Long Bastion Poems

Here and Hereafter
by Michael R. Burch

Life’s saving graces are love, pleasure, laughter ...
wisdom, it seems, is for the Hereafter.



Laughter’s Cry
by Michael R. Burch

Because life is a mystery, we laugh
and do not know the half.

Because death...

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Observance
by Michael R. Burch

Here the hills are old and rolling
carefully in their old age;
on the horizon youthful mountains
bathe themselves in windblown fountains...

By dying leaves and falling raindrops,
I have traced time's starts and stops,
and I have...

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Poems about Fathers and Grandfathers IV



Neglect
by Michael R. Burch

What good are your tears?
They will not spare the dying their anguish.
What good is your concern
to a child sick of living, waiting to perish?

What good, the warm...

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Sonnets XVII-XXIV

Discrimination
by Michael R. Burch

The meter I had sought to find, perplexed,
was ripped from books of "verse" that read like prose.
I found it in sheet music, in long rows
of hologramic CDs, in sad wrecks
of long-forgotten...

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Poems about Children V

Pan
by Michael R. Burch

Among the shadows of the groaning elms,
amid the darkening oaks, we fled ourselves

Once there were paths that led to coracles
that clung to piers like loosening barnacles

where we cannot return,...

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A Debate

The Atheist
I see no reason for a god
Indeed for any type of god at all
I look around at all the churchmen
The pompous richly dressed ones
And wonder what their founder would have thought
And then at...

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It was not uncommon to discover a missing Brother Legionary
castrated, and decapitated
with a headless eagle carved upon his chest,
don't speak to me of morals and mercy
for I have seen and dealt the damage of rude...

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ITS ALWAYS THE MONEY
by
JOHN M. ARRIBAS


It’s always the money I’m saddened to say
Put your hand in someone’s pocket its time to pay
When it’s not the money, it’s a crusade
Or revenge for a crime that was...

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Sad feelings always return,
No matter what I do,
Say or think,
No matter what I don’t do,
Say or think.

Leaving me sometimes,
Sadness disappears,
Just long enough, 
To tease me,
To please me,
To freeze me.

Hope sinks in,
Hope settles down,
Hope hopes for...

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In a little ultra Leftist bastion called Berkley
a congregation of American Libertarians came,
it was March 4th and proud patriots marched forth
in solidarity for America's freedoms,
celebrating inherent rights with gratitude
most of all the 1st Amendment was...

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"I Can't Breathe I Am"



I can’t breathe
when you 
paint the words 
“Flow” 
on my throat
when the words 
are trapped 
and I am gagged

I can't breathe
when you're kneeling
in prayer 
on my neck 
singing a gentile 
white...

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Translation of Eric Mottram's The Nerves of Proust and Sitting Bull by T. Wignesan

Excerpts from an article, “From space to caves in the heart recreating the collective world in Eric Mottram’s poetry” by Clive Bush,...

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It's not about love, not about hate.
It's the promise of two that one can negate.
It's not about dark, not about light
It is about peace found after a fight.
It's not about courage, nor about fear
It's less...

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You’re the finest man I have ever seen
You are handsome and strong
Virile
Full bodied
Beautiful to the eyes
Alluring to the hands
Your lips
Send messages
“Come and taste
And never thirst again”
Your eyes
Changing hues
Like the sea
The sky
In between
Iris pools where I...

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In this tumultuous political climate
I find both parties irrelevant and obsolete

They do not speak to me or my families’ needs
Neither do they consider our suffering 

Day after day immigrants look for respite from expulsion from...

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Who will weep for my noble prince? Who will cry
With belly swollen with sorrow, and tears long
As the Black River? Who will hear the clouds sigh
And turn black over red clay, and being strong
Not feel...

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*Holly (Vault Dweller)*

Hey bartender,
Who's that girl over there,
The one nursing the whiskey in the corner,
She has that press hat one that makes her look...strangely debonair.

*Bartender*

That'll be our little Ms. Piper Wright,
She runs the local paper,
Spends...

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I can't remember if the sun was shining
Or if the clouds looked down on me as I stood 
A child of ten standing on a window sill 
Whispering to himself he should

It started shortly after...

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The will to power is a prominent concept in Nietzschean philosophy,
And exerted a strong influence on some major movements in history.
Its effect can be traced to the fields of politics, evolution, and psychology,
And provides useful...

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A day like any other
          Brighter than the norm, if anything
               Enjoying...

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Another Senseless Killing...

IOWA CITY, Iowa
     (killingly, jarringly inexplicable,
     horribly, gruesomely, and forlornly),
     the found exhumed decayed corpse
     belonging to...

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Charcoal tar and gold brown tobacco
are both packed into a paper stick pressed
firm and trusting to the lips of a modern shaman
inhaling a cloud of harsh, strong, bold, and bitter barbs
that caress the tongue and...

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BLACK,RED and GOLD

Location---SOMEWHERE IN KÖNIGSBERG 1945 APRIL 9
Scene---A Dying German Agent/A Soldier`s thoughts/reflections just before death 

On this periphery of life
Let blue jeans of my ice blonde Brenda wear me to marry with death
Fire will...

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Once
these corridors 
echoed with life
a citadel for restoration
of body and mind
a bastion of promise
for the tormented
to the outside world
it had many names
Forest Lawn Sanitarium
was its Nome de plume

I--- simply called it--- home

In its day
it was...

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In this tumultuous political climate
I find both parties irrelevant and obsolete

They do not speak to me and my families’ needs
Neither do these elites know the suffering we go through

Day after day we look for respite...

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