Long Brick Poems

The night Before Christmas Eve
By Franklin Price
12/17/2016


Prologue

The Night Before Christmas
A most famous of  poems
Read  to children aloud
By their parents in homes

To children who gather
'Round the brightly lit tree
To hear Santa is coming
Presents for...

Read More

Once,
or twice, 
maybe thrice,
surely not
not fractal

A clan of crazy ecofeminists
conspired within an 88 unit residential castle
in their historically converted 
sometimes hysterically clueless condo
colonial-red predative brick 
badly bald aging building

With a sometimes soggy south walled school,
but...

Read More

Here We Shall Remain
by Tawfiq Zayyad
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Like twenty impossibilities
in Lydda, Ramla and Galilee ...
here we shall remain.

Like brick walls braced against your chests;
lodged in your throats
like shards of glass
or prickly cactus...

Read More

Next day new school day. 
Amadeus was the first to
Wake then he woke DJ and 
Damali And all three went for
The showers. Twenty minutes 
Later they woke everybody else 
Including the adults. The Hakim 
Children...

Read More

Early morning dawn July
"Mallory"  Damian whispered, sliding 
Closer to her. "Mallory" he Whispered 
Again gently caressing. She wanted
To say stop. It was to late
he moved quite quickly. He spread
Like wild fire. Soon consuming her.
The...

Read More

A Stolen Memory
A Mirthful Chorus
By Sy Roth 


We surrounded him 
Asked to let go.
She stared at the misshapen face,
Unshaven sandpapery skin 
Eyelids a tabula rasa
Fluttery sere skin
And we could see the humor blossoming in his...

Read More

The soul of the earth is wrapped up inside
And the spirit of God is walking beside me
The universe rests upon my shoulder
And I can feel its power moving all over
embracing the soul of man
And causing...

Read More

[This poem 'No God Of  Mine' was seemingly confounding readers as
to its meaning. Ordinarily, if I felt a poem wasn't  cutting it, I'd delete
it, but on this occasion, I've been asked to explain it... so here goes.]


By...

Read More

Sad place when Lucifer sits behind a desk allowing severe repeat violent offenders to give false statements falsified documents in order to frame innocent persons from behind bars after over 20 convictions queen pin drug...

Read More

After witnessing a murder meant for me after surviving a car bomb igniting my skull crushed my face bruising my brain i received threatening calls from my husbands mistress I'd reported break ins strange behavior...

Read More

Domestic violence survivor killed after reporting my abusive ex husband to the fbi he’d began extreme attacks on me mental cruelty mostly first hitting me in my back with a brick I still stayed what...

Read More

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 new GEMS, improvements to previous verses and improved footnotes...

Read More

So many people and the various sores
Intoxicated in such a way my eyes,
That wanted open to crying their doors.

But Virgil told : “What for you look this guise?
Why now your sight is so carefully brought
Down...

Read More

I.
Treasures That May Be Found In Destiny's New Shift

( Mille viri sententia agere nescit donec suscipit calamum scribere.)

For a brief spell, I hung my hammock in the shade
of the ancient tall oak tree, that God's...

Read More

Everything here is true
Just as stated
because it's already happened
or - it has yet to occur - 
but it's very soon to occur
and I have such strong feeling
that the future will be as I see it
as...

Read More

Piles of poetry yet to come falling in the fingers of the readers
Scroll through my lines as much as your heart and mind eagers
Remorse and anguish is what I feed on when I sin senselessly
Did...

Read More

Dot dot dot, and in other news devil's advocate claims Teflon Trump

courtesy the comfort of his mancave, 
I (a mutated batman wannabe) 
doth prattle and stump
and display wide whirled webbed 
and variegated tail feathers 
(also...

Read More

I was so anxious to get away but I did not realize what was on the way
I got a standing ticket because all the tickets have been sold out some on the black market, others...

Read More

It was a late Saturday morning, and I was getting my 12-year-old self ready for our weekly summer sand-lot baseball game. I had my ball glove hanging on my bicycle handlebars, two baseballs, and my...

Read More

On the night before Christmas, alone in my house, 
Sorrow gnawed at my soul, like a ravenous mouse.
Entombed in my blankets, I struggled to sleep,
Ready to snap if I counted more sheep.

I rose at the...

Read More

A prawn masquerading as a peanut can be quite disturbing. So many times a peel is a garment used to shroud. A tentacle hidden. Here and there. Then to reappear with an often violent burst...

Read More

(A call for the lights to dim as a single spotlight illuminates the legend Judy Garland, who is center stage. She wears a faded housecoat as her beautiful, brandy brown eyes hold a lifetime of...

Read More

Damian Stood in the Hugh room
Surveying the expansiveness of
The place. "Yeah, this will be a
Imperial family event in my house.
The judges will be here too. 
There were two large tables 
The capacity was almost 
Immeasurable....

Read More

Condensed Spoken Word Piece:

Here's a condensed version of the script, focusing on the key themes and emotions:

"(Sighs) I walked out of that interview, feeling like I'd wasted my time.

They didn't care, they weren't listening, they...

Read More

Washed ashore on the lost island

Skin already peeling on the beach

Burning from the hot green summer sun

Meat melting off to become bone

Jumping back into the water

Cooling off with the clams and fish 

Washing the sand...

Read More