I call these poems "heretical sonnets" because they don't follow the orthodox rules. I like the length of the sonnet for many poems, but I ignore all picky rules and have sonnets from 6 to 18 lines. I also have non-IP and free-verse-ish sonnets. I prefer the original definition of sonnet as a "little song" of indeterminate length and form. For example...

In this Ordinary Swoon
by Michael R. Burch

In this ordinary swoon
as I pass from life to death,
I feel no heat from the cold, pale moon;
I feel no sympathy for breath.

Who I am and why I came,
I do not know; nor does it matter.
The end of every man’s the same
and every god’s as mad as a hatter.

I do not fear the letting go;
I only fear the clinging on
to hope when there’s no hope, although
I lift my face to the blazing sun

and feel the greater intensity
of the wilder inferno within me.



A Child’s Christmas Prayer of Despair for a Hindu Saint
by Michael R. Burch

Santa Claus,
for Christmas, please,
don’t bring me toys, or games, or candy . . .
just . . . Santa, please,
I’m on my knees! . . .
please don’t let Jesus torture Gandhi!

Will Jesus Christ cause or allow Albert Einstein and Mahatma Gandhi to be tortured in an "eternal hell" for guessing wrong about which earthly religion to believe? What about Jesus's parable of the Good Samaritan, a man who put aside religious differences to practice compassion for someone of different faith? Did Jesus, who saved all his sternest criticism for hypocrites, talk the talk but fail to walk the walk himself? Or did Christian theologians get something very, very wrong? And what would Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny say about such intolerance and infinite cruelty?



For All That I Remembered
by Michael R. Burch

For all that I remembered, I forgot
her name, her face, the reason that we loved ...
and yet I hold her close within my thought:
I feel the burnished weight of auburn hair
that fell across her face, the apricot
clean scent of her shampoo, the way she glowed
so palely in the moonlight, angel-wan.

The memory of her gathers like a flood
and bears me to that night, that only night,
when she and I were one ... and if I could ...
I’d reach to her this time and, smiling, brush
the hair out of her eyes, and hold intact
each feature, each impression. Love is such
a threadbare sort of magic, it is gone
before we recognize it. I would crush

my lips to hers to hold their memory,
if not more tightly, less elusively.



Come!
by Michael R. Burch

Will you come to visit my grave, I wonder,
in the season of lightning, the season of thunder,
when I have lain so long in the indifferent earth
that I have no girth?

When my womb has conformed to the chastity
your anemic Messiah envisioned for me,
will you finally be pleased that my sex was thus rendered
unpalatable, disengendered?

And when those strange loathsome organs that troubled you so
have been eaten by worms, will the heavens still glow
with the approval of God that I ended a maid—
thanks to a spade?

And will you come to visit my grave, I wonder,
in the season of lightning, the season of thunder?



The City Is a Garment
by Michael R. Burch

A rhinestone skein, a jeweled brocade of light,—
the city is a garment stretched so thin
her neon colors bleed into the night,
and everywhere bright seams, unraveling,

cascade their brilliant contents out like coins
on motorways and esplanades; bead cars
come tumbling down long highways; at her groin
a railtrack like a zipper flashes sparks;

her hills are haired with brush like cashmere wool
and from their cleavage winking lights enlarge
and travel, slender fingers ... softly pull
themselves into the semblance of a barge.

When night becomes too chill, she quickly dons
great overcoats of warmest-colored dawn.



A Vain Word
by Michael R. Burch

Oleanders at dawn preen extravagant whorls
as I read in leaves’ Sanskrit brief moments remaining
till sunset implodes, till the moon strands grey pearls
under moss-stubbled oaks, full of whispers, complaining
to the darkening autumn, how swiftly life goes—
as I fled before love ...
Now, through leaves trodden black,
shivering, I wander as winter’s first throes
of cool listless snow drench my cheeks, back and neck.

I discerned in one season all eternities of grief,
the specter of death sprawled out under the rose,
the last consequence of faith in the flight of one leaf,
the incontinence of age, as life’s bright torrent slows.

O, where are you now?—I was timid, absurd.
I would find comfort again in a vain word.



Caveat
by Michael R. Burch

If only we were not so eloquent,
we might sing, and only sing, not to impress,
but only to enjoy, to be enjoyed.

We might inundate the earth with thankfulness
for light, although it dies, and make a song
of night descending on the earth like bliss,

with other lights beyond—not to be known—
but only to be welcomed and enjoyed,
before all worlds and stars are overthrown...

as a lover’s hands embrace a sleeping face
and find it beautiful for emptiness
of all but joy. There is no thought to love

but love itself. How senseless to redress,
in darkness, such becoming nakedness...



Hymn to an Art-o-matic Laundromat
by Michael R. Burch

after Richard Moore’s “Hymn to an Automatic Washer”

O, terrible-immaculate
ALL-cleansing godly Laundromat,
where cleanliness is next to Art
—a bright Kinkade (bought at K-Mart),
a Persian rug (made in Taiwan),
a Royal Bonn Clock (time zone Guam)—
embrace my ass in cushioned vinyl,
erase all marks: anal, vaginal,
penile, inkspot, red wine, dirt.
O, sterilize her skirt, my shirt,
my skidmarked briefs, her padded bra;
suds-away in your white maw
all filth, the day’s accumulation.
Make us pure by INUNDATION.

Published by The Oldie, where it was the winner of a poetry contest



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!



iou
by michael r. burch

i might have said it
but i didn’t

u might have noticed
but u wouldn’t

we might have been us
but we couldn’t

u might respond
but probably shouldn’t



God Had a Plan
by Michael R. Burch

God had a plan
though it was hardly “divine.”
He created a terror:
Frankenstein.

He blamed death on man:
was that part of the plan
so hard to define,
or did he just cut his losses?

Now sleepless he tosses
hearing the screams,
the wild anger and fear
of men in despair.

Just disappear!,
he cries to himself
on his fearful bed,
tearful, afraid
of those he misled.

Ah-men!



THE ur POEMS and the GAUD poems

The "ur" poems of Michael R. Burch replace the pronoun "your" with the primitive "Ur of the Chaldees" which is said to have been the birthplace of Abraham and monotheism. However this "Ur" is uncapitalized since human beings are diminished by the three Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Islam and Christianity. This "ur" questions the nature of everything: itself, other human beings, Nature, and an egotistical being called "GAUD."



& GAUD said, “Let there be LIGHT VERSE
to illuminate the ‘nature’ of my Curse!”
—michael r. burch



reverse the Curse
with LIGHT VERSE!
recant the cant
with an illuminating chant,
etc.
—michael r. burch

Can the darkness of Christianity with its “eternal hell” be repealed via humor? It’s time to recant the cant, please pardon the puns.



Christianity replaces Santa Claus with Jesus and coal, ashes and soot with an “eternal hell.” — Michael R. Burch



day eight of the Divine Plan
by michael r. burch

the earth’s a-stir
with a GAUDLY whirr...

the L(AWE)D’s been creatin’!

com(men)ce t’ matin’!

hatch lotsa babies
he’ll infect with rabies
then ban from college
for seekin’ knowledge
like curious eve!

dear chilluns, don’t grieve,
be(lie)ve the Deceiver!

(never ask why ur Cupid
wanted eve stupid,
animalistic, and naked.)

ah-men!



pretty pickle
by Michael R. Burch

u’d blaspheme if u could
because ur GAUD’s no good,
but of course u cant:
ur a lowly ant
(or so u were told by a Hierophant).



dust (II)
by Michael R. Burch

wee are dust
and to dust wee must
return ...
but why, then,
life’s pointless sojourn?



if ur GAUD
is good,
half the Bible
is libel.
—Michael R. Burch



since GOD created u so gullible
how did u conclude HE’s so lovable?
—Michael R. Burch



limping to the grave under the sentence of death,
should i praise ur LORD? think i’ll save my breath!
—Michael R. Burch