Apocalyptic Poems Iii

These are prophetic poems and apocalyptic poems about the earth, climate change, global warming, extinction events, and mankind's role on an endangered world ... Polish by Michael R. Burch Your fingers end in talons? the ones you trim to hide the predator inside. Ten thousand creatures sacrificed; but really, what’s the loss? Apply a splash of gloss. You picked the perfect color to mirror nature’s law: red, like tooth and claw. Is there any Light left? by Michael R. Burch Is there any light left? Must we die bereft of love and a reason for being? Blind and unseeing, rejecting and fleeing our humanity, goat-hooved and cleft? Is there any light left? Must we die bereft of love and a reason for living? Blind, unforgiving, unworthy of heaven or this planet red, reeking and reft? NOTE: While “hoofed” is the more common spelling, I preferred “hooved” for this poem. Perhaps because of the contrast created by “love” and “hooved.” Modern Appetite by Michael R. Burch It grumbled low, insisting it would feast on blood and flesh, etcetera, at least three times a day. With soft lubricious grease and pale salacious oils, it would ease its way through life. Each day?an aperitif. Each night?a frothy bromide, for relief. It lived on TV fare, wore pinafores, slurped sugar-coated gumballs, gobbled S’mores. When gas ensued, it burped and farted. ’Course, it thought aloud, my wife will leave me. Yours is not so damn particular. Divorce is certainly a settlement, toujours! A Tums a day will keep the shrink away, recalcify old bones, keep gas at bay. If Simon says, etcetera, Mother, may I have my hit of calcium today? Imperfect Sonnet by Michael R. Burch A word before the light is doused: the night is something wriggling through an unclean mind, as rats creep through a tenement. And loss is written cheaply with the moon’s cracked gloss like lipstick through the infinite, to show love’s pale yet sordid imprint on us. Go. We have not learned love yet, except to cleave. I saw the moon rise once ... but to believe ... was of another century ... and now ... I have the urge to love, but not the strength. Despair, once stretched out to its utmost length, lies couched in squalor, watching as the screen reveals "love's" damaged images: its dreams ... and masturbating limply, screams and screams. Originally published by Sonnet Scroll Stump by Michael R. Burch This used to be a poplar, oak or elm . . . we forget the names of trees, but still its helm, green-plumed, like some Greek warrior’s, nobly fringed, with blossoms almond-white, but verdant-tinged, this massive helm . . . this massive, nodding head here contemplated life, and now is dead . . . Perhaps it saw its future, furrow-browed, and flung its limbs about, dejectedly. Perhaps it only dreamed as, cloud by cloud, the sun plod through the sky. Heroically, perhaps it stood against the mindless plots of concrete that replaced each flowered bed. Perhaps it heard thick loggers draw odd lots and could not flee, and so could only dread . . . The last of all its kind? They left its stump with timeworn strange inscriptions no one reads (because a language lost is just a bump impeding someone’s progress at mall speeds). We leveled all such “speed bumps” long ago just as our quainter cousins leveled trees. Shall we, too, be consumed by what we know? Once gods were merely warriors; august trees were merely twigs, and man the least divine . . . mere fables now, dust, compost, turpentine. They Take Their Shape by Michael R. Burch “We will not forget moments of silence and days of mourning ...”?George W. Bush We will not forget ... the moments of silence and the days of mourning, the bells that swung from leaden-shadowed vents to copper bursts above “hush!”-chastened children who saw the sun break free (abandonment to run and laugh forsaken for the moment), still flashing grins they could not quite repent ... Nor should they?anguish triumphs just an instant; this every child accepts; the nymphet weaves; transformed, the grotesque adult-thing emerges: damp-winged, huge-eyed, to find the sun deceives ... But children know; they spin limpwinged in darkness cocooned in hope?the shriveled chrysalis that paralyzes time. Suspended, dreaming, they do not fall, but grow toward what is, then grope about to find which transformation might best endure the light or dark. “Survive” becomes the whispered mantra of a pupa’s awakening ... till What takes shape and flies shrieks, parroting Our own shrill, restive cries. Originally published by The HyperTexts Veiled by Michael R. Burch She has belief without comprehension and in her crutchwork shack she is much like us . . . tamping the bread into edible forms, regarding her children at play with something akin to relief . . . ignoring the towers ablaze in the distance because they are not revelations but things of glass, easily shattered . . . and if you were to ask her, she might say? sometimes God visits his wrath upon an impious nation for its leaders’ sins, and we might agree: seeing her mutilations. 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 Keywords/Tags: Apocalypse, Apocalyptic Poems, Prophecy, Prophetic Poems, Proclamation, Future, Futuristic, Broken Future, Vision, Visionary, Omen, Omens, Sign, Signs, Earth, Earth Day, Mother Earth, Climate Change, Global Warming, Environment, Extinction, Nature, Predator, Humanity, Tree, Trees