Long Contours Poems

SELF REFLECTIONS

These are poems about mirrors, images, self-image, reflections, impressions and self-reflection. 

Self Reflection
by Michael R. Burch 

for anyone struggling with self-image

She has a comely form
and a smile that brightens her dorm ...
but she's grossly...

Read More

Let Me Give Her Diamonds
by Michael R. Burch

Let me give her diamonds
for my heart's
sharp edges.

Let me give her roses
for my soul's
thorn.

Let me give her solace
for my words
of treason.

Let the flowering of love
outlast a winter
season.

Let me...

Read More

Poems about Things that Break II
 
These are poems about things that break and/or shatter.
 
 
 
Water and Gold
by Michael R. Burch
 
You came to me as rain breaks on the desert
when every flower...

Read More

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...

Read More

Poems about Things that Break III
 
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...

Read More

Starlight and Moonlight II

These are poems about starlight and moonlight, moons and stars, dreams and visions, illuminations and intimations …




Deliver Us...
by Michael R. Burch 

for my mother, Christine Ena Burch

The night is dark and scary—
under...

Read More

Face to the sky,
Breath of the Caribbean
Woven with earthy Autumn,
Saturates the alveoli of my lungs,
Pouring raw impulses into the neurons of
My pleasure centers, so triggering a myriad of
Memories ... the demurring requiem to summer tide...

Read More

SAD Seasonally Affective Disorder

Some are prone to depression in winter when days get shorter when
less light enters the brain through the eyes and thoughts become darker

I am also affected and when news gets explosive when...

Read More

[Non-Fictional Preface: Fictional Old Folks Home/Apparition] "This is the story of two friends, both considered themselves start-up writers, whereas, one who was a bit more of an upstart, was merely known as, Robert Frost. Frost's...

Read More

"Robert Frosts', friend, Edward Thomas was an indecisive fellow, until that one day they took the other road Edward wanted, and of course, Robert's piece was not Edward's choice to say the least, so when...

Read More

Fear and violence and guilty judgment
display synaptically sharp,
competing "Loser!" skittish economies.
Love and active peace sustain buoyance,
resilience,
robustly revolving away
from red skies of mourning;
cooperatively mutual Win-Win
ecology of evolution.

I want so badly to fly my competing belief kites,
and...

Read More

                         The idea is to...


      ...

Read More

Placed Fist in:
Pick a Title, Vol 41 Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Edwrad Ibeh


                       ...

Read More

One hundred million miles away from home they are floating underground roaming the depths of the sea in their dark canopy. 

They are floating in the belly of the whale and are trapped beyond the...

Read More

Wine tears
Flowing through the contours of cheeks
To reach these valleys residing in heart
Listen
Let the echo jump into this abyss
Until it reverberates like a suicidal cry
And breaks like a rope 
Adamant on giving second chance to...

Read More

When death had nestled, a lady overwhelmed by sleep,  
Between the chasms of my being, like a butterfly in a cocoon,  
I embraced her to my chest that whispered seraphic tales,  
And...

Read More

I know of a river of more than average 
Sorts...
Meandering, when not dallying to maunder,
Between many differing contours 
And unruly contorts;
Where a privileged youth once
Happily sought -
Pursuing about his passions
In the traditional methods 
By which...

Read More

There are wrinkles
Now, lines erasing a past
Where the fine contours of her face
Were drawn, in color
Crisp, clean lineages from 
Time echoing hope,
Soothing away the fragments
Reality connecting the dots,
Gentling the descent
From her youth to the present
Moment,...

Read More

When I was a youth the earth was our friend, as it was our means of escape.  We would run and chase each other across great distances, far away from the confines of home...

Read More

———

2016,

Sheep.
Magpie.
Mule deer.
Mustang, colt, mustang...upon the ridge.

Eagle's nest, bald.
Oreo cows, in far field.
Running baby cows.
Sheep.

Felled branch...100 mph winds.
Controlled burn, left quiet;
but not, as it turned out,
without embers enough
to catch to flames
and race up the Sierra,
down the...

Read More

Qu'ry this: a chivalrous charlatan, I,
          Dareth feign to pen thy prop'r aspect?
             ...

Read More

As life is in chaos and the times are stressed here are four Sonnets of the Sea to allow your mind and soul to escape...May peace and blessings come to all in these the times...

Read More

Mirror
by Kajal Ahmad, a Kurdish poet
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

My era's obscuring mirror
shattered
because it magnified the small
and made the great seem insignificant.
Dictators and monsters filled its contours.
Now when I breathe
its jagged shards pierce my...

Read More

Sheer poetry in motion with a picnic basket in hand 
Laughing brandishing a bottle as he lopes along the sand
His handsome features completely wreathed in smiles
Lifts and twirls me round - my squeal must be...

Read More

day and night Blattaria of various shapes and sizes 
scuttle with incandescent 
   after glow as flashing blur rises
to fill every quarter of mine cerebral core, when asleep pries
me lids awake with shell...

Read More