Long Fluted Poems

the Horror
by Michael R. Burch

the Horror lurks inside our closets
the Horror hides beneath our beds
the Horror hisses ancient curses
the Horror whispers in our heads

the Horror tells us Death is coming
the Horror tells us there’s no...

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Coffee or tea?

Fragmented frogs frolicking fruitlessly freeing flavoursome fairy freckles,
But what of the speckled hound in the bin?
Well he growled,
He snarled,
The sole paw pilot pivoting,
How interesting was it to note though that the frogs although...

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Cascading off the winter chill
leaving warmth wherever it traces
the edge of the daffodil, tulip or crocus
spring shines its brilliant rays across
the windowpane that mirrors the friendly praise
coloring the seals with such sweet appeal 

lavender lilacs...

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........Cactus
....Water Towers
Isolated desolates
Wrapped in spikes
Fluted aqua Greys
Or in military green
Reaching the skies
The desolate cacti 
The desert fingers 
Withholding blaze..
Desicating breeze..........
.Blistering freeze..................
Where not a blade....................
Nothin' germinate......................
Them root in dust.....................
Wasteland, gravel.....................
The fluted barrels......................
They shrink in dry......................
Bellow up...

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Cascading off the winter chill
leaving warmth wherever it traces
the edge of the daffodil, tulip or crocus
spring shines its brilliant rays across
the windowpane that mirrors the friendly praise
coloring the seals with such sweet appeal 

lavender lilacs...

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The holiday season is upon us, and I delight in the memories of my childhood yuletides.  One such memory stands out quite clearly. Just before Thanksgiving, November’s blustery winds arrived, weaving frost spider webs...

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I still feel under the weather today April 2nd, 2023

Unseen enemy invades my body 
with platoon of green berets air
rating, and enfilading immune system viz 
Hib bully knock and sock kin me 
courtesy roebuck seers...

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Because they’re typically such delightful places to live, as well as being far safer to raise a family in, it breaks my heart to see what’s happening to so many small struggling communities all over...

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I loathe feeling under the weather...,

especially when nasty elephant 
(named Thomas the pachyderm)
stomping to break loose courtesy tether,
where antibodies of mine 
struggle to band together
loosely analogous to voters
standing in a queue
waiting to cast their vote
(while...

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strife riven island corner, rough hewn by rival visitation
  vexed, looking in, looking out, on the edge of places to go
  thrang in thrall of other realms, banners furling, batons flung
  across...

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Beneath the opal white moon, the crying doves shed their precious tears,
Causing the purple rain to fall, melting at the lavender notes of musical dreams,
Camelot’s illusionary ivory towers of brilliant colors, seemingly fades unto the
Violet...

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The final frontier – post consciousness

as imagined by cogent, fervent, intelligent,
lucent, occident, reticent, and uneminent 
nonestablishmentarian.

The following disquisition initially describes 
emotions prior to experiencing corporeal death, 
yet unbeknownst to this skeptical atheist, his 
anticipatory anxiety...

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He Thought, ‘Cause He Was Old
And the Other Guy, was Just ‘Sprung’
That He didn’t have a Chance To Hold
His Own, Against The ‘Young-Un’ …

And In Spite of His Many Years
… Worn-Well, Like Battle-Scars
The Boy, Wet,...

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The rising of the seventh moon in an ornamental lampshade is equivalent to a nice round smiley dinner plate that had been recently washed,
Recently washed is neither a rotating wimpy wishing walker and neither is...

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I was an active, prominent architect, like fervent stars which race the sun,
Or exotic, summer flowers that bloom vibrantly, creating rapturous visions.

I'd wrought modernist skyscrapers, as huge trees lean into a bronze glaze, 
On raspberry,...

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Taxes are not talking nor are they taxis. But airports are often very congested. Packed tightly forming queues. Vastly unreported by news. News are neatly arranged newts in a bath licking ice cream. And a...

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While idling away the precious minutes
tapping into the wide whirled web
a smattering of random words and phrases
(in an attempt to jump/kick start
pinteresting material to sink figurative teeth),
thoughts pinwheeled back decades ago,

when attention attuned to forfeited,...

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amusing apples how rather interesting
An algorithm is an acrobatic arithmetic on a mean ruler dancing across striped squared paper. Format is firstly founded. Then landing with the pen to form the shapes is always considered...

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Written: September 24, 2023
_____________________________________________________________

In the dawn-like haze—a shriek was heard,
An echo so shrewd, yet birdless, oddly slurred 
It was ordained by—a stratum unseen,
A throbbing coerce, a numen so keen. 

A canticle flower—a bellow coarsely flung,
Through...

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The grand, half-ruined Parthenon,
once a sublime, Doric grace,
Even now, in broken, stone blocks,
always takes my breath away.
The rich, classical detail,
fluted columns without plinths,
to imagine what it once was,
the mind can’t even begin…

That towering Coliseum,
the great...

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A mystical mayhem is a deity left undisturbed. Yet in corrosive eras even a sharp shrapnel can shatter even the most strongest of iron souls. Interesting is it? The formations. The planned plane. The corrosive...

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One crystal goblet cloaked in vintage dust
Stands silent sentinal to nothing
In the middle of a great stone alter
Laid to waste by time, and the memory of Man,
Who ever was a firm believer...
One crystal goblet remains...

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WHEN WE HAD "MAUREEN" TO DINE

The table was set for eight, all curtains drawn
Each joint of meat neatly piled up, all as sawn

Upstairs the guests were getting ready to dine
Men in their black tuxedos; looking...

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Behold, a crack in the sky so far,
Oh !! It's a star, A shining Star,
And it then multiplies... 
In the thousand million silver twinkling eyes..
A soapsudded moon with the corally ocean,
Of quiet delivery ozes and...

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The lean old men in my vicinity
wake to find themselves a day older
then turn away from the mirror to reflect
on their miserable circumstance.
Then they masque their decay with cologne,
snap on their one-piece spandex sportswear
and wheel...

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