What foul wind has blown them shut
Let shadowed fingers seize a heart
Silence the drumming beat of truth
Closed the doors betwixt age and youth
How has the acrid stench of doubt
Cauterized once open minds
Denying all but what they fear
Rebut with silence all they hear
Then tout with words of dueling gods
The evils of each others words
Unleashing with vitriolic breath
A love of life now steeped in death
The Wizards world a dream uncertain
Controlled by those behind the curtain
Curtains be drawn
today be shuttered,
the sign Closed
hung in the sky window
by the Master, Sun.
Restless be I,
yet bound
by the tick-clocking
of time's daily custom,
I search the dark for sleep
but find it not,
Only falling awake
to overhear Me
be saying to Myself:
'The day is over. Time to rest.'
Then sassy-mouth Myself
talking back:
'But I want to stop
the day's end.
Please, I haven't finished
living it yet.'
Our views and sorrows are mirrored in life.
Each jagged shard epitomizes some strife.
Our wounds, sufferings, and personality,
It will include one's beliefs and morality.
Are we netting insight or primarily existing?
Veins would shiver with shattered feelings.
The sharp edges puncture into the intact body.
A wrecked heart squall for plenty and vitality.
Inside the proper limits of a selfish quiddity.
Contemplations from one's own perspective.
Moving good faith grips to a broke history.
Surprising yet rather fiery and lively festive.
In fear of what I can view, I won't stare in the mirror.
My fierce peek and jagged shards scold a sinner.
Written: May 04, 2022
1st place contest winner
In the Mirror of Life Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Anoucheka Gangabissoon
limp roses
blue boots, vinyl, knee length
hair extensions braided like sun-rings
pleasure knick knacks
perfume bottles
lacey things that hug the bodice
under garments, lipstick smudged
stained dentures
wrappers like scattered seed
brothel trash bin overflowing
young man slinks from the shadows
picks up plum colored leggings
"I knew her.
My family thought me at church.
But there's different ways of worship."
brothel walls, graffiti gloom
seem to whisper
lost shuddering joy
gasping delights
restless yearning
sighs that slip to groans
I see a bedspring mattress 'gainst the wall
charred remains
smoked rawness
air, dust brown heavy
like her legend
powerless voices quiet
when the brothel closed
sheared
unapologetic
in the hellish heat of gold.
Poem composed: February 17, 2021
It’s getting late early…
as I wait for the end to begin
Time folding within itself,
shedding its last skin
It’s getting late early…
a lost voice sings my final reward
The outer door shuttered tight
—darkness untoward
(Villanova Pennsylvania: December, 2020)
Dream House
by Michael R. Burch
I have come to the house of my fondest dreams,
but the shutters are boarded; the front door is locked;
the mail box leans over; and where we once walked,
the path is grown over with crabgrass and clover.
I kick the trash can; it screams, topples over.
The yard, weeded over, blooms white fluff, and green.
The elm we once swung from leans over the stream.
In the twilight I cling with both hands to the swing.
Inside, perhaps, I hear the telephone ring
or watch once again as the bleary-eyed mover
takes down your picture. Dejected, I hover,
asking over and over, “Why didn’t you love her?”
Keywords/Tags: dream house, nightmare, night, divorce, wife, husband, children, parting, separation, shuttered, weeds, trash can, mover, movers, moving, rejection, relocation
UNSUPPORTED CODE
`Shuttered windows
The absence of any corporeal presence
Is counterbalanced by the ethereal essence
Of the Human Spirits still in residence
In forlorn foyers and empty rooms
Vacant eyes peer in unspoken plaint
through dust hazed windows...
seeking the solace of eternal memories
Of long passed children…and weeping widows
Clock long stopped pon dusty mantel
Hands posed o’er numerals Roman
No longer giving...and long past caring
Of the duty of time and chiming of man
Dust motes that caper in fairy dance fashion
Forming in miniature...galaxies and universes
Inquisitive rays of sunshine that leak through
And peek through the regimented rows
Of the slats in tidily ordered lines
In sombre repose behind
…`Shuttered windows...
Reclusing in my solitary lair
Empty nest with no engineer, consort
Sparsely furnished with building blocks for a brighter day
Enshrouded by walls that elicit dreams, hopes
Alternately, that limit my size and scope
Upscale plans to renovate bland lifestyle
To lay the blueprint for a new, broader course
Caged by my nominal status and working class background
Burnished with colloquial, mundane mortar
Blank slate on which to construct a higher order
But shackled to a past decorated with a static border
Misery compounded by the encroaching, empty spaces
Contented to loiter, pine my detached estate
Slowly molding the finish so I can climb the staircase of fate
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