Long Denuded Poems

"Salvage"


Salvage the fixating salvation 
unfurling from the wreckage
of a numb world twisted inside
treasure climbs swimming 
the ladder from the deep of all things 
reaching upwards travelling in a new time
of melting morpheme moments overlapping 
dissolved...

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[First posted in 3 parts. Intended novel: time never allowed]

Prologue
This,  Sir, is the prologue from before our tale begins
About the day our father did succumb to mortal sins
And left behind a man who would...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems VII

These are early poems I wrote as a boy and as a teenager.

The Leveler
by Michael R. Burch

The nature of Nature
is bitter survival
from Winter’s bleak fury
till Spring’s brief revival.

The weak implore Fate;
bold men...

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He just appeared to me, like wispily curling 
Chimney smoke, 
One grim and early morning in the very midst of 
Decembers briefest days, on the highest slope,
Toiling through my daily round; where, slowly 
Driving up...

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Yet at this very moment the cathedral was crumbling
down upon the cries of foresaken refugees, 
the monastery's walls wobbling from war's wreckage, 
and as the black bursts billowed into sun drenched brutality
with the bodies of...

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In the dark of night a wind took hold,
With powers charged to shake the sky,
By moody swings of gods up high,
Their breath alone enraged and bold.

In the dark of night history spoke,
Of a world alive...

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Just watching raindrops slapping leaves
is better than anything requiring electricity
including fame and posterity. Monday
morning I walk over to the art museum
stand before Homer. I'm imagining
life in ancient Greece, the land largely
deforested to build a navy,...

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Sad feelings always return,
No matter what I do,
Say or think,
No matter what I don’t do,
Say or think.

Leaving me sometimes,
Sadness disappears,
Just long enough, 
To tease me,
To please me,
To freeze me.

Hope sinks in,
Hope settles down,
Hope hopes for...

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Doubting Thomas luxuriates under Dylanesque milkweed

made fibrous threads...constituting heavy blanket
(crocheted by the missus)
on a cool Autumn like morning...

to stave off experiencing getting
chilblains, goosebumps,
or subjected to the blast of cold air
wafting thru the opened bedroom window
on...

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The heavens shimmer 
as billowy linen-white gossamer clouds slip away, as soft blossoms open for the sun.

Mystical wings of Eden brush sunset colors; 
caress the rose petal; touch the lustrous cream bisque glossed onto an...

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It was a short walk I intended to take
To while away time that I did not have
For I had lots on my mind and hands 
So off I went anyway and I was glad of...

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Weird "fake" news

This pencil necked geek
did hair thru the long grapevine
actually following false tidbit
originated within imagination i.e. mine,
while stationed at Macbook Pro
laptop - time already inching close

to hour of rise and shine
yikes still no bloody...

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Sonnet Doubles, A Poet's Deeper Thoughts 

I Will Not Fiddle To New Hollow Tunes

I will not play fiddle to hollow tune
nor beg day, be lit by pale light of moon
life to have worth, must not...

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I have been reading a rootless thesis:
Lack of commitment to a permanent home
causes depression,
over-commitment to inside claustrophobic voices,
failing deep-rooted immune systems,
obesity,
disassociation,

Fear of outdoor climate pathologies,
un-walled infestations
alien predators
threats to our own ongoing ecopolitical empowerment
too competitively overwhelming
to...

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Murk Rammer froze as he felt the nuzzle
of a snub-nosed thirty-eight’s deadly muzzle.
Louis The Retch poked it into his back.
“The jig’s up, Rammer. I ain’t cuttin’ no slack.”

Murk had been tricked by a double-crossing dame,
alias...

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I’m stealing through a twilit realm, the ancient pale of Whereis,
passing chambers of an Heiress
(though no need to feel embarrassed)
through a magic mystic mirror hanging curtainless.

A glimpse near naked alleyways (denuded by the moon) ex-
poses...

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Ursus Maritimus ...

I entered your world in quietude, slipping through the granular, soft.
          Long slats to feet parting the frozen. Cold of a previously unknown
 ...

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The evening air spreading its soft chill,
Playing with the blue mountain to nature's will,
New snow flakes engulfs the barren hills,
Taming my heart with tender warmth and thrills. 

At the inn the keeper holds a lighted...

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Behold Beatrice, Pitcairn
the paradise sunsets lie in Tahiti
sunrise, the folly of Easter
islands, sanitoriums, deluded, denuded
limbos and purgatories, the never evermore
Polynesian metaphors transmigrate my mind
O to graze with the deer, dear
the tree never falls silently
lizards scatter,...

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Modern science has denuded 
The stars and night sky of all myth and magic.
Knowing the facts in awe and wonder are no substitute for stories and legends of ancient cultures
To know that most starts are...

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It started with an apple in paradise or was it a date they consumed

Had they kept their clothes off laundry day would have been easier

	The smell of seduction and no fake news

Honestly who cares whether...

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* For Mary Kathleen Lessard Caithness *

                            ...

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Das papa anathema & furor he hiss toward patriarchal hierarchy

Courtesy mine eldest sister Amelie
Beth (thirteen plus months my senior),
whose maternal love equals heart as emoji,
she nsync with other kith and kin
painstakingly fleshed out family tree,
formerly...

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Today I heard an ancient song that took me by surprise,
A song that since creation had filled our country skies.
A song that has for centuries filled mans heart with joy,
A song that brought back memories...

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the crowd dispersed in floods of tears
disappointed that the spectacle was over
when madness resolved and sanity became restored

the clown’s persona now unmasked
make up made down for a grimace
a silent scream half aborted in the arena
masqueraded...

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