In my dream, I fell through the floor,
Whispers of a father I can’t ignore.
His hands were warm, but his eyes were cold,
Behind that mask, a truth untold.
I reached for him, but he slipped away,
A shadow where his love should stay.
A laugh that shattered, sharp and cruel,
The mask of love, a twisted fool.
Am I alive, or just a ghost he made?
I can’t recall the promises he betrayed.
All that’s left is the hollow air,
But the mask? Oh, it lingers there.
There's been no desire in me to force them
to carry children they never wanted
I don't understand how it turned into
shouting about how I'm allowed no decision
To somehow liken me to an enemy
of the natural order of pregnancy and birthright
only because I said I wanted mine -
and that I've been having a real hard time
I've always, and will still, continue to support them
In the struggle against such morbid coercion
against those who would try to pry into
the lives of women via political card-tricks
to commandeere their very womanhood,
These are poems for children and poems about children and their mothers, fathers, grandmother, grandfathers and extended families.
The Desk
by Michael R. Burch
for Jeremy
There is a child I used to know
who sat, perhaps, at this same desk
where you sit now, and made a mess
of things sometimes.I wonder how
he learned at all...
These are poems about Dylan Thomas, as well as poems "for" and "after" Dylan Thomas. Dylan Thomas was one of my favorite poets from my early teens and has remained so over the years. I have written three poems ‘for’ him and one poem ‘after’ him …
Myth
by Michael R. Burch
after the sprung rhythm of Dylan Thomas
Here the recalcitrant wind
sighs with grievance and remorse
over fields of wayward gorse
and thistle-throttled lanes.
These are poems for fathers and grandfathers, written by Michael R. Burch.
Sunset
by Michael R. Burch
This poem is dedicated to my grandfather, George Edwin Hurt Sr.
Between the prophecies of morning
and twilight’s revelations of wonder,
the sky is ripped asunder.
The moon lurks in the clouds,
waiting, as if to plunder
the dusk of its lilac iridescence,
and in the bright-tentacled sunset
we imagine a presence
full of the fury of lost innocence.
The God of the day has vanished,
The light from the hills has fled,
And the hand of an unseen artist
Is painting the west all red.
All threaded with gold and crimson,
And burnished with amber dye,
And tipped with purple shadows,
The glory flameth high.
Fair, beautiful world of ours!
Fair, beautiful world, but oh,
How darkened by pain and sorrow,
How blackened by sin and woe.
The splendour pales in the heavens
And dies in a golden gleam,
And alone in the hush of twilight,
I sit, in a chequered dream.
The Son of God in doing good
Was fain to look to Heaven and sigh:
And shall the heirs of sinful blood
Seek joy unmixed in charity?
God will not let Love's work impart
Full solace, lest it steal the heart;
Be thou content in tears to sow,
Blessing, like Jesus, in thy woe:
He looked to Heaven, and sadly sighed -
What saw my gracious Saviour there,
"With fear and anguish to divide
The joy of Heaven-accepted prayer?
So o'er the bed where Lazarus slept
He to His Father groaned and wept:
What saw He mournful in that grave,
445
'Twas just this time, last year, I died.
I know I heard the Corn,
When I was carried by the Farms—
It had the Tassels on—
I thought how yellow it would look—
When Richard went to mill—
And then, I wanted to get out,
But something held my will.
I thought just how Red—Apples wedged
The Stubble's joints between—
And the Carts stooping round the fields
To take the Pumpkins in—
I wondered which would miss me, least,
And when Thanksgiving, came,
If Father'd multiply the plates—
To make an even Sum—