Long Exhume Poems

Currents
by Michael R. Burch

How can I write and not be true
to the rhythm that wells within?
How can the ocean not be blue,
not buck with the clapboard slap of tide,
the clockwork shock of wave on rock,
the...

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Rejection Slips 3

Rejection Slip
by Michael R. Burch

Whenever my writing gets rejected,
I always wonder how the rejecter got elected.
Are we exchanging at the same Bourse?
(Excepting present company, of course!)

When editors reject my poems, did I slip...

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Lozenge
by Michael R. Burch

When I was closest to love, it did not seem
real at all, but a thing of such tenuous sweetness
it might dissolve in my mouth
like a lozenge of sugar.

When I held you in...

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Rejection Slips

With over 5,700 publications if I count poems that have gone viral, I suppose I shouldn’t complain … but I do have some poems that have never been accepted for publication. Here are a...

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These are poems about starlight and moonlight, moons and stars, dreams and visions, illuminations and intimations …



Will There Be Starlight
by Michael R. Burch 

Will there be starlight
tonight
while she gathers
damask
and lilac
and sweet-scented heathers?

And will she find...

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I'm writing on the first page.
I love the concord and quiet at my age.
The morning came from a genius mage.
In my spirit, I am searching for the truth stage.
To understand things to resist this upsurge.
It...

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The morning sun rises from behind the shady hill warming the village with a solemn hymn, everyone has gone out of the town leaving dryness and darkness all around; the dogs are running and barking...

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A Meandering Cocophony of Thought that Evades Fate

Contractual obligations toward your future self
Non-Factual invocations that deprive you of your health 
Actual comparisons between poverty and wealth 
Emmanuel on the eve of a heavenly operation of...

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I want to tell you a true life story,
This very story has never been told to any ear before now;
It’s a burden to hold this story to my heart alone;
As I share a demo of...

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Open Letter to you,

MY LOVELY HATE SPEECH
I hate my speech today, yesterday and the day dust rises.
I was there opening my eyes carelessly, smiling like an idiot
I was gazing shamelessly, walking like an idler without...

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(not that ye wondered, 
but simply tubby like totally tubularly clear
The Epic of Gilgamesh will not be extolled here).

Though thoroughly well mapped, parsed,
     scrutinized vibrant wonders zoom
plethora, sans newly discovered life...

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What I'd like to give you, is an ounce of my perfume
Scented with smiles, laughter and inspirational love
What I’d like to give you, is a feeling of joy abloom
Pouring from the heart like a whisper...

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In this house so ominous, I did hear a hiss.
What could it in this, alone in house and room.
It was a sound of a crack, like shivers go down the back.
There it is again, a...

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I’ve seen black sheep set in Pongola grass

Within pallid seas, differed, 

Like black buttons on a white cotton suit;

Sheep are color blind.

A bee is fine-looking,

But there’s fire in its ass.

Can the wild goat trust

The adder...

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*NOTE:  Jack and I wonder how many of you have heard of the Zona Shue case – 
an American murder victim who had revenge in Virginia in the late 1800s.
Zona was killed by her...

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I rose not like flower or like tree
Not like eagle's hubris in the sun
Old skin shed in the divided city
Last clone of a manhood almost done
      And so I tasted...

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The tree tottered
the soil loved the tree
the soil held the turmoil
like a poem holds the lines and stanzas
brimming with the extravaganza of the spirit

The grasses won't let it go
the whistle of the world called
the train...

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Sigh (Infinity symbol)

Your damage leaves a scent like the way gun powder smells
I’m the only store where your hurtful ammunition sells
I'm the ground that carries the weight of your bullet shells
The fireworks fall and rest...

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Asper sweaty palms, 
and other physiological ills
nothing beats infusion of
spine tingling electrifying chills -
experiencing psychological nirvana,
(nope NOT even 
prescription medication pills)

except attaining, experiencing, and succumbing
delivering to bodily flesh, sans
nightly cathartic, intrinsic dream changing stills
and pacific...

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Greetings from Schwenksville, Pennsylvania
today March 1st, 2021

I dashed (off the enclosed poem) yay
while safely secured within
white horse open sleigh
after reading following
pray lemme know if ye uttered oy vey.

Profound insights divulged 
during our most recent family...

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Only early July the summer heat is brutal
days will over a hundred degrees in the shade
The evening does little to cool, her breezes warm
So hot the stars seem to melt away as the moon crisp
to...

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‘ex post facto’ it is facile to see the human reality of  matter

one does not need artificial intelligence to feel sorrow and joy

	a life not bravely examined is not worth living

	and therefore she dissected...

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Listen to the Conga drums speak
Drench my soul with the spirited beat
Break the chains from around my feet
And sprinkle some rum on the street.
Listen to the conga drums speak
Penetrating mystics’ way out in the deep
Electrify...

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Mona Lisa why?
Mona Lisa loves sunshine
Rather, speechlessly cries… Why!?

See her left side’s show?
A scared girl’s face through window?!
With her straight blond hair does stroll?

Looking at the sky!?
Where darkness swivels to shine!
Strangely with enormous fright!!

Weirdly, heaven’s...

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Some way to be
When the next thing comes along
To find some way
To explain what we think we need
Is it an excuse to blame the world
For what we refuse to see
Unhappy

Unhappy
All the erksome things which count...

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