Long Constricts Poems

Completing the Pattern
by Michael R. Burch

Walk with me now, among the transfixed dead
who kept life’s compact and who thus endure
harsh sentence here?among pink-petaled beds
and manicured green lawns. The sky’s azure,
pale blue once like their eyes,...

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Love has a Southern flavor: honeydew,
ripe cantaloupe, the honeysuckle’s spout
we tilt to basking faces to breathe out
the ordinary, and inhale perfume ...

Love’s Dixieland-rambunctious: tangled vines,
wild clematis, the gold-brocaded leaves
that will not keep their order in...

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With the opening of my fortress cell,
solemn-faced men come locust invading in
Their mouths smile not, and eyes neither grin
as ceremonial words pursed lips expel
A deer thought escapes ... my life nears its end!
And I feel...

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Walls Make Bad Neighbours

‘All in all we are just bricks in the wall’ deconstructed by Pink Floyd
                  ...

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People ask me a lot why do I write
Well...Pain is Lyrics am I right
It constricts my heart ever so tight
I try to break the hold with all my might
But the pain is 2 strong
In this...

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bullets, and hearts
lifeless bodies piled in carts
a lonlely mortition chewing over sweet tarts,
ironic, bitter sweet
blood can boil if you can bring the heat
and the dead can move, provided with a heart beat
black roses on my...

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8/11/12
----------------------------------------------------------

There is a small soul within every crowd
A soft voice against the senile bickering of the strong
And the small souls wish they would listen
Wish you would listen

But the ears of the majority have been stuffed...

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Come now, girl, and tell me
Why do you never cry?
Why do you never feel in your heart
What you show on the outside?
You smile more often than you feel happy
You laugh more often than not
Why doesn’t...

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Hedwig


Her house, a memory lane of sacred spaces:
the cobwebbed attic travel trunks, 
high heeled shoes, pink taffeta gowns, 
skirts that open into spinning parasols, 
cool musty wine cellars lined with dusty bulbs 
and oak barrels,...

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What is fear?
It clutches and binds you;
Its clinch constricts your conscience and gestures.
It degrades and damages you;
Its triumph abolishes your own proficiency to prosper.
It stops and holds you;
Its impeccable knack of holding you still is...

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The mechanical components, the valve that pumps my heart 
The reactive nerve endings that serve a sensory stimulus 
The tear ducts that latently only lend lubrication 
The silly little practical necessary body bits, pieces and...

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Broken Column
wrapped in female form
split down the centre
more than femininity exposed

Breasts capture the eye
Her softness
Confusing
Arousing 

head held high 
Her long black hair flows
cascades across decades
immortalized

Tears streaming down a saddened face
Doves crying to be understood
cheerful colors...

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Life so blue what have I done to you? 
Your daunting frame constricts my days,
And I feel the air in my lungs dissipate, 
Cuts so deep I bleed and I weep,
For more than one crushed...

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The fable of the two snakes in the grass

There were two snakes in the grass, 
buried in the pit of life, 
now bemoaning their past, 
with hisses, coils and strikes
she constricts 
he restricts
venom spewing out
she...

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I’d tell you my story, but where I’m from
it’s just a statistic
Life and death- same difference- it’s just ballistics.

So much suffering – I no longer pray for salvation
But say
‘Unharden our hearts, soften the indifference, please
let...

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ALONE AT THE HOLOCAUST MUSEUM

rose early in the morning,
indulged in a lovely quiche lorraine,
ventured out

                    ...

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SHATTERED

Thoughts recede toward essence spent.  Resentful,
once vibrant blush has left only ashes.
Determined to refuse my fated path.
Evening sun, set early by my loathing.

Dispossessed by fantasy, whose conquest 
shatters virtue and violates my soul.
Disfigured by...

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("Incantations", 2014, original pen and ink and acrylic)

The Way Light Changes

There are times when the very fabric of reality
changes; alters, loosens and expands,
and for that matter times when it tightens and constricts.
The former leads to...

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Danse Macabre is German for Dance of Death...


Transfixed by the movements, the musical vibrance,
We move to the tune of invisible sirens.
Reality reposes with the closing of eyelids,
Then lies change to truth and peace transforms violence.
As...

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Dot-matrix monotony beasts,
Bring endless agonies and fake archetypes,
To drown the silent scream of nothing inside.
I know now why you turn up the noise.

Hide your ears, as they pound on the drum of sadism.
Because I howl...

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Why must I hear
the tempting gurgle
Of the life giving stream 
A sound wet with promise
Of refreshment

Why must I see
The alluring rush of movement
Liquid heaven
An enticing flow
Beckoning me to immersion

Why must I but lie here
Dying for...

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Unhinge your jaw, snake, what’s a little more?
You’re eating worlds faster than they make them
And nothing fills you better than a tale of love and war.

You’re ravenous, really, making feasts out of beasts.
You’re every monster’s...

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Hi, my everyday crush, I’m your everlasting admirer, Jeremy
I eat everything, no known culture is my enemy
I know, you are the confident and elegant Veronica
I’ve done my research to bring you a lovely Japonica
I’ve been...

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Warm cocktail of happiness and pain
Sometimes the eyes cannot hold this disdain 
unsaid constricts and the volcano erupts
ending a painful conflict within
to shed the tears to ease on the burden.

There are days when you long...

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Warm cocktail of happiness and pain
Sometimes the eyes cannot hold this disdain 
unsaid constricts and the volcano erupts
ending a painful conflict within
to shed the tears to ease on the burden.

There are days when you long...

Read More