Long Cochlea Poems

Sonnets XVII-XXIV

Discrimination
by Michael R. Burch

The meter I had sought to find, perplexed,
was ripped from books of "verse" that read like prose.
I found it in sheet music, in long rows
of hologramic CDs, in sad wrecks
of long-forgotten...

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Poems about Children V

Pan
by Michael R. Burch

Among the shadows of the groaning elms,
amid the darkening oaks, we fled ourselves

Once there were paths that led to coracles
that clung to piers like loosening barnacles

where we cannot return,...

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Sonnets LII-LX

The Endeavors of Lips
by Michael R. Burch

How sweet the endeavors of lips: to speak
of the heights of those pleasures which left us weak
in love’s strangely lit beds, where the cold springs creak:
for there is...

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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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Sonnets X-XVI


Archaischer Torso Apollos (“Archaic Torso of Apollo”)
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We cannot know the beheaded god
nor his eyes' forfeited visions. But still
the figure's trunk glows with the strange vitality
of a...

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Poems about Things that Break I
 
These are poems about things that break and/or shatter: a bubble, glass, a mirror, a twig or tree limb, a thunderstorm, cities and towers in times of war, old...

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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 ...



The Vision of the Overseer’s Right Hand
by Michael R. Burch

“Dust to dust ...”

I stumbled, aghast,
into a valley of dust and bone
where all men become,
at last, the same color...

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I never told anyone how my ears reverberate in a silent room.
The whirring drone ever present, a conquistador of my private spaces.
This is my cohabitation with an industrial generator.
But I’ve graduated from the torment. 
My...

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Uther’s Last Battle
by Michael R. Burch

When Uther, the High King,
unable to walk, borne upon a litter
went to fight Colgrim, the Saxon King,
his legs were weak, and his visage bitter.
“Where is Merlyn, the sage?
For today I...

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Because Her Heart Is Tender, for Beth
by Michael R. Burch
 
She scrawled soft words in soap: “Never Forget”
dove-white on her car’s window (though the wren,
because its heart is tender, might regret
it called the sun to...

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Form: Alliteration
A little alliteration by a long shot speaks so loud.
Metaphors muddle my mind
And silly similes stymie the sentence.
A terrible trope takes too much of my time
g Tiberius is my tag and title
My nom de...

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I know not the paint of your face nor the slang of your name
I know not the acoustic of your voice nor the creed before your knees 
I know not the double of helixes taut...

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The Strange Truces of King Arthur
by Michael R. Burch

Artur took Cabal, his hound,
and Carwennan, his knife,
and his sword forged by Wayland
and Merlyn, his falcon,
and, saying goodbye to his sons and his wife,
he strode to the...

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A week before the Armistice, you died.
They did not keep your heart like Livingstone’s,
then plant your bones near Shakespeare’s. So you lie
between two privates, sacrificed like Christ
to politics, your poetry unknown
except for that brief flurry’s:...

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Automatically a response cooperates with another
 from flight or fight response ,or ,of thee five sense's, 
 by a way of ,

Look's as if there's a change in the climate

The rain sounds great, feels wonderful...

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To Flower
by Michael R. Burch
 
When Pentheus ["grief'] went into the mountains in the garb of the baccae, his mother [Agave] and the other maenads, possessed by Dionysus, tore him apart (Euripides, Bacchae; Apollodorus 3.5.2;...

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911 Carousel
by Michael R. Burch

“And what rough beast ... slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”—W. B. Yeats

They laugh and do not comprehend, nor ask
which way the wind is blowing, no, nor why
the reeling azure fixture...

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Sonnet: Second Sight (II)
by Michael R. Burch

(Newborns see best at a distance of 8 to 14 inches.)

Wiser than we know, the newborn screams,
red-faced from breath, and wonders what life means
this close to death, amid the...

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A lazy-daisy dewdrop spell,
Reflective in a blade -
Grass-green and sunny eyes do dwell.
Beyond the dawn, a quick farewell.
The subtleness - not much to wade.
Sun burns and splash, does fade.

The cochlea, a sunrise plume.
A dove’s cooing...

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She Gathered Lilacs
by Michael R. Burch 

for Beth

She gathered lilacs
and arrayed them in her hair;
tonight, she taught the wind to be free.
 
She kept her secrets
in a silver locket;
her companions were starlight and mystery.
 
She...

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The storm is yet a distance,
vocals still at zero, naught--
though lightning does appear;
and like my ear was queer
I tilt to listen...then hearing nothing,
resign to glisten;

Silence can be a messenger;
here light a pigeon carrier,
waking with stirring...

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A little alliteration by a long shot speaks so loud.
Metaphors muddle my mind
And silly similes stymie the sentence.
A terrible trope takes too much of my time
g Tiberius is my tag and title
My nom de plume...

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Bubble
by Michael R. Burch

                Love—
          fragile,    elusive—
 ...

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Whatever winds encountered soon resolved
to swirling fragments, till chaotic heaps
of leaves lay pulsing by the backyard wall.
In lieu of rakes, our fingers sorted each
dry leaf into its place and built a high,
soft bastion against earth's...

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