Long Dixieland Poems

MODERN SONNETS I

I prefer the original definition of the sonnet as a “little song” of indeterminate form and length. These modern sonnets vary from more-or-less traditional to free verse.


Maker, Fakir, Curer
by Michael R. Burch

A poem...

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LOVE POEMS II

These are love poems by Michael R. Burch: original poems and translations about passion, desire, lust, sex, dating and marriage. On an amusing note, my steamy Baudelaire translations have become popular with the...

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Love has a Southern flavor: honeydew,
ripe cantaloupe, the honeysuckle’s spout
we tilt to basking faces to breathe out
the ordinary, and inhale perfume ...

Love’s Dixieland-rambunctious: tangled vines,
wild clematis, the gold-brocaded leaves
that will not keep their order in...

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Home is where the heart is,
Or so the saying goes.
There Is really much more than this,
As everyone, surely, knows.

Home is where you hang your hat,
Is another slogan that Is nifty.
There’s much, much more than that
In...

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VIVA LA ELVIS

In Tupelo Mississippi, twin baby boys were born,
To Gladys and Vernon Presley, but sadly one passed on.
They named him Jesse Garon, their hearts so full of pain,
And then came Elvis Aaron, a breath...

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TIME IS NO MSYTERY 
EACH AND EVERY SECTION HAS A SECOND
 AND IS HISTORY

this is my confused telling of my destiny
better dreaming of this calamity
and I am a visionary
or am I a visionary
and do I...

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Way down here
In the swamps of Dixie,
Where I learned to dance
With gators grinning,
There’s music like none
You’ve ever heard.
It laces the bayous
In passionate tones,
Enough to make you
Want to move your feet.

There’s more history
In this place
Than you...

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Blood Brothers

As one, in life, they tug their craft
Over the sun bleached sands 
Salt air fills heaving chests 
The tide beckons with friendly waves.

They float over foam, spray in their eyes,
Laughs mix with the great...

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In the unforgiving August heat
of a hot Alabama noonday
They sit in secluded shade,
resting in high-back, woven bamboo chairs
on a mahogany carved veranda
Their bodies face outward to the vast white fields,
watching the black raisins move under...

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JJust an old trumpet player with a worn out horn –
Seems he had played it ever since he was born.

Sometimes his lively music put dancing in your feet.
Then there were times he rendered tones so...

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It was cold that snowy December night, 1862. We took the hill to stand and fight against the Yankee coats of blue. We charged towards their army near the river down below. From the blades...

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I've never seen them before,
but know they're in Elbert County, Georgia
put there by a mysterious man
by the name of R.C. Christian,
who put them on display
in dixieland, 1980 circa,
They have 10 new age rules,
which are occultic...

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It was nine degrees out all was frozen
Not much better inside for commode water
Icy crystals formed not what we'd chosen 
Shaking at fireplace's front, stood our daughter
On top of the hearth wasn't any better
One thing...

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The first born spoke memories of my birth.
He remembered O’Toole [our father] spinning gravel
at the corner of Deerfield and Glenwood blaring
Dixieland Jazz from the AM radio of the red Rambler,
“Outamyway Wegota Yankee Doodle Dandy. ....

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In what way shall I improvise myself?
Shall I memorize the first way I felt?
And my origin from West Africa
Through the European landing in hell?

Jelly with a honeysuckle belly
Make it catch like rhythm that unfolds
Unremembering the...

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There goes a lonely soul in a coffin 
carried by pallbearers which step forward with slow-pace  

a funeral leader goes with black umbrella up
the brass band follows: 

the trumpet vomits blood from its shredded...

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Dixieland Ghost
In the South. Deep in the hills.
There is a forgotten town. Of a war past.
On a clear night you can see an old schoolhouse.
Next to a grave yard of soldiers from the past.
When the...

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'Morn sky, Spring love, Summer dreams,
Winter chill. Listen to the cloud covering.

Fall deep into fallen leaves, raked
By slumbering winds. Fields of white
Cotton picked in summer sun by Negro
Slaves - peaches by the migrant hands.

Dixieland band...

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'Morn sky, Spring love, Summer dreams,
Winter chill. Listen to cloud cover.
Fall deeper into fallen leaves, raked
By slumbering winds. Fields of white
Cotton picked in summer sun by Negro
Slaves - peaches by the migrant hands.
Dixieland band plays...

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Poems are just about everywhere
If you keep an open mind
So many things can prompt a verse
Just seek and ye shall find

Sometimes everyday happenings
Inspire you to sit and write
A robin frantically yanking on a worm
A kid...

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Poems are just about everywhere
If you keep an open mind
So many things can prompt a verse
Just seek and ye shall find

Sometimes everyday happenings
Inspire you to sit and write
A robin frantically yanking on a worm
A kid...

Read More