Long Bullfrog Poems

Sonnets XLII-LI

Distances
by Michael R. Burch

Moonbeams on water?
the reflected light
of a halcyon star
now drowning in night...
So your memories are.

Footprints on beaches
now flooding with water;
the small, broken ribcage
of some primitive slaughter...
So near, yet so far.



A Surfeit of...

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MODERN SONNETS I

I prefer the original definition of the sonnet as a “little song” of indeterminate form and length. These modern sonnets vary from more-or-less traditional to free verse.


Maker, Fakir, Curer
by Michael R. Burch

A poem...

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Book One: Ancestors of the Ark

Ch.1: Welcome to the Village of Chapel Hill


     In a quiet little village far away from here, lives a Minister and his wife and the animal's...

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LOVE POEMS IV by Michael R. Burch

These are love poems by Michael R. Burch: original poems and translations about love, passion, desire, lust, sex, dating, romance, relationships and marriage. 



She Was Very Strange, and Beautiful
by...

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Back in our preverbal day
of healthy regenerating time,
indigenous wisdom
pursued peak experiences
of cooperative pleasure,
deep co-empathic embrace.

Sometimes,
especially when this pleasure was sustained,
euphoric,
ejaculatory
and reverberating in resonant cycles
of deep wombed ecstasy,
procreation happened,
preferably in the spring
when new life is more...

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A bullfrog and a butterfly both chanced upon each other.
‘My dear, you are an ugly beast!’ the bullfrog dared to utter.
‘Why froggy,’ gasped the butterfly, astounded by his words.
 ‘My beauty is unparallel while yours...

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"Laying open the soil is like a careful dissection and there is the same astonishment among the students at the orderly beauty of the organs, the harmony of how they rest against one another,
form to...

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with midnight dreams we dance
unyielding, i stir unwilling to awaken
incessantly seeking
You

like virgin wings of the monarch, your shape gently unfolds
i clutch the edges of slumber
aware in my wakening you will be gone
Again

you have come before,...

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Poems for Poets X
Poems about Poets X



Sinking
by Michael R. Burch

for Virginia Woolf

Weigh me down with stones ...
   fill all the pockets of my gown ...
      I’m going down,
...

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These are English translations of Issa haiku about the seasons: spring, summer, autumn, winter.

Autumn wind ...
She always wanted to pluck
the reddest roses
?Kobayashi Issa translation by Michael R. Burch

Issa wrote the haiku above after the death...

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Talk is Cheap - Battle Rap

Yo, Ima outcheek you… gimme that mic,
I’m lethal, a viper ready to strike;
and it ain’t gonna be pretty – not ladylike.
Just gotta tell you straight up like it is…
Dude, you...

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My uncle’s home, had a forest nearby;
he loved animals so; left some supper scraps, outside.
It was always his generous intent to feed,
every stray, that crawled, walked or flew, from those trees.

While visiting him, one sweet,...

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Nestled among the trees in a primitive campsite,
A cub scout and his mother were on their third camp-out.
The tent was pitched; double foil wrapped food was cooked just right.
The young campfire cook gave his skills...

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Have you ever seen bullfrog green jump across a Lilly pad?
Did you ever see gold moth bathing in a moonshine bath?
Do you watch as teal raindrops bless and baptize the stream?
Will you hear the wood...

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This is the Third in a series that I wrote for my son a few years back.  I wrote the first and he asked for more. I think they got a little better with...

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Cobblestones of pantry and a wide toothed grin. Visitors from afar pay no heed and paramount is the settling and uprooting of cultures old. Might as well be blood in that feather quill who prints...

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The Accoutrements of Knowledge



The accoutrements of knowledge
had crept into his life, overtaking it.
No more did he sit and think,
idly allowing nuance to shade gray
the black and white of learning’s
playful inconsistencies.  Old books,
manuals, manuscripts, texts,
subscribed...

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Would you go swimming or fishing with an eighty foot strong hook, flippers, a basket hat, and a toothbrush tail? Bullfrog wants to. He wants to consistently visit the waters to engage in the flow...

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Cathedrals in tea cups. Jingle jangle playtime then. Golden slippers on a carpet of custard. Slip slide. Drip. No droop. Flavoured water is never fake. Obviously. And count the jellied eels in a bath of...

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Farcical fancies,
Woodland rhymes,
These are not just
For bedtimes!

Farcical fancies,
Wait and see;
You’ll repeat them
Back to me!

—————

Woodpecker, really,
Won’t you hush!
By now, aren’t your
Brains all mush?

Woodpecker, silly,
Watch your head!
If I did that,
I’d be dead!

—————

Polliwog, Bullfrog,
Here’s a joke
It’s so bad,
You’ll...

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Wistful ferns, mossy stumps, crumbling
Rotting away, hesitating…
Beneath the shadows of old oaks,
Weathered gray coats, skin
Wrinkled and archaic, ancient
Wise as the liquid voice of creeks
Sighing and breathing out
Echoes of peace, serenity, grace
Praising with the stream of...

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This is the Second in a series that I wrote for my son a few years back.  I wrote the first and he asked for more. I think they got a little better with...

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I have swept the sidewalk and watered the flowers- the yard is perfect you see
Afforded the time to swing in the rocker and drink southern sweet tea
As I sip from my favorite old fruit jar-...

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SONG OF THE EVENING

In a lullaby song of the evening.
In the background a cricket sings, 
corellas fly past, to their resting tree
high upon silhouette wings.

Red sky widens and covers the west
with half sun glowing and...

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“I open the door and cross the threshold of imagination”

                     A Rambling Poet




One path finds...

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