Long Alleys Poems

Village in the Valley left behind, and then it's a fine find
Mountain in the making...in the dark alleys of my mind

You're a flashlight
In the night
You are a friend 
Till the end
Bite the bullet
You're the village...

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Dad hit me only once, an upper cut to the solar plexus. It nearly lifted me off my feet. I was 17 then and already fairly tall, 6’1.” He was 48 and of medium height,...

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Rejection Slips 3

Rejection Slip
by Michael R. Burch

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!)

When editors reject my poems, did I slip...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems IV
I wrote this around age 17.



Bible Libel
by Michael R. Burch

If God
is good
half the Bible
is libel.

I read the Bible from cover to cover at age eleven, ten chapters per day, at the suggestion...

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Under the cadence of footsteps on worn cobblestones,
At the café where steaming cups held time hostage,
Eyes met and lingered, a glance stretched into an eternity.
A young American, as if sculpted from sunshine itself,
And she, like...

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Sometimes I have the courage to think of the things that made me what I am today,
My memory takes me back to terrible things far away far off into my bitter past,
My mind like a...

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Blind Man’s Five-Legged Dog Rap 

Yo, gather 'round the table, let me spin you a tale, 'Bout a blind man named Benny, he was never frail. Owned a dog with five legs, yeah, you heard...

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The Wedding Ceremony of the Dead, Part One, Translation of Pierre Emmanuel’s Les Noces de la Mort by T. Wignesan

Orgy of stone !
I drank hate in your inferior parts
And bathed during a wild summer our...

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China Tour Diary Moment #3
SHANGRI-LA, TIBET
--------------------------------


Paradise on earth: Himalayan range;
A phenomenon carved by elements;
Here magic gives birth to ways that seem strange;
A place where lessons of soul mark movement.


Our tour coach winds round the mountain...

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You raise me up above the mountains
You bring me below the vibrant valleys
You allow me to weep happy fountains 
When I walk in your bright alleys

Enormous in envy my heart is
Nervouscited for what lies ahead...fed...

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He sat behind the counter, 
   Inside the used bookstore.
      I thought I recognized him, 
         As if we'd met...

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Unquotable quotes: Beggars - XXX

Who said beggars cannot be choosers?

Who chooses for them the place, the moment or the people they choose to beg from; the hours of the begging day; the alms they refuse;...

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I'd love to paint, a picture for you, of images in my head.
Of a quirky old town, I'll set the scene, as you rise from a crooked bed.
The room you're in, whilst large in size,...

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Good Cop                                 ...

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Translation of Marcel Moreau's " A Paris " by T. Wignesan

IN PARIS

Paris bores me no end without you
My heart weighted down with melancholia
The spleen given over to asthenia
Empties its own sense of loss on to...

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Mommy, if I make up my bed
Which consist of old Sunday newspapers
Could I have, can I have a slice of bread
And if I sweep the floors with my bare feet
I'm so hungry mommy can I...

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Written: May 17, 2025, for contest Sponsored by: Michael Fulkerson

Quote: “Do good to the people for the sake of God or for the peace of your own soul that you may always see what is...

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His is the whispering voice echoing within the athlete’s field of dreams,
The harkening leader, a teacher of strength and confidence, whom takes
The raw abilities given unto an individual then molds it, shapes it until
This natural...

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Alpha

To live beyond death
we must know life beyond honor and disgrace.

Not "must" in the injunctive sense of "thou shalt"
but Earth's more dusty must 
of ecological integrity.

Midway

Those who know do not speak
beyond active listening communion.
Those who...

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Asian Epicurean Quest

At the heart of China Town, Kuala Lumpur (capital of Malaysia) is Petaling Street.
  
Domain of hustlers, hucksters, cheap-jacks and diblers; purveyors of street food, rude t-shirts, and rubber sandles to put...

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1.


In the slow, dead hours that hang attendant
Upon the birth of the dawn,
When all things pure lie safe abed,
Nested in sleep's safe oblivion,
The rituals take place, unseen, unfelt
In woods or alleys
In the dry, dusty corners...

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Another body dropped as the evil ran through the night 
He was on a spree to start a war 
The screams blistered the silence 
As the metal hit the floor, 
As the metal hit the...

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Childhood Memories!

Playing soccer as a forward and a goalie in early childhood through first grade
meeting a pilot and a stewardess in kindergarten and even wanted to be a pilot for a while because I thought...

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Dumbfounded in the raw,
nerves in neon.
Sin-New and bones quartered by time's animation-
Death re-imagined by the law of Thelema and Agenda 21.
Moments of truth corner you in alleys and avenues in the night.
As they are ritually...

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6.

                                  ...

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