War is never over
Thought the treaties may be signed
The memories of the battles
Are forever in our minds
War is never over
So when you welcome heroes home
Remember in their minds they hold
Memories known to them alone
......
It might have been midnight when last we talked
and now I've got this poem that keeps flying
apart which accounts under these xenophobic stars
for all force: gravity, magnetism wind, the ling-
ering of a kiss, a judo throw although
there's yet to be a single formula for it.
Save us from single formulas. One room
smells like ash, another smells like fruitcake.
......
I
I dream of journeys repeatedly:
Of flying like a bat deep into a narrowing tunnel
Of driving alone, without luggage, out a long peninsula,
The road lined with snow-laden second growth,
A fine dry snow ticking the windshield,
Alternate snow and sleet, no on-coming traffic,
And no lights behind, in the blurred side-mirror,
The road changing from glazed tarface to a rubble of stone,
......
Write this. We have burned all their villages
Write this. We have burned all the villages and the people in them
Write this. We have adopted their customs and their manner of dress
Write this. A word may be shaped like a bed, a basket of tears or an X
In the notebook it says, It is the time of mutations, laughter at jokes,
secrets beyond the boundaries of speech
......
After a long and wretched flight
That stretched from daylight into night,
Where babies wept and tempers shattered
And the plane lurched and whiskey splattered
Over my plastic food, I came
To claim my bags from Baggage Claim
Around, the carousel went around
The anxious travelers sought and found
Their bags, intact or gently battered,
......
Roses for a Lover, Idealized
by Michael R. Burch
When you have become to me
as roses bloom, in memory,
exquisite, each sharp thorn forgot,
will I recall—yours made me bleed?
When winter makes me think of you—
whorls petrified in frozen dew,
......
Items hold memory.
They represent moments in life,
Both positive and negative, tangible items a way to feel the past.
Letting go.
A way to release the memory.
Some to be cherished, protected,
Others better destroyed, taken from sight.
To let go is to move forward.
......
Peonies plum and white
on the table of grace
at nigh sundown's scarlet;
greet the hour with fragrance
as dusk becomes starlit.
Peonies plum and white
bring joy to the evening
of gold tinged memory,
from the gemmed purple vault
......
Inevitably
My entire being
Pushed into a
Memory
lost in gold glamour
hammock trees whisper green breeze
lotus color sprees
a warm noon warning
of soon tangerine caress
dragonfly's address
swinging sage summer
June beauties in lemon squeeze
......