Five Poems by Wayne F. Burke

 

Emily Dickinson

 

knew she was headed for

immortality but was not so 

sure of eternity, and 

never did sign-on to the

Jesus-Program,

remaining "un-saved" among the

"saved" herd, including the members of her family.

Her love for Sue

as strong as that

for other of her "angels"

she sent missives to

from the "Homestead," her father's house;

the father she obeyed, Who Art at Home

her "heaven," central command from

where she sent dispatches from

a puzzling dimension to many of those on the

receiving end, among the ones she loved

with a sticky love hard to

match or evade; she sought reciprocity and

grew lonely when only frost

arrived instead.

 

Clouds

 

white as bed sheets, white

as the Nordic race,

colossally unfurling in Montana

butte formations, dark

underbellies, new clusters lolling...

A snaggle-puss face, a great grey

lost continent, a bear, a shark, the

bust of Augustus Caesar in the

fake sea of

a phantom world.

 

 

N.C. (1926-68)

 

The "secret hero" and

muse of the

Beats'

found on railroad tracks

and close to death--

the smell of tar bleeding through the

ties, and

a slow moving river trickling

beneath a rusty trestle

nearby:

his bone-y face planted

in gravel that

smelled of ash and dust...

As the sun began

to set

the Shrouded Stranger, sitting

close by, stared

with vulture-eyes as

death came floundering

down the line

riding the Whap-by Extry Special

ole 169.

 

 

Broke-Back

 

downstairs below decks, apartment 2a, ack-hack

in the nicotine mourning, his first butt of the day; and

a foine day it is, the greenery so gleamily with a rarebit

of sun schoine--they don't call this place Vert-Mont for

nothing, fook, no they don't; take a look for crisp sakes,

Kelly-green, lime-green, camouflage-green, pine-tree green--

how green my grass yo ho or my valley too

if youse got one.

 

 

BANG

 

crash, woke me 3 a.m.

I thought someone in my room, or

maybe an evil genie? Spirit? But only the

drunks downstairs in a fight:

"Get out of my house! I am asking you

to leave!" Mole-Man, apartment 2b, and

his ex-wife, who visits weekends, and

lives, otherwise, in a hotel-motel

for the indigent.

 

Wayne F. Burke's poetry has been widely published in print and online (including in LOTHLORIEN POETRY JOURNAL). He is author of 8 published full-length collections of poetry, one short story collection, and two nonfiction works (most recently BUKOWSKI the Ubermensch, Cyberwit.net., 2023). He lives in Vermont (USA).