Long Fingernails Poems

I love you only because I love you
by Pablo Neruda
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

I love you only because I love you;
I am torn between loving and not loving you,
Between apathy and desire.
My heart vacillates...

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Sonnet LXXXI-LXXXIX

Day, and Night
by Michael R. Burch

The moon exposes pockmarked scars of craters;
her visage, veiled by willows, palely looms.
And we who rise each day to grind a living,
dream each scented night of such perfumes
as drew...

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Disability, Illness and Fundamentalism

My brother died of Cystic Fibrosis, 
When I was twelve and he fourteen, 
It took away his ambitions, 
To study at Oxford - the pipe organ’s steam. 

I understand being born with...

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as the PROPHETS of profits, WE lead and WE’re fair
while WE’re living the life of the poor BILLIONAIRE
– silver yachts, pearly castles, cash (plenty to spare) –
with the world on OUR backs... ah! the burdens...

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Sitting on the beach,
As dusk falls upon the end of shore,
I look at the lighthouse,
As I see a faint figure,
Looking beyond the sea.
She holds her chest,
As if she is holding a necklace.
She waits for her...

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A Statue Speaks

The morning takes it's first breath of daylight
Exhaling the sunrise that fills the sky with colored 
brilliance.                ...

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MEMORIES OF WAR 


In prison we turmoiled 
packed up cards to fall 
whilst they sucked 
genitals like bonbons 
a quartz on a table
gleamed its knowing

War torn ghettos with 
swollen stomachs 
stretched wide, auras 
shattered, splintered...

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Scrounging for boogers wrought my damn nostrils nearly to bust 

Warning: The following material no worse than getting cooties. I remember them way back in grade school, whereat everyone ran away from me with worse...

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I got a text from one of my professors yesterday saying, ‘Please stop by my office at 6 pm tomorrow.’ It didn’t say why. This was the first day after November recess, had I missed...

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|SEVEN MINUTES UNTIL OUR DEMISE

{"Seven minutes left; the insistent buzz in my skull would never abrogate, it preserved on being continuously strenuous. 
My whacks on the veneer of the tiles went unheard of as my...

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Death Comes

All arguments and denials were fruitless;
The deceased fell prey to the Master Thief.

The “One” whose icy-cold touch is . . .
Just Too Cold to Resist! . . . They Say!

No worries though . ....

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I
The beggar outside the supermarket
You swore was picked up later
In a flashy car
Sat there in the sun for 8 hours
While you pissed & moaned
All the way home
To your bookless
Mausoleum 
With a chlorinated pool
Where one day...

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God created hands for building things. Sometimes before you build something, you must first destroy something else.

Wildfires are never supposed to be put out. Their sole purpose is to burn the entire forest to the...

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Scrounging for boogers wrought my damn nostrils nearly to bust 

My humblest apology if the following account
doth gross thee out forlorn childhood of mine 
found further ostracization of me tantamount
being shipped off to  a...

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“blessings from above
transformed lust to love
delusion to illumination
earth-heaven bilocation” - Unseeking Seeker   

When rays of saffron atonement  
streak through the indigo skies,  
a glitter of dawn begins  
to break over...

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In her soul she exposes naked memories and lust for life

          A rebel conceived in a flash of pure passion

      ...

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As the man on the roof, took two steps towards the edge, he was unexpectedly stopped by the sound of a bright and familiar voice, down below.
     "I thought you were...

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A Conversation With Little Red Riding Hood

[I’ve always loved the fairy tale, “Little Red Riding Hood”, and I’ve used it to teach many lessons, especially on perspective and morals in my classroom, so this contest...

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Poetry, paint and the birth of a world
in a whirl the Dark and the Light do swirl
yet obey the dawn and dusk I do unfurl
above the alter I, the Almighty
forge form from their spectral sexuality,...

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When we fight in silence, like titans abound by egos
An eager poet overcome by words.
A beautiful model delicate as raindrops
When the silence in the room is as thick as our nostalgia
Wanting to hold each other but...

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Fukuda Chiyo-ni Haiku

Fukuda Chiyo-ni (1703-1775) was a celebrated Japanese poet and painter of the Edo period, also known as Kaga no Chiyo.

CHIYO-NI POEMS ABOUT WOMEN AND DESIRE

How alarming:
her scarlet fingernails
tending the white chrysanthemums!
—Chiyo-ni, loose translation/interpretation...

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she is everything you have seen in the movies
crayola hair
velvet dress
sugar in her veins
tears glued to her face
she fingerpaints the kitchen walls like a little girl and tapes their polaroids to every surface

he is every...

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In some strange blue green aurora borealis kind of way
my days are an aged book 
I smell of leather bindings 
spine dented
I noticed my own fingernails
tuck them under
Try not to get distracted by vanity

The O'clock...

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Why do today what you can put off till tomorrow?

The following extrapolated 
thought thread exercised,
NOT utilized to intimate 
how Fats Domino belied,
and wowed a crowded house ass-sized.

As a former ace procrastinator, I abhor
putting off doing...

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"RED"


Listen he said, “How many ways can you see Red?”

“Well”, she sighed, “Let’s start with Cherry Pie, 
oozing it’s juices all over your chin
and plump moist Red Raspberries staining your sheets, then again
what about Claret...

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