Long Chafed Poems

The Raven and the Bard
-Daniel Henry Rodgers

The Raven's quill drips shades of blackest night,
Its haunting words, a melody of fright.
The Bard's natural lines, like "Evangeline's" fair hair,
Shed history's warm light to chase away all care...

Read More

  MAGDALENE : JEWEL OF JESUS 


She was the Chosen
a beckoned one
to ignite His speeches 
smooth it with her own
illustrious strength
‘Courage against Odds’
marked her inner Jewel 
 soft it lay cradled  
rhapsodic rubicon...

Read More

The Bell in the Bush

Down woodland paths the wolf did roam
Far away from his packs home
For game he’d wandered off to seek
The sick, the helpless and the weak
When happened he across a fawn
Tied amid, a...

Read More

Gateway town, Mississippi and Missouri river flooding confluence,
with its celebration of manifest destiny, its looming, iconic archway.
Stainless westward marker, its culture flowed southward for influence
within the lawn-jockey, pink flamingo neighborhoods of moral decay. 

T.S, Eliot,...

Read More

Jinxed jesting jejune junior jobber...
just jabbering gibberish (A - J)

Again, another awkward ambitious
arduous attempt at alphabetically
arranging atrociously ambiguously
absolutely asinine avoidable alliteration.

Because...? Basically bonafide belching,
bobbing, bumbling, bohemian beastie boy,
bereft bummer, bleeds blasé blues, begetting
bloviated boilerplate bildungsroman,
boasting...

Read More

How exciting; first appreciable (healthy) snowfall 2024...

within hinterlands of 
Perkiomen Valley Pennsylvania 
occurred January 6th promptly at noon.

Virgin whiteness blankets terrestrial realm
bajillion snowflakes tumble out of sky
atavistic fascination awakened
agog at ice crystals stinging each eye
while...

Read More

Timothy had always been a man of laughing joy and conversation	


               -Friendship dialogue communication -


But now there was silence but for...

Read More

No Roof For Reindeer

The celebrated sailing frog
from Montgomery County
went a courtin, or so the tale iz toad
to a grand ole mansion built around 1910,
and e'en 'pon
being razed ~2012 ah 
no foo fighting crash test dummy
(sea...

Read More

First appreciable (healthy) snowfall 2022 occurred January 28th

Virgin whiteness blankets terrestrial realm
bajillion snowflakes tumble out of sky
atavistic fascination awakened
agog at ice crystals stinging each eye
while I strike open mouthed stance
relishing tasting frozen water molecules.

No matter...

Read More

While on the topic 
of blood kith and kin,
I relate another 
fabricated poem about 
blimey bloke of a fisherman. 

Trawl tale of a fictitious seaman told to ye...

Courtesy webbed whirled wide net wit
cursing thwarted life,...

Read More

Cowpoke
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 16

Sleep, old man...
your day has long since passed.
The endless plains,
cool midnight rains
and changeless ragged cows
alone remain
of what once was.

You cannot know
just how the Change
will rape the windswept plains
that you...

Read More

Chinese Translations III

Quiet Night Thoughts
by Li Bai aka Li Po
translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Moonlight illuminates my bed
as frost brightens the ground.
Lifting my eyes, the moon allures.
Lowering my eyes, I long for home.


The Solitude of Night
by...

Read More

This chap iz a life
long student – groan fizzy
(from being protean entity
at least sustained along minimally
cerebral Mohorovicic continuity
till...post mortality
reincarnating one carbon peculiarity
enigmatic existence eternally

into maternity of wives eternity)
at The University
of Adversity, accruing excessive 
Kirkovian priceline...

Read More

My grandfather Hymie 
     spent his entire life at sea
his thick calloused hands 
     and ruddy complexion re
     enforced non verbal body language...

Read More

I was born married to the master of subservience,
      fell in love with the master of somnolence.
           
I dissolved Reality,...

Read More

(scoured from dregs of me muss held head)

I shore up a vignette to free 
my ("FAKE") grandfather Hymie,
whose scrunched countenanced 
evinced beetle that of browed monkey
he spent his entire life at sea
his thick calloused hands

and...

Read More

Anticlimactic mood after February 18th, 2021 snow storm subsided

I hate spoiler alert
regarding weather forecasters prediction,
especially when meteorologist
wannabe spouse doth blurt
out impending blizzard
which never materializes.

Yours truly humbled and enamored
when Mother Nature
singly and/or nsync with old man...

Read More

IN A NOWHERE LAND

I feel like a crazy, mad woman,
chafed and losing my patience.
Feeling so bad, ready to explode
or needing desperately to explore
and get lost to point of no return
or to find a nowhere land.

The...

Read More

Dissolved in salts, sprits and holy water
Stings my wide opened eyes to a deep red
The visible failures of a man of faith
Fear sealed lips purple blue
Because I believed that for my sin the son of...

Read More

Manu strolled to his stainless sink
To wash his hands and have a think.

He reached for soap, a bar was handy,
A square pink cake that looked like candy.
He ran the water, fresh and cool,
And in his...

Read More

When Little Boys Fall in Love

A Meditation on Growing Up

## I. [Age 6] — First Light
You gather caps like secret gold,
Arrange them neat, their stories told.
I trade my best for one you scorned—
The day I...

Read More

Jinxed jesting jejune junior jobber...
just jabbering gibberish (A - I)

Again, another awkward ambitious
arduous attempt at alphabetically
arranging atrociously ambiguously
absolutely asinine avoidable alliteration.

Because...? Basically bonafide belching,
bobbing, bumbling, bohemian beastie boy,
bereft bummer, bleeds blasé blues, begetting
bloviated boilerplate bildungsroman,
boasting...

Read More

(buzzfeeding, kickstarting, needling darn noggin)

An effort to recall word, phrase,
musician... indigenous tribe...
most frustrating literary
endeavor to das scribe

aggravating enough to sub
bourbon spur teetotaler to imbibe
and/or nsync, whereby soul searching
devil's advocate demands bribe.

Lil brokeback Engelbert Humperdinck
(born Arnold...

Read More

we were taken again beyond the gates of katyn 
I'd begun to challenge morale feelings over a sudden 
stench bellowing from under the chartered tanks 
silence abroad Auschwitz my knees chattered 

while facing the cold...

Read More

Sitting by a bookshelf
covered with thick dust
I shower my eyes
with other hands words
written in this book's chafed skin.
Skin that my hands have the only feel of others thoughts
cause actual immobile flesh with a mouth to...

Read More