I prefer red chile over my eggs
and potatoes for breakfast.
Red chile ristras decorate my door,
dry on my roof, and hang from eaves.
They lend open-air vegetable stands
historical grandeur, and gently swing
with an air of festive welcome.
I can hear them talking in the wind,
haggard, yellowing, crisp, rasping
tongues of old men, licking the breeze.
......
Thrill with lissome lust of the light,
O man ! My man !
Come careering out of the night
Of Pan ! Io Pan .
Io Pan ! Io Pan ! Come over the sea
From Sicily and from Arcady !
Roaming as Bacchus, with fauns and pards
And nymphs and styrs for thy guards,
On a milk-white ass, come over the sea
To me, to me,
......
Can Earth be Earth when all its trees are gone,
And sudsy waters have become unfit,
And poisoned life no longer greets the dawn
With raucous sounds that death has caused to quit?
Will trees no longer wave, with limbs unfurled,
On hapless Earth, that e'er in orbit roams?
Will human ego sacrifice the world
To satiate its lust for pompous homes?
Will distant Space look down on orb that's bald
And ask, "Wise Poet, can you name that sphere?
......
Believe not those who say
The upward path is smooth,
Lest thou shouldst stumble in the way
And faint before the truth.
It is the only road
Unto the realms of joy;
But he who seeks that blest abode
Must all his powers employ.
Bright hopes and pure delights
......
(From the early Anglo-Saxon text)
May I for my own self song's truth reckon,
Journey's jargon, how I in harsh days
Hardship endured oft.
Bitter breast-cares have I abided,
Known on my keel many a care's hold,
And dire sea-surge, and there I oft spent
Narrow nightwatch nigh the ship's head
While she tossed close to cliffs. Coldly afflicted,
......
Lust glows slyly in her eyes.
'Your eyes are your soul's mirrors', they say.
I cast a stare inside those clear blue lakes of hers.
What hidden desires sleep deep within you
My little-innocent one?
Inexplicably her flaming gaze pierces through my skin
Boils my blood, quivers my heart.
'I can't sleep anymore!
I think of you! '
......
This heat, confrontational;
chips carried on shoulder.
Never breathe, think,
speak, drink till closer
bringing itself in you.
Addictions begin to
blossom. Whore house
posse; optics lopping.
Spun room; coughing.
Hid moon. Tossing.
......
These are heretical poems about God, religion, the Bible and the Christian religion.
When I Was Small, I Grew
by Michael R. Burch
When I was small,
God held me in thrall:
Yes, He was my All
......
You've got the cans,
and I've got my hands on your face.
You brush past my breast,
can't wait for the rest.
Can finally feel this heart beating
Whisper in my ear about leaving
They all know what's happening.
Door buzzer. Butterflies flutter.
You shout Baby through the intercom
......
In the sacred silence of this moment,
I kneel before you, my Lord,
burdened by the weight of my transgressions.
My soul trembles, confessing
the sins that have stained the fabric of my being.
Oh, forgive me, Almighty,
for straying from the path of righteousness
and betraying the values you have bestowed upon me.
I have succumbed to the allure of fleeting pleasures,
......