Long Caves Poems

"Open Oceans"



Kneeling on pearls
wisdom preys

praying
preying

hungry hearts
count the days 

wasting away
in all that preying 

for prayers 
to be answered

children become
strangers

reading 
strange words

finding 
themselves puzzled

genuflecting to a deity
they do not know, nor wish to

fumbling
mouths closed,

swallowed hole
in the...

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Instruction
by Michael R. Burch

Toss this poem aside
to the filigreed and the wild tide
of sunset.

Strike my name,
and still it is all the same.
The onset

of night is in the despairing skies;
each hut shuts its bright bewildered eyes.
The...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems by Michael R. Burch

In the Whispering Night
by Michael R. Burch

In the whispering night, when the stars bend low
till the hills ignite to a shining flame,
when a shower of meteors streaks the sky
while...

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I melt into the plural sky
its rippling tableaus of tomorrow
underneath open light waves 
see-saws the labyrinth
like Delphi tendrils crossing channels 
all the changing faces played
automatic, embedded in misty consort 
with Hyde-Lees and Yeats 
love-crushed oracles
ghostwriting...

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Part 1: FORE SIBERIAN FATE

silk wings wet -
angel on the lake.
starlight glitter
separates from

the golden wheat.
her docile hair,
prophecy of ice.

winter pink,
pinched cheeks.
ice skate scrapes -
flecks of flakes.

the snow queen
before her relentless
reign, a pretty thing.

her smile warms
the...

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Where do we come in
					in medias res  not knowing nor caring when
doesn’t everybody pine being number one we leave behind our lives in pages  pictures  or else make for images of what...

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I hanker and pine for wood burning stove weather

I haint no spring chicken,
("Buk buk buk buk ba-gawk!")
but in Summer re: 
long in tooth sexagenarian 
nostalgic for the following imagery 
evoked yesterday with very little effort
(aside...

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Instead of building your house on the sand,
You should build your house on a rock
I can hardly make out if you truly understand
That you are making it difficult for me to express my feelings to...

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Reducing sauces is a clever act that is not predetermined

Swimming in tepid waters often relieves tensions but a moose with a migraine prefers an ice cold bath. Bathing rituals signify statuses and this is referred...

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Nine times a fish tail is spun from thin yarn?

Swimming in tepid waters often relieves tensions but a moose with a migraine prefers an ice cold bath. Bathing rituals signify statuses and this is referred...

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Ugg and Ogg, on a rock they sat.
 The pair were in hiding from the sabred cat.
 They had hunted for a whole week long.
 But, recently it had all gone wrong.

The ladies were waiting...

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I was out one day walking, along the glad sounding shore,
Gathering pretty seashells, and watching the seagulls soar.

To the left were lofty mountains, touching the azure skies,
To the right, sparkling ocean, and ahead the butterflies!

In...

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It was late in the balmy springtime, and I was attending a lecture,
On a topic of great interest, which was the history of architecture.

As a great lover of beauty, I admired structural geometric designs,
Like the...

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After drenching biblical rainfall...
verdant green acres covered the planet of the apes
like a petticoat junction
donning barrel of skinny dipping monkeys.

Once drought stricken vast landscape
far as the eye could see
suddenly flush with promise
of budding new shoots
and...

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In my opinion, one goal in life is to reach the summit of the mountain of knowledge.
But we all seem to be in a rush to attain this, and all following the same path that...

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My Dear, Sweet, lost Child ?
Daughter of my wasted youth !
A confession

I am truly sorry Gail, for all that I was  
- that selfish, inconsiderate, thoughtless man -
I am truly sorry Gail, for all...

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Words
The ship

Words come to me like spring. 
They set free, they shed the shroud, 
open with all their glory, beauty and sing. 
They stand tall, they ring out loud, 
from a life that blossoms with...

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“Are there many Fairy Folk other than the elves?”  Joulupukki queried.
     “Not so many as before the humans took control of the world.  The ones left behind in Erin...

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III.
Then he did say; 
"And all of the power
of all of the prayers
of all of the dreams
of all of the people
who suffered and died that forgotten day,
are now contained in the very sword you carry
at...

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That soft-spoken Sovereign commands a big stick, 
runs the world into ruins, once our bailiwick.
If asked why, He grins grimly, pale lips slightly pursed:
"Vindication? Straightforward: It's Me and Me First" 

(To mesmerise people He needed...

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"What a fine day for a picnic," my friends all said,
In the dog days of summer, with the hot sun overhead.

We would all go for a swim, and then have a fine lunch,
And would return...

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From my lowly bachelor’s house
Proudly christened ‘Embassy Fair’
I woke up to the chirping of birds
On the trees above and across the vale
And the riverine bushes in-between
I woke up to the crowing of cocks
And the mooing...

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Living disobediently and having damaging depression was my past
I was an alcoholic drug addict that wanted satisfaction to last
I’ve been constantly abused mentally, physically, emotionally and in all aspects of life as a whole
Will I...

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In all my artist wanderings 
Traveling through these great lands of ours

Places visited or lived in, diverse, memorable
Many messages I received...

As did so many that passed before me
Passing through each wilderness
Learning new steps to take.

...

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Will wonders never cease!?

Alternately titled: Last of the fluff
belonging to a Mohican
Norwegian bachelor farmer wannabe.

Any resemblance between said unnamed individual
and living persons purely coincidental.

Scads of decades back in the day,
not since this sexagenarian baby boomer
happened...

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