The Best Poems of Michael R. Burch (HM-7)

These are the best poems of Michael R. Burch, a much-published American poet, in a continuing series that begins with The Best Poems of Michael R. Burch (1-25)...



After the Poetry Recital
by Michael R. Burch

Later there’ll be talk of saving whales
over racks of lamb and flambéed snails.



Marsh Song
by Michael R. Burch

Here there is only the great sad song of the reeds
and the silent herons, wraithlike in the mist,
and a few drab sunken stones, unblessed
by the sunlight these late sixteen thousand years,
and the beaded dews that drench strange ferns, like tears
collected against an overwhelming sadness.

Here the marsh exposes its dejectedness,
its gutted rotting belly, and its roots
rise out of the earth’s distended heaviness,
to claw hard at existence, till the scars
remind us that we all have wounds, and I ...
I have learned again that living is despair
as the herons cleave the placid, dreamless air.

Originally published by The Lyric



Hell-Bound Hounds
by Michael R. Burch

We have five dogs and every one’s a sinner!
I swear it’s true—they’ll steal each other’s dinner!

They’ll hump before they’re married. That’s unlawful!
They’ll even screw in public. Eek, so awful!

And when it’s time for treats (don’t gasp!), they’ll beg!
They have no pride! They’ll even hump your leg!

Our oldest Yorkie murdered dear, sweet Olive,
our helpless hamster! None will go to college

or work to pay their room and board, or vets!
When the Devil says, “Pee here!” they all yip, “Let’s!”

And yet they’re sweet and loyal, so I doubt
the Lord will dump them in hell’s dark redoubt . . .

which means there’s hope for you, perhaps for me.
But as for cats? I say, “Best wait and see.”

All Afterglow
by Michael R. Burch

Something remarkable, perhaps ...
the color of her eyes ... though I forget
the color of her eyes ... perhaps her hair
the way it blew about ... I do not know
just what it was about her that has kept
her thought lodged deep in mine ... unmelted snow
that lasted till July would be less rare,
clasped in some frozen cavern where the wind
sculpts bright grotesqueries, ignoring springs’
and summers’ higher laws ... there thawing slow
and strange by strange degrees, one tick beyond
the freezing point which keeps all things the same
... till what remains is fragile and unlike
the world above, where melted snows and rains
form rivulets that, inundate with sun,
evaporate, and in life’s cyclic stream
remake the world again ... I do not know
that we can be remade—all afterglow.    

[Note: “inundate with snow” is not a typo.]



Il pleure dans mon coeur (“It rains in my heart”)
by Paul Verlaine
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

for Lemuel Ibbotson

It rains in my heart
As it rains on the town;
Heavy languor and dark
Drenches my heart.

Oh, the sweet-sounding rain
cleansing pavements and roofs!
For my listless heart's pain
The pure song of the rain!

Still it rains without reason
In my overcast heart. 
Can it be there's no treason?
That this grief's without reason?

As my heart floods with pain,
Lacking hatred, or love,
I've no way to explain
Such bewildering pain!