February 2025
Jeff Burt
jeff-burt@sbcglobal.net
Bio Note: I have become a grand believer in Saul Bellow's "potato love," the breathtaking love that is in a family, sometimes in catching awe, sometimes in failing to get a clean breath. Sometimes potato love can be felt in a tight-knit community. It is the love of passing it forward, remembering the past, and sharing in the present.


Since the Day That I Read Dante

whenever I meet a friendly woman a flower comes to mind: 
gladiola for the large and pure of heart, 

jasmine for wide and starry-eyed, 
hyacinth for the lusty, daisies for the childlike. 

But when I see you braiding your hair
in silent intimacy, each turn and counterturn 

resembles the journey of your questing spirit, 
and I see you as one woman bearing many, not mythical 

and larger than life, but various and real. 
You are the prairie full of wild prairie roses, 

the trailside filled with purple amarantus, 
lattice and hedgerow, the vines of morning glory.
Originally published in Camel Saloon


Trace by Compression

I am removing nails to let the rain through the roof
so the drops slip through shingles and slats
and I can make a pond where drought-winnowed migrating herds gather
to show how arresting one note is like water on your lips.

I am looking for ways to keep the propagation of sound continuing,
an eternal sine wave that captures all your words
into an echoing tone that continually wakens my anvil and stirrup, 
like the ring a sculptor makes pounding with her hammer to shape
one metal against another, or the frequency of a bell rung to welcome
prodigals home, to show how one vowel from your lips
perpetually resounds off the folds and creases of my brain.
   
I am looking for ways to capture the atmospheric storm
of horses on your tongue that gather and stampede with satchels full of letters,
ponies I want to corral with thunderous hoofs sending 
wild and captivating Morse code I would read the rest of my life
to show how exhilarating phrases charge forth from your mouth.  

I am telling you why when you recite the atlas and cache of your heart
I must close my eyes and place my lips against your lips
to trace by compression what I cannot understand by sound.
Originally published in Red Wolf Journal


Wife, as Mother

To one child she must be provocateur,
stimulant, the scout leading into unknown territory.

To another a coach, a sage, an encyclopedia of alternatives,
a laughter amidst the facts.

To another a tag-along, a witness, an ear,
with the urge to resilience, worth, merit.

To all the act of fire, of light, of heat, of consummation,
of dance against the surrounding darkness.

©2025 Jeff Burt
Editor's Note: If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the author (email address above) to say what it is about the poem you like. Writing to the author is what builds the community at Verse Virtual. It's important. -JL