Poems About Things That Break Poem by Michael Burch

Poems about Things that Break

These are poems about things that break and/or shatter: a bubble, glass, a mirror, a twig or tree limb, a thunderstorm, cities and towers in times of war, old habits, our hearts, and sometimes Love itself.



Shattered
by Vera Pavlova
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I shattered your heart;
now I limp through the shards
barefoot.



Dark-bosomed clouds
pregnant with heavy thunder...
the water breaks
―Michael R. Burch



As grief reaches its breaking point
someone snaps a nearby branch.
―Yamaguchi Seishi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Lightning
shatters the darkness―
the night heron's shriek
―Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Eros, the limb-shatterer,
rattles me,
an irresistible
constrictor.
―Sappho, fragment 130, loose translation by Michael R. Burch



My heart is unsteady as a rocking boat;
besieged by such longing I weaken with age
and come close to breaking.
―Otomo no Sakanoue no Iratsume, loose translation by Michael R. Burch



Mirror
by Kajal Ahmad, a Kurdish poet
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My era's obscuring mirror  
shattered
because it magnified the small
and made the great seem insignificant.
Dictators and monsters filled its contours.            
Now when I breathe
its jagged shards pierce my heart
and instead of sweat
I exude glass.



Mirror Images
by Michael R. Burch

She has belief
without comprehension
and in her crutchwork shack
she is
much like us...

tamping the bread
into edible forms,
regarding her children
at play
with something akin to relief...

ignoring the towers ablaze
in the distance
because they are not revelations
but things of glass,
easily shattered...

and if you were to ask her,
she might say―
sometimes God visits his wrath
upon an impious nation
for its leaders' sins,

and we might agree:
seeing her mutilations.

Published by Poetry SuperHighway and Modern War Poems



Second Sight
by Michael R. Burch

I never touched you―
that was my mistake.

Deep within,
I still feel the ache.

Can an unformed thing
eternally break?

Now, from a great distance,
I see you again

not as you are now,
but as you were then―

eternally present
and Sovereign.



Ghazal
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Not the blossomings of song nor the adornments of music:
I am the voice of my own heart breaking.

You toy with your long, dark curls
while I remain captive to my black, pensive thoughts.

We congratulate ourselves that we two are different
but this weakness has burdened us both with inchoate grief.

Now you are here, and I find myself bowing:
as if sadness is a blessing, and longing a sacrament.

I am a fragment of sound rebounding;
you are the walls impounding my echoes.



Bubble
by Michael R. Burch

.................Love
..........fragile elusive
.......if held too closely
....cannot.........withstand
..the inter............ruption
of its................... bright
..unmalleable.............tension
....and breaks....disintegrates
......at the.........touch of
.........an....undiscerning
...............hand.

I believe this is my only shape/shaped/concrete poem.



Because Her Heart Is Tender
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth, on the first anniversary of 9-11

She scrawled soft words in soap: 'Never Forget, '
Dove-white on her car's window, and the wren,
because her heart is tender, might regret
it called the sun to wake her. As I slept,
she heard lost names recounted, one by one.

She wrote in sidewalk chalk: 'Never Forget, '
and kept her heart's own counsel. No rain swept
away those words, no tear leaves them undone.

Because her heart is tender with regret,
bruised by razed towers' glass and steel and stone
that shatter on and on and on and on...
she stitches in damp linen: 'NEVER FORGET, '
and listens to her heart's emphatic song.

The wren might tilt its head and sing along
because its heart once understood regret
when fledglings fell beyond, beyond, beyond
its reach, and still the boot-heeled world strode on.

She writes in adamant: 'NEVER FORGET'
because her heart is tender with regret.

Published by Neovictorian/Cochlea, The Villanelle, The Eclectic Muse (Canada) , Nietzsche Twilight, Nutty Stories (South Africa) , Poetry Renewal Magazine and Other Voices International



Break Time
by Michael R. Burch

for those who lost loved ones on 9-11

Intrude upon my grief; sit; take a spot
of milk to cloud the blackness that you feel;
add artificial sweeteners to conceal
the bitter aftertaste of loss. You'll heal
if I do not. The coffee's hot. You speak:
of bundt cakes, polls, the price of eggs. You glance
twice at your watch, cough, look at me askance.
The TV drones oeuvres of high romance
in syncopated lip-synch. Should I feel
the underbelly of Love's warm Ideal,
its fuzzy-wuzzy tummy, and not reel
toward some dark conclusion? Disappear
to pale, dissolving atoms. Were you here?
I brush you off: like saccharine, like a tear.



Breakings
by Michael R. Burch

I did it out of pity.
I did it out of love.
I did it not to break the heart of a tender, wounded dove.

But gods without compassion
ordained: 'Frail things must break! '
Now what can I do for her shattered psyche's sake?

I did it not to push.
I did it not to shove.
I did it to assist the flight of indiscriminate Love.

But gods, all mad as hatters,
who legislate in all such matters,
ordained that everything irreplaceable shatters.



Mate Check
by Michael R. Burch

Love is an ache hearts willingly secure
then break the bank to cure.



Water and Gold
by Michael R. Burch

You came to me as rain breaks on the desert
when every flower springs to life at once,
but joy's a wan illusion to the expert:
the Bedouin has learned how not to want.

You came to me as riches to a miser
when all is gold, or so his heart believes,
until he dies much thinner and much wiser,
his gleaming bones hauled off by chortling thieves.

You gave your heart too soon, too dear, too vastly;
I could not take it in; it was too much.
I pledged to meet your price, but promised rashly.
I died of thirst, of your bright Midas touch.

I dreamed you gave me water of your lips,
then sealed my tomb with golden hieroglyphs.

Published by The Lyric, Black Medina, The Eclectic Muse, Kritya (India) , Shabestaneh (Iran) , Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry, Captivating Poetry (Anthology) , Strange Road, Freshet, Shot Glass Journal, Better Than Starbucks, The Chained Muse, Famous Poets and Poems, Sonnetto Poesia, Poetry Life & Times



Resemblance
by Michael R. Burch

Take this geode with its rough exterior―
crude-skinned, brilliant-hearted...

a diode of amethyst―wild, electric;
its sequined cavity―parted, revealing.

Find in its fire all brittle passion,
each jagged shard relentlessly aching.

Each spire inward―a fission startled;
in its shattered entrails―fractured light,

the heart ice breaking.

Published by Poet Lore, Poetry Magazine and the Net Poetry and Art Competition



In the Whispering Night
by Michael R. Burch

for George King

In the whispering night, when the stars bend low
till the hills ignite to a shining flame,
when a shower of meteors streaks the sky
as the lilies sigh in their beds, for shame,
we must steal our souls, as they once were stolen,
and gather our vigor, and all our intent.
We must heave our husks into some raging ocean
and laugh as they shatter, and never repent.
We must dance in the darkness as stars dance before us,
soar, Soar! through the night on a butterfly's breeze:
blown high, upward-yearning, twin spirits returning
to the heights of awareness from which we were seized.

Published by Songs of Innocence, Romantics Quarterly, Poetry Life & Times and The Chained Muse



Distances
by Michael R. Burch

There is a small cleanness about her,
as if she has always just been washed,
and there is a dull obedience to convention
in her accommodating slenderness
as she feints at her salad.

She has never heard of Faust, or Frost,
and she is unlikely to have been seen
rummaging through bookstores
for mementos of others
more difficult to name.

She might imagine 'poetry'
to be something in common between us,
as we write, bridging the expanse
between convention and something...
something the world calls 'art'
for want of a better word.

At night I scream
at the conventions of both our worlds,
at the distances between words
and their objects: distances
come lately between us,
like a clean break.

Published by Verse Libre, Triplopia and Lone Stars



The Ruins of Balaclava
by Adam Mickiewicz (1798-1855)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Oh, barren Crimean land, these dreary shades
of castles―once your indisputable pride―
are now where ghostly owls and lizards hide
as blackguards arm themselves for nightly raids.

Carved into marble, regal boasts were made!
Brave words on burnished armor, gilt-applied!
Now shattered splendors long since cast aside
beside the dead here also brokenly laid.

The Greeks erected shimmering marble here.
The Romans drove wild Mongol hordes to flight.
The Mussulman prayed eastward, day and night.

Now owls and dark-winged vultures watch and leer
as strange black banners, flapping overhead,
mark where the past piles high its nameless dead.



Once Upon a Frozen Star
by Michael R. Burch

Oh, was it in this dark-Decembered world
we walked among the moonbeam-shadowed fields
and did not know ourselves for weight of snow
upon our laden parkas? White as sheets,
as spectral-white as ghosts, with clawlike hands
thrust deep into our pockets, holding what
we thought were tickets home: what did we know
of anything that night? Were we deceived
by moonlight making shadows of gaunt trees
that loomed like fiends between us, by the songs
of owls like phantoms hooting: Who? Who? Who?

And if that night I looked and smiled at you
a little out of tenderness... or kissed
the wet salt from your lips, or took your hand,
so cold inside your parka... if I wished
upon a frozen star...  that I could give
you something of myself to keep you warm...
yet something still not love... if I embraced
the contours of your face with one stiff glove...

How could I know the years would strip away
the soft flesh from your face, that time would flay
your heart of consolation, that my words
would break like ice between us, till the void
of words became eternal? Oh, my love,
I never knew. I never knew at all,
that anything so vast could curl so small.

Originally published by Nisqually Delta Review



Eras Poetica II
by Michael R. Burch

'... poetry makes nothing happen...'―W. H. Auden

Poetry is the art of words: beautiful words.
So that we who are destitute of all other beauties exist
in worlds of our own making; where, if we persist,
the unicorns gather in phantomlike herds,
whinnying to see us; where dark flocks of birds,
hooting, screeching and cawing, all madly insist:
'We too are wild migrants lost in this pale mist
which strangeness allows us, which beauty affords! '

We stormproof our windows with duct tape and boards.
We stockpile provisions. We cull the small list
of possessions worth keeping. Our listless lips, kissed,
mouth pointless enigmas. Time's bare pantry hoards
dust motes of past grandeurs. Yet here Mars's sword
lies shattered on the anvil of the enduring Word.



The Higher Atmospheres
by Michael R. Burch

Whatever we became climbed on the thought
of Love itself; we floated on plumed wings
ten thousand miles above the breasted earth
that had vexed us to such Distance; now all things
seem small and pale, a girdle's handsbreadth girth...

I break upon the rocks; I break; I fling
my human form about; I writhe; I writhe.
Invention is not Mastery, nor wings
Salvation. Here the Vulture cruelly chides
and plunges at my eyes, and coos and sings...

Oh, some will call the sun my doom, but Love
melts callow wax the higher atmospheres
leave brittle. I flew high: not high enough
to melt such frozen resins... thus, Her jeers.



Old Habits Die Hard
by Gulzar
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The habit of breathing
is an odd tradition.
Why struggle so to keep on living?
The body shudders,
the eyes veil,
yet the feet somehow keep moving.
Why this journey, this restless, relentless flowing?
For how many weeks, months, years, centuries
shall we struggle to keep on living, keep on living?
Habits are such strange things, such hard things to break!



Having Touched You (The Boy in the Bubble)
by Michael R. Burch

What I have lost
is not less
than what I have gained.

And for each moment passed
like the sun to the west,
another remained

suspended in memory
like a flower
in crystal

so that eternity
is but an hour
and fall

is no longer a season
but a state
of mind.

I have no reason
to wait;
the wind

does not pause
for remembrance
or regret

because
there is only fate and chance.
And so then, forget...

Forget that we were very happy
for a day.
That day was my lifetime.

Before that day I was empty
and the sky was grey.
You were the sunshine,

the sunshine that gave me life.
I took root
and I grew.

Now the touch of death is like a terrible knife,
and yet I can bear it,
having touched you.

I wrote this poem as a teenager after watching 'The Boy in the Plastic Bubble' with John Travolta playing a young man with a defective immune system who risks death for a chance at love.


NEW TRANSLATIONS 03-01-2025


I long to embrace her, Ghalib,
whose thought is the rose in its dress of petals.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Wholly pledged to passion amid mundane life,
I worship lighting, lament the torched harvest.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Nights, sleep and composure are his,
who sleeps entwined in your disheveled mane.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

As a single ray of sunlight damns the dew to oblivion,
so I'm destroyed by a single kind glance.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When I see her, my face lights up;
thus she thinks the patient is cured.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

There's no cure for passion, Ghalib. It's the fire
that, ignited won't burn, and, extinguished, refuses to die.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

There, the arrogance of airs and appearances. Here, simple modesty.
If I were to meet her on the thoroughfare, would she invite me to her soiree?
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I understood the merits of decorum and asceticism,
but wanted no part of them.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

How could I have escaped,
when the sky spread its nets of stars?
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

An arrowless quiver, no hunter lying in ambush?
I'm content in my corner of the cage.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Where does one plant the second footstep of longing, Lord,
when the first found an infinite desert?
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Inquire with my heart about your negligent archery:
since there's an arrow in my liver rather than higher.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Having murdered me, she foreswore further cruelty.
Such is her "repentance."
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Thanks to passion, I developed a taste for life,
but seeking a cure for pain, I found pain beyond cure.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Due to weakness, my weeping became sighs.
Thus I learned water can evaporate.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

To erase the thought of your elegant fingers
was to rip the fingernail from its flesh.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Rain pouring down from spring clouds
is like weeping in grief at death's separation.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

GHALIB ON DRUNKENNESS

To hear my rose-bestrewing speech,
first place the flagon before me!
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Let someone too obedient for wine and honey
transform our paradise into hell.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Grief overflows the cup despite the abundance of wine,
but this cupbearer's slave, what griefs do I have?
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Leave me alone at ZamZam because spinning in circles makes me dizzy.
And besides, my pilgrim's loincloth has wine stains!
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Will the One grants you such glorious radiance, O Moon,
not also grant me glorious wine?
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When the flagons and glasses are all filled,
the winehouse stands empty.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I drank wine all night, then at dawn
I washed the stains from my pilgrim's loincloth.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When the winehouse has been departed, do we care where we go?
Whether to the mosque, the classroom or some Sufi lodge?
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We're unaccustomed to leisure:
when the winehouse door closed, we visited the Ka'ba.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We departed Paradise for illusions here,
but the inebriation's overwhelmed by the hangover.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

GHALIB ON GHALIB

Who doesn't know Ghalib?
He's a good poet with a terrible reputation.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Although there are other excellent poets,
they say Ghalib excels them.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Think of Poetry as an enchanted world rich with meaning:
every word, Ghalib, that charms my verse.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

No matter where awareness flings its nets,
the Phoenix sleeps unseen in my nests of words.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

With his special style, Ghalib sang of subtleties.
It's a public invitation, for friends in the know.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Hearing my speech, accomplished critics
enjoined me to accessibility,
but my thoughts are complex
and if I don't speak, I'm even harder to understand!
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The rose bestows her glory, true,
but you have to open your eyes, Ghalib!
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The shroud veiled my nakedness;
otherwise clothed, I disgraced life.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Confide in no one, Ghalib, for these days
no one keeps secrets, save the doors and walls.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When it's allied with the enemy, there's no trusting the heart.
My sighs? Ineffectual. My laments? In vain.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Let me be punished, not tortured,
since I'm merely a sinner, not an infidel.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Something accounts for my reticence,
otherwise I can speak, can't I?
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

GHALIB ON LIFE AND LOVE

In a dream I transacted business with you,
but when I awoke there was neither profit nor loss.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

All I know of my heart is this:
the more I sought it, the more you found it.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

How to describe the intensity of her eyelashes?
I strung my clotted blood into coral prayer beads.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

All my longings were silenced, transformed to blood.
Thus I became the extinguished lamp on a pauper's grave.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Alas, union with her was not my destiny.
Our life together would only have meant more procrastination.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I knew from your delicacy that your vows were nebulous.
Had one been firm, it could not have been so easily broken.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Joy is a drop in Oblivion's river,
but boundless pain soon becomes its cure.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I'm the captive of Love, the Huntress,
otherwise I'd have strength to flee.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Your sidelong glances? Arousing.
Your cruelty? Demoralizing.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Her temper's an inferno,
but I'll be damned if I don't desire hellfire.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Ten thousand airs and graces
negated by a single tantrum.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Where will the steed of life stop,
lacking hands on the reins and feet in the stirrups?
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Your glances, deadly daggers. Your winks, unerring.
You are allured by your own reflection.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

If you can't see my heart's wound charring,
can't you smell it, dear doctor?
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I'm dying with the longing to die;
death comes, but not quickly enough.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We went to complain about her negligence,
but she dismissed us with a glance and we disintegrated.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Whence, world-warming sun ray? Why not shine here?
Yet strange darkness descends like a shadow.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Tyranny adores those who adore the tyrant;
she's not cruel by being unkind.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Having adopted a mendicant's rags, Ghalib,
I'm amazed by the spectacle of generous people.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I keep up awhile with each new jogger
yet fail to find a guide.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

All creation moves toward entropy,
the sun a flickering candle in the wind.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Fidelity if it holds fast is the root of faith;
if the Brahmin dies in the idol's temple, bury him in the Ka'ba.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

If I hadn't been held up by day, would I have slept as comfortably by night?
Thankful for the theft, I bless the highwayman.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

How small, our world to the oppressed
when a single ant's egg is our entire sky.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You didn't press your lips to another's in kiss?
Save your breath, we also have tongues!
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Don't fall for the illusion of existence, Asad,
when our world's one link in the chain of thought.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Even if I live a few more days,
inside I'm resigned to someplace else.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My opposite became granite
when she saw my fluidity.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The rose unfurls as a means of taking leave;
fly, nightingale, fly, for the days of spring have fled.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Aloofness veils friendship;
when will you cease concealing you face from us?
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Where is there anyone not in need?
Where is there anyone who can fill anyone's need?
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The wealth of this world's a lament, a handful of dust;
the sky's a dull gray egg, to me.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Why assume everyone would arrive at the same answer?
Come, let's tour Mount Tur together.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Published as the collection 'Poems about Things that Break'

Keywords/Tags: break, break up, breaking up, breakings, shatter, shattered, shattering, delicate, fragility, fragment, touch, cruelty, brutality, abuse, stress, love, pain, relationship, relationships, society