Long Flatware Poems

Snapshots
by Michael R. Burch

Here I scrawl extravagant rainbows.
And there you go, skipping your way to school.
And here we are, drifting apart
like untethered balloons.

Here I am, creating "art,"
chanting in shadows,
pale as the crinoline moon,
ignoring your face.

There...

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Sonnets XLII-LI

Distances
by Michael R. Burch

Moonbeams on water?
the reflected light
of a halcyon star
now drowning in night...
So your memories are.

Footprints on beaches
now flooding with water;
the small, broken ribcage
of some primitive slaughter...
So near, yet so far.



A Surfeit of...

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Starlight and Moonlight II

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




Deliver Us...
by Michael R. Burch 

for my mother, Christine Ena Burch

The night is dark and scary—
under...

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LOVE POEMS IV by Michael R. Burch

These are love poems by Michael R. Burch: original poems and translations about love, passion, desire, lust, sex, dating, romance, relationships and marriage. 



She Was Very Strange, and Beautiful
by...

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Fork git about spooner hiz ham

And join (singing the words 
in the next paragraph) whether alone
in a traffic jam
basting, cooking, then eating a lamb
prepared by thee missus
a superb culinary madam.

“A Ram Sam Sam” Lyrics
A ram...

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Advice to Young Poets
by Nicanor Parra Sandoval
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Youngsters,
write however you will
in your preferred style.
Too much blood flowed under the bridge
for me to believe
there’s just one acceptable path.
In poetry everything’s permitted.



Byron
was not...

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Perchance yar juiced a young man or woman 
maybe born, bread and raised in the city that never sleeps
and as a loyal son or daughter take a tram 
to enjoy a tasty repast with widowed...

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speculative fictional account
courtesy yours truly interpretation
impossible mission to surmount
tooling topographic factors,
solving quadratic equations, 
rubik's cube generally tantamount.

Perchance yar juiced
a young man or woman
Aladdin on cusp of securing lass
maybe born, bread and raised
in the city that...

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A Surfeit of Light
by Michael R. Burch

There was always a surfeit of light in your presence.
You stood distinctly apart, not of the humdrum world—
a chariot of gold in a procession of plywood.

We were all pioneers...

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It was the best of tines; it was the worst of tines.
    It lay, distraught, in silence on the road.
He came around the curve, saw it too late to swerve;
  ...

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We're getting married and you say you wanna wear white 
I tell you, your chance of doing so ended last night 
I punch you in the arm and say now you can wear black and...

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Antipas was one of many heirs of Herod the Great
Morally and civilly, he had fallen from his state.
His kingdom, a collapsed castle, he couldn't reinstate.
Sinning with brother's wife, shamelessness had become his fate.

Like raindrops on...

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Basic black, they chatter like 
fiancees choosing flatware, 
obits their compulsion, 
scanning through the 
fine print for fatalities today. 
"Albert Johnson, such 
a young one, taken by his 

Maker, leaving children, 
such a shame!" A...

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Basic Black

 

 

Basic black, they chatter like

two lovers choosing flatware,

obituaries their compulsion, 

scanning through the

fineprint for the tragedies

today. "Albert Johnson, he's

a young one, taken by his

 

Maker, leaving children,

such a shame." A hunger for

the...

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My mother's dishes are as delicate as she,
Tiny pink rose bouquets and silver rims.
Once I used them with her lace tablecloth,
For Thanksgiving and Christmas back then.

Then came the day of casual living,
She had given me...

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Mid-April evening, overlooking Clear Lake
at Chelsea’s Wine Bar, a party of one:

Sipping white zinfandel, I feel the chill
of my half-empty glass while fancy-free

flatware clatters impassive pageantry.
A moment.  An hour.  Another, until,

on the wooden...

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Basic black, they chatter like 
fiancees choosing flatware, 
obits their compulsion, 
scanning through the 
fine print for fatalities today. 
"Albert Johnson, such 
a young one, taken by his 

Maker, leaving children, 
such a shame!" A...

Read More

Basic black, they chatter like 
fiancees choosing flatware, 
obits their compulsion, 
scanning through the 
fine print for fatalities today. 
"Albert Johnson, such 
a young one, taken by his 

Maker, leaving children, 
such a shame!" A...

Read More

Basic black, they chatter like
fiancees choosing flatware,
obits their compulsion, 
scanning through the
fineprint for fatalities today. 
"Albert Johnson, such
a young one, taken by his

Maker, leaving children,
such a shame!" A hunger for
the details drives these gannets
to their...

Read More