Long Flocculent 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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Vacuum
by Michael R. Burch

Over hushed quadrants
forever landlocked in snow,
time’s senseless winds blow...

leaving odd relics of lives half-revealed,
if still mostly concealed...
such are the things we are unable to know

that once intrigued us so.

Come then, let us...

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State of the Art (IV)

These are my "ars poetica" poems about the art and craft of writing poetry. 



Hearthside
by Michael R. Burch

“When you are old and grey and full of sleep...”  — W. ...

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Southern Icarus
by Michael R. Burch

Windborne, lover of heights,
unspooled from the truck’s wildly lurching embrace,
you climb, skittish kite...

What do you know of the world’s despair,
gliding in vast solitariness there,
so that all that remains is to
fall?

Only a...

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Postcard 1
by Miklós Radnóti
written August 30, 1944
translated by Michael R. Burch
 
Out of Bulgaria, the great wild roar of the artillery thunders,
resounds on the mountain ridges, rebounds, then ebbs into silence
while here men, beasts, wagons...

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My most popular poems on the Internet (III)

A number of my poems and translations have gone viral, according to Google, and some have been copied onto hundreds to thousands of web pages. That’s a lot...

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World War II Poems and Holocaust Poems - III - Miklos Radnoti

Miklos Radnoti was one of the greatest of the Jewish Holocaust poets. He died on a Nazi death march, shot to death in cold...

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Finally to Burn: Icarus, Resurrected
by Michael R. Burch

Athena takes me
sometimes by the hand

and we go levitating
through strange Dreamlands

where Apollo sleeps
in his dark forgetting

and Passion seems
like a wise bloodletting

and all I remember
upon awaking

is: to Love sometimes
is...

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Southern Icarus
by Michael R. Burch

Windborne, lover of heights,
unspooled from the truck’s wildly lurching embrace
you climb, skittish kite ...

What do you know of the world’s despair,
gliding in vast solitariness there
so that all that remains is to

fall?

Only...

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Athena takes me
sometimes by both hands

and we go levitating
through strange Dreamlands

where Apollo sleeps
in his dark forgetting

and Passion seems
like a wise bloodletting

and all I remember
,upon awaking,

is: to Love sometimes
is like forsaking

one’s Being—to drift
far beyond any thought,

forsaking...

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Cocooned and tucked away
In a chrysalis 
Snowman melts
Sooty are his tears

Outside a lacustrine beauty
His nose is the first casualty
It falls on the ground 
Bang

He was a freeman
Once the snowman
Stood mighty and high 
On this very...

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Does March ever quit
to be the wildest month?
Isn't its fury a serious threat
to the crows who munch
on anything, they can find?

We bundle up not to catch a cold,
saving a trip to the doctor's office is...

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I saw the the blurry course of my generation destroyed,
How I mourned the path.
Are you upset by how indistinct it is?
Does it tear you apart to see the path so hazy?

Don't believe that the parallel...

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Good Heart

I cannot support but stop and look at the caring, lost love.
Are you upset by how affectionate it is?
Does it break you apart to see the lost love so compassionate?

I cannot help but stop...

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Flocculent clouds suck the life from bel-esprit
She misses going out and warm springtime sun
She desires one verdant leaf upon a tree

Sharing feelings with the menagerie what fun
But this deafening silence lends to deep thought,
Deep relaxation,...

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