Long Burch Poems
Long Burch Poems. Below are the most popular long Burch by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Burch poems by poem length and keyword.
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 tide’s spent green
I saw the flotsam of lost dreams
wash out into a sea of wild despair ...
In the scars that marred her eyes
I saw the cataracts of lies
that had shattered all the visions we had shared ...
As from a ravaged iris, tears
seemed to flood the spindrift years
with sorrows that the sea itself despaired ...
Prodigal
This poem is dedicated to Kevin Longinotti, who died four days short of graduation from Vanderbilt University, the victim of a tornado that struck Nashville on April 16, 1998.
You have graduated now,
to a higher plane
and your heart’s tenacity
teaches us not to go gently
though death intrudes.
For eighteen days
—jarring interludes
of respite and pain—
with life only faintly clinging,
like a cashmere snow,
testing the capacity
of the blood banks
with the unstaunched flow
of your severed veins,
in the collapsing declivity,
in the sanguine haze
where Death broods,
you struggled defiantly.
A city mourns its adopted son,
flown to the highest ranks
while each heart complains
at the harsh validity
of God’s ways.
On ponderous wings
the white clouds move
with your captured breath,
though just days before
they spawned the maelstrom’s
hellish rift.
Throw off this mortal coil,
this envelope of flesh,
this brief sheath
of inarticulate grief
and transient joy.
Forget the winds
which test belief,
which bear the parchment leaf
down life’s last sun-lit path.
We applaud your spirit, O Prodigal,
O Valiant One,
in its percussive flight into the sun,
winging on the heart’s last madrigal.
Keywords/Tags: twilight, tears, years, joys, cares, dreams, sea, despair, lies, vision,
Salve
by Michael R. Burch
(for the victims and survivors of 9-11)
The world is unsalvageable ...
but as we lie here
in bed
stricken to the heart by love
despite war’s
flickering images,
sometimes we still touch,
laughing, amazed,
that our flesh
does not despair
of love
as we do,
that our bodies are wise
in ways we refuse
to comprehend,
still insisting we eat,
drink ...
even multiply.
And so we touch ...
touch, and only imagine
ourselves immune:
two among billions
in this night of wished-on stars,
caresses,
kisses,
and condolences.
We are not lovers of irony,
we
who imagine ourselves
beyond the redemption
of tears
because we have salvaged
so few
for ourselves ...
and so we laugh
at our predicament,
fumbling for the ointment.
Keywords/tags: 911, war, violence, surreal, survival, survivors, recovery from, love, lovemaking, lust, sex, tears, redemption, body, bodies, flesh, touch, caresses
Huntress
by Michael R. Burch
after Baudelaire
Lynx-eyed, cat-like and cruel, you creep
across a crevice dropping deep
into a dark and doomed domain.
Your claws are sheathed. You smile, insane.
Rain falls upon your path, and pain
pours down. Your paws are pierced. You pause
and heed the oft-lamented laws
which bid you not begin again
till night returns. You wail like wind,
the sighing of a soul for sin,
and give up hunting for a heart.
Till sunset falls again, depart,
though hate and hunger urge you?"On!"
Heed, hearts, your hope?the break of dawn.
Invitation to the Voyage
by Charles Baudelaire
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
My child, my sister,
Consider the rapture
Of living together!
To love at our leisure
Till the end of all pleasure,
Then in climes so alike you, to die!
The misty sunlight
Of these hazy skies
Charms my spirit:
So mysterious
Your treacherous eyes,
Shining through tears.
There, order and restraint redress
Opulence, voluptuousness.
Gleaming furniture
Burnished by the years
Would decorate our bedroom
Where the rarest flowers
Mingle their fragrances
With vague scents of amber.
The sumptuous ceilings,
The limpid mirrors,
The Oriental ornaments …
Everything would speak
To our secretive souls
In their own indigenous language.
There, order and restraint redress
Opulence, voluptuousness.
See, rocking on these channels:
The sleepy vessels
Whose vagabond dream
Is to satisfy
Your merest desire.
They come from the ends of the world:
These radiant suns
Illuminating fields,
Canals, the entire city,
In hyacinth and gold.
The world falls asleep
In their warming light.
There, order and restraint redress
Opulence, voluptuousness.
Originally published by Sonnetto Poesia
NOTE: This poem is about the way primal lust for sex can turn human beings into animals who toy with their prey, like cats with mice. It is not about any person in particular.
Hisajo Sugita was an innovative and influential female Japanese haiku poet:
I remove my beautiful kimono:
its varied braids
surround and entwine my body
?Hisajo Sugita, loose translation by Michael R. Burch
This day of chrysanthemums
I shake and comb my wet hair,
as their petals shed rain
?Hisajo Sugita, loose translation by Michael R. Burch
This sheer kimono?
how the moon peers through
to my naked skin!
?Hisajo Sugita, loose translation by Michael R. Burch
These festive flowery robes?
though quickly undressed,
how their colored cords still continue to cling!
?Hisajo Sugita, loose translation by Michael R. Burch
Chrysanthemum petals
reveal their pale curves
shyly to the moon.
?Hisajo Sugita, loose translation by Michael R. Burch
Loneliness?
reading the Bible
as the rain deflowers cherry blossoms.
?Hisajo Sugita, loose translation by Michael R. Burch
How deep this valley,
how elevated the butterfly's flight!
?Hisajo Sugita, loose translation by Michael R. Burch
How lowly this valley,
how lofty the butterfly's flight!
?Hisajo Sugita, loose translation by Michael R. Burch
Echoes from the hills?
the mountain cuckoo sings as it will,
trill upon trill
?Hisajo Sugita, loose translation by Michael R. Burch
Post-Mother's-Day Poems
We desperately need a Mother Recovers Day!
by Michael R. Burch
Mother’s Day!
Lovers’ Day!
Adulation Re-Smothers Day!
Hugs ’n kisses galore
till she’s tired and bone-sore.
Now, like a needle in the hay,
she needs to find a Recovers Day!
Mother’s Day Replay
by Michael R. Burch
Mother’s Day!
Lovers’ Day!
This Hug-and-Kiss Smothers Day
when a roll in the hay
conjures babies, olé!
(Please, children, ignore these verses, okay?)
Keywords/Tags: Mother's Day, mother, mothers, child, children, baby, babies, family, families, love, hugs, kisses, honor, tribute, praise, adulation
Fairest Diana: an Epitaph for Princess Diana
by Michael R. Burch
Fairest Diana, princess of dreams,
born to be loved and yet distant and lone,
why did you linger?so solemn, so lovely?
an orchid ablaze in a crevice of stone?
Was not your heart meant for tenderest passions?
Surely your lips?for wild kisses, not vows!
Why then did you languish, though lustrous, becoming
a pearl of enchantment cast before sows?
Fairest Diana, as fragile as lilac,
as willful as rainfall, as true as the rose;
how did a stanza of silver-bright verse
come to be bound in a book of dull prose?
Published by Tucumcari Literary Journal and Night Roses
Lady Diana Spencer, the Princess of Wales, was an angel of compassion who brought beauty and grace to the English royal family. Her marriage to Prince Charles was one of the most-viewed marriages of all time. But with her support of numerous charities she was an inspiration to many, and more than just an international celebrity. Keywords/Tags: Princess, England, England's Rose, English, royalty, royal, royals, noble, nobility, beauty, beautiful, grace, elegance, class, inspiration, crown, sonnet, sonnets, woman, women, angel of compassion, epitaph
Distances (II)
by Michael R. Burch
There is a small cleanness about her,
as though she has always just been washed,
and there is a dull obedience to convention
in her accommodating slenderness
as she feints at her salad.
She has never heard of Faust, or Frost,
and she is unlikely to have been seen
rummaging through bookstores
for mementos of others
more difficult to name.
She might imagine “poetry”
to be something in common between us,
as we write, bridging the expanse
between convention and something...
something the world calls “art”
for want of a better word.
At night I scream
at the conventions of both our worlds,
at the distances between words
and their objects: distances
come lately between us,
like a clean break.
Published by Verse Libre, Triplopia and Lone Stars. Keywords/Tags: love, relationship, relationships, communication, distance, distances, convention, books, bookstores, art, literature, poetry, writing, chasm, abyss, divide, Faust, Frost, clean break
The Drawer of Mermaids
by Michael R. Burch
This poem is dedicated to Alina Karimova, who was born with severely deformed legs and five fingers missing. Alina loves to draw mermaids and believes her fingers will eventually grow out.
Although I am only four years old,
they say that I have an old soul.
I must have been born long, long ago,
here, where the eerie mountains glow
at night, in the Urals.
A madman named Geiger has cursed these slopes;
now, shut in at night, the emphatic ticking
fills us with dread.
(Still, my momma hopes
that I will soon walk with my new legs.)
It’s not so much legs as the fingers I miss,
drawing the mermaids under the ledges.
(Observing, Papa will kiss me
in all his distracted joy;
but why does he cry?)
And there is a boy
who whispers my name.
Then I am not lame;
for I leap, and I follow.
(G’amma brings a wiseman who says
our infirmities are ours, not God’s,
that someday a beautiful Child
will return from the stars,
and then my new fingers will grow
if only I trust Him; and so
I am preparing to meet Him, to go,
should He care to receive me.)
Keywords/Tags: child, children, childhood, child abuse (nuclear pollution), mermaid, mermaids, Urals, Ural Mountains, old soul, soulmate
The Seashore Gathering
by Rabindranath Tagore
loose translation by Michael R. Burch
On the seashores of endless worlds, earth's children converge.
The infinite sky is motionless, the restless waters boisterous.
On the seashores of endless worlds earth's children gather to dance with joyous cries and pirouettes.
They build sand castles and play with hollow shells.
They weave boats out of withered leaves and laughingly float them out over the vast deep.
Earth's children play gaily on the seashores of endless worlds.
They do not know, yet, how to cast nets or swim.
Divers fish for pearls and merchants sail their ships, while earth's children skip, gather pebbles and scatter them again.
They are unaware of hidden treasures, nor do they know how to cast nets, yet.
The sea surges with laughter, smiling palely on the seashore.
Death-dealing waves sing the children meaningless songs, like a mother lullabying her baby's cradle.
The sea plays with the children, smiling palely on the seashore.
On the seashores of endless worlds earth's children meet.
Tempests roam pathless skies, ships lie wrecked in uncharted waters, death wanders abroad, and still the children play.
On the seashores of endless worlds there is a great gathering of earth's children.
This Dog
by Rabindranath Tagore
loose translation by Michael R. Burch
Each morning this dog,
who has become quite attached to me,
sits silently at my feet
until, gently caressing his head,
I acknowledge his company.
This simple recognition gives my companion such joy
he shudders with sheer delight.
Among all languageless creatures
he alone has seen through man entire—
has seen beyond what is good or bad in him
to such a depth he can lay down his life
for the sake of love alone.
Now it is he who shows me the way
through this unfathomable world throbbing with life.
When I see his deep devotion,
his offer of his whole being,
I fail to comprehend...
How, through sheer instinct,
has he discovered whatever it is that he knows?
With his anxious piteous looks
he cannot communicate his understanding
and yet somehow has succeeded in conveying to me
out of the entire creation
the true loveworthiness of man.
"This Dog" appeared in the poetry collection Arogya by Rabindranath Tagore.
Flight 93
by Michael R. Burch
I held the switch in trembling fingers, asked
why existence felt so small, so purposeless,
like a minnow wriggling feebly in my grasp ...
vibrations of huge engines thrummed my arms
as, glistening with sweat, I nudged the switch
to OFF ... I heard the klaxon's shrill alarms
like vultures’ shriekings ... earthward, in a stall ...
we floated ... earthward ... wings outstretched, aghast
like Icarus ... as through the void we fell ...
till nothing was so beautiful, so blue ...
so vivid as that moment ... and I held
an image of your face, and dreamed I flew
into your arms. The earth rushed up. I knew
such comfort, in that moment, loving you.
Published by The Lyric, The Eclectic Muse, Poetry Super Highway, Poetically Speaking, Poetic Ponderings, Poetry Exchange, Poetic Reflections, Dark Chamber, Poetry Loft, Papercheck, My Beautiful New York, Poetry Life & Times, Famous Poets and Poems, Inspirational Stories, Fullosia Press, 9-11 Heroes