These are poems about Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, the Serpent aka Lucifer aka Satan aka Mephistopheles, Cain and Abel, the forbidden fruit, "original sin," the Fall and its bitter aftermath...
Primordial Eden
by Michael R. Burch
Then earth was heaven too, a perfect garden.
Apples burgeoned and shone—unplucked on sagging boughs.
What, then, would the children eat?
Fruit indecently sweet,
redolent as incense, with a tempting aroma...
Why did the biblical god Yahweh (aka Jehovah) want to keep Adam and Eve in an animal state, not knowing good from evil and running around naked like animals? Good parents want their children to seek knowledge, so why did Yahweh murder Adam and Eve for seeking knowledge? And why did Yahweh tell them it was evil to eat the forbidden fruit when he had denied them the ability to know good from evil? It was like putting poisoned milk before two cats and saying, "It's evil to drink the milk!" Of course cats have no concept of "evil" and just do what comes naturally. So, too, with Adam and Eve. If there was a fall, they were obviously set up to fall, by a terrible father.
Outcasts of Eden
by Michael R. Burch
There was a rose, a prescient shade of crimson,
the very color of blood,
that bloomed in that garden.
The most dazzling of all the Earth's flowers,
men have forgotten it now,
with their fanciful tales of apples and serpents.
Beasts with lips called the goreflower "Love."
The scribes have the story all wrong: four were there,
four horrid dark creatures—chattering, bickering.
Aduhm placed one red petal in Ehve's matted hair;
he was lost in her arms
till dawn sullen and golden
imperceptibly streaked the musk-fragrant air.
Two flared nostrils quivered, two eyes remained open.
Kahyn sought me that evening, his bloodless lips curled
in a grimacelike smile. Sunken-cheeked, he approached me
in the Caverns of Similitudes, eerie Barzakh.
"We are outcasts, my brother!, God quickly deserts us."
As though his anguish conceived in insight's first blush
might not pale next to mine in Sheol's gray realm.
"Shining Creature!" he named me and called me divine
as he lavished damp kisses upon my bright scales.
"Help me find me one rare gift to put Love's gift to shame."
"There is a dark rose with a bittersweet fragrance
as pungent as cloves: only man knows its name.
Clinging and cloying, it destroys all it touches..."
"But red is Ehve's preference; while Envy is green."
He was downcast a moment, a moment, a moment...
"Ah, but red is the color of blood!"
Disagreeable child, far too clever for his own good.
Published in The Bible of Hell (anthology)
Temptation
by Michael R. Burch
Jesus was always misunderstood...
we have that, at least, in common.
And it's true that I found him,
shriveled with hunger,
shivering in the desert,
skeletal, emaciate,
not an ounce of fat
to warm his bones
once the bright sun set.
And it's true, I believe,
that I offered him something to eat—
a fig, perhaps, a pomegranate, or a peach.
Hardly the great "temptation"
of which I'm accused.
He was a likeable chap, really,
and we spent a pleasant hour
discussing God—
how hard He is to know,
and impossible to please.
I left him there, the pale supplicant,
all skin and bone, at the mouth of his cave,
imploring his "Master" on callused knees.
Published in The Bible of Hell (anthology)
lust!
by michael r. burch
i was only a child
in a world dark and wild
seeking affection
in eyes mild
and in all my bright dreams
sweet love shimmered, beguiled ...
but the black-robed Priest
who called me the least
of all god’s creation
then spoke for the Beast:
He called my great passion a thing base, defiled!
He condemned me to hell,
the foul Ne’er-Do-Well,
for the sake of the copper
His Pig-Snout could smell
in the purse of my mother,
“the whore jezebel.”
my sweet passions condemned
by degenerate men?
and she so devout
she exclaimed, “yay, aye-men!” ...
together we learned why Religion is hell.
You!
by Michael R. Burch
For forty years You have not spoken to me;
I heard the dull hollow echo of silence
as though strange communion between us.
For forty years You would not open to me;
You remained closed, hard and tense,
like a clenched fist.
For forty years You have not broken me
with Your alien ways,
prevarications and distance.
Like a child dismissed,
I have watched You prey upon the hope in me,
knowing "mercy" is chance
and "heaven"—a list.
Published in The Bible of Hell (anthology)
I call mercy "chance" and heaven a "list" because the bible says its "god" predestines some people to be "vessels of mercy" and others to be "vessels of destruction." Thus mercy is reduced to the chance of birth and heaven is a precompiled list of the lucky chosen few. Of course there is no reason to believe in such a diabolical "god" or such an unjust "heaven"... but billions have, and do.
Pagans Protest the Intolerance of Christianity
by Michael R. Burch
“We have a common sky.” — Quintus Aurelius Symmachus (c. 345-402)
We had a common sky
before the Christians came.
We thought there might be gods
but did not know their names.
The common stars above us?
They winked, and would not tell.
Yet now our fellow mortals claim
our questions merit hell!
The cause of our damnation?
They claim they’ve seen the LIGHT ...
but still the stars wink down at us,
as wiser beings might.
One of the Flown
by Michael R. Burch
Forgive me for not having known
you were one of the flown—
flown from the distant haunts
of someone else’s enlightenment,
alighting here to a darkness all your own . . .
I imagine you perched,
pretty warbler, in your starched
dress, before you grew bellicose . . .
singing quaint love’s highest falsetto notes,
brightening the pew of some dilapidated church . . .
But that was before autumn’s
messianic dark hymns . . .
Deepening on the landscape—winter’s inevitable shadows.
Love came too late; hope flocked to bare meadows,
preparing to leave. Then even the thought of life became grim,
thinking of Him . . .
To flee, finally,—that was no whim,
no adventure, but purpose.
I see you now a-wing: pale-eyed, intent, serious:
always, always at the horizon’s broadening rim . . .
How long have you flown now, pretty voyager?
I keep watch from afar: pale lover and voyeur.
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!
Willy Nilly
by Michael R. Burch
for the Demiurge, aka Yahweh/Jehovah
Isn't it silly, Willy Nilly?
You made the stallion,
you made the filly,
and now they sleep
in the dark earth, stilly.
Isn't it silly, Willy Nilly?
Isn't it silly, Willy Nilly?
You forced them to run
all their days uphilly.
They ran till they dropped?
life's a pickle, dilly.
Isn't it silly, Willy Nilly?
Isn't it silly, Willy Nilly?
They say I should worship you!
Oh, really!
They say I should pray
so you'll not act illy.
Isn't it silly, Willy Nilly?
Adam Lay Ybounden
(anonymous Medieval English Lyric, circa early 15th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Adam lay bound, bound in a bond;
Four thousand winters, he thought, were not too long.
And all was for an apple, an apple that he took,
As clerics now find written in their book.
But had the apple not been taken, or had it never been,
We'd never have had our Lady, heaven's queen.
So blesséd be the time the apple was taken thus;
Therefore we sing, "God is gracious!"
No One
by Michael R. Burch
No One hears the bells tonight;
they tell him something isn't right.
But No One is not one to rush;
he lies in grasses greenly lush
as far away a startled thrush
flees from horned owls in sinking flight.
No One hears the cannon's roar
and muses that its voice means war
comes knocking on men's doors tonight.
He sleeps outside in awed delight
beneath the enigmatic stars
and shivers in their cooling light.
No One knows the world will end,
that he'll be lonely, without friend
or foe to conquer. All will be
once more, celestial harmony.
He'll miss men's voices, now and then,
but worlds can be remade again.
Bikini
by Michael R. Burch
Undersea, by the shale and the coral forming,
by the shell's pale rose and the pearl's white eye,
through the sea's green bed of lank seaweed worming
like tangled hair where cold currents rise...
something lurks where the riptides sigh,
something old and pale and wise.
Something old when the world was forming
now lifts its beak, its snail-blind eye,
and with tentacles about it squirming,
it feels the cloud above it rise
and shudders, settles with a sigh,
knowing man's demise draws nigh.
Ceremony
by Michael R. Burch
Lost in the cavernous blue silence of spring,
heavy-lidded and drowsy with slumber, I see
the dark gnats leap; the black flies fling
their slow, engorged bulks into the air above me.
Shimmering hordes of blue-green bottleflies sing
their monotonous laments; as I listen, they near
with the strange droning hum of their murmurous wings.
Though you said you would leave me, I prop you up here
and brush back red ants from your fine, tangled hair,
whispering, "I do!"... as the gaunt vultures stare.
Exile
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
We have often heard of Adam's banishment from Eden,
but with far greater humiliation, I abandon your garden.
Where We Dwell
by Michael R. Burch
Night within me.
Never morning.
Stars uncounted.
Shadows forming.
Wind arising
where we dwell
reaches Heaven,
reeks of Hell.
Published in The Bible of Hell (anthology)
What Immense Silence
by Michael R. Burch
What immense silence
comforts those who kneel here
beneath these vaulted ceilings
cavernous and vast?
What luminescence stained
by patchwork panels of bright glass
illuminates drained faces
as the crouching gargoyles leer?
What brings them here?
pale, tearful congregations,
knowing all Hope is past,
faithfully, year upon year?
Or could they be right? Perhaps
Love is, implausibly, near
and I alone have not seen It...
But, if so, still, I must ask:
why is it God that they fear?
Published in The Bible of Hell (anthology)
Double Cross
by Michael R. Burch
Come to the cross;
contemplate all loss
and how little was gained
by those who remained
uncrucified.
Dabble Dactyls
by Michael R. Burch
Sniggledy-Wriggledy
Jesus Christ’s enterprise
leaves me in awe of
the rich men he loathed!
But should a Sadducee
settle for trifles?
His disciples now rip off
the Lord they betrothed.
I, Lazarus
by Michael R. Burch
I, Lazarus, without a heart,
devoid of blood and spiritless,
lay in the darkness, meritless:
my corpse—a thing cold, dead, apart.
But then I thought I heard—a Voice,
a Voice that called me from afar.
And so I stood and laughed, bizarre:
a thing embalmed, made to rejoice!
I ran ungainly-legged to see
who spoke my name, and then I knew
him by the light. His name is True,
and now he is the life in me!
I never died again! Believe!
(Oops! Seems it was a brief reprieve.)
To Know You as Mary
by Michael R. Burch
To know You as Mary,
when You spoke her name
and her world was never the same ...
beside the still tomb
where the spring roses bloom.
O, then I would laugh
and be glad that I came,
never minding the chill, the disconsolate rain ...
beside the still tomb
where the spring roses bloom.
I might not think this earth
the sharp focus of pain
if I heard You exclaim—
beside the still tomb
where the spring roses bloom
my most unexpected, unwarranted name!
But you never spoke. Explain?
Prayer for a Merciful, Compassionate, etc., God to Murder His Creations Quickly & Painlessly, Rather than Slowly & Painfully
by Michael R. Burch
Lord, kill me fast and please do it quickly!
Please don’t leave me gassed, archaic and sickly!
Why render me mean, rude, wrinkly and prickly?
Lord, why procrastinate?
Lord, we all know you’re an expert killer!
Please, don’t leave me aging like Phyllis Diller!
Why torture me like some poor sap in a thriller?
God, grant me a gentler fate!
Lord, we all know you’re an expert at murder
like Abram—the wild-eyed demonic goat-herder
who’d slit his son’s throat without thought at your order.
Lord, why procrastinate?
Lord, we all know you’re a terrible sinner!
What did dull Japheth eat for his 300th dinner
after a year on the ark, growing thinner and thinner?
God, grant me a gentler fate!
Dear Lord, did the lion and tiger compete
for the last of the lambkin’s sweet, tender meat?
How did Noah preserve his fast-rotting wheat?
God, grant me a gentler fate!
Lord, why not be a merciful Prelate?
Do you really want me to detest, loathe and hate
the Father, the Son and their Ghostly Mate?
Lord, why procrastinate?
Star Crossed
by Michael R. Burch
Remember—
night is not like day;
the stars are closer than they seem ...
now, bending near, they seem to say
the morning sun was merely a dream
ember.
The beauty of the flower fades,
its petals wither to charades...
—Michael R. Burch
the U-turn poem
by michael r. burch
Life so defaulty,
Life so unfair,
why do wee prize U,
what do U care?
LORD who lets unborns
drown in a flood,
CELESTIAL ABORTIONIST,
r U sure Ur understood?
Hellion
by michael r. burch
cold as stone,
cold to the bone,
so cold inside even icebergs moan,
such is ur Gaud on hiss icy throne.
lines written for a luverly Gaud who cant be bothered to save pisspot peeple who guess wrong about which ire-ational re-ligion to believe.
“Hellion” is a pun on “he-lion” as in the “Lion of Judah” and “hell-lion.”
yet another ode to a graceless faceless Creator albeit with thoughts of possibly rescinding prior compliments
by michael r. burch
who created this graceless universe?
why praise its Creator? who could be worse?
why praise man’s Berater with obsequious verse?
job’s wife was right: he’s nobody’s nurse.
ur-Gent prayer request
by michael r. burch
where did ur Gaud originate?
in the minds of men so full of hate
they commanded moms to stone their kids,
which u believe (brains on the skids)
was “the word of Gaud”!
debate?
too late & of course it’s useless:
please pray to be less clueless.
The title involves a pun, since the “ur-Gent” would be the biblical “god.”
Religion is regarded by fools as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful. — Seneca, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Non-Word to the Wise
by Michael R. Burch
The wise will never cry, “Save!”
The wise desire a quiet grave.
sonnet to non-science and nonsense/nunsense
by michael r. burch
ur Gaud is a fiasco,
a rapscallion and a rascal;
he murdered lovely eve,
so what’s there to “believe”?
and who made eve so curious?
why should ur Gaud be furious
when every half-wit parent knows
where bright kids will stick their no’s(e)!
no wise and loving father
would slaughter his own daughter!
ur Gaud’s a hole-y terror!
CONSIDER THE SOURCE OF ERROR:
though ur bible’s a giant hit,
its writers were full of sh-t.
We Know It All
by Michael R. Burch
We rile. We gall. We know it all
because we’ve read the Bible,
which tells us genocide’s “God’s will”
along with bashing in kids’ skulls
and other forms of libel.
The earth is flat, our Book says so!
The Lord will torture our rational foe!
(We lack the compassion to tell the fiend “No!”)
God’s on his throne, the Angels are winking,
applauding our lack of critical thinking.
We’re drowning in crap. We’re stinking and sinking.
Eve once petted friendly T-Rexes!
A “witch” should be stoned for unprovable hexes!
It’s a “sin” to make love if one’s lover has exes!
Girls were enslaved and raped by their “masters”!
Our Book is the source of so many disasters!
The earth’s overheating? Let’s burn it up faster!
Yet Another Sh-tty Ditty
by Michael R. Burch
Here’s my ditty:
Life is sh-tty,
Then you get old
And more’s the pity.
Truth be told,
We’re bought and sold,
Sheep in the fold
Sheared lickety-splitty.
But chin’s up,
What’s the use of crying?
We’ve a certain escape:
Welcome to dying!
Snap Shots
by Michael R. Burch
Our daughters must be celibate,
die virgins. We triangulate
their early paths to heaven (for
the martyrs they’ll soon conjugate).
We like to hook a little tail.
We hope there’s decent ass in jail.
Don’t fool with us; our bombs are smart!
(We’ll send the plans, ASAP, e-mail.)
The soul is all that matters; why
hoard gold if it offends the eye?
A pension plan? Don’t make us laugh!
We have your plan for sainthood. (Die.)
Breakings
by Michael R. Burch
I did it out of pity.
I did it out of love.
I did it not to break the heart of a tender, wounded dove.
But gods without compassion
ordained: Frail things must break!
Now what can I do for her shattered psyche’s sake?
I did it not to push.
I did it not to shove.
I did it to assist the flight of indiscriminate Love.
But gods, all mad as hatters,
who legislate in all such matters,
ordained that everything irreplaceable shatters.
A coming day
by Michael R. Burch
for my mother, due to her hellish religion
There will be a day,
a day when the lightning strikes from a rainbowed mist
when it will be too late, too late for me to say
that I found your faith unblessed.
There will be a day,
a day when the storm clouds gather, ominous,
when it will be too late, too late to put away
this darkness that came between us.
Hellbound
by Michael R. Burch
Mother, it’s dark
and you never did love me
because you put Yahweh and Yeshu
above me.
Did they ever love you
or cling to you? No.
Now Mother, it’s cold
and I fear for my soul.
Mother, they say
you will leave me and go
to some distant “heaven”
I never shall know.
If that’s your choice,
you made it. Not me.
You brought me to life;
will you nail me to the tree?
Christ! Mother, they say
God condemned me to hell.
If the Devil’s your God
then farewell, farewell!
Or if there is Love
in some other dimension,
let’s reconcile there
and forget such cruel detention.
Crescendo Against Heaven
by Michael R. Burch
As curiously formal as the rose,
the imperious Word grows
until it sheds red-gilded leaves:
then heaven grieves
love’s tiny pool of crimson recrimination
against God, its contention
of the price of salvation.
These industrious trees,
endlessly losing and re-losing their leaves,
finally unleashing themselves from earth, lashing
themselves to bits, washing
themselves free
of all but the final ignominy
of death, become
at last: fast planks of our coffins, dumb.
Together now, rude coffins, crosses,
death-cursed but bright vermilion roses,
bodies, stumps, tears, words: conspire
together with a nearby spire
to raise their Accusation Dire ...
to scream, complain, to point out these
and other Dark Anomalies.
God always silent, ever afar,
distant as Bethlehem’s retrograde star,
we point out now, in resignation:
You asked too much of man’s beleaguered nation,
gave too much strength to his Enemy,
as though to prove Your Self greater than He,
at our expense, and so men die
(whose accusations vex the sky)
yet hope, somehow, that You are good ...
just, O greatest of Poets!, misunderstood.
Advice for Evangelicals
by Michael R. Burch
“... so let your light shine before men ...”
Consider the example of the woodland anemone:
she preaches no sermons but — immaculate — shines,
and rivals the angels in bright innocence and purity —
the sweetest of divines.
And no one has heard her engage in hypocrisy
since the beginning of time — an oracle so mute,
so profound in her silence and exemplary poise
she makes lessons moot.
So consider the example of the saintly anemone
and if you’d convince us Christ really exists,
then let him be just as sweet, just as guileless
and equally as gracious to bless.
Heaven Bent
by Michael R. Burch
This life is hell; it can get no worse.
Summon the coroner, the casket, the hearse!
But I’m upwardly mobile. How the hell can I know?
I can only go up; I’m already below!
Winter Night
by Michael R. Burch
Who will be damned,
who embalmed
for all eternity?
The night weighs heavy on me—
leaden, sullen, cold.
O, but my thoughts are light,
like the weightless windblown snow.
Published by Nisqually Delta Review
Intimations
by Michael R. Burch
Let mercy surround us
with a sweet persistence.
Let love propound to us
that life is infinitely more than existence.
Published by Katrina Anthology
Flight
by Michael R. Burch
Poetry captures
less than reality
the spirit of things
being the language
not of the lordly falcon
but of the dove with broken wings
whose heavenward flight
though brutally interrupted
is ever towards the light.
Published by Katrina Anthology
Ave Maria
by Michael R. Burch
Ave Maria,
Maiden mild,
listen to my earnest prayer.
Listen, O, and be beguiled.
Ave Maria.
Ave Maria,
Maiden mild,
be Mother now to every child
beset by earth’s thorned briars wild.
Ave Maria.
Ave Maria,
Maiden mild,
embrace us with your Love and Grace.
Let us look upon your Face.
Ave Maria.
Ave Maria,
Maiden mild,
please attend to our earnest call—
When will Love be All in All?
Ave Maria.
Copyright © 2020 by Michael R. Burch
A Possible Argument for Mercy
by Michael R. Burch
Did heaven ever seem so far?
Remember–we are as You were,
but all our lives, from birth to death—
Gethsemane in every breath.
Birthday Poem to Myself
by Michael R. Burch
LORD, be no longer this Distant Presence,
Star-Afar, Righteous-Anonymous,
but come! Come live among us;
come dwell again,
happy child among men—
men rejoicing to have known you
in the familiar manger’s cool
sweet light scent of unburdened hay.
Teach us again to be light that way,
with a chorus of angelic songs lessoned above.
Be to us again that sweet birth of Love
in the only way men can truly understand.
Do not frown darkening down upon an unrighteous land
planning fierce Retributions we require, and deserve,
but remember the child you were; believe
in the child I was, alike to you in innocence
a little while, all sweetness, and helpless without pretense.
Let us be little children again, magical in your sight.
Grant me this boon! Is it not my birthright—
just to know you, as you truly were, and are?
Come, be my friend. Help me understand and regain Hope’s long-departed star!
Learning to Fly
by Michael R. Burch
We are learning to fly
every day . . .
learning to fly—
away, away . . .
O, love is not in the ephemeral flight,
but love, Love! is our destination—
graced land of eternal sunrise, radiant beyond night!
Let us bear one another up in our vast migration.
The Gardener’s Roses
by Michael R. Burch
Mary Magdalene, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, “Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away.”
I too have come to the cave;
within: strange, half-glimpsed forms
and ghostly paradigms of things.
Here, nothing warms
this lightening moment of the dawn,
pale tendrils spreading east.
And I, of all who followed Him,
by far the least . . .
The women take no note of me;
I do not recognize
the men in white, the gardener,
these unfamiliar skies . . .
Faint scent of roses, then—a touch!
I turn, and I see: You.
"My Lord, why do You tarry here:
Another waits, Whose love is true?"
"Although My Father waits, and bliss;
though angels call—ecstatic crew!—
I gathered roses for a Friend.
I waited here, for You."
Come Spring
by Michael R. Burch
for the Religious Right
Come spring we return, innocent and hopeful, to the Virgin,
beseeching Her to bestow
Her blessings upon us.
Pitiable sinners, we bow before Her,
nay, grovel,
as She looms above us, aglow
in Her Purity.
We know
all will change in an instant; therefore
in the morning we will call her,
an untouched maiden no more,
“whore.”
The so-called Religious Right prizes virginity in women and damns them for doing what men do. I have long been a fan of women like Tallulah Bankhead, Marilyn Monroe and Mae West, who decided what’s good for the gander is equally good for the goose.
Kingdom Freedom
by Michael R. Burch
LORD, grant me a rare sweet spirit of forgiveness.
Let me have none of the lividness
of religious outrage.
LORD, let me not be over-worried
about the lack of “morality” around me.
Surround me,
not with law’s restrictive cage,
but with Your spirit, freer than the wind,
so that to breathe is to have freest life,
and not to fly to You, my only sin.
Everlasting
by Michael R. Burch
Where the wind goes
when the storm dies,
there my spirit lives
though I close my eyes.
Do not weep for me;
I am never far.
Whisper my name
to the last star ...
then let me sleep,
think of me no more.
Still ...
By denying death
its terminal sting,
in my words I remain
everlasting.
Keywords/Tags: Adam, Eve, Eden, Lucifer, fall, sin, temptation, heaven, hell, salvation, God, Yahweh, Jehovah, creation, Jesus, Cain, Abel