Long Brittle Poems

~~**This poem is super long, but it took me hours to write. I hope you all enjoy reading this as I have enjoyed writing it wholeheartedly.**~~

Awful anger expressed in verses
Didn’t give me blessings, but curses
I’m...

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WOMEN ...

Truly amaze me ... they possess the super-human
strength to birth a child - one of the most painful
and demanding physical and emotional feats of end-
urance known to our species - yet they have the
self-confidence...

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The Original Sin: Rhyming Haiku!
 
Haiku
should never rhyme:
it’s a crime!
-Michael R. Burch
 
The herons stand,
sentry-like, at attention ...
rigid observers of some unknown command.
-Michael R. Burch
 
Late
fall;
all
the golden leaves turn black underfoot:
soot
-Michael R. Burch
 
Dry leaf...

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"The Payload" 

The payload 
came crashing down
like rain expelled
from the fat belly 
of a ruinous pregnant cloud 
bilious with buxom promise

it came crashing down 
like school fish released 
from the tight confines
of a course rope...

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Zen Death Haiku

Brittle cicada shell,
little did I know
you were my life!
—Shuho, translation by Michael R. Burch

Returning
as it came,
this naked worm.
—Shidoken, translation by Michael R. Burch

As dew glistens
on a lotus leaf,
so too I soon must vanish.
—Shinsui,...

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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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Southern Icarus
by Michael R. Burch

Windborne, lover of heights,
unspooled from the truck’s wildly lurching embrace,
you climb, skittish kite...

What do you know of the world’s despair,
gliding in vast solitariness there,
so that all that remains is to
fall?

Only a...

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Sonnets LXI-LXX

Erin
by Michael R. Burch

All that’s left of Ireland is her hair?
bright carrot?and her milkmaid-pallid skin,

her brilliant air of cavalier despair,
her train of children?some conceived in sin,

the others to avoid it. For nowhere
is evidence of...

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R.I.P.
by Michael R. Burch

When I am lain to rest
and my soul is no longer intact, 
but dissolving, like a sunset
diminishing to the west...

and when at last
before His throne my past
is put to test
and the demons...

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Poems about Butterflies and Bees



Flight
by Michael R. Burch

It is the nature of loveliness to vanish
as butterfly wings, batting against nothingness
seek transcendence...



Album
by Michael R. Burch

I caress them—trapped in brittle cellophane—
and I see how young they were,...

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Lozenge
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 lozenge of sugar.

When I held you in...

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Beckoning
by Michael R. Burch 
 
Yesterday the wind whispered my name
while the blazing locks
of her rampant mane
lay heavy on mine.
And yesterday
I saw the way
the wind caressed tall pines
in forests laced by glinting streams
and thick with...

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Come Down
by Michael R. Burch

for Harold Bloom

Come down, O, come down
from your high mountain tower.
How coldly the wind blows,
how late this chill hour ...

and I cannot wait
for a meteor shower
to show you the time
must be...

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What Good Are Our Tears?
by Michael R. Burch

What good are our tears?
They will not spare the dying their anguish.
What good is our concern
to a child sick of living, waiting to perish?

What good, the warm benevolence...

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Today, catching sight of the mallards
crying over Lake Iware:
Must I too vanish into the clouds?
—Prince Otsu translation by Michael R. Burch  

This world—
to what may we compare it?
To autumn fields
lying darkening at dusk
illuminated by...

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Poems about Things that Break II
 
These are poems about things that break and/or shatter.
 
 
 
Water and Gold
by Michael R. Burch
 
You came to me as rain breaks on the desert
when every flower...

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Poems about Things that Break III
 
These are poems about things that break and/or shatter: a bubble, glass, a mirror, a twig or tree limb, a thunderstorm, cities and towers in times of war, old...

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Goodness, I nearly lost my balance on the spiral seashells and broken sea stone chipping matrix.
My quaint obsession with marine life and that skyline paradox blossoming so tantalisingly,  might be a source of some...

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[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...

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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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A Night On A Wharf

The couple decide to walk. The boardwalk still lit at this late hour guides them. They walk hand in hand,..whispering softly with small talk...solemn.,. lonely , yet together. The walk is...

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Verse 1: My destiny...
My dignity...
Is all gone since you left me with nothing to lose
I'm willing to let go of this grudge in my heart...cut loose the noose 
That's around my neck
Give me your love...

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WINTER, 1948 [40 Saxton Street]

for W.W

The winter nights that pass now
are so unlike the winter nights
that passed before, that I often
struggle back in those suspended moments
when sleep grapples for a hold,
to once again hear the...

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MICHELANGELO: Modern English Translations

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) is considered by many experts to be the greatest artist and sculptor of all time. These are modern English translations of his poems and epigrams by Michael R. Burch.



SONNET:...

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Did you ever notice
our vampire legends
are almost always patriarchal,
sometimes even princely
and excruciatingly royalist,
elitist?

While witches plot and evil plan
in coven craven circles
more undershadow than legendary.

Wizards might be BullyVampire Princes
while witches may be victimized and therefore victimizing...

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