The Effects of Memory
by Michael R. Burch

A black ringlet curls to lie
at the nape of her neck,
glistening with sweat
in the evaporate moonlight ...
This is what I remember

now that I cannot forget.

And tonight,
if I have forgotten her name,
I remember ...
rigid wire and white lace
half-impressed in her flesh,

our soft cries, like regret

... the enameled white clips
of her bra strap
still inscribe dimpled marks
that my kisses erase ...

now that I have forgotten her face.



Distances
by Michael R. Burch

Moonbeams on water —
the reflected light
of a halcyon star
now drowning in night ...
So your memories are.

Footprints on beaches
now flooding with water;
the small, broken ribcage
of some primitive slaughter ...
So near, yet so far.



The Drawer of Mermaids
by Michael R. Burch

This poem is dedicated to Alina Karimova, who was born with severely deformed legs and five fingers missing. Alina loves to draw mermaids and believes her fingers will eventually grow out.

Although I am only four years old,
they say that I have an old soul.
I must have been born long, long ago,
here, where the eerie mountains glow
at night, in the Urals.

A madman named Geiger has cursed these slopes;
now, shut in at night, the emphatic ticking
fills us with dread.
(Still, my momma hopes
that I will soon walk with my new legs.)

It’s not so much legs as the fingers I miss,
drawing the mermaids under the ledges.
(Observing, Papa will kiss me
in all his distracted joy;
but why does he cry?)

And there is a boy
who whispers my name.
Then I am not lame;
for I leap, and I follow.
(G’amma brings a wiseman who says

our infirmities are ours, not God’s,
that someday a beautiful Child
will return from the stars,
and then my new fingers will grow
if only I trust Him; and so

I am preparing to meet Him, to go,
should He care to receive me.)



Bound
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 14-15

Now it is winter—the coldest night.
And as the light of the streetlamp casts strange shadows to the ground,
I have lost what I once found
in your arms.

Now it is winter—the coldest night.
And as the light of distant Venus fails to penetrate dark panes,
I have remade all my chains
and am bound.

Published as “Why Did I Go?” in my high school journal the Lantern in 1976. I have made slight changes here and there, but the poem is essentially the same as what I wrote in my early teens.



Am I
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 14-15

Am I inconsequential;
do I matter not at all?
Am I just a snowflake,
to sparkle, then to fall?

Am I only chaff?
Of what use am I?
Am I just a feeble flame,
to flicker, then to die?

Am I inadvertent?
For what reason am I here?
Am I just a ripple
in a pool that once was clear?

Am I insignificant?
Will time pass me by?
Am I just a flower,
to live one day, then die?

Am I unimportant?
Do I matter either way?
Or am I just an echo—
soon to fade away?

This is one of my very earliest poems, written around age 14 or 15. If I remember correctly, it was written the same day as “Time,” which appeared in my high school sophomore poetry assignment booklet. If not, it was a companion piece written around the same time. The refrain “Am I” is an inversion of the biblical “I Am” supposedly given to Moses as the name of God. when I wrote the two poems.



Ambition
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18-19

Men speak of their “Ambition”
and I smile to hear them say
that within them burns such fire,
such a longing to be great ...

For I laugh at their “Ambition”
as their wistfulness amasses;
I seek Her tongue’s indulgence
and Her parted legs’ crevasses.

I was very ambitious about my poetry, even as a teenager! I wrote this one around age 18 or 19.



Analogy
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18-19

Our embrace is like a forest
lying blanketed in snow;
you, the lily, are enchanted
by each shiver trembling through;
I, the snowfall, cling in earnest
as I press so close to you.
You dream that you now are sheltered;
I dream that I may break through.

I believe I wrote this poem around age 18 or 19.



The Beautiful People
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18

They are the beautiful people,
and their shadows dance through the valleys of the moon
to the listless strains of an ancient tune.

Oh, no ... please don't touch them,
for their smiles might fade.
Don’t go ... don’t approach them
as they promenade,
for they waltz through a vacuum
and dream they're not made
of the dust and the dankness
to which men degrade.

They are the beautiful people,
and their spirits sighed in their mothers’ wombs
as the distant echoings of unearthly tunes.

Winds do not blow there
and storms do not rise,
and each hair has its place
and each gown has its price.
And they whirl through the darkness
untouched by our cares
as we watch them and long for
a "life" such as theirs.

This is one of my early poems, written as a teenager in high school around age 18.



Elemental
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

There is within her a welling forth
of love unfathomable.
She is not comfortable
with the thought of merely loving:
but she must give all.

At night, she heeds the storm's calamitous call;
nay, longs for it. Why?
O, if a man understood, he might understand her.
But that never would do!
Beth, as you embrace the storm,

so I embrace elemental you.



Fading memories
of summer holidays:
the closet’s last floral skirt...
—Michael R. Burch

Scandalous tides,
removing bikinis!
—Michael R. Burch

Old age, believe me, is a blessing. While it’s true you get gently shouldered off the stage, you’re awarded such a comfortable front row seat as spectator. — Confucius, loose translation by Michael R. Burch



Starting from Scratch with Ol’ Scratch
by Michael R. Burch

Love, with a small, fatalistic sigh
went to the ovens. Please don’t bother to cry.
You could have saved her, but you were all tied up
complaining about the Jews to Reichmeister Grupp.

Scratch that. You were born after World War II.
You had something more important to do:
while the children of the Nakba were perishing in Gaza
with the complicity of your government, you had a noble cause (a
religious tract against homosexual marriage
and various things gods and evangelists disparage.)

Jesus will grok you? Ah, yes, I’m quite sure
that your intentions were good and ineluctably pure.
After all, what the hell does he care about Palestinians?
Certainly, Christians were right about serfs, slaves and Indians.
Scratch that. You’re one of the Devil’s minions.



Translations of Holocaust poems by Primo Levi

Shema
by Primo Levi
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You who live secure
in your comfortable houses,
who return each evening to find
warm food,
welcoming faces ...

consider whether this is a man:
who toils in the mud,
who knows no peace,
who fights for crusts of bread,
who dies at another man's whim,
at his "yes" or his "no."

Consider whether this is a woman:
bereft of hair,
of a recognizable name
because she lacks the strength to remember,
her eyes as void
and her womb as frigid
as a frog's in winter.

Consider that such horrors have been:
I commend these words to you.
Engrave them in your hearts
when you lounge in your house,
when you walk outside,
when you go to bed,
when you rise.
Repeat them to your children,
or may your house crumble
and disease render you helpless
so that even your offspring avert their faces from you.



Buna
by Primo Levi
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Mangled feet, cursed earth,
the long interminable line in the gray morning
as Buna smokes corpses through industrious chimneys ...

Another gray day like every other day awaits us.

The terrible whistle shrilly announces dawn:
"Rise, wretched multitudes, with your lifeless faces,
welcome the monotonous hell of the mud ...
another day’s suffering has begun!"

Weary companion, I know you well.

I see your dead eyes, my disconsolate friend.
In your breast you bear the burden of cold, deprivation, emptiness.
Life long ago broke what remained of the courage within you.

Colorless one, you once were a real man;
a considerable woman once accompanied you.

But now, my invisible companion, you lack even a name.
So forsaken, you are unable to weep.
So poor in spirit, you can no longer grieve.
So tired, your flesh can no longer shiver with fear ...

My once-strong man, now spent,
were we to meet again
in some other world, beneath some sunnier sun,
with what unfamiliar faces would we recognize each other?

Note: Buna was the largest Auschwitz sub-camp, with around 40,000 foreign “workers” who had been enslaved by the Nazis. Primo Levi called the Jews of Buna the “slaves of slaves” because the other slaves outranked them.

Primo Michele Levi (1919-1987) was an Italian Jewish chemist, writer and Holocaust survivor. He was the author of two novels and several collections of short stories, essays, and poems, but is best known for If This Is a Man, his account of the year he spent as a prisoner in the Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland. It has been described as one of the best books by one of the most important writers of the twentieth century. His unique work The Periodic Table was shortlisted as one of the greatest scientific books ever written, by the Royal Institution of Great Britain. Levi's autobiographical book about his liberation from Auschwitz, The Truce, became a movie with the same name in 1997.



After My Death
by Chaim Nachman Bialik
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Say this when you eulogize me:
Here was a man — now, poof, he's gone!
He died before his time.
The music of his life suddenly ground to a halt ...
Such a pity! There was another song in him, somewhere,
but now it's been lost,
forever.
What a pity! He had a violin,
a living, eloquent soul
to which he uttered
the secrets of his heart,
setting its strings vibrating,
save the one he kept inviolate.
Back and forth his supple fingers twirled;
one string alone remained mesmerized,
yet unheard.
Such a pity!
All his life the string quivered,
quavering silently,
yearning for its song, its mate,
as a heart falters before its departure.
Despite constant delays it waited daily,
mutely beseeching its savior, Love,
who lingered, loitered, tarried incessantly
and never came.
Great was the pain!
There was a man — now, poof, he’s gone!
The music of his life was suddenly interrupted.
There was another song in him, somewhere,
but now it is lost
forever.

Chaim Nachman Bialik (1873-1934), first name also Hayim or Haim, was a Jewish Holocaust poet who wrote in Hebrew. Bialik was one of the pioneers of modern Hebrew poetry; he came to be recognized as Israel's national poet and the foremost modern Hebrew poet. Keywords/Tags: Chaim Nachman Bialik, Hebrew, translation, Israel, life, music, violin, song, string, strings, heart, mate, love, pain, lost, forever



Holocaust Poem: "On The Slaughter"
by Chaim Nachman Bialik
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Merciful heavens, have pity on me!
If there is a God approachable by men
as yet I have not found him—
Pray for me!

For my heart is dead,
prayers languish upon my tongue;
my right hand has lost its strength
and my hope is undone.

How long? Oh, when will this nightmare end?
How long? Hangman, traitor,
here’s my neck—
rise up now, rise and slaughter!

Behead me like a dog—your arm controls the axe
and the whole world is a scaffold to me
although we—the chosen few—
were once recipients of the Pacts.

Executioner, my blood’s a paltry prize—
strike my skull and the blood of innocents will rain
drenching your pristine uniform again and again,
staining your raiment forever.

If there is Justice—quick, let her appear!
But after I’ve been blotted out, should she reveal her face,
let her false scales be overturned forever
and the heavens reek with the stench of her disgrace.

You too arrogant men, with your brutal injustice,
suckled on blood, unweaned of violence:
cursed be the warrior who cries "Vengeance!" on a maiden;
such cruelty was never contemplated, even by Satan.

Let innocents’ blood drench the abyss!
Let innocents’ blood seep down into the congealing darkness,
eat it away and undermine
earth’s rotting foundations.

Al Hashechita ("On the Slaughter") was written by Chaim Nachman Bialik in response to the bloody Kishniev pogrom of 1903, which was instigated by agents of the Czar who wanted to divert social unrest and political anger from the Czar to the Jewish minority. The Hebrew word schechita (also transliterated shechita, shechitah, shekhitah, shehita) denotes the ritual kosher slaughtering of animals for food. The juxtapositioning of kosher slaughter with the slaughter of Jews makes the poem all the more powerful and ghastly. Such anti-Semitic incidents prompted a massive wave of Eastern European emigration that brought millions of Jews to the West. Unfortunately, there have been many similar slaughters in human history and the poem remains chillingly relevant to the more recent ones in Israel/Palestine, Rwanda, Bosnia and Kosovo.



Christ!
by Michael R. Burch

If I knew men could be so dumb,
I would never have come!

Now you lie, cheat and steal in my name
and make it a thing of shame.

Did I heal the huge holes in your heart, in your head?
Isn’t it obvious: I’m dead
and unable to retract what I never said?



Alien Nation
by Michael R. Burch

for J. S. S., a "Christian" poet who believes in “hell”

On a lonely outpost on Mars
the astronaut practices “speech”
as alien to primates below
as mute stars winking high, out of reach.

And his words fall as bright and as chill
as ice crystals on Kilimanjaro —
far colder than Jesus’s words
over the “fortunate” sparrow.

And I understand how gentle Emily
felt, when all comfort had flown,
gazing into those inhuman eyes,
feeling zero at the bone.

Oh, how can I grok his arctic thought?
For if he is human, I am not.



And a Little Child Shall Lead Them
by Michael R. Burch

1.
"Where's my daughter?"

"Get on your knees, get on your knees!"

"It's okay, Mommy, I'm right here with you."

2.
where does the butterfly go
when lightning rails
when thunder howls
when hailstones scream
when winter scowls
when nights compound dark frosts with snow ...
where does the butterfly go?

Four-year-old Dae'Anna Reynolds, nicknamed Dae Dae, loves fireworks; we can see her holding a "Family Pack" on the Fourth of July; the accompanying Facebook blurb burbles, "Anything to see her happy." But perhaps Dae Dae won’t appreciate fireworks nearly as much in the future, or "Independence" Day either.

Diamond Lavish Reynolds, Dae Dae’s mother, will remain "preternaturally calm" during the coming encounter with the cops, or at least until the very end.

Philando Divall Castile, cafeteria manager at a Montessori magnet school, was "famous for trading fist bumps with the kids and slipping them extra Graham crackers." Never convicted of a serious crime, he was done in by a broken tail light. Or was it his “wide-set nose” that made him look like a robbery suspect? Or was it racism, or perhaps just blind—and blinding—fear?

Lavish, Dae Dae and Castile went from picnicking in the park early on the evening of the Fourth, in an "all-American idyll" celebrating freedom, to the opposite extreme: being denied the simple freedom to live and pursue happiness. Over a broken tail light and/or a suspiciously broad nose.

Castile can be seen sitting on a park bench. Dae Dae and a friend are "running happily across the grass." Lavish, wearing an American flag top, exclaims, "Happy Fourth, everybody! Put the guns down, let these babies enjoy these fireworks!" Odd to have to put guns down to celebrate a holiday. Only in America, land of the free and the home of the brave?

3.
where does the rose hide its bloom
when night descends oblique and chill,
beyond the capacity of moonlight to fill?
when the only relief’s a banked fire’s glow
where does the butterfly go?

... Now the cop’s gun is drawn in earnest, four shots ring out, Castile slumps over in his seat, a "gaping bullet hole in his arm," the vivid red blood seeping "across the chest of his white T-shirt." The cop continues to point his pistol into the car. His voice is "panicky."

"Fuck!"

The same curse a Baton Rouge police officer screamed after shooting another black man in a similar incident.

"He was reaching for his wallet and the officer just shot him!"

"Ma'am just keep your hands where they are!"

"I will sir, no worries."

"Fuck!"

"I told him not to reach for it. I told him to get his hand open."

"You told him to get out his ID, sir, and his driver's license."

Little Dae Dae, sitting in the back seat, watches it all unfold. So praiseworthy when confronting the unthinkable, she seeks to console her mother, her voice "tender and reassuring" in marked contrast to the cop’s screams.

"It's okay, Mommy, I'm right here with you."

4.
and where shall the spirit flee
when life is harsh, too harsh to face,
and hope is lost without a trace?
oh, when the light of life runs low,
where does the butterfly go?

"Oh my God, please don't tell me he's dead! Please don't tell me my boyfriend went like that!"

"Keep your hands where they are, please!"

Suddenly so polite, perhaps sensing some sort of mistake?

"Yes, I will, sir. I'll keep my hands where they are."

"It's okay, Mommy, I'm right here with you."

5.
I lived as best I could, and then I died.
Be careful where you step: the grave is wide.

More cops appear on the scene.

"Get the female passenger out!"

"Ma'am exit the car right now, with your hands up. Exit now."

"Keep 'em up, keep 'em up! Face away from me and walk backward! Keep walking!"

"Where's my daughter? You got my daughter?"

"Get on your knees! Get on your knees!"

"It's okay, Mommy, I'm right here with you."

6.
Something inescapable is lost—
lost like a pale vapor curling up into shafts of moonlight,
vanishing in a gust of wind toward an expanse of stars
immeasurable and void.

Something uncapturable is gone—
gone with the spent leaves and illuminations of autumn,
scattered into a haze with the faint rustle of parched grass
and remembrance.

Something unforgettable is past—
blown from a glimmer into nothingness, or less,
and finality has swept into a corner where it lies
in dust and cobwebs and silence.

"Ma'am, you're just being detained for now, until we get this straightened out, OK!"

By now the cops realize the severity of the situation and Castile's injuries, which will result in his death within twenty minutes of the shooting.

"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!"

"Please don't tell me my boyfriend's gone! He don't deserve this! Please, he's a good man. He works for St. Paul Public Schools. He doesn't have a record of anything. He's never been in jail, anything. He's not a gang member, anything."

Lavish begins praying aloud: "Allow him to be still here with us, with me … Please Lord, wrap your arms around him … Please make sure that he's OK, he's breathing … Just spare him, please. You know we are innocent people, Lord … We are innocent. My four-year-old can tell you about it."

Lavish asks one of the cops if she can retrieve her phone.

"It's right there, on the floor."

"Fuck! It has to be processed."

The cop speaks to Dae Dae, who has started heading back to the car.

"Can you just stand right there, sweetie?"

"No, I want to get my mommy's purse."

"I'll take care of that for you, OK? Can you just stand right there for me?"

The cops continue to treat Lavish as a suspect. She later said that the cops "treated me like a criminal ... like it was my fault."

"Can you just search her?"

Mother addresses daughter tenderly: "Come here, Dae Dae."

"Mommy…"

"Don't be scared."

Lavish informs Facebook Live: "My daughter just witnessed this."

She tips the phone's camera to the side window of the squad car: "That's the police officer over there that did it. I can't really do shit because they got me handcuffed."

"It's OK, mommy."

"I can't believe they just did this!"

Lavish cries out, sounding "trapped, grief-torn." Dae Dae speaks again, "mighty with love," a child whose "quiet magnificence" commands us to also rise to the occasion.

"It's okay, I'm right here with you."

7.
And a little child shall lead them.

Amen

NOTE: The quoted parts of this poem were taken from a blow-by-blow account of the incident, "The Bravest Little Girl in the World," written by Michael Daly and published by The Daily Beast.



Nightingale
by Michael R. Burch

Write me some gorgeous rhythm
about the gently falling night
in words with similar cadences
and a moon as occultly bright,
and if your lullaby pleases
and if your charms persist,
then I will gladly add you
to my bookmarked favorites list.

But as for pay and for hire,
and as for fortune and fame —
they seem quite unlikely, minstrel,
and while that might seem a shame,
are nightingales “rewarded”
for their sweetly pensive songs?
Your poems are too damn expensive —
add that to your warbled wrongs!



Mongrel Dreams (II)
by Michael R. Burch

for Thomas Rain Crowe

I squat in my Cherokee lodge, this crude wooden hutch of dry branches and leaf-thatch
as the embers smolder and burn,
hearing always the distant tom-toms of your rain dance.

I relax in my rustic shack on the heroned shores of Gwynedd,
slandering the English in the amulet gleam of the North Atlantic,
hearing your troubadour’s songs, remembering Dylan.

I stand in my rough woolen kilt in the tall highland heather
feeling the freezing winds through the trees leaning sideways,
hearing your bagpipes’ lament, dreaming of Burns.

I slave in my drab English hovel, tabulating rents
while dreaming of Blake and burning your poems like incense.

I abide in my pale mongrel flesh, writing in Nashville
as the thunderbolts flash and the spring rains spill,
till the quill gently bleeds and the white page fills,
dreaming of Whitman, calling you brother.



Nucleotidings
by Michael R. Burch

“We will walk taller!” said Gupta,
sorta abrupta,
hand-in-hand with his mom,
eyeing the A-bomb.

“Who needs a mahatma
in the aftermath of NAFTA?
Now, that was a disaster,”
cried glib Punjab.

“After Y2k,
time will spin out of control anyway,”
flamed Vijay.

“My family is relatively heavy,
too big even for a pig-barn Chevy;
we need more space,”
spat What’s His Face.

“What does it matter,
dirge or mantra,”
sighed Serge.

“The world will wobble
in Hubble’s lens
till the tempest ends,”
wailed Mercedes.

“The world is going to hell in a bucket.
So fuck it and get outta my face!
We own this place!
Me and my friends got more guns than ISIS,
so what’s the crisis?”
cried Bubba Billy Joe Bob Puckett.



Excelsior
by Michael R. Burch

I lift my eyes and laugh, Excelsior . . .
Why do you come, wan spirit, heaven-gowned,
complaining that I am no longer “pure?”

I threw myself before you, and you frowned,
so full of noble chastity, renowned
for leaving maidens maidens. In the dark

I sought love’s bright enchantment, but your lips
were stone; my fiery metal drew no spark
to light the cold dominions of your heart.

What realms were ours? What leasehold? And what claim
upon these territories, cold and dark,
do you seek now, pale phantom? Would you light

my heart in death and leave me ashen-white,
as you are white, extinguished by the Night?



Less Heroic Couplets: Midnight Stairclimber
by Michael R. Burch

Procreation
is at first great sweaty recreation,
then—long, long after the sex dies—
the source of endless exercise.



Less Heroic Couplets: Baseball Explained
by Michael R. Burch

Baseball’s immeasurable spittin’
mixed with occasional hittin’.



Dee Lite Full

A cross-dressing dancer, “Dee Lite,”
wore gowns luciferously bright
till he washed them one day
the old-fashioned way ...
in bleach. Now he’s “Sister Off White.”



“Clintonian” or “Billistic?”
by Michael R. Burch

There is a new term, “Clintonian,”
which means, “Stop your bitchin’ and moanin’.
He’s only a man
doing all that he can
to put kneepads in the Smithsonian.”



Any Woozy Floozy Will Do (I)
by Michael R. Burch

Once Kennedy, as we all know,
bedded a goddess, Monroe;
but a man of less mettle,
Bill Clinton will settle
for Lewinsky and a quick blow.



Any Woozy Floozy Will Do (II)
by Michael R. Burch

Once Kennedy, as we all know,
bedded a goddess, Monroe;
but Bill Clinton, less choosy,
will take any floozy
and a doozy of a good blow.

Keywords/Tags: effects, memory, memories, remember, regret, moonlight, erase