Long Callow Poems

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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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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If ever a moment in real life deserved a romantic, melancholy
backing track, it would have been that one ... we'd spent the
entire afternoon at Ferry Beach, sunning and playing frisbee, I
playing guitar, she practicing her...

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oh youth in all its callow shades
               is from our hope, precisely made
        ...

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I saw you …

high …
atop the promontory
spinning with manic madness
pirouettes et fouetté
lost in yourself -
in movement …
your upper back split, low
and, I swear -
feathers … peeking …
tucked under your shoulder blades
splayed and black as black
(obsidian...

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Oh, these trees, arms reaching as they
      did then, but even wiser ... perhaps I as
         well have learned another thing-or-two
 ...

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Canvas is heavy, full of lovely thought
to place a young maiden beneath a willow tree
maybe beside a quaint pool where seasons wrought.
The youthful maiden known to others as Marie,
trapped hearts of many callow gents' curiosity
sending...

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growing up too soon

	you said: is there anything more excruciating than lagging behind
						being passed by
	a hasbeen
				still knocking on portals
twitching toes twirling thumbs
         in fidgety drawn-curtained waiting rooms

and...

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As Barbarossa roars into the East.
its southern barb cut swiftly to the core.
And as it raged the slaughtering increased,
consuming any force that stood before.
His swift barrage devoured the ranks of Red
as iron divisions consummated death.
These...

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The emptiness is left with no resolve
for all the stars in Heaven have maligned.
Your God has let morality devolve
into the darkest days of humankind.
A war to end all wars has spawned revenge,
the madness seeks to...

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His restless wolves still taunt each dauntless ship,
though sly attrition neutralized their hunt,
for subterfuge let not a whisper slip
as vantage shifted on the battlefront.
A riddle solved unveiled the raging packs
as alpha domination was denied.
The murky...

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I float …
in the ether -
a roll of sea swells below,
pier toward the west,
little island I know so well -
endless hours there,
but rarely alone ...
then …

moon pixies …
sparkle at my feet,
dancing underneath "me" -
soft, yellow-blue...

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If vain thy earthly hopes did prove, thou canst not mourn their flight; Thy brightest hopes were fixed above. And they shall know no blight—Anne-Bronte   

Overjoyed       ...

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Let's dwell a tiny bit  on that  skill  most hanker after,
of mastering a language that especially enthrals,
infused with magic rhythm so fervent,
pulsing music lilt,  anthem-rich samba,
think for one ecstatic heady moment,
if...

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I float in the ether ... a roll of sea swells below, pier toward the
west, island I know so well - endless hours there, but rarely
alone ... then.

Moon sparkles dance at my feet, underneath "me"...

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O albatross guide my loosed soul  
from the shipwreck seized by sandy shoal

persuasive Polar Star in quiet pull
a sailor’s tired eyes gone dark 
I will dream while we fly 

on wings that span horizons...

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I sought a place to post my poems and thought I'd found a fit for me.
At first I was thrilled and felt I belonged to a pleasant community
But I lost my taste for soup and...

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Working over Birk’s Works and other tunes my saxophonist admires—
Cheesecake, Blackbird—for the theoretical, applied mathematics
inside an abstract, audial harmonization of the Big Bang and The Fall.

The derivative reveals the slope of the tangent along the...

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Note: "How can there have been such strife in a Morlde` filled with beautiful Music; &
how could there have been beautiful Music such in a Morlde` filled with strife?"  -Soupy 
Sales, 2012.

The 12 Panes...

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* This has become a fave genre for me, as I’ve always been fascinated by metamorphosis and introspection of a shadowy nature … I hope you enjoy it. *

      ...

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the stars weep ...
but not for heaven
they weep for vacant eyes
and hearts of parched desire
with tears untold ...
and uncounted

for where is the hunger -
the yearning for substance
that sets tongues afire?
where are souls that ache for
a...

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Carrying a sleeping baby.
Cleaning after a successful party.

Camping beyond mountains more mountains.
Playing trumpet on the streets of New York City.

Eating although the food supply is deeply compromised.
Flying with Democrats and Republicans, evangelicals and atheists.

Flying like...

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new joys ...
drop like seeds to fill the
furrows left by a torrent of losses -
when the heavens open
seemingly to wash you away
they find the green of new growth -
hope, love, laughter, anew …
but some -...

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oh such sweet love I never knew
      that summer weaved in 'forty-two
         spiced, tender tales, attended, torn
   for sake that...

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hold still, eventide ...
   I am a capricious cad among wraiths,
     waltzing with a mop in
      a Marrakesh courtyard - catching stars
  ...

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