Long Clumped Poems

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...

Read More

slang..
up-dogged = when you chip in to keep a conversation trend going
fit = gorgeous
buje = unexplainable glamor
football minute = a minute, that with time-outs, that lasts a half an hour.
crute = cute but cringy
women's-rights =...

Read More

When I was a child, I wondered

Was deep sleep, death?

Was every morning a new life, a new incarnation?

Waking up, I found the people around me were the same

I was the same too, nothing changed

This cannot...

Read More

I was a passionate, aspiring musician, striving quite hard to be a success;
As nature lovers try hard to succeed, at living where pretty flowers press.

Rosy days teemed with activity and planning, bold plans of runaway...

Read More

THEY MAKE STRANGE YOUR EXISTENCE THAT OTHERS MIGHT FIND IN DISPUTE WHAT YOU CLAIM TO BE.
THEY SOIL YOUR DOINGS WITH YOUR LOVER MIGHT HER UNDERSTUDY HAVE ACCESS TO HER
THAN WHY DOES HE STALK ME, AND...

Read More

FREE VERSE VI

Reason Without Rhyme
by Michael R. Burch

I used to be averse
to free verse,
but now I admit
YOUR rhyming is WORSE!

But alas, in the end,
it’s all the same:
all verse is unpaid
and a crying shame.



What the Poet...

Read More

Im half awake, and glaring at the sunrise
distant brilliance slowly eating at my dry eyes
squinted to best witness the aureate Apollo
refract off blades soaked through with dew
heaven's first blush, midsummer quiet, and coffee scent
cast clarity,...

Read More

Peg-Leg Pete the Pirate was a very evil man,
He used to eat his dinner from a filthy frying pan,
And when he’s finished eating he’d play “catch me if you can”
With his desperado first-mate known as...

Read More

How many years did I plant
 dig and dig up again and silently rant
where a flower placed here, should be moved from here to there
 at first, not well planning where 
this one or that...

Read More

Down a runway skybound
to cross a continent, 
see from a window
a city fall away
with bright beads 
strung along a coast,
then turning inland, 
clumped townships 
shrinking to solitary lights
sunk far apart
into hours
of featureless dark. 

Disconnected
from the...

Read More

SO MUCH DEPENDS...(Inspired by The Fault in Our Stars)

So much depends upon the girl with red current meandering from her woman
And the clots of clumped up thoughts that occasionally disturb her flow.
So much depends on...

Read More

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


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...

Read More

You lay in the wooden cot,
a broken sparrow,
Crushed. Bony. Frail.
Hair once plumed gold,
greyed to clumped feathers
like ragged  trampled wings,
strawed out on the dank pillow.
Face once blushed pink plump,
Jolly kind of soft with life,
Sucked to...

Read More

There has to be a reason
For your cool, existant, real caution-
Realer than your eyes
Your smile
Your kindness
That are now dull recollections in my mind
Eyes that had fluttered, shimmered
With grandier light,
Such lively might
Only now you make an...

Read More

I journey across time to get what is rightfully mine;
I journey across time to view the galaxies from the hill
and absorb the sweet scents from succulent grape blowing from a distance.  
 
The stars...

Read More

just moments ago, i went online and tapped Google 
   if some miraculous spell 
   could be drawn out of thin air
cause (this house husband 

   feels a bit...

Read More

Their satchels (twenty five) within auto-rickshaw seats dumped,
Same number (small and big; fat and lean; boys and girls) tight-clumped;
Some hanging; some stamping; some hitting and kicking each one;
The driver, gliding as though great battle won...

Read More

My vacuum cleaner’s broken, 
sits in the garage gathering dust 
Beside dad’s old green car,
oxidising an orangey rust
I tried washing it last week, 
and the water turned to wine
Well the colour miraculously looks,
venetian turpentine 

World...

Read More

I was walking by the loud green bushes
Their rough knees covered with the ash of webs
The whisper through angry short snip-its 
As the outer edges of my skin brush past

I can hear them say
She must...

Read More

My daddy was a farmer, 
a good one who knew how to 
manipulate the elements in order
to achieve agricultural success. 

He was well aware that all 
of the elements play their part
and are necessary for...

Read More

Winter’s body is a car boot sale, a mosaic of the seasons and shifts, 
the breezes and breaths of a year’s footsteps, gone.

The battered wheels of a truck, spinning against morning frost, rotate into its...

Read More

Blame. The very word creates acid on every 
tongue that speaks it. its dark and clumped,
forming a giant ball of black sticky goo.
 It layers itself on the skin of every body that
is blamed for...

Read More

The oblong Oak crown sways atop its handle
In the night breeze
Like a spoon stirring its sugar and cream
Patiently
Into the tea of outer space

While underneath
An evening party of old college chums
Slop old time Miller Lite from...

Read More

As I sit here stretching to touch my toes
I’m amazed to see how my body grows
As years pass by my height reduces
No longer producing needed juices!

My body has clumped and can no longer bend
I used...

Read More

There was a dead little cat
Splayed in the middle lane of Washington Street
While I passed

And there was a man clumped to the curb
Pinching his chubby chin
Between his thumb and index finger
Like a final played poker...

Read More