Resurrecting Passion
Michael R. Burch

Last night, while dawn was far away
and rain streaked gray, tumescent skies,
as thunder boomed and lightning railed,
I conjured words, where passion failed …

But, oh, that you were mine tonight,
sprawled in this bed, held in these arms,
your breasts pale baubles in my hands,
our bodies bent to old demands …

Such passions we might resurrect,
if only time and distance waned
and brought us back together; now
I pray that this might be, somehow.

But time has left us twisted, torn,
and we are more apart than miles.
How have you come to be so far—
as distant as an unseen star?

So that, while dawn is far away,
my thoughts might not return to you,
I feed your portrait to the flames,
but as they feast, I burn for you.​​

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Mike’s notes: “This poem about a troubling portrait may have been influenced by Oscar Wilde’s novella The Picture of Dorian Gray and Robert Browning’s poem ‘My Last Duchess.’ I believe I wrote ‘Resurrecting Passion’ around age 22 during my Late Romantic Period.”

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Michael R. Burch is one of the world’s most-published poets, with over 11,500 publications, including poems that have gone viral. This does not include self-published writings; if self-published writings were included, Mike’s total publications would be well over 20,000. Mike has also had 74 poems set to music by composers, from swamp blues to classical. He is also a longtime editor, publisher, and translator of Jewish Holocaust poetry and poems about the Trail of Tears, Hiroshima, Ukraine, the Nakba, and school shootings. Mike’s full biography may be read here.

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