Long Cymbals Poems

The First Valentine Poem

Charles d’Orleans (1394-1465) has been credited with writing the first Valentine poem for his wife in 1415. Charles wrote the first Valentine poem in the first year of his captivity while being...

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Epigrams by Michael R. Burch



Negligibles
by Michael R. Burch
 
Show me your most intimate items of apparel:
begin with the hem of your quicksilver slip ...



Negotiables
by Michael R. Burch

Love should be more than the sum of its...

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LOVE POEMS III by Michael R. Burch

These are love poems by Michael R. Burch about passion, desire, lust, sex, dating, relationships, devotion and marriage. 


Violets
by Michael R. Burch

Once, only once,
when the wind flicked your skirt
to...

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“Forever”



When The Terrors came,
The Uncontrollable Ones,
she closed her eyes
and listened for the notes
her mother had planted
amongst the deep blues,
beds of Forget-Me-Nots,
she followed the 
labyrinthine trail 
and through a gate unhinged,
it would seem destroyed, thrown aside,
she...

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Dream-worker 
delves deeply into my dream;

vibrations fondle anticipation
foreplay wakes wide-eyed 
swells of liquid libido quake the rendezvous edge -
a primordial being in his prime
a masculine ego quest for affaire d’amour;
her night-loving body 
c h a...

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Where do we come in
					in medias res  not knowing nor caring when
doesn’t everybody pine being number one we leave behind our lives in pages  pictures  or else make for images of what...

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(Somewhere in late 18th-century Europe a friend, Laetitia, by way of a letter warns her beloved girlfriend, Euphoria--a young, gay and unsuspecting mistress--against the almost inevitable seductions of the infamous and maundering philanderer, Melancholia.).



Dear Euphoria,

...

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Greetings to each of you my dearly beloved brothers and sisters. Please read these seventeen blessings rendered for you in God's grace:

I. May God’s love for the new year grant you joy and inspiration overcoming...

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World famous player of the five fingered flute,
   Wasn't quite so happy as he used to be.
   Being alone with just his flute,
   Nice clothes,
   And lounging...

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{ emo music inspired poem }

ELEPHANT WOMAN 

She is Elephant Woman 
you cannot hide from her
in houses of brick or glass or 
lined velvet curtains
whether it sits on Signal Hill
or in Newlands bourgeois class 
cannot...

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The Limerick, Pennsylvania Nuclear power plant siren wailed

yesterday at 1400 hours December the fourth
and probably broadcast further
east, west, south and north.

That shrill ear-piercing
emitted sound quite painful
despite measurable diminution
regarding my audiological ability,
which loss of hearing
linkedin to...

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Ah Consuela! Invoking vast vistas for visions of green Spanish eyes,
I discern them again where she left me back then,
                 as we kissed when she parted, my friend.
Through those ruins I tread towards the footlights,...

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PROFESSOR POETS

These are poems about professor poets and other “intellectuals” who miss the main point of poetry, which is to connect with readers via pleasing sounds and the communication of emotion as well as meaning.



Professor...

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A Garden In The Sky—by Michael Anthony Butler

  
I positioned myself by the pool
at some hip-posh happening hotel
on the sultry Sunset Strip in L.A.
The adolescent afternoon is hot and
fussy.  My lover draws closer
With...

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Lion Dancing To A New Year

It is that time of the year, you'll know it by the din reaching your ears...
Thunderous gong beats, clashing cymbals that's all you can hear...

It is a most riotous time...

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When Marcelino Manuel da Graca aka Sweet Daddy Grace came to town.
 At an early age, I must admit that I was excited along with the majority of the Black community of the South East...

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Written: September 12, 2023
Ocean Poetry Contest                             ...

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Oh captcha squares, oh captcha squares
What are these objects in your frames?
Oh captcha squares, oh captcha squares
Why must they gotta be the same?

    Cars and busses, traffic lights
    Bicycles...

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Deck The Halls
  
                              ...

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They packed their picnic basket s and journeyed towards the sun, with boxes of liquor, creates of beers and a drum fill with carbonated soda; busloads of them, drove down the slopes,  with dug...

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When did I learn to walk?
The awkward stance,
a toddler’s uncertain step,
stumbling, falling, 
getting up again until
rhythm of feet and
balance work in sequence, 
was that when I learned
to walk? No.

When did I learn to walk?
Kindergarten marches,
a...

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On my first day of kindergarten, Mrs. Miller takes roll.
She begins some sort of symphony, a rapid chorus,
Emma, Jake, and Katie sing, Here, Here, Here!
Then, I hear a cacophony that doesn’t match 
The melody before,...

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Last time it rained was in April.
                            ...

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Bed time story

  Night sky stood still inky dark and gloomy
  There came a light that flickered zigzagging behind the clouds
  a sudden resounding loud sound of cymbals
  Heavy pouring rain...

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Solid gray skies
   Over daylilies trying to bloom
    Several different species so colorful
      Open only a day, live life to the fullest
   ...

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