Long Cauldron Poems

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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“The Remaining”

PROLOGUE:  “Terra Firma and The Bitumen”


"The slow descent into Hell
Had led Her mind to escape to Heaven
Her firmament was Her Mind
Her body just a Shell"


Heaven for Her existed in The Dream
She called Her...

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The three little pigs came to the ball
Tried to blow the castle down
It didn’t work
It was made of solid gold
So they gave up and sat at their trough 
Ate noisily 
And snorted quite a lot

They...

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The excitement mounted as we rummaged around in the attic looking through old steamer trunks for discarded clothes and props to make Halloween costumes. With an old suit and hat of Granddads, I became a...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems VIII

These are early poems of mine, written in my teens as a high school and college student. 

Moon Lake
by Michael R. Burch

Starlit recorder of summer nights,
what magic spell bewitches you?
They say that...

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With these lines I’ll relate an intriguing tale of dubious accuracy
For I Hope to unveil sordid affairs of more than one conspiracy!
Be warned, that though you might be disturbed by the facts I relate?
They are...

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The Pictish Faeries
by Michael R. Burch

Smaller and darker
than their closest kin,
the faeries learned only too well
never to dwell
close to the villages of larger men. 

Only to dance in the starlight
when the moon was full
and men...

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Dot dot dot, and in other news devil's advocate claims Teflon Trump

courtesy the comfort of his mancave, 
I (a mutated batman wannabe) 
doth prattle and stump
and display wide whirled webbed 
and variegated tail feathers 
(also...

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You're so far away from me and I suck trying to go slow when I know
I wanna snatch you up, bail you out, and take us to our new home
It's hard when I'm alone in...

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Every second, every minute, every single thought about you
Wonders of this still could be too good to be true
Fluttering in my heart, palpitations go amiss
I yearn for the touch of your skin, and I constantly...

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To witness no trace of a step, that has lingered beneath the dewy lush grass.
Then to gaze upon greatest glory! While creation unfolds right in front of you.
Revealing its treasured secrets, while you stand stunned,...

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Dead Man Tales
shards of glass pearl the emperor's rise,
his arms embracing upon our sins and lies, 

do not deceive yourself , my friend.
in the twilight of our beings our corruption merges and blends.

there is no...

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A child lights our way in life...
The greatest gift there is to be.
They suppress our selfish inclinations...
They set our passions free.

They give sense to our mortality.
They put narcissism in its place.
With a child... you're a...

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It must have been the darkest, deepest fate time create,
People saw and forgot the impact when history intervened. 
We forgive and endure, but our minds will not forget
The Bizarre world trying to suppress our African...

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Sometimes faith lives on the edge of a knife
as Sviastoslav the Rus sacker came to know 
The Khazar Khanate knew how to cut a slight
his gilded skull stole the show,
The Vatican went from a marsh...

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All things that glow and move,
all things that change and pass,
I gather their delight
as in a burning-glass;
Judith Wright

The Queen's Conjurer
1.
'Given to magic and uncanny arts'
'Art mathematical' to make strange works
 Genius of movement artificial
Mechanical scarab...

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Devil's advocate claims Teflon Trump...

The demagogue reincarnate 
feels gifted to reign supreme
captivates, glorifies, lauds, 
renounces, yawps extreme
views bellows dogmatic fulminations
in an attempt to redeem
stolen 2020 capital one bid.

Which hunter (biden his time) 
will reap grim...

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We'd been travelling through the night and we needed a rest
The unmerciful sun was now rising above a red rocky crest
We headed for a large boulder that offered plenty of shade
Jenna was getting sick and...

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(A lone voice whispers)


Within this deep clearing, a mystical sanctuary surrounded by the long trees of Time's perpetual symphonies, we meet.



Within this clearing, sheltered from Storms



Inside this sacred sanctuary, within this journey



A place beyond the...

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Written words
Lines and verses
Poetry
Fragments of an author's soul
Frozen ink on paper
Entombed emotions
Imprisoned ideas
Trapped thoughts
Sentient silhouettes
Paper phantoms
Paper ghosts

School during a civil war
In six easy steps
A place of learning and reason
A propaganda soup cauldron
A refuge of normality...

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      As I fall into the buzzing altar of heavy 
metal shifting sand, maw, swirling sheets, 
illness drools plus plus halcyon?
drawn too many wrinkles...

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THREE WITCHES A LOVE SONNET


Three ancient, rotten, horrid, witches 
just awoke from their daytime snore,
These evil, reeking, damaged, sisters,
Cursed the land for thirty-five score.

As they hobbled down stairs 
they stammered and coughed,
Till they reached the...

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Catapulted into seething temperatures beyond the imagination 
risking excitement in escapades that may seem inane,
potential hazard weighted against predicament predestined,
at some future stage I might peer backwards and reassess,
initial impetuousness under caustic supernatant thumbnail,
maybe I...

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Sunday cockcrow nascent promulgate aural essays reveal,
laissez-faire luscious lustrous buoyant  raptures,
radio behemoth prompt to that untamed erudite fantasist,
me the one possessing rippled rampant penchant,
for titanic exploit extraordinaire beyond dimension heftiness,
 a stimulant patently innocuous...

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