Long Broods Poems

Various Heresies 5

Tonight, Let's Remember
by Michael R. Burch

July 7,2007 (7-7-7)

Tonight, let's remember the fond ways
our fingers engendered new methods to praise
the gray at my temples, your thinning hair.
Tonight, let's remember, and let us draw near...

Tonight,...

Read More

Unquotable quotes: Paris, the last week of the August reprieve – XXXV
 Part One                     ...

Read More

This is my modern English translation of Paul Valéry's poem “Le cimetière marin” (“The graveyard by the sea”). Valéry was buried in the seaside cemetery evoked in his best-known poem. From the vantage of the...

Read More

Daylight Savings Time Ends – November 5th 2023 means...

discombobulated, harried, and lobotomized
state of body, mind, and spirit triage.

Onset of dark shadows signalling edge of night
occurs earlier as the world turns  
beckoning, hinting, robbing passage...

Read More

Cypress trees like evergreen steeples
rise above rows of gravestone woes,
their shadows lie side by side like railroad ties 
across writhing paths banded like snakes;
gravel birth cords sinuous 
sensing the ground   seeking the sun
crossroads...

Read More

 In agony in this flame on
"Intriguing drooling’s corpses conveying in hells caverns
Awaiting cooling sprinted saliva
 Make it stop eternity damnation
Bleeding souls gnashing and biting 
Demons engulfing, inviting
Broods of vipers, wrath to come

In agony in...

Read More

“To the Moon”
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Scattered, pole to starry pole,
glide Cynthia's mild beams,
whispering to the receptive soul
whatever moonbeams mean.

Bathing valley, hill and dale
with her softening light,
loosening from earth’s frigid chains
my...

Read More

Hermann Hesse English Translations

Secretly We Thirst…
by Hermann Hesse
from The Glass Bead Game
translation by Michael R. Burch

Charismatic, spiritual, with the gracefulness of arabesques,
our lives resemble fairies’ pirouettes,
spinning gently through the nothingness
to which we sacrifice our beings...

Read More

Why did you come to see me?
Asked the witch,
In a nasal tone!
Are you yourself not made of magic?

I looked at her in silence,
Wondering if she could feel the pain
Dancing all over me
Running through my bloodstream
Pulsating...

Read More

I was quite the cunning magician, famed for my illusions and sleight of hand,
Like cool tricks that jade green nature plays, that often we don't understand.

Days were filled with wonder and enchantment, like purple, star...

Read More

"Royal Jelly and the Hornet Helix"




When the murder hornets arrived
they flashed their big black wings 
like sharp porcupine needles into our minds
we became honeycombed hypnotised, held in their hive, 
all one mind, one world, the...

Read More

Upon the lakes they do swim gliding so effortlessly   
These species of graceful waterfowl the largest of anatidae family
In their beautiful pure white plumage with elegant long curved necks
Blunted beaks and big webbed...

Read More

And ignoble prize trumpeting hubris awarded to...

Bourgeoisie donning ersatz
overstuffed ego freezer bewigged pate
"FAKE" grotesque humanitarian
bribed corrupt judges will vindicate
jimmied cracked corn
land of "milk and honey"

red hot button he spoils to activate
countdown to Armageddon
leaving nation prostrate,
all...

Read More

There are meanderings who itch and creep
    To fill my night with dread.
There are cataclysms where I cringe and cower
    That are better left unsaid
And there's an apparition to...

Read More

It serves me well to remember my early years
when home was a plot of land, my family's farm.
Toes in the mud, hands planting in the dirt.
Humble beginnings taught me not to want more
than I thought...

Read More

Old Mr. Nicholson
totters across the town square
to the barbershop where
Clive has cut his hair
for the last forty years or so

Not hardly needing
even a trim
but pretending
he has a reason besides
the gossip waiting within

Inside, the shop smells...

Read More

My eyes flutter to open in the early morning light, 
My mind in a haze, thoughts invade, self recriminations pervade,
Question my self worth, as a tear falls mind is talking voices whisper in my brain,...

Read More

You will not often find me 
In amongst the fold
Being chased from the pen
Wherein your treasure lies 
I will not clothe myself in sheep
I cannot be but that which I am

lone 
I am wolf

If we...

Read More

Gods of my Birthwaters
I carry your heart with me (I carry it in
my soul) I am never without it (anywhere
I go you go with me) and whatever are my thoughts 
(you are in the thoughts)

Gods...

Read More

Pray, what is your purpose, Death?
Carrying souls to their fated dues,
Via your messengers, beings so vile and so ugly
That the eyes hurt simply by looking at them!

Are you part of God's team?
Acting on His orders,...

Read More

In the Twilight of Her Tears
by Michael R. Burch, age 19

In the twilight of her tears
I saw the shadows of the years
that had taken with them all our joys and cares ...

There in an ebbing...

Read More

This generic creek king mortal mwm 
   (who generally river ears the bay sea gully feels ire ate 
asper propensity plundering positive human qualities 
   tested to the max), bait
ting virtue...

Read More

The reflections in your eyes scare me
Yes, they do tend to say to me
Of how fed up you are of all of my actions
As if blinded and deaf I still am towards your revelations

Of course,...

Read More

Upon Misty Morning's Fast Fading Glow

Upon misty morning's fast fading glow, 
dance fairies on glittering silver wings. 
Flying with fantasies flowing in tow 
And sweetest joy such dancing often brings.

Above their heads the rising sun...

Read More

The poem that I write,
Is the one that I fantasize of writing
The one that my muse, celestial being
Made of mysterious essence,
Regards as the celebration of my fall,
Here, in a world devoid of meaning!

This poem recounts...

Read More