Afterglow
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

The night is full of stars. Which still exist?
Before time ends, perhaps one day we’ll know.
For now I hold your fingers to my lips
and feel their pulse ... warm, palpable and slow ...

once slow to match this reckless spark in me,
this moon in ceaseless orbit I became,
compelled by wilder gravity to flee
night’s universe of suns, for one pale flame ...

for one pale flame that seemed to signify
the Zodiac of all, the meaning of
love’s wandering flight past Neptune. Now to lie
in dawning recognition is enough ...

enough each night to bask in you, to know
the face of love ... eyes closed ... its afterglow.

Keywords/Tags: afterglow, stars, suns, planets, zodiac, moon, orbit, gravity, universe, love, radiation, night, exist, existence, time

Free Fall
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

These cloudless nights, the sky becomes a wheel
where suns revolve around an axle star ...
Look there, and choose. Decide which moon is yours.
Sink Lethe-ward, held only by a heel.

Advantage. Disadvantage. Who can tell?
To see is not to know, but you can feel
the tug sometimes—the gravity, the shell
as lustrous as damp pearl. You sink, you reel

toward some draining revelation. Air—
too thin to grasp, to breath. Such pressure. Gasp.
The stars invert, electric, everywhere.
And so we fall in spirals through night’s fissure—

two beings—pale, intent to fall forever
around each other—fumbling at love’s tether ...
now separate, now distant, now together.

Published by Poetry Porch/Sonnet Scroll, Poetry Life & Times, Artvilla, Trinacria, The Chained Muse and vzjp.cz (in a Czech translation by Václav Z J Pinkava). Keywords/Tags: free, fall, falling, night, sky, wheel, axle, orbit, gravity, sun, star, moon, planet, satellite, Lethe, air, atmosphere, tether, tethered, umbilical, floating, separate, separation, distance, closeness, nearness, togetherness, attachment

We are never at rest,
even when we take a moment
to get lost inside ourselves.
We are in orbit.

I’ve done my best
to keep pace with the spin,
adapting to the life
in constant change around me.

One day you came
through the fog I was navigating.
Cold, gray monotony
turning prismatic before me.

Still I knew,
the spin doesn't pause.
I just hope you find a way
to be the thing that lasts.

They drift, as do we, to and fro following the path drawn by the gods. Frozen in action, their pulling force, infinitely they orbit endlessly they fall. Opposing domains, night and day, mutually reliant by the recognition of the other. For if not for the sun dark would not be day. If not for the moon light would be night. A perpetual blaring of one reality. A world locked to a state. When then would the angels walk? Would the devils scour the Earth? It is the contesting force of day and night which defines the hells as dark and the heavens as light. The billion year dance, the age old fight. It is the moon to which we owe our morning, and the sun to which we owe our night. Around they dance, in perpetuity.

I thought I was nothing without him,
Without the planet I orbited.
But I was wrong.
Without him, I became
The sun.

Our orbits crash
Forming new planets and galaxies.

Small touches of the hand
All accidental
Send us spiraling around each other.

Pulling each other in
Creating new wonders.

Can i get a minute of your time.
A couple of minutes to see if i can change your mind.
You know i feel you, been crushing ******* the idea of us being together.
We met Score years ago and since I last seen you my lifes been looking a little better.
Can i take you out some time
a little time together to see if i could make you mine.
I've been thinking about you since the day we last chilled.
Wondering what the hell went wrong my light just went out like i didnt pay the bill.
Can invite you to a conversation
a chance to talk for hours about random things you know imagination.
You know you're a dazzling woman; beautys perfection.
From your hair to your lips, the way your eyes shine like star beams.
The way your smile makes the room glow like the sunshine gleam
You're universal a goddess even planets follow you..And me...
I'm in orbit around you...

I need you
The way Earth needs gravity
To stay in light's orbit

Without you
I lose myself in light years
Afloat in space