Gleyre Le Coucher de Sappho by Marc-Charles-Gabriel Gleyre
These are the best erotic poems and best erotic poetry translations of Michael R. Burch. Most of these poems are risqué rather than graphic. Erotic poems come in all shapes, sizes and forms: haiku, tanka, epigrams, couplets, limericks, sonnets, rondels, roundels, villanelles, free verse, etc. There is also a collection of humorous erotic poems at the bottom of this page.
Preposterous Eros
by Michael R. Burch“Preposterous Eros” – Patricia Falanga
Preposterous Eros shot me in
the buttocks, with a Devilish grin,
spent all my money in a rush
then left my heart effete pink mush.
I found the Goddess in your body's curves and crevasses.
—attributed to Sappho, translation by Michael R. Burch
Sappho, fragment 42
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Eros harrows my heart:
wild winds whipping desolate mountains,
uprooting oaks.
I fell in love with this erotic little number many years ago, and ended up translating it myself. Here, the immortal Sappho of Lesbos conveys the elemental nature of Eros, the Greek god of sexual love and lust. Our term "erotic" derives from Eros, just as our terms "sapphic" and "lesbian" derive from Sappho's name and her island home. Eros was the son of Aphrodite (the goddess of love) and Ares (the god of war)! And in this poem love does sound like a battlefield, to borrow a phrase from Pat Benatar.
Sappho, fragment 22
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
That enticing girl's clinging dresses
leave me trembling, overcome by happiness,
as once, when I once saw the Goddess
in my prayers?eclipsing Cyprus.
Sappho, fragment 155
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
A short revealing frock?
It's just my luck
your lips were made to mock!
There are more Sappho translations later on this page...
Warming Her Pearls
by Michael R. Burch
for Beth
Warming her pearls,
her breasts gleam like constellations.
Her belly is a bit rotund ...
she might have stepped out of a Rubens.
Negligibles
by Michael R. Burch
Show me your most intimate items of apparel;
begin with the hem of your quicksilver slip ...
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.
Erotic Errata
by Michael R. Burch
I didn’t mean to love you;
if I did,
it came unbid-
en, and should’ve remained hid-
den!
Heat Lightening
by Michael R. Burch
Each night beneath the elms, we never knew
which lights beyond dark hills might stall, advance,
then lurch into strange headbeams tilted up
like searchlights seeking contact in the distance . . .
. . . quiescent unions . . . thoughts of bliss, of hope . . .
long-dreamt appearances of wished-on stars . . .
like childhood’s long-occluded, nebulous
slow drift of half-formed visions . . . slip and bra . . .
Wan moonlight traced your features, perilous,
in danger of extinction, should your hair
fall softly on my eyes, or should a kiss
cause them to close, or should my fingers dare
to leave off childhood for some new design
of whiter lace, of flesh incarnadine.
Published by The New Stylus and Love Poems and Poets
Le Balcon (The Balcony)
by Charles Baudelaire
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Paramour of memory, ultimate mistress,
source of all pleasure, my only desire;
how can I forget your ecstatic caresses,
the warmth of your breasts by the roaring fire,
paramour of memory, ultimate mistress?
Each night illumined by the burning coals
we lay together where the rose-fragrance clings—
how soft your breasts, how tender your soul!
Ah, and we said imperishable things,
each night illumined by the burning coals.
How beautiful the sunsets these sultry days,
deep space so profound, beyond life’s brief floods ...
then, when I kissed you, my queen, in a daze,
I thought I breathed the bouquet of your blood
as beautiful as sunsets these sultry days.
Night thickens around us like a wall;
in the deepening darkness our irises meet.
I drink your breath, ah! poisonous yet sweet!,
as with fraternal hands I massage your feet
while night thickens around us like a wall.
I have mastered the sweet but difficult art
of happiness here, with my head in your lap,
finding pure joy in your body, your heart;
because you’re the queen of my present and past
I have mastered love’s sweet but difficult art.
O vows! O perfumes! O infinite kisses!
Can these be reborn from a gulf we can’t sound
as suns reappear, as if heaven misses
their light when they sink into seas dark, profound?
O vows! O perfumes! O infinite kisses!
I have found porn sites and escort services using my Baudelaire translations, so the pros seem to like them!
Les Bijoux (The Jewels)
by Charles Baudelaire
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
My lover nude and knowing my heart's whims
Wore nothing more than a few bright-flashing gems;
Her art was saving men despite their sins—
She ruled like harem girls crowned with diadems!
She danced for me with a gay but mocking air,
My world of stone and metal sparking bright;
I discovered in her the rapture of everything fair—
Nay, an excess of joy where the spirit and flesh unite!
Naked she lay and offered herself to me,
Parting her legs and smiling receptively,
As gentle and yet profound as the rising sea—
Till her surging tide encountered my cliff, abruptly.
A tigress tamed, her eyes met mine, intent ...
Intent on lust, content to purr and please!
Her breath, both languid and lascivious, lent
An odd charm to her metamorphoses.
Her limbs, her loins, her abdomen, her thighs,
Oiled alabaster, sinuous as a swan,
Writhed pale before my calm clairvoyant eyes;
Like clustered grapes her breasts and belly shone.
Skilled in more spells than evil imps can muster,
To break the peace which had possessed my heart,
She flashed her crystal rocks’ hypnotic luster
Till my quietude was shattered, blown apart.
Her waist awrithe, her breasts enormously
Out-thrust, and yet ... and yet, somehow, still coy ...
As if stout haunches of Antiope
Had been grafted to a boy ...
The room grew dark, the lamp had flickered out.
Mute firelight, alone, lit each glowing stud;
Each time the fire sighed, as if in doubt,
It steeped her pale, rouged flesh in pools of blood.
The Communion of Sighs
by Michael R. Burch
There was a moment
without the sound of trumpets or a shining light,
but with only silence and darkness and a cool mist
felt more than seen.
I was eighteen,
my heart pounding wildly within me like a fist.
Expectation hung like a cry in the night,
and your eyes shone like the corona of a comet.
There was an instant . . .
without words, but with a deeper communion,
as clothing first, then inhibitions fell;
liquidly our lips met
—feverish, wet—
forgotten, the tales of heaven and hell,
in the immediacy of our fumbling union . . .
when the rest of the world became distant.
Then the only light was the moon on the rise,
and the only sound, the communion of sighs.
I believe I wrote "The Communion of Sighs" around age 18 as the poem suggests.
The Deflowering
excerpt from a Mayan love poem
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Remove your clothes;
let down your hair;
become as naked as the day you were born—
virgins!
The Receiving of the Flower
excerpt from a Mayan love poem
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Let us sing overflowing with joy
as we observe the Receiving of the Flower.
The lovely maidens beam;
their hearts leap in their breasts.
Why?
Because they will soon yield their virginity to the men they love!
Prelude to Lovemaking
excerpt from a Mayan love poem
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Lay out your most beautiful clothes,
maidens!
The day of happiness has arrived!
Grab your combs, detangle your hair,
adorn your earlobes with gaudy pendants.
Dress in white as becomes maidens ...
Then go, give your lovers the happiness of your laughter!
And all the village will rejoice with you,
for the day of happiness has arrived!
The Flower-Strewn Pool
excerpt from a Mayan love poem
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
You have arrived at last in the woods
where no one can see what you do
at the flower-strewn pool ...
Remove your clothes,
unbraid your hair,
become as you were
when you first arrived here
naked and shameless—
virgins, maidens!
Millay Has Her Way with a Vassar Professor
by Michael R. Burch
After a night of hard drinking and spreading her legs,
Millay hits the dorm, where the Vassar don begs:
“Please act more chastely, more discretely, more seemly!”
(His name, let’s assume, was, er . . . Percival Queemly.)
“Expel me! Expel me!”—She flashes her eyes.
“Oh! Please! No! I couldn’t! That wouldn’t be wise,
for a great banished Shelley would tarnish my name . . .
Eek! My game will be lame if I can’t milque your fame!”
“Continue to live here—carouse as you please!”
the beleaguered don sighs as he sags to his knees.
Millay grinds her crotch half an inch from his nose:
“I can live in your hellhole, strange man, I suppose ...
but the price is your firstborn, whom I’ll sacrifice to Moloch.”
(Which explains what became of pale Percy’s son, Enoch.)
Are You the Thief
by Michael R. Burch
When I touch you now,
O sweet lover,
full of fire,
melting like ice
in my embrace,
when I part the delicate white lace,
baring pale flesh,
and your face
is so close
that I breathe your breath
and your hair surrounds me like a wreath ...
tell me now,
O sweet, sweet lover,
in good faith:
are you the thief
who has stolen my heart?
Righteous
by Michael R. Burch
Come to me tonight
in the twilight, O, and the full moon rising,
spectral and ancient, will mutter a prayer.
Gather your hair
and pin it up, knowing
that I will release it a moment anon.
We are not one,
nor is there a scripture
to sanctify nights you might spend in my arms,
but the swarms
of stars revolving above us
revel tonight, the most ardent of lovers.
The Tally
by Hafiz
an extremely loose translation by Michael R. Burch
Lovers
don't reveal
all
their Secrets ...
under the covers
they
may
count each other's Moles
(that reside
and hide
in shy regions
by forbidden holes),
then keep final tally
strictly from Aunt Sally!
Sappho, fragment 50
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Eros, the limb-shatterer,
rattles me,
an irresistible
constrictor.
Sappho, fragment 10
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
I lust!
I crave!
Fuck me!
Sweet Rose of Virtue
by William Dunbar
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Sweet rose of virtue and of gentleness,
delightful lily of youthful wantonness,
richest in bounty and in beauty clear
and in every virtue that is held most dear?
except only that you are merciless.
Into your garden, today, I followed you;
there I saw flowers of freshest hue,
both white and red, delightful to see,
and wholesome herbs, waving resplendently?
yet everywhere, no odor but bitter rue.
I fear that March with his last arctic blast
has slain my fair rose of pallid and gentle cast,
whose piteous death does my heart such pain
that, if I could, I would compose her roots again?
so comforting her bowering leaves have been.
Burn, Ovid
by Michael R. Burch
“Burn Ovid”—Austin Clarke
Sunday School,
Faith Free Will Baptist, 1973:
I sat imagining watery folds
of pale silk encircling her waist.
Explicit sex was the day’s “hot” topic
(how breathlessly I imagined hers)
as she taught us the perils of lust
fraught with inhibition.
I found her unaccountably beautiful,
rolling implausible nouns off the edge of her tongue:
adultery, fornication, masturbation, sodomy.
Acts made suddenly plausible by the faint blush
of her unrouged cheeks,
by her pale lips
accented only by a slight quiver,
a trepidation.
What did those lustrous folds foretell
of our uncommon desire?
Why did she cross and uncross her legs
lovely and long in their taupe sheaths?
Why did her breasts rise pointedly,
as if indicating a direction?
“Come unto me,
(unto me),”
together, we sang,
cheek to breast,
lips on lips,
devout, afire,
my hands
up her skirt,
her pants at her knees:
all night long,
all night long,
in the heavenly choir.
This poem is set at Faith Christian Academy, which I attended for a year during the ninth grade, in 1972-1973. While the poem definitely had its genesis there, I believe I revised it more than once and didn't finish it till 2001, nearly 28 years later, according to my notes on the poem. Another poem, "Sex 101," was also written about my experiences at FCA that year.
Sex 101
by Michael R. Burch
That day the late spring heat
steamed through the windows of a Crayola-yellow schoolbus
crawling its way up the backwards slopes
of Nowheresville, North Carolina ...
Where we sat exhausted
from the day’s skulldrudgery
and the unexpected waves of muggy,
summer-like humidity ...
Giggly first graders sat two abreast
behind senior high students
sprouting their first sparse beards,
their implausible bosoms, their stranger affections ...
The most unlikely coupling—
Lambert, 18, the only college prospect
on the varsity basketball team,
the proverbial talldarkhandsome
swashbuckling cocksman, grinning ...
Beside him, Wanda, 13,
bespectacled, in her primproper attire
and pigtails, staring up at him,
fawneyed, disbelieving ...
And as the bus filled with the improbable musk of her,
as she twitched impaled on his finger
like a dead frog jarred to life by electrodes,
I knew ...
that love is a forlorn enterprise,
that I would never understand it.
This companion poem to "Burn, Ovid" is also set at Faith Christian Academy, in 1972-1973.
Redolence
by Michael R. Burch
Now darkness ponds upon the violet hills;
cicadas sing; the tall elms gently sway;
and night bends near, a deepening shade of gray;
the bass concerto of a bullfrog fills
what silence there once was; globed searchlights play.
Green hanging ferns adorn dark window sills,
all drooping fronds, awaiting morning’s flares;
mosquitoes whine; the lissome moth again
flits like a veiled oud-dancer, and endures
the fumblings of night’s enervate gray rain.
And now the pact of night is made complete;
the air is fresh and cool, washed of the grime
of the city’s ashen breath; and, for a time,
the fragrance of her clings, obscure and sweet.
Published by The Eclectic Muse and The Best of the Eclectic Muse 1989-2003
Duet, Minor Key
by Michael R. Burch
Without the drama of cymbals
or the fanfare and snares of drums,
I present my case
stripped of its fine veneer:
Behold, thy instrument.
Play, for the night is long.
An Ancient Egyptian Love Lyric (circa 1085-570 BC)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Is there anything sweeter than these hours of love,
when we’re together, and my heart races?
For what is better than embracing and fondling
when you visit me and we surrender to delights?
If you reach to caress my thigh,
I will offer you my breast also —
it’s soft; it won't jab you or thrust you away!
Will you leave me because you’re hungry?
Are you ruled by your belly?
Will you leave me because you need something to wear?
I have chests full of fine linen!
Will you leave me because you’re thirsty?
Here, suck my breasts! They’re full to overflowing, and all for you!
I glory in the hours of our embracings;
my joy is incalculable!
The thrill of your love spreads through my body
like honey in water,
like a drug mixed with spices,
like wine mingled with water.
Oh, that you would speed to see your sister
like a stallion in heat, like a bull to his heifer!
For the heavens have granted us love like flames igniting straw,
desire like the falcon’s free-falling frenzy!
A Courtesan's Love Lyric
by Veronica Franco
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
My rewards will be commensurate with your gifts
if only you give me the one that lifts
me laughing ...
And though it costs you nothing,
still it is of immense value to me.
Your reward will be
not just to fly
but to soar, so high
that your joys vastly exceed your desires.
And my beauty, to which your heart aspires
and which you never tire of praising,
I will employ for the raising
of your spirits. Then, lying sweetly at your side,
I will shower you with all the delights of a bride,
which I have more expertly learned.
Then you who so fervently burned
will at last rest, fully content,
fallen even more deeply in love, spent
at my comfortable bosom.
When I am in bed with a man I blossom,
becoming completely free
with the man who loves and enjoys me.
Once
by Michael R. Burch
Once when her kisses were fire incarnate
and left in their imprint bright lipstick, and flame,
when her breath rose and fell over smoldering dunes,
leaving me listlessly sighing her name ...
Once when her breasts were as pale, as beguiling,
as wan rivers of sand shedding heat like a mist,
when her words would at times softly, mildly rebuke me
all the while as her lips did more wildly insist ...
Once when the thought of her echoed and whispered
through vast wastelands of need like a Bedouin chant,
I ached for the touch of her lips with such longing
that I vowed all my former vows to recant ...
Once, only once, something bloomed, of a desiccate seed—
this implausible blossom her wild rains of kisses decreed.
What Goes Around, Comes
by Michael R. Burch
This is a poem about loss
so why do you toss your dark hair—
unaccountably glowing?
How can you be sure of my heart
when it’s beyond my own knowing?
Or is it love’s pheromones you trust,
my eyes magnetized by your bust
and the mysterious alchemies of lust?
Now I am truly lost!
Chloe
by Michael R. Burch
There were skies onyx at night ... moons by day ...
lakes pale as her eyes ... breathless winds
undressing tall elms; ... she would say
that we loved, but I figured we’d sinned.
Soon impatiens too fiery to stay
sagged; the crocus bells drooped, golden-limned;
things of brightness, rinsed out, ran to gray ...
all the light of that world softly dimmed.
Where our feet were inclined, we would stray;
there were paths where dead weeds stood untrimmed,
distant mountains that loomed in our way,
thunder booming down valleys dark-hymned.
What I found, I found lost in her face
while yielding all my virtue to her grace.
Let Me Give Her Diamonds
by Michael R. Burch
Let me give her diamonds
for my heart's
sharp edges.
Let me give her roses
for my soul's
thorn.
Let me give her solace
for my words
of treason.
Let the flowering of love
outlast a winter
season.
Let me give her books
for all my lack
of reason.
Let me give her candles
for my lack
of fire.
Let me kindle incense,
for our hearts
require
the breath-fanned
flaming perfume
of desire.
Floating
by Michael R. Burch
Memories flood the sand’s unfolding scroll;
they pour in with the long, cursive tides of night.
Memories of revenant blue eyes and wild lips
moist and frantic against my own.
Memories of ghostly white limbs . . .
of soft sighs
heard once again in the surf’s strangled moans.
We meet in the scarred, fissured caves of old dreams,
green waves of algae billowing about you,
becoming your hair.
Suspended there,
where pale sunset discolors the sea,
I see all that you are
and all that you have become to me.
Your love is a sea,
and I am its trawler—
harbored in dreams,
I ride out night’s storms.
Unanchored, I drift through the hours before morning,
dreaming the solace of your warm breasts,
pondering your riddles, savoring the feel
of the explosions of your hot, saline breath.
And I rise sometimes
from the tropical darkness
to gaze once again out over the sea . . .
You watch in the moonlight
that brushes the water;
bright waves throw back your reflection at me.
This is one of my more surreal poems, as the sea and lover become one. I believe I wrote this one at age 19. It has been published by Penny Dreadful, Romantics Quarterly, Boston Poetry Magazine and Poetry Life & Times. The poem may have had a different title when it was originally published, but it escapes me . . . ah, yes, "Entanglements."
Nevermore!
by Michael R. Burch
Nevermore! O, nevermore
shall the haunts of the sea—
the swollen tide pools
and the dark, deserted shore—
mark her passing again.
And the salivating sea
shall never kiss her lips
nor caress her breasts and hips
as she dreamt it did before,
once, lost within the uproar.
The waves will never rape her,
nor take her at their leisure;
the sea gulls shall not have her,
nor could she give them pleasure . . .
She sleeps forevermore.
She sleeps forevermore,
a virgin save to me
and her other lover,
who lurks now, safely smothered
by the restless, surging sea.
And, yes, they sleep together,
but never in that way!
For the sea has stripped and shorn
the one I once adored,
and washed her flesh away.
He does not stroke her honey hair,
for she is bald, bald to the bone!
And how it fills my heart with glee
to hear them sometimes cursing me
out of the depths of the demon sea . . .
their skeletal love—impossibility!
This is one of my Poe-like creations, written around age 19. I think the poem has an interesting ending, since the male skeleton is missing an important "member."
Psycho Analysis
by Michael R. Burch
This is not what I need . . .
analysis,
paralysis,
as though I were a seed
to be planted,
supported
with a stick and some string
until I emerge.
Your words
are not water. I need something
more nourishing,
like cherishing,
something essential, like love
so that when I climb
out of the lime
and the mulch. When I shove
myself up
from the muck . . .
we can fuck.
Originally published by Unlikely Stories
The Secret of Her Clothes
by Michael R. Burch
The secret of her clothes
is that they whisper a little mysteriously
of things unseen
in the language of nylon and cotton,
so that when she walks
to her amorous drawers
to rummage among the embroidered hearts
and rumors of pastel slips
for a white wisp of Victorian lace,
the delicate rustle of fabric on fabric,
the slightest whisper of telltale static,
electrifies me.
Published by Erosha, Velvet Avalanche (Anthology) and Poetry Life & Times
Retro
by Michael R. Burch
Now, once again,
love’s a redundant pleasure,
as we laugh
at my childish fumblings
through the acres of your dress,
past your wily-wired brassiere,
through your panties’ pink billows
of thrill-piqued frills ...
Till I lay once again—panting redfaced
at your gayest lack of resistance,
and, later, at your milktongued
mewlings in the dark ...
When you were virginal,
sweet as eucalyptus,
we did not understand
the miracle of repentance,
and I took for granted
your obsessive distance ...
But now I am happily unbuttoning
that chaste dress,
unhitching that firm-latched bra,
tugging at those parachute-like panties—
the ones you would have gladly forgotten
had I not bought them in this year’s size.
Originally published by Erosha
Rehearsal Reversal
by Michael R. Burch
The wonder of a first kiss
is:
the next will be better,
if less memorable...
and what’s unforgettable’s
this:
that, somehow,
although you just met her,
in the exchange of eclectic eyes
love came, an electric surmise,
with the smell of cordite hair
on a warm wool sweater
more than amply bosomed.
Use
any excess static to light
the fuse.
Fumble-fingered, her bra strap’s cinch
refuses to budge an inch
in either direction.
Who’s
ever prepared to be so stymied?
Smile,
lean back, drag, “relax” awhile
from practice imperfect. I’ll
leave you two jaybirds alone.
Yes, tomorrow she’ll
answer the phone,
show up for your first real date:
late, breathless, and braless!
(WAIT —
before you celebrate:
still celibate).
Reverse Strip
by Michael R. Burch
She cupped her breasts in cotton, wire-cinched,
pulled a pale taupe sheath across red-gilded toes,
across sun-auburned thighs, to midriff, rose,
paraded nimbly to her dresser, pinched
a winsome pair of panties—white with hearts—
between thumb and forefinger, just to show
how well she knew my taste. Then, bowing low,
she stepped into them (here, the music starts,
a vampish tune), slow-wriggled them waist-high.
She used her thumbs to snap elastic to
its proper place. She chose a slip—sky blue—
then shrugged it on, and patted down each thigh.
She then sat down and smiled (there’d be no dress),
uncrossed her legs, shrugged free one talcumed breast...
Dawn Flight
by Michael R. Burch
for Martin Mc Carthy
What is it about love
that defies explanation?—
the weightlessness of being,
the long elliptic climb
into darkness
amid the world’s constant uproar,
the sea’s black waves crashing
incessantly like thunder beneath us,
the long triumphant soar
into thinning contrails of nothingness,
like meteors through ether,
seeing the earth’s dark curve
outlined,
spinning softly beneath us...
gliding, suspended at last,
over the earth pliant and motionless...
feeling, suddenly, the vast
onrush
and illumination.
Of Transience
by Michael R. Burch
How many nights her vulnerability
leaned close and softly pressed its cheek to mine,
held fast by tiny buckled straps impressed
on shoulders white as swans’ white eglantine...
And many were the marks which left their trace,
then soon were gone. The thinnest finest veil
of ashen hair revealed her breasts, betrayed
all that I wanted most, but still would fail
to keep me there till morning. For her sighs,
I kissed her lips in wonder; we became
one with the distant thunder. Love is wise
when it comes in flashes, streaking moonlit rain,
but leaves no mark—as transient, as bright
as the searing imprint lightning pens at night.
Domination
by Michael R. Burch
It was not for the feast of docile eyes
she shed her latex jeans, her vinyl blouse;
it was not for the catcalls that her thighs,
black-gartered, parted slightly, to arouse
limp dreams, limp organs as onlookers cheered,
revealing paunches belts could not belay.
She shunned their touch, as lepers to be feared,
swerved half-way through her dance, then waltzed away.
But something in her eyes—a mystery
as old as lust, half-veiled by raven hair—
bespoke this certain knowledge: love is free,
but sex must have its fee, transport its fare.
They pay for what they want, and in return
she teaches them what men will never learn.
Step Into Starlight
by Michael R. Burch
Step into starlight,
lovely and wild,
lonely and longing,
a woman, a child . . .
Throw back drawn curtains,
enter the night,
dream of his kiss
as a comet ignites . . .
Then fall to your knees
in a wind-fumbled cloud
and shudder to hear
oak hocks groaning aloud.
Flee down the dark path
to where the snaking vine bends
and withers and writhes
as winter descends . . .
And learn that each season
ends one vanished day,
that each pregnant moon holds
no spent tides in its sway . . .
For, as suns seek horizons—
boys fall, men decline.
As the grape sags with its burden,
remember—the wine!
I believe I wrote the original version of this poem in my early twenties, circa 1978-1979.
Unfoldings, for Vicki
by Michael R. Burch
Time unfolds . . .
Your lips were roses.
. . . petals open, shyly clustering . . .
I had dreams
of other seasons.
. . . ten thousand colors quiver, blossoming.
Night and day . . .
Dreams burned within me.
. . . flowers part themselves, and then they close . . .
You were lovely;
I was lonely.
. . . a virgin yields herself, but no one knows.
Now time goes on . . .
I have not seen you.
. . . within ringed whorls, secrets are exchanged . . .
A fire rages;
no one sees it.
. . . a blossom spreads its flutes to catch the rain.
Seasons flow . . .
A dream is dying.
. . . within parched clusters, life is taking form . . .
You were honest;
I was angry.
. . . petals fling themselves before the storm.
Time is slowing . . .
I am older.
. . . blossoms wither, closing one last time . . .
I'd love to see you
and to touch you.
. . . a flower crumbles, crinkling—worn and dry.
Time contracts . . .
I cannot touch you.
. . . a solitary flower cries for warmth . . .
Life goes on as
dreams lose meaning.
. . . the seeds are scattered, lost within a storm.
I wrote this poem for my first college girlfriend. I intensely wanted to be with her best friend, who was dating my best friend at the time. When I finally got my chance with my best friend's girlfriend, I was so drunk, I couldn't seize the opportunity. Meanwhile, when my girlfriend was so drunk she offered me the opportunity I had always wanted, I felt compelled to be a gentleman. So it was all very strange, as if the Fates had ordained that none of us should end up being together. It was a very sad, confused time . . . a time when longings threatened to overwhelm us, and yet a strange sort of honor seemed to win the day, although none of us really meant to act with honor. Perhaps we were all saving ourselves for other people we hadn't yet met, or perhaps hormones and alcohol have completely different agendas . . .
Winter
by Michael R. Burch
The rose of love’s bright promise
lies torn by her own thorn;
her scent was sweet
but at her feet
the pallid aphids mourn.
The lilac of devotion
has felt the winter hoar
and shed her dress;
companionless,
she shivers—nude, forlorn.
Published by Songs of Innocence, The Aurorean and Contemporary Rhyme
Morgause’s Song
by Michael R. Burch
Before he was my brother,
he was my lover,
though certainly not the best.
I found no joy
in that addled boy,
nor he at my breast.
Why him? Why him?
The years grow dim.
Now it’s harder and harder to say ...
Perhaps girls and boys
are the god’s toys
when the skies are gray.
Published by Celtic Twilight
Your Pull
by Michael R. Burch
You were like sunshine and rain—
begetting rainbows,
full of contradictions, like the intervals
between light and shadow.
That within you which I most opposed
drew me closer still,
as a magnet exerts its unyielding pull
on insensate steel.
Love Is Not Love
by Michael R. Burch
Love is not love that never looked
within itself and questioned all,
curled up like a zygote in a ball,
throbbed, sobbed and shook.
(Or went on a binge at a nearby mall,
then would not cook.)
Love is not love that never winced,
then smiled, convinced
that soar’s the prerequisite of fall.
When all
its wounds and scars have been saline-rinsed,
where does Love find the wherewithal
to try again,
endeavor, when
all that it knows
is: O, because!
Ince St. Child
by Michael R. Burch
When she was a child
in a dark forest of fear,
imagination cast its strange light
into secret places,
scattering traces
of illumination so bright,
years later, she could still find them there,
their light undefiled.
When she was young,
the shafted light of her dreams
shone on her uplifted face
as she prayed . . .
though she strayed
into a night fallen like woven lace
shrouding the forest of screams,
her faith led her home.
Now she is old
and the light that was flame
is a slow-dying ember . . .
what she felt then
she would explain;
she would if she could only remember
that forest of shame,
faith beaten like gold.
This was an unusual poem, and it took me some time to figure out who the old woman was. She was a victim of childhood incest, hence the title I eventually came up with.
Virginal
by Michael R. Burch
For an hour
every wildflower
beseeches her,
"To thy breast,
Elizabeth."
But she is mine;
her lips divine
and her breasts and hair
are mine alone.
Let the wildflowers moan.
Smoke
by Michael R. Burch
The hazy, smoke-filled skies of summer I remember well;
farewell was on my mind, and the thoughts that I can't tell
rang bells within (the din was in) my mind, and I can't say
if what we had was good or bad, or where it is today.
The endless days of summer's haze I still recall today;
she spoke and smoky skies stood still as summer slipped away . . .
This poem appeared in my high school journal, the Lantern, in 1976. It also appeared in my college literary journal, Homespun, in 1977. I had The Summer of '42 in mind when I wrote it. Ironically, I didn't see the movie until many years later, but something about its advertisement touched me. Am I the only poet who wrote a love poem for Jennifer O'Neil after seeing her fleeting image in a blurb? At least in that respect, I may be unique! In any case, the movie came out in 1971 or 1972, so I was probably around 14 when I wrote the poem. I think it's interesting that I was able to write a "rhyme rich" poem at such a young age. In six lines the poem has 26 rhymes and near rhymes: smoke-spoke-smoky, well-farewell-tell-bells-still-recall-still, summer-remember-summer-summer, within-din-in, say-today-days-haze-today-away, had-good-bad.
Violets
by Michael R. Burch
Once, only once,
when the wind flicked your skirt
to an indiscreet height
and you laughed,
abruptly demure,
outblushing shocked violets:
suddenly,
I knew:
everything had changed
and as you braided your hair
into long bluish plaits
the shadows empurpled,
the dragonflies’
last darting feints
dissolving mid-air,
we watched the sun’s long glide
into evening,
knowing and unknowing.
O, how the illusions of love
await us in the commonplace
and rare
then haunt our small remainder of hours.
Originally published by Romantics Quarterly
Ordinary Love
by Michael R. Burch
Indescribable—our love—and still we say
with eyes averted, turning out the light,
"I love you," in the ordinary way
and tug the coverlet where once we lay,
all suntanned limbs entangled, shivering, white ...
indescribably in love. Or so we say.
Your hair's blonde thicket now is tangle-gray;
you turn your back; you murmur to the night,
"I love you," in the ordinary way.
Beneath the sheets our hands and feet would stray
to warm ourselves. We do not touch despite
a love so indescribable. We say
we're older now, that "love" has had its day.
But that which Love once countenanced, delight,
still makes you indescribable. I say,
"I love you," in the ordinary way.
Winner of the 2001 Algernon Charles Swinburne poetry contest; originally published by Romantics Quarterly and nominated for the Pushcart Prize
For All that I Remembered
by Michael R. Burch
For all that I remembered, I forgot
her name, her face, the reason that we loved ...
and yet I hold her close within my thought.
I feel the burnished weight of auburn hair
that fell across her face, the apricot
clean scent of her shampoo, the way she glowed
so palely in the moonlight, angel-wan.
The memory of her gathers like a flood
and bears me to that night, that only night,
when she and I were one, and if I could ...
I'd reach to her this time and, smiling, brush
the hair out of her eyes, and hold intact
each feature, each impression. Love is such
a threadbare sort of magic, it is gone
before we recognize it. I would crush
my lips to hers to hold their memory,
if not more tightly, less elusively.
Originally published by The Raintown Review
Enigmafor Beth
O, terrible angel,
bright lover and avenger,
full of whimsical light and vile anger;
wild stranger,
seeking the solace of night, or the danger;
pale foreigner,
alien to man, or savior.
Who are you,
seeking consolation and passion
in the same breath,
screaming for pleasure, bereft
of all articles of faith,
finding life
harsher than death?
Grieving angel,
giving more than taking,
how lucky the man
who has found in your love, this—our reclamation;
fallen wren,
you must strive to fly though your heart is shaken;
weary pilgrim,
you must not give up though your feet are aching;
lonely child,
lie here still in my arms; you must soon be waking.
Moon Lake
by Michael R. Burch
Starlit recorder of summer nights,
what magic spell bewitches you?
They say that all lovers love first in the dark . . .
Is it true?
Is it true?
Is it true?
Starry-eyed seer of all that appears
and all that has appeared—
What sights have you seen?
What dreams have you dreamed?
What rhetoric have you heard?
Is love an oration,
or is it a word?
Have you heard?
Have you heard?
Have you heard?
I believe I wrote this poem in my late teens. I think the questions are interesting. Do all lovers love first in the dark? Is love an oration, or is it a word?
Passionate One
by Michael R. Burch
Love of my life,
light of my morning?
arise, brightly dawning,
for you are my sun.
Give me of heaven
both manna and leaven?
desirous Presence,
Passionate One.
Humorous Erotica: Naughty Limericks
Shotgun Bedding
by Michael R. Burch
A pedestrian pediatrician
set out on a dangerous mission;
though his child bride, Lolita,
was a sweet senorita,
her pa’s shotgun cut off his emissions.
There was a lewd whore from Nantucket
who intended to pee in a bucket;
but being a man
she missed the damn can
and her rattled johns fled, crying: "Fuck it!"
—variation on a classic limerick by Michael R. Burch
Here are three "linked" Nantucket limericks of mine:
There was a coarse whore of Nantucket
whose bush needed someone to pluck it
’cause it looked like a chimp’s
and her johns were limp gimps
who refused to touch, suck it or fuck it.
So that coarse, canny whore of Nantucket,
once muff-shaved, decided to shuck it
—that thick, wiry pelt
that smelled like wet felt—
and made it a toupee for Luckett.
Now Luckett, once bald as an eagle,
like Samson stands handsome and regal
with hair to his ass
that smells like his lass,
but still comes when she calls, like a beagle.
—a triple limerick by Michael R. Burch
There once was a mockingbird, Clyde,
who bragged of his prowess, but lied.
To his new wife he sighed,
"When again, gentle bride?"
"Nevermore!" bright-eyed Raven replied.
—Michael R. Burch
More Humorous Erotica
Cover Girl
by Michael R. Burch
Cunning
at sunning
and dunning,
the stunning
young woman’s in the running
to be found nude on the cover
of some patronizing lover.
In this case the cover is a bed cover, where the enterprising young mistress is about to be covered herself.
Less Heroic Couplets: Marketing 101
by Michael R. Burch
Building her brand, she disrobes,
naked, except for her earlobes.
Less Heroic Couplets: Negotiables
by Michael R. Burch
Love should be more than the sum of its parts—
of its potions and pills and subterranean arts.
Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130 Refuted
by Michael R. Burch
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red ...
— Shakespeare, Sonnet 130
Seas that sparkle in the sun
without its light would have no beauty;
but the light within your eyes
is theirs alone; it owes no duty.
Whose winsome flame, not half so bright,
is meant for me, and brings delight.
Coral formed beneath the sea,
though scarlet-tendriled, cannot warm me;
while your lips, not half so red,
just touching mine, at once inflame me.
Whose scorching flames mild lips arouse
fathomless oceans fail to douse.
Bright roses’ brief affairs, declared
when winter comes, will wither quickly.
Your cheeks, though paler when compared
with them?—more lasting, never prickly.
Whose tender cheeks, so enchantingly warm,
far vaster treasures, harbor no thorns.
Originally published by Romantics Quarterly
PURDY, PLEASE!
She was so curvy
she didn’t need to be flirty:
such was the genesis
of Miss Eleanor Purdy...
First Base Freeze
by Michael R. Burch
Miss Purdy, please!
I find your love unappealing
(no, make that appalling)
because you prefer kissing
then stalling.
Updated Advice for Amorous Bachelors
by Michael R. Burch
At six-thirty,
feeling flirty,
I put on the hurdy-gurdy ...
But Ms. Purdy,
all alert-y,
kicked me where I’m sore and hurty.
The moral of my story?
To avoid a fate as gory,
flirt with gals a bit more whore-y!
Mating Calls, or, Purdy Please!
by Michael R. Burch
1.
Nine-thirty? Feeling flirty (and, indeed, a trifle dirty),
I decided to ring prudish Eleanor Purdy ...
When I rang her to bang her,
it seems my words stang her!
She hung up the phone, so I banged off, alone.
2
Still dreaming to hold something skirty,
I once again rang our reclusive Miss Purdy.
She sounded unhappy,
called me “daffy” and “sappy,”
and that was before the gal heard me!
3.
It was early A.M., ’bout two-thirty,
when I enquired again with the regal Miss Purdy.
With a voice full of hate,
she thundered, “It’s LATE!”
Was I, perhaps, over-wordy?
4.
At 3:42, I was feeling blue,
so I once again rang Miss You-Know-Who,
thinking to bed her
and quite possibly wed her,
but she summoned the cops; now my bail is due!
5.
It was probably close to four-thirty
the last time I called the miserly Purdy.
Although I’m her boarder,
the restraining order
freezes all assets of that virginity hoarder!
Trump’s Trumpet: Trumped Up or Trumped?
by Michael R. Burch
Our president’s sex life—atrocious!
His “pieces of ass”? Braggadocios!
His tool though? Immense!
Or perhaps just pretense,
since Stormy declared “hocus-pocus!”
Trump’s Saddest Tweet to Date
by Michael R. Burch
I’ve gotten all out of kilter.
My erstwhile yuge tool is a wilter!
I now sleep in bed.
Few hairs on my head.
Inhibitions? I now have no filter!
Gleyre Le Coucher de Sappho by Marc-Charles-Gabriel Gleyre These are the best erotic poems and best erotic poetry translations of Michael R. Burch. Most of these poems are risqué rather than graphic. Erotic poems come in all shapes, sizes and forms: haiku, tanka, epigrams, couplets, limericks, sonnets, rondels, roundels, villanelles, free verse, etc. There is also a collection of humorous erotic poems at the bottom of this page. Preposterous Eros by Michael R. Burch “Preposterous Eros” – Patricia Falanga Preposterous Eros shot me in the buttocks, with a Devilish grin, spent all my money in a rush then left my heart effete pink mush. I found the Goddess in your body's curves and crevasses. —attributed to Sappho, translation by Michael R. Burch Sappho, fragment 42 loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Eros harrows my heart: wild winds whipping desolate mountains, uprooting oaks. I fell in love with this erotic little number many years ago, and ended up translating it myself. Here, the immortal Sappho of Lesbos conveys the elemental nature of Eros, the Greek god of sexual love and lust. Our term "erotic" derives from Eros, just as our terms "sapphic" and "lesbian" derive from Sappho's name and her island home. Eros was the son of Aphrodite (the goddess of love) and Ares (the god of war)! And in this poem love does sound like a battlefield, to borrow a phrase from Pat Benatar. Sappho, fragment 22 loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch That enticing girl's clinging dresses leave me trembling, overcome by happiness, as once, when I once saw the Goddess in my prayers?eclipsing Cyprus. Sappho, fragment 155 loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch A short revealing frock? It's just my luck your lips were made to mock! There are more Sappho translations later on this page... Warming Her Pearls by Michael R. Burch for Beth Warming her pearls, her breasts gleam like constellations. Her belly is a bit rotund ... she might have stepped out of a Rubens. Negligibles by Michael R. Burch Show me your most intimate items of apparel; begin with the hem of your quicksilver slip ... 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. Erotic Errata by Michael R. Burch I didn’t mean to love you; if I did, it came unbid- en, and should’ve remained hid- den! Heat Lightening by Michael R. Burch Each night beneath the elms, we never knew which lights beyond dark hills might stall, advance, then lurch into strange headbeams tilted up like searchlights seeking contact in the distance . . . . . . quiescent unions . . . thoughts of bliss, of hope . . . long-dreamt appearances of wished-on stars . . . like childhood’s long-occluded, nebulous slow drift of half-formed visions . . . slip and bra . . . Wan moonlight traced your features, perilous, in danger of extinction, should your hair fall softly on my eyes, or should a kiss cause them to close, or should my fingers dare to leave off childhood for some new design of whiter lace, of flesh incarnadine. Published by The New Stylus and Love Poems and Poets Le Balcon (The Balcony) by Charles Baudelaire loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Paramour of memory, ultimate mistress, source of all pleasure, my only desire; how can I forget your ecstatic caresses, the warmth of your breasts by the roaring fire, paramour of memory, ultimate mistress? Each night illumined by the burning coals we lay together where the rose-fragrance clings— how soft your breasts, how tender your soul! Ah, and we said imperishable things, each night illumined by the burning coals. How beautiful the sunsets these sultry days, deep space so profound, beyond life’s brief floods ... then, when I kissed you, my queen, in a daze, I thought I breathed the bouquet of your blood as beautiful as sunsets these sultry days. Night thickens around us like a wall; in the deepening darkness our irises meet. I drink your breath, ah! poisonous yet sweet!, as with fraternal hands I massage your feet while night thickens around us like a wall. I have mastered the sweet but difficult art of happiness here, with my head in your lap, finding pure joy in your body, your heart; because you’re the queen of my present and past I have mastered love’s sweet but difficult art. O vows! O perfumes! O infinite kisses! Can these be reborn from a gulf we can’t sound as suns reappear, as if heaven misses their light when they sink into seas dark, profound? O vows! O perfumes! O infinite kisses! I have found porn sites and escort services using my Baudelaire translations, so the pros seem to like them! Les Bijoux (The Jewels) by Charles Baudelaire loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch My lover nude and knowing my heart's whims Wore nothing more than a few bright-flashing gems; Her art was saving men despite their sins— She ruled like harem girls crowned with diadems! She danced for me with a gay but mocking air, My world of stone and metal sparking bright; I discovered in her the rapture of everything fair— Nay, an excess of joy where the spirit and flesh unite! Naked she lay and offered herself to me, Parting her legs and smiling receptively, As gentle and yet profound as the rising sea— Till her surging tide encountered my cliff, abruptly. A tigress tamed, her eyes met mine, intent ... Intent on lust, content to purr and please! Her breath, both languid and lascivious, lent An odd charm to her metamorphoses. Her limbs, her loins, her abdomen, her thighs, Oiled alabaster, sinuous as a swan, Writhed pale before my calm clairvoyant eyes; Like clustered grapes her breasts and belly shone. Skilled in more spells than evil imps can muster, To break the peace which had possessed my heart, She flashed her crystal rocks’ hypnotic luster Till my quietude was shattered, blown apart. Her waist awrithe, her breasts enormously Out-thrust, and yet ... and yet, somehow, still coy ... As if stout haunches of Antiope Had been grafted to a boy ... The room grew dark, the lamp had flickered out. Mute firelight, alone, lit each glowing stud; Each time the fire sighed, as if in doubt, It steeped her pale, rouged flesh in pools of blood. The Communion of Sighs by Michael R. Burch There was a moment without the sound of trumpets or a shining light, but with only silence and darkness and a cool mist felt more than seen. I was eighteen, my heart pounding wildly within me like a fist. Expectation hung like a cry in the night, and your eyes shone like the corona of a comet. There was an instant . . . without words, but with a deeper communion, as clothing first, then inhibitions fell; liquidly our lips met —feverish, wet— forgotten, the tales of heaven and hell, in the immediacy of our fumbling union . . . when the rest of the world became distant. Then the only light was the moon on the rise, and the only sound, the communion of sighs. I believe I wrote "The Communion of Sighs" around age 18 as the poem suggests. The Deflowering excerpt from a Mayan love poem loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Remove your clothes; let down your hair; become as naked as the day you were born— virgins! The Receiving of the Flower excerpt from a Mayan love poem loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Let us sing overflowing with joy as we observe the Receiving of the Flower. The lovely maidens beam; their hearts leap in their breasts. Why? Because they will soon yield their virginity to the men they love! Prelude to Lovemaking excerpt from a Mayan love poem loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Lay out your most beautiful clothes, maidens! The day of happiness has arrived! Grab your combs, detangle your hair, adorn your earlobes with gaudy pendants. Dress in white as becomes maidens ... Then go, give your lovers the happiness of your laughter! And all the village will rejoice with you, for the day of happiness has arrived! The Flower-Strewn Pool excerpt from a Mayan love poem loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch You have arrived at last in the woods where no one can see what you do at the flower-strewn pool ... Remove your clothes, unbraid your hair, become as you were when you first arrived here naked and shameless— virgins, maidens! Millay Has Her Way with a Vassar Professor by Michael R. Burch After a night of hard drinking and spreading her legs, Millay hits the dorm, where the Vassar don begs: “Please act more chastely, more discretely, more seemly!” (His name, let’s assume, was, er . . . Percival Queemly.) “Expel me! Expel me!”—She flashes her eyes. “Oh! Please! No! I couldn’t! That wouldn’t be wise, for a great banished Shelley would tarnish my name . . . Eek! My game will be lame if I can’t milque your fame!” “Continue to live here—carouse as you please!” the beleaguered don sighs as he sags to his knees. Millay grinds her crotch half an inch from his nose: “I can live in your hellhole, strange man, I suppose ... but the price is your firstborn, whom I’ll sacrifice to Moloch.” (Which explains what became of pale Percy’s son, Enoch.) Are You the Thief by Michael R. Burch When I touch you now, O sweet lover, full of fire, melting like ice in my embrace, when I part the delicate white lace, baring pale flesh, and your face is so close that I breathe your breath and your hair surrounds me like a wreath ... tell me now, O sweet, sweet lover, in good faith: are you the thief who has stolen my heart? Righteous by Michael R. Burch Come to me tonight in the twilight, O, and the full moon rising, spectral and ancient, will mutter a prayer. Gather your hair and pin it up, knowing that I will release it a moment anon. We are not one, nor is there a scripture to sanctify nights you might spend in my arms, but the swarms of stars revolving above us revel tonight, the most ardent of lovers. The Tally by Hafiz an extremely loose translation by Michael R. Burch Lovers don't reveal all their Secrets ... under the covers they may count each other's Moles (that reside and hide in shy regions by forbidden holes), then keep final tally strictly from Aunt Sally! Sappho, fragment 50 loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Eros, the limb-shatterer, rattles me, an irresistible constrictor. Sappho, fragment 10 loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I lust! I crave! Fuck me! Sweet Rose of Virtue by William Dunbar loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Sweet rose of virtue and of gentleness, delightful lily of youthful wantonness, richest in bounty and in beauty clear and in every virtue that is held most dear? except only that you are merciless. Into your garden, today, I followed you; there I saw flowers of freshest hue, both white and red, delightful to see, and wholesome herbs, waving resplendently? yet everywhere, no odor but bitter rue. I fear that March with his last arctic blast has slain my fair rose of pallid and gentle cast, whose piteous death does my heart such pain that, if I could, I would compose her roots again? so comforting her bowering leaves have been. Burn, Ovid by Michael R. Burch “Burn Ovid”—Austin Clarke Sunday School, Faith Free Will Baptist, 1973: I sat imagining watery folds of pale silk encircling her waist. Explicit sex was the day’s “hot” topic (how breathlessly I imagined hers) as she taught us the perils of lust fraught with inhibition. I found her unaccountably beautiful, rolling implausible nouns off the edge of her tongue: adultery, fornication, masturbation, sodomy. Acts made suddenly plausible by the faint blush of her unrouged cheeks, by her pale lips accented only by a slight quiver, a trepidation. What did those lustrous folds foretell of our uncommon desire? Why did she cross and uncross her legs lovely and long in their taupe sheaths? Why did her breasts rise pointedly, as if indicating a direction? “Come unto me, (unto me),” together, we sang, cheek to breast, lips on lips, devout, afire, my hands up her skirt, her pants at her knees: all night long, all night long, in the heavenly choir. This poem is set at Faith Christian Academy, which I attended for a year during the ninth grade, in 1972-1973. While the poem definitely had its genesis there, I believe I revised it more than once and didn't finish it till 2001, nearly 28 years later, according to my notes on the poem. Another poem, "Sex 101," was also written about my experiences at FCA that year. Sex 101 by Michael R. Burch That day the late spring heat steamed through the windows of a Crayola-yellow schoolbus crawling its way up the backwards slopes of Nowheresville, North Carolina ... Where we sat exhausted from the day’s skulldrudgery and the unexpected waves of muggy, summer-like humidity ... Giggly first graders sat two abreast behind senior high students sprouting their first sparse beards, their implausible bosoms, their stranger affections ... The most unlikely coupling— Lambert, 18, the only college prospect on the varsity basketball team, the proverbial talldarkhandsome swashbuckling cocksman, grinning ... Beside him, Wanda, 13, bespectacled, in her primproper attire and pigtails, staring up at him, fawneyed, disbelieving ... And as the bus filled with the improbable musk of her, as she twitched impaled on his finger like a dead frog jarred to life by electrodes, I knew ... that love is a forlorn enterprise, that I would never understand it. This companion poem to "Burn, Ovid" is also set at Faith Christian Academy, in 1972-1973. Redolence by Michael R. Burch Now darkness ponds upon the violet hills; cicadas sing; the tall elms gently sway; and night bends near, a deepening shade of gray; the bass concerto of a bullfrog fills what silence there once was; globed searchlights play. Green hanging ferns adorn dark window sills, all drooping fronds, awaiting morning’s flares; mosquitoes whine; the lissome moth again flits like a veiled oud-dancer, and endures the fumblings of night’s enervate gray rain. And now the pact of night is made complete; the air is fresh and cool, washed of the grime of the city’s ashen breath; and, for a time, the fragrance of her clings, obscure and sweet. Published by The Eclectic Muse and The Best of the Eclectic Muse 1989-2003 Duet, Minor Key by Michael R. Burch Without the drama of cymbals or the fanfare and snares of drums, I present my case stripped of its fine veneer: Behold, thy instrument. Play, for the night is long. An Ancient Egyptian Love Lyric (circa 1085-570 BC) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Is there anything sweeter than these hours of love, when we’re together, and my heart races? For what is better than embracing and fondling when you visit me and we surrender to delights? If you reach to caress my thigh, I will offer you my breast also — it’s soft; it won't jab you or thrust you away! Will you leave me because you’re hungry? Are you ruled by your belly? Will you leave me because you need something to wear? I have chests full of fine linen! Will you leave me because you’re thirsty? Here, suck my breasts! They’re full to overflowing, and all for you! I glory in the hours of our embracings; my joy is incalculable! The thrill of your love spreads through my body like honey in water, like a drug mixed with spices, like wine mingled with water. Oh, that you would speed to see your sister like a stallion in heat, like a bull to his heifer! For the heavens have granted us love like flames igniting straw, desire like the falcon’s free-falling frenzy! A Courtesan's Love Lyric by Veronica Franco loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch My rewards will be commensurate with your gifts if only you give me the one that lifts me laughing ... And though it costs you nothing, still it is of immense value to me. Your reward will be not just to fly but to soar, so high that your joys vastly exceed your desires. And my beauty, to which your heart aspires and which you never tire of praising, I will employ for the raising of your spirits. Then, lying sweetly at your side, I will shower you with all the delights of a bride, which I have more expertly learned. Then you who so fervently burned will at last rest, fully content, fallen even more deeply in love, spent at my comfortable bosom. When I am in bed with a man I blossom, becoming completely free with the man who loves and enjoys me. Once by Michael R. Burch Once when her kisses were fire incarnate and left in their imprint bright lipstick, and flame, when her breath rose and fell over smoldering dunes, leaving me listlessly sighing her name ... Once when her breasts were as pale, as beguiling, as wan rivers of sand shedding heat like a mist, when her words would at times softly, mildly rebuke me all the while as her lips did more wildly insist ... Once when the thought of her echoed and whispered through vast wastelands of need like a Bedouin chant, I ached for the touch of her lips with such longing that I vowed all my former vows to recant ... Once, only once, something bloomed, of a desiccate seed— this implausible blossom her wild rains of kisses decreed. What Goes Around, Comes by Michael R. Burch This is a poem about loss so why do you toss your dark hair— unaccountably glowing? How can you be sure of my heart when it’s beyond my own knowing? Or is it love’s pheromones you trust, my eyes magnetized by your bust and the mysterious alchemies of lust? Now I am truly lost! Chloe by Michael R. Burch There were skies onyx at night ... moons by day ... lakes pale as her eyes ... breathless winds undressing tall elms; ... she would say that we loved, but I figured we’d sinned. Soon impatiens too fiery to stay sagged; the crocus bells drooped, golden-limned; things of brightness, rinsed out, ran to gray ... all the light of that world softly dimmed. Where our feet were inclined, we would stray; there were paths where dead weeds stood untrimmed, distant mountains that loomed in our way, thunder booming down valleys dark-hymned. What I found, I found lost in her face while yielding all my virtue to her grace. Let Me Give Her Diamonds by Michael R. Burch Let me give her diamonds for my heart's sharp edges. Let me give her roses for my soul's thorn. Let me give her solace for my words of treason. Let the flowering of love outlast a winter season. Let me give her books for all my lack of reason. Let me give her candles for my lack of fire. Let me kindle incense, for our hearts require the breath-fanned flaming perfume of desire. Floating by Michael R. Burch Memories flood the sand’s unfolding scroll; they pour in with the long, cursive tides of night. Memories of revenant blue eyes and wild lips moist and frantic against my own. Memories of ghostly white limbs . . . of soft sighs heard once again in the surf’s strangled moans. We meet in the scarred, fissured caves of old dreams, green waves of algae billowing about you, becoming your hair. Suspended there, where pale sunset discolors the sea, I see all that you are and all that you have become to me. Your love is a sea, and I am its trawler— harbored in dreams, I ride out night’s storms. Unanchored, I drift through the hours before morning, dreaming the solace of your warm breasts, pondering your riddles, savoring the feel of the explosions of your hot, saline breath. And I rise sometimes from the tropical darkness to gaze once again out over the sea . . . You watch in the moonlight that brushes the water; bright waves throw back your reflection at me. This is one of my more surreal poems, as the sea and lover become one. I believe I wrote this one at age 19. It has been published by Penny Dreadful, Romantics Quarterly, Boston Poetry Magazine and Poetry Life & Times. The poem may have had a different title when it was originally published, but it escapes me . . . ah, yes, "Entanglements." Nevermore! by Michael R. Burch Nevermore! O, nevermore shall the haunts of the sea— the swollen tide pools and the dark, deserted shore— mark her passing again. And the salivating sea shall never kiss her lips nor caress her breasts and hips as she dreamt it did before, once, lost within the uproar. The waves will never rape her, nor take her at their leisure; the sea gulls shall not have her, nor could she give them pleasure . . . She sleeps forevermore. She sleeps forevermore, a virgin save to me and her other lover, who lurks now, safely smothered by the restless, surging sea. And, yes, they sleep together, but never in that way! For the sea has stripped and shorn the one I once adored, and washed her flesh away. He does not stroke her honey hair, for she is bald, bald to the bone! And how it fills my heart with glee to hear them sometimes cursing me out of the depths of the demon sea . . . their skeletal love—impossibility! This is one of my Poe-like creations, written around age 19. I think the poem has an interesting ending, since the male skeleton is missing an important "member." Psycho Analysis by Michael R. Burch This is not what I need . . . analysis, paralysis, as though I were a seed to be planted, supported with a stick and some string until I emerge. Your words are not water. I need something more nourishing, like cherishing, something essential, like love so that when I climb out of the lime and the mulch. When I shove myself up from the muck . . . we can fuck. Originally published by Unlikely Stories The Secret of Her Clothes by Michael R. Burch The secret of her clothes is that they whisper a little mysteriously of things unseen in the language of nylon and cotton, so that when she walks to her amorous drawers to rummage among the embroidered hearts and rumors of pastel slips for a white wisp of Victorian lace, the delicate rustle of fabric on fabric, the slightest whisper of telltale static, electrifies me. Published by Erosha, Velvet Avalanche (Anthology) and Poetry Life & Times Retro by Michael R. Burch Now, once again, love’s a redundant pleasure, as we laugh at my childish fumblings through the acres of your dress, past your wily-wired brassiere, through your panties’ pink billows of thrill-piqued frills ... Till I lay once again—panting redfaced at your gayest lack of resistance, and, later, at your milktongued mewlings in the dark ... When you were virginal, sweet as eucalyptus, we did not understand the miracle of repentance, and I took for granted your obsessive distance ... But now I am happily unbuttoning that chaste dress, unhitching that firm-latched bra, tugging at those parachute-like panties— the ones you would have gladly forgotten had I not bought them in this year’s size. Originally published by Erosha Rehearsal Reversal by Michael R. Burch The wonder of a first kiss is: the next will be better, if less memorable... and what’s unforgettable’s this: that, somehow, although you just met her, in the exchange of eclectic eyes love came, an electric surmise, with the smell of cordite hair on a warm wool sweater more than amply bosomed. Use any excess static to light the fuse. Fumble-fingered, her bra strap’s cinch refuses to budge an inch in either direction. Who’s ever prepared to be so stymied? Smile, lean back, drag, “relax” awhile from practice imperfect. I’ll leave you two jaybirds alone. Yes, tomorrow she’ll answer the phone, show up for your first real date: late, breathless, and braless! (WAIT — before you celebrate: still celibate). Reverse Strip by Michael R. Burch She cupped her breasts in cotton, wire-cinched, pulled a pale taupe sheath across red-gilded toes, across sun-auburned thighs, to midriff, rose, paraded nimbly to her dresser, pinched a winsome pair of panties—white with hearts— between thumb and forefinger, just to show how well she knew my taste. Then, bowing low, she stepped into them (here, the music starts, a vampish tune), slow-wriggled them waist-high. She used her thumbs to snap elastic to its proper place. She chose a slip—sky blue— then shrugged it on, and patted down each thigh. She then sat down and smiled (there’d be no dress), uncrossed her legs, shrugged free one talcumed breast... Dawn Flight by Michael R. Burch for Martin Mc Carthy What is it about love that defies explanation?— the weightlessness of being, the long elliptic climb into darkness amid the world’s constant uproar, the sea’s black waves crashing incessantly like thunder beneath us, the long triumphant soar into thinning contrails of nothingness, like meteors through ether, seeing the earth’s dark curve outlined, spinning softly beneath us... gliding, suspended at last, over the earth pliant and motionless... feeling, suddenly, the vast onrush and illumination. Of Transience by Michael R. Burch How many nights her vulnerability leaned close and softly pressed its cheek to mine, held fast by tiny buckled straps impressed on shoulders white as swans’ white eglantine... And many were the marks which left their trace, then soon were gone. The thinnest finest veil of ashen hair revealed her breasts, betrayed all that I wanted most, but still would fail to keep me there till morning. For her sighs, I kissed her lips in wonder; we became one with the distant thunder. Love is wise when it comes in flashes, streaking moonlit rain, but leaves no mark—as transient, as bright as the searing imprint lightning pens at night. Domination by Michael R. Burch It was not for the feast of docile eyes she shed her latex jeans, her vinyl blouse; it was not for the catcalls that her thighs, black-gartered, parted slightly, to arouse limp dreams, limp organs as onlookers cheered, revealing paunches belts could not belay. She shunned their touch, as lepers to be feared, swerved half-way through her dance, then waltzed away. But something in her eyes—a mystery as old as lust, half-veiled by raven hair— bespoke this certain knowledge: love is free, but sex must have its fee, transport its fare. They pay for what they want, and in return she teaches them what men will never learn. Step Into Starlight by Michael R. Burch Step into starlight, lovely and wild, lonely and longing, a woman, a child . . . Throw back drawn curtains, enter the night, dream of his kiss as a comet ignites . . . Then fall to your knees in a wind-fumbled cloud and shudder to hear oak hocks groaning aloud. Flee down the dark path to where the snaking vine bends and withers and writhes as winter descends . . . And learn that each season ends one vanished day, that each pregnant moon holds no spent tides in its sway . . . For, as suns seek horizons— boys fall, men decline. As the grape sags with its burden, remember—the wine! I believe I wrote the original version of this poem in my early twenties, circa 1978-1979. Unfoldings, for Vicki by Michael R. Burch Time unfolds . . . Your lips were roses. . . . petals open, shyly clustering . . . I had dreams of other seasons. . . . ten thousand colors quiver, blossoming. Night and day . . . Dreams burned within me. . . . flowers part themselves, and then they close . . . You were lovely; I was lonely. . . . a virgin yields herself, but no one knows. Now time goes on . . . I have not seen you. . . . within ringed whorls, secrets are exchanged . . . A fire rages; no one sees it. . . . a blossom spreads its flutes to catch the rain. Seasons flow . . . A dream is dying. . . . within parched clusters, life is taking form . . . You were honest; I was angry. . . . petals fling themselves before the storm. Time is slowing . . . I am older. . . . blossoms wither, closing one last time . . . I'd love to see you and to touch you. . . . a flower crumbles, crinkling—worn and dry. Time contracts . . . I cannot touch you. . . . a solitary flower cries for warmth . . . Life goes on as dreams lose meaning. . . . the seeds are scattered, lost within a storm. I wrote this poem for my first college girlfriend. I intensely wanted to be with her best friend, who was dating my best friend at the time. When I finally got my chance with my best friend's girlfriend, I was so drunk, I couldn't seize the opportunity. Meanwhile, when my girlfriend was so drunk she offered me the opportunity I had always wanted, I felt compelled to be a gentleman. So it was all very strange, as if the Fates had ordained that none of us should end up being together. It was a very sad, confused time . . . a time when longings threatened to overwhelm us, and yet a strange sort of honor seemed to win the day, although none of us really meant to act with honor. Perhaps we were all saving ourselves for other people we hadn't yet met, or perhaps hormones and alcohol have completely different agendas . . . Winter by Michael R. Burch The rose of love’s bright promise lies torn by her own thorn; her scent was sweet but at her feet the pallid aphids mourn. The lilac of devotion has felt the winter hoar and shed her dress; companionless, she shivers—nude, forlorn. Published by Songs of Innocence, The Aurorean and Contemporary Rhyme Morgause’s Song by Michael R. Burch Before he was my brother, he was my lover, though certainly not the best. I found no joy in that addled boy, nor he at my breast. Why him? Why him? The years grow dim. Now it’s harder and harder to say ... Perhaps girls and boys are the god’s toys when the skies are gray. Published by Celtic Twilight Your Pull by Michael R. Burch You were like sunshine and rain— begetting rainbows, full of contradictions, like the intervals between light and shadow. That within you which I most opposed drew me closer still, as a magnet exerts its unyielding pull on insensate steel. Love Is Not Love by Michael R. Burch Love is not love that never looked within itself and questioned all, curled up like a zygote in a ball, throbbed, sobbed and shook. (Or went on a binge at a nearby mall, then would not cook.) Love is not love that never winced, then smiled, convinced that soar’s the prerequisite of fall. When all its wounds and scars have been saline-rinsed, where does Love find the wherewithal to try again, endeavor, when all that it knows is: O, because! Ince St. Child by Michael R. Burch When she was a child in a dark forest of fear, imagination cast its strange light into secret places, scattering traces of illumination so bright, years later, she could still find them there, their light undefiled. When she was young, the shafted light of her dreams shone on her uplifted face as she prayed . . . though she strayed into a night fallen like woven lace shrouding the forest of screams, her faith led her home. Now she is old and the light that was flame is a slow-dying ember . . . what she felt then she would explain; she would if she could only remember that forest of shame, faith beaten like gold. This was an unusual poem, and it took me some time to figure out who the old woman was. She was a victim of childhood incest, hence the title I eventually came up with. Virginal by Michael R. Burch For an hour every wildflower beseeches her, "To thy breast, Elizabeth." But she is mine; her lips divine and her breasts and hair are mine alone. Let the wildflowers moan. Smoke by Michael R. Burch The hazy, smoke-filled skies of summer I remember well; farewell was on my mind, and the thoughts that I can't tell rang bells within (the din was in) my mind, and I can't say if what we had was good or bad, or where it is today. The endless days of summer's haze I still recall today; she spoke and smoky skies stood still as summer slipped away . . . This poem appeared in my high school journal, the Lantern, in 1976. It also appeared in my college literary journal, Homespun, in 1977. I had The Summer of '42 in mind when I wrote it. Ironically, I didn't see the movie until many years later, but something about its advertisement touched me. Am I the only poet who wrote a love poem for Jennifer O'Neil after seeing her fleeting image in a blurb? At least in that respect, I may be unique! In any case, the movie came out in 1971 or 1972, so I was probably around 14 when I wrote the poem. I think it's interesting that I was able to write a "rhyme rich" poem at such a young age. In six lines the poem has 26 rhymes and near rhymes: smoke-spoke-smoky, well-farewell-tell-bells-still-recall-still, summer-remember-summer-summer, within-din-in, say-today-days-haze-today-away, had-good-bad. Violets by Michael R. Burch Once, only once, when the wind flicked your skirt to an indiscreet height and you laughed, abruptly demure, outblushing shocked violets: suddenly, I knew: everything had changed and as you braided your hair into long bluish plaits the shadows empurpled, the dragonflies’ last darting feints dissolving mid-air, we watched the sun’s long glide into evening, knowing and unknowing. O, how the illusions of love await us in the commonplace and rare then haunt our small remainder of hours. Originally published by Romantics Quarterly Ordinary Love by Michael R. Burch Indescribable—our love—and still we say with eyes averted, turning out the light, "I love you," in the ordinary way and tug the coverlet where once we lay, all suntanned limbs entangled, shivering, white ... indescribably in love. Or so we say. Your hair's blonde thicket now is tangle-gray; you turn your back; you murmur to the night, "I love you," in the ordinary way. Beneath the sheets our hands and feet would stray to warm ourselves. We do not touch despite a love so indescribable. We say we're older now, that "love" has had its day. But that which Love once countenanced, delight, still makes you indescribable. I say, "I love you," in the ordinary way. Winner of the 2001 Algernon Charles Swinburne poetry contest; originally published by Romantics Quarterly and nominated for the Pushcart Prize For All that I Remembered by Michael R. Burch For all that I remembered, I forgot her name, her face, the reason that we loved ... and yet I hold her close within my thought. I feel the burnished weight of auburn hair that fell across her face, the apricot clean scent of her shampoo, the way she glowed so palely in the moonlight, angel-wan. The memory of her gathers like a flood and bears me to that night, that only night, when she and I were one, and if I could ... I'd reach to her this time and, smiling, brush the hair out of her eyes, and hold intact each feature, each impression. Love is such a threadbare sort of magic, it is gone before we recognize it. I would crush my lips to hers to hold their memory, if not more tightly, less elusively. Originally published by The Raintown Review Enigma for Beth O, terrible angel, bright lover and avenger, full of whimsical light and vile anger; wild stranger, seeking the solace of night, or the danger; pale foreigner, alien to man, or savior. Who are you, seeking consolation and passion in the same breath, screaming for pleasure, bereft of all articles of faith, finding life harsher than death? Grieving angel, giving more than taking, how lucky the man who has found in your love, this—our reclamation; fallen wren, you must strive to fly though your heart is shaken; weary pilgrim, you must not give up though your feet are aching; lonely child, lie here still in my arms; you must soon be waking. Moon Lake by Michael R. Burch Starlit recorder of summer nights, what magic spell bewitches you? They say that all lovers love first in the dark . . . Is it true? Is it true? Is it true? Starry-eyed seer of all that appears and all that has appeared— What sights have you seen? What dreams have you dreamed? What rhetoric have you heard? Is love an oration, or is it a word? Have you heard? Have you heard? Have you heard? I believe I wrote this poem in my late teens. I think the questions are interesting. Do all lovers love first in the dark? Is love an oration, or is it a word? Passionate One by Michael R. Burch Love of my life, light of my morning? arise, brightly dawning, for you are my sun. Give me of heaven both manna and leaven? desirous Presence, Passionate One. Humorous Erotica: Naughty Limericks Shotgun Bedding by Michael R. Burch A pedestrian pediatrician set out on a dangerous mission; though his child bride, Lolita, was a sweet senorita, her pa’s shotgun cut off his emissions. There was a lewd whore from Nantucket who intended to pee in a bucket; but being a man she missed the damn can and her rattled johns fled, crying: "Fuck it!" —variation on a classic limerick by Michael R. Burch Here are three "linked" Nantucket limericks of mine: There was a coarse whore of Nantucket whose bush needed someone to pluck it ’cause it looked like a chimp’s and her johns were limp gimps who refused to touch, suck it or fuck it. So that coarse, canny whore of Nantucket, once muff-shaved, decided to shuck it —that thick, wiry pelt that smelled like wet felt— and made it a toupee for Luckett. Now Luckett, once bald as an eagle, like Samson stands handsome and regal with hair to his ass that smells like his lass, but still comes when she calls, like a beagle. —a triple limerick by Michael R. Burch There once was a mockingbird, Clyde, who bragged of his prowess, but lied. To his new wife he sighed, "When again, gentle bride?" "Nevermore!" bright-eyed Raven replied. —Michael R. Burch More Humorous Erotica Cover Girl by Michael R. Burch Cunning at sunning and dunning, the stunning young woman’s in the running to be found nude on the cover of some patronizing lover. In this case the cover is a bed cover, where the enterprising young mistress is about to be covered herself. Less Heroic Couplets: Marketing 101 by Michael R. Burch Building her brand, she disrobes, naked, except for her earlobes. Less Heroic Couplets: Negotiables by Michael R. Burch Love should be more than the sum of its parts— of its potions and pills and subterranean arts. Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130 Refuted by Michael R. Burch My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips' red ... — Shakespeare, Sonnet 130 Seas that sparkle in the sun without its light would have no beauty; but the light within your eyes is theirs alone; it owes no duty. Whose winsome flame, not half so bright, is meant for me, and brings delight. Coral formed beneath the sea, though scarlet-tendriled, cannot warm me; while your lips, not half so red, just touching mine, at once inflame me. Whose scorching flames mild lips arouse fathomless oceans fail to douse. Bright roses’ brief affairs, declared when winter comes, will wither quickly. Your cheeks, though paler when compared with them?—more lasting, never prickly. Whose tender cheeks, so enchantingly warm, far vaster treasures, harbor no thorns. Originally published by Romantics Quarterly PURDY, PLEASE! She was so curvy she didn’t need to be flirty: such was the genesis of Miss Eleanor Purdy... First Base Freeze by Michael R. Burch Miss Purdy, please! I find your love unappealing (no, make that appalling) because you prefer kissing then stalling. Updated Advice for Amorous Bachelors by Michael R. Burch At six-thirty, feeling flirty, I put on the hurdy-gurdy ... But Ms. Purdy, all alert-y, kicked me where I’m sore and hurty. The moral of my story? To avoid a fate as gory, flirt with gals a bit more whore-y! Mating Calls, or, Purdy Please! by Michael R. Burch 1. Nine-thirty? Feeling flirty (and, indeed, a trifle dirty), I decided to ring prudish Eleanor Purdy ... When I rang her to bang her, it seems my words stang her! She hung up the phone, so I banged off, alone. 2 Still dreaming to hold something skirty, I once again rang our reclusive Miss Purdy. She sounded unhappy, called me “daffy” and “sappy,” and that was before the gal heard me! 3. It was early A.M., ’bout two-thirty, when I enquired again with the regal Miss Purdy. With a voice full of hate, she thundered, “It’s LATE!” Was I, perhaps, over-wordy? 4. At 3:42, I was feeling blue, so I once again rang Miss You-Know-Who, thinking to bed her and quite possibly wed her, but she summoned the cops; now my bail is due! 5. It was probably close to four-thirty the last time I called the miserly Purdy. Although I’m her boarder, the restraining order freezes all assets of that virginity hoarder! Trump’s Trumpet: Trumped Up or Trumped? by Michael R. Burch Our president’s sex life—atrocious! His “pieces of ass”? Braggadocios! His tool though? Immense! Or perhaps just pretense, since Stormy declared “hocus-pocus!” Trump’s Saddest Tweet to Date by Michael R. Burch I’ve gotten all out of kilter. My erstwhile yuge tool is a wilter! I now sleep in bed. Few hairs on my head. Inhibitions? I now have no filter!