Long Flits Poems

An icy chill descends on 13 Beaver Veil Cottage as sisters Ester and Ellie walk gingerly up the steps on this wet and windy night.
This once charming pied-a-terre was now in a final phase denouement.
The...

Read More

n icy chill descends on 13 Beaver Veil Cottage as sisters Ester and Ellie walk gingerly up the steps on this wet and windy night.
This once charming pied-a-terre was now in a final phase denouement.
The...

Read More

Zen Death Haiku

Brittle cicada shell,
little did I know
you were my life!
—Shuho, translation by Michael R. Burch

Returning
as it came,
this naked worm.
—Shidoken, translation by Michael R. Burch

As dew glistens
on a lotus leaf,
so too I soon must vanish.
—Shinsui,...

Read More

Impossible mission to captcha infinitesimal moment

alternately titled: tick tock runneth amuck
seconds elapse imperceptibly 
leaving me dumbstruck,
how quickly fleeting tempus fugit; 
ofttimes imagined as time thief.

Hence following vignette: quiet as a mouse lurks the time thief...

Read More

Poems about Butterflies and Bees



Flight
by Michael R. Burch

It is the nature of loveliness to vanish
as butterfly wings, batting against nothingness
seek transcendence...



Album
by Michael R. Burch

I caress them—trapped in brittle cellophane—
and I see how young they were,...

Read More

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...

Read More

MODERN SONNETS I

I prefer the original definition of the sonnet as a “little song” of indeterminate form and length. These modern sonnets vary from more-or-less traditional to free verse.


Maker, Fakir, Curer
by Michael R. Burch

A poem...

Read More

Athenian Epitaphs II

These are ancient Greek epitaphs for lost family and friends, including dogs and other animals ...

Now his voice is prisoned in the silent pathways of the night: 
his owner's faithful Maltese... 
but will...

Read More

  Another Cruel Link in their Chain 

1.   Beginnings

Her babe was her joy, such a beautiful boy,
	and he suckled her breast till the end.
The slaver sought cash, bestowed mammy a thrash,
	sold her...

Read More

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...

Read More

*Image of Hikers Warning by Pixabay.

Out Of The Way

As a self-proclaimed ruler of my person, I am mindful of the internal convictions, external constitutions as Lord overseer of my spotless realm,

Upon my own free will,...

Read More

The bird brigade has been summoned.
The empathy princess is down. Completely depleted of all energies, through ridiculously and blatantly giving too much of herself to others again.
I’m lying on the grass, prone, watching a cricket...

Read More

Offering Thanks to the Lord

                        Accept my thanks, Merciful Lord,
  ...

Read More

1. Ripples in warm sunbeams dwell.
From a sandy cocoon I wake and stir.
A floater in the blue does knell,
A dot, a stain, a blackened blur.
Am I the only one who sees?
No, the beach is afoot...

Read More

Oh Prince of Darkness gilded gold
your heart to hatred you have sold
dispair is your path and lot
for the worship you have sought
 
Into the fall you did man lead
through the veil of his need
through the...

Read More

Across the land this morn, a roll of light 
Gave birth to shadows, cast from chalky hills
The larks ascended, sang away the night
Vibrated sky to waking with their trills
‘Tis Summer; round the circle swirls the...

Read More

I stand inside a ballroom that stretches long before me,
it is a sitting room right now, formal chairs and setees,
tall windows stretch ceiling to floor, twice as tall as a man,
with velvet drapes sent from...

Read More

(alternately titled: tick tock runneth amuck)

Ever since the advent of civilization
contrivances crafted to measure
days, weeks, months...
analytical “gifted” anonymous minds
wrought ever more sophisticated inventions
to divide existence into manageable units.

Now twenty first century Homo sapiens
technological atomic clock...

Read More

The historical Stone Walker sings gravedigger, dearth songs. 
A warning: the End Times are approaching and almost upon us.

In a land called the Monongahela across the river and down highway 10 west to the northern...

Read More

From the onset you become
The supernatural puppeteer behind power
The chieftain of the tycoons
The moral and immoral nous
The sheepherder of the multiverse
Why tenuring freudalism and captivity?
Thy sheep in topsided race
Like asymmetric scale

Yesterday celebrates your uniqueness
Before acculturation...

Read More

There's A Pedophile In The House...
(ah...ah...ah...ham eye white...???)

OMG,... and he looks...
     SAY WHAT??? just like me???,...
     absolutely NO WAY!!!,
would this sensitive,
     respectful, "FAKE"...

Read More

Beyond an overgrowth of weeds, I see
a house with faded paint. It beckons me.
Victorian, its windows are like eyes
that hypnotize, and soon I find myself
there at its door. I tentatively knock.
Though knowing nobody will come...

Read More

oh precious, dulcet diva, ocean-tide
you, of sand and foam and spindrift -
all your moods and meanderings
speak deep my spirit, wistful and wan
musings captured, gist enraptured …

       I listen, close...

Read More

Oh! That anguishing moment! When I craved to cry,
And pour my tears, like monsoon rains, on some grass dry;
A bit away, hence, from the madding crowd, I went,
To soothe my grieving heart; give benevolent vent...
A...

Read More

As Miss Luby watches from her window
a moving van backs up
the driveway across the street

BEEP!  BEEP!  BEEP!  BEEP!

its warning cry has a beacon-like effect
on the neighborhood
arousing interest from all corners
everything suddenly shaken...

Read More