The Evolution Of Love Poem by Michael Burch

The Evolution of Love
by Michael R. Burch

Love among the infinitesimal
flotillas of amoebas is a dance
of transient appendages, wild sails
that gather in warm brine and then express
one headstream as two small, divergent wakes.

Minuscule voyage―love! Upon false feet,
the pseudopods of uprightness, we creep
toward self-immolation: two nee one.

We cannot photosynthesize the sun,
and so we love in darkness, till we come
at last to understand: man's spineless heart
is alien to any land. We part
to single cells; we rise on buoyant tears,
amoeba-light, to breathe new atmospheres...

and still we
sink.

The night is full of stars
we cannot grasp, though all the World is ours.

Have we such cells within us, bent on love
to ever-changingness, so that to part
is not to be the same, or even one?

Is love our evolution, or a scream
against the thought of separateness―a cry
of strangled recognition? Love, or die,
or love and die a little. Hopeful death!
Come scale these cliffs, lie changing, share this breath.



Longing
by Michael R. Burch

We stare out at the cold gray sea,
overcome
with such sudden and intense longing...
our eyes meet,
inviolate,
and we are not of this earth,
this strange, inert mass.

Before we crept
out of the shoals of the inchoate sea,
before we grew
the quaint appendages
and orifices of love...

before our jellylike nuclei,
struggling to be hearts,
leapt
at the sight of that first bright, oracular sun,
then watched it plummet,
the birth and death of our illumination...

before we wept...
before we knew...
before our unformed hearts grew numb,
again,
in the depths of the sea's indecipherable darkness...

When we were only
a swirling profusion of recombinant things
wafting loose silt from the sea's soft floor,
writhing and sucking in convulsive beds
of mucousy foliage,

flowering,
flowering,
flowering...

what jolted us to life?




evol-u-shun
by michael r. burch

does GOD adore the Tyger
while it's ripping ur lamb apart?

does GOD applaud the Plague
while it's eating u à la carte?

does GOD admire ur brains
while ur claimng IT has a heart?

does GOD endorse the Bible
you blue-lighted at k-mart?

NOTE: In the segmented title 'evol' is 'love' spelled backwards. The title questions whether you/we have been shunned by a 'God of Love' or by evolution. William Blake's poem 'The Tyger' questions the nature of a Creator who brings lambs and tigers into the same world.



faith(less)
by michael r. burch

for the 'Chosen Few'

Those who believed
and Those who misled
lie together at last
in the same narrow bed

and if god loved Them more
for Their strange lack of doubt,
he kept it well hidden
till he snuffed Them out.

ah-men!



in-flight convergence
by michael r. burch

serene, almost angelic,
the lights of the city - - - -extend - - - -
over lumbering behemoths shrilly screeching displeasure;
they say
that nothing is certain,
that nothing man dreams or ordains
long endures his command

here the streetlights that flicker
and those blazing steadfast seem one
from a distance;
descend?
they abruptly
part - - - -ways,

so that nothing is one
which at times does not suddenly blend
into garish insignificance
in the familiar alleyways,
in the white neon flash
and the billboards of Convenience

and man seems the afterthought of his own Brilliance
as we thunder down the enlightened runways.

Originally published by The Aurorean and nominated for the Pushcart Prize, then published by Grassroots Poetry, Unlikely Stories, Bewildering Stories, Scarlet Leaf Review, Famous Poets & Poems and Inspirational Stories



I AM!
by Michael R. Burch

I am not one of ten billion―I―
sunblackened Icarus, chary fly,
staring at God with a quizzical eye.

I am not one of ten billion, I.

I am not one life has left unsquashed―
scarred as Ulysses, goddess-debauched,
pale glowworm agleam with a tale of panache.

I am not one life has left unsquashed.

I am not one without spots of disease,
laugh lines and tan lines and thick-callused knees
from begging and praying and girls sighing 'Please! '

I am not one without spots of disease.

I am not one of ten billion―I―
scion of Daedalus, blackwinged fly
staring at God with a sedulous eye.

I am not one of ten billion, I
AM!



The Song of Amergin
an original poem by Michael R. Burch

He was our first bard
and we feel in his dim-remembered words
the moment when Time blurs...

and he and the Sons of Mil
heave oars as the breakers mill
till at last Ierne—green, brooding—nears,

while Some implore seas cold, fell, dark
to climb and swamp their flimsy bark
... and Time here also spumes, careers...

while the Ban Shee shriek in awed dismay
to see him still the sea, this day,
then seek the dolmen and the gloam.



beMused
by Michael R. Burch

Perhaps at three
you'll come to tea,
to have a cuppa here?

You'll just stop in
to sip dry gin?
I only have a beer.

To name the 'greats':
Pope, Dryden, mates?
The whole world knows their names.

Discuss the 'songs'
of Emerson?
But these are children's games.

Give me rhythms
wild as Dylan's!
Give me Bobbie Burns!

Give me Psalms,
or Hopkins' poems,
Hart Crane's, if he returns!

Or Langston railing!
Blake assailing!
Few others I desire.

Or go away,
yes, leave today:
your tepid poets tire.



Heroin or Heroine?
by Michael R. Burch

for mothers battling addiction

serve the Addiction;
worship the Beast;
feed the foul Pythons,
your flesh, their fair feast...

or rise up, resist
the huge many-headed hydra;
for the sake of your Loved Ones
decapitate medusa.



The Discovery
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

What use were my arms, before they held you?
What did my lips know of love, before they encountered yours?
I learned I was made for your heart, so true! ,
to overwhelm with its tender force.



Bible Libel
by Michael R. Burch

If God
is good,
half the Bible
is libel.



bible libel (ii)
by Michael R. Burch

ur savior's a cad
—he's as bad as his dad—
according to your horrible Bible.

demanding belief
or he'll bring u to grief?
he's worse than his horn-sprouting rival!

was the man ever good
before made a 'god'?
if so, half your Bible is libel!



Love is her Belief and her Commandment
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Love is her belief and her commandment;
in restless dreams at night, she dreams of Love;
and Love is her desire and her purpose;
and everywhere she goes, she sings of Love.

There is a tomb in Palestine: for others
the chance to stake their claims (the Chosen Ones) ,
but in her eyes, it's Love's most hallowed chancel
where Love was resurrected, where one comes
in wondering awe to dream of resurrection
to blissful realms, where Love reigns over all
with tenderness, with infinite affection.

While some may mock her faith, still others wonder
because they see the rare state of her soul,
and there are rumors: when she prays the heavens
illume more brightly, as if saints concur
who keep a constant vigil over her.

And once she prayed beside a dying woman:
the heavens opened and the angels came
in the form of long-departed friends and loved ones,
to comfort and encourage. I believe
not in her God, but always in her Love.



Instruction
by Michael R. Burch

Toss this poem aside
to the filigreed and the prettified tide
of sunset.

Strike my name,
and still it is all the same.
The onset

of night is in the despairing skies;
each hut shuts its bright bewildered eyes.
The wind sighs

and my heart sighs with her—
my only companion, O Lovely Drifter!
Still, men are not wise.

The moon appears; the arms of the wind lift her,
pooling the light of her silver portent,
while men, impatient,

are beings of hurried and harried despair.
Now willows entangle their fragrant hair.
Men sleep.

Cornsilk tassels the moonbright air.
Deep is the sea; the stars are fair.
I reap.

Originally published by Romantics Quarterly.



Sappho's Lullaby
by Michael R. Burch

for Jeremy

Hushed yet melodic, the hills and the valleys
sleep unaware of the nightingale's call
while the pale calla lilies lie
listening,
glistening...
this is their night, the first night of fall.

Son, tonight, a woman awaits you;
she is more vibrant, more lovely than spring.
She'll meet you in moonlight,
soft and warm,
all alone...
then you'll know why the nightingale sings.

Just yesterday the stars were afire;
then how desire flashed through my veins!
But now I am older;
night has come,
I'm alone...
for you I will sing as the nightingale sings.

The calla lily symbolizes beauty, purity, innocence, faithfulness and true devotion. According to Greek mythology, when the Milky Way was formed by the goddess Hera's breast milk, the drops that fell to earth became calla lilies.

Keywords/Tags: love, love and life, evolution, sex, sexuality, lust, cells, chemistry, electricity, biology, darkness, night, stars, photosynthesis, shared breath, microscopic, amoebas, pseudopods, microbes, god, love, coronavirus, plague, tyger, tiger, lamb, predator, prey, brains, heart, bible, K-Mart, blue light special

Published as the collection 'The Evolution of Love'