Long Arcing Poems

Juvenilia: Early Poems by Michael R. Burch

In the Whispering Night
by Michael R. Burch

In the whispering night, when the stars bend low
till the hills ignite to a shining flame,
when a shower of meteors streaks the sky
while...

Read More

Something strange

and unexplainable comes this way,
this way, it comes to us sly and fast, 
some say, perhaps, 
it has already arrived, 
it walks unseen, in the midst of all, of us 

we go about our...

Read More

What to do,
how respond,
to totalitarian tyranny
in someone else's home
or community
or economy?

OK, good question,
I hope,
yet with ample precedent
in polycultural battles to attain harmonious balance
where we have become monopolistically lost.

What do you do,
how respond,
to monocultural stimuli
advancing in...

Read More

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...

Read More

The problem is her lips.
They don't form smiles any more than waves decide of their own accord 
to lift themselves up off of the ocean's surface.
And if lips are meant to be drowsy shutters
then hers...

Read More

At this dawn of "bon voyage", 
after million escapades of 
blindfolded fate, I'm trespassing
through the pirouetting pigments 
of fading frolics and 
windsurfing towards rose-oiled 
beams of glossy sun as its 
gossamer grandiose has 
finally enveloped...

Read More

My bare feet rest gently on the stones at the bottom of a shallow, rushing stream.  Through the clear water, I see the meandering veins beneath the skin.  I feel a brisk shiver...

Read More

MY TREE

Beside the Kinta River still it stands
Colossus of the primal forest panoply
The tree a native of the fecund land
It’s limbs support the graceful arcing canopy
Each arm like a single tree of temperate terre
Forming structure...

Read More

                         
With all the world 
     ...

Read More

A giant jellyfish was born
emitted from a neutron star
once on a whilom cosmic morn
amidst the stellar seas afar.

With tentacles from arcing crest,
medusa-like it hangs on high
cloudscaped with tendrils manifest
in astral sky of Gemini.

Exploding supernova yore—
whose...

Read More

I am Späces
The poet's muse
And I bring something old 
And something new

The spirit of the word am I 
And I've existed in all places 
And all times
Filling the gaps
The empty spaces in between 
What we...

Read More

Pet Poem, GiGi


With quite a large grasp of human’s language, 
Gigi is “little girl,” our princess.  She likes that.  
The smartest pup we ever had; brought home
As a rescue, found — they told...

Read More

You know not why you're now here, 
just that you are bound by fear- 
(and a couple incised wires) 
watching me, enticed with pliers. 
Naked, cold, taught, and crying, 
you can't move, although you're trying. 
All stretched out, upon your stomach, 
odors...

Read More

When urinating into the toilet bowl...

yours truly (me) could not help but notice
while living social at various residences  
within Montgomery County, Pennsylvania
the following described phenomena 
actually observed quite some time ago
maybe back during
my carefree...

Read More

Got yourself some new wheels, huh?
I can hear the squeals of rubber burning
I cough exhaust…left behind, oh gosh! I’m holding just a pile of dented fenders…
suspended… Your bucks spent. Engine Red..that foreign bred truck! 
Snap,...

Read More

“…know what son, this here trains 'bout to derail, I think I'll be gettin' off real soon. Ya feel this car rackin' from side to side? We're up on two wheels as this here box...

Read More

Your only as sick as your secret, but this was only the tail end of his secrets, secrets buried so deep that not even he himself could exactly put his finger on the difference between...

Read More

Famed gold crepuscular rays angling down
Knifing in between, through volcanic haze 
Hualalai and Mauna Loa’s crowns
Fire Goddess Pele greets fresh island day

Fuchsia blooms explode, steal attention
Pollens mingle on zephyr coastal breeze
Hallowed entry, this tropic dimension
Surf...

Read More

I wish that I could somehow unimbue This Place -
this seemingly meaningless patch of geography -
with this deep, uncontrollable affect
which melancholy and longing have imparted to it,

wish that I could separate out the fullness of...

Read More

they crossed a wide savannah
and found the water’s edge
lashed wood with vine to find 
that laid beyond the horizon - 
that is what they wanted

they shored upon novel rock
came across new forage
and animals - and...

Read More

they crossed a wide savannah
and found the water’s edge
lashed wood with vine to find 
that laid beyond the horizon - 
that is what they wanted

they shored upon novel rock
came across new forage
and animals - and...

Read More

Motor is nudged to life in an arcing motion, arm pulling 
cord. Vein-furrowed hands grasp the fishing pole, 
slinging bait and tackle beneath one arm. Another 
arcing motion, arm casting pole. Bobber spins 
a helicopter...

Read More

Cogwheel Ballet
            by Odin Roark

Hot
Humid
New York summer
Industrial commerce 24/7

Textile scents of humid wool
Acerbic edge of chemical dyes
Permeating wood and air
Thick oily lubricants
Layered enslavement
Nowhere to...

Read More

Devastating was it's loss and far was it's fall,
From fearsome roar, now but a weakened call.
Once stained with crimson of it's chosen prey,
now the white plumage whithers with grey.
Lofty was it's existence over mortal men
but...

Read More

JOURNAL OF THE DEPRESSED BITCH
CHAPTER 1 (I'll be over you)

How it really feels to be me.
On bad days which seem like everyday,
The blue pen slips between my fingers,
 rattles on the floor, off to bed...

Read More