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...

Read More

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...

Read More

JUDY…
Judy was a German Shepherd from my newborn days
I’ve seen some pictures, black and white; she had a friendly gaze
I wish I could remember her as I sit here and write
Alas I just have photographs,...

Read More

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...

Read More

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 ...

Read More

“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...

Read More

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...

Read More

Will wonders never cease!?

Alternately titled: Last of the fluff
belonging to a Mohican
Norwegian bachelor farmer wannabe.

Any resemblance between said unnamed individual
and living persons purely coincidental.

Scads of decades back in the day,
not since this sexagenarian baby boomer
happened...

Read More

{Three o'clock on a December afternoon,
the sky is opaque as my nature has stood out, the rain drizzles down my windows and I am distinctly reminded how it once drizzled down my back; the lacquers...

Read More

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...

Read More

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...

Read More

I aim to live in the here (ahem hair) and now...

despite entrenched familiar
obsessive compulsive disorder behavior
distracting me courtesy
countless what if scenarios,
particularly before undergoing
voluntary drastic makeover
as iterated in a previous poem,
and briefly recounted here
as foregoing Samson...

Read More

“I’m so very bored,” Raisin said with a frown
“Me too,” said Rum, “but with rain pouring down,
It’s not like we get to go out for some fun.”
Raisin said, “Will this rain ever be done?”

Sat on...

Read More

“The Language of the Undone”

I prefer 
them 
over humans
those velvet souls 

loving 
the lesser 
parts of me 
always

more than anyone 
else cares to admit 
they inspect 
every inch of me 

walking over me 
territorily 
like...

Read More

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...

Read More

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;...

Read More

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...

Read More

These are modern English translations of ancient Middle English poems. 


The Maiden Lay in the Wilds
circa the 14th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The maiden in the moor lay,
in the moor lay;
seven nights full,
seven nights...

Read More

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

                      Quote by _Constance...

Read More

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...

Read More

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...

Read More

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...

Read More

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...

Read More

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...

Read More

He enters looking bedraggled, tired and worn out, his skin like Vellum, blank and pale. Lifting his eyes to catch their gaze he gives a slight nod to acknowledge their presence. He scans the room...

Read More