juvenalia

These are early poems I wrote starting as a boy around age eleven, through my teens in high school and my first two years of college, and a few that I wrote in my early twenties.

Clown
by Michael R. Burch
circa age 16

My “friends” often remind me
that I am a sluggard, a fool.
They say that I resemble a clown
and I suppose it is true
that I do.

These are early poems I wrote starting as a boy around age 11, then as a teen poet in high school and my first two years of college. 

Leave Taking
by Michael R. Burch

Brilliant leaves abandon
battered limbs
to waltz upon ecstatic winds
until they die.

But the barren and embittered trees,
lament the frolic of the leaves
and curse the bleak
November sky.

These are early poems of mine, written as a boy starting around age eleven into my teens as a high school student and my first two years of collete. A few may have been written a bit later; I'm not always sure of composition dates due to inconsistent record keeping in my youth. 

Elegy for a little girl, lost
by Michael R. Burch

for my mother, Christine Ena Burch, who was always a little giggly girl at heart

These are early poems I wrote as a boy starting around age eleven, then as a teenager in high school and my first two years of college. Some poems may be a bit later because I didn't consistenly date my poems in the early days and even when I did, if I revised a poem the original date of composition was usually lost. Thus the best I can do now is guess at a range of dates for some of my early poems. 

Hymn to Apollo
by Michael R. Burch

something of sunshine attracted my i
as it lazed on the afternoon sky,
golden,
splashed on the easel of god . . .

These are my early poems, which I began writing around age eleven to thirteen, although I didn't make a conscious decision to become a poet until around age fourteen. 

Shadows
by Michael R. Burch

Alone again as evening falls,
I join gaunt shadows and we crawl
up and down my room's dark walls.

Up and down and up and down,
against starlight—strange, mirthless clowns—
we merge, emerge, submerge . . . then drown.