of his resting countrymen.  
The deep silence of...

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The Unknown

While standing on a razor-edge end of my mortal time,
I’m not sure of what lies beyond and what I shall find.

Death’s dead, cold eyes stare me down now, as I wait;
My spirit sweats and...

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He drank, thirsting for her;
with stygian lips pressed to her neck,
She was exsanguinated.

The squalid night-beast, left her lifeless body, 
behind an alley dumpster. 
No moonlight betrayed the remnants,
of his latest meal.
Any slight remorse, that he...

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The face that launched a thousand dredgers loomed above,
With tin-foil hair and bucket rusting smile,
Proclaimed with tongue of carbon paper endless love,
Fingers crossed behind her back awhile.

And as she rocked and rolled, let loose a...

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The birthday

The old man is grumpy the women sit in the kitchen
talking about him, “to think he drove all that way without a break.”
Don’t they know driving is simpler than walking?
The women in the kitchen...

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You left. I’m not full of anything but nothingness. 
It’s an interesting feeling, nothingness. It hurts so badly you’d think something was there. But when I check, it’s empty. There’s nothing there. 
I wept. My...

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I have delved into the very heart 
where darkness simmers, love light glimmers 
then explodes in current apocalypse, 
an inferno eclipse of blind pyromania. 
Words, mere kindling and kerosene, 
fuse wire and gasoline, erupting, igniting...

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lonely as a dried up hero
legend only to the past,
as a world moved on
from foolish children’s faith,
energy of generations
arrives at perigee,
blown out like flatulence
snuck into polite conversations,
snide groupthink on
a notion of good sport
and fair play,
while...

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Night Terror.
You need no introduction.
Into my slumber,
With skulking cats eyes.

Now,
You build a charnel house.
Bricks and mortor, sinister.
Laying claim to my dreams.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I suffered terribly with night terrors at such a young age.
I feel they dictated my...

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Knee-bones sunk in wet twilight soil,
  Welded hands in pagan prayer,
Stones sacrificial once draped in blood
  And ghosts of what was slaughtered there.
Hear the beseeching winds of time
  Carry the words from...

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yet the people rebelled against me
in the wilderness locusts and wild honey
he poured out his wrath on them
yet i did what would keep it
from profaned in the eyes
of the fighting nations
do not follow the idols...

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There is a presence behind my shoulder
A shadow, moulded of heart-sighs & burnt sugar
Just a phantom perhaps
But the perfume of charnel houses rests heavy on 
My wheezing chest
And the impression of holy hollowed-out eyes
Haunts my...

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Who says that I should read Dante
To summon up visions of Hell?
The charnel houses of the Holocaust
Are but distant memories of a race
Pinning their memories on a distant Star!

I need not go to an abattoir
To...

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