Long Clenched Poems

I see people moving, but going nowhere
I see people moving with their hands thrown in the air
I see people moving but they have nothing to share
Bags and pans, old kettle, and old man
The scavenger, the...

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Poems about Poems VI

The Board
by Michael R. Burch

Accessible rhyme is never good.
The penalty is understood?
soft titters from dark board rooms where
the businessmen paste on their hair
and, Walter Mitties, woo the Muse
with reprimands of Dr. Seuss.

The...

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State of the Art (II)

These are my "ars poetica" poems about the art and craft of writing poetry. 



What the Poet Sees
by Michael R. Burch

What the poet sees,
he sees as a swimmer 
~~~~underwater~~~~
watching the shoreline...

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Observance
by Michael R. Burch

Here the hills are old and rolling
carefully in their old age;
on the horizon youthful mountains
bathe themselves in windblown fountains...

By dying leaves and falling raindrops,
I have traced time's starts and stops,
and I have...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems IX

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

Shock
by Michael R. Burch

It was early in the morning of...

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For All That I Remembered
by Michael R. Burch

For all that I remembered, I forgot
her name, her face, the reason that we loved ...
and yet I hold her close within my thought:
I feel the burnished weight...

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Various Heresies 2

You
by Michael R. Burch

For thirty years You have not spoken to me;
I heard the dull hollow echo of silence
as though strange communion between us.

For thirty years You would not open to me;
You remained...

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Early afternoon. The Solomon 
Were in their, (according to Damali)
Club house. But the reality of the
Circumstance is this. The Club 
House was the Damian Domaine.
Damian's Billards. Damian didn't 
Know it was their chosen hangout.
As the...

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Date:   April   2026

The 1st degree is unknown 

Damian and Polly had planned
The trip to the Copy Cat Club
For weeks with Dolly and Molly
The club was popping when
They hit the scene.
The DJ...

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A Vain Word
by Michael R. Burch

Oleanders at dawn preen extravagant whorls
as I read in leaves’ Sanskrit brief moments remaining
till sunset implodes, till the moon strands grey pearls
under moss-stubbled oaks, full of whispers, complaining
to the darkening...

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Salve
by Michael R. Burch

for the victims and survivors of 9-11

The world is unsalvageable ...
but as we lie here
in bed
stricken to the heart by love
despite war’s
flickering images,

sometimes we still touch,

laughing, amazed,
that our flesh
does not despair
of love
as...

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Sonnets XC-XCVII

Artificial Smile
by Michael R. Burch

I’m waiting for my artificial teeth
to stretch belief, to hollow out the cob
of zealous righteousness, to grasp life’s stub
between clenched molars, and yank out the grief.

Mine must be art-official?zenlike Art?
a...

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Poems about Flight, Flying, and Birds (I)



Flight
by Michael R. Burch

It is the nature of loveliness to vanish
as hummingbird wings, batting against nothingness
seek transcendence...



Southern Icarus
by Michael R. Burch

Windborne, lover of heights,
unspooled from the truck’s wildly lurching...

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Was it a cruel twist of fate?
Sneering, laughing chance?
Perhaps something I ate?
A bad bout of happenstance?

It wrenched and tore at my gut,
A sickening, sober, foreboding sign.
Wretched chance it was not,
This time was by insidious design.

The...

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Set upon the new world stage within the burning fires of hell. Silently posed factions of the elite, suppress the true inherit of Mother Earth. The meek children bending over for millennium, taken spankings of...

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Sweat is dribbling down my face, I am feeling hot
I can still hear the cracking sound swirling around 
And the night dancing to its own rhythm
The night suddenly fades in and the journey begin
That night...

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Upon this date he spoke no more of the preceding moments, 
Tearing and hurling insult upon insult
In several directions, his tongue whipped and scorched me,
And he waited relentlessly to see the spark in my eyes...

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The summer is over but things are getting hotter
The summer is over and people are getting viler
The sky is overcast and the birds are flying around
It feels like a stranger has just entered the town.

Grey...

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Despite his impatience to show me his hell,
He waited for me in my rest, 
Lying upon the ground, I awoke in prayer,
Thanking God above and asking Him for guidance

“My heart is Yours, always,
From the moment...

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Two, perhaps three miles out to sea, beyond the reef to Zapatillas,
Bocas’ dual sand-edged footprint jewels with jungle centre trees, 
Francesco’s outboard boat heads out to Caribbean’s deeper blue.

Where sun burns softer gringo skin, but...

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As the life of the day nears its last breath,
With a glow of crimson, forewarning its death,
Upon its cresting, the reflection, daunting,
The sea sets free a beauty, haunting
The depths of its treasures of unknown span,
The...

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The constant assault of the silence on his senses is intense 
Hands clenched in fist he wished for noise and bliss
Buddy stopped talking and drinking he begins pacing as he’s thinking 
Tired from walking he...

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Traditional Solitaire potential combinations...

that clenched another win today
February 20th, 2024 
(eight hundred and ninety yesterdays ago 
since June 13th, 2021)
original crafting date of following poem,
when yours truly 
single handedly trumped computer, 
for umpteenth time,
which saw...

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IT’S A MAD WORLD In a Lancashire Accent.

I went to the Confectioners today, there was a long queue outside, a metre apart, and it had started to rain. 
The assistant behind the counter had shiny...

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The waters of the Holy Spirit stirred with strength
And commenced to churn itself alive inside the well,
Forming a new maelstrom so radiant it seemed to rise in special presentation,
Roaring its heartfelt existence known
Our prince roared...

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