These are longer poems (II) by Michael R. Burch...



Duet (I)
by Michael R. Burch

Oh, Wendy, by the firelight, how sad,
how worn and gray your auburn hair became!
You’re very silent, like an evening rain
that trembles on dark petals. Tears you’ve shed
for days we danced together, glisten now;
your flesh became translucent; and your brow
knits, gathered loosely. By the well-made bed
three portraits hang with knowing eyes, beloved,
but mine is not among them. Time has proved
our hearts both strangely mortal. If I said
I loved you once, how is it that could change?
And yet I watch you fondly; love is strange . . .

Oh, Peter, by the firelight, how bright
my thought of you remains, and if I said
I loved you once, then took him to my bed,
I did it for the need of love, one night
when you were far away. My heart endured
transfigurement—in flaming ash inured
to heartbreak and the violence of sight:
I saw myself grow old and thin and frail
with thinning hair about me, like a veil . . .
And so I loved him for myself, despite
the love between us—our first startled kiss.
But then I loved him for his humanness.
And then we both grew old, and it was right . . .

Oh, Wendy, if I fly, I fly beyond
these human hearts, these cities walled and tiered
against the night, beyond this vale of tears,
for love, if it exists, dies with the years . . .

No, Peter, love is constant as the heart
that keeps till its last beat a measured pace
and sets the fixtures of its dreams in place
by beds at first well-used, at last well-made,
and counts each face a joy, each tear a grace . . .



Rant: The Elite
by Michael R. Burch

When I heard Harold Bloom unsurprisingly say:
"Poetry is necessarily difficult. It is our elitist art ..."
I felt a small suspicious thrill. After all, sweetheart,
isn’t this who we are? Aren’t we obviously better,
and certainly fairer and taller, than they are?

Though once I found Ezra Pound
perhaps a smidgen too profound,
perhaps a bit over-fond of Benito
and the advantages of fascism
to be taken ad finem, like high tea
with a pure white spot of intellectualism
and an artificial sweetener, calorie-free.

I know! I know! Politics has nothing to do with art
And it tempts us so to be elite, to stand apart ...
but somehow the word just doesn’t ring true,
echoing effetely away—the distance from me to you.

Of course, politics has nothing to do with art,
but sometimes art has everything to do with becoming elite,
with climbing the cultural ladder, with being able to meet
someone more Exalted than you, who can demonstrate how to fart
so that everyone below claims one’s odor is sweet.
"You had to be there! We were falling apart
with gratitude! We saw him! We wept at his feet!"
Though someone will always be far, far above you, clouding your air,
gazing down at you with a look of wondering despair.



This is a poem about a discussion between a young poet and an older poet – the very poetic Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I wrote this poem as a teenager under the spell of Dr. King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech, which for me is also a compelling poem. In the poem he is the upper-case Poet and I am the lower-case poet.

Poet to poet
by Michael R. Burch

I have a dream
...pebbles in a sparkling sand...
of wondrous things.

I see children
...variations of the same man...
playing together.

Black and yellow, red and white,
... stone and flesh, a host of colors...
together at last.

I see a time
...each small child another's cousin...
when freedom shall ring.

I hear a song
...sweeter than the sea sings...
of many voices.

I hear a jubilation
... respect and love are the gifts we must bring...
shaking the land.

I have a message,
...sea shells echo, the melody rings...
the message of God.

I have a dream
...all pebbles are merely smooth fragments of stone...
of many things.

I live in hope
...all children are merely small fragments of One...
that this dream shall come true.

I have a dream!
... but when you're gone, won't the dream have to end?...
Oh, no, not as long as you dream my dream too!

Here, hold out your hand, let's make it come true.
... i can feel it begin...
Lovers and dreamers are poets too.
...poets are lovers and dreamers too...

Published by Borderless Journal (Singapore) and Love Poems and Poets

Keywords/Tags: long poems, longer poems, writing, poetry, Michael R. Burch