Speechless
We are left speechless by man's inhumanity to his fellow man, to his brothers and sisters and their children. This collection includes poems about the Holocaust, Auschwitz, Hiroshima, Gaza, terrorism and 9-11, war, and other forms of human violence...
Speechless at Auschwitz
by Ko Un
translation by Michael R. Burch
At Auschwitz
piles of glasses
mountains of shoes
returning, we stared out different windows.
***
Flight 93
These are poems about flight, poems about flying, and poems about flights of fancy like those of Peter Pan ...
"Flight 93" is a sonnet I wrote in response to the events of 9-11 ...
Flight 93
by Michael R. Burch
I held the switch in trembling fingers, asked
why existence felt so small, so purposeless,
like a minnow wriggling feebly in my grasp ...
vibrations of huge engines thrummed my arms
as, glistening with sweat, I nudged the switch
to OFF ... I heard the klaxon's shrill alarms
