Long Dunes Poems

Poems of Recanted Bachelorhood

bachelorhoodwinked
by Michael R. Burch

u
are
charming
& disarming,
but mostly ALARMING
since my resolve
dissolved!

*

Disconcerted
by Michael R. Burch

Beth, my sweet,
fresh as a daisy,
when I’m with you
my heart beats like crazy
& my future gets hazy ...

*

What Goes Around, Comes
by...

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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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Sonnets XXXIII-XLI

The Folly of Wisdom
by Michael R. Burch

She is wise in the way that children are wise,
looking at me with such knowing, grave eyes
I must bend down to her to understand.
But she only smiles, and...

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Beckoning
by Michael R. Burch 
 
Yesterday the wind whispered my name
while the blazing locks
of her rampant mane
lay heavy on mine.
And yesterday
I saw the way
the wind caressed tall pines
in forests laced by glinting streams
and thick with...

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With my Uyghur poetry translations I am trying to build awareness of the plight of Uyghur poets who are being sent to Chinese "reeducation" concentration camps.

Elegy
by Perhat Tursun
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Asylum seekers, will...

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Like Hannibal we crossed the pass and crossed 
   the Alps (okay, the Brynderwyn Hills) 
and a bridge too far on north-west passage.
   From out of the Valley of Mizpah 
to...

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If ever a moment in real life deserved a romantic, melancholy
backing track, it would have been that one ... we'd spent the
entire afternoon at Ferry Beach, sunning and playing frisbee, I
playing guitar, she practicing her...

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Sonnets LXXI-LXXX

Because You Came to Me
by Michael R. Burch

Because you came to me with sweet compassion
and kissed my furrowed brow and smoothed my hair,
I do not love you after any fashion,
but wildly, in despair.

Because you...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems XII

Because You Came to Me
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Because you came to me with sweet compassion
and kissed my furrowed brow and smoothed my hair,
I do not love you after any fashion,
but wildly,...

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Written 12 December 2023         
Transmutation Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Unseeking Seeker

                 ...

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LOVE POEMS I by Michael R. Burch

These are love poems by Michael R. Burch: original poems and translations about passion, desire, lust, sex, a first date and dating, a first crush, a first girlfriend and...

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Brownian motion writ large...
within small medium 
as light brainstorm doth 
hail forth the following poem.

Across the realm of gray matter
slowly percolating within tissue
composed of neuronal, glial 
and endothelial cells, and although 
there must be biological...

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Summer Memories
Summer Realities

This, the first day of summer, two thousand and two, finds me,
slipping back into what once was my desire, my need, my reality.
This step back into, and into times passed, has allowed me...

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PART 1:          THE MEETING

Alone one night neath lantern light, I trudged a weary mile.
Forlorn, I went with shoulders bent (the storms around me howled)
until I met...

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The sun, resplendent in its blazing might,
Burns fiercely o'er a barren, lifeless waste,
A desert dry and vast where earth is scorched
By searing radiation, deathly bright.
No sign of life but one lone phoenix flies,
Soaring precarious, close...

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Nylon waste is often akin to a brushed out stable, manger, or stall. But brushing the carpet is often a resemblance of a swirling cloud of dust and tobacco shards and tobacco shards are not...

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As dawn unfolds today beyond my fractured windowpane,
a breeze beguiles the ashen drapes. Like snakes they slip aside,
revealing wanton worlds that race and run aground, insane,
immersed in scenes obscene that savants strive to mask and...

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Oklahoma cowboy, tough coal miner’s son
Born in Henryetta, south of Tulsa some
Raised by daddy’s momma, taught him wrong from right
Daddy taught him ropin’, taught him how to fight
 
Herding made no money, its stock was...

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margins stimulate and juxtapose
  edges greet with troubled, disturbing friction
  faraway forces exert influence and combine relentlessly
  how the Sun and Moon dance together about the planet Earth
  their grasping hands...

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Sand in my lungs and in every nook and cranny possible, nothing out here not even a simple bush or tree. Everything is dead and dry as a bone. My own skin holds no life,...

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VIDEO/AUDIO on YouTube above. NOTE: On the video; double-click to enlarge, and/or, right-click for the drop-down menu and click on 'Loop' for auto-repeat, click settings and pick the highest level for quality viewing.
VIDEO: Lyrics in...

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I.
GRAIL OF TIDES

from the brewing storm’s steeping chalice
the breath of death’s journey awakens in quiet tides 
beckoned by the stirring whisper of mortal winds
furrowed by stoic angels in pallid temporal skies
on wings they dance with...

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Beyond the Realm of Wishes
In sun-scorched dunes 
beside a weathered sentinel 
a glint ensnared his weary gaze.
A tarnished lamp / 
grazed / its secrets unknown / 
a genie unbound.... 
a muted haze.

Three worldly desires danced...

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Allegheny rail train has been rolling along since dawn.
I can hear the patchy sounds of the horn ushered by the wind.
Sounds at first are muffled but become distinct as the train gets closer.

Gulls hovering over...

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Smoke
by Michael R. Burch

The hazy, smoke-filled skies of summer I remember well;
farewell was on my mind, and the thoughts that I can't tell
rang bells within (the din was in) my mind, and I can't say
if...

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