Long Conscripted Poems

History’s Greatest Miracle Play

Let me tell you a story - Prologue

Actors gather to play their parts
To set the stage – backdrops and props –
In history’s greatest miracle play
Called to speak their lines
On redemption’s stage
In a...

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"A gift is different from something you buy, possessed of meaning outside its material boundaries. You never dishonor the gift." Robin Wall Kimmerer

A social gift,
a gift for compassionate verbal
and nonverbal communication,
a healing gift,
is different from...

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“The Lewis Trap”



Well, of course he's misanthropic
He’s a Misanthropic Man
The Devil’s in the details
Buried deep under the covers
Of bedtime stories, slithers ‘neath loose sand

A Liddell bit of cake
A Liddell bit of julip
Sweets for a sweet...

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AND MANY THOUGHT WHAT ARE WE DOING HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE

Tell me child, what it was like so many years ago?
When as a young person you grew
In what we considered was times of uncertainty...

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Sham(e) full travesty regarding fourth of July celebration

American independence day
linkedin severance from English crown
Continental Congress representatives
parlayed courtesy thirteen original colonies
yielding Declaration of Independence
immediately rendered null and void
established vassalage courtesy British rule.

Fast forward two hundred and...

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Sham(e) full travesty regarding fourth of July celebration

American independence day
linkedin severance from English crown
Continental Congress representatives
parlayed courtesy thirteen original colonies
yielding Declaration of Independence
immediately rendered null and void
established vassalage courtesy British rule.

Fast forward two hundred and...

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Phoenix and Phoenicia

They had both been victims of their own sad minds stories lost told and untold
narratives to be re-authored livid experience lived in silence meaning smeared in
crusted mud slung in terminal slots shots executed...

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O This is an ode dedicated to President Joe Biden
O This is Joe Biden's Ode dedicated unto him.
Exposing his attacks upon the righteous forcing

Them to participate in his King Sodomite
Activities and forcing them to violate...

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Insurrection
by Michael R. Burch

She has become as the night—listening
for rumors of dawn—while the dew, glistening,
reminds me of her, and the wind, whistling,
lashes my cheeks with its soft chastening.

She has become as the lights—flickering
in the distance—till...

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Only eighteen and conscripted to the military,
no choice of mine it was the norm at this time and scary,
barely out of school and still wet behind the ear,
too young to watch an adult movie or...

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This imprisonment of clay, 
this putrid jarred tint subjected to time's defeat, 
this cankered vile contagion. 
tossed to and fro as on a sea with unrelenting  anchorage of ease, 
this worm, ephemeral in the...

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Welcome to the war, son ...
You’ve been conscripted,
go grab a gun
And you daughters 
of the new American flag,
you’re not exempted either
Go get that gat outta my bag
There’s a 21st century civil war goin’ on,
and you...

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Afterglow
by Michael R. Burch
 
for Beth
 
The night is full of stars. Which still exist?
Before time ends, perhaps one day we’ll know.
For now I hold your fingers to my lips
and feel their pulse ... warm,...

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A border is a line drawn in the sand
Constantly shifting if you have time to see
A personality is a borderline ebbing
Time ceaselessly flowing us away 
One side unreachable as the far shore
The other, all that...

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The sprout of momentary illusion, 
the voyage of a derelict dream in place of a lie,
the lure of April, the deceit of May concertized in December, 
in wintry snow, mocked, 
miscarriages of a well worn...

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freedom lies with a shattered grace
stumbling toward atomic mythology
where answers have their sins washed
brilliantly bright as suns dyeing skin off-
colors of rumors circulating planets
of the universe pulled headlong into a night
-mare riding tattooed and complaining
about...

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Every man woman and child is a poet in their own right.
The gems a child comes out with can be a delight.
The words uttered by a father when he holds his first child,
Will turn a...

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Divinity’s Pew

The truth stands in contrast
to only itself
Once mentioned eternal
when thought and then felt
It lives in the ether
past fortune or fame
Conscripted by conscience
no praise and no blame
The truth beyond reason
beyond lies or consent
The lucky among...

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The old Hittite came through the gate
Battle sharp and dripping
With the blackness of an Ethiopian night
The Kingdom of Zion to replicate
The compass star of David's sight
And through that gate walked with him
A destiny invisible of...

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Aranmo laso Iseyin ni ohunso
Aso ti aro olowo faramo olowo

Iseyin
of harried hills and skyscaping rocks
of humming hurricane and haughty harmattan
of succulent virgins and tasty lasses
of fearless fighters and valiant warriors
whose pock-marked faces tell tales of
changing...

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They've sung about love and broken hearts
     and everything in between;
Sung about all the foreign lands
     and the beauty that's rarely seen.
They've complained about the weather
 ...

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Where the beast of the battle, there awaits
      And death there to confront.
Their devotion so profound.
      Bound only by an oath.
Valiant soldier’s...stewards of their own...

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Simple were the things that brought me so much joy,
Growin' up on the farm as a Hoosier country boy!
Barefoot, straw hat, patched overalls and summer tanned,
As free as a soarin' eagle as I roamed that...

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How can love be so constricted
to turn from one and to another
it is boundless
love is truly undivided

And how in all the strangers eyes we see
we feel so very separated
yet in endless love we have existed
for...

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Those were the days my friend, how blessed we were
Although, in past quandam days, knew it not.
Home to us was warm and dry, sound and safe.

Not called on to fight, we had years to play,
Free...

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