Long Expense Poems

The Amistad Mutiny

Slavery, a dirty word no matter how it’s pronounced:
Abducted and herded to the slave fortress of Lomboko1 for trade.
To be tossed in chains below deck on the Portuguese ship Tecora,2
Sailing the Atlantic Middle...

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Where art thou anonymous benefactor...to offer me succor?

Ah... methinks legal tender 
could be a boon to help me bolster 
mein kampf with necessary material equipage,
which prospect to acquire essential 
commodities sabotaged 
at the altar of...

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It's Halloween!
Michael R. Burch

If evening falls
on graveyard walls
far softer than a sigh;

if shadows fly
moon-sickled skies,
while children toss their heads

uneasy in their beds,
beware the witch's eye!

If goblins loom
within the gloom
till playful pups grow terse;

if birds give...

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Various Heresies 3

Breakings
by Michael R. Burch

I did it out of pity.
I did it out of love.
I did it not to break the heart of a tender, wounded dove.

But gods without compassion
ordained: Frail things must break!
Now...

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It's Halloween!
Michael R. Burch

If evening falls
on graveyard walls
far softer than a sigh;

if shadows fly
moon-sickled skies,
while children toss their heads

uneasy in their beds,
beware the witch's eye!

If goblins loom
within the gloom
till playful pups grow terse;

if birds give...

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Salvation of a Formalist, an Ode to Entropy
by Michael R. Burch

Entropy?
God's universal decree
That I get to be
Disorderly?
Suddenly
My erstwhile boxed-in verse is free?
Wheeeeee!



Eternal Currents
by Michael R. Burch

How can I write and not be true
to the rhythm...

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I was skeptically listening 
to a retiring social researcher,
and problem-solving imaginer,
from the American Enterprise Institute;

An Institute
I usually find more destitute
of bicameral consciousness than not,
and thereby with less healthy resonant imagination
than more pathological dissonance.

But, I found...

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In Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged"
she paints a nationalistically wealthy saint
where also lives a monochromatically utilitarian narcissist,
sucking on attachment to fame and power
for bought and sold ZeroSum accounting Souls.

If the perfectly powerful pure patriarchal patriot
were your...

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Hello,
you've reached the EcoTherapist Cooperative.
How can we help you
without bringing harm to Others?

That's a question I've never thought about.
I'm calling for the National Republican Party.
We would like to hire an EcoTherapist
for a consultation
during the 2020...

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This is the 2nd THIRD of my 3-part poem - see Mark Stellinga on Poetry Soup for the other 2 THIRDS - couldn't be helped.



“What about neighbors,” I carefully pried...“do any of them check on...

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NAME: Phil Latio.

QUALIFICATIONS: LLB (Law) PhD (Medicine) & FSC (Federation Starfleet    
                    ...

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I was listening to Cornell West,
who described our catastrophic tolerance of disvalues for others,
situations we would never tolerate for ourselves,
disvalues like homelessness and hunger,
but also like random violence, 
abuse and neglect,
lack of caring,
as a "conspiracy"...

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Cooperative Feministas
are not quite so much Competitive Manifestos.

In David Holmgren's introduction to Permacultural Therapeutic Design,
he contrasts "Industrial Culture" with "Sustainable Culture"
kind of like comparing masculine LeftBrain culture
with feminist RightBrain enculturation, nurturance, resonance
over the longer-term scenaria,
rather...

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Self destructive wickedness arrested, convicted, and gaoled...

with kidnapping little boy 
ordered to suffer
life sentence without parole.

The deadly scourge of  
one obsessive/compulsive disorder
nearly left me starving to death.

Anorexia nervosa absent bulimia 
nadir of onset 
diagnoses...

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[This poem 'No God Of  Mine' was seemingly confounding readers as
to its meaning. Ordinarily, if I felt a poem wasn't  cutting it, I'd delete
it, but on this occasion, I've been asked to explain it... so here goes.]


By...

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~His Love Is Divine~
 ( The Bell )


 Lord
 Can really save
 His  Love is divine
 With Lord nothing to fear
 Life can be so hard
 But with him soul safe
 With Lord we...

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Lumi's hand pressed upon his shoulder in a surprisingly firm grip guiding him into the dining area and to the second of two long slender tables where sat five older elves including DynDoeth.
  ...

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Unidentified extraterrestrial(s) willingly abducted me

As a divergence 
from the apocalyptical, dialectical, 
geomorphological, judgmatical, 
metaphorical, philosophical...,
I share an out of this 
(webbed wide) world,
light hearted anecdote 
ye may find far fetched.

Believe me you,
an unspecified number of...

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Vampire Poetry

Pale Though Her Eyes
by Michael R. Burch
 
Pale though her eyes,
her lips are scarlet
from drinking of blood,
this child, this harlot
 
born of the night
and her heart, of darkness,
evil incarnate
to dance so reckless,
 
dreaming of...

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Vampires
by Michael R. Burch

Vampires are such fragile creatures;
we fear the dark, but the light destroys them...
sunlight, or a stake, or a cross—such common things.
Still, late at night, when the bat-like vampire sings,
we heed his voice.

Centuries...

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As I woke up this morning I was thinking of what should I do through COVID-19 pandemic.
I said to myself, “I want to go for a walk.”
While walking along the street, people were passing with...

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Unquotable quotes: The Janitor, Gardienne, Landlady, Housekeeper, Portero, the Sereno and the Hausgast – XXXI  Part One

Be they so named or not in these here parts, visions of shrieking furies with Gorgon heads and...

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Depression is like dying
without hope this process will end well,
without remediation
at least not for my closely held ego-identity,
and despair 
this turning inward
creates a cocoon by avoiding outward.

Focal awareness of ego mortality, 
immanent and emanant,
eminent,
turns inward,
returns...

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"Candy Girl" - 2



He had been watching her from the far end of the Ice Bar, where he was sitting propped up on an ice ledge which was cushioned in plush Reindeer hide and Yak...

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I Could Not Do It Before
By Dr.  Tina Medina

I could not do it before
I dare not shut the door
My heart yearned for something more
I loved you to the core
Even though I did not keep...

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