Sometimes you stare into the void
and it avoids eye contact
So you awkwardly wave hello,
and there’s this moment
when you think it might care,
just a little
But it turns
and slowly walks away,
and you’re never really sure
if it was ever really there,
where you thought it was,
where you were that whole time
-Martin Burns
…day
breaking, dawn spreading rippling heat,
across fecund land –
the garden, now awakened,
a forbidden tree, laden and heavy rising in its midst
And a knowing, groaning shout
as fruit ripens and is discovered,
its flesh pierced –
and Uriel, angel of poetry,
raises his flaming sword.
-by Martin Burns
This kiss, my lips as gardener,
feeding heat along a verdant trough,
a flickering tool moving
in hidden spaces, the private gate discovered.
The flowering, once hidden garden, opening.
Blooms rising, bursting,
from rich, fertile earth,
unfurling, rising, seeking heat –
a full circle,
a frenzied birth.
-Martin Burns
You, the screaming gale,
pushing turbine blades that
rip and scratch
at the arching back of insistent winds.
The moaning on the threshold – the shaking of the doors.
You rush and swirl,
a zephyr gathering power,
sirocco full of dusty heat, rage –
your eyes a swirling whorl,
eternal and consuming.
-Martin Burns
Your skin pressed to my lips,
aqueous, a river
to seek along, driven
tossed and turned, your cries
a guide, loons moaning along misty shores.
I become your riverine captain,
my fingers as recon soldiers, probing
finding inlets, egress and admittance –
this combat, now mutual,
this struggle overwhelms.
-Martin Burns
Time without end.
We move through the twilight sky,
through noctilucent clouds –
swimmers in a sea of early night,
ice crystals attaching to our skin, reflecting and becoming stars.
Lights in the dark, whorls that pull and tug,
sparks flashing between our skin,
the galaxy unfolding –
our lips together, bodies
a new constellation. Guiding sailors across windswept oceans.
-Martin Burns
The next kiss,
and I as your guide, my hands holding yours,
guiding you into the woods, through dappled sunlight,
among moaning trees, across cracking leaves,
the scent of life breaking, birthing, burning.
The wind that howls
and shakes the leaves,
the rain upon the trees –
my fingers curled in your hair
time without end.
-Martin Burns
