romance

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 ...

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.

The moonrise in her sojourn of silver splendor,
can she compare to the heights of love?
far above the crowning precipice of Mount Everest,
where stars sweeten lovers' senses,
and swirl in their eyes,
so newly romantic are they.

In youthful breathlessness they promise
eternal devotions into golden age,
then kiss beneath a moonglow magnolia tree,
in summer's passionate beauty,
in the coolness of the eve,
as the sun faded and sleeps,
and lovers reach the heights of love.

Perchance, my shy love,
we can unite passionately
as slumbering magnolias awaken
with the moon's fancy,
in the summer gardens.

crackling, booming, electric atmosphere.....streaks of lightning, when they met

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

We were accustomed to being in the military, yet,
at summer's zenith, my sweetheart, and our two
friends, left behind the Ft. Myer barracks,
to spend a Saturday night at Lady Bird Johnson park,
fireflies lit the pathways, freedom of that festive
nightfall,
and in our youthful revelry of that humid July
gloaming, we drank to the joys of Navy life,
with Jack Daniels whiskey and Boone's Farm
strawberry wine,
we, in our drunkenness, quoted Poe and
Hemingway,
what a soiree, what a mirthful moon-blessed
eve,