Six Poems by Wayne F. Burke

 

Poem

 

None of the suicides are enjoying the

beauty of this autumn day (why they do it

anyway?). A leaf with a rat's tail sniffing the

cement walkway at my feet. A baby manta ray.

Shadows across the leaf-thronged lawn, vast 

herds of them moving east as the wind blows...

A shower of golden parakeets falls (one nips

my ear) as the leaf-children tip toe out into the

highway and are run-over by cars and trucks

but get up, and run, turn cartwheels, flips, and

somersaults, like school children let out for 

recess...So glad I am still here....

Still here.

 

 

Wealth

 

Buddha did not want his father's

riches; he wanted his own, so

set out

to acquire a load of

spiritual gold, and

did--

then gave the entire product

away--

he was richest of all, including

Crassus, who swallowed his load

and John D. Rockefeller, the

desiccated mummy brought to heel

by Ida Tarbeller, a mucker

not unlike Upton Sinclaire

who sent the meat men

packing (later went into the

muffler and gasoline

businesses).

 

 

Shorts

 

1.

"So that is time!" said Henry Morton Stanley

while lying on his deathbed.

Wish i knew what he'd seen;

what his meaning was--

be nice to know

wouldn't it though?

 

2.

Van Gogh cut his ear off

on a Saturday night

because he was bored

sitting in the gas-light

listening to Gauguin blabber

about how great he was. 

3.

In the bunker

Adolf Hitler struggled trying

to decide who to try-out the

cyanide capsule on: Blondie, his dog

or Eva Braun? 

 

4.

Dark sky full of 

something: full of

itself--it's sky-ness;

it's ethereality, it's

substanceless substance:

it's airiness--it's

Jorie Graham-ness.

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).