Short Impendent Poems

Besieged
by Michael R. Burch

Life—the disintegration of the flesh
before the fitful elevation of the soul
upon improbable wings?

Life—it is all we know,
the travail one bright season brings ...

Now the fruit hangs,
impendent, pregnant with death,
as the hurricane builds and flings
its white columns and banners of snow

and the rout begins....

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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...

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O what forgotten providence,
to which my soul falls victim
on and off and on again,
indecision marking each page 
with dog eared brutality.

Know not, want not, we 
could never truly return
a moment as inconsequential 
as that which marks. . . 

Providential Dreams whose ends 
are more mutably cataclysmic
than their begins.

Can only be born of indecisive 
wonderlust,

Impendent scenes are nothing but
Providential Dreams
As providential dreams are nothing
But necessity....

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