Daredevil

Daredevil
by Michael R. Burch

 
There are days that I believe
(and nights that I deny)
love is not mutilation.
 

Daredevil, dry your eyes.

 

There are tightropes leaps bereave:
taut wires strumming high
brief songs, infatuations.
 

Daredevil, dry your eyes.
 

There were cannon shots’ soirees,
hearts barricaded, wise . . .
and then . . . annihilation.
 

Daredevil, dry your eyes.

 
There were nights our hearts conceived
untruths reborn as signs.
To dream was our consolation.
 

Daredevil, dry your eyes.

 
There were acrobatic leaves
that tumbled down to lie
at our feet, bright trepidations.
 

Daredevil, dry your eyes.

 
There were hearts carved into trees:
tall stakes where you and I
left childhood’s salt libations . . .
 

Daredevil, dry your eyes.

 
Where once you scraped your knees;
love later bruised your thighs.
Death numbs all, our sedation.
 

Daredevil, dry your eyes.

Infatuate, or Sweet Centerless Sixteen
by Michael R. Burch

Inconsolable as “love” had left your heart,
you woke this morning eager to pursue
warm lips again, or something “really cool”
on which to press your lips and leave their mark.

As breath upon a windowpane at dawn
soon glows, a spreading halo full of sun,
your thought of love blinks wildly ... on and on ...
then fizzles at the center, and is gone.

Originally published by Shot Glass Journal. Keywords/Tags: humor, light verse, sweet, sixteen, never, kissed, lips, lipstick, puppy, love, infatuation, flirt, flirting, short attention span

Thirty

by Michael R. Burch

Thirty crept upon me slowly
with feline caution and a slowly-twitching tail;
she waited three decades for the winds to shift;
now, claws unsheathed, she lies ready to assail
her helpless prey.

Keywords/Tags: thirty, age, aging, maturity, time, creep, creeping, ambush, feline, predator

Twice
by Michael R. Burch

Now twice she has left me
and twice I have listened
and taken her back, remembering days

when love lay upon us
and sparkled and glistened
with the brightness of dew through a gathering haze.

But twice she has left me
to start my life over,
and twice I have gathered up embers, to learn:

rekindle a fire
from ash, soot and cinder
and softly it sputters, refusing to burn.

Originally published by The Lyric. Keywords/Tags: relationship, reunion, reuniting, parting, breakup, breaking up, fire, embers, soot, cinder, cinders, sputter, sputters, sputtering, cold, ash, ashes