Long Bedraggled 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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Fascism lives in tension with holy optimism,
as hatred fades in presence of mutual love,
as WinLose evolutionary models
give way to WinWin sacred Energy
stories and songs and dances,
as patriarchal colonization
gives way to matriarchal creolization.

Fascism,
synonymous with Totalitarianism,
as written...

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One morning early a Dad and his son Tom went for a walk in the country, they journeyed
through the still mist looking for flowers for the boy's Mom, but they did not see many.
Just then...

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The Story of History  

Beyond those beaten days’ depleted daylight
Beyond the bathos of a pandemic bondage
With  the resurrected  sashay’s charmed night
Down in the dumps   at the pretentious  proscenium
A ...

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“Before The Firing Squad”



the firing squad 
came dressed
in faux smiles

the intervention cake 
was spoon fed, like honey,
by mother superior

to the lesser bee,
with self-righteous
magnanimity

she wore the badge
Devil’s Advocate, proudly,
without any clear authority

casting bloodied 
nasturtiums around the...

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Their rending cries, when all is still, reecho in the moonlight;
They lie about in fitful slumber on the ground at noonlight,
Their virgin hair spread in the dust; for nothing really matters:
Who then will see their...

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I look across the lounge room floor and silently I brood.
Looking back is something smug that’s caused a family feud.
It licks its paws; it grins at me, and knows it is protected,
and every wish it...

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The bones of winter cracked the ice black, coal black night.
A hoary wind spits frost crystals that dazzle and blur the sight.
Boney fingers of bare deciduous wood, scratch against the eaves
as the stranger's tread crackles...

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Highlights from Highland Manor

Courtesy Goofus and Gallant 
who began their broadly-drawn 
moral plays in the 1950s, 
initially depicted as identical twins,
but later on, editors for Highlights 
indicated the two were brothers, 
but not twins, and...

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A damp, dank odour pervades the saturated forest; pungent. acrid;
The stench an assault on the human senses:
Working subtly, slowly permeating every pore until it compromises the very heart of the forest.

Seeping easily between the debris;...

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Love is a season.
And holidays mark the seasons, and years like signs in the road,
reflecting the bumps in our journey, but showing us a way back home.

Sixteen, in pajamas, watching the rain pelt down,
it was...

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Love is a season
And holidays mark the seasons, like signs in the road
Reflecting the bumps in our journey, but showing us a way back home...

Sixteen, in pajamas, watching the rain pelt down
It was long past...

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"Pets are a homes . . .  invisible soul."

                      Quote by _Constance...

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Within the Craigie Mile a manor house stands
Under sheeted rain and surrounded by shrouding fog
One night as Hell sang in the sky
A lady did run along the Craigie mile
Where she was she had no clue
The...

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Written: September 18, 2023
Unwritten Absence Poetry Contest              Sponsored by: Ink Empress
______________________________________________________________

In the absence of ink—in a nexus of poetic dreams,
Anathematized by disconsolate...

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With a wag of tail and tongue bedraggled
dogs drag their owners to frolic off-leash
in parks devoted to dog meets dog dalliance and play.

Despite their authority, the owners know each
not by the owner’s names, but by...

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I struck out on my own around a year old
life was so full of fun, so many things with
which to play, a leaf scuttling by, a rustle
in the undergrowth. I was enthralled.

I stood on a...

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Here's  a terrifying piece of news about every mother's nightmare...
Happened in broad daylight with numerous customers everywhere...

A mother, busy festive shopping in a local retail store, was distracted for a couple of minutes...
She had...

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since becoming housed here since this year
july first two thousand and seventeen, 
   tubby more precise where
with thee missus, amidst bucolic environs, 
   (one could don underwear

Schwenksville, Pennsylvania   
...

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“Once a king or queen in Narnia, 
Always a king or queen,” said C S Lewis,  
And I think I can just about let you in on, 
What he was talking about, as I'm...

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I remember living in one room dingy and dire 
with old lino on its rotting wooden floor. 
I remember crystallised spit dangling from guard at the fire; 
as mother cleaned, he'd only honk the more....

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We let loose the untamed winds
As boulders crashed eleven ships were lost
With storm unabated into the Laestrygons we ran
T'was one lone ship which hit Circe's land

As boulders crashed eleven ships were lost
Fair isle it was...

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I’ve never given much thought, about the last train to Auschwitz 
for indeed every train, was intended to be ones last,

Except for the guards, who sit atop the cattle cars
As the human livestock, slowly asphyxiates...

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Alternately titled: Get out of my head mister chatterbox!

While inside me noggin legions
of monstrous demons abhor
protest being force fed
arcane and obscure
assaying into religious dogma
hence mind chatter goes full bore
thus crafting poem quite a difficult chore,
one...

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A priest once told me that the lump
on my hand was a ganglion,
a fortress of fat besieged by health.
At last it burst and the hand swelled
like an old man's,
shovel shaped and splayed.

It was her black...

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