Long Chapels Poems

Epitaph for a Palestinian Child
by Michael R. Burch

I lived as best I could, and then I died.
Be careful where you step: the grave is wide.



Autumn Conundrum
by Michael R. Burch

It's not that every leaf must finally...

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Rejection Slips 3

Rejection Slip
by Michael R. Burch

Whenever my writing gets rejected,
I always wonder how the rejecter got elected.
Are we exchanging at the same Bourse?
(Excepting present company, of course!)

When editors reject my poems, did I slip...

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These are peace poems, prayer poems, hymns and lullabies I have written for family, friends and the world over the years ...

Peace Prayer
by Michael R. Burch

for Jim Dunlap

Be calm.
Be still.
Be silent, content.

Be one with the...

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Rejection Slips

With over 5,700 publications if I count poems that have gone viral, I suppose I shouldn’t complain … but I do have some poems that have never been accepted for publication. Here are a...

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I reflect upon a word -
   Innocence
To understand more fully what it means,
I think of what it conjures up for me -
childhood times -
 those times when I believed all I was taught
from...

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Strategically placed when raised 
Upwards
By your masterful and well 
Practiced hand.
To mingle with ever changing 
Skylines 
That frown down with arrogant 
Scowls
Upon the indigenous populous of 
This just and tolerant island.
To study and pontificate upon...

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~~~ Live in the present, live for today for it is
          a precious gift to savor for its uniqueness,
       ...

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I cannot express orally, how and how much,
I am unable to say its source and its flow;
Is it from a human or it has divine touch?
Sometimes it is fiercely fast, and other times slow;
Why it's...

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Pig plop at eighty degrees is a synonym of doubt but double octave sploosh is a great interjection into the bowl. Wow. Flush flashing fakery freely framing frogs fingerspelling forged formats. And a deliberate rake...

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Children's Poems III

These are poems for children and poems about children and their mothers, fathers, grandmother, grandfathers and extended families. 



Success
by Michael R. Burch

for Jeremy

We need our children to keep us humble
between toast and marmalade;

there...

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Cecelia was a new person in town to see
about the rooms for rent with availability.
This woman came to start a car rental company.
It would serve the people within this community.
Cecelia knew Prester was the name...

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Cobblestones of pantry and a wide toothed grin. Visitors from afar pay no heed and paramount is the settling and uprooting of cultures old. Might as well be blood in that feather quill who prints...

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The din of darkness,
 The cacophony of impostors,
 The symphony of ignorance,
 The decadence of progress,
 Colonial heritage,
 The empire of the pharaohs,
 The agony of the pyramids,
 The ordeal of free men,
 The heat...

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                   We sail on the waves of celestial artistry,
        ...

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                                  ...

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An animalistic painting in a cave can be considered as magnificent as a fortified wine kneeling in a chapel. Chapels cheer chariots. Charging. And the baked shrapnel recedes from many a bridge. Sing then you...

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'''''''''''''""""~~~"""""""""""""""


as daylight flows on  floors of  meadows’ weave
like tiny fingers silent in silk of  sailing traces
this landscape travels on her fragile, hushed heave
and when full morn speaks in syllables of pink laces,
i...

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Las Vegas Town
By Franklin Price
7/16/2016

Las Vegas town in mid-July is quite the place to be.
The temperature is hovering around one twenty three. 
The cool casinos welcome us to pay for their AC.
We bring our money...

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Some worship gods of gold as their goodness turns to greed
Like saviors made of silver keeping weak ones on their knees
Some appetites are angry like werewolves full of want
Sin is never satisfied...it's a monster screaming...

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 I AM Powerful, I AM Resilient, Iron Ox Fortified
 Steel Built, Rigid and Upright
 I Am Earth, Air, Wind and Fire, Most High in Sterling Light
 I got that Samson Might,
 No Mountain Too...

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Displacement.          

Slow motion memories;
A conscience pricked, in pictures; develop,
And are delivered to the senses, on
The white wings of the winter wind.
It blows lazy! And sharp; skin...

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outside
inventoried oval-stoned
cathedrals appealing
chiming crimes of passion
woke citronella
fog
hung in cement-hamocked snowdrifts
cloaked slow on slick-stained windowsides
tenement sheets
with the pomegranate notes
of rhythms unrhymed
   while all the uptown laundromarts
rising up
from insomniac-scrambled sidewalks
corked-copper moon tumbling earthward
like a sweet
sweatshredded...

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In My New Year’s Resolution I Vow


I solemnly declare under oats on the libel to walk

N aked with only a bellow with fellow utopians 


M istletoe tattoos on my fingers criss-crossing in

Y onder to shepherd...

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Once we created starry nights,
and Mona Lisa with smile slight,
we covered chapels in heavenly scenes,
made David shine in marble sheen.
Now our 'art' make good folks scoff,
smear shit on paper, then sell it off,
mistaken for garbage,...

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In my hood
Each man lives for himself
Screams for help are louder than music
But people listen to the music instead
Fire extinguishers filled with kerosene
Never can tell what made you burn

In my hood
People love "things"...and use people
Nothing...

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