Best Stultifying Poems

Why are we the human race
rather than another extinguishing species?
Why not the human species
and not the cockroach race?
Why is human nature
intended as somehow supremely natural
not within but faster than,
above and beyond 
inferior sensual nature?

Why is race,
inhuman embrace-conflicted context,
a qualitative noun,
stultifying stasis,
rather than a speeding verb
toward...

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There aren't many games I play
For most of them require
Some patience and some strategy
Or, at the least, desire.

I quite enjoy my "Words with Friends"
But usually I lose.
The very first word that I see
Is likely what I'll choose.

Of course, I should peruse the board
And calculate the...

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Torrents of melancholy brine cascade from leaden skies;
Mirroring the salty streams of tears that seep from my sapphire eyes;

Folded limbs of bruised porcelain reach out to feel the patter of the rain;
Each stinging drop a tiny shard of ancient liquid pain;

Muddied pools form on a...

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I toss and turn and lay awake
Inviting dreams to come and take 
My mind to some enchanted place 
Where cares and worries get erased;
But no erasing: just a racing mind.

I wish and pray for sweetest sleep—
Ah, even if a nightmare creeps
Inside my peaceful, placid head
It...

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Sonnets LXI-LXX

Erin
by Michael R. Burch

All that’s left of Ireland is her hair?
bright carrot?and her milkmaid-pallid skin,

her brilliant air of cavalier despair,
her train of children?some conceived in sin,

the others to avoid it. For nowhere
is evidence of thought. Devout, pale, thin,
gay, nonchalant, all radiance. So fair!

How can...

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fools
                misguided, gullible
        blundering, stultifying, erring
dunderheads, imbeciles, rajas, emperors
     reigning, succeeding, conquering
       ...

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Poems about Poets IV



The Princess and the Pauper
by Michael R. Burch

for June Kraeft

Here was a woman bright, intent on life,
who did not flinch from Death, but caught his eye
and drew him, powerless, into her spell
of wanting her himself, so much the lie
that she was meant...

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THE THIEF IN THE NIGHT

When the desert sun melted away
The armour I wore for protection,
Leaving me free to find my oasis
Of unalloyed pleasure, offered 
Without stultifying conditions,

I no longer looked back, anxious 
Of retaliatory strike on my spirit,
And in that momentary flash, knew 
There would...

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Raining down emotions,
darkly enlightening
interior memory re-experiences
of exterior impassioned imagination events

Nonviolent win/win images
enlightening darkness
of win/lose competitions
darkly fighting
lose/lose violent de-nihilism
of ecosystemic becoming healthy roots

Fertile draining images,
sensory neural outlooks,
feeling verbal projection projects,
raining rejections,
reigning alpha injections

Conjectures of codependent
health/wealth interrelationships

Intersectional storms
connecting/disconnecting
emerging/hiding nonzero/zero-closing zones
compassion/dispassion
full/empty raining disclosed systems

Draining sensations
being not merely alive
but...

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Labyrinthia  P. Babineaux  ……………  The White Witch of the Lower 9th Ward

Papa  Babineaux  …………………………… The Father, an honest apothecary

Algebra Babineaux  ………………………  The even-tempered Mother

Bumblebee  Babineaux  …………………  The precocious younger Sister

Gnat  Babineaux  …………………………… ...

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AS I GO ABOUT MY BUSINESS

As I go about my business, dazed by 
The stultifying immediacy of it all,
How can I reach out to what I once had 
Before the great sadness overwhelmed me
In its grey cloud? Do I wait patiently,
Trusting the morning sun will...

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The Princess and the Pauper
by Michael R. Burch

for Norman Kraeft in memory of his beloved wife June Kysilko Kraeft

Here was a woman bright, intent on life,
who did not flinch from Death, but caught his eye
and drew him, powerless, into her spell
of wanting her himself, so...

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Trailing clouds of glory do we come 
Until by the end we are left dull and glum.
How it all came to this
We are responsible
 For being so remiss 
The magic of our early moments 
 Emblazoned in our minds
 Fades and disperses with every pressure
Our...

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New marching orders issued from comandante Bergen meister

After proper manager 
distributed the latest bulletin
to all the residents at Highland Manor,
plus wrinkled her nose at noxious odor
(explained at length below)
purportedly emanating from unit B44,
we (myself and the missus)
felt in our lovely bones,
an imminent inspection in the...

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