Long Applause Poems

Hate the feelings of ew's and ugh's...let's pause before we put our paws on this unmanageable cause with silent applause (quiet interest or hushed enthusiasm)
What's the cause of these negative, gross, worthless flawful laws that...

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State of the Art (III)

These are my "ars poetica" poems: the ones about the art and craft of writing poetry in a modern world that doesn't always recognize the artists or their work. 



Come Down
by...

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Rejection Slips 2

The Shape of Mourning
by Michael R. Burch
 
The shape of mourning
is an oiled creel
shining with unuse,
 
the bolt of cold steel
on a locker
shielding memory,

the monthly penance
of flowers,
the annual wake,
 
the face in the...

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Poems about Poems IV

The Toast
by Michael R. Burch

For longings warmed by tepid suns
(brief lusts that animated clay),
for passions wilted at the bud
and skies grown desolate and gray,
for stars that fell from tinseled heights
and mountains bleak...

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Lozenge
by Michael R. Burch

When I was closest to love, it did not seem
real at all, but a thing of such tenuous sweetness
it might dissolve in my mouth
like a lozenge of sugar.

When I held you in...

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Early morning dawn July
"Mallory"  Damian whispered, sliding 
Closer to her. "Mallory" he Whispered 
Again gently caressing. She wanted
To say stop. It was to late
he moved quite quickly. He spread
Like wild fire. Soon consuming her.
The...

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Year One -

Tell me Eve,
does this Garden have everything we need,
do you think the walls are too tall,
are the gatekeepers reasonable, tolerable, right about it all,
what did Lilith know, where did she go
far past the...

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I have travelled through the cluttered corridors of my tired mind countless times. 
I have reached deep into the dark abyss of my captive soul and in that profoundly disturbing darkness, I went searching to...

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 TUAN TATA : Song of Uda - I
by T. Wignesan

(Patrick Noone, a British anthropologist, discovered the Ple-Temiar tribe living isolated in the jungle highlands in the State of Perak on the west coast of...

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Why did He let me break?
Was it for a future's sake?
How did you all get here?
Are we all lost in epic fear?

Keep pressing on, my dusked Dawn
We welcome the sun, that's what we look upon

Do...

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The Old grizzled Bear... was now keenly aware
    as he lay in his Cave all alone.
Where his time as King... was a mere passing thing
    and must choose another...

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I have a lot to write and say, buddy, so hear me out some more
Don’t make me feel lower than I have ever felt before…
Listen, understand and stay quiet until I say no more…sorry if...

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Good boy gone bad enters the stage with a spotlight overhead, despite being misunderstood in my ghetto neighborhood

The lonely applause celebrates in my cracked, corrupted, and crazed cranium
I exaggerate too much and so too much,...

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Such Tenderness
by Michael R. Burch

for the mothers of Gaza

There was, in your touch, such tenderness—as
only the dove on her mildest day has,
when she shelters downed fledglings beneath a warm wing
and coos to them softly, unable...

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Where’s a hero when we need one?
Get rid of the villain with a silly, little gun
I ricochet like the bullets that hit Superman,
But he was shielded best he can…best he can…

Driving through dystopia town, dystopia...

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"The Crow Bar"

she said,
here I bury my dead,
you can hear them sleeping
somnulent forget-me-nots,
snoring blithely unaware,
in neat rows between 
the thick,
ink injected lines,
their soiled lives
ploughed and 
turned over 
replanted
sunnyside down
expunged and 
wrung out

eventually,
not totally oblivious, 
they...

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Part I

Where gladiators fought for life,
we meet to fight for love
The constellations in the Roman night sky,
celestial spectators, bathe the Colosseum
in the white blood of light
The night is throbbing with the heat of our battle,
our...

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I suppose
cannibalism
is the logical conclusion
of rabidly overpopulated fascism.

Some cannibals,
perhaps all,
ate their human prey
not for typical nutritional reasons
like other forms of digested nature,
but more specifically
because those dining
hoped their prey's sacred powers
would thereby become their own,
conjoining for...

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COME ON SOUPER'S LETS HAVE SOME FUN AND MAKE FOLK SMILE DURING SUCH DIFFICULT TIMES FOR US ALL. THERE ARE LOTS MORE APT NAMES  - PLEASE SOUP MAIL POEMS AND I WILL ADD THEM...

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This was last Saturday night. We were at a rooftop party in downtown New Haven thrown by ‘DocHouse.’ Doc-House is kind of a frat-house, owned by Dr. Melon, where he and seven doctoral students live....

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Damian DJ Dolly and Molly 
Were awake aware actually 
Absolutely wide eyed and 
Energetic. They woke 
Everyone 7 o'clock in the
Morning. Damian hollered 
Orders  "alright Hakim. When 
You have Everything packed up
Start loading it...

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It’s complicated…
I’m the king of jealousy
Keep me up
I’m held down

Rumors are like the watery triangle of nasty errors… 
(Aphradere waterfalls fall on us)
My black and white future is full of grey blurs 
(Remember, we are...

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Good evening to all out there this is wabc radios late night slot call in show with your host Tom Morrow, the theme is on pesonality traits and how we percive them
not myself personally.' I...

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Mahmoud Darwish English Translations of Arabic Poems



Palestine
by Mahmoud Darwish
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This land gives us
all that makes life worthwhile:
April's blushing advances,
the aroma of bread warming at dawn,
a woman haranguing men,
the poetry of Aeschylus,
love's...

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I want to respond
to the retired Marine
who watched Democratic Congressional Leaders
during the State of our crippled Union event,
disappointed at how their patriotism,
their loyalty to sacred sacrifices of soldiers
appears too tepid,
jaded,
ungrateful
as compared to more thunderous enthusiastic...

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