Long Garish Poems

Poems about Flight, Flying, and Birds (I)



Flight
by Michael R. Burch

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



Southern Icarus
by Michael R. Burch

Windborne, lover of heights,
unspooled from the truck’s wildly lurching...

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The thunder struck and the heavy rains came,
He struggled for survival, fought hard.
The downpour wouldn’t stop, the streets now flooded,
the man now lay unconscious on a boulevard.

The next morning, the Sun couldn’t rise,
the clouds overpowered...

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I…breathe again…
Meditating on flowers of my pasture, plucked with my eyes,
Resting…open, like buds blooming, and resting…

“Take me…” he said weakly, so softly in my ear…

I greeted the demon with the warmth in my eyes, 
Upon...

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   heroes?

there are none here, now ... ever ...
      don’t feign to look, for your eyes will
         beg their smiles,...

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In the middle ages
these roughed and scuffed decades
between newborn crocus snow-melt-nursed and
dried hydrangea blooms sepia-skinned and papery thin
I earned the right to wear sapphires
and burn my mademoiselle mistakes with wisdom-fires

it took me a while to...

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Every year someone is always expressing
that Christmas is imperialist, and oppressing
people not of the Christian faith,
That it’s unfairly taken Soltice’s place,
that the historical Jesus was not born
in the last months per Holiday norms,
say ‘Merry Christmas,’...

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Soon is the time when blankets will be tucked under chins
moonlight will wash over frosted trees.
the clinking sound of empty milk bottles
early in the pre-dawn air as life begins to stir from slumber
moving into day.
I...

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She bustles
her boys out of bed
grouse, groan, growl
groggy gripes
snarky snipes, as they squabble
their way to breakfast

Packs their lunch
crunch, smack, munch, they eat
hurry boys-
catch the bus
flurry and fuss all the way
outdoors, scuffing floors

She sighs, so
relieved, can't...

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2011, the modern year, coming closed
         in 2012, and passive fat assed American apathy
strangles feeling from the esophagus, **** it.

    I choke, cough out...

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In Jan 6. 2021, a number of his myrmidons from all parts of the country converged to Washington to seize and squat the Capitol mansion following his seditious malarkeys, ending this country's long uneventful run...

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-For Justin Bordner’s contest


I long worshiped heartbreak,
From afar, often, though through the lenses, ceaselessly…
I drew ribbons in the midnight sky with the silken trinkets of sorrow
Riding in the dark with the sound of our silent...

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Here's  a terrifying piece of news about every mother's nightmare...
Happened in broad daylight with numerous customers everywhere...

A mother, busy festive shopping in a local retail store, was distracted for a couple of minutes...
She had...

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It shouted to him from the rooftops and he was prepared to jump

‘Go out with a deafening bang’ for the bell had told crashing demise

Sadness and bitter oblivion pointed the way from screaming nowhere

Yet deadening...

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They say if you don’t use a thing for a year
It’s time to get rid of it, just to be clear
Feel free to sell it or give it away
But to get clutter free, just don’t...

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"Untwisting all the chains that tie the hidden soul ..."
                        ...

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A heavy fog, misty gloom, sadness
Spreads all around me, sinking deeper
Into my spirit, my heart – my depths
Singling me out for the doubt
That feasts on my broken dreams
Devouring all my happiness and breathing
Slowly, urgently…. Through...

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Like Moses fleeing Egypt 
and finding refuge in Midian
I was a stranger in a strange land.
Having fled Chicago in ‘84
I journeyed east to the
unpromised land of Detroit.

8 Mile Road.
“I'm a man
I'm a make a new...

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Descending into a mega-mall, the fluorescence blemishes my skin.
There is a twinge in my temples as I approach the makeup counter,
meeting eyes with a woman whose shoes pierce my gait 
and whose artificially white teeth...

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Under the bright lights and up on the main stage
A woman spins plates while the audience rage
She has on a tight dress in its sequined glory
We can watch her caper and listen to her story
I...

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In the funky train,
 All the hoo-ha-noisy end in fisticuff;
 As the crumpled greenback hand-out cough,
 The law has nothing to handcuff, 
  
 Maneuvering on the sloppy storey hill
 A frantic dance of...

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Story 

I pull the dusty well-worn tome
Down from the high shelf in my home
Now blow and scatter all the flecks
As children gather, craning necks.. 

Anticipation glistens in their eyes
As if a fairground vendor's prize
Is handed...

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When the dawn embraces the universe
Darkness intensifies to cloak the sky
The gaze of mortal sees nothing but night
Then you rise from above exuding your light
 
You are the moon that reigns above
Enduring the sleepless time...

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The creative course of love runs through the veins
By God, it has enveloped my very life in faint luster
It is now an illusion I have mastered and made real
There will be no lies written on...

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Whirling by, munching away at the worn-garnet shingles, chopping trees with its transparent rope and hair-raising dynamism, and flushing your garish memories and spotless portraits down the toilet, sucking them away, fracturing and splintering your...

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I was a little girl     holding mothers hand-
unprepared for the      harsh and brutal     image
of my sister being run over   ...

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