Long Fraying Poems

Let Me Give Her Diamonds
by Michael R. Burch

Let me give her diamonds
for my heart's
sharp edges.

Let me give her roses
for my soul's
thorn.

Let me give her solace
for my words
of treason.

Let the flowering of love
outlast a winter
season.

Let me...

Read More

A Thousand Points of Light! ! ! ! !

Once a beacon of democracy
A shining light on the hill
The ‘American Dream’
	Anyone can ‘make it’  
Never more than aspirational
Structurally delusional

Always susceptible to its 
	Achilles heel of...

Read More

Mirror
by Kajal Ahmad, a Kurdish poet
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

My era's obscuring mirror
shattered
because it magnified the small
and made the great seem insignificant.
Dictators and monsters filled its contours.
Now when I breathe
its jagged shards pierce my...

Read More

POEMS ABOUT POOL SHARKS

Shark
by Michael R. Burch

They are all unknowable,
these rough pale men—
haunting dim pool rooms like shadows,
propped up on bar stools like scarecrows,
nodding and sagging in the fraying light...

I am not of them,
as I...

Read More

cold rain
to slow-streak the
glass I watch you through -
you and your
christ ...
the ginger bread man,
sugar daddy savior, all that
I was not, (and less) ...
choices of
compromise, to provide
the lifeblood of your
"needs" ...

you, admiring
your bullion reflection in...

Read More

Have a lovely day


Pushed now to the limit by a never ending whisper
Lost behind the meaning of a question I can’t hear
Dreaming of a day when life addresses me much deeper
Found within in a headline...

Read More

A Sky of Water
Arabic Poem By: Falah Al-Shabender*
Traslate By
 Inaam Al-Hashimi (Gold_N_Silk)
====================

A sky of water
Doesn't blaze in a glance;
It follows us, as we head towards it, 
Fraying its essence, 
And transcending in its mysteries;
Emptiness .....

Read More

She feels the urge to ask,
And in a different time she would have,
I guess it’s just another mask,
Removed by hands of time.
A child asks a mother in attempts to understand,
A fool asks a brother for...

Read More

On the grand stage of the world, under lights of dreams and flickering charm,
We dance our illusions, beneath arcs of sun and mysteries fashioned through dreams vast and warm.
Freedom, a chimera of thoughts and rustling...

Read More

Here it goes again, can't handle this
Though entirely used to it
What more relief can writing bring?
It all but drowns the rest all out

And I'm sorry I couldn't be all the things
I made you think I...

Read More

in the beginning of a prior life
i took my first breath in the heart of a pyramid
shrouded is lapus lazuli light emitted from sandstone walls
singing a song smiling in Winter Worn Waves
written by the water...

Read More

They clipped my wings, yet I still fly
Thrown off a cliff to chase a lie
Now I fall through the clouds
A broken bird left to die

A single wish to give me strength
My salvation is bittersweet
Its form...

Read More

Age is not all decay; it is the ripening, the swelling, of the fresh life within, that withers and bursts the husk. George MacDonald
 
_____________________________________________________________

In a world where decay is dominant,
Arctic tundra is melting, and...

Read More

Hi, how are you, my name is blank to your sight just another passer-bye,
Nice to meet you, others of your gentle gender call me Mr. Blank,
Since to you all my name matters not nor the...

Read More

If anyone told me they planned on killing the things inside me,
I know they are lying, everything inside me already feels so dead,
All of my inner self is dangling from a string, it makes my...

Read More

He's


sorry


for what he's done....


he's


apologetic, but the moon


she's crumbled in my palms and drenched


in my tears.


I rub my hands across my jeans and shoot stars across my ripped up, tarnished wardrobe


maybe he'll witness me before he...

Read More

In a World brimming with wealth and grandeur,Where opulence dazzles on every corner,A tale unfolds of disparity and strife,
Where poverty thrives, tormenting countless lives.
Inflation, a cruel tempest, engulfs the land,
Whispers of hunger and despair, hand...

Read More

(The final part of my serial "Do Not Listen" poem. I had written this months ago, but hadn't felt confident about posting it--until now and with a few edits.)

___


Do Not Glisten, Child! of my early...

Read More

I dwell in desolation, damned in a fathomless abyss.
What sin have I committed to live a life such as this?
Without a window I cannot gaze upon stars above.
What hope is there for me to ever...

Read More

Delhi seems  closer than it was last time. 
After a tea with GST, 
on to a backstreet  of Varanasi, 

Untouched by authority; 
ignored more by memory 
than darkened by amnesia.  

A huge...

Read More

When Portland is soaked wet with rain
And the rivers overflow
When soil washes away again
And no sunset is aglow
Do you climb the hill to DeMonteven
And look with longing towards the cove
Does your heart search trees and...

Read More

Pain

Clad in cloths that will, one day, decay from
- once all is gone – the loss of what housed some
of what the spirit, the soul would not hide
from eyes - willing to see – on...

Read More

As the current year is quickly ticking away
The time has come for me to share,
My resolutions for the coming year:
What all steps I shall take in life to fare.

Every new year is a time to...

Read More

Is it not enough that you’ve hung me beside
myself from your fraying rope - tendered by 

graying wooden clips with rubber fingers?
Must we really soak on dry until we are sepia

toned under-developed photographs, left on...

Read More

Compassion sings in velvet vibrato violin strokes, thrumming upon
an ivory frame suffused in dulcimer tones of need.

Half deaf we echo broken words, sharp jagged phrases, defining
the borders of empathy, binding the reach of the heart.

Compassion...

Read More