Long Askance Poems

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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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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Poems about Things that Break I
 
These are poems about things that break and/or shatter: a bubble, glass, a mirror, a twig or tree limb, a thunderstorm, cities and towers in times of war, old...

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Poems about Things that Break III
 
These are poems about things that break and/or shatter: a bubble, glass, a mirror, a twig or tree limb, a thunderstorm, cities and towers in times of war, old...

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Sonnets LXXI-LXXX

Because You Came to Me
by Michael R. Burch

Because you came to me with sweet compassion
and kissed my furrowed brow and smoothed my hair,
I do not love you after any fashion,
but wildly, in despair.

Because you...

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Was it a cruel twist of fate?
Sneering, laughing chance?
Perhaps something I ate?
A bad bout of happenstance?

It wrenched and tore at my gut,
A sickening, sober, foreboding sign.
Wretched chance it was not,
This time was by insidious design.

The...

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(after Edgar Allan Poe's "The Angel of the Odd")

It was a tidy day and I sat, replete, under vellux blankets.
Sadly, my tea was weak, the bottle of cinnamon whiskey
tantalizingly low, and my feet swelling above...

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In Marshside Lea, there stood a tree, old in trunk and bough
'Twas long ago, this tale, although, it may still stand there now
And in its shade, the young sheep played as often did young lambs
Whilst...

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Botched and bungled interpersonal opportunities viewed...

tonight October  25th, 2022 
terrifically summarily requoting 

poetic outdated iteration,
I share the following lines
echoing in the valley 
of love and delight.
courtesy 20/20 hindsight
October twenty fifth
two thousand and twenty two
admirable,...

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Terrence the Turkey was feeling quite perky
Passing time in his rafter and doing no harm
No fighting nor squabbling, just gabbling and gobbling
Turkey talking turkey down on the farm.

Whilst having a natter, tame turkey type chatter
Before...

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Botched and bungled interpersonal opportunities viewed...
(summarily iterated June 30th, 2020)

I share the following lines
with utmost delight
courtesy 20/20 hindsight
June twenty ninth
two thousand and twenty

corrigible, fallible,
and intelligible light
hearted fella (aging
baby boomer) usually polite
doth not trend toward
superficial nor...

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I crowned the write full missus "champ paean practical joker"

The following moniker “innocent prankster” 
awarded, hashtagged, and qualified wife
as trickster de jure appended 
to alluded spouse 
(then of twenty five plus years),
when she pulled a...

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Filched formerly anatomical slender man - me! Thus I take a pot belly stance!

Absolute zero escape
velocity gutted dance
sing days (contra and square),
cuz metabolic full abundance
abdominal adipose tissue acceptance
not in accordance
with light as a feather
physique I...

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Lipstick Girls
                 By Stark Hunter and D Lee

1.	“When the Lipstick Girls Walk By”

You can push and shove your way,
Past...

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18.4
“The universe is but a thought in Consciousness
In Reality it is nothing
One who sees the true nature of existence and non-existence 
never ceases to exist”


Contemplation level-1

Is it so? Poof! Gone! A bubble of illusion 
Appearing...

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(9th grade love affair with a blind cream boy and a sweet voice finger stroke magic girl in the 60's, 
unfettered with a keen process of kissing vertical in the Clark hall, hoping to go...

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Ephemeral Laments of Technicality

Qualifications of a criminal mind
Magnifications of virtue in all of mankind
Qauntifications of meaning you cannot seem to find
Fractal notations in dreaming that you’d never leave behind

Geometric cubism born of Platonic Solids
Ego-centric hubris...

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The dust of time elevate upon my every touch to dust away
And writings revealing as promised are the words to say

‘He who listens will never be heard
He who sees will never be seen
A tongue utters...

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And to serve… how life is made to be in servitude for another
Be it humans, be it gods, be it myself with time lasting forever
Our journey through the Heaori Chamber had ruptured my faith
A journey...

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To Usher In The Inevitable

It was to be moments never thought to be
Moments to only belong in dreams
Darkness too dark to come before humanities to see
Minds in paranoia is ever to seem…

I knew that dreams...

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To Stray Into A Dream

So much of things were left undone
So much of things if even to have remembered
Did I recall or if I am to be truly the one?
To bring peace to an ever-last...

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At my will, it began to glow a little with a startling tingle
Daring a series of slashes, I feel to be more at ease as I mingle
And into the rhythm, I forget away my troubles...

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A Prophecy From Beyond

This night I strayed into a dream
It was unlike any other I’ve known
Nothing is an ever what it seem
To place a truth to believe what was shown

{There was blood dripping from the...

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Excusing himself into his domains, I returned to Alkaiya’s side
Hence was Twit shying to a corner with a spirit in a lost-fill light
With silence turning into darkness, thoughts were in despair
All hopes seem lost to...

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All the answers I need were left in riddles for my modern mind to decipher
Chasing after the impossible puzzle to only find it opens to another
Evermore so, I find I have not the strength to...

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