Long Antique Poems

When it struck 11, I sighed in relief
When it struck 11, I haven't felt grief
The time kept ticking on and it wasn't brief
And I'm so… patiently shaking like a leaf
Vigorously feeling vital everyday...
Every minute...every second...come...

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How unparticular the day had particularly been,
On March the third of two-thousand and eighteen,
For the caretaker at an historic Adirondack Inn,
Had lacked company, and therefore, dopamine.

 ‘Twas Sunday when all the guests had fled,
From either...

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"As other spirits sail on music, mine, oh my love, swim on your perfume." Charles Baudelaire

"Sometimes you find an old bottle from which the soul returns." 
Charles Baudelaire

"Smell is a Word. Perfume is Literature."

"There are...

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Snapshots
by Michael R. Burch

Here I scrawl extravagant rainbows.
And there you go, skipping your way to school.
And here we are, drifting apart
like untethered balloons.

Here I am, creating "art,"
chanting in shadows,
pale as the crinoline moon,
ignoring your face.

There...

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Sonnets XXXIII-XLI

The Folly of Wisdom
by Michael R. Burch

She is wise in the way that children are wise,
looking at me with such knowing, grave eyes
I must bend down to her to understand.
But she only smiles, and...

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Beckoning
by Michael R. Burch 
 
Yesterday the wind whispered my name
while the blazing locks
of her rampant mane
lay heavy on mine.
And yesterday
I saw the way
the wind caressed tall pines
in forests laced by glinting streams
and thick with...

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Sonnets XLII-LI

Distances
by Michael R. Burch

Moonbeams on water?
the reflected light
of a halcyon star
now drowning in night...
So your memories are.

Footprints on beaches
now flooding with water;
the small, broken ribcage
of some primitive slaughter...
So near, yet so far.



A Surfeit of...

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The weight of the water is heavy in my chest, a force pressing against the ribs. It rises when I don’t expect it, like a flood breaking through cracked, neglected seams. The truck of my...

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Starlight and Moonlight II

These are poems about starlight and moonlight, moons and stars, dreams and visions, illuminations and intimations …




Deliver Us...
by Michael R. Burch 

for my mother, Christine Ena Burch

The night is dark and scary—
under...

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LOVE POEMS IV by Michael R. Burch

These are love poems by Michael R. Burch: original poems and translations about love, passion, desire, lust, sex, dating, romance, relationships and marriage. 



She Was Very Strange, and Beautiful
by...

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Won’t you please take me back
To the brown couch at my Gramma’s house 
With the big gold-framed antique mirror over it
And hand me Grampa’s old transistor radio
Covered in leather with glorious knobs
That brought me the...

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For several years I'd worked as a life coach, assisting clients day by day,
Like blazing colors in the shank of the evening, chases deep blues away.

It was an occupation that I enjoyed, as helping others...

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“Sometimes, a hug can mend a sorrowful soul like mine” – J W M Earnings
What’s the point of sorrow when I have tomorrow to look forward to?
What’s the big deal with people who just don’t...

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Fretfully aching to feel fit as a fiddle

After experiencing a severe,
albeit violent near lethal bout
of irritable bowel syndrome
(yesterday night August 30th, 2023)
triggered courtesy dulcolax caplets plus 
healthy portion of lentils,
I (a beatle browed, foo fighting,...

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Listen
by Immanuel A. Michael (an alias of Michael R. Burch)

1.
Listen to me now
and heed my voice;
I am a madman, alone,
screaming in the wilderness,
but listen now.

Listen to me now, and if I say
that black is black
and...

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This is my modern English translation of Paul Valéry's poem “Le cimetière marin” (“The graveyard by the sea”). Valéry was buried in the seaside cemetery evoked in his best-known poem. From the vantage of the...

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Hello I'm agent Brown I am not in  a good place

Hi agent Brown it's okay I'm here for you 

it's the dark place again I  can't breathe 

that's okay just breathe and talk...

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Kindly stick to digging pineapples in the future as magic dust particles can really only spring up in defense patterns. And is it really wise to deal cards in a high tide. Deliver not an...

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I learned so much last time I went too 

The shore casino near the ocean blue  

Conjuring up honesty and words that were true  

Looking for tranquil sanctuary to think and talk ...

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Visual surroundings-
Some of it are monotonous -
Tiring are Some of it sometimes-
Maybe traditional scenes
Unknowingly builds the pinnacle -
Of the dreamless minaret.

Or-
Talk about rubbish
That rains incessantly
Disturbs the Subconscious.


Rather in the darkness of decade
Or-
It can be seen...

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It’s ten years later
I’ve finally hit paydirt
It’s the motherload

I didn’t strike gold
I struck a deal with myself
To help me grow old

Not act like a child
But first I had to grow up
And not act so wild

I’m...

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"Inside the Winter Wild"

Inside the Wild, 

Winter races 
towards Time 
like a runnaway train

it’s shadowy 
and dark,
yet, inside Winter, 

the wild keeps
without fail
its burning light, 

a passion play

for everything 
and all, 
along the way

discovered 
in...

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In the park, I’d been all day
Reading all my time away
On a park bench did I sit
Until the sky became twilit

As light for reading began to wane
I heard the tapping of a cane.
And looking up,...

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This was accidentally written as a comment to my buddy, Line.
Yes, THAT Line.
The famous Line.
The one who wins all the contests, and 
we all love Line, anyway, I do.
And it's her birthday month!

Come on, Muse.
STICK...

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I was seven years old when began World War Two
And eleven became by the time it was through.
I have vague recollections of things when that small,
But events during wartime I clearly recall.

Since there was no...

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