Safe Harbor
for Kevin Nicholas Roberts (1969-2008) The sea at night seems an alembic of dreams— the moans of the gulls, the foghorns’ bawlings. A...
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By Michael R. Burch
- May 4
- 1 min
Ebb Tide
Massive, gray, these leaden waves bear their unchanging burden— the sameness of each day to day while the wind seems to struggle to say...
By Michael R. Burch
- Dec 19, 2021
- 1 min
Resurrecting Passion
Last night, while dawn was far away and rain streaked gray, tumescent skies, as thunder boomed and lightning railed, I conjured words,...
By Michael R. Burch
- Oct 7, 2021
- 2 min
Chit Chat: in the Poetry Chat Room
WHY SHULD I LERN TO SPELL? HELL, NO ONE REEDS WHAT I SAY ANYWAY!!! :( Sing for the cool night, whispers of constellations. Sing for the...
By Michael R. Burch
- Jun 17, 2021
- 1 min
Step Into Starlight
Step into starlight, lovely and wild, lonely and longing, a woman, a child . . . Throw back drawn curtains, enter the night, dream of his...
By Michael R. Burch
- May 20, 2021
- 1 min
Infinity
Have you tasted the bitterness of tears of despair? Have you watched the sun sink through such pale, balmless air that your soul sought...
By Michael R. Burch
- Mar 14, 2021
- 1 min
Will There Be Starlight?
Will there be starlight tonight while she gathers damask and lilac and sweet-scented heathers? And will she find flowers, or will she...
By Michael R. Burch
- Nov 22, 2020
- 2 min
Insurrection & Other Poetry
Insurrection She has become as the night—listening for rumors of dawn—while the dew, glistening, reminds me of her, and the wind,...
By Michael R. Burch
- Sep 13, 2020
- 2 min
To Flower
When Pentheus [“grief’] went into the mountains in the garb of the baccae, his mother [Agave] and the other maenads, possessed by...
By Michael R. Burch
- Aug 12, 2020
- 2 min
Water and Gold and Other Poems
Water and Gold You came to me as rain breaks on the desert when every flower springs to life at once, but joy’s a wan illusion to the...
By Michael R. Burch
- Jun 1, 2020
- 1 min
Southern Icarus and other Poems
Southern Icarus Windborne, lover of heights, unspooled from the truck’s wildly lurching embrace, you climb, skittish kite . . . What do...
Translation
- Apr 20, 2020
- 2 min
Sappho's "Hymn to Aphrodite"
Immortal Aphrodite, throned in splendor! Wile-weaving daughter of Zeus, enchantress, and beguiler! I implore you, dread mistress,...
By Michael R. Burch
- Mar 9, 2020
- 1 min
In the Whispering Night
For George King In the whispering night, when the stars bend low till the hills ignite to a shining flame, when a shower of meteors...
By Michael R. Burch
- Nov 10, 2019
- 1 min
Pan
... Among the shadows of the groaning elms, amid the darkening oaks, we fled ourselves ... ... Once there were paths that led to coracles...
By Michael R. Burch
- Aug 26, 2019
- 2 min
To Have Loved
Helen, bright accompaniment, accouterment of war as sure as all the polished swords of princes groomed to lie in mausoleums all eternity...
By Michael R. Burch
- Dec 1, 2018
- 1 min
Love Has a Southern Flavor
Love has a Southern flavor: honeydew, ripe cantaloupe, the honeysuckle’s spout we tilt to basking faces to breathe out the ordinary, and...
By Michael R. Burch
- Oct 8, 2018
- 1 min
Observance
Here the hills are old and rolling carefully in their old age; on the horizon youthful mountains bathe themselves in windblown fountains...
By Michael R. Burch
- Jul 23, 2018
- 1 min
''Moments'' & Other Poems
Moments There were moments full of promise, like the petal-scented rainfall of early spring, when to hold you in my arms and to kiss...
By Michael R. Burch
- May 7, 2018
- 2 min
Poetry
Poetry, I found you where at last they chained and bound you; with devices all around you to torture and confound you, I found...
Translation
- May 3, 2018
- 1 min
Ibykos Fragment 286, Circa 564 B.C.
Come spring, the grand apple trees stand watered by a gushing river where the maidens’ uncut flowers shiver and the blossoming grape vine...