Villanelles
These are villanelles by Michael R. Burch.
Remembering Not to Call
by Michael R. Burch
a villanelle permitting mourning, for my mother, Christine Ena Burch
The hardest thing of all,
after telling her everything,
is remembering not to call.
Now the phone hanging on the wall
will never announce her ring:
the hardest thing of all
for children, however tall.
Blood Roses
These are poems about blood roses. The rose is a symbol of love and tendernesss, but it is also the color of blood …
Frantisek “Franta” Bass was a Jewish boy born in Brno, Czechoslovakia in 1930. When he was 11, his family was deported by the Nazis to Terezin, where the SS had created a hybrid Ghetto/Concentration Camp just north of Prague (it was also known as Theresienstadt). Franta lived there under terrible conditions for three years. He was then sent to Auschwitz, where on October 28th, 1944, he was murdered at age 14.
Intimations
These are poems about intimations, intuitions and things that aren't always obvious. The poems include villanelles, sonnets and free verse.
Intimations
by Michael R. Burch
Let mercy surround us
with a sweet persistence.
Let love propound to us
that life is infinitely more than existence.
Published by Katrina Anthology
***
Precipice
Michael R. Burch
for Jeremy
They will teach you to scoff at love
from the highest, windiest precipice of reason.
Do not believe them.