Long Electrodes Poems

Where Does the Butterfly Go?
by Michael R. Burch

for the children of the Holocaust and the Nakba

Where does the butterfly go
when lightning rails,
when thunder howls,
when hailstones scream,
when winter scowls,
when nights compound dark frosts with snow ...
Where...

Read More

Juvenilia: Early Poems IX

These are early poems of mine, written in my teens as a high school student and during my first two years of college.

Shock
by Michael R. Burch

It was early in the morning of...

Read More

Completing the Pattern
by Michael R. Burch

Walk with me now, among the transfixed dead
who kept life’s compact and who thus endure
harsh sentence here?among pink-petaled beds
and manicured green lawns. The sky’s azure,
pale blue once like their eyes,...

Read More

(based on Aldous Huxley's book "Brave New World")

Human hatchery

Clink clink clink clink...
Test tubes prattling past
along the chrome plated production line.
Glistening under fake fluorescence
humming in harmony
with the magnetic motors
of conveyors, centrifuges and camshafts.
Biological blobs of gamete...

Read More

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...

Read More

Poetic nugget discovered today March 29th, 2021...
while rifling thru outdated electronic drafts,
whereby yours went back to our memorable past.

Circa 6/30/ 2017 - Lost missing master car key...
plus additional ordinary travails affecting me
such as near bankruptcy,...

Read More

A human anti-neuronal autoantibody against GABAB receptor induces experimental autoimmune agrypnia
Article (PDF Available) in Experimental Neurology 204(2):808-18 · May 2007 with 63 Reads
DOI: 10.1016/j.expneurol.2007.01.012 · Source: PubMed

1st Giovanni Frisullo
37.12 · Catholic University of the Sacred Heart 

2nd...

Read More

Lucubrations fuels ebullience

Unsolicited, revered, and praised
potential literary fete,
(yes a bit hyperbolic),
sans mine posted poems that perambulate
such feedback, whither donning trumped
("FAKE") facade, Oriel sincere

twittering, nonetheless tis great
for an ego striving to maintain
hum bull modesty, yet I...

Read More

Unsolicited, revered, and praised
potential literary fete,
(yes a bit hyperbolic),
sans mine posted poems that perambulate
such feedback, whither donning trumped
("FAKE") facade, Oriel sincere

twittering, nonetheless tis great
for an ego striving to maintain
hum bull modesty, yet I hate
to be...

Read More

OL Doinyo Lengai    

                            ...

Read More

i
Lie back, tilting my head
hunched as if tango 
mangoed or like quesimodo
ringing notre dame bells. 
The straps cradle me
pinned in a rollercoaster
belted in a fast car, 
braced and buckled. 

ii
Electrodes are placed
on skin-thin temples. 
Gently,...

Read More

It's like some rotten little joke
That your kindergarten teacher spoke
All of God's things get broke and it's we must fix 'em
The bones in your body, snapped in half
The tree on your house while your wife's...

Read More

Roger was an humble man, 
who dreamed of being a stud; 
for when it came to pleasure, 
poor Roger was a dud! 

He created a little tool, 
powered by electricity; 
guaranteed for pleasure, 
a boost...

Read More

Nestled somewhere inside my
head, next to pictures of you,
are tiny tidbits, crumbs have you,
of conversations. Pauses as I 
watched you be.  Smells of
cigarette smoke and scented candles.
Like strobe lights, they flicker
on and off, leaving...

Read More

No smile is ever more so bright,
Than a lunatics so void of light.
All the signs could not be ignored,
As I'm rendered a stately ward.
Confined with nothing but the smell,
Of Gotham's worst straight out of hell.
Killers,...

Read More

Sex 101
by Michael R. Burch

That day the late spring heat
steamed through the windows of a Crayola-yellow schoolbus
crawling its way up the backwards slopes
of Nowheresville, North Carolina...

Where we sat exhausted
from the day’s skulldrudgery
and the unexpected waves...

Read More

Stop the clock part 2

At last got that, wretched stomach pump out,
Now where’s the clock, no more messing about,
Tricked me into eating, all that candle wax, 
This time remember, tie hands, behind his back 

Have...

Read More

Mister Thought Police,
my twin electrodes agree
with your Mind Kontrol policy

It’s a laboratory disgrace,
that the free speech troublemakers
get to protest this way

Such a predestined malfunction fiber optic outrage

Ms. Chief of the Microchip Morality Division,
your prompt commands
are...

Read More

We have that moment in our life
where love comes down into one's heart
the desire from deep within explodes
hits one there pierces like a love dart

Kathleen and Joe were so apart
in real life but electronically so...

Read More

Winds blow leaves rustle the branches strike the windows
 the dogs are restless and move from the sofa to their crates
 I watch the leaves and branches as they dance a war 
 dance the...

Read More

Imagine no more actors
It’s easy to do
Just shut off your TV
And skip the movies too.
Imagine that the actors
All just went away Aha-ah...

Imagine politicians
Who really work for us
Wired with electrodes
That would be a plus
Imagine all the...

Read More

She vibrates, a chassis minus shock absorption.
A painting, the nude descends a staircase,
rings of Saturn etched in a vacuum tube.
Or Eniac of twisted cords and switchboards.

She isn't programmed to see light beams
spraying through the trees,
nor...

Read More

Electrodes electrify in currents so sporadic,
Never leading to objectives but moving with purpose,
Electrolytes breaks down to iron that stays erratic.
And the purpose still erodes to being worthless.

The body is an ecosystem in itself,
Brainwaves fluctuating in...

Read More

You are the word that has captured my soul
You moved through my mind connecting all dots
Through my electrodes you flowed creating words
Connecting deep into my soul 

As I read your poetry my mind wonders
Wondering if...

Read More

Up


You hit me like a bolt right out of the blue.
Every time I think of you,
And every time I try not to,
Still all I think is, I need you in my view.


You lift me from...

Read More