By Michael R Burch
LIQUIDITY CRISIS And so I have loved you, and so I have lost, accrued disappointment, ledgered its cost, debited wisdom, credited pain . . . My assets remaining are liquid again. ANALOGY Our embrace is like a forest lying blanketed in snow; you, the lily, are enchanted by each shiver trembling through; I, the snowfall, cling in earnest as I press so close to you. You dream that you now are sheltered; I dream that I may break through. AS THE FLAME FLOWERS As the flame flowers, a flower, aflame, arches leaves skyward, aching for rain, but all it encounters are anguish and pain as the flame sputters sparks that ignite at its stem. Yet how this frail flower aflame at the stem reaches through night, through the staggering pain, for a sliver of silver that sparkles like rain, as it flutters in fear of the flowering flame. Mesmerized by a wavering crescent-shaped gem that glistens like water though drier than sand, the flower extends itself, trembles, and then dies as scorched leaves burst aflame in the wind. ASHES A fire is dying; ashes remain . . . ashes and anguish, ashes and pain. A fire is fading though once it burned bright . . . ashes once embers are ashes tonight. Am I Am I inconsequential; do I matter not at all? Am I just a snowflake, to sparkle, then to fall? Am I only chaff? Of what use am I? Am I just a feeble flame, to flicker, then to die? Am I inadvertent? For what reason am I here? Am I just a ripple in a pool that once was clear? Am I insignificant? Will time pass me by? Am I just a flower, to live one day, then die? Am I unimportant? Do I matter either way? Or am I just an echo— soon to fade away? absinthe sea i hold in my hand a goblet of absinthe the bitter green liqueur reflects the dying sunset over the sea and the darkling liquid froths up over the rim of my cup to splash into the free, churning waters of the sea i do not drink i do not drink the liqueur, for I sail on an absinthe sea that stretches out unendingly into the gathering night its waters are no less green and no less bitter, nor does the sun strike them with a kinder light they both harbour night, and neither shall shelter me neither shall shelter me from the anger of the wind or the cruelty of the sun for I sail in the goblet of some Great God who gazes out over a greater sea, and when my life is done, perhaps it will be because He lifted His goblet and sipped my sea.
Michael R. Burch’s poems have been published by hundreds of literary journals, taught in high schools and colleges, translated into fourteen languages, incorporated into three plays and two operas, and set to music by seventeen composers.
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