Long Crisscrossing Poems

Lozenge
by Michael R. Burch

When I was closest to love, it did not seem
real at all, but a thing of such tenuous sweetness
it might dissolve in my mouth
like a lozenge of sugar.

When I held you in...

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We were embarked on a fruitful mission, to explore a far, distant world,
In the halcyon days, since wars had ceased, like confetti colors hurled.

Our magical spaceship was comfortable, and it afforded stunning views,
Much like the...

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Beating the midday forlorn sun
By foot they begun the journey leaving the pun
Beware of the dangers and tactics to shun  
Between that time and reaching the destination without fun
Beholding the situation, carrying the bun
Before...

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The sun rises this morning with its fresh fragrance
Spilling rays of hope, and love everywhere
While the morning looks proudly at me,
And danced away its aged old misery
The smell of hope lingers beyond the shore
And a...

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I was a planetary climatologist, who studied climate variability and change,
Like sweet variability of stunning, green tulips, in lavish garden rearranged.

Studying the said effects on the biosphere, absorbed so many daily hours,
Like industrious days of...

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I stand alone
on the precipice of life,
watching the Herd.
It is me 
   the judge
       and executioner,
the one who chokes out the weeds,
the reaper of the weak,
 ...

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Gods of glowing neon and gaudy screens
smile upon charming, charming patterns of heads.
All colors of hair, lit red, then green, then blue,
guided along invisible paths, crown heads
perspiring, chanting and glancing down
on marching, mechanical arms, then...

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~ (~) The-Sun-rising-growing-high-evolving-in the tender emotion of-the-day, fresh-honey-
dew-growing-wild-shimmering-there-lying on the new blue-morning grasses reminds-me, as-
I-reminisce - cookies fall with Him always landing where they will and so time will forever tell 
the story... like the...

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Don't, then.
If you don't love me the stars will no longer be flickering fairy dust 
just dots of light that I can't comprehend. 
If you don't love me the ocean will not play it's violin...

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TWO OLD GODS

Two old men.
That’s all; not much to look at.
Their frail, broken shadows shrunk against the sunny morning
Brightness slowly searching its way through gnarled branches
Overhead, and crisscrossing the red and black pieces
Upon their welcoming...

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Gangly Longfellow walled in Thoreau and thru...

Well stocked with
wordsworth lxiii numbered yesteryear
born as predicted by
bubba's zayda longtime seer
while in utero premier
ultrasound detected
smudged embryonic fetus
whoosh auditory proto language unclear
surprisingly enough sounded analogous
to murmuring... huh yepper sonneteer
vaguely...

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Gangly longfellow thoreau and thru...

Well stocked with
wordsworth lx numbered yesteryear
born as predicted by
bubba's zayda longtime seer.

While in utero premier
ultrasound detected
smudged embryonic fetus
whoosh auditory proto language unclear
surprisingly enough sounded analogous

to murmuring... huh yepper sonneteer
vaguely resembling, yes
William...

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To a dream loved and cherished for years
We return across oceans, dunes and deserts
End the anguish of years and find some solace,	
Arms round friends, a comforting embrace.

The fields have waves of lush, green seas,
Trees shine...

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66 Thunder Bird

During my days of old.
Ones stories to be told.

Black Bird, Thundering down many a winding road.
Smokin, at 120, above many black tops, being bold.

My Birds wings, in eighty eight, I did clip.
I could...

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Traversing Iceland's National Park, a timeless place, where daylight fills each passing hour
    and twilights ever brief. While volcanoes stand by sentinel, amidst dark lava fields. 
    Amazing geysers...

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Rita was visiting. She pointed off the road. Let’s go there. So we did. It was the CIA - Culinary Institute of America. Like Auntie Mame, my aunt was a world traveler, an adventurer. My...

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White picket fence in the rear view
Coordinates in the GPS
He honks as he leaves the driveway
For a three day trip to the west

They call it the white line fever
And it's addictive as crack cocaine
The need...

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On beginning to compose a new poem...

Assaying thoughts gambol,
scuffling as in an affray
née crushing, jockeying, stampeding...
demanding equal airplay
gushing as metaphorical think
spigot turned on full force airway
thru totally tubular cerebral

microcosmic aisleway
vesicular conduit fifty
plus shades of gray
exhaling...

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Everybody needed something,
and there was always something in the world that needed somebody,
debt is all about connections to affections,
sustenence to stimulus is only half of the formula,
igniting the impetus is provenance of the pursuit,
debt's birth...

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Exploring the suburbs at Melbourne
Glad are the late nights’ burnt

Bustling Bourke Street Mall
Epitome of a retail therapy’s call

The archaic Flinder’s Station
Scheduling warrants attention

Cho-chooing to Sydney
Never costs a kidney

The surmountable Clothes Hanger
Climbing it is not a...

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Stupid damn cat   


Attempting sleep on the balcony, a railing at my back,
twisted iron creating stripes on my flesh.
Crisscrossing as I slide atop a Craigslist mattress
collecting in folds of faded striped fabric.

slightly used...

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Weeks of hot days endlessly parading across the desert
Lulled me into a coma believing the weather would stay that way forever
Mid afternoon I stepped outside to go to the post office
Something was different
Thunder boomed and...

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Time rests, captured, embraced in a spell 
Two strangers search for each other
Through corridors of time diligently seeking 
Encountering interruptions 
Wasting emotions, feigning love
Engaging romances with counterfeit lovers
Uttering superficial, superfluous words of
Promised love and passion
Through...

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Feet transferring vibrations
of tires crunching gravel
and jarring shakes
of rut filled back roads
Up my legs
out my arms
then back
through the steering wheel
I’m in sync with my
knobby tired steed
gliding through the night
under an open jeweled sky
A black velvet...

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In a spiritual sense, dark matter does not exist – Pure Light, Pure Potential appears to the human eye as darkness, having vibration far too high for human comprehension, sort of like dogs can hear...

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