romance

These are poems I call my Fables...

Will There Be Starlight
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Will there be starlight
tonight
while she gathers
damask
and lilac
and sweet-scented heathers?

And will she find flowers,
or will she find thorns
guarding the petals
of roses unborn?

Will there be moonlight
tonight
while she gathers
seashells
and mussels
and albatross feathers?

These are poems about Ann Rutledge and her romantic relationship with Abraham Lincoln. 

Winter Thoughts of Ann Rutledge
by Michael R. Burch

Winter was not easy,
nor would the spring return.
I knew you by your absence,
as men are wont to burn
with strange indwelling fire —
such longings you inspire!

But winter was not easy,
nor would the sun relent
from sculpting virgin images
and how could I repent?
I left quaint offerings in the snow,
more maiden than I care to know.

***

Cosmos’s Love Poems

A number of my love poems have been published over the years.  Here are some of them.  Enjoy.
Index

January 2022 Poems

These are love poems by Michael R. Burch. Some are poems about love in desert places where Bedouins have learned to do without. The poems include everything from heroic couplets, sonnets and villanelles, to free verse and haiku. 

Sonnet: Once (a confirmed bachelor recants)

for Beth

Once when her kisses were fire incarnate
and left in their imprint bright lipstick, and flame,
when her breath rose and fell over smoldering dunes,
leaving me listlessly sighing her name ...

These are poems about roses, and what they say and don't say to us ...

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,
bright promises blithe spring forsook,
will I recall your words—barbed, cruel?

***

This is my first sonnet, written as a teen, followed by other early sonnets and sonnet-like poems of mine ...

Sonnet 130 Refuted
by Michael R. Burch

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red ...
— Shakespeare, Sonnet 130

These are Romantic poems (with a capital R) that I have written under the influence of feminine beauty and poets like Sappho, e. e. cummings, Emily Dickinson, John Keats, Kevin N. Roberts, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Dylan Thomas.

She Gathered Lilacs
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

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

Poem on “kelebek ruyasi”
Scenes on the heart, left prints
Muzafer and Reshtu words
Poet's life is the longest poem
Hence both's masterpiece modern epics
In the butterfly dream love, peace exists
Poetry is not that of words clusters
But rather is a life, feelings that deliver
As in the movie Reshtu tells:
“ Poet is like a baker”,
So Here kenj’s paraphrase
Poets not for themselves they write
For nations, upcoming generations
Focus on the love found in the heart
Get the future free of wars

I remember Paris, Oh! So well,
went there so many times as a child,
 the gabled windows at Montmartre,
and the Seine’s whispers mild.
The Pont du Alexander in grandeur,
and the blinking Eiffel lights,
Champs Elysees taking my breath,
and merry laughter by the nights.
Notre Dame of Hugo’s Hunchback,
the signs of intellectual ferment,
the story of fall of the Bastille,
still evoke my childhood dormant...

Because of You