Remembering Emma Goldman

In a garden by the French sea she wanders,
"Sasha, where are you?"

Once were flags and speeches
Revolutionary rhythm
Flush of rising passion.
Anarchy's flame,
"To the daring belong the future!"
Then exile, relentless dispossession.
Communist Russia was filled with starving
Lenin was a heartless uncle laughing.
Dreams drifted out to sea,
The flame flickered
Emma realized she was lost.
Departed then to France
A cottage by the sea, pen and paper.
Many letters between them,
Emma & Sasha, so far apart
40 years wandering in desolation
True comrades, but separated
Each a leitmotif within the other's soul.
One thousand letters,
Each a bid for sanity, the reach of two hands
Gripped across ten thousand miles.
When finally a telegram came,
Come quickly! The train was slow.
Emma held his hand that had held a gun,
But the bullet was not merciful.
By evening Sasha left her.

In a garden by the French sea she wanders,

"Sasha, where are you?"
"Sasha, where are you?"

By Michael Burns

Corridor of Years - circa 2014

Saturday night on floor eleven
Through wide windows
City of Doha's lights.
The earth tumbles along its groove.
(Far away, rain falls on a distant sea)
Riding a pleasant vibe
Amid low light & parlor laughter,
I think on this silently.

Far away
Aborigines huddle under Uluru, greet the morning sun
Dark-eyed Hindus offer evening prayers while the river Ganges runs.
In my passage,
Stumbling along a stubborn axis,
Did I forget my name?
Wandering down a long hall,
Knocking on locked doors
A corridor of years.

Return before midnight,
Numb with a gentle oblivion
Thoughts drift in a warm sea
The room gently spins.

Sunday morning,
My rumpled bed.
Wasteland of dress shoes
Scattered across the floor.
Searching and forlorn,
Rimbaud burned out his brains
A relentless vagabond.
I wash my face,
Grind beans for my coffee
Put laundry in.

The earth rumbles on.

Two Doves

The song of two doves
Cooing amid the pale light
On a power line above the street,
They drove away my morning fear.

It was that dry silence of the long afternoon,
The cooling-copper sun
The empty, parking lot sky:
Tension ate like a slow acid
Cut with a deliberate reptilian precision
Trickled sawdust in the mind.
Evening came
A heavy cart, creaking down the
silent street
Dragging a sickly moon.

Soul of an Afternoon

Soul of an afternoon

Sunlight on an empty couch

White wall that glows

Gentle fan, stirring overhead.

The carpet is a wide plain

Clean savanna inhabited only

By a silent pair of kicked off shoes.

Face against soft fabric

Warmed by the bright light,

The end of my quiet nap

Evening coming on.

Soul of an afternoon.

Crossing

Triumphs in love and pain

Wandering forever, home again.

History of a river flowing

Stratas of lost emotion

Across primeval waters,

Passage of Angels go.

The land at sunset gleams

Desert rocks on glowing cliffs 

River ancient, eternal flow

Portfolio of petroglyph dreams

Forgotten tribes and fossil trees

Green Gingko Biloba leaves.

Triumphs in love and pain

Wandering forever, home again.

Edge of Glory

Sky path

River road

Whale cotton pods

Sky dome drifting on the rain.

Shining chorus, 

Silent plateaus

Cities afloat, ocean of blue

Slow migration

Morphology of clouds

White buffalo on a cobalt plain. 

There Were Dinosaurs Here Once

There were dinosaurs here once, 

When earth was young & green  

Jungle ferns along Triassic seas;

Now just a roaming wind

Tilted fence post fields 

Empty sky with several clouds;

Deep ocean mountains loom 

Tidalwave wall, white foam cap horizon.

This is lonely place 

A long story without breath yet lacking punctuation.

Orange cones guard late model trucks

Tired work crews fix broken roads

A brutal sun beats on tired hills

A skinny deer eats faded grass

Mute witness to highway marker 59.

These are vanishing points of history

Forgotten woodbore termite tracks through time 

Insignia of nature's nonsyllabic passage 

Petrified eternity, frozen centuries domino stacked in line.