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Michael R. Burch |
BIO:
Michael R. Burch's poems have been published by hundreds of literary journals,
taught in high schools and colleges, translated into 14 languages, incorporated
into three plays and two operas, and set to music, from swamp blues to opera,
by 27 composers.
alien
there
are mornings in england
when,
riddled with light,
the
Blueberries gleam at us—
plump,
sweet and fragrant.
but
i am so small ...
what
do i know
of
the ways of the Daffodils?
“beware
of the Nettles!”
we
go laughing and singing,
but
somehow, i, ...
i
know i am lost. i do not belong
to
this Earth or its Songs.
and
yet i am singing ...
the
sun—so mild;
my
cheeks are like roses;
my
skin—so fair.
i
spent a long time there
before
i realized: They have no faces,
no
bodies, no voices.
i
was always alone.
and
yet i keep singing:
the
words will come
if
only i hear.
I
believe I wrote this poem around age 19. One of my earliest memories is picking
blueberries amid the brambles surrounding the tiny English hamlet, Mattersey,
where I and my mother lived with her parents while my American father was
stationed in Thule, Greenland, where dependents were not permitted.
***
Because You Came to Me
for
Beth
Because
you came to me with sweet compassion
and
kissed my furrowed brow and smoothed my hair,
I
do not love you after any fashion,
but
wildly, in despair.
Because
you came to me in my black torment
and
kissed me fiercely, blazing like the sun
upon
parched desert dunes, till in dawn’s foment
they
melt ... I am undone.
Because
I am undone, you have remade me
as
suns bring life, as brilliant rains endow
the
earth below with leaves, where you now shade me
and
bower me, somehow.
I
wrote this poem around age 18, as a senior in high school.
***
The Beautiful People
They
are the beautiful people,
and
their shadows dance through the valleys of the moon
to
the listless strains of an ancient tune.
Oh,
no ... please don't touch them,
for
their smiles might fade.
Don’t
go ... don’t approach them
as
they promenade,
for
they waltz through a vacuum
and
dream they're not made
of
the dust and the dankness
to
which men degrade.
They
are the beautiful people,
and
their spirits sighed in their mothers’ wombs
as
the distant echoings of unearthly tunes.
Winds
do not blow there
and
storms do not rise,
and
each hair has its place
and
each gown has its price.
And
they whirl through the darkness
untouched
by our cares
as
we watch them and long for
a
"life" such as theirs.
I wrote this poem in high school, around age 17 or 18.
***
Be that Rock
for
my grandfather George Edwin Hurt Sr.
When
I was a child
I never considered man’s impermanence,
for
you were a mountain of adamant stone:
a man steadfast, immense,
and
your words rang.
And
when you were gone,
I still heard your voice, which never
betrayed,
"Be
strong and of a good courage,
neither be afraid ..."
as
the angels sang.
And,
O!, I believed
for your words were my truth, and I tried
to be brave
though
the years slipped away
with so little to save
of
that talk.
Now
I'm a man—
a man ... and yet Grandpa ... I'm still the
same child
who
sat at your feet
and learned as you smiled.
Be
that rock.
I
wrote this poem around age 18. The verse quoted is from an old, well-worn King
James Bible my grandfather gave me after his only visit to the United States,
as he prepared to return to England with my grandmother. I was around eight at
the time and didn't know if I would ever see my grandparents again, so I was
heartbroken – destitute, really. Fortunately my father was later stationed at
an Air Force base in Germany and we were able to spend four entire summer
vacations with my grandparents. I was also able to visit them in England
several times as an adult. But the years of separation were very difficult for
me and I came to detest things that separated me from my family and friends:
the departure platforms of train stations, airport runways, even the white
dividing lines on lonely highways and interstates as they disappeared behind my
car. My idea of heaven became a place where we are never again separated from
our loved ones.
***
Bound
Now
it is winter—the coldest night.
And
as the light of the streetlamp casts strange shadows to the ground,
I
have lost what I once found
in
your arms.
Now
it is winter—the coldest night.
And
as the light of distant Venus fails to penetrate dark panes,
I
have remade all my chains
and
am bound.
I
wrote this poem around age 14 or 15, then revised at age 17, then again at age
26. But the poem remains pretty close to the original, which was published in
my high school journal the Lantern.
***
Burn
for
Trump
Sunbathe,
ozone
baby,
till
your parched skin cracks
in
the white-hot flash
of
radiation.
Incantation
from
your pale parched lips
shall
not avail;
you
made this hell.
Now
burn.
This was one of my early poems, written around age 19. I dedicated the poem to Trump after he pulled the United States out of the Paris climate change accords.
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