just wondering,
while gravity takes over
pulling
the earth
strongly
into denser
layers
underneath is
happy
the cooler
the hotter
less dense
air
rises
and takes its
place
on top
a phreatic eruption
brings
the juvenile world
to
the surface
Happy,
just wondering

I sit with my feet dangling into a circle
whose edge I rest on
as if it were a window sill.

From here the earth looks ancient.
It’s pull mothered by the curvature
of spacetime.
The spring blossoms curving
when they fall.

Our fate floating out there: intangible–
outside this circle where my toes abide
Our fate floating in us: tangible–
The place in which my torso resides

The debate seems fresh unlike the sagely soil. My limbs alive –life giving life– emerging like the pistil from a bellflower
unconcerned with philosophy.

I cut down the last tree,
   and ate the last apple...

I  wore the snake as a noose...


******* gravity...
  


                 I fell hollow and empty...

Pity Clarity
by Michael R. Burch

Pity Clarity,
and, if you should find her,
release her from the tangled webs
of dusty verse that bind her.

And as for Brevity,
once the soul of wit—
she feels the gravity
of ironic chains and massive rhetoric.

And Poetry,
before you may adore her,
must first be freed
from those who for her loveliness would ***** her.

Published by Contemporary Rhyme (January 2005) and The Columbus Dispatch (Sunday, April 3, 2005). Keywords/Tags: Poetry, pity, clarity, obscure, webs, dusty, verse, brevity, gravity, irony, chains, manacles, massive, rhetoric, imprisoned, prisoner, jailed, *****, ******, *******

A huge glowing ball of heat
Collapsed due to gravity
Pulled and pushed, till the ashes were scattered
The only remnants of what was once great

Yet a foe may be a friend to another
Gravity pulled together the ashes
Calling the fragments back
To build with the remains

They spun and spun
Fast merging
Until they formed a spinning star
Which was born from the ashes

Afterglow
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

The night is full of stars. Which still exist?
Before time ends, perhaps one day we’ll know.
For now I hold your fingers to my lips
and feel their pulse ... warm, palpable and slow ...

once slow to match this reckless spark in me,
this moon in ceaseless orbit I became,
compelled by wilder gravity to flee
night’s universe of suns, for one pale flame ...

for one pale flame that seemed to signify
the Zodiac of all, the meaning of
love’s wandering flight past Neptune. Now to lie
in dawning recognition is enough ...

enough each night to bask in you, to know
the face of love ... eyes closed ... its afterglow.

Keywords/Tags: afterglow, stars, suns, planets, zodiac, moon, orbit, gravity, universe, love, radiation, night, exist, existence, time

don’t forget ...
by michael r. burch

for Beth

don’t forget to remember
that Space is curved
(like your Heart)
and that even Light is bent
by your Gravity.

The opening lines of my poem were inspired by a famous love poem written by e. e. cummings. Keywords/Tags: cummings, space, curved, forget, remember, heart, light, bent, gravity, space-time



teacher
by michael r. burch, age 17

teacher, take a look at my life,
for it has just begun
and u think that i am “misinformed”
merely because i'm young;

but the truth is often hidden
(what lies lurk behind ur eyes?)
and maybe Puff can tell u
where the Dragon flies.

teacher, take a look at my life:
urs is a dull-edged knife
(the white-hot blade long blunted).
now ur as cold as ice.

still, when u come to class,
act like u know it all,
for if u show insecurity,
surely wee will folderol.

I wrote "teacher" after hearing the song "Old Man" by Neil Young. "Wee" is a pun, not a typo.

Free Fall
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

These cloudless nights, the sky becomes a wheel
where suns revolve around an axle star ...
Look there, and choose. Decide which moon is yours.
Sink Lethe-ward, held only by a heel.

Advantage. Disadvantage. Who can tell?
To see is not to know, but you can feel
the tug sometimes—the gravity, the shell
as lustrous as damp pearl. You sink, you reel

toward some draining revelation. Air—
too thin to grasp, to breath. Such pressure. Gasp.
The stars invert, electric, everywhere.
And so we fall in spirals through night’s fissure—

two beings—pale, intent to fall forever
around each other—fumbling at love’s tether ...
now separate, now distant, now together.

Published by Poetry Porch/Sonnet Scroll, Poetry Life & Times, Artvilla, Trinacria, The Chained Muse and vzjp.cz (in a Czech translation by Václav Z J Pinkava). Keywords/Tags: free, fall, falling, night, sky, wheel, axle, orbit, gravity, sun, star, moon, planet, satellite, Lethe, air, atmosphere, tether, tethered, umbilical, floating, separate, separation, distance, closeness, nearness, togetherness, attachment