Long Blades Poems

Village in the Valley left behind, and then it's a fine find
Mountain in the making...in the dark alleys of my mind

You're a flashlight
In the night
You are a friend 
Till the end
Bite the bullet
You're the village...

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Psychologically still thirteen 

Ordinarily meaning pre Internet days
familiarization with me would entail
bringing the avid listener 
into my private mancave hideaways
less a physical place than a juncture in relationship, 
(whereby one or the other of us)...

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Part 1: FORE SIBERIAN FATE

silk wings wet -
angel on the lake.
starlight glitter
separates from

the golden wheat.
her docile hair,
prophecy of ice.

winter pink,
pinched cheeks.
ice skate scrapes -
flecks of flakes.

the snow queen
before her relentless
reign, a pretty thing.

her smile warms
the...

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Conditions were harsh out in Kansas,
For the children and Sarah and Paul.
Neighbors and friends packed up and were gone;
Headed west they could hear fortune's call.
Never sure year to year of the harvest,
So their talents were...

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THIS WORLD OF DEW

This world? 
Moonlit dew
flicked from a crane's bill.
—Eihei Dogen Kigen, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Seventy-one?
How long
can a dewdrop last? 
—Eihei Dogen Kigen, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Dewdrops beading grass-blades
die before...

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Note to Readers of Previous Versions:
There are so many new vignettes scattered throughout the poem that I hope you will reread the whole thing! There are many new GEMS, improvements to previous verses and improved...

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I shall resolve to leave this
Place now...
And steadfastly search out,
Nestling between ridge and bluff
Amidst the folds of a foreign 
Land,
Several acres of unkempt ground
Fallow and rough;
Upon which stands...
Crumbled stone walls
With an exposed slate roof in
Some...

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"You really wanna know? Cause I'll tell ya if you really wanna know. You'll be thinkin' I'm crazy before I'm done, but I'll tell ya... ifn' you really wanna know."

The day started like any other,...

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When I was a child in Los Angeles, you could size up groups approaching by watching their movements.

I remember this gang of older kids approaching me, watching them carefully while looking down to see if...

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- - - Chapter 1: Early Days - - - 

My father was a rich man, la, *
Though schooled in poverty, (1)  
As such he seldom raised his head, 
Displayed humility.
The center of the...

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The Game of Hockey 

By Government decree, lacrosse
Is Canada’s national sport,
But in the hearts and minds of Canadians,
Hockey rules supreme.
Hockey is a winter sport enjoyed by Canadians since 1875,
When the game was first played, on...

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As she saw it.


The mountains and the meadows were always so beautiful this time of year.  It seemed as if a fresh new world always came to life. The high cliffs turned sharply downward....

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Once wars were fought with sticks and stones
to flog the flesh and batter bones
and conquer lands, defending thrones -
though gods provoke, not one atones. 

The multitude (by hordes beset
with battle-ax or bayonet)
braved blades, dyed red...

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Mechanism 1
Part #1

The things outside of my window dry out my eyes. The egg that I saturated has mold on it. The moon decays when I speak. The stars are all just God’s germs. Lately...

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Every second, every minute, every single thought about you
Wonders of this still could be too good to be true
Fluttering in my heart, palpitations go amiss
I yearn for the touch of your skin, and I constantly...

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Summer Memories
Summer Realities

This, the first day of summer, two thousand and two, finds me,
slipping back into what once was my desire, my need, my reality.
This step back into, and into times passed, has allowed me...

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Endless sunflower field 
Rhythmically swaying in the wind
Like lazy ocean wave stretches 
To the distant line of horizon
Touching the edge of the sky
Melting into hot noon brilliance
Boiling all shades of yellow into
One burning brightness of...

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He wondered with horror how so many memories, so many forms to be branded on his skin and engrave there.

Then the wet rattle of a twisted throat, and he beats his last breath to his...

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baseball, bird, change, childhood, games, holiday, lost,

“Seasonal Walks in the Park!”

A walk in the park after a springtime morning rainfall 
Is to hear the droplets fall from bent branches overhead
That can shock and moisten one’s...

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Pasha Acremodios grew greedy,
discontented with the domain he dominated,
so he turned covetous eyes toward Farabia,
sending his soldiers to seize this ripened plum

Spoiling for a fight and fighting for spoils,
his army swept across Farabia
like a bloody...

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I.	Imagine a stack
Of razor blades
Bolted together
Polished edges
Forming a blunt mass…
Who would guess the 
Blackness of that face? 
	
II.	Picture Pandoran box
Harboring atom pulse; 
No less a voyeur
The scientist peering
Through revealing keyhole
Finds an interior
Darker than any light.
	
III.	Such...

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1	A plume of dirt and grime envelops sky;
		The hellish slug of gas does creep along.
		It casts an orb three hundred stories high
		Over the Sun and ends his morning song.
		The birds and trees now stand a...

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For every step I take toward the sun,
the spark that lit the fire inside me dwindles.
History slated on unforgiving stone erodes;
A weakly chiseled dream.
But I will remember it all,
and tongues shall breed these words
and hold...

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THE CHIMNEY
The once fine air, refreshens with dust
Between the village horizon and crest
Since the sailing of a death chemical chimney.

Young green plants seedlings growing on slope
Are left to sip these  carcinogenic dusts, sapling
And entwined...

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It was a glorious summer day and I woke up with the lark
Got my wheelchair ready and then headed to the park
I noticed a girl out jogging, with her dog down by the lake
And felt...

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