Long Football Poems

For ten months now I’ve brooded over coming second place
in the pickle section deeming, it no less than a disgrace.
It was written plain and simple, so there can be no excuse,
that the pickles in this...

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Epitaph for a Palestinian Child
by Michael R. Burch

I lived as best I could, and then I died.
Be careful where you step: the grave is wide.



Autumn Conundrum
by Michael R. Burch

It's not that every leaf must finally...

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Rejection Slips 3

Rejection Slip
by Michael R. Burch

Whenever my writing gets rejected,
I always wonder how the rejecter got elected.
Are we exchanging at the same Bourse?
(Excepting present company, of course!)

When editors reject my poems, did I slip...

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These are peace poems, prayer poems, hymns and lullabies I have written for family, friends and the world over the years ...

Peace Prayer
by Michael R. Burch

for Jim Dunlap

Be calm.
Be still.
Be silent, content.

Be one with the...

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March  2026
The final weeks of the CCC plan:
Damian and Polly planned the
Copy Cat Club convergence with
Molly and Dolly. The meet was postponed 
A few times until everything was set.
Damian and Dolly knew one another...

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Molly and Dolly were in their 
New getaway room on the top 
Floor listening to music.
While Damian spent time with 
The kids in the backyard. He
Wanted to install a pool for the
Youngest children, then switch...

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Rejection Slips

With over 5,700 publications if I count poems that have gone viral, I suppose I shouldn’t complain … but I do have some poems that have never been accepted for publication. Here are a...

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Unquotable quotes: Tale-Carriers, Gossip-Mongers, Courrier-Pigeon Caretakers, Smoke-Signal Puffers and Tom-Tom Thumpers – XXVI

Could there be such things as political shenanigans or inter-continental warfares, even catastrophes, natural disasters, tsunamis, irruptions, conflagrations, inundations, landslides, typhoons, tornadoes, hurricanes,...

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I remember feeling so empty the abuse had escalated after four hurricanes witnessing a murder horrific traumatic brain injury I was now uprooted leaving my beautiful home in Fort Myers Florida at the behest of...

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It was 1968 we'd gathered again in the school auditorium my tiny hands sweating only five years old while my name was called in all of this cold  
civil rights riots plagued my little...

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After witnessing a murder meant for me after surviving a car bomb igniting my skull crushed my face bruising my brain i received threatening calls from my husbands mistress I'd reported break ins strange behavior...

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The Alaskan Oil Pipeline

Nineteen sixty-eight confirmed the year
Of discovery by ‘Humble Oil’
To North America’s largest oil field,
On the North Slope of the Brooks Range;
A west to east Northern Alaskan mountain chain.
An area forty miles wide...

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~  Life,  God  Gave ~ 
( Octa- Tri ) 
 




~O~




God's Love glow 
From our hearts let it flow 
My Lord, You're my Light, Hope, Joy and Guide. 



~o~ 


You heal heart,...

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Face to the sky,
Breath of the Caribbean
Woven with earthy Autumn,
Saturates the alveoli of my lungs,
Pouring raw impulses into the neurons of
My pleasure centers, so triggering a myriad of
Memories ... the demurring requiem to summer tide...

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I remember my cherished Wolf Cub pack, 
How I loved those Wednesday evenings, 
The games, the pomp and seriousness of the camps, 
The different coloured scarves, sweaters and hair 
During the mass meetings, 
The solemnity...

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Date. August  2023 

Damian turned 22 and Moved  from his
 family's estate Into his own
 duplex apartment, 5 bedrooms.
One master bedroom and 
1 and a half bathrooms. 
Down town West Virginia. One night...

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When we set out on a road trip
We didn’t stick to the old script
And were gladly amazed
And rarely unfazed
Hitting strange towns though some were skipped

We started from Thatsnot, OK
Which was more or less ok
But then...

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I. The Love of Minds

The volume on the desk,
The one not claimed by dust or burned
By light, will follow her to bed tonight.
Its pages will be turned and smothered,
Each in turn, so as not to...

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Dedicated to the 2000 National College Football Champions, the Oklahoma Sooners 

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Over fifty years, boy and man, I’ve been a Sooners fan
Watched and reveled in their glories, every one;
But there’s no more glorious “Sooner Magic”...

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It spread its grizzly legs on the whitewashed wall
Firmly baked in the early summer heat 
Spitting perspiration dripping from the white crisps ceiling
While I cling onto a sensational feelings
Night has casted shadows upon night
With images...

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COME ON SOUPER'S LETS HAVE SOME FUN AND MAKE FOLK SMILE DURING SUCH DIFFICULT TIMES FOR US ALL. THERE ARE LOTS MORE APT NAMES  - PLEASE SOUP MAIL POEMS AND I WILL ADD THEM...

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11 am everybody was preped
And in the yard pass the two 
Houses waiting and planning for the
Cruel Ball Opposition.
 There was Amadeus 
DJ Damali Rico Nyaf Justin Jordan 
Tanaka Aka Tank Constantino Aka
Tino Ricky and...

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Mud and leather
dirt and nerve
bloodied laughter
collision to serve,
distance, drive and demolition
battle axe ambition in the wild air
muscle and mind joined in steeled instinct, 
a stitched pigskin ball, the grail of the Fall
to fumble it means...

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En-trumped

There are many en-tities. Narrative psychologist speak of living and telling 
a story. Our lives should be as we en-live them and en-story them. We tell 
our tale as we see it, at the moment...

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Fifty years, boy and man, I’ve been a Sooners fan;
And watched thousands of recruits try to make my Sooners Team.
Often, I’ve enviously wondered what it must be like
To be a touted Sooners recruit, living out...

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