The Desk, for Jeremy (Michael Burch Poem)
There is a child I used to know who sat, perhaps, at this same desk where you sit now, and ...
Michael Burch Poems (34 Poems)
A True Story, for Jeremy (Michael Burch Poem)
Jeremy hit the ball today, over the fence and far away. So very, very far away a neighbor had to ...
She Gathered Lilacs, for Beth (Michael Burch Poem)
She gathered lilacs and arrayed them in her hair; tonight, she taught the wind to be free. She kept her ...
Mother’s Smile (Michael Burch Poems)
For my wife, Elizabeth Harris Burch, and my mother, Christine Ena Burch There never was a fonder smile than mother's ...
Because Her Heart Is Tender, for Beth (Michael Burch Poem)
She scrawled soft words in soap: "Never Forget," Dove-white on her car's window, and the wren, because her heart is ...
Tremble (Michael Burch Poem)
Her predatory eye, the single feral iris, scans. Her raptor beak, all jagged sharp-edged thrust, juts. Her hard talon, clenched ...
Water and Gold (Michael Burch Poem)
You came to me as rain breaks on the desert when every flower springs to life at once, but joy ...
Memory (Michael Burch Poem)
A black ringlet curls to lie at the nape of her neck, glistening with sweat in the evaporate moonlight ... ...
Fountainhead (Michael Burch Poem)
I did not delight in love so much as in a kiss like linnets' wings, the flutterings of a pulse ...
Discrimination (Michael Burch Poem)
The meter I had sought to find, perplexed, was ripped from books of "verse" that read like prose. I found ...
Auschwitz Rose (Michael Burch Poem)
There is a Rose at Auschwitz, in the briar, a rose like Sharon's, lovely as her name. The world forgot ...
Rainbow (II) (Michael Burch Poem)
You made us hopeful, LORD; where is your Hope when every lovely Rainbow bright and chill reflects your Will? You ...
The Octopi Jars (Michael Burch Poem)
Long-vacant eyes now lodged in clear glass, a-swim with pale arms as delicate as angels' ... you are beyond all ...
The Forge (Michael Burch Poem)
To at last be indestructible, a poem must first glow, almost flammable, upon a thing inert, as gray, as dull ...
The City Is A Garment (Michael Burch Poem)
A rhinestone skein, a jeweled brocade of light,- the city is a garment stretched so thin her festive colors bleed ...
In Flight Convergence (Michael Burch Poem)
Serene, almost angelic, the lights of the city attend upon lumbering behemoths shrilly screeching displeasure; they say that nothing is ...
Cleansings (Michael Burch Poem)
Walk here among the walking scepters. Learn inhuman patience. Flesh can only cleave to bone this tightly if their hearts ...
To Flower (Michael Burch Poem)
When Pentheus went into the mountains in the garb of the baccae, his mother and the other maenads, ...
Excerpts from “Poetry” (Michael Burch Poem)
Poetry, I found you where at last they chained and bound you; with devices all around you to torture and ...
Pan (Michael Burch Poem)
... Among the shadows of the groaning elms, amid the darkening oaks, we fled ourselves ... ... Once there were ...
Fahr an’ Ice, Apologies to Robert Frost (Michael Burch Poems)
From what I know of death, I'll side with those who'd like to have a say in how it goes: ...
Will There Be Starlight (Michael Burch Poem)
Will there be starlight tonight while she gathers damask and lilac and sweet-scented heathers? And will she find flowers, or ...
The Peripheries of Love (Michael Burch Poem)
Through waning afternoons we glide the watery peripheries of love. A silence, a quietude falls. Above us--the sagging pavilions of ...
Charon 2004 (Michael Burch Poem)
I, too, have stood paralyzed at the helm watching onrushing, inevitable disaster. I too have felt sweat (or ecstatic tears) ...
The Locker (Michael Burch Poem)
All the dull hollow clamor has died and what was contained, removed, reproved adulation or sentiment, left with the pungent ...
The Watch (Michael Burch Poem)
Moonlight spills down vacant sills, illuminates an empty bed. Dreams lie in crates. One hand creates wan silver circles, left ...
Flight 93 (Michael Burch Poem)
I held the switch in trembling fingers, asked why existence felt so small, so purposeless, like a minnow wriggling feebly ...
In Praise of Meter (Michael Burch Poem)
The earth is full of rhythms so precise the octave of the crystal can produce a trillion oscillations, yet not ...
The Folly of Wisdom (Michael Burch Poem)
She is wise in the way that children are wise, looking at me with such knowing, grave eyes I must ...
See (Michael Burch Poem)
See how her hair has thinned: it does not seem / like hair at all, but like the airy moult ...