clouds chasing the horizon,
as they entrance me to follow,
moving forward into the infinite, azure heavens above.
i then tried reaching for God’s hand,
but the tide washed everything away.

Like water I am fluid
taking guidance
from the rain
blending with
the madness
as one movement
we stay sane.
My emotions swim
to deep ends
some days I drown
in shallow waves
suffocated by how lonely
even blue tides don’t
come and stay.

Turning the tides of war
Hear the kettledrums beating
Won’t take it anymore
And I’m so through with pleading

Tie me up or chase me down
Now I have the will to fight
Standing up, sticking around
Finding my way through the night

Stepping forward I face my foe
A shiver runs down my spine
I need to try, I need to know
I’m willing to take what’s mine

The outcome is uncertain now
And I’m sometimes fighting blind
But I won’t break, nor will I bow
I’ll win the war in my mind

Radiance
by Michael R. Burch

for Dylan Thomas

The poet delves earth’s detritus—hard toil—
for raw-edged nouns, barbed verbs, vowels’ lush bouquet;
each syllable his pen excretes—dense soil,
dark images impacted, rooted clay.

The poet sees the sea but feels its meaning—
the teeming brine, the mirrored oval flame
that leashes and excites its turgid surface ...
then squanders years imagining love’s the same.

Belatedly he turns to what lies broken—
the scarred and furrowed plot he fiercely sifts,
among death’s sicksweet dungs and composts seeking
one element that scorches and uplifts.

Keywords/Tags: poet, words, delving, farming, sea, moon, tides, love, metaphor, earth, roots, plot, radiance, pitchblende, uranium

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 longing,
remember—the wine!

Originally published by The Lyric. Keywords/Tags: step, starlight, woman, child, childhood, maturation, night, comet, moon, tides, winter, season, grape, longing, wine

Fountainhead
by Michael R. Burch

I did not delight in love so much
as in a kiss like linnets’ wings,
the flutterings of a pulse so soft
the heart remembers, as it sings:

to bathe there was its transport, brushed
by marble lips, or porcelain,—
one liquid kiss, one cool outburst
from pale rosettes. What did it mean ...

to float awhirl on minute tides
within the compass of your eyes,
to feel your alabaster bust
grow cold within? Ecstatic sighs

seem hisses now; your eyes, serene,
reflect the sun’s pale tourmaline.

Published by Romantics Quarterly, Poetica Victorian, PW Review, Nutty Stories (South Africa), Inspirational Stories, Poetry Life & Times

Keywords/Tags: Fountain, love, heart, pulse, bathe, kiss, sun, marble, bust, tides, sighs, eyes, sun, tourmaline

Kin
by Michael R. Burch

for Richard Moore

1.
Shrill gull,
how like my thoughts
you, struggling, rise
to distant bliss—
the weightless blue of skies
that are not blue
in any atmosphere,
but closest here ...

2.
You seek an air
so clear,
so rarified
the effort leaves you famished;
earthly tides
soon call you back—
one long, descending glide ...

3.
Disgruntledly you ***** dirt shores for orts
you pull like mucous ropes
from shells’ bright forts ...

You eye the teeming world
with nervous darts—
this way and that ...

Contentious, shrewd, you scan—
the sky, in hope,
the earth, distrusting man.

Published by Triplopia. Able Muse and The HyperTexts

Keywords/Tags: Gull, sky, blue, atmosphere, air, sea, tides, waves, shores, shells, flight, glide, man, world, trust, distrust

Love
Much like the ocean tides
Ebb and flow
In a dance with my
Anxiety
Back and forth we go
The deep calm
When we are together
I know you crave me
But I never wish to hear
You say those words
I don’t want much more
But I want you
Waves come and go
You crash into me
We belong to each other
And I know we could
Be so much more
Inside I’m at war
It’s written all over your face at times
And you can see the same
Fear in my eyes
Let’s go slow
Just ebb and flow
                        -kmarie

Tides and waves
Eroding groans from shells on stones
The tip from depths
A finite breath
Darker swells where stars dwell
Dwarfs or suns to midnight runs
Nothing is here to stay