Long Abbey Poems

Merciles Beaute ("Merciless Beauty")
by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Your eyes slay me suddenly;
their beauty I cannot sustain,
they wound me so, through my heart keen.

Unless your words heal me hastily,
my heart's wound will remain...

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Vampire Poetry

Pale Though Her Eyes
by Michael R. Burch
 
Pale though her eyes,
her lips are scarlet
from drinking of blood,
this child, this harlot
 
born of the night
and her heart, of darkness,
evil incarnate
to dance so reckless,
 
dreaming of...

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Vampires
by Michael R. Burch

Vampires are such fragile creatures;
we fear the dark, but the light destroys them...
sunlight, or a stake, or a cross—such common things.
Still, late at night, when the bat-like vampire sings,
we heed his voice.

Centuries...

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"The White Lady of Skipsea"


Last night I dreamt 
I dreamed of you
a kind of dream 
within a dream

Diaphanous, 
my soul escaped, 
this firmament,
my immaculate heart
held hands, my fingers 
did entwine with 
handsome Morpheus

Crystal radiate
twin gossamer...

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As dawn unfolds today beyond my fractured windowpane,
a breeze beguiles the ashen drapes. Like snakes they slip aside,
revealing wanton worlds that race and run aground, insane,
immersed in scenes obscene that savants strive to mask and...

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“Sacred Lakes”



There is magic 
in your shaman bones
stories shaken like strange mojo 
busy under cover of autumn leaves 
turning burnished topaz gold 
idling unrushed roll over

in honeyed slumber

turning back hands
to face a time of 
blushing...

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From north, south, east and west 
This is the town to beat the rest,
Where history and present blend
As through its many streets you wend. 

Where once a monastery so great
From every view would dominate,
Where Pilgrims...

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A combination of Prose and Free Verse:

The most thrilling and inspirational piece of music ever to reach my 
ears is, without doubt, Handel's Messiah. I've never known anyone 
who could experience a performance and remain...

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Hey Jude, love is like a butterfly - just let it be.
You've got a ticket to ride, go where you should be.
Love is a revolution it shall set you free.
Don't live a life of sorrow...

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"Exegesis"



At 7 he was 
thrown to the wolves

Bede marked his territory
hidden secrets 
kept in the abbey

he escaped
went to war
where the unwanted trod

First regiment,
Vietnam
he took with him
like a comfort blanket
his Nicene creed and God

and on returning...

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See them dressed in colors soldiers, regiment, British royal guards, guard bearskin, grandier guards, Buckingham palace guards dressed in scarlet red walking behind the queen’s casket and reminiscing the dead. Their tall bearskin hat almost...

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AN APPOINTMENT WITH DR. VIAGRA

Husband: Honey, I consulted a doctor before using this product and my erection has lasted four or more hours so I guess I'm going to have to seek immediate medical attention
Wife:...

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I JUST CAN’T HELP IT, YA KNOW?

Elderly Lady: Help! I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!
First Alert: Duly noted, will there be anything else?
Elderly Lady: Are you going to call an ambulance?
First Alert: Ambulance? ...

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Nope Not Even A Brief History...
About Month Named December

The Latin root (albeit - lo'
(mein lee) first two syllables
i. e. decem) - no
joking - translate to mean ten,
where millenniums ago
this delineation quite apropos,

cuz (wade back in...

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The bombers began to bleed
their heavy tears of death
from 20,000 feet above the breathless battlefield, 
B-17 Flying Fortress formations
moving with apocalyptic aplomb
the shadows of high metal crosses by the hundreds
rippling along the rugged roman earth
bringing...

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Like an arboretum, my smile and laughter fills empty space,
tall stand the trees all huddled together like girlfriends on a chilly night ready to share their secrets.
We lay bare our souls, sat on the bench,...

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For the last five hundred years, posh “society,” is where the wealthiest and most influential people in the world mingled, inter-married and conducted business. If you’ve ever watched “Downton Abbey”, “The Gilded Age” or even...

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A whale in a pail is far more active in a gale or in copious amounts of hail. Putting money into sharks is a shifty act involving the shuffling of coats in cloakrooms. And clown...

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Oh noo' It has happened again.! I thought we had escaped the continual scene:
forever falling down, and ya know what people actually celebrate it..? 
and we'd thought we were safe here) a place where you...

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Rear view mirror

Objects, objectively put, are  closer  
than they  appear. But it doesn’t say it all. 
With the fair signs that spewed  forth once turning to
a slew of  pre-twitter ...

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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...

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Makes me chuckle when I hear folks talking about living rough; heck some of them think that not having HD3D is living rough! Well, let me tell you a little story about a young fellow...

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Distressed, I attest,
					Like not blessed,
					A voice in my head,
					Said out of bed,
					So I was led to
					A quiet church,
					As owls sang out,
					Midnight gone tombs,
					And my tears appeared,
					Death beckoned long
					finger nails of distraction,
And so I gazed upon...

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.............................They                                  ...

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In great respect of the band I grew up listening to
                       as sure...

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