Long Braided Poems

Lady’s Favor
by Michael R. Burch

May
spring
fling
her riotous petals
devil-
may-care
into the air,
ignoring the lethal
nettles
and may
May
cry gleeful-
ly Hooray!
as the abundance
settles,
till a sudden June
swoon
leave us out of tune,
torn,
when the last rose is left
inconsolably bereft,
rudely shorn
of every device but her thorn.


The...

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LOVE POEMS III by Michael R. Burch

These are love poems by Michael R. Burch about passion, desire, lust, sex, dating, relationships, devotion and marriage. 


Violets
by Michael R. Burch

Once, only once,
when the wind flicked your skirt
to...

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The Moon as a Metaphor for Your Mouth
by Michael R. Burch

When I was closest to love, it did not seem
real at all, but a thing of such tenuous sweetness
it might dissolve in my mouth
like a...

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I Have Labored Sore
anonymous medieval lyric (circa the fifteenth century)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I have labored sore / and suffered death, 
so now I rest / and catch my breath.
But I shall come /...

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Sonnets LII-LX

The Endeavors of Lips
by Michael R. Burch

How sweet the endeavors of lips: to speak
of the heights of those pleasures which left us weak
in love’s strangely lit beds, where the cold springs creak:
for there is...

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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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The tears well up, and scarce could she not moan
When father, brother, husband, all have died.
She now has no possessions, neither home,
But travels to a distant, unknown land:
Once so secure, yet now compelled to roam;
Once...

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LIST POETRY - A FUTURISTIC INTERPRETATION 


You
must know
I cried yesterday 
and I think I broke the world
so I braided some words into twine
planted some sweet and sour coated seeds
I grew free standing expressions and then...

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I was driving to Utah, because I had gotten a promotion;
And chose the scenic route, so as to put things in motion.

I had been traveling from Los Angeles, to Salt Lake City;
And the scenery along...

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Walk see the mad woman a come
Walk a come she just a come
Listen to how she talk she is not one of us
She sound like an aristocrat and a sensational bureaucrat
The idlers screamed from the...

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That following month Damian 
Started spending more time with 
His sons.  He opened a new 
Billards hall in town. He made
The trip into town with two of
His sons, leaving the youngest,
Joshua Justin and Jordan...

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We, the generation of '50,
Time-travelers with stardust in our hair, with memories planted in pockets,
Rooted in decades embraced by change, souls adorned with the dawn of the post-war world.
We spun on the carousel of the...

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Mein kampf analogous to one long run on unparsed sentence fragment

Heavily punctuated - hyphen
to embellish poetically
with bracing circumspection,
I markedly exclaim (parenthetically)
cumulative elapsed LXIII obits
around the nearest star
dashed by at lightspeed,
and quoting James Thurber
storied fiction titled
My...

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I spin, faster and faster…    
losing control, I am a propeller rising.
Once, you were my mystery to solve,
my gift to unwrap -
my challenge, my highest vista to climb.
You lifted me to your...

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Stand awed with spirit, soul, and body--- pause.
Physical, chemical, and biological laws
obey God's commands, the trees with applause.

The Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost
bear record in heaven, first and foremost.
His created works speak also,...

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(Fictional, but based on the real experience of one of my close friends who lost her daughter in an accident)

 As I sat on my desk,
Hurrying with my pent up work,
A scrap of paper, left...

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Memories of a bleak childhood haunted him ever and anon.
Whenever he thinks of that dark day, a thousand blades cut through him.
Shocked by the ferocity of that memory, his mind still goes insane.
Old wounds are...

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NOTE TO THE READER
Once Apun a Time

This yarn is a flossy fabric woven of several earlier warped works, lightly laced together, adorned with fur-ther braided tails of human frailty. The looms were loosed, purling frantically...

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Vulture's Of Darkness

Vile thought fangs waiting in vengence etched within

A twilight sun had tainted my inner vision again ?

Shattered fragments torn in desolation vanquished within
Vile degrade filled sweat pouring out in sharp contrast fetched;
Contrast...
In a...

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Up on the winding mountain,
there is a structure we knew so well— 
now consumed by red, devoured in flame. 
It was our shelter, a meeting place 
of like minds, a refuge against life’s weight, 
a...

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These are my modern English translations of ancient Greek epigrams by Anacreon from the Anacreontea. 

Here he lies in state tonight: great is his Monument!
Yet Ares cares not, neither does War relent.
—Anacreon, loose translation/interpretation by...

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Flings and wings and rings rejected…
 Cupid’s arrows fly deflected…
“It clearly is too late” she signed, “to love, adore or pay me mind”

Penciled lines drew cruel conclusions
mocking mirror’s cracked illusions…
Sometimes, in time, I hang awhile,...

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Behind a counter in china shop sits a woman.
Between right thumb, index, middle, and ring fingers she holds an egg.
On the back wall are shelves with plates and fowl.
On the counter are eggs, a chicken,...

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(This is about the same lovely young lady and best friend that I wrote about in "A Pink Rose." I always think about her when I think about roses. Especially pink and lavender ones.)

The very...

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Alone on the shoreline
in the land of the fairies
where there is no light
and only darkness

a young fairy cries
her blond hair
braided back
her wings frail and translucent
her clothes light and white

She finds a pebble on the shore
the...

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