Long Bede Poems

Where Does the Butterfly Go?
by Michael R. Burch

for the children of the Holocaust and the Nakba

Where does the butterfly go
when lightning rails,
when thunder howls,
when hailstones scream,
when winter scowls,
when nights compound dark frosts with snow ...
Where...

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Various Heresies 5

Tonight, Let's Remember
by Michael R. Burch

July 7,2007 (7-7-7)

Tonight, let's remember the fond ways
our fingers engendered new methods to praise
the gray at my temples, your thinning hair.
Tonight, let's remember, and let us draw near...

Tonight,...

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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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Gloriously luxuriating in eternal sleep...

versus being alive 
predicated victory videre licet lunatic
if Trump trumped Kamala Harris
and stole 2024 presidential election,  
(whereat Musk bribed 
significant number of voters
handing out wads of cash)
courtesy underhanded modus operandi
and...

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Gloriously luxuriating in eternal sleep

Forlorn; bereft of golden
(slippered) opportunities I weep;
Three score and four years
replete with mailer daemons,
hence mindset adrip
with self denouncing expletive filled bleep
unwritten expressed recriminations
wielded upon figurative head of wimpy blip;
decades elapsed at...

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"Exegesis"



At 7 he was 
thrown to the wolves

Bede marked his territory
hidden secrets 
kept in the abbey

he escaped
went to war
where the unwanted trod

First regiment,
Vietnam
he took with him
like a comfort blanket
his Nicene creed and God

and on returning...

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Ech day me cometh tydinges thre
"Each Day Three Tidings Come to Me"
(anonymous Middle English poem, circa the 13th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Each day I’m plagued by three doles,
These gargantuan weights on my...

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"STRONG"



A child finds strength 
in the holding of his hand
The Beatitudes in his mind 
repetition 8 times cast
whispers the loneliness
in a Man -

Who held his hand?

Like Bede, venerable,
he's counting beads dropping 
like blood drops, 
steel...

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Poems about Poets IV



The Princess and the Pauper
by Michael R. Burch

for June Kraeft

Here was a woman bright, intent on life,
who did not flinch from Death, but caught his eye
and drew him, powerless, into her spell
of...

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Baseless incriminations heaped upon head of missus...
courtesy evil ferocious wraithlike grimace

Acrimonious scurrilous words
flew out the mouth
of vicious nasty shortish brute
leaving yours truly
as a key witness dumbfounded.

Outrageous spluttering claims
of stolen parcels
plus ransacked jewelry
totaling to the tune
of...

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Caedmon’s Face
by Michael R. Burch

At the monastery of Whitby,
on a day when the sun sank through the sea,
and the gulls shrieked wildly, jubilant, free,

while the wind and Time blew all around,
I paced that dusk-enamored ground
and...

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At Cædmon’s Grave
At Caedmon's Grave
by Michael R. Burch

“Cædmon’s Hymn,” composed at the Monastery of Whitby (a North Yorkshire fishing village), is one of the oldest known poems written in the English language, dating back to...

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Caedmon's Hymn
by Michael R. Burch

At the monastery of Whitby,
on a day when the sun sank through the sea,
and the gulls shrieked wildly, jubilant, free,

while the wind and time blew all around,
I paced those dusk-enamored grounds
and...

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Many More Horn Poems

Had looked like  a light brown cow;
And did know it was her somehow;
Climb could not;
Even  when hot;
We could tell by each long eye brow.

Of what can a  profound poem...

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"The Dreams of Bedes" 

Jewels they found 
dripping like diamonds
from the overflowing viaducts 

scattered on the ground
at the feet of disbelief
barely seen 

shod lost and disobedient
counting the cost for 
unwanted inconvenience

those bridges burn now like
scarlet...

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"Parable"



When the other
side of night
came to collect its token

I was starlight
unsinkable invisible 
some uncaptured mystery
 
that would never again
be broken mortal
like an egg shell

under the bickering feet 
of men, listening to 
their own voices

their pathetic...

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Here is a delightful book of Cat Poetry, written from Cat's point of view.  For the people who love cats, and the cats who own them. Love, Joe and Ila. 

https://app.thebookpatch.com/BookStore/im-a-cat/ba1ea2f9-0188-4bf2-bede-d9bde3b8d5a2
 
"I'm A Cat"...

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Jou wens 

Die vraag is ‘n stuk van my moed.
So asof ons dit albei weet.
‘n Druk van een, gee sonne-gloed
Ag, kon ‘n mens dit maar net meet?

Tog besef, my eensaamheid
die soektog na die wedren-uil
van jaloesie...

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