Best Bitterns Poems
Lance-Lot
by Michael R. Burch
Preposterous bird!
Inelegant! Absurd!
Until the great & mighty heron
brandishes his fearsome sword.
Keywords/Tags: Nature, Animal, Bird, Birds, Heron, Herons, Fish, Fishing, River, Ocean, Ardeidae, Egret, Egrets, Bittern, Bitterns, Great Blue Heron, Goliath Heron, Gray Heron, Great Egret, Crane, Stork, Ibis, Spoonbill, Beak, Bill, Sword, Lance, Spear, Inelegant, Gawky, Awkward, Ungainly, Gangly, Preposterous
Rejection Slips 4
Editor's Notes
by Michael R. Burch
Eat, drink and be merry
(tomorrow, be contrary).
( and complain
in bad refrain,
but please, not till I'm on the plane!)
Write no poem before its time
(in your case, this means never).
Linger over every word
(by which, I mean forever).
By all means, read your verse aloud.
I'm sure you'll be a star
(and just as distant, when I'm gone);
your poems are beauteous (afar).
Less Heroic Couplets: Rejection Slip
by Michael R. Burch
pour Melissa Balmain
Whenever my writing gets rejected,
I always wonder how the rejecter got elected.
Are we exchanging at the same Bourse?
(Excepting present company, of course!)
I consider the term “rejection slip” to be a double entendre. When editors reject my poems, did I slip up, or did they? Is their slip showing, or is mine?
Ode to Postmodernism, or, Bury Me at St. Edmonds!
by Michael R. Burch
"Bury St. Edmonds—Amid the squirrels, pigeons, flowers and manicured lawns of Abbey Gardens, one can plug a modem into a park bench and check e-mail, files or surf the Web, absolutely free."—Tennessean News Service. (The bench was erected free of charge by the British division of MSN, after a local bureaucrat wrote a contest-winning ode of sorts to MSN.)
Our post-modernist-equipped park bench will let
you browse the World Wide Web, the Internet,
commune with nature, interact with hackers,
design a virus, feed brown bitterns crackers.
Discretely-wired phone lines lead to plugs—
four ports we swept last night for nasty bugs,
so your privacy's assured (a threesome's fine)
while invited friends can scan the party line:
for Internet alerts on new positions,
the randier exploits of politicians,
exotic birds on web cams (DO NOT FEED!) .
The cybersex is great, it's guaranteed
to leave you breathless—flushed, free of disease
and malware viruses. Enjoy the trees,
the birds, the bench—this product of Our pen.
We won in with an ode to MSN.
Keywords/Tags: rejection, rejection slips, write, writing, poet, poets, poems, poetry, internet, social media, society, culture, virus, viruses, viral, coronavirus, malware, world wide web
long legged huntress like secretary
some having vanished without regrets
follow that bird at least I said contrary
with regrets some like bitterns and egrets
terms corrupt also shikepoke to skid row
they flock together I would not rather
foul names come from fowls among marshy green grow
with speech like this would not miss a feather
foul names come from fowls but for night heron's that stinks
flight for now well that is for the birds
follow that bird whooping cranes hope they don’t go extinct
as for me at least I said a word