Long Claw Poems

SELF REFLECTIONS

These are poems about mirrors, images, self-image, reflections, impressions and self-reflection. 

Self Reflection
by Michael R. Burch 

for anyone struggling with self-image

She has a comely form
and a smile that brightens her dorm ...
but she's grossly...

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Nemesis, Confrontation And The Rejoined Battle,
Now Completed


(Nemesis) - Part One

O'lord of blight dare thee to now abide
Leaving thy abode to earthen realm ride
As punisher with dark universal might
As grief bearer, humanity to smite!

Dar'est thee enter,...

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Beckoning
by Michael R. Burch 
 
Yesterday the wind whispered my name
while the blazing locks
of her rampant mane
lay heavy on mine.
And yesterday
I saw the way
the wind caressed tall pines
in forests laced by glinting streams
and thick with...

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These are prophetic poems and apocalyptic poems ...






Beast 666
by Michael R. Burch

“... what rough beast ... slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?”?W. B. Yeats

Brutality is a cross
wooden, blood-stained,
gas hissing, sibilant,
lungs gilled, deveined,
red flecks on a...

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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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THIS WORLD OF DEW

This world? 
Moonlit dew
flicked from a crane's bill.
—Eihei Dogen Kigen, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Seventy-one?
How long
can a dewdrop last? 
—Eihei Dogen Kigen, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Dewdrops beading grass-blades
die before...

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Regret
by Michael R. Burch

Regret,
a bitter
ache to bear . . .

once starlight
languished
in your hair . . .

a shining there
as brief
as rare.

Regret . . .
a pain
I chose to bear . . .

unleash
the torrent
of your hair . ....

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These are prophetic poems and apocalyptic poems about the earth, climate change, global warming, extinction events, and mankind's role on an endangered world ...



Polish
by Michael R. Burch

Your fingers end in talons?
the ones you trim to...

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My hair bristled in the crisp breeze
Excitement spreading throughout my body
Even the sudden cold amused my fingertips,
Tingles spreading through my hands and up my arms
Soon I would be there too. . .
In the murky shadows...

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Continued from FREEZER MICE

The cat had travelled straight from hell, a hell beyond the stars
The cat that theories claim once levied genocide on Mars
She now seeks vengeance on descendants of the primal shrew
Whoever knew that...

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Love has a Southern flavor: honeydew,
ripe cantaloupe, the honeysuckle’s spout
we tilt to basking faces to breathe out
the ordinary, and inhale perfume ...

Love’s Dixieland-rambunctious: tangled vines,
wild clematis, the gold-brocaded leaves
that will not keep their order in...

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Of Ghosts and fiends in Twilight, Cont.


A thought flashed in my mind from the old tales told
The lore of the beast and I had felt his foul breath
I had seconds to act or be devoured...

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I have to admit
The school where I work
Needs everyone to be
Able to speak Spanish.
Because the parents do.
We are an 82 percent
Spanish-speaking community.
I’ve taken Spanish 4 times.
And I have failed Spanish 4 times.
I have no idea...

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Gone now are the wondrous minds of old,
whose era treasured learning over gold,
And humble were the thoughts and words of these,
who, trothed to truth, would now be left displeased,
by hurried tempers bent on winning wars,
neglectful...

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Something that stuns me from revelations awakening 
All good people of the world see you Isis 
clearly diamond cut your scale tips heavy 
with the wealth that's stolen from foreign lands 
to build weapons of...

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“Without you, now I see
How fragile the world can be
And I know you've gone away,
But in my heart you'll always stay”  –Katie Melua


There is a peculiar feeling I remember experiencing when the news came
...

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Not too many decades out of college
I finally landed my first full-time job,
as a White House speech writer.

I know,
you would expect
I would not start at the top
and then claw
and grab
and snatch my way to the...

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Frozen Soul Within Her Heart-  
	  She's Terrified to Feel  

Her shadowed past still haunts her-
each night as every light-
fades back into the darkness,
as ghostly beings rise.
She gave her heart to someone,
and...

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I romanticize the single room without a jurisdiction
If only I could filter through a voice of logic over reaction 
Would it impel my inner child to regress into an illusion?
My mind composes a structure but...

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(continued previous part 1)

The duke then: “Tell now: of others indeed
Some Latin among sinners do you know 
Behind pitch?”. And he “I  had to secede,

It’s not much, from one who near had to stow.
I...

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"Perspective of an Invisible People"

Struggling for over four hundred years
Drowning in rivers of tears
Throughout the country's history
Accepting black people, still a mystery
Since the country's discovery, we've been abused 
Standing with strength, will prevent us from...

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This is my last confession; there will be no more.

I am impercipient and slow from last night's sleeping pill,
wincing away from the harshness of day.
Kitchen cold, the room tear-splintered,
sunlight striking a watery rainbow in my...

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Dear Heroin, 
My name is Pamela,  
I'm writing to you Because I've heard of some stories of what you can do. I heard you can stop me from feeling insane, I heard you have...

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Can I go to the bathroom? This place is full of jackasses. This place is full of jackasses jerking each other off. This place is full of ignorant, parochial, zit-sucking jackasses undeserving of their place...

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