Long Dims Poems

Poems about Poems V

Distances
by Michael R. Burch

There is a small cleanness about her,
as though she has always just been washed,
and there is a dull obedience to convention
in her accommodating slenderness
as she feints at her salad.

She...

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Phobias
	A Bluto is not that Disney dog
	It was when a mewling 
	that I would scream 
	Should they wet my body
	And then apply cream
	
	Ablutophobia – fear of bathing, washing, or cleaning
	
	Achluo the demon that lurks
	In darkened...

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_ a symphonic, folk rock, blues song
1.
I'm an old man looking
For the lost, best parts of me.
I'm an old man looking
For the lost, best parts of me.
I'm looking in the places
Where the people say love...

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I felt great calmness and perfect peace. I had the feelings of a poor man who has just come under the protection of the Royal Family, and has obtained an annual pension for life-the dreadful...

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A child lights our way in life...
The greatest gift there is to be.
They suppress our selfish inclinations...
They set our passions free.

They give sense to our mortality.
They put narcissism in its place.
With a child... you're a...

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Cascading off the winter chill
leaving warmth wherever it traces
the edge of the daffodil, tulip or crocus
spring shines its brilliant rays across
the windowpane that mirrors the friendly praise
coloring the seals with such sweet appeal 

lavender lilacs...

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Sipping in solitude inaudibly,
I feel left behind like an orphan child, 
Waiting for a stranger’s ride, 
I was left on the front steps of someone else’s house and I’m left to be
An introverted child, brokenhearted,...

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"You in the military?"

I was confused at first and didn't know why the man would ask me such a question. But then I remembered my recent haircut.

"No... is it because I shaved my head, that...

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(Lights dim, a single spotlight illuminates Judy Garland, center stage. She wears a faded housecoat, her eyes holding a lifetime of stories. She speaks directly to the audience, her voice a smoky whisper)

Judy: 
They christened...

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Cascading off the winter chill
leaving warmth wherever it traces
the edge of the daffodil, tulip or crocus
spring shines its brilliant rays across
the windowpane that mirrors the friendly praise
coloring the seals with such sweet appeal 

lavender lilacs...

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As you peel back one layer you will a bit more of me
Each layer defines parts that the naked eye may not see
The outer layer is tough resistant and seems weather proof
Just one more layer...

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Oh, this impish ill!
this mystic flock of ever-roaming pain;
You now possess fully
my body and my life.
I am at your full attention and mercy;
Do you not rejoice?
Are you not overwhelmingly triumphant?
This very body that shamed kings...

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Heavenly host, singing His praises,
Love all around, gentling, sweetest grace,
Raining soft kisses,
Meant for hearts who embrace Him,
Worship comes easy, flowing,
Rich as the whispered prayers and alive,
Like the Holy Spirit’s fire, burning,
With a passion only found...

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Richard Lamoureux has not forgotten me during my absence. He faithfully visits my older writes and leaves lovely encouraging comments. While I'm busy working on my thesis, I got this notification on this poem. 

Richard's...

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The stage is set
The audience fixed their eyes
fitted to the scene, to feed

Sun lit the early morning clouds
And It disappeared, gold appears
Spraying warmth fragrance
On dews of still sleeping leaves
To paint them dry awakening the greens
Yet...

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Cold, so cold, as everything seems to enshroud me 
encasing light, the flame of life - darkness within.
Slivers of blue, ice my lips, like a frozen lake.
Am I in a nightmare - is this where...

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Like the empty smiles
Addictions hide behind
Her grief secret, silent
Coloring her in a heavy doubt
Darkness speckled in glimmers
Hope that could be read
In the moments, breathed
On the song of stardust
Dreams, reflections poured out
In lavender creams, gentle
Like a...

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The love of life is a very beautiful and splendid thing. Regretfully, it’s something many
fail to ever recognize. One day, I stopped to contemplate the beauty of compassion and
forgiveness. This is where the true beauty...

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The Evening Soup, Translation of Paul Verlaine’s La soupe du soir

						To J.-K. Huysmans

(Verlaine here paints a stark tableau of working-class or peasant life shorn of any symbolic or imaginary references. Even if I see no...

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to my daddy, Walter M. McGlothin (Aug. 2, 2005)... going home!!!

When someone you love is taken away
There is never enough time
No matter if its
Days,
Weeks,
Months,
Years,
Eons...

~

The heart can't seem to handle an absence
That is the beginning of...

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Lorca Translations III

Federico Garcia Lorca (1898-1936) was a Spanish poet, playwright and theater director. He was assassinated by Nationalist forces at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War and his body was never found.

Paisaje (“Landscape”)
by...

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S   Porcupines of daylight shoot quills of crawling tint
 P      ruffled flashes pull me in swamps of anxieties
 L       I hide my...

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Sappho, fragment 155
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

A short transparent frock?
It's just my luck
your lips were made to mock!

NOTE: This is a translation/interpretation of an epigram by the legendary Sappho of Lesbos. Pollux wrote: "Sappho...

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I.

I had the son for a sacrifice
Proffered in faith and joined to love
My covenant with him is eternal, sealed by his blood
And his fire consumes what he pleases
Though the waters be deep as the abyss,
they...

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I fought my demon 
I hold my angel close to me
It's wanted to fly to the sky
As much as it hurts, it hurts me so
I didn't want to lose it again 
But I must let...

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