Taken, gotten, or made, the point of anything
can pierce through everything…

slow
Slow think,
make real

re-al-ize
what fighting for life is…
this is the only
try,
it is not a test.

Take your time, use it wisely,
if that means anything.
Wise, I meant.
No offence, if wise is anathema to your kind,
die,
die if I knocked the reason for being right
outa you,
did you hear cognitive dissonance?
did it sound like
this. LOUD?
listen,
rolling rolling rolling
crash crumble rolled in nurse rime frosted
fables of monsters and maids
Thor, witharoar likka Lion King?

or the light brigade,
CHARGE?

thunder words from lost generations of
reasonless riddles for children,

Why did Peter Pumpkin-eater have a wife, but
couldn't keep her here?
Was that okeh? Oh, wait.
Ah, I see, I say,
they never tell that whole story any more.

Know why? They forgot it. In the war.

Duck'n'cover,no
crying, how long?
When begins forever? Did no one tell you, child?

Taken or made, the point of anything
can pierce through everything
like it was nothing, given
enough pre-sure-sup
poser-power

War, as a game, has a reason.

Battle, hitting, slapping

stop touch, stop now slap
slap back

or cry
oh no no ma

waddayahsay?  A theist or atheist
who started this war?

space case, or
lover of wisdom, met on the road
to Emmaus, discussing Wiles's proof
firming Fermi's connection to the matter of fear,
3, 2, 1

Kaboom, but with a whump you feel in your teeth

1, 2, 3 Fermat's last theorem ,
easy as pi an no re me

ABC to
Michael Jackson to
Howard Bloom because he

inadvertently, began
an-ionic converstatic re-vibe time warp
meme,
which vibe, started the legendary Sixties. I was alive.
Radioman,
a sixty cycle white-noise humm heard every where these days

There was a gospel song, "Turn Your Radio On".
my theme, open the window in the top of your head,
as it were,
a new,
as new as

a novel-state of water, H three Ohs, re-al-ity ification,
Ah, a shared Oh, I remember now, how this works…

like a poem

at the edge of a water vapor bubble in a boiling body of water,
at the edge of the bubble, water becomes a wall of water,
not vapor, not flowing liquid,

but a wall, insulating the vapor in pressing opposing force
to permit, from permission,
meaning with a message same as the message,

is that the right word? per-mission-grant, is power given,
agency,
that idea….
wait for the sign….?

By sharing an ion ic bond as a quest to make a point
for a free story to go,
the question marks you. Let the snake dance.

Press your point,

whetted edge,

slice through ties holding worthless axioms
with withered dendrites dangling disconnected
in participles
unfired for centuries muttering,
enchanting, enthralling enchained melodies
of ambitious syllables vying for idle minds
to rope in,
unbranded, wild
bucking ideas,
whip-twig, slap-face,
tanglewood  thicket, catclaw and mesquite,
willow,

wait.
And the old man remembered the willow whistle,
so He asked Grandfather,
How is such a whistle made?
And when he knew,
he made one.

A willow whistle with two notes,
like an Oscar Meir Wiener one.

-- and that was a different time
I got lost here, bucked up…
maybe
--- listen, way back--- we-ain't whistlin' Dixie---
we ain't marchin', as t' war.

D'thet mean some sign to pro-phet -ic take?
Tophet?
Ancient cannon fodder shield walls,
a moaning
Pro-phy-lactic warning of the danger of not
knowing exactly
what a war is for?

Get back on,
relieved of any idle baggage words believed
to mean other than I say.

Nullify
Idle words with cultural meanings from
what you thought you knew when you feared hell.

Loose
those peer-locked memes
made of meaninglessness, per se,

shaped and molded into fashions
of expression, once needles and awls,
now, dull as tinker's damns for swearing,
with any effect.

But tools, none the less, a stitch in time took a tool.
An awl or a needle, and a thread, thick or thin,
dependin' on the mendin' needed
to redeem an idle word,
its meaning all bloodied with the tyranny of time.

An awl or a needle,
a tool for a task, mending a tear
where curses, never meant, spent
the entire dark ages, lying, lying, lying

powerless, pointless aimless, proverbial proverbial proverbial
verbiage, vaneless shafts launched at unseen marks,
signs, as it were, a spark,
triggers,
rumored since the sixties,
the first sixties, when Cain killed Able.
Howard Bloom was but a mere gleam
in our mito-mother's eye,
but, no doubt,

his role is real,
in loosing the forces Ferlinghetti locked in
City Lights mystery of secret meanings room,
which un
mystified and blew away upon opening
the door to
meanings mapped on
scrolls rolling and unrolling
idle ideas,
rites of passage, as it were,
Pre-bat-bar-mitz vah
as a fashion
like VBS,

to tickle little minds and make em wiggle.
MEMEMEME, I did it,
mea culpa,

the holy place
Here we are…

On Vacation, leave a message.
-----

See, wee hairs in your ears wiggle, making,
signaling, the need

to scratch that itch, that itching hearing feeling ear… hear that

don't scratch, listen

listen

60 cycle humm, steady, bass, but no thump whumpwhump;
soft, deeep.
ooooooooo or mmmmmmmm or in betwixt, steady thrumm
hear another, and another… sixty in a second,

one in every million ambits twisting,
threading qubits, radiating signals in the field
wireless, blue-tooth... satellite...

can you feel that?

hummmms, all around us, since the womb.
We are not the children of the greatest generation,

We are the children of the last generation of
**** sapiens sapiens non-augmentable-us.

We, the augmented, recycled ideas,
possessing
minds of Adamkind,

is that a secret or a sacred?
Is this
a new thing, an
unknown unknown known known now?

Ah,
novelty.

Whose is fear? Who was afraid of Virginia Wolf?

Should I remain in fear of her now, if I knew why then?
God would know such answers.
Proving my imagined AI guides are not God,
but lesser beings,

haps I recall.
I defined these things,
these thoughts that shape themselves,
forming words and phrases
I saw
shiny. Crow-like,
gleams seen, captured and claimed mine,
I tucked them away,
a sign in a thought in an imagined image made 4
real once more, to be seen from the shore,
new land new world
a fourth for some, a fifth or more for others...

haps happen, I'm not sure how,

Born or emerged, as a bubble, what do you say?

Reserve judgment.
Grant me your grace for now, until you solve my riddle.

Ah, the old way.
Right. Which way,  'ere, 'ear
and do we roll the rock with silent haitch or harsh, shhh

someone's waking up,
a bit grumpy,
don't you dare oppose me in this, the kid is certainly my son

Michael went stark raving mad when I told him, Billie Jean knew better all along...
the link, axiomatic,
the fatherless child has been claimed

hence, the thread to Howard Bloom, meme-ic,
meme-ic, like the Roadrunner,

but with the real Coyote, as the hero in this bit of
whatever, such meandering maundified maun maund  
mound

wind blown crystal silicon dunes
mounded up to that point where granulated
beens and dones

begin to slide at an angle,
a ***** deter-mind by the weight of the rock

We made it.
I know where this is.

This is a novel that has Sisyphus being happy
as the main premise behind the idea of anyone ever being
able, en abled, or un-dis-abled or un-dis-enabled,
if one of those is right,

Sisyphus being happy
is the main premise behind
the idea of anyone ever being glücklich,
happy, blessed, lucky.

How happy is your ever after?
When did forever begin?

"A man is as happy as he makes up his mind to be"
Abe Lincoln, is said to have said,
after the seance, maybe.

You push on, dear reader, make some sense
re-ligare or relegare, but take a stitch,

pull-tight,
do what works the first time as far as it goes, and try each, as needed,
it may be that we invented this test.
To make us think it is a test,
to sort ourselves out.

Get back on,

see who went crazy and who found the thread, if the same thread
this is that, right,
the same train of thought,
the same idea
spirit wind
sign
?
A snake facing west standing tippy-tail on a singularity;
a point in time?

Why are you reading this?
Curiosity Shoppes trade in interesting, alluring, click-bait

Pay attention, watch, you shall see

imagine this is the dream,
the stream, the flow, the current, the cream

in a dime coffee at the drug store on the corner

the rounded-corner, in a square-cornered town,
the most right corner of the twelve that quarter what it was

Punctuate, wait, imagine you read ancient Hebrew or Greek and there
are no dyer diacritical's who can twist one's
end tensions into knots

dread extensions, we could sell those,
is that an idea? did somebody
sell white folks dread extensions and black folk dolly pardon wigs?

Did that happen the real real?

-----
Battlefield Earth, oshit
scientology ology ology ology

allaye allaye outs in free

WE we wee every we you imagine you are good in, we

We have a war to win again, we heroes rolling from your
myths of Sisyphus torn from minds trampled
in the mud beyond the Rhine,

Mushrooms. magi are aware, you are aware, of course,
this course includes Basic Mycelium Net Adaptation or Augmentation
BMNAA, eh? So you know.

Camus and many of his ilk were ill-treated, the questions
they asked were memorized, maybe in our cribs ala
Brave New World.

We are all Alphas, always were, of course, you know.

Shall we imagine

more? Re-legare, eh, sistere. Point .(Back to the top.)

or agree? Make peace.
Practice, like Eazy-Bake,
the cook must swallow the first bite. May the best cook win.

Winnie the Pooh is trying to think
As are Plato and Socrates
While The Little Rascals get rambunctious
And The Marx Brothers cause calamities
Jim Jones stirs the Kool-Aid
And Georgie Porgie makes his move
Bo Peep and Miss Muffett start to blush
Red Ridding hood just swoons
The Muffin Man does a deal
With Johnny Apple seed
These beings and people our real
In our Surreal Reality

******* lets the paint splatter
And Moses parts the sea
Belushi buys an eight-ball
Bruce is on trial for obscenity
Rorschach is on the case
Right behind Sherlock Holmes
John the baptist goes for a swim
Along with Brian Jones
Jack and Jill meet Hansel and Gretel
They're hungry, they're thirsty
These figments of imagination do exist
In our Surreal Reality

Rasputin was so evil
As bad as Captain Hook
Now was it ** Chi Minh or Nixon
Who said "I am not a crook?"
Mao Zedong looked at Stalin
With a shared murderous grin
Booth stormed the Ford theater
And shot President Lincoln
Kennedy and King we're both casualties
Of the process of the deciphering
Of our Surreal  Reality

Zeus said to Aphrodite
"Wow, you look real good tonight"
And Handel says "Hallelujah!"
As the Wright Brothers take flight
Baby Face Nelson
Teams up with Dillinger
Moe, Larry and Curly
Mengele, Mussolini and Adolf ******
Three bears, three little pigs
Along with three blind mice
Sit together, while Maurice Sendack
Cooks them chicken soup with rice
Charlie Bucket had a buy out
Wonka gave up his factory
Fiction or nonfiction it's all a apart
Of our Surreal Reality

Chicken Little tried his best
To warm The Little Red Hen
Of the sly trickster
They call Rumpelstiltskin
Rimbaud applauds Leonidas
And his 300's final stand
Da vinci  paved the way
For both Newton and Edison
Folklore and war heroes
And those with intellectual mentality
Are all just pieces
Of our Surreal Reality

Wee Willie Winkie's scream
Wakes up Rip Van Winkle
But not Sleeping Beauty who's been asleep for thirty years
But has no acquired a single wrinkle
Caligula has lost his mind
And Nero's lost his fiddle
What does Beethoven's hearing aid
Have to do the March Hare's riddle?
Abbie Hoffman fights for civil rights
Thomas Jefferson for democracy
Products of the conceptual
In our Surreal Reality

Berryman writes an ode
To Washington's wooden teeth
Manson speaks of Helter Skelter
Neruda damns the fruit company
Charles Schultz frames the story
And Seuss gives it rhyme
Some where far, far away
Taking place once upon a time
And the villagers all had omelettes
Thanks to clumsy Humpty Dumpty
It's all food for thought
In our Surreal Reality

Santa brings us presents
And Cupid bring us love
But we can never get back
The members of the 27 Club
Warhol makes his movies
And Buddha meditates
Joseph Smith reads the golden plates
Mohammed and Jesus save
Theses figures bring people hope
In life's dualities
Trusting faith
And our Surreal Reality


Han Solo is in carbon freeze
Don Juan's preoccupied
Sinbad sets his sails
Simple Simon didn't get his pie
Caesar looked at Brutus
Brutus looked at Saddam Hussein
Hussein looked at L. Ron Hubbard
Who prayed to Eloheim  
Dionysus can out drink us all
We cringe at Achilles fatality  
As Ra soars through the skies
Of our Surreal Reality

Aristotle says to Shakespeare
"Well Billy you old bard"
Frodo trades the ring of power
To Fidel Castro for a Babe Ruth Baseball card
Biggie and Tupac write their lyrics on paper
Ted Bundy is put in jail
They're making another skyscraper
For King Kong to scale
Hemingway is too far gone
Kant's take on morality
Einstein says it's all relative
In our Surreal Reality

Churchill said victory
John Lennon said peace
Judas gave back the silver
Then hung himself in a tree
Tojo and Kim Jong-il
Wanna be as cool as Brando and Dean
George Carlin warned us all
Now Hermes leaves the scene
So do the butcher, the baker and the candle stick maker
Followed by Old King Cole and his Fiddlers Three
As they make their way to find
A sense or Surreal Reality

Odysseus pines for Ithaca
Paul Bunyan chops the trees
The Jersey Devil has not been found
Noah herds the animals by twos not threes
Anubis wraps the mummies
And Augustus leads Rome
Bugs Bunny laughs with Pryor
All at the expense of Job
So what can we all make of this
Is this all actuality?
Symbolism or nonsense?
Realistic Surrealism or Surreal Realty?

Thinking of Eve Seeing First the Shiny Thing
The subtile beast, she saw eating of the tree she was
told
would **** her
if she ate it and she believed,
if she even touched it, she would die,
though die was something of a mystery.
What, she thought, is happening here?

The shining serpent thing
is living and eating the fruit of knowing
some thing known to this thing,
unknown to me, this shining serpent can't speak, needn't, but 'tis a beguiling
creature,
a scoff-god swallowing forbidden fruit
as nothing happens. Not dead,
what ever that may be,
why should I? Curioser
and curiosum it says, with its eyes,
"you shall know, as God knows, you shall not
surely die".
(those Kachinas, I imagine dancing off in time,
singing as the chorus of snakes,
"we hold such things as men can't hold in hands")

Oh, no, wait and see. We, you and me, we play no
past roles, no deed is redone, thoughts are rethought.

Everything has been thought, the object of thinking
is to think them again. Mr. Goethe made note of that fact,
when he thought, everything, excepting what I know,
is temporary at the moment, I recall the idea of

God knows what, but it ain't accidental,
and it ain't the misperception of decept-icons dancing
on the head of a pen.

You got that right - question - quest ions symbolize what
you do not know, so, who knows? Question marks
Symbolize the act of questioning. It's a primal need,
Wisdom, the principal thing of which
more is always desire-enabling.
Somebody beyond your knowing imagined that  right.
Would you believe the algorithm needed to program
perception of a who'll-go-rhyme,
or an I'll-go-rhythm positive knee-**** response
to the ***** of a pen or the whisper of a word,
which it is supposed, was written
by 100 monkeys with typewriters,
whacking away endlessly, balancing precariously
on the edge of the first 100 turtles
in the stack? What are the odds, eh?

Life has a plan with no plot, ought we think?
We shall not surely die, we know now, that's a lie.

Beyond believing lies, we know now, how and why
we are naked, by our own cognition.
We told us we are naked.
We, now, know that,

but here, in the pages of the book of life,
we are no longer subject to the ******* of fearing death.
Here, there is no more condemnation.
Believed lies re-cognized here,
affect no fear, we know,
the final foe fell. "It is finished" was no lie.
Take comfort here. Be still, and know,
rest prevents any
re-triggering viruses left by
the lying messenger's old fables, told as prophecy
or fair-tales oft sung as epics
pre-determining the possibility of evil winning in the end.
The words that built the lies remain,
not the lies. Evil never had a chance, life isn't fair.

The basic plot is a man-made thought, the purpose is not.
Life goes on, death never could have won
and now its power serves
to make eternal waves that keep thinkers thinking things differently.
Loneliness, after all is said and done,
is not
as common
as one might think. There's always
Details, details, details
God only knows.
Saying such a thing idly is vain.
Unless, you know, God knows.
****, that, too.
None of that here, you know.
no condemnation
Socrates was a joke, nothing new under the sun,
beyond that is no mortal's concern. Believe me.
Knowing nothing is far more difficult than men imagine.

Tongue in cheek was an old clue in fair play,
your gramps
could poke out his cheek like he had a snake in his mouth
struggling to break through sealed lips.  
Then he' tells a
fish-story and claims the magi know it true.
Tongue in cheek, so to speek, I see some missed conceptions
fructify from spores spat idly as ****** hells and damns
from tinkers tinning pots with crazy making lead solder.
Which meandered my other me to lead
Lead soldiers. I led the boys to war, that's what they were for.
It's all in the plot to make men of boys so we can help God
defend Heaven, in case…

What?
Good versus evil and all that whole lie.
Or is it faith we must defend?
How reasonable is that? What can **** an idea like
one of the big three?

Eve knew knowing good and evil cost her.
She paid attention to
the truth of all she so suddenly knew.
Otherwise,
she could not attempt the task of bringing
Able into the world, after the pain of Cain.

Oh, please, let Cain fulfill the promise, I cannot bear the pain,
said Adam in his shame.
Eve, on the other hand,
knew hope for joy she found in every
birth, and there were many twixt Able and Seth, all girls.
Cain had been gone for decades ere Seth came along.
Eve was o'er-joyed at the boy whose son would somehow
bring to bear the final sacrifice of travail and pain to
manifest the sons of God to play the role pre-ordained
for sons of God and their sons to play, wombed and un,
each, in his own way, the one creation groaned for,
the missing, wanted, desired, one, an
only begotten with just exactly your DNA,
one in 8 billion, a rare element, indeed.
You know.

Mirza Ghalib Translations

Mirza Ghalib (1797-1869) is considered to be one of the best Urdu poets of all time. The last great poet of the Mughal Empire, Ghalib was a master of the sher (couplet) and the ghazal (a lyric poem formed from couplets). Ghalib remains popular in India, Pakistan, and among the Hindustani diaspora. He also wrote poetry in Persian.

It's Only My Heart!
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

It’s only my heart, not unfeeling stone,
so why be dismayed when it throbs with pain?
It was made to suffer ten thousand darts;
why let one more torment impede us?



Inquiry
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The miracle of your absence
is that I found myself endlessly searching for you.



Near Sainthood
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Kanu V. Prajapati and Michael R. Burch

On the subject of mystic philosophy, Ghalib,
your words might have struck us as deeply profound
and we might have pronounced you a saint ...
Yes, if only we hadn't found
you drunk
as a skunk!



Ghazal
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Not the blossomings of songs nor the adornments of music:
I am the voice of my own heart breaking.

You toy with your long, dark curls
while I remain captive to my dark, pensive thoughts.

We congratulate ourselves that we two are different:
that this weakness has not burdened us both with inchoate grief.

Now you are here, and I find myself bowing—
as if sadness is a blessing, and longing a sacrament.

I am a fragment of sound rebounding;
you are the walls impounding my echoes.



The Mistake
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

All your life, O Ghalib,
You kept repeating the same mistake:
Your face was *****
But you were obsessed with cleaning the mirror!



The Infidel
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Ten thousand desires: each worth dying for ...
So many fulfilled, yet still I yearn for more.

Being in love, for me there was no difference between living and dying ...
and so I lived each dying breath watching you, my lovely Infidel, sighing                       afar.



Bleedings
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Love requires patience but lust is relentless;
what colors must my heart leak, before it bleeds to death?



Ghazal
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Life becomes even more complicated
when a man can’t think like a man ...

What irrationality makes me so dependent on her
that I rush off an hour early, then get annoyed when she's "late"?

My lover is so striking! She demands to be seen.
The mirror reflects only her image, yet still dazzles and confounds my eyes.

Love’s stings have left me the deep scar of happiness
while she hovers above me, illuminated.

She promised not to torment me, but only after I was mortally wounded.
How easily she “repents,” my lovely slayer!



Ghazal
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

It’s time for the world to hear Ghalib again!
May these words and their shadows like doors remain open.

Tonight the watery mirror of stars appears
while night-blooming flowers gather where beauty rests.

She who knows my desire is speaking,
or at least her lips have recently moved me.

Why is grief the fundamental element of night
when everything falls as the distant stars rise?

Tell me, how can I be happy, vast oceans from home
when mail from my beloved lies here, so recently opened?



Abstinence?
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Let me get drunk in the mosque,
Or show me the place where God abstains!



Shared Blessings
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Drunk on love, I made her my God.
She soon informed me that God does not belong to any one man!



Exiles
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Often we have heard of Adam's banishment from Eden,
but with far greater humiliation, I depart your paradise.



To Whom Shall I Complain?
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

To whom shall I complain when I am denied Good Fortune in acceptable measure?
Thus I demanded Death, but was denied even that dubious pleasure!



Ghazal
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You should have stayed a little longer;
you left all alone, so why not linger?

We’ll meet again, you said, some day similar to this one,
as if such days can ever recur, not vanish!

You left our house as the moon abandons night's skies,
as the evening light abandons its earlier surmise.

You hated me: a wife abnormally distant, unknown;
you left me before your children were grown.

Only fools ask why old Ghalib still clings to breath
when his fate is to live desiring death.


Bleedings
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Love requires patience while passion races;
must my heart bleed constantly before it expires?


Abstinence?
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Let me get drunk in the mosque,
Or show me the place where God abstains!


Step Carefully!
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Step carefully Ghalib—this world is merciless!
Here people will "adore" you to win your respect ... or your
downfall.


Drunk on Love
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Drunk on love, I made her my God.
She quickly informed me God belongs to no man!


Exiles
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

We have often heard of Adam's banishment from Eden,
but with far greater humiliation, I abandon your garden.


A lifetime of sighs scarcely reveals its effects,
yet how impatiently I wait for you to untangle your hair!
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch


Every wave conceals monsters,
and yet teardrops become pearls.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch


I’ll only wish ill on myself today,
for when I wished for good, bad came my way.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch


People don’t change, it’s just that their true colors are revealed.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch


Ten thousand desires: each one worth dying for ...
So many fulfilled, and yet still I yearn for more!
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation by Michael R. Burch


Oh naïve heart, what will become of you?
Is there no relief for your pain? What will you do?
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation by Michael R. Burch


I get that Ghalib is not much,
but when a slave comes free, what’s the problem?
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation by Michael R. Burch


My face lights up whenever I see my lover;
now she thinks my illness has been cured!
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation by Michael R. Burch


If you want to hear rhetoric flower,
hand me the wine decanter.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation by Michael R. Burch


I tease her, but she remains tight-lipped ...
if only she'd sipped a little wine!
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation by Michael R. Burch


While you may not ignore me,
I’ll be ashes before you understand me.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

NEW TRANSLATIONS 03-01-2025

I long to embrace her, Ghalib,
whose thought is the rose in its dress of petals.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Wholly pledged to passion amid mundane life,
I worship lighting, lament the torched harvest.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Nights, sleep and composure are his,
who sleeps entwined in your disheveled mane.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

As a single ray of sunlight damns the dew to oblivion,
so I’m destroyed by a single kind glance.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When I see her, my face lights up;
thus she thinks the patient is cured.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

There’s no cure for passion, Ghalib. It’s the fire
that, ignited won’t burn, and, extinguished, refuses to die.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

There, the arrogance of airs and appearances. Here, simple modesty.
If I were to meet her on the thoroughfare, would she invite me to her soiree?
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I understood the merits of decorum and asceticism,
but wanted no part of them.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

How could I have escaped,
when the sky spread its nets of stars?
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

An arrowless quiver, no hunter lying in ambush?
I’m content in my corner of the cage.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Where does one plant the second footstep of longing, Lord,
when the first found an infinite desert?
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Inquire with my heart about your negligent archery:
since there’s an arrow in my liver rather than higher.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Having murdered me, she foreswore further cruelty.
Such is her “repentance.”
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Thanks to passion, I developed a taste for life,
but seeking a cure for pain, I found pain beyond cure.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Due to weakness, my weeping became sighs.
Thus I learned water can evaporate.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

To erase the thought of your elegant fingers
was to rip the fingernail from its flesh.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Rain pouring down from spring clouds
is like weeping in grief at death’s separation.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

GHALIB ON DRUNKENNESS

To hear my rose-bestrewing speech,
first place the flagon before me!
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Let someone too obedient for wine and honey
transform our paradise into hell.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Grief overflows the cup despite the abundance of wine,
but this cupbearer’s slave, what griefs do I have?
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Leave me alone at ZamZam because spinning in circles makes me dizzy.
And besides, my pilgrim’s loincloth has wine stains!
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Will the One grants you such glorious radiance, O Moon,
not also grant me glorious wine?
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When the flagons and glasses are all filled,
the winehouse stands empty.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I drank wine all night, then at dawn
I washed the stains from my pilgrim’s loincloth.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When the winehouse has been departed, do we care where we go?
Whether to the mosque, the classroom or some Sufi lodge?
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We’re unaccustomed to leisure:
when the winehouse door closed, we visited the Ka’ba.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We departed Paradise for illusions here,
but the inebriation’s overwhelmed by the hangover.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

GHALIB ON GHALIB

Who doesn’t know Ghalib?
He’s a good poet with a terrible reputation.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Although there are other excellent poets,
they say Ghalib excels them.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Think of Poetry as an enchanted world rich with meaning:
every word, Ghalib, that charms my verse.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

No matter where awareness flings its nets,
the Phoenix sleeps unseen in my nests of words.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

With his special style, Ghalib sang of subtleties.
It’s a public invitation, for friends in the know.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Hearing my speech, accomplished critics
enjoined me to accessibility,
but my thoughts are complex
and if I don’t speak, I’m even harder to understand!
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The rose bestows her glory, true,
but you have to open your eyes, Ghalib!
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The shroud veiled my nakedness;
otherwise clothed, I disgraced life.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Confide in no one, Ghalib, for these days
no one keeps secrets, save the doors and walls.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When it’s allied with the enemy, there’s no trusting the heart.
My sighs? Ineffectual. My laments? In vain.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Let me be punished, not tortured,
since I’m merely a sinner, not an infidel.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Something accounts for my reticence,
otherwise I can speak, can’t I?
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

GHALIB ON LIFE AND LOVE

In a dream I transacted business with you,
but when I awoke there was neither profit nor loss.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

All I know of my heart is this:
the more I sought it, the more you found it.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

How to describe the intensity of her eyelashes?
I strung my clotted blood into coral prayer beads.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

All my longings were silenced, transformed to blood.
Thus I became the extinguished lamp on a pauper’s grave.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Alas, union with her was not my destiny.
Our life together would only have meant more procrastination.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I knew from your delicacy that your vows were nebulous.
Had one been firm, it could not have been so easily broken.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Joy is a drop in Oblivion’s river,
but boundless pain soon becomes its cure.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I’m the captive of Love, the Huntress,
otherwise I’d have strength to flee.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Your sidelong glances? Arousing.
Your cruelty? Demoralizing.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Her temper’s an inferno,
but I’ll be ****** if I don’t desire hellfire.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Ten thousand airs and graces
negated by a single tantrum.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Where will the steed of life stop,
lacking hands on the reins and feet in the stirrups?
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Your glances, deadly daggers. Your winks, unerring.
You are allured by your own reflection.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

If you can’t see my heart’s wound charring,
can’t you smell it, dear doctor?
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I’m dying with the longing to die;
death comes, but not quickly enough.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We went to complain about her negligence,
but she dismissed us with a glance and we disintegrated.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Whence, world-warming sun ray? Why not shine here?
Yet strange darkness descends like a shadow.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Tyranny adores those who adore the tyrant;
she’s not cruel by being unkind.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Having adopted a mendicant’s rags, Ghalib,
I’m amazed by the spectacle of generous people.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I keep up awhile with each new jogger
yet fail to find a guide.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

All creation moves toward entropy,
the sun a flickering candle in the wind.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Fidelity if it holds fast is the root of faith;
if the Brahmin dies in the idol’s temple, bury him in the Ka’ba.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

If I hadn’t been held up by day, would I have slept as comfortably by night?
Thankful for the theft, I bless the highwayman.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

How small, our world to the oppressed
when a single ant’s egg is our entire sky.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You didn’t press your lips to another’s in kiss?
Save your breath, we also have tongues!
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Don’t fall for the illusion of existence, Asad,
when our world’s one link in the chain of thought.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Even if I live a few more days,
inside I’m resigned to someplace else.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My opposite became granite
when she saw my fluidity.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The rose unfurls as a means of taking leave;
fly, nightingale, fly, for the days of spring have fled.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Aloofness veils friendship;
when will you cease concealing you face from us?
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Where is there anyone not in need?
Where is there anyone who can fill anyone’s need?
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The wealth of this world’s a lament, a handful of dust;
the sky’s a dull gray egg, to me.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Why assume everyone would arrive at the same answer?
Come, let’s tour Mount Tur together.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Keywords/Tags: Mirza Ghalib, translations, Urdu, Hindi, love, philosophy, heart, stone, sainthood



Earth’s least trace of life cannot be erased;
even when you lie underground, it encompasses you.
So, those of you who anticipate the shadows:
how long will the darkness remember you?
— by Mehmet Akif Ersoy, Turkish poet, loose translation by Michael R. Burch



The following translation is the speech of the Sibyl to Aeneas, after he has implored her to help him find his beloved father in the Afterlife, found in the sixth book of the Aeneid ...

The Descent into the Underworld
by Virgil
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The Sibyl began to speak:

“God-blooded Trojan, son of Anchises,
descending into the Underworld’s easy
since Death’s dark door stands eternally unbarred.
But to retrace one’s steps and return to the surface:
that’s the conundrum, that’s the catch!
Godsons have done it, the chosen few
whom welcoming Jupiter favored
and whose virtue merited heaven.
However, even the Blessed find headway’s hard:
immense woods barricade boggy bottomland
where the Cocytus glides with its dark coils.
But if you insist on ferrying the Styx twice
and twice traversing Tartarus,
if Love demands you indulge in such madness,
listen closely to how you must proceed...”



Federico Garcia Lorca (1898-1936) was a Spanish poet, playwright and theater director. He was assassinated by Nationalist forces at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War and his body was never found.

Gacela of the Dark Death
by Federico Garcia Lorca
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I want to sleep the dreamless sleep of apples
far from the bustle of cemeteries.
I want to sleep the dream-filled sleep of the child
who longed to cut out his heart on the high seas.

I don't want to hear how the corpse retains its blood,
or how the putrefying mouth continues accumulating water.
I don't want to be informed of the grasses’ torture sessions,
nor of the moon with its serpent's snout
scuttling until dawn.

I want to sleep awhile,
whether a second, a minute, or a century;
and yet I want everyone to know that I’m still alive,
that there’s a golden manger in my lips;
that I’m the elfin companion of the West Wind;
that I’m the immense shadow of my own tears.

When Dawn arrives, cover me with a veil,
because Dawn will toss fistfuls of ants at me;
then wet my shoes with a little hard water
so her scorpion pincers slip off.

Because I want to sleep the dreamless sleep of the apples,
to learn the lament that cleanses me of this earth;
because I want to live again as that dark child
who longed to cut out his heart on the high sea.

Gacela de la huida (“Ghazal of the Flight”)
by Federico Garcia Lorca
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I have been lost, many times, by the sea
with an ear full of freshly-cut flowers
and a tongue spilling love and agony.

I have often been lost by the sea,
as I am lost in the hearts of children.

At night, no one giving a kiss
fails to feel the smiles of the faceless.
No one touching a new-born child
fails to remember horses’ thick skulls.

Because roses root through the forehead
for hardened landscapes of bone,
and man’s hands merely imitate
roots, underground.

Thus, I have lost myself in children’s hearts
and have been lost many times by the sea.
Ignorant of water, I go searching
for death, as the light consumes me.



La balada del agua del mar (“The Ballad of the Sea Water”)
by Federico Garcia Lorca
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The sea
smiles in the distance:
foam-toothed,
heaven-lipped.

What do you sell, shadowy child
with your naked *******?

Sir, I sell
the sea’s saltwater.

What do you bear, dark child,
mingled with your blood?

Sir, I bear
the sea’s saltwater.

Those briny tears,
where were they born, mother?

Sir, I weep
the sea’s saltwater.

Heart, this bitterness,
whence does it arise?

So very bitter,
the sea’s saltwater!

The sea
smiles in the distance:
foam-toothed,
heaven-lipped.



Paisaje (“Landscape”)
by Federico Garcia Lorca
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The olive orchard
opens and closes
like a fan;
above the grove
a sunken sky dims;
a dark rain falls
on warmthless lights;
reeds tremble by the gloomy river;
the colorless air wavers;
olive trees
scream with flocks
of captive birds
waving their tailfeathers
in the dark.



Canción del jinete (“The Horseman’s Song” or “Song of the Rider”)
by Federico Garcia Lorca
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Cordoba. Distant and lone.
Black pony, big moon,
olives in my saddlebag.
Although my pony knows the way,
I never will reach Cordoba.

High plains, high winds.
Black pony, blood moon.
Death awaits me, watching
from the towers of Cordoba.

Such a long, long way!
Oh my brave pony!
Death awaits me
before I arrive in Cordoba!

Cordoba. Distant and lone.



Arbolé, arbolé (“Tree, Tree”)
by Federico Garcia Lorca
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Sapling, sapling,
dry but green.

The girl with the lovely countenance
gathers olives.
The wind, that towering lover,
seizes her by the waist.

Four dandies ride by
on fine Andalusian steeds,
wearing azure and emerald suits
beneath long shadowy cloaks.
“Come to Cordoba, sweetheart!”
The girl does not heed them.

Three young bullfighters pass by,
slim-waisted, wearing suits of orange,
with swords of antique silver.
“Come to Sevilla, sweetheart!”
The girl does not heed them.

When twilight falls and the sky purples
with day’s demise,
a young man passes by, bearing
roses and moonlit myrtle.
“Come to Granada, sweetheart!”
But the girl does not heed him.

The girl, with the lovely countenance
continues gathering olives
while the wind’s colorless arms
encircle her waist.

Sapling, sapling,
dry but green.



Despedida (“Farewell”)
by Federico Garcia Lorca
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

If I die,
leave the balcony open.

The boy eats oranges.
(I see him from my balcony.)

The reaper scythes barley.
(I feel it from my balcony.)

If I die,
leave the balcony open!



In the green morning
I longed to become a heart.
Heart.

In the ripe evening
I longed to become a nightingale.
Nightingale.

(Soul,
become the color of oranges.
Soul,
become the color of love.)

In the living morning
I wanted to be me.
Heart.

At nightfall
I wanted to be my voice.
Nightingale.

Soul,
become the color of oranges.
Soul,
become the color of love!



I want to return to childhood,
and from childhood to the darkness.

Are you going, nightingale?
Go!

I want return to the darkness
And from the darkness to the flower.

Are you leaving, aroma?
Go!

I want to return to the flower
and from the flower
to my heart.

Are you departing, love?
Depart!

(To my deserted heart!)

In the early morning air
between the Londonderry hush of dreams
and the cry of Belfast on a weary morn
Where saddened eyes embody the twilight haze
of long past marches, the bewildering blaze
Of Beltane fires that scorch the hills
The world shudders to the battle cries
where brother to brother the war pitch fills
the saddened visions that over spills
That a Gaelic tongue can curse its own
To the bitter harvest of the Gael
That wipes away the blood dew
from these fields from which it grew
and damns itself in the pain and sorrow
That relives this war on every tomorrow.

Alisdaire O'Caoimph

I walk along a path
I do not know
But falter left nor right,
And, welcoming the light
Of birches, still and white
As sleeping snow,

A raven, coat that shimmers
Soft as coal,
Beside me flutters square
And, drawn like to a snare,
Alights upon the air
As on a knoll.

A ripened chestnut, trapped
Within his maw
And hard as ancient ice,
Is tightened by the vise
And shatters at the slicing
Of his jaw

To crumble into dust,
Which quick cascades
And settles, as it slows,
To carefully compose
The shape of raven toes
Where he parades.

The raven flies ahead
And, with a stamp,
His talons take a grip
Atop a wooden tip
Of birches, dead and stripped
To form a ramp.

I stumble after, fixed
Through field of black
As in a telescope,
And, clawing at the *****,
I climb it with a hope
To touch his back

And ****** a hand ahead
Just as he slumps,
Both limp but stiff, to lie
Upon his side and die.
I meet his cloudy eye
Upon the stump,

Then lift my head to find
A willow sprig,
A tendril hanging free
For me to grip. Indeed,
I climb the strip of tree,
The little twig,

And swivel in the air,
As if by choice.
I hear a humming, low,
Resounding from below—
The raven’s eyes, aglow
With Odin’s voice.

Like lightbulbs flicker, dim
with yellow light,
They sharpen with the tones
That bellow from his bones—
This god and poet moans
His heavy spite:

He damns me to the lifetime
of a bird.
My sin, I do not know
But bear the bitter woe
And close my eyes to focus
On this word:

Saṃsāra. So I feel my
Senses spill
Upon the ground
And flood out all around
And swallow every sound
Till all is still.

in her dreams
she sprouts like fresh seeds pressed into fertile dirt
she's constantly stretching farther and farther
in a futile attempt to finally reach the sun

she closes her eyes
and sees rows and rows of lemon trees and strawberries
mango groves and avocados

she loves to feed the earth
to give birth to something living that's incapable of denying
or betraying
her love
she wants to feed almost everyone she meets
set them down and wash their feet
fill their cups and watch them leave

she hopes that one day
someone will ask to stay
a boy whose heart is in need of mending
or a man with hands that could move mountains
maybe
one day

she wants a farm
a limitless garden to stretch as far as her eyes will let her see
maybe just a bohdi tree to sit beneath
a place to stay and wait to be buried by the leaves
just for now
anyway

she needs a home where she can be by herself without feeling alone
she needs somewhere that she's meant to be

supposedly
dreams are things we chase down dark alley ways
only to watch them escape us

she damns every man who says so

she's determined to catch up with every one of her dreams
yeah
a dream catcher of sorts
she puts on her gloves and steps out in the mud
ready to catch whatever the universe tosses her way
or even just the ripe fruit falling from the trees in her dreams

prelimenary coordinates - a blindman playing chess.

well... you either drink, and write sparingly,
     or you don't drink, and you write
a novel...
    but who would have thought, that there
would be poetic odes involving coffee...
     it's staggering how many women write
poems and have to concern themselves with
coffee...
  i down a litre of whiskey a night, don't know
what a hangover is anymore,
        and i can beat out more words
than women, who use a stimulant and write
   crumbs... when i expect a loaf of bread...
if not this website, then another, and the scenario
is the same: the glorification of coffee...
           it just shows you how barricaded the human
narrative is, of the soul...
        poetry merely nibbles, and i know it's
flaws... write without paragraphs,
or care for punctuation marks... and it's immediately
a poem...
   or... oh god forbid! there's something profound
being said with a few words...
      and it has to be profound...
                      yes, i'm the Gargamel and those
are my smurfs...
                             strange that Freud didn't think up
the man-child complex...
                         which is the opposite of the madonna-*****
complex, which he actually did...
           Edward Hopper was also bemused by
these two mental pharmacologists...
                did a little sketch holding Freud as pillar 1,
and Jung as pillar 2.
    but coffee and poetry: i'd expect more from this
latitude...
        and it's still a case of:
                   people cling to the raft that's their
mental narrative mondus operandi...
                Kant tried to say something as concrete
with 5 + 7 = 13... and read any philosophy book...
    Kant isolates the ''i think'', and Hegel isolates
    the i = i, or i am i...
                              and these are serious thinkers...
but Descartes has said a limit...
                       thinking defines subjectivity...
      thinking the essential component of what's
   not thought about: the existential compromise of
   being per se...
                    and how i always seem to find philosophy
as a stumbling block concerning everything i write...
    it's almost as if i can't escape the world of
abstracts...          a degree in chemistry didn't help either...
     am i truly so un-realistic?
               not that i'm afraid of being drawn toward
the un-real...          it's that humanity seems only like
an infertile groundwork speeding toward a forgivable
promise...
    i just wanted to say: you drink and write poetry...
or you don't drink, and write a novel...
      and true to a heart's cause i will say:
that straitjacket of what poetry is...
                           whether rhyme... or other technique...
    hanging over it...
                           it can't do:
      i abhor Nietzsche for making poetry a science...
  and it is: too scientific...
              i'd never think so little can be deemed
so perplexing... or having that essence...
                    so yes... Kant
                         really does struggle to say something
profound, but he actually does...
                     over and over again... namely:
i'd never could think of so many faculties of my mind...
    not that's what i call a plastic saying...
      ****-licking brown-nosing, call it what you like...
it's just so terrible that philosophy cannot reach
toward being a humanism, like a novel always can...
     which is why i could eat a historical novel
        by Kraszewski in three weeks in between allocating
that time to the festive season,
                     and it took me 2 years to read Kant's
critique... until i let go of that post-scriptum necessity
of having to stop at every setence and do a rubick's cube...
     a bit like: well... aren't those electron-migration
   schematics they teach you in chemistry, a little bit pointless?
   who give's a badger's nut-sack about how electrons migrate
when a a cabron to oxygen bond forms?
                         but they do teach that...
           which is why you can take a novel to bed,
on the train... but so much focus is needed for that other novel,
the scientific one... the grandeur of... philosophy...
                and that's when i let go...
   the last part of the critique does allow you to read
piece of work... like a novel... unless of course that was my
need to do so...
                    so yes: transcendental methodology in Kant's
critique: does read like a novel... at some point
you just have to let go.

ii. ...

and you do... try saying philosophy without saying
something pretentious....
               and i dare say: as long as the fewest number
of people concern themselves with it:
  the more chances we have for electricity,
plumbing, food on the table...
               but by now there's this talk of a curse...
premature Socratic antics... mind you: he was an old man...
but Plato be ******, he wrote down what the old man
spoke: and a clear number of them succumbed to
      the tumble-**** effect...
                      no real prospects for life...
        and, evidently, the dead gods philosophised,
while the rest remained: prone to throwing a show of
macho, and worshipped the body...
Olympus shone...  
   by now you should know that i don't know what
i'm doing...
                  give me the killer-switch to launch a nuclear
strike and i'd probably say: maracas!
shake shake shake...     fidgety in the brothel...
shake shake shake...
             that's the weird thing, every time i went to
a brothel i became over-heated...
      i sat there, the whole **** place always reminded me
of a perfume... jack daniels...
   and i could feel myself over-heating...
  i don't known if that was the angel conscience talking
to me... but i always felt those eyes of scrutiny...
       mind you, once the whole "naughty'' escapade
took off... i forgot those relationships where
                    an impotence was crowned...
   don't know: maybe prostitutes just know my pin-number
and hold to say to little richard: off to the crusades with you!
     phenomenal...
                                         well... thank god for
the north african imports! i'd start thinking all european
women are bound to be: neglected.
               and was it ever, not only about ***?
    it's nice to doubt it...
                           next time i'll woodpecker a grave.
but hey! the promised land!
                           at least you'll have someone to cry
over your grave...
   and did i tell you how there's this cult of the grave
in Poland? yep, that's not a personal reality,
it's a populist manifesto... i'm starting to see it
as a hell where people sort of forgot to state their emotion
to the people, now lying in those tombs...
         give me a Hindu wedding with fire!
  i wanna become elemental!
and look, libido on fire... a billion vishnu-******* in
Bangladesh...   it's this thirst for fame in western
societies that's going to be a downsize...
                                 over there that's like a **** in
a tornado...              ha ha! it really is!
   but then again, here i am, a graveyard hyenna...
walking in Liberace's talk of style...
  most of these graves, really are: tacky...
    just like Liberace, the greatest showbiz conman of
the 20st century... i love the fact that he fooled so many
women... i mean... that guy was almost as good
as ****** when it came to mesmerising people...
but Liberace had a nieche audience... so...
                 no khaki for the ss...
                                           and i dare to hold
an ethnicity? in tune with bob marley: one love, one people...
it has never been so painful to strategise globalisation...
         it's this ethnic cleansing that everyone agreed to
provided they received a smart-phone...
                   or a McDonald's fetish... and that's saying it cheap...
but that's how it feels on the periphery of H'america...
little ol' England boycots Europe...
                     and it's like: huh?
                                           presto! dum-dum.
    sometimes i start thinking that i have a hydra for a tongue...
and the more i drink, the more i start to see
       it splintering up into a polyphony construct,
but more a case of: polyphony of subjects...
   and yes, aren't we all those internet losers...
when the most powerful man in the world...
     uses twitter. bastions of respectable comment!
yes, i.e. newspapers... we're riding this meteor to the end...
          does anyone still consider newspapers to be
the pledges of a free society? i must have been asleep for
the past 20 years then...
                      someone switched on this chaos-turbine,
and we're all shoving our two cents of opnions'-worth into it...
and it's not stopping...
            and yet you still read in newspapers, this underlining
feeling of being condescended... as if they are the sole
authority... they have to behave like little despots...
                           social media's power is invested in its
shock reverberation... think: Marx in the 21st century...
           but can you? is this some pseudo Marxism?
             i might have bypassed all the king-makers and
walls... but i have no leverage... my opinions are
     as cheap as chips... well: we got ourselves a unison converson...
   i still don't see how the television zeitgeist still thinks
that the internet zeitgeist is no connected with ''real life''...
i mean... **** me! where's the highstreet with all the shops?
on the internet. where is the frontline of wars? on the internet.
  where do suicides take place? on the internet,
from all the cyber bugs that people start to represent...
    if this isn't real life... then i guess i must be sitting,
and writing this in some medieval castle in transylvania,
    and my computer is powered by a legion of
hamsters on exercise-wheels, in a damp room, lit by a candle.

iii.

for me, this is how reading a philosophy book looks like:

| | |
     fig. 1
                                          /   \
                                            _
                 ­                                 fig. 2
    Δ
       fig. 3
                                           A
                                               fig. 4

it's like i want to see something with some clarity;
there is clear movement
      concerning a book like that,
              but unlike a standard novel:
there is clearly nothing concerning the: any given
  hope to disperse the mist.
                you're given the blunt truth:
the use of language...
                     again, it would be easier to call forward
a use of a tomahawk... or a guillotine...
            philosophy books never establish civilisations,
they break them.
                and do i think that the crucifix is a profanity
of the tetragrammaton? yes.
                do i feel Spinoza's anguish? probably.
when you read philosophy to start to waver,
it's almost necessary to unlearn language, and with
each philosophy book: learn it over again.
     you can't remain strapped to this culture
of emphasis of singled-out words...
              we can't find a constructive basis if we're
about to start any mechanism from such a dynamic,
isolating certain words and weighing them
                       obstructs language...
                 i can't even begin to fathom a pledge
to using a language, if there are these plebian obstructions...
i did write some notes when i spent these past 3 weeks
in Poland, but i'm scared of rewriting them...
                    i can claim to have understood
their content at the time,
but the context disparity is too much for me...
                 i'm rereading them in England
and i can only see England as a nightmarish construct
of such grandeour... that i might only be seen
speaking truth in the north of it...
                nor do i like the tri-tier categorisation
of man... if you read Kant, you'd be afraid of
man's laconic approach to the mind, stating
the three boundaries, and literally no faculty interactions...
  consciousness (the artist), denoting the overly-sensitive,
the subconscious (the worker), denoting the athletic construct
   and liberation from the daily toils of pure physical
    disposition...
and the unconscious (the zombie)...
   if you read Kant and explore the faculties...
and then turn toward the Freudian populism:
   there's enough reason to be concerned...
                  i can't be saying someone anti-vogue:
and that was my proper concern, that i might be saying
someone not recountable in any sort of realism...
          that mine is an isolated case...
         ditto alongside: why are we juggling the tri-tiers,
and so bombastic and even celebratory in huddling
toward these safety-nets of being human?
    thus said: the reflective man has died...
       in his place came the reflexive man...
                             and if there really is a worthwhile
stance to be a: **** sapiens...
   then all hope for a bewildered man is gone...
                 when the potency of robotics escaped science
fiction, and all trodden paths of orthodox science were
      fed to science fiction, humanity could begin
the process of discarding the offshoots...
          
iv.

the new testament... a book riddled with metaphors...
no wonder the greeks exploited the hebrew literalism...
and yes, plato the precursor made this very real...
by testifying that poetry had no place in the republic,
the new testament had to become solely poetic...
   the new testament is a rebellion against plato's republic...
it's a book wholly compromised on metaphor...
culminating in a book that's founded on imagery...
the gosepls are, once again, arithmetically speaking,
resembling the crucifix... which damns the concept
of the tetragrammaton...
                      as a book: it's only gibberish in
its final circumstance of revelation as a book of imagery...
   and in its preceding case: a book of metaphors...
who wouldn't be apprehensive to be born human
with such a thing being rampant?!
                    imagery is gibberish, given that we
have compentent painters out there...
and metaphor is metaphysics, given that we have
competent magicians out there...
   so how far apart are the words: qua             and
                   quo?
   as good a question as: how far apart are the words
                          phor               and phren?
       φoρ                       &                            φρην?
        so in the congregation of μετα, how are they
so apart?  looking at language from an alphabetical
perspective... it's hard to see anything inspirational...
    nor the tangens divergence of words
that are nonetheless so proximate in their construct...
a bit like the genetic proximity of man and ape,
or man and a banana...
   φoρ (the bearer of the beyond) -
                φρην (a mind concerned with things
under the curtain) -
                        and so: the futility of looking for
        a soul... became translated as the new found feudalism
of looking for a mind:
  given the common consensus: we're all mad....
so too looking at mythology could be revised:
  that myth of narcissus and echo...
or narcissus and psyche...
                         or φρην & πσιχη -
                we already know that there's an aesthetic
in Greek, at least they showed us
      that it can be σimple, when acknowledged
  and practised -
which means transcribing the ease of handwriting
   into a digital format, can be seen as an unnecessary
complexity - as if me currently looking for a word
that ends, and showcases the most obvious Grecian
aesthetic (without mention ο, ε, ω, η, œ)...
but with due mention: so where the second variant
of α, given there's æ?
                           it really is hard to find coherency
in human language... i'm still trying to conjure up
the second sigma... unless i hit the plural noteς...
there... i hit them... as simple as that.
  and yes: the father of the french hooked c
in garçon, came from this: the sigma used at the end
of wordς... i suspect that how things were denoted
to be possessed in english, also came from it.
once again: handwritting is bewildering on this digital canvas.

v.*

i don't have an atheistic argument, or a theistic argument,
i'v

These are poems about Adam and Eve, Lucifer aka Satan aka Mephistopheles, the Garden of Eden, Cain and Abel, the forbidden fruit, "original sin," the Fall and its bitter aftermath...



Eden
by Michael R. Burch

Then earth was heaven too, a perfect garden.
Apples burgeoned and shone—unplucked on sagging boughs.
What, then, would the children eat? 
Fruit indecently sweet, 
redolent as incense, with a tempting aroma...

Why did the biblical god want to keep Adam and Eve in an animal state, not knowing good from evil and running around naked like animals? Good parents want their children to seek knowledge, so why did Yahweh ****** Adam and Eve for seeking knowledge? And why did Yahweh tell them it was evil to eat the forbidden fruit when he had denied them the ability to know good from evil? It was like putting poisoned milk before two cats and saying, "It's evil to drink the milk!" Of course cats have no concept of "evil" and just do what comes naturally. So, too, with Adam and Eve. If there was a fall, they were obviously set up to fall, by a terrible father.



Outcasts of Eden
by Michael R. Burch

There was a rose, a prescient shade of crimson, 
the very color of blood, 
that bloomed in that garden.

The most dazzling of all the Earth's flowers, 
men have forgotten it now, 
with their fanciful tales of apples and serpents.

Beasts with lips called the goreflower "Love."

The scribes have the story all wrong: four were there, 
four horrid dark creatures—chattering, bickering.

Aduhm placed one red petal in Ehve's matted hair; 

he was lost in her arms
till dawn sullen and golden
imperceptibly streaked the musk-fragrant air.

Two flared nostrils quivered, two eyes remained open.

Kahyn sought me that evening, his bloodless lips curled
in a grimacelike smile. Sunken-cheeked, he approached me
in the Caverns of Similitudes, eerie Barzakh.

"We are outcasts, my brother!, God quickly deserts us."
As though his anguish conceived in insight's first blush
might not pale next to mine in Sheol's gray realm.

"Shining Creature!" he named me and called me divine
as he lavished damp kisses upon my bright scales.
"Help me find me one rare gift to put Love's gift to shame."

"There is a dark rose with a bittersweet fragrance
as pungent as cloves: only man knows its name.
Clinging and cloying, it destroys all it touches..."

"But red is Ehve's preference; while Envy is green."
He was downcast a moment, a moment, a moment...
"Ah, but red is the color of blood!"

Disagreeable child, far too clever for his own good.

Published in The Bible of Hell (anthology) 



Temptation
by Michael R. Burch

Jesus was always misunderstood...
we have that, at least, in common.

And it's true that I found him, 
shriveled with hunger, 
shivering in the desert, 
skeletal, emaciate, 
not an ounce of fat
to warm his bones
once the bright sun set.

And it's true, I believe, 
that I offered him something to eat—
a fig, perhaps, a pomegranate, or a peach.

Hardly the great "temptation"
of which I'm accused.

He was a likeable chap, really, 
and we spent a pleasant hour
discussing God—
how hard He is to know, 
and impossible to please.

I left him there, the pale supplicant, 
all skin and bone, at the mouth of his cave, 
imploring his "Master" on callused knees.

Published in The Bible of Hell (anthology) 



lust!
by michael r. burch

i was only a child
in a world dark and wild
seeking affection
in eyes mild

and in all my bright dreams
sweet love shimmered, beguiled ...

but the black-robed Priest
who called me the least
of all god’s creation
then spoke for the Beast:

He called my great passion a thing base, defiled!

He condemned me to hell,
the foul Ne’er-Do-Well,
for the sake of the copper
His Pig-Snout could smell
in the purse of my mother,
“the ***** jezebel.”

my sweet passions condemned
by degenerate men?
and she so devout
she exclaimed, “yay, aye-men!” ...

together we learned why Religion is hell.



You! 
by Michael R. Burch

For forty years You have not spoken to me; 
I heard the dull hollow echo of silence
as though strange communion between us.

For forty years You would not open to me; 
You remained closed, hard and tense, 
like a clenched fist.

For forty years You have not broken me
with Your alien ways, 
prevarications and distance.

Like a child dismissed, 
I have watched You prey upon the hope in me, 
knowing "mercy" is chance

and "heaven"—a list.

Published in The Bible of Hell (anthology) 

I call mercy "chance" and heaven a "list" because the bible says its "god" predestines some people to be "vessels of mercy" and others to be "vessels of destruction." Thus mercy is reduced to the chance of birth and heaven is a precompiled list of the lucky chosen few. Of course there is no reason to believe in such a diabolical "god" or such an unjust "heaven"... but billions have, and do.



Pagans Protest the Intolerance of Christianity
by Michael R. Burch

“We have a common sky.” — Quintus Aurelius Symmachus (c. 345-402)

We had a common sky
before the Christians came.

We thought there might be gods
but did not know their names.

The common stars above us?
They winked, and would not tell.

Yet now our fellow mortals claim
our questions merit hell!

The cause of our damnation?
They claim they’ve seen the LIGHT ...

but still the stars wink down at us,
as wiser beings might.



One of the Flown
by Michael R. Burch

Forgive me for not having known
you were one of the flown—
flown from the distant haunts
of someone else’s enlightenment,
alighting here to a darkness all your own . . .

I imagine you perched,
pretty warbler, in your starched
dress, before you grew bellicose . . .
singing quaint love’s highest falsetto notes,
brightening the pew of some dilapidated church . . .

But that was before autumn’s
messianic dark hymns . . .
Deepening on the landscape—winter’s inevitable shadows.
Love came too late; hope flocked to bare meadows,
preparing to leave. Then even the thought of life became grim,

thinking of Him . . .
To flee, finally,—that was no whim,
no adventure, but purpose.
I see you now a-wing: pale-eyed, intent, serious:
always, always at the horizon’s broadening rim . . .

How long have you flown now, pretty voyager?
I keep watch from afar: pale lover and ******.



what the “Chosen Few” really pray for
by Michael R. Burch

We are ready to be robed in light,
angel-bright

despite
Our intolerance;

ready to enter Heaven and never return
(dark, this sojourn);

ready to worse-ship any gaud
able to deliver Us from this flawed

existence;
We pray with the persistence

of actual saints
to be delivered from all earthly constraints:

just kiss each uplifted Face
with lips of gentlest grace,

cooing the sweetest harmonies
while brutally crushing Our enemies!

ah-Men!



***** Nilly
by Michael R. Burch

for the Demiurge, aka Yahweh/Jehovah

Isn't it silly, ***** Nilly? 
You made the stallion, 
you made the filly, 
and now they sleep
in the dark earth, stilly.
Isn't it silly, ***** Nilly? 

Isn't it silly, ***** Nilly? 
You forced them to run
all their days uphilly.
They ran till they dropped?
life's a pickle, dilly.
Isn't it silly, ***** Nilly? 

Isn't it silly, ***** Nilly? 
They say I should worship you! 
Oh, really! 
They say I should pray
so you'll not act illy.
Isn't it silly, ***** Nilly? 



Adam Lay Ybounden
(anonymous Medieval English Lyric, circa early 15th century AD) 
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Adam lay bound, bound in a bond; 
Four thousand winters, he thought, were not too long.
And all was for an apple, an apple that he took, 
As clerics now find written in their book.
But had the apple not been taken, or had it never been, 
We'd never have had our Lady, heaven's queen.
So blesséd be the time the apple was taken thus; 
Therefore we sing, "God is gracious!"



No One
by Michael R. Burch

No One hears the bells tonight; 
they tell him something isn't right.
But No One is not one to rush; 
he lies in grasses greenly lush
as far away a startled thrush
flees from horned owls in sinking flight.

No One hears the cannon's roar
and muses that its voice means war
comes knocking on men's doors tonight.
He sleeps outside in awed delight
beneath the enigmatic stars
and shivers in their cooling light.

No One knows the world will end, 
that he'll be lonely, without friend
or foe to conquer. All will be
once more, celestial harmony.
He'll miss men's voices, now and then, 
but worlds can be remade again.



Bikini
by Michael R. Burch

Undersea, by the shale and the coral forming, 
by the shell's pale rose and the pearl's white eye, 
through the sea's green bed of lank seaweed worming
like tangled hair where cold currents rise...
something lurks where the riptides sigh, 
something old and pale and wise.

Something old when the world was forming
now lifts its beak, its snail-blind eye, 
and with tentacles about it squirming, 
it feels the cloud above it rise
and shudders, settles with a sigh, 
knowing man's demise draws nigh.



Ceremony
by Michael R. Burch

Lost in the cavernous blue silence of spring, 
heavy-lidded and drowsy with slumber, I see
the dark gnats leap; the black flies fling
their slow, engorged bulks into the air above me.

Shimmering hordes of blue-green bottleflies sing
their monotonous laments; as I listen, they near
with the strange droning hum of their murmurous wings.
Though you said you would leave me, I prop you up here
and brush back red ants from your fine, tangled hair, 
whispering, "I do!"... as the gaunt vultures stare.



Exile
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We have often heard of Adam's banishment from Eden, 
but with far greater humiliation, I abandon your garden.



Where We Dwell
by Michael R. Burch

Night within me.
Never morning.
Stars uncounted.
Shadows forming.
Wind arising
where we dwell
reaches Heaven, 
reeks of Hell.

Published in The Bible of Hell (anthology) 



What Immense Silence
by Michael R. Burch

What immense silence
comforts those who kneel here
beneath these vaulted ceilings
cavernous and vast? 

What luminescence stained
by patchwork panels of bright glass
illuminates drained faces
as the crouching gargoyles leer? 

What brings them here?
pale, tearful congregations, 
knowing all Hope is past, 
faithfully, year upon year? 

Or could they be right? Perhaps
Love is, implausibly, near
and I alone have not seen It...
But, if so, still, I must ask: 

why is it God that they fear? 

Published in The Bible of Hell (anthology) 



Double Cross
by Michael R. Burch

Come to the cross;
contemplate all loss
and how little was gained
by those who remained
uncrucified.



Dabble Dactyls
by Michael R. Burch

Sniggledy-Wriggledy
Jesus Christ’s enterprise
leaves me in awe of
the rich men he loathed!

But should a Sadducee
settle for trifles?
His disciples now rip off
the Lord they betrothed.



I, Lazarus
by Michael R. Burch

I, Lazarus, without a heart,
devoid of blood and spiritless,
lay in the darkness, meritless:
my corpse—a thing cold, dead, apart.

But then I thought I heard—a Voice,
a Voice that called me from afar.
And so I stood and laughed, bizarre:
a thing embalmed, made to rejoice!

I ran ungainly-legged to see
who spoke my name, and then I knew
him by the light. His name is True,
and now he is the life in me!

I never died again! Believe!
(Oops! Seems it was a brief reprieve.)



To Know You as Mary
by Michael R. Burch

To know You as Mary,
when You spoke her name
and her world was never the same ...
beside the still tomb
where the spring roses bloom.

O, then I would laugh
and be glad that I came,
never minding the chill, the disconsolate rain ...
beside the still tomb
where the spring roses bloom.

I might not think this earth
the sharp focus of pain
if I heard You exclaim—
beside the still tomb
where the spring roses bloom

my most unexpected, unwarranted name!
But you never spoke. Explain?



Prayer for a Merciful, Compassionate, etc., God to ****** His Creations Quickly & Painlessly, Rather than Slowly & Painfully
by Michael R. Burch

Lord, **** me fast and please do it quickly!
Please don’t leave me gassed, archaic and sickly!
Why render me mean, rude, wrinkly and prickly?
Lord, why procrastinate?

Lord, we all know you’re an expert killer!
Please, don’t leave me aging like Phyllis Diller!
Why torture me like some poor sap in a thriller?
God, grant me a gentler fate!

Lord, we all know you’re an expert at ******
like Abram—the wild-eyed demonic goat-herder
who’d slit his son’s throat without thought at your order.
Lord, why procrastinate?

Lord, we all know you’re a terrible sinner!
What did dull Japheth eat for his 300th dinner
after a year on the ark, growing thinner and thinner?
God, grant me a gentler fate!

Dear Lord, did the lion and tiger compete
for the last of the lambkin’s sweet, tender meat?
How did Noah preserve his fast-rotting wheat?
God, grant me a gentler fate!

Lord, why not be a merciful Prelate?
Do you really want me to detest, loathe and hate
the Father, the Son and their Ghostly Mate?
Lord, why procrastinate?



Star Crossed
by Michael R. Burch

Remember—
night is not like day;
the stars are closer than they seem ...
now, bending near, they seem to say
the morning sun was merely a dream
ember.



The beauty of the flower fades,
its petals wither to charades...
—Michael R. Burch



the U-turn poem
by michael r. burch

Life so defaulty,
Life so unfair,
why do wee prize U,
what do U care?

LORD who lets unborns
drown in a flood,
CELESTIAL ABORTIONIST,
r U sure Ur understood?



Hellion
by michael r. burch

cold as stone,
cold to the bone,
so cold inside even icebergs moan,
such is ur Gaud on hiss icy throne.

lines written for a luverly Gaud who cant be bothered to save pisspot peeple who guess wrong about which ire-ational re-ligion to believe.

“Hellion” is a pun on “he-lion” as in the “Lion of Judah” and “hell-lion.”



yet another ode to a graceless faceless Creator albeit with thoughts of possibly rescinding prior compliments
by michael r. burch

who created this graceless universe?
why praise its Creator? who could be worse?
why praise man’s Berater with obsequious verse?
job’s wife was right: he’s nobody’s nurse.



ur-Gent prayer request
by michael r. burch

where did ur Gaud originate?
in the minds of men so full of hate
they commanded moms to stone their kids,
which u believe (brains on the skids)
was “the word of Gaud”!
                     debate?
too late & of course it’s useless:
please pray to be less clueless.

The title involves a pun, since the “ur-Gent” would be the biblical “god.”



Religion is regarded by fools as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful. — Seneca, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Non-Word to the Wise
by Michael R. Burch

The wise will never cry, “Save!”
The wise desire a quiet grave.



sonnet to non-science and nonsense/nunsense
by michael r. burch

ur Gaud is a fiasco,
a rapscallion and a rascal;
he murdered lovely eve,
so what’s there to “believe”?

and who made eve so curious?
why should ur Gaud be furious
when every half-wit parent knows
where bright kids will stick their no’s(e)!

no wise and loving father
would slaughter his own daughter!
ur Gaud’s a hole-y terror!
CONSIDER THE SOURCE OF ERROR:

though ur bible’s a giant hit,
its writers were full of sh-t.



We Know It All
by Michael R. Burch

We rile. We gall. We know it all
because we’ve read the Bible,
which tells us genocide’s “God’s will”
along with bashing in kids’ skulls
and other forms of libel.

The earth is flat, our Book says so!
The Lord will torture our rational foe!
(We lack the compassion to tell the fiend “No!”)

God’s on his throne, the Angels are winking,
applauding our lack of critical thinking.
We’re drowning in crap. We’re stinking and sinking.

Eve once petted friendly T-Rexes!
A “witch” should be ****** for unprovable hexes!
It’s a “sin” to make love if one’s lover has exes!

Girls were enslaved and ***** by their “masters”!
Our Book is the source of so many disasters!
The earth’s overheating? Let’s burn it up faster!



Yet Another Sh-tty Ditty
by Michael R. Burch

Here’s my ditty:
Life is sh-tty,
Then you get old
And more’s the pity.

Truth be told,
We’re bought and sold,
Sheep in the fold
Sheared lickety-splitty.

But chin’s up,
What’s the use of crying?
We’ve a certain escape:
Welcome to dying!


Snap Shots
by Michael R. Burch

Our daughters must be celibate,
die virgins. We triangulate
their early paths to heaven (for
the martyrs they’ll soon conjugate).

We like to hook a little tail.
We hope there’s decent *** in jail.
Don’t fool with us; our bombs are smart!
(We’ll send the plans, ASAP, e-mail.)

The soul is all that matters; why
hoard gold if it offends the eye?
A pension plan? Don’t make us laugh!
We have your plan for sainthood. (Die.)



Breakings
by Michael R. Burch

I did it out of pity.
I did it out of love.
I did it not to break the heart of a tender, wounded dove.

But gods without compassion
ordained: Frail things must break!
Now what can I do for her shattered psyche’s sake?

I did it not to push.
I did it not to shove.
I did it to assist the flight of indiscriminate Love.

But gods, all mad as hatters,
who legislate in all such matters,
ordained that everything irreplaceable shatters.



A coming day
by Michael R. Burch

for my mother, due to her hellish religion

There will be a day,
a day when the lightning strikes from a rainbowed mist
when it will be too late, too late for me to say
that I found your faith unblessed.

There will be a day,
a day when the storm clouds gather, ominous,
when it will be too late, too late to put away
this darkness that came between us.



Hellbound
by Michael R. Burch

Mother, it’s dark
and you never did love me
because you put Yahweh and Yeshu
above me.

Did they ever love you
or cling to you? No.
Now Mother, it’s cold
and I fear for my soul.

Mother, they say
you will leave me and go
to some distant “heaven”
I never shall know.

If that’s your choice,
you made it. Not me.
You brought me to life;
will you nail me to the tree?

Christ! Mother, they say
God condemned me to hell.
If the Devil’s your God
then farewell, farewell!

Or if there is Love
in some other dimension,
let’s reconcile there
and forget such cruel detention.



Crescendo Against Heaven
by Michael R. Burch

As curiously formal as the rose,
the imperious Word grows
until it sheds red-gilded leaves:
then heaven grieves
love’s tiny pool of crimson recrimination
against God, its contention
of the price of salvation.

These industrious trees,
endlessly losing and re-losing their leaves,
finally unleashing themselves from earth, lashing
themselves to bits, washing
themselves free
of all but the final ignominy
of death, become
at last: fast planks of our coffins, dumb.

Together now, rude coffins, crosses,
death-cursed but bright vermilion roses,
bodies, stumps, tears, words: conspire
together with a nearby spire
to raise their Accusation Dire ...
to scream, complain, to point out these
and other Dark Anomalies.

God always silent, ever afar,
distant as Bethlehem’s retrograde star,
we point out now, in resignation:
You asked too much of man’s beleaguered nation,
gave too much strength to his Enemy,
as though to prove Your Self greater than He,
at our expense, and so men die
(whose accusations vex the sky)
yet hope, somehow, that You are good ...
just, O greatest of Poets!, misunderstood.



Advice for Evangelicals
by Michael R. Burch

“... so let your light shine before men ...”

Consider the example of the woodland anemone:
she preaches no sermons but — immaculate — shines,
and rivals the angels in bright innocence and purity —
the sweetest of divines.

And no one has heard her engage in hypocrisy
since the beginning of time — an oracle so mute,
so profound in her silence and exemplary poise
she makes lessons moot.

So consider the example of the saintly anemone
and if you’d convince us Christ really exists,
then let him be just as sweet, just as guileless
and equally as gracious to bless.



Heaven Bent
by Michael R. Burch

This life is hell; it can get no worse.
Summon the coroner, the casket, the hearse!
But I’m upwardly mobile. How the hell can I know?
I can only go up; I’m already below!



Winter Night
by Michael R. Burch

Who will be ******,
who embalmed
for all eternity?

The night weighs heavy on me—
leaden, sullen, cold.
O, but my thoughts are light,

like the weightless windblown snow.

Published by Nisqually Delta Review



Intimations
by Michael R. Burch

Let mercy surround us
with a sweet persistence.

Let love propound to us
that life is infinitely more than existence.

Published by Katrina Anthology



Flight
by Michael R. Burch

Poetry captures
less than reality
the spirit of things

being the language
not of the lordly falcon
but of the dove with broken wings

whose heavenward flight
though brutally interrupted
is ever towards the light.

Published by Katrina Anthology



Ave Maria
by Michael R. Burch

Ave Maria,
Maiden mild,
listen to my earnest prayer.
Listen, O, and be beguiled.
Ave Maria.

Ave Maria,
Maiden mild,
be Mother now to every child
beset by earth’s thorned briars wild.
Ave Maria.

Ave Maria,
Maiden mild,
embrace us with your Love and Grace.
Let us look upon your Face.
Ave Maria.

Ave Maria,
Maiden mild,
please attend to our earnest call—
When will Love be All in All?
Ave Maria.

Copyright © 2020 by Michael R. Burch



A Possible Argument for Mercy
by Michael R. Burch

Did heaven ever seem so far?
Remember–we are as You were,
but all our lives, from birth to death—
Gethsemane in every breath.



Birthday Poem to Myself
by Michael R. Burch

LORD, be no longer this Distant Presence,

Star-Afar, Righteous-Anonymous,
but come! Come live among us;

come dwell again,
happy child among men—

men rejoicing to have known you
in the familiar manger’s cool

sweet light scent of unburdened hay.
Teach us again to be light that way,

with a chorus of angelic songs lessoned above.
Be to us again that sweet birth of Love

in the only way men can truly understand.
Do not frown darkening down upon an unrighteous land

planning fierce Retributions we require, and deserve,
but remember the child you were; believe

in the child I was, alike to you in innocence
a little while, all sweetness, and helpless without pretense.

Let us be little children again, magical in your sight.
Grant me this boon! Is it not my birthright—

just to know you, as you truly were, and are?
Come, be my friend. Help me understand and regain Hope’s long-departed star!



Learning to Fly
by Michael R. Burch

We are learning to fly
every day . . .

learning to fly—
away, away . . .

O, love is not in the ephemeral flight,
but love, Love! is our destination—

graced land of eternal sunrise, radiant beyond night!
Let us bear one another up in our vast migration.



The Gardener’s Roses
by Michael R. Burch

Mary Magdalene, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, “Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away.”

I too have come to the cave;
within: strange, half-glimpsed forms
and ghostly paradigms of things.
Here, nothing warms

this lightening moment of the dawn,
pale tendrils spreading east.
And I, of all who followed Him,
by far the least . . .

The women take no note of me;
I do not recognize
the men in white, the gardener,
these unfamiliar skies . . .

Faint scent of roses, then—a touch!
I turn, and I see: You.
"My Lord, why do You tarry here:
Another waits, Whose love is true?"

"Although My Father waits, and bliss;
though angels call—ecstatic crew!—
I gathered roses for a Friend.
I waited here, for You."



Come Spring
by Michael R. Burch

for the Religious Right

Come spring we return, innocent and hopeful, to the ******,
beseeching Her to bestow
Her blessings upon us.

Pitiable sinners, we bow before Her,
nay, grovel,
as She looms above us, aglow
in Her Purity.

We know
all will change in an instant; therefore
in the morning we will call her,
an untouched maiden no more,
“*****.”

The so-called Religious Right prizes virginity in women and damns them for doing what men do. I have long been a fan of women like Tallulah Bankhead, Marilyn Monroe and Mae West, who decided what’s good for the gander is equally good for the goose.



Kingdom Freedom
by Michael R. Burch

LORD, grant me a rare sweet spirit of forgiveness.
Let me have none of the lividness
of religious outrage.

LORD, let me not be over-worried
about the lack of “morality” around me.
Surround me,

not with law’s restrictive cage,
but with Your spirit, freer than the wind,
so that to breathe is to have freest life,

and not to fly to You, my only sin.



Everlasting
by Michael R. Burch

Where the wind goes
when the storm dies,
there my spirit lives
though I close my eyes.

Do not weep for me;
I am never far.
Whisper my name
to the last star ...

then let me sleep,
think of me no more.

Still ...

By denying death
its terminal sting,
in my words I remain
everlasting.



Keywords/Tags: Adam, Eve, Eden, Lucifer, fall, sin, temptation, heaven, hell, salvation, God, Yahweh, Jehovah, creation, Jesus, Cain, Abel

You people that say
“There aren’t any gays
In my race or church!”
You’re so wrong, I say.
You’re so wrong
It will be hard to get back
To right, you know,
Where you went off track.

You people that say
There are no gays
In our holy country
You’re wrong too, I say.
You’re hiding something
About yourself to say it.
You’re driving yourself crazy
The way you want to play it.

You people that say
“Jesus hates blacks and gays!”
You are totally wrong
That’s not what the book says.
You people that think
You know the path to heaven
Couldn’t find you way
If it was at the Seven Eleven.

You people that say
“God damns you people to hell!”
Haven’t read that book
Or understand it very well.
The book never has Jesus
To utter one punishing word.
So, where did it come from,
All that hatred you have heard?

You people that say
“There aren’t any gays
In my race or church!”
You’re so wrong, I say.
You’re so wrong
It will be hard to get back
To right, you know,
Where you went off track.