Long Bleary Poems

They were gambling in front of the house.
Manservants and pages bustled about
Serving Suitors who just curse and carouse.
Few mix wine with water. I heard one shout,
"Clean down the tables with wet sponges! Rouse
Yourselves! And when...

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Pagans Protest the Intolerance of Christianity
by Michael R. Burch

“We have a common sky.” — Quintus Aurelius Symmachus

We had a common sky
before the Christians came.

We thought there might be gods
but did not know their names.

The common...

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[Well, ShallowMan’s ne’er at a loss
for voicing shallow thoughts that gloss.
With trenchant wit he reaps the dross
when seeking sense in applesauce.

But to his aid flies FactoidMan
who always has a Fact at hand;
with him, who needs...

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Various Heresies 6

Altared Spots
by Michael R. Burch

The mother leopard buries her cub,
then cries three nights for his bones to rise
clad in new flesh, to celebrate the sunrise.

Good mother leopard, pensive thought
and fiercest love’s wild insurrection
yield...

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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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Feminist ecotherapists,
deeply immersed in polycultural ecology,
a systematic teleology of cooperative nutrition economics,
remain rarely flushed out from their safe spots.

A self-isolating,
often eremitic,
subspecies,
with shamanic nature-as-spirit tendencies,
our most articulate mentors often wander off
to pray for,
breathe and suffer and...

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Prelude

After banishing my foe off to hell
The Lord took pity on my soul 
And returned it to my undead shell
Again, I was alive and whole

But the consequences of a second chance
Meant that I would have...

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from press confounding conférences                               ...

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tweaked to pass inspection broadcast on the double
(alternately titled snafu: ma bell heave hubble
vehicular repairs (prohibitive)
finds me bleary eyed stupefied
and countenance grizzled with prickly stubble
collapsed amidst virtual rubble).

Best sung courtesy rotten dull liver:red worst
after words...

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Unlikely Mike
by Michael R. Burch

I married someone else’s fantasy;
she admired me despite my mutilations.

I loved her for her heart’s sake, and for mine.
I hid my face and changed its connotations.

And in the dark I danced—slight,...

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The sky benighted, cloudy, grim,
In such a way that even dim,
Was every thought of mine.
And ponderous drops of weighty rain,
This morbid air and smell maintain,
Thus frame this scene malign!
With eyes as dreary as the soul,
Of...

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In the twilight hours I lie
On my back face-up closed-eyes facing the sky
I am clarity
Not fully awake or asleep 
Free of prejudiced mind and sanity
And my mind wanders 
Snippets of thoughts and assessments
Judgements and decisions...

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The day had dawned with the sunrays pouring through my window,
I saw myself scratching my head,
Since the number of gripping ideas in my brain amounted to zero.

I had been asked to compose something-- which will...

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Twas the darkest of nights in the prarie woodland
Little Red Riding Hood walked the raven strand

A steamy fog cut through the bleary bog
The rancid odor of vaporous springs did the air clog
A venomous frog full...

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When Enrique came too, his head aching,
and his memory scrambled royally,
he found himself firmly tied to a chair,
his eyes were bleary, it was hard to see.

Something…a man, was standing before him,
who this person might be,...

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(alternately titled: ma bell heave hubble
vehicular repairs (prohibitive) 
finds me bleary eyed stupefied 
and countenance grizzled with prickly stubble 
collapsed amidst virtual rubble).

Best sung courtesy rotten dull liver:red worst
after words which, I gotta quench mine...

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Blue was feeling melancholy and was far from feeling jolly 
by the window of his quarters on that moonlight night in May. 
The old mate was broken hearted since young Jess and he had parted:...

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7.

The Tigress stands at the side of Turvehr,
her head hung low, her face hidden by dark hair,
tears falling freely from her eyes,
in Heaven, the mighty cry tears from the skies.
Mortal sea does now divide,
Turvehr and...

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Linton Bosick rode, on the look-out for strays,
in the year eighteen hundred ninety-eight,
he had a job in fair Santa Monica
working the ranch of Big Eldon McCray.

He made his way above a dry ravine
that rambled straight...

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Will you burn the earth`s  skin  to glass?. 

Yet, right there , in Harmony of `69
I bent  in adoration 
before the dusky pearl of your forehead
the soft slopes of your never-ending body
shifting...

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An old lady sat near a window, near a window looking out.
With her radio going she sat there sewing, with an occasional look about.
On her thumb she wore a thimble, as she pulled the thread...

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At dusk, a brilliant western panorama
displayed off our seventh floor balcony.
Fluorescent colors, clouds of fuchsia, amber,
yummy yellow golden glazes across the sky.
So spectacularly spanning sentient space
a show of shows of unearthly grace.
Looming large clouds block...

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I still see it when I close my eyes,
hands stoking up and down my naked thighs,
I can’t shake the lingering memory
of the night that someone violated me.

No shower seems able to make me clean,
I find...

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She was a tiny angel of a woman
mindlessly moving, in a chemical faze
her heart baracaded, tormented
from her long, lonely days 
while dancing on the edge of a pin.

Dreaming images with her feet, twirling
oblivious on a...

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~ Cry ~


Clothes ripping
I am struggling
I can’t get away I can’t even scream
So alone
So very alone
I wish someone would come along
Make him quit
Make him go away
But no one comes
And he gets his way
And finally he...

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