Long Beery Poems

The Pictish Faeries
by Michael R. Burch

Smaller and darker
than their closest kin,
the faeries learned only too well
never to dwell
close to the villages of larger men. 

Only to dance in the starlight
when the moon was full
and men...

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We don’t talk no more
Were not friends
And you don’t want me
Not in this life or the next
Say I’m to butch for you
I don’t see how
When I do all the things you like
You use to call...

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Emotions war against sense,
And his mind remains
A pot pourri,
And thoughts in his head
When he lies in his bed
Would make Dorian Gray
Appear pristine.
He wishes to moralize
On a corrupt example,
Yet from the wicked cup
He hath supped a...

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Sitting upside down in the car
On its roof and well concealed
By the hedge it just leapt to
Land upside down in this field
The lesson being learned 
When going round a bend
Trying  to pick up a...

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Sitting upside down in the car
On its roof and well concealed
By the hedge it just leapt to
Land upside down in this field
The lesson being learned, 
When going round a bend
Trying to pick up a ciggie
Can...

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In Liverpool, England, there is one street containing 
all the Chinese restaurants, side to side, back to back
and stinking drain to sea.
where once a year,  twirling dragons pierce the afternoon air,
passing old men with...

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Fishwives 

In junkets to 
     the golden shore 
Beside the cobalt 
     sea of lore 
Was told of dwellings 
     and rapscallions
Of ramshackled...

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This garden city
Concrete skyscrapers loom;
Greenery punctuate


Tree-lined avenues
Bourgainvillea clusters;
Traffic jam companions


Waltzing slowly
Overhead bridge;
Ant-people below


Old neighbourhood
Heartland community;
Ageing populace


Feeble old lady
Speeds on wheels;
Electric commotion


Playground
For small kids and big;
Noisy charades


Fitness park
For young and old;
Fighting spirit


City side walk cafe
Crowded after...

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SCORNED    ELEPHANT


Squat and stuck
On the flat wetted
Skid-streaked take-off strip
Snub-nosed Jumbo sprawls about dissipated
Under  the beery stares of uncouth deriding youth.
Swine scorn a pearl, greedily grubbing for acorns.
How can they know lustre...

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and I remember the pilled-doctor 
rolling by, rolling by, and the beery
priest, in the sky, in the sky

and the woman in the taxi, oh my,
oh my, and her husband the pugilist,
big guy, big guy

and the...

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I brag of being in the garden, jogging there each day,
It swings a haptic brunt on both, form and the prey.
My scrutiny was utterly borne by a sparkle to glow,
The delight arose to be shouting...

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What a stupid situation
Twenty foot above the ground
But when I reach the bottom
I’m nearly half way round
It was Ronnie Hatchard said it
Hey boys lets have some fun
Go back to camp and do 
The assault course...

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I dig a spur of the moment
into the feral flanks of a rocking horse.
I belong to the stars
and the wide-open anywhere.
My heart belongs to Molly Maguire 
a colleen from the low bog country.

No wait, this...

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The day after I was birthed,
God and a bunch of sassy angels
played Irish fiddles in a beery bordello,
a place not yet colorized into reality.

The next day,
squealing in my two-day-old
tight Rubenesque pinkness,
I was immortalized in a...

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After one too many beers, in the wee hours of the night,
I whizzed around town in my motorbike, feeling light;

     I zoomed into a dark side street and who or what...

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Morning newsprint
Wet soaking rain;
Bleak news today

~~~~~~~~~


Play school kids
Stare as I pass;
Curious eyes follow

~~~~~~~~~


New age cakery here
Exquisite creations;
Addictive morsels

~~~~~~~~~


Beggar in rags
Face soiled and weary;
Pleads for a meal

~~~~~~~~~


Our society is well-fed
Yet the poor abound;
Poverty of all sorts

~~~~~~~~~


Molasses...

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After one too many beers in the wee hours of the night,
I whizzed around town on my motorbike feeling light.

I zoomed into a dim side-street and who or what did I meet?
Deep potholes, like drunken...

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Apart from the worn stone-step
where drunks still topple
all has changed.
Now a neon glow backlights a plasticized fascia.

In the in the parking lot two blonds face-off.
one has extra-large ear bangles,
and she rattles like a Zulu warrior,
fingers...

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In a London pub fingers idly play with place mats.
Wonder-lust had led them back to where they assumed they had first met.
She recalled a local vicinity a basement rathskeller, he a country Inn;
cork mats slid...

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Very well, my dear, she said through coloured glass,
Through teeth of blood and silver
As the doorway hurtled past;
I then stood on the front step, with the rain beating down,
Until he bared his thuggish fangs
And I...

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THE SOLDIER

HE SAT DOWN WITH US
A BEERY GROUP OF YOUNGISH MEN
NOT WANTING TO BE OLD AND REACH THIRTY
WE TALKED OF SEX ESCAPADES AND 
MONEY-MAKING SCHEMES WHICH HAD 
FALLEN DOWN 
AND BOUNCED AWAY FROM THE TV...

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