A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon;
The kid that handles the music-box was hitting a jag-time tune;
Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew,
And watching his luck was his light-o'-love, the lady that's known as Lou.
When out of the night, which was fifty below, and into the din and the glare,
There stumbled a miner fresh from the creeks, dog-dirty, and loaded for bear.
He looked like a man with a foot in the grave and scarcely the strength of a louse,
Yet he tilted a poke of dust on the bar, and he called for drinks for the house.
There was none could place the stranger's face, though we searched ourselves for a clue;
......
One spoke: "Come, let us gaily go
With laughter, love and lust,
Since in a century or so
We'll all be boneyard dust.
When unborn shadows hold the screen,
(Our betters, I'll allow)
'Twill be as if we'd never been,
A hundred years from now.
When we have played life's lively game
......
Three times I had the lust to kill,
To clutch a throat so young and fair,
And squeeze with all my might until
No breath of being lingered there.
Three times I drove the demon out,
Though on my brow was evil sweat. . . .
And yet I know beyond a doubt
He'll get me yet, he'll get me yet.
I know I'm mad, I ought to tell
......
Down the street as I was drifting with the city's human tide,
Came a ghost, and for a moment walked in silence by my side --
Now my heart was hard and bitter, and a bitter spirit he,
So I felt no great aversion to his ghostly company.
Said the Shade: 'At finer feelings let your lip in scorn be curled,
'Self and Pelf', my friend, has ever been the motto for the world.'
And he said: 'If you'd be happy, you must clip your fancy's wings,
Stretch your conscience at the edges to the size of earthly things;
Never fight another's battle, for a friend can never know
......
PART I
Queen Hilda rode along the lines,
And she was young and fair;
And forward on her shoulders fell
The heavy braids of hair:
No gold was ever dug from earth
Like that burnished there –
No sky so blue as were her eyes
Had man seen anywhere.
......
One night, I had a dream.
I opened my eyes to your beauty—
or maybe I didn’t.
I couldn’t tell.
You were there,
filling the room like breath after prayer.
And suddenly,
I knew what heaven might feel like.
Your lips—
......
It’s a warning.
If I perish, I perish
But I will not shut up.
Lust is not love.
Porn is not harmless.
Masturbation is not a phase.
I lived it
Not ‘cause I was raised wrong,
But because sin crept in through a simple ad at twelve.
......
Lust glows slyly in her eyes.
'Your eyes are your soul's mirrors', they say.
I cast a stare inside those clear blue lakes of hers.
What hidden desires sleep deep within you
My little-innocent one?
Inexplicably her flaming gaze pierces through my skin
Boils my blood, quivers my heart.
'I can't sleep anymore!
I think of you! '
......
This heat, confrontational;
chips carried on shoulder.
Never breathe, think,
speak, drink till closer
bringing itself in you.
Addictions begin to
blossom. Whore house
posse; optics lopping.
Spun room; coughing.
Hid moon. Tossing.
......
These are heretical poems about God, religion, the Bible and the Christian religion.
When I Was Small, I Grew
by Michael R. Burch
When I was small,
God held me in thrall:
Yes, He was my All
......