Long Belatedly Poems

SELF REFLECTIONS

These are poems about mirrors, images, self-image, reflections, impressions and self-reflection. 

Self Reflection
by Michael R. Burch 

for anyone struggling with self-image

She has a comely form
and a smile that brightens her dorm ...
but she's grossly...

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Poems about Poems III

Radiance
by Michael R. Burch

for Dylan Thomas

The poet delves earth’s detritus?hard toil?
for raw-edged nouns, barbed verbs, vowels’ lush bouquet;
each syllable his pen excretes?dense soil,
dark images impacted, rooted clay.

The poet sees the sea but...

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Radiance
by Michael R. Burch

for Dylan Thomas

The poet delves earth’s detritus—hard toil—
for raw-edged nouns, barbed verbs, vowels’ lush bouquet;
each syllable his pen excretes—dense soil,
dark images impacted, rooted clay.

The poet sees the sea but feels its meaning—
the...

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People, Places, and Things I Didn't Know I Trusted

I rather suddenly, and belatedly,
realized I trust the highest and best use for language,
for every community and communication of faith,
for every school and pedagogical political enculturation,
for every...

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These are poems about Dylan Thomas, as well as poems "for" and "after" Dylan Thomas. Dylan Thomas was one of my favorite poets from my early teens and has remained so over the years. I...

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Myth, after Dylan Thomas
by Michael R. Burch

Here the recalcitrant wind
sighs with grievance and remorse
over fields of wayward gorse
and thistle-throttled lanes.

And she is the myth of the scythed wheat
hewn and sighing, complete,
waiting, lain in a low...

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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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1
Though still within our infancy, 
we strive to thrive, but woefully 
we flash and flaunt our 'primacy',
display our trophies pridefully.
 
Our terra firma ecstasy
destroys survival's harmony,
lays waste to life on land and sea.
Mankind, thy name...

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EPIGRAMS IV

Improve yourself by others' writings, attaining freely what they purchased at the expense of experience.
—Socrates, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I didn’t mean to love you,
but I did.
Best leave the rest unsaid,
hid-
den
and unbidden.
—Michael R....

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Poems about Poets

Elemental
by Michael R. Burch

for and after Dylan Thomas

The poet delves earth’s detritus—hard toil—
for raw-edged nouns, barbed verbs, vowels’ lush bouquet;
each syllable his pen excretes—dense soil,
dark images impacted, rooted clay.

The poet sees the sea...

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crushing defeat
   in 
     abyss 
         of 
          nostalgia
   ...

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I saw the swifts again today,
High on the wing and weaving the crags to the clouds.

I watched them last from my Fall lawn,
Flickering between fantasy and truth,
And whistling their secrets to the wind.  

They’d...

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No Stopping The Carousel Of Time!

The inescapable reality
     consigning one at birth
     automatically includes no breath
oblige premise, whereat
     existence can terminate
  ...

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Awareness about behavior,
present since mine days of yore
an unswerving allie analogous
to peacekeeper ending civil war
belated insight suddenly realized

(better late than never) doth underscore
incumbent proactive communication stance
belatedly bestowed omnipotent awareness
crucial fostering ingredient to shore
maternal bond above

bejesus...

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Reflecting On Thy Long Doggone Pooch -
"Georgie Harris"

At present moment thoughts adrift,
     whereat figurative throne,
     this chap doth 
     emotionally abdicate
no particular reason...

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On the silver sea, under the clear moonlight, I venture forth,  
In search of songs lost in the depths of time,  
The moon, my silver guide, draws my path among the waves, ...

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Coming to an End


On the terrace this morning, it is warm, 
sun has not 
switched on the heaters yet, and wonders if the postie 
His brother was sending him chewing tobacco rolled
up in newspapers as...

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Have you ever been hit by a strong feeling?
It feels like you've just been loaded
with an array of possibilities.
You feel like you're bursting with
zillion of words;
your poetry meter is blinking red,
meaning your brain is straining...

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When bad 
unhealthy
unsafe choices
speak in WRONG! voices
delivering shame,
deserving shunning
and irrepressible self-blame,

Reconsider this jump
from bad choices
to "wrong" voices
unable to consider tomorrow's
potential more right rejoices.

No one of us humans
has divine omnipotent might
to make all the right omniscient...

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It's passing strange;
I never liked bees very much.
--thought them ugly, mean and hazardous.
But now they disappear, 
together with the crops dependent
on them to survive. My sentiments
have crossed the battlefield and joined
a more quixotic enemy--one who...

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Can’t have                        I don’t know what to say
Too many friends  ...

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(earlier this January 18th, 2019 belatedly
to acknowledge my LX birthday.)

Mine eldest sister
as I continue in the circle game
of life, (ye dear Amelie
McGeehan) darling dame
a modestly lofty poem I aim
to dash off (while riding away
high in...

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Behold the Pied Piper has tossed his pipe belatedly in the trash
   Having led folks down some garden paths he trousered wads of cash
Dollars, pounds, euros, rolls of wallpaper - the currency didn’t...

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WAKE UP CALL

Wake up Congolese, wake up
It is morning, the sun arises from the east 
Open your eyes and wake up. 
I am Kongolo Congo, born near the River Congo
Grew up in Congo Uvira, using...

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Beneath the inscrutable sky, blinded by divided eternities,
We are islands of yearning, adrift in fate,
Each bearing a mysterious longing, a desert within the chest,
And with every heartbeat, my sorrow robustly grows.
Fate, the ancient dramatist who...

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