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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MODERN SONNETS I

I prefer the original definition of the sonnet as a “little song” of indeterminate form and length. These modern sonnets vary from more-or-less traditional to free verse.


Maker, Fakir, Curer
by Michael R. Burch

A poem...

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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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Beneath the pall of an eldritch moon, 
                           ...

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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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There will be a dance in the cemetery, I know, but not who will be the one with whom I will dance wildly.
But I will find her, but it will not be me, my Master...

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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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Hearthstone Of Thy Fathers Love
Fatherhood exuberant and renowned is how you boys made me feel.
Exquisite was the taste of my tears as I felt the sensation of joy in both of your first cry’s!
The days,...

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My love for you
is beyond prophecy or endowment
and lay before you a love letter from the heart
beneath the moonlight's glow
where our eyes find a silent understanding
that embraces each passionate emotion
swirling and entwined in the depth...

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Prelude: A BRIDE SET FREE

How romantic, the fall, so far above the pleading waves.
The heights, the depth, to look the deep in eye and weep.
Air space between the lovers’ arc and shallow graves.
The tangible singsong...

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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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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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"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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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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My love for you
is beyond prophecy or endowment
and lay before you a love letter from the heart
beneath the moonlight's glow
where our eyes find a silent understanding
that embraces each passionate emotion
swirling and entwined in the depth...

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The sun rises on silky dunes that look like breasts. 
You are lost in the desert,
The air is dry and sandy residue explores your crevices.
Peripatetic genetrix,
Protector of sublime gifts passed on,
Heart of a warrior,
A duty...

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The aesthetic of the autocratic effigy of directing the positivity of proclivity in the nature,  the stir of it , that grit in your teeth this life gives , that digestive hindsight. Almost lost...

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In a windswept vale the tree had spread its branches
Its shale like trunk defined by weather had many wounds
One in particular had hollowed inside this stanchion
Braced against pervading skies and silk-watered lagoons
So clearly defined a...

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speculative fictional account
courtesy yours truly interpretation
impossible mission to surmount
tooling topographic factors,
solving quadratic equations, 
rubik's cube generally tantamount.

Perchance yar juiced
a young man or woman
Aladdin on cusp of securing lass
maybe born, bread and raised
in the city that...

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