Distances (II): There is a small cleanness about her

Distances (II)
by Michael R. Burch

There is a small cleanness about her,

as though she has always just been washed,

and there is a dull obedience to convention

in her accommodating slenderness

as she feints at her salad.

She has never heard of Faust, or Frost,

and she is unlikely to have been seen

rummaging through bookstores

for mementos of others

more difficult to name.

She might imagine “poetry”

to be something in common between us,

as we write, bridging the expanse

between convention and something...

something the world calls “art”

for want of a better word.

At night I scream

at the conventions of both our worlds,

at the distances between words

and their objects: distances

come lately between us,

like a clean break.

Published by Verse Libre, Triplopia and Lone Stars. Keywords/Tags: love, relationship, relationships, communication, distance, distances, convention, books, bookstores, art, literature, poetry, writing, chasm, abyss, divide, Faust, Frost, clean break



These are poems about distances, about nearness and separation, about intimacy and isolation, about coming together and flying apart, about marriage and divorce …

Distances (I)
by Michael R. Burch

Moonbeams on water― the reflected light
of a halcyon star
now drowning in night ...
So your memories are.

Footprints on beaches
now flooding with water;
the small, broken ribcage
of some primitive slaughter ...
So near, yet so far.

Published by The Poetry Porch/Sonnet Scroll, The HyperTexts and The New Lyre (the first poem in the first issue)

In “Distances” the last rays of the sun are sinking into the sea: hence the “halcyon star / now drowning in night.” Meanwhile the sun’s rays are striking the moon, making it visible, and creating a second kind of radiance reflecting off the water. For me this is a metaphor for someone who is not yet completely gone, but increasingly distant and in danger of vanishing from the picture completely. Thus the poem can be read as a metaphor for a divorce or other failing relationship.

This Distance Between Us
by Michael R. Burch

This distance between us,
this vast gulf of remembrance
void of understanding,
sets us apart.

You are so far,
lost child,
weeping for consolation,
so dear to my heart.

Once near to my heart,
though seldom to touch,
now you are foreign,
now you grow faint . . .

like the wayward light of a vagabond star:
obscure, enigmatic.
Is the reveling gypsy
becoming a saint?

Now loneliness,
a broad expanse
―barren, forbidding― whispers my name.

I, too, am a traveler
down this dark path,
unsure of the footing,
cursing the rain.

I, too, have felt pain,
pain and the ache of passion unfulfilled,
remorse, grief, and all the terrors
of the night.

And how very black
and how bleak my despair . . .
O, where are you, where are you
shining tonight?

Less Heroic Couplets: Mini-Ode to Stamina
by Michael R. Burch

When you’ve given so much
that I can’t bear your touch,
then from a safe distance
let me admire your persistence.

She Gathered Lilacs
by Michael R. Burch

She gathered lilacs
and arrayed them in her hair;
tonight, she taught the wind to be free.

She kept her secrets
in a silver locket;
her companions were starlight and mystery.

She danced all night
to the beat of her heart;
with her tears she imbued the sea.

She hid her despair
in a crystal jar,
and never revealed it to me.

She kept her distance
as though it were armor;
gauntlet thorns guard her heart like the rose.

Love!―awaken, awaken
to see what you’ve taken
is still less than the due my heart owes!

The Peripheries of Love
by Michael R. Burch

Through waning afternoons we glide
the watery peripheries of love.
A silence, a quietude falls.

Above us, the sagging pavilions of clouds.
Below us, rough pebbles slowly worn smooth
grate in the gentle turbulence
of yesterday’s forgotten rains.

Later, the moon like a virgin
lifts her stricken white face
and the waters rise
toward some unfathomable shore.

We sway gently in the wake
of what stirs beneath us,
yet leaves us unmoved ...
curiously motionless,

as though twilight might blur
the effects of proximity and distance,
as though love might be near...

as near
as a single cupped tear of resilient dew
or a long-awaited face.

Originally published by Romantics Quarterly

Villanelle: The Divide
by Michael R. Burch

The sea was not salt the first tide ...
was man born to sorrow that first day,
with the moon, a pale beacon across the Divide,
the brighter for longing, an object denied,
the tug at his heart's pink, bourgeoning clay?

The sea was not salt the first tide ...
but grew bitter, bitter, man's torrents supplied.
The bride of their longing, forever astray,
her shield a cold beacon across the Divide,
flashing pale signals: Decide. Decide.
Choose me, or His Brightness, I will not stay.

The sea was not salt the first tide ...
imploring her, ebbing: Abide, abide.

The silver fish flash there, the manatees gray.

The moon, a pale beacon across the Divide,
has taught us to seek Love's concealed side:
the dark face of longing, the poets say.

The sea was not salt the first tide ...
the moon a pale beacon across the Divide.

Nashville and Andromeda
by Michael R. Burch

I have come to sit and think in the darkness once again.
It is three a.m.; outside, the world sleeps . . .

How nakedly now and unadorned
the surrounding hills
expose themselves
to the lithographies of the detached moonlight,
breasts daubed by the lanterns
of the ornamental barns,
firs ruffled like silks
casually discarded . . .

They lounge now:
indolent, languid, spread-eagled,
their wantonness a thing to admire,
like a lover’s ease idly tracing flesh . . .

They do not know haste,
lust, virtue, or any of the sanctimonious ecstasies of men,
yet they please
if only in the solemn meditations of their loveliness
by the erect pen . . .

Perhaps there upon the surrounding hills,
another forsakes sleep
for the hour of introspection,
gabled in loneliness,
swathed in the pale light of Andromeda . . .

Seeing.
Yes, seeing,
but always ultimately unknowing
anything of the affairs of men.

Existence
by Fadwa Tuqan
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

In my solitary life, I was a lost question;
in the encompassing darkness,
my answer lay concealed.

You were a bright new star
revealed by fate,
radiating light from the fathomless darkness.

The other stars rotated around you
―once, twice― until I perceived
your unique radiance.

Then the bleak blackness broke
and in the twin tremors
of our entwined hands
I had found my missing answer.

Oh you! Oh you intimate, yet distant!
Don't you remember the coalescence
Of our spirits in the flames?
Of my universe with yours?
Of the two poets?
Despite our great distance,
Existence unites us.

The Higher Atmospheres
by Michael R. Burch

Whatever we became climbed on the thought
of Love itself; we floated on plumed wings
ten thousand miles above the breasted earth
that had vexed us to such Distance; now all things
seem small and pale, a girdle’s handsbreadth girth ...

I break upon the rocks; I break; I fling
my human form about; I writhe; I writhe.
Invention is not Mastery, nor wings
Salvation. Here the Vulture cruelly chides
and plunges at my eyes, and coos and sings ...

Oh, some will call the sun my doom, but Love
melts callow wax the higher atmospheres
leave brittle. I flew high: not high enough
to melt such frozen resins ... thus, Her jeers.