Long Clockwork Poems

Currents
by Michael R. Burch

How can I write and not be true
to the rhythm that wells within?
How can the ocean not be blue,
not buck with the clapboard slap of tide,
the clockwork shock of wave on rock,
the...

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Poems about Poems (I)



What the Poet Sees
by Michael R. Burch

What the poet sees,
he sees as a swimmer
~~~underwater~~~
watching the shoreline blur
sees through his breath’s weightless bubbles...
Both worlds grow obscure.



Muse/Goddess
by Michael R. Burch

“What will you conceive in...

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Salvation of a Formalist, an Ode to Entropy
by Michael R. Burch

Entropy?
God's universal decree
That I get to be
Disorderly?
Suddenly
My erstwhile boxed-in verse is free?
Wheeeeee!



Eternal Currents
by Michael R. Burch

How can I write and not be true
to the rhythm...

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The Making of a Poet
by Michael R. Burch

While I don’t consider “Poetry” to be my best poem—I wrote the first version in my teens—it’s a poem that holds special meaning for me; I call it...

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The State of the Art (I)
by Michael R. Burch

Has rhyme lost all its reason
and rhythm, renascence?
Are sonnets out of season
and poems but poor pretense?

Are poets lacking fire,
their words too trite and forced?
What happened to desire?
Has...

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Joe: "It's 9 a.m., here in Gotham and my partner, Mike and I, have been here since 7 a.m., and we also passed a cow coming over here!"
Mike: "That was no cow sir just a...

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Lost In the Mists Parts I - IV

                           ...

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The remnants of August 2024 Hurricane Debbie

Like a humane huntress, she
(the anthropomorphized storm)
brought a spate of cool Autumn like
temperatures and gentle soothing rain
here within my neck of the woods
for the last couple of days.

No matter...

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Ah...Satisfactorily Succumbing Into Salubrious Sleep

Aye sandman, I surrender to yar supreme governance
surreal spectacular soiree gifts subconscious sphere
soothing (analogous to natural palliative), ah...REM
member nought, asper exquisite entertaining cerebral
kaleidoscope replete with nonpareil visual trappings

aesthetically tantalizing unforgettable..., but...

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Dead Man Tales
shards of glass pearl the emperor's rise,
his arms embracing upon our sins and lies, 

do not deceive yourself , my friend.
in the twilight of our beings our corruption merges and blends.

there is no...

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“We may think of freedom, not as the right thing to do, but as the opportunity to do what is right.”              ...

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In New Haven, Lisa misses the sad, dark, city aesthetics of her hometown. Its crime podcast vibe, actinic crime-lighting and sirens in the distance, that lull her to sleep like lullabies. She has a disturbingly...

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A voice, a silky sweet voice i my ear
a whisper, a whispering question hanging in the air
but there's a conflict of interest
I'm no master nor hero
not even a zero, I'm just a boy
a boy craving...

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Sam the dog and Pearl the cat
Were sitting on the wall
They do it every day
So it isn't strange at all
They have little conversations
Which only they can understand
They talk about their little quirks
And none of them...

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War, Is Unholy Hell

War is wicked rot and most holy hell
 man's evil is its murdering spell
Yet mankind never ever truly learns
 love and faith it arrogantly spurns

Poetry by the great Siegfried Sassoon
 glows like...

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He was there in the beginning
and through the eternal ending.

He'd scattered his seed 'cross numerous worlds.
They flourished.
They perished.
Flora, fauna, innumerable forms,
aeons of evolutionary warfare.
Extermination of the unfit
without the mercy of design.
Quadrillions of cadavers
paving a road...

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In the copper-clad cradle of time
where gears whir fugues to forgotten dreams.....
the fog—a somnolent specter—drifts.....
veiling the calculus of progress
a manuscript etched by steam and soot.

Hark The hiss of pistons proclaims
a triumph—or perhaps a dirge—
for we...

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[ For Contest : Ghost of Frankenstein 
Sponsor : Tom Woody
submitted: 9/5/25 ]

Many starry nights I lay
in my wooden cabin next to your 
sanctuary waiting for whisperings
from your past, wisdom words

I wrote odes about a...

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You’re not welcomed here anymore
You got no business here anymore
You got no right to come in here anymore
You don’t have to come here anymore.

You leave for work
Come back later just to leave
An hour passes and...

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Humble yesterday, your intimate memories are now
bearing false witness, following our demise. 
There are scattered whispers of a residential cloud 
nine, that I called my own after the storm. 
No myth could be written guiltier....

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when Animal Farm is not a feeding manual

and Clockwork Orange strikes at midnight

Dali’s time piece warps under face value

and an eagle-eyed-cuckoo flies over its nest


beneath the cover of cotton candy clouds

she relieves herself into Magritte’s...

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It was a sight that I could not forsee
Ambushed by my own men at morning hour
Hands tight with cord and naked from the waist
A mean air on the Bounty blew unkind
It was the troubled wind...

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always did what they were
told at work,
always gave 120%,
always was there early &
stayed late if needed,
always came in on his/her
day off
when called upon to do so,
never complained about the
preferential treatment
that s/he saw happening 
around him/her,
which...

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I was an ambitious fine watchmaker, looking forward to sunshine tomorrows,
Like the remote edge of a fuchsia horizon, where gather racy, blue swallows.

I worked on clocks of all styles and sizes, repairing both old and...

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In homage to the waters around the UK and all those who sail them...


Late at night and early dawn
Like clockwork - every day are heard
Those dulcet tones “set fair” to warn
With poetic, most prophetic words
What...

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